In Pursuit of the Green Lion

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “Are you Minerva?”

  “No, I’m Berthe. I own the place. My husband left it to me.”

  “They said Minerva owned it.”

  “Oh, them—they’re jokers, the lot of them. But harmless, generally. That’s more than you can say of most. Say, you’re not hungry, are you? I thought maybe you’d fainted from hunger.”

  “No, I saw a ghost. But I am thirsty.”

  “A ghost, eh? Lots of them about these days, though I, thank goodness, don’t see them. Well, then, on the house, for another widow, I’ll send some ale over—wait a moment—” and she hurried off in the direction of the controversy.

  “I run a quiet house, I tell you!”

  “Loaded dice, the son of a bitch—he cleaned me out.”

  More shouting in foreign tongues.

  “Look at ’em—come up the same side every time.”

  “Weighted, by the bowels of Christ, and so slyly that you can’t even see it.”

  “Mph, mph, mph!”

  “Quit strangling him, I say! I’ll not have murder done in my house!”

  “I’ll put as many holes in him as a dovecote.” A knife flashed in someone’s hand.

  “No, Jankyn, put that knife back, didn’t you hear her? No murder.” Robert’s voice sounded above the hubbub.

  “Strip him and pitch him out then!”

  “Yes, that’s it!”

  There was a struggle, with terrible howling, as the Lombard was plucked as clean as a chicken and thrown out the door. Robert came back to where I sat sipping the ale, looking satisfied with himself.

  “Not bad,” he said, “though it took four men. Now, it’s times like these that we miss Brother Gregory. He could have flung the man out single-handed.”

  “He flung dice-cheaters out of taverns?”

  “Oh, yes, that and lots more. Never a dull moment with Brother Gregory. And then he’d quote Aquinas, just to rub salt in the wound. God, I loved that man. Picky, snobbish, righteous bastard.” I stared at him. He laid the dice on the table.

  “There,” he said. “My share of the spoils. Sorry it wasn’t money. It’s an offering. A token of my apology. I’m sorry about the ballad. I was wrong, and I’ll make it up to you. You go home and quit wandering about the docks. I’ll make the inquiries. If he’s alive or dead, in any Christian country, I’ll hear about it. Some men could disappear without a trace, but not a man who turns a verse like Brother Gregory. Be assured; somewhere there’s a clerk who’ll hear of him, and the news will travel to the Boar’s Head. Are we quits, now?”

  “We’re quits. I accept your apology.” I took the dice. There were three of them, identical, all made of bone, for playing Hazard. They looked absolutely honest. You couldn’t see a seam or a bulge anywhere. I put them in my purse, which hadn’t a penny of money in it.

  “Where are you staying? I’ll escort you, and get someone to help lug those offspring of yours.”

  “I was going to Master Wengrave’s, my daughters’ godfather, before I—I followed the—ghost.”

  “The Alderman’s? That’s very far from here. But you shouldn’t assume it was Brother Gregory’s ghost.”

  “But, who else would it have been? And why would it come here—where he used to be? At least before, I had hope,” and I shuddered with the memory of it, so tall and straight, fading into the wall.

  “Now, now, you shouldn’t take it that way at all. After all, you’ve no proof. It could have been an apparition of any kind. Or maybe somebody real that you mistook, because his hood was up. And as for the voice, it could have been a hallucination. Grief makes us all crazy, you know—so you must take it as a good sign, that in some way you were led to us.”

  It was odd. As I watched his mouth opening and closing, his voice seemed to go far away, and his face seemed to take on a gilded, shadowy look, as if painted with a deep gold light. Rather than being an ordinary sort of thirtyish, clean-shaven face topped with thinning, brownish hair, it took on an interesting, deeply folded appearance, as if a very rich and profound character could be read there. The rest of the room, too, seemed unnaturally still, as if the laughter and clanking sounds were muffled in wool. Even though people were moving and speaking at a regular pace, I seemed to be able to see every fine detail of their movement, as if I were so swift in comprehension that they were immeasurably slow. The other faces, too, were illuminated with the somber gold light. Faces that might pass by on the street unnoticed were made deeply beautiful, unique and fascinating. The stillness in the midst of noise caught me and held me, and I stared at their new-created faces without answering, as they scooped up the girls and we passed into the street. The narrow streets were still, too, as people with strangely illuminated faces passed by: carters and ostlers and marketwomen, apprentices and bakers’ boys with loaves on their heads. The tree leaves above the garden walls seemed to shimmer with a quiet ecstasy, and Aldersgate itself, tall and shadowy, shone dully, as if it were still touched by the minds that had built it.

