Such instances of warmth were rare at this time. There was too much of a jumble in his head. He didn’t make the house comfortable, or homely, as he usually would, with ingenious personal touches, rather he shoved an armchair to the fire and sat in it from morning until night, gazing morosely ahead, hardly summoning the energy to eat or light up the room after sunset or take walks with me.
Nothing was worse for my master than isolation. He was an inherently social creature, an observer, a conversationalist, a learner who thrived on the trade of ideas. And he liked all culture, the low and high, as happy at a country dance as at the opera.
The village priest, who lived in the rectory opposite us, was a young man called Frantz. My master spoke to him occasionally and they seemed to have interests in common—I’d spied through Frantz’s windows shelves crammed with books and pamphlets—but they’d had only short passing conversations until the morning of Christmas Eve, when my master collared the young man as he left his house.
‘I would like to talk,’ my master said, ‘with some urgency.’
‘Of course, tonight?’ Frantz replied. He was lanky and inelegant, legs too long for him, cumbersome hips and a large nose—even larger than my master’s—that went at an angle. ‘After mass?’ It seemed my master would rather not have waited, but the priest’s horse had already been saddled for a journey.
Later that evening, we watched from our parlour window as the last of the villagers pressed into the little church. They’d come from all around, lanterns winking down from the hills, sleighs jangling, and cheery yuletide babble. There was only the barest of crescent moons, but the sky was so alive with stars, with washes of indigo and violet and the earth so luminous with snow it made a halo of that quiet corner of the world.
Once everyone was tucked inside the church and its windows had begun to cloud with breath, the organ struck up and the carols commenced. My master went back to his chair by the fire. ‘How long shall they be? An hour?’ He sighed and picked up a book, but barely turned a page of it before putting it down, rising once more and lighting candles. He’d been fidgety all day, more so now than ever, but I welcomed the change in his mood. Better he was restless than melancholic.
We went back to the window when we heard the villagers leaving the church. They poured down to the lake, where festivities were due to take place. My master grew more jittery as Frantz chatted, interminably it seemed, to a young couple. Eventually the pair departed and Frantz came over. Even though he’d seen him approach, my master jumped in surprise when there was a knock on the door.
‘Yes, come in,’ he said abruptly.
‘Forgive me. Do I arrive too late?’
‘No, no,’ my master said, a higher than usual register in his voice. ‘Pardon me, I have been engrossed in study.’
I’d learnt over the years to not bombard visitors with showy greetings, but I was so happy to have another human in the room at last that I barked and stood up on my hind legs to paw his chest.
‘Down,’ my master commanded. ‘What has got into you?’
‘It is quite all right.’ Frantz smiled, offering the back of his hand to my snout. He must have washed after communion for his skin was as clean as fresh linen. I took a position in the centre of the room, where I’d be able to gauge the conversation best. I had the sense that my master was going to discuss something important.
‘A drink?’ my master asked. ‘I have a fine Rhenish here.’ He already had the bottle prepared, along with two goblets that didn’t match. ‘From the county of Katzenelnbogen. 1610. A good year they say. Or perhaps you—does your religion permit?’
I think Frantz found the question bizarre, but did not show it in his voice. ‘A glass of Rhenish would be fine.’
My master poured the wine, as music started up from the water’s edge, fiddles and lutes. ‘Will it go on late? The dance?’
‘Ah. It is usually a riotous affair. You shall come of course?’
‘No, no, no.’ He nodded at the book he’d picked up. ‘My studies, you understand?’
‘Well, I pray we shall not disturb you too greatly.’
There was silence and my master stood with two full glasses.
‘Is it yours?’ Frantz asked, motioning at a half-painted canvas. My master had begun it weeks ago, during one of his less morose stretches. (He had always been a fine artist, but gave himself no credit for it, and consequently practised very little.)
‘A nonsense of a thing. But it will burn well when the firewood is gone.’
