by Tony Moyle
“Been here long?” said Philibert in a vain attempt to help the man notice his existence.
There was no response.
“I said, have you been here long?”
“Shush.”
“I’m Phili…”
“Shussshhhhh!”
Phil immediately complied with the request, expecting only a short delay before the usual pleasantries were followed by an exchange of stories, fabricated to avoid the real reasons as to how they’d ended up here. None came. The man’s pose continued, and would have done so permanently if Phil had not broken it again. The total lack of social protocols was freaking him out more than the sinister location.
“Are you ok?” asked Phil with real concern for the man’s mental health.
“Shush. Shush. SHUSH!”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, blast and damn it!”
“What?”
“Curse you, fate.” He shook a fist at nothing in particular.
“I’m sorry.”
“I had it right there…in front of me…almost fully formed!” shouted the man, leaping from his stool and kicking it petulantly into the corner of the room. “Oh, thank you very much!”
“Sorry, it’s just you were ignoring me.”
“Yes, I know. It was on purpose!”
“I’m Philibert.”
“Good for you.”
The old man propped his head against the green, slimy walls, fists clenched in a ball ready to strike something.
“And you are?” asked Phil, maintaining his grip on the normal flow of proceedings that accompanied meeting someone for the first time.
The man ceased leaning, a position he’d occupied since launching himself from the stool, and turned dramatically. He fixed his stare on Phil, mouth wide open, face pale from shock and jaw dangling somewhere close to his Adam’s apple. “You’re joking, right!?”
“I’m not sure I’m in any condition to joke right now,” replied Phil.
“And yet your question is ridiculously funny.”
“It is?”
“How could you not know who I am?”
Phil rubbed more of the blood from his eyes in case that was the culprit for his lack of vision rather than his memory. It didn’t help. “Because…um…I don’t!”
“Are you foreign?”
“Depends what you mean by foreign.”
“Turkish?”
“No.”
“Oriental?”
“Not sure where that is,” said Phil a little confused as to which country it related to.
“But you can’t be French.”
“Yes, Aix-en-Provence originally.”
“WHAT?! No way. It’s literally impossible you don’t know who I am.”
“Is it?”
“Yes! It’s unbelievable. Have you been in hiding?”
“No.”
“Are you secretly blind? Amnesia perhaps?”
“No. None of them. And surely if I did have amnesia, I wouldn’t actually remember that I had amnesia, would I?”
“I really don’t understand how it’s possible,” replied the man, pacing up and down while chuntering his surprise under his breath.
“Look, I just don’t know who you are, alright?!” replied Phil angrily, pulling himself gingerly to his feet. “Just bloody tell me!”
“You, sir, are in the company of none other than the one and only Michel de Notredame! Or Nostradamus, as most call me. Apothecary, Engineer, Herbalist, Ephemeris and Prophet.” As Michel made his introductions he stretched out his body to inflate his own self-importance, and struck a pose that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the portrait of an expensive oil painting.
“Oh, right,” replied Phil in mock acknowledgement.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“You still don’t know who I am, do you?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Damn it! I really thought I was getting somewhere. That people were starting to take notice.”
Michel retrieved the upturned stool from its crash site and returned to his previous state. At no point did he feel inclined to discover more about his new inmate or why he might have been there. Being in prison wouldn’t stop Michel working and nor would another human distract him.
“What are you doing?”
Michel reluctantly opened one eye.
“I was harnessing the cosmic energy, before you contaminated the atmosphere with all your innate nonsense.”
“Cosmic what?”
“Energy. It tells me the future and I write it down. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Ahh…now I get why you’re in here,” said Phil suddenly feeling rather sorry for him. “You’re a threat to yourself and a danger to others?”
“No! Have a little more respect for your elders, boy.”
Closing in on his sixtieth year, Michel had already beaten the odds of history and looked in no hurry to stop anytime soon. The earlier leap from the stool demonstrated how agile and fit he was for a man who had no right to be anywhere other than a hole in the ground or bed-ridden to a nice, comfy bed.
“Why are you here, then?” asked Phil.
“Freedom of speech.”
“There isn’t any,” replied Phil, something he knew only too well as a result of his own upbringing.
“Precisely. The Church, or at least one of them, because I can’t keep up with all the changes, has decided in their divine wisdom that I should stay here for a while. All because I forgot to ask them.”
“Ask them what?”
“If I could print my prognostications.”
“And…”
“Apparently I couldn’t. Which was annoying because I already had.”
“Prison for that seems a little harsh.”
“Poor old Claude didn’t really have a choice. He got caught up in the religious backlash and had to send me here. It’s only temporary: the postal service from Paris can take months.”
“You know Claude de Savoie?”
“Yes, of course he knows me. Everyone knows me.”
“Apart from me.”
“That’s hardly my fault, is it?”
“I guess it’s neither yours nor mine. Listen, do you think you might be able to put a good word in for me? Encourage him to release me?”
