John the Pupil

I looked for a place to lay our goods, I looked for a place that was a soft place to be, a leafy bed between trees, free of slope or stones, where I might cover our precious things with soft earth, a landfall of fruit, a canopy of leaves and twigs. And I looked for a place where the eyes of the vagabonds would not follow me. The place was not to be found.

You are very modest, Simeon the Palmer said mistaking the nature of my precautions. We are all men, which is the same as saying that we are all God’s creatures. There is a ditch away from the fire where we perform our necessary acts. No shame is attendant upon them.

Even for a friar, said a raggedy fellow sitting near the fire.

I left my bags with Brothers Bernard and Andrew (eyes downcast, skin reddened by the fire, the very image of the modesty that I was being accused of) who were already sitting by the fire with their expectant bowls. I walked down to the ditch, where I lifted my cloak and, unable to perform the act of voiding (my belly too empty, so many eyes upon me), waited in that position until I judged sufficient time had passed.

Sit with us, brother, Simeon the Palmer said. Tell us about your journey. Did you ride?

We are not meant to ride. Our Order forbids it.

Our redeemer rode on a donkey. Are you saying you are better than He?

The Palmer was in high spirits, joking, drinking, ladling soup into my bowl. He asked me what had brought us to our pilgrimage, but while I was still composing my answer, he pointed out men around us – that one had a vexatious wife, that one a smoking fireplace, that one a leaking roof, another had become a monk to avoid the punishment of the civil law.

And you? Brother Bernard said. When you make penance for your clients, do you repent your own sins?

I am the lamb, Simeon said. Chaste and clean. But you, you carry so much. I thought members of your Order went unburdened. Some bread? Have some bread. It is fresh.

He leaned towards me, and as he handed me a piece of bread, he whispered,

Hard to believe that you three are ordinary pilgrims.

I had no reply. I stuffed the bread into my mouth and chewed.

If you are in trouble, I can help. I have travelled this way many times. Where are you going?

As if helpless with the food in my mouth, I chewed.

Are there men in pursuit after you? Do you carry relics of the saints? Or maybe you are transporting monastery treasures that someone might mistakenly think you have no right to?

I finished the bread. No, I said, it is nothing like that.

He patted my arm, like a brother.

Of course not, he said.

When we were lying upon the ground, after Brother Andrew had preached – and it was marvellous to see, the softening of the rough company before Brother Andrew’s beauty and God’s truth – and after we had prayed and we were waiting for sleep, with its nocturnal temptations, to take us, and the world was so loud around us, louder than the hospice, because this time there were dark birds in the branches of trees, the rustle of beasts in the woods, I grew afraid.

I gathered up our bags and I woke Brother Andrew and Brother Bernard and told them we must go, silently and in haste, and they were sleepy and reluctant but I drove them on, like a shepherd with his small flock, and we made our way out of the lodging ground, and there were eyes upon us, cold in the firelight, watching our departure, and there was a clinking of metal that might have belonged to Simeon the Palmer.

I was not able to explain my fear to my companions. We set forth along the dark path. We slept finally, at dawning, in a chapel on a hill.

We woke hungry, it was so late in the day. Sun shone through the windows, our Saviour born, the kings from the east bearing him gifts. We said matins, even though the hour was so late.

Outside, we gave thanks for God’s creation. The earth was wet from an early-morning rainfall. I taught my companions a song that I used to sing with Master Roger. Brother Bernard, into whose head learning could never stick, immediately learned the words and the rhythm. We sang until our throats were dry, and then we drank from a stream and sang some more until, I think it was Brother Andrew who began it, we replaced our music with laughter. Laughter is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Devil is powerless against it.

We laughed, without object or cessation. We laughed without ever, it seemed, being able to imagine a time without laughter, a moment when the world did not consist of the three of us lying on the grass outside a chapel in France, beating the damp grass with our fists.

Until we saw the men climbing the hill towards us. They were wet, cloaks and habits heavy from their night out in the rain, which was maybe why we had not heard them approach. Simeon the Palmer’s badges hardly made a sound as he walked.

But he was cheerful, as ever. He showed joy at seeing us. He praised our sharpness in finding a dry place to pass the night.

And your goods? I see you look after them. You are careful stewards of your treasures. Not a drop of rain upon them.

The men’s faces were stern. They came into the chapel and they gathered around our packages and I made to stop them, I thrust through them and reached for the shining box in which my Master’s Great Work is contained, but there were too many of them and only one of me, and the men seized me, held my arms tight, helpless, by my side. I looked to Brother Bernard and Brother Andrew but Brother Andrew was gone and five of them, maybe six, were subduing Brother Bernard, a confusion of cloaks and arms that might have been an occasion for mirth if it had not been for the enormity of what was taking place, our powerlessness, our despair, our fall, we had come this way and we had hardly begun our journey and already it was over.

We will take this, call it a shelter tax. We slept in the wet, you were in the dry.

There was nothing I could do against them. Simeon the Palmer took two of the bags, the box, shook it slightly, held it up to his ear.

