Pagan's Scribe Read Free Page B

brigands left nothing. Not even their clothes.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    No you’re not. How can you be? They weren’t your parents.
    The Archdeacon thinks for a moment, his eyes on the road in front of us: it’s a terrible road, covered with rocks and gullies, and I feel like a locust being tossed on the wind.
    ‘So the Church took you in, and looked after you?’ he says.
    ‘Yes, Father.’
    ‘And I suppose you went to the cathedral school, at Pamiers? It has quite a good reputation.’ He steers his horse around a particularly big hole, before continuing. ‘I gather you’re still an acolyte, since you’re only fifteen. Did you like it, living with the cathedral canons?’
    Did I like it? What’s that got to do with anything? Why can’t you leave me alone? Why can’t you ignore me, the way everyone else does?
    ‘Isidore? Isidore ! I just asked you a question, boy. Did you like living at Pamiers?’
    ‘I liked the books.’
    ‘But not the people?’
    This is excruciating. I don’t have to answer. I refuse to answer. I’m not in confession.
    ‘Because I can’t help wondering what you were doing in Merioc,’ he continues quietly. ‘With your level of education, you’re wasted on a village like that. You should be at university, or at least working where your skills can be properly employed. Why aren’t you?’
    Because I have a devil in me, that’s why. Because I have a devil that would make your hair stand up, and your sweat turn to ice on your brow.
    ‘Isidore!’ He shakes the wineskin at me. ‘By God, but you make people work! Why aren’t you at university?’
    ‘Because universities are expensive.’
    ‘And your superiors weren’t interested in helping you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why not?’
    Will you please leave me alone ? If you think I’m going to tell you my secret, little man, then you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. My face is harder than flint, and my tongue is bound with bars of iron.
    ‘Why won’t they help you, Isidore?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Don’t you? How strange. But maybe you just sat there, looking like that – it’s enough to scare anyone.’
    Like what? What do you mean? He’s smiling a little, as he raises the wineskin to his mouth. One sip and he’s finished: he hangs the wineskin on his saddle, and wipes his mouth with his free hand. How I wish I’d had the courage to take that wineskin. It’s been such a long afternoon, and the sun is so hot . . . though not quite as hot as it was, of course. Everything is dusty and parched, and the birds are all silent, and the leaves rattle like coins in a pot, when the wind blows.
    Far away, across the fields, golden hills gleam like the brass mountain of Zechariah.
    ‘Well, now.’ The Archdeacon yawns, and stretches until his joints crack. ‘I suppose I’d better tell you what I’m doing, rushing around the countryside like this. Do you know anything about heresy, Isidore?’
    Of course I do. I’m an educated person. ‘It comes from the Greek word haeresis , meaning ‘choice’, because each heretic decides by his own will whatever he wants to teach or believe, against the authority of God and the apostles.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Once again, the Archdeacon smiles. ‘I see you’ve been reading the Etymologies. Is there anything else you can tell me about heretics?’
    ‘They gather in cellars and fornicate, and when the babies are born they cut them to pieces and throw the pieces on the fire, and then they mix the ashes with the baby’s blood, and drink it.’
    This time he seems lost for words. I must have stunned him with my knowledge. At last he says: ‘Where on earth did you hear that?’
    ‘I didn’t hear it, I read it.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In Guibert of Nogent’s Monodiae. ’
    ‘I see.’ He smooths his beard with one hand, and cocks his head like a bird. ‘That’s a very old tale you’ve read, Isidore. It comes from the ancients, via Michael Psellus. It was written about various ancient heresies, but it