Hurdy Gurdy Page 2

  So I have not had the chance yet to regard any woman close up, to admire the long, smooth, pearly curve of her neck beneath the shining ringlets, eye the smooth shadowy curves of her ear, with its dark depths, inhale the straw and pollen savours of her tresses, gaze into her moist, aquamarine eyes, or inhale the milk and honey scents from the frothy gap between her damp, pink lips, pierced by a flickering glistening tip of coral tongue, wet-frothed with warm spittle. No more than I have witnessed a unicorn, oryx or mermaid.

  ‘How does she reveal herself as a woman?’ Brother Fulco demands.

  I colour a deep scarlet. I ponder how best to answer.

  ‘She has long hair. She smells different to any brother. Her scents are salty, and sweet, and make the head giddy like wine. There are lumps on her chest. Two. One on each side. But they are smooth, soft and hillocky, not like the hard muscles of men. She hides a sunken cleft where we brothers keep our manhood.’

  ‘Yes?’ He hoists his furry right eyebrow. It is twitchy as a cornered mouse. ‘And what does she do, this woman, when she visits you in the night?’

  I look away from his enquiring eyes. I hesitate to say.

  ‘Tell,’ he barks. ‘The truth, now.’

  ‘She lays herself down, her length on top of mine, belly to belly, pressing her hips onto me. Then we eye each other. She brings her mouth to my mouth. She lays her lips on mine. Hers are hot and moist. Her tongue parts the gap, and flickers into my mouth. She presses down … She is soft and hard, warm and cool, modest and coy, ardent and shy, open and closed, wet and dry …’

  Brother Fulco narrows his eyes and shakes his head, as if unsurprised yet strangely saddened.

  ‘Now, tell me, Brother Diggory. And tell me truthfully … For it is a matter of prime importance. Does she steal the seed of your loins?’

  ‘No,’ I protest. ‘No.’

  But, I lie.

  For, just as he guessed, she does.

  Yes, yes, yes … yes … oh, yes … yes … yes.

  And yet, in truth, she does not steal from me. For I give what I have to give willingly. With pleasure, in good measure, in delirious spurts, in thrilling spasms. All the while inflamed with shame.

  ‘Good.’ Fulco nods sombre, approving my declared chastity. ‘And then?’

  ‘The dream ends. I wake. I open my eyes. And she is nowhere to be seen.’

  ‘You do well to resist her, Brother. You do well to wake in time.’ He shakes his head. ‘For I must warn you, this is a sorry visitation, Brother Diggory. You must never trust yourself to the hands of disembodied women who come by night to suck your seed.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘For this is never a true woman. This is a demon known as a Succubus. Their humours are cold and wet, where men’s are hot and dry. And their bodies take lewd shapes, with mounds and curves, bumps and crevices, that can snare men in sins, both delicious and damning.

  ‘They come to tempt men from chastity and the path of good. But when a man succumbs to a Succubus and he enters in, he finds her cold as ice … as cold as her intentions. For she has come to steal his innocence and his seed of generation.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘They give the seed to their brother demon, called an Incubus, who visits women by night. He wants to spawn his own kind but cannot, for he is sterile, and cannot make a woman with child. Not without the stolen seed of man. But his evil essence spoils the good seed, so when it comes the offspring is born unhealthy and deformed.’

  Brother Fulco explains that a Succubus is a demonic presence, an evil being, made of airs, while a woman is a different thing entirely – a true, solid, natural and good part of nature, made of flesh, constructed by the Lord out of Adam’s rib, to be man’s helpmeet and bear his children, even out of sin.

  But though this is the way for carnal people, it can never be the way for a celibate monk.

  ‘Man and woman are drawn together,’ he explains. ‘They are tugged by an unseen power called carnal desire …’

  ‘Are you tugged?’ I ask. ‘Unseen? By that desire? The carnal one?’

  ‘More so when I was younger …’ He trails off. I sense his discomfort.

  ‘They say there are some rare pleasures to be had in it?’

