The Secret Familiar Read online

  One thing is certain: had I married Allemande, I would not have beaten her. She had been too much beaten already, and it had done her no good at all.

  But this is of little consequence. More important was the priest’s visit. After we settled down to our work, my apprentice and I were silent for a long period. I saw the priest arrive from my window, and identified him as Anselm Guiraud, the canon of St-Sebastien. But Hugues’s daughter led him through the front door, so I said nothing to my apprentice. I did not want to disturb Martin in his labour; I thought it best that he should get lost in his task, rather than that he should become careless through keeping one ear cocked for wails of distress from downstairs. Although he works well, and can be trusted to concentrate on the task at hand, death is a great distraction.

  Only later, when he was resting his tired arms, did I open my mouth to speak. And this was in response to a question that he voiced. For Martin had seen our neighbour Adhemar returning home. He wondered aloud where Adhemar might have been.

  ‘To church, perhaps?’ Martin suggested. ‘Or to the Rue Aludiere, to buy leather?’

  ‘No.’ I had noticed Adhemar’s passage myself. ‘He went to the wool-carders’ quarter. There was fluff all over the hem of his surcoat.’ Wielding my scissors, I cut one large folio into two smaller pieces. ‘If he must go to visit Astruga Ruffi, he should do it in shorter skirts.’

  ‘Astruga Ruffi?’ Martin stared at me in surprise. ‘Why should he visit her?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘But he is married!’

  ‘So is she. To a wool-carder.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I have been watching them for years, Martin. In and out of each other’s houses at all hours. Now that she has wed, the situation has become more difficult for them. One day, Adhemar will return with a missing nose or ear. I guarantee it.’

  Martin gazed at me in awe. ‘You know everything,’ he said.

  ‘I most certainly do not.’

  ‘Not everything,’ he amended. ‘Not Latin. But you know what people do. And where they come from. And where they go.’

  ‘Because I watch them closely. As a farmer might watch the sky or the crops. It is simply a matter of watching and remembering.’

  ‘I have good eyes. My father says so.’

  ‘You have your mother’s eyes,’ I remarked, for it is true; of all her children, Martin is the one who most resembles his mother. He has her dark colouring: the brown eyes, the black hair, the olive skin. ‘But you need more than acute vision,’ I explained. ‘You need to understand what you see.’

  At that moment, I heard footsteps on the stairs. And I rose to meet my visitor, who soon revealed himself to be Anselm Guiraud, the priest. He was panting from the exertion of his climb, and I wondered why he had not sent one of the children to fetch us.

  Naturally I assumed that the end must be fast approaching for my tenant’s mother.

  ‘No, no,’ he panted, when I asked him if Martin was required downstairs. ‘No, her time is not yet come. I could see it at a glance—I have some experience in these matters, as you must realise.’ He steadied himself against the wall, still puffing heavily, as he looked about him. ‘This is a good house you have here, Master Helié. Very big. Do you eat with your tenants?’

  ‘They bring me my food,’ I replied, calmly waiting. ‘They pay rent for the kitchen.’

  ‘That is a good arrangement. Since you yourself have no wife.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He nodded. It occurred to me that he might have climbed my stairs in search of more alms, and I prepared—with an inward sigh—to give him money. For it is never wise to annoy a priest. I have made a point of buying the good opinion of most priests in my neighbourhood, and many monks as well. My purse has only been shut to the Franciscans, who have not been endearing themselves to the rest of the Church lately.

  Not that all Franciscans have been courting disaster. I refer only to the Spiritual faction, and most of them left Narbonne long ago. The very year after I arrived here, forty-five of them were summoned to Avignon by the Pope, and afterwards dispersed to many far-flung prisons and abbeys. (Those, at least, who chose to recant rather than burn.) But even now there is a Spiritual taint to the Narbonne priory—and I would be reluctant to become associated with it.

  In any event, if the Franciscans are so attached to the notion of Holy Poverty, they will not be wanting my money, I feel sure.

