by Nina Post
All Bernard had were questions.
Seeing their vision of the future, so far off, with details they could hardly fathom, affected them profoundly. It seemed that all he thought about was the fate of the soul and the fate of this far-off future. Would their souls go on to experience another life? Would any of them experience the epochs they glimpsed? Would they see one another again, or was this their only time? Would they go into this infinite void Oresme theorized? What of the heaps of bodies on the streets during the first pestilence, who never received a proper burial?
As much as he valued Sic et Non, Bernard suspected you could go through as many chains of logic as you wanted and never get any closer to knowing. There were no answers and perhaps never would be. All Bernard knew was that the world would go on, and they had something important to protect. Their children, foremost. But also the language that in turn protected their vision.
People were already calling this pestilence “the pestilence of boys,” because it was striking down the young, and boys in particular. Bernard was petrified for his son — not just because of this second pestilence, but the turmoil of the past ten years. The grandes compagnies, the lawless brigands (most of whom were English, to Bernard’s dismay) had ravaged France for years. Knollys and de Cervole and their companies looted, killed, tortured, took captives, and were richly rewarded by obsequious nobles. And the Jacquerie, that was another problem.
Bernard’s father was a peasant who had a modest number of acres, a plow and a horse to pull it. He tried, but couldn’t save enough to send Bernard to university. But at Navarre, each student received a stipend of sous each week depending on his area of study, so he could attend for free. His father had given him just enough in those days to make the difference between hungry and comfortable. After the uprising nearly three Easters ago, a company of brigands passed through his father’s land and torched the three buildings on his manse: the main one where he and Bernard’s brother lived, the one for the corn, and the one for the hay. They stole his father’s scythe, spade, shears, and knife. Then they dragged him behind a horse until he was killed.
It was a harsh world. The vision he and Thomas shared had given them a hope they never would have had otherwise.
“What are you thinking about?” Thomas asked him.
“Master Oresme,” Bernard replied. “I can’t help but wonder what he would make of all this.”
To Bernard’s surprise, Thomas smiled. “He would consider it a magical event that could be explained by natural causes.”
“That’s exactly how we thought before we had the vision,” Bernard pointed out. “Master Oresme would surely think us mad.”
They settled into Thomas’s house, each with their own silent prayers. All Bernard could do, with everything such an unknowable mystery, was take care of his family and his friends, and not let the future distract him too much from that.
Chapter 12
San Francisco — December 2013
Cate went to Noah’s apartment to work on the poem and the lists, her mind still turning over and over the questions she had about Jake Dumont and VZ.
Noah took her bag and set it down by the dining table, then headed into the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Yes.” She liked that he always had a fresh pot. When she heard the burr grinder, it reminded her of Istanbul, and she felt placeless and unsettled.
At the language ceremony, she held her stance because her family thought they could push her in any way they wanted, like she was nothing but a minor pawn on their board. From that experience, she learned that nothing is certain, and people you trusted and loved who were supposed to trust and love you back could turn on you, betray you. You might think you meant something to them until it became painfully clear you didn’t matter at all. It took her years to build up her self-worth again, to reconcile her family’s banishment with a sense of her own value, which still seemed held together with gum and tape. And not strong tape.
“I made a cranberry cake yesterday,” Noah said. “Slice of that?”
“Sure.” The muscles in her back and shoulders loosened a little, and she shook her head at herself. Focus on being here, she told herself. Focus on being with Noah, on the hot coffee, on the view of the city and the Bay. She looked through the papers on the table while he got the coffee ready.
He set a mug in front of her, and she thought of her Mr. Tall mug, still in Istanbul. Maybe one day she would give it to him, if she went back, if he ever went to see her there.
“Where do we start?” Noah asked.
Cate picked up her mug and let the warmth suffuse her hands.
“We know the three VZ books were written in VZ and transcribed in the writing system,” Noah said. “No one in my family’s been able to crack it, not with the information we have. We know that what’s been written down is vitally important, but — ”
“You don’t know why,” Cate finished. “Just like I don’t know how our family’s poem is important.” She sipped her coffee. “I guess we look for what’s the same. Or different. Then if we get lucky, we can try to determine why. How about we start with your Yesuþoh materials — some sort of word listing, right?”
“We have to start somewhere. May as well with this.” Noah separated a piece of paper from the others. “I’ve written down the list names in the VZ Yesuþoh, along with the Middle English words you get when you read them out loud, plus my best guess about how those translate into more recognizable English.”
Cate took a look at the paper.