Frantz clearly believed him. ‘You must do no such thing. It is exceptional. Here, our little town so faithfully rendered, and the mountain just as it is at dawn. And your dog there in the foreground. It is a masterpiece.’
My master laughed. ‘I have seen masterpieces.’
More silence, until eventually Frantz relieved him of one of the glasses. ‘Season’s greetings,’ he toasted and they both drank. ‘So, what is it you wish to discuss?’
I looked up at my master expectantly. He didn’t notice and just gave out a nervous laugh. ‘Tell me of London. That’s where you were, no? You told me when we first talked. How long is it you spent there? I mistook you for an Englishman. Three years, was it?’
‘Five.’
‘Wonderful. The city is enchanting, no? What took you there? Was it vocational?’
Frantz blushed and took a sip. ‘Perhaps I am sentimental, but I had wanted to visit since, as a young man, I read the words of a play by your William Shakespeare. I believe he’s dead now, but perhaps you know it? This happy breed of men—he talks of the English—This precious stone set in a silver sea, Which—some business of a wall, or a moat—against the envy of less happier lands. That phrase struck me: less happier lands. The non-stop war, you understand, in this region of the world. So many dead—but England, a precious stone. A picture I saw once of Elizabeth, the former queen. Spellmaking, is that the word? A sense of fairness, of loyalty, the English, pioneers—anyway, I always dreamt to go there. Most people in this valley, if they ever could leave it, even in a dream, would choose Vienna, but London is the city that called to me.’
‘And did you prosper? Did you find the happy breed?’
Frantz took in a breath and let it out again. ‘London is—for strangers, it can be harsh. I had little money, days as a building labourer, nights working at a tannery—but the saviour of all was the theatre. For one penny. The wonders put on there. The places to be taken to. I saw, what was it? The Tragedie of King Lear. A sublime piece. The frailty of kingship, family, madness. A storm upon a heath, and you’re transported entirely with the very smell of the rain and the wind. It is the stars, the stars above us, govern our conditions. So says the Duke of Gloucester, wondering how one sister can be good whilst her kin so evil.’
‘Kent,’ my master murmured, and Frantz did not understand at first. ‘The Duke of Kent speaks the line—in the war encampment.’
‘You are right, I am sure. Kent. In any case, I would go every week: to Egypt, to Verona, to Athens. Astonishing. Pardon me, how I prattle on. Pray, tell me what troubles you so?’
My master rose and paced the room, then poured more wine and stood by the fire. I went and sat next to Frantz as a kind of encouragement for him to stay, and an apology for my master’s long-windedness. An age seemed to pass before he put his hands together and stretched them until his fingers clicked. ‘I am not a religious man. I do not go to mass. Or confession. Or—well, I have beliefs—I try to be good.’
‘Yes, I understand—’
‘I want to say, though not religious, I need to—’ he had trouble speaking the phrase ‘—make a confession of sorts. I need to unburden myself. I have kept a secret so long it hurts.’ He touched his head. ‘Here it hurts.’
Now he was beginning to talk of ‘secrets,’ I cocked my ears.
‘What is it?’ asked Frantz.
&nbs
p; My master did not reply at first. He turned a log with his boot so the bark caught the flame.
‘This room is our confessional,’ persisted Frantz. ‘Your confidences are safe with me.’
‘What ails me is—I do not die.’
‘You—you do not die?’
‘That is my principal grievance. Though there are others related to it. You are the only soul on this earth I have told. I should say, you and one other.’
‘I misunderstand, you do not—?’
‘Die. I cannot die. I mean to say, there are ways to do it, by drowning or hanging or removing my head, but I will never take such a course. Not because suicide is a sin, but because—well, perhaps it is a sin.’ In the pause that followed the corner of my master’s eyes reddened.
‘Tell me what troubles you. I listen well. I have had my share of ill fortune, so I shall sympathize. Have you suffered some loss or other?’
