John the Pupil Page 5

  I gathered up our bags and I woke Brother Andrew and Brother Bernard and told them we must go, silently and in haste, and they were sleepy and reluctant but I drove them on, like a shepherd with his small flock, and we made our way out of the lodging ground, and there were eyes upon us, cold in the firelight, watching our departure, and there was a clinking of metal that might have belonged to Simeon the Palmer.

  I was not able to explain my fear to my companions. We set forth along the dark path. We slept finally, at dawning, in a chapel on a hill.

  We woke hungry, it was so late in the day. Sun shone through the windows, our Saviour born, the kings from the east bearing him gifts. We said matins, even though the hour was so late.

  Outside, we gave thanks for God’s creation. The earth was wet from an early-morning rainfall. I taught my companions a song that I used to sing with Master Roger. Brother Bernard, into whose head learning could never stick, immediately learned the words and the rhythm. We sang until our throats were dry, and then we drank from a stream and sang some more until, I think it was Brother Andrew who began it, we replaced our music with laughter. Laughter is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Devil is powerless against it.

  We laughed, without object or cessation. We laughed without ever, it seemed, being able to imagine a time without laughter, a moment when the world did not consist of the three of us lying on the grass outside a chapel in France, beating the damp grass with our fists.

  Until we saw the men climbing the hill towards us. They were wet, cloaks and habits heavy from their night out in the rain, which was maybe why we had not heard them approach. Simeon the Palmer’s badges hardly made a sound as he walked.

  But he was cheerful, as ever. He showed joy at seeing us. He praised our sharpness in finding a dry place to pass the night.

  And your goods? I see you look after them. You are careful stewards of your treasures. Not a drop of rain upon them.

  The men’s faces were stern. They came into the chapel and they gathered around our packages and I made to stop them, I thrust through them and reached for the shining box in which my Master’s Great Work is contained, but there were too many of them and only one of me, and the men seized me, held my arms tight, helpless, by my side. I looked to Brother Bernard and Brother Andrew but Brother Andrew was gone and five of them, maybe six, were subduing Brother Bernard, a confusion of cloaks and arms that might have been an occasion for mirth if it had not been for the enormity of what was taking place, our powerlessness, our despair, our fall, we had come this way and we had hardly begun our journey and already it was over.

  We will take this, call it a shelter tax. We slept in the wet, you were in the dry.

  There was nothing I could do against them. Simeon the Palmer took two of the bags, the box, shook it slightly, held it up to his ear.

  You can go, he said. Take the rest of your goods with you. It is just a tax, we are not robbers.

  I fought. I shouted, We have letters of credential from the Pope!

  Or we can go. You can stay here. We will leave you to your chapel. The rain has stopped.

  They tied my arms behind my back. They did the same to Brother Bernard, although that process took longer and required more assailants to keep him still. Helpless, we watched them leave. I wept.

  And through the entrance of the chapel, where the Last Judgement was painted on the walls around the doorway, came Brother Andrew, creeping, carrying two of our bags. He unfastened the bonds that tied us.

  I prayed for guidance and Brother Andrew joined in and Brother Bernard watched me.

  And now? Brother Bernard said.

  We follow them. We retrieve the box. Somehow.

  As we gathered up our things, Brother Bernard blamed Brother Andrew for fleeing from the fight. I told him that if he had not, all three of us would be in bondage in God’s house. I carried the bag that Brother Andrew had saved in which were the parts for the model to demonstrate to the Pope. Brother Bernard carried a bag that contained Brother Andrew’s bowl and spoon and our breviary. The rest of our goods were with the band of thieves.

  We made our way down from the chapel towards the foot of the hill. We could hear the men shouting ahead of us as they walked.

  It had fallen upon me to be the leader of our little party. I am not quite sure how it happened; I am the youngest; I am the only one not in holy orders. I am a pupil, not a friar. Maybe it was because I knew more than they did: I knew the purpose of our journey.

  Why do we have letters from the Pope? Brother Bernard asked me.

  To speed us on our way. The box is for him.

  What is in the box? Brother Andrew said.

  The whole world, I told him.

  Hard to believe that something so small could contain the whole world, Brother Bernard said in his usual tone of moody scorn.

  I did not explain. I was preparing myself for the battle ahead. I would, I decided, fight for the Book with my life, if that was what it would cost. My Master’s Great Work ends with a ferocious self-humbling and an awkward politics, flattering the Pope, exalting him as one who should be worshipped, the vicar of the church, as God on earth; but, before that, it is a promise of knowledge that will shake creation, as Aristotle instructed Alexander. Master Roger will be Clement’s Aristotle, his indispensable tutor, counsellor, father.

  And there are novelties in there, the secrets of magnetism and an ever-burning lamp, or how to make a firecracker to amuse children, the powder that is antidote to the most deadly snake bite, the slaying of poisonous things with the lightest touch. How to make an instrument of a year-old hazel twig that will vibrate to the natural powers of the earth. These things are offered to the Pope, not to a knave and his band.

  It is the world, I told them, in a book.

  A bible?

  Almost as important.

