It was clear to me that there were many unanswered questions in that report, for example: Why hadn’t the King sounded his horn when he was attacked by the deer? Where was the pack of dogs? Who had seen this deer with the impossible antlers? Had anyone actually caught this deer after the accident? How could the King get lost in an area that he supposedly knew like the back of his hand? As far as his symptoms, thirst, inability to express himself, dementia, rebellious eyelids, all this fit in well with the blow to his head. I had read about cases of people who, if they managed to wake up following a blow like that and didn’t die, their character had changed forever or they had gone crazy or they mechanically repeated words or body movements without any sense or they had visions or an insatiable hunger was awoken within them that ended up killing them or, like in this case, an unbearable thirst. I wasn’t worried about that as it was clear that the blow to the head was the cause of all that but those words, ‘the cross, the cross …’. What cross was the Kind referring to?
Jonas came back a couple of hours later with his shirt hanging out of his doublet, his shoes covered in mud and his cheeks rosy.
“What news do you bring me?” I asked him, smiling.
“Paris is the most beautiful city in the whole world!” he exclaimed, letting the length of his body fall on his cot.
“Have you by any chance met a pretty girl?” I lifted my head slightly and he looked at me with reproach.
“I am still a novicius.”
“It seems that you won’t be for much longer,” I commented, placing my pen and scaepellum to one side. “Did you manage to give the letter to Beatrice of Hirson?”
“It was terrible, sire! You see, I got to the area of the palace they call La Conciergerie, where the court lives, and which is truly the most beautiful building in France. The gate guards wouldn’t let me through, of course, and I asked them to advise the lady that I had an important message for her. First of all they laughed at me but, with my insistence, they sent a boy inside the palace. He took a long time to come back and when he did he said that the lady would not see me because she didn’t know who I was nor who you were, sire. I really don’t understand,” he said grouchily, “how you sent me so innocently on such a complicated mission. Didn’t you know that you can’t just go and see nobility like that?”
“Nobility, my dear Jonas, the real nobility, doesn’t have much to do with the courtiers.”
“Well, sire, you can’t just get a message to the courtiers like that.”
“And how did you resolve the problem?” I asked with interest.
“And how do you know that I resolved it?”
“Because your attitude would have been very different had you not been able to fulfill your order. To start with, you wouldn’t have come in here with that joyous look on your face, nor would you be telling your odyssey with that tone of reproach if you had not succeeded. Thus, you emphasize your victory.”
“What is odyssey?”
“Good heavens, Jonas! You are ignorant! Did you not read the beautiful work of De bello Troiano by Iosephus Iscanus at the monastery, or the popular Ilias Latina by Silio Italico, that even the goliards in universities recite?”
“Do you want to hear the end of my story or not?” he interrupted, annoyed.
“I do, but we are going to have to have a serious conversation one of these days about the matter of your education.”
“Well, I was walking around the Cité for a while, looking at the work of the new Cathedral of Notre-Dame and visiting the chapels of St.-Denis-du-Pas and St.-Jean-le-Rond, where people leave abandoned babies like me at night, did you know that?”
“How would I know that?”
“Well, after a while I returned to La Conciergerie, determined not to move until I had found a way to deliver the message. Since I was bored, I sat down next to an old woman who was selling fried cakes at the gate and struck up an interesting conversation about the habits of the inhabitants of the palace. She told me that Matilda of Artois’ carriage would soon be coming out, just as it did every day, through one of the side gates on the rue de la Barillerie, and if I kept my eyes open, I would be able to see her go down the Tour de l’Horage. Then she told me that a woman of such importance cannot go out during the day if she is not accompanied by her ladies, so this Beatrice of Hirson would most surely be inside the carriage. As soon as the old woman pointed out the luxurious vehicle belonging to the Queen’s mother, I calculated the distance, the speed and the jump necessary to climb through the door of the carriage.”
“Good God, Jonas!”
“You would do well not to swear in front of me, sire, or I will be forced to stop talking to you!”
“Don’t be so prissy, boy!” I protested angrily, stamping my foot firmly on the ground, shaking the wood. “Rather than a novicius, you seem more like a delicate damsel at times. I have known several novicius with worse vocabulary than mine.”
“They must be the ones from your Order, who are neither novicius, nor anything else.”
I wanted to slap him but I remembered just in time that, not in vain, and largely due to my own fault, he had spent fourteen years with Mauricense monks. His evolution was fast and favorable, so I had to give him more time.
“God damn it,” I shouted at the top of my lungs, punching my scrinium, “finish your story once and all!”
Somebody else in his place would have cowed but not him. He sat comfortably with his back leaning against the wall and looked at me brazenly.
