The Dream Maker

by Jean-Christophe Rufin

  The monks, whether they were accomplices or not, watched in horror as the scene unfolded. Jean raised his sword and spoke to them in a loud voice. He informed them that two of his men would be posted outside the monastery for the time it would take us to get away, and if anyone tried to raise the alarm they must expect no pity.

  We left in a scramble. I found it awkward to run in my homespun habit. Fortunately, the streets of the town were dark and deserted, and there was not far to go to reach the hole in the wall.

  Breathless and exultant, we made it to the boat, shivering in the wind that was cold and damp from the river. During the crossing, Jean took my hands and I embraced him for a long time, weeping. Horses were waiting for us on the other side. Guillaume had thought of everything, and had brought some travel clothing for me. I changed and climbed in the saddle. The sun rose in a cloudless sky. A straight, well-paved road ran between a sea of pale green olive trees. I had an inexpressible feeling of rebirth, but it was not the birth of an ignorant and vulnerable infant but rather of one of those Greek gods who come to earth as adults in the prime of life, rich with experience and pleased to share the pleasures of human beings, about whom they know everything. We rode for two days until we reached Aix, the home of King René.

  *

  I stayed in Aix for less than a week, but it seemed like a month. I was reunited with all my friends—Jean, Guillaume, the galley captains, and my agents, several of whom had found refuge in Provence to escape lawsuits in the kingdom of France.

  I learned everything that had happened in the world during almost three dark years spent in the secrecy of prisons. Coming from their lips, some of the news, which had only reached me in faint echoes, was striking. They informed me that Constantinople had fallen to the Turks, and they described the huge consequences: the exodus of artists and scholars, and an even closer rapprochement with the Sultan of Egypt, who watched with terror as the Turks increased their dominance. They confirmed a lasting peace with the English. This was indeed the birth of a new world. They continued to exploit every possibility that new world offered, and told me they had saved as many assets as possible from Dauvet’s inventory. As I had suspected, Dauvet had merely been cutting off dead branches. But the plant was alive and would grow in other directions. Guillaume now had the galleys flying other flags than that of the king of France: Provence, Aragon, and Genoa. The ships continued on their ceaseless voyages. He had placed much of my property under other names, and had used banking transactions to make funds disappear. Dauvet might be able to get his hands on my houses and castles, but that was not the active part of our business.

  I even had some news that not only reassured me but restored some of my optimism: while keeping it secret from his prosecutor, the king had authorized certain transactions that Guillaume had undertaken on behalf of our business. In other words, he seemed to have understood that apart from vengeance, the cupidity of the great barons, and his own desire to appropriate my fortune, it was in his interest to let us go on doing business. Thus, although he had not pardoned me, he showed that he intended to preserve our activity and let it live.

  While everyone, or almost everyone, in his entourage still thought they lived in the era of chivalry, he at least, with greater clairvoyance, understood that he could no longer reign over a fixed order; and if he were to be powerful, this could only be attained through movement and trade, an activity that he could never fully control short of killing it altogether. This gave me some satisfaction, and even, I confess, a burst of pride.

  Jean and Guillaume had also preserved ties with my family. They did not know much about Macé’s death, because, as I said, she ended her life withdrawn from the world. But the news from my children was good. My son Jean, in his position as archbishop, was untouchable, and he protected his brothers and sisters. Only my youngest son, Ravand, had gone through difficult times. He had endeavored to plead with Dauvet, who refused to give him any help. I was sorry that he had lowered himself in this effort, which was as pointless as it was humiliating. Since then, he had received help from my friends in Provence and he was living well.

  What touched me most was to see that Jean and Guillaume and all the others had continued to look after our trading house without ever thinking of taking it over for themselves. They considered that it belonged to me, and they very honestly, and in great detail, provided me with an account of the fortune I had at my disposal. In actual fact, they were also motivated by optimism: they knew our business too well to believe that it belonged to anyone in particular. It lived from, and for, everyone. They acknowledged that I had a particular role, but it was complementary to their own.

  In any case, despite the predatory behavior of the people at court and Dauvet’s persnickety inventories, I was pleased to see that our web was still just as solid, and that we had considerable means. Stimulated by King René’s appreciation for fine things, I took great delight in having elegant clothing made up, in sharing good meals, and in visiting palaces. I had had my fill of rough cloth, hard beds, and prisoners’ meals. My gaze was weary of peeling walls. I’d had enough of peering at patches of gray sky through tiny, barred windows. I grew intoxicated with elegance, bright sunshine, music, and pretty women.

  Alas, my stay in Provence was not meant to last. My companions informed me that suspicious individuals had been sighted coming and going. In spite of King René’s autonomy with regard to the king of France, he remained his vassal, and his lands were open to Charles’s subjects. Clearly there were agents among them who were trailing me. René very magnanimously refused to hand me over to Charles VII. But I quickly understood that his resistance did not guarantee my safety. I decided to continue on to Florence.

