John the Pupil Read online

  A Jew sits in the library to discuss finance with a cardinal of Rome and a Venetian banker. The Jew’s appearance surprises me. I had been expecting something magical and monstrous. To mark out his tribe, he wears a Phrygian cap, which has a stiff round yellow base that covers his scalp and rises to a cone, and were it not for this, and the red robes of the cardinal, I should not have known him to distinguish him from the men he talks to.

  Perhaps, I said to Andrew, a unicorn is just a horse with a Phrygian cap.

  And then I retreated to a corner by the castle wall to pray and make penance for making the sort of sentence that sparkles and which would win me distinction, instead of making myself closer to God.

  I talked with a learned man from Florence, and a dancing master from Cadiz. My helper sat beside me. There was no separation between the men and women in this ideal kingdom where all was celebration, and it felt as if this was the natural order of things, and everything else, the works and transactions of days that were not devoted to delight and feasting were just the negligible moments in between, like the passages of sleep where there is no dream.

  The riches of Cavalcante de Cavalcanti seem endless, like King Solomon’s, the jewels taken by Brother Bernard, the feasting, the hospitality, the rare books in the library; but there is no evidence of trade: the jewels produced in the forge are for the delight and adornment of the castle ladies. The learned man from Florence explained it to me. Cavalcante is a moneylender. He finances other men’s courts, he lends money for wars; all the great men of Italy are in debt to him, pay the interest and accrual on his loans, even the Pope.

  Beauty can never be usury’s child.

  And, I am saving this to the last, there is one grave company of men, which sits apart from everyone else.

  These men are shortly to journey to Venice from where they will travel to the east; but one of their company has fallen sick in the swamplands of Sarzana.

  They will be making nine Investigations of the people they encounter, the first regarding their origins, second their beliefs, third their rituals of worship, fourth their ways of living, fifth their strength, sixth their population, seventh their intentions, eighth their observance of laws and ninth their reception of envoys.

  And they will be looking for elephants and unicorns, men with lions’ manes, pillars of fire, strange bodies of water, flying machines, the marvellous monsters that live in seas and mountains and forests, the dog-headed people and the horse-footed people that Pliny wrote about, the celibate Ethiopians, dogs of such size the traveller told us about in the friary that can kill lions and pull down bulls, which are hitched by farmers to ploughs and warriors to their chariots.

  It is being done for glory, and for God, and curiosity, and discovery, and commerce, and diplomacy, and simple adventure, which, I think, is what lures these men upon their expedition.

  They have a clothier, who will adapt their dress to avoid causing offence to the people they travel amongst. And they have soldiers, to protect them. And they have merchants and bankers among them, or at least the sons of merchants and bankers. But they do not have a translator, because he is the one who fell sick in Sarzana.

  Paradise is in the east, the Garden of Eden. The lost tribes of Israel are wandering the deserts of the east, and Alexander’s Gate, behind which were locked up Gog and Magog, who feast on human flesh, is open, whether through might or earthquake or the dilapidation of age is unknown, and the Tartars are from the lands behind the Gate.

  What do you know of them? I was asked by a member of the company.

  They are a warlike, brutal and Godless people who roam a place of splendour.

  Can you speak their language?

  I could easily learn it. My Master has taught me the secrets of grammar.

  We are going to the lands of the Tartars, they say, but we need someone to understand their language.

  The traveller had cast a kind of sigaldry on all those who heard him. Even my Master envied him his experiences. I go further than him, my Master said. His studies sent his mind farther than China, but all the same he was envious. As the traveller said, But as God gives us the different fingers of the hand, so he gives to man different ways.

  How I admired him, how I longed to be him; and this is the opportunity that I might become him, that I would bring back news from other places, see the great sights, and the monsters, the sheets of ice in the north, the route in the south where the sailors navigate with the sun on their right, that I would travel to the great men of learning in the great places of the world, no longer a messenger but someone to whom all doors are open. And I could persuade myself that this would not be a desertion, but a further extension of my Master’s will, to whom I could return with accounts of far places and more rue, and coral, and the saffron that grows so plentifully behind Alexander’s gates, to replenish the stock of treasures I have expended at Cavalcante’s.

  I may not, I said.

  What of your companions? The giant.

  He has no skill for languages.

  How about the one who is dancing?

  He is very fragile. He would quickly follow your companion of Sarzana.

  And in this way, I resisted the temptation to join their expedition, and I protected Brothers Andrew and Bernard.

  The musicians and dancers stood to the side, and the young men of the castle took turns to prove their prowess with rhyme. Their verses were intricate and skilled, like prayers or hymns. But even the Poet in Paris, the Crow, took delight in blaspheming. Here, it was as if He did not exist, they hardly glance His way with their verses about love, always love.

  And then, the last to perform, Prince Guido. He takes his place, lit by candles, at the side of the room, approaching it with reluctance, as if it is against his will to be the cause of attraction. His father breaks off his conversation to attend to the words of his son. All the young women, except my helper, lean forward too. He clears his throat, he rubs at his hair, which is black, like his clothes. He looks at his boots as the first words come from his mouth as if unbidden.

