“The Pope doesn’t have the Savior’s last wishes in his palace. What he has is quite another testament.”
“The testament of a thief like you?”
“Who better to recount the concerns of a man condemned to death?”
“And of a saint?”
François proceeded to tell how Colin how he had spent time in the desert, how he had slowly been initiated, how he had familiarized himself with the scriptures of Qumran, and how he had produced parodies and imitations, corrected by Gamliel and translated by Eviatar. Nobody had suspected how opportune these pranks and stylistic exercises would prove to be—not even François, who had only agreed to take part in the game while waiting for an opportunity to play the winning hand and escape the clutches of the Brotherhood.
“Yes, it was necessary to get out of a tight spot. But not like you.”
“How, then?”
“By fooling everyone.”
Colin looked at the shriveled pieces of parchment. He wondered why the Lord had been unable to escape punishment while the criminal opposite him claimed to have successfully led Rome, Jerusalem, and even Satan by the nose. The answer no doubt lay in those yellowed pages, thrown willy-nilly on the table of the inn. There they were, between two wretched thieves, just like Jesus on his cross.
“What does Christ say?”
“I have no idea. I can’t read Aramaic.”
That took Colin’s breath away. François hadn’t even read the testament of Jesus. He had simply composed his own pastiche of it. Colin scratched his beard. François surely couldn’t have concocted, all by himself, an imitation that could fool the doctors of the faith so totally. To commit such an act of treachery, he would have needed the help of a mentor versed in the Holy Scriptures, assisted by a translator capable of putting his Parisian troubadour’s language into old Aramaic, as well as a skilful copyist, not to mention skillful forgers able to imitate the right ink, and so on. In other words, a whole team of pen pushers and Bible punchers!
François let Colin ponder like this for a while before deigning to enlighten him. “Do you remember Brother Paul?”
Colin nodded. François explained to him how, as soon as he returned to the monastery, he had persuaded the prior to help him save Jesus’s confession from the hands of the inquisitors. But also from the book hunters. He had presented him with quite another testament, the Ballad of a crucified man, which he had composed in secret in the desert. Paul, who had read and studied Annas’s minutes, had suggested a few changes and corrections to François, and then Brother Médard and his monks had immediately set to work. François had delayed his departure for Acre by pretending to be sick. For three days, Aisha had made him teas from wild flowers that induced fever. She had believed that François was using this subterfuge to stay with her a while longer. François had asked that she be allowed to come on the journey, disguised as a gypsy, but Gamliel had been firmly opposed to the idea. It was only once he was at sea that he learned the real reason for this refusal. The pregnant Aisha had feared that François did not want a child. She had not even seen fit to tell him the news. What if, once he had regained his freedom, François decided never to return to the Holy Land?
“That girl really has brought you nothing but bad luck. And now she’s burdening you with a bastard.”
It was a slap in the face, but François refrained from responding. Colin was a lout, who knew nothing of the affairs of the heart. So how could he understand that it was “that girl” who had set him on the path he was currently following? Preserving the words of Jesus Christ was of no interest to her, she had made that quite clear. She was a Berber. On the other hand, she had seen it as a way for François to save his own soul. And his own Testament. For it wasn’t so much the Nazarene’s words that mattered, it was the poetry that emanated from them, the emotion they inspired over and above the words themselves. And it was the same with Villon’s song. It was the sound of both these singular voices that had to be preserved at all costs because they were the song of mankind.
Aisha had nurtured François with her silences, her caresses, never burdening him with idle chatter, in the same way as she respected the breath of the wind. François, though, had owed it to himself to act in a more decisive manner, armed with his pen and his incorrigible nerve, but not only that. He had first of all to walk in the footsteps of Christ, from Galilee to the desert, from Nazareth to Jerusalem. Constructing his own legend as he went, just as Jesus, that other rebel, that other dreamer, had done from village to village. As a woman, Aisha had foreseen “all these things,” and had simply wanted to be there, by François’s side, just as Mary Magdalen had wanted to be with Jesus in his ordeal. She would never have forgiven herself for standing in his way, robbing him of his destiny.