  “Crazy,” I heard them say softly through wool behind me as I led the way to Thames Street beside Master Robert. “She just stares and doesn’t speak.”

  “Well, it’s understandable, considering what’s happened.”

  “You wouldn’t find me walking off like that fool Gregory if I had a woman like that. Oh, no, if I married a rich widow, I’d stay at home and drink myself to death on the best French wine.”

  “Not likely—you’d be back at the Boar’s Head, telling lies, in no time at all.”

  Why were they talking about such unimportant things? Couldn’t they see what had happened to the City? It was all painted and modeled with living light, shaking with a dim vibration of joy.

  At Master Wengrave’s, the alderman’s pennants before the house shook and trembled in a wind that wasn’t there. Master Kendall’s tall house, mine now, which stood only a back alley and a garden away from it down the street, seemed to pulsate with a strange inner life. The glass at the windows had been stored for safekeeping, but the shutters stood open, and air moved in and out from them as if they were living throats. The leaden gargoyles that were the downspouts from the roof gutters seemed frozen alive, impatient to be freed. As I stared at it Mistress Wengrave came to her door to welcome us in, and I turned to see that her face, too, had the rich golden glow. I watched it, silent and fascinated, as she thanked Master Robert, made over her goddaughters, saw them carried up to bed by two grooms, and gave orders to a kitchen maid who’d come to ask about supper. The kitchen maid’s face had that look too—and I’d always thought her a simple girl.

  “Margaret, do you need something to eat or drink? You’re looking rather strange. Are you ill?” Her voice seemed to be coming from a long way away.

  I heard myself saying, “I’ve come a long way … Gilbert de Vilers is dead … I need … alone …”

  Mistress Wengrave, who has been my neighbor and my friend for a long time, looked grave, and her florid face paled somewhat beneath the golden sheen.

  “Alone?” she said. “You shouldn’t be alone. Not at a time like this. Come, we’ll pray for him and you’ll be at ease,” and she put an arm around me to steer me to the household chapel. But she had scarcely shown me in when the smell of burning and a heavy clattering sound signaled a crisis in the kitchen. Mistress Wengrave has a mortal fear of fire. When Master Wengrave rebuilt the upper story of his house and added an oriel, she begged him to build a kitchen separated from the house. But he said that the kitchen she had was good enough, for it was built all in stone, and it was more convenient attached to the house anyway, for his food would get cold being brought from an outside kitchen. So she went on waking up in the night, thinking she smelled smoke, and walking about in the dark to check on her children.

  “By our dear Lady! Margaret, forgive!” she cried as she fled. But I hardly noticed. The Wengraves’ chapel is a tiny room on the ground floor, barely big enough for the family, and has the only glass window in the house. The rest are waxed linen,
set in frames that can be taken down when the weather is good. But the chapel window, set on the eastern side of the house to catch the morning sun, is small, and wasn’t as costly to glaze. But now, although it was nearly sunset and the window should have been dark, it glistened as though the new dawn were trapped in it. A pinkish golden light, rolling like steam, was pouring through it. The tiny room was incredibly still; the sound in the surrounding house was separated by a veil—there but not there. The faint sound of a woman screaming, cries for more water buckets, and scurrying footsteps seemed eerily muffled. As I watched the rolling clouds of light, I heard a tiny, quiet voice in my ear. It said, “Margaret,” as if it expected me to listen.

  I didn’t move a muscle, for fear it might vanish.

  “Margaret!” the voice said again, a little louder.

  “It is You. I thought You’d left me.”

  “Left? I don’t leave. After all, I am the Eternal Word. You just weren’t listening, that’s all. Talking, yes; listening, no.”

