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I loved learning. The classroom was a world without guile. Literature spoke to my hidden heart, my old perplexity. I watched, fascinated, as our tutor, aloof and grave, warmed at the leaves of manuscripts, as my brother calmed to quietude.
Our teacher brought us to the authors of antiquity. We would sink into these ancient worlds, these pagan peoples, understanding that these were unusual texts for a man of God to bring us to. Yet I shivered with recognition at these writings in a way I did not when studying the Bible or the standard commentaries on the writings of great Christians.
‘Why are you here?’ I asked our teacher one day. He had, without warning, assumed a shape that belonged to him alone. I had always thought of him in relation to Hugh and myself, but the day before I had seen him asleep in a field of flowers, the sun bright on his face. I had tiptoed away, not wanting to disturb him, not wanting him to know he had been observed. I myself had dozed in meadows, by shining waters, in the looped roots of trees, but it was not my teacher’s role, a life in the open.
‘To teach you.’ He was closed as a book. I had never sought to know what language was inscribed on his heart.
‘Why here?’
He unclasped his hands, as if preparing to release something. ‘I came here because there was an opening. I stayed because a different sort of opening occurred. I had wanted to try for Cluny when I first arrived. You were the first of many stepping stones, certainly the smallest.’ His face had the same look as when he was querying my interpretation of a passage. Earnest and careful. ‘There were no limits to what I could teach. No constrictions on thought in the classroom. At first I was appalled, but that soon turned to gratitude. Your parents were happy to purchase whatever materials I requested from various scriptoria.’ He smiled briefly, a quick movement of his lips that could easily be missed. ‘They now have a library. It would amaze them if they knew what was in it.’
I had no idea how old he was. He had always been our teacher, as fixed in time as a monument, but there were signs of age now that I looked closely. The fair hair turned drab, the mouth fixed in solitude.
‘We had nothing to do with your decision.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘It helped that you were both so intelligent, analogous to the healing plant being pleasing to the eye - a small gift, but not the reason it is cultivated.’
‘I will marry, be sent away.’ I knew, even as I spoke, that he had made plans.
‘Your brother will inherit. He will keep me on.’
I stood, and at the door thanked him for his honesty. I was not distressed that my brother and I had figured as objects in his scheme of things; it was no different from how we had treated him.
It was the exclusion from the future that hurt.
Hugh and I had only ever imagined the future in terms of his expedition to the Holy Land. We were too occupied with the unfolding of each moment to notice that others saw the accumulation of days as a slingshot ready to hurl us out of our childhood.
The concentration of my thoughts on this matter converged with my parents’ attention to it. Suddenly I was subject to their scrutiny, inspected with the same authority as a field spiked with ears of grain. I curtseyed, recited poetry, assumed graceful poses. There was even a demonstration of writing and reading, attended as solemnly as a mass. My parents nodded, satisfied the crop was ready to garner. They praised my nurse and tutor for their endeavours and assured me I was ready for my new home. They did not ask if I wanted to leave the old one.
Why should they? Their son had quit our familiar world, adding urgency to securing my future.
Could I have answered my parents if they had asked me what I wanted? I think not. Without Hugh, my home lacked conviction.
I visit Marthe, to discuss the arrangements for my wedding. More precisely, my confusion over the arrangements. I have been introduced to my prospective husband, a man of impeccable lineage and tender years. He doesn’t squint, or drool, is not lame, shows none of the signs of quinsy. He looked me in the face, which I appreciated. I have heard he prefers his own sex to women.
I have considered this marriage. It is not impossible; it is not gravely corrupt, nor infinite in its exhaustion. We could manage, both of us calling boys to our beds in private, flaunting embroidered garments and dynastic ambitions in public. In the eyes of the world it is a good marriage. But it is not the marriage for me.
Returning home from the meeting with my betrothed and his family we joined the throng at Canterbury to hear the Archbishop preach the armed pilgrimage. Richard, Count of Poitou, had taken the Cross; the Kings of England and France had vowed to make peace and go together to save Jerusalem. There were rumours that King Henry had crossed to England and was to be present when the Archbishop spoke and my father wanted to be there.
The crowd pressed close and I could see glimpses of heraldry, the glint of blades, the delicate tracery of incense burners. In the distance a white fall of cloth, the altar. Mostly I saw the backs and sides of those who hemmed me in, everyone lifting their heads, straining to hear the Archbishop. A flock of grimy swans, I thought, seeing all round me snowy columns raised to his word, lines of dirt at necklines clearly visible.
What I remember are the faces of the listening congregation and a moment of terrible foreboding. Faces were shining with belief, with purpose. Each face lit with knowledge of its direction.
It was 1189. I was sixteen and the only person in that congregation who did not know where I was headed.
In the clearing Marthe sits mending a basket, the cat curled asleep in a pale patch of sunlight. The mouse is white today.
‘They are marrying me off,’ I say, impatiently arranging myself on the grass. I am edgy, defiant, could prick myself on a thorn just to feel the shock to my flesh, to witness the trickle of blood and know it is mine.
‘It is the duty of parents,’ Marthe replies.
I place my hands on either side of me, palm down on the grass, and feel the forest’s song humming under blacksoil. The coolness of the earth under my hand begins to seep into me. The forest inclines to quiescence, an acceptance of the burn of summer muting to the scarred sparseness of winter, of the endless round of prey and preyed upon, one life feeding another and all eventually turning to dust. But I know the forest can also crack open the known world. Great trees shrieking to stunned deaths, the canopy baring its wound to the sky. Limbs sundered for no reason.
The mouse raises itself on its hind legs and dances a few steps, forelegs and whiskers stately.
‘You’re not married,’ I note.
‘No.’
I feel the urge to push truth out of Marthe, to force her to open herself to the right leaf as if she were a manuscript and the truth a poem whose richness of meaning could be gleaned in one reading.
‘Why are you not married?’ I ask, removing my hands from the earth so that defiance can flood me once more.
Marthe is busy with straw, her eyes and hands a point of concentration. She completes the knot and looks up. ‘Why are you so sure this mouse is capable of wondrous things?’
‘How do you know what I think?’
‘You are always careful of my mice, skirting them gently as if you fear them, watching their everyday activities as if you were greeting a marvel. A mouse has a short life, Sibylla, and as one dies I find another to keep me company. Brown or white, I do not care. There are many ways of looking at mice. That is why I am not married.’
I glance slyly at the mouse who winks at me. I see again my future husband, falsely attentive, more concerned with his collar than the arrow of his life.
I thump the ground. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘And the earth won’t take your disrespect.’
I stroke an apology across the grass. ‘I need your help.’
