The Brotherhood of Book Hunters (15 page)

Federico was impatient to leave, but, as well as the supplying of Florence, it was now necessary to plan a second consignment intended for Fust and the booksellers on Rue Saint-Jacques. He smiled as he thought about the two Frenchmen. Against all expectation, they seemed to have made a good impression. Who would have thought that these vulgar fellows from a barbaric land, sent by an unremarkable young monarch, would become the valiant allies of the Medicis? And, through them, of Jerusalem? Master Colin was hardly a man of wit. As for Master Villon, he played the simpleton too well to actually be one. Was he wearing a mask, just like Federico? The mask of those who, being ahead of their time, chose to play the fool rather than be taken for prophets?

As Federico looked at these wagons overflowing with equipment, he felt a sense of discontent. He was aware that it was neither from Gamliel nor from the Medicis that the upheaval they planned to bring into the world could be expected to come. Basically, in the long run, the burghers would take the place of the lords. And whether Plato replaced Aristotle or not, the printers would make just as many spelling mistakes as the copyists, but in thousands of copies. It was not they who would change the situation. Injustice would continue to flourish beneath the layer of civility with which all these enlightened people claimed to smother it. No, in order to advance, much more than that was needed. Or much less. Oh, yes, much less! Hadn't Federico seen with his own eyes how Villon, after having humbly swept the ground with his tricorn, chanted his French ballad at the most formidable governor in the caliphate? Oh, yes! Federico could have slapped himself.

L
ounging on a divan, the emir scratched his armpits. These mosquito bites were unbearable! To his right, Monsignor Francesco, the Archdeacon of Nazareth, was nervously waving a black lace fan. To his left, the
qadi
was filing his nails with a shell-bladed stylet. Sitting cross-legged at the foot of the dais, counselors and marabouts were making an effort to assume a solemn and reflective air beneath their tangled turbans.

The steward ushered the slaves out as soon as Suleyman's messenger appeared, out of breath after his long ride. The young soldier, eager to please the distinguished gathering, launched into a hurried account of what had happened. An interpreter whispered in the ear of the archdeacon, who immediately put down his fan. Without deigning to look up or interrupt the cleaning of his nails, the
qadi
hissed at the messenger to come to the point. The reprimanded soldier's cheeks turned red, making him look like a male whore, an effect the emir found not unpleasing.

It was clear that the anxieties expressed by the
qadi
had been confirmed. The skilful way the two Frenchmen had been spirited away, in the very heart of Jerusalem, under the noses of the Mamluk guards, proved once again that Colin and François were not mere receivers of stolen goods.

That Suleyman had failed to discover the entrance to the Brotherhood's mysterious headquarters did not greatly upset the emir, who thought it preferable not to intervene too early in this business. The more incriminating evidence they gathered, the easier it would be to confound Gamliel and his accomplices. Because what they still lacked was a charge that would stick.

“If, as you say, these conspirators meet in secret merely to discuss science and philosophy, I'll invite them here to the palace to discuss these things with our scholars.”

The caliphate tolerated Gamliel's activities for the simple reason that they were only aimed at the foreign censors, thus manifesting a praiseworthy hostility toward the common enemy. To stop them would be ridiculous. That would be tantamount to disciplining the Jews of Palestine on behalf of Western Catholics. This time, though, the book hunters seemed to be declaring a more general, more universal rejection of all established authority, and therefore also of Islam.

The archdeacon smiled to himself. He did not share this opinion. Jerusalem could not threaten any religion. It had already manufactured at least three all by itself. But what he dreaded was the participation of an unexpected rival, dangerous in quite a different way from the Jewish rebel: an adversary from within the ranks of Christendom itself, a pariah. Villon was an inveterate rebel. Nothing good could come of his encounter with the Holy Land. This passionate, pugnacious country was too well suited to his bad character for some terrible misdeed not to be the result. Sooner or later, the desert would get his blood up. Liberated from both scholarly austerity and courtly frivolity, his eloquence might play more than one trick here. If necessary, the emir would have the cursed poet impaled, and the incident would be closed. But this rhymester was merely the spokesman for a malign wind that corrupted men's souls, a malaise eating away at their faith from the inside and already spreading over much of Italy. It was only a growing impulse, still immature, and therefore easy to guide on its first steps. From this very place, for example. The emir and the
qadi
were far from seeing how well-founded their suspicions were. And the archdeacon was certainly not going to tell them. Monsignor Francesco was sorry. His hands were tied. All he could do was inform Rome and try to convince the Papacy of the danger threatening it.