  He recites his first poem with diffidence and uncertain power, so the meaning of the whole becomes obscured by the phrases he abruptly charges with fire. He professes to be low in love, abashed before his heart’s desire, abased before his love’s cruel neglect – although his proud aspect and the attitude of the young women listening to him belie his words. It was the same sort of poem that the men before him had given, and skilled in its design of rhyme and shape, and when it is over, his last words followed by a silence that signifies its end, the other poets beat their thighs and the tables to lead the applause and announce their approval, but it was done as if to reward a clever child, who was not yet worthy of jealousy or fear.

  His second subject is also to do with love. It is much more intricate in its construction than the first, and the sentences, always musical, turn in on themselves and wrap themselves around their predecessors and successors, while throughout an argument is advanced with a logic that is furthered by the patterns and rhymes and rhythms of the words with which it is made. The poem’s subject and much of its diction have been taken from a previous lesson of ours, and I was wrong to have doubted the capacities of my student, because he has taken the stuff of philosophy and translated it from Latin to Italian and proved it with poetry.

  Chi è questa che vèn, ch’ogn’om la mira,

  Che fa tremar di chiaritate l’âre?

  • • •

  My companions have sought to persuade me that we must remain here. Three more days, Bernard said.

  Tomorrow, I said.

  Two more days, Andrew said.

  Tomorrow, I said. Tomorrow morning I will be on my way. The second messenger is already in Italy.

  Then there is less need for us to deliver the Book.

  They speak so lightly, as if our mission were not sacred.

  Bernard said,

  The Ghibellines are looking for three of us. You will be safer on your own.

&n
bsp; And Andrew said,

  We are more noticeable. You speak their language. You can become one of a multitude in a way that we can not.

  Whether these arguments are true or not, something has happened which is greater than our mission and our companionship.

  Or you could stay here too. The second messenger may reach the Pope ahead of us anyway. There is a place for you here as there is for us.

  I could fall. I could be tempted and fall. But wine may turn to vinegar and never back again.

  Saint Pantaleon’s Day

  Before his conversion the young Pantaleon studied medicine with such effect that the Emperor Maximian appointed him his physician. One day as the future saint was discoursing with a holy priest named Hermolaus, the latter, after praising the study of medicine, concluded thus,

  But, my friend, of what use are all your acquirements in this art, since you are ignorant of the science of salvation?

  I stood at the gateway with my burden. The gate had been opened, the day stretched out wide below me, I laboured to carry my packages. The lord and his prince came quietly, maybe sorrowfully, to say farewell. My helper stood behind them. The lord Cavalcante offered me a horse to take for my journey, which I refused; and then a donkey to carry my load, which I accepted. Prince Guido made a great show of his skill at tying my packages to the back of the donkey.

  I was not expecting my companions, because Aude had told me that I would reach my destination alone; but I waited for them nonetheless. And then Brother Andrew came into the courtyard. He was weeping as he stood beside me. I made to kiss him, but he had not come to make a parting. In his goodness, his loyalty, his simplicity, he was joining me for the journey. I then wept, and I did hold him, and I think the lord and the prince might have wept a little also.

  We waited to see if Brother Bernard was going to join us, or say farewell, but the sun was rising, and we made our prayers, and received a benediction for our journey from the lord Cavalcante de Cavalcanti, and Brother Bernard still did not come, and we set off.

  When we passed through the castle gateway, the donkey stopped walking. He put his head down, dug his feet into the loose stones of the castle approach, and refused to move. I pulled him at the head, Brother Andrew drove him from the rear. He still refused to walk, but in this manner we drove him through the loose stones down the slope.

  And when we were down the hill, the donkey consented finally to walk, without, it seemed, ill feeling, as if our earlier battle had never occurred. We named him Bernard, because he was not so dissimilar from the member of the party that he had replaced. He talks as little, he shows a similar moodiness and strength.

  Our way south had been described to us. After descending the hill from the castle, we took a path along a white road through a parched vineyard. The sun beat down on us and as we proceeded in the open, Brother Andrew grew afraid. Ahead of us the road of white stones proceeded through dry fields with hills ahead and behind. A bird of prey circled us. We had become heedless in the castle of our deliverers. Without their protection, we were once again exposed to the threat of the Ghibellines. I admonished Brother Andrew that God had protected us thus far, that at every moment when hope had seemed lost, fortune had interceded, and there was no reason to think that He would not always smile upon our journey, which is a righteous one.

  Bernard the donkey released ordure as he walked.

  It was good there, Brother Andrew said.

  I told him that it was a place founded upon usury. I told him too that it was a place that had turned its back on God. I do not know if I persuaded either of us. I have not told him about Aude’s prophecy.

  •

  Despite his similarities in character, the donkey Bernard is a poor substitute for our lost companion. The subtraction of one from the original three makes us less than two.

  Brother Andrew for once is unmerry. He misses the castle, the pagan life. I point out trees, birds in trees, and he is withdrawn, offering no response as he proceeds on his way, one hand on the neck of Bernard the donkey. Even the sight of a stream wide enough to swim in fails to rouse Brother Andrew from his torpor.

