What was he to do? If he did not go back, it would signify that the Devil had won. If he did, his soul would be in mortal danger. Might he yet prove himself worthy to his God? He tossed and turned until the first greasy light of dawn inched across the floor of his cell. A new day was never so welcome.
XI
THE PRIOR WAS a good man, in Simon’s estimation. He was stern in his discipline and strict in his habits and brooked no lewd behaviour at the monastery. He decided to go back to him. The next morning he went to his cell, fell on his knees and asked him to hear his confession.
The prior sat on the stool behind his writing desk, and his grey and moist eyes regarded Simon with the weariness of age; near fifty years of listening to men’s tiresome complaints of the Devil.
‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.’
Father Hugues laid a cool hand on his tonsured head. ‘What is your confession, Brother?’
The words choked him. How could he tell him the truth? Just a portion of it then; he had seen a woman in the square and entertained lustful thoughts. That was enough of it, for now.
‘You have prayed?’
‘I do nothing else.’
The prior sighed. ‘You are a young man, Brother Simon. The vow of chastity is not easy. Even the blessed founder of our Rule, St Benedict himself, was not immune to such pollution. There are many ways that the Devil finds to a man’s soul, but a woman is the most powerful of his agents. This is why men must cloister themselves in monasteries, for all women are lascivious creatures.’
‘What am I to do?’
‘When St Benedict was a young man he secluded himself from the world in the desert, so that he might free himself from its temptations. But even there he was haunted night and day by the memory of a woman he once saw, like you, in the marketplace of his town. The more he fought against this image of her, the stronger her picture became in his mind, until he could think of nothing else. He was about to succumb and return to the city and surrender to its worldly pleasures, when he saw a thorn bush close by. He threw off his clothes and flung himself into the bush and wallowed there. His flesh was torn into strips and there was not a place on his body that did not bleed or did not cause him to suffer. But these sacred wounds cured the ungodly desires of his flesh and his soul.’
Simon felt the blood drain from his face. He had himself considered harsh medicine for his ills, harsher than even the saint had imagined. Perhaps that was truly the only way.
That night he prayed with his brother monks in the darkened chapel at the office of compline. He shivered with cold. In the high gloom of the choir, the cowled prior led them in their nightly hymn.
From all ill dreams defend our eyes,
From nightly fears and fantasies;
Tread underfoot our ghostly foe,
That no pollution we may know.
He longed for faultless perfection. Instead he heard only the discomfiting laughter of God’s fallen angel. He must drive himself harder; he must do better than this.
XII
EVEN THROUGH HIS childhood Simon had contemplated his own death. He lived in terror of what would happen on the dread day he gave up his final breath for the walls of every church bore lurid depictions of Judgement and hell.
And yet, with Fabricia Bérenger he had acted as if there were no Devil and no damnation. He followed the prior’s advice, pulled down his robe and attempted to quench the unholy fires that burned in him with a whip. The thongs of the scourge were embedded with iron tips.
The first strokes were timid, his hands shaking so badly he dropped the scourge several times. But he persevered, and as the whip tore the first stripe on his shoulders he cried out as if racked. He took a deep breath to steady himself.
His hands were slick with sweat and he wiped them on his robe. He was determined that this should be done. He would give to God his pain and like Benedict he would prevail. He beat himself over several hours; he beat himself until the blood flowed freely down his back and dripped on to the floor.
But when he finally collapsed exhausted on the stone, all he could think of was Fabricia Bérenger; he imagined the soft touch of her lips on his, the warmth of her breath on his face, whispering consolation to him through his agony. He was no longer a monk. He was just a man.
*
His distraction became cause for comment in the priory. There were protests to the prior about his laxity at chapter; his students complained that his lectures were rambling and ill prepared.
Whenever he could he slipped secretly away to observe the mason and his family; he soon came to know their habits as well as he knew his own. It was not a difficult task for they were only three, and Anselm had no servants. He learned that the mason left the house each day at first light, while each morning, just after terce, his wife went to the market. From then until sext Fabricia was at home, and unattended.
*
A change in the air, unexpected, a brief return to warmth, the last before winter. Today he did not need his cloak. A warm wind blew from the south rolling in from the salt pans and the sea. Everywhere in the streets people remarked on it. An aberration; the autumn turned on its head.
When he reached her house he did not knock, but went straight in. Fabricia was at her loom, spinning wool into twine. She looked up in surprise.
‘My father is not at home,’ she said.
Simon had rehearsed a speech but now could not think of a single thing to say to her. He just stood there, one hand opening and closing into a fist at his side.
‘You are welcome to wait here by the fire, if you wish,’ she said.
He sat down on a little stool, his mind blank with panic. He feared that he might not do what he came to do, and also that he would. He suddenly had no idea how to proceed.
How was this done? With a whore you paid your penny and she lifted her skirts, or so he had been told. A wife arranged herself dutifully in the marriage bed and awaited her master. Was there another way? He overheard certain students at the university talking of the women of the town, when they thought he was not within hearing, discussing what some would allow and others would not. It seemed that although it depended on the nature of the girl, it also depended much on the nature of the man, and his boldness with words and action.