  “I thought You’d left because—because—”

  “I know. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Is it a sin to love so much? I mean, just a person, a man, and not something divine? I try to think of heavenly things, but all I can see is his face.”

  “Margaret, who made love?”

  “Why, ah—um—”

  “I did, Margaret. All kinds and sorts. Little and big. It’s one of My better mysteries.”

  “Mysteries?”

  “Why, yes. The more you give away, the more you have. Unlike water, which I made the ordinary way, so when you pour it out, it’s gone. How dull My universe would be, without My mysteries.”

  “But it hurts so. Did You make it just to amuse Yourself?”

  “Margaret, you’re questioning Me again. Aren’t you ever ashamed of being presumptuous? Most people would be singing praises and thanks for this much enlightenment. But not My stubborn, troublesome Margaret.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I wanted to show you something. But no one seems to be listening these days—even you.”

  “I’m truly sorry; I’m listening now.”

  “As well you ought to be! Look what it took to get your attention! Lights! Clouds! Voices! Next you’ll be wanting smells and heavenly choirs! If I didn’t love you so much—”

  “You do, You really do?”

  “You’re not supposed to interrupt, Margaret. That’s another of your failings.”

  By this time the fire scare had passed by, and Mistress Wengrave had returned to stand by the door. I could hear, with some outer ear, as she said, “Hsst! There’s someone else in there. And lights! Has Margaret let in a burglar? She’s much too unsuspecting.” And someone answered her—I don’t know who.

  “Have you ever seen the ocean, Margaret?” the Voice asked.

  “No.”

  “But you can imagine it, can’t you?”

  “Why, yes; it’s lots and lots of water.”

  “But if you’d never seen a drop of water, could you begin to imagine the ocean?”

  “No.”

  “How, then, if you’d never had a drop of love, could you begin to understand My love for creation?”

  “It’s all right then? Loving him too much?”

  “Love is part of My design, Margaret. Look.”

  What happened next is very hard to describe. The aching thing you feel when you’re in love got bigger and bigger as the room grew larger and more beautiful. Then it fell away entirely into something like an ocean of silvery light, vibrating and trembling, spread all around me as far as I could see. It was the entire universe, the stars and moon and the dust spots and the world and the bits and pieces that make everything, the up and the down and the sideways, all dancing for pure joy. I thought my mind and body would burst with the rapture of seeing it. Then with a crack I split into a thousand pieces, crying out as I spread into the dancing universe, until “Margaret” was completely lost in a thousand splinters vibrating with passionate love, and dancing, dancing—eternally dancing.

  “What happened, Margaret? There was a dreadful flash, like lightning, and we thought you’d been killed.” Mistress Wengrave’s anxious voice pulled me back into a single piece again. But I could still feel the light, although I didn’t see it anymore, though that sounds odd to say.

  “Gregory,” I said. “I’ll find him.”

  “Of course you will, dear, of course you will,” said Mistress Wen-grave in that special, indulgent tone that we reserve for infants and crazy people.

  That night, lying awake in bed, I discovered that I could hear everything. I don’t mean everything in the room, I mean everything. I could hear my girls breathing, and the uneven gasps of little Walter Wengrave as he had a nightmare in the next room. He was Mistress Wengrave’s favorite, as frail children often are, and the many nights she’d sat up with him while he struggled for breath had tied him all the closer to her. Twice I’d saved him, and she’d never forgotten, though we’d hidden it from her chaplain, who was very orthodox, and her husband, who was a model of piety.

  But now I could hear the sounds in distant rooms as easily as if they were only a few inches from my ear. I heard insects burrowing in the walls and, at the top of the house, two little apprentice boys whispering in the long room under the eaves where the apprentices and journeymen slept in several big beds. Then I listened more: I could hear next door, in my own house, Cook’s powerful snore, which had always been something of a joke. I heard cats treading softly in the street, and rats running along the eaves several streets away. A dog barked; men roistered in taverns in defiance of the curfew; a nightwalker was collared by the watch, and voiced his grievances while being hustled off to jail. I could hear couples making love in the dark and horses shifting their feet in their stalls. Even the fish swimming in the river made a soft, sliding sound.

