The Cellars of Notre Dame

by Barbara Frale

  He cursed. Why had Arnaldo gone? That was when the trouble had begun. Like the illness of the little prince Robert, which no doctor could cure. And like the atrocious, infamous wickedness which now threatened him, along with the whole of France.

  “Help me, God of Hosts! I know that the remedy for my ills are hidden down here!”

  He reached the shelf of books still lying tidy under a thick veil of dust and fumbled among the pages of symbols searching for the thing upon which his salvation depended. But where was it? Yet he must be there, he had seen it with his own eyes. The infallible medicine which could healing the dark future which had suddenly fallen upon him. It had been atrocious to be accused of possessing unsound blood, and even worse had been the awareness that his own unworthiness could harm countless other people…

  He couldn’t find it. Arnaldo had taken that panacea capable of saving his life away with him. Despondency descended upon his heart, which had weathered so many storms.

  “Why did you leave me, you accursed old man ! You opened the universe of your science to me only to slam the door in my face before I could learn what I needed, and now I hang here like the soul of a dead man who cannot reach the Underworld and wanders the earth helplessly watching the living! I am not an initiate who possesses the whole Truth, but I no longer have the blissful ignorance of the common man, who does not even ask certain questions. But this is not the end of it, master Arnaldo. I will bring you back to Paris if it is the last thing I do!”

  He needed to rapidly devise a countermove. He must send someone to Rome who was capable of persuading the Pope to force the Catalan to return to France: under threat of excommunication, if needs be. He needed someone who was loyal to the king but who would also be welcomed by Boniface VIII.

  And perhaps the perfect person lived not far from Notre-Dame! Matthew Bentivegna of Acquasparta, once a humble monk of Saint Francis of Assisi who had “risen to the purple” when he had donned cardinal’s robes, and was now well placed in the Sacred College. He had been granted a dispensation in perpetuity to live in Paris because he taught theology at the Sorbonne. He must visit Matthew immediately, take him completely by surprise in the middle of the night. But not in his usual clothes. A more rapid and direct method was needed to make the cardinal understand that the question was of vital importance for France. That the king commanded it and that in order to succeed he was willing to do anything. Even get his hands – those holy hands – dirty. Even unleash the worst thugs in Paris, including that damned mercenary whom good men prayed never to meet. Perhaps Lanius was not entirely human, because his face seemed to belong to the realm of shadows while in his body there was all the anger of the damned.

  There was no time to waste: he must send someone to open the way for him, and then the dark aura of the shadows would do its part. To accomplish the task, he needed to give the potent power of suggestion room for manoeuvre.

  Re-emerging into the icy night air, Philip of Fontainebleau put his helmet back on and shouldered his double-headed axe.

  *

  In the alleys, a vague shadow grabbed at the grille of an opening slightly above street level. Good – the bars had been sawn as requested. The figure slipped into the hole and took a deep breath. A brief leap into empty space and then a thud, and a terrible stench of soot.

  It was a lucky thing the cardinal demanded his cellars be always well-stocked with coal! He looked at himself: he must be as black as the devil’s arse – he could barely breathe, there was so much dust on him. The wet clothes had absorbed it like a sponge, but at least the pile of coal had muffled the fall. Moreover, given the structure of the building, there was no other way to sneak in.

  He made his way down the slippery pile of coal until he found himself with his feet on the floor. Now he had to go up the stairs, hoping his accomplices had left the door to the garden open. He made his way to it and pushed the old wooden door gently open with the palm of his hand so that it wouldn’t squeak. He would have to give his accomplices a bonus; they had obeyed his instructions to the letter.

  The night air struck him along with a gust of icy wind, that bitter killer who tears at the flesh of the healthy and slaughters children and the poor and old. There. The cardinal lived up there on the second floor, where the faint light of a window behind the loggia told him that someone was still awake.

  And the ladder? Was it where it was supposed to be? Yes, fortunately. He put one foot on a rung: it felt stable. He climbed up it.

