The Argument
<b>A</b> woman is bound to the stake to be burned:
<b>N</b>o hope of using the secrets she’s learned.
<b>A</b> sagacious doctor awaits his fate,
<b>C</b>aptive in the Tower behind Traitor’s Gate.
<b>H</b>is student could strike to make justice prevail.
<b>R</b>ighteous is he, but his judgment may fail.
<b>O</b>ver the sea comes a painter who sought—
<b>N</b>ot the dark cellar in which he is caught.
<b>I</b>n the midst of these four, a lady is torn.
<b>S</b>he must choose just one, leave the rest forlorn.
<b>T</b>ime’s arrow flies; [[let us find where it lies->A woman is bound to a stake to be burned]].
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script><script>ga("send", "event", "passage", "loaded", "Intro");</script>(set: $copyright to "http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png")(set: $entropy to 15)(set: $knowledge to 0)(set: $magic1 to 0)(set: $magic2 to 0)A woman stands to her waist in a mound of logs and neatly bundled furze kindling. The split logs beneath her feet cut into her bare soles. A rope winds around her body from her thighs to a triple knot at her chest. The stray hairs on the knot’s surface shake in the wind.
She thinks: You watch small, harmless things like this every day of your life. If I were a child, I would play with this rope, pull its strands apart, or drag it behind me like a tail.
The words she hears in her head are Dutch, her native language. Although her body is trussed, she can turn her face. On her left she sees seated clergymen and dignitaries. The name “Thomas Lucy”—“Sir Thomas”—comes into her mind as she identifies a bearded, red-faced gentleman with a heavy gold chain over his furs. Look how calm he seems now, she thinks. Look at his fat hands, how relaxed they are, clasped over his fat belly. When he questioned me in the castle, those hands were always twitching, scratching, accusing.
|cranmer>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.30.19-PM.png">](click-prepend: ?cranmer)[Thomas Cranmer's martyrdom from Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1563
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cranmer_burning_foxe.jpg
]
I will never again see what is directly behind me, she thinks. She closes her eyes and recalls vividly the square little church just outside the city’s main gates. De Maria Magdalenakerk—how would they say that here? The other crenellated wall behind me, that would be Balliol College. I think I can smell the smoke from its chimneys along with—what?—leaf mold and sewage. I can picture spires, turrets, and flags under the scuttling clouds and the low autumn sun. And far to the right, Oxford’s castle on its steep artificial hillock, where they held me screaming and weeping.
I hear the constable, scratching with his flints and tinder. I could turn to this young fellow and beg him to stop. A week ago, that is what I would have done. I would have expected at least his pity. My nights in the castle ended that; now I dare not even turn my face toward him for fear of seeing his cruelty.
Why was I ever quick to trust? As a little girl, didn’t I see my own mother and father hanging by their necks in a long row of bodies, while the crows circled and cawed over Antwerp and the papist army set the thatch to fire? Someone tied ropes around their necks and dropped them to choke. If they begged for their lives, no one listened.
[[She looks out at the crowd]](set: $perspective to "Anna", $chapter to 1)(set: $characters to (a:))(set: $characters to $characters + (a: "Anna"))
|games>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Breughel-Childrens-Games.png">](click-prepend: ?games)[Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Children’s Games, 1559, detail <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Games_(Bruegel)]
That crowd has come to watch me burn, she thinks. The people look like stocky bundles, well wrapped against the late October chill. There are a lot of them, but they still leave enough space that I can see plenty of churned mud, horse droppings, and patchy grass: a rich, dark background for their red and orange woolen cloaks and the bleached hats of the women.
Once the fire is lit, I’d better try to inhale as much smoke as I can. God willing, I will black out before my skin begins to blister. After all, how much pain can a person feel while she is still in her mortal body? Surely there is a limit here in earth, if not in Hell. All I feel now is cold and tightness.
|fair>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Flemish-Fair.png">](click-prepend: ?fair)[Pieter Bruegel the Younger, Flemish Fair (1559) <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flemish_Fair_-_Pieter_Brueghel_the_Younger.png
]
Most of these people must be common townspeople or country folk, with their big noses and chins and squinty eyes. I see a few gentlemen too, to judge by their clothes and swords. There, about twenty paces away, stands a tall fellow with his back to me, facing his own long shadow. He wears a tight velvet jacket and a broad, feathered cap over his red hair. I can see his fine, strong legs through his hose.
(if: $magic1 is 0)[(link-goto: "She tries a prayer", "She tries a prayer")]
(if: $magic2 is 0)[(link-goto: "She tries a snatch of magic", "She tries a snatch of magic")]
(set: $entropy to it - 1)Lord God, I confess that I am rotten with lust and fear and every other contemptible sin. Your will is unalterable and just; if the earthly flames that will soon scorch my skin and lungs—if those flames are merely a foretaste of endless hellfire, Thy will be done. (I feel the rope chafing my arms and the silent wind cutting through my smock.) But I do not know, Lord—truly I do not know why I am being persecuted, nor what has befallen my master, Dr. Edmund Burby. I pray only that I may be granted a chance to find the truth so that I may be Your instrument of justice before I die.
(//Entropy is reduced by one//)
[[She looks again at the crowd]]
(set: $magic2 to 1)(set: $knowledge to it + 1)What was that phrase my master once showed me? We read it silently from the strange manuscript page, not recognizing the words, not knowing how to parse it, not daring to speak it aloud for fear that it had some potency. I will say it now in my head, letting each vowel sound separately: coaculacus sithi suthurius tibi; non sudramas me.
God save me! I should never say things like that—never, and worst of all on the very day when I will meet the Heavenly Father. Lord forgive me for dabbling in such superstition or devilishness. I hope I am not rescued because of it. I will throw myself on Your mercy instead.
(//Knowledge rises by one.//)
[[She looks again at the crowd]]
|fair2>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Flemish-Fair2.png">](click-prepend: ?fair2)[Pieter Bruegel the Younger, Flemish Fair (1559) <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flemish_Fair_-_Pieter_Brueghel_the_Younger.png
]
From up here on the scaffold, you can see quite far. I’ve been to St. Giles a hundred times before, but things always look different when you see them from a new angle. Outside that public house on the right, the one with the sign that says “The Town,” men stand in a knot, holding their pewter tankards and looking toward me. They want to watch my face and hair catch fire like a torch. I can see by the sparks that one of them has struck a flint to light his clay pipe.
I will never again see whitewashed walls, rickety fences, or ridges of dried mud on a road. Oh, I will miss these ordinary, [(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[dappled things. Our Father, You who are in heaven, Your name …]]<Hopkins|(click: ?Hopkins)[
//GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow
By detecting this allusion to Gerald Manley Hopkins' Pied Beauty, published in 1918, you lower entropy by 1.//(set: $entropy to it -1)
]
It is interesting how distinct some of those faraway objects are. For instance, the pub is a half-timbered and thatched building. There is a small window just past the door, but the leaded glass is dull and opaque, save for a few glinting highlights. I see a little patch of yellow wall with a sloping red roof. At the corner, a horse has her nose in a bucket. Her coat is glossy. Her ribs are showing; her hind legs are skinny; her white tail is dirty.
[[She focuses on the horse in the distance]]
That tail is around the corner of the pub. I should not be able to see it; only the horse’s head should be visible, and it should be very small. It is as if I have moved so close to the surface of this scene that I can observe distant things close up—and now even see around corners. I could try looking back toward myself, but—what I would see? I am too afraid to find out.
|tail>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Flemish-Fair3.png">](click-prepend: ?tail)[Pieter Bruegel the Younger, Flemish Fair (1559) <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flemish_Fair_-_Pieter_Brueghel_the_Younger.png
]
I will look instead further down this side street, keeping the sun to my right so that I do not find myself back on the pyre.
The gardens are growing larger; now there is a wide orchard on both sides of the road. The branches of the bigger trees form a shifting lattice studded with silent crows. Here is a stile. “Citie of Oxfourd Comonne” says the painted lettering on the crude wooden sign. I must be seeing things a mile away from the scaffold and St. Mary Magdalen’s Church, heading toward the River Thames.
This part of the Common is called Port Meadow. I will cross its rolling expanse of grass and puddles until I find the misty river. Any freeman of Oxford may pasture his animals on the Common. Here are two sack-of-bones cows, one muddy sheep, and a donkey. Skinny boys are collecting manure to burn before a lean-to that they have constructed under a tree. That, in the distance, is a suppressed monastery slipping into ruin, its best stones stolen by townspeople for their houses. They say robbers hide out there who will ambush students who wander on the Meadow.
I have always thought this place a waste. If the Corporation of Oxford built a dyke along the riverbank, put a drainage canal through the middle of the field, and planted hedgerows, the land could handle ten times as many animals.
Never mind about that—dykes, cows, and robbers. Those are thoughts for an ordinary day in Flanders. I must do something about my condition. I am not in a very strong position to take action, but I will do my best, not just for my own sake, but for justice.
[[She moves downstream]]
The river will be my path, and I see it now. Here I am moving downstream over placid water that seems to steam a little near its margins. A couple of mallards leave a v-shaped wake as they paddle across; a peasant in mismatched leggings fishes from a flat boat. The Oxford castle must be nearby, but I will fix my attention on the river: that is safe and peaceful. Here the Thames is just a stream with green, reedy water and steep banks. A man sits in the saddle as his horse drinks, standing in water up to its knees. I just passed no more than a foot away from this fellow and his animal, but they saw and heard nothing.
Now I am moving into the heart of Oxford Town. The buildings are clustering together more tightly. The Thames has merged with a tributary and has changed its character. It is wider and faster here, its banks are more sharply defined; rowboats dot its surface. A watermill churns busily, tended by bustling women while others lay sheets out to bleach.
|Bol2>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/HansBol2.png">](click-prepend: ?Bol2)[Hans Bol, 1535-93, detail from a landscape
]
[[She remembers her teacher]]
[[She proceeds downriver]]
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy1.png" height="297" width="136" align="right">The confluence of waters reminds of something Dr. Burby once said. (And Dr. Burby is the key.) He was playing with his retorts, pipes, and beakers, pouring liquids together and showing me how they bubbled and foamed. “Look,” he said (speaking, of course, in Latin, as the college rules required), “look how unlike substances, when they meet, become more alike. Hot and cold combine to make a lukewarm liquid. Base and precious metals mix in nature and then require much labor and intelligence to separate, even temporarily. A sharp vinegar and this salty soda, after they have foamed together, will create something flat and bland and lose their distinct characters. Life is the clash of differences; death is sameness.”
I never understood this kind of talk, nor why my master insisted on playing with alchemists’ tools. Men are burned for alchemy. Dr. Edmund Burby is supposed to be a sober historian, writing a great vindication of the Reformed Church that will begin with the Acts of the Apostles and end with the providential accession of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth to the English throne. This work will confound the Pope himself with its pious learning. It was to study under such a scholar that I dressed myself as a boy, forged a letter of introduction, and traveled perilously from Flushing to Oxford at age sixteen. The doctrines that he persisted in telling me about chemicals and metals were at best idle; at worst, they were lies. The world’s story is not about differences turning to sameness. Just the opposite is true. The true and original church has split into sects, most of them shocking heresies. People have invented a Babel of languages with which to tell their fictions. God is One; sinners generate faction and strife because of their selfish wills.
[[She proceeds downriver]]
I am out of Oxford now; the river is still wider, having merged with the Cherwell. The stately tower of Magdalen College is passing behind me. Along the banks, I see enclosed pastures, dotted with sheep; open fields, tilled in long rows; and thick woods.
I must maintain my concentration, my continuity of vision or memory or imagination; a lapse will put me back on the pyre. But I find I can move quickly, much faster than a person on foot. I am sweeping above the river now, like a gull on its way to the sea. The woods down below look vast and undisturbed, a mottled carpet. This realm is still a great forest.
Now here comes the ragged edge of the clouds that had covered Oxford this morning. The band of gray is moving toward London. I realize what “weather” is. I had always thought of it as a change in the state of affairs in a given place. Bruges was rainy yesterday; today it is warm. Now I see that “weather” is something quite different. It is the movement of masses across the surface of the globe.
[[She has more thoughts about weather]]
[[She continues downstream]]
What if people exchanged frequent and quick messages about the state of the weather wherever they happened to be? Then we could predict the coming of rain or high winds, couldn’t we? But how could those messages move faster than the weather itself? Maybe bonfire signals would work, like the ones that followed the course of the Spanish Armada in ‘eighty-eight. Could men be paid to send daily weather messages by bonfire?
Come to think of it, why does the weather constantly swirl? Why don’t the masses of clouds come to a stop, like the milk in a churn when a farm girl lets her paddle drop at the sound of footsteps in the barn? It must be God who keeps churning the atmosphere, actively intervening to keep the world in motion—to fill our sails, turn our windmills, and bring us rain. If God were an absent creator, nature would quickly run down; clouds would dissipate; everything would become a still and even fog, deadly to crops. See? I have refuted Epicurus.