“I doubt it,” said Michel dispassionately. “I don’t know you.”
“Well, you won’t until you try to.”
“You’re right.”
“Well, are you going to?”
“Probably not.”
“Nice. I see we’re going to get along well.”
“Don’t feel bad, it’s not personal. I’m just too busy for all of that getting to know you nonsense. Plus, I’m not really in the best position to help you get out at the moment. I don’t even know what you’re in here for?”
Philibert considered the answer for a moment. Over the years he’d participated in many deeds that might have warranted a stint in prison, but oddly none of those had been the cause of his arrest. It was ironic to think that the one time he’d chosen to do the right thing, it was perversely that very action that landed him in trouble. And he still wasn’t entirely sure why. Yes, he’d been found in a lady’s chamber without an invitation, and yes, he’d confronted Jacques over his treatment of Annabelle, but were those really crimes? The answer was a categorical yes. Crimes, in the eyes of the nobility, were whatever they wanted them to be.
“I confronted a fellow noblemen over the treatment of a lady,” replied Phil, making it sound as innocent as possible.
Michel rubbed his chin and reflected for a moment. He was many things, but gullibility did not feature in his list of faults.
“Is that so? And what business was it of yours?”
“He was beating her.”
“And do you intervene when a knight whips his own horse?”
“No, but that’s not the same.”
“That depends on the quality of the horse.”
&nbs
p; “Are you saying only ugly horses should be beaten?”
“Of course not. I’m saying if the horse is well behaved it has no reason to be beaten. This woman, did she deserve it?”
“I think you’re missing my angle on this.”
“Crime and punishment are not new concepts. If she deserved it, you had no right to interfere.”
“No, she didn’t deserve it. No human deserves to be treated like an animal.”
“Then I can tell you’ve never been to Genoa: horrible people.”
“I’m sure they don’t deserve it either.”
“It looks to me, from the way you are dressed, that you, too, are a noble. The correct response in that situation would have been to challenge the other to a duel. What was your approach?”
“I waved a rather inoffensive bent penknife at him.”
“Unconventional.”
“And ineffective as it happens,” added Phil.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Philibert Montmorency.”
Michel snorted loudly.
“What?”
“You’re not a Montmorency.”
“You seem very certain.”
“Yes, I am,” said Michel.
“I have a ring.”
“I don’t care if you have a written statement from the Queen. Just because I’m famous for reading the future, it doesn’t mean I’m not interested in history: in fact, it’s a vital source of information to predict future events. Earlier you said you were from Aix: the Montmorency family are from Languedoc.”
Phil had dropped his guard. Amidst the confusion of his beating and the disturbing conditions of his surroundings he’d answered a question off message and allowed a true fact to creep out from under the façade.
“Did I really say Aix?”
“Oh yeah.”
“But I meant Albi.”
“Yet you still said Aix. Clear as day.”
“Slip of the tongue.”
“They don’t know you’re an imposter yet, do they?” replied Michel pointedly.
“No,” replied Philibert, releasing himself from his own lie.
“But they will, soon enough. I think confronting a noble for beating his woman is probably the least of your worries.”
“What will they do to me?”
“I expect they’ll invite a few hundred peasants to congregate in a big circle somewhere in Marseille to watch a man dressed in black violently remove your head with something sharp. The poor will be happy for another week without the slightest consideration to whose head was removed as long as there was a lot of screaming and the odd front-rower got splattered with blood. Double win.”
Phil wasn’t keen on losing his head, or being the main attraction at the Saturday afternoon matinee. “What should I do?”
“Keep doing what you’ve always done. Find a way to convince them that you should live: after all, you’re an imposter, aren’t you?”
“I’m a chancer trying to make a better life for myself that’s all.”
“Good for you. I’m all for it. Now if you don’t mind I feel a prophecy coming on.”
Nostradamus shuffled over to his desk, dragging the stool along for the ride with the aid of his left foot. Dipping the quill into the inkpot a couple of times he set to work on one of the quatrains he was starting to become famous for. These four-line prophecies weren’t just the source of his income, they fuelled his fame with the ferocity of an exploding cannon. The people needed hope, guidance and comfort and he delivered it every year with almanacs that contained hundreds of these quatrains for every possible event or circumstance.
Everyone, from noble to royal to peasant, wanted to know the outcome of their life before it occurred. It didn’t matter too much what the source of the prediction was, as long as they trusted the scribe. Nostradamus had spent a lifetime building a reputation that the people believed in. If it came from him then it was simply the truth.
After a couple of minutes of intense scribbling, grumbling and the occasional glance up to the window where the clear night sky framed the distant constellations, he raised the paper above his head in triumph.
“Got it!” he shouted as if a crowd extended out into the distance waiting patiently for his proclamation. “Oh yes, this is a good one.”
