“The sky. I thought I’d never see it again. Where am I?”
“Where are you?” I called out, echoing his question. “You’re on your way home.” My heart gave a leap and I was so happy I could hardly hear the baby singing, “Joy! Joy!” as it turned.
ROLLING DARK CLOUDS MASSED across the broad sky, the grayish brown remnants of the summer’s grass on either side of the road flattened beneath a sudden gust of cold wind. For days now they had wound their way through perilous mountain roads and villages without names, filled with savages who provided food and shelter only at the menacing rattle of Sir Hugo’s sword in its sheath. And even now that they had rejoined the high road, Margaret had never felt herself farther from home. Even the baby’s cheerful turning and Malachi’s chatter couldn’t convince her that things would turn out well anymore. But the longer on the road, the more cheerful grew Hugo. He stood up in the saddle, his cloak whipping around him, and lifted a hand up to feel for the first icy drops from the ominous sky. Ahead of them the descending curves of the foothills of the Pyrenees stretched like the waves of a vast rocky ocean toward the horizon.
“Hmm. Looks like a storm. But we may be able to beat it to Pau with any luck.” And he signaled to those behind him to speed to the fastest walk that could be managed. “Well, well. Wish it were summer. Of course, not too hot a summer. Now, how did that nice summery poem go? Humty, tumty, tumptity something, youths in hats sing virelays, birds in trees cry ‘tirilay!’ Something like that. Clever rhymes that fella had.”
The pace had shaken Gregory awake. There was a groan from the litter. Hugo dropped back in the line of march to lean down from his horse with newfound concern and catch the words he could barely make out.
“If I ever hear you speak one word from that wretched ‘Ode to Summer’ again, I’ll strangle you, Hugo, I swear. Live or dead. I’ll rise from the grave, if necessary.”
“What’s wrong with it? I thought you liked poetry, Gilbert.”
“That poem’s a sore spot with me, Hugo. Don’t mention it again. Remember, from the grave.” There was a movement under the furs as Gilbert clutched his ribs to stay the pain of coughing. Hugo wasn’t bothered in the least. Sick people are all like that. After all, Father had whispered imprecations all the way from Calais to Brokesford Manor, and it hadn’t meant a thing.
“Why, look, I do believe that’s Pau I see ahead,” cried out Hugo, and trotted up ahead to see if it really was the spires of the town that he’d spied in the gray distance.
WE STAYED ONLY ONE night at a shabby little inn called La Couronne, where the beds were full of bugs. There at the long table before the fire, Malachi and Robert, between bites of a dreadful-smelling ragout, loudly discussed our plans to go west to Orthez and the coast. But before dawn we rose and headed east toward Tarbes by starlight, to avoid any chance of pursuit by the unsavory folk we’d seen at the inn.
But bad weather held us at Tarbes three days, with Hugo pacing and fuming, while Robert cleaned his armor and joined his men in dicing and chasing the women at the inn. One night, as the icy rain rattled at the shutters, Hugo came from sheer boredom to pick a quarrel with Malachi. Gregory lay propped up in bed, too weak to eat, but drinking hot wine in little sips from the cup I held. Hilde and Malachi sat by the brazier, inspecting his new books by the light of the glowing coals. Hilde couldn’t read a word, and the books were in Latin anyway, but Malachi was explaining the pictures. Hilde’s shrewd comments showed how wide was her understanding of natural things. Sim peeped over her shoulder while he finished off an immense sausage he’d purloined from somewhere.
“Now this one, Hilde, is the mystic marriage of Sol and Luna. You can tell by the crowns; it means to mingle melted gold and silver together to extract the quintessence—how many times must I remind you, Sim, not to risk dropping grease on the pages?—while this depicts—”
The door slammed open.
“How can any man with a particle of wit waste his time reading books? What use are they? All that stuff rots the mind of an active man and turns him into an idle daydreamer.” Hugo stood fuming on the threshold, eager to offend someone.
On the bed, Gregory spluttered. Ordinarily, he’d have heaved a bench at Hugo, thus splintering the rainy day dullness into a thousand pieces. But as he was too weak to lift his head, he merely growled menacingly.
