The Vault of Bones

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  'He is much recovered’ mused Isaac. 'What exactly did you do?'

  'I merely applied that which is set out in the Poetics of Aristode and developed by Averroes. To whit, I challenged the dark humour by holding up a mirror to it’

  'And only that? Extraordinary’

  'It is a beginning. I believe I may accomplish a complete cure, but I will require some time to prepare. Master Petroc, I will see you again’ And without another word he embraced Isaac, turned to regard me for another piercing instant, and stalked from the room. I had not noticed until that moment that he was tall, and though he must have been all of sixty years if not more, he did not stoop, and moved like a man half his age.

  'Is that it? Who was that very odd fellow?' I demanded of Isaac as soon as the door had closed.

  'Michael Scotus’ he spread his arms wide, palms open to heaven. 'A prodigy, and a gift from ... I know not where.'

  You know him, then?'

  'His fame is, one might say, legendary’ said Isaac with a touch of professional hauteur. 'Nevertheless ...'

  'No, no, you are right. Famous to those such as myself. He was still spoken of at Toledo, although he had been gone two decades or more when I was a student. Strange, though. I believed he had died’

  'Plainly not’

  'Quite so. But there were reports ... quite definite ones. The pope - this one, Gregory whatever he is - recommended him for Archbishop of Canterbury, but the English would not have him. Tis said he returned to his homeland and died of disappointment’

  Why wouldn't they have him?' I enquired, feeling strong enough at last to move the reeking basin on to the night stand.

  ‘Um. Well, the ignorant often ... our profession is ill-understood by the mass of humanity, my friend. Our services are needed but feared, for - so it seems to them - we hold sway over life and death. Would that it were so,' he added, pouring me another draught of some noxious, syrupy physic. 'But in the case of our worthy Scot, whose talents and interests stretched much, much further than the healing of the sick, the ignorant painted him with their most foul slur. Not so incredible, perhaps: he spent many years at the court of the Emperor Frederick, who is so repellent to the pious amongst your people. But this was a man, Petroc, who knew the greatest minds of his age, who understood Ibn Sina, Ibn'Rushd, Maimon, whose intellect reached back deep into the pagan ages to discourse with Aristotle ...'

  'But what was the charge?' I rasped, my throat flayed by whatever I had just swallowed.

  'Sorcery. What else?' he answered, picking up the basin and leaving me to my thoughts, which, suddenly unencumbered by the crushing weight of melancholia, were circling and cawing like gulls about a herring boat.

  Whatever Michael Scot had done to me - and I could not recall him having done anything at all, save make me puke -I began to recover, for in truth there was barely anything the matter with my body, and my strange doctor had, I thought, somehow released my natural energies so that the vitality of youth, and the impatience, began to flow once more. So in a day I had left my room, and before another three days had passed I was pacing about the rooms that the Captain had taken for us, and which seemed to occupy an entire floor of some ancient and labyrinthine building. Most of the crew had stayed with the ship, but Horst the Swabian, Zianni the Venetian and a couple of others had come to help with city business. My wanderings had begun to annoy my companions, I would guess, for I was pestering Zianni one afternoon when he snapped his fingers under my nose.

  'Listen, my invalid, you are more irritating than a bot-fly. Why do you not go outside?'

  I ... I do not know this city,' I stammered, taken aback. Indeed, why had I not left the building? 'I was waiting for Isaac to give me a clean bill of health, I suppose.'

  'Right, then, I shall see to it that he does, immediately.'

  Isaac did indeed pronounce me free of his care that very afternoon, and did so with a smile in which I detected a hint of relief. He sent me to see the Captain, whom I found in his room, talking with Gilles, who had just returned from a couple of days with the Cormaran, which lay at Ostia.

  'What cheer, lad?' he asked brightly. I hunched my shoulders.

  'None at all, but I am up,' I said.

  'Have you told Gilles of your strange physician?'

  'I have not,' I said, and gave him the story. It left him exchanging looks of frank puzzlement with the Captain.

  'The Michael Scotus?' said Gilles at last. 'He is dead.'

  'So Isaac told me. Was he a revenant, Patch? Did he carry a whiff of the grave?'

  'Not at all. He was as lively as a foal.'

