Pagan's Scribe by Catherine Jinks Read Free Book Online Page B

away!
    ‘Come on, Isidore.’ He nudges his horse in the ribs, and the beast starts to pick its way carefully down the steep, dusty road, between rocks and roots and ditches. As soon as we leave the shadow of Fanjeaux’s walls, the sun hits my scalp like a hammer; it stabs at my eyes and sucks up my sweat. By the blood of the Lamb, how sore my legs are! All around us there are people working in the vineyards, and people carrying water, and people labouring towards the city gates beneath huge loads of firewood – but none of these people is worse off than I am.
    ‘We must stop at Prouille to see if my Bishop has written to me,’ the Archdeacon remarks, in a loud voice. He’s up ahead, sitting gracefully in the saddle, his backside rolling with a smooth, easy rhythm as his horse sets the pace. ‘My Bishop generally sends his letters to Prouille, if I’m in this part of the world: there’s a nunnery there, run by a very reliable Austin canon who gets around a bit. Dominic Guzman, he’s called. Originally came across the Pyrenees, to preach to the Cathars. On one of those missions I told you about.’ He glances back over his shoulder and grins. ‘Poor old Isidore. You’re not having much fun, are you?’
    Fun? What’s fun? I survive, little man, I don’t have fun.
    ‘Never mind, you’ll enjoy it when we get there.’ As we reach level ground the road widens, and he pulls at the reins that have been dangling so loosely from his fingers, slowing his horse until I manage to catch up. ‘They have books at Prouille,’ he adds.
    ‘Books?’
    ‘Yes, I thought that might interest you.’ Another quick, sharp glance. ‘It’s not a big place – in fact some of the Sisters are still living in Fanjeaux, because the convent isn’t finished yet. But Dominic brought a fair number of books from Osma. Mostly theological texts, of course, and books of Christian thought: Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose. At least six of them.’
    Books! How I long to feel the weight of a book in my hand. How I long to turn a page, and pass through the print as you’d pass through a door, into that world of wise and lofty spirits, of strange animals, of noble deeds and far-away cities. If only I could crawl into a book and stay there for the rest of my life.
    ‘. . . But you can’t help admiring him.’ The Archdeacon is still talking, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘Anyone else would have given up – everyone else did give up – but not Dominic. He stayed, and he kept preaching. He traipses from one smelly little village to another, living off scraps, patiently arguing with a bunch of bone-heads who wouldn’t know a syllogism if you slapped them across the face with it and stuffed it down their collective earholes.’ He laughs to himself. ‘Personally, I would have given up long ago.’
    Yes, but then you’re not a holy person, are you? You have no humility. No restraint. You don’t preach to heretics; you share meals with them. How can you hope to understand the actions of a truly pious soul?
    But I mustn’t be ungrateful. Don’t be ungrateful, Isidore. At least this man has some charity in his heart.
    ‘From Prouille we’ll move on to Laurac,’ he says, ‘where we’ll talk to Dame Blanche. She’s the Cathar who happens to run that town. Then, when we’ve completely failed to convince her of anything, we’ll visit my friend Roland, on our way back to Carcassonne. You’ll like Roland. He’s a wonderful man. Then we’ll return to the Bishop, and inform him that this whole trip was a complete waste of time (as I said it would be), because these people are as stubborn as mules, and even if the Archangel Gabriel, in all his ineffable glory, appeared with a chorus of cherubim –’
    ‘Blood-sucker!’
    ‘Devil’s priest!’
    What? Who said that?
    ‘Go away!’
    ‘Go away, we don’t want you here!’
    I don’t believe it. They’re peasants! Ordinary peasants, standing in a field of oats. How can they say such things?