Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

Then she passed from mere daydreaming. The longing was so great there was nothing—no action, no distraction—that could shake it from her mind. She had no respite from the moment she woke until the moment she submitted to her dreams at the end of the day. And when it was announced by her husband’s chamberlain that they were now to leave Avignon and head west into central France in the hope of outrunning the sickness, she became sick herself. What if her painter should die? What if she never saw him again? Could she live, how would she die if the thing she desired most of all had slipped through her hands? The morality she had learned from the priests had no power against such thoughts. The sanctity of her vows before God meant nothing to her. She would willingly trade her life and her soul, joyfully submit to an eternity of torment to lie in his arms for one single night, to have that release he alone could provide, which she had imagined so often.

This fever of the mind, this plague of the soul, gripped her and twisted her until all she dreamed of, all she desired was to sin. And the night before she was due to leave, she could abide it no longer. As the servants and members of the family bustled about—those left, for the plague had already struck the house, killing six servants and her own grandmother and sister—packing cases as quickly as possible to make their escape, Isabelle put on her cloak and slipped through the door.

“I’m going to say goodbye to my friends. Who knows, we may never meet again,” she said. It was another sign of the times that she was allowed to go unchaperoned.

Pisano lived in a mean area that had the great virtue of being inexpensive, for Avignon had learned to love greed, and the influx of the papal court forty-three years before had created such a need for space that despite the injunctions about fair price, even cardinals sometimes had to live in houses scarcely fit for priests. Only the areas so low in reputation even the most desperate shunned them could still be afforded, and here, cheek by jowl with the city’s Jews, settled first one Italian painter, then nearly all the rest who came to try their luck.

The area was not entirely unknown to Isabelle; the city was not so big, nor women so protected. She had been to the Jews’ quarter on many occasions, but never alone, and never at night. Huddled in her best cloak, with no one to light her, she walked swiftly through the streets, her sense of unease mounting as they became smaller, more crooked, darker and meaner. Finding the Italian’s lodgings was not easy; she had to ask several times. Getting into the house was more difficult still as it was already boarded and barred to the outside world; she had to knock loudly on the thick oak many times before she heard the noise of feet coming down the stairs.

It was not what she had imagined; in her mind she had thought of a discreet arrival, wafting into the Italian’s room, his arms and his bed with no one else even aware of her presence. Then home again before dawn, through deserted streets, with only her flushed cheeks and look of content hinting at what had taken place. Instead half a dozen people—the housekeeper, servants, people in the streets and the houses opposite—had seen her and must have noted her, for she did not dress, walk, or behave like someone from the quarter.

A less courageous, less mad woman would have taken warning and gone home before irrevocable damage was done. But she had only one idea in her mind, and she never even considered turning back. She knocked on the door until she was let in and the landlady, cursing wildly, came and hammered on the door of the room. Olivier emerged, yawning from tiredness, then came down. He had spent the evening with his friend, and had been up talking too late; he was locked out of the cardinal’s palace, which now shut its doors the moment dusk fell. Those outside would now have to take their chances. So Olivier had begged a space on Pisano’s pallet and was the first to hear the knocking. He woke up swiftly when he saw the woman at the foot of the stairs; he knew from her eyes he would be having to find somewhere else to sleep that night.

They whispered together, so the landlady, notoriously inquisitive, should not hear. Then he took her upstairs.

“You must be crazy coming here,” he said as he led the way. She didn’t reply. All she had said was that she had to see her Italian.

“You should go home. I will accompany you. It’s not safe.”

“No, thank you.”

Olivier showed her in, thought of going in as well to remonstrate with Pisano, but then decided to leave well alone. He dressed himself at the top of the stairs, wrapped himself up in his cloak, for the night air was cold, and walked up and down the street. While he marched he cursed friendship and women and Italians with all the venom only the truly poetic can manage.

ISABELLE STAYED nearly two hours, then Pisano let her out again, and she began to walk home, a sane person once more in a mad world. The madness had protected her, given her immunity from harm. Now she was herself again, she knew she was vulnerable. She accepted it almost as her punishment, and was not surprised when she turned down a blind alley, totally lost, then heard footsteps behind her.

The comte was also in the grip of the devil; he had seen the look on her face as she slipped out the door, and was aware she had never looked that way for him. He followed her, all the way to the moment that she knocked on the door of Pisano’s lodging. While Olivier was pacing up and down the street, he stood silently in a doorway, waiting, his fury and torment rising to such a pitch that he thought he would burst. And when Isabelle came out of the house, he followed her again until he was sure no one was nearby.

She scarcely had time to realize what was happening, and was so weak and puny, with her well-bred arms that had never lifted a weight and soft legs that had never been forced to run. Nor did she have time to scream, for his strong fingers tightened around her windpipe the moment he came close enough.

She had half-turned when she heard the footsteps, but did she see who dragged her into the dark doorway of an abandoned house to squeeze the life out of her in his blind fury? Did her eyes beg for mercy as she sank to the ground, before they glazed over? Certainly she was unconscious before the knife stabbed time and time again into her body, and felt nothing as it slashed, one final time, across her throat in the last, extinguishing burst of rage.

The count threw the knife onto the ground beside her and stood for a few moments, heaving from the exertion. Then he walked off, pulling his cloak up above his head as he rounded the turn into the main street. But not fast enough to avoid the eyes of Olivier as he walked up and back in the cold one last time.

TWENTY-SIX WERE arrested because of the murdered soldier; the strange mind of German military authority had decided on the number—precise, and not to be violated—for reasons not even they understood.

A town that previously had seen little of the war suddenly felt it in its full barbarity; its feeling of vague security because of its presence comfortably in the Italian zone was abruptly destroyed. There was a list, drawn up in advance, as there always was in these circumstances, but no attention was given to such precision anymore. Once, such things were carefully, meticulously done; notables—doctors, lawyers. Two masons. Three shopkeepers. Four artisans. One person who might have been a communist. Two good Catholics. People from the town and from the outlying villages. No women, no children, no one whose death could lead to accusations of being unfeeling or brutal. Such was the original pattern before civilization really crumbled. But this sort of care was in the past; there was no time for precision anymore. The revenge alone was the point. The trucks swept into the town and rounded up the first twenty-six people they saw; herded them together and marched them off to the school, which had pupils and teachers evacuated at five minutes’ notice.