Marthe is fiddling with the basket again. Without looking up she says, ‘You have two choices. You either marry or you don’t. Begone with you girl.’
I can tell from the tone of her voice that I am to leave. Marthe will not speak to me again.
I let my horse walk her way home, not bothering to restrain her when she pauses to nibble flowers. Marthe has abandoned me to my fate, and fate has the look of a carapace into which I am to fit myself, even though it has not been designed for me.
There is the convent, but I do not seek a cloistered life, with or without the veil. There is a life such as Marthe’s, living alone in the forest, being visited by animals seeking company and peasants seeking cures, but I am seeking breadth, and a narrow clearing in the midst of tall dark trees does not entice.
I breathe out, hoping my fear will steam out of me. I breathe in, not knowing what I am taking in, beside forest air and dust, but hoping it will clear my spirit.
Hugh and I spoke frequently about spirit, seeking to clarify what we meant by the term. As we grew older Hugh pronounced it a preparedness to meet any event with energy and the will to prevail. I countered that the infusion of God’s love could also be offered as a definition.
‘I am not talking about the holy spirit, Sibylla,’ he said, ‘but of the spirit of man.’
‘Which the Bible tell us is indivisible from that of God.’
We were sitting side by side on a low hill rising gently behind the walls of our castle. The perfume of wild flowers was thick around us and a breeze teased the hair around my face. Spring had finally arrived after the long imprisonment of winter and each afternoon we raced outside at the conclusion of our lessons to feel our bodies dance to the quickening air.
Hugh grinned at me, a lopsided creasing of his face that was as familiar as my skin and more beloved. ‘Are you seeking a theological debate?’ I screwed up my nose at him. He knew I was not interested in dusty argument but in the rapid fencing of our wits. ‘The spirit of God lies in us,’ he asserted, ‘and so we must examine what we do with it. To be true to that which God has provided, and thus to himself, a man must meet any event with energy and the will to prevail.’
‘And a woman?’
‘She must find her own definition of spirit. What do you do with that which God has provided?’
‘More than keep to a narrow view of spirit as no more than resolve and vigour. You are mired in materiality. Where is immanence in your scheme?’
Hugh secured my hands and held them firmly behind my back. ‘It is imminent that you will be my prisoner.’
I struggled to free myself from his clasp and soon we were rolling down the hill, a tangle of arms and legs and grass stains. We took a few further half-hearted swipes at each other as we rolled to a halt, but were too busy laughing to be serious at combat.
I lay back in the grass and stared at the sky. I adored my brother and was a willing prisoner of any plan or argument he wanted to contrive.
But I would never admit it to him.
They are preparing my wedding night. Guests are arriving, their wagons laden with finery and gifts; the weight of fur, the flash of gold and silver reported up and down the stairs. Squires, cheeky with curiosity, are poking their heads in at doorways, flirting with the maids, insinuating themselves into the belly of the kitchen and the favour of the cook. My father’s stablehands are stiff with resentment at the intrusion of unknown horses and their keepers, their precision of feeding and grooming undermined. Everywhere there is gossip and chatter, anticipation rustling in the corridors, rippling behind curtains.
My parents are elaborate and generous in their hospitality as the alliances they have worked towards for years come to fruition.
I have been walking from my door to my window, from the window to my bed, movement my only assurance of freedom. I have wanted to be quicksilver, fear I will soon be leaden. I pull a manuscript from the table, scan lines as if the solid script will secure my anxiety. But I can only jolt across the lines, a pebble rattling across water. I cannot sink into the language, allow it to enfold me, submerge me. Until I snag on a sentence.For a friend with an understanding heart can be quite as dear as a brother.
In the quiet emptiness that pools through me as I forsake my agitation I find my solution. ‘Begone with you girl,’ Marthe had said. ‘You either marry or you don’t.’
‘I don’t,’ I say to the empty room. ‘But the girl is not yet gone.’
I call a maid to my room and press silver into her hand. While she is gone on her errand I sit before a pewter disc hung on the wall and loosen my braids. My hair tumbles to the small of my back, a harvest of sun-ripened barley. I put a bowl on my head, pick up my scissors and snip a ragged path around its rim. When I am finished I remove the bowl and stand, feeling the insubstantiality of my head without its heavy crop. The slightest movement of my head feels wild, no familiar anchor of weight to secure me.
The maid returns and I fasten the door behind her. I cannot risk her running into the corridor, her mouth avid in its search for a disbelieving ear. The maid is immobilised with horror; I must wrench the bundle of clothes from her hands. When I measure them against me I see that she has a good eye for size and I thank her for it. As I finish dressing I see the maid crossing herself and when I look into the mirror I see why. Gone is the person I have known all my life, Sibylla, the girl.
In her place stands a lad, fair and slight, with a look of readiness about him. I smile at myself in the mirror and see that even my smile is different. I turn to the girl and flourish a small bow, watch in amazement as she automatically curtsies a response. The realisation of what she is doing catches the maid on her upward bob and her hand covers her mouth to stifle her alarm. ‘Mistress,’ she cries out between her fingers.
‘No, Master,’ I respond, my hand straying to my crotch. I pat my little mound and realise something is missing.
The girl puts a hand on her hip and unself-consciously strikes a saucy pose. I am clutching thin air between my legs and the maid is flirting with me, even as her eyes widen with terror.
I think I should ask for a kiss but go looking for something to stuff down my hose instead.
I don’t know where I am headed. I do know that the crotch is no stash for gold pieces; I will be a cripple before the end of the day. I dismount and rearrange my pouch under my jerkin.
After cutting my hair I had run to my mother’s door, a veil wrapped around my head to disguise my shorn appearance and a dress thrown over my boy’s clothes. A small chamber linked my parents’ apartments, and it was there they stored their wealth. My parents were in the great hall greeting guests and I told the bored guard I needed ribbons, a word evoking womanly mysteries he would never question. He had no reason to doubt the daughter of the house and he let me pass. I shut the door behind me and rifled my dowry for all I could carry concealed on my person. It is not a large amount of gold, but not insubstantial. Enough to propel me into my unknown future.
My oracular eyes are throbbing. Are they warning me of danger, or drumming me my freedom? Perhaps both.
The last time my scars pulsed like this they drummed a terrible tale. Nurse undressed me that night, tender with me as if I was four years old once more and stiff with exhaustion. My shift gently pulled over my head, my arms automatically raised to allow this, the slow familiar dance nurse and child had performed for many years until I had claimed my confidence in my body and its skills.
Nurse was quietly weeping, but I was mute, lost in silence. ‘Mother of God,’ she suddenly cried out. I surfaced from my terrible passivity, turned to see what had caused her alarm. It was there for both of us to see. My scarred eyes were weeping blood, the tears I could not cry trickling redly down my arm.
