John the Pupil. David Flusfeder

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      Saint Restituta’s Day

      It is said that, From a clear spring, clear waters flow. A man is estimated by the company he keeps. Brothers Andrew, Bernard and I stood outside the friary. Master Roger kept reiterating the details of my mission. You will tell the Pope this, and this, and you will demonstrate the device to him, and you will insist upon the need for a more satisfactory translation of the Bible.

      The details of my mission are written on my memory. I had no need to be instructed in any of them.

      And you will take this bag for the gathering of treasures. And here is parchment for you to write on. If you find the opportunity, send communication to me. And you remember the details of your itinerary?

      I remember.

      Our Great Work is in this box. Do not dare open it.

      The bag for treasure is a heavy cloth one, the sort the villagers use to gather the harvest of apples. The box is made of wood and stained a dark red colour like blood. A single green stone is set into its lid and green wax seals it shut.

      Do not open it. Promise me you will not open it.

      I will not open it.

      And you will carry this also.

      He gave me this final load without care, wrapped in linen and tied with twine.

      You will open this only when you have given up all hope. You understand me?

      The extra packet is heavy at the bottom of the sack I carry, further cloth around it with my bowl and spoon and knife and parchment and styluses wrapped inside. The device I am to demonstrate to the Pope and the box containing the Great Work are in Brother Bernard’s sack.

      I implore divine mercy that He Who is the One, the beginning and the ending, Alpha and Omega, might join a good end to a good beginning by a safe middle, my Master said.

      Brother Bernard is eternally phlegmatic. He stood there, ox-like, bearing the burden of our load. Brother Andrew looked as anxious as I must have done. He shivered, his eyes closing and opening and closing against the sunshine. Suddenly, the prospect of a journey was a matter of trepidation. I had never been outside the village and the friary, except on the wings of Master Roger’s knowledge, and during my imaginary journeys. The friars gathered at the gate, Master Roger wiped away something that was occluding his eyes, and the Principal gave the blessing of the Sarum Missal.

      The almighty and everlasting God, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, dispose your journey according to His good will; send his angel Raphael to keep you in this your pilgrimage, and both lead you in peace on your way to the place where you would be, and bring you back again on your return to us in safety.

      And so our journey began. We walked past the village on the way to the river. I fancied I saw my father in a field beating a goat.

      Saint Helena’s Day

      The wood of the cross was a vile wood, because crosses used for crucifixions were made of vile wood. It was an unfruitful wood, because no matter how many such trees were planted on the mount of Calvary, the wood gave no fruit. It was a low wood, because it was used for the execution of criminals; a wood of darkness, because it was dark and without any beauty; a wood of death, because on it men were put to death; a malodorous wood, because it was planted among cadavers. After Christ’s passion what had been low became sublime. Its stench became an odour of sweetness. Darkness turns to light. As Augustine says, The cross, which was the gibbet of criminals, has made its way to the foreheads of emperors. As Chrysostom says, Christ’s cross and his scars will, on the Day of Judgement, shine more brightly than the sun’s rays.

      After the murder of Our Lord, the Romans built a temple to Venus on Golgotha, so that any Christian praying there would be seen to be worshipping Venus. When Saint Helena, wife of the first Constantine, mother of the second, came to Jerusalem to find the True Cross, she commanded the temple to be razed, the earth to be ploughed up, and three crosses were disinterred, because Christ had been crucified beside two thieves. To distinguish between the crosses, she had them placed in the centre of Jerusalem and Saint Helena waited for the Lord to manifest his glory. At about the ninth hour, a funeral procession was going past. The dead man’s body was placed beneath each of the crosses, and beneath the third cross, the dead man came back to life.

      •

      The way cuts into us. Pebbles and twigs assail our feet, branches lash our faces and eyes. Our stops for rest are more frequent than I should have liked. The sun moves fast in the heavens; our feet go slowly on the ground. After the exhilaration of setting off on our journey when we took too fast a pace, stung by the novelty of strange trees and different faces, our bodies protested the labour. To Viterbo? To Paris? Canterbury, even Rochester would seem impossible. By the end of the day the next-but-one step would seem impossible.

      Brother Bernard hardly speaks. He grunts when he walks, our beast of burden, our donkey. It is forbidden to members of our Order to ride. It is also forbidden to carry. We carry and yet refuse to ride, when a passing merchant or farmer offers us room in his cart, as if resisting a second sin obviates the first already committed. We are not pilgrims, or penitents, we are on a mission to the Pope, but my companions, who are ignorant of the true reason for our journey, refuse to break the saint’s commandment. They are both perplexed by their supposed crime and banishment. Neither, I think, is unhappy to have left the friary. Brother Andrew’s good nature emerges in whistling and song and an excited regard of everything he sees.

      We walk. We accept alms from strangers who have sins to expiate. We walk in the same rhythm. The road we walked on was wide. And there were others on it too, I had never seen such diversity of kinds. Farmers driving their pigs, merchants in carts, cattle for market grazing by the side. And sometime a fine horseman would gallop past down the middle of the road. And we would gaze upon the finery and the speed and the hoof prints left in the mud and the steam disturbing the air.

      Towards the end of the day, we had been singing to forget the pain in our legs and feet, until we had fallen silent, a little chiding, and then silent again, as we listened to the sound of our tread on the way.

      People are kind to us. At night we were invited to sleep in a barn, our new dormitory with its friary of donkeys and convent of hens. I was asked by Brother Andrew if I understood their language.

      Yes, I told him, they are saying, Please do not eat me. If you spare my life, I will lay you a very fine egg in the morning.

      And he looked in wonder at the hens and thanked God for the wisdom that can penetrate mysteries, and Brother Bernard grunted, and I might easily suppose that he is the one who can speak the languages of the animals.

      We slept on rough straw and as I fell asleep I felt, for the first time, the desire to be back in the friary where life is understood and I am under the shelter of my Master.

      We were woken by a child who had been sent to bring us bread and milk, which was still warm from the sheep. The first taste of the milk was the strongest and the fullest, as if our appetites had shrunk to the shape of their first satisfaction. Rain and sunshine dripped through holes in the roof. Brother Andrew was smiling as he led us through the prayers. You O Lord will open my mouth. And my mouth shall declare your praise.

      Our feet were aching to return to the journey. Bernard gathers his load, Andrew laid some stones into the sign of the cross. We stopped for breakfast and then Brother СКАЧАТЬ