[[She continues downstream]]
|Bol>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/HansBol.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Bol)[Hans Bol, 1534-1593, Flemish landscape]
The Thames turns in huge ox bows, consuming many more miles than it needs to reach London on its descent to the sea. At one turn, I see an encampment of beggars. I have seen many of their kind recently. The harvest is in and winter is almost upon us; but the harvest was bad and hunger already bites. To travel without a license is a crime. These people should till land, serve a master, or ply a trade. They should not be gleaning free berries, game, and firewood or—look what these vagrants have done—turning someone else’s soil for their vegetable garden. When I first saw them, they looked picturesque, like figures in a miniature landscape from back home. But now I see that the little potbellied girl sits by the riverside, legs splayed, wrapped in rags, her bulging eyes staring emptily.
|Windsor>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Windsor-e1480127964932.png">](click-prepend: ?Windsor)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1576 edition, author's family collection
]
This must be Windsor now. The massive keep flies the Queen’s standard, and the people by the riverside are jauntily dressed in fashion. A very fat fellow with a big feather in his hat makes a deep bow as he tries to detain three housewives in gowns.
Then more thick woods, little towns, and another turn of the Thames reveals Hampton Court. Liveried servants row long, gilded barges, and sailboats tack downstream with loads of vegetables.
|visscher>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Claes-Visscher-e1473639610894.png">](click-prepend: ?visscher)[A panorama of London by Claes Van Visscher, 1616. <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama_of_London#/media/File:London_panorama,_1616b.jpg
]
Before London comes Westminster with its towerless Abbey, the long roof of Parliament House, and a grand marble staircase down to the river. Then a row of palaces, each with its own landing stage still streaming from the tidewater; and Saint Paul’s with its squat central tower, jostled by the spires of London’s other churches and the masts of docked ships. Windmills dot the hills further away from the river. People swarm the streets and landings near St. Paul’s like rats on rigging.
The Cathedral is on my right, but I am still facing downstream. I am not very well acquainted with London, but surely St. Paul’s should be on my left; the right bank is another town altogether. Everything appears in mirror-image and must have been reversed since—when? Since the horse outside the pub in Oxford?
[[She figures out why things look backwards]]
[[She enters the Tower]]
I think I can explain this phenomenon. We know that the mind does not see the world. The mind is located behind the eye, which is a reflective surface that mirrors the world. (Stare closely into someone’s retina and you will see yourself reflected there.) Thus the mind must be accustomed to reversing the image it observes on the back side of the eye. Moreover, the mind must be invisible, for no autopsy has ever found a being with its own little eye that watches the back of the retina from inside the head. Thoughts are incorporeal, and the mind or soul must be that bodiless substance that observes the physical image on the retina. But I am not looking with my eye. Right now, my mind directly observes the world, which therefore appears reversed. Or do I see it the right-way around for the first time in my life—maybe for the first time in history?
|bridge>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Visscher_bridge-1-e1473640396313.png">](click-prepend: ?bridge)[A panorama of London by Claes Van Visscher, 1616. <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama_of_London#/media/File:London_panorama,_1616b.jpg
]
Here is London Bridge looming up with its grand half-timbered shops. The boats are as crowded as cows at a Flemish cattle market; rowers struggle to separate their tangled banks of oars, and one young man jumps from vessel to vessel with a live turkey while the owners shake their fists at him. Fish heads and other trash bob in the choppy water. I will go through the dank dripping arch of the bridge. The floors of the shops and houses are jutting over the water. The Thames here forms boiling rapids.
[[She enters the Tower]]
Sunlight again. Out of habit, I immediately looked to the left to find the Tower of London, but it is on the right. I recognize the tall, square, whitish building with crenellations and a turret at each corner. It is a very old-fashioned and grim keep, although its turrets have been topped with wooden domes like jaunty little hats. Between this tower and the river, I see a massive fortress wall with a gate that is more than half submerged by the tide. Those are pikes on top of the gate, and grinning skulls on the pikes.
I pass easily through the bars of the gate, up a steep, wet covered passage, and into the open bailey with its many fine buildings. I will not stop to investigate the pacing big cat whose spotted coat I noticed behind bars, nor the uncaged bear who sits chained to the base of a wall.
|Tower>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Tower.png">](click-prepend: ?Tower)[Antony van den Wyngaerde, View of London ca. 1557 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wyngaerde_London_-_The_Tower_of_London.jpg
]
Looking into the lower windows of the White Tower, I see dark rooms jammed with crates and bales, a kitchen with gleaming copperware, some kind of holding cell in which are packed a dozen standing prisoners, another cell with a poor bloodied fellow in chains, and several guardrooms well stocked with pikes, muskets, and cannon balls.
I am glad to see those weapons. English troops are fighting in my homeland, trying to rid our nation of the Spanish murderers. I thank God for their aid, but I wish they were better equipped and trained. This whole English government often strikes me as a rickety affair, run by a few amateurs, funded out of the Queen’s own purse or on her personal credit, beset by traitors, vulnerable to invasion. Thousands of English families are secretly loyal to Rome.
In fact, this very tower is filled with conspirators. Some will be held here for the rest of their lives. Some will be released on the orders of the Privy Council. Some, by the Queen’s mercy, will go to the block to have their heads instantly axed off. But some of the Tower’s traitors will die in the following way. They will be placed face down in a cage that is pulled by horses through the rough streets of London while people run alongside and jeer. They will be hanged by the necks until desperately heaving for air. They will be cut down from the gallows, still alive, and stripped before the London mob. Their genitals will be sliced off, displayed before their faces, and then burned in a brazier. Their stomachs will be cut open at a place calculated not to cause immediate death, and their intestines will be drawn out of their bodies and added to the fire. Last, the executioner will chop them into bloody quarters.
[[She explores the White Tower]]
(if: $chapter is 1)[---
Tools and Status]
(click: "Tools and Status")[{(link:"Save game on this device")[
(if:(save-game:"Slot A"))[Game saved! You can return to the current state when you open it again on this device.](else: )[
Sorry, I couldn't save your game.]]}<style type="text/css">.tg {border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;}.tg td{font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;}.tg th{font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-weight:normal;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;}.tg .tg-yw4l{vertical-align:top}.tg .tg-uiv9{vertical-align:top}</style><table class="tg"><tr><th class="tg-yw4l">Entropy:
(if: $entropy > 14)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy15.png">](if: $entropy is 14)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy14.png">]
(if: $entropy is 13)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy13.png">](if: $entropy is 12)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy12.png">](if: $entropy is 11)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy11.png">](if: $entropy is 10)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy10.png">](if: $entropy is 9)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy09.png">](if: $entropy < 9)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy08.png">]
</th>
<th class="tg-uiv9">Knowledge:
(if: $knowledge is 0)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd1-e1474385228707.png">](if: $knowledge is 1)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd2-e1474385282680.png">](if: $knowledge is 2)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd3-e1474405118398.png">](if: $knowledge is 3)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd4-e1474385340641.png">](if: $knowledge is 4)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd5-e1474385370995.png">](if: $knowledge is 5)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd6-e1474385399447.png">](if: $knowledge is 6)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd7-e1474385434863.png">]
</th>
</tr>
</table>The current perspective: $perspective. Perspectives explored so far: (print: $characters.join(", ")).
For bonus points, double-click on any text that contains anachronistic quotations (after 1596). Anachronisms are not highlighted; you must find them.
Click on any image for details.](if: $chapter is 2)[(if: $return is 1)[[[Return to the main narrative->Proceed to the next events]]](if: $return is 2)[[[Return to the main narrative->Proceed to Anna's reaction]]](if: $return is 3)[[[Return to the main narrative->your own hypothesis]]](if: $return is 4)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna's choice]]]
The current perspective: $perspective.
Perspectives explored so far: (print: $characters.join(", ")).]
Now that I am up here on the third and fourth floors of the White Tower, I look through cleaner windows into rooms that are elaborately furnished. Perhaps gentleman prisoners live here, or maybe these chambers belong to the governor. I see Flemish tapestries on the wall; that is Diana and her hunt.
And now, here it is. In a corner chamber on the fifth floor, I see a familiar arrangement: books laid flat on shelves, polished sea-turtle shells, antlers from numerous species that he has arranged in order of size, pendulum clocks, globes and celestial spheres, small antique marble busts, stuffed birds, a camera obscura, a lute, mirrors, retorts and beakers of blown glass, porcelain from the orient, a cabinet of dark wood carved to resemble a palace façade, a pot of [(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[rosemary, for remembrance]]<quote3|, crude beads strung on leather, a Saxon inscription, an abacus and an astrolabe, a human skull, three prisms hung from the rafter that turn slowly in the air, a table covered with a Persian carpet, a matched pair of rusted iron statuettes showing Hermes Trismegistus, and a printed portrait of the Queen after Nicholas Hilliard. The whole chamber is rather gloomy; portions are concealed in inky black shadows.
(click: ?quote3)[
//Ophelia: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance//
By detecting this allusion to Hamlet, you raise knowledge by 1.(set: $knowledge to it +1)
]
[[She recalls the Art of Memory]]
|fludd>[<img src=" http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd-e1473642171578.png">](click-prepend: ?fludd)[ R. Fludd, Memory Temple of Music, 1624, <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:R._Fludd,%22Utriusque_cosmi_historia...%22,_1624;_temple_of_music_Wellcome_L0025674.jpg]
Dr. Burby has used his Tower cell to reproduce precisely the arrangement of objects in his regular chambers at Oxford. He is not just striving for comfort and familiarity. Like me, he is a devotee of the Art of Memory. Every day, he visualizes some familiar scene, such as the view from his study window, the interior of his parish church, or the shelves that line his walls. He associates each familiar object with something that he is trying to memorize, whether the Saxon Kings of Wessex in order of their succession, the natural metals, or the vocabulary of Hebrew. When he runs out of real objects with which to associate these ideas, he invents extensions to his memories. His parish church may develop an imaginary door, through which he can reach a cloister surrounded by chapels, each filled with monumental brasses that he can associate with Hebrew verbs. Or his study may extend for one hundred, or even one thousand, paces in his mind, instead of its actual ten.
By this method, Dr. Edmund Burby is able to memorize vast amounts of knowledge—although perhaps with less success than the Jesuit Matthew Ricci, who used the Art of Memory to master Chinese speech and writing within months. The heathens are so astounded and bewitched by Ricci that there is great concern lest they convert by the millions to Romanism.
In any case, the Art of Memory is not merely a tool for absorbing facts or impressing pagans. An expert can visualize how one idea relates to another by mentally moving the corresponding objects in imaginary space. In that way, he can discover the occult patterns of the elements, the heavens, or the books of scripture.
[[She recalls her own art of memory]]
[[She looks closer]]
I know Dr. Burby’s chamber by heart, just as I know the skyline of Oxford and the portraits in her college hall. I also know the streets and canals of Bruges as if I had a city map spread out before me, and I have added whole imaginary neighborhoods to accommodate the ideas that I have memorized. I am the free mason of those fictitious quarters. But it was in the real Bruges, when I was only a child, that I began to cultivate my memory in order to teach myself Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. I could not bear a sword or a musket against the papists who had murdered my parents. I decided instead to exercise my mind. I dreamed of learning new languages before Romanist missionaries could master them and convert more continents to idolatry. I longed to solve riddles of nature or history and thereby vindicate the reformed church and confound its enemies. It was the Art of Memory that took me to Oxford. England was my New Jerusalem, a citadel of faith. I arrived with optimistic zeal. I confess my faith has been somewhat shaken since. Dr. Burby sometimes seems to stand for his whole rather frustrating nation. He is able but distracted, energetic but complacent, competent but naïve.
[[She looks closer]]
Through the blown glass of the window, I see a polished brass candlestick, and something is moving in the reflection. It is an elbow, clad in velvet. Entering the room, I see that it is the elbow of an Italian man—to judge by the luster of the fabric, the bold purple stripe that runs from his shoulder to his cuff, his loosely flounced white collar, his mane of black curls, and his hat with its great plume. He sits at a desk, his back to the window, hunched over something that is illuminated by a candle. The flaming wick is concealed by the Italian’s raised hand, which glows translucently.
|caravaggio>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Caravaggio.png">](click-prepend: ?caravaggio)[Caravaggio, “The Calling of St. Matthew,” detail (1599-1600), <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/The_Calling_of_Saint_Matthew-Caravaggo_%281599-1600%29.jpg
]
As I move even deeper into the dim room, I see that the Italian is examining a book, which my master, seated at his left, also bends over. I recognized Dr. Burby at once from his skullcap, the age-spots on the back of his neck, and the white bristles that are caught in a ray of light from outdoors. I have never touched him, but now I wish that I could. I wish I could touch anything.
[[She examines the book]](set: $return to 6)
[[She goes back to the stake->Anna goes back to the stake]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script><script>ga("send", "event", "passage", "loaded", "Tower");</script>|akbar>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Akbar.png">](click-prepend: ?akbar)[Basawan, "Akbar visits the tomb of Khwajah Mu'in ad-Din Chishti at Ajmer" (1595), <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Basawan_-_Akbar_visits_the_tomb_of_Khwajah_Mu%27in_ad-Din_Chishti_at_Ajmer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
]
I explore the elaborate image, glowing on its large parchment page.