Released from immobility, I began to rock back and forth, clutching my arms, my mouth a soundless hole. Nurse tried to hold me, but I would not be held.
Neither Nurse nor I told anyone of my oracular eyes and their visible distress. Nurse prayed for me, terrified that she might lose me to the forces of heaven or hell, it did not matter which. It was the unleashed power that disturbed her.
I am in a town, a grim grey town that winds down a hillside to the sea. The sea is also grey and shifts angrily under a lowering sky. The sea mutters and snarls against the rocks which hedge the harbour and I know there will be no passage to the land of my forbears tonight.
Saltspray flicks at me and I catch it on my tongue to taste it. This is the first time I have seen the sea. I know it from tales, from volumes of smooth vellum, but even they have not prepared me for its fascination. My horse and I sit facing the sea while salt coats us, a new and unfamiliar skin to mark the new direction we have taken. Behind us, to the beginning of time, lies England. Ahead lies a shifting mass of unfathomable depth.
I could walk my horse into that heaving grey and we would no longer be on top of things. We would go under. It seems to me that the sirens told of by the Greeks were no creatures but the sea herself. The sea calls and men and women answer, imagine that they can dance to her tune and stay skimming the surface of everything. But the sea stretches deep, and she demands attention. She can punish us for our temerity.
The siren sea calls to me and my senses answer. I nudge my horse forward but, sensible creature of the earth that she is, she refuses to go in the direction I point her. Instead my mare backs up a little and snorts in a tired fashion. We turn our backs on the muttering water and find an inn.
I lean against the wall with my ale. No one questions me, my new identity causes no comment. In the corner a couple of men stand deep in silence, their beards finishing their drinks for them. At the tables sit some men more careful of their costume, probably men of the town, and a ragged looking bunch of sailors. They look like they’d sell their mothers for the next flask of ale.
One of them detaches himself from the group and approaches me. I try not to drop my tankard in fright.
‘Well lad,’ he says, looking me up and down, ‘what’s your mother doing letting you out of her sight?’ His face is all awry, it looks like two pieces in a puzzle which do not fit but which have nonetheless been jammed together. His nose obtrudes, an ugly mess, as if the glue used to stick the pieces together had oozed out. ‘Cat got your tongue, lad?’
‘I was thinking that kindness was missing when they gave out your face.’
His mouth falls open and it occurs to me that perhaps I should have kept my thoughts to myself, but then he slaps me so hard on the back that I almost fall into my ale and he laughs uproariously, displaying horribly rotted teeth.
‘No lad, I’m no beauty, except to my mother, may God rest her soul.’ He thumps me again and I stagger. ‘Run away from home then, lad?’ I say nothing. ‘Do you know how I know?’ I shake my head. ‘Your hands, lad, your hands, which have never done a day’s work. And your cheeks, which show no sign of a beard yet. But you’re no mother’s boy, are you?’
‘I’m off to the Holy Land, to fight the infidel.’
‘Are you?’ He rubs his nose violently. ‘Join us for a drink then, and we’ll toast you.’
They tell me tales of how they’ve sailed to the very edge of the world, beyond the horizon. Everyone thinks the horizon is the boundary of the world, but it is not, they tell me. You sail to the horizon, and then you curve downhill, they say, picking up speed with the topsail full and taut. All hands on deck as you race down the slope of the sea, the waters brimming and boiling, the winds flying up behind you to blow with full cheeks. Down the slippery slope of the sea you go, whilst all around dolphins and whales break the surface, send fountains of water gushing into the air to mark your passage. Gulls and terns and gannets wheel and caw above, their acute eyes watching out for danger, their feathers given over to windsong. And just when you think you will rush headlong forever down the silky green fall of sea a gasp breaks free from every man’s throat as the edge of the world looms up at the foot of the slope. The precipice of nothingness, the cliff heralding the void. The gulls scream warnings and the dolphins dance on their tails to signal danger, and now all hands on deck pull in the sails, hands furious on ropes, forearms patterned with engorged veins as the anchor is heaved once, twice, and then flung into the fathomless depths. All eyes watch as the chain uncoils and uncoils, gathering momentum as the ship speeds to the edge of everything and the anchor seeks its resting place. And now men begin to look heavenward, they cross themselves as the sound of the chain spiralling overboard marks the seconds. Ahead lies nothing, and now every man begins to think of the pleasures that give shape to existence and the ship is alive with thoughts of childhood sweethearts, rosy faces lovely in the golden light of harvest; whores in every port, their legs flung wide and their judgement reserved; and the soft cheeks of mothers as they pull their baby sons into their embraces. And still the chain whips over the ship rail and a great sadness descends on all those on board as they watch their lives snake away with the chain. And then, just when it seemed as if they would hurtle over the escarpment, their collective sorrow flung to God for safekeeping, the anchor bites and with a great shriek and moaning of timber the ship comes to a halt. To a man they fall to their knees to give thanks, while before them the inky void swallows hope. Above on the panting, heaving ship they clutch their hope and think the familiar thought, Maybe I should stay on land.
It seems only logical to ask how they get back.
‘We row, lad, we row,’ is the answer, ‘and hard work it is too, up that she-devil of a slope.’
They buy me another ale and invite me to go to sea with them.
I am tempted, full of drink as I am. I could see myself, speckling the vastness of sea and sky, sculpting my days by the force and direction of the wind, the music of salt and wave chanting through my bloodstream. But when I wake in the morning, my head sore and my mouth dry, I know I cannot forsake the earth. I find my friends and negotiate passage to France for my horse and myself. They shake their heads, say I have all the makings of a mariner, but settle down to the exchange of gold. When the sea quiets, lit by a weak sun, they set sail and I stand on deck, watching England recede. Watching my childhood recede.
I lick the back of my hand to taste sea salt on my tongue. I lean on the rail staring at the endless movement of the water and how the grey sea churns white at the side of the ship. I can feel the movement of the water through the timbers of the vessel and it is that insistent rhythm which confirms the break from everything I have known. When I look up again England is just a line on the horizon.
As I disembark on the other side my friend of the squashed nose calls to me, ‘It’s a siren song, and it will give you no rest.’ I laugh, wave goodbye, my thoughts already turned to the spires and roofs of this foreign town.
Where I find myself there is no familiarity of gesture, of clothing, of shelter. Yet I feel at ease. I am invisible, known only to myself in my boy’s costume. Nothing binds me to the world, save my own imagination. I am so excited by my invisibility I could shout it in the faces of strangers. I have a presence in the world, but it is entirely of my own making. I am Athena, sprung fully formed into life, armed for battle. I am not sticky with connection.