He knew nothing of such stratagems. He could hardly believe his own ears when he heard himself say: ‘Fabricia Bérenger, I think of you day and night. I can think of nothing else. I am on fire.’
He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. There was no tenderness in him at that moment; he was just bent on getting the thing done, taking what he so desperately wanted. Like a common thief.
He dragged her down on to the hard floor and lifted her skirts. She did not resist him, and he was insensible to her pain when he possessed her, nor did he hear her protests. It was over quickly; there was a sudden gasping moment, which he tried to slow or stop, and then it was done.
It came too quickly, this boiling moment of ecstasy and despair; he cried out as he slipped to a moment’s heaven and was at once thrown out again. His body barely ceased its spasm when he was overtaken utterly by the blackest shame. He heard the blood rushing in his ears, and he wished only to be anywhere but where he was. He caught his breath and held it. I will be damned by this moment for ever.
He felt physically sick with revulsion at what he had done. He leaped to his feet, pulled down his robe and ran from the house without looking back.
XIII
Vercy.
FOR DAYS, WHENEVER he looked up, Renaut was there, trailing him around like a lost dog, scampering away when he threw his wine flask at him, always trotting back when he had exhausted his rage.
Renaut’s father, Gauthier, had been sergeant-at-arms to his own father; they had fought side by side in Outremer and it had made a bond between them. As a boy he remembered them sitting together at the table in the great hall like brothers and getting drunk and leaning on each other and laughing too loudly. It was the only time
Philip had ever seen his father bawdy.
Gauthier had had lost an eye at Acre fighting the Saracen and the cicatrice traced from hairline to jaw, so that one side of his face looked as if it had once been wax and left too near a fire. It made him fearsome. When he had had too much wine it was his pleasure to chase the children and serving women around the hall growling like a bear. Philip himself only ever remembered a good-tempered man with a fondness for candied fruit.
Gauthier and Philip’s father fell out just before his father died and Renaut’s father found employment elsewhere and Gauthier died before they could reconcile. It was his father’s only regret and on his deathbed he made Philip promise that he would make amends. He has a bastard son somewhere, he said.
So when Philip was invested at Vercy, he sent for him, to the astonishment and relief of all.
He arrived on All Souls’ Day, on the wettest day Philip could remember, the rain falling straight down from a sky the colour of pewter, no wind, mud up to the ankles. Renaut sat on a piebald pony, its flanks shivering with cold and misery, escorted either side by two squires barely older than he was.
They had rung the chapel bells for nones but already the light was seeping out of the day. The porter and the stable boys went out with Philip to meet him, all of them in a hurry to get back to the fire in the great hall and a warm cup of spiced wine. Renaut was not a robust lad, even then; he had baby curls and a face like a stricken angel. But it was his eyes that signified most; they were of the most startling blue.
‘Are you cold?’ Philip asked him.
‘I’ve been colder.’
Really? He had only a leather cloak over a thin tunic. Philip had seen drowned dogs with better aspect.
‘All right, young man,’ he had said. ‘How about a warm fire and some hot beef? What do you say, young sir?’
The boy hesitated, his face solemn. ‘I should first tend to my horse.’
‘Did your grandfather teach you that? Well, we have stable boys to attend to that here.’ He would have scooped him from the horse’s back as he would a child but instead Renaut slid from the saddle and followed Philip back into the castle, hands clasped behind his back.
He’ll do, Philip thought.
Steam rose from him as he stood by the fire. Even his lips were blue. The men laughed and the women fussed. ‘My name is Renaut,’ he said.
‘I know who you are.’
The women rubbed him with linen towels and were about to strip him there in the hall but he intervened. ‘We gentleman shall retire to dress in private,’ he said and led the boy upstairs to the bedroom.
That had been ten years ago. In the intervening years he had taught him to tilt a lance at the quintain, how to fight with sword, mace and dagger, and how to ride straight-backed in the saddle. He had also showed him how to use a longbow and the boy had the steadiest hand and best eye of any man he had ever seen. He had planned to purchase a palfrey, armour and a sword for him in the new year, and have him dubbed a knight at the Easter festival.
He had grown in the year he had been gone; just a twig before he left, now there was meat on him and he answered back. He had blue eyes and sandy hair like his father, stubborn as he was, and loyal to a fault.
‘Seigneur, you should eat,’ he said.
‘I’m not hungry,’ Philip growled.
But he let Renaut help him to his feet and he staggered downstairs. Dogs picked at the gnawed meat bones on the floor, sniffed at a litter of half-eaten brown pears. Mud all through the hall and no one had thought to sweep the rushes. There was the sound of snoring from the straw by the cold fire and laughter from the stables. He went to the window, saw the stable boys playing knucklebones in the yard. They should be feeding the horses and mucking out the stalls.
He dragged the nearest of the servants to his feet and took him by the ear. ‘Your master’s home, and is done with his grieving now. Today it is just a scolding; tomorrow I shall come down with the whip. Be sure to be about your business.’