“Well, when Matilda of Artois’ carriage was approaching, I gained momentum by running and jumped right in front of the nose of one of the guard’s horses. My height favored my ruse. I stuck my head through the window and asked with a soft and gallant voice, so as not to frighten the ladies: ‘Are any of you ladies Beatrice of Hirson?’ There were three women inside, and I wouldn’t have been able to tell who was who; the funny thing is, is that the eyes of the two ladies turned to the third, who remained silent and scared in a corner of the carriage. I deduced that she was Beatrice and I held out my hand with your letter but at that point the guards were pulling me from behind, shouting like crazy and hitting me on my back and backside with all their might. I looked at the lady, gave her my best smile so as to look like a young gallant, and let the note fall onto her dress as I said affectionately: ‘Read it ma’am, it’s for you.’ I flew out onto the ground but luckily I landed on my feet in a muddy puddle.” I sighed and looked with sorrow at his dirty, new shoes. “The guards hit me until I started running like the devil’s soul towards Pont aux Meuniers, losing myself in the swarm of people. So,” he concluded, with satisfaction, “what do you think of my performance?”
My chest was bursting with paternal pride.
“Not bad, not bad,” I muttered with a frown. “But you could have ended up in the King’s dungeon.”
“But I’m here and everything worked out splendidly. The lady has your note and now we just need to wait for a reply. I like Paris! Don’t you?”
“If it’s a question of choice, I prefer a more peaceful kind of city.”
“Yes, I understand,” he muttered innocently. “Old age has a lot of influence on taste.”
Pont-Sainte-Maxence was such a deep and dark forest that, even though it was a sunny spring morning the further in we got, the greater my grim feeling of entering a place full of unknown dangers and mysteries grew. On a couple of occasions I looked up at the tree tops and could barely make out a pinprick of sunlight. Only the birds seemed to be happy, high up in those trees. It was undoubtedly the ideal place for hunting deer, whose bleating could be heard all around, although it seemed more like a damned forest, property of the followers of Evil, than a pleasant place for idleness.
It wasn’t far from Paris — it took about two hours at a comfortable trot to cover the fifteen miles —, but the difference between one place and the other was as great as that which separates any part of the world from hell. It was not a surprise therefore that following the sad pass
ing of King Philip the Fair, the court had stopped hunting in those territories of the Crown.
Jonas and I were advancing slowly, cautiously following a path through the undergrowth, looking around as if we were afraid of suddenly being attacked by an army of evil spirits. So when we heard the muffled sound of an ax hitting wood, our hearts skipped a beat and we stopped the horses with a sharp tug on the reins.
“What was that?” asked Jonas, frightened.
“Calm down, boy. It’s nothing more than a woodcutter. Let’s go and find him. He might be just the person we need.”
We spurred on the horses and came to a gallop, quickly reaching the clearing in the forest where the noise was coming from. An old, misshapen and hunchbacked man, about sixty years old, was attacking the remains of a trunk with little luck. He looked tired and sweaty and by the cerulean hue of his skin, it didn’t look like he had much time left on this earth. A huge wet patch stood out on the crotch of his trousers, revealing a urinary incontinence that my nose warned me of before I’d even dismounted. Upon seeing us arrive, he straightened as much as his hump would allow and looked at us suspiciously.
“What are you doing in these parts?” he snapped at us abruptly with a rude, rough voice.
“Strange greeting, brother!” I exclaimed. “We are good men who have unwittingly gone astray, and hearing your axe, we thought that we had found salvation.”
“Well, you’re wrong!” he growled, returning to his task.
“Brother, please, we will pay you well. Tell me, how do we get out of this forest? We want to get back to Paris.”
He raised his head and I could see a new expression on his face.
“How much will you pay?”
“How about about three gold escudos?” I proposed, knowing how exaggerated an offer it was. I wanted to seem desperate.
“Why not five?” bartered the crook.
“O.K., brother, we will give you ten, ten gold escudos but for that money we also want some wine. We are thirsty and tired after going around in so many circles.
The shady man’s little eyes shone like glass beads under the sunlight. He would have died of disappointment had he found out that I was willing to go up to twenty escudos but his greed had betrayed him.
“Give me the gold,” he demanded, holding out his hand. “Give me the gold.”
I approached him on my horse and bent down to drop the escudos into his black hand, which he grasped avidly.
“If you go back the way you came, always following the path on the right, you will get to the Noyon road.”
“Thank you, brother. And the wine?”
“Ah, yes! You see, I don’t have any here but if you carry on a mile in that direction,” he said, pointing north, “you will see my house. Tell my wife that I sent you. She will take care of you.”
“May God bless you, brother.”
“You have already blessed me, sir.”
“Why were you so polite to a common servant?” asked Jonas as soon as we were out of earshot. “That man is a slave, even though he is a slave of the King, as well as a thief.”
