City of Wisdom and Blood

by Robert Merle

  The innkeeper thought about this for a long moment as she gazed on his manly figure standing before her in all the vigorous symmetry of his youth. She then sighed deeply, for though she believed herself in the presence of one of God’s angels, she sensed how little she might profit from such a one and how much she preferred the hot-blooded version.

  “Men, then,” she sighed with a kind of whole-body shudder that convinced me that she would have gladly given up her own bed to the pilgrims to join us in ours.

  “Men and no monkth,” added Samson with his charming lisp, yet maintaining his serious demeanour.

  At this, our hostess became very animated and reddened visibly: “By St Joseph and all the saints!” she cried. “Would you be the kind of pestiferous heretics and agents of the Devil who cannot abide the presence of men of God?”

  “Heavens no, my good hostess!” I hastened to reply, knowing how thoroughly, since the victory of Montluc, the Huguenots were reviled and hounded by the people of Toulouse. “My brother meant nothing of the sort! He’s only afraid that your monks will be too corpulent and take up too much space in our bed!”

  “Sweet Jesus!” she sighed, and was once again all smiles. “Are you so hostile to the rotund?”

  “Not in the least!” I rejoined, extending both hands in her direction. “There are some rotundities that are so pleasing to the eye that we’d like to help their owner bear their delicious weight!”

  “Enough of that!” she countered, rapping my knuckles and feigning a frown. “These are for display only, not for common usage!” At this, Miroul plucked his viol two or three times in ironic echo, and our hostess laughed wholeheartedly, glancing conspiratorially at each of us in turn.

  “If this cackling is quite finished,” growled Samson impatiently, “I’d like to get to bed.”

  “Well, go right ahead!” our innkeeper replied. “You won’t bother me in the least! And if the truth be known, I wouldn’t mind seeing you all just as the Lord made you!”

  “Shame on you, lady!” said Samson, blushing and turning his back.

  “Easy there!” she exclaimed. “You gentlemen are a strange lot! One’s too hot, the other’s too cold and the valet’s got brown and blue eyes! But now I have another request to make,” she continued, calming considerably. “Monsieur, this morning I heard you talking with your brother in a jargon that little resembled the French of France.”

  “What? You don’t understand it?” I replied.

  “We speak only Provençal here,” said the landlady, “just like you, Monsieur, only with a different accent and some different expressions. You should know that there isn’t a single kid in the rue de la Mazelerie that understands French or who can read or write it. But,” she said, drawing herself up, “I know my figures!”

  “Well, you’ve never wanted for a figure, my good hostess!” I laughed. “But, good woman, tell me straight out if I can help you figure out this Norman baron’s language.”

  “How did you guess?” she confessed.

  “I’ll follow you downstairs,” said I, and, pushing our buxom hostess out the door, closed it behind us, happy to escape Samson’s reproving stare.

  Following our innkeeper, I found myself in a dark, winding staircase.

  “This powerful baron,” whispered my hostess, “is named Caudebec… By the Virgin, my noble guest, stop your kneading! Am I but a lump of bread dough that you press me so?”

  “Am I to blame,” I countered, “if your staircase is as dark as a black cow in a burnt-out forest? I’ve got to hold on to something!”

  “Fie! By St Joseph, grab on somewhere else! Now I really do believe you’re a good Christian and not one of those wicked heretics who want to forbid us to dance and play and celebrate saints’ days as we ought! The plague take those cold cocks!”

  “What did you say this Norman’s name was?” I said, not wishing to reply and instead lavishing kisses on her neck and bodice.

  “Caudebec. Remember this name well: Caudebec. This gentleman is so high and mighty he doesn’t want anyone to know who he is.”

  “Caudebec,” I repeated. “Like hotmouth,” I added, to help myself remember the name.

  “Hotmouth yourself!” she laughed, trying to twist out of my grasp. “By all the saints, your lips and your mouth are everywhere! Your kisses will be the death of me! You’re making me crazier than a cat! Enough, I beg you! I’ve work to do in the kitchens for all of these pious pilgrims!”

