The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) (39 page)

Javor couldn’t understand. “I smell better than you do, Timotheos. When was the last time you washed yourself?”

“
None of your business, slav!” Zotikos practically spat out the last word. “We don’t have to sit beside barbarians here in our city!”

“
Your city? You’re from Smyrna, you told me yourself!”

“
At least I’m Greek, not some dirty slav!”

“
You keep calling me that, and I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Javor’s face felt hot. “My people are called the Sklavenes! What is a ‘slav’?”

“
Sklavenes, barbarians, you’re all the same,” said another novice, Fusus, sitting across the table. “Listen, Timotheos—even the name sounds like a barking dog.” He looked directly at Javor. “Bar! Bar! Bar!” He laughed.

“
Sklavenes, slaves of the Avars, barbarians,” Timotheos sneered again. “Get away from me. I don’t want to catch your bugs!”

Javor almost felt like he wanted to cry, but another part of him wanted to smash Timotheos’ head into the table. Biting back his fury, he went to the far end of the table, and gulped at his food, fighting back tears.

The closest novice was Flaccus, the sickly looking one with ears that seemed to bend over at the tops. He leaned closer. “Don’t pay attention to Timotheos. He’s an idiot. He always looks for ways to make everyone feel bad, especially if they’re not Greek enough for him. He made fun of me for weeks because I preferred speaking Latin to Greek.”

Javor shrugged, gulping down his food. It tasted even worse than usual. “I’d like to break him in two.”

“
Now, now, remember,” said Flaccus soothingly. “Love thy enemy.”

“
Huh?”

“
The Word of our Lord. ‘Love thy enemy as thyself.’”

“
Maybe I’ll forgive him later, but I don’t think that I can love him.”

Flaccus smiled. “That’s okay. I don’t love him, either.

Danisa kissed him, then pulled out of his arms. She took the dagger from the sheath at his side and calmly walked away. Javor tried to warn her about the dragon, but words would not come from his mouth. She walked directly to the dragon’s open claws. They closed around her slim body. The dragon flapped its immense black wings and carried her away.

Javor strained and finally pushed out a yell. “Danisa!” He sat upright and all he saw was the stone wall of his cell.

“
Shut up, you sissy!” someone groaned.

“
Stupid barbarian can’t sleep in civilization,” someone else said.

A dream. Just a dream.
Javor fell back onto his straw bed, but could not sleep.

“
Why are there no women in the Abbey?” Javor asked Father Peter during lessons.

“
Women have their own devotional orders, called convents.”

“
But why are they separate? Women and men lived together in my home.”

“
It would not be proper where there are large groups of men and women in one place,” answered an exasperated Father Peter. “It is true that such … arrangements are found among the uncivilized, lesser peoples of the world, but where we have the Word of our Lord to guide us, we follow civilized modes of behaviour.”

“
Then how are Roman babies born?”

Father Peter’s face became bright red. “Family life is the basis of Roman civilization, and has been since before the time of our Lord, Jesus Christ!” he screamed. “Nothing can replace the family. But in an abbey like this one, we are a family of the spirit, not of the flesh, and we must safeguard ourselves against temptations of the flesh, which would be perditious outside the sanctimony of marriage!”

“
Why not have married people in the abbey, then?”

“
Because the life of contemplation must be free of the distractions and obligations of family life. Now, let us consider the importance of the prophecies of Isaiah concerning the coming of the Saviour.”

Why do these Christians get so uncomfortable talking about sex?

Eventually, Javor made some friends, dwellers like him at the bottom of the social ladder. Flaccus, one of the very few novices who were actually from Constantinople, was always willing to talk, when they were allowed to. Ammon, a tall boy with large, watery eyes and bushy brown hair who reminded Javor of bulrushes, was teased and humiliated for coming from a poor family from Athens. Sandulf was a fair-haired Gothic boy who could not account for ending up in Constantinople. They would gather outside the kitchen door in the chilly evenings to commiserate over how they hated Lepidus and his gang, or the strictness of Father Albertus, or how heavy their chores were. Javor said little, trying to hone his understanding of the nuances of the novices’ slang, listening for the foreign words that crept into their Greek, and disappointed that he never heard a trace of his own tongue.

