Brother Malachi had got us passage on a merchant cog that was carrying goods and the last pilgrims of the season to the English seneschal at Bayonne. But the ship, which looked so large in port, seemed to shrink considerably when it was on the open sea, and bobbed up and down so alarmingly that much of the two weeks I passed aboard it were spent clutching the rail, giving up my meals before I’d hardly had the good of them. All the while, the sailors were climbing up and down the mast and the rigging like squirrels, and, if you can believe it, singing. That’s what I mean about the sea.
“Come now, Margaret, you are being entirely unfair. The ocean is the inspiration of poets. And what’s more, it’s hardly been as difficult as you say. Why, we’ve had fair winds and a sea as calm as a bathtub the entire way. And you just stay huddled up below decks weeping. Come and smell the sea breeze. Or better, join Hilde and Sim and me tonight and see the stars. They’re even more beautiful than on land.”
“Stars? Night? It will be dark. Suppose I trip and roll off the edge? Or suppose, because of my sins, a big wave comes in the dark and washes me away? It’s all water, water, horrid heaving water, and I can’t even swim, and the fishes would eat me all up, and I’ve left my babies, and—and—it would serve me right, aooo—”And I went on howling even though Malachi was at his most charming and persuasive. Of course, the sea didn’t bother him. His face stayed rosy instead of turning green, like mine and the other pilgrims’. And as my supposed confessor, he had great sport offering spiritual advice to everyone on board, whether they wanted it or not. Finally even Mother Hilde had to tell him to quit because it was driving her crazy with the thought that she might burst out laughing and so give him away.
But even I cheered up when the long gray line appeared on the horizon, and the pilgrims lined the ship’s rail, cheering. Soon we had entered the mouth of a sluggish, muddy green river and the wild dunes—all lovely, lovely solid land—spread out on either side of us. Making slow progress up the Adour, we rounded a wide bend to spy in the distance the heavy yellow stone walls and glittering spires of a city lying on the river’s right bank in the bright autumn sun. Approaching the city port, we could see the squat, menacing towers of the fortress above the city walls, the yellow stone incongruously topped with low pinkish-tiled roofs and the gaudy pennants of the English seneschal and his lieutenants.
“My goodness, it certainly doesn’t look like England, Malachi,” observed Mother Hilde with a satisfied air.
“Or feel like it either—you wouldn’t see sun like this at home in this season,” answered Malachi, stretching out his limbs like some happy plant reaching its leaves to the light. But as I watched them tying up the ship, my joy at being on land gave way to a growing sense of gloom that even the sun couldn’t dispel. A stagnant little river, smelling of garbage, toiled its way through the city before trying to mingle with the majestic Adour at the dockside. Some of the ships that bobbed beside us looked more like privateers than merchantmen. Dark, savage-looking soldiers on the wharf strode between the crates of geese and bales of merchandise being loaded into some foreign ship, kicking at suspicious objects. I didn’t like the way they swarmed onto the ship for the landing fees, eyeing us with the appraising look of bandits. It was pretty clearly a rough place, this sea-capital of the mountains. And if this was the best, what was the worst like?
We struggled up the narrow streets to the cathedral, jostled by the pigs, laden donkeys, and drunken mercenaries that crowded the way. All around us incomprehensible street cries and oaths rattled; people gesticulated; a Gascon, shoved by someone, pulled his long knife. How on earth could I ever find Gregory in a land of hostile strangers like this?
But as I sat miserably on our baggage with Hilde in the little square in front of the cathedral porch, Malachi emerged from the shadowy nave in fine good humor with a little friar in tow. He’d found us a good room in a pilgrim’s inn squeezed between the tall houses on the Rue Mayou, and the friar was Brother Anselm, who was traveling on the road to Compostela in the party of the Abbot of Corbigny.
“All our needs are provided for,” announced Malachi happily, “and we’ll travel with an armed escort too.”
“Ten stout armed monks, a half a dozen pilgrims, two of them knights who have joined us on the way,” announced Brother Anselm, “with three friars like myself. Though I must say the prayers of the holy are worth more than a hundred swords against these godless Basque robbers, for they swarm without number in their mountains, and would kill a man for half a sou—to say nothing of what they do to women,” he said, eyeing me. “Still, your lady mistress will be well served. No matter what happens, her soul is assured of heaven if she achieves martyrdom on the road to Compostela in the company of such holy folk.”