  ‘It is good to see you back in your house,’ said the priest, whereupon I revised my opinion. He did not want alms. He was simply curious about our last meeting, when he had witnessed my arrest and surrendered me into the hands of Jean de Beaune. ‘Hugues tells me that you were mistaken for somebody else by the Inquisitor of Carcassonne,’ he observed. ‘Is that true?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Though it was your own name inscribed upon the summons?’

  ‘In error,’ I replied. ‘The scribe wrote “Seguier” instead of “Seguet”.’

  ‘And who is Helié Seguet?’

  ‘I have no idea, Father.’

  ‘Whoever he is, he must be a Beguin,’ the priest remarked. ‘For the Inquisitor of Carcassonne has been hunting Beguins most diligently.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘He intends to burn some very soon, I have heard.’ The priest seemed to be studying me with more interest than I perhaps merited, and I became wary. No doubt he was simply wondering if I had bribed my way out of prison, but I am always wary when I attract anyone’s interest. ‘There is talk of a sermo generalis in a few weeks. On the Feast of St Benedict,’ he concluded. ‘You were fortunate indeed that the Inquisitor was mistaken.’

  ‘Utterly mistaken,’ I declared firmly. ‘For I am a faithful son of the Holy Roman Church, Father, as you well know.’ And to prove my point, I gave him some money. Just a few copper coins, but they served to get rid of him.

  The news was worth the fee, in any case. For I could not have been better pleased to hear about the sermo generalis. If Jean de Beaune has decided to burn some Beguins, then other Beguins will be lured into the open. This is inevitable. Wherever a heretic is burned, you will find some of his friends in the crowd. Therefore I have more than once recommended to my master that he patrol most carefully the sites of his sermones generales, and take note of anyone behaving oddly. I do not mean to imply that people who weep or pray at these spectacles are invariably heretics. There are pious men who weep with pity at the sight of an unrepentant soul on its way to hell. There are good Catholics who pray fervently that dying sinners will see the light of Truth. Nevertheless, one should always take note of spectators who linger at the site afterwards; who abuse those soldiers charged with breaking up the charred corpses; who even attempt to retrieve scraps of partly incinerated hair and clothing, before the remains are utterly consumed. Such conduct seems highly suspicious, and worthy of investigation.

  I should confess that my advice on this matter was never much heeded. The problem, perhaps, lies in that curious custom of ‘relaxing’ condemned heretics into the custody of the secular authorities. It is not the inquisitor’s role to kill, any more than it is the job of the Church. That responsibility must fall to the local lord or king, whose interest in pursuing heretics, or even keeping a close eye on the execution grounds, is often lukewarm. God knows, it is hard to blame the secular arm for this lack of dedication. There are few sane men who would remain within sight of a burned corpse for longer than is absolutely necessary—and I can sympathise with the desire of every guard involved in a sermo to retreat to a quiet corner with a large jug of wine as soon as the event is over.

  All the same, I truly believe that I am right. And I shall demonstrate the wisdom of my view on the feast of St Benedict, when I shall witness the spectacle of Jean de Beaune’s sermo. By watching the crowd gathered in attendance, I might perhaps flush out a possible Beguin. I certainly hope that I might. Because so far, my efforts have turned up nothing.

  You might argue that I ha
ve shown a lack of enthusiasm for my appointed task. And it is true that I approach it with a certain weariness of spirit. The Beguins have done me no wrong. They are not my enemies, as the Cathars were. Nor, in hunting them down, am I assisting my master in his daily rounds. For the Beguins of Narbonne are Jean de Beaune’s meat, and I owe nothing to Jean de Beaune.

  On the other hand, I owe even less to the Beguins, who seem cursed with the same wilful arrogance as any other heretical group. Furthermore, I know how to protect myself. I know that my safety depends not only on obliging the inquisitors, but on proceeding with the greatest caution. I would rather be slow and secure than quick and clumsy. If I have made little headway in the last week or so, it is not because I am reluctant to act. It is because I am reluctant to act in a careless and ill-considered fashion.

  To begin with, I could have made inquiries of the priest at St-Paul. I chose not to, however. For that priest knew about Jacques. He was instructed to receive Jacques’s report. And now Jacques himself has disappeared. Does this fact alone not merit a cautious approach? Though I doubt very much that the priest was involved in Jacques’s disappearance, one cannot be too careful in such matters.