“I am not in favor of establishing differences because of the way people were born to this earth, Jonas. Our Lord Jesus was the son of a carpenter and most of his apostles were no more than humble fishermen. The only possible inequality between men is their kindness and intelligence, although I must admit that in this case, neither were apparent.”
“So?”
“If I had have treated him with the insolence he deserves, he would have taken the ten escudos just the same but we wouldn’t be on our way to his house. Luck is on our side, Jonas. Don’t forget that a woman, however rude she may be, and especially if she has spent her life shut away in a hovel in the middle of a forest, is always friendlier and more open to conversation.”
We found the owner sitting at the door of the hut, sprawled on a chair made from straw and wood, drinking from a jug. The cabin was squalid, miserable, filthy and dirty, just like the owner, a woman who at some point, although it seems impossible, must have had teeth and hair. I saw the look of disgust on Jonas’ face and thought that, like him, I would rather get away from there as fast as possible. But she, or anyone else like her who lived in the area, had to give me the information I needed.
“May the peace of God be with you, ma’am!” I shouted as we approached.
“What do you want?” she asked, without a flicker of emotion.
“Your husband sent us. We paid him ten gold escudos for you to give us a little wine before continuing on our way to Paris.”
“Well, get down from your horses and help yourselves, there’s a jug right here.”
Jonas and I dismounted, tied the horses to a tree and walked towards the woman.
“Are you sure you paid him ten gold escudos?”
“Yes, ma’am, but as I see that you don’t trust me, here is another escudo for you. We got lost in the forest, and if it wasn’t for your husband’s directions, we would never have been able to leave these parts.”
“Sit down and drink,” she said, pointing to some wooden benches. “The wine is good.”
The truth is that the wine was awful and had a bitter taste of old vinegar but what else could we use as an excuse to start a conversation?
“And what are you doing around here? It’s been a long time since somebody from the city came to Pont-Sainte-Maxence.”
“My young friend and I are coustilliers of King Philip the Long, may God take care of him for many years.”
The woman didn’t believe me.
“How can you be a coustillier of the King if you aren’t French? Your accent is … strange, from nowhere.”
“You are right, ma’am! I see that you are an intelligent woman. My mother is French, daughter of Count Brongeniart, who I’m sure you’ve heard of because he was the advisor of Philip III the Bold. My father, however, was from Navarre, subject of Queen Blanche of Artois, whom he accompanied in her flight when she escaped the Aragonese and Castilian pursuit of Navarre, fleeing to Paris with her young daughter Jeanne. Everyone knows that old story. When my mother died, my father returned to his homeland, taking me with him. I only recently returned but the King was good enough to appoint me coustillier of his gabinet for being a Brongeniart.”
The old woman was dazzled by so many names of high lineage, and I ended my speech by taking a sip of that vinegar with the innocent and distracted air of somebody who has told something so true and so evident that there is nothing left to say.
“And tell me, sire, what has brought you to this forest?”
“You see, ma’am, Pope John has requested a full report from the King regarding the death of his father, King Philip IV the Fair. Because I don’t know if you are aware, when he was found in these parts after falling from his horse, he only said two words: ‘The cross, the cross …’. The Pope wants to canonize him, as Boniface VIII canonized Louis IX, great-grandfather of our current King, in 1297. Now, ma’am, let me tell you a secret …,” and I lowered my voice as if instead of being in the middle of a dark forest, we were in a cattle market or a public square. “The King doesn’t want his father to be put on a pedestal. It would be too much having to bear the weight throughout history of his grandfather and his father being saints! He would always look bad in comparison.”
“True, true!” the hag agreed enthusiastically.
“So instead of sending the royal guard or the bishops or the advisers, the King has sent us, two coustilliers, to investigate the facts surrounding the death of his father, strongly warning us to find something that would discredit the wishes of Pope John. Which is why we need to find someone who knows exactly what happened that day, who has all the details and who, for a little money, is willing to talk. Do you know of anyone like that?”
“Me, sire!”
“You, ma’am. How can that be?” I asked in surprise.
“My husband and I know everything. Do you not see that nothing happens in this forest without us ten or fifteen
servants who live here finding out?”
“Ah, well, that is interesting! Look, Jonas, this woman is the person we were looking for. What is your name, ma’am?”
“Marie, sire, Marie Michelet, and my husband is Pascale Michelet.”
“Well, here are five gold escudos, adding them to the one I gave you earlier and the ten I gave to your husband, it’s a small fortune!”
“And what about me!” she yelled angrily. “What you gave my husband was for the wine and the directions, and what you gave me when you arrived was because you wanted to. For five gold escudos I’m not sure if I’ll remember everything.”