A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom

by John Boyne

  “What’s got into you?” asked Ulla, frowning at me. “Adela was dead before you were even born so there’s no need to look offended on her behalf. Anyway, where will Ulvhild go if this next marriage doesn’t succeed? Should Adeliza of England worry that she’ll sail across the water to steal King Henry? Should Isabella of France be keeping a closer eye on King Philip? That woman won’t rest until she’s bedded the king of every European country and, even then, she’ll probably look eastward toward the heathen world.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “I haven’t been with many women, Brother,” Janne remarked a little later as we rode together in the direction of Vreta Abbey, where Queen Ulvhild wished to pay her respects to her first husband, the slain King Inge, before marching to the capital to meet her third. She saw it as a pilgrimage of sorts, employing that word as often as possible in order to suggest divine approval for her journey, although there were some in our party who wondered whether it might serve more as an atonement than anything else. After all, there were rumors that Ulvhild herself had served the drink that ended the King’s life. “No more than a thousand, I would estimate.”

  “A thousand?” I cried in astonishment. I could scarcely fathom how a man could be so promiscuous and still have enough energy to get through the day.

  “I know, it doesn’t seem like that many,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders and looking a little humbled, “but it’s been enough for me. I’m a man of simple tastes and limited means. How about you?” he asked.

  “Fewer than that,” I told him, which was quite the understatement in itself. “Far, far fewer than that.”

  “But still, I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman like Ulla before. She can do things to a man that would make your toes curl and your eyes pop from your head.”

  “Indeed,” I said, not wishing to imagine them.

  “And have you ever seen such a beauty?”

  “She’s…unique, that’s for sure.”

  “I like that word, Brother. Unique! She is that!”

  “And her…her unusual scent?” I asked carefully.

  “I know,” he replied, his face lighting up. “It’s exhilarating, isn’t it? I like a woman to smell like meat and beer!”

  “I can see why you’re so drawn to her, then,” I said. “She definitely smells of those. Among other things.”

  “And you haven’t even got to sniff the best parts of her,” he added, laughing lustily. “The woman hasn’t washed in a year so the smell down there—”

  “Brother, please!” I cried, raising a hand to stop him from saying any more, for I felt ill even at the idea of it. That such a cantankerous scold could prove an enchantress in the bedchamber remained bewildering to me. Still, despite his more unwelcome confidences, I was happy for him and pleased that my brother felt comfortable talking to me in such intimate terms.

  “And you?” he asked. “You seem to be enjoying the journey.”

  “In what sense?” I said.

  “Don’t play coy, Brother,” he said, slapping me on the back. “You and Ulvhild. Although you’re taking your life in your hands there. She’s about to become a queen for the third time, remember. She murdered her first husband, caused the death of her second, and now returns to Sweden to marry the new King. How many more crowns will she steal before her looks fade?”

  “She is no murderess,” I said. I felt flattered by her attention toward me, of course, and her lovemaking was spectacular, but if I was honest, I considered her an intimidating presence, for she had a way of looking at me that suggested that if I did not perform up to her standards, then she would feel no guilt about slitting my throat and finding someone else to attend to her physical needs.

  “Or perhaps you have designs on a crown yourself?” he asked.

  I laughed. “There is little chance of that, Janne,” I said.

  “You don’t think so? If she kills the third one and ascends the throne of Sweden, then she’ll be looking for a consort. Someone she can keep in his place. This one has been ruled by men for far too long and some say she could wield an orb better than any man alive. Her claim would be strong, too. She might even unite the Scandinavian kingdoms under her own rule if she put her mind to it.”

  I shook my head. “There’s no part of me that wants to be a king,” I said. “I’m a simple man.”

  “That’s what everyone with ambition says,” he replied.

  * * *

  • • •

  Queen Ulvhild told me that she wanted to enter Vreta Abbey alone. It had been standing for less than thirty years and, while she and her first husband had supported it financially throughout their reign, she had visited on only a few occasions in the past, notably on the night that he had drunk from the poisoned chalice before falling to his death.

  Taking advantage of the Queen’s absence, Janne and Ulla disappeared into the woods together, she slung over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes. I tried not to picture the antics they would be engaging in within the forest—no doubt she would complain about the roughness of the bark, or the insects on the ground, or the sun being too hot, or not hot enough, or too bright, or too sallow.

  While the Queen was in the abbey, I took a walk around the grounds, looking up toward the clock tower, and marveling at the work that had gone into the monastery’s design, feeling a pang for the artistic ideals that had once been such a part of my life, and wondered why I had abandoned them. For a moment, reading the inscriptions in the stonework, I questioned whether I should abandon my quest for Hasse entirely and return home, set up a workshop and return to the things that I had once loved. Reaching out now to touch the carvings, my fingers connected with the stone, and, in that same moment, a burst of lightning sounded from the sky above, but when I looked up, the weather was clear and the sky was blue. My companions did not seem to have heard it, despite the intensity of the clamor, for they were talking among themselves and seemed undisturbed. The lightning sounded again and now my hand appeared to be stuck to the wall for, no matter how I tried to pull it away, it would not move. What sorcery was this? I asked myself, and only the sound of weeping nearby pulled me from this strange reverie. I snapped out of it at last and my hand came free from the wall.