On a shelf near the pot, I can make out limes, bunches of an herb that might be coriander, onions, clusters of nuts, and a mortar. I have not smelled anything at all since Oxford. However, we can remember odors, especially when we are prompted by images. I tangibly recall the scent of fresh-squeezed lime, garlic, mustard, ground pepper, and—more fleetingly—smells that I have very rarely experienced: cloves, toasted cumin, and the back-of-the-nose bite of cayenne.
A wisp of aromatic steam (no wider than a single camel hair) curls from the pot to the storey above. There I see a spacious chamber with open balconies on two sides and windows on the others. A huge, crimson, tasseled pillow sits on a carpet of intricate design. A man lies prostrate before this pillow, his hands bound behind his back, his nose to the carpet. Three others stand behind the pillow, wearing turbans, fierce moustaches, and curved swords. And on the pillow itself kneels a young man with soft features, his face turned sideways. He is not looking at the terrified figure before him, but at a window. I follow his gaze and see that on the other side of the glass, a tiny butterfly is beating its wings.(set: $perspective to "Ajita")(set: $characters to $characters + (a: "Ajita"))
[[She observes the readers of the book]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>The finger of the Italian man moves across the surface of this page, tracing a line of script from right to left. He pauses for quite a long time, draws a quill from an inkpot, places a piece of parchment on the margin of the book near the script that he has just read, and writes in cursive English: “The Shah doth forget his verdycte, saying, ‘Let the Judges do their Dutie this day. I shall prononce not jugement on any fellowe, even if he denyeth God brayzenly, for I am but a Sojorner heer.’”
I stare at the yellow butterfly that has moved the king. It is as intricate and delicate as a real orchid. Then I look upward to a round silk tent supported by a single pole. It fills a garden that must smell of orange trees, azaleas, and loamy soil, to judge by the illustration. The same Shah is again seated, this time on an octagonal, cushioned divan. The same prisoner now kneels comfortably before his lord. According to the note that the Italian translator scribbles, “Akbarr the Magnifycent biddes Ajita Brihaspathi to travelle unto the Lands of the Franks, there to learn whether there be any Frankish Filosofers in this our Ayge.” The Italian crosses out “Filosofers” after he has written it and writes instead: “Men of Reason or sound Minde.”
[[The page turns]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>The blank page on the right is turned (although an embodied viewer would see it as the one on the left). Again I see an iridescent painting set in a broad margin that contains much indecipherable writing. There is a band of sea at the bottom of the picture; a ship is pulling into port. It has a high stern that sweeps down in a smooth, unbroken line to its bow and then sharply up to form a prow, and it carries one long triangular sail. Ajita is sitting cross-legged on the bow with a paintbrush in his hand. Very close inspection reveals that he is painting a scene much like the one that I am inspecting now, with himself in it, painting. I see that he is a young man, clean-shaven, with big eyes, dark skin, and a sensitive and appreciative expression.
|noah>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Noah.png">](click-prepend: ?noah)[ Anonymous artist in the Turkish Sultan's Zubdat-al Tawarikh, “Noah's Ark and the Deluge" (1582), <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Noah%27s_ark_and_the_deluge.JPG
]
The land in the picture is covered with great swirling rocky mountains and cedars that must perfume the clear air. About half way up, Ajita can be seen again, riding on a horse. He has turned his head to face a man with a paler expression and a black turban; they are conversing. Rabbits scurry away from their path, and a bent old beggar tends a campfire by the side of the road. I read scribbled notes as they emerge from the Italian’s pen. They are rather cursory and elliptical, with many words scratched out and question marks left in place of phrases.
[[She imagines the dialogue in her native tongue]]
[[She watches the page turn]](set: $perspective to "Ajita")
Ajita: From your perception of that smoke, you infer that there must be fire and heat.
The Cleric: Yes, and likewise, from my perception of your movements, I infer that there must be a soul within you. So I maintained earlier in our conversation, as you must recall.
Ajita: But you do not behold the fire, nor the cause of it. You see only the light and smoke. Because smoke has accompanied heat on past occasions in your experience, does it follow that smoke must come from fire, or that the latter causes the former? No. Equally false is the inference that there is a soul wherever we see movement. Does the dust that swirls in the wind possess a soul? There exists only smoke, light, dust, and other objects that we can see. There is nothing secret behind them.
The Cleric: What then do you suppose constitutes life?
Ajita: It is a favorable conjunction of observable attributes in motion, like the harmonious combination of strings that forms a chord. When the strings of a sitar are no longer struck, there is no music. Living just is the motion of a physical object.
The Cleric: To deny the immortal and incorporeal soul is a blasphemous doctrine that makes you guilty of apostasy.
Ajita: I was never a Muslim; thus I cannot be an apostate. I am of the Charvaka school.
The Cleric: In that case, you are a brazen denier of God and your head shall be chopped off your body.
The same two figures recur further up the page, but now Ajita is galloping with his face bent into his horse’s mane. The road climbs in dizzying switchbacks, and the furious cleric charges close behind Ajita with a sword over his head.
[[She watches the page turn]]
The page is turned again, revealing another seascape. Now Ajita’s head, still safely attached to his neck, is visible near the bow of a large, three-masted galley whose rows of oars stroke the placid blue water. The ship flies pennants with crescent moons. Ajita looks composed and comfortable on board. He is sailing away from a walled city crowded with minarets and domes of gold and lapis lazuli. A dolphin plays in the wake. The sky is pale blue. It is a pleasant day on a warm southern sea. The artist must be headed to Europe in search of reasonable men.
|mercator>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Mercator.png">](click-prepend: ?mercator)[Mercator, World Map (1587)]
On the next page, the ship is shown much closer up and it has been rammed by another galley, this one heavily carved and gilded and packed with sinister, pale, bearded men bearing muskets or pikes. Some have red crosses on their tunics. People are leaping off Ajita’s ship or crumpling over with blood stains on their clothes. Ajita’s own face is contorted with terror, his arms are flung toward the heavens, and the slim brown fingers on both of his hands are spread wide. The attacking galley flies a square red flag with a gold, winged and haloed lion.
|battle>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/battle.jpg">](click-prepend: ?battle)[Death of Sultan Bahadur in front of Diu against the Portuguese 1537, Akbar Nama, late 1500s <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Death_of_Sultan_Bahadur_in_front_of_Diu_against_the_Portuguese_1537_Akbar_Nama_end_of_16th_century.jpg]
[[On to Europe]]
The same flag flies twice on the next page, over two matching crenellated towers. They are built of brick; a canal separates them. In the distance, Anna sees golden onion domes surmounted by spires and crosses. On one bank of the canal, Ajita stands with some other chained prisoners of various skin-colors, both men and women. He and the other prisoners are bare-headed, barefoot, and downcast, surrounded by men in doublets and hose with skinny legs and wicked looking rapiers. One gentleman passes a purse to another while he leers and points at a willowy young woman of Circassian dress who is holding the hand of a little boy. Another fellow leads away a young male captive by a chain around his neck. It is hard to see, but a book is mostly concealed under Ajita’s tunic.
|Mughal>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mughal.png">](click-prepend: ?Mughal)[Portrait of a European painted by Mughal artists ca.1590 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_between_Western_Europe_and_the_Mughal_Empire_in_the_17th_century
]
The margin of the next page is just a narrow band of plain yellow, with no writing. Two figures fill more of the pictorial space than anyone in the book has so far. They traverse a horizontal road, leaving shadows behind them. The first man wears a peaked steel helmet, a square reddish beard, and a breastplate. He has a pink scarf or kerchief tied around his wrist. His silver shield is dented from many blows and bears a blood-red cross, but his face seems rather cheerful. He rides a horse that has an angry look and is grinding and foaming at its bit. Behind this mounted knight walks Ajita Brihaspathi in a plain leather jerkin of European cut and a pointed cap. Has Ajita has been purchased by the knight? Is he led through Europe as a slave? Or perhaps the knight has freed or rescued him and is now employing him as a page.
[[In France]]
|Tintoretto>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Tintoretto-e1475427310573.png">](click-prepend: ?Tintoretto)[Tintoretto, 1518-94, drawing after Michelangelo <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Studio_del_Crepuscolo_di_Michelangelo_-_Jacopo_Tintoretto.png]
PART ONE
[[1.1 DRAHMEN]]
[[1.2 VITHNI]]
[[1.3 VATNA]]
[[1.4 LEFNI]]
[[1.5 VITHREN]]
PART TWO
[[2.1 DRAHMEN]]
[[2.2 VITHNI]]
[[2.3 VATNA]]
[[2.4 LEFNI]]
[[2.5 VITHREN]]
PART THREE
[[3.1 DRAHMEN]]
[[3.2 VITHNI]]
[[3.3 VATNA]]
[[3.4 LEFNI]]
[[3.5 VITHREN]]
<script>ga("send", "event", "passage", "loaded", "Poem");</script>(set: $persepective to "Ajita", $chapter to 2)|Bassano>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Bassano-e1475427722177.png">](click-prepend: ?Bassano)[Bassano, Garden of Eden, ca. 1570-3 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacopo_da_Ponte_-_Garden_of_Eden_-_WGA01448.jpg]
1.1 Drahmen
Before memory, there was a woman
and a man. Their home a narrow valley,
dark under thick, rubbery, dripping green,
its steep slopes too high for climbing. Only
midday summer sun made the river shine.
They lived on pulpy fruit, fat ripe berries,
sticky paste from inside reeds, river weeds,
and pale tender shoots. They dipped in eddies,
slept on moss; in the rain they wrapped in leaves
and, lacking words, conferred with their bodies,
captivated. Like this the two had lived,
contented and undisturbed forever,
when the woman’s belly stretched out and moved.
Agony, a night’s terror, and she bore
a squirming thing. They spurned it, but it cried
and they knew pity. It found a breast, fed,
became a girl. A lithe light-footed child,
she scrambled higher than her parents, laughed,
scolded the garish birds, imitated
the water’s splash, the monkey’s screech—and changed,
giving her parents Before and After.
They tried to think now, distinguishing what
was right for the girl to eat, touch, see, hear,
and what they must never do in her sight.
They wove palm fronds to make her a shelter.
At dawn, while the rest slept, the woman bathed.
She saw movement, but having known no fear
(save for labor’s dreadful spasms), she peered
and found another man, taller by far
and stronger than hers. While he stripped, he thought,
“I helped make her, planned the experiment.
She’s mine, if anyone’s. And I’m getting
tired of my immortal wife, redolent
of splendor. She’s perfect, but I’m finding
that a common form can be more pleasant.
I’ll try her.” She couldn’t have resisted
had she wanted, and was glad she hadn’t.
She had no means to tell what had happened,
but relished the memory, and soon swelled—
bled again, screamed, and once more bore a child,
this one male. His sister suspiciously
watched him fuss, cry, demand his mother’s breast,
then big fruits and roots, growing prodigiously,
outweighing them all, a ravenous beast.
Who had allowed him to heave so cruelly
from her mother? He was not one of them,
she was certain of that. And she knew things,
this grave scholar of flowers, rocks, and stream,
shrewd observer of all breathing beings,
secret climber of the valley walls, dream-
recaller, maker of patterns and lists.
She was tall now, thin but at the navel,
had her mother’s figure, and so spurred thoughts
again in her brother’s father. He said, “I’ll
go back down and see if the girl delights.”
He found her high above the stream, watching
ants build a hill. He showed himself to her,
naked, huge, resplendent, cocky—thinking,
“She’ll clutch me and need me, like her mother.”
But the girl sensed what he was and, hissing,
drew back into saw-toothed thickets. He knew
that he could have her, but it hurt him not
to be wanted. He said, “What is it, you?”—
the first words spoken in that place. She heard,
stared gaping at his mouth, and thus he saw
what he had to give to gain her desire:
words, numbers, logic, articulate thoughts.
He said, “I am Drahmen.” And, starting there,
taught her a made-up tongue, using her words
for plants and birds, since none had names before.
He left her untouched while he tutored her
in a tree fork or on an outcropping,
too high for the others to see or hear,
so high that even the yelps and banging
of the boy were lost below. High up there
they studied cause, reason, essence, number,
spoke of wrong and right as Drahmen saw them.
For pleasure, he often claimed her mother,
while watching the child’s passion deepen
to know and be known. Such was her hunger
for facts that she played the spy, watched Drahmen
behind a leafy screen, saw him taking
again her mother, grasped the origin
of her brother. For the first time, shaking,
someone in the valley felt hot hate. Then
she fashioned modest clothing, shunned her kin,
plotted vengeance on him and her family.
But there were some things she wanted to win
before revenge. To see beyond the valley.
To know where Drahmen came from. And to learn
if, like the birds, she’d die. She badgered him
with questions, appealed to his vanity,
begged and bargained. She even made a game
of claiming that he knew no more than she,
until he offered to trade whim for whim.
In return for a look above the rim
and answers to three most urgent questions,
she would surrender her body to him
and let him indulge all of his passions.
Thus one morning she saw her verdant home
sink and shrink far below her weightless legs.
She bumped leaves gently, squinted in hot light,
and broke through to infinite, baffling space.