“This one you’d find interesting,” remarked Malachi, completely unperturbed. “It’s Graecus’s De igniis.”
“What’s that? Some priestly nonsense?”
“No, a book on fires, and the various ways to start them. Here, for example, is the recipe for Greek Fire—quite useful for you active sorts in defending against a siege.”
Hugo edged closer. “Now, what’s that picture of the naked man and woman there?” he interrupted, his arrogance unabated. “Is it a book of filthy stories? Now, that’s a reason for books—”
“It’s a book of alchemy.”
“Alchemy with dirty pictures, eh? Now I know what keeps those fellas warm at night. Pity there isn’t anything to the gold-making part. Now, if I owned a book, it would be all dirty pictures and no gibberish—say, what’s that dragon doing? And that lion with the spangles, in green?” I looked from where I was sitting on the bed, and even at that distance, I could see another Green Lion on the page of Malachi’s new book. This one was thinner, and had a row of stars down his sides. But he was the same creature, and had in his jaws a sun with a smiling face and rays like waving arms.
“The Green Dragon and the Green Lion have the power of transforming the most perfect and unchangeable metals. They are the subject of the quest. Only through them can one obtain the Red Powder that is, of course, what every alchemist wants.”
“So where’s the gold?”
“There, in the book”—and Malachi pointed to the golden sun in the lion’s mouth—“and here.” He tapped his head.
“Then you’ve got it? The Secret?”
“Not quite, but very soon.” Hugo made the same face he does when a Gascon in his cups tells him he’s undefeated in battle. Malachi saw it, and gave an aggrieved sniff. “I was quite close before I left London, I’ll have you know. I had approached the Phoenix, but in so doing I broke several rather costly vessels, and was unable to repeat the experiment. But I expect that what I learn when I get my book translated will enable me to complete my lifetime’s quest.” He closed the book and put it back in its wrapping without even a glance at Hugo’s stolid, doltish face. Sometimes that man had all the illumination of the back side of a brick wall. “Interesting, isn’t it?” Malachi went on in his cheerful voice. “You seek pardon in Avignon, and I seek enlightenment there. That is, should we evade the hairy fellow in the stable I overheard discussing plans to have us ambushed and robbed on the way to Toulouse.”
“Toulouse? But we’re not going to Toulouse,” said Hugo.
“Exactly,” replied Malachi. “But they somehow got the impression that we are, thanks to the loose tongue of a certain Flemish wool merchant. I suggest that when the weather breaks we leave early.”
Hugo looked at Brother Malachi suddenly; then he grinned. “So be it, Old Fox,” he answered, and bidding farewell to us all, left for bed in a changed humor.
And so we set out in more cheerful fashion through the wintry hills for Foix, where we were certain of a good welcome, for we had a letter of introduction from Count Gaston’s ambassador.
AS IT TURNED OUT, we had little need for the letter, for the Count’s ambassador, the Sieur de Soule, had stayed at St. Médard barely long enough to kiss the Bishop’s ring before he was off like the wind with his entourage. Not only was he among those who believe it more comfortable to be far from the Inquisition, but he now had urgent news to send to his master. For not only was his old rival and enemy unexpectedly dead, but on his flank, in place of a mighty warlord, was an heir in his minority and a marriageable widow—things that make for very interesting politics indeed. Indeed, as we approached the city, we had seen the figures
of fast horsemen disappearing to the east—as it turned out, messengers sent to the Slavic lands to inform the Count of Foix and the Captal de Buch of the happenings at St. Médard-les-Rochers.