Oh, lovely, I thought. Holy martyrdom. The perfect end to this wretched journey. But, of course, it didn’t seem to bother Malachi at all, who went off to sell our shipboard gear and buy mules for the long trek into the mountains.
But that evening he returned all dusty and empty-handed to the inn. “Not a mule or donkey is to be had in the entire city,” he announced over supper at the long table of the inn’s common room. “The sound ones have been taken by the English forces for the campaign, and the unsound ones were all sold off to pilgrims early in the summer. I’m afraid we’ll have to walk.”
“And thus emulate the example of Our Lord,” interrupted Brother Anselm, crossing himself and rolling his eyes up beneath his pale brows, as if he spied heaven just above the low, smoky beams of the ceiling. He sat next to Brother Malachi opposite us at the long trestle table before the fire. Brother Malachi’s pious cant had caught his fancy, and he seemed to have attached himself to us permanently. We had already received many confidences: about the boils God had sent him last Martinmas, about the distant highborn cousin he had, who might someday get him a place with the Bishop of Pamiers, as well as about the sins of every abbot from here to Byzantium, of which he had an entire catalogue, most of it too spicy to repeat. He had come via Toulouse from the north, where he had joined the Abbot’s party on the pilgrim route into Spain.
Now he leaned toward Brother Malachi conspiratorially and muttered in his high-pitched, spiteful voice, “Now that Abbot of Corbigny, who stays at the chateau like a gentleman, sipping fine wine and eating white bread, and not here at the inn like us humble folk, goes on pilgrimage on a white mule with a crimson saddlecloth and a bridle trimmed with little silver bells. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, all the way from Toulouse. Ah, my sore feet. As I limped through the dust behind him, I said to myself, ‘A lot of good a pilgrimage to Compostela will do you, you hypocrite and publican!’ Now, if you only knew what I knew about Corbigny. Why, they claim to have the relics of Saint Léonard, and with the money of the gullible they have built an immense shrine and furnished their table with luxuries, when all the time the genuine bones are at Noblat. Oh, they should blush with shame, those monks of Corbigny! For they have baptized a man a second time, and after he was a corpse, as well!”
“Goodness,” said Malachi, “a purveyor of false relics? Who could imagine such a dreadful thing? Ah, God protect us in these wicked times!”And he in turn crossed himself.
I couldn’t help listening in, even though Hilde and I were speaking to each other in English, for the little friar’s conversation was in clear French, the language of the north, rather than the incomprehensible southern dialects that rattled all around us at the table. Besides the travelers from the ship, there were others from the ports and cities of France, a party of Germans that included an elderly knight and his son, and those who had traveled under the protection of the Abbot and his suite. Among these last were a merchant with a wen, two priests, one of whom, the younger, was under a vow of silence, and several monks of various orders—the last of these being the gossipy Brother Anselm. He had a need to constantly unburden the contents of his mind on whomever he happened to fasten himself, and in the days before our departure we heard all about the barbarous habits of the Navarrais, who
se language sounds like the barking of dogs, and who will kill a Frenchman for the clothes on his back.
“Ah, they are a wicked people, these Basques and Navarrais of the mountains,” Brother Anselm would say. “The Liber Sancti Jacobi does not exaggerate when it calls them ugly and full of malice, dishonest, false, and drunken.” I wished heartily he would go away and horrify someone else.
The evening before our departure, I groaned as Brother Anselm found us at table, and joined us without invitation.
“So, Brother Malachi, you shall walk and so shall your good dame and her old nurse, but from Ostabat I will be riding a fine mule into Spain. So think of that again when you boast about who is the cleverest.”
“Oh, so? How is that?” Brother Malachi rumbled, his mouth full of food.