Javor yearned for a break from the routine.
Every day is the same. Wake up before dawn, help make breakfast—
a mean gruel that made him long for his poor mother’s kasha.
Clean the kitchen. Sweep the stables. Pray. Meditate. Pray some more. Listen to the teachers blab about Christ and the saints and the prophets without falling asleep. Learn to repeat what they just said. Clean some more.
With the coming of cooler weather and days of rain, thin, tasteless soup replaced bread for lunch, followed by more sweeping and more praying.

“
Which is more important, Christ’s divine nature or His human nature? Javor!”

“
What?” Father Peter had caught him off guard. Late fall sunlight streamed into the stone-walled room, whose only decoration was a large crucifix painted on the peeling yellow walls. Javor’s attention had wandered as it usually did during the religious instruction, but Father Peter seemed to love pouncing on his students with abstract questions. “Uhh, His ... divine nature?”

“
Wrong!” Father Peter shouted. Javor could not interpret the look on the priest’s face. Is he angry or amused? “Both are essential. The two natures of Christ, Divine and human, are united. He is fully Divine and fully human at the same time. ”

Javor’s heart was pounding and his mind was spinning. “How can He be completely two things?”

Father Peter leaned close and screamed into Javor’s ear: “He is Divine and He is a man! Do not question this or you will be a damned heretic!”

Father Peter turned and paced across the room as he expounded on more of the Christian religion. Three gods in one God, Christ as ruler of the universe, orders and classes of angels and archangels proceeding ... Javor watched the last leaves blow past the window. He wondered how the harvest had gone at home.
Will they have enough food for winter?

Father Peter was looking at him again, and Javor realized that all the other novices were reciting a prayer. He clasped his hands, looked down and tried to join them, keeping his voice low to hide the fact that he didn’t know the words.

One suppertime as he was steeling himself to eat the thin soup he had watched Verros stir and cough over, he saw another novice, named Tomas, sit across from him and put a small cloth bag on the table. He carefully untied a string that held it closed, and sprinkled a pinch of some kind of powder onto his bread.

“
What’s that?” Javor asked.

“
Oh, it’s just a little spice,” Tomas answered, sprinkling a little more into his soup. “I just have a little. It reminds me of home.”

“
Where’s home?”

“
Syria.” Tomas took a bite of his bread.

“
Can I try it?”

Tomas hesitated, and glanced around the table at the other novices, who were watching him and Javor intently.
Strange
, thought Javor.

“
Sure,” Tomas replied with sudden enthusiasm. He picked up the bag and tilted it over Javor’s bread. “But since this is the first time you’re having it, you won’t really taste it unless you get a lot. But I can’t do this again—spices are very expensive, especially this time of year!” He tapped the side of the bag until a healthy sprinkle covered one side of the bread. “Okay, take a big bite.” He was grinning widely.

Javor looked at Tomas, at the bread, at the other novices who were all looking at him, smiling and nodding. “Go ahead, Javor, you’ll love it!” said one.

Javor picked up the bread and took a big bite, almost all of the spice. It didn’t have much of a taste at first, but then he felt a heat on his tongue that quickly became unbearable.
My mouth is on fire!
He reached for a cup of water and gulped it all down, but it didn’t help.

“
Agh! What is this?” He grabbed someone else’s water and drank it down, too, but that didn’t help, either. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his face felt hot.

Tomas and all the other novices were laughing, laughing hard.

Chapter 23
: Deeper knowledge

“
Which is more important, Brother, Christ’s divine nature or his human nature?” Lepidus asked to impress the teacher with his rhetorical ability. The question surprised Javor—his ears were still sore from Father Peter’s screaming lecture on the same topic.

A squinting older monk named Jacobbeas, who looked as if he was about to topple over at any moment, led the class.

“
Both are essential,” Brother Jacobbeas answered in a nasal whine. He passed a shaking hand over thin white tonsured hair and sneezed loudly. “The two natures of Christ, Divine and human, are united. According to the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held in Chalcedon—I visited there once, when I was a young monk, just out of the novitiate. It’s a pleasant place, wonderful for ecumenical councils, you know. The air and the landscape combine…” Javor lost the thread of Brother Jacobbeas’ response. Lepidus loved to ask that kind of question, one that prompted endless debate down twisting logical corridors of ever narrower questions. Javor sighed. Was Christ completely human or completely divine? “Yes.”
What difference does it make?

“
But Brother Jacobbeas, aren’t the Words of Our Lord more important than just how divine He is?” asked Fuscus, also trying to impress the Brother.

