Bestiary (37 page)
Authors: Robert Masello
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers
But these words were unasterisked, unnumbered, and perfectly plain in their meaning.
On the morrow, I shall die. Preserve [protect] my soul, O Lord.
Joey squealed and Beth looked up. They were outside, in the little grassed-in area that passed for a yard, with Champ on relentless patrol, sniffing at the low iron fence that surrounded them and occasionally lifting a leg to show any possible rivals who was boss around these parts. It was dusk, but the heat of the day was still strong. Beth, in her eagerness to get away from the Getty, to read these pages for the first time in the privacy of her own home, had left work early, dismissed Robin, who was delighted (“Cool—there’s a band at the Viper Room that I wanted to see tonight!”), and gone outside with her briefcase and a tall glass of iced tea, which was precariously balanced on the wobbly little garden table by her side.
Of course, what she had done was a major breach of protocol. These pages, a translation of what now appeared to be the last testament of one of the world’s most accomplished illuminators, should have been immediately revealed to the Getty authorities and of course to the owner of
The Beasts of Eden
. The originals should have been carefully catalogued and sealed, while a slow and deliberate plan of action—perhaps involving outside scholars and specialists—was assembled to analyze and study them. It all could have taken months, years. Beth had a somewhat greater patience with protocol than her husband did, but she did share with Carter one thing—and that was her thirst for knowledge, her passion for discovery. And this letter, which had taken many centuries to travel halfway around the world, she felt in some ineffable way was addressed to her.
The Beasts of Eden
. The originals should have been carefully catalogued and sealed, while a slow and deliberate plan of action—perhaps involving outside scholars and specialists—was assembled to analyze and study them. It all could have taken months, years. Beth had a somewhat greater patience with protocol than her husband did, but she did share with Carter one thing—and that was her thirst for knowledge, her passion for discovery. And this letter, which had taken many centuries to travel halfway around the world, she felt in some ineffable way was addressed to her.
On the morrow, I shall die. Preserve [protect] my soul, O Lord. I am the most fortunate, and this night the most unfortunate, of men. I have done greatness [great works] and I have done [committed] great crimes [mischief, transgressions]. Perhaps it is for [due to] this that I have come to [been conveyed to] this place of unimagined splendor and
equally unimagined barbarity . . . this palace of gold, where the waters [rivers] run red [with blood] and even glorious deeds lead to ignominious [shameful] death.
equally unimagined barbarity . . . this palace of gold, where the waters [rivers] run red [with blood] and even glorious deeds lead to ignominious [shameful] death.
Beth paused. It was difficult reading, not only because her eye was constantly coursing back and forth across the page, checking the various columns to see that the computer had indeed read the Latin as she would have, and that the translation was on point—but because the words themselves were so direct, so full of import and dire portent. Were these in fact the last words of the man who had written
The Beasts of Eden
, and who (she was sure of it, though she knew she’d get an argument from other scholars in the field) had also done all the illustrations? Or would he survive whatever dreadful fate awaited him the next day?
The Beasts of Eden
, and who (she was sure of it, though she knew she’d get an argument from other scholars in the field) had also done all the illustrations? Or would he survive whatever dreadful fate awaited him the next day?
Joey was happily crawling around on the grass, assembling walls and towers out of multicolored, squeezable plastic cubes. She knew that mothers always thought their own children were especially talented and precocious, but still, she was impressed with the solidity and design of the battlements—and battlements were what they most reminded her of—that he was building. Just now he was capping another tower, which, because it was standing on the uneven ground, looked ready to topple any second. In Joey’s gray-blue eyes, she could see that he thought so, too. He looked around and, wouldn’t you know it, Champ stopped his patrolling long enough to turn, pick up a big red block in his mouth, and trot over with it. Joey added it, like a buttress, to the base of his tower.
What other infant, Beth wondered, could ever have done such a thing? Not for the first time, she thought about having his IQ checked. Could they do that with a child so young?
A fly landed on the papers in her lap, and she brushed it away. The sun was starting to set behind the Santa Monica Mountains, and the canyon below was growing dark, as if a blot of ink was slowly spreading across the thick brush and chaparral. She took a sip of her iced tea, wiped her fingers dry on the cotton shorts she was wearing, and returned to the pages in her lap.
I have come to this place by God’s hand, but without achieving [procuring] his Grace. It was the voice of Peter I heard, as it was heard by multitudes beside. Never had I met Holiness [sanctity], nor seen it, nor heard it, until that day in the fields. Peter bade us all to turn from combat and strife and the undoing of fellow Christian souls; he bade us turn our thoughts to our Savior and to the holy places He had walked, the places now defiled by the Saracen unbelievers.
