by Tuvia Fogel
Galatea was silent for a while and then said, “I’d still like to hear what Brother Francesco piccolo thinks of my dream; his interpretation would comfort my Christian heart . . . Brother Francesco may not be as learned as you, but by your own admission, he’s so full of the Holy Spirit it overflows on those around him.”
“I agree, madame. There’s a side to him I can’t fathom, but the Lord’s hand is firmly on his head!”
Galatea smiled. Then, making to get up from the divan, exclaimed, “Come, let’s go out and look for him! I dread what he’ll think of a nun who dreams of animal sacrifices in the Jewish Temple, but I still can’t wait to hear what he’ll say!”
“Just a minute!” Yehezkel held her back. “Sit down, madame, you only just started telling me what you saw. Every detail of your dream could be the difference between finding and not finding the confession!”
Her voice was suddenly cooler. “Ah, so you think the confession does exist, after all . . . but then, didn’t Jews deny the Resurrection from the first day? So why did I expect . . .”
“No, madame! Don’t put words in my mouth. We’ve spoken of it before and decided we will only know if the fabled confession exists if and when we find what the map leads to. I said confession, but I might as well have called it the Holy Grail!”
The air crackled between them. Galatea grunted an acceptance of his explanation and tried to think of more details of the dream. Then, suddenly, she went back to the topic of their most recent spat. “Have you given any more thought to the question of Aillil?” she asked out of the blue.
Bois-Guilbert was sailing to Acre, so Yehezkel had suggested they ask for a passage for the women and the armigers. Galatea disliked the idea from the first moment, but the real issue of contention was Aillil. When he’d told her the boy would be coming to Egypt with them, she had been outraged. “I decided to sail to Damietta with you and Brother Francesco, but I am an adult! To take a thirteen-year-old to a battlefield is simply irresponsible!” she exclaimed.
Now Yehezkel sat silently in the semidarkness of the inn and then answered gloomily, “Yes, I thought about it, and I still think sending him to Acre with the women would put him in greater danger. You can’t imagine the dreadful tales I heard of life in Acre since Jerusalem fell. What happened to those children who took the cross seven years ago is happening every day in that city.”
“The Templar and his Teutonic toady don’t inspire any confidence,” she conceded. “Anyway, I suppose after Brother Francesco preaches to the Sultan . . . well, either the heathen king accepts the Light of Christ, or we all win martyrdom, and Aillil becomes an infidel’s pretty blond toy. Isn’t that what awaits us?”
“No, madame,” laughed Yehezkel. “You heard tales full of prejudice and hatred. In fact I heard the new sultan, al-Malik al-Kamil, is an open-minded Mohammedan, a lover of philosophy who admires Averroes, as poor Don Sancio did and as I do . . . to a point. I rather think he’ll recognize a fool of God in Francesco and do him no harm, even if he should not accept the Light of Christ.”
Galatea was relieved. Resigned to thwarting her wishes, Yehezkel said, “I told you, madame, the reason Aillil is coming with us is that I’m responsible for my friend’s only son and will not let him out of my sight. Besides, Arnald is probably outside Damietta, with almost every other knight in Outremer, so as soon as I arrive I will likely return the boy to his father and be discharged of my obligation, free to go and look for the letter in Fustat. That is, of course, after Brother Francesco’s mission in the sultan’s tent goes whichever way God plans for it to go.”
He resumed pacing. The abbess smiled, somewhat mollified. “I’m learning to appreciate the elegance of the Averroist position, Rabbi, which I understand as trusting that things will follow God’s plan, but without needing to claim advance knowledge of that plan.”
Yehezkel stopped in midstride and bowed in an elaborate Saracen curtsy, his right hand opening out toward her after touching his heart, lips, and forehead. “Madame, no philosopher I know of could have expressed the attitude more simply than you just did!”
