John the Pupil

by David Flusfeder

  And we run too, and we lose our pursuers in the woods, but we have lost the donkey, as well as Brother Daniel.

  Brother Andrew has gone to look for the donkey Bernard. He has still not returned. I waited for him by the side of the road, the day lingered and fell and he did not return either with Bernard or without him. Neither is Brother Daniel on the same road as me. I proceeded on my journey alone and then I stopped, to wait for my brothers to return, here on the top of a hill where I may see the advance of any other, friend or enemy; but it is all empty, in every direction, and I wonder now if ever Brother Andrew did intend to return, if he would find Bernard, maybe he already has, and the two of them will make their own journey, back to a place of peace and joy.

  • • •

  Saint Afra’s Day

  It is done, I have escaped Brother Daniel, at the cost of losing Brother Andrew; my journey is resumed, its destination not far to reach, and I am alone. Which is a blissful innocent state, that I am taking care not to enjoy too much lest I fall into a kind of voluptuousness.

  I set my own pace as I walk, bathe in the stream or not bathe in the stream as I will. My thoughts are my own, taking their time, reaching their end, without deflection or discord. I sing as I walk, my senses expand to fill the air.

  Throughout, always, I have been in the company of others, whether it was in the rough hold of my father, or in the company of the villagers without ever feeling that I was truly one of them, and then into the friary, sleeping with the pupils and novices, the days in the schoolroom learning the trivium and quadrivium, the company of my Master and latterly the scribe. And also the company of the other masters, Aristotle foremost among them, and Seneca and Averroes behind, at the head of the supporting teachers of heathen antiquity, with all the saints clamouring for our devotion, and our greatest Master, Jesus Christ, with his blessed disciples, and Francis, the blessed.

  Here, the antique voices fade away. I may swing my arms without fearing the injury of another. My thoughts roam where they may.

  I remember catching sight of this state when I was a child, away from my father on the hillside, and then in hand-whiles of sloth away from my studies, my Master’s thoughts not upon me, when I could wander. In each of these there was an authority near above me, my father’s, my Master’s, while here I am only beneath God’s. Consequently, like the Fathers in the desert, I am closer to Him.

  I sing as I walk, and in the sound of my voice in the trees, I hear my lost companions, whom I miss.

  The journey I am making now is a mirror of the contemplative journey I took at the friary; and there is another, higher one that mirrors this, from above, and which I was closer to in the schoolroom.

  Because, as I approach the end of my journey, it is the journey itself that has become the precious thing, or maybe, merely, just the act of walking. I take a step, and then another, and this could be the eternity that Aristotle teaches, so maybe there is no conflict with scripture, perpetual tread, changing view, in touch with the indwelling divine.

  The hills and mountains are behind me. I walked down through the lowlands along a flat way that further descends to a lake. I suppose it is not too late to keep on, walk past Viterbo, to Rome and on, Jerusalem and beyond, keep walking, one step and then another, until I have found a way to get back home.

  • • •

  … where I became a pupil, the trivium and quadrivium, which my Master beat into us. As he said, The sword of God’s word is forged by grammar and sharpened by logic, but only theology can use it.

  These are the elements of the trivium, grammar, rhetoric and dialectic. These are the elements of the quadrivium, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. The walls of my Master’s room were dark. Upon them were pages of parchment on which he had inscribed geometrical figures, words from his universal grammar, no devotional pictures. At first there were many of us, sitting in lines, ranked by capacity or, in cases of doubt, age. I began at the end of the last line, but made my promotions swiftly. And as my knowledge increased, as unsatisfactory pupils fell away, I was in the first line, until there was only one line, with Daniel at its head, and me the next beside him; and then Daniel was demoted, after his difficulty with the Hindu numerals passed down by Jordanus de Nemore, and others were gone, and Daniel was gone, and my Master and I were alone with his wisdom, which he poured into me.

  My Master was not permitted to travel, but travellers and messengers were permitted to visit him, because he had powerful allies whom the principals of our Order did not dare to oppose. He travelled further in his room than any one could in the world.

  There are as many rainbows as men to see them. My Master saw the originals of everything.

  We long above all to reach the celestial city. And in the Spirit he carried me away to a great high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the clarity of God, its light like a precious stone, as to a jasper, even as crystal. And it had a wall great and high, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed. And the wall was of jasper, but the city itself pure gold like clear glass.

  • • •

  When I rested for prayer, I made my voice large, to enable God to hear me, who felt so far away.

  I called out, out to Him, and to His Son, and to the Virgin, and for the first time in my short, sinful life, I was not sure that They heard me.

  But someone had, who was walking along the path that I had taken. He called my name, and it was Brother Daniel, the resolute, the perpetual.

  I hated him, and I loved him. I had wished my rival dead, and I held him to my breast like a brother, because it is wrong that we should be so alone.

  After prayers, I insisted that we walk together. There had been no need for my attitude of before, we each had a commission to fulfil, that it was the same one should not have wrathed me so, and now it only moved me to regret and shame, that I had been so unchristian and so unbrotherly in my countenance to him.

