A Stolen Tongue (17 page)

As I was contending with the donkeys for their dinner, suddenly I heard behind me a loud and imperious shout. I dropped my thorns and tried to scramble over the fence, but it was too late. A hand on my shoulder pulled me back and spun me around.

“Monk of Ulm!” The infidel cried in German. “Are you taking those back to sleep on?”

Behind me stood, of all creatures, Ser Niccolo's Mameluke, the former Peter Ber of Swabia. He was on his way back to Contarini's galley and agreed to take me with him. Now he sits across from me in our little boat, ruefully massaging his pustulant wound.

“How is your neck, Abdullah?” I ask. “Is it healing?”

Gingerly, he prods the splinter, sucks in his breath at the pain.

“It's fine as long as I don't poke it.”

“Why don't you have Ser Niccolo remove it for you? It can't help, leaving it in.”

“Ser Nic?” The Mameluke hoots. “He is a man who likes to see a person suffer.”

“When we get back to shore,” I say, “come have our barber look at it.”

The Mameluke, as I spend more time in his company, reveals himself to be an odd combination, brothers. Sly and mocking, as if real Saracen blood ran in his veins, and yet at the same time kindhearted
and funny. He obviously misses Christendom deeply and wishes himself back home. Perhaps he is not completely lost after all.

“So what do you have of Ser Nic's?” the Mameluke asks. “Did he lose something on your ship?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I say. “I'd prefer to discuss it with him.”

He shrugs. “That's fine, just don't take too long about it. I absolutely have to be back by sunset for evening prayers.” Abdullah glares at the small Arab oarsman. “If all the converts don't show up, there's hell to pay.”

“I have to be back by sunset as well,” I say. “That's when I'm told they lock us in for the night.”

All conversation ceases when the current spirals into chaos around Andromeda's Rocks. Abdullah's rower digs his shoulder into the right oar to keep us from spinning completely around and smashing onto the rocks. Caught in sea and harbor's aquatic lovers' quarrel, our little boat is spat back and forth, battered and wet, until a sharp barb lands in the sea's breast, and we are through. Before us, Contarini's and Lando's galleys roll on the waves.

O brothers, if only the prideful Venetians back home could see how these captains flinch into Palestine like dogs with tails between their legs, groveling to the Infidel for safe-conduct, they would blush for shame. Like Lando, Contarini has furled all his colorful sails, lowered his fine silk banners, and altogether made his galley naked before the Saracens. We row around to the ship's rickety ladder, sunk in wood pustular with barnacles and pocked with green rot holes. Abdullah helps me up and orders the rowboat to wait for us.

“It's a rat pit, isn't it?” The Mameluke shivers as we climb aboard.

Five minutes upon Contarini's ship and I remember why I elected to sail with Lando. Before us, two black rats race like Atalanta and Hippomenes but fall upon each other in vermin passion, tearing fur and flailing bald tails. Beneath our feet, fat white worms wriggle across the floorboards, seeking in their cunning way to crawl up the hem of my robe and suck my leg blood. Though many filthy creatures live on damp ships, thank God nothing venomous can breed here: no toads or vipers, no poisonous snakes, spiders, or scorpions.
Had not Divine Providence thus ordered it, no man might survive one of these large old ships.

I walk directly to the galley's horns, the one spot on board a pilgrim ship where I know a man might sit and keep his own thoughts, and there I find him, writing diligently in his book. The sinking sun is behind him, and he holds his page at an angle to catch what amber light remains of the day, purposefully marking the page, referring to a sheaf of notes tucked into the back of his manuscript.

“Ser Niccolo.” The Mameluke taps his shoulder. “See who has come to visit.”

The translator looks up, startled, and almost spills his pot of ink.

“It's Lando's friar.” Ser Niccolo leans down awkwardly to bestow the kiss of peace.
“Wie Geht es ihnen!”

Why do I find such pleasure hearing my language on his lips, brothers? I blush in confusion.

“Friar Felix Fabri from the Preaching Brothers in Ulm,” I say.

“I remember you.” Ser Niccolo smiles, then, noticing the Mameluke hovering, gently touches his elbow. “Thank you, Abdullah, for showing our guest over. I'm sure we'd love some malvoisie.”