Brother Anselm leaned close and whispered, “Those two priests who traveled with us from Toulouse—the one with the vow of silence—I’ve overheard them talking in secret to each other. And let me tell you—I misdoubt that they’re any priests at all, despite that psalm-singing old man. They’re wearers of the yellow wheel, who’ve doffed it for travel. The young one—she’s a woman with cropped hair. I imagine his wife. At Ostabat I’ll turn them in for the reward, and purchase the mule.”
“Why, that is clever of you. I must admit you’ve got the better of me this time. But we’ll match wits again, Brother Anselm. Now, try this riddle …” Brother Malachi’s face never lost its geniality as he poured all of his wine into Brother Anselm’s cup and allowed him to guess every riddle that he owned. Leaving the chinless little creature snoring on the table, he said to us with a formal flourish, “Good Dame Margaret and Mistress Hilde, it will be an early day tomorrow, I will see you to our room.” But at the door he cautioned silence and told us to bar the door. Sometime later when I heard his secret tap in the night, I rose to let him in, for Mother Hilde was fast asleep.
“Brother Malachi, what were you doing out there in the dark? You could have been killed, or picked up by the watch,” I whispered fiercely. “Then what would have become of us?”
“They’re off, Margaret, and I have new hope. Mule! Ha! That Brother Anselm deserves to walk all the way to Purgatory.”
“They? Then they were—”
“Of course. Man and wife, and not a yellow wheel between them. It would have been a nasty reception at Ostabat. But once they believed me, they were a wellspring of information. ‘You don’t happen to read Hebrew, do you? I’m looking for Abraham the Jew, the famous scholar, to translate a very—hmm—complex holy work I’ve acquired.’The man smiled—his first smile of the evening. ‘Abraham the Jew? He’s very hard to find. You won’t find him in France at all. Oh no. Not since the Jews were accused of causing the great pestilence and driven out with fire and sword. And Spain? Not even there, I’m sure. Take my advice and go to Avignon. That is where the last Jews in France have sheltered. Pope Clement himself decreed toleration, and none has revoked it since. Go to the papal university at Avignon and seek out Josceus Magister, who is the greatest Talmudic scholar remaining in this realm. Odd, isn’t it? In the shadow of the papal palace stands the last temple in the whole land. If Josceus is no longer living, you will find scholars in plenty. Good luck. Accept my adieux, brother. I fear that Gertelote and I must travel in the dark tonight.’ So here am I, fired with new hope. So close! So close! Just a brief detour to fetch Gilbert, and then—the Secret!”
As I lay down again, I could sense that he was not sleeping, but lying wide awake, staring into the dark.
CHAPTER NINE
SHOW IN THE EMISSARIES OF THE COUNT of Foix.” The Sieur d’Aigremont had arranged himself on the dais at the end of his great hall to create the most impressive picture. His heavy cloak was thrown back across the arms of the great thronelike wooden chair in which he sat, revealing at the same time the richness of the miniver that lined the cloak and the exquisite pale blue satin of the gold-embroidered doublet that glistened over the rolling fat of his vast torso. His immense, ring-bedecked, and now hairless hands lay idly on the arms of the chair, as if they had nothing better to do in life than lift a pomander to his nostrils. Yet they also suggested a sort of latent menace and power—as if they might suddenly strangle a full-grown man in a single spasm of rage. The seemingly careless arrangement of hands, cloak, and gown was the result of a careful design, set to frame what he considered his most handsome feature: his muscular legs, the legs of a powerful horseman, hunter, warrior, and dancer, encased in white silk pulled taut across huge thighs with showy gold garters.
It seemed an irony that a body of this unusual height and massiveness should be finished off by a head disproportionately small. But as if to compensate, the jowls had grown large enough to conceal the heavy neck entirely. Were it not for the immense jeweled collar that sat at the hidden seam between body and head, it would have been impossible to discern at what place the body left off and the head began. A wide dark blue velvet cap, heavily embroidered with pearls, shadowed the piggy, calculating little eyes, concealing the full extent of their malevolence from observers.
The ambassadors, two knights still dusty from the road, knelt before him and delivered the message that could not be entrusted to writing.
“Join with him in a treaty of peace with the English, eh? Is he so fearful that this Prince of Wales will march east from Gascony that he will not back France?”