  ‘So they say.’ He splays his leathery palms. ‘For the Devil always baits his traps.’

  ‘So one man goes with one woman? Is that the way? To make a pair? So, then there are just the two of them?’

  ‘Yes. Two. Together,’ he agrees, ‘a couple. That’s the usual way of it.’

  ‘Any God-given reason?’

  For we brothers seldom pair off so. We are discouraged. The Abbot warns it can lead to personal and unnatural friendships. So, mostly we are all together alone. Or all alone together – gathered in numbers, to work, eat or pray. We are herd animals. We act as a flock. We are beasts who find comfort in company. We rub along together. We follow nose to tail. And when one eats we all do. And when another bleats, so do his fellows too.

  ‘They are a couple joined by marriage. In this, they heed the example of Adam and Eve, alone in the Garden of Eden …’

  I nod. I close my eyes. I am inclined to think more on it. Of finding myself so, alone with a woman.

  ‘I have a physic,’ says Brother Fulco, ‘that will help you sleep sound and keep women, and demons, out of your mind.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It is chaste-tree tonic. It is a mix of monk’s pepper, mandrake root, wine and cormorant blood. Many of the younger brothers take it. It can ease the deprivations of a celibate life. It reduces the congestion of the loins.’

  Yes. Perhaps it helps. But it is an awful bitter pill to swallow.

  I am an oblate. A child gifted to the monastery by his family. Given over when I was seven.

  My kin – who were poor, muddy, mildewed, unlettered folk – wished me better than they were, and to have more than they could give me themselves. They wanted me taught. To speak the Latin. To read the Gospels. To count with God’s numbers, instead of my own grubby fingers. They wanted to find me safe haven in this storm-tossed sea of woe. I am told I was born in the usual sorry way of things, out of brief snatched sin, in squalor, slithering out of a woman, smeared in blood and slime, with the screams of the torment I caused her.

  My mother was called Mattilda. But they say I had scarcely wriggled out of her, squealing and slippery, than she looked down at me, snagged by a cord between her thighs, snorted, rolled her eyes upwards, spoke a blasphemy, then straightaway left this life for another place.

  This did not make a good coming for me. Nor a good going for her. For she died without warning. With no chance to repent and save her sinful soul for eternity.

  All this came and passed long before I was possessed of any memory to remind me what I had lost.

  My father – let us call him Brother No-Name – had been a sly, quick, quiet man with a single brief purpose, who passed in the night. He was a brother of the Cistercians, on an errand, carrying a sealed letter to the Pope’s court in Avignon.

  He dazzled my mother with his rank, then tricked her with clever words, deceits and vain promises. Then he picked her pocket of innocence. For he said she could serve Our Lord, aiding his Church by assisting its priest. He promised to confer on her his special, sacred blessing. The physical sacrament, the communion of the flesh.

  But, in truth, all he did was lift her skirts, lay himself upon her belly, poke himself inside her, and squirt his rude seed, willy-nilly.

  Then, choosing not to tarry, nor even leave his name, he moved on the very same hour without a backward look or further sentiment for what he had done, or what he left behind with his seed-corn strewn in my mother’s furrow.

  Which was a selfish, unkind act. And yet some small good came of it, in time.

  And that good was me, arriving nine months later.

  Luke Fox, my mother’s father, took me up into his arms, and held me in his care. He fed and clothed me till I was seven years old, at my childhood’s end,
when I was accepted by the Brothers in Grey. He gave me my name, a boar’s tooth necklace, and a bronze ring for my finger, so I might remember him and his family, and pray for them. For he was a good, kind-hearted sinner, and fearful of Hell’s Fire.

  From the Church I came. To the Church I was returned.

  III. The Weight of the Soul

  A brother in the Order of Odo never knows riches. But still, he wants for nothing. He has sustenance for his body, friendship for his person, and good counsel for his soul.