  I went through Marseille, where my house was nearly finished. I only stayed two days. Jean had to wait for the arrival of a galley. He provided me with a comfortable escort and I left by the coast. The gardens by the seaside were bursting with color. It was warm, and the sound of the cicadas could drive one mad. We stopped at shady properties perched on outcrops; I could not get enough of looking at the horizon.

  Something had changed, which made this journey very different from those I had made in the old days. With my freedom regained, and perhaps captivity, I had acquired an astonishing aptitude for nonchalance. I was once again involved in the business; Guillaume had brought me up to date on everything, and no one disputed my authority. And yet I no longer had—and I now know that I will never again have—the appetite, the concern, or the impatience that once propelled me into the next moment and prevented me from living fully in the present. That agitation had left me for good. I was wholly there, on that dusty road, at the top of that rocky spur overlooking the sea, or in that garden next to a clear fountain. My mind and body were so altered by freedom that I grew drunk on it. I gulped down the beauties of the world like a thirsty man pressing his lips to a cool spring. This was pure happiness.

  Jean had found me a new valet. He was only the third servant to accompany me in life, after Gautier in the Levant, and Marc, until his sacrifice.

  I only ever had those three, and now, perched high up in my sheepfold in Chios, I doubt that the future will provide me with any others. Three valets, three personalities, three very different periods of my existence. The last one was called Étienne. Naturally, he came from Bourges. Jean and Guillaume had always surrounded themselves with men from their native town. Some of them had even been appointed ships’ captains, although they were born as far from the sea as one can possibly be. Their shared origins gave them an instinctive understanding, on which the basic quality of any enterprise is founded: mutual trust. Étienne was a little peasant whose father had been killed by one of the last gangs of écorcheurs as they were leaving the region. This loss caused a strange reaction in the child: he could no longer sleep. It was not an illness, nor grounds for complaint or suffering. He simply did not sleep. Perhaps from time to time he would drop off for a moment, but in al
l the time that he was in my service, whenever I called to him, no matter the time, he was awake. He had no other qualities in particular, he was neither very clever nor very brave, nor particularly talkative or penetrating in his understanding of others, as Marc had been. But at a time when I might still be under threat, Étienne’s infirmity (for I could not imagine that being deprived of sleep was not an infirmity) was supremely useful.

  One week after we left Marseilles, as we were about to enter Genoa, the head of my escort, an old soldier named Bonaven­ture, came to warn me that we were being followed.

  I decided in the end that we would not go through Genoa. With its rival factions, its intrigues, and its foreign agents, the city was far too likely a spot for an attack. We continued on our way and reached Tuscany. Every day we discovered new landscapes of woods and green hills, fortified villages, and everywhere, like little javelins hurled by the gods onto the silky carpet of fields, thousands of black cypress trees.

  Bonaventure had deliberately left a few men behind, and now they came riding up at full tilt: they confirmed that a group of roughneck soldiers had been following us through the villages and stopped to ask when we had been through. We continued on our way to Florence. There I was reunited with Niccolò di Bonaccorso. The young boy had turned into a grown man. He was unrecognizable with his black beard and deep voice, as well as the self-confidence worn in Italy by both those who have succeeded in business and those who want others to forget that they have not. Two things, fortunately, had not changed: his energy and his loyalty. The silk workshop he managed had grown considerably. He employed many workers and sent his cloth all over Europe. And yet, like Guillaume, Jean, and all the others, he continued to view me as his associate, and despite my disgrace in France he had never stopped affirming that I was the founder and the owner of the workshop.

  He suggested I settle in Florence. Every year since my imprisonment he had scrupulously deposited my earnings in the bank, and he gave me a precise account of my assets. They were amply sufficient to buy a house in the town and live there for several years. Niccolò opened his home to me, but I preferred to leave him his freedom and keep my own by staying at the inn.

  The first two days in Florence, I surrendered to the delight of knowing I had arrived safe and sound. I could easily and happily imagine myself spending the rest of my days in that gentle city, with its hazy sunsets over the river, its hills, and the ever-growing clusters of palazzi. Unfortunately, on only the third day, the alarm was raised. While until then my pursuers had kept at a certain distance and were relatively discreet, in Florence the malevolent surveillance became omnipresent and very visible. My first gesture on reaching the town had been to dismiss my escort. In this refined city where everyone, even the wealthy, endeavored to mingle with others in great simplicity, it would have been ridiculous for me to go about surrounded by Bonaventure and his soldiers. So I ventured abroad with Étienne for sole companion. He was the one who first noticed the two men following us. At the corner of the square, two more men were clearly spying on us as well. A bit further along, outside a church, I myself noticed a group of beggars who seemed anything but authentic and whose gazes lingered on us insistently. One of them, limping low to the ground, followed us to the entrance of the silk factory. I sent Étienne to find Bonaventure. I asked him to follow us at a certain distance when the time came for us to go back to the inn, and to keep an eye out. What he noticed was most distressing: the city was infested with spies who were after me. Neither in Provence nor on the way had I ever been the subject of such heavy surveillance. Niccolò suggested contacting the authorities in order to ensure my safety. As long as we did not know where the threat was coming from, this seemed a bad idea. If they were envoys of the king of France, the matter would become political, and it was not in our interest to notify the city officially of my presence . . . Bonaventure came up with a good suggestion: given the number of people who were following me, no doubt it would be possible to single one out and capture him. An interrogation would yield a bit more information about the matter. That day I deliberately took some long aimless walks through the city. Bonaventure counted my pursuers from a distance. He saw that they were divided into four groups, and that one of them included two children whom it would be fairly easy to frighten.

