Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  I cannot say if the bishop was dazed or unconscious when the blackamoor lifted him into his arms but now as he opened his eyes and looked directly into the huge black face he started to scream. ‘Help! Help! The devil has come for me! Help17!’ he cried in a terrified voice, and then he started to sob and beat at the black monk’s chest, his tiny feet kicking out as he struggled wildly to be released, screaming. This was a very much alive and kicking ecclesiastical monkey with a cut eye and bleeding nose tightly held in Satan’s arms. The monk, frightened by the bishop’s desperate struggle to be free, showed the whites of his bulging eyes, which gave him even more the likeness of some imagined demon.

  ‘Christ Jesus! Take him inside!’ I heard Father Pietro shout. ‘Quickly! Quickly!’

  The black monk carried the kicking, scratching, screaming, sobbing bishop through the doors of the church with Father Pietro closely following, shouting at the hysterical bishop to be calm, though plainly close to hysteria himself. Then all the priests and monks and clerics, falling over each other in their haste, rushed after him into the church. That is, all except one, the white monk who spoke German and who had ripped my shift in an attempt to prevent me from falling. He was now on his knees beside me beseeching me to forgive him, the torn piece of my dress still clutched in his hand. ‘Angel of mercy who carries the sign of our Lord Jesus Christ, forgive me for chastising thee!’ he pleaded in German.

  ‘You are forgiven!’ I yelled impatiently. ‘Get me to my feet!’ Around me all hell seemed to have broken loose. In the square the crowd was running in every direction, beating at their legs, terrified screams of women and children coming from every corner of the square. Then I saw the ratcatcher emerge from the panicked crowd to appear at the foot of the church steps. He passed the bishop’s fallen mitre and a moment later it was being trampled by dozens of rats. In fact, hundreds, nay thousands of rats were scurrying towards us from every possible direction. They bumped into the legs of the fleeing townsfolk, moving frantically, climbing and leaping over fallen bodies, biting at ankles, and all of them heading in a furious frenzy towards the church steps. It was the scene in the village all over again, although a hundred times worse, even worse than the bishop’s palace.

  The white monk now made as if to move from his knees, to do as I asked and pull me to my feet. ‘No! Stay still! Do not move!’ I countermanded urgently. He turned and looked and his eyes widened at the surprising sight of the rampaging rats. I could not resist the opportunity to assume the demeanour of the angel I was taken to be. ‘Your bishop is the devil’s child and the rats have come to claim him! God is very angry!’ I announced in a stentorian voice, the way I thought an angel with an authority from heaven might remark to mortal flesh.

  Reinhardt calmly climbed the steps up to the church, ignoring me, all the while blowing on what seemed a silent pipe. The rats now formed a seething mass behind him, some falling on the steps with others clambering over their furry bodies in their haste to get to the sound they could not resist. ‘Still, sit very still,’ I cautioned the terrified monk beside me. ‘God will protect us from the devil’s vermin, you are quite safe with me,’ I said, relishing the role of angel, momentarily forgetting that I sat half-naked in the midday sunshine.

  Reinhardt paused at the door of the church as he had done at the bishop’s palace and allowed the rats to rush into the dark interior. I turned my back to the monk. ‘Undo my wrists,’ I commanded.

  ‘Aye, blessed angel of God. What have we done to you!’ he cried, his large and clumsy hands shaking as he grabbed frantically at the cords and untied them. ‘The fish! The sign of the fish!’ he kept exclaiming. The birthmark on my back had saved my life, and I knew this to be a sign to me that God did not wish me dead at the hands of the monkey bishop and that I might yet atone for my sins. Bright red welts showed where the rope had cut into the flesh and I was torn between massaging my wrists and hiding my naked breast by crossing my arms. The pain was better endured than the lack of modesty and I placed both my hands to cover my breast.

  Moments later I heard the doors to the church bang and I looked over to see Reinhardt had closed them behind the rats. He quickly ran over to me. ‘Are you harmed, Sylvia?’ he asked, concerned, his hand placed on my naked shoulder.