Reluctantly, the Mameluke backs away to fetch a bottle of wine, leaving us alone on the prow.

“What are you working on?” I nod at his book, suddenly shy about my reason for being here.

“I'm translating the life of a saint whose vita has only recently come to light.”

“Which saint is that?” I ask, for, as you know, brothers, I pride myself on my familiarity with lesser-known holy lives.

“She's very obscure.” He smiles.

“Is it Saint Withburge, one of four Saxon sister saints?”

“No.”

“Is it Saint Julitta, who was boiled in tar along with her three-year-old son, Saint Quiricus?”

“No, it's not Saint Julitta or Saint Withburge.”

“Is it Saint Concordia, whose body was tossed into a Roman sewer and mucked out by Saint Ireneus?”

“No, Friar.” He laughs. “She is a Greek saint, of the Orthodox religion.”

“Oh.”

“I've devoted a good portion of my life to rescuing saints from obscurity,” he says. “Usually their lives are hidden from the world for no better reason than they were written in some arcane language no one remembers anymore. I liberate the saint from her forgotten, anonymous community and settle her in a flourishing modern neighborhood.”

“You write in Greek.” I touch the wet ink on his page, then quickly smudge it into my cassock. “I would like to learn that language.”

The translator studies his book and smiles.

“There was a time when you as a churchman would have thought these letters from the Devil. Greek was lost to the world for such a long time, Friar. It was the language of dark gods and pagan idolaters, of mystery cults where frenzied women dismembered their own sons. Now look at it.”

He turns the book so that I may see, but to me it looks like strands of black hair tangled across the page.

“These same letters are now the language of light,” he says. “They hold the rebirth of knowledge. Some men say this old language, with the philosophy and science it unlocks, ushers in the New Age of Man. That soon we will have no more use for God.”

“Surely you don't belive that?” I ask, shocked.

“Of course not.” He flips through the book. “What is a world without a rival?”

Is he as prideful as his sister? I begin to wonder. He seems as committed to these lines on a page as she is to the body of her saint, and together they speak far too familiarly of Heaven. I try to steer the conversation back around.

“Tell me about this saint you are translating now,” I say. “How does she die?”

Ser Niccolo shakes his head and closes his book. “I've only just started this one, Friar. But, I'll tell you what. When I'm done, I'll dedicate her life to you.”

I nod my thanks, but I can see his impatience rising. I have interrupted his work, and he cannot fathom why I have come.

“Ser Niccolo.” I crawl awkwardly out onto the other horn of the prow so that he no longer has to crane to see me. “You might be wondering what I'm doing on your ship.”

“Since you risk being locked out, yes, I am curious.”

“When last we spoke, you told me you were endeavoring to learn the language of madness, that you might better track your lost sister. I am afraid I am a better linguist than you, for I have mastered that tongue.”

“I don't understand, Friar.”

“The last few days I have lived on the edge of dementia. I have tried to believe what I cannot believe; I have suffered doubts and confusions wholly antithetical to my nature. Now she boasts she will run away before you dock, and I can only shudder at the damage she might inflict either on herself or on my beloved's body. It is time to put an end to this nightmare. I have come to give you Saint Katherine's Tongue.”

“Here's your wine.”

Abdullah the Mameluke returns with a cold green bottle of malvoisie and three cups.

“Thank you, Abdullah,” Ser Niccolo says tightly. “Would you mind swilling your share over by the slave benches? I need to speak privately with the Friar.”

Abdullah pours himself a cup and thrusts the half-empty bottle at me. I take an unsteady swig as he walks away.

“You know where my sister is?” Ser Niccolo's feverish eyes fix me to my spot.

“She returned to our ship after Saint John's Eve.”

“Where had she been?”

“She didn't say.” I exclude her lie about a Turkish attack and the saga of Constantine's death. “She is quite brainsick, Ser.”

“You can't imagine what it was like growing up with her.” The translator leaps from the horn and paces before me. “The plays for attention, the tyranny. Katherine said she didn't have to wash. Katherine said she might speak out in Church. Katherine said she
should have a tutor. Katherine said marriage was out of the question. We lost our mother early, but luckily Katherine moved in and ran our lives for us.