Even after she had sunk to the ground,
she tipped and reeled and struggled for focus,
making sense of haze, flat land, horizon,
the steamy green gash that was her valley,
snowcapped dormant Anjit, a stinging sun,
powder that her fingers clutched, the dusty
plain, a pale translucent moon. Then Drahmen
sat down beside her and let her fathom
how at first all mass was compressed within
a point of no size, and that mass was him.
The pressure was too much and he had blown,
the explosion creating space and time;
the thunder of that bursting echoes still.
This is what he told her, although he knew
that his consort and peers would not recall
the history quite that way. In their view,
they’d been there from the start; he was not All.
But she believed him, had to, only asked,
“What was there before you—enlarged?” “Vatna,”
he said: “Void. A nothing so absolute
there wasn’t even blackness or space, a
lack that liked it thus, and still tries to end
what I began. Oblivion is what
it prefers; its second choice is sameness.
The only cosmos it can tolerate
is a thin, even, tepid broth; and this
it likes less than the original void.
For order and contrast, you have Drahmen
to thank. Credit me for holding small shreds
of mass intact in that first explosion.
Out of these I made stars and moons, planets,
rocks—and minds, because self-contemplation
(although in my case charming) must in time
turn dull. And one of those minds, my dearest,
was you. When I first saw your lovely form,
I was full of admiration, entranced,
impressed by the way you’d acquired wisdom
from observation. Now I offer more
than you’d learn in a million years’ study:
access to mysteries of being. For
I am being. Finite you and deathless I
can couple, if you wish, and you’ll savor
what I know. Then for a moment we will
be equal.” She’d taken him inside her,
felt an atom’s share of his potential
like a burst star. But beneath her pleasure
she knew her mother’s fate was hers as well.
He disgusted her. Heartened by his talk
of parity, she thought she would tighten,
embrace his neck until she heard a crack.
But Drahmen sensed every thought; each neuron
registered. He felt the squeeze, frowned, and back
he squeezed. He loved her again in an instant,
but by then she was still, singed, senseless, and
as dead as earth. His response was regret
for himself and for her. Trying to mend
a part of what he’d done, he stooped and found
the new life that they had made inside her,
plucked it out, and nursed it to a baby,
which he left in the reeds by the river
for the grieving parents to find. Then he
considered what to do with the mother,
whose bare body rested, limp and slender.
He couldn’t make her into something living;
only that change would exceed his power.
But not all that lives is organic. Flashing
a fraction of his might he dissolved her
into sand, which he spread out on the earth
at a point where the stream could be forded.
He made a spring, a refuge, and a wealth
of minerals and food. Thus he reshaped
her into the site where her offspring’s hearth
would first be lit, walls erected, coins struck,
decrees written, goods produced and traded;
and all the hum of daily work and talk
would rise from her whom he’d loved and deluded.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section of the poem->1.2 VITHNI]]
(set: $persepective to "Ajita", $chapter to 2)|Diana>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Titian.png">](click-prepend: ?Diana)[Titian, The Death of Actaeon, completed 1575 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Actaeon
]
(set: $persepective to "Ajita", $chapter to 2)1.2 Vithni
Drahmen loves order; his sister’s joy is
conflict. When a swollen star, collapsing,
lets its pale fire stream into frigid space,
or when a planet, temperate, teeming,
abruptly meets a chunk of rock, there is
Vithni, exulting in her work. She viewed
the valley, found the watchful girl a bore,
but liked that other child, the strapping lad
who could make the whole gorge resound or
shake a tree until its nuts rained. He sat
and gnawed on a root, while not far away,
Vithni thought: “Too bad that handsome child eats
plants. What a shame to waste his energy
gathering nuts, tubers, and harmless fruits
when a lad like that could hunt more worthy prey.”
She vanished like vapor dispersed by wind;
returned with a buck from the endless herd
that pounded the plain. It squirmed in her grip
until she dropped it to bolt through the wood
and startle the youth, who mulled as he chewed.
Thinking wasn’t easy for one who had learned
no more than twenty words from his sister.
With a mind like a tame dog’s he pictured
the tall girl who had once been his teacher,
vanished and come back, reduced to a child,
now grown up again. In his mute fashion
he mulled a question: whether his own fate
was also thus to wax and wane. Just then
a flashing tail and a passing racket
signaled some big creature’s panicked motion.
|lion>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DP832530.jpg">](click-prepend: ?lion)[Antonio Tempesta, Hercules and the Nemean Lion, 1608 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Metropolitan Museum 2012.136.425.10
]
He sensed its fear and started to stalk it,
shadowing it like a practiced hunter,
gliding barefoot through the tangled thicket.
But Vithni saw that his face was tender,
knew that killing was not what he wanted.
With a snort of disdain she considered
how to teach the fun of sport. She envisaged
a new body and made it hers. Sharp-eyed,
sinuous, sleek, and deadly, she mounted
a vine-draped, mossy tree on padded feet.
She’d given herself the playful nature,
the dangling, naughty paw of a kitten,
but her muscles were fit for a panther.
She watched the buck pass and the youth hasten
close behind. She arched, began to quiver,
then sprang from the limb, her claws extended,
shot through the air, struck backbone, and the steer
was dead. She tossed its torn remains aside
and roared. The boy was stunned at such horror,
his first hint of death. At once he realized
he’d have to respond. He seized a thick stick,
lifted it, and made for her skull. She purred:
a game. As he neared, planning his attack,
she flopped on her side and raised a languid
paw. That little twig would be fun to whack,
and then, if he were willing to play more,
she could swat the human’s head, pull him close,
snag his clothes, lick him with her sandpaper
tongue, mangle his limbs, claw his back, and thus
please herself and him. So instinct told her,
but Vithni’s sense overcame her urges,
recognized that the human would die and
there’d be no hunting for her to witness.
So she waited for his stout blow to land,
then fled the cat’s form, left it a carcass.
He brought the hard branch down with all his force
and found that he’d become the killer’s slayer.
Stroking its lustrous fur and still hot limbs,
he felt something new. He was a hunter,
and this was what he’d been born to do. His
chest swelled, he bellowed, and the gorge echoed
with a clamor that proclaimed a victor.
Then he reduced the carcass to a pelt
and wore it home to impress his sister.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->1.3 VATNA]]
(set: $persepective to "Ajita", $chapter to 2)1.3 Vatna
“Fayoon” is what his daughter had named him:
the “happy one,” in Drahmen’s idiom.
For the first man had loved his tranquil home,
the fine spray, scent of mulch and cardamom,
his laughing wife, and the infant whom
he’d begotten. Happy he was, although
he knew that some other man was present,
an invisible, virile presence who
had come and somehow dallied with his mate—
had broken their bond, and tampered also
with his girl. He watched as she grew aloof,
hid her body, brought words to the valley:
that chatter that he could make no sense of.
Then a second child joined the family,
and Fayoon knew that this infant must have
been introduced by some other father.
He shunned the new creature and wished it ill;
he was glum now, but clung to his daughter.
Though her strange sounds confused him, her rare smile
was solace still, and he idolized her.
But she was often gone, and then one night
she stayed gone. He beat the brush, tore the vines,
his face set to weep with joy at her sight.
No sign. Weeks and months passed while his mute hopes
slowly faded. Then one day, delighted,
his fond wife appeared with a replacement.
It was false, he knew, having caught the smell
of Drahmen on it. He was indifferent
until the infant grew to a tall girl,
the perfect image of his adolescent
partner. But this one’s smooth and youthful skin
was not for him. She’d been claimed already,
seduced by her cutthroat brother, the ruin
of every wholesome thing. Worse, not only
had the boy molested her, but Drahmen
had too. And thanks to him the family
was mastering still more complex diction,
which Fayoon heard as sheer cacophony.
They gnawed raw meat, wore the flayed and dried skin
of slaughtered beasts, and coupled wantonly.
He shut his ears to silence their talking,
and tried to recall that primeval time
before change had begun, when everything
had been one long caress. Vatna heard him
across illimitable space, sensing
a kindred anguish for broken silence.
The first god couldn’t help; passivity
was its nature. But no willful act was
needed. The cosmos drifts to entropy,
to a still and uniform inertness.
All fires burn themselves out, all ice must melt;
all peaks erode and valleys fill,
machines break down, plants wilt, and bodies rot.
By Vatna’s law, anything made will
be unmade over time. Thus it was that
a towering line of clouds swept across
the dry plain, wind whipped up the dust, hair stood
stiff on the necks of wild-eyed ponies;
then the lofty billows turned black and broad
and formed a heavy, low, crackling mass.
It could not stay aloft, but must discharge
its power (with Vithni near, exulting)
down upon the receptive land. The gorge
was doused too; a minor fork of lightning
found its way to ground through the foliage,
causing a long branch to flame and tumble,
landing right before the astounded eyes
of Fayoon. He gawked at this new marvel:
a glowing, acrid, hissing, living blaze.
The leaves blackened and began to crumple.
Instinctively, he gave the branch shelter,
fed it moss, twigs, and leaves, and watched it thrive.
He patted it and it scorched his finger.
He was angry first, but quickly forgave
this biting thing that might end his torture.
It seemed to like the drier sticks and leaves,
nutshells, bark strips, husks from decaying fruit,
certain desiccated vines, his own clothes.
Fayoon indulged it, gave it all it sought,
until he’d built up a bonfire whose tongues
licked the trees while Fayoon capered around,
howling and laughing, inspired by Vithni,
amazed at the heat, intoxicated,
drunk on annihilation and fury—
having seen, after all, a clean way out.
The rain had abated but the others
still sheltered beneath a eucalyptus.
They huddled there in matted meadow-grass,
frightened and damp beneath the tree’s stiff leaves.
Fayoon left his fire to watch them as
they drifted to sleep in a single pile
of limp limbs, tangled hair, and steaming hides.
Standing over them he began to feel
heat on his back, hear the crackle of trees
becoming torches, and watch as fearful
birds screamed through the smoke. The fastest lizards
darted underfoot and away, the rest
roasted in their kaleidoscopic skins.
Above, a drab bird, thinking of her nest,
fought to return, wheeled and cried for her chicks.
Fayoon knew now that he needn’t transport
the fire to his kin, as he had planned.
It had its own will and was coming fast.
As it neared, leaping overhead, he feared
for himself. To die was what he wanted,
but not to suffer, not to share the death
of the monkey or sloth whose abject wail
he heard now. He found a familiar path
to the river, and scampered to that cool
cleansing refuge, frantic to flee the wrath
that he had unleashed. Head down, eyes streaming,
he blundered through the smoke, outran panicked
mice, welcomed the cool sheen of the rippling
stream, and was ready to dive into it
when some fixed thing stopped him stock still. Looking
up he beheld a man—brawny, unshorn,
ancient, angry. Everything froze. The flames,
immobile, become a solid pattern
of yellow, black, and red. The acrid haze
cleared, and the billows of smoke seemed to turn
to sponges, shadowy shapes in limpid
depths. Only Drahmen’s mouth moved, said: “Scoundrel,
who are you to blemish what I have made?
You cannot count the plant and animal
species I devised, let alone applaud
their intricacy, what I had to solve
to fit them all together, each a food
for another. And what about that stuff
I made to fill your skull? You were about
to scorch a tool that’s delicate enough
to know itself. Can you start to think how
much talent and sweat I invested here?
Given the world’s predisposition to
corrosion, anomie, sameness, you were
impossible until I chose to show
Vatna what only my mind can fashion.
You were about to fry yourself, you fool.
Even worse, you would have scorched my children
and left me quite alone, with no mortal
woman to be my joy and companion.”
He snapped his fingers and the frozen blaze
flew like light from the earth, dispersed among
the stars. Around him, all the living things
began to move. Baffled Fayoon, grieving,
stretched out his arms in supplication; tears
drenched his cheeks. In their pile, the humans
awoke and perceived some nightmarish change.
The valley was dark and they beheld stumps
where once stands of slender trees had stood, strange
gaps in the canopy, and blazing stars.
They untangled themselves and stood apart.
Drahmen, at a distance, spoke to Fayoon:
“I see I must teach your breed to respect
me and what I’ve made. I will refashion
you, make you instructive.” Then Fayoon felt
his chest swell, his beard turn white and long, his
stature grow—knew that he was becoming
Drahmen’s image. Meanwhile, all his muscles
stiffened; his skin hardened and, becoming
rigid, began to chafe. His drooping eyes
clouded, brain slowed, tongue dried up; the hardness
of his skin spread inward as his cells filled
with mineral deposits. His innards
calcified. His mind’s light was extinguished.
He’d become an idol, Drahmen’s likeness.
“When the others behold my somber form,”
the god said, “they will grow obedient,
distinguish siblings from mates, and conform
to law, loving me just as I warrant.”
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->1.4 LEFNI]]
(set: $persepective to "Ajita", $chapter to 2)|Callisto>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Callisto.png">](click-prepend: ?Callisto)[Titian, Diana and Callisto, 1559 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callisto_(mythology)#/media/File:Tizian_015.jpg
]
1.4 Lefni
Drahmen prefers to make himself concrete,
for he delights in finite, complex things.
Not so his wife, who would much rather haunt
realms of number, line, and pattern, regions
from which we are debarred, except in thought.
