City of Wisdom and Blood

by Robert Merle

  The thing that kept me from abridging the scene of all these lamentations was that Martinez’s four daughters were so very beautiful that I couldn’t decide which one to look at. So I kept looking from one to the other of these bewitching women, whose gazelle-like eyes shone in the darkness of the shop, and thinking—Aglaé having set me thinking about marriage—that I could not, as a gentleman, marry a tailor’s daughter, any more than a Sephardic girl could marry a Christian—and even less a penniless younger brother marry Aglaé. “Oh,” I thought, “every way I turn I meet obstacles! If God made the world and made it well, I’d like to know who has so bungled it ever since.”

  As I mulled over this thought, I walked back to the pharmacy, and it was there that this day, which had started out so auspiciously for my glory and profit, suddenly turned into pain and indelible sadness. Luc was waiting for me in my room, his eyes teary and with a very long face.

  “Pierre, my friend,” he said in a mournful voice, I have terrible news for you. Dame Rachel has just sacked Fontanette.”

  “When?” I cried, my throat knotting up.

  “Just now.”

  “Just now?”

  “Not an hour ago.”

  “Ah!” I thought with terrible remorse. “The hour I just spent haggling over my new doublet! I could have seen her if I hadn’t done that!”

  “Where has she gone?” I moaned faintly.

  “That’s the problem,” said Luc, “nobody knows. No one here knows where she’s from, or who her relatives are, except maybe Dame Rachel, who hired her.”

  “I’ll go see Dame Rachel right away,” I said clenching my teeth.

  “Oh, Pierre,” said Luc jumping to his feet, “don’t do it! Dame Rachel is furious with you. She’s spitting fire and brimstone and demanding that my father kick you out, which he refuses to do.”

  “She’ll spill it,” I said, “I’m going to confront her.”

  Heading downstairs, I went to knock at the door of the lady, who, thinking no doubt it was her husband, bade me enter.

  I went in full of resolve. She was sitting at her dressing table putting on her make-up when she saw me in the mirror. She stiffened, turned, sat upright on her tail like a snake (I was astonished that such a beautiful woman could have such a malevolent look and such a tyrannical complexion) and told me to leave at once.

  “Madame,” I said, “you have sacked Fontanette.”

  “And you know very well why,” she hissed.

  “Madame, I’ll know why when you have told me.”

  “And I’ll not tell you,” she screamed, “since I don’t want to dirty my lips, which are pure, by reciting your sins.”

  “Madame, did she confess?”

  “Young man,” she spat, her voice breaking under the effect of violence, “I heard that she confessed. I have nothing more to say. If it were up to me, you would not enrage me by your continued presence in this room.”

  “I thank you, Madame,” I answered calmly, “for your very Christian sentiments, but since I find that I am more guilty in this matter than poor Fontanette, I want you to tell me where she has gone and where she lives, so that I may bring her aid and comfort in her distress.”

  “She has her wages, that’s enough.”

  “Begging your pardon, Madame, but I don’t think her wages will get her very far and, from all appearances, she is in great need of support from a friendly hand.”

  But Dame Rachel remained majestically and stonily silent and inflexible, as though she hadn’t heard me, and glared at me with her agate eyes. So I continued, “Surely, Madame, since you hired her, you know where she comes from.”

  “I knew it,” she sneered, a cruelly triumphant light in her eyes, “I did know it,” she repeated, “but my memory is such that, the instant I had this pestiferous whore thrown from my house, I erased her from my thoughts and immediately forgot her, her name, her family and the name of her village.”

  I knew then that I would learn nothing from this flinty vixen, and, drunk with fury as I was, could easily have throttled her to squeeze some little spark of humanity from her body, and from her mouth the name of the village she was hiding. Despite my angry looks, however, she was made of marble and felt nothing, not even fear. Meanwhile, I was trembling from head to toe with the effort of mastering my homicidal rage and I could no longer look her in the eyes, hers being so icy and mine speaking all the hatred and scorn I’d forever feel for her and for the extreme baseness of her actions.

