But after making inquiries, Malachi came back very discouraged, for the pestilence and the wars had shriveled the university to only a poor shadow of its former self—just a few hundred students and a handful of masters. He’d found three converts, several people who had claimed they had once known a Jew, a lunatic master who had told him that God had given him the power to read Hebrew scriptures in a dream, and an elderly doctor of theology who told him to go to Avignon. And no one, no one at all, was interested in his book full of strange pothooks.
Only Hugo found profit in our brief stay there. In the cold of the evening, when the winter rain had broken and the wind had pushed the dark clouds away from the moon, we heard the voices of students in the alley behind our lodgings. Their song echoed plaintively against the rain-slick stone walls, and we could hear the splash and clatter of their footsteps on the wet, uneven cobblestones. I opened the shutters to let the music in. There in the damp and moonlight, three young men, the one in the center with a beribboned lute, were strolling and singing together, as students have always done and always will do, in spite of war or plague, until the end of time. They paused at the end of the alley and began another song—one of the strange, lovely winding melodies of the south. Another pair of shutters opened, and a girl’s head peeped out in the shadows. Her heavy dark braids brushed the sill, and I could hear her laugh.
“Let me see,” said Hugo, pushing in behind me—for all of us were staying in the same room, even the squires and the grooms, who slept on the floor on straw mattresses at the foot of Hugo’s bed. And I could hear him mutter as I pulled my head in, “—A lute, yes. Just the thing. More romantic—”
It was at just that moment that I heard an older woman’s voice scolding and the shutters down the alley slam shut with a crash that ended the music. But the seed had been planted, and Sir Hugo’s baggage, when we left a day later, included a lute made in the Saracen style in strips of light and dark wood and with a sound-hole covered with a filigree of carved ivory.
“Quite a lute,” said Gregory, and a shadow of his old, ironic smile crossed his ravaged face. “It will be interesting to watch him learn to play it. Hugo as troubador. To think I had always underestimated his artistic side—” But then his head fell back against the pillow from the effort of speech, and he was silent all the way to the tomb of the blessed Saint Gilles, which gives great virtue to all those who visit it, for it contains the entire body of the holy confessor, except for one armbone, which was stolen to make a shrine elsewhere.
MENACING BLACK CLOUDS WERE rolling overhead, and the first big drops of rain had begun to fall as we reached the great bridge that leads to the papal city of Avignon. The yellow-white stone of the span and of the domes and turrets that rise on the hill within the city’s massive walls, all shining with the damp, glistened like gold against the seething black of the sky. The river here runs swift and green, too wide and dangerous to bridge except by a miracle. But indeed there was one, for God Himself gave orders that the bridge be built, and told a little shepherd boy named Bénézet how to do it. Of course, the bishop threatened to cut off Bénézet’s hands and feet for proposing it to him. But once this difficulty was past, Bénézet became a saint, which is what happens if you can survive the instruction of heavenly voices. The bridge is very fine and fair, with a chapel in the middle, just like we have on London Bridge at home, which I must say I consider to be far finer, even though it wasn’t designed by heavenly instruction. But God did not warn Bénézet about how slippery it would be for horses to make the roadway of such fine white close-set stone. So everyone must dismount and lead their animals across by the bridle, if they do not wish to risk injury. Of course, this may have been God’s way of humbling everybody equally and reminding them that Our Savior did a lot of walking.
But Malachi said that was the sort of thing I would say, and went on counting. “One, two—yes, there’s one,” as if he’d finally lost his mind. And then he explained to me that there’s an old saying that you can’t cross the bridge at Avignon without meeting two monks, two donkeys, and two whores, and he thought if it came true, he’d have good fortune in Avignon. It turned out the donkeys were the most difficult to come by, for in a city populated by churchmen and students it turns out that there are an extraordinary number of the other sort of person.
