Knowledge of Angels

by Jill Paton Walsh

  He leaned back and watched them. ‘You are too quick,’ he said in a while, ‘There’s more. I’ll finish for you.’ Taking her again, he lingered, moving slowly, till he had her mewing like a gull in flight. ‘Enough?’ he said, leaving her. She smiled at him, her eyelids drooping in that instant drowsiness coition brings.

  Palinor got up, padded barefoot round the bed, and got in beside Joffre. ‘Our turn,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you something else.’ He kissed the boy hard and turned him face down on the crumpled sheets. Afterwards, rolling over, he said, ‘Now you do that to me.’ Then for a while they all slept, the lingering heat of the afternoon lulling their sleek bodies. When Palinor woke, he found Dolca lying beside him wide-eyed, with a tear flowing down her right cheek. ‘Do you think we have deserted you?’ he murmured. ‘Give me your hand.’ And he showed her how with oil and honey, with a sliding palm and a greedy tongue she could accomplish for both of them a resurrection of the flesh, till satiety was overcome by ecstasies of lust.

  Much later, after nightfall, when they were at last hungry, and the servants went, walking weak-kneed and as though drunk, in search of food, Palinor put on a cloak over his nakedness and went out on the colonnade. The moonlight was casting molten silver over the moving column of water he had raised up. At the far end of the colonnade Beneditx’s window was lit, and the grid between the panes made it appear like a large lantern in which Beneditx’s head, bowed over his books, was centred like the flame. ‘I could teach you a thing or two about triangles,’ said Palinor, softly, and he returned to his room, where Joffre was setting out a late supper on his table and Dolca was bundling up an armful of sheets musky with the blended odours of oil, honey, blood, semen and sweat.

  23

  It was dusk when Severo reached Ciudad, and the night watch were closing the gates. They held them half open for him and greeted him as he rode through. It had been very hot in the city; the streets still brimmed with the heavy warmth. Lights were lit in windows, and he glimpsed families sitting round their tables. Drinkers at a tavern had carried their mugs into the street and stood around under a lantern hanging in a tree. Someone called, ‘Bless you, Holiness!’ as he passed, in so light a tone it was impossible to judge whether it was mocking or no. Severo half lifted a hand from the pommel of his saddle in reply. A girl’s laugh cascaded from an unlit upper window, and he saw Rafal look up.

  They had to knock to be admitted to the courtyard of the cathedral palace, but as soon as they entered an anxious clerk came running. ‘There is someone to see you, Holiness.’

  ‘So late?’

  ‘He won’t go away; he sits waiting.’

  Severo sighed. He was tired, and he wanted to sit quietly, thinking over the day, thinking of Palinor’s words.

  The visitor was sitting on a bench outside Severo’s cell, leaning against the wall. He was wearing monastic habit, and his hood was up, deeply shading his face. But when Severo appeared he stood up and threw back the hood. ‘I think you are expecting me,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Severo.

  ‘Cardinal,’ the man said quietly. ‘You must be expecting me.’

  ‘I am not,’ said Severo. ‘State your business.’ He looked hard at the intruder. A tonsured head; a puffy face, with the colour and texture of raw dough. The eyes were deep set, and glittered coldly at him, like marcasite.

  ‘We have heard . . . It has been reported to us that you have a particularly impious and contumacious heretic on the island. And that you have not promulgated an edict of grace. You have not handed him over to your local Inquisition for examination. You have spirited him away somewhere out of sight. Frankly, you must be expecting me, or someone like me. I am Fra Damaso Murta. I have plenipotentiary powers. I am a special inquisitor.’

  ‘You wish me to put my own position in front of you positively, instead of simply carping negatively at yours?’ said Palinor. He and Beneditx were walking along the covered walk – a tunnel of green leaves, lovingly trained by the gardeners. Alongside it ran a little runnel from the fountain, which had been simply a tumbling water last time Beneditx stepped this way, but was now a sequence of tiny fountains, making fans or weaving water jets in interlacing patterns, so that the sound of water filled the air, and the bright little displays with the sunlight behind them sparkled, and cast moving patterned shadows on the path between the shadow columns of the overarching vines. ‘I am not sure I should agree to that.’