  By the dim light of a candelabrum, Cardinal Matthew Bentivegna of Acquasparta was devoutly reciting his evening prayers.

  He stopped and raised his hand to his heart, fearing that it was about to fail him: he had spoken the Evil One’s name and behold, he saw him appear before him!

  Nearby, to the side of the window, there was a silhouette, completely black from head to toe. It was not human, but some angry demon, a monster resembling a large insect, its body covered with lustrous metallic flakes and with eyes of abnormal size, divided up like the cells of a beehive.

  The cardinal immediately made the sign of the cross and commended his soul to the Madonna, just the way his mother had taught him to, just like when he was a child.

  The monstrous being moved from the window and looked around the room with an inquisitive eye. To show the poor prelate that he was a man of flesh and blood and not some spectre vomited up from the underworld, he took off his helmet. Thus Matthew of Acquasparta saw that he was covered with soot, but that under the soot there was a face he knew very well. Heavens above! He would never have imagined seeing him like that. He was a consecrated man, by the name of God! Perhaps it was a nightmare, perhaps he was seeing things. The long penitential fast had weakened his body but must also have blurred the lucidity of his intellect if he now believed he was seeing that illustrious man in such sordid garb…

  Every doubt vanished when the evildoer greeted him, his well-known voice dripping with sarcasm. He was amused by the sight of the fear and disgust on the cardinal’s bleached face.

  “God watch over you, most eminent father. Are you well?”

  The cardinal was not well at all, and in reality it was only thanks to the maternal hand of the Blessed Virgin that his old heart had held out. He didn’t ask him for what mad reason the other was decked out in that unfortunate manner which tore apart his sacred dignity. He didn’t dare.

  “What… what should I call you?” he mumbled.

  “Call me what everyone calls me. Call me Lanius.”

  Matthew of Acquasparta swallowed hard and nodded. Perhaps it was just an awful nightmare and the next morning he would remember nothing of it; in the meantime, better try to understand the meaning of that sacrilegious masquerade.

  “What can I do for you… Lanius?”

  The man who had come at night, taking advantage of the reputation and impunity that dire name enjoyed among the beggars and criminals of Paris, made himself comfortable in a chair, crossed his ankles and put his feet up on a stool. He affected extreme arrogance, an irritating bandit bravado that clashed with the composed mastery of himself and demeanour that generally distinguished him. When he was dressed in silk and purple, of course.

  “You have to go to Rome, your eminence. Orders of the King.”

  The Cardinal too sat down, and put his hands on his knees, trying to understand what was happening.

  “It’s an informal order. Am I right?”

  “Obviously, otherwise, you would have been summoned to the Louvre to receive the news. And instead, here I am.”

  “W-well, Lanius … What a horrible name to call you by! In any case… how can I serve His Majesty’s wishes?”

  The bandit moved closer.

  “You will have a squad of soldiers with you. You will be escorting a person who is now in Rome, but who must arrive safely in Paris.”

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Arnaldo da Villanova, the celebrated Catalan doctor. Do you know him?”

  “Of course,” repli
ed the cardinal. “I remember him. He was here in Paris three years ago. For a while he was a professor at the university, then they denounced him and he ended up on trial. Why is he in Rome?”

  “Because he appealed to the Pope, and Boniface gave him asylum. They say that the pontiff holds him in the highest esteem.”

  Matthew of Acquasparta nodded.

  “I will gladly escort this wise man, if the king so wishes. I wonder, though, how I am to get around His Holiness. The Catalan will not want to leave Rome, if the Pope favours him. Will Boniface VIII be glad to see him leave?”

  The other man didn’t answer, but the vaguely perverse smile that illuminated his face spoke more than any allegory. The cardinal understood immediately and his scandalized eyes opened wide.