  Without a word or a gesture of any kind, I left her standing there. I ran down the stair and, calling to Miroul to saddle Albière, I saddled Accla; as I bridled her, I told Miroul that we were going to look for Fontanette and that the best thing would be to ask the guards at the city gates if they seen a wench of her description; that he should gallop to the la Saulnerie gate, next to the Lattes gate and from there to the la Blanquerie gate while I went to the Pila, Saint-Gély and Peyrou gates.

  Sadly, and even more sadly for her, no one had seen Fontanette. It happened, by the worst of luck, to be market day in Montpellier, and that the crowd of labourers and their wives, who had now sold their goods, were now heading en masse towards the city gates to go back to their farms. There was such a crush of people, carts, mules, donkeys and baskets in the streets that Accla could hardly take a step. And who could have picked out of this immense crowd a young girl, dressed like all the others and, tears in her eyes, no doubt, carrying her little bundle? The guards at each gate simply laughed when I asked after her.

  “Ah, my lad,” said one, “even if I wanted to help, how could I manage to pick out such a needle from a wheat field?”

  I waited until the crowds had thinned out and explored for several leagues each of the roads leading out of the city, stopping at each of the nearest villages to describe my poor Fontanette and ask old women enjoying the evening breeze on the benches in front of their farms about her, but I learnt nothing, other than a couple of false leads which were cruelly disappointing.

  I came back to our lodgings late that night, exhausted and dusty, and with a throat so tight I could hardly breathe. Miroul had already returned, but had likewise failed in his enquiries, as I could tell just from the sad look in his unmatched eyes. I threw him Accla’s bridle and, having no appetite whatsoever, and finding repugnant the idea of sitting down to table with that gorgon, I went up to my room, and without undressing or taking my boots off, fell on my bed where I lay, without a tear or a prayer, too devastated to think. So blinding was the evidence of my loss that I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t sleep. And I caught myself listening for the sound of the bolt in Fontanette’s door, which she would slide to come into my bed, so round and fresh, her beautiful eyes shining in the darkness with such infinite tenderness.

  The next evening, I learnt from my good Thomassine, who seemed quite troubled and angry, that Cossolat had come to see Dame Gertrude du Luc while Samson was attending his lectures at the Royal College, and had stayed for three hours locked in her room. Thomassine wanted me to go and confront this shameless woman and reproach her for her behaviour. But I refused, fearing that this Circe would turn me into a swine in my turn, just by throwing her arms around my neck. Nor did I want to speak to Cossolat about it, for I knew he’d make some joke, since he loved to say that never did a pilgrimage pass through Montpellier without some roumieuse deciding that she wanted to forget her saints in his bed. How could I respond to such humour? Laugh with him, or get angry? And where might my anger lead?

  Meanwhile, I couldn’t help thinking that when my poor Samson happened to hear the news of his mistress’s infidelity, he’d be devastated by news that would be cruel for anyone, but so much the more so for one so innocent. Ultimately I became so concerned about him, and so concerned about keeping this news from him, I nearly forgot my anguish about Fontanette.

  All that day and the following night I turned over in my mind various strategies but could think of none that would succeed in separating this Circe from Samson, an
d from Cossolat—and from me, for, to tell the truth, the idea that she took such delight in men was not without its temptations for me, despite the horror I felt at the idea of cheating on my poor brother—and under Thomassine’s roof, no less!

  Even while listening to Saporta’s discussion of Avicenna at the college, this quandary didn’t go away, and when Saporta called me up to his podium after his lecture, I thought he was going to take me to task for my inattention. But, after calling my name, he called Merdanson and the surgical apprentice Carajac as well. After having scrutinized us for a moment with his glowering black eyes (for he always seemed invested in convincing us that our present innocence was but the form and substance of our future guilt), he told us that one of the guards at the hospital was offering to the college the body of a beggar who’d just died, and ordered us to go and study this body carefully to see if it was a good subject for dissection.