  I turned around, feeling deeply unsettled, and watched as a young woman dressed in the white habit and veil of a postulant made her way around the corner before sitting down on a bench, a set of rosary beads clasped between her hands. She was weeping silently and, intrigued, I stepped closer toward her. As I approached, I coughed a little, so as not to startle her, but when she looked up, she did not seem like someone who would be easily frightened.

  “Who are you?” she asked, and I bowed before her in order to show that I meant her no harm, offering my name and telling her that I had arrived in service to Queen Ulvhild.

  “I saw her inside,” said the woman. “I tried to greet her, but she waved me away as if I was a fly. They say that the last time she was here she poisoned her husband. She’s kneeling on the altar now, praying for forgiveness, I suppose.”

  “Or praying for the safe repose of his soul,” I suggested. “For who knows the truth of what went on that night? And who are you, if I may be so bold? Will you tell me your name?”

  She looked me up and down for a moment, as if deciding whether or not she wanted to continue this conversation. “Signy,” she said finally.

  “And you’re a nun?”

  “Not yet,” she replied, shaking her head. “But I will be one day, I’m told.”

  “You’re told? Have you not chosen this path for yourself, then?”

  She shrugged and looked away.

  “May I sit?” I asked.

  Again, it took her some time to decide whether or not she would grant me this honor but, eventually, she nodded, and I took my place next to her on the bench, keeping as respectful a d
istance between us as I could.

  “How long have you lived at the abbey?” I asked.

  “Six months,” she replied.

  “Something tells me that you did not come of your own volition.”

  She smiled ruefully and turned, the tears drying on her cheeks now, and there was something musical in her voice when she spoke again. “I’m nineteen years old,” she said. “And a woman. Do you really think there is anything that I do that is of my own volition?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I expect not.”

  “It is the way of the world,” she said.

  “Your family sent you here, then?”

  She smiled a little. “Not quite,” she said. “It’s a long story and not one to go into on such a beautiful day as this. Particularly with a stranger.”

  “Perhaps you’ll tell me why you were crying, then?” I asked.

  “Because today is an important one for me,” she said. “It is marked deeply in my heart.”

  I nodded. I knew enough not to inquire any further.

  “And you?” she asked. “You will be here at the abbey for long?”

  “We ride on when the Queen is finished praying,” I told her. “The Swedish king is preparing to make her his bride.”

  “I hope he has someone to taste his food,” she said, and, despite myself, I laughed. As I did so, I looked up and saw Ulvhild standing by the entrance to the abbey, watching me with a curious expression on her face. I jumped to my feet, ready to go as soon as I was bidden, and turned to Signy to say that it had been a pleasure to meet her, but she had already departed, her feet taking her quickly back in the direction from which she had appeared.

  My eyes followed her, even when the Queen called me, and called me again, until I at last obeyed and walked toward her. When I stood before her, she slapped me hard across the face, her ring catching against my lip and drawing blood from the corner of my mouth.

  * * *

  • • •

  As it turned out, we did not ride on immediately after the Queen’s prayers, for the abbess, Mother Pernilla, invited Ulvhild to stay for dinner and pass the night at Vreta before continuing to the capital the next day. Seated next to each other over an insubstantial plate of potatoes and dry meat, and drinking a glass of wine, the Queen was still annoyed with me, but I refused to acknowledge her irritation and spoke as if nothing unusual had taken place at all. Finally, she laid down her cutlery and turned to me with an expression of pure fury on her face.

  “I will not be made a fool of,” she said, and I continued eating, uncertain why she was telling me this. “Are you listening to me?”

  “I can hear you, certainly,” I said. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You and that girl earlier. In the gardens.”

  “The nun, you mean?”

  “The postulant.”

  “A nun by any other name.”

  “You were trying to seduce her.”

  I shook my head. “I am many things,” I said. “But a seducer of nuns is not one of them. If I have displeased Your Majesty in any way—”

  “Just remember what happened to my first husband,” she hissed. “Here in this very place.” She reached forward for the flagon of wine that sat on the table before us and poured a glass before handing it to me. I stared at it, momentarily paralyzed, but then lifted it and drank it down, placing the empty glass back on the table and returning to my food. I did not intend to be intimidated by her. If death was to come for me, then let it come. I had faced more frightening ordeals.

  “I didn’t realize that you had feelings for me,” I said. “I assumed ours was a purely physical relationship.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said. “I don’t have any stronger feelings for you than I would have for a dog in the street. But if it’s my dog, then only I get to play with it. So don’t make a fool of me, do you hear? We only have a few more days together and, after that, perhaps I will want you to remain at the palace for longer. My next husband is not a handsome man, they tell me, and I will need entertaining.”