  'But terrifying, surely?' Gilles pressed. 'His reputation is - Good Christ, I have known of him since first I learned to read!'

  'Not terrifying, but very intent, I would say. I felt as if he peered right inside me. In fact.. .'

  The Captain interrupted, fortunately, and saved me from reliving the horrible vision the grey man had stirred up in my mind's eye. 'Sent by Pope Gregory himself. Is that not curious? I did not think we merited such favour.'

  'Nor did I. Curious that His Holiness even knows we are here - but he is a customer, so no doubt he has been expecting us.'

  'Indeed, I did send word of our arrival to the Lateran Palace,' said the Captain, looking unconvinced. 'If indeed old Gregory is even there. And of course we do have some ... some items that will interest him. But to send his own physician ...'

  'He loves us, it is plain,' said Gilles. 'But in point of fact, Scotus is not the pope's physician. That is a fellow by the name of... oh, I forget. A Cypriot, very fat. And so far as I know, Scotus was the emperor's man, his tutor, I believe, and of course his necromancer, if you believe the chatter of the mob. Nonsense, of course, but... No, I have it. He died five years ago, in Edinburgh.'

  'Another Michael Scotus, maybe?' I ventured. 'But Isaac thought he was the real article. And how could he be a necromancer if the pope marked him as Archbishop of Canterbury?'

  'Necromancer or not, he has mended our Patch,' said the Captain, and squeezed my shoulder.

  Later, after we had dined on hotly spiced ox-tails, various strange but delightfully chewy entrails and an assortment of bitter greens washed down with a pale, somewhat thin wine, the Captain wiped the gravy from his beard.

  'Now then, Gilles. It is high time we introduced our young friend to the city of Rome.'

  My last clear recollections were of the grey, muddy streets of London, so stepping out into the warm afternoon light of Rome was perhaps the greatest shock I had yet received since waking from my long slumber, and from the numb revenant's existence I had led since Anna's death. For almost my whole life, Rome had been like a lodestone to my thoughts. The greatest city on earth, where Peter and Paul and countless other martyrs had met their glorious deaths. Seat of the Holy Father, and the place where Caesar had walked, and Nero, Cicero, Virgil... And my journey here had been like a miracle. I had been borne here, unconscious and unknowing, and my awakening had been a sort of resurrection. These and a cloud of other portentous thoughts were whirling around my head as I waited for a servant in sober livery to unlatch the huge, studded street door. Then it swung open, and we strode out into the city.

  Perhaps I had been expecting angels, or stern-faced ancients in togas, but as my foot landed in a pile of fresh donkey-shit and a swarm of filthy ragged children seized me around both legs and held their hands up to me in eager supplication, chattering like sparrows, and as the scent of cooking grabbed me by the nose and filled me up with the promise of garlic, herbs and roasting meats while a passing tradesman yelled at us in fury or brotherly greeting - it was impossible for me to tell which it might be - I had my first inkling that this city was indeed the centre of the world, but not in any spiritual sense. For Rome, although it is the home of God's representative on earth, is above all else the centre of the world of men, and here is concentrated all the glory, chaos, beauty and squalor that man has ever created.

  'Dear God!' I squeaked.

 
'Somewhat absent here,' said the Captain, shaking an urchin from him and waving to the tradesman, who had been greeting and not cursing. 'Despite the presence of His vicar. Throw some coin to get rid of these little ones, Patch, and let us make haste’

  And so began my life in Rome. From that day on I began to roam its streets, sometimes with a crewmate, more often alone, gorging myself upon its strangeness, its age, and the ferocious, frenzied humanity of its citizens. It would take a whole book just to tell what I saw, and since the Mirabilia Urbis Romae has already been written I shall not repeat what it says. Sufficient to relate, I lost myself in the clamour, the filth and the beauty, and in so doing I began to blunt the cruel edge of memory, and to accept that the sun could still warm my skin while another's would never be warm again.

