In Pursuit of the Green Lion

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “He says the Stone gives the All-Seeing Eye.”

  “All-Seeing Eye? That’s far better than Orthon has ever promised that piddling countlet of Foix. I’d be the most powerful man in the world—no, I’m not letting him go. Theophilus must be made to give up his Secret. And as for that arrogant pseudo poet, I haven’t the least intention of giving him up to Theophilus or anyone else. I haven’t even begun to work on him. Do you know what he said today? He’s as stubborn as ever. No, no, he promises excellent sport—among the best, and I intend to enjoy every tiny little fragment of a moment of it. Beguile this friar—give him the impression I’ve agreed, and get hold of the Secret. Then we’ll eliminate them both.”

  “I anticipated your wishes, my lord. I have said nothing, but welcomed the entire party and brought them here for your inspection. Offer them your hospitality for a lengthy stay, and I’ll pry the Secret from the man—if not by guile, then by force.”

  “Do whatever is necessary.” The Count waved a hand idly. Fray Joaquin, black cloak rippling behind him like a great shadow, vanished into the long corridor that led to the hidden chambers as the Count of St. Médard greeted the band of pilgrims with a pious quotation.

  “HE CERTAINLY SEEMS HOSPITABLE, dear Malachi,” Mother Hilde said as she slid off her wide pilgrim’s hat, now limp with damp, and laid her staff and bundle at the foot of one of the beds in the center of the long, arched “pilgrim’s hall” that faced the inner courtyard of the castle. For days we had toiled upward along rushing streams from the autumn-clad foothills into the gray and misty heights. Yesterday we had left the spreading apple orchards of the high valley of St. Médard-en-bas behind us in the morning frost, and by the time we had reached the steep, winding streets of St. Médard-en-haut, the mist had turned into a slushy rain that soaked our shoes through and froze our faces.

  “What did I tell you, flower of my life? My old name still works magic among the fraternity,” said Malachi, spreading his damp things before the great fire with a self-satisfied air. “Theophilus of Rotterdam does not have to stay at that miserable inn in the village with hoi polloi, but Brother Malachi would have had no other choice.”

  All about us in the hall, the lesser members of the abbot’s party were settling in. Behind a heavy screen at the end of the hall, pierced only by a low wooden door, lay the accommodation for women pilgrims. The smell of wet wool and the sound of travelers’ chatter filled the room, giving it a homely air. As I shook the water off my cloak my stomach kept telling me this was all a dismal mistake. I’d never felt farther from home. I couldn’t imagine Gregory was in a place like this. Maybe he’d left. Maybe he’d never been there. Margaret, Margaret, you are a stupid, headstrong woman, and look what it’s got you. You’re freezing and pregnant and standing in the ugliest rooms in Christendom, and you’ve left your children and a warm bed to follow dreams and imaginings. Everybody always told you not to be so stubborn, and you should have listened.

  “Oh, the courtesy, the condescension of this pious lord d’Aigremont. Did you see his rings? He may well make us a gift to speed us on our way.” The talkative Brother Anselm plopped his bundle into the corner. “Of course, more than money, what I would like is a nice, surefooted mule. Oh, the treacherousness of those wicked false priests, slipping off like that! Without a doubt they were in league with the Devil, who tells the people of the yellow wheel how to evade God’s justice.”

  But I had noticed something strange. Ever since we’d entered the huge iron gate of the chateau, I’d heard a thin, angry whine like a trapped wasp issuing from the Burning Cross. When I put my hand on it, it would stop, only to resume when I took my hand off again. In the great audience chamber, I feared the sound would be noticed, but luckily there was enough clatter of people coming and going to conceal it. But now, in the quiet of our rooms, it seemed more noticeable than ever, and I could feel it quivering on my breast as if it were alive, where it lay hidden under my surcoat.

  The rooms, composed of a long stone chamber divided in two by a massive, carved wooden screen that reached to the ceiling, were completely open to foot traffic through several passages without doors. They were really more like corridors, except for the simple fur-covered bedsteads and little charcoal braziers that warmed them. Cold drafts blew through the door arches, meeting the breeze from the windows in a way that made the brazier flames dance and flicker. But the rooms were in an honorable location, near the chambers of the lady Iseut, the Count’s wife, and his young son and only heir. The location was a little too good for pilgrims, in my opinion, although hardly good enough, in the opinion of the more snobbish members of our party.