  It was a heresy for them to presume to take it, and an awful danger too, that they might read of the consuming fire that no water can put out, or of how to manufacture the crack louder than thunder that Gideon employed to defeat the Midianites.

  The vicious company was stopping. We stopped behind the shelter of three trees. They were in a rough circle near a roadside altar beneath which twigs and leaves had been laid for pilgrims to make a votive fire.

  We are higher up than they, and we have the advantage of suddenness, Brother Bernard said.

  An advantage that would quickly turn to its reverse if we have nothing to support it with.

  We have the sun at our backs, Brother Andrew said. Maybe they will be blinded as we ambush.

  It was clear that he did not have the capacity for a fight and I could hardly blame him, but guilt at his earlier desertion was driving him to affect an appetite for battle.

  I looked at the might of our tiny army. I examined our armoury. I made as if Master Roger was with us, to counsel us, to general our legions. And I asked Brother Andrew to repeat what he had said, and he did, and the spirit of God directed me.

  Phaeton and his chariot will help us, I said.

  I got to my knees to open the bag that contained the apparatus for the model to demonstrate to the Pope.

  What are they doing? I asked.

  What are you doing? Brother Bernard said. Praying?

  Just tell me what they are doing.

  They are standing, maybe they are disputing, Brother Andrew said.

  One is reaching for the box but Simeon will not let him have it, Brother Bernard said.

  Do not let them open the box, I said.

  I had thought that constructing the apparatus under the scrutiny of my Master would prepare me for the work of assembling it at any occasion. My Master’s eyes are stern and steady, the faculty for being observed is most acute under his scrutiny. But here, on the side of the hill, our most precious work the possession of a company of unworthy thieves, my hands were shaking, my fingers fumbling, my skin pricking with labour and fear, the metal support legs fell on to their sides, like a giant insect falling dead to the earth.
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  Some of the other men seem to be grasping for the box too, Brother Andrew said.

  And a smaller number are shoving against them. They are arguing, Brother Bernard said – but how are we going to stop them?

  I do not know. Think of something. Sing. Dance.

  The Palmer is shaking his head, Brother Andrew said.

  He’s losing the argument, Brother Bernard said.

  One of them is putting on your cloak, Brother Andrew said.

  Maybe, I feared, my Master was wrong and the villagers were right, and his powers had nothing to do with investigation and repetition; and at my touch, no power would assist me.

  They are about to open the box, Brother Bernard said.

  Were it not for the apple! Brother Andrew sang walking lightly down the hill towards the robbers.

  We should not have been saved! Brother Bernard sang walking more quickly to catch up with him.

  Were it not for the bondage! sang Brother Andrew.

  We would still have been slaves! sang Brother Bernard.

  I could see the unworthy band now, as my apparatus was constructed, its foreleg embedded in the earth. I was fixing the lens into place now. But one of the hind legs kept folding at its mid-joint, like a goat with a broken knee.

  The next two lines, they sang together:

  If not for captivity!

  We would never be free!

  And then Brother Bernard performed a little dance, moving as I have seen my father and the village people do at feast times, kicking his legs to and fro with his arms crossed over his chest. And Simeon the Palmer looked stupefied, but some of his men were laughing; and for a moment the box, which is shining and closed with a seal, and engraved for the Pope, was forgotten in a disputant’s hand, his knife halted in the air, and I had aimed the lens and it had caught the sun, and Phaeton’s chariot was riding through the glass to the patch of tinder beneath the altar. And I did pray then. I prayed to God Almighty and to the Virgin and to the Holy Spirit and to Christ our Redeemer, and to the orders of angels, and Brother Bernard was dancing and the men were watching him, and the sun shone through my Master’s lens and the wood that I was aiming at received the chariot. But it did not catch alight. A humble circle of light held steady beneath the altar, and the company was tiring of Brother Bernard’s show, and just as I was beginning to open myself up to the sin of despair, a raindrop from the leaves of the tree above me, or it might have been an angel’s tear, fell onto the centre of the glass, and the sun, magnified further, lit the first spark; and the fire caught and licked and jumped, and the robbers stared away from Brother Bernard, who was still dancing, and they gazed in fright upon the fire beneath the altar, before they fled, leaving our goods scattered behind.

  In such a way did we effect our first escape from Simeon the Palmer.

  • • •

  Once there was a frog who lived in the woods who was befriended by a certain mouse. In front of them was a pond, which the mouse wished to cross but had not the means of doing so. The frog said to the mouse, Trust me, friend mouse, we will tie one of your legs to one of mine with this string, and in this way, we will cross the pond together. The mouse was very afraid, for any body of water was a matter for dread and fear for him, but he trusted his friend and he had witnessed the strength of his swimming; so the frog tied their legs together and in this way, despite several submersions beneath the water for the anxious mouse, they crossed the pond in safety. Whereupon a great hawk swooped down upon them and carried them both away.

  • • •

  Saint Boniface’s Day

  The beloved founder of our Order instructs us to preach as we travel. Our sermons begin with an account from the lives of the saints. In this way, just as the faith of the sinner Saint Boniface was inflamed by the suffering of the martyrs, we light a fire in the imagination of our listeners that ignites an apprehension of the glory of God and the beauty of His Creation.