You can go, he said. Take the rest of your goods with you. It is just a tax, we are not robbers.

I fought. I shouted, We have letters of credential from the Pope!

Or we can go. You can stay here. We will leave you to your chapel. The rain has stopped.

They tied my arms behind my back. They did the same to Brother Bernard, although that process took longer and required more assailants to keep him still. Helpless, we watched them leave. I wept.

And through the entrance of the chapel, where the Last Judgement was painted on the walls around the doorway, came Brother Andrew, creeping, carrying two of our bags. He unfastened the bonds that tied us.

I prayed for guidance and Brother Andrew joined in and Brother Bernard watched me.

And now? Brother Bernard said.

We follow them. We retrieve the box. Somehow.

As we gathered up our things, Brother Bernard blamed Brother Andrew for fleeing from the fight. I told him that if he had not, all three of us would be in bondage in God’s house. I carried the bag that Brother Andrew had saved in which were the parts for the model to demonstrate to the Pope. Brother Bernard carried a bag that contained Brother Andrew’s bowl and spoon and our breviary. The rest of our goods were with the band of thieves.

We made our way down from the chapel towards the foot of the hill. We could hear the men shouting ahead of us as they walked.

It had fallen upon me to be the leader of our little party. I am not quite sure how it happened; I am the youngest; I am the only one not in holy orders. I am a pupil, not a friar. Maybe it was because I knew more than they did: I knew the purpose of our journey.

Why do we have letters from the Pope? Brother Bernard asked me.

To speed us on our way. The box is for him.

What is in the box? Brother Andrew said.

The whole world, I told him.

Hard to believe that something so small could contain the whole world, Brother Bernard said in his usual tone of moody scorn.

I did not explain. I was preparing myself for the battle ahead. I would, I decided, fight for the Book with my life, if that was what it would cost. My Master’s Great Work ends with a ferocious self-humbling and an awkward politics, flattering the Pope, exalting him as one who should be worshipped, the vicar of the church, as God on earth; but, before that, it is a promise of knowledge that will shake creation, as Aristotle instructed Alexander. Master Roger will be Clement’s Aristotle, his indispensable tutor, counsellor, father.

And there are novelties in there, the secrets of magnetism and an ever-burning lamp, or how to make a firecracker to amuse children, the powder that is antidote to the most deadly snake bite, the slaying of poisonous things with the lightest touch. How to make an instrument of a year-old hazel twig that will vibrate to the natural powers of the earth. These things are offered to the Pope, not to a knave and his band.

It is the world, I told them, in a book.

A bible?

Almost as important.

It was a heresy for them to presume to take it, and an awful danger too, that they might read of the consuming fire that no water can put out, or of how to manufacture the crack louder than thunder that Gideon employed to defeat the Midianites.

The vicious company was stopping. We stopped behind the shelter of three trees. They were in a rough circle near a roadside altar beneath which twigs and leaves had been laid for pilgrims to make a votive fire.

We are higher up than they, and we have the advantage of suddenness, Brother Bernard said.

An advantage that would quickly turn to its reverse if we have nothing to support it with.

We have the sun at our backs, Brother Andrew said. Maybe they will be blinded as we ambush.

It was clear that he did not have the capacity for a fight and I could hardly blame him, but guilt at his earlier desertion was driving him to affect an appetite for battle.

I looked at the might of our tiny army. I examined our armoury. I made as if Master Roger was with us, to counsel us, to general our legions. And I asked Brother Andrew to repeat what he had said, and he did, and the spirit of God directed me.

Phaeton and his chariot will help us, I said.

I got to my knees to open the bag that contained the apparatus for the model to demonstrate to the Pope.

What are they doing? I asked.

What are you doing? Brother Bernard said. Praying?

Just tell me what they are doing.

They are standing, maybe they are disputing, Brother Andrew said.

One is reaching for the box but Simeon will not let him have it, Brother Bernard said.

Do not let them open the box, I said.

I had thought that constructing the apparatus under the scrutiny of my Master would prepare me for the work of assembling it at any occasion. My Master’s eyes are stern and steady, the faculty for being observed is most acute under his scrutiny. But here, on the side of the hill, our most precious work the possession of a company of unworthy thieves, my hands were shaking, my fingers fumbling, my skin pricking with labour and fear, the metal support legs fell on to their sides, like a giant insect falling dead to the earth.

Some of the other men seem to be grasping for the box too, Brother Andrew said.

And a smaller number are shoving against them. They are arguing, Brother Bernard said – but how are we going to stop them?

I do not know. Think of something. Sing. Dance.

The Palmer is shaking his head, Brother Andrew said.

He’s losing the argument, Brother Bernard said.

One of them is putting on your cloak, Brother Andrew said.

Maybe, I feared, my Master was wrong and the villagers were right, and his powers had nothing to do with investigation and repetition; and at my touch, no power would assist me.

They are about to open the box, Brother Bernard said.

Were it not for the apple! Brother Andrew sang walking lightly down the hill towards the robbers.

We should not have been saved! Brother Bernard sang walking more quickly to catch up with him.

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