The Dream Maker

by Jean-Christophe Rufin

  One day I traveled with my father-in-law to Anjou, on a matter that required his presence. This was the first time in my life that I was leaving our town. I was horrified by what I saw. Just as glass, when it shatters, spreads over a large surface far beyond the point of impact, the quarrel among the noblemen had fragmented into innumerable local quarrels, ravaging the country. We went through entire villages in ruin. It was impossible to count how many barns, stables, and even houses had been burned to the ground. Famished peasants tilled tiny plots at the edge of the forest where they could hide at the first alarm. It was late autumn and the air was already cold. One day our horses were stopped mid-morning by a troop of several hundred wandering children; they were infested with ringworm and barefoot in the icy mud. They aroused less fear than pity. A bit farther along we met a minor lord and his troop who were equipped for hunting. From the questions he asked, we understood that he was after those children, they were his prey, and he hoped to bag the greatest number of “pieces” possible. He spoke of them as if they were wild boars or wolves. The human race had vanished from this realm; there were only enemy tribes who could not even concede to others the dignity of being a creature of God.

  Traveling with us were four men-at-arms, and we had refrained from carrying anything valuable. We slept in small towns or fortresses where my father-in-law was known. There were times when we arrived at the expected place and found nothing but ruins.

  I returned from that trip with the smell of death burning in my nostrils. At least now I knew the state of the realm. My mistrust of princes in particular and all lords in general went from instinctive to rational. What I had seen of them in the antechambers where my father used to wait had surely taught me their true nature. The era of chivalry was over. Not only did that caste no longer protect anyone, as they had in the time of my ancestors, but, on the contrary, they were now the source of all danger. Was the king’s madness the cause or the consequence of so much unrest? No one could say. In any case, nothing was as it had been. Honor had become a pretext not to respect others but to crush them. The superiority of birth no longer gratified those who were so honored with a sense of duty; they seemed to think it gave them the right to look down on anyone inferior, to treat them like animals, even dispose of their lives.

  Worse yet, as if it were not bad enough to be bringing the country to ruin, the lords were incapable of defending it. At Agincourt, the year I was fifteen, they had gone once again into battle, and their only concern was to strut about, show off their lineage, obey the rules of chivalry, wield their spears with dexterity, and parade their heavy, caparisoned chargers with elegance. Subsequently, though the English had only a third as many men, their simple archers and villeins, who had no honor but were clever and quick, were able to annihilate the French forces. And now that they had been defeated they were hailing a foreign king and placing the country under the thumb of an English regent whose only ambition was to humiliate the populace and pillage the land until there was nothing left.

  When we reached our town it felt as if we had left hell behind. Bourges was certainly no paradise. The city was grayer than ever, living according to its lifeless rhythm. It was far from being the city of my dreams. But at least it was at peace. The wise old Duke had saved it from ruin. After his death, he had left his property exclusively to the Dauphin. Which meant that Charles, now king, stayed on there, and, for lack of anything better, made Bourges his capital. I had the opportunity to go to the palace on several occasions, but did not see him. It was said that since fleeing Paris at the time of the great massacres he stayed huddled in rooms without openings, and gave audience to no one. In any event, he did not stay in the same place for long, and he obliged his diminished court to travel from château to château like hunted prey.

  No one knew what would become of this sovereign without a realm, at war with his entire family. At the time, and despite the role he would play later on in my life, he was in my opinion nothing more than one prince among others, and I placed no faith in him. When the Dauphin Charles became King Charles VII, my father died. The poor man just managed to tell me I must acknowledge the king’s authority. Right to the end, he worried about the traces of rebelliousness he sensed in me. And it is true, in spite of the affection I bore my father, his subservience seemed to belong to another era.

  My father-in-law’s method seemed far more attractive. He had no sincere bonds with those he served, be it King Charles or his enemies. He merely got from them what he could. And because of his financial power, and the need for his services, he was always held in high esteem.

  I endeavored to follow in his footsteps. For several years I managed without deriving a great deal of satisfaction. I did not realize it, but there is an age when you can force your nature with sincerity, and with each passing day convince yourself that you are following the path you must take, when in fact it is leading you away from your true wishes, setting you adrift. The most important thing is to preserve enough energy to be able to change the moment this disparity begins to make you suffer, once you have understood your error.

  Therefore I decided that, of all the trades available to me, I would work with money. In those days it was a rare substance. The quantity of currency that was in circulation was hardly enough for the exchange. Many transactions, for lack of cash, had to resort to payments in kind or letters of credit. The most common coins were made of silver, the more valuable ones of gold. Of all the obstacles that stood in the way of trade, the lack of liquidity was one of the most significant. Those who dealt in money occupied a coveted place. If they were able to lend or send money to a faraway creditor by avoiding the vagaries of transport, they had great power at their disposal.

  Initially I thought this power would satisfy me. My modest success went to my head, and, with the small amount my parents had left me as well as Macé’s sizeable dowry, I had acquired the flattering reputation of a young man of fortune.