  “My God, I am to that old scientist?!” His eyes flickered with an expression of the most open condemnation. The idea of doing violence to another person was something that upset the Franciscan’s rigid morality. “No, never that!” he muttered. “The king of France cannot ask me to commit a crime. And if he does, then what his detractors say about him is true: he is a wicked man, beneath all those ascetic airs he gives himself, and is without scruples, as well as without feelings. The king of marble and iron, they call him. Better to say that he is the king of injustice!”

  Ignoring the cardinal’s vehement protests, the other shifted his gaze to the window, through which the towers of the royal palace were visible. The wind had torn away the clouds to reveal the dark skin of the night, and the moon now illuminated His Majesty’s banner, the proud flag of the monarchy of France, as blue as the sky of a day whose sun never sets, sown with golden lilies like infinite stars of good fortune.

  For his whole life, it had been his horizon. He had sworn absolute loyalty to that sacred banner – even if it necessitated extreme consequences. And he would not shrink from his duty. Neither now nor ever.

  Abandoning his relaxed posture, Lanius jumped up, his muscles tensed like snakes in the moment before the attack. He advanced towards the prelate and loomed over him. He was tall, and in that moment seemed immense. Instinctively Matthew of Acquasparta also got to his feet and backed away, and soon found himself with his back pressed to the wall. The candles magnified the dark shape of his interlocutor, making him seem even more threatening, and the cardinal felt as small and helpless as a mouse before the immense shadow of an eagle which suddenly swoops down on it.

  “Keep that in mind. The Catalan has with him something upon which the salvation of France depends.”

  “What is it?”

  “Imagine men murdering one another. Cities deserted, fields devastated. Corpses rotting along the roads because there is none is left to bury them. The Catalan can avoid this, so he must come back here. Whatever the cost!”

  Then, without saying goodbye, he suddenly turned his back to him, opened the window and jumped out onto the loggia, disappearing into the darkness of the insidious nocturnal city that was his refuge.

  There where he had trusted friends ready to cover his tracks.

  The homeland over which he reigned undisputed.

  II

  Dawn was breaking.

  A lark sang. The man left the bed still warm with love. He dressed quickly, while the last traces of night still bathed the slate roofs of the buildings in the illustrious heart of Paris with blue light. Naked and warm with sleep, his lover shifted under the heavy silk of the bedsheets, where there was still a sweet smell, full of gratitude for the pleasure they had taken. She opened her eyes. Seeing him standing there, dressed and ready to leave, against a sparse light of the window frightened her.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, sitting up in bed and instinctively covering her naked bosom with the sheet.

  He finished doing up his belt over the scuffed leather jerkin like those the poachers and guards of the capital wore.

  “Sleep, my love. It’s still dark.”

  She held out her arms and while he went to wish her farewell, she tried to clasp him to her again and pull him into a last fleeting embrace.

  Joan of Navarre opened her eyes.

  She woke up feeling the taste of those kisses still in her mouth. The illusion didn’t last long, though, and faded as quickly as beautiful dreams will. The part of the bed beside her was empty and cold. The king hadn’t shown his face for even a moment that night. She had slept alone once again. Her eyes glistening, she resisted the powerful urge to allow her pain and disappointment to emerge as tears. What on Earth would have been the point?

  All she could do was get up and go to face her many daily duties. She looked at herself in the mirror in the growing light of the new day. How could she get rid of those dark rings under her eyes that fatigue and sorrows were causing here? The whole court of the Louvre chuckled behind her back, and they would laugh at her until the end of her days. But they were right, the damn vipers! They were right. Lately, His Majesty was distracted by some secret passion; and what, if not a woman, can absorb the best part of a powerful man who is known to all for the fairest in the world?

  Lately he had seemed colder and more distant than ever, almost as if he were afraid of her. Why?