The rain began to fall in earnest as we clustered with the other pilgrims and marketwomen, waiting for the bishop’s armed party to be admitted and pass through the town gate. I paused to pull the furs over Gregory’s face before Robert helped me to remount. Gregory’s breath was wheezing, and his eyes looked all glassy, as if his mind were wandering again. I wished we were all inside; watching the strangers hurry by us in the street as they dashed for cover, all with someplace of their own to go, made me feel desperately homeless.
By the time we’d ridden into the courtyard of the first inn we found inside the wall, the downpour had turned the dust to heavy mud that caked our horses’ feet. The rolling thunderclouds had darkened the sky even before the sun had set, and we were soaked through. As we tried to huddle in the shelter of the overhanging second story, Hugo reached up from horseback and rapped on the closed shutters of the room above the arched entrance to the inn’s courtyard.
A woman’s head popped out, addressed us briefly in an incomprehensible language, disappeared, and reappeared with another woman—the firm, matronly sort. The new woman, obviously the mistress, shouted in French with a rolling southern accent: “You want places? Who are you?”
“Foreigners of high degree in need of shelter, good woman,” shouted Sir Hugo over the thunder.
“What’s that you’ve got there? A corpse? I run a good house. No corpses,” shouted the woman.
“It’s a wounded knight,” shouted Hugo, taking some license.
“Wounded? Ha. Probably sick. And catching. You think I need sick foreigners? Go away!” and she started to close the shutters.
“Close those shutters and I’ll burn your house down!” shouted Hugo, and Robert shouted a fierce second.
“Talk, talk, talk,” said the woman. “Go to the quartier des soldats and ask at the Moor’s Head. She’ll take anyone. A proper case of plague would do her good.” So we waited, drenched and freezing, for a break in the pounding rain, Hugo’s men growling as their horses shifted and whinnied under the overhang.
By the time we reached the Tête du Maure, it was dark and I was shivering, and praying that we would not lose Gregory to the soaking rain. But with the litter laid out by the great fire in the room downstairs, and with everyone drying and regaining warmth, it soon became apparent why we’d been sent there. Women were playing dice with drunken soldiers, women were drinking with elderly priests, women were fondling tipsy students in corners. There were old women and young women, fat women and thin women, light women and dark women. They looked at us curiously for a moment, and then resumed their business. A very large woman, with a vast tissue-thin headdress that revealed mountainous braids of false black hair and immense tinkling silver combs and earrings, approached us. Her face was unusually red and white, with rolls of rice powder settled in all the creases. Just now, the creases were smiling. She spoke to Hugo, who was shaking the water out of his hair like a dog, making little splut-splut noises as the drops hit the fire.
“What’s your pleasure?” she asked. “I’m Jeannot the Fat, and I’m known as the ‘Abbess’ here in Avignon. You won’t find a better place in town.”
“By the bowels of God!” Hugo exclaimed, grinning and looking about eagerly. “I’ve died and gone to Mussulman heaven!”
The Tête du Maure was a house of ill repute.
By the time the sun had come out the next day, it had become clear how the Moor’s Head was run. The first floor was the public floor, a tavern with two great wide fireplaces, narrow little barred windows, and a large number of alcoves, many curtained. The second floor was where the women lived, with rooms that were, shall we say, let by the night. On the uppermost floor, ser
ved by a rickety outside staircase, were a few rooms under the leaky eaves, let at long term to the most dubious of travelers.
In the center of the house was a wide courtyard, which you could see from our little window. Open staircases led from the courtyard to the rooms on each floor. And when the weather was good, the court was filled with travelers in strange costumes, Jews with their yellow badges opening their packs to display colorful wares, groups of students jesting in Latin, and women all finely dressed, with tinkling jewelry, tall headdresses, and high pattens, coming and going on mysterious business. All of it was a hint of the vibrant life of the streets and buildings beyond, a life I craved to go and see for myself. But most of the time I couldn’t even leave the little room, for someone had to be with Gregory, who was still too weak to be out of bed. And besides, I couldn’t go through town without a man to escort me, and Hugo and Malachi and the others all had business of their own. How I wished with all my heart that a miracle would happen and Gregory would sit up one day with his old energy renewed, all curious to see the new places! Then he would take me everywhere on his strong arm, and we could see everything together, and talk all about it, just as in the old days: the Turkish ambassadors in their strange turbans, the swarthy foreigners with the talking birds on their shoulders, the shops, the peddlers, the shrines, and the wonderful churches full of incense and chanting.