Wordes Þere Sunne
Words of the Sun
Wordes Þere Mone
Words of the Moon
Wordes Þere Playtened Goot
Words of the Folded Goat
Wordes Þere Blak Fether
Words of the Black Feather
Wordes Þere Enchaunted Nonne
Words of the Enchanted Nun
Wordes Þere Hundred Sseaweres
Words of the Hundred Mirrors
Wordes Þere Beres Muð
Words of the Bear’s Mouth
Wordes Þere Knapped Wout
Words of the Cracked Vault
Wordes Þere Roren Leon
Words of the Roaring Lion
Wordes Þere Cristes-messe Snow
Words of the Christmas Snow
Wordes Þere Elenge Kyng
Words of the Lonely King
Wordes Þere Tumlyn Stútr
Words of the Dancing Bull
Wordes Þere Synnamome Wastel
Words of the Cinnamon Cake
Wordes Þere Glasen Wynges
Words of the Glassy Wings
Wordes Þere Fleen Glette
Words of the Flying Phlegm
Wordes Þere Un-deedli Pigge
Words of the Immortal Pig
Wordes Þere Frendrede
Words of the Friendship
Wordes Þere Bonayre Bred-wrigte
Words of the Gentle Baker
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Cate said. “And cryptic.” Noah put a small plate with a generous slice of pecan-topped cranberry cake by her mug. “Thank you.”
“You’ve never seen these before?” Noah asked.
“Maybe once, a long time ago.” When she and Noah were just kids, and friends, they didn’t talk about the language — Noah especially, because it he already spent enough time on it. They spent their time watching TV, sending remote-controlled cars ricocheting around the Severn driveway, playing video games, or working on their homework. Cate wasn’t the Lyr steward and Noah wanted relief from being the Severn steward.
“How were you trained with these lists?” Cate asked him.
“Oh, um … I had to memorize the Middle English words and write them down in the VZ Yesuþoh, then recite it back.”
She spiked her fork in the cake and broke off a piece to eat. She tilted her head and pointed the fork at the cake. “Wow. This is really good. That list should be called Words of Noah’s Cranberry Cake. I vote that we r
eplace it.”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
“No, really,” she said. “This is one of the best cakes ever. You made this yourself?”
He nodded.
“And don’t get down on yourself for being able to do what you do,” Cate said, returning to the topic. “Benjamin was right, I can’t do any of this without you.” She tapped her pencil on the paper. “So we have eighteen lists here.” She switched her attention to the Lyr poem and quickly counted the number of stanzas. “And there are eighteen stanzas in the poem. Do you have the actual words from all of the lists?”
“Of course,” Noah said, then handed Cate a stack of papers. “It’s funny. When we practiced writing the lists, we immediately shredded our practice sheets. No one saved any copies, either. This is the first time one of us has kept a copy of the lists around for more than a few minutes.”
“Seriously?” Cate raised her brows. “Well, I guess the Severns have better security with this kind of thing.”
“Why we bothered, I’m not sure. But that’s how we’ve always done it, through at least a few generations.”
“But you must have a master copy of the lists, right?”
“We have them on a tapestry, like a scroll,” Noah answered. “Benjamin has it.”
“Don’t you need it?”
“As soon as the steward is familiar enough with the practice of the lists, the tapestry is stored until the next steward is chosen.”
Cate had a bite of cake then drank more of her coffee. “All right. It looks like each of these lists has eighteen words — there’s that number eighteen again.” Cate scrutinized the Words of the Sun:
Anlace
Spyrakle
Uhten-tide
Demeyne
Eʒhe-sihðe
Heeps
Tre
Wappynge
Ioutes
Privity
Gadeling
Belde
Quyk-myre
Trave
Farsed
Chevisance
Krake
Vn-kunnyng
Cate stood up and paced across the living room, frustrated. “Tell me again how this training thing worked on the Severn side. More detail.”
“I know how to string together VZ characters to make the sounds that comprise a Middle English word, like which letters you’d need to put together for it to sound like ‘privity.’ I just know how to write the words in the lists. That’s the only way I can read any of this.”
Cate raked her hands through her hair. “Okay.”
“At least your family can use the words with one another.”
“Oh, we used the words with one another, that’s for sure,” she said. “But I only picked up a little over the years. My sisters and I were never close.”
“You don’t say.”
“I know that may be hard to believe.”
“How much of it did you pick up while Gaelen was learning it?” Noah asked.
“Not much,” she said. “If I went to a country that spoke VZ and read Yesuþoh, I could have stilted and limited conversations, and could only understand words and sentences if they were spelled out phonetically.” It was possibly the case, Cate thought, that all of her conversations were stilted and limited, regardless of country. Because she felt stilted and limited when she wasn’t in the safety of her house, working with her crew.
“How much did you have to do?” Cate asked him. “Was it as much as Gaelen? Because I think it made her kind of crazy.” She waited for his reaction then flashed a grin.
“I don’t know much about Gaelen’s experience, but I like to think I’m slightly less crazy than she is,” Noah said. “My father had me recite Yesuþoh for thirty minutes every morning and afternoon. A year before my ceremony, I started one-on-one sessions with him, and we pronounced the lists like a musical key, with intonations. And that’s it. I think my family just serves as people who can read out loud at the funerals of Lyrs.” Noah closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean — ”
“I know.” Cate pulled over a short pile of paper. “I’ve got notes the linguist made when he was assessing the translation project. He must have given them to Gaelen, because Argos found these with the poem at her place.”
