And I know for certain that not long ago, in Avignon itself, with necromancies of this sort philters and ointments were prepared to make attempts on the life of our lord Pope himself, poisoning his foods. The Pope was able to defend himself and identify the toxin only because he was supplied with prodigious jewels in the form of serpents’ tongues, fortified by wondrous emeralds and rubies that through divine power were able to reveal the presence of poison in the foods. The King of France had given him eleven of these most precious tongues, thank heaven, and only thus could our lord Pope elude death! True, the Pontiff’s enemies went still further, and everyone knows what was learned about the heretic Bernard Délicieux, arrested ten years ago: books of black magic were found in his house, with notes written on the most wicked pages, containing all the instructions for making wax figures in order to harm enemies.
And would you believe it? In his house were also found figures that reproduced, with truly admirable craft, the image of the Pope, with little red circles on the vital parts of the body. And everyone knows that such a figure, hung up by a string, is placed before a mirror, and then the vital parts are pierced with a pin, and . . . Oh, but why do I dwell on these vile, disgusting practices? The Pope himself spoke of them and described and condemned them, just last year, in his constitution Super illius specula! And I truly hope you have a copy in this rich library of yours, where it can be properly meditated on. . . .”
“We have it, we have it,” the abbot eagerly confirmed, in great distress.
“Very well,” Bernard concluded. “Now the case seems clear to me. A monk seduced, a witch, and some ritual, which fortunately did not take place. To what end? That is what we will learn, and I am ready to sacrifice a few hours’ sleep to learn it. Will Your Magnificence put at my disposal a place where this man can be confined?”
“We have some cells in the basement of the smithy,” the abbot said, “which fortunately are very rarely used and have stood empty for years. . . .”
“Fortunately or unfortunately,” Bernard remarked. And he ordered the archers to have someone show them the way and to take the two prisoners to separate cells; and the men were to tie the monk well to some rings set in the wall, so that Bernard could go down shortly and, questioning him, look him in the face. As for the girl, he added, it was clear who she was, and it was not worth questioning her that night. Other trials awaited her before she would be burned as a witch. And if witch she were, she would not speak easily. But the monk might still repent, perhaps (and he glared at the trembling Salvatore, as if to make him understand he was being offered a last chance), telling the truth and denouncing his accomplices.
The two were dragged off, one silent and destroyed, almost feverish, the other weeping and kicking and screaming like an animal being led to the shambles. But neither Bernard nor the archers nor I myself could understand what she was saying in her peasant tongue. For all her shouting, she was as if mute. There are words that give power, others that make us all the more derelict, and to this latter category belong the vulgar words of the simple, to whom the Lord has not granted the boon of self-expression in the universal tongue of knowledge and power.
Once again I was tempted to follow her; once again William, grim, restrained me. “Be still, fool,” he said. “The girl is lost; she is burnt flesh.”
As I observed the scene with terror, staring at the girl in a swarm of contradictory thoughts, I felt someone touch my shoulder. I don’t know why, but even before I turned I recognized the touch of Ubertino.
“You are looking at the witch, are you not?” he asked me. And I knew he could not know of my story, and therefore he was saying this only because he had caught, with his terrible penetration of human passions, the intensity of my gaze.
“No,” I defended myself, “I am not looking at her . . . or, rather, perhaps I am looking at her, but she isn’t a witch. . . . We don’t know: perhaps she is innocent. . . .”
“And you look at her because she is beautiful. She is beautiful, is she not?” he asked me with extraordinary warmth, pressing my arm. “If you look at her because she is beautiful, and you are upset by her (but I know you are upset, because the sin of which she is suspected makes her all the more fascinating to you), if you look at her and feel desire, that alone makes her a witch. Be on guard, my son. . . .
The beauty of the body stops at the skin. If men could see what is beneath the skin, as with the lynx of Boeotia, they would shudder at the sight of a woman. All that grace consists of mucus and blood, humors and bile. If you think of what is hidden in the nostrils, in the throat, and in the belly, you will find only filth. And if it revolts you to touch mucus or dung with your fingertip, how could we desire to embrace the sack that contains that dung?”
An access of vomiting seized me. I didn’t want to hear any more. My master, who had also heard, came to my rescue. He brusquely approached Ubertino, grasped his arm, and freed it from mine.
“That will do, Ubertino,” he said. “That girl will soon be under torture, then on the pyre. She will become exactly as you say, mucus, blood, humors, and bile. But it will be men like us who dig from beneath her skin that which the Lord wanted to be protected and adorned by that skin. And when it comes to prime matter, you are no better than she. Leave the boy alone.”
Ubertino was upset. “Perhaps I have sinned,” he murmured. “I have surely sinned. What else can a sinner do?”
Now everyone was going back inside, commenting on the event. William remained a little while with Michael and the other Minorites, who were asking him his impressions.
“Bernard now has an argument, ambiguous though it be. In the abbey there are necromancers circulating who do the same things that were done against the Pope in Avignon. It is not, certainly, proof, and, in the first place, it cannot be used to disturb tomorrow’s meeting. Tonight he will try to wring from that poor wretch some other clue, which, I’m sure, Bernard will not use immediately tomorrow morning. He will keep it in reserve: it will be of use later, to upset the progress of the discussions if they should ever take a direction unpleasing to him.”
“Could he force the monk to say something to be used against us?” Michael of Cesena asked.
William was dubious. “Let’s hope not,” he said. I realized that, if Salvatore told Bernard what he had told us, about his own past and the cellarer’s, and if he hinted at something about their relationship with Ubertino, fleeting though it may have been, a highly embarrassing situation would be created.
“In any case, let’s wait and see what happens,” William said with serenity. “For that matter, Michael, everything was already decided beforehand. But you want to try.”
“I do,” Michael said, “and the Lord will help me. May Saint Francis intercede for all of us.”
“Amen,” all replied.
“But that is not necessarily possible,” was William’s irreverent comment. “If the Pope is right, Saint Francis could be waiting somewhere for judgment day, without seeing the Lord face to face.”
“A curse on that heretic John!” I heard Jerome of Kaffa mutter, as each went back to bed. “If he now robs us of the saints’ help, what will become of us, poor sinners that we are?”
FIFTH DAY
PRIME
In which there occurs a fraternal debate regarding the poverty of Jesus.
My heart racked by a thousand anxieties after the scene of the night, I woke on the morning of the fifth day when prime was already ringing, as William shook me roughly, warning me that the two legations would be meeting shortly. I looked outside and saw nothing. The fog of the previous day was now a milky blanket that totally covered the high plain.
When I went outside, I saw the abbey as I had never seen it before. A few of the major buildings—the church, the Aedificium, the chapter house—could be discerned even at a distance, though still vague, shadows among shadows, while the rest of the constructions were visible only at a few paces. Shapes, of things and animals, seemed to rise suddenly from the void; people materialized from the mist, first gray, like ghosts, then gradually though not easily recognizable.
Born in a northern clime, I was not unfamiliar