  Adulthood had turned me into a tall, thin fellow; I puffed out my chest to make up for my birth defect—although Macé had taught me how to consider it without horror. I strove to be elegant at all public functions. I had set up an exchange workshop at the back of our courtyard and I had a vault where I was able to store items of value. I was consulted by the grandest houses in the town. A number of noblemen had been sufficiently humiliated in my presence for none of them ever to imagine treating me in any other way than with respect.

  I fulfilled my Christian duties scrupulously, but saw this as nothing more than an obligatory custom. I cannot say when I stopped believing in God. In truth, since our escapade during the siege of Bourges, I had been addressing my prayers to a higher force that I did not locate in the usual images of Christ or God the Father. It seemed to me that one could only communicate with this invisible power through a rare, indescribable agency that was available only to the few. It would be impossible, for example, for an imbecile like Éloi, with his boastful manner, to communicate with God or even have an idea of his existence, despite the fact that he spent his Sunday mornings wearing an alb that was too small for him, circling around the priests at the cathedral and performing more genuflections than the liturgy required.

  Macé’s piety was more moving to me, although no more convincing. I watched her spend long hours on her knees, her face in her hands in prayerful attitude. But those images she worshipped, in particular a Holy Virgin in painted plaster, which had been cast for her from a statue in the Sainte-Chapelle, were unimaginatively human and inert, regardless of the artists’ talent. It seemed clear to me that, in spite of her efforts, Macé could not communicate in this way with any of the true powers that radiated their will into our world. When we spoke, however, I could see in her the independence of dreamers, that consciously cultivated intuition that comes of being constantly in the presence of invisible realities and supernatural forces.

  I do not have a very detailed memory of those years. They seem to form a block made
from an alloy of equal parts routine and happiness. Children were born and grew; the house was full of them. They were well-fed and beloved. I was earning my living in an honest manner, and my business did not take me far beyond the town and its surroundings. The news that came from afar made us bless every day the happy fate that kept us sheltered from war, famine, and plague. We heard muffled rumors of the conflict between King Charles and the Englishman who claimed to reign over France from Paris. The Loire River marked the border between the two royal domains. At times peace seemed within reach, but no sooner did we believe it so than the battles had already resumed somewhere.

  To put it bluntly, the situation was getting worse and worse. With my little trade in money, my little fortune, and my little family, I could only hope for relative prosperity, local and provisional. We were at the mercy of the slightest change in circumstances. I had grown accustomed to the situation as it stood; my only ambition was to go on occupying my modest, comfortable spot. On the surface I had given up on changing the world, let alone trying to discover a better one.

  And yet my childhood ideas had not completely disappeared. They were buried in my head and sometimes came back to torment me. They were certainly the reason I suffered from migraines now and again. Bright colors would shine before my eyes, and a few seconds later half of my skull would be throbbing like a cathedral bourdon. I now know that this was a sign. My hopes and dreams came clattering back to me in the form of these flashes; they tore the fabric of the simple, familiar things that surrounded me. The leopard, if I helped him, could still leap out of his bag.

  For a long time I did not understand these calls. When the catastrophe arrived, I was no longer able to ignore them.

  *

  I had kept my childhood friends. Most of them were married. Their children played with mine. The subtle hierarchy that had been established during our adventure at the time of the siege continued to suffuse me in their presence with authority and mystery. But these qualities exerted no more than a modest influence over our lives, since they were led separately and our relations were limited to family visits.

  That is why when I first met Ravand, I could not turn to my usual points of reference. The friendship we forged was not at all like any of those I had known up to then. In his presence I had neither prestige nor power. On the contrary, it seemed to me that I had everything to learn, and my position was one of admiration, which quickly bordered on submission.

  Ravand was two years older than I, assuming that he knew the truth about his birth. His parents, he said, were Danish. That explained his height, his near-white hair, and his blue eyes. His appearance alone would have sufficed to make him stand out in our Celtic country, where people’s skin and eyes are an autumnal hue of browns and reds. Added to that were his astonishing history and personality. He settled in our town at the end of one winter as it turned to flood. Everything was wet and gray. Ravand’s blue eyes were like the promise of a clear sky we had never hoped to see again. He arrived from the north in grand style, with five valets and ten men-at-arms, none of whom were from the same place or spoke French. He required no more than two weeks at the inn; fetching the gold from his carriages, he paid cash for a house, which one of our friends had just built.

  He furnished it very simply. The entire town was curious about him. I overheard talk but paid no attention. So, my surprise was all the greater when, a few days after his arrival, he sent me an invitation.

  His house was not far, so I went on foot. It was located on a winding street that led up to the cathedral. Two men were stationed at the street entrance and kept an eye on the passersby. At the door, two more men stood guard, clad in leather and coats of mail; they looked like écorcheurs. Such manners were not typical among merchants. Inside, there reigned the atmosphere of a fortress. The rooms downstairs, heated by a blazing beech wood fire, were veritable guardrooms. Some of the men slept on the floor, like soldiers on a campaign, while others came and went, speaking loudly. In the courtyard behind the house two ginger-haired fellows were washing immodestly in a barrel of rainwater, chests bared. I went upstairs by a narrow stairway similar to the one in my childhood home and came out into a vast room lit by two tall windows of white stained glass. Ravand greeted me, taking my hands and looking me straight in the eye with an expression of recognition and enthusiasm.