My God, Beth thought, was this what she thought it was? Was it to be a firsthand account of a pilgrim—a Crusader?—to the Holy Land? Peter, she knew, was not meant to be St. Peter. But could it be the legendary Peter the Hermit, a bearded anchorite who had emerged in the late eleventh century to galvanize much of Europe and send them off to reclaim Palestine from the infidels? If that was true, then this scribe very likely spoke French, Peter’s native tongue and the language he used to stir up much of Western Europe. The scribe’s accomplishments continued to grow: he could compose and write exquisite Latin, he could provide illuminations that were breathtaking in their beauty and their power—and now, if she could guess where this was going, he was an adventurer, too, a man of action. More and more, she felt she was dealing with a man in the mold of a Cellini, a Caravaggio, or a Michelangelo. Not some cloistered fellow, who had seldom left the monastery’s scriptorium, but an artist of the first order, who had fully entered into the life of his time.
And if she was right about Peter the Hermit, then that time could now be neatly pinpointed—it was 1095 when Peter, newly returned from his first trip to the Holy Land, traveled to Rome to beseech the aid of the Pope. Everywhere he went, Peter stirred up religious fervor and, in an almost equal degree, bloodlust. Riding on a mule and wearing a long frock girded with a thick cord, he regaled the crowds that came to see him with terrible tales of the atrocities visited upon Christians journeying to Jerusalem. He called upon the angels to testify to the truth of his words, and as he spoke he wept and beat his own breast with a rude crucifix until he bled. He extolled the glories of Mount Zion, the rock of Calvary, the Mount of Olives, and Pope Urban II accepted him, as did thousands of others, as an anointed messenger from God.
So, too, did I hear the edicts of the Holy Father, who promised that all sins [mortal transgressions] could be thus expiated, and that no crime or deed of charge could be prosecuted against any such pilgrim.
Beth had to smile; her man was running true to form. Had he, like those other hot-blooded artists, committed some crime?
Further, no violence could be exercised against a Soldier of Christ without a verdict of anathema being brought upon the perpetrator.
If he had run afoul of the law, it must have been in a pretty bad way. But the scribe had secured his own protection; like so many others, he had enlisted in God’s army, and anyone who interfered with him now risked anathema—or excommunication. For some, no doubt, the Crusades had been a divine calling, but for many others, the war on the Muslims had provided a kind of medieval Get Out of Jail Free card.
Having felt the sting of persecution [injustice] myself, I could well imagine the sufferings of my fellow Christians, and wished to bend my will to the achievement of God’s greater purpose [higher plan]. We set out in the waning days of summer, a great army of the Lord, some among us knights on horseback, but many more on foot, with nothing but a staff and a satchel. In my own bag, I carried the tools of my trade, for I have long found that the skills of the artisan can prove more useful and more valuable than the weapons [ways; methods] of the warrior. In this belief, I was to be confirmed. These tools would save my life, though they may now have brought me to the end of it.
Beth glanced up; Joey was toddling after Champ, who had a bright blue block in his mouth. Joey was laughing, and Champ’s tail was wagging, and Beth thought how strange it was that here, now, she should be reading what was probably a condemned man’s final confession. Caught up in the tale, she began to skip over the alternative readings and notes and let the narrative unfold.
We were led by several noble lords, among them Robert, Duke of Normandy, Stephen, Count of Chartres and Troyes, and Godfrey de Bouillon, descendant of the great Charlemagne himself.
He went on to recount many more barons and princes who rode with this first crusade, all in the same cramped, precisely executed style in which the entire letter had been written. Under what conditions, Beth wondered, had it been composed? Clearly, he had had only a few spare sheets of parchment to work with, because the words were very closely spaced, the lines very narrow. And where was he at the time—confined to a dungeon cell, writing by the light of a torch, or in the attic of a prison tower, huddled in the moonlight that penetrated the bars of his window? Was he resigned to his fate, or had he some hope, or some plan, of escape?
He went on to recount many more barons and princes who rode with this first crusade, all in the same cramped, precisely executed style in which the entire letter had been written. Under what conditions, Beth wondered, had it been composed? Clearly, he had had only a few spare sheets of parchment to work with, because the words were very closely spaced, the lines very narrow. And where was he at the time—confined to a dungeon cell, writing by the light of a torch, or in the attic of a prison tower, huddled in the moonlight that penetrated the bars of his window? Was he resigned to his fate, or had he some hope, or some plan, of escape?