Instead, I had to content myself with hearing all about it at second hand. Malachi told me all about the streets in which he wandered daily, and Hugo told me about the palaces of the great, where he loitered for hours, hoping for audiences with someone who might help him get the Pope’s intercession. Even Hilde had got one of Hugo’s attendants to take her about to various shrines, and though she did try to stay with me, I could see the holy places tugging at her heart, and told her to go and pray for Gregory there, if she wished to help me.
One day Hugo came in all cross, followed by Robert carrying his lute.
“Throw the damned thing in the fire, Robert. The man who sold it to me cheated me: the neck’s too narrow for a man’s fingers.”
“My lord, I beg you—it’s too valuable for firewood. Give it to me, instead.”
“You? You heard the man. You strive to outdo me?”
“Me? Oh, no, not at all. After all, it’s the verse that’s the higher thing. The music is only accompaniment. The work of the mind is proper to the lord, the job of noisemaker should be left to his squire.”
Hugo turned to inspect Robert’s face. His mind appeared to be working, although with Hugo you can never be sure.
“The damned little bitch laughed at me. You heard her. And that preposterous little fellow who calls himself a master of music says I need to perfect myself. Perfect myself! I’m perfect already!”
“Yes, my lord,” responded Robert without the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice. He really wants that lute, I thought. He must have found an entirely different woman to court, and doesn’t want Hugo to know about it.
“Very well, Robert. You play it. I think I’ll go enhance my talents with that little dark fellow we met in the cardinal’s antechamber. He seemed to know quite a lot about that sort of thing. Yes, in this town poetry’s the lure that catches the most dear little fishes. Who’d have thought it? Usually they’re content with a handsome face and well-turned figure. Well, everyplace is different. Did you see that sweet little thing that lives upstairs in the Street of the Painters, Robert?”
“The one with the mole?”
“Quite right. And she’s got another on her—”
“Sir Hugo,” I interrupted. “How can you go to see the Pope when you live worse and worse every day?” He looked puzzled.
“Worse? I’ve never been so holy. I’m practically halfway into heaven these days. Haven’t killed any begging burghers for months, haven’t had a woman I haven’t paid for. Why, at home I was only shriven once a year at Easter, and, of course, before going into battle. Now, I’m shriven every week. Bleached almost as white as snow. Found a priest at St. Agricol who doesn’t speak a word of English. I tell him everything. He nods. I beat my breast and weep. He absolves me. I make an offering. I tell you, I’m living a new life. Ah, God, it’s the sacredness of this place. It rubs off, even on a sinner like me.” He rolled his eyes heavenward, and clasped his hands, and it was clear that being the knothead that he was, he was perfectly sincere. “At times—at times I feel myself—surrounded by saints here. Elevated. The golden halls! The incense! The magnificence! God must live this way! It’s just like heaven!”And he hurried off to the second floor.
Brother Malachi, of course, was equally busy. He spent his days searching for his translator, and his evenings complaining. Weary and footsore, he’d return from scouring the shabby streets of the Jewish quarter, and grumble as he sat on the bed: “That ghastly sailor, Jannetus, that wretch at Montpellier, they’ve deceived me! Do you know how many men in the Jewish quarter are named Abraham? Only those who aren’t named David or Isaac. And surnames! I swear, I’ve been misled on purpose! Of course, in any Christian city, anyone who’s Jewish is given ‘the Jew’ as his surname. So, from all over Christendom, Abraham the Jews have poured into Avignon. It’s like looking for John the Smith or William the Cook in London.”
“But what about the university? I thought there were people there who could read Hebrew. Didn’t you say so yourself?”