  ‘Why not? Why ever not?’ asked Beneditx.

  ‘I do not understand faith,’ said Palinor. ‘But I have a kind of respect for it. There are people in Aclar for whom a position based on faith is like a red rag to a bull; they try at once to drag it down. I believe my position to be very strong – unanswerable, in fact. But I do not wish to proselytize, least of all here, on a theological island! I do not seek to persuade you as you have sought to persuade me.’

  ‘I seek to persuade you still. I invite you to expose your own arguments to the possibility of refutation.’

  ‘At your own risk?’

  ‘Certainly. Do not hesitate,’ said Beneditx, though he felt a touch of chill.

  Nevertheless, Palinor did hesitate. They reached the end of the walk and turned before he said, ‘Well, to start with, I do not find the world around me puzzling in the way you do. I am not amazed to find that things move, things change, things operate as causes or arise as effects. Whereas you assert that these things are so mysterious they must have some cause – you call it God – which is outside the material universe, I am content to think that material things have material causes, and things contrived, like fountains, shall we say, have causes in human ingenuity and human will. Your attempt to prove otherwise seems nearly scandalous to me.’

  ‘Scandalous? What do you mean, Palinor?’

  ‘First you say that nothing moves without a mover. Then you say that after all there must be something which moves without a mover, else the process could not start. This is an argument whose conclusion contradicts one of its premisses. But, Beneditx, much more important is another difference between us. Living as you do, here on Grandinsula, you are surrounded by belief; it seems to you that disbelievers must prove their point. But logically, you must see, this is not so. It is always a person who proposes something for belief who must prove it; the burden of proof must lie with those who suggest that in addition to what we can see and feel around us, there is a God. And even your philosopher saint, I think – you will correct me if I am wrong – agreed that things which can be explained by fewer principles should not be explained by more.’

  ‘But it seemed to him obvious that there could be no explanation of the world around us without postulating God. He needed even to discuss whether so self-evident a proposition could be demonstrated.’

  ‘Your proofs all call God into the issue to be an explanation,’ Palinor said. ‘But God is a useless explanation – he explains too much. Potentially he explains everything, and to explain everything is to explain nothing.’

  ‘I do not understand you.’

  ‘You can explain one thing in terms of another. I can explain the behaviour of fountains by saying it is a law of nature that water flows in such a way; I can explain the growth of vines by saying that all plants reach towards the light, and the orderly curve of these tendrils above our heads by saying that the gardener tied them thus. These explanations refer to something else, something else in the material world. But if you explain by reference to God, you explain too much. God’s will could indeed explain why water flows downhill; but it would equally, and likewise, explain why it flowed uphill, if it did. It will explain every state of affairs, and would equally explain any conceivable alternative state of affairs. But for that precise reason it cannot therefore explain why water flows downhill and not uphill; it makes no distinction between what happens and what does not. I cannot see, therefore, how one could use what happens as evidence for God’s existence.’

  ‘Give me time to think,’ said Beneditx. ‘That is a n
ew idea to me.’

  ‘Beneditx, do you require me to come to believe in a weak God, or a strong one?’

  ‘What do you mean, my friend?’

  ‘A weak God – such as an explanation for a falling stone, or the excellence of a bird’s wing for flight – or a strong God, such as the God of Abraham?’

  ‘They are the same. The difference is only that one might reach, by pure unaided reason, your “weak” God; knowledge of the God of Abraham is given us through revelation. A man like you, who has not received revealed truth, is not expected to know it.’

  ‘And is a man like me allowed to enquire why the God of revelation is admirable? Is he not depicted to us as both crazed and vengeful? Did he not set an apple in front of a man and woman, and then punish them horribly for eating it? And did he not, with injustice that surpasses that of the grossest human judge, punish also many millions who did not eat, merely for being descended from Adam, who did? Why should I not conclude that this God is less than human, rather than more?’

  ‘The bitten apple is only a figure. All men are sinful, and have deserved hell.’

  ‘But what would you say to a human judge who justified punishing a man for a crime he had not committed on the grounds that although he was innocent of what was alleged against him, he had done something else?’