Noah slid the notes closer to look at them. “Looks like we can see how far he got. It seems he translated the poem easily enough, but couldn’t figure out what any of the words in our Yesuþoh mean. Too bad he didn’t actually include a translation of the poem, since that might come in handy right about now.”
“Let’s have a look at it,” Cate said, “and we can try to figure out how those lists fit in after that.” Noah took another bite of cake while she found the right stack on the table:
Atwynne Angle clericia reclused a weste, derkful Paris
Hware a þes tid Uller, Hades, eke Ares wandren
Þuruhtut blóð-hlaup eke heeps a enfecte lyches
A-dreden Drihten penance eke wreth
Þe cause at þes qualm a roune, wa for-heden Mercury’s soporiferous wand
Eke forgen an augur for þe leʒten a remedie
Þe augur senten alarming metels
Vorþan wa mot teller of þes lok, þes sonde/cors
In-like Aruns eke Amphiaraus, tykel a þe sours
Helpen for an apert, haʒher moillier
Eke a makyere, Þeef a parchemyn
Wa enduren þurgh þe qualm
Wa schapen a diʒel langage for þe berʒen oure metel
In þrië quayrs at bunden a-ʒefen þurgh þe kyns
Eke wa ascriven þes gyd in þe comune tonge
Æn digne I-coren at eche aþal wille sweren a solempne oathe
For-hilen þe quayrs for mennisscleʒʒc
Eke skirra at awke handes
Otwynne aþals, Iren Elde remenants
Æn heh-fader, a Ulysses, an Inachus
Hie rixlien ilke King Minos for Æhte Esters
A weoli Crœsus turnen Caecilius Statius
Wrayed bie darke trecheries hie wille weet hisse eisful dwale
Wood-wroth, in þe wedereʒ þe i-led þe latiniers to þe Sibylline bokes
Atwynne Ȝiuer dehtren, a-way to crystallum Caïna
Bloundissen, ac wraye þin own blode for anwalde
Þey florischen þoru crueltee
An other aþal, Tiresias-arixlye
One sone a hauk in a mew, an other besuiken eke banysshen
Both aþals wraked for þe senne of Paethon eke Icarus
Þe lodemanage, þe kuns
Banysshen, hetelifaste misdeparten
Actæon to-breidened
Þes by-rad loode-sterre, welden of Þeues, eyen a briʒt chrysoprase
Psyche’s sistren a burðene, eke amansiened, heo-selfe reneged here nafn
To berʒen at eouwer dole eke greuaunces, drinken of Eunoë
Belde or daungere
Kumelings, a secre secte, eke malengine
Ædmod friend, eke sectour, eke mayker’s kyn
Here Þew eke swinken mæi skirra þies tydinges
Þe here own kyn wroʒte
Mæi vertu ouercom malengine
Fortune hath giv’n us þes torfare
Ilyche þe un-bliðe osses of Cumae
Certes þe wereld a-rechen þe ende-deis, we ken it a-bidens
Wayten qualm scipen at medley casse
Seluer briddis a-loft in þe lyft
Wheeled cartes a-londe
Oure parage for-wurðen of qualm, certes Atropus kuttened here strenge
Wa a-cennen a barn-team, a dere ympe
To amaistren ouer langage liðe þes derf erfeð elde
Cheuesen þe quayrs þo ælle esperance þynken loste
Þo it sembeles þes atelich tydings wille I-wurðen an-on at dreʒ randon
Gode wate ælle eke wæs duʒti
Noah put his hands over his face.
“Tired?” she asked.
“No, I’m crying.”
“We can do this,” she said. “We’ve got a
Middle English dictionary and your laptop. Let’s go through the poem and figure out the next steps from there.”
They looked at the first section.
Atwynne Angle clericia reclused a weste, derkful Paris
Hware a þes tid Uller, Hades, eke Ares wandren
Þuruhtut blóð-hlaup eke heeps a enfecte lyches
“Þuruhtut blóð-hlaup?” Noah said.
Cate knew some of the words, and looked up others in the dictionary. Some time later, they wrote down a translation:
Two English clerics shut away in desolate, dark Paris
Where in this time Uller, Hades, and Ares wander/walk
Through curdled blood and heaps of dead bodies
“The pestilence,” Cate said. “They must have thought it was the end of the world. For the sake of argument, if they did have a vision — ”
Noah squinted. “What do you mean, if they had a vision? You don’t think they did?”
“There are plenty of other explanations. Why, do you believe they did?”
He tightened his brow. “Yeah, kind of. But how can we say one way or the other until we translate the books?”
Cate shook her head, amused. “I guess we can’t.” She tapped the paper. “They were clerics.”
“They were clergy?”
“No, students. Clerici could operate with near total impunity. They didn’t have to pay taxes and couldn’t be arrested except for capital crimes. This information is adjacent to the words to songs from Oklahoma!”