  “Don’t look so glum, Margaret,” said Brother Malachi as he looked at my worried face. “Everything will work out—you’ll see. It’s all meant to be—and soon you’ll be joyful again.”

  “Listen, Malachi, don’t you hear it?”

  “What?”

  “A humming sound, like a fly.”

  “A fly? In this season? Mighty strange flies they have in this part of the world.”

  I put my staff and bundle at the foot of one of the beds behind the screen. Now I gestured silently through the low wooden door to Mother Hilde to join me, away from the prying eyes of the men.

  “Listen, Mother Hilde,” I whispered as I pulled the Burning Cross from its hiding place. As I held it away from my dress, the whining buzz grew louder.

  “Dear Holy God,” she whispered. “It’s buzzing.”

  “It’s all warm too,” I whispered back. “It got worse when I was near the Count. It can only be the air, Mother Hilde. Even the air is evil in this place.”

  “You’re right, Margaret.” Mother Hilde looked very serious.

  “Warn Brother Malachi, Hilde, but don’t let that chatterbox Brother Anselm know.”

  I put it between my cupped hands, and it grew silent and cool.

  “So, so, women must have their gossip, even at the cost of supper,” announced Brother Anselm in pointed tones as we emerged from the little door.

  “So is it always. Ah, why I saddled myself with this obligation, I can’t imagine,” said Brother Malachi loudly. “But I, for one, am hungry. And I hear that this lord sets an elegant table from no less than Sim, who’s already inspected the kitchens while you two have been idling back there.”

  And sure enough, when we looked around, there was Sim, looking as if he’d popped out of an opening in the earth.

  “To supper, all. I fear the mounted ones have preceded us and taken the best places,” said Brother Malachi.

  But he was wrong. Fine places at a middle table had been saved for us. Places too fine for simple pilgrims, I thought. There was an elegant supper, during which musicians played from a hidden gallery. And because there were ambassadors from some neighboring count there, the entremets were truly astonishing. There was an entire ship on wheels, made completely of pastry, and boys painted all in gold, dancing. And after supper, there were Moorish dances, with the dancers all painted dark and savage, dressed in jewels and little bells. Then, with the trestle tables cleared away, the table dormant was recovered with an elegant red cloth and games set out for the amusement of the high lords of the ambassador’s party that were the Count’s guests. By the time we left, the sun was already setting, and candles had been brought to the gaming table. The lords were well occupied with dice under the smoking new-lit torches, while the Countess and her ladies and pucelles sat to one side playing a game of draughts. At the foot of the table, a harper made the air sweet with a doleful song whose words I did not understand. As we wound our way through the torchlit passages to our rooms, the last notes of the song reverberated in my mind, notes that harmonized with the strange, almost inaudible hum from beneath my surcoat.

  The next morning, not long after we had broken our fast, the gray-faced Dominican who seemed to be the lord’s chief adviser came to fetch Malachi. They spoke Latin, so I didn’t understand a word, but I didn’t like the man’s tone, though it didn’t seem to
bother Malachi a bit. But he addressed Malachi as “Theophilus,” and acted deferential. And then he stared at Sim in a way I didn’t like, as if pricing a pig, and murmured in some dialect words that sounded to me like “too ugly.”

  “Malachi, are you going to—” I began in English, but Brother Malachi shushed me with a sharp glance, one that looked so alien, it startled me for a moment. Then he spoke cheerfully, also in English. “Good-bye for the moment, my dears. And whatever you do, keep Sim with you.”

  “Yes, of course, Malachi,” answered Mother Hilde in the calmest voice in the world. It was exactly the same voice she uses to say “the child has stopped breathing.” I do admire Mother Hilde. I can imagine her walking straight down into hell and telling the Devil to put out the fire, he was making it entirely too warm above, in that exact same tone. As she always used to tell me when she was my teacher, “Margaret, there are times when firmness is everything.”

