Iacobus Read Free

only excite them and rob them of the sleep that they so need at their age. No, I’m sorry, I cannot authorize these visits. However …,” he added with thought, “I think that it would very good if some of the older pueri served you as your assistants and you could teach them some of the elements of your science so that in the future they can take charge of the hospital and the infirmary.”
    “That certainly is a good idea, prior …,” I agreed. “Would you let me choose or would you yourself appoint my assistant?”
    “Oh, there is no rush, no rush …! Speak to the nursing brother and choose the novicius that you think has the best skills.”
    After all, I told myself pleasantly surprised, that monk was not prior for nothing.
    That afternoon I walked to the library and pulled the chartae from the shelves of the archives corresponding to the Year of Our Lord 1303, the year of Jonas’s birth. On my lectorile, next to a beautiful copy of Comments on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liebana and Collectaneorum de re medica by Averroes, I unfolded a sea of documents relating to donations, work undertaken to construct barns, repopulation yields, improvements to the naves of the church, crops, deaths and births of servants, wills, purchases and sales and an endless amount of official tedious matters. Over the long days, I searched with infinitive patience until I found the information about children who had been abandoned at the monastery during that year. I was glad that I didn’t know the Christian name that the monks had given Jonas – because in the end there were three children to investigate –, so no prior preference would cloud my reading.
    Luckily, one of the babies stood out straight away. On the morning of the 12th of June the operarius brother who went out to repair the broken blades of a mill found a newborn at the door in a basket, wrapped in rich fabrics without any markings or embroidery. Hanging from the child’s neck was a small, black, jet charm set in silver in the shape of a fish — which worried the monks in case he was of Jewish descent —, and hidden amongst the diapers was an unsigned note requesting that the infant be gracefully baptized with the name Garcia. I didn’t look any further; I had all the proof I needed. Now I just needed to check whether the Garcia in the documents was the Jonas from the infirmary so as soon as I could I headed for the house of the pueri oblati to select my future apprentice. But why wait? mocked destiny, and before I’d even walked through the door, a shout suddenly answered all of my questions:
    “Garciaaaaaaaaa!”
    And Garcia shot past me, running like he did when he escaped from the infirmary with his habit gathered in bunches so as not to get in the way of his legs.
    And then it was Christmas again, and this year we were celebrating the holidays with the sad news of the death of the abbot of Ponç de Riba. I had made an effort, without much success, to alleviate the pain of his last days with large doses of opium but it had not done much good. When I palpated his stomach, which was swollen like that of a woman in labor and just as hard, I knew there was no hope for him. To ease his mind I suggested removing the malignant tumor but he flatly refused and amidst great suffering he gave his soul to God during the Epiphany of 1317. The dreadful noise of the ratchet could be heard throughout the grounds for the next three days, making the community’s mourning even more overwhelming.
    The funerals lasted for several months and were very ostentatious and filled with pageantry. They were attended by the prelates from the sister abbeys of France, England and Italy and at last, at the end of April, the whole community locked itself in and the chapter began — led by the abbot from the mother house, the French monastery of Bellicourt —, to chose a new Abba from amongst its members. The deliberations continued day after day, with the few of us who were left outside