The Burning Road

by Ann Benson

  But the traces of their presence could still be found if one knew how to look. He had discovered this section of Paris many years before through discreet inquiries after he and Kate had fled the burning holocaust at Strasbourgh, and trusted that if the need arose he could lose himself among the people who lived there, at least for a time. Now and again he would smell, or hear, or simply sense something that put him in mind of his past. It made his heart ache with loneliness sometimes to encounter those reminders, but still he sought them out.

  He turned south on Old Temple Street and then west again along the river, and marveled at the striking difference between the relative cleanliness of the Seine and the deplorable filth of the Thames. He remembered his first impression of the river when he had arrived in London: bodies floating in the fetid waters, the stench that rose clear up to the planks of the high bridge, and oarsmen with their mouths and noses covered in cloth. And the English went about their business in spite of it all, as if they were not living on the banks of a cesspool. In Paris, one could cross the Seine on many bridges without feeling the need to retch, for the citizens of Paris would not tolerate such abuse of their beautiful river.

  Still, only a desperate man would drink these waters, he thought.

  There was little more than foot traffic on the bridge, for horses had become terribly precious. He had paid handsomely to stable his own mount on the northern outskirts of the city, and promised even more to the groom when he returned, more than the groom could hope to get by selling the horse. The nobility were keeping to themselves or had escaped the city altogether, and there were few carriages to be seen. He crossed paths with an occasional mule-drawn cart, but most of the traffic he encountered was on foot.

  He stopped when he reached the island and stared up at the Cathedral de Notre Dame de Paris, allowing the huge edifice to impose all of its Christian might on him for a moment. Slipping through the power of the place was its sheer beauty, and he was torn between his admiration of its magnificence and his understanding of what it represented. He supposed by now it must finally be finished; the papal guards who had accompanied him on his ride through France a decade earlier had spoken of it and bemoaned the fact that they would not have a chance to see it. But their descriptions of it, with one tower done and the other only partly finished, lingered clearly in his mind. With a few glances back and forth, he compared the two peaks and judged that they were largely alike. He wondered briefly how skilled laborers had been found in the wake of the plague’s devastation of the populace. Most likely those with known skills were forced to work, like it or not, he thought. Christian priests had a way of convincing their believers to do the work of God, he knew. They had many ways.

  And here he would find priests, most certainly. While other churches went priestless, this crown jewel of French Christendom would be overrun with them. He did not envy the parishioners.

  He crossed the large open square, sidestepping the ever-present pigeons, and wondered briefly why they had not been caught and eaten yet. The shape of each cobblestone pressed into his feet through the wellsoftened soles of his leather boots, and the cathedral loomed larger with every step he took toward it. A chill rushed through him as he stepped into its shadow, and he felt weighted and burdened, as if the hands of the Christian God had reached down from His heaven and pressed on his shoulders. The stones suddenly turned cold under his feet, and he stopped.

  The sound of voices in uniform chant drifted out from the open door of the enormous church. Alejandro stood very still and listened. Despite his distrust of anything Christian, he allowed the captivating, harmonious tones to fill his soul. Why was their music so damnably beautiful, when all else was simply damnable? His beloved Adele had often confessed her sins under its spell, and once, as he had waited for her to finish, he had felt himself mesmerized by the haunting sounds.

  But now he had no penitent to await, and he could not let the music overtake him, for his mind was not free to wallow in such sensual luxury at the moment. There was a word to be unraveled.

  “Maranatha,” he said cautiously to the first priest who passed by him. “What does it mean?”

  But the priest, a man far scruffier than he would have expected to find in such a cathedral, only stared at him, and kept walking. The next one smiled at least, and said, “God will know, my son, but I surely do not.” Alejandro was grateful for the man’s kindness, but disappointed by his lack of knowledge. The third simply shook his head and shrugged, leaving the physician no wiser for the brief encounters.