  But Brother Bernard is not a good preacher. In Latin, even in English, he is halting and raw. When he attempts French, he is stuttering, hesitant, unmanned. Brother Andrew is almost equally shy, but his beauty attracts the largest numbers and the greatest charity. Yesterday, we had to help Brother Bernard with words, even the Latin ones, because his audience was shrinking away, bringing dishonour on the speaker, on our Order, maybe even upon our Truth.

  On the edge of a wood, by a dip of the river, we rested. I faced my companions as if they were an audience of simple villagers and I narrated the glory and martyrdom of Saint Boniface.

  When Boniface, seeking salvation for his sins of lust and fornication, went to Tarsus, he saw the various kinds of torture devised by an impious executioner upon the gentle bodies of Christians. Aflame with the love of Christ, he called upon God and ran up to the martyrs and sat at their feet, kissing their chains and saying,

  O struggling martyrs of Christ, trample on the Devil! The torments you are suffering for the love of God will soon be over. Then you will be clothed in the glory of immortality and enjoying the vision of your King. You will render him praises of heavenly song amidst the choirs of angels and you will see the wicked men who are torturing you now themselves being tortured in the abyss of eternal calamity!

  Simplicius the judge heard all this and had Boniface brought before him. Who are you? he asked. Saint Boniface replied, I am a Christian and am called Boniface.

  The judge in his anger ordered him to be hung up and his body to be slashed with hooks until the bones showed; then splinters of wood were driven under his fingernails. The blessed martyr of God looked up to heaven and eagerly bore his pains, and the impious judge, seeing this, ordered molten lead to be poured into his mouth. The holy martyr said, I give you thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God!

  Then the judge ordered a tub to be brought and filled with boiling pitch, into which the holy martyr was plunged head first, but again he remained unharmed, so at the judge’s command his head was cut off with a sword. The moment this was done, a tremendous earthquake shook the ground, and many of the heathens, perceiving the power of Christ through the body of the martyr, became believers.

  Amen, said Brother Bernard.

  Now you try, said Brother Andrew.

  Brother Bernard looked at the trees ahead of him, at his toes lapped by the river, as if the dirt swirling away from his feet could be the picture of his salvation.

  Bernard cleared his throat. He stood. He held his hands together in front of him and then behind and then in front of him again. Finally he began, saying,

  When Boniface the fornicator came to Tarsus, he saw the Christian martyrs undergoing terrible tortures – What kinds of tortures?

  They might have been whipped or flayed, I said.

  Or had burning coals heaped upon them, Brother Andrew said.

  Which? Brother Bernard said.

  They were whipped and flayed, I told him; and we instructed him to proceed.

  Brother Bernard proceeded, saying,

  He fell to his knees, he kissed their chains, his heart burst into fire.

  Brother Andrew moved to correct him but stopped himself.

  And Brother Bernard proceeded, saying,

  Weeping Boniface ordered the martyrs to trample upon the Devil.

  He stopped. Where was the Devil? he said.

  We knew that Brother Bernard was asking this question to delay the remainder of his recitation, which doubtless he had forgotten, but we asked him to explain himself.

  Where was the Devil? he said. Was he in the executioner or the judge or was he there standing by the sides of the martyrs mocking them?

  Maybe in all those places, Brother Andrew said; and looked at me, because he respects my greater learning.

  What does the Devil look like? Brother Bernard said.

  The physical eye cannot see the Devil as he is, I said.

  Why is that? Brother Bernard said. I have heard of those who have seen the Devil.

  Because the Devil is spirit and it is the opini
on of almost all the masters that only spirit can see spirit.

  But, Brother Andrew said, angels are spirit too, and scripture tells us of the angels who visited Lot and the angels who descended to earth and engendered a race of giants from …

  His natural modesty prevented him from finishing his sentence.

  I quoted to my companions the words of the Apostle Paul,

  Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in high places.

  The judge was the highest, so was the Devil in him? Brother Bernard said.

  The Devil is in all the enemies of men, who try to steer the righteous away from Christ’s path.

  And who prey upon the righteous, Brother Andrew said.

  So the Palmer. The Devil is in him.

  Brother Bernard believes the Palmer to be the image of the Devil, and maybe he is right. Maybe the Devil is a slightly built man with a receding chin and dark eyes and dark hair that stands on end who smells of violets.

  At least he is his ally, I said. The gospel of Matthew treats of the Devil, and that is the fifth book. Five is the apostate number, since if it is joined to any other odd number as a multiplier it always shows itself, perhaps at the beginning, certainly at the end. Thus the Devil, withdrawing from the foursquare of eternal stability, is the first to ally himself with wicked men, who are as unequal numbers, and shows himself in his iniquity, often at the beginning, and always at the end of act or speech. So it is written, and so we saw in the iniquity of Simeon the Palmer.

  So how did Boniface trample on the Devil? Brother Bernard said.

  He did not trample on the Devil, he was exhorting the martyrs to do so, Brother Andrew said.

  By resisting the temptation to renounce their Saviour, by not succumbing to the injuries inflicted upon their bodies to prejudice their eternal souls, I said.