The
qadi
put away his file and dismissed the assembly. A slight smile lit up his arrogant face. Villon's repeated insults to the guard of the caliphate were not without flavor. They amused him rather than worried him, especially when he thought of how Suleyman must be feeling at this moment. The emir seemed equally untroubled by this affair. He crushed a mosquito with a quick blow of his hand and brandished the crushed corpse of the insect with a triumphant air. As for the archdeacon, he was already trotting along the galleries of the palace, the heels of his shoes nervously striking the marble flagstones and echoing down the colonnades. He was on his way to write his letter to the Pope.

T
he hostelry was filled with pilgrims. Some twenty Spaniards sat around the table singing a lament, their voices rising to a painful howl whenever the chorus came around. Four windows looked out on a large courtyard where a few donkeys were resting. The drafts that ran between them, instead of chasing away the smells of sweat and food and fermented wine, brought the odors of the farmyard inside, the stench of manure, the aroma of burning hay. They also however let in a little of the coolness provided by the enchanting shade of Mount Tabor. Christian visitors came here in large numbers to climb the steep calvary, cut in the rock face, in memory of Christ's Transfiguration.

Situated on the Via Maris, at the junction of the caravan routes that crossed the Jezreel Valley, this way station overflowed with activity day and night. Brother Paul had thought it more prudent to melt into the crowd of pilgrims from all over than to try to make his way through the scrubland and undergrowth.

François was swallowing mouthfuls of bitter cider, one after the other, and they were starting to go to his head. The din of conversation and laughter broke in waves over his temples. The shadows of the guests swayed in the candlelight, dancing a macabre farandole on the cracked walls. François saw his own shadow twisting among the others like a lost soul in Dante's Hell. Separate from the rest, another shadow approached and moved feverishly against his on the reddening wall.

Who exactly was this Aisha? A Bathsheba, a Magdalen? Wasn't she rather the face he had been trying in vain to give this land since he had first set foot in it? The Holy Land was silent through her. She had made herself its mysterious accomplice. Like a sister. She had the gentleness of its contours, the brightness of its skin, the fascinating beauty of its gaze. And the same placidity. Unlike the faithful praying fervently for it, the soldiers mounting guard over it, the conquerors, the empire builders, Aisha did not behave as if she owned the place. She was just here, sitting beneath an olive tree, crouching by a
wadi
. Without saying anything, without making proclamations. She came from a far distant world, that of the Atlas Mountains, where men were tough and stubborn and took immense pride in their mere presence. Not claiming a single patch of land for themselves, they went back and forth across the expanses of stone and sand, circumscribing an invisible territory in which their tracks were immediately erased by the wind.

 

Sated, Brother Paul took it upon himself to thank the Lord. He began bawling a liturgical chant with exaggerated pomp and in a doomsday voice that exhorted the assembly to join him. Everyone turned respectfully toward this fat bard and recited the thanksgiving with him, profuse with blessings and litanies. In all this pious din, none of the pilgrims noticed that, beneath the table, two of the travelers were gently holding hands.

R
abbi Gamliel left the synagogue at nightfall, waving farewell to the faithful wrapped in their prayer shawls, distributing alms to the beggars that haunted the streets of Safed, blessing the little children, bowing whenever he passed an old man. The softness of the air made him feel carefree, even though the Law ordered him to rush home to study and not let himself be distracted by the witching charms of twilight. Not that the young rabbi had never violated the Law, may God forgive him. At the age of thirty, he was still a bachelor. The daughter of the
gaon
of Yavne was betrothed to him in marriage, and she was already twelve. But he had not waited to taste the pleasures of the flesh. Copulation with a prostitute was tolerated by the Torah. And monogamy had only recently been established by the elders. Many Jews were not yet practicing it.