  ‘You must have in mind that God is God of the New Testament as well as of the Old.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Who is mollified in his unjust vendetta by a sacrifice of innocent blood . . .’

  ‘Hush, Palinor!’ cried Beneditx. ‘These are great mysteries. Where were we when he laid the foundations of the earth? When all the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy? Have we entered into the springs of the sea? Have we walked in the search of the depth? Can we say, hath the rain a father? Or who hath begotten the drops of dew?’

  Beneditx was standing stock still, with tears pouring down his face.

  ‘I spoke because you told me to speak; I will hush since you tell me to hush,’ said Palinor. ‘I did not mean to distress you. And you have retreated now, I think, where I cannot follow you.’

  ‘Take off your shoes,’ said Beneditx. ‘For this is holy ground.’

  ‘What do you mean by trespassing in our fields?’ demanded Sor Agnete. ‘This is a holy cloister, and our seclusion is surrounded by holy vows. All who have lawful business here come by the gate.’ She was standing facing Jaime, leading a little group of novices and the two gardeners, all with stout sticks in their hands. He had been seen from the window of someone’s cell, talking to Josefa and Amara.

  ‘I did not mean to intrude upon a nun,’ said Jaime, blushing. ‘I wished only to speak to . . . her.’ He pointed to Amara.

  ‘Are you not ashamed to persecute the child with vulgar curiosity? To afflict her with cruel stares that drag her down again, that make of her a thing?’ Sor Agnete’s indignation and contempt rang in her voice.

  Josefa said, ‘Sister, he knows her; he has had dealings with her before; he says that she made those scars he wears . . .’

  ‘Come and explain yourself,’ said Sor Agnete. She led Jaime back down the grassy path below the orchard trees and made him wait in the gatehouse. Later, he found himself talking to the abbess.

  ‘Why did you not come openly, if you meant no harm?’ she asked him.

  ‘I have been forbidden to come; I have been forbidden even to think of her,’ he said, miserably.

  ‘Who has forbidden you?’

  ‘His Holiness, the cardinal. But Mother, I cannot obey him! I have tried, believe me I have tried! But in the night, or as I work in the fields, the thought creeps back to me. It is like a raging fever, Mother, a craving like the need for water in the heat . . .’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she said. He told her how he had stopped the blow from Galceran’s blade, that would have killed the child. How the others had thought he had been wrong. He told her what he had done about it, how he had brought the child into Severo’s care. How he had been dismissed. How he had struggled to keep from remembering any of it, often in vain, and how he had at last heard a rumour, reaching his village through tavern talk, that there was a wolf-child being reared at Sant Clara. He said he had come, on foot. He had seen the mob at the gate, and had thought of beating on a drum to make them think soldiers were coming.

  ‘What drum?’ she asked him. ‘Why did you bring a drum?’

  He pulled a little drum from his pack, and held it out to her. ‘It is a toy,’ he said. ‘I brought it for her. May she have it?’

  ‘You puzzle me,’ the abbess said. ‘Why bring a drum?’

  ‘I am married, now,’ he told her. ‘I have three fields and some olive trees. My wife will bear me a child in the spring. I made a drum for my child, and then I thought to make another for that other child.’

  ‘Well, it was lucky you did,’ she said, warming to him. ‘You helped scare off that crowd of rascals. You know, of course, that you must obey the cardinal. That I must send you away and forbid you to return. As for the wanton thoughts that have tormented you, we will pray for you, that God will help you to think of other things.’

  ‘It will be easier, now that I know she is cared for,’ he said. ‘Now I have seen her stand and heard her talk. But, Mother . . .’

  ‘There can be no buts,’ she said sternly. ‘You must simply obey.’

  ‘If ever she needs a friend,’ he said. ‘if ever there is something to be done for her in the world outside the cloister; if I could serve her, would you summon me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the abbess. ‘If there were ever any need, we would send for you. But now you must leave, and endeavour to do henceforward what his Holiness commanded you. You may give Amara the drum,’ she added.

  Searching for Joffre with an errand for him, Palinor found him on his knees before a crucifix on the chamber wall, praying.

