Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

“I ran to the fields and wandered for six years before I came across my master. He found me and took me in and looked after me until I was ready to look after him.”

Olivier looked anguished, made the childish gurgles and chortlings that were the nearest he could now get to speech to interrupt her, but she went on doggedly nonetheless. “That abbot was a great man, and became greater still. A few years later he began to be known as Pope Clement the Sixth.

“When you came for me that night, to take me to the palace, I knew the temptation. I took a potion my master had, which he had always told me never to touch as it was a powerful medicine, dangerous if not taken with care. I put it in my bag, and when I got the chance, I poured it into the well. The moment I’d done it, there was a great shout, and someone grabbed me.”

She paused and smiled. “I tried to explain, you know. I said it was all my doing and tried to tell them why. But they weren’t interested. They thought I would never have done such a thing without my master’s instruction. The stupid thing is that it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Gersonides has told me it was quite harmless when diluted to such an extent. I wanted to confess, but my master said there was no point. No one would believe me, because they wanted to believe Jews were poisoning wells.”

She went down on her knees and kissed his cheek. “You are a good man, Olivier, far better than I am. I hated, and risked the life of my master, and subjected you to this for my hatred. And you now must hate me, too, and I know you will never want to see me again.”

He leaned forward and took her in his arms; he wished more than anything to speak to her and reassure her; his heart was full of wonderful poems; all sorts of words and phrases sparkled in his head, none of which anyone but he would ever hear. But he held her nonetheless, rocking her gently backward and forward, doing his best to stroke her hair with his arm, kissing it with his lips.

“Do you want me to go?” she asked eventually. “Please don’t tell me you do.”

He shook his head fervently, and then she returned his embrace, and they stayed there together for a long time.

He lived for another six months before the burden of his wounds finally pulled him down. Rebecca was with him at the end; the abbot of the monastery understood enough to know she would be his best comfort. And so it proved; Olivier died in almost perfect happiness. The only blemish on his contentment was not knowing when he would see her again. But he believed in eternity, and knew it would not be long.

AS JULIEN WALKED to his house, he began to reach a state of calm that had long eluded him. He arrived at the house about fifteen minutes early; it gave him just enough time to send out a warning that Bernard would be able to see from miles away, something that would make him turn around and go back. He dug up the etched plates from the place where Julia had hidden them and took them into the little kitchen of the house, then got a bottle of the acid she used for biting the lines into the metal, and poured it all over them. Bit by bit the lettering would be erased; that part of his job was done. He lifted the floorboards and took out the little pile of papers inside and put them on the floor. He was not thinking anymore; he merely did the job he set himself, his mind completely empty.

Then he prepared himself, and made a pile in the middle of the living room of all his old notes and papers, his manuscript on Manlius, useless because so wrong. The notes from the Vatican. His draft on Olivier, also erroneous in nearly all respects except for the analysis of the poetry, which still had some merit. None would be missed. They were a record of wasted time and misunderstanding only.

These he stacked carefully, then surrounded them in turn with wooden furniture, the old curtains. Beside them he put his last two-liter jar of kerosene for the little heater, and the bottle of eau-de-vie that Elizabeth Duveau had once given to Julia. A welcoming present, a gesture of friendship.

His last cigarette he took from the packet and put in his mouth, the box of matches on the table, then picked up the kerosene and eau-de-vie and splashed it liberally on the papers and over the furniture. He needed only a few moments for the fuel to soak in; when he judged the moment was right, he took a long puff on his cigarette and exhaled. Then another; his last pleasure. He blew on the end until it glowed brightly and flecks of ash flew off and floated through the beams of light coming through the open window, then dropped it, quite carefully as with all he did, in the middle of the pile of notes.

THE FIRE TOOK hold quickly, sending a billowing column of smoke into the hot summer air, easily seen for miles around by the approaching platoon of Germans, and also by Bernard. The soldiers rushed to the scene but could do little; Bernard, in contrast, took the warning; he turned around and vanished swiftly into the woods he knew so well.

He survived another six weeks before he was captured and killed. Two days after Julien’s death, twenty-six civilians were shot in the quiet courtyard of a farm a kilometer or so outside Vaison.

Mid fourth century ADRoman Empire divided into an Eastern Empire, based on Constantinople, and a Western Empire, based on Rome.

380Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire.

406-9Bqrbqriqn invqsions of Gaul.

410Sack of Rome by Goths under Alaric.

416Visigoths arrive in Gaul.

455Rise of Ricimer to take control of Italy.

457Majorian becomes emperor in the West.

461Majorian killed on the orders of Ricimer.

472Death of Ricimer.

475Fall of Clermont Ferrand in centtral France to Visigoths under King Euric; Burgundians annex cities in Rhône valley; Visigoths annex the rest of Provence.

476Deposition of Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor in the West, effective end of the Western Empire.

1310Clement V settles in Avignon to escape civil unrest in Rome.

1328Philip VI ascends throne of France.

1334Start of building work on papal palace in Avignon.

1337Outbreak of Hundred Years’ War between France and England.

1342Pierre Roger elected pope; take the name of Clement VI.

1346Battle of Crécy; English army under Edward III defeats French forces; large numbers of hostages taken.

1348Arrival of Black Death; Clement successfully negotiates to buy Avignon from Joanna, Countess of Provence. Plot to deliver Aigues-Mortes to English forces fails.

1350Death of King Philip of France.

1352Death of Clement VI; death of Cardinal Ceccani.

1378Church splits, with one pope in Rome, another in Avignon.

1410Schism healed, papacy reunited and once more permanently resident in Rome.

1928Right-wing riots in Paris nearly topple the Third Republic.

1929Start of Great Depression.

1936Left-wing Popular Front government in France; outbreak of Spanish Civil War.

1940Fall of France when German army invades through the Ardennes forest; collapse of the Third Republic, with France divided into the northern part, occupied by the Germany, and the southern part, controlled by a government in Vichy led by Philippe Pétain. Launching of a “national revolution” that includes a status des juifs to limit the number of Jews in certain occupations.