  Nevertheless, I went to the Bourg a few days ago, and visited the church of St-Paul. I went there to see if anything struck me as odd or unexpected. I went to listen for the names Hulart or Bonet as I wandered the streets in that area. It is sometimes through overhearing prayers in church, or conversations around a well, that one collects the most valuable information. I half expected to encounter Jacques himself, slinking out of the hospice of St-Paul or ducking into a baker’s shop.

  But I was unfortunate. There was nothing to be learned in that part of town—not in such a short time, on such a miserable day. For it was rather wet, and people do not stop in the street to gossip when it is raining. They hurry along, heads down, anxious to return to their hearthsides.

  On my way back to the Cité I also went to the House of Merchant Exchange. Here it is easy enough to linger, as long as you are dressed well; there are any number of merchants, notaries, brokers and seamen who will stand or sit in its vaulted halls for hours at a time, discussing trade, forging agreements, investing money and drawing up contracts. The high stone rooms ring with talk and laughter and the chink of coin. Pale men scribble furiously in giant communal registers of transaction, which are chained to the wall like prisoners. Money-changers flaunt their wealth with crimson-draped tables and tooled-leather cartularies. There is so much to occupy the eye and the ear that one can pass unheeded through the noisy throng, even when asking questions.

  It is not so unusual to be seeking a debtor or creditor at the House of Merchant Exchange. All I had to do was approach some of the busier notaries. ‘I am looking for Vincent Hulart,’ was my simple inquiry. ‘Can you tell me where I might find Vincent Hulart?’ Without looking up, the notaries furnished me with a variety of useful answers: the location of his house, the name of his cousin, the details of his business. Vincent Hulart is a spice merchant. He lives on the Rue de la Parerie Neuve. His cousin, Berengar Blanchi, lives with him.

  Neither of them were at the House of Merchant Exchange yesterday. And if Vincent Hulart was at home, I did not see him. Though I passed his house before returning to the Cité, it was as quiet as a grave. So was the street outside it. There was no opportunity to stand and stare—not without arousing suspicion.

  It will be very hard indeed to investigate Vincent Hulart. I have no legitimate reason for approaching him; what interests can a parchment-maker share with a spice merchant, after all? We have no common friends or relatives. We do not attend the same church. We live in different quarters of the city, separated by a river and two thicknesses of city wall.

  The only possible course open to me is a risky one. I must wait two weeks for the anniversary of Pierre Olivi’s death. I seem to recall that, when Olivi’s bones were still buried near the altar of the Franciscan church, many people used to congregate there in the middle of March. If Vincent Hulart is a Beguin—or if he knows any Beguins—he will surely do something to commemorate the passing of Pierre Olivi. There will surely be some sort of activity at his house on that day. The question is: how shall I watch the house without attracting unwanted attention?

  I must give the matter some thought.

  VI.

  Monday, anniversary of the death of Pierre Olivi

  Today, after much preparation, I kept watch outside the house of Vincent Hulart from dawn till dusk.

  I told Martin that I would be visiting certain cloisters beyond the city walls: those of St-Felix, St-Etienne, St-Martin, St-Vincent. I told him that I would take samples to show the canons of each church, who might decide to patronise my shop. By this means, I neatly forestalled any questions about the length of my absence. And I was able to pass off my bundle of clothes as a bundle of parchment.

  I promised that I would return before the gates closed

  It is many years since I disguised myself. I was concerned that my gums and oils and gall waxes might have dried up in their little glass vessels; that my alternative wardrobe might have rotted away under the flagstone in the cellar. But I need not have worried. Such garments as I kept have not deteriorated. Even if they had, it would hardly have mattered, since a beggar’s rags should never look well preserved.

  I took with me to the Bourg my old green hooded cloak, my short grey tunic and my rope girdle. All these garments are so encrusted with food stains and bodily excretions, so frayed and rent and reeking, that they offer nearly as much protection as a leper’s bell; no one dares approach them who has any desire to remain in good health. To add to their effect, I took my coloured gums, some dirty rags, and a few torn fragments of split-skin parchment. All of these things I rolled into a length of soiled blanket, which I tied with a leather thong. I also took a wineskin filled with water, a steel mirror, and the stick that I use in the vats.