  I had no adventures, save with the local food, and soon learned my way around the maze of streets. I was strolling through the Borgo one morning after a visit to Saint Peter's, marvelling as ever at the myriad stalls that crammed the streets close to the great church, devoted to nothing else but fleecing pilgrims. Gawping bumpkins, from Frisia and Ireland were handing over their last groats for worthless lead badges, and shrewd-eyed Catalans were striking what they believed were bargains for vials of holy water that had been Tiber fish-piss this very morning. Englishmen and Welshmen groused to one another about the local food, Danes gave directions to Basques, Hungarians argued with Swiss. It was like a county fair peopled by all of Christendom, a carnival for the gaily credulous, and I found it darkly fascinating, for was this not my company's business, writ large?

  Wearying of the crowds I turned off the main street, for I remembered a small market in a square I had found a few days before that sold fine sausages from the countryside, and I thought I would bring some back for the dinner table. The market was busy, although here the crowds were local folk, women buying fruit and all the spiky and leafy vegetables the Romans love so well. I bought some sausages and had turned to leave when I heard a woman cry out behind me in anger. There was nothing unusual about that, except that the voice was English -I could have sworn it was English, and London at that, but when it came again the words were Italian, in some dialect I did not know. There she was: a slender figure with a cascade of yellow hair, over on the other side of the square. Curious despite myself, I began to wander towards her. She was standing, hands on hips, facing a thickset man in gaudy silk clothes. As I watched, the woman shook her head defiantly. Then, so quick I barely saw it, the man's hand darted out and caught the woman a hard blow on the side of her face. She fell as if hamstrung, and lay for a moment among the feet of the marketgoers, all shuffling now to get out of her way, or to get a closer look. She rolled over slowly and got on to all fours, head hanging; her hair falling about her face like a veil and trailing on the dusty cobblestones.

  Her man looked down upon her. He had a crudely handsome face, somewhat florid - from too much wine, perhaps - and freshly shaved, for he had an oily gleam about the chops. His eyes were narrow and his eyebrows bristled above them like battlements. His nose had once been broken and his mouth had a proud downward curve at its corners; and his thick, curly brown hair was fashionably long. He was obviously a nobleman or a rich banker, judging by his clothes, which were the finest, no doubt, that could be bought in Venice - for by their cut I took him for a Venetian, and he was certainly as noticeable here as a pheasant amongst pigeons. And yet he had the look of a brawler, and it was not just his flattened nose that said this, but the loosely coiled way he held himself. He gave off an intelligent yet brutal menace, scanning the crowd as if daring someone to challenge him. Then he turned and stalked off.

  The girl knelt, and pushed the hair away from her face. It was flushed and there was an angry red patch, already blueing, around one eye. Her nose was running and she wiped it, uncaring, with a sleeve. I shoved past two leering boys and was about to offer her my hand when she stood up and began to brush half-heartedly at her sullied clothes. I drew back, not wishing to embarrass her further, and the crowd began to drift away, pretending it had seen nothing, feigning no interest in the disputes of yet more mad foreigners. The girl - she was no older than me, I saw, swayed a little, then gathered herself and looked around. Her eyes were very blue, the colour of forget-me-nots, and one of them stood out, blazing from a purple halo of bruised flesh. She had a sharp nose, which she wiped again, and a wide mouth, twisting as if she were about to cry. But she did not, and with a defiant shake of her head she put her nose in the air and flounced off between the stalls and out of my sight. She plainly had not needed my help. She had been beautiful, though - no, not beautiful, but sensual. Reflecting that I had no doubt avoided making a fool of myself, I left the market, and by the time I had reached the Palazzo Frangipani I had forgotten all about the Venetian lord and his wench.

  Chapter Three

  A

  nd thus my life meandered for the next month or so - nay, I am being too casual with time. For although my days were lacking in both form and purpose I believe I noted the passing of every minute, for grief ordered my hours as strictly as any hour-glass and calendar, and I still spent my idle time meditating upon the stark text of Anna's death. Time passed in the world, and passed at another pace entirely within my head. And in Anna's tomb in heartless London, it did not pass at all. So it was not a month or so: it was exactly three weeks and two days, while the numberless bells of Rome were ringing out Sext, when Zianni caught me on my way out of the Palazzo.

  'Horst and myself have been invited by our dear Captain to join him tonight at his favoured tavern. It is not far from here. Fine food, abundant wine, brave friends. You will come too.'