  ‘I haven’t seen you pray before,’ said Palinor. ‘Is it a new thing?’

  The boy blushed and got up.

  ‘You needn’t stop, for me,’ said Palinor.

  The boy said, ‘Sir, is there for you such a thing as sin?’

  Palinor smiled, laughed, nearly. Then he said gently, ‘There are things one should not do. That self-love should keep one from. None of them bring joy. None of them have we done together.’

  Joffre’s grave expression lightened. ‘What kind of thing is sinful in Aclar, sir?’

  ‘Each man there would give a different answer,’ Palinor said.

  ‘And your answer, sir?’

  ‘There are many things I would not do,’ said Palinor. ‘But no misdeed could be graver, it seems to me, than trying to increase one’s own luminance by quenching the light shining from another man. There’s a problem calling it sin, however, when it is committed most often by holy men, by revered teachers, priests, mullahs . . .’

  The boy furrowed his brow.

  ‘Leave sin to churchmen. They have the expertise,’ said Palinor. ‘And get me something to eat, will you? I am hungry.’

  24

  Severo sat facing Fra Damaso Murta across the table in the cathedral refectory. Great though the powers of a cardinal might be, they did not extend to countermanding a special inquisitor. The prince of Grandinsula, be he cardinal or no, could not defy the Inquisition, without facing terrible anathemas from Rome. And that would be a scandal among the people. The simple people feared heretics as they feared witchcraft; they gladly assisted inquisitors, in hope of procuring their own salvation. And Severo had taken the great vows to serve and obey the Church that are laid on all the clergy, and had thought to live and die without the least temptation to break them. He was struggling to overmaster dislike of the man before him, and do what he had decided, overnight, and in prayer, to do. He was going to explain to the special inquisitor why he had not proceeded in the usual manner, and invite him to take an interest in the snow-child.

  Fra Murta listened to the account of Palinor, to the careful analysis of his position that Se
vero put before him, with pursed lips. The expression made his features, loaded with surplus fat, wobble, so that he looked like a pig.

  ‘You are too scrupulous, Holiness,’ he said icily. ‘Of course an atheist is a heretic.’

  ‘I have understood from the best scholarship available to me that there is some doubt whether knowledge of God is innate,’ said Severo. He paused, in case his opponent wished to contradict him, but Fra Murta offered no comment. ‘How would it be,’ Severo continued, ‘if there were available to us an absolute proof, worldly evidence of an incontrovertible nature, that the knowledge of God is inborn in everyone? Would that not be a missionary weapon of great power? Would you not like to have such a thing?’

  ‘What kind of evidence do you mean?’ asked Fra Murta.

  ‘Suppose there were a child reared outside human society, who had never heard a word spoken in any language. Suppose such a child were taught to speak in careful seclusion, so that it could not accidentally learn the truths of religion; and then suppose one were to ask it what it knew . . .’

  ‘Such an experiment would be forbidden,’ said Fra Murta. ‘It would outrage charity. I could not approve it. Never forget, Holiness, that the purposes of the sacred Inquisition are merciful.’

  ‘But what if this forbidden experiment had occurred naturally?’ Severo asked. There was an expression of deep interest in the glittering eyes of the other man, which he failed to dissemble by toying with the quill and paper before him on the table. ‘In fact, it is extremely lucky that you have come, Fra Murta, for now there will be two of us to witness what occurs,’ Severo continued, and gave him an account of the snow-child. About the providential coincidence of the child and Palinor’s arrival, about what arrangements he had made, and why.

  ‘I must ask your forgiveness, Holiness,’ said Fra Murta. ‘I was too hasty in ascribing your slowness in this case to slackness, or even to reluctance. There are some bishops, I blush to tell you, who regard the duty to pursue heresy with repugnance, and who not only fail to assist the Inquisition but even obstruct it. It is not at all unheard of . . . Indeed, as I need hardly tell you, it was the disgraceful tardiness in the bishops’ Inquisition against heretics that led to the duties and powers of inquisition being given to the mendicant orders of monks, my order among them. That led to our powers to override the local clergy. You will forgive us for supposing that you too were slack or recalcitrant; the reports that reached us in Rome were garbled.’