So even though Gaston Phoebus, the young count celebrated for his beauty, munificence, and ferocity, was not there, we had a most lordly reception from his constable and the hospitality of his house. But not only had the ambassador preceded us, so had the scandal of the dice game, and even a fragment of the tale had made us curiosities of the first order. So nothing would do but that I should sit on the right hand of the constable himself during supper, all crimson with embarrassment, as he quizzed me about the entire affair, and I answered as little as possible about the whole disgraceful business. But through flattery and wine he managed to worm out more than I’d intended to tell, and soon all the tables were abuzz with the rumor that the Count of Foix’s old enemy had killed himself by an accidental overindulgence in dogs’ aphrodisiacs. Then the constable smiled most strangely indeed and announced that God was on the side of the virtuous, and Hugo, his face all red with too much wine, shouted affirmation. I wished that I could hide under the table. I tell you, Gregory had the easy part of that visit, all tucked up in a big featherbed upstairs, being made much of and waited on hand and foot. They even sent a harper to make music for him, and his color began to get better, though he was still too weak to sit up.
As my fears for Gregory faded, other fears took their place. For one thing, the Weeping Lady was making herself felt as she snooped through the house, setting the dogs howling and making the back of people’s necks prickle. And since she enjoyed offering her comments on the domestic arrangements, I feared being overheard in my nighttime conversations with her. Still, it would have been rude to remain silent, considering what she’d done. And having expended the greater part of her chronic wrath in the affair with the Count, she had fallen to being a cheerfully malicious gossip instead.
“Madame Belle-mère, if you’ll graciously pardon me for saying so, I fear that if you frighten the horses again that way, they’ll call in an exorcist.”
“Exorcist?” she’d sniff. “Phoo! I don’t give a fig for exorcists. After all, I’ve crossed the water—” But, of course, she’d never tell me how. “If you can’t understand it, and you a mother, then you never will,” she’d say, drifting off to inspect the Countess’s jewels and frighten the waiting-ladies.
Another great fear, that Hugo would make some ungodly row over Cis, had been forestalled by the Sieur de Soule’s sudden departure in a grand cavalcade but a day after we arrived. Some said he had new business for his master with the Pope, having something to do with the Church and the campaign against the pagan Slavs, and others that he had to attend to his neglected lands in the south. I have no idea whether any of it was so or not.
But Hugo contrived to make a scene anyway, since he was never happy if he wasn’t the object of everyone’s interest. This time, it was all over his Unspeakable Sin, as he called it, which of course made everyone terribly fascinated by it—much more so than they would have been over the speakable sort. Knights interested in some new sort of scandal would take him aside, and I’d hear him say, “Never—it’s too horrible. It’s unspeakable. I couldn’t burden you with it.” And they’d depart, shaking their heads, each secretly rejoicing he’d never done anything that unspeakable himself.
Each day he announced some new plan—to walk to Avignon barefoot, for example—and then he would beat his breast and shed tears and let himself be seen all prostrated before the chapel altar until absolutely everyone agreed he was the very model of holy repentance.
“Tell me,” he’d say, cozying up to some priest or other, “should I arrange to be scourged all the way to Avignon? Or would a procession of monks, chanting, be better? Should I enter the town gate in my shirt?—Oh, I see. Yes. Gray friars might well be best.—Oh, the sin of it, how it stains me! The Curse, the terrible Curse!” And, of course, the fact that some romantic-minded demoiselle was usually nearby to overhear didn’t hurt matters any. They loved consoling him, and drying his tears and offering him holy medallions and other tokens for his trip. In fact, his repentance soon caused dark circles to appear under his eyes, for in going from bed to bed all night long he never had a moment’s sleep.
But at last the trip could be put off no longer. A little page, one of Hugo’s paid informants, let him know that he was soon to be sent on pilgrimage to the next world by several aggrieved gentlemen of the court if he did not continue on his way to Avignon. Gregory was well enough to eat now, and to be propped half sitting in the litter, though the fever still came and went. And most convenient of all, we got news that the Bishop of Pamiers was dispatching a heavily guarded party to Avignon, and was well disposed to allowing pilgrims to travel in their company. We might perhaps have hesitated had we known that it was a gold shipment, and they might have hesitated had they known we were English. But once there, Malachi pleaded our case in Latin, rolling his eyes heavenward and crossing himself frequently while he explained our need to visit the holy places of Avignon for restoration of soul and body. Then it was all settled by the captain of the guard, who said, looking over our straggling party, that it might be just as well in case we met up with any English mercenary captains to have someone who could speak their language, though he himself found that tongue difficult to distinguish from the barking of dogs.