  But since I couldn’t be bothered to obey her, she pushed me so hard that I lost my footing and dragged her down with me. We fell with a great clatter on the bottom wooden steps and, since at that very moment the priest had finished his benediction in the dining hall on the other side of the door, a great silence had fallen over the group of pilgrims gathered there for their dinner. All of the hungry travellers there assembled were thus pretending to be piously awaiting the priest’s “Amen” to signal a happy end to his Latin formalities so that they could set to the meal they were so desirous of devouring. Into this pious silence there now resounded the fracas of our calamitous but happy fall as we rolled one on top of the other out of our stairwell, or, more precisely, I rolled on top of our hostess—a huge advantage from my perspective, since she was so wondrously well padded. Seeing which, the Norman pilgrims, being a very joyous and boisterous crowd, all burst out laughing like a swarm of flies.

  “Silence!” shouted the Baron de Caudebec from the head of the table, his voice resounding like thunder, echoed by the violent clap of his hand on the oak surface. “Have you no shame? Your laughter at this wench’s head-over-heels arrival has interrupted our holy father’s prayers! ’Sblood! Is this the way devout pilgrims should behave on their way to Rome? Are you more crass than those mountebanks in Paris? Silence, I say! The first one who dares open his mouth before the prayer has ended will have his head smashed to pieces.”

  The silence that followed was deafening. Whereupon the baron said, “You may continue, Father.”

  “But… I’ve finished,” said the monk.

  “Amen!” cried the Baron de Caudebec, and all the assembled men and women echoed his “Amen!” in a shout that shook the entire house. After which the assembled guests fell upon their meal like wolves on their kill, hardily devouring the Bayonne ham, fresh trout, roast pheasant, truffle omelettes, Bigorre sausages, and the many other specialities for which the Two Angels inn was famous throughout the Toulousain region. And while they put their jaws to work on these delights, a dozen brunette chambermaids, whom I’ve already described as comely, curvaceous, amply endowed and hardly stand-offish, ran from one guest to the next, pouring streams of our excellent Guyenne wines into their avid goblets.

  “Well then!” said the innkeeper as she rose to her feet and adjusted her bodice. “Well then!” she repeated happily as she surveyed the tables where a legion of sharp teeth and dry throats were having their way.

  “Tomorrow we’ll write very fat figures on your slate, my good woman,” I laughed as I dusted myself off.

  “Shush, Monsieur!” she cautioned, pressing her mouth to my ear—quite unnecessarily since none of our guests spoke Provençal. “These Normans are very well appointed. Did you see the gold bracelets on these grand ladies? But, my friend, we can’t linger here. I’ve got work to do in the kitchen. You must do as we agreed. For my part,” she continued with a slight wink, her exquisite hand pressing my arm, “I’ll find some way to catch up with you in some corner or other of my house today or tonight and will always be, my friend, humbly at your service.” This said, she made a deep bow, but this time keeping her hand firmly on her bodice to prevent any repetition of the contents’ escape in front of such a pious assembly.

  “Monsieur!” cried the Baron de Caudebec, pointing a leg of guineafowl at me, his blue eyes blazing from a face already reddened by Guyenne wine. “Who do you think you are, disturbing our prayers? If you weren’t so young, I’d take you in there and run my rapier through your liver!”

  “Baron
de Caudebec,” I replied in my best Parisian French, as I bowed—but not very deeply, “please, I beg you, spare my liver, though I assure you I doubt it is the seat of reason as the ancient Babylonian doctors believed. My name is Pierre de Siorac. I’m the younger son of the Baron de Mespech, in Périgord, and I’m travelling to Montpellier to study medicine. I’ve come to offer my services as your interpreter since I speak Provençal.”

  “Well met!” cried Caudebec, raising his drumstick heavenward. “The saints in Paradise have sent you! Page, a stool for this gentleman! Next to me, here! You’ve saved me, my friend! I’m more lost in these provinces than a Christian in Arabia! These bumpkins don’t understand my language!”

  I stepped towards him and, as I drew near, the baron did me the honour of standing to greet me and gave me hardy pats on the shoulder and back which, in all honesty, I would happily have forgone, so powerful were his big hands. For big he was in all respects—bull-necked, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. He was blonde-haired with a luxuriant drooping moustache that was carefully tapered. His blue eyes, as I’ve mentioned, leapt out at you from a ruddy complexion. He was elegantly clothed, though his doublet was somewhat soiled since he ate like a Turk, throwing his chewed bones over his shoulder. He wiped his hands on the serving girls’ skirts when they came within range, and they daren’t ever complain, given his wont of frowning and scolding at the least inconvenience, threatening to turn the poor wench’s breasts into ribbons if she made the least objection. He spoke to them in French so that they understood not a word, but his angry look and grimaces told them all they needed to know. When he’d managed to remove all the grease from his fingers and moustache, the baron never tired of groping the backsides of these maidens, proving he was as lusty as he was devout—a trait I was able to observe at my leisure for the next two weeks, as you will hear.