  CHINA

  A.D. 1191

  IF I FELT ILL-USED that my life had become subject to the whims and caprices of the Empress Li Fengniang, it was nothing compared to the subordination experienced by her husband, our Imperial Ruler, the Emperor Guangzong, who, despite being the Exalted One and the Son of Heaven, suffered greatly from his poor choice of wife.

  Weeks after accompanying this toxic creature, this serpent of the lake, this foul-tongued harridan, back to Lin’An after her pilgrimage to the Shaolin Monastery, I now completely regretted having joined the royal party at all for, as I discovered, once welcomed into the imperial household, it was almost impossible to be released from it again.

  Traveling back from Henan Province, the insatiable Empress insisted that I provide her with pleasures of the flesh, and while my brother Jiao-long was amused by how exhausted I grew, he advised that I would do well to end relations with Li Fengniang as soon as we reached the imperial court. Others had fallen under her spell, he told me, and had grown to regret such an awkward alliance. It was advice that I was minded to heed but, once we arrived in the capital, the Empress refused to permit me to return to private life, despite my best entreaties. I even confided in her the truth about my past and my ongoing search for my errant cousin, Hai, hoping that such honesty would burrow its way into that hidden part of her soul where goodness lay, but, to my disappointment if not my surprise, my words fell upon deaf ears.

  The Emperor himself was a weak man, controlled by his mother, the Grand Empress Dowager Wu, and by Li Fengniang herself, the two women locked in mortal combat for dominion over his soul. Wu frightened me even more than her daughter-in-law, for she was known to order on impulse the execution of anyone who displeased her. The most trivial offense was grist to her murderous personality—not bowing at the correct elevation when the imperial presence passed; possessing a speaking voice that was offensive to the imperial sense of harmony; wearing a color that displeased the imperial eye—and I made sure to steer clear of those parts of the palace where she was known to spend most of her time, for I valued the bond between my head and my shoulders and had no desire to break it.

  The position that was thrust upon me at court was one from which, in other circumstances, I might have derived great pleasure, for I had been a dress-maker by trade before the murder of my wife and son and had spent much of my youth designing lavish robes for the ladies of my village, my colorful sashes being a particular mark of my style. Being put in charge of the imperial wardrobe, with forty seamstresses under my command, would have been a welcome challenge, were it not for the fact that I longed to be elsewhere.

  Li Fengniang came to my room without warning most nights, offering detailed instructions on how she wanted me to pleasure her, vile perversions that she had read about in the forbidden books. If I diverged from her desires by even a jot, she would complain and beat me about the head with a stick, using words like “fox spirit,” “rabbit whelp” and “mallard’s orphan” to diminish me, but at tender moments she would cling tightly to my body, claiming that no man had ever given her the satisfaction that I did, a compliment that might have appealed to the vanity of proud men but which served only to prolong my stay in Lin’An.

  On one such occasion, having performed the sort of unspeakable acts upon which even a farmyard animal might have turned its back, I sat on the corner of my bed, lost in despair and shame and, looking across at Li Fengniang, who was sighing in contentment, decided to plead my case once again.

  “Perhaps if Her Imperial Majesty, the most sparkling diamond in the shimmering tiara of the world, would permit me a year away from the capital, I might be permitted to continue my journey and—”

  “No,” she replied, interrupting me and waving her hand in the air as if she were swatting
away a fly.

  “The Daughter of Heaven, the most gracious Empress Li Fengniang, will remember that when I first joined her retinue on the invitation of my older brother, honored Jiao-long, it was with the intention of continuing with Her Imperial Majesty’s train only as far as Lin’An so that I might inquire of people along the way whether they had encountered my cousin.”

  “We’ve had this conversation,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Many times. The answer each time has been no, and it remains no.”

  “Your humble servant is flattered that the most precious jewel in the diadem of the heavens enjoys the company of one so unworthy as I,” I continued. “But I have it on good authority that many of the young men in the palace find that they become almost blind with adoration when Her Imperial Majesty, the brightest pearl in the heart of a glorious oyster, passes their way. Many would die happy if they could spend a single night in her company, satisfying her every need.”

  She yawned heavily and looked at me as if she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to commit the marriage act with me for a fifth time that day or have me beheaded.

  “It’s kind of you to care so deeply for my gratifications,” she said. “But the fact is, I have tried engaging with other men on the nights that I am not with you, but none pleases me quite as you do. You’re not the world’s most handsome man, it’s true, but you have a certain something that remains delicious to me. No, you will remain here at my pleasure and feel honored to do so. I may tire of you at some point—you will grow old and withered, you will no longer be able to perform as men should—and when that day comes, I will either have you thrown in the river or give you leave to quit the palace. Or, perhaps, you might choose to kill yourself from the shame of displeasing me.”

  I soon grew to realize that the more I begged to leave, the more determined she was that I should stay, and as the weeks passed, I grew so frustrated that I found myself cursing the bad luck that had led me to this place. Time was moving on, after all, and Hai would undoubtedly be moving further away all the time. I considered leaving without permission but knew that, if I did such a thing, she would send hunters who would track me down and return me to her clutches before I could get far; the skin would be peeled from my body in a public square, one slice at a time, as she watched and laughed.