To the Vicomtesse de Turenne, palais des Papes, Avignon, as Epiphany approaches, in the year of Our Lord, 1348
My dear Countess,
I write to you as one much changed, whose day is filled with labour and singing the offices faithfully to Our Lord.
I have found refuge in this harsh order, with its fierce rule of silence. Here, our hands do the work of our mouths. I have prayed and slept and eaten in my solitary hermitage. I have worked in the fields until I have collapsed in exhaustion. Can you imagine how difficult this silence has been for me, for whom talking is life? I came to crave the offices of the day, when we opened our mouths to sing, more to one another than to God. My nostrils hungered for the censer, hungered for the sulphurous wick of a candle, hungered for the pungent smell of love denied.
For four years, I did not touch the flesh of another man except the novice I shaved. I caressed his head like a lover, learning every bump in his skull (and which body part it controlled) as if it were my own. I admired his ear as a sinner does the orifice of his confessor. When I was done, he shaved me, prolonging the exquisite torture. We spoke only with our fingers, yet this was the deepest love that I have ever known. When finally my hands strayed into forbidden paths, he could tell no one, for his mouth was stopped by vows.
For we were now monks. I had foresworn my past life (so far as it could be foresworn by one such as I) and had embarked on the long, penitential route up the mountain when the atra mors came north to punish us. The tale was brought to us by a sailor begging confession who had been in Messina harbour when a plague ship arrived from the Crimea groaning with the dead and dying. His merchantman set sail on the next tide, putting in to Toulon with a diseased crew. He travelled north by land, seeking shelter with us at Montrieux. He was the devil’s man, for his tongue and urine were black. Near his genitals was a lump like an apple and rotten eggs lurked in his armpits. He died spitting poisonous blood into the prior’s ear.
Two days later, the prior died in my arms and I carried him on my back to his grave. Soon there were more monks struck down than monks to tend them. When there were only three left, we shrove one another, digging a pit large enough for three. We tied a rope to a sling filled with earth and ran it through a pulley, so that it only needed tugging to release its cargo into the pit. We made a vow that the last one to die would climb in alive then tug the rope, joining his brethren under the rich, autumnal earth.
When the first man died, we dumped him in the gaping hole. We slept in one bed, unshaven. When my lover died, I dragged his body to the pit to roll it over the edge. I released the goat, the sheep, and our milking cow to forage in the fields and walked naked to my grave. I was not depressed in spirits, for my life had come to a just end. I climbed into the pit, lay down on top of my bloated, stinking brothers, and reached for the rope to drop the cradle of earth upon my head. The monastery dog sat by the grave observing me with alarm.
It would be an act of pride to say that a vision stayed my hand. Visions are granted only to the pure of heart like you, Solange. But for the first time in two score years, I thought of another first, myself second.
If I died, who would feed Fidèle? In his stupid loyalty, he would squat by my grave until he died of thirst. Climbing out, I filled a kneading tub with water from the well. With Fidèle at my heels, I dragged it to the grave and climbed back in. He sat on his haunches cocking his head at me, his tail wagging at this game. I lay down on my deathbed and closed my eyes to enjoy the blessed repose.
I could hear Fidèle’s soft, red tongue lapping the water. My hand reached for the rope, then hesitated. I had only postponed his death. Now he would die of slow starvation not of thirst. It flashed upon me that his wagging tail must be a Sign. I did not quibble that it was an unlikely medium for God to use, for this Sign was followed by a Voice.
“Get up, Gherardo,” the Voice commanded. “You will not get out of work so easily this time. Get up, you lazy beast, to feed your hound. Your field needs tilling. Gather your livestock back into the fold and run this priory by yourself!”
And so I did, taking the quick, easy way out of my grave by scrambling up the steepest bank. I did not want to give God time to change His mind.
I tilled that field and another. Since then, God has vouchsafed to me poor wanderers, bereft in soul and body, speaking foreign tongues, who have walked over the hills to escape the plague cities. Here they have found a home, digging and hoeing in return for my vast stores of wine and foodstuffs.
I must go now and perform lauds in my out-of-tune way, for Fidèle and I keep the Carthusian offices here. He is all men to me and I all dogs to him. I would not trade him for the noble wolfhound that was once the pride of Cardinal Colonna. We have made a pact to die as brethren, but I trust that God will keep us alive until he has exacted a just measure of industry from me.
Beware, dear Countess, of sailors bearing tales from Toulon, for the plague is coming north.
A servant of God in Montrieux-le-Jeune.
Vacate et videte quoniam ego sum Deus.