  ‘Nay,’ I replied. ‘My gown is torn, my bum is sore and I am half naked, nothing else.’ I had long ago parted with my precious sheepskin coat; since coming down from the mountains it had been too hot to wear and I had exchanged it for food for the children.

  Reinhardt looked down at the square where some of the townsfolk had stopped fleeing and were looking back, some even turning around to approach us. ‘Do you think you can sing?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Sing? What, now?’

  ‘Aye, we are not out of this pickle yet!’ He pointed to the mayhem in the square. ‘The townsfolk are still panicked but some have turned around and we do not know their mood. Our children are among them – we must get them up here or they may be harmed. Our singing will calm the crowd . . . I hope.’ Without further ado he brought his flute to his lips and blew the opening notes to one of the hymns the children most liked to sing that began with a solo part from me. Somewhat tremulously I began the hymn and soon the children were running towards us to take up their customary positions on the steps, where they started to sing as I came to the end of the solo part.

  The people, seeing the rats gone and the children’s choir singing on the steps of the church, started to return in numbers. As we came to the end of the hymn there was sudden laughter among the crowd. We couldn’t initially see what it was they laughed at, but soon the monkey bishop and his entourage of priests, monks and clerics hove into sight where they had emerged from the door of the sacristy at the side of the church. The black monk no longer held the bishop, who now lay prone on a church pew that was carried front and back by four monks. The entire entourage, heedless of anything in their way, were fleeing for their lives from the rats in the interior of the church.

  ‘Go quickly,’ I urged the German-speaking monk. ‘Tell Father Pietro they will come to no harm if they return. Tell them that God forgives them.’

  ‘They will not believe me!’ he cried. ‘What about the rats? The devil’s rats?’

  ‘Tell them I will ask, er . . . that is, the Angel of the Blessed Fish,’ I corrected, inventing this title on the spur of the moment, ‘will ask our heavenly Father to remove the scourge of rats.’

  ‘And bring the birds,’ Reinhardt whispered urgently.

  ‘Oh, and as a sign of grace and love, the birds of the air will come to sing God’s glorious praises. Now go, please. Hurry!’ Then frowning, I added a further incentive: ‘If they do not return I fear the rats may stay forever in the church!’

  The German-speaking monk needed no further urging and ran down the steps into the crowd. I noticed that the bishop’s mitre still lay near the bottom of the steps but seemed somewhat misshapen, flattened by the feet of a thousand marauding rats.

  ‘He speaks German,’ Reinhardt remarked.

  ‘Aye, his mother was German,’ I said absently. Then, ‘There is always a small door at the back of the church. Can you remove the rats before the bishop returns?’ I asked.

  ‘And if he doesn’t?’

  ‘Then we’ll invite the townsfolk into the church to see the miracle of the disappearing rats.’

  ‘You seem very calm after your ordeal, Sylvia,’ he laughed, plainly relieved.

  ‘Aye, I thought I was going to die, but now I live and I feel certain I know what God wants us to do with the children. Better hurry, the crowd is returning.’

  ‘No Jerusalem?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Hurry, ratcatcher!’ I said, not wishing to, or having the time to, explain. Unthinking I turned to watch him enter the small side door to the main doors of the church, and in so doing I turned my back to the crowd that had begun to reassemble.

  ‘The fish! On her back! Look, she carries the fish of Christ!’ a man’s voice cried. T
hen another called, ‘A saint! An angel!’ I turned to see the small crowd surging forward; some had already reached the flagstone apron where the bishop’s mitre lay. Covering my left breast in the crook of my arm I held my right hand above my head. How or why I cannot say, but the voice of the abbot of the monastery of St Thomas, whose sermons I had so loved to mimic in my childhood, filled my head. ‘Silentium!’ I thundered, the single Latin word resounding from my lips as if it had rushed up from deep within me and then, momentarily halted by my tongue, soon proved an irresistible force, brushing it aside to storm from my mouth.

  To the crowd gathered at the base of the steps and now beginning to climb them, it may have seemed the voice of God coming from so slight a maid who had so recently sung a solo as a soprano. The forward line fell to their knees clasping their hands in prayer and almost immediately they were followed by those close behind.