  Late in the forenoon Malachi caught us three mingled with a crowd of loafers in the tiltyard, watching the squires drilling on horseback, and said to us in English,

  “My dears, let us go and inspect our horses.”

  “Our horses?” I was puzzled. We hadn’t any.

  “Yes, Margaret. Our horses, so close by in the stable,” he repeated firmly as Mother Hilde gave me a sharp glance. We came away without another word.

  “We’re less likely to meet with English speakers here,” said Brother Malachi, solemnly inspecting the backside of a horse in his stall. “Though with all the mercenaries about, you never know,” he added, passing to the next stall. We all stared at the switching tail of the next horse as he spoke.

  “They have everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Beautiful equipment. Their own glassblower. Six assistants. Messer Guglielmo, who has to be the greatest jackass in Europe, has done nothing with it. He’s half as far as I am. Doesn’t keep records—that’s his problem. ‘Why write down something that doesn’t work?’ he asks. The fool! So you don’t repeat it, that’s why! Besides, you may stumble upon something else and you won’t remember how you got it. He’s got one process he’s been simmering for over a year. And two thousand eggs that he buried for six months before trying to create quintessence of egg. Powerful stuff, if he’d got it. But phew! What a stink! I don’t know why you complain of me! But what a laboratorium! Philosopher’s eggs, all sizes! Pelicans and cucurbits, all you can ask for! An athanor big enough to roast a whole kid! I could be happy the rest of my life with a laboratorium like that one.”

  Something was wrong with Brother Malachi. His words were the same as ever, but his voice sounded wrong. We passed to the next stall.

  “Books. They’ve got books I’ve always wanted. The forbidden works of Arnold of Villanova. Graecus’s Book of Fires. ‘So, you’ve got the Mappae Clavicula,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ said that infernal Dominican. ‘If you’d like to stay to copy it, you will be assured of my lord’s hospitality.’ That’s when I knew he had no intention of letting us go.” Malachi turned his face toward us. In only a few hours it seemed to have sagged into deep folds. Dark circles had emerged beneath his eyes.

  “Then I had a good talk with Messer Guglielmo. Snooped around. Criticized. That’s when I knew for sure. It’s as I suspected.” His voice sounded haunted. “They’re using the wrong fixative. The one I told you about. There are nasty brown splashes of it everywhere. God only knows where they bury the bones. The black candles, too. They’ve hidden the rest, but I saw the stub of one in a niche that they’d forgotten. Forgive me, forgive me, Hilde. It all seemed so easy when I first thought it out. I should have made more inquiries. I should have guessed. But now it seems my carelessness has brought us to our doom.” He turned his tormented face to her, but her strong heart never faltered as she took his hand.

  “My place is always beside you, Malachi. It’s what I’ve chosen. You don’t need to be forgiven.” He looked at her, as if he were drinking in her strength, and took several great breaths.

  “Delay them,” she said. “You know how. You’re good at it. We’ll use the time to find out where Gilbert’s hidden. Why”—she chuckled grimly—“Sim can practically walk through walls. And you—you know all those languages, and will have the run of the place. And Margaret and I—well, God will show us the way. He’s done it before. And—Margaret—now that I think of it, give me that box with the ring in it. You haven’t got the heart to give it away, and besides, the poison might be bad for the baby. I think I will have plans for it. Fixative indeed! We’ll see who needs fixative.”

  OVER THE NEXT FEW days, although we were well treated, we had much cause to repine. Malachi vanished daily to the great hidden laboratorium, and Hilde’s worry wouldn’t stop until she saw him safe at suppertime. And because we didn’t speak the languages we heard rattling all around us, we sometimes felt as close kept as if in prison. Occasionally someone would speak the French of the north, and we could make ourselves understood. But no matter where we went, someone always seemed to be following us.

  At length Sim, who was always in search of food, managed to make friends in the kitchen, through the use of sign language and the performance of little useful tasks. We were driven frantic with worry when he would vanish, but then he’d return, usually munching an apple from one of the great storage barrels, and telling us of some new sight he’d seen. It was he who told us about the hidden rooms, and the screams that were sometimes heard at night, just as casually as he’d describe a bearbaiting.