Our journey, though favored by divine providence, was a difficult one, and we were often besieged and attacked.
Beth knew the history of the First Crusade—some of the illuminated manuscripts she studied would allude to it—and she had read the standard historical accounts in grad school. But she had never read a first-person rendering like this—had anyone?—and she quickly lost herself in it. Between the frontiers of Austria and the walls of Constantinople, the pilgrim horde, which, according to most accounts, numbered several hundred thousand, devoured everything in its path, and the inhabitants of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece proved less and less receptive, and finally hostile.
At a trumpet blast from the King of Hungary, a legion of archers and mounted horse was unleashed upon us. Even Peter was forced to flee to the Thracian Mountains, and it was there we hid in misery until the Emperor Alexius granted us safe conduct to his mighty fortress on the shores of the Bosporus.
Beth knew the history of the First Crusade—some of the illuminated manuscripts she studied would allude to it—and she had read the standard historical accounts in grad school. But she had never read a first-person rendering like this—had anyone?—and she quickly lost herself in it. Between the frontiers of Austria and the walls of Constantinople, the pilgrim horde, which, according to most accounts, numbered several hundred thousand, devoured everything in its path, and the inhabitants of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece proved less and less receptive, and finally hostile.
At a trumpet blast from the King of Hungary, a legion of archers and mounted horse was unleashed upon us. Even Peter was forced to flee to the Thracian Mountains, and it was there we hid in misery until the Emperor Alexius granted us safe conduct to his mighty fortress on the shores of the Bosporus.
The sun had dropped another few degrees behind the Santa Monica Mountains, and the words were becoming difficult to read. Beth put the transcripts down in her lap and looked up at Joey, who had knocked down his walls and towers and was sitting surrounded by the fallen blocks. He was chattering gibberish to himself—he just
had
to be way ahead of the usual learning curve, Beth thought for the umpteenth time—with his head tilted up toward the bedroom window. “Da,” she thought she heard him say—had he?—and she followed his gaze to the same window, where she could see, through the slats of the Venetian blinds, Carter’s dark silhouette as he moved back into the room. He was home earlier than she’d thought he’d be. Still, it would have been nice if he’d come outside to say hello before going upstairs to change out of his work clothes. She’d picked up some swordfish steaks at the market and she was sort of hoping he’d be up for a barbecue.
had
to be way ahead of the usual learning curve, Beth thought for the umpteenth time—with his head tilted up toward the bedroom window. “Da,” she thought she heard him say—had he?—and she followed his gaze to the same window, where she could see, through the slats of the Venetian blinds, Carter’s dark silhouette as he moved back into the room. He was home earlier than she’d thought he’d be. Still, it would have been nice if he’d come outside to say hello before going upstairs to change out of his work clothes. She’d picked up some swordfish steaks at the market and she was sort of hoping he’d be up for a barbecue.
“Want to go inside and say hello to your daddy?” Beth said to Joey. “Can you say that—daddy?” Joey looked at her with a big grin but said nothing. “I think you just did, ten seconds ago.” Beth got down on her knees and crawled across the grass toward him. This made Joey laugh, and his loose blond curls shook in the evening air as Champ ran around them both, barking, in a big, wide circle.
With the transcripts tucked under one arm, Beth hoisted Joey up off the lawn and, together, they stood for a moment, watching the sun dip below the mountaintop. The ravine below their house fell into deep shadow; a flock of birds suddenly burst from the brush and flew off toward the ocean.
Beth nuzzled Joey’s cheek—why had no one explained to her how sweet a baby could smell?—and turned toward the house. Carter hadn’t turned on the lights yet.
In the kitchen, Beth flicked the switch and called out, “How would you feel about a backyard barbecue?”
But Carter didn’t answer; he must be in the bathroom.
She put Joey into his high chair, turned on the local news—another forecast of hot and dry weather—and gave him his dinner. Champ sat on his haunches, expectantly, until Joey was done and she could feed him, too. The news was following a freeway chase somewhere down near Redondo Beach. That was one thing you could say for New York, Beth thought: traffic was so bad no highway chase could last more than a few hundred yards.
When the newscast ended, she turned off the TV and lifted Joey out of his chair. “Uh-oh,” she said, “somebody needs a new diaper.”
And it didn’t look as if Carter was going to be in the mood for a barbecue. He must have flopped onto the bed and fallen asleep.
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