He rolled the rest of them out of the straw with his boot. They ran off: he would not need the whip. He would not have used it anyway, but they did not need to know that.
He went down to the scullery, stepped over a kitchen boy asleep on the stairs. There were weevils in the flour, mouse droppings in the larder. Grain crunched under his boot. Rats had chewed through every one of the grain sacks and a pheasant lay unplucked on the bench. It seemed that no one had thought to salt the pork and it had turned rotten.
‘I tried to tell them,’ Renaut said. ‘They wouldn’t listen to me. There was even talk that perhaps you were not coming back.’
‘There’s mildew in the pot, for the love of God.’
What did I expect? he thought. When I put on the cross, it had fallen to her to pay the soldiers, scold the servants, have the hides tanned and the grain milled and keep count of the spice boxes and the candles. Perhaps she was right, God’s cause was better served here in Vercy than in Jerusalem.
‘When the lady Alezaïs died . . .’
‘I understand. The fault lies with me, no one else.’ The boy was awake now, standing by the cold hearth, wide-eyed with fright. ‘Get the servants here now,’ he said to him. ‘There’s work to be done.’
The boy ran off.
He turned to Renaut. ‘The sun is out. I want all the bed and table linen washed. Have we enough firewood for the winter? Get it done. Now that I am home I think you will find they listen to you better. Tomorrow we go hunting. Let us pray we find a stag or two and fat boars or it’s going to be a lean winter.’
Somewhere in the castle a child was crying.
‘In God’s name, what is that?’
‘He does not have a name yet,’ Renaut said. ‘Do you want to see him?’
‘Not now.’ He turned for the stair. ‘I’m going to see to the stable boys, throw their dice in the moat. Then they can saddle my horse.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I need to talk to my wife.’
XIV
Toulouse
FABRICIA GROANED AND rolled on to her side. She put her hand between her legs and stared at the slimy, watery mess of blood. She imagined this might be what it was like to be a young man knocked down in a fight, robbed and beaten by the companion with whom you were so taken a few minutes before.
And she had thought him so sad and so gentle.
She must get up off this floor; her mother would soon be home from the market. Would she tell her? But then her mother would tell her father and he would act upon that knowledge. Her family would be brought to ruin.
If I am to go to the nunnery then my maidenhead is no longer of concern to any future husband, so no harm done there, she thought. Unless he has got me with child. But there is an old woman who lives just outside the city walls who they say can give a girl a potion of herbs that will flush away a babe before it has a chance to grow.
All this decided and I have not yet pulled down my skirts.
She dragged herself to her feet, brushed the rushes from her clothes, smoothed down her hair. No bruises, then, no marks.
I feel as if I have been ripped and I want to spend the day weeping but I shan’t, and yes, aside from this, no harm done.
Silence then, and the old woman at the wall.
*
The city glared back at him. He shared conspiracy with the meanest cutpurse; the lowest beggar glanced up at him from the filthy alleys and knew his sin to its core.
He avoided a leper who passed him on the street, shaking a rattle to warn of his approach; but who shall taint whom? he thought. He went down a street of butchers, the blood from their slaughterhouses running through the sea of mud and rubbish. Flies swarmed around the banquet. There lies my soul.
He wandered blindly for hours before returning to the priory, where he went direct to his cell and fell to his prayers. He knew that he must now confess what he had done to the prior.
If only he might have the morning again, to undo what had been ir
revocably done. He wanted to weep and could not. Each time he closed his eyes he saw again his loathsome sin.
But he did confess to the prior and within a day a curious thing happened. He began to want her again.
His desire began as a perverse whisper inside his head, at first scarcely heard among the screams of self-loathing. But before the second day was out she had already begun her haunting of him, even as he tried to exorcize her. As he prayed abjectly for forgiveness, a part of him wished to sin again.
He kept to his cell, feigning sickness. The prior, concerned, sent the infirmarian, who prescribed a potion of herbs and, of course, a bleeding. Simon accepted his medicines without complaint and with not a little disdain. He knew he must take action against his importunate desires if he was to save his soul, and when the way and means of it finally suggested itself, he was so low in spirit and in mind that there was in him no resistance to the terrible cure.
XV
THE BRIEF SUMMER must be paid for. The weather passed from June to midwinter in just a day, the wind turned to the north and now there was ice in its breath and the sky was the colour of a dead man’s shroud.
Simon turned up the hood on his cloak as a flurry of rain soaked him. Outside the common round of the Toulousains were crowded in the streets before the monastery of Saint-Sernin, in all their stinking ardour for commerce and congress, no matter what the weather. Life must go on. Simon’s pony shied from an ox-cart, skittish on the frost-hard cobbles. He was hemmed in by the water-carriers and onion-sellers.
A hand caught the reins. Blessed Jesus, save us; he must have been waiting outside the gates all morning. Should he feign impatience or outrage?
‘Anselm! What is the meaning of this? I have business to attend to. Release the halter, if you please.’
Stigmata Page 6