“They refuse to translate anything but Scripture. It seems tolerance doesn’t stretch too far, even in Avignon. I inquired after that fellow Josceus Magister. Well, at least he was real. But he was dead too—several years ago from plague. So I found his successor, a Jewish professor, a very learned man. ‘Is it sacred?’ he said. ‘Surely, you understand I’d lose my post if I got involved in anything shady. Go find someone who won’t be dismissed for doing your translation.’ So I told him about Abraham the Jew. ‘Oh, yes, him. Perfect. Go get him to do it. Good-bye.’”
“Well, surely among all those Abrahams, you’ll find the wise one you heard about very soon.”
“The wise one? They’re all wise—wise to me, that’s what. I go to Abraham the money changer. ‘What’s this?’ he says, ‘A book? My, how I’d love to help you, but I don’t read a word of Hebrew. Try Abraham the goldsmith.’ So I go to the goldsmith’s. ‘A book?’ he says, ‘Oh, it’s the tragedy of my life I don’t read Hebrew,’ and he even manages to look as if he’s wiping away a tear. A tear as dubious as some of the saints’ tears I’ve sold. Ha! They just don’t want to read my book, that’s what, and I’ve come to the conclusion they’re playing a game with me.”
“But Malachi, you yourself have often said that alchemy can be a dangerous business. Look at what happened with the Count of St. Médard. They may fear the risk you put them at—and it seems entirely fair to me,” Mother Hilde broke in. She had put down her mending and had gone to get the flask to renew Malachi’s glass.
“But Hilde, my love, Avignon is a hotbed of alchemy. It’s unlike any other place in Christendom that way. People who already have a lot of gold can always use more. I thought I’d told you that even a pope was one of us. That’s what made me so sure I’d find my translator here. There’s probably dozens of them somewhere, laboring away in cellars, translating arcana. Why not mine? Oh, the injustice of it all. Think, think—I must think.”
On the litter, propped across benches in the corner, Gregory groaned and stirred.
“Not now, Gilbert, not now. Can you never understand when it is inappropriate to interrupt my delicate thought processes? It’s like breathing into my vessels, just when the process must not be disturbed—a sin to which your curiosity led you often in the old days. Consideration! Consideration! Think of my delicate brain, and be silent!”
“Noisy yourself” was the sound that seemed to come from the litter as Gregory pulled the covers over his head.
“A pope an alchemist, Malachi? Which one?” I was very curious.
“They say, the last Pope John. The twenty-second of that name, I
believe. He certainly left enough gold in the treasury. But I don’t think he found the Secret, even though it’s rumored. It was probably through the sale of indulgences, it seems to me. But then, that’s a kind of alchemy, turning paper into gold. I’ve practiced a little of that sort myself, and ought to know.”
“Speaking of alchemy, Malachi,” began Hilde, pouring wine into his cup to make him mellow, “I’m still waiting to hear how you made the gold for that count, when you’ve never made any for me, even when the roof needed fixing.”
“Me?” Malachi looked around him in feigned surprise. Then he looked at Hilde, and sighed. “I suppose it’s only fair. You’d think the less of me if I didn’t tell. Hilde, queen of my heart, haven’t I sworn that the first gold I make after I get the Secret will be used to crown you for your years of patience?” Hilde smiled indulgently. But she didn’t quit looking as if she were waiting for an answer. “I’d planned a ruse, my treasure, as you must have suspected all along. The secret’s in my rod. The gold was Margaret’s florins, melted down.”
“Malachi, you mean you offered the Count a false Secret as ransom? I swear, I’d have died of fear if I’d known you were just planning another of your tricks,” I broke in.
“And so I thought myself, Margaret. So of course you didn’t know. I thought the man would be gullible. What I didn’t suspect was that he was evil, as well.”
“Malachi, stick to the point. I’m waiting to hear how you did it,” said Hilde.
“Very simple. The oldest trick there is. The rod was hollow, stopped up with black wax. The gold was inside. The heat melts the wax, and there it is! The gold tumbles out. The rest consists of mystic hand-waving, strange chants, and other acts of my constantly creative imagination. They swallowed it all. Desire made them blind. It often does.”
In Pursuit of the Green Lion Page 37