She blushed and was about to say something modest when the rest of the company joined them at the table. Once again, Gudrun found her abbess alone with the Jew and glared disapproval. Galatea, excited about the dream, barely gave them time to dunk bread in cups of watered wine before dragging them out in the street, already crowded and hot at third hour. Assigning an armiger to each woman, she dispatched the two pairs to look for the friars, setting off in another direction to do the same with the rabbi and Aillil.
An hour later, the abbess stood before the friars under a big lime tree on the edge of town, relating the dream to Francesco. The little friar was enthralled, but his brothers listened with growing diffidence to her awed description of the Temple whose destruction Jesus had prophesied.
“I don’t know the Hebrew Bible as well as Master Ezekiel,” started Francesco, “but . . .”
Yehezkel butted in, “There’s another dream in the Bible connected to the Temple, Brother Francesco piccolo, but to the first Temple, for the dreamer was none other than King Solomon. In that dream, God granted him a ‘wise and discerning heart.’”
On an impulse, Galatea asked, “Does the Bible say what King Solomon did when he woke up from that dream?”
“Strange you should ask,” answered Yehezkel. “I remember the verse, because it makes the king look like any one of us. It says, ‘Then Solomon awoke and realized it had been a dream.’ If I remember right, he offered up some sacrifices and then gave a feast for all his court.”
“That’s it!” she exclaimed. “That’s how I feel about this dream: everyone should celebrate with me! I’ll give a feast like King Solomon, but instead of inviting ‘my court,’ I’ll invite every poor person in Limassol!”
Francesco almost looked at her and started clapping from joy. “Mother Galatea, if giving a banquet for the poor is what this dream inspires you to do, then I have no doubt it came from God!”
Yehezkel smiled at the thought of Francesco attending a banquet, but the prospect of music, dancing, and poems appealed to him. It would be like the old days in Languedoc! “Don’t forget, madame, that the galley taking us to Damietta sails in just over a week,” he said.
“You’re right, of course. I’ll have to find a place for the feast and the people who will arrange it all . . . Brother Francesco piccolo, can I count on you and your brothers to spread the word, as Saint Luke says, ‘in the streets and alleys of this town, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame?’”
“We’ll be delighted!” said Francesco. “We’re here to spread the Gospel, which is the Good News, and what could be better news to the poor than a feast where they can eat their fill?”
As Yehezkel expected, Galatea’s hardest task was convincing Francesco and his brothers to join the revelers at a banquet. She pointed out that it was a feast for the poor, so how could Lady Poverty’s own husband fail to attend?
At first Francesco seemed immovable, but then Brother Illuminato said in a timid, high-pitched voice, “But Father, the rule you wrote for us says we should never be choosy about food, but obey the Lord’s words in Luke, ‘When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you.’”
Francesco looked strangely vulnerable for a moment and then smiled. “You’re right, Illuminato. If I see myself not as a guest, but as a mendicant friar in front of whom some food has been placed, I shall run no risk of falling into the sins I committed in the banquets of my youth.”
Yehezkel made a face and said, “Brother Francesco piccolo, I’ve heard you call your body ‘flesh that will soon die and is hostile to the soul.’ Well, let me tell you that body and soul were created by the same God, and to believe that one is hostile to the other is a grave theological error. Christian hermits who mortify their flesh too severely destroy what was created in God’s image.”
Francesco looked up at the rabbi and said, seriously, “My brothers an
d I are no hermits, Master Ezekiel. We walk the world to win souls to the Lord and help the poor in any way we can. As for my body . . . you’re right there, it may look like I don’t show it the compassion I feel for all creatures, but that is because of a deliberate choice I made to imitate the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Friars and abbess nodded approval of the perfectly evangelical retort. Yehezkel lowered his head and said, a little condescendingly, “Still, the way you treat your body is disrespectful to God’s creation.”
After a silence, Francesco said, “No, Rabbi. My suffering is my own choice—indeed, it is my salvation. My desire to imitate Christ may cause pain to my body, but I suffer pleasantly. I know it sounds crazy, but there’s so much joy in the pain I feel that I delight in my sickness!”