  And yet one felt that, if he so decided, all warmth would drain from those eyes and they would become cruel, cold blades. I immediately expressed my gratitude to Ravand for his welcome, the way a traveler might thank a highwayman for taking all his worldly belongings but leaving him his life.

  The room was furnished with only a table and two fluted chairs. The table was piled high with pewter dishes that were still dirty with the remains of various meals. Pools had formed where glasses had spilled. Three or four porcelain pitchers stood surveying this battlefield. I had never seen such a household, particularly as it was set in a building almost identical to the one in which we lived, and which our womenfolk were careful to keep harmonious, comfortable, and clean.

  Ravand offered me a drink. Before he served me, he inspected the bottoms of a dozen or so glasses before he found one he concluded was not as dirty as the others.

  “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Jacques.”

  Neither Master Jacques, nor Messire Cœur. He spoke to me as a friend, but the friendship was that of a soldier, used to measuring a man against courage and death.

  “So am I, Ravand.”

  We clinked glasses. I saw that a midge was floating on the surface of my wine, and yet I drank it down in one gulp. Ravand already had me in his power.

  He explained that he had come from Germany, where he had been in the employ of several princes. The size of their state did not match his ambitions; he had come into France from the north, after encountering the English and working for them. After several years spent in Rouen, he had taken to the road again, determined, this time, to serve King Charles. He did not tell me the reasons for this change, and I did not feel bold enough to ask him. What ensued would prove I had been wrong not to.

  Ravand talked about King Charles as if he were a prince with a great future ahead of him. This was rare enough to surprise me. Ordinarily the king’s name was only spoken in order to comment on his defeats.

  “Might I ask, please,” I ventured to say, “what is the nature of your talents?”

  In truth, until then I had thought he was the leader of a group of mercenaries. The country was infested with these itinerant gentlemen who placed both sword and retainers in the service of those who offered the best wages and the most tempting plunder.

  “I am a minter,” said Ravand.

  Minters are those who forge precious metal. Their art derives from the Chthonic mysteries of fire and the mine. Instead of hammering ploughshares or knifeblades, they manufacture the tiny pieces of gold or silver that will spend their lives traveling from hand to hand. The path of currency is an unceasing adventure, with sojourns in pockets, forays into the marketplace odors of hay and cattle, and jingling together in a banker’s overstuffed coffers amidst solitary intervals in a pilgrim’s satchel. But at the origin of all these adventures is the minter’s mold.

  To discover Ravand’s profession was all the more astonishing in that Macé’s late grandfather had also been a minter. I had known him for a few years before his death. He was a discreet burgher, levelheaded and somewhat timid. He had practiced his profession in our town thanks to a license from King Charles V. It was difficult to imagine two more dissimilar characters than that plump notable with his carefully groomed hands and the coarse Scandinavian with his mustache dripping with wine.

  At the same time, this confession enlightened me as to the reasons behind Ravand’s desire to meet me. Nor did he hide the truth from me.

  “A minter must be rich,” he said. “I am rich. But for the king to give me his trust, he must know me. And he does no
t. You were born here, in his capital. Your family is honorable, and through your wife you are related to the last minter of the town. I suggest we form an association.”

  Ravand was not the type to take a fortified town by means of a long siege. He favored a quick, frontal assault. As far as I was concerned, he was right. Had he employed more subtle means to convince me, while beating around the bush, he would have aroused my suspicions and reinforced my resistance. Whereas by casting his pale gaze upon me in that deserted hall where the floor had not even been planed, he immediately won me to his cause. I heard myself agreeing to his proposal, and I went home feeling somewhat giddy for having plunged into these unknown waters, not knowing where I might end up, out at sea.

  The fortune Ravand had brought with him, along with my credit in the town, quickly ensured us of success. We did not see the king, but his chancellor made it known to us that he approved of our undertaking. We built a workshop on some land that had come with Macé’s dowry. Ravand’s assassins made it their entrenched camp. Stacked in sealed coffers on the walls were precious metals, gold and silver, entrusted to us in the form of ingots. Other safes contained the pieces Ravand melted in great quantity. Later on I would be called an alchemist, and that was one of the many explanations people gave for my fortune. The truth is I never made gold with anything other than gold. But Ravand taught me the best way to make a profit from it, which is also the worst.

  The king, upon the recommendation of his councillors, decided on the proportions we were to use for our alloys. From a certain quantity of silver—which, as everyone knows, is counted in marks—we were obliged to melt a given number of coins. The purer the alloy, the fewer the coins we produced; if there was less of the alloy, then the coins were also worth less, and there were more of them for one mark.