‘I. Do. Not. Die. That is that.’ He took the little tortoiseshell box from a drawer and emptied the contents on the table. ‘This powder is called jyhr. It comes from Persia, from a mine in the Kalankash mountains west of Tabriz. A special knowledge of mines, of treasures below the earth and where to find them, had come my way you see? In Kalankash, deep in the earth there’s a labyrinth of caves, and there lies a seam of this. As far as we know, it’s found in no other place. Listen to it.’
‘Listen?’ The first time I’d witnessed him opening the box, decades ago, I’d noticed that the powdered jyhr emitted a curious faint hum. ‘It sings. All the energy trapped within its prisms, fighting with itself.’ Whether Frantz heard it or not, he nodded anyway. ‘It takes years to distil a liquid from it. Years, mark you. And with a single miscalculation, one ill-judged measurement, the whole thing—’ He mimed an explosion. ‘And all for half a thimble of serum, which may or may not do its job.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Dropped in the mouth, in minute quantity, it can take away pain. Like so.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Or to a wound, repaired almost instantly, but it can do more. Much more.’ He picked up an instrument from the table, a type of syringe that he nearly always carried with his other instruments. ‘Have you ever seen one of these? I do not expect it. A Roman invention, improved on by the Egyptians. A glass tube and a piston like so. Originally it was to draw cataracts from the eyeball. But if you fit a quill, here at the nib, and reverse the process, you can feed liquid into the very stream of your blood. Now I frighten you. I see it on your face. Goodness knows what compels me to talk so.’
‘Not at all. I am fascinated.’ Frantz lowered his voice and cast his eye to the shut door. ‘I have read Vesalius and Servetus, the anatomy of organs, the circulation of blood from the heart, and do not consider those works to be anti-theological. Quite the reverse: they illustrate the miracle of man’s splendour the more.’
‘Well, no doubt.’ My master had little patience for a certain type of preachiness. ‘I shall not burden you with all the particulars, but the jyhr in its liquid form, when driven into the bloodstream here—’ he indicated the point on the side of his abdomen where he, I, Aramis—and no doubt Vilder too—had crescent-shaped scars ‘—and injected over and over and over again, little by little—and I am simplifying greatly—a stone is formed inside, a living stone, a multiplying one, a crystal, if you like. And that jewel, that azoth, which grows inside, imbues its host with, with...’ My master gave a half-cocked smile. ‘It imbues its host with...’
‘Everlasting life?’
My master let out a little laugh. ‘Well, if not everlasting—long certainly.’ Another laugh. ‘There it is. Surely you do not believe me?’
‘Why should I not?’
‘Because you cannot give credence to such—’
‘The real world is strange.’
‘But still—’
‘When my father was born, did the sun and all the stars not travel around the earth? And yet now—’ Frantz finished his sentence by changing the direction of his forefinger.
A peculiar alteration came over my master. His forehead wrinkled. ‘You believe me? Truly?’ He laughed. ‘What a relief to pronounce it at last. The endurance of holding my tongue—’ Then he halted, struck by a new thought. ‘But wait.’ He shook his head. ‘This is not all my confession. You see another person came with me down the road I took. And—’ He was lost in thought for a while.
‘What happened?’
‘He believes, this other man, that I forced him. I remember it differently, that it was his notion more than mine, but perhaps—it is so long ago you see.’
‘Is he—?’
‘Yes, still alive. Yes. Undoubtedly. But what I am trying to say is I have the temperament for this existence. I find a way to survive it; I tangle through. But he is not as resilient and sometimes, right or wrong, I feel culpable.’ He trails off again, his eye following the line of the floorboards, before stopping at me. ‘And there is more still. Later, a third creature came down that road with us. My champion here.’ He knelt and very softly stroked my head. ‘But he, categorically, had no choice in the matter, of joining our circle, our society of long life.’ Frantz regarded me keenly now, though I couldn’t tell if he was intrigued or disturbed. ‘It was not fair of me, was it? To take him on the path that has no end, unless by self-destruction, by drowning or fire or hanging? Indeed, no, I see you judge me now.’