  I reached the Old Bridge at daybreak, just as the gates were opening. From there I crossed the river into the Bourg, where the streets were largely deserted. Even so, I was careful. When it comes to privacy, one has very little choice in a place like Narbonne. I would have assumed my disguise in one of the vineyards or ditches outside the city walls if I had been confident that a diseased beggar would be welcomed back in again. Instead, I had to take my chances in the graveyard of St-Paul.

  Normally, one does not find people drifting around a graveyard at sunrise on a chilly March morning. There might be dogs, and rats, and perhaps one or two unconscious drunkards. But even beggars tend to avoid burial grounds. According to popular prejudice, they are places of ill omen.

  Therefore I was fairly confident of having the place to myself. The canons, I knew, would not be bothering me; I had heard the bells ringing for prime when I crossed the bridge. Nor would the graveyard walls stop me, for I had examined them when I was last in the area, and knew that they were full of holes. My only concern was the possibility of illicit lovers. Privacy being in such short supply, and lust being such an overwhelming force, I knew that lovers were the most likely threat to my peace.

  I was lucky, however. No unclad couples were surprised among the graves by my incursion. No snoring sots had tumbled into any open pits. I found myself a sheltered spot without hindrance, and proceeded to change my clothes. I pissed in the dirt, then rubbed it into my skin and hair. I began to apply my various coloured gums.

  This delicate procedure took me back to my first lesson on the art of deceitful ointments. I was in Aragon, on the route to Compostella, when the beggar Abril confessed to me that he earned his keep by imitating serious illness, and wringing the hearts of gullible pilgrims. This man had learned his mastery from the Moors; I wish I could remember half of what he told me. Nevertheless, I still recall how to create open sores filled with pus that can be washed off at the end of the day. And how scraps of parchment can be made to look like shredded skin. And how a tincture of brazil-wood, applied to the tongue and teeth, can mimic inflame
d and bleeding flesh.

  Having brought a mirror, I accomplished my own transformation without too much difficulty. I favoured scars above sores, because sores can be counterproductive. (A leper will find no welcome inside the walls of Narbonne.) I darkened my brows with gall, and bound my feet with rags. The final touch was a plaster of wax around my eyes. By covering one entirely, and embedding the other in a gleaming eruption, I contrived to look as if I must surely be blind.

  Then, with my respectable clothes hidden in my bundle, I shuffled into the street again, stumbling occasionally to convince the few onlookers who passed me that I was, indeed, sightless. The beggar Abril once told me that the trick to passing oneself off as a blind man is to lift one’s chin, and to use one’s stick. By swinging the stick in front of me, from side to side, I not only appeared to be plotting a course around any obstacles, but kept others from coming too close.

  It is a little-known fact, by the by, that most people are recognised by their gait alone. Hence, when assuming another identity, it is important to change the way one walks. A stone in the shoe is the best method. That is another thing Abril taught me.

  When I finally reached the Rue de la Parerie Neuve, it was later than I would have wished. The sun was quite high and the street was noisy. I took up a position opposite the house of Vincent Hulart, which is narrow but tall, with two storeys built over the recessed shop on ground level. In point of fact, this seems more a warehouse than a shop, for not once during the day were its big shutters pulled back to reveal tables or shelves. People came and went—using a small door cut in the larger one—but not as frequently as I had expected. Nor were these people the kind of matrons and maidservants who frequented many neighbouring shops, like the bakery down the street. Visitors to the house of Vincent Hulart were generally labourers carrying loads, or well-dressed merchants carrying nothing.

  I shall now describe the men I saw visiting Vincent Hulart.

  There was a balding man of middle age dressed in blue Champagne toile, who must have been a notary. (I say this because his hands were stained with ink, and his shoulders were stooped, yet he was not wearing a clerical habit.) He brought with him a register, and left with it also, even more ink-stained than before. That he had come on business was evident to me.