  So it must be the university, then, he thought with mild frustration, and though the notion of going there excited him, he had hoped it would not come to that, for it would keep him away from Rue des Rosiers longer than he would have liked. He glanced up at the sun; it was still high enough to allow for a brief sojourn across the Seine. He stepped out of the shadows of Notre Dame and headed over the bridge to la rive gauche.

  It amazed him that learning could still persist in such times, but all around him he saw unmistakable signs of it. Though there were certainly fewer than there might have been in peace, he saw many young men wearing the simple robes of new scholarship. And some actually carried books! He had heard whispers of books called incunabula, with pages reproduced by cut blocks of wood, inked with fat and soot, and then joined together, but such wonders, he had thought, existed only in the Orient. Could this be what these young men carried? How marvelous if it were true! They sat at small tables and leaned on stone walls, drinking the cheapest wine the cafes would sell, and traded opinions with the urgent certainty of unsullied youth, though how even youth could remain untouched by pestilence, war, and famine was beyond his understanding. Then he recalled the heady glory of his own student days, and it all came clear to him. He had felt immortal then, unshakable. He had had no sense of what lay ahead.

  He approached a beautiful mansion, so modern and new in the midst of the small ancient houses all around it, and stopped for a moment to admire it. He was drawn by the sturdiness of stonework, and intrigued by the details of appointment that could be seen here and there on the elegant manse. He saw glass—glass—in all the windows. In this maison, the residents would know the blessing of light without the scourge of wind.

  When he’d seen enough of the new house, he headed toward the Place de la Sorbonne. There he found himself surrounded by the sweet sounds of Latin, for it was only through this ancient and eternal language that the scholars of Europa who gathered in Paris could speak with one another. Of all the tongues he spoke, it was by far his favorite, for it flowed off the lips as softly as a kiss and landed welcome on the ears of the recipient. And it was only because of his fluency in Latin that he had been able to master the difficult and bothersome language of the English people, who borrowed words so freely. Why this English was gaining favor, he did not understand; everyone agreed it was poorly suited to polite use. It was simply too ugly. Kate spoke it well enough, but shades of it colored her French and he had often warned her to be careful of its influence.

  Would the English have a word or phrase that meant the same as the mysterious Maranatha? Probably not. The lack of depth will be its eventual downfall, he thought. But Latin surely would.

  He passed a clutch of robed scholars and slowed his pace. He looked back at the group, some of whom had their backs to him. There were two soldiers not far away, both of whom looked bored and out of place; Alejandro thought it likely that neither could understand what was being said by the pedants nearby. Nor would they care.

  So why not just ask? He would be in no danger if he addressed them in Latin. They might simply think him one of their own, albeit poorly dressed, perhaps a traveling teacher. Then he could return to the Rue des Rosiers with the mystery solved and disappear into its familiar safety while he waited for Kate.

  And so he approached them. He apologized for the interruption if it was unwelcome, and bid them all good health. And though he was received politely, he could feel the eyes of these men burni
ng into him. Their curiosity felt like the point of a sharp blade prodding him in his most private places. But I am here, he thought, shoving his uncertainty aside, and I will ask.

  “Maranatha,” he said. He pronounced each unfamiliar syllable carefully. And then in Latin, he added, “I have come across this word in a manuscript, and I do not understand what it means. I had hoped that one among you might shed some illumination on it.”

  To his surprise, the answer came in French, and before he saw the face of the speaker, he recognized the voice.

  “Il veut dire ‘Venez, mon dieu,’ ” said Guy de Chauliac. “Roughly speaking, ‘Come, O Lord.’ It is Aramaic. I have had to acquire a good deal of it in my studies. And may I say bienvenu à Paris, colleague. It has been far too long since we last met.”

  Guy de Chauliac had only to snap his fingers and nod in Alejandro’s direction, and the two bored soldiers, obviously the French dignitary’s own personal guards, were on him. They grabbed him from behind, and though he struggled mightily, he was no match for two strong men, and he was quickly contained. Still, he fought back like an animal, to which the elegant de Chauliac reacted with a look of disgust and a wave of his hand. This resulted in the Jew receiving a hearty smack on the back of his head, and he went down onto his hands and knees, straddling his precious bag of possessions. He grabbed hold of it and tried to crawl away between the legs of his captors, but he was caught by the back of the shirt and beaten down again.