I have to be careful in inns, sharing rooms with strangers, all men. I’ve managed so far not to have to share a bed. My charade is made easier by the fact that my transient roommates often come to bed drunk, or so tired they have eyes only for the pillow. To a man they sleep in their clothes, their sole gesture to the difference between night and day the removal of their boots and a horizontal position. They never remove their weapons.
I curl up in dark corners where the candlelight does not penetrate. They see only the gleam of fair hair and the slightness of my shoulders and see that I pose no threat, no potential knife at the throat in the small hours of the morning. One man, stout and wheezing, tried to persuade me to the comfort of the bed. When I persisted in refusing the offer he shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t ask anything of you, boy,’ he said, ‘although obviously there’s others that have. Choose for yourself.’ Given his rattling snores, I thought I was better off in my dim corner.
It is my money, as well as my body, which makes me careful. I have to muffle the collision of coin so that I do not attract attention. I always rise early in the morning and leave before my fellow travellers wake, so that they will not see me settling my pouch around my body. Often I am out in the street before a town comes to life, craving a warm bowl of oats but having to disregard the urgent appeal from my stomach. I am becoming tired of evasion so early in the day. I would like to sleep until the sun tickles me awake and descend a staircase to find food on the table.
In the marketplace, eating warm bread, I observe my fellows in search of a bargain. An old woman, heavy in dark cloth, curls her lip at the vegetables displayed in a barrow. The stallholder responds, croons the praises of his produce. He steps back, the slightest contempt for his customer’s judgement visible in the set of his shoulders. She purses her mouth, picks up a turnip and turns it disparagingly to the light. The merchant is devastated by this attack on his honour and his produce. The old woman scents victory and offers to take his turnips at a lower price. But she is outdone. The barrow owner will not sell; he cannot let his vegetables go to one who doubts their quality. And now the old woman wants his turnips, really wants them, because even though they are for sale in a public place they are no longer available to her.
She buys the turnips at their original price.
Another woman picks up a chicken by its scrawny legs. It cackles in alarm but she soothes it with a whisper. ‘A fine animal,’ I hear her say to the chicken seller. ‘I have only the best, madam.’ She asks the price, he tells her and the deal is done. Both parties satisfied. I cannot help but think that this woman will enjoy rich, plump eggs while the first woman will find the turnips sour in her soup. That one wanted something for less than it was worth, may never know the pleasure of a fair deal.
I’m in Paris. The seat of learning. I could stay, attend the university, study the seven liberal arts. Overturn convention like Abelard.
I’d be training as a cleric.
There’s a power in the city that is not familiar, yet I recognise it. It is the force of desire, propelling all these town dwellers to their unknown futures. In the country people’s dreams merge with the seasons, their desires are moulded to thoughts of rain and sunshine, bountiful harvests and fecund animals. Here in the city dreams sketch visions of things that do not yet have a name. Ambition is for the man-made rather than the naturally occurring. The force of these unnameable dreams swirls through the broad squares and mean alleys, a force of lust and longing.
In the country people know lust and longing but it pools quietly through fields and forests. There my heart could sing under an open sky and it didn’t bother my neighbour. Here lust and longing is concentrated in too small a space and a stranger’s desire can lance you each time you turn a corner. My own yearning for an uncloistered life feels the size of a walnut here and I nurse it carefully. It could easily be stamped on and swept away as so much debris.
My horse is unhappy. She misses the open countryside and the sweetness of fresh grass. She is well fed and housed, but I can see she finds the diet monotonous and the stable claustrophobic. I visit her twice a day, to stroke her nose and fondle her ears and she nuzzles my pockets, looking for tidbits. She looks at me and stamps her foot. She, too, wants an uncloistered life and she is not impressed by where I have brought her.
I ask her to be patient. I don’t want to risk her on the streets. I’ve not yet learnt the art of claiming space for my mount in the busy throng, and she draws unwanted attention. As I have ridden her through the town I have caught men eyeing me boldly, noting the fineness of my mare and assessing her rider to test his mettle. There are ruffians everywhere. I’m not willing to risk a fight to save my horse.
Yet I can’t explain to her that it’s for her own protection. She’ll have to trust me.
I miss my books. I go down to the fair, navigating the narrow lanes with authority. In just a few days I’ve charted a corner of this cathedral town so that I have the look of belonging. On every corner you see some country stripling, confusion and wonder strong on his face. They’re easy prey and I’ve no intention of brandishing my ignorance in public as they do.
None of the barrow men has manuscripts for sale. I make my way to the cathedral school where earnest clerics pace the courtyard, deep in discussion. I grab a thin, poor-looking, young schoolman as he comes out the gates and ask him if he has any manuscripts for sale. He sneers at me. ‘Of course not. Do I look like a rich abbot?’ Now that he is facing me I see how close to starving he is, the bones angling out of the thin cloth he is wearing. I produce a silver coin, then another and gently ask again if he has anything that he could sell me to read. We both hear his stomach grumble, a visceral response.
He quickly looks over his shoulder to see if we are under notice. He pulls a breviary and a missal, both shabby and of no particular beauty, from his tattered pockets. I purchase the breviary, although it is not what I want, leaving him his missal. It would be hard for him to have neither. Having a book in my hand settles me, makes me at ease with myself. I find the river, sit on a low ledge overlooking its muddy waters, swing a leg idly to and fro and read. I couldn’t be happier.
Not true. I’m happy to be reading, but I don’t want to feed myself prayer. I need a different canon.
I can recite large tracts of the dead poets to myself to keep my mind occupied, soothe myself with their voices rolling around inside my head. Still, my hunger gnaws at me. I want the written word. I want the satisfaction of trailing the sentences as they unfold in elaborate or plain script, of coming to an idea or an image that a few moments ago did not exist for me, of feeling myself and all my tight boundaries unravel in the embrace of language.
I see no choice other than school.
I return to the university, clad soberly in black. I attach myself to a group of students and am pulled in their wake into a classroom. Everyone settles into a seat and I perch at the rear of the room, near to the door. No one seems to have noticed there is a new face in the class and I’m certainly not going to announce my presence, but my proximity to the door is reassuring.
The morning is devoted to astronomy. Not my favourite subject, but it allows me time to study my classmates and our teacher. There are two groups in the class, each with one or two confident students prepared to speak out and engage in debate, whilst members of their group nod their heads sagely in agreement. Each group defines itself in opposition to the other group, although it seems to me that there is very little difference of opinion between them. They differ on points of minute detail only, not on larger theoretical issues. They are encouraged in this highly structured and somewhat farcical form of debate by their teacher and I realise that the reason the two groups of students share, to a large degree, a theoretical perspective, is that the perspective is that of their master. I hope we don’t have him for logic.