  Off we went, with a certain swagger and the feeling that we were on a very important mission. The guard at the hospital was a balding old man, ugly as sin, with stinking breath and so thin that Merdanson called his case “interesting”, and added, for my benefit, “Know what I mean, friend?” The guard said his name was Russec and immediately led us to a small, very dark curtained room that was impregnated with an over-sweet pestilential odour, so foul that we couldn’t step over the threshold, preferring Russec’s halitosis to the stink of putrefaction. In the centre of the room stood a wooden bed, covered with a straw mat, and on this lay a body shrouded with a dirty sheet.

  “So, my scholars!” coughed Russec with a breath so nauseous that I had to cover my nose and mouth with my hand. “I’ll warrant you’ve never seen as handsome a devil as we’ve got here. He is so vigorous, so well built and so young that he’s lacking nothing but the breath of life. He’s a marvellous specimen and, what’s more, he passed just this morning, so you won’t find a fresher cadaver anywhere. And so, my Royal College students, out of my love for medicine, I’m going to offer him to the college for only five sols and not a penny more.”

  “Five sols,” agreed Merdanson, “is worth considering. But we won’t buy a pig in a poke; we’ve got to see it. Please pull the curtain and remove the sheet.”

  Russec did as Merdanson ordered, and as the light of the sun filled the room, I could see that he was careful to touch the sheet only with his fingertips and stand as far from the bed as he could. Seizing the sheet, he pulled it off. Without taking a step towards the cadaver, we stood staring at it and could hardly believe our eyes: the dead man had a huge bubo from the plague in his armpit and a carbuncle on his right foot.

  “Siorac, Carajac!” cried Merdanson, when his fear subsided enough for him to utter a word. “Do you see what I see? By the belly of St Vitus, let’s get out of here!”

  And the three of us fled madly down the corridor of the hospital, followed by Russec, who was shouting hoarsely, “What is it? Don’t you want him? Is there something wrong with him?”

  “You bet there’s something wrong with him!” shouted Carajac. “And it’s a major problem!”

  “In that case,” cried Russec, “I’ll lower my price by a quarter!”

  “Not by a quarter or a third!” shouted Merdanson as he burst into the street. Ah, how sweet the fresh air of Montpellier seemed after being in such a pestilential place and with an guard whose breath smelt worse than the cadaver.

  “Friends,” I proposed, “let’s get hold of ourselves. We’re near the Three Kings and the hostess is beautiful. Allow me to offer you a glass of wine and some food to build up the red blood in our veins and arteries and thereby strengthen them against contagion.”

  “That’s an excellent and preventive medicine,” said Merdanson. “Ambroise Paré recommends it in his treatise on the plague.”

  “I can subscribe to that!” agreed Carajac (who spoke little but always to the point), “but what’s the hostess got to do with it?”

  “Beauty,” said I, “cures the eye of filthy sights.”

  Scarcely had I said this when the hostess gave a powerful slap to Merdanson, who, in entering her kitchen and despite her warnings, had given her a pat on her backside.

  “Ow!” cried Merdanson. “The wench has a wicked slap! Never mind! Her flesh looks copious and delectable. I’m going to dream about her all night!”

  “Shameful creature,” said the hostess, “do you want another slap?”

  “What? Without getting to touch?” said Merdanson indignantly.

  “My friends,” I said when she’d withdrawn after serving our food, “I’m worried about this corpse. Do you think we’re going to have an epidemic?”

  “No, no,” said Merdanson, “I heard from Saporta that we see a few cases in the hospital each year but that they never seem to lead to an epidemic. Nevertheless, without this flagon of wine, I’d be mighty sad. In this shithole of a town, everything seems to be in league against medicine. Do you know, my friends, that not a week ago the provost refused to give Saporta the body of a man who was tortured to death, preferring to have his quarters rot from the branches of an olive tree? And today that stinking Russec dares offer us the body of a man with the plague. Goddam it! Medicine is done for if we can’t get bodies to dissect. I learn more in one hour from the scalpel of the prosector than in three hours of lectures on Hippocrates. And that foetus Bazin lowered our quota of dissections to four per year! Four, my friends! We should have at least eight! My hostess, since I can’t touch your sweet backside, at least leave your beautiful corpse to the college when you die so we can dissect you!”