  I turned to the healing angel next to me. ‘Maria, the chorus of hallelujahs, I will sing the Tantum Ergo, then the choir shall follow with the hallelujah canzona.’ She nodded, and while the choir got ready I sang.

  Then as I completed the hymn, ‘HALLELUJAH!’ the Silent Choir of God’s Little Children responded, then ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah . . . haaaa . . . leee . . . luuu . . . jah, hallelujah!’ The rising words of praise used for the filling of the food baskets seemed to carry over, and even beyond, the church square as more and more people, some in the far distance, fell to their knees.

  I signalled for the choir to bring the canzone to a close and with a great ‘Haaaa . . . leee . . . luuu . . . jahhhhhhh!’ they completed. I held up my hand again for silence. Then as the crowd watched, little Heinrich began to sing his glorious solo and I commenced to call the birds from the heavens.

  God was with us on that glorious summer’s day, for I don’t believe I had ever seen such an avian response in all my previous bird beckoning. The sky started to fill with flocks of birds, and soon the church and the trees within the square and seemingly every available place they could perch were festooned with birds. I called the smaller birds to sit on the shoulders and heads of the children – the thrush, finch and robin to rest on their outstretched hands. The combined singing of the birds drowned out every other sound, so that the people simply looked upward and about, speechless and consumed in wonder.

  It was then that we saw the bishop’s procession returning but without the little monkey and being led by Father Pietro with the two monks, the black and the German speaker, on either side of him. I was surprised to see that the blackamoor carried my precious Father John stave and I saw it immediately as a sign from God that I would be safe.

  The crowd had started to jeer at the priestly procession, the sound of their mocking only just audible amongst the birdsong. Reinhardt had not returned and I assumed he had taken the rats down to a nearby stream to drown them and so I would have to deal with the arrogant priest alone.

  The procession, the priests, monks and clerics all holding their wooden crosses above their heads, reached the foot of the stairs and started to ascend, Father Pietro stopping briefly to pick up the bishop’s mitre. The noise of the birds had now become almost unbearable and I sent out the signal for them to depart. A high-pitched crying-out and a sudden clap of my hands and they rose in a great cloud, the beating of their wings raising billows of dust in the square below.

  Then something happened beyond my control and just as had occurred on the great rock in the little valley outside Koblenz to the captain of the bishop’s troop. Two ravens came down to hover, screeching, their black wings flapping above the head of Father Pietro. Then one landed on each shoulder, to the horror of the two monks on either side of him. Father Pietro beat furiously at them but they rose up avoiding his blows and then attacked him again from the air, their claws briefly fastening to his neck as they pecked viciously at his head and face. He screamed and sank to his knees covering his head with his hands.

  A sound I did not know I possessed rose in my throat and the two birds rose up and lifted into the air. The crowd watched in horror as they flew screeching upwards and landed on the church steeple where they seemed to be watching, waiting to be called again.

  Then suddenly Reinhardt was at my side. ‘Here, Sylvia, put this on,’ he urged. ‘It’s all I could find in the church,’ he explained hurriedly. He held the garment gathered up so that he could slip it over my head and allow my arms through the armholes. Then when it fell to cover me I realised that it was an alb, the white communion gown the priest would wear when conducting mass. Appliquéd on the front of the vestment was a large cross.

  The two monks were helping a sobbing Father Pietro to his feet and I could see that he bled from the neck and on both sides of his face. The crowd was growing ugly, jeering and hooting at the clergy, some even spitting at their feet. The attack by the two birds of misfortune was interpreted by them as a clear sign that the priest was possessed by evil.

  With both hands free at last, I held them up and once again called out in the abbot’s voice, ‘Silentium!’

  A hushed silence fell over the crowd. ‘You have them in the palm of your hand, Sylvia,’ Reinhardt, plainly awed, whispered.

  ‘Yes, but what next?’ I asked urgently.

  ‘Call the monk who speaks German to come up and translate.’ Reinhardt, as usual, was thinking clearly.

  ‘Would the brother who speaks German please come up here to translate and the monk who carries my stave come also,’ I called down in German, aware that not all clerics understood Latin other than the prayers they learned by rote.