In the class are also a few students not attached to either group. Like me they seem intent on not being noticed, so I assume they are either newcomers or dullards. Perhaps neither. I myself have good reason for not wanting to attract attention, and why should it not also be true of others?
There is a break at midday and I go to the wing where I am told I can buy second-hand manuscripts. I buy one book but am told I will have to order copies of the others I want. The essential texts are rare, stock is scarce. I have the money to order my own copies, but it will be some weeks before they have been completed, as the copyists will not be working solely on my orders.
I begin to see that I have led a privileged life in terms of access to books. I have never had to contend with their absence.
In the afternoon we have grammar and I happily engage in familiar rituals. I have not yet opened my mouth in class and have no intention of doing so, as long as I am unremarked. I’m happy to bob in the current of learning, habitual and comfortable, with no purpose to my days but the application of my mind. At some point I will probably be accountable to the master, but I need not worry about it now. I leave as evening masks the contours of buildings and bodies and it goes unnoticed which lane I enter to make my way home to my rented room above the stables.
My horse is not impressed by my day-long absence and drops a steaming pile of dung on my boot to let me know. She might trust me but she doesn’t have to like what I ask of her. I respect her for that.
Under cover of darkness, I wash off the grime of the city in the horses’ drinking trough. When I am finished I empty it and pour in fresh water, spurred by the thought of my mare’s disdain should I offer her the remains of my bath to drink.
By day I attend class and by night I wander Paris, anonymity rendering me invisible whether the sun is up or down. I peer into the thoughts of the church after sunrise and into the lit windows and open doorways of taverns, houses, palaces and brothels after dark. My night-time education is free of any structure and I am surprised at how easily I move around the different areas of the great town. I had imagined that boundaries would not only be visible but also patrolled in some way, but it seems in this frenetic, pulsing congregation of bodies and desires that borders are not mapped in stone or wood, although it is clear enough to the eyes whether it is the rich or poor end of town. In my newly acquired skin I cross borders, flow from one state of being into another. No one cries halt or queries my presence.
My daytime education, on the other hand, is stiff with design and I am astonished at the impediments to the flow of my thoughts. I have always been free to arrive at my own conclusions about the ideas of others, as long as I could give my reasons. Here the master reveals a well-worn path and the students tread it, masking their obedience with a pretence of debate. Here the master patrols the border of imagination and none of us crosses the line.
I am as little impressed with cathedral learning as my horse is with me.
One of the quiet classroom fellows approaches me one noontime. He is always rubbing his eyes as if they hurt him and he leans so far forward to read his books that his nose is almost touching the words. There is barely enough room for the idea to expand off the parchment before being trapped by his nostrils. Yet he looks at me with a keenness which more than once has made me wonder if he sees through my disguise.
‘How did you arrive here?’ he asks.
I bluster. ‘By sea, by land.’
He points his long nose at me. ‘Don’t take me for a fool. You’re no more interested in monastic life than a swineherd would be.’
Truth seems the best option. ‘You’re right, but I’m not the son of a prince and so have no choice other than to study with priests.’
‘You might not be the son of a prince, but you’re not poor.’
As I thought, he observes closely. ‘I wish to learn, and I refuse to fight, so my family could see only the church for me.’
He looks at my narrow shoulders and thin wrists. ‘You’d be as much use in battle as I would. We’re neither of us made for fighting.’ We are in the courtyard, where wind is blowing dust and leaves in and out of corners. He pulls his cloak around his bony frame. ‘Torquil of Burel.’ He bows stiffly, I bow back, and I introduce myself, my brother’s name issuing effortlessly from my lips. ‘All of this is intended to be applied to study of the Scripture. If you are not interested in monastic life, how will you manage that?’
‘Study is study. I will take the scriptures seriously when the time comes.’ I think the time has come to shift the focus of this conversation. ‘And you? What are your plans?’
He fixes his gaze on me and I am reminded of ravens. ‘I believe. I most firmly believe. I will devote myself to God.’
It is not that I do not believe. It is rather that for me God is not at the centre of things.
I am at the centre. As is my brother. We occupy it together.
I am becoming bolder in the evenings. I no longer content myself with gazing in at uncurtained windows. I enter, push open doors to see up close what I have merely glimpsed from outside.
Taverns, I have discovered, are the same, no matter the location. Some might have a better quality of table and chair, a younger woman swinging trays through the drinkers, a more honourable owner at the barrel. But the same drinkers congregate in the same inns night after night and tell each other the same stories. They pass the evenings giving suspicious looks at new drinkers, who are only passing through and so keep to themselves. Occasionally there is a fight, say on a Wednesday. Occasionally there is drunken singing, say on a Thursday. Taverns are as regular as monasteries.
Brothels, I thought, would be the very essence of irregularity, but I have discovered transgression is highly ordered. I was loitering on the doorstep of a brothel, trying to see inside, when a huge pair of hands grabbed me and pulled me behind the door.
‘What do we have here?’ the woman said, for indeed it was a woman who had bodily lifted me. She was not much taller than I was, but thrice as wide. Her hands were the size of meat cleavers, with cushioned palms and fingertips. ‘If you’ve a mind to do it, then do it, lad. No use gawking on the doorstep. That’s not going to help your friend find his way.’ She leant forward to tweak the stuffing in my hose.
I stepped back just in time. ‘I’m curious, it’s true, but I don’t want to do anything. I was just trying to see what goes on.’
Her eyebrows went up. On that broad face astonishment spread like a stain. ‘So you like to watch. That costs too, you know.’
‘I don’t want to watch there.’ I waved my hand to indicate the happenings in the back room and up the stairs. ‘I want to watch what happens here.’
She snatched at my ear and held it so tight I thought it would burst apart under her fingers. ‘You’re not a spy?’
‘No.’
‘Not working for one of my competitors, come to see how I run my business? Which thrives.’ She renewed the pressure on my ear. ‘Not all do.’
Again I told the truth. ‘I’m studying at the university. I need to see what happens here if I’m to understand my fellow man.’
She let go my ear. ‘That’s a new twist on the tale. The clerics usually say it’s the mystery of the Lord.’ She called out to some women in the next room, who looked at me with curiosity when they came at her command. ‘I’ll let you stay, but we’ll have some fun.’ She put her face up close to mine. ‘You’ll have to please us, little boy, if we’re to please you.’