  And then he felt himself being dragged through the streets by the two rough Gauls as the princely de Chauliac led the way, carrying in his long arms all that Alejandro owned in the world. As he was hauled through the piles of horse dung and over the rough cobblestones like a common criminal, the crowds parted to let the party pass, and the people of Paris stared down at him. It was no wonder: shrieking protests like a madman, bloody from his beating, and smeared with the familiar odious brown, he was not a pleasant sight. His shame was outdone only by his anger.

  De Chauliac looked down his nose from the top of a flight of stairs as Alejandro was tossed down their full length by his ruffian escorts and into a clammy crypt, where he jolted to a stop on the damp stone floor. The air oofed out of him, and he lay there, stunned by the fall and his sudden ill turn of fortune.

  Gradually his breath returned, and he sat up on his elbows to look around. His vision was blurry and his head ached from its earlier thumping, but bit by bit it cleared and seeing returned. He was grateful for the slivers of light that came from a narrow window near the ceiling: the imprisonment that began his journey from Spain a decade before had been terrifyingly light-less. His eyes settled on a long stone rectangle, simply adorned with one plain cross on its lid. A burial vault. So I am in a tomb, then. After a silent apology to whoever might be resting inside, he grabbed one edge and tried to stand, but found to his great unhappiness that one of his ankles would not cooperate. He sat back down, wincing, and examined the balky joint with his hands. He pressed all around it with his fingers and judged with great relief that it was not broken. But it was beginning to swell, and Alejandro knew that it needed to be bound.

  He removed his shirt, and was about to tear away one of the sleeves to use as a binding, when the door opened at the top of the stairs. He looked up and saw the silhouettes of his captors heading down the stairs and toward him. He hastened to put his shirt back on, and just as he finished he was grabbed at both elbows and yanked to his feet.

  Limping pathetically, he was led through the crypt and up a different flight of stairs. When he came back into the daylight again, he found himself in the courtyard of the fine mansion he had, a short while before, stopped to admire. He wondered as he bumped over the stones why his spine had not tingled as he’d passed it earlier, considering who the occupant had turned out to be.

  That noble hôtelier awaited him in a large wood-paneled room, handsomely furnished and richly draped with ornate hangings. Alejandro was deposited roughly on a beautiful woven rug in front of the patrician doctor, who sat in a high-backed chair and leered at him with visible malevolence, silently demanding a decade’s worth of explanations.

  He will not believe what I have been through. He will think me mad.

  So he said nothing, but looked around and saw to his amazement that the room was full of books. As he stood there, recovering what grace he could, Alejandro scanned the shelves and tried to estimate the number. There must have been hundreds of them, and though he had heard wild stories of a library in Córdoba with more books than a man could count in a week, not since his days as a student at the University of Montpelier had he seen so many volumes in one place as here. King Edward’s library at Windsor Castle was not half as large.

  “You are plainly taken with the contents of my shelves, Physician,” de Chauliac noted. “This does not surprise me. There are many fine volumes here. I have collected them with great care.”

  Alejandro just stared at him. He had not even the faintest notion of what he should say. So he smiled derisively and said, “Greetings, Monsieur de—ah, pardon! I mean Dr. de Chauliac … it has indeed been a very long time. We are both older now, but I am compelled to observe that you have aged well, and you look to be in splendid health!”

  “Merci, Dr. Canches. I recall from your brief studies with me that you had fine skills of observation.” Of course de Chauliac would have discovered his true name. Spanish soldiers would have told him when they arrived in Avignon to arrest him, only to find him already gone.

  “And what of your patron, His Holiness Pope Clement? How does he fare?”

  Ah, it is so kind of you to ask, but you must have been living in a cave, he imagined de Chauliac responding. Instead the Frenchman said, “I regret to tell you that my holy patron was felled by a strike of lightning after he sent you to England. Alas, I tried, but I could not save him. His very blood was boiled by the force of it. It was, shall we say, an unfortunate—and rather unattractive—event.”