Yehezkel relented, smiling. “You sound like a lover speaking of his sleepless nights. The Sufis claim that love of God should be as sweet and painful as the longing for one’s lover. Tell me, did you ever meet any Sufis?”
Francesco glanced at his brothers. “Actually, yes. Five years ago, on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, I met a Mohammedan, as raggedly dressed as I was, who said he was a disciple of one ibn ’Arabi. He was an infidel, but he said ‘Love is my religion and my faith’—Christian words if ever I heard any! God forgive me for praising a heretic, but I learned more about faith from him in the two nights we spoke than in the thirty years I’d lived until then.”
Yehezkel said, “Ibn ’Arabi . . . ‘the greatest sheik’—I heard he teaches his doctrine in Damascus now.”
Francesco said, “I know that some among the infidel understand that God and Love are the same thing, but until it is shown to them that the God of Love sent his only Son to be the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, they will continue in their blindness . . . as will you, Master Ezekiel.”
Yehezkel shuffled his feet and said nothing. He’d been on the point of suggesting himself as the interpreter chosen by Divine Providence for Francesco’s sermon to the sultan but decided there would be better moments for it, perhaps during the passage to Damietta.
LIMASSOL, 22ND JULY 1219
Bertrand of Bar-sur-Aube—Blanche’s cousin, whose villa the abbess and the women left for a local convent after meeting Francesco—offered his property and its servants for her improvised imitation of King Solomon. He only asked that the knights from the Templar galleys be invited too, in case the town’s poor, after quaffing enough Cypriot wine, should become ungovernable.
The abbess supervised the preparations with Cistercian rigor. In the largest hall, low tables for three hundred destitute guests were laid under the arches. A long raised table at which nobles, knights, and clerics would sit was covered with a red cloth rampantly embroidered in white; the wall above it hung with shields, spears, and the skins of wild beasts.
When Galatea was satisfied that everything was ready for the next day, Yehezkel took the company to Limassol’s Jewish quarter—close to the port, as in every city around the Mediterranean—to introduce to them Yehudah al-Harizi, a Spanish poet and sometime diplomat he recently met there.
Al-Harizi was an erudite Jew in his fifties, one of the polyglot—penniless, perennial pilgrims roaming the Levant—whose culture and sensibilities nearly always exceeded those of their hosts. His satirical works were known in Spain, but he had to work as a schoolteacher to survive. When he saw Galatea, al-Harizi bowed deeply in the same heart-lips-forehead homage Yehezkel had paid her earlier.
“Sincerely enchanté, madame. Rav Yehezkel was not exaggerating . . .” Galatea blushed. “My name is Yehudah al-Harizi, and I am, for lack of a subtler expression, a Jewish troubadour.”
“How exciting!” said Galatea. “I hope tomorrow night we will hear you sing some of your verses.”
“I’m afraid my verses are in Hebrew or Arabic, madame—but for you, I’ll happily sing someone else’s.”
Soon Yehezkel was deep in conversation with al-Harizi in a boisterous mix of Hebrew, Arabic, and Spanish. Now and then the two men burst out in howls of laughter, slapping their leg or each other’s shoulder. The abbess admitted to herself that she envied Jews their complicity, which made strangers living thousands of leagues from each other instantly behave like old friends, if not family. When she stood next to Yehezkel again, Galatea whispered, “If we ended up in hell, Rabbi, you’d know someone there, too.”
“Maybe,” laughed Yehezkel, “but for sure I wouldn’t speak his language!”
As fate would have it, the banquet took place on Saint Magdalene’s day, tenth anniversary of the massacre at Béziers. The first ones to arrive, late in the afternoon, were the knights of the orders and their sergeants. When they become acquainted—Frutolf shaking like a teenager on being introduced to Galatea—and the countess had been toasted for her inspired idea of holding a feast for the poor, the gates were opened for the crowd outside, and enough people came in to fill the tables.
Ragged men and women of all races sat on the floor, many with the kind of rapacious features that so often go with harsh lives that some wonder if one of the two—but which?—brings on the other. When they were seated, servants began bringing dozens of platters bearing roast boars, kids, herons, hares—each one swimming in a different, but always fiery, sauce—and everyone began noisily gorging themselves.