  I went back to the inn, and the men in my escort dispersed to begin following my pursuers. They seized one of the children just as he was about to go home, and brought him to the inn. Niccolò came to join us. He questioned the little beggar in his Florentine dialect.

  What we learned from his interrogation was extremely instructive. The child did not understand everything, but he gave us a great many names that he had heard. It turned out that those who were threatening and following me were not the king’s men, but Florentines . . . At the origin of it all was my dear Otto Castellani, the very same who, after denouncing me, had ended up taking my place and helping himself abundantly during the scramble for my property. So I had two perils to confront: royal vengeance on the one hand, which had political influence but also limits, fortunately, the further we got away from France, and on the other hand the personal vendetta of Castellani and his associates. By seeking refuge in Florence, I had chosen the ideal terrain. Castellani and his brother had maintained numerous ties with the city where they were born. I had, in a way, thrown myself into the jaws of the lion.

  To my great regret, and Niccolò’s despair, I had to leave the city at once and find a safer shelter. The only place I might hope to find that safety was Rome. The pope’s protection was, in principle, a supreme guarantee, although for a scoundrel like Castellani, nothing was absolutely sacred once money and revenge were at stake. However, it would be more difficult for him to act in a city he did not know well, and where I would have no scruples, this time, in moving about with an armed escort.

  *

  We continued on our way. I did not mind this wandering, particularly because for so long my only horizon had been four walls. It was getting hotter as summer approached and we headed further south. I had made certain to send two men from the escort to Rome with news of my arrival. As we neared the city, we found stopping points prepared for us in monasteries or luxurious villas. Finally, we reached the banks of the Tiber. The pope was staying at Santa Maria Maggiore during the construction of the Vatican. The fall of Constantinople and the Turkish advance had upset his plans and delayed the extension of the basilica.

  As soon as I arrived, Nicholas V received me; he had been waiting impatiently. In truth, he had been afraid he would not live until my arrival. The disease that afflicted him was in its last stages. I hardly recognized him. He had lost a lot of weight. Like most people who go through life with a certain plumpness, his roundness had become part of him, and its sudden absence gave me the impression that I was looking at someone else. He had difficulty walking, even with the help of a very simple boxwood cane, which contrasted greatly with the pomp of his apartments. But it was foremost in his mental faculties that his weakness was so apparent.

  This man of letters and culture and politics was not made to confront the great ordeals his pontificate had reserved for him. The paradox was that he had succeeded in full: after the end of the Schism in the West and the fall of the second, Eastern Rome, he had no rivals. This unity, however, which others before him had dreamt of in vain, had come too late for him. He had used up all his strength to obtain it. He spoke to me at length about the situation in the world and the ideas he would have liked to defend if he had still had the time and the means. His basic vision had not changed: this reunified papacy must be consolidated and endowed with a center in keeping with its stature; this he was doing by continuing the construction of the Vatican. After the fall of Constantinople, he had preached for peace among the monarchs of the West and their unity in the face of the danger. But they had not listened, and the rivalries continued.

  The result was that the pontiff of Rome was now alone to face the adv
ance of the Mohammedans, and having gained everything, he now risked losing it all again. This was why, when taking into account the lukewarm attitude of the European monarchs, Nicholas V thought that it would be best to abandon any ideas of a crusade for the time being. He sensed, however, that most of the cardinals, particularly those from Eastern Europe, who were directly threatened by the Turks, were eager for a confrontation.

  At our first meeting, the pope held forth on these topics, even before questioning me about my plans or about what had happened to me in France. Like all men who are hounded by death, he was completely inhabited by the idea of his end, and to all his interlocutors he addressed an anxious monologue no different from that which he addressed in private to the void. More than ever I had the conviction that he believed neither in God nor, under the present circumstances, in eternal life.

  We met every day, for a long while. He was taken out into the Vatican gardens, where he could observe the construction work on the basilica. He showed me the vestiges of the Circus of Nero, where Peter had been martyred. The presence of the past all around him seemed to be his only comfort, as if the afterworld toward which he was headed might also be built with these stones that held the trace of those who had gone before, and which now were sheltered by the cool shadow of the pale green pine trees.

  As I had hoped, Rome was a far safer refuge. Nicholas V allowed me to move into one wing of the Lateran Palace. It had been deserted during the popes’ exile in Avignon, and it needed to be completely restored. I arranged to have the rooms I would occupy repaired, painted, and furnished. Bonaventure provided me with a permanent guard, also available when I needed to move about, and as most of the time I was with the pope, I enjoyed his protection as well. A number of clues seemed to indicate that Castellani’s spies were still observing us, but there was never the slightest cause for alarm.