  And yet, I am merry to resume our journey. Colours seem brighter than before. The edges of things shimmer. It is as if I have my eyes wide open for the first time.

  These are some of the things I saw: olive trees spreading their branches high to catch the sun and the rain, the hair on Bernard the donkey, rough and brown and so well-suited to him, which sometime I rubbed and he seemed to like it, particularly when I scratched hard at the thinner hair between his ears, which grew a little longer and sparser around the hard bumps of his scalp, the clouds passing about the sky, thin and narrow like sleeping men, their arms stretched out wide, like swimmers, or tucked beneath their chin, men who still dreamed of their mothers’ cradle songs, and this was a game that we had been accustomed sometime to play, at which Brother Bernard, if he were to be roused, was always our master, because my imagination is a weak instrument and Andrew in his simplicity sees things as they are.

  Andrew walks with his eyes on the path ahead. I drive us on, so much time has been spent away from the road, the Pope is waiting, the second messenger is ahead of us. I take care to walk ahead of my brother and in this way hope for the prophecy that protects me to protect him too.

  Our enemies are everywhere. We hide in woods, in ditches by the side of roads, behind the walls of great castles. We may not go into towns in case that draws attention to ourselves and our load. Bernard the donkey does not like strangers. He has become unthankfully accustomed to me and Andrew. Any other man annoys him, provokes his fear, and anger, because inside his heart these two emotions act like one. Any stranger, a cleric, a soldier, a beggar, comes towards us and Bernard’s long ears lie flat back on his head, his eyes narrow, his load shifts on his back as he prepares to kick and shriek.

  This at least stirs Brother Andrew. He strokes Bernard’s head, the softer, whiter hair on the insides of his ears, he whispers to him. Sometime he looks behind us, as if he could still see Cavalcante’s castle.

  Saint Martha’s Day

  Martha, sister of Mary Magdalene, who served, sister of Lazarus, who died and was raised, was Christ’s hostess. She waited on the Lord and desired her sister to do likewise, because the whole world would not be enough to serve such a guest. As it is said, They made him a supper there, and Martha served.

  We are learning husbandry. For the sake of the journey, we must tend to Bernard the donkey before we may look after ourselves. Bernard must drink before we drink, he must be fed before we may prepare our food, his resting place for the night is allocated before we can find ourselves a bed. We are like Martha, who served, and Mary, who served, of whom Judas Iscariot asked, Why should you spend money on oil to anoint His feet, when you might give it as charity to the poor?

  There are hostel-keepers that turn away a donkey, without seeing him as the descendant of the noble beast who bore Our Lord into Jerusalem; and in truth Bernard is much depraved, a low contrarious descendant of Our Lord’s bearer, hardly resembling of him, and revealing few signs of nobility. He is mean-tempered and sour in his service to us. When we feed him he takes the opportunity to bite our fingers, and poor Brother Andrew has fresh injuries to his hands.

  The sun had fallen on our journey and come close to rising once more. Even before we reached this hospice, we had been turned away from others like it. Because our load was being carried rather than shared, we had walked farther than we were used to. Brother Andrew arrived in his perpetual downcast, Bernard the donkey in typical ill temper, making us wish for his predecessor. A quarter-moon was hanging low in a lightening sky, and I had been cheerful throughout our journey, as if there is a portion of good spirits to be shared, and I was carrying Andrew’s.

  As if in answer to my spirits, a kindly Dominican offered to feed Bernard and share his stable with him. Brother Andrew and I, our load renewed, entered the hospice.

  It was like being returned to the malicious
company of Simeon the Palmer and his men. They were pilgrims and merchants and clerics, sprawled around the room as they estimated the new arrivals, and our goods. And there were men who used to be soldiers, who lay in lassitude from the concussion of the nerves that my Master has observed soldiers suffer from in the aftermath of war. We found a place not so far from the door, where we sat by the wall, with our possessions between us, our arms over them.

  We should have learned by now the lesson taught to us long ago in our journey by Master Roger, that the best way to hide something precious is to seem not to be hiding it at all.

  And so it came to pass, my Master, as you would have supposed it would, hands and eyes upon us, a pressing of bodies and foul costume, from somewhere safe in his stable, I could hear the braying of Bernard in sorrow or sympathy, and Brother Andrew was fighting to protect your Book, my Lord.

  This journey has been so long, and I have learned so little, and have proved myself only in unworthiness, but my mind was clear and I knew that no harm could befall me, because Aude’s prophecy protects me, and while the battle was proceeding, I gathered the instruments I needed and then I shouted, loud, as if in that moment I owned the chest and breath of our lost companion. I made the announcement that we were men of great power, that we were the Pope’s Friars whose legend had flown faster than the eagle. And when I saw that I had them, in various attitudes of curiosity, avarice and dread, I promised a great reckoning. I said that the Lord God was with us, that He had asked me to choose a sacrifice because His wrath is powerful and unending. And I made great show, with sly movements of my body and with twists of the arms that I copied from the dancing girls from Cadiz in Cavalcante’s castle, and in my hands I held out a narrow bar that to anyone unschooled might seem like a common stone.