Colin, who did not care about his own destiny, or that of his fellow men, did not give a hoot for whatever fate had in store for him. He was as fatalistic as a mule pulling a plow. So what was the point of bothering him with these explanations? On the other hand, he could appreciate a good trick. So François told him how, having arrived in Florence, he had switched the manuscripts, under the noses of Gamliel’s spy Eviatar and of old Marsilio Ficino, who had been eager to free his friend Federico as soon as possible.
Colin found it hard to believe that François could have fooled the Brotherhood so easily. There was nothing to prove that these pages were not just as fake as the pastiche he had composed with such ardor. François had not even taken the trouble to read them, or to verify their authenticity.
Had he pretended to believe the words of Brother Paul and Gamliel? Why would he have lent himself to such a game? And what about Ficino and the Papal experts? Had they all played this same game at the expense of the Savior?
François, in no way troubled by such doubts, stroked the pieces of parchment with a veneration that disconcerted Colin.
“I have no idea what the Lord recorded here. Whether these scraps really contain what Christ said or not, I have vowed that His word will never again be distorted by zealots, whether they are Catholics, Jews, or Saracens. Nor will they ever usurp His name for their own ends.”
Colin grimaced, but François was enjoying himself.
“The Vatican has calculated things with a discernment that does it honor. Now the Pope won’t get any nasty surprises concerning the content of Christ’s last words. By placing its seal on my pastiche, the Church has protected itself wonderfully. Any other version that its enemies would try to make public will immediately be taken for dubious. Including the real one.”
“Which is still kept by the book hunters!”
“Or else by me, at the bottom of this bag. You see, it would have been in Jerusalem’s interest to have the Pope read it. Most of what Jesus says in it was either censored or even dictated by Annas to exonerate the Jews in the eyes of Rome. But if the Brotherhood gave me a fake after all, or a version that had been cut to serve its purposes, it must now be keeping the existence of the original secret.”
Colin was still not convinced. He gave the bag back to François. “Real or fake, Jerusalem must surely have a copy.”
“Yes. But, real or fake, it couldn’t use this text twice.”
“Except to discredit yours.”
“But mine suits everyone better than the truth.”
François and Colin both laughed out loud. They poured themselves more cider and drank each other’s health, just as they had in another tavern, in Lyon, not so long ago.
“Nobody will dare admit such an outrage . . . ”
“After all Christ can’t contradict himself . . . ”
“Nor can eminent popes and wise rabbis get things so wrong . . . ”
“Especially not Chartier, who commissioned you.” Colin’s face clouded over and he thought for a moment. “You’re just as caught as they are, François. You’ll never be able to give the game away . . . ”
“They know that perfectly well. That’s why I’m sure these are the genuine minutes.”
“In that case, the Jews have played a nasty trick on you. It won’t be them the Pope’s men will be hunting down, it’ll be you.”
“And all Christians who take Jesus at his word and challenge dogma.”
Colin put down his tankard. He looked at his companion with a suddenly severe air, pointing at the canvas bag lying on the bench. He now saw the old pieces of parchment in a new light. With reverence.
“What are you going to do with them?”
54
The doctor put his black felt hat back on. The cone was so long and pointed that it almost touched the branches of the chandeliers. Sprawling on the divan in the library, Lorenzo half expected to see that witch’s hat rip the cobwebs hanging from the crystal pendants or even touch the candles and catch fire. Heedless of the danger, and full of his own knowledge, the doctor assumed a self-important air and began pouring out an interminable flood of obscure terms, in Latin and sometimes in Greek, which did not augur well. He aimed his verdict at the rows of books, as if they were a circle of scholarly colleagues. It was only when the young aristocrat, sated with medical jargon, untied his purse irritably that the doctor at last consented to speak clearly. The patient presented many scars, bruises, and bumps as well as being alarmingly thin. A good meal, preferably a leg of lamb, would be sure to perk him up. And bleeding him would free him of the bilious humors from which people who had been subjected to torture usually suffered. Reassured, Lorenzo clicked his fingers. A footman immediately escorted the quack to the doors of the palace.