  Joan tidied her hair and noticed with pain that some white threads had crept among the bright red of her curls. Was she old? In the mirror, she saw on her face the features of her mother Blanche, the Countess of Champagne and Brie and, after a Basque wedding, queen regent of Navarre. She resembled her; the inexorable passage of time seemed to bring their appearances ever closer together. She touched her lips, where for a long time there had been no sign of the love bites he gave her when he kissed her, when they made love. Those sensual little wounds that made her heart burst with pride. How long had it been since she had last been in his arms? Three weeks. A month, maybe. Could a healthy male, young and full of vigour, bear the weight of chastity for so long, she wondered unhappily. How much longer he would leave her on her own? She had always loved him, she had loved him immediately, the first time she had seen him. Family duties and dynastic issues had not been able to place barriers between them. Out of love for him, she had submitted herself to the endless chaos of duties, ceremonies, deadlines, vile compromises and humiliating checks that such a marriage entailed. To ascend to the throne of France beside him, to be the consort of the most powerful man on earth. He who does not admit weakness and does not know passions, and who demands the same from those who are close to him.

  She had done it, bending her head under the burden of that role like some poor victim who walks resignedly towards the altar of sacrifice.

  She had given France children, borne with sorrow, as the sacred scripture teaches, and with the shame of giving birth in public, her legs apart as the court sat comfortably watching as in a theatre, the dignitaries having the right to see the birth of each child of France . In front of His Most serene Majesty, who sat impassively on a golden throne in the front row, not missing a single spasm of pain; and in her heart she had hoped they were all male, because the dowries of princesses would have drained the Treasury’s coffers.

  She had suffered in those moments. More than physical pain, she had suffered the shame of seeing herself exhibited in front of everyone, offered up naked to their gaze and comments like some woman of the street. But she thought of the immense pleasure with which she had conceived those children. Not with the king of France, as cold and inscrutable as the statues of Notre-Dame – Joan thought about the man who came to her at night, the one who, eluding the surveillance of the Louvre, climbed through the darkness to her window when no one saw. She thought of the knight Philip of Fontainebleau: not her husband, but her lover.

  She lived only for him, to meet him stealthily in the heat of some clandestine alcove, often away from the Louvre, to escape the accursed spies who stole from them even the privacy of the bed.

  Mentally she recited an act of penance, praying to God to forgive her lust. She should have been a more chaste bride, one suited to being the wife of the most illustrious K
ing Philip IV. Philip, the Bishop of Christ, the athlete of the faith, immersed in fasting and penance and scourged with the iron discipline of his grandfather, Saint Louis.

  But Joan could not. She could not renounce her lover, the joy of feeling him moving against her body, the warmth of his breath coming faster and faster, until he gave her proof of his total surrender.

  Dismayed, she made the sign of the cross. A woman like her was not supposed to take all that pleasure. She was not expected to ask for, or even demand, the joys of sex.

  Her confessors had told her so. They had demanded that she learn by heart the instructions of the great theologian Giles of Rome, who had written for the young king Philip IV the manual of the perfect Catholic monarch.

  Philip IV followed that manual to the letter, because the theologian had drawn his rules from Aristotle, and Aristotle teaches how to successfully engage in politics, the supreme art of command exercised at the highest levels. His Most Serene Majesty loved power – is commanding, after all, not perhaps superior to fucking?

  Joan recited those sentences like a penitential litany, an act of contrition. But she was not regretful at all. She only wondered when. When she would see her knight climbing the ladder again to enter through the window, to embrace her and take her to bed.

  She walked out into the corridor. Her maids were about to enter. She looked at the velvet cloak hanging there, the royal arms of Navarre and France embroidered upon it in precious silk, purple and gold. She had to give an audience, receive the ambassadors. Especially when His Majesty decided, for whatever reason, to absent himself.

  Because the king was not in the Louvre. Joan felt it with a painful intensity that tore at her soul. Who knew where he had been that night, who knew with whom!

  From him she had received only a distracted explanation, a name half-heartedly pronounced: Arnaldo da Villanova. This business which kept him so busy that he could not afford the luxury of thinking of anything else, not even his private life, involved that old man.