  He gets two solid meals a day, a full gallon jug of ale, and seven full, fat portions of prayer. He has his fellows for brotherhood, to improve his character, and warn Satan away. He has the gifts of obedience, chastity and poverty to caution his will and keep his heart pure. He has time and solitude to tend to his soul and pray for the world. In the chapel he can transport himself to rapture on the heady aromas of incense. He has his own cell, with his own straw palliasse on his own wooden cot, with two blankets, mixed of wool and horse-hair, his own straight-grained cherry-wood carved crucifix on his own pure white limewashed wall. He has two tunics, a cowl, a pair of canvas braies to wrap his privates, a leather apron for work, a shoe for each foot, and a knotted cord to belt his waist.

  What man needs more?

  For my work, I assist Brother Fulco in his tasks as apothecary.

  For as long as I have been privy to his endeavours, Brother Fulco has been engaged in the study of the science he calls all-chemical.

  I can tell you a good part of it –

  – but I cannot reveal the hidden heart of it all, for I am sworn not to break the trust.

  It is Brother Fulco’s conviction that all matter – be it water, silver, gold, iron, cheese – is made up of the same tiny elementals, which he calls minusculia, such that rearranging these would turn one stuff into another. So butter and granite are the very same stuff, just in a different form of assembly. In butter, they are like a flock of sheep, scattered over the hillside. In rock they are packed so tight they cannot move, like lambs penned at market.

  By discovering the rules of arrangement of minuscules, and finding the Elixir, the Philosopher’s Stone to rearrange them, he plans soon to convert iron into gold, and salt into diamond, for the benefit and wealth of this monastery, as well as for the sake of all mankind.

  Also, Fulco is engaged in measuring the weight of the human soul, and its conduct at the death of the body. It is an interest that involves his watchful attendance at public executions, and in keeping the close company of any Christians about to die for any sound reason.

  When I am not assisting Brother Fulco in his science, I tend the herbs in the monastery garden, and I copy The Book of Life. Or, rather, I copy a copy of the master copy. For the original is too valuable and fragile for man to lay his harsh, dirty hands upon. Because it contains the best part of the knowledge of the world and all there is to know of all types of beings – be they person, animal, plant, fowl, fish, angel, monster, apparition, soul or spirit, whether alive, dead or in between, celestial or terrestrial, marine or airborne. Past, present or yet to come. The known or the yet unhappened.

  Now, copying the section on the beasts and peoples of the Three Indias, I can discern the moral patterns that God has woven into his bestiary.

  And in the margins, I may take my pleasure in drawing the likeness of the beasts. In this we can use all the coloured inks and make small, sparing play with silver and gold leaf.

  We brother scribes each have private marks as secret signatures. Suppose we are bored. Perhaps the Abbot is away for the day. So, if in the margin of some manuscript you come across the likeness of a melancholy cat playing the Hurdy Gurdy, that is the sign of Brother Francis. But should you find a group of maidens plucking plump fruit from the penis tree, that’s a scene from the mind of Brother Michael. Others may take pleasure in drawing the likeness of killer-rabbits, clutching cudgels or knives. Perhaps they are roasting barons on spits, or locking up bishops in hutches, or cutting off a man’s foot as a good-luck keepsake.

  And yesterday it was my good fortune to draw the likeness of the jackal. And I pictured him spotted all over, with white fangs dripping crimson blood, clutching a dead fox in his mouth, and in the mouth of the fox was a dead hare, and in the hare’s mouth was a dead mouse, and in the mouse’s mouth a grasshopper, and in the grasshopper’s mouth a spider, and in the spider’s mouth a fly, and in the fly’s mouth a gnat. And then I ran out of margin to draw upon. But not before I had sketched a fine moral, and coloured it in, showing that the predator of one is the prey of another, in the Ladder of God’s Creation. So, however high a being may think he is, there is always one above him, as well as one below, be he a worm, herring, prince or angel. Except if he is God Almighty, atop, or Satan, lowest of the low.

  Praise be to God.

  All the while, I held a terrible, dark secret.

  Fulco had sworn me to secrecy. He said only the Abbot knew. We must not tell the other brothers. For what they did not know could not disquiet them. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof.