A young monk, invisible until then, emerged from an alcove adorned with the bust of Cosimo that separated the shelves of old books, Roman or Hellenic, from the modern ones, Italian or French. He asked permission to pay the convalescent a visit. Lorenzo consented with a magnanimous gesture of the arm. The novice hurried upstairs.
As soon as the monk entered the room, Federico threw back the sheets covering him. He managed to sit up, supporting himself on the eiderdowns, fearing that the monk was about to administer the extreme unction of the Gentiles. But Eviatar immediately threw back his hood and addressed him in Hebrew. The young man was unaware that the survivor of the Vatican jails was his commander in chief. All he knew was that this man was a Jew just like him, as the Essene shepherd in Qumran had revealed. Relieved, Federico invited his visitor to sit down at the foot of the bed. Eviatar, shocked by the bookseller’s pitiful state, did not dare ply him with questions. It was the patient who took the initiative, with a strangely amused smile. He easily guessed the identity of this tall, thin, pale-faced youth so poorly disguised as a monk.
“And what of your friend Villon? How is he?”
Federico clearly did not expect a reply. He even claimed to know where Master François was at this moment. Not far from here, in a low tavern in the poor part of town, with Colin.
It was the Brotherhood that had insisted on that impromptu reunion. It had only been necessary to announce to Colin, who had been hiding in the court of miracles in Aix, that a monk by the name of Benoît was waiting for him there with news from Galilee and an urgent message from Villon for Louis XI.
A simple written report by Fust on the success of the operation would not content the king. Colin would be a more convincing witness. He would have seen the precious document with his own eyes, and would also know that François was alive and well. As the bearer of such good tidings, Colin would hasten to get back to Paris where the announcement of such a glorious feat would ensure him a fine reward.
All of this duly impressed Eviatar. But what glorious feat was the bookseller referring to?
“You failed in your mission, Eviatar.”
The young man gave a start. How did the bookseller know his name? Ignoring Eviatar’s surprise, Federico revealed the trick François had played. It was Ficino who had realized the dodge and informed the Medicis. François had given him a document that was in far too good a condition, one he must have reworked in haste. It had then occurred to Ficino that the Brotherhood, not wanting to let go of Annas’s minutes, was counting on him to refine the forgery that Brother Benoît and Brother Martin were bringing from Galilee. He was right: Jerusalem had been perfectly well aware that Master Villon would steal the original and replace it with a pastiche of his own. At the monastery, Gamliel had let him go ahead, ordering Brother Paul to participate.
The venerable rabbi had doubted the legitimacy of the negotiations that had been set in motion to bring Villon to the Holy Land. He was now forced to admit how clear-sighted his superior had been. As soon as he had learned of the existence of this poet of the suburbs, “neither completely mad, not completely wise,” then read the manuscript of his ballads brought from Paris by a zealous book hunter, the head of the Brotherhood had sensed the undeniable asset this inveterate rebel would mean sooner or later for the success of the operation.
Many relevant texts had been gathered, those of the Roman orators for the Medicis, those of the Sophists of Athens for the guidance of King Louis, but they were merely the gunpowder. What had still been lacking was the spark that would set it alight. All these fine texts had been holding themselves in readiness to enter the arena against dogma. The printers deployed on the ground had simply been waiting for a signal to step up to the firing line. It was Villon who had given this signal. It was he who found, between two glasses of wine or marc, the watchwords, the right tone, the emotions that would set in motion that awakening of souls on which the Brotherhood was counting to go into action. That was what Cato and Virgil, Lucretius and Demosthenes had lacked, a living language that roused burghers and monarchs, solid citizens and students alike. It had only remained for the Brotherhood to season that talent with a sharper spice and a few reliable herbs—Palestine, the desert, a woman of the dunes—and let it simmer.