  It was not an invitation, it was a command. And I had to accept. I knew full well that my shipmates - for if things were a little different now that we were on land, and matters did not move in the rigid order that perforce they had to at sea - had been putting up with me for far longer than I had any right to expect. In ship's terms I was a useless mouth, a non-paying passenger. I did no work - there was no work for me to do, but that is never an excuse for idleness - and I was not even amusing company. Plainly the time had come to stop indulging myself, and besides, what could befall me but good food and drink, and fine company?

  But now, with that perversity that so often comes when the humours are disturbed, I began to feel apprehensive. So I took to my room again and paced there until Zianni, taking pity on me, came in to help me make ready. He picked out my clothes, for Zianni was Venetian to his fingernails, and regarded the world beyond the Rialto as no more than a rabble of uncouth and unfashionable savages.

  We will show them’ he muttered, rummaging in my sea-chest and pulling out a handful of bright silk, at the sight of which my heart lurched.

  It had been a gift from Anna. She had bought them for me in Bruges: a tunic of white damask, striped with black and gold, with sleeves that tapered to hug the forearm; a sleeveless tunic of the sort called cycladibus, cut from a rich bronze silk ringed from neck to hem with broad bands of deepest midnight blue. The hem itself was scalloped and, like the neck, edged with bronze ribbon, and it was very - indeed immodestly - short. Then there was a pair of hose the hue of very old clary wine, woven so that, although all of one shade, they appeared striped; and a coif of saffron-coloured linen, worked at the edges with silver thread.

  That night I had worn my Venetian finery for the first and only time, feeling horribly aware that my calves, resplendent in their striped hose, were on display. The height of fashion it might be, but I was more comfortable in the kind of things a rich Devon farmer might wear to Totnes Market. Soon afterwards we had set out for London, and soon after that the time for fine clothes was past. And yet Zianni had unerringly pulled out every item that Anna had selected for me. Perhaps it was a sign. Trying hard to banish the pain of memory, I dressed myself, and buckled on Thorn, my jade-handled Moorish dagger. Zianni sat back and whistled appreciatively.

  'Que bella figura! Almost a Venetian, my dearest shepherd. I
will have to dig deep to best you, but I shall, never fear!'

  I will admit that I had no fears on that account, for when I descended to find the others I saw that Zianni had rigged himself up in an even more preposterous bedizenment. His hose were flame-coloured and he was within two inches of exposing his knees to the gaze of all, and his own cycladibus blazed in shifting hues of red: blood, rubies, fire. I could barely look at him.

  'Do you like the colour?' he asked me, as one dandy to another. 'It is called sakarlat - Persian, you know.'

  'Very nice’ I replied, glancing at the Captain, who honoured me with the ghost of a wink. As ever, he was dressed in plain black. Horst, dowdy, German and impatient, snorted.

  'Time to drink’ he said.

  We made an amen and strutted down to the street door. 'I hope no one laughs at my legs’ I muttered to the Captain.

  He led us under a low archway, so low that I could feel my head brushing against the moss that grew beneath it, and into a narrow street lined with stone colonnades. The sun had almost set, but in here it was already night. Like everything else here, the buildings seemed to be sinking into the soft earth, and when we came to the door of the inn I realised that this place had once been at the level of the street, but was now all but underground. Following my friends, I found myself in a long room made of stone, great, honey-coloured blocks of it, lit everywhere by oil lamps and tapers, and by a fire that burned, festooned with cook pots and loaded spits, in a huge fireplace. There were people everywhere, making a great and lusty noise. The owner, a villainous fellow with close-cropped hair and a much-broken beak of a nose, gave a genuinely reverent bow when he saw us, and ploughed through his customers to seize the Captain in his arms and plant two fervent kisses upon his cheeks. Then, giving the rest of us a regal nod, he led us to an empty table over against the far wall, and sent over three surly pot-boys to ask our pleasure. I was feeling almost faint with hunger, and with the shock of being outside and in Rome, and so when a boy brought over a hot, greasy pie filled with what proved to be peppery, vinegary tripe I wolfed the thing down, felt slightly sick, and leaned back against the cool stone wall. Life began to ebb back into me, and after a few minutes spent watching the comings and goings around us, I was ready to join in.