So they dressed me as a woman. Draped veils around my head to cover my cropped hair and swathed me in a skirt. I missed my long-legged stride but remembered the pleasure of fabric caressing my legs with each step. I say remembered, yet I had not before noticed that wearing a skirt brought pleasure. I turned a circle on the floor to feel the material balloon and settle.
‘Don’t you make a pretty girl,’ my new teacher said.
She led me to the room where the women waited for custom and sat me next to her. Trade was brisk, and the customers varied only in the quality of their dress. Apart from their coats they all appeared furtive and arrogant. They reminded me of my once future husband.
‘Where are the priests?’ I asked.
‘They don’t come here. It’s too public. They make us go to them.’
‘And lords?’
‘They come in groups, when drunk.’ She draped an arm, heavy as a felled calf, around my shoulders. ‘Your fellow man, who interests you so much, is predictable in his habits.’ She squeezed me against her upholstered body. ‘Now your fellow woman, and tonight we count you as one of us, is a much less predictable creature. We know the value of what lies behind the everyday.’
A man stood before us and pointed at me. My benefactress gripped me hard. ‘This one’s not for sale.’
‘Then why is she here?’
‘To keep me company.’ She leered at the man. ‘No one chooses me, so I’m left alone. Perhaps you’d like me, then my young friend could go home?’
He stepped back, moved away.
‘Men reveal so little of themselves,’ my friend said, ‘so little of what has formed them. They keep their stories hidden. They challenge women to swallow them whole, as if they stepped into being fully formed.’ Her fingers dug into my shoulders. ‘Each woman knows she has a history of shards and shreds and that each piece demands examination. She will unravel her tale for you and call it love.’ She looked at the man who had wanted me and shook her head. ‘A man presents as if there is no past, only the dull, opaque present and a future which he sees as real although it does not yet exist. Look at that one. Plopping himself in our midst like a boulder in a stream and acting as if there is only tonight. We look at him and see that the girl he wanted refused him, that his youthful dreams were stillborn, that he has enough to eat but is always hungry and so has nothing but rage and hostility to chew on.’
She turned my face to hers. We were so close I could see how the skin stretched across her full-moon face, skin strong enough to contain all her blunt features, yet so delicate and smooth that it compelled my fingertips. I touched her cheek. It was soft as mist.
‘What sort of man will you become?’ she asked.
‘I am already full of twists and turns,’ I answered.
‘Remember them all. Never think of your life as a straight path. Look back even as you step forward and never be afraid to stumble. It only shows you know where you have been even though you do not know where you are going.’
One of the women came up to us and held out her hand. My teacher patted me on the shoulder. ‘Dance with her. You’ll look like sisters at a wedding.’
It was true. She was taller than I was, but our colouring and light bones spoke of connection. Her face was unsunned, not just from a life lived indoors, but from some deep feeling which altered the hue of her skin. Her sadness lapped at me and as we paced and curtsied I could feel the urge to buck and twirl, as if strong movement was resistance to her sorrow.
As if an optimistic step could pull her out of her briny mire.
The tune finished and she took me lightly in her arms. She kissed me on the forehead. ‘My name is Melisende. I am known for having an infinite capacity for taking pains.’
My benefactress whisked me out of Melisende’s arms into the lilt of a fresh tune. ‘My dear, that is all women you are describing, not simply yourself.’
But Melisende was right. I could feel it in her sorrow. She would pay attention where others would not, and in so doing know pain.
By daybreak everything was quiet. The remains of the wine were poured into cups and all the women drank to each other. I removed my skirt and became again a boy.
‘Your presumption entertained me,’ said my teacher. ‘I don’t know whether to box your ears or kiss you.’ We each leant into the moment, waiting to see what would happen. My ears tingled in preparation, but she didn’t hit me. ‘Come again,’ she invited.
I dozed in class that day.
Torquil has attached himself to me. There is no other word for it. I can’t move without that crow-like figure manifesting at my side. It is hard to tell if he likes me, or likes keeping an eye on me. It is difficult to know if he is lonely, or driven by evangelical zeal.
He speaks to me frequently about my future in an order. He sees his role as leading me back to a view of God as the journey and the destination, rather than merely as a resting place on the road to knowledge.
He comments on my fatigue after various of my night-time expeditions.
He wants to know where I live. (I will not tell him.)
He lectures me on my informality of thought and speech.
He enquires as to the exact state of my income. (I prevaricate.)
He disapproves of many of the texts I have ordered.
In short, he has become an intimate, though not one of my choosing. I cannot shake him. He sticks like pitch.
I have grown accustomed to his presence, but I cannot say I like him.
I tread the length of the courtyard. My thoughts are sauntering, not following any particular path but enjoying an unconfined expedition between classes.
Torquil joins me and my thoughts pull up short. They band together, ready to stand firm against his intrusion.
‘Tell me your thoughts,’ he commands.
‘I was pondering the lesson this morning.’
‘Your quill was busy in class but your thoughts were elsewhere.’
‘All the more reason for me to ponder the lesson,’ I point out helpfully.
He grips me by the shoulder and makes me halt. ‘Do not imagine that such witlessness serves you. If you give yourself to God He will guide your thoughts.’
‘If my thoughts are to be guided in this way, you would be deprived of the chance to ask me what I am thinking. You would already know.’ I have not been this abrasive before and expect him to pull back in anger.
However, he puts his arm around me and indicates that we should continue walking. ‘Indeed, it would be so. Would that not be fine, for us to be thinking the same thoughts?’
I have no answer to that. My band of thoughts take shelter in amazed silence.
Torquil squeezes my shoulder. ‘I always knew God had a mission for me. It is to bring you to your senses.’
Walking home I sense that I am being followed. I step into a doorway and wait. Torquil is loping along, his grasshopper figure clad in black curiously menacing. He is frowning and the frown deepens as I step out of the shelter of the doorway into his path.
‘Are you looking for me?’
He is not at all taken aback by this confrontation. ‘Why were you hiding?’ he asks.
‘To confirm that you were following me.’
A cart laden with someone’s household goods lumbers into the lane and we both step into the doorway to avoid being struck.
‘I am God’s emissary, to help you ease yourself of that which is hidden. God wants all His creatures to be in the light of His gaze.’
I point a finger at the sky. ‘He is welcome to keep me in his gaze. But you are not welcome to monitor me.’
‘I am not monitoring you, although the fact that you think this indicates a guilty conscience.’
I try a different tack. ‘Our classes have finished for the day. I have other things to do now.’
Torquil nods. ‘And what might they be?’
‘Don’t you have other things to do?’
‘Other than what? Be a good friend to you?’
I step out of the doorway and start running. I am more lithe than he is and know he will not be able to catch me.