  “And then,” he said, taking another bite of his apple, “they cross themselves and make a show of putting their finger in front of their lips for silence, and drawing it across their throats, like this—” another bite. “And do you know how he gets them? Ships them in from far away with that gloomy old goat in black, or if he gets short, he goes night hunting, like a ghost, all in black. Knocks on his peasants’ doors with the butt of that riding whip he carries—the one with the bone death’s-head handle, and then points with it to the child he wants—even the babies in the cradle.”

  “How did they tell you all that, about the color and the babies, if they can’t talk?”

  “This way,” he said. “They point to something black and do like this,” and with a few gestures he depicted a cloaked, booted figure in black from top to toe, riding a glistening white horse, surrounded by outriders.

  “Well, why don’t they tell the Bishop? He’d bring the Inquisition on them. That many babies can’t disappear without someone noticing.”

  “Everyone’s afraid of him. He can cast spells and call devils. And when the moon is full, he rides out like the Devil himself, in search of blood.” Sim waved his arms behind him like a flying cloak, and leapt about as if galloping, all the while grinning at the ghoulish vision. “When I get home, I’m going to tell my friends. I’ll frighten the growth out of them, and then we’ll all stay the same size,” he said contentedly, sitting down to finish his apple. You’d never take Sim for anything but a street urchin if you saw him eat an apple. He finishes it all off, even the core and the seeds, down to the little twig that was the stem, just as if he thought he’d never get another.

  “Now, Sim, you be careful. I don’t want anything nasty happening to you,” Mother Hilde cautioned.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m too ugly, they say. He likes blond babykins. Besides, I’m quick. Good-bye, I’m off to help pluck chickens.”

  As for Mother Hilde and I, we walked here and there, especially by open cellar windows, hoping to hear something. A hint, a voice, something. But the most likely place, beneath the great donjon keep of the castle itself, seemed to have no windows at all.

  “So, Mother Hilde, what should I do? I can’t sing by every window like King Richard’s troubador. It would look very suspicious in this season, standing in the mud and singing into cellar windows.”

  “Something will present itself. By the way, speaking of nosy things, what ever happened to that Weeping Lady you said was attached to the little shoes?”

/>   “She said crossing the sea made her ill, and got all filmy and pale and vanished. When even your spooks leave, Mother Hilde, that’s when you know you’re really in trouble.”

  “I suppose you’re right, Margaret, though I’d never thought of it that way.” But it was at that moment that one of the Countess’s ladies-in-waiting, a large, dark-haired lady with a preposterous great two-horned headdress, found us as we stood on the outer steps of the great hall, surveying the mud of the inner bailey.

  She spoke to me in clear French, though with an odd accent, and said, “Is that woman with you the celebrated mistress of herbal remedies, la Mère Hilde?”

  “Why yes,” I answered, “but how did you know?”

  “We heard from your confessor, the Brother Theophilus, that she is in demand with the noblesse of England. He says she has treated the Queen herself. Can you speak to her for us?” Oh, clever Malachi, he’s up to something, I thought. And so there ensued a three-sided conversation by which Mother Hilde was told that the Countess had many sicknesses, and her son was unwell, and Mother Hilde was asked to attend.

  The next thing we knew, we were shown into a wide circular stone-vaulted room, hung with beautiful silk tapestries. A great fire was burning, and the room was all hot and smoky, for the wood was too damp. A sallow, droopy little boy of ten sat by the fire, all wrapped up in a fur coverlet. A vast fur lined cap of crimson sat upon his stringy, brownish-yellow hair. His father’s strange wide red lips, on him faded to yellowish pink and set in a narrow, sickly little face that reminded me of a bald squirrel, gave him a strange look of degeneracy and decay. And like a squirrel’s, his timid little eyes seemed to sit almost on either side of his head. The dismal, narrow, chinless little face was almost a perfect replica of his mother’s as she leaned over his chair, watching him as he played a game of chess with his tutor. As she saw us enter she detached herself from the group and gave orders to another lady-in-waiting, with a headdress as ridiculous as the first lady’s and her own, to show us to her.