‘I am not in that business. Your companion is content, no? You are kind to each other, yes? What more is there?’ To this day I cannot tell if Frantz truly believed my master’s story or not. Perhaps, like a doctor to a madman, he was simply allowing him to act out his passion aloud. ‘And that is your confession?’
My master filled up the glasses, and after a pause Frantz asked, ‘Why would you want it?’
‘What?’
‘Why would you want long life in the first place? If it is not too dull-witted a question.’
For a moment my master looked like he’d been ambushed. I looked from him to Frantz and back again. ‘You have to understand the time we found ourselves in,’ he said, ‘my associate and I. The time, the age, was extraordinary. It was as ancient Greece must have been, better. The previous centuries, if the “art” they produced was anything to go by, were surely small-minded and superstitious by comparison. Perhaps I remember it too passionately, but the quest for knowledge, the zeal to break boundaries, to investigate, deeper and deeper, to understand this world we’ve been born upon—“world,” even the word was new in a way, for no one had thought before of the land beyond their borders. The infinitely tiny and the unimaginably huge, to understand even what it means “to understand.”’ He laughed. ‘Pardon me, you probably have these feelings daily, in your profession, but enlightenment was new to me, and took me by surprise. How lucky I felt, even as an adolescent, to have been born in that age. If history is a labyrinth of dark roads through a city, that time was its most beguiling piazza, its most victorious square yet, though of course the city of history will be built and built for all eternity, and I hope there are plenty more squares to come. So I had vigour here—’ he touches his chest ‘—as everyone seemed to, because we were on the cusp of things as we knew them.
‘I met Brunelleschi,’ my master went on. ‘Do you know him?’
I think Frantz wished he did, but said, ‘The name is familiar.’
‘The man who built the dome of Florence’s cathedral.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘He was the first I met. In Florence, I had the good fortune to visit the city as a young man and I saw a drawing of that dome—a decade before it was built—and I had to meet its creator. I was quite precocious. I camped outside his house, for days and days, until he granted me an audience. I held his hand in my own. This hand I shook with yours, I shook with his. The human who came up with the idea of perspective. What mind could stand outside itself like that? He was not particular
ly amiable, but no matter. He opened a window to undreamt of realms. After him, meeting the great minds of the age became our passion, my companion and I. We had money between us, some connections and we were not without charm, but it was our enthusiasm that opened doors. That and a little flattery. There is no man or woman so great that they do not enjoy being told so sometimes. And we had time on our side, ages of it. We could learn and learn. In due course we became patrons of sorts, and by some miraculous sleight of hand some of the thinkers and artists and makers started to come to our doors. I’m not sure they even knew why. Just that there was a touch of magic about us. Which was true in a way.
‘We met them all: Machiavelli, Lippi, Raphael, Vespucci the explorer, Cardano the mathematician, the Bellini brothers. Some were engaging, others plain in the flesh. I took wine with Michelangelo. He had a reputation for rudeness, but was very agreeable to me. I could go on, but you’ll think me very boastful. So, we had this powder, the stones from Tabriz. I’d been told of their—their possibilities, but was sceptical naturally. Arabian tales. To shorten the long story, there began our experiments. Do you understand now? How we were swept up in the age?’
‘Yes, but—why that? Why a cure for death? Why dedicate yourself to precisely that? It might sound obtuse to ask—’
‘No, it is not. It is the wisest question.’ His mouth set into a kind of grimace. ‘It is hot in here, no?’ He strode over to the window, barged it open and took in a lungful of air, as he wondered how to reply. It had begun to snow and flakes wandered into the room. He laughed nervously, and carried on talking with his back to our visitor.
‘The Black Death, I suppose. The Black Death heralded everything I’ve talked about, that age I’m so bewitched by. In any case, first my father, and then my mother—’
I must have sat bolt upright and made a noise, for my master turned round, and the priest too. My ears were sticking up on hearing ‘father’ and ‘mother.’
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