  “Fie, Monsieur!” said our hostess, who was bringing a flagon. “I want to be buried whole in a good Christian burial.”

  “It’s true that we’re poor enough,” said Carajac. “The college doesn’t even have a skeleton. It’s scandalous! How can you show the conjunction of bones without a skeleton?”

  “I just had a thought,” said Merdanson, “which must be a good one, since I pulled it out of this flagon: let’s kill Russec. We’d cure him for good of his stinking breath. A gain for him, a gain for everyone. Then, when he’s dead, we’ll make a skeleton of him. He’s pretty thin anyway, his skin’s just barely sticking to his bones, so our work’s half done already! So from an ugly guard we’ll make a handsome skeleton!”

  “Friends,” I said, conceiving a plan that had nothing to do with what he’d just said, “empty this bottle without me. I see here a gentleman I’d like to have a word with.”

  When he saw me heading towards him, Caudebec, who had just stuffed half a huge Bigorre sausage into his maw, nearly choked, and, glowering at me, brought his hand to his dagger. But remembering his vain combat of two months ago against a stool, and Cossolat’s threats, and seeing me approach with a smile on my face, he greeted me civilly with a nod of his head, but without rising or inviting me to sit with him. His monks lowered their eyes as if they were in the presence of Satan himself.

  I was careful not to take offence at this greeting, but, asking a chambermaid to bring me a stool, I sat some distance from Caudebec and said, in a playful voice, “Well, Monsieur! I’m so happy to see you again, all strong and healthy, and your monks as well! And your women look more bewitching than ever.” (To which the Norman ladies made a slight bow in my direction, smiled and batted their eyelashes at me.) “They tell me Rome is the most beautiful city in the world. What did you think of it?”

  Caudebec groaned at this, but couldn’t say more, since his mouth was crammed so full of sausage, and he was busily trying to swallow it like a boa with a rabbit, by a sucking motion of his lips.

  “Well!” I continued. “I’m not surprised you like the Eternal City. And what was the purpose of your pilgrimage? Did Heaven grant your prayers? Do you have good news about the health of Madame your wife?”

  “No, Monsieur,” growled Caudebec, emptying his goblet to water down the sausage. “I received a letter this morning. The ingrate died a month ago, when I’d scarcely arrived in Rome. Ah, Monsieur, I’m furious. Wha
t a nasty trick she’s played on me. Couldn’t she wait at least until I’d made my vows at St Peter’s basilica before dying so precipitously?”

  “There, there, Monsieur,” I said, “try to forgive her. No man living gets to choose the hour of his death. Why, just this morning I saw in the hospital here a poor young rascal in the prime of his youth stretched out dead on a mat with a bubonic sore on his armpit and a carbuncle on his foot.”

  “What?” cried Caudebec, spitting out his wine. “A bubonic sore! A carbuncle! He had the plague!”

  “Well, yes,” I answered as innocently as I could, “we have a couple of cases in Montpellier, but don’t worry, the city is safe.”

  “Safe, Monsieur? Safe? Monks!” he cried as he stumbled to his feet. “We’re leaving immediately! ’Sblood! I’m not staying another minute in this pestilential town!”

  “Monsieur,” I said amicably, “since you’re leaving, let us part as friends. Give me your hand.” And advancing towards him, I held out my right hand. But he leapt backwards, knocking over a stool and shouted:

  “Monsieur, don’t touch me! You may be infected!”

  “Not I,” I replied. “Why, I only palpated him a little. Shake hands!” And stepping closer with my right hand extended, and while he retreated from my hand in terror, I pursued him around the table, as he had chased me, dagger in hand, two months previously. But once he’d got on the other side of the table, and seeing the stairs nearby, Caudebec fled, climbing them four at a time and rushing into his room where we heard him double-locking the door.