  All around me, the night voices of the City whispered in the dark. Could I hear beyond the walls? I listened closer and could hear a fox slipping through the grass, and the wings of night hunting owls. Closer and closer I listened, until I heard it: the deep, almost imperceptible humming sound that the earth itself makes. Something in Twelve it caught my mind, and as I listened intently to the humming, I heard the narrow high little note made by my own working soul. It was joined by another, and another, as the sounds of other people and finally the tiny notes of the beasts and fowl, each humming like the ringing aftersound that a bell makes long after it has been struck. So many tones—such a soft ringing in the dark, with the mother-hum beneath it, like the bass note on a great organ. It was music; a great chord that filled the universe. It intensified and diminished, all in unison, like a pulsing song with only one note. But there were little spots that seemed empty of song, places that felt wrong. And it was then, listening, that I heard it far away: a discord in the note, a faint shrieking sound where the song had broken, as if the singers had stopped in horror. And there, in the faraway dark space, I heard what was unmistakably Gregory’s voice, like a faint echo from the depths, calling,

  “Margaret!”

  AN ICY BREEZE FROM the towering granite mountains beyond the castle stirred the tapestries on the walls of the Great Hall. A ring of garlanded maidens rippled silently behind the Sieur Renaud d’Aigremont, Comte de St. Médard, as he took a sheet of begrimed, many times refolded paper from the hand of a kneeling groom.

  “So, Pedro, this is what you took from him?”

  “Yes, my lord, this was all.” The Count looked to the black-hooded Dominican beside the courtier for confirmation. The gray-faced, cold-eyed visage nodded silently.

  “No holy relic, you’re sure of that?”

  “Nothing, my lord count, not a splinter, bone, crucifix, or rosary. We overlooked nothing. Just this paper, worn underneath his shirt.”

  “It’s not a prayer, is it? You know how those things make me uneasy.”

  “No. Just an ordinary letter. You can read it yourself.” The Sieur d’Aigremont crosse
d to a spot beneath a tall, arched window, where the light was clear, and unfolded the letter. There was a spot of blood on it. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

  “I do hope you haven’t damaged him. You know I don’t like them damaged first. They don’t last as long then; remember that I don’t like to be deprived of sport—especially in this case.” The Count, looking slightly preoccupied, turned to another kneeling groom and raised his eyebrows slightly, as if he wished to be reminded of the fellow’s business.

  “The entremets, mon seigneur, for the ambassador’s feast of welcome—you wished to be consulted—” The groom sounded anxious.

  “Twelve gilded youths dancing, and a pastry ship on wheels—didn’t I make it clear enough last time? I wish to put Count Gaston’s fire-breathing dragon to shame. Dragons, bah—tasteless. How typical of him. Now, get out. You are interrupting me.” The kitchen groom left backward, bowing extravagantly and muttering, “Twelve gilded youths. My God, where are twelve youths left? I suppose I should rejoice it wasn’t maidens he wanted. Perhaps the chapel choir—”

  “My lord, your wishes were obeyed precisely,” broke in the first groom. “The stain is just from a bloody nose. It took a half-dozen men to do the job, and one of them ended up with a broken collarbone.” The count’s face relaxed in anticipation of pleasure.

  “He put up quite a struggle, then?”

  “Like a tiger.”

  “Wonderful. The most powerful beasts give the most noble sport—and the most satisfying end.” The Count unfolded the stained letter with unusual delicacy for one with such wide hands. But then, he was a connoisseur, and prided himself on the exquisiteness of his sense of touch. Rings, two or three to a finger, made deep grooves in the pallid fat that hid the joints. A sprinkling of coarse hair, like a boar’s, across the back of his hands detracted somewhat from the perfection of the glittering jewels. For a moment he admired his hands holding the letter. I’ll have them shaved, the thought flitted across his mind. It will set off the stones better. Touch, taste, and sensuality were all linked in him. As he read the letter aloud in French he stroked the ink, and a delicious orgasmic sensation, united with a spasm of the salivary glands, traveled briefly through him.