  He suspected me of art, but in his soul I think he was lonely too. So he consented to walk beside me and as we walked we spoke. We shared memories of the schoolroom and sang together songs that our Master had taught us. I told him about Brother Bernard and the changes that he had undergone and the drawings he had made; and in part I was speaking of this because in the telling my lost brother was brought closer towards me and also because I thought, in the guile that Brother Daniel suspected me of, that if I shared a tale from my road then he would tell me one from his.

  But he told me no tales, not about the fate of Brother Luke, nor any other of his adventures, not even the manner of his travels, and nor would he let me see the Book he carried; and at all times he kept his left hand away from me and I suspected that it was not injury that had shaped it into a closed claw but his own will and that there was something that he was keeping hidden in there.

  I asked him what he intended after he had delivered his Book. Would he make haste to return to our Master, or had this journey awoken an appetite in him, as I wondered if it had in me, to travel farther? And I started to tell him about the travellers I had met at the castle of Cavalcante de Cavalcanti, but then I fell silent because I was angry with him that all the sharing was being performed on one side only, which was mine; and it was shortly after that we were ambushed.

  I do not know how long it was that they had been following us. Perhaps they had been my silent companions for much of the past days, mocking my solitude. But they sprouted up all around us, like baleful shoots of an unholy plant. They were ragged and awful, there was nothing of God inside them, they wore the remnants of battle armour, their modesty was barely concealed, and they carried a Ghibelline flag.

  They set upon us, they brought us down, they mocked us, they held the tips of their swords against our skin as they discussed the aptest cruellest ways of slaying us.

  They were without compassion or feeling, we were creatures for the
ir sport. They held their blades against our throats so they could see the fear in our eyes. They set us up again, stood in a circle around us, shoved us from one to the other, cutting us, making us fall, until they wearied of this, and some curiosity about us moved them to ask who we were, and whose.

  And Daniel, timid Daniel, who hid in the schoolroom, to whom a harsh word would be received as the heaviest blow, called out an imprecation upon them, denied them God’s grace, called them tyrants and beasts and monsters, and I wondered if he was doing it to expiate his complicity in however Brother Luke had met his end, and I wondered then as I wonder now if he was doing it to prove himself in my eyes, his new friend, a late becoming.

  And at first they laughed at this, as a butcher might laugh at the high spirits of the animal he is herding into the slaughterhouse. They affected respect for him.

  But you, my Lord, can grant us mercy and indulgence, said one of them, the leader of this band, whose skin was smeared with dirt and mud, as if he was a creature entirely of earth.

  Only if you confess all of your sins, said brave timid Daniel.

  And they asked what then, and Daniel said, if they confessed their sins and were truly penitent he had the power to grant an indulgence and a penance and their souls might be spared.

  And they acted as if this was a matter of some note for them, and I knew it was only another part of their sport, which they would tire of as they had of the one before, and I looked for escape and found none, and I was wondering if I could break through their ranks and run to safety, and with this I would have the advantage of suddenness at least, and I decided that this was the only way to safety and I would have to try it and I wished for some of Daniel’s bravery to wrap itself around me, because I kept forestalling my attempt at escape, telling myself that a better opportunity would arise, while knowing that this was a lie I was guiling myself with. And then I thought about the prophecy that Aude had made, promising my safety, and for the first time I doubted the saint’s words.

  You are with the Lord? they asked Daniel. You have conversation with him?

  I am not worthy, Daniel said.

  We will make you worthy, their leader said. We will grant you that blessing.

  They mocked poor Daniel, they made as if to pay obeisance to him. They bowed before him, and then they took him to a tree and commanded him to extend his arms out to the side, which he did, and they tied his wrists around the branches of that tree, which were low, but still exerted Daniel to stand on the tips of his toes to avoid his arms being pulled from out of their sockets, and when they had fastened him so, in such a monstrous mirror of Our Lord’s own end, they again bowed themselves before him, and asked him, in tones that were high-pitched and girlish, to help lead them out of temptation, into the heavenly paradise that God had promised all faithful men. And this might have been my opportunity for escape but still I did not move, which was not entirely out of cowardice.

  And Daniel groaned because of the pain of his enforced position and they affected to believe that he was preaching to them.

  What is that, my Lord? Our ears are stopped with sin, we cannot make sense of your words.

  And one of them arose, and with his sword, he cut four stripes into the flesh on Daniel’s neck and chest, and Daniel shouted out in pain, and his left hand closed more tightly, and the unholy worshippers praised him.

  And now I can hear him! one of them said; and the swordsman cut again, and Daniel screamed again, and the unholy band called out in mocking exaltation, Hallelujah! and Amen!

  The sword was thirsty for Daniel’s blood. It drank deeply, and Daniel’s blood, so red, burst from his skin and dripped down his legs, and made a dark puddle at the foot of the tree, and one of them dipped his fingers into the puddle of blood and made the sign of the cross upon his own forehead, and then the swordsman, as if weary with the sport, swung his arm as if he was about to inflict a blow with all his strength, but then, daintily, pressed the point into the corner of Daniel’s right eye, and with a gouge and a turn, he emptied the socket, and Daniel screamed, so loudly that birds flew out of the trees, a wild boar ran from the woods and crossed the path that in our innocence we had been walking a short time before, and the men shouted Hallelujah! and We are surely saved!