Brother Jacobbeas explained the Church’s orthodox view. Javor looked out the window at the last leaves falling from the trees. He had heard this all so many times before: the heresies of Monophysitism and Nestorianism, of Arianism and others, the divine nature of Christ, the singularity of the Church. Hypostasis versus hypostases. He had to memorize the lessons, for every so often Father Peter would come in and ask snap questions about the great debates of the major councils.
I never thought I would prefer working at cutting straw to listening to someone talk.

Austinus, the
Comes
or head of the Order, wanted to hear more about Javor’s journey to Constantinople. He summoned Javor to his council chamber where Javor had first discovered them; it now looked comfortable, with fire burning in braziers and bowls of food set on tables. Even the guards looked relaxed.

“
You have learned quickly, Javor,” Austinus began in their first meeting. “I am impressed with the speed with which you are learning to read and write, as well as in history and mathematics.”

“
Thank you, Father.”

“
I am no priest, not in the same sense as Father Peter. So, while I am happy that you are learning the Orthodox Christian faith, remember that I told you that there is a deeper and higher knowledge, but it is a knowledge that is only available to a select few who are able to accept it.”
What does that mean?

“
Before I go on, I must warn you: everything that I am about to say is in the strictest confidence. Even the fact that we are having this conversation is to remain only between you and me. And by no means ever mention this room to anyone, either outside the Abbey or within it. Its existence is secret, known only to a few—and those few do
not
include Father Peter or Father Albertus, almost all the monks and certainly any of the novices. Do you understand?” Javor nodded.

“
The faith that you are learning, the faith so earnestly embraced by the people of the Empire, is fine for the simple people. But some require a deeper knowledge, for the official scriptures of the Hebrews and the Christians contain a great many mysteries and contradictions. A select few are able to perceive those contradictions and shortcomings, and of those, even fewer can take in the higher knowledge—in Greek,
gnosis.
Obviously, Javor, you are one of those select few.”

Javor helped himself to a small cake and topped it with honey. “Because of what I have seen already, and which is not mentioned in any of your Bible?”

Austinus nodded. “Partly. But also, Javor, you have a mind that is open and critical. The Church, as exemplified by Father Peter, extols the virtues of blind, uncritical faith in the Word as given them by their parish priest. However, there is a need for that critical, open, questioning search for the true light of knowledge. You have that kind of mind, Javor, and although many make fun of your humble, barbarian origins in the wilds far beyond the frontiers of civilization—yes, I have heard the sniggers of the ignorant who live even within these walls—you are sophisticated enough to understand that there is a deeper truth that answers the mysteries and contradictions of the official faith, and the need for circumspection about its very existence.”

These Romans just love to hear their own voices.
“I’m sorry, what’s ‘circumspection’?”

Austinus chuckled. “I only mean, Javor, that this conversation must remain between thee and me.”

“
Ah.”

“
Indeed. Father Peter is a true believer, and we need him in the Abbey. We, who seek the higher
gnosis,
all must present ourselves as Orthodox Christians. We come from many different faiths, different traditions: I was indeed raised as a Christian; Malleus comes from Egypt and followed the Coptic tradition; Mother Tiana comes from far Scythia, and was a priestess to a goddess of that tradition; Philip was a Jew from Palestine.” The place names were vague to Javor—he had only heard them once or twice in masses and lessons. “But we put on the appearance of Christians in order to function in Rome. So we need a number of Father Peters to distract the attention of the very powerful Church fathers in Constantinople who seek to destroy the Gnostics.”

“
What? Why do they want to do that?”

“
Politics,” Austinus shrugged. “The official Faith has been a powerful instrument of social control since Constantine’s time, and indeed, long before that, when the Pontiff of earlier religions was also a powerful politician in the ancient Roman Republic.”

“
Rome was a republic?”

“
A long, long time ago. A natural phase of a state’s development, before it had become as large as it is now and republican organization would be unworkable. But I digress. The point here is, as seekers and keepers of truth that is deeper and more complex than the masses can understand, we must also be secretive.”

“
Okay. But what is that truth?”

“
All in good time, Javor. You must learn the basics, first. And to preserve our secret, you must appear just as another novice. You must learn the Christian faith, and you must display it, too. And you must remember, repeat what I have told you to absolutely no one, not even here within the Abbey, for only a very few, a select few, are privy to this knowledge—or even to the concept that there
is
a deeper knowledge.”