  “My friend!” he cried, after his welcoming blows. “Your doublet is covered with dust from your fall. Here, page! Take this gentleman’s doublet and brush it!… Page! ’Sblood! The rascal is asleep again! By Christ, I’ll disembowel him!”

  In truth, he settled for a slap, which the miscreant dodged, but squealed nonetheless like a stuck pig. Then, throwing himself at me, he pulled off my doublet in a flash and disappeared with it, for far from asleep, the rogue was as lively as mercury, a liar, braggart, trickster and insolent lad with a saucy tongue—when he was out of his master’s earshot. It was, moreover, a marvel to watch him as he stood behind his master’s chair, catching half-eaten drumsticks on the fly as the baron threw them over his shoulder—not that this was his only provender. He regularly rifled the satchels of the pilgrims, extracting their prized possessions as soon as their heads were turned. This page was called Rouen, after the city where he was born, and although it was an odd cognomen for a Christian, I never heard him called by any other name. He had green eyes and a forest of red hair sticking straight up from the top of his head that no brush or comb could ever have tamed.

  But I must go on with my story. My doublet removed, I sat down in shirtsleeves on the stool between the baron and a stocky monk whose massive dark eyebrows seemed to cut his face in two. This good apostle ate at some remove from the table out of respect for the enormous belly that protruded beneath his chest.

  “Monsieur de Siorac,” the baron began as he stuffed a huge Bigorre sausage into his maw, “this monk here is Brother Antoine”—the phrase, barely recognizable through the bits of sausage filling his mouth, having become, “This bonk is brover anwan.” But then, the sausage having been sufficiently chewed, he emptied his goblet in a single swig to dilute it and continued, “Brother Antoine is entirely in charge of my finances. He’s a very learned man. He has the authority to take confession and so I’ve assigned him the spiritual governance of our good pilgrims.”

  Brother Antoine gave me a friendly nod, but I couldn’t help feeling penetrated by his little black eyes as he arched his thick eyebrows. “Aha,” I thought, “I’d better be careful with this brother! I wonder if he’s sniffed out my Huguenot leanings: I’ll be on my guard.”

  “This wine is not so bad!” cried the baron as he seized another sausage in his great paw rather than picking it up delicately between thumb and index finger, as Barberine, ever attentive to good table manners, had taught me to do.

  Having stuffed his entire prey into his mouth, the baron continued: “I must tell you, Monsieur de Siorac, that the reason I’ve undertaken this pilgrimage is that my wife is languishing, alas, with a slow but unrelenting fever that has sequestered her in Caudebec castle. And you must have guessed, my friend, that I’m on my way to Rome to ask our Holy Father the Pope to pray to the Virgin Mary to intercede with her Divine Son on her behalf.”

  “What idolatry!” I thought. “And so many intercessors: the Pope! Mary! Why not just pray directly to God—or through the mediation of His only Son, as it is written in the Gospels?” But as I suddenly felt the burning eyes of Brother Antoine on me, I remained silent, and put on my most contrite air.

  “Monsieur de Siorac,” Brother Antoine said in his most innocent tones, aren’t you worried that in going to Montpellier to study medicine you will find yourself in a place where heretics are in control and swarm like a wasp’s nest?”

  “Ah, but a good Christian fears not the Devil!” I smiled.

  “Ha! Nicely said!” broke in the baron. “Hey, wench! Bring us more wine!”

  But the chambermaid he’d shouted to turned a deaf ear and I certainly understood why.

  “Monsieur my interpreter,” the baron said, turning to me, “this wench is definitely more to my taste than all the others, as I will prove to her tonight. So tell her to bring me wine and not to tarry or I’ll cut her breasts to ribbons.”

  “I’ll go and tell her,” I said as I rose from the table, very content to escape from Brother Antoine’s evil eye, but even more so to have to bring a message to such a comely strumpet. I headed for my trollop and to put her at ease I approached her and put my hands on her hips and gave her a big smile. “My friend,” I said, “best that you don’t put our noble friend on edge. He’s calling for some of your wine.”