The introduction of the paper to the small world of the dank cell was presented no less exuberantly than the announcement of a newborn baby. This wasn’t just a piece of paper, this was a living, breathing vision of the future. A sure-fire cert, a beautifully intricate window with a stunning view of the world still to come. The sort of valuable intelligence you’d rely on to top up your insurance premiums, make a massive financial gamble on the outcome of your crop yields and stay as far away from natural disaster zones as possible. There was no question of this being a mere guess. This was a prophecy, and in the right hands it was as accurate as an axe was to a skilful executioner.
“Can I see it?” asked Philibert, caught up in the excitement and theatre purposefully spun to catch people’s attention and prove its own authenticity.
“If you want,” said Michel, holding the small piece of yellow parchment out towards him.
Phil attempted to read it in the dimly lit conditions, but that wasn’t the only factor holding him back.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” said Michel smiling from ear to ear.
“It’s hard to say.”
“I expect it’s too difficult for you to interpret.”
“It’s hard to say.”
“I wouldn’t beat yourself up. It’s as much a skill to understand a quatrain as it is to write one.”
“It’s hard to say,” repeated Phil.
“What’s the problem with it?”
“It’s in Latin.”
Latin was still the recognised language for those of academic persuasion. Doctors, professors, writers, priests and architects all used it, and for two simple reasons. Firstly it was the recognised norm, and secondly it annoyed everyone on the outside of their circle who couldn’t read it. It was like a rude note, written in a code only the perpetrators understood, being passed covertly around the classroom to fool the teacher.
Everyday folk didn’t speak Latin. They spoke French, and dependent on the particular town or region they lived in, it may or may not be the same French as the village they could see on the horizon across the river. But mostly it wasn’t. Those fortunate enough to learn Latin were at an immediate advantage over the masses, who would never know if you’d accurately translated it into their dialect or not. Which was unlikely as even scholars couldn’t keep up with how quickly their vocabulary changed. Latin was effective because it tended to contain the same words and meanings from one year to the next, unlike French dialects whose words multiplied faster than plankton.
“Hold on. I’ll do a dummy’s version,” said Michel curtly, looking at Phil in disdain. Moments later he handed him a French version on a new piece of parchment.
The great squawker, audacious, without shame
Will be elected governor of the army
The stoutness of his competitor,
The bridge being broken, the city fainting from fear
“Um, ok. What’s this a prophecy about?” asked Phil, genuinely confused by it.
“You mean you don’t know?! Why don’t you try to work it out?”
Phil reread the four lines to see if he was missing anything crucial before concluding that the only thing missing was meaning.
“If I had to guess, and it’s just that, by the way, I’d say a really big bird, that’s the squawker, of unknown species, is going to take over an army and do something unspeakable to a bridge that will make everyone faint. I mean birds can be very messy, can’t they? Not sure it would make anyone faint, though. Actually, now I think about it, I think the bridge might be a metaphor. Maybe the bridge is really a branch?”
“Obviously that’s not it,” replied Michel.
“Ok then genius, tell me, as you’re so b
loody clever.”
“I’m seeing a loud, brash royal figure ascending to the head of an army before crushing his foe at a notorious city with a bridge, where they will lay siege to it until the people’s will is broken.”
“Which one?”
“Which what?” asked Michel, rather caught out. He wasn’t used to being challenged.
“Well, where do I start? Which royal figure? Which city? Which bridge?”
“I’m sure it’ll become obvious when it happens.”
“But what good is that if someone is reading your prophecies today in the hope of avoiding whatever it is that’s going to happen tomorrow? Does everyone just avoid visiting any major city that has a bridge? Venice will be deserted.”
“Don’t be silly. Not avoid, just take precautions when you’re there.”
“What like watch out for squawking generals, you mean!?”
“Exactly.”
“You know, you should branch out into travel guides.”
“The cosmic energy isn’t easy to control, you have to take from it what you can.”
“And do people really believe this stuff?” said Phil, never one for holding much sway in the future and being more preoccupied with getting through each day unscathed. He thought it unlikely that Nostradamus’s prophecies could help him much there.
“Absolutely. I have customers all over the country. The rich and powerful pay me to write their star charts and I offer personal predictions just for them. I’ve even worked for the royal family, you know.”
“But why do they believe it?”
“Because I write the truth.”
“Is that right?” replied Phil sceptically. “And why aren’t you allowed to write ‘the truth’ at the moment. Why did the Church throw you in here if your work is so reliable?”
“Because the Church is in a panic about all this Calvinism nonsense and they don’t want to take a chance that someone like me will predict the Catholics losing. Even greater than that, they fear the very slim chance that I might make an incorrect prediction about them. Now they won’t let anyone publish anything until they’ve had the chance to read through them to make amendments.”
“Good luck to them, not sure they’d make any sense of it anyway. You could make this prediction fit almost anything in retrospect,” added Phil.