Down by the river, smelling the wet stone and muddy tracks, I watch a cat, patient as the seasons, stalk a mouse. It is just a small cat, quite young, softly coloured in bands of grey. It is thin, not starving, but not regularly fed. It moves gently toward its prey, quieter than time, all its senses concentrated and honed. Only at the last moment does the mouse sense danger, but as it startles the cat is upon it and with neat precision snaps it in two and expertly and delicately crunches each half. Only the tail remains, a limp curve on the ground, but then that too is scooped up. It is clean, efficient, without waste. The little cat sits and grooms herself, relaxed now. I call out to her, extend my hand. She ignores me, but I persist, wait for her to show interest. Still she ignores me, but I know she is aware of me, for her tail flicks, a sign, somewhere between irritation and curiosity, that I have entered her field of attention. Finally she looks at me, her cleaning finished, both paws resting sweetly side by side. Her eyes are pale green, compelling as jewels, and just as beautiful. She is a wary little stray, but exquisite in every detail. We look at each other, quietly and carefully, and I can see her deliberating as to whether she can trust me.
She decides she can, but then a boot sends her flying. It is Torquil, who folds his angles into a bony squat by my side.
‘Why did you do that?’ I ask, furious.
He sneers at me. ‘Only the son of a rich man would be concerned about a cat. I don’t see you trying to make friends with beggars.’
I realise he has been watching for some time. The knowledge that he intervened at precisely the moment the cat decided to trust me burns in my chest.
‘You didn’t like the fact that I was making friends with it.’
‘You don’t know anything about friendship. You keep everything hidden.’
I look at him, at his beaked profile and sallow skin. ‘I don’t see friendship as a matter of inquisition. I see it as a matter of respect. Of love.’
Torquil stands abruptly. He leans over me, blocking the light, pointing a long nail-bitten finger at me. ‘You speak of love as if it is something belonging to the commerce of men. Yet you do not allow God’s love in. You show no respect for Him.’ He hunches his shoulders, and more than ever I am reminded of a bird of prey. ‘Every evil ought to be feared. Every violent passion is an evil. Therefore something that ought to be feared is a violent passion. You have a violent passion for secrets.’
Torquil offered this syllogism in class yesterday, having developed it over many weeks. I said nothing at the time, although I wanted to ask where he placed joy in Christ’s love, if not in the category of violent passion. Why, I wondered, would he want to fear joy? Now I rise to my feet. ‘I’d call kicking a cat from spite and resentment a violent passion. Ought I to fear you?’
I am mocking him, brandishing my insouciance before him like a flag. He knows it and stares at me with bitter disappointment. ‘You ought to fear God’s punishment,’ he says.
I stand up and start to walk away. I call out over my shoulder, ‘A just reward is God’s love. Punishment is a just reward. Therefore God’s love is a punishment.’
It is unkind of me, I know, but he was unkind first.
My books are ready. I take them to a private place tucked in the lee of the wall. I stroke them, feeling the vellum smooth under my fingers, admiring the elegance of the script and the simplicity of the calf bindings. I hold my ancestors, or so I feel. Their voices leaping chasms of time to speak to me direct. My companions, my talismans, my guides.
This could be heresy.
Having books about me once more proves provocative and I begin to speak in class, to question the master, to propound a divergent view. My books give me courage to rear up against ordinariness and habit. How can I know an uncloistered life if my mind is shuttered?
In logic I listen to stupefying imitations of acknowledged masters of the form. I play with my own composition, seeking exactness in the relationship of the words, and when I deliver it I can feel hostility in the room. I have attempted a fresh use of language and it is not well received.
‘What did you intend by that display?’ the teacher sneers.
‘According to Seneca, it is not presumptuous to adopt something that has been well told by someone else,’ I say. ‘Thus, to try and tell it in an invigorating manner is the important matter.’
‘According to whom?’
‘According to me.’
The master draws himself erect. ‘You, a mere student, are nothing. You know nothing. That is why you are here. Burn that contemptible piece and attempt a second, starting this time from a position of humility.’
I had, I thought, begun from humility. It is the arrogance of complacency I am seeking to avoid.
My shadow, Torquil, treads on my cloak to arrest me as we leave class.
‘You are on the road to hell,’ he says.
‘Let’s hope the logic is better there,’ I reply. I scowl at his boot and he lifts it from my cloak. ‘Why do you let your mind be whittled into an unquestioning shape?’ I ask. ‘The master is a fool.’
‘My mind belongs to God. He will shape it for His own purpose.’
He looms against the sky, a spectral figure. He is staring at me and behind his eyes I can see maggots heaving and squirming. A rotted mind. I draw back in involuntary revulsion.
‘You think that you can choose your own path,’ he says. ‘As if you’re not accountable to God.’
‘Choice is the gift we’ve been given,’ I note.
I can smell the rank odour of decay coming off him, making my head ache. It is not only the mouldiness of his mind that exudes a stench. A putrefying haze rims Torquil. More than anything I wish to be far from him.
I turn and run, as I have before.
‘You are a strange creature,’ he calls out after me. ‘You cannot choose not to fit God’s plan for you.’
I hurry down the lanes twisting away from the college. Torquil does not understand that it is my ill-fitting nature that protects me.
It is not until later that I think to ask myself from what it is I seek protection.
My benefactress of the brothel is standing on her doorstep as I make my way to the rich end of town.
‘My sometime maiden friend,’ she cries. ‘Come join us.’
I make her a bow and regretfully decline the invitation. ‘I am palace visiting tonight.’
‘The rooms are too large in palaces and there is an ocean of space between the people who live in them. That is why they can never distinguish friend from foe.’
I wave and hurry on. There is a festivity planned in one of the great houses and I plan to enter as a guest. I have no invitation, but I have decked myself out in fine raiment with a hint of gold at my throat and I believe I will be accepted. For all that I do not fit in, I can usually gain passage to different domains.
Unchallenged, I enter.
The air is heavy with pretensions and lures. My hint of gold is invisible in the blaze of gems the size of eggs. One woman, of mincing gait, attended by a lapdog lover, is so weighted by marks of wealth that she appears the victim of torture. Restlessness stains the conversation. As people speak their eyes do not rest on their listeners’ faces but wander the room, seeking further stimulation. Seeking power, for although there is beauty and money at every turn in the assembly, it is power that most attracts. It belongs to only a handful: a prelate, resplendent in scarlet and white, and two or three lords, picked out in brocade, around whom mill a shifting cast of lesser lords, and upon whose arms fragile beauties are draped like swathes of expensive cloth, invitations to envy.
A fountain spurts wine in the middle of the room. The floor is covered in rushes so dry they crack underfoot, and banners of colour tumble down walls, perilously close to sparking torches. In a long hall with only one doorway and packed with guests, the decorations flirt with disaster, court death. Only the rich play this game, knowing a surfeit of spoils and too little natural risk.
