David Flusfeder - John the Pupil

They are like soldiers obeying their general, I said to Brother Bernard, trying to rouse him from his dolour.

When did you ever see a soldier? Brother Bernard said.

It is true. I have never seen a soldier, or a lion, or a feast on a great man’s table, or a demon or an angel or a nun or a unicorn or a bride or a Jew. But before I set out on this journey I had never seen a cathedral or a man who made a living expiating other men’s sins, and neither had I seen a great lord. This one was a man of small stature and sharp visage. He watched his chamberlain issuing the orders and drank from a small flask.

Maybe it was this, the possibility of all things now that I am upon this journey, or maybe it was the sight of Brother Andrew stretched forward on the prow, his arms fully extended, his body leaning into the breeze, or maybe it was the gentle motion of the boat rocking beneath me, that I felt touched by something forgotten from long ago, and was suddenly lifted, exhilarated, incorporeal, yet alive with the acuity of my senses.

The faces of the sailors are marked. One has a scar on his forehead, another is missing part of an ear. My Master, I would question you about this. Is beauty a signifier of virtue? These sailors may have been beautiful once. Does that mean they were once less vicious than today? Is Brother Andrew more virtuous than Brother Bernard, simply because the beauty of his face marks him out as being derived from, or at least compatible with, the angels? Were the sailors more virtuous when they were young, unmarked by experience and difficulty? We are born fallen. An unbaptised baby is not innocent. I would like to ask my Master if it is a blasphemy to think that the sailors are lifted by their travails, if there is an equation between the scars on their bodies and the godliness of their souls, if appearance is the converse of substance, not its mirroring cloak.

As it is written in Ezekiel, You are the seal of the image of God, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You have been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering.

On the aft part of the boat, the great lord’s priest held a service for his lord and his retinue. Here, below, it was my office to lead the hymns and prayers of vespers.

Come O Holy Ghost, replenish the hearts of the faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. We beseech you O Lord, that the virtue of the Holy Spirit may be present unto us: the which may mildly both purge our hearts, and also defend us from all adversities, through Our Lord Jesus Christ your Son: Who lives and reigns, God, with you, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.

We were the only three in orders taking passage on the boat, and Brother Andrew is too shy, Brother Bernard too rough, so I was given the office. My voice was fragile. I am unused to being the focus for so many other people’s attention. I am not a priest nor had ever hoped to be. I could hear my own voice cracked and light. As I spoke the sacred words of prayer, I shut my eyes, imagined myself back in Master Roger’s room, to give my voice, and heart, some strength.

Amen .

Let the mercies of the Lord give glory to him: and his wonderful works to the children of men. And let them sacrifice the sacrifice of praise, and declare his words with joy. They that go down the sea in ships doing work in the great waters, these have seen the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

Amen .

Simeon the Palmer brought himself towards me from out of the congregation of sailors. He complimented my sureness and my voice. He told me I spoke very well and assured me that the angels would smile upon our journey.

Brother Bernard is not enjoying the crossing. He sits with his head towards his knees, hugging himself as if desperate for the consolation of mother-love.

• • •

The tumult on the harbour, the wonder of a different land, almost like ours, almost familiar, but so new and strange and barely known. We took such timid half-steps on land, as if expecting, after the solid earth of England, succeeded by the liquid of the crossing, that France should be composed of vapour. Brother Bernard does not understand French; I see this place through his eyes, as if the day has been slightly turned. The butcher wears a different hat.

As it says in my Master’s Book, We expect things to be different in different places: manners and intellectual interests vary according to the diversity of regions; the body is altered by the heavens and when the body is changed the mind is aroused.

Brother Bernard stays close to me. Brother Andrew has to be admonished to remain with us, his attention is scattered upon the sights and sounds and smells of the harbour.

Here, I tell him, it is your turn to be the donkey.

Our load will tether him to the earth. We already carry too much. Our spoons and knives and bowls, my Master’s Book in its shining sealed box, the apparatus for demonstration to the Pope, our breviary, the secret thing in its humble container that we may not open. According to the rule of our Order, we are not meant to carry bags; each of us carries two.

It is not hard to find our way. Pilgrims, jabbering, creeping, praying, mark the way in a slow penitential caravan. Until, suddenly, we are driven into the mud at the side of the road by the train of the great lord, riding four abreast on black chargers. His carts and oxen fill the road, as we try to restore order to our garments and our possessions. The seal on the box is unbroken. The apparatus is intact. My bag for the collection of treasures was emptied and I had to gather them from the road, combined with mud.

Brother Bernard hurled clots of mud at the oxen and the lord’s servants, while I gathered my writing implements. I had thought I had chosen him for his strength and protection. Perhaps it was his soul I was concerned for, its safety, rather than that of my Master’s treasures or my body. I smoothed out my scraps of parchment, wiped off as much of the mud as I could with the sleeve of my cloak. I write this through the dirt of the road.

Hubert was a beautiful and courteous youth, noble-born, loved by all, whose single passion was for the hunt. On a Good Friday morning, when the virtuous were all inside church, Hubert was giving chase to a magnificent stag. The animal turned, and Hubert was stupefied to see a silver crucifix between its antlers, while at the same time a voice spoke these words, Hubert! Unless you turn to the Lord and lead a holy life, you will go quickly down to hell.

Hubert gave all of his wealth away, entered holy orders, and for the rest of his life, he was diligent in fasting and prayer, became famed for the eloquence of his sermons, was a friend to the poor and a scourge of idolaters, whom he sought out with the same passion that once he had brought to his love of the chase.

Our first night in Gaul, a night spent on the straw of a pilgrims’ hospice, the snoring and dreams of the sleepers, the straw beneath us never still, rustling and shaking with the movements of mice, while the sleepers scratched at the fleas and lice that assailed them like an army besieging a town.

This is purgatory, Brother Bernard said shielding his eyes against the sunlight.

That is heresy, Brother Andrew said.

My throat and head were sore. I longed for my own bed, a less foul air, for a ministering remedy prepared by Master Roger.

In the men around us it was hard to identify God’s pilgrims. The only sin that did not seem illustrated was the one of Pride.

Our goods were safe. I untied the rope that bundled them together. Some of the pilgrims were sleeping. Others were praying. Two men scourged themselves in the foulest corner of the room.

We recited matins on the road. And our hearts lifted as we sang,