Harmony’s her pleasure. She cherishes
essential principles, few in number,
that regulate the whole. She embodies
equilibrium and occult structure
and shuns all random or haphazard things—
like human beings. She chose to ignore
Drahmen’s valley—a fleeting, disordered
scheme, she assumed—until she chanced to hear
singing. The girl whom Drahmen had fathered
(though Lefni had missed this misdemeanor)
loved to trill, to run up and down her scales,
to coin rhythmic phrases and set her words
to song. At first Lefni heard these jingles
with contempt; they were childish and artless.
Then she recalled that in the vast reaches
of the cold galaxies, there were two minds—
only two—that ever made harmonies
of any kind. Although the child’s tunes
were trivial, intricate melodies
could surface from the tangled connections
of her brain. Lefni worked at that level.
She fused pathways between distant neurons,
loaded patterns into each empty cell,
gave the girl synthetic recollections
of sublime sound, and built an intense will
to perfection. Thus among the soft ferns
and flowers or on a slick stone that split
the weedy river into short-lived streams,
Dithami would stare stock-still and repeat
her drills, memorize her compositions,
check her purity of pitch. She owed debts
to the cicadas (rhythmic experts) and
collected ideas from the warbling birds.
She taught herself to render into sound
the water’s ripples and borrowed patterns
from undulating submerged willow leaves.
At their best, her songs almost reproduced
those elusive themes and unheard timbres
that Lefni had placed deepest in her mind.
But most of the time the girl made mistakes.
A false note would spoil a lengthy phrase.
Her voice would crack or her concentration
break as she imagined polyphonies.
She would scold herself and begin again,
while in the background her tutor would praise
her progress, silently. Lefni admired
her beauty, too, for the girl looked as if
she had been modeled in soft pellucid
stone and left to weather in the wash of
gentle seas. And yet—something odd disturbed
the goddess. How could these small animals,
ingeniously contrived though they might be,
have so quickly learned the many concepts,
hard logic, and rich vocabulary
that Dithami had mastered? Long ages
should have elapsed before the new species
grew so able. Lefni assessed the odds
that the girl’s brain had thought up sentences
on its own. Remote. Her skill was some god’s
bequest. Lefni began to scrutinize
her nerves for evidence of tampering.
Every fiber of the girl had been shaped
and directed by Drahmen’s seed. Taking
human form, Lefni combed the place and found
the others bent double, humbly pressing
their noses to earth, mumbling devotions,
and burning a peacock feather before
an idol of her errant mate. A glance
told her that he had either seduced or
fathered them all—or both. Her innocence
died at that moment. Embittered, raging,
Lefni wondered, “Why did I ever let
that scoundrel handle me? Imagining
that I could introduce pattern to what
he had made—his chaotic, expanding,
confused, material universe, I
deigned to quit my own immaculate state,
changed to an object of his fantasy,
something to be groped and penetrated –
I shudder now, recalling the beauty
I devised to satisfy that villain’s
lechery. It was not enough, I see.
Yet I was content with our creations,
what our union give birth to: harmony,
design, and pattern conjoined to substance.
I even agreed to his pet project—
the design of self-directed creatures—
just to find out if they would counteract
Vatna’s law, evolve to self-awareness,
grow more intricate, and grasp my abstract
elegance. Instead, it seems they became
bait for my husband. That wanton dunce cared
nothing for my radiant, classic form,
preferring bodies that leak foul fluid—
regularly. There is pleasure for him
in the warm flesh of a mortal harlot,
already on her way to decay and death.
Very well, I’ll see that they die and rot
much quicker than he bargained for. My wrath
says: Extermination. Any complaint
from him, and I will force the wretch to stand
before all the gods in council, let him
justify adultery. A dead and
barren world is better than the harem
this place has turned to. Time has come to end
all this.” She knew that the sparkling river
neither faded away and left a trail
of drying mud and thirsty dust clouds, nor
did it swell, overflow its banks, and fill
the valley with inky depths of water,
but kept instead an equilibrium.
The local rain and melted mountain snows
were barely enough to sustain the stream
that emptied in the ocean. This balance
could be altered. Lefni increased the sum
of water trickling in, slowed the outflow
through desolate, brackish, weed-choked marshes.
Then Dithami, practicing her scales, saw
the river rise round her rock, its surges
lap and splash over the rim. She withdrew
her toes as cold rivulets slipped across
the dusty stone. In time she could only
stand on a narrow ledge amid immense
raging, foamy-gray rapids, and the spray
soaked her. As the water reached her ankles,
hamsters and startled lizards, flooded out
of holes, retreated up the valley’s
shrinking sides. Fish and slimy eels ventured
over grass and flitted among the trees.
Water spilled over higher banks and filled
the valley’s levels in turn, soon forming
lakes that grew and merged. A tiny monkey
with a dozen wide-eyed babies hanging
from her fat belly made her cautious way
across a great leaf, alarmed and seeking
a safe upward path. The humans at first
just laughed, played at out-racing or over-
jumping the new rivulets, kicked and slid.
Then, as the waters rose, growing sober,
they climbed trees to the height of a man, perched,
and watched together in silent horror
as the dry land disappeared. Meanwhile,
Dithami, trapped and submerged in water
to her waist, fighting its violent pull,
waded toward the most massive boulder,
but slipped backward, was swept downstream until
she felt her elbow bang against a rock.
Here the river pinned her down, held her still,
and pounded her. It threatened to break
her bones before she drowned or lost her will
to breathe. Anguish, fear, pain, and self-pity
almost overcame her, but then she poured
it out in song, thought a pure melody
of lamentation that the goddess heard.
Lefni appeared in a woman’s body,
said: “I hear your plea to heartless nature.
You wish to live, and claim that you deserve
to thrive, because this world is better for
your harmonies. Well, I may choose to save
you yet. But first let’s test your caliber.
Perfect music is a good ornament;
it makes our dreary cosmos seem better.
But often your song’s more an irritant,
so flawed and discordant that I’d prefer
not to have you as accompaniment.
So let us hear a perfect rendition
of that little tune in ‘g’ that you made
last week. If you sing a flawless version,
then I will spare you. The others will feed
the fish.” Dithami, floating now, breathed in,
began to sing, her voice hushed in wonder
at the perfect, nude, awful figure that
shimmered just above her. Gradually, her
volume and power grew and she forgot
to worry about hitting her pitch or
anticipating the next phrase. Instead,
she imbued the song with heartfelt passion.
It touched Lefni, who again understood
Dithami’s sense. “I hear your petition,”
the goddess said. “You would rather be drowned
with the others than be rescued to live
alone. Your music conveys steadfast love
for your wretched kind. You would have me save
them all.” These words made Dithami believe
that her mother and brother might survive.
But what note came next? She had lost her way.
Laughing, Lefni said: “Child, you have bungled
after all. Rise, river – sweep all away!”
Dithami sobbed and begged. Her music ceased.
A high wave bore down and broke heavily
over her. As she twisted, choking, blind,
heaving water, she heard new anthems swell
within. Her melody line now combined
with others, bass and treble in choral
harmony. Voiceless, she begot a blend
of tones: woodwinds, strings, low drums, and human
singing combined in chords that filled her mind’s
cathedral. Lefni watched her all but drown,
dragged down the river bed on ragged rocks,
and followed the girl’s continuous hymn
with reluctant approval. Powerless
to resist its grace, Lefni relented.
She cast a buoyant log adrift. Just as
waves reached the other folk and splintered
the flimsy limb on which they had sat, this
stately vessel bobbed close by. They caught hold
of it and rode downstream. The goddess reached
below the river’s wild surface, found
Dithami, and pulled her up. The girl’s head
emerged; she opened her eyes, smiled, and breathed.
Lefni was besotted by the sight of
this triumphant mortal, in love with song
and with life. The goddess had a thought of
entwining her limbs with the girl’s, holding
her own face to that bosom. But—“Enough,”
she thought. “It was an instructive blunder
when I dallied with a god. I’m finished
with sensual love for good, no matter
how sweet this tender thing seems.” She vanished,
pulling Dithami with her into air.
They were gone. In unison they had quit
this space, to dwell forever in the spheres
where Lefni rules. But the girl still is heard
in the sound of some rare g-minor chords
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section of the poem->1.5 VITHREN]]
|Moses2>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Tintoretto_1593.png">](click-prepend: ?Moses2)[Tintoretto, The Jews in the Desert, 1593 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> via commons.wikimedia.org/
]
(set: $persepective to "Ajita", $chapter to 2)1.5 Vithren
Just two survivors – mud-caked and haggard,
half-dead – washed up on the salty river
margin where the water, wide and placid,
lapped and drifted through fens, hardly lower
than the sodden soil that contained it,
a gray-green band, meandering amid
cattails and marsh grasses beneath a low
and hazy sky. Seagulls circled and cried.
Wind, fetid from dead fish, whistled and blew
unhindered across the marsh. A white bird
landed his big webbed feet on the beached log,
turned his head and scolded the human pair
who sprawled beside it. Sore, parched, and moaning,
Kartiken awoke: the stalwart hunter
who’d learned from Vithni the art of killing.
He blinked, shuddered, and tried to comprehend
the flat indistinct landscape and gray vault
that hovered overhead and touched the land
on all sides—unlike the small scraps of cloud
he’d seen in the valley. He turned and found
his mother, limp and naked, unconscious.
He rubbed her until she woke, and they sat
side by side, slack-jawed, sprawled, with vacant eyes
and no lucid thoughts for what they had lost,
like two hungry, anxious, orphaned hatchlings.
Vithren observed them from above. Of all
the major gods, only he lacked a realm,
some disposition of nature to rule.
Less than the sprite of a solar system,
the pettiest being, this immortal
lacked a mode or sphere where he was master.
Yet he was Vithni’s twin, Drahmen’s brother,
coeternal with space. An intruder
at the divine councils, he would just jeer
at their affectations, satirize their
solemn rites. Despised by his family, he
had learned to express reverence for what
they’d made, but with a subtle irony
that only infuriated them more. They cast
him out to roam aimless across the sky.
A billion-year habit of teasing wit
and irony was hard to shake off, but
Vithren now found himself sincerely sad.
What chance had two delicate and coddled
creatures to survive in dreary swampland?
Worse, how could an injured old mother and
her child sustain the species? Vithren
first wondered why he cared. He decided
that most of all he’d miss the commotion
that new choices and appetites had caused.
Right then, Drahmen and Lefni were hurling
insults and galaxies at each other,
while Vithni rejoiced. A human being
was their topic, that trivial creature
whose will, a weak fleeting force, arising
from a pound or two of smelly organs,
seemed to matter to the gods. Its very
unpredictability pleased Vithren’s
infinite mind, which found it loved only
freedom in all that changeless nature makes.
A stone in hand, Kartiken went to look
for food, gingerly crossing boggy flats,
eyes darting in search of prey that his rock
could slaughter. He froze, amazed to see prints
in the mud: clear, even, easy to track,
each a neat puddle just the shape and size
of his own foot. Through shallow pools he jogged,
on sandbars, then crossing fields of sawgrass
where he found the path already trampled.
He was anxious to see the human whose
habitat this bleak place must be. The trail
crossed dunes and descended to a yellow
sand strip, beyond which some inscrutable,
endless body heaved and roared, rose, foamed, threw
itself on land, withdrew, allowed a lull,
and heaved again. The region closest by
was liquid – that he saw. But (quite unused
to horizons or the scale of the sea)
he mistook it for tops of clouds. He reeled;
dizzy, searching for some fixed point, his eye
landed on a small object, a black thing
that bobbed on the distant swells. He supposed
he saw a head in silhouette, watching
him and waiting. The footprints he’d followed
pointed that way. Into the retreating
surf he stepped bravely until a wave smashed
his legs and sent him scrambling back to land.
Still the figure on the boat sat and watched.
Kartiken regained his courage, returned
to the sea, and when the next upsurge crashed
ashore he dove into it, flailed, was shocked
by its cold power, but swam blindly on.
He came up for air and there was the boat
beneath a lone furled mast. A fisherman,
grizzled, short, leather-rough, waved him aboard.
But Kartiken was barely strong enough
to cling to the gunnels. The ancient man
looked down and spoke. “I have come here to save
your type, for I want the plot to go on.
I have learned I enjoy stories, spun of
desire, resistance, hope, and accident.
But in this monotonous place, the plot
must stop at last. So take my skiff and find
your mother, revive her spirits, and set
her in the crib of your hull. Row and
sail upstream for six days until you float
smoothly above your drowned valley, where schools
of silver fish now hatch and feed and flit
through sunken forest, and the octopus
lurk in burrows where once shy foxes dwelled.
Do not stop in that place. For three more days
paddle hard against the current. Survive
on fresh raw fish, nuts, and the starchy fruits
of artocarpus altilis, that thrive
on the river’s edge. Then Anjit will rise,
a stark, white-topped cone, above the prairie.
Stop when, just past a ford, a small plateau
or bluff appears. Make sure you also see
a grove and spring. That place was made for you,
was your sister’s sepulchre, and will be
one day a village. I mean a cluster
of man-made dwellings – just boxes really:
each a roof, four walls, a burnished mud floor.