In this way we found ourselves crossing the devastated lands to the east, then following the banks of the Aude north to Carcassonne. There, our welcome was not entirely hospitable, for only recently had the lower city beneath the walls been burned by the English prince, on one of his forays from Bordeaux. But in general it is well to travel with an ecclesiastical party, for they get good accommodations at the monasteries, and in those times of trouble, often only the church had anything to spare for visitors. Then there were the disadvantages, too, for convents, churches, and the comfortable sort of traveling clerics were special targets for the raiders and marauders.
And then, naturally, there was the endless number of beggars and wanderers maimed and made homeless by the continual warfare. These our guard drove off without much trouble, shouting that their lords should take care of them. But of course their lords were off raiding, too, since it was good ready money. Anyway, those beggars couldn’t go home even if they had one left, since they hadn’t been forgiven their taxes, which you’d think any sensible lord would do, given the state of the fields. When we heard later that these same peasants had risen, and roasted and eaten their lords into the bargain, it certainly came as no surprise to me, for I have seen the tithe barns burned in England for far less. Why wouldn’t these hardened people meet such ferocity with equal ferocity?
At every place we stopped, the captains of our party made inquiries about the whereabouts of the local raiders, écorcheurs, mercenaries, and Free Companies. Then we’d halt, or change routes, according to the news. Most of all, our captains sought news of the “Archpriest,” the monstrous renegade priest turned mercenary commander whose immense traveling army, called the “Society of Acquisition,” was said to be somewhere between us and the papal city of Avignon. Cities and fortresses had fallen to him, and should we have the misfortune to cross his path, we had heard he’d more than likely drink our blood from the chalices of the churches he’d burned.
But God was with us; we avoided the écorcheurs and arrived eventually at Avignon having lost only one man, and that one a frail old clerk, to a fever in Narbonne. And we saw many curious sights along the way: some nasty, such as skinned or dismembered corpses, and some beautiful, such as ancient shrines and the ruins of shining buildings left by the pagan Romans. But the white gravelly roads across the dry hills, and the bleak rolling dunes and stunted pines by the alien ocean, made me weep for the comfortable green of England.
At Montpellier, where there is a university, we were greeted outside the walls by a ferocious crowd, shouting and pelting a man in a scholar’s robe, tied backward on a d
onkey. Malachi, who had been there long ago, told us that is how they drive out those who practice medicine without a degree in that city.
“After all,” he said, “there’s a celebrated medical faculty here, and they have to keep control of trade.”
“Well, it’s just as well they don’t have that idea in England, or there wouldn’t be a donkey left in London,” I replied. “It would be much more sensible to drive off the doctors who kill people, and just keep the ones that make folks better.”
“Ha,” he said. “Then there wouldn’t be a donkey left in all of Christendom.”
“But Malachi, surely it is a terrible thing to drive a man out of the city walls in times like these,” Mother Hilde worried as we sat on our horses outside the city gate, waiting for the crowd to thin out so we could enter. The donkey was driven some distance beyond us down the road before its passenger was forcibly dismounted and abandoned there in the deep mud, the donkey being led back by the thrifty citizens of the town.
“Not entirely, my dear. Consider the good that is hidden within the situation. In times of peace, no city would have him, and he would wander homeless and without a trade. But in these times of trouble, he will soon have employment with the écorcheurs, if he has the slightest sense,” responded Malachi, as we dismounted to enter the city gate.
“But what will this poor country do if everyone becomes an écorcheur?” I asked.
“Margaret,” responded Malachi firmly, “thinking about big problems that you cannot solve will bring you nothing but grief. Do as I do and think about the small problems that are easily resolved. That is how God sends us nothing but joy. For example, I am currently pondering the wonderful fact that in the bosom of this extraordinary university may well reside the translator whom I seek. While you do nothing but fret, my next few hours will be full of happiness, the eagerness of the hunt, and the exquisite pleasure of anticipation. Think of that, and mend your ways.”
In Pursuit of the Green Lion Page 36