  “Problem is,” she replied in her Toulousain dialect, “I don’t want the pig to dirty my petticoats and skirts with his greasy paws the way he did to Madeleine.”

  “So what’s your name, my girl?” I asked, smiling almost in spite of myself at the captivating twinkle that lit up her black eyes.

  “Franchou, Monsieur,” she replied, bowing politely yet managing to balance her pitcher without spilling a drop. More than the beauty of this tableau I was struck by her name: Franchou was the name of the chambermaid my father had liberated at sword-point from the plague-infested town of la Lendrevie!

  “Franchou,” I said, “if you don’t obey the baron, he says he’ll cut your breasts to ribbons.”

  “Sweet Jesus!” cried Franchou with a fearful expression that delighted me. “So that’s what he’s muttering in his bastard French! Holy Mother of God, would he really do it?”

  “I don’t know. He’s a man of little patience. Go then, Franchou! I’ll ask our hostess to compensate you for the damage to your skirts.”

  “Many thanks, my noble Monsieur!” she curtseyed with a winning smile.

  Sadly the lass didn’t manage to escape the baron’s messy ways. Hardly had she served him when he ruined her skirt with his greasy fingers, and then, adding injury to insult, began pawing her.

  “Ha ha!” shouted the baron as he burst into a belly laugh. “It seems, Monsieur Translator, that while pretending to represent me, you managed to do all right for yourself! This wench only has eyes for you, despite my caresses!”

  “What’s this big animal talking about now?” asked Franchou in Toulousain.

  “He thinks you have a crush on me.”

  “Well, it’s true,” replied Franchou candidly.

  “Monsieur de Siorac,” Brother Antoine broke in, “you have a pretty chain around your neck! Might we see your pendant
?” I pulled the medallion from beneath my shirts and showed it to him.

  “Well!” he cooed, making the sign of the cross. “The Virgin Mary! Blessed be the Holy Mother of God! And who, if I may ask, gave you this beautiful relic?”

  “My mother,” said I quite simply.

  “So your mother must be a person of great lineage, as the medallion is of pure gold, beautifully worked and, I would estimate, very old.”

  “No,” I answered promptly, “our line is but recently begun. My father was knighted on the battlefield of Ceresole and named baron after our victory at Calais.”

  I was telling the truth but not the whole truth, just as my father had done with the monk after the fighting at la Lendrevie. For if my father, a commoner, had been ennobled, just as I reported it, my mother, as Brother Antoine suspected, could claim to be from a great and ancient family, a descendant of a Castelnau who had fought in the Crusades. I couldn’t reveal her birthright to Brother Antoine, however, without also revealing that this family was well known to have supported the reformed religion in Périgord, Quercy and Agenais.

  “I owe you a bit of an apology, my son,” Brother Antoine crooned, leaning towards me with a compassionate glance. “I had my suspicions about you after seeing your black doublet—such unusual apparel for a young gentleman—believing you to be one of those pestiferous heretics who insinuate themselves into our company to corrupt our faith. But your worldly manner and this holy medallion have persuaded me I was wrong.”

  “My good interpreter a heretic?” cried Caudebec. “You’re dreaming, monk!”

  Thereupon, to dismiss her, the baron applied an altogether too forceful slap to Franchou’s backside, seized a trout and crammed it, head, tail, bones and all, into his gullet. Franchou fled, her hand on her arse, whimpering and sobbing in pain and, truth be told, a few hours later, I could still see that her flesh was red and sore from the violence of his spanking and have never forgiven him for this revolting behaviour.

  “My son,” Brother Antoine resumed, his beady eyes fastened on the movements of the chambermaids who were serving us, “it benefits us not at all to attempt to hide from Our Lord, who is all-seeing and all-knowing, that we are but fashioned of fragile clay and that all flesh is piteously weak and that the demon beckons us from every petticoat that moves and breathes before us” (but saying this he turned not his eyes from the fetching demoiselles who moved among us—quite the contrary!) “and that this inn is all too inviting” (at this he sighed languorously), “that we eat too well, and drink too much and that these lively wenches—may God prove me wrong!—are accustomed to play the saddle to all comers.”