  An irony too rich to be believed, Alejandro thought. “Such a tragedy—especially after your skillful protection of his health.”

  But as he stood in the man’s library, surrounded by his impressive collection of wisdom, Alejandro could not help but feel a small admiration for the pope’s former physician. Despite the evil turn that de Chauliac and the now deceased Clement had done to him in shipping him off to England, he had learned much in the short time he had studied under this teacher.

  You must use all of your skills to isolate them from the contagion, de Chauliac had said in preparing him for the journey, for I believe that it may be passed through the air from one victim to another, and we never see the means of it! God has willed that the plague’s vehicle shall be visible only to Himself for the present. We can only imagine it. But it is there, sure as there were seven days in the Creation. It is there, and one day, God willing, we shall be able to see it.

  Like Alejandro knew there were tiny beasts in the water, de Chauliac had hinted at tiny beasts in the air.

  “It was rats,” the Jew blurted out.

  De Chauliac raised one eyebrow and leaned forward in his chair. “Pardon?”

  “Rats,” Alejandro said again.

  De Chauliac’s hard blue eyes darted quickly into the corners of the room. “I assure you, there are no rats here. In the kitchen, perhaps, but that is well away, in the cellar.” His voice took on a slightly hurt tone, surprising his listener. “I had thought you would be more impressed by my collection.”

  “No!” Alejandro said. “I mean yes! Your library is—” He hesitated, looking for the proper word. “Magnificent! I have not seen the likes of it in a very long time.”

  A satisfied smile spread slowly across de Chauliac’s face, but then, seemingly outside his control, his brow took on the creases and lines of uncertainty. “Why, then, do you speak of rats?”

  “The contagion!” he answered excitedly. “Of the plague. It is carried by rats, I am certain of it!”

  De Chauliac stared at him for a
moment, then let out a series of small chuckles, which grew steadily until they had become full, mocking laughter. Soon he was gripping his sides; even the guards at the door were losing their stiff composure.

  “I am certain of it!” Alejandro repeated, nearly shouting, and the laughter ceased.

  De Chauliac stood, lifting his patrician bones slowly off the chair until he reached his full magnificence. He moved forward until his face was only a few inches from Alejandro’s. The tall French physician spoke in low, even tones, saying, “While you are a guest in my home, monsieur, you shall not raise your voice. I do not think it good behavior.”

  Alejandro remained still and silent. On hearing the word guest, he was reminded that he was a prisoner in this library until de Chauliac thought to move him back to the abysmal crypt, and decided that he would not raise his voice again.

  “My apologies, monsieur,” he said with proper contrition. “I do not mean to besmirch your hospitality. It was only my great eagerness to share this knowledge with you that caused me to shout.”

  De Chauliac’s eyes were still locked on his, Alejandro saw in them something he could not quite fathom. Was it—but no. It could not be. He had thought, for the briefest moment, that he had seen the look of something akin to sadness in those blue eyes. As if de Chauliac somehow felt—betrayed.

  The Frenchman turned away suddenly and picked up a pile of neatly folded clothes from a nearby table. “Here,” he said, thrusting the clothing toward Alejandro, “we shall discuss this crazed theory of yours further at dinner.” He shook a finger at Alejandro’s soiled breeches. “But first you will clean yourself. You stink.”

  And he glided majestically out of the room, leaving Alejandro alone with his guards and a wealth of books. But he had no opportunity to enjoy the volumes. Almost immediately his guards led him away and through a series of long halls and twisting passages to a small chamber on the top floor of the mansion, which seemed to have an almost endless number of rooms. He made an effort to memorize the route, but realized when they shut the stout wood door behind him that an escape attempt could be blocked at any one of a dozen points along its progress. There was a window with clear glass that was large enough to fit his body through, but when he opened the wood-encased panes and looked downward it seemed a dizzying height, far too great to survive an unprotected jump. The street below was busy with traffic, and if he did not break both his legs he was sure to be captured, and what then?