Chapter 13

News From Home and

a Difficult Encounter

 

 

 

 

Journal Entry

 

“The next morning, I roused myself at first light, and silently, so as not to awaken Gaudin, pulled on my doublet and hose, stole quietly out into the hallway, and descended to the common room. Hunched over the enormous hearth, Mme Beber was preparing porridge for those who would be the first to greet the new day. Without looking up from the cauldron she was stirring and without so much as acknowledging that she was aware of the my presence, the old lady reached into a fold of her apron and handed me a piece of courier which had arrived from England the previous day.

“It was news, from my mother, already several months old, confirming the rumours that had been circulating in the taverns of Paris for some time now. Our Queen Mary had died and the new Queen Elizabeth, a Protestant, was once again redefining the boundaries of religious conformity as a measure of political loyalty. She had, so it seemed, secular interests as well, for my mother went on to say that my uncle, John de Verre, the Earl of Oxford, to whom I had sent some of my poems for criticism and, I hoped, deserved praise, had shown some of them to the new Queen.

“As learned and well read as any woman or any monarch of her time, the Queen seems to have made a point of encouraging young poets at her court or anywhere that they may have been pointed out to her. It was not clear, from my mother’s letter, whether Oxford initially tried to pass off the poems as his own, but it was clear that the Queen had given them a favourable appraisal and had expressed the desire to see more from this new poet. Oxford it seems, then turned the conversation to his nephew in France, at which point the Queen expressed a desire to make my acquaintance.

“This comforted me, both on account of my pride of authorship and of my practical concern for my safety and fortune. The new regime, evidently, would continue to treat me with kind regard, unless I should give cause to be treated otherwise. It also appeared that my family’s affairs were being well looked after and that there was no urgency to return, since the Queen’s desire to make my acquaintance had stopped short of a summons to her presence.

“I had become so absorbed with the letter that I had forgotten why I had risen so early. I stuffed the letter into my shirt, made my excuses to the matron for passing up her morning gruel and headed out in the direction of Sainte-Geneviève’s Abbey. I hoped to intercept my Italian friend on his way from morning Mass.

“My timing could not have been better, for I quickly spotted Testagrossa, his large mop of dark, curly, unruly hair blowing in the cross breeze as he emerged from the tall abbey gates. I had hoped that a good night’s sleep and the effects of his morning devotions might have softened my friend’s foul demeanour from the previous day. I soon found that this was not so, for Testagrossa at first pretended not even to have seen me and made as if he would walk by me with his eyes downcast and fixed on the stones and gravel in front of him.

“‘Bernardo!’ I said, putting my hand on the youth’s shoulder as the distracted seminarian made to pass me.

“Testagrossa manoeuvred free from my grip and kept turning to avoid direct eye contact. ‘I’m late for a lecture.’

“I moved around him in a circle so as to be able to see his face. ‘What’s wrong? What happened yesterday? We all seemed to be having such a good time!’

“‘It’s him,’ said Testagrossa, without specifying to whom in particular he was referring. ‘He wore her favour into the tournament. She gave him her brooch, her father’s brooch.’

“I was still trying to make my friend stand still and face me. ‘Who gave it to him? Who are you talking about, and how would you know from which lady a knight might have received a token of favour?’

“‘De Frontenac, the snake; it was him. He’s the one who took it from her.’ The Italian’s story came spilling out, one incoherent detail after another.

“‘De Frontenac took it from whom?’ I pursued, ‘and I thought a lady gives a token of favour. No knight of honour would wear a favour he had stolen from some lady!’

“‘He has no honour. He tricked her,’ insisted Testagrossa, getting angrier by the minute, as he repeated the story. ‘He charmed her and seduced her into giving it to him! She’s innocent. She doesn’t know anything about the world, about men like him!’

“I tried to interject reason in the midst of my friend’s tirade of rage and conjecture. ‘And do you know the world, my seminarian friend? Have you, yourself, navigated the winding alleys on the dark side of this fallen world?’

“‘I know what’s right and fitting and appropriate for a girl of her station,’ continued Testagrossa with stubborn insistence. ‘I gave her brotherly, priestly advice. I know what men like him do with girls like her. They take their most precious possession, their innocence, and they move on to the next conquest, that’s what they do.’

“I took my friend by the arm and gently moved him from the path, where we could speak quietly. ‘Why don’t you have a pint and some bread with me and tell me how all this happened?’ I tried to make my voice as soothing as possible.

“‘No, I have to get to Father Eusebius and I can’t stay and chat,’ answered Testagrossa with some impatience. ‘I’ve already said too much anyway. Thank you for your concern, Henry, but there’s no point in trying to make me look at this differently.’

“Testagrossa hastened down the street without bothering to take his leave, still angry, still capable of some as yet undetermined desperate action. Nevertheless, I had acquired some insight into my friend’s state of mind. Although Testagrossa protectively avoided using her name, I concluded that the young lady in question must be Caterina from the Ecurie. Had I not seen them in frequent conversation ever since that evening, now almost two years ago, when I had first met them both?

“Testagrossa was always a bit rigid in his application of moral principles, and he was incorrigibly chivalrous and protective, in regard to women and children. I had always attributed this strict social conservatism to my friend’s Italian upbringing, a Latin, Mediterranean heritage, but, to me the vehemence with which he sought to protect Caterina seemed to have gone well beyond such a cultural influence. This was not a matter of a theoretical principle. Rather, it was deeply personal and important to Testagrossa in ways that probably he, himself, did not begin to understand.

“I thought about all this on my way back to the room I shared with Gaudin on rue St Victor. I knew I couldn’t discuss Testagrossa’s situation with Gaudin, so I told him, instead, about the letter from England, and the favourable reception my poems had received from the Queen, herself.

“‘Damn that Oxford,’ volunteered Gaudin, who chose the darker side of the story over the prospect of offering genuine praise for my work. ‘It would greatly please me to go with you to England and pound this Oxford’s head with the hilt of my sword.’ It seemed to me that Gaudin’s language had undergone a sudden, more bellicose alteration to mimic his concept of high chivalric discourse.

“‘This is hardly a matter of such moment that it would necessitate our crossing the channel to right it,’ I replied, rendering my own version of the high speech, an affectation which Gaudin either didn’t notice or chose to ignore.

“‘Still, you deserve credit for what you write,’ argued Gaudin, coming back down to the more comfortable level of ordinary speech.

“‘I hardly think people will be quoting my lines hundreds of years from now and crediting someone else with them, do you?’ I smiled at the absurdity of the idea.

“Gaudin smiled, too, and, changing the subject, asked me: ‘How is our fat-headed friend doing? Gotten over his fit of distemper and busy praying again, I suppose.’

“I really didn’t want to share my suspicions about what was ailing Testagrossa, so I simply shrugged and replied: ‘Not exactly.’ Wishing to deflect the conversation from the subject of our Italian friend, I asked: ‘Did you make any headway with diverting the enraptured disciple?’

“‘Not really,’ said Gaudin, his hands opening in an admission of defeat. ‘I think you should try to decode his alchemy books with him. You’re a scholar and, besides, you’re the only one of us with any chance of getting him to open up.’

“‘Maybe I’ll just go to the Celestines with him, but there’s another piece of business I have to attend to first,’ I said, without elaborating.

“Gaudin seemed to have lost interest in the matter. ‘As you wish. I’m not at all convinced that it will do any good, anyway.’

“I took this as a dismissal and went out by myself, determined to have lunch and some elucidating conversation at L’Ecurie.