An hour into the feast, the friars walked in and sat among the beggars. Francesco kept his promise not to stay away, but the wealthy surroundings made him uncomfortable. He looked happy to see the town’s dispossessed having a good time, but his plate was empty and he barely sipped at his wine.
Yehezkel and al-Harizi heard their fill of the complacent chatter on the top table, so excused themselves and went to crouch on the floor next to the Italians. Yehezkel told Francesco that some of that roast meat would do his poor body nothing but good. “I thought Brother Illuminato had convinced you to eat what was put in front of you.”
“True, Master Ezekiel,” said Francesco, “but your plate is empty, too. Why is that?”
“Neither of us can eat what was not selected, butchered, and cooked according to the Law.”
“Mmh . . .” Francesco hesitated but couldn’t resist. “Did you never hear Christ’s words: ‘What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them; what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them?’”
Yehezkel didn’t respond to the good-natured taunt. Since deciding that the spirited friar had to accept him as his interpreter, he had started to slip away from theological confrontations.
Suddenly, al-Harizi made a joke about Pope Honorius’s ripe age, something to do with incontinence, and the mostly Greek crowd roared with laughter, as Francesco covered his ears in mock scandal. Yehezkel decided it was time to approach the knights about a passage to Acre for women and armigers. He stood up, gestured to al-Harizi to follow him, and made for the top table. Meanwhile, Bois-Guilbert took advantage of the Jews’ absence to sit next to Galatea.
“I know an inn in Acre, countess,” he said with a complicit smile, “where a Tuscan cook makes the sort of bean soups you were brought up on!”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Brother Bois-Guilbert,” she said, “but I won’t be sailing to Acre with you.”
“You won’t?” asked the Templar, startled.
“I have decided to follow Brother Francesco piccolo in his mission to the king of the infidels.”
Robert thought, “God’s teeth! I send the Jew to Damietta, so she finds an excuse to go with him! His spell on this nun is as powerful as the one that bitch, Rebecca, cast on my father!”
Out loud, he sneered, “Soon there will be more clerics than knights at that siege! That the mother of a Cistercian house should go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem I find laudable, Madonna, but following a crazy preacher in search of martyrdom into a war? That’s nothing short of insane!”
“Had I been an abbot, instead of an abbess,” snapped Galatea, “you would have found my choice to follow my preacher on a holy expedition no less commendable t
han a pilgrimage! Is that not so?”
The Templar smiled. “Women wish they were men, and you make no secret of it! But no man, I’m sure you’ll concede, would ever wish he was a woman.”
She glared at him, “Pah! You might as well have said no man would ever wish he was a slave!”
Al-Harizi, standing behind them, intervened on her behalf. “Don’t you know, my good knight, that troubadours pine incessantly over their inability to attain the moral purity of women?”
Robert turned. “Women are only moral by coercion, señor. If the daughters of the empire’s nobility could marry the men they fancied, we would all be governed by languid minstrels and dark-eyed outlaws! As for troubadors, I find their laments nauseating. They all sing like their teeth ache!”
By now Frutolf had swallowed more insults from the Templar than rain down from a besieged town, but his master assigned him to do his bidding, so he’d never reacted to such arrogance as it would have deserved. Chagrined to hear that the lady of his thoughts would sail to Egypt, he’d relished Bois-Guilbert’s disappointment at her escaping his clutches. But by insulting her, the bastard went too far. “Brother Robert, apologize to the abbess for calling her insane, or I shall be bound by my knightly vows to defend her honor,” he growled. Frutolf ’s lower lip protruded on one side as if he’d had a pebble in the corner of his mouth for a long time. The heavy German accent of his Latin and his dramatic tone made Bois-Guilbert burst out in a condescending laugh.
“Ha, ha, ha! Sheathe your blade, chivalrous knight, I was only jesting! The lady herself will tell you so.”
