Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

He knew what she saw, she whose father had come from Alexandria, one of the greatest cities on earth, who had grown up in Marseille, still a city even though diminished. Vaison was a poor thing now, though once rich and prosperous. Several quarters had been sacked a century before and never rebuilt; slowly they were being quarried as the fitful work to build a wall continued. Even this project was not complete; the town could not even act with dispatch over its own defense. The builders would not work without pay, and there was no money. The citizens would not do the job themselves, for they considered it unfitting. There were not enough slaves and servants left to be forced to the task. The public buildings were small and crumbling; houses once great were divided up, or abandoned or dismantled. He felt the conflicting loyalties of a man who belonged here, a member of the tribe of the Vocontii, which had occupied this land when Rome itself was still a few huts on an Italian hill, and of a Roman aristocrat who had seen better and greater things.

“I was told you have established a reputation for yourself,” he commented.

“As a giver of good advice. People come to me with their aches and their worries. I pour balm on both. Do not misunderstand me; I am happy to do so. But all they are really concerned about is the state of the roads, the level of taxes, and how long the water supply will remain fresh.”

“All pressing problems.”

“I know. But sometimes the noise of their chirruping and gossip drives me close to madness.”

“So what do you want?”

“Somewhere to be quiet. Peaceful. Where I can meditate without being interrupted by the rabble, or harangued by a deacon about the love of Jesus. Do you know, the only people I can have a conversation with are the Jews? At least when they quote scripture at you they are not merely repeating something some priest has babbled in their ear. They have the great merit of disagreeing with nearly everything I say. In fact, they disagree with almost everything they say themselves. And most importantly, they don’t think that shouting strengthens their argument. They just talk loudly out of habit. I have been entertaining myself by reading the Bible with one of their priests or whatever you call them. It has been most instructive.”

“You astonish me.”

“I astonish myself. But fascinating though I find Moses, I still want a little peace and quiet. Do you have anywhere in the country I can go to?”

Manlius laughed. “My lady, you know quite well that I own nearly all the country. According to the tax collectors, I have some forty-nine villas, many of which are now unoccupied and falling into ruin for lack of labor. Not that they take this into account.”

She sighed. “Don’t you start. I would like to borrow something small, about two days from here. As isolated as possible.”

Manlius thought. “I know just the place,” he said.

A fortnight later, the repair work had been carried out, a dozen serfs transferred to provide basic services, and the lady Sophia was escorted to the villa he had in mind about four kilometers from his own principal residence. It lay among a group of hills that provided coolness in the summer and protection from the winds in the winter. It was much too grand for her, consisting of some twenty-five rooms, and she hated it on sight. But, as she was leaving, she saw the tiny dwelling on the hill—with a clear view over the countryside, a copse of trees to provide shelter—and on the instant decided this was perfect. Clean water nearby, a path for bread and other supplies to be brought from the valley. Fresh air, and the simplicity she desired. Once the family of farmers had been ejected on Manlius’s orders—for Sophia never thought that philosophy should bow its head to equity—she took it over and achieved something of the tranquillity she had long sought. When she finally decided that this was where she would stay, he gave it to her, along with the neighboring farms and about forty laborers. Within a few years all but six of the laborers had run away, and the farmland had turned back into scrub. What did he expect? That she was going to turn farmer? Fret about the wheat? Examine the olive trees for blight? The waste annoyed Manlius, he who worked so hard to keep production going on his own lands, but he said nothing. Nonetheless, she was a difficult, impossible woman, sometimes.

She lived there, on and off, for near twenty years before she died, and much to her annoyance, she became genuinely respected by the rough country folk who lived nearby and adopted the habit of coming to her with their illnesses and concerns. She even outlived Manlius himself, and on his death, the tax revenues of the land passed to a Burgundian soldier, who collected them, every quarter, in person.

They even came to have a grudging affection for each other, this representative of Greek sophistication and the rough, unlettered barbarian who was now her effective overlord. She was lucky, and she knew it; her new master—such he was, although only she, with characteristic bluntness, ever referred to him in this way—wished to be more polished, and had a crude, rough sense of fairness that made her life more fortunate than many enjoyed. Ordric—middle-aged, fat, and powerful—was one of the better men in an age with few shining examples of virtue left. It was strange to find such qualities in such an unlikely place, but the times themselves were strange. She taught him nothing, he did not wish to learn; rather, they learned only to appreciate the kindness of the other, and in the end, she left him all her remaining lands in her will, not merely the taxes of them, as she could think of no better person to take possession. In return, Ordric built the little monument to her over her grave, to remember someone to whom he had become quietly devoted. The story of his respect survived, the memory of her advice gathered miraculous overtones, and eventually a small chapel grew around her tomb as people came to pray there for help.

CARDINAL CECCANI kept Olivier’s letter about the shrine, which was constructed from the Burgundian’s respect, for it gave him an idea that nagged quietly at him in the months after he read his protégé’s words.

By 1347 Ceccani was a star in the ecclesiastical firmament, and had become so powerful that he was richly detested. He had accumulated so many offices that he was all but indispensable for the good running of Christendom. And he had absorbed so many benefices that many whispered he had an annual revenue rivaling that of Pope Clement himself. He was, consequently, a focus of real hatred for all those who either wanted more for themselves or genuinely believed that the gentle shepherd of men would have been appalled to see what he had created.

Ceccani, of course, was as aware of this as he was aware of everything that went on around him. And he was wounded by it, for he was, in his way, a man of the utmost piety and duty. He wore the richest, costliest garments made of silk and cloth of gold because it was necessary to impress men with the majesty and power of the church; underneath he wore a shirt of the coarsest hair, crawling with lice, his flesh covered in suppurating sores. He gave banquets of such cost and magnificence that they endured for days and attracted the disgust of those excluded, yet himself drank only water and disdained the roasts and sweetmeats and fine wines that he pressed so liberally on his guests. He entered church like a prince, carried on a bier and attended by at least a dozen servants, generating more condemnation from those revolted by his arrogance, yet prayed alone three hours every night, on bare knees on the stone of his private chapel, carefully locking the door so no one would see him. He was the greatest lover of learning, using men like Olivier to rescue priceless texts and his money to restore them to humanity, yet condemned all deviation from the orthodoxy of the church and, on two occasions at least, ordered the burning of heretics. Like the church of which he was a faithful servant and perfect reflection, Cardinal Ceccani was a contradictory, inexplicable creature.