No gaps among these homes, for the entry
is in the roof; the chimney is the door.
There’s no need for a perimeter wall:
all the houses form a single unit,
safe from serpent, lion, wolf pack, jackal,
safe from any desperate man who, cast
out of the commons, sentenced to exile,
may turn savage and raise his savage kin
to survive by pillage. But no fighters
will dwell among your people. They will learn
to turn and plant the soil, to be farmers,
potters, masters of the forge, hearth, and kiln.”
The boatman was gone, and without his weight
the skiff tilted sharply until the boy
scrambled on. It was dusk before he’d learned
to manage oars. Beneath a fiery sky
he rowed up the coast, and back down, and found
at last the river’s mouth. Its marshy banks
were lost in night and fog. Without the sun,
it was tricky to steer an upstream course,
let alone find his mother, so he ran
the boat aground and slept beneath the stars.
The immense river of the Milky Way –
never beheld before by human eyes –
seemed to flow across the luminous sky,
pour down one steep side, and become the source
of the real channel beside which he lay.
He found his mother, her face in the mud.
He thought she was dead, but in fact she dreamed,
dreamed of the original, painless world,
and how in changeless silence she’d once lived.
She saw herself bathing, clean and naked.
Now her young mate had come up behind her,
had clasped her, caressed her, and kissed her neck.
She relived the first man’s strong hands, his hair,
smooth lean limbs, fingers that massaged her back.
She turned, smiled, and embraced him; he bore her
to a mossy bank, where he lay her down
just as he used to. Time slowed, light dimmed, sounds
faded; she returned to oblivion.
She never awoke, but lay motionless,
fed and gently bathed by her fretful son.
On this final journey, her stomach swelled,
grew enormous, and she bore triplet girls,
Vithren’s daughters, but diverse as one god
could make them, all especially prepared
to thrive on fresh water and mashed breadfruit.
Kartiken let his mother’s stiff corpse slide
into the waters that filled their valley.
He soothed his newborn girls with Vithren’s gift,
verses that reproduced his memory.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->2.1 DRAHMEN]]
|Apollo>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Apollo-e1478355839204.png">](click-prepend: ?Apollo)[Hendrick Goltzius, Apollo, 1588, Art Gallery of New South Wales
]
(set: $persepective to "Ajita", $chapter to 2)(set: $persepective to "Ajita", $chapter to 2)2.1 Drahmen
Drahmen’s highest priest knew himself to be
different, set apart from other men
by pedigree, insight, authority.
One day, sitting on his scarlet divan,
he called for a youthful wife. “Triesti,”
he said, to the small, almond-eyed woman
who grasped the gilt front legs of his couch,
“I crave solitary meditation—
at least a year without chatter in which
to study the great bequest from Vithren.
In those primeval verses I discern
hidden order, a systematic guide
to the laws and limits of creation.
But Lord Drahmen’s image must be served
while I am gone; the rites of oblation
shall be completed before his statue,
which cost us so much bitter toil to hoist
from its watery valley grave. Although
you’re my barren one, you are as devout
as you are lovely, my dear, and I know
that Drahmen will accept his daily gift
if offered by your hand.” Triesti bowed
in silent assent, afraid to reject
the charge of the most honored priest, frightened
to attempt this subtle task, but intrigued
all the same. Out of the chamber she ran,
avoiding the eyes of the other wives,
who hastily shushed their puzzled children
and began to murmur among themselves
about this odd and diffident woman
with her porcelain skin, her downcast eyes,
her habit of sober study. One said,
“That girl’s too prim, it seems, ever to please
her own husband, so what will Drahmen find
about her to like? And who will appease
the god-king if his sacrificial rite
is botched while our man is still far away,
playing saint or hermit?” But the high priest
ignored the gossip and would only say
that he would come back when he had achieved
some deeper comprehension. Every day
after he had left, Triesti would dress
in a silken robe, would gather honey,
limes, spices, and the breathing sacrifice,
would ascend to the roof and make her way
to the conical house, Anjit’s echo,
that rose above the monolithic town.
When it was near, she would go back below,
enter the holy precincts, walk alone
through dim, dusty, deserted rooms, in awe
of this ancient barren place, whose silence
was broken only by her wary tread
and the whimpering of the sacrifice.
A narrow earthen passage sloped downward
from chambers daily touched by the brilliance
of the sun, to dim and musty levels
where her ancestors had dwelled and died.
Holding her breath, reciting devotions,
she’d count the paces to the temple gate.
There she would stop still, and in such darkness
that she saw only perfect black whether
she had closed her eyes or kept them open,
she would whisper pleas for Drahmen’s favor.
A pause, and then she’d shuffle further in,
turn a dark corner toward the altar,
shocked each time by the uncanny basalt
likeness that stood in a thin beam of sun.
Eyes smarting, hands shaking, she would adjust
her robe, curtsy quickly, and then begin
the sequence of prayers that she had devised.
As she lit a candle, sprinkled the spice
on its flame, and squeezed the lime, she’d intone:
“Lord Drahmen, I bring the town’s sacrifice.
Please show a god’s excess of compassion.
What I bring is poor, faulty—just like us—
compared to you, the magnificent source
of everything worthy, the sole reason
we exist and are not scattered atoms.
We only wish our abject submission,
our profound reverence might somehow please.
I pray that you’ll choose to be the master
of humble nonentities, rather than
achieve perfection, but unknown. We are
pitiful, but at least we can discern
your greatness; for that, o let us endure.”
One day, when the long dry summer had turned
to fall, and Triesti was more at ease
in the temple chambers, she was surprised
to find herself grow hot. The sacrifice
had just begun, the honey was not yet
fed to the wary pigmy goat, its throat
was yet to be cut, and she had only
recited five short verses. Yet the heat
intensified in the sanctuary,
becoming too much to bear. Soaked with sweat,
forehead clammy, eyes stinging from the salt,
Triesti opened her long gown to let
some air filter in. Right away she felt
refreshingly cool. To be half naked
seemed improper, but shyly she resumed
the metrical hymn of praise. Could it be
that the statue had heard her? Had its face
bent slightly down to watch the votary
who served so piously? She dropped her glance
toward the floor, but felt a potent eye
upon her. “Drahmen, our master,” she sang
in a quavering voice, “be merciful;
do not reject the offerings I bring.”
It was suddenly cold in the temple,
but Triesti felt warmth emanating
from the statue, soothing, drawing her near.
She took a step forward, still intoning
verses, blushing, eyes downcast, demure,
but inwardly curious and tingling
with longing to feel the great stone figure
on her skin, to press it against her face.
Her lowered eye caught sight of a dark foot.
She froze; the source of warmth was very close.
Another finely modeled foot now stood
right beside the first one. She shut her eyes
and concentrated. In the gaps between
her own small agitated gasps, she thought
she detected the serene and even
rhythm of another’s breathing—and sensed
it in waves on her face, warming her skin,
her neck, her naked chest. She longed to feel
a touch, a hand; but the other body
stayed just as still as she. Time slowed until
finally she reached out—gently, blindly—
found hot skin, fine hair, ribs, and hard muscle.
Drahmen was thinking, “Maybe this is wrong.
Lefni will find out and I’ll pay the price.
Yet who could resist that seductive song—
meant to flatter, yes, but wise and flawless—
which shows that the singer is discerning
and gifted, not merely young and pretty?
Nor did I touch her. They may all allege
whatever they like, but she summoned me.
Frail and needy, she knelt by my image,
begged me to suffuse it, drew my pity.
And then didn’t the girl reach out to touch?
I stood inert and still while she caressed
my chest. I could only stand there and watch
as she lowered her shoulders—and off slipped
that silk robe, inviting me to approach.
I’d say her ardent tongue is in my mouth,
not mine in hers. Thanks to what she has done,
I am certain that I will earn the wrath
of my goddess wife, the condemnation
of my peers—and for the girl, of course, death.
I might as well make this indulgence last,
build our shared sensation for a day
or two, nurture it to a divine height,
and give this mortal girl something worthy—
a bliss to recall and redeem her fate.”
Two nights and a day like a night had passed
when Drahmen left. The goat was dead and singed.
Triesti lay, wilted, aching, and spent.
She knew she had lost the right to repeat
the sacrifice, would never violate
Drahmen’s shrine by coming back. Sad to leave,
she dallied—first prepared a simple meal
to burn for the god, chanted one last brief
hymn of tribute, tidied up, and then, full
of sorrow, shut the door behind. To save
appearances, each morning she would lead
a goat to the buried temple precincts,
kill it in some quiet place and leave it
for the efficient rats. Meanwhile, cold winds
and steady rain afflicted the high priest.
Wrapped in burlap around his skinny waist,
otherwise quite naked, with streaks of mud
across his cheeks and chest—ashen and gaunt,
wild-eyed, trailing a long and sodden beard,
immobile, pallid, and preoccupied—
he sat hunched on the freezing earth beneath
a canopy of conifer and thought:
“There is deep meaning in our holy myth,
but also quite a lot of senseless sound:
articles, particles that waste the breath.
These reference-less words are Vatna’s chaff;
so are ambiguities and vagueness.
If I could remove all the needless stuff,
I would lay bare a set of perfect signs,
each referring to a component of
creation. Real things and their relations:
that is all that language should signify.”
His mind wandered away as icy flakes
mingled with the driving rain. Suddenly
he was certain that his hard hermit days
were nothing but an absurd waste. With each
performance of the verses, errata
had crept in, extra noise that hid the much
corrupted text. Once copied, an idea
has no chance of escaping Vatna’s touch.
Thanks to his supreme discipline, the priest
had managed to protect his mind from all
the tumult of the forest, had focused
his entire self on each rehearsal
of verses, stoking thus an inward heat.
Now the outer coldness had flooded in
overpowering his hard-won mental seal.
He couldn’t recollect a single line.
Moaning nonsense from the bite of the gale,
he staggered onto his feet and began
the long, freezing, barefoot, pounding, bloody,
slow-motion run back home. His only warmth
came from pictures of the gentle lady
who was his youngest, shyest wife. With teeth
chattering and shreds of burlap hardly
hanging round his hips, he lurched and tottered
into town, fell face down, and told the throng
that gathered by him: “Triesti.” Amazed,
they went to find her, no one recalling
what had happened to that cheerless misfit.
She wouldn’t emerge from a dim chamber,
where she’d hidden, unnoticed, for a month.
They lowered the high priest in his stupor,
praying that she would nurse him back to health.
A quiet week passed when they heard a roar.
“Adulteress!” his voice raged from below.
“You and I agreed that your proper role
was chaste service to the gods. I left you
undefiled, with duties to fulfill,
but returned to find my virgin wife due
to bear a child. Her belly, kinsmen!
Who can deny she’s an immodest whore?
The penalty is clear-cut. She must drown,
and take her poor unborn bastard with her.”
Willing soldiers bound the stricken woman,
marched her quickly to the river, mocking
the way her hips and swollen stomach lurched.
She waddled along, trembling and thinking,
“Drahmen, have compassion! I do not want
to live; but to die despised, by drowning,
must be worse than I deserve.” Lefni heard
and asked her kingly spouse, “Can you explain
why this ugly little urchin invoked
your name? Is there any blameless reason
for her plight? She addressed you as a friend.”
“All I know,” said Drahmen, “is that I must
trust my priest. Perhaps she thinks I am kind,
but I love justice most.” With that the god
fled the council and meandered around
the furthest galaxies, acting immersed
in his daily chore: checking the heavens’
solidity. Triesti was now strapped
in a leather harness. They raised her legs,
lowered her head, and bore her face-down out
across the ford. A detail of soldiers
marched behind, conducting the somber priest
on a litter. He ordered them to halt
halfway across the river, where he pressed
his hand on the nape of his wife and said,
“Behold the swallowing waves, immodest
woman. You observe the water that soon
you’ll try to breathe. Anarchy’s always near,
waiting to swallow. Brutish confusion
would engulf us all, but for the austere
law that gives us each our distinct function.
Wives are meant for their own lords and children.”
Triesti hung stiffly, horizontal
above the river, moving slowly down
under an unforgiving hand, until
her nostrils, her cheeks, her terror-stricken
round eyes were all immersed. She held her breath
as long as she could, prayed piteously
to Drahmen for aid. The god saw her writhe,
recognized her panic and agony.
He had always hated corrupting death,
this lord of concentrated energy.
For him it would be a sour defeat
if his lover, her brain and her body,
should soak, bloat, rot—slowly disintegrate –
while he observed mutely and passively.
Triesti felt the change like a thunder bolt.
One moment she was an ungainly, rotund,
earthbound human, the next a sleek, streamlined
water creature, long, lithe, glossy, and fast.
She gracefully slipped from the startled hand
of the old priest and shot up, away, flying
like an arrow with each flick of her tail.
A vigorous kick, and she went soaring
above the water where she could inhale
sweet, welcome air, and there she had fleeting
glimpses of her own shape reflected in
the stream. She couldn’t turn her face to face
herself, but knew that a graceful dolphin
was what she’d become, quicksilver, with fins
for hands, a bottle nose and toothy grin.
Broad as it was, the river hampered her;
she scraped her flukes and beak on pebbly shoals
and gagged on the warm, weedy freshwater.