Eviatar was surprised by the expertise displayed by the bookseller. And by his self-assurance. The dapper Florentine he had embodied had completely disappeared, as if flown away. This bedridden man, stripped of his extravagant attire, his body covered in wounds and blisters, was nevertheless just as radiant as the Federico of the old days. But in another way. Firmer, more imposing. So much so that Eviatar hesitated to pursue the conversation without being given permission. There was one last question, though, that he was itching to ask. How was it that Villon could move about freely with his bag over his shoulder and the precious manuscript rolled up with his linen and his traveling things?
As if he had read his thoughts, the convalescent leaned toward him. Coughing, squeezed between pillows, he informed him that the Brotherhood had unfortunately never possessed the original of Annas’s minutes. The high priest had hidden that in one of the seven branches of the sacred candelabra, the menorah, which Titus had carried to Rome in triumph after the destruction of the Temple.
What Villon was carrying in his bag was merely the hasty transcript of a scribe, censored by the rabbis of the Sanhedrin and intended to persuade Pontius Pilate to spare the Jewish community the reprisals with which he had threatened it. But however truncated, they were the words of Jesus Christ.
Only Villon could reconstruct the message of the Savior that so many had sought to distort. An agitator and visionary like the Nazarene, he had been able to hear the very voice that everyone wanted to stifle. He had perceived the suffering that voice expressed on behalf of all men. He had felt it in his guts. Not as a believer, nor as a scholar, but as a poet and a brother.
“Villon will return to the Holy Land. You can be sure of that. You will stay here to assist me.”
Eviatar was surprised by the confidence with which this was said. Wasn’t Villon unpredictable? He could just as easily set off for Paris with Colin. Or at least flee somewhere other than Palestine.
All Federico said was, “He left his tricorn there.”
55
The rain had stopped just bef
ore dawn. Colin and François had slept on benches, nursing their ciders. Helped by the stable boys, the innkeeper threw them out, threatening to summon the constabulary. He only refrained out of respect for François’s habit.
Still half asleep, Colin could barely grumble. His head and guts hurt too much. François, who felt more cheerful, warmed his limbs in the first rays of the sun. It was a glorious day. The cobbles smelled good, freshly washed by the shower and brushed by the wind. The road, dotted with puddles, stretched between the last hovels that clung to the walls of the city. Colin, who hated farewells, strode northward, toward the duchy of Milan, and then France. Let the damned poet go wherever he liked, he’d brought him enough bad luck!
His footprints were already fading in the mud.
The fair had been set up on the banks of the Arno, near an old bridge. Men and animals waded through the sludge. Squares of straw marked the positions of the booths. An old priest was blessing customers for a duck’s leg or a sausage, stuffing his alms in a bag sewed from a rough ecclesiastical badge. Near the stage where the traveling acrobats would perform, a book peddler was arranging his meager merchandise on a wooden tray hung around his neck by two leather straps. On one side of the tray, the shop. Two or three soiled missals, a pious engraving, a few ex-votos with blessings for the home, for good health, for mercy, to be hung on the door or over the stove. On the other side, the office. The paraphernalia of a public letter-writer, consisting of a box of pens, a salt cellar to dry the ink, and a few sheets of vellum. The man was young but looked as if he knew his business. He first solicited a local dignitary and sold him the engraving for a good price. In between writing a request from a tenant farmer to his lord and a will for a bankrupt cloth merchant, he disposed of his ex-votos to passing women, hailing only the fattest, or the oldest, with honeyed words and sly smiles. He praised the exceptional calligraphy of one of his missals to a pork butcher who couldn’t even read. With a discreet sign of the finger, he called over an onlooker who had been observing him disdainfully and, almost in secret, took out a small bound volume he never showed anyone. Grumbling about how hard times were, almost weeping, he sold it off cheaply to this great connoisseur.
The Brotherhood of Book Hunters Page 22