  It was a vile story. But it kept coming. It had travelled up from the southerly and south-westerly roads. It was brought by the horse-trader from the Dark Hills. It came with the pilgrims passing through on the Two Saints Way. The grain merchant brought it from Wray Market. Some Benedictine brothers brought it on water, by way of the river.

  Each time the story came it grew in gruesome detail, carrying more concern and worse warnings.

  The writings of Saint Odo show there is much to be learned from the various beasts. Witness the example of the noble pelican.

  The pelican is a wondrous bird which dwells in the regions about the River Nile. There are two kinds of pelican. The blue pelican lives in the river and eats nothing but fish. While the yellow pelican lives in the desert and eats only locusts and worms. The pelican is a noble and generous bird, for it loves its young more than any other beast. When the nestlings hatch, the parent bird gives all its time to caring for the young, pushing food into their greedy, gaping mouths. But the young birds are ungrateful and impatient. They never care if they peck at their father’s face. So, enraged but thoughtless, he pecks back.

  Oh, woe is he. For he kills them by accident, reckless with his strength. But on the third day the father comes back to them, shuddering with pity and sorrow. With his beak he pierces his own side, until the blood flows forth. With the spilled blood he brings back life into the body of his young.

  In this the pelican is just like Christ. For humanity hurt him by practising sin. But he died on the cross, and shed his blood to revive us – just as the pelican spills his blood to save his young.

  But best take caution from the centaur.

  It is another strange beast, for it has the upper body of a man joined to the lower body of an ass. The upper, manly half is rational and God-fearing. But the lower half is beastly and lustful.

  In this the centaur resembles a man. For while he wants to be good, he is drawn astray by the animal desires housed in his breeches. He is a hypocrite, for his upper half speaks of doing good while his lower half plots to betray him in lust, and hump away like a rutting goat.

  So Philip de Thaon is correct when he says man may be noble from the belly upwards, but remain a beast below the belt.

  The hyena lives near tombs so it may feed on the dead bodies it finds there. The hyena is so undecided and deceitful it often changes its sex. Sometimes it takes a male form. Sometimes female. For it cannot make up its mind how to make its way in the world.

  At night they call out, imitating the human voice. Then anyone who is deceived to answer the call gets eaten. A dog that crosses a hyena’s shadow will lose its voice. When a hyena mates with a lion, the offspring is called a leucrota. There is a stone in the eye of the hyena that will allow a person to see the future if he places it under his tongue. But you must take care never to eat a hyena, for they are dirty. And their flesh tastes soiled.

  In all this, the hye
na is like the most deceitful of men, who always lie in wait to trick and cheat their fellows, even after they are dead.

  The fox too is a dirty, deceitful beast. He never runs in a straight line, but only in circles. He rolls in red mud and lies stretched out still, so he appears to be dead and covered in blood. When birds are fooled and come to feed on the corpse, they are seized by the fox and eaten themselves.

  In this, the fox is like the Devil, who pretends to be harmless or passed away, until he has you in his jaws. Then it is too late to escape.

  But those with good judgement, who have taken their guidance from Our Lord Jesus Christ, cannot be caught.

  Praise be to God.

  I was forbidden to tell the brothers Fulco’s terrible secret.

  This is what he confided to me –

  There was a sickness wandering the face of the Earth. A foul pestilence. A great distemper. An awful pox.

  They called it the Blue Sickness, the Black Death, the Curse. It had come from the East through China. Then, it was carried by traders to Naples from Sicily. And to Avignon from Corsica. And travelled within months through Aquitaine and Gascony, and up through Normandy, and sideways to the Low Countries.

  And now it had jumped the Channel.

  And was coming northwards.

  Towards us.

  Carrying off all it touched.

  One day you were hale and hearty. The next you were racked by fever. You sprouted terrible black boils. You gargled your guts. You dribbled blood. You lay, twisting in torment, from the demons within. Until death spared you.

  They sang a sour rhyme about it –

  When the head quakes