Fear made her race toward the open seas,
while a new thought began to trouble her.
Might she encounter others of her kind?
Would they shun her as a foreign spirit,
leave her wholly alone and ignorant,
to die of hunger in the sea? She found
herself in brackish choppy waves as land
dwindled behind her, and an odd feeling
grew that she was being watched. Out wriggled
a tiny slippery thing, revolving
lazily behind. She turned and beheld
a small smooth striped form, distressed and sinking.
Her heart fluttered just like her human heart
in panic and hopeless maternal love.
Then a swift something seemed to snatch her child,
bearing it away in a convulsion of
murky, turbulent water. She supposed
that a cunning shark had seized her newborn
as it searched vainly for her. She gave chase,
broke the waves, and saw another dolphin
gently assisting her baby’s first gasps.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->2.2 VITHNI]]
2.2 Vithni
In those days the city’s smooth terraces
sprouted towers, striving to be highest,
outstripping the temple, housing owners
of the most fertile land. This class was first
in wealth, second in rank below the priests.
Devout, barely literate, combative,
upright upholders of the public law,
the ten noble clans had gold to preserve
in their crypts or loftiest keeps, and knew
it was smart to display their impressive
prosperity. Every summer, their wives
would escape from the sticky heat of town
and rest in shady riverside estates,
while the men stayed back alone to govern
their far-flung, bustling, fertile holdings.
One by one, they’d privately experience
a peculiar midnight visit. They’d wake
to see in their window frame the semblance
of a woman. Looking closer, they’d make
out long thick hair, a slim waist, pendent breasts.
The silent stranger would enter their beds.
Perhaps they’d notice, as they seemed to dream
of ardent intercourse, the heavy gems
of that very anklet or diadem
that they’d once bought to ornament their spouse.
Loathe to interrupt the long, slow mirage,
they’d say nothing, spend their virility,
and fall asleep just as dawn lit the ledge
whence she’d come. In daylight, their fantasy
would replay for them, and then the knowledge
that they had been robbed. But what could they tell
their wives, sons, or the temple magistrates?
They’d invent tales of greedy, criminal,
treasonous slaves, keeping the shameful facts
to themselves. Since no one spoke of the real
intruder, no one pursued her either.
Thus she prospered, until one chilly night
she picked out the very highest tower
to scamper up and enter. There she found
Vladaren asleep: a great landowner.
She woke the man with a jingle of jewels
and slipped into his bed. The first surprise
was when he outlasted the long darkness
and was still enjoying her as sunrise
lit her. She tried to flee. He barred the doors
and high window. “What will you tell your wife?”
she asked. “Actually, I like you better.
I’ll bribe a servant to finish her off,
and play with you until I start to tire
of your charms as well. Then, my pretty thief,
you’ll be in peril, so be sure to please.”
As the nights passed in Vladaren’s chamber,
the burglar prayed to her best-liked goddess.
“Vithni,” she implored, “you benefactor
of unruly women, won’t you release
me from this evil place?” Later that night
she and Vladaren were startled to see
a second naked form silhouetted
in his window, wearing finer jewelry
than an artisan’s hand had ever made.
“Why don’t you free your captive and take me?”
She had a silky voice and a body
made to enflame Vladaren’s lechery.
“I’ll have you both,” he replied, all ready
to enjoy his great serendipity.
“No, only one. Release her, or I’ll jump
back out.” He, agog and salivating,
tossed the thief a tunic and let her slip
downstairs and into the night—still wearing
the jewels of his deceased wife. Seen close-up,
the new caller had become a picture
of Vladaren’s daydreams: a rhythmically
swaying, lustrous, voluptuous figure—
beauty on the edge of obscenity.
“Get out of bed,” she whispered, “let me stare
at your nude frame.” He eagerly complied.
A hand, evidently one of many,
slithered out from Vithni’s torso and snatched
his throat. The immortal’s low and husky
whisper transformed to a hiss as she said,
“Look what your trap has caught: it’s a goddess!
Do you still care to ravish me?” He shook
his head. “Or should I be the one to force
my will on you? Another ‘no’? But hark!
What’s that I hear? The baying of my hounds.
You had better run; they have caught your scent
and can easily leap through that casement.
I will be kind; I’ll let you run.” He streaked
down ten flights, outside, across the terraced
city, and into fragrant farmland.
As long as men live, the tireless pack
is always behind him, letting him breathe
and heave for a moment, then streaming back,
driving him on to an infinite death.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->2.3 VATNA]]
2.3 Vatna
Rumors dispersed among the city’s youth.
A sacrilegious seer or prophet lived
in some out-of-the-way, rural place with
a happy band, folk emancipated
from all rules and distinctions. Simple faith
and mutual love were all they needed.
Their leader came, or so the rumor said,
from the wild ocean itself, and her creed
was oceanic flux. For those who chafed
at the law and the priesthood’s heavy hand,
there was profound attraction in the tales
that trickled in from that savage country.
One who collected every piece of news
was Aldaren, a callow, lonely boy,
betrothed to a widowed relative whose
bloodline was just as impeccable as
her virtue. Not only was his marriage
ordained; at six he’d also taken vows
to Drahmen to become a priest. This pledge
now thwarted all his hopes and ambitions.
At last one midnight when he was supposed
to be on a vigil, he slipped away,
eluded the city watchmen, hastened
through loamy vineyards, humming fields of hay,
and orchards, until by dawn he had reached
the wilder slopes of Anjit. He worked
his way around, entering cool forests
of aromatic frilly pine watered
by fast mountain streams. In partial clearings,
under misty skies, fields of emerald
lady ferns and bushy saplings sprouted.
Where ancient trees formed a solider roof,
the floor was softly, deeply carpeted
in needles. Aldaren had brought enough
dried food to last three days. But he’d consumed
it already and began to feel hungry.
Then at dusk he heard a syncopated
beat beneath the now familiar, steady
roar of waterfalls and wind. Drums, he thought.
He found the right bearing and eagerly
moved toward the source. Darkness made hiking
harder, but soon the intermittent sight
of crimson fires quickened him. Running
to the swelling beat of drums, he stumbled
from trunk to trunk, winded, wide-eyed, bleeding.
He froze when through a screen of sharp-etched pines
he beheld forms moving in a circle,
backlit by a raging bonfire, their arms
making supple, serpentine, musical
shapes in time to the insidious drums.
He crept near. Seeing that the dancers’ eyes
were shut, he slipped into line, felt the beat
seize him, and began a narcotic dance
that seemed to last forever or divert
time’s straight course. Within the ring, celebrants
sat in groups, drank from iron pots, and talked.
Aldaren pulled his reluctant body
out of the line and dizzily toppled
into the ambit of a large party.
For a time he only listened and watched
the half-naked drinkers: lean and glowing,
lethargic and content. One slender girl
handed him a clay bowl full of foaming
white liquid. As he sipped the sweet herbal
brew, he peeked over the rim, observing
the first naked breasts and navel of his
adolescence. “Are you a newcomer?”
asked the girl. He nodded, half in a daze
and starting to sense the subtle power
of the drink. He felt the big earnest eyes
penetrate his own. “Have you come to hear
our prophet speak?” asked the girl. “That is why
I came at first, but she won’t expound her
views or perform any ceremony.
Few of us have ever even seen her.”
“Whose servant is she?” Aldaren managed
to ask the girl, who now seemed to circle,
feet rising lazily over her head.
A voice replied, “She’s Vatna’s oracle.”
“But Vatna loves corruption, depleted
energy, and death,” answered Aldaren.
“No, those are lies that everyone is taught
by toadying devotees of Drahmen.
Our great Lord Vatna is ever defamed.
This god thrived before the others were born.
It’s true: by Vatna’s intractable rule,
heat must flow into cold things, density
must diminish, creation’s potential
be slowly spent, and one day energy
and mass must form a uniform, simple
broth, incapable of action. Then time
will stop. But whenever something happens,
Vatna retains it. Drahmen’s medium
is corporeal nature; as it winds
down, all the events and changes become
part of Vatna’s mind. Therefore Drahmen hates
our master god, which waxes manifold
and elaborate as motion and space
peter out. No loss for us; we’re contained
in Vatna’s mind, disembodied, deathless,
emancipated from Drahmen’s old world
of suffering, desire, and the hopeless
struggle to ward off decay.” She revolved
once more, gyrating at an easy pace
around her enticing belly, faded,
and was gone. Thwarted and filled with yearning,
Aldaren want off in search of his friend,
or some other girl who might be willing
to give him her attention. As he passed
through the throng, he noticed many coupling
bodies, while others slumbered alone or
lay in heaps. There were fewer dancers now;
the beat was soporific; the bonfire
had reduced to ashes. Aldaren knew
that he had to lie down. A strange languor
had come over him. He collapsed and slept,
and while he lay sprawled flat, shadowy forms
moved systematically among the host.
Possibly they were Vatna’s devotees –
some of the dancers themselves – who wandered
sightless as they dreamed. Or maybe they were
temple priests, Drahmen’s pious brotherhood.
Whoever they were, they carried long, bare,
steel knives with which they slit each dancer’s throat.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->2.4 LEFNI]]
2.4 Lefni
This is how a goddess was wooed and won.
There was a priest who devoted himself
to the holy texts and nature’s pattern.
At first he practiced with tangible stuff,
timing dropped objects’ acceleration,
xxxburning chemicals so that they could fuel
an active system of pipes and whirling
colored wheels. Years slipped by. The essential
principles whispered hints of their meaning.
He saw number as the fundamental
material of which all else is made,
the positively real. He said a prayer
to number’s goddess, extolling splendid
Lefni, who first gave pattern to nature.
xxx“Without your grace,” he devoutly said,
“Even the operations and patterns
of mathematics would not fit so snugly,
so dependably together. For it is
a miracle that when we multiply,
manipulate, and analyze our figures,
we can return safely to where
we started, just by applying your rules –
or can achieve the same answer
by many routes. There are infinite paths,
and you have put them all in order.
I behold the work of your restless will
wherever I wander among the numbers.”
At times like this, the priest would feel
behind him Lefni’s stately presence,
and would think that she seemed sorrowful.
He would stare intently at his papers,
offering scribbled shapes and formulas
as gifts for his guest. “Any sentence,”
he wrote once, “can either be true or false.
Which ones are true is of no importance.
For instance, it matters little whether
this poor priest is ecstatic, fortunate,
disconsolate, or dead. Put together
all the possible facts, with a ‘not’
before those that fail to concur
with reality. The whole is perfectly
harmonious, pristine, and true;
it is Queen Lefni’s resplendent body.
How things are does not matter to you,
untarnished goddess. You see reality
as a whole: potential states just as
real as actual ones. Not what suffering,
waste, and ugliness just so happens
to be—but the fact that there is something–
this marvel is what you experience
and make possible.” At times like these,
the priest knew that it wasn’t he who thought
(or not he alone), but that the goddess
was somehow speaking through his mind.
She also was the source of a guess
that came to him late one evening.
Some had begun to doubt whether
the gods were really persons: living
characters with memory and desire –
not names for abstractions. This growing
doubt must afflict Lefni, too, he thought.
Her perfection was fully as clear
as his frailty was, but whether she lived
was open to question, even for her.
To be known was what she needed,
to have someone sense that she existed.
He was tempted to turn around
and comfort her, but first he thought
of Dithami’s demise, and warned
himself to stare fixedly ahead.
At dawn, a servant knocked. The priest
knew that his visitor must be gone.
But in the quiet of the following night, he felt
her return to observe his meditation.
This time, he ventured a riskier thought.
“It’s not warmth,” he said, “that gets work done.
A fire may burn with withering heat,
but it can never power change or motion
if the space around it is just as hot.
Not heat, but the volatile conjunction
of opposites is what gives rise
to action, change, and novelty. The gods
have infinite warmth, infinite supplies
of anything they want.” “And just because
we’re perfect,” said a woman’s voice,
“nothing ever happens in our domain.
We even couple and conjoin, conceiving
offspring from each frictionless union.
So was harmony born, coming
into life when first I joined with Drahmen.
But what kind of child is this, whose
existence is as much in doubt as
mine is?—and her life’s without change
or incident. Oh, to be for once
a suffering, imperfect substance!
I envy every woman who, through impact
with another sweaty body, creates
new life!” The startled priest heard
sorrow and longing in her gentle voice.
The hairs were standing on his withered,
arm; he shivered, and knew that he was
a frightened, infirm, unsightly man.
Still he turned, with dreadful wariness,
looked behind, and saw a woman –
not the naked and brilliant goddess
of legend, but a person not much younger
than himself, tired perhaps, and frail,
and wearing modest, drab attire,
but with a warm and sympathetic smile.
He stood up, reached out, and took her
hand in his. She said, “I’m afraid I
cannot manage much more than this.”
Relieved, he replied, “It’s enough for me.”
They studied one another’s faces,
sat close, soothed themselves with kindly
phrases, and wept because at dawn
they knew that they must part forever.
Lefni asked if he’d like to put on
a little of her knowledge and her power
in return for making her feel human.
He grasped the dreadful consequences,
but how could any scientist refuse?