‘Richard and Philip say they will leave for Outremer in the spring.’
The words draw me to a knot of barons, fingering their swords and their self-satisfaction.
‘Richard has the prowess to retake Jerusalem, but we need Philip to keep an eye on him.’
One of the men spits, narrowly missing my shoe. ‘Richard may have fought with Philip against his father, but with Henry dead his loyalties will be different.’
So Richard is now my king.
‘Not one of us had a father who died at home. I’ll be there when they reclaim the Holy Cross.’
I move on. I am returned to my mission. Outremer calls me. Asks me to remember where I am headed.
Except I don’t know where Richard is camped, or from where he intends to depart.
I survey the assembled guests. I left the world of privilege as a woman and I will leave it as a man. I aspire to joy, but gaiety is not joy. Mindless pleasure is not joy. Gratification of the senses is not joy.
My brother was joy.
The streets are as dark as nature intended. I push into the silty gloom, noise and society fading.
My arm throbs. A distinct warning.
I turn around in time to evade the sword aimed at my shoulder. I cannot see my attackers.
‘Who are you?’ one of them cries. ‘Are you an English spy?’
The young barons from the party.
I edge backwards, my hands feeling the wall of houses. ‘I do not work for the English,’ I assure them.
‘For whom do you work? Whose squire are you?’
They’re a testy lot, distinctly ill at ease. For all their dancing lessons the rich lack grace.
My hands have found an opening in the wall. I remove the cross I wear under my tunic and throw it into the passage. It clatters against the stone and the three men leap after it. I press back against the wall, hoping for invisibility. Then I run.
I run to the brothel.
‘Did you not like the entertainment?’ my friend asks.
‘I think I was the entertainment.’
She puts a hand on my shoulder and feels that I am trembling. ‘You are running away from something, and not just tonight. What is it that you think you have left behind?’
I don’t want to answer that. ‘I do not know.’
She crosses her arms, sterner than any master. ‘What is it that you hope to find?’
‘I do not know that either.’ I am ashamed to admit it.
‘If you look hard enough, and are fortunate in your friends, you will discover what it is you are looking for. If you are not too foolish.’ She calls for wine, makes herself comfortable, and insists I too become comfortable. ‘Listen. I will tell you a story. A young man, born to a family of fortune and fair of face, sought to know the mystery of dreams. He went to his father and asked him to reveal the secret of dreams. His father replied that his son, who stood before him, was the secret of his dreams. Through him he would become immortal, for his son would carry the family name into the future.
‘The young man thanked his father and went to find his mother who was nursing a new baby, the young man’s infant sister. He asked his mother to reveal the secret of dreams. His mother replied that her family was the secret of her dreams. Through them she had been able to know the riches of her heart, for her family had allowed her to know what it was to love God’s creatures.
‘The young man thanked his mother and went to find the chaplain of the household, who was donning his sacramental robes in preparation for the mass. He asked his priest to reveal the secret of dreams. His priest replied that God was the secret of his dreams, for He had removed him from sin by allowing him to become a priest, thus ensuring he would go to paradise instead of purgatory.
‘Now this young man had an unusual gift. He had an ear so sharp he could hear the dew fall. He could hear storms or brigands approaching. He could hear betrayal behind closed doors, the whispers of hidden pleasure and the prayers of the unloved. He could hear peasants thanking their lord over their soup and bread if he was good to them and cursing him if he had treated them unkindly.
‘The young man was disappointed in the answers he had received from his father, his mother and his priest. They had spoken of their particular dreams when he had wanted to penetrate the mystery of dreams themselves. So he thought to use his ear, and he turned it to the world to hear whatever he could about dreams.
‘A swelling cacophony of dreams began to wash into his ear. One man dreamt of riches and another of his dinner. Here a woman dreamt of healthy children whilst another dreamt of shoes without holes. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the multitude of dreams darting into his ear. He didn’t want to know about people’s dreams. He wanted to know about dreams themselves.
‘So he listened again, turning his sharp ear to the sound of mystery. And slowly, softly, as if it was breaking free of a subterranean tomb, as if the feathers of a thousand ducks and geese muffled it, he heard a mysterious sound. It was faint, very faint, but unmistakably a mystery.
‘He took his horse out into the world, leaving his father and his mother to cry for his going and his priest to pray to God for his safekeeping. He journeyed for one year, two years, many years, visiting all the lands of the world. He learnt to converse in many tongues, to eat the food of many cooks, to be sheltered by new friends and plagued by new enemies. And still the mystery of dreams remained but the faint beat of a faraway drum.
‘One day he turned for home. The sound of mystery grew stronger and stronger still. He came to his house and was greeted by his father, now stooped and frail, who wept tears of joy. “I thought all my dreams were shattered,” his father said to him, “that my life’s labours were for nothing, with no son to benefit from them.” His mother, now white of hair, took him in her arms. “I thought my dreams were as nothing,” she said, “that I had not understood to love as God had wanted me to, with a son who walked away from me without a backward glance.” His priest, an old man shuffling on a stick, blessed him. “I thought my dreams were the sin of pride, that I was destined for hell. Else why would you turn from God as your dream?”
‘The dream of mystery beat loud in his ears. The man stood still and listened. In that moment he understood that the secret of dreams was in the dreaming. He had searched the valleys and mountains for an answer, when all the time it beat in his own heart. He had travelled the world to unravel the mystery of dreams and he had had to come home to follow the thread to its centre. To discover the secret inside him.’
I am washed with sadness. Melisende comes into the room and sits beside me. She takes my hand, strokes it lightly. Her skin is pliable, resilient, a little dry, like summer leaves on trees.
‘I have eyes to see, but my ears are not sharp like the young man in your story,’ I say.
‘Just as well. He didn’t know how to listen for all he had good hearing.’ My friend rises to her feet, spilling wine onto her skirt. It forms a runnel down her skirt, slower and sadder than her story. ‘Melisende is leaving me. She is going home to her family in the mountains, having made her dowry. They think she’s been in a convent and that the abbess has supplied her with wealth to marry.’ She leans over and kisses Melisende’s temple. ‘Melisende earned her money herself, gave where she did not want to give to have a future. Perhaps you could travel with her, to protect her.’
‘How do you know I am ready to leave Paris?’ I ask.
‘If you are running away you cannot afford to stay still.’
Melisende slips her arm through mine. ‘I will be travelling with a party of jongleurs. If you travel with me you could learn magic.’
What was I to do when faced with such an offer?
I joined the performing troupe.
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