“My lord of Foix says, how well has the King of France served him recently, that he should give his lands over to pillage, without any hope of gain? He rides with his cousin, the Captal de Buch, to join the Teutonic knights in crusade against the pagan Slavs in the east, for the sanctity of his soul. He prays that there be peace between you and himself, and that you join with him on a campaign where there is wealth and glory enough for all.”
“And protect his backside from me while he’s gone, eh? What makes him think it is likely?”
“Does not the commendable desire for vengeance for Navarre, who lies this day in the King of France’s prison, and for the slain Norman lords of the alliance move you? Navarre’s allegiance is to the English; a treaty with the English prince at Bordeaux would spare your realm and give evidence of your love for your lord. This alone should dispose you to hear my lord of Foix’s words with favor, even without the tokens of his love for you that you have so graciously received.”
“How could I ever fail to hear the words of the most noble young Count of Foix with anything but the highest favor? Stay and partake of my hospitality while I consider his words.”
As they were shown out, and before the next petitioners entered, he turned to Fray Joaquin, who stood behind him at his shoulder.
“A loving cousin indeed! Has the message from Navarre been decoded yet?”
“This morning, lord. He says, do not bind yourself to any but him; he expects to escape soon and has laid plans for the recapture of his lands in the north, and yours as well.”
“Good. We’ll delay, then send a message of our eternal friendship to the lord of Foix. I need time now—time and money—to equip the army I’ve sworn to raise in my lord’s support. Damn that captain of thieves, that wretched English duke! If he weren’t squatting on my northern lands like some devil, I’d have the money in my hands already. And now this miserable Count of Foix pesters me! Gaston Phoebus, Gaston Phoebus! Why in hell’s name should everyone call him after Apollo just because he’s got a pretty profile? It’s me that should be called Reynaud Phoebus! Me! Who’s the better poet? Who’s the greater connoisseur? It’s me, not that degenerate lordling. Friendship—ugh—I wish I had him in my hands to show him what I think of him.” The fingers of the Sieur d’Aigremont’s huge hands clutched convulsively, as if tearing apart a cooked egret’s wing. Then he turned again to Fray Joaquin.
“How close is Messer Guglielmo? I’m tired of waiting for the gold. Did you tell him I’ll impale him if he doesn’t make better speed?”
Fray Joaquin’s conspiratorial whisper became even more hushed. “He says h
e needs more fixative for the quicksilver. The stuff you provided wasn’t the right quality. He doesn’t dare call Asmodeus again. He’s losing control of him; he’s become too powerful with the offerings you’ve made, and may break through into the world.”
“Out of control? Messer Guglielmo is a weakling. I won’t have it. Does that popinjay Gaston Phoebus have trouble with his Orthon? No, he’s got his familiar spirit brought to heel—as obedient as can be. And he hasn’t fed Orthon half as well as I’ve fed Asmodeus. I think Messer Guglielmo is telling tales—he’s stalling. And as for fixative, what I’ve sent him has had the highest aesthetic quality. For example, the last little one, who screamed when I—”
“Not here, my lord, not here. But I think I have found an answer to your needs in this respect.” Fray Joaquin saw the blood throbbing in his master’s temples with the hungry remembrance of last night’s work in the hidden chambers. How the fat old fool lost his mind when desire possessed him. It was the weakness by which Fray Joaquin maintained his control over him.
“An answer?” Spit oozed from the corner of the Count’s red lips, and he licked them as if they still tasted of blood.
“To the gold problem. The next petitioners. The pilgrim party. Keep them all here under any pretext. The fat friar among them is the most powerful adept in Europe. You’ve heard of Theophilus of Rotterdam?”
“Theophilus? The one who was rumored to have obtained the Secret, and then vanished from Paris just before King John tried to arrest him?”
“The very one. He wisely chose to disappear to escape being imprisoned to make gold for the rest of his life.”
“Tell him I’ll torture him if he doesn’t reveal the Secret.”
“It’s entirely unnecessary. He says he’ll trade the Secret for the life of Sir Gilbert de Vilers, also known to you as Gilbert l’Escolier.”
“Gilbert l’Escolier? How in the Devil’s name did he know he was here?”
In Pursuit of the Green Lion Page 27