  Daniel’s empty eye socket dripped blood like martyred tears. The band was losing interest in the spectacle and looking now in the direction that the boar had taken, because they were hungry, as all men are hungry. And the leader said, He is making too much noise now, the sermon is over, and he took out his own sword and drove it into Daniel’s chest and dragged it down to his groin, and there was a terrible sound consequent upon it, of a sucking of the flesh that was dying, and Daniel tried to look up to heaven with his remaining eye but he did not have the strength and a terrible sob came from his throat.

  He was dying and I had once longed for him dead and I felt shame for this and full pity for him too, who had only found this fate because we share a master who had dispatched us both, and he alone of the two of us had found a strength to confront our persecutors; and I felt envy too, for the agony and passion of his end.

  I thought that my own end would be swifter, a colophon, a necessary final office; and I no longer had thoughts of escape, and I cursed them. I promised them all the torments of hell, I told them that the Devil had taken them and he would have his will with them throughout eternity, and maybe because these were to be my last words, or maybe because I was touching some small part of them that was still Christ’s, they did not at first interrupt my speech.

  But it was interrupted nevertheless, by a call that issued from behind the trees.

  Listen, I said, listen to the cries of the damned.

  And the sound was a terrible one, that seemed to come from deep in the most awful place, human but not human, full of ugliness and torment.

  What is that? one of the men said.

  The boar, must be the boar, the leader said. Probably got itself caught.

  All the easier to catch then, another said. Our supper is waiting.

  I waited for my own end, but the band had gone, I had fallen away from their attention as they went in search of their supper.

  The boar must have freed itself, because I did not hear its dying, and nor did I hear the men again.

  And although my sorrow for the unjust end of Brother Daniel sustained, my unworthy heart lifted at my own survival, and I gave a prayer of thanks to the angel who protects me.

  And then the rain came, to wash poor Daniel clean. I dug a hole in the earth and I laid his body in it, and I pulled apart the fingers of his left hand, and inside it was a rusty nail that he had held, a nail which is the twin of my own one that I carry. I laid it on his heart and covered him with earth. And on his grave I put a cross cut from the tree on which he was martyred.

  And I sat there, praying for poor Daniel, and praying for myself, and the rain did not abate, and I did not move from my position even when the rain had soaked my body and my clothes.

  And as it is said, King David sat between the two gates; and the watchman that was on top of the gate upon the wall, lifting up his eyes, saw a man running alone. The watchman saw another man running, and crying aloud from above, he said, I see another man running alone. And the king said, He also is a good messenger.

  In such a way did come the intercession of the angel who protects me and the martyrdom of poor Daniel.

  The Feast Day of the Transfiguration of Our Lord

  I am so near my destination and so far away from home, and yet I should not wish for this journey to end. I linger, dally, on this sulphurous hillside. Look away, shut my eyes, and one might think that this will all disappear, and I am sitting at a table, with stern walls around me and the ache of my Master’s hand on my head. And yet, the sun on my skin, the rise of my breast with each breath, my eyes closed, and I seem to hear the sounds of my beloved companions restored, which, on occasions, have been so vexing to me, and then I may open my eyes and open my fist and watc
h a clot of grass and earth fall out of my hand, and I am alone, and the whispering of my companions is only the movement of the wind.

  I am accustomed again to carry my own burden. And yet, as I say, I should not wish for this journey to end. Here I lie, with goods scattered across the grass. Above is a village and castle, both named Bullicame. Beneath the castle are sulphur pools where solemn voluptuaries paddle in the mud. Viterbo is not more than five days away.

  I have the two books now, and the opportunity to compare them. My Book is fuller, more containing. Daniel’s book is hastily done. The sentences are shorter, the book is briefer, it is no advancement upon the Great Work. It is abbreviated, a shadow. Sometime, when I forget myself, I think my master is prolix, saying ten times what he might need only to say once; but a pupil may not judge his master. They are both written by the same scribe and I wonder if even now he is still in my master’s room, having given up all thoughts of escape, cutting the words into a third book, a fourth.

  The voluptuaries in the sulphur pools are immersed to their broad chests. Their skin is smeared with the mud that is said to have healing powers. Their heads are large and round and correspond to the images my imagination would make of Roman emperors, cruel and orgulous.

  It is like the castle of Cavalcante, but it is not like the castle of Cavalcante. There are great men seeking remedy here and lesser men seeking advancement, and weary voluptuaries whose appetites have become diminished through ill use. I was permitted into the library, but the library is neglected. There is a debating room where knowledge, pagan and Christian, is reordered for the sake of disputation and applause. My master charts heaven and climbs closer to God. Here, the primary good is diversion, God is abandoned, His Son bleeds on the Cross and all is subjugated to the tickle of sensation and novelty. Aristotle taught that the quest for knowledge was the highest good. At Bullicame, there is only diversion. Were Bernard here, they would make him lift great weights. Were Andrew beside me they would command him to sing. They find my explanations of things too long and detailed and without the shining novelty that they crave.