“Our father finally asked me to come home from university to watch her. She'd become so erratic he couldn't handle her alone. Has she tried to harm herself in any way?”

“I pulled her from the Ocean,” I say. “I think she intended to drown herself.”

Ser Niccolo shakes his head. “Before he died,” he says slowly, “our father urged me to put her in a convent, where she would be safe. She's attempted to destroy herself before, Friar. Two months ago, I found her unconscious in a pool of blood. She tried to hack off her own breasts.”

Brothers, you cannot appreciate my flooding horror as Niccolo reveals the pattern of Arsinoë's insanity. I understand now her despondency and mania, her delusions of Turkish women in chains, and her feelings of persecution. Do you not remember a certain brother at Ulm who, some years ago, suffered from the same tribulations as Arsinoë? He believed that Abbot Fuchs was putting ground glass in his food and would only eat after three of us had tasted each dish.

“It's getting late,” I say. “I have to be back before dark. If we can get the Mameluke to row us both in, you can take charge of your sister tonight.”

Ser Niccolo instantly agrees. He collects his book and papers and walks with me to the ship's ladder.

But the Mameluke is nowhere to be found.

The little rowboat Abdullah and I left rocking on the waves is gone, but no one saw it leave. When Niccolo queries the galley slaves, more wretched and begrimed even than Lando's, they shake their heads like simpletons and point to the sun. Niccolo finally gets a response from a Syrian slave, sitting near the ladder.

“The sun is setting,” Ser Niccolo translates, disgusted. “He said he'd miss the call to prayer.”

The wretched apostate! So cowed is he by his Saracen masters that he abandons a pilgrim—a fellow countryman, too! What if he
does not ever come back and I am locked out with the rest of Contarini's luckless company? What if Arsinoë runs tonight?

“Are there no other boats?” I ask.

“Abdullah has one. We lost the other in the storm,” he says, then is struck by a sudden fear. “Will my sister be safe—without you to watch her?”

Will
she
be safe? I am far more worried about John.

“Yes,” I say at last. “A friend is watching her.”

The translator nods seriously while, behind us, the traitor sun capitulates to the sea. We are as far from Palestine as we were in Venice, still at sea after months of travel. Contarini's defeated, lifeless pilgrims shuffle up to dinner, each one looking over his shoulder to flagellate himself with the unattainable shore. Back there, in beshitted Saint Peter's Cellars, my pilgrims unroll their pallets and lie down for bed. Without thought, they arrange themselves as though still at sea: heads to the wall, feet stretched out toward the cave's center, small trunks touching feet. All down the row, they feel the floor gently undulate beneath them, that tide in their blood after months at sea still rocking them to sleep. Groups of friends lie together in the low light, talking and swearing, flicking dung and laughing. Ursus, my patron's son, pulls his father's sleeve and begs him: Please, can't we go look for Friar Felix? What if he is hurt? But my patron sets his lips and shakes his head. He will not wander the Arab darkness and risk his own life for a friar who cannot make it back by bedtime.

“Are you hungry?” Ser Niccolo asks.

I shake my head.

“Come downstairs, then.” He gently guides me away from the ship's side. “I'll show you where we sleep.”

I write to you, brothers, from the unsettlingly familiar sleeping quarters of Contarini's ship: identical to ours in configuration, stench, confusion; different only in the particulars of the sins each pilgrim carries. Most of the pilgrims have retired, but Ser Niccolo's lantern still burns, attracting clouds of hot, peppery gnats. He leans
against his trunk and scratches away at his translation, oblivious to the snores and moanings of his fellow passengers. Earlier, he confided to me that he believes the most noble thing a man might do is to make public something lost; and that he hopes, once his sister is safely taken care of, to return to university and have his new vita accepted by the library. He is a fine specimen of modern manhood, brothers; as open as his sister is closed, as jovial as she is melancholy. He is like a secular Felix, translating Heaven for the scholarly community, while I reconstruct an earthly pilgrimage for you to whom the world and its customs are as foreign as saints are to scholars. And yet, one thing still troubles me.