  The monk who spoke German turned to the black one and without seeking permission from the distraught Father Pietro they both ran up the steps. I reached out and took my stave and indicated that they should stand on either side of me as they had earlier done when I had been their prisoner, though I’m not sure that they were aware of the irony of the situation. ‘What are your names?’ I asked.

  ‘I am Brother Bruno and this is Brother Aloysius.’

  I turned to Brother Bruno. ‘Ask Brother Aloysius how he came by my stave.’

  The answer from the other monk seemed quite long. ‘He says a child brought it to him, to the bishop’s procession when they were, er . . . fleeing the rats. The child said he found it next to a dead German child and one of the other boys said it belonged to the angel and if the angel touched the child with the stave the dead boy would come alive again. The child said he was too frightened to return it himself.’

  ‘Did the boy not also find a satchel?’

  Brother Bruno translated and the other monk shook his head and said something in reply. ‘He says no mention was made of a satchel.’

  I thanked Brother Aloysius in the local tongue. ‘Thank you’ was one of the expressions I had inevitably picked up. Although I was saddened by the loss of my beautiful, though now much scratched, leather satchel, which I’d used to carry herbal unguents – though these had all but been used up – of the two Father John gifts the stave was by far the most precious. The thought of the lost satchel and the herbal remedies it contained brought my mind back to Father Pietro. The sharp pecks and scratches from the ravens could become infected and should be attended to as soon as possible. ‘Is there a convent attached to the church?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye, we are Benedictine, they also.’

  ‘Ask one of your monks to fetch the Sister Infirmaress to attend to Father Pietro. I greatly fear he is hurt.’ Then, remembering my status as an angel, I added darkly, ‘God is merciful, he is most fortunate not to have lost both his eyes.’

  ‘Aye, thank you for saving him,’ the monk said humbly. Then he called down for someone to fetch the sister from the convent that, presumably, was nearby.

  ‘Please, Father Pietro, will you not come into the sanctuary of the church?’ I called in Latin. Then turning to the monk, ‘Tell them to bring Father Pietro and the other church officials into the church.’

  ‘What about the rats?’ he asked fearfully.


  ‘Oh ye of little faith!’ I admonished him. ‘Did I not say that God would cleanse the church of rats and bring the birds to glorify him?’

  ‘Aye, Angel of the Blessed Fish,’ Brother Bruno replied, suitably chastened.

  ‘No more of that blessed fish either! I am no angel and, as you see, quite mortal, and my name is Sylvia and that is sufficient burden.’ I was suddenly tired of the pretence, thinking that it presented too many difficulties. I had trouble enough knowing all of Sylvia Honeyeater as it was, let alone taking on the demeanour of an angel. Two hours ago I was preparing for my certain death, content to go to hell everlasting for my sins. And now, surrounded by the Silent Choir of God’s Little Children I had a sudden fierce desire to make sure they came to no further harm. My own emotions were difficult enough to contain, let alone the task of playing the role of an angel for which I was entirely unsuited. I had seen enough of Nicholas and the corruption that omnipotence brought, and even in the short time I had preached in his name I had felt the seduction of religious power. Better to stay with my two boot-blackened feet planted firmly on the ground. As Reinhardt had noted, we were not yet out of this pickle.

  The monk translated the invitation to enter the church. Several of them called back in the local tongue, which brought a howl of laughter from the crowd. Brother Bruno grinned. ‘They ask about the rats,’ he explained. Then without pausing he started to speak, waving his arms and sounding quite liturgical. I who could speak four languages was becoming frustrated at not knowing this one. If I could have this monk by my side but a month I knew I would speak it tolerably well.

  Brother Bruno now translated to me what he had said. ‘Our heavenly Father has cleansed the church and it is now, as ever, consecrated to the worship of the Virgin and Christ Jesus! You may enter full-knowing that the hand of the precious Saviour guards you.’ He was clearly pleased to be on my side and, perhaps a little self-importantly, took the liberty of adding some priestly rhetoric to the proceedings. One of the priests shouted something in the local language and Brother Bruno turned to me and shrugged. ‘They want me to go and take a look inside,’ he said.