His conduct often puzzled his flock. More than once, in the dead of night, he had been heard singing and dancing alone around his desk, talking to his books, screaming psalms at the stars. He sometimes disappeared without warning, merely leaving a few instructions to his secretary. He would suddenly reappear a few days later, enter the
yeshiva
of which he was the master, and resume his classes where he had broken them off, congratulating his studious pupils, reprimanding the idlers who had taken advantage of his absence to daydream, although nobody knew how he could so infallibly tell one group from the other.

What his disciples did not know was that he had read the Gospels in the company of Brother Paul. He also knew by heart the last words of Christ, which the Brotherhood held secretly in its cellars. He had studied them with great care, seeing nothing to disagree with. Nothing that contradicted his own faith. Except for that annoying Trinity . . . If it had not been for that, the Brotherhood would have made public this final message, this overwhelming testament dictated by Jesus to the high priest Annas just before his arrest. The Church had been looking for the document for centuries. In vain. And yet Gamliel had received orders to reveal its existence to two brigands from Paris. There wasn't much to fear from Colin. But God alone knew what Villon planned to do with such information. He might sabotage the whole operation, if only to take revenge for the imprisonment that had been inflicted on him as a test.

But it was precisely on Villon's cunning that the commander of the Brotherhood was banking. He knew perfectly well the poet would not submit blindly to the orders of Guillaume Chartier, let alone those of Jerusalem, and he was counting on that. Not that the unseen head of the book hunters had deigned to reveal his plan to Gamliel, but the rabbi guessed that Villon was one of its chief components.

Gamliel walked up and down the sleeping streets, for the first time doubting the legitimacy of his mission. When he reached the doorway of his house, he stopped for a moment or two at the foot of the steps and murmured a prayer. A thick cloud passed over Safed, covering the moon, plunging the town into darkness.

F
rom the top of the bell tower, shielding his eyes with his hands, a Mongol sentry looked down at the valley. Four travelers had just appeared on the horizon. The first held the tails of his alb lifted so that his huge calves could pass unencumbered. He was trotting quickly, crushing the scrub, tracing a furrow as wide as that of an oxcart. Having recognized the prior's inimitable gait, the sentry left his post to go and inform Médard.

It was not until late afternoon that Brother Paul's glistening cranium emerged from the brambles that lined the edge of the cliff. Having arrived in the courtyard of the cloister, the visitors, out of breath from their journey, pulled down their hoods, much to the dismay of the monks, who suddenly discovered the gentle face and glossy hair of a beautiful young girl dressed in the habit of their order.

Paul hugged Médard, crushing him in his arms. The dwarf wriggled, two feet from the ground, trying to break free and regain terra firma. Federico was standing slightly to one side. He held out his hand to Colin, who immediately lifted his own high, ready to strike. Federico only just dodged the blow. He stepped back and plunged his arm into his tunic. Colin took up position, ready to parry a knife thrust, but Federico turned nonchalantly to François and held out the book with the butterfly wings, for the “theft” of which he and Colin had been imprisoned. François did not move. Even though he was bowing obsequiously to give him back the volume, the Italian had the same crafty smile as the first time, as if he were setting a new trap. François aimed a nimble kick in the direction of his bladder, which Federico parried with the book. Under the impact, the translucent butterfly came free of its binding and hovered for a moment in the breeze as if it were really flying, its wings ablaze in the reddening glow of the sunset. It stayed up a little longer, turning hither and thither, before gently coming to rest on a heap of straw. Federico and François both stopped to pick it up and their heads crashed into each other. Neither man moved for a moment, stubbornly remaining in the same position, forehead to forehead. It was Federico who bent first and recovered the butterfly. He tried to put it back into its leather chrysalis, but without success, and gave an almost embarrassed smile.