Javor did not sleep well that night, wondering about Austinus’ words.
Knowledge that is secret from Father Peter
. Whom could he trust?
Not Father Peter
, that was plain. What about Nikos? He was Austinus’ messenger—surely he was part of the inner circle?
No, he wasn’t in the room with us. He may not know anything.

Even in the Abbey, he was alone.

Javor’s physical and military training began the next day when Malleus called him away from kitchen chores.

“
You fight hard, but you have no technique or disciple,” he sneered. “It’s time for you to learn to fight like a Roman
Equite
!”

He took Javor to a large open chamber in a secret part of the Abbey. Weapons hung on every wall: swords, spears, shields, cudgels and other equipment that Javor didn’t recognize, as well as various types of wooden and metal frames. On the floor were other apparati that he couldn’t begin to guess at. And in the midst of it all were Malleus and Philip, wearing tight trousers, thin, tight shirts and thick socks. Strips of cloth were wound around their hands to form pads over their knuckles.

“
I know how to fight,” said Javor. He was glad to be excused from cleaning the stable, but he didn’t want to duel with Malleus again, or with Philip.

“
Really?” Philip asked. He stepped up to Javor and punched him hard in the arm, then jumped away.

“
Ow!” Javor was more shocked than hurt.

Why didn’t you warn me about that, you stupid amulet?
But the amulet was still.

“
Go ahead, hit him back,” Malleus ordered. Javor shook his head, so Philip pranced closer again, feinted, hit his other arm and danced away again.

“
See, barbarian boy? You can’t fight back against a trained Initiate. Brother Philip is an Adept,” Malleus said. “If you’re lucky, over time you may learn a little of what he knows. But now, you’re completely vulnerable to any Equite or Legionnaire worth his salt. So let’s begin your training.”

“
Training” was a new word for Javor, but he soon learned that it meant gruelling movement. For the next hour, Javor did things he had never imagined before: push-ups and sit-ups, chin-ups and squats. Malleus threw a piece of iron at Javor, who caught it but nearly dropped it immediately because it was so heavy. “Put it down and pick it up again,” Malleus ordered. Javor hesitated—it seemed a pointless order. “Do it!” Malleus screamed.

By the end of the hour, Javor was sweatier than he could ever remember being. Every muscle ached. Malleus wasn’t satisfied, though. “You’re soft, boy. We have to harden you.” He sent Javor to wash up in the Abbey’s bath, which wasn’t nearly as luxurious as the one that Valgus had maintained in the fort.

Javor’s physical training continued three times a week. He exercised and increased his strength under the critical eye of Brother Philip and the screaming voice of Malleus. They brought out wooden swords to train him in advanced fencing, and eventually substituted them for steel. On and on it went, and Javor didn’t notice the progress he was making. Eventually, he came to enjoy the sessions, the physicality of it, the movements and the success he was having. And the frustration on Malleus’ face when he couldn’t land a blow on Javor’s body.

Javor learned the concept of the seven-day week quickly, regimented as they were by regular High Masses. At least two evenings a week, Nikos would fetch him for different kinds of lessons. He would sit shivering in a dark room at the top of a tower in the Abbey with Austinus, Philip and occasionally Malleus, learning about what they called “deeper mysteries” that were not part of mass.

They started with books that Father Peter had never mentioned: the gospels of Philip, another apostle; and a gospel of Thomas; and one whose author shocked him—Mary Magdalene.

With the clear starry nights as a backdrop, Philip would talk about the Creator as not the benevolent father figure of the Orthodox or Monophysite Christians, but as something less, called a Demiurge. At times this being seemed more like the Christians’ devil, filled with hatred and jealousy and many other human flaws. Yet, said Philip, all evidence indicated the Demiurge was the being that created the world.

What evidence?
Javor did not want to offend his hosts, but he was losing patience with the opposing mystical arguments from Father Peter and the Church and the secret Gnostics.

Philip talked about an overarching Supreme God from whom came the Pleroma, the Light that filled the Universe. He explained that the Pleroma “emanated,” creating Aeons, which Javor took to be some kind of gods or spirit beings with names like
nous
,
logos
,
phronêsis
and
dunamis
.

“
No, not gods, Javor,” Austinus explained patiently. “They are whole worlds, ruled by principles of intellect, the Word—that’s logos—prudence, and power.