He stared directly into her eyes,
seeing there endless vistas of primes
and squares, knowing all the digits
of pi at once. He saw that his own hands
were magnificent instruments, built
of whirling, shape-changing particles.
He took all this in as his brain shattered.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->2.5 VITHREN]]
|Arion>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Arion.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Arion)[After Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, Arion on a Dolphin, ca. 1590 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> R. S. Johnson Fine Art
]
2.5 Vithren
Despite a stern ban and harsh
penalties, some stubborn townsfolk
refused to forsake their rash
faith in a thrilling divinity, the dark
new goddess Lamni. A feverish
subterranean sect, they devoted
themselves to her main joy: human love.
The established gods were amused
to see mortals worship an aspect of
their own psychology, and annoyed
only when they realized that they
were seen as the equals of this fiction.
The courts’ response was not as easy.
They condemned Lamni’s servants to drown,
unrepentant, even though many
were married to distinguished priests.
One hot afternoon, other high-born wives
sat beneath canopies, eating ices
brought from Anjit, and sharing rumors
about Lamni’s cult. Some were members
(though none confessed), and all enjoyed
the dangerous topic. One by one, they stopped
chatting as they noticed what emerged
from beneath the river, a long-haired
creature—a massive man, it seemed –
with fine dark skin, sensuous lips,
a slender neck, broad bare shoulders,
erect carriage, and buttocks and hips
that swayed to some libidinous
unheard music. He took dancer’s steps
out of the water, displayed his body
to the women, turned and walked along
the bank to the sound of his jewelry
tinkling. One of the women, gaping,
stood and followed. In a moment, many
were dancing his loose, swaying dance
behind him. As the entranced procession
wound away from town, Drahmen’s priests
were gathered in sober convocation,
discussing the law in a laurel copse.
The eyes of the youngest initiates
began to wander. They saw, walking
among the trees, gathering blossoms,
a wispy woman. They watched her sing
as she arranged woodland flowers
in her basket. Some of these priests,
their minds adrift, strayed toward her,
merely hoping to see who she was.
As they approached, she would disappear,
only to be seen again at a distance,
strolling placidly in the forest.
By now the entire hierarchy
had joined in rapt and silent pursuit:
a diffuse flock of men in ivory,
picking their way through verdant,
dappled groves. As they neared the river,
they met their spellbound wives, still dancing
slow, seductive steps—but behind no leader.
The priests’ vision had vanished too. Emerging
from their reverie, the wives together
with the men formed a single, silent,
milling crowd, abashed and half ashamed.
Some looked shyly at the high priest,
fearing his verdict, but he had transgressed
as much as they. They quietly dispersed.
The gods knew the male stranger was Vithren.
Could the other dancer have been Lamni?
They began to doubt the firm old distinction
between themselves and human fantasy.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->3.1 DRAHMEN]]
3.1 Drahmen
“Every man reasons thus,” said Drahmen:
“`I’ll take generous helpings of firewood
and game for my family, more than
nature can provide if all the clans collect
as much. Only a sadly naïve person
will skimp when others reap whatever
they want. Nor is it wise to volunteer
for guard-duty, to practice the art of war,
or to pray for civic welfare, when other
families will certainly malinger.’
This kind of thinking is breaking down
the bonds that once made my holy city
something rarer than a loose collection
of unruly units. I see a familiar tendency
at work here: Vatna’s love of dissolution.”
Lefni spoke next: “You can see it, too,
in many of the most recent births.
Inbreeding has done what it will do,
caused an increase in monstrosities.
The human race is lapsing back to
uglier stages; its subtle design is lost.
Errors have crept in with each duplication
of the species’ reproductive code.
In my opinion, swift extermination
may well be the kindest antidote.”
Drahmen was dejected. “In all the cosmos,”
he said, “only the living things of earth
draw heat from outside themselves
and use it to fend off universal death.
And of all these remarkable beings,
only humans are able to invent
inanimate structures, durable machines,
that, like their bodies, concentrate
ambient warmth. My town is such a device;
I’d be sorry to see it deserted.”
Vithni observed: “Life may have become
too soft for these coddled creatures.
Competition is vital, for even time
will seem to stop when opposites
cease their strife and everything is calm.
But what lethal risk do humans face?
No predator threatens to make a supper
of tender townsfolk in their solid homes.
Shielded from competition and the pressure
to survive, of course they retrogress.
Therefore, I propose that we invent
a fearsome new carnivore, ferocious
and clever. The few humans who elude
its fangs will found a stalwart race.”
To demonstrate, she became a beast
with long elastic legs, a lizard’s skin,
six-foot jaws, a whip-like tail, razor claws,
leathery wings, and a nose so keen
it could detect human flesh ten miles
away. Her brother, the sage lord Drahmen,
was impressed—and almost ready
to endorse her plan—when an intruder
raised his voice. “Brother, I pray
that before you cast me out, you’ll hear
what I have come, at peril, to say.
Your sentence of exile was just.
I only trespass at this divine council
because I have some useful insight
into history. For the chronicle
of a people’s birth, development,
and progress is what you’ve enjoyed,
what you’d be sorry to see terminate
in ugliness. I have understood
of late that any single town’s inert.
It takes friction, imitation, trade,
diplomacy, conspiracy, conquest,
and rebellion to make of history
a dynamic system.” Vithni replied:
“I like the sound of this animosity
among nations, but please spell out
how we’d get it started.” Her twin received
Drahmen’s curt consent to continue.
He said, “I recommend that we divide
people into groups, each to found a new
civilization. The most disciplined
and patriotic can keep the town
where so far everyone has lived.
We’ll rename it Drahmeniya, a domain
of law, a stern imperium composed
of steadfast military types, overseen
by meticulous theocrats. Meanwhile,
lovely Lefni can animate another
kind of city: pacific, matriarchal,
devoted to the analysis of number,
logic, music, and the metaphysical,
a monastic college, built and supplied
with food by the equal labor
of all the philosophers who reside
within its towering, circular
battlements. For Vithni, I’d suggest
we select the most fractious elements,
set them free to roam on horseback,
driving spirited, half-wild beasts
to slaughter. Let them sometimes attack
the other peoples, for random raids
will give the story renewed life.
For myself, I’d like a small clan
of wandering bards, just enough
balladeers to record each invasion,
siege, seduction, triumph, and grief,
spinning these events into worthy
fictions for all the peoples. Finally
(although her god’s hated name may
not be spoken here), an unruly
daughter of yours worships entropy.
Her band of vagrant debauchees
is defunct, and perhaps she’s dead
as well. But should a new batch of nihilists
gather to revive her cult, so be it.
Let the great Anarch also have a place
in our undertaking.” Distressed to hear
this offspring mentioned in the presence
of his wife, Drahmen made a futile gesture
to silence Vithren. But Lefni’s ears
were vigilant. “With what gross whore
she asked, “did you beget this bastard –
and where’s the child?” They traded blows,
while Vithren and Vithni softly conferred
about how to establish rival nations.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->3.2 VITHNI]]
3.2 Vithni
At Drahmeniya, the priestly palace
was a building of many courtyards.
Curtains of silk or delicate lace
divided the long halls into rooms
within which priests, eunuchs, slaves
whispered rumors and mocked the follies
of the déclassé while, at each hour,
processions of haughty hierophants
wound through in stiff bejeweled attire,
wreathed in incense, murmuring chants,
and trading covert looks with the boys
and women who watched them pass
in shifting order of precedence.
Lorcas hated to bequeath to this place
his first-born son. But a gainful peace
had been negotiated. Drahmen’s
fainthearted city folk had bought
a respite from harassing raids
with corn and heaps of yellow gold.
An exchange of noble hostages
secured the deal. Thus did the son
of hardy, leathery, taciturn Lorcas
come of age in the cloisters of Drahmen,
delighting in intrigue, slander, rumors,
and merciless twists of fashion.
Young Nuncis learned to compensate
for his rude origins by being best
of all courtiers at the courtier’s art –
and by spending the gold that Lorcas sent
to cultivate many a fawning friend.
Meanwhile, on the high grassy plain,
the other hostage, sturdy Sesthi—
daughter of a great priest of Drahmen –
learned to ride bareback, to terrify
buffalo with her yell, and to run
all day with wind in her hair and sun
on her bare, muscular limbs. Only
the thought of herself as a matron –
wedded to some scheming, pasty,
complacent priest—ever spoiled her fun.
As the time neared for her return,
she dwelled on her fate and grew morose,
until finally she hatched a plan.
She put on a black hood, saddled her horse,
and galloped alone to a remote town
where she lit a brand and set the thatch
cottages alight. Next, she retired
to await the coming of the watch,
sturdy volunteers who hastened
from their nearby farms. She killed each
one in turn, firing her arrows
backwards as she galloped around
the village. The infamous news
soon reached the capital, where stunned
priests scoffed at the nomads’ vows
of innocence, and prepared for war.
Their first task was to seize Nuncis,
an alien hostage, perhaps a traitor.
They slapped shackles over his silken robes.
It took every patron, friend, and debtor
to get him released and then awarded
a commission. The nomads treated
their hostage better, for they adored
Sesthi, finding her the most intrepid
scout, deadliest shot, and most ardent
hater of faithless city people
they’d ever encountered. She led
daring raids deep into the rural
heart of Drahmen’s fatherland,
looting and burning to the very wall
of the metropolis. There Captain
Nuncis of the temple guard
watched the indomitable woman
circle the fortifications, her fist
saluting Vithni, and a subtle plan
formed in his mind. “If it was you,”
he wrote, “who caused the inglorious
peace to end and men to trade plow
and lyre for broadsword, then thanks,
dazzling lady, for the fine inferno
that you ignited. But do you feel
the same discontent that now wearies
me? Your brave and restless people
can ride as they like among our farms,
but our fortified towns are impregnable.
For our part, we can march all summer
in our rigid ranks and never catch you.
This stalemate has grown almost duller
than the mincing old time of peace. How
much ambition do you have, warrior
maiden, for yourself and for your tribe?
Does terrorizing serfs and taunting
watchmen satisfy you? The globe
could be yours—and overbearing
power—if only you could somehow grab
a share of what is yours by birthright:
machines for breaking walls, great numbers
to swell an army, tools of government
so that you can maintain your conquests.
I can give all this to you, turning against
my captors and letting you inside
the fat and yielding town. Therefore,
I urge you to meet me in secret.
If you choose to spurn me, I will declare
that it was you who broke the accord
and burned the first village, betraying
both your natural and your adopted
peoples.” All this he wrote, entrusting
his words to a loyal slave who carried
them to Sesthi. The clandestine meeting
took place at night by the river’s edge.
Nuncis came alone, but Sesthi brought
five fierce riders, women of courage
and discretion. She half desired
to be ambushed, so that a murderous rage
would overcome her and she might
forget her guilt in the desperate
fight to survive. But the man who limped
to meet her had honored his word,
had come alone with only his sword
to protect him. He told her how her
troops could loot and ravage the city
once he let them in; but they must spare
the council of priests, the hierarchy,
the scribes and records, the bazaar –
everything that made the empire strong
and worthy of capture. Sesthi looked down
from her horse and asked the scheming
courtier what he expected to gain
from his plot. “I want my own hard-riding
people to prevail over these idle
city folk who’ve cruelly held me hostage.”
“Nonsense” said Sesthi. “Your gaudy style
and soft ways are common knowledge.
Besides, if our victory were your goal,
then you’d talk to your father, and not
visit me behind his back.” “You’re right,”
said Nuncis. “And so I must spell out
the whole of my plan. I’m inspired
by a vision of you, Vithni’s embodiment,
as empress of Drahmen’s wealthy land,
directing its armies in crushing campaigns.
Myself I foresee as second in command,
my loyalty assured because of my place
in your bed.” Sesthi was stunned, appalled
at his presumption. When she could speak,
she said, “I should kill you now, before
you breathe once more, since you would stake
a claim upon my virginity. And where,
tell me, does Lorcas fit in? What trick
do you propose to play on your father,
so that we may rule in his rightful place?
I’d happily give my own life before
I saw him harmed. Your indecent schemes
revolt me, and I’ll be glad to butcher
you on the spot.” “Then use my sword,
fair bright-eyed lady,” he replied,
handing her the hilt. “Your hatred
tastes worse to me than death. I did
wish to murder Lorcas, but was provoked
only by your beauty. If you can’t forgive
my love, then drive this pitiless steel
into my disconsolate heart.” “Save
your devious, unnatural, hypocritical
speeches for the fops and flirts of
court. I would be pleased to see you dead,
but would never do the job myself.”
Nuncis saw that she grudgingly admired
his courage. He said, “If you must rebuff
my plea to end my life, then command
me to kill myself.” “I already said that
I want you dead.” “That was in the heat
of an explosive rage. If you repeat
the wish, I’ll make myself a suicide.”
“You see, strange man, that I cannot.”
“Then it’s clear you don’t fully disdain
my overture. Come, grant me one favor.
To hear some more of my ideas, get down
from your horse, and let us meander
alone before the first light of dawn.”
Two weeks later, horses galloped
and slid along the bloody, torchlit
streets of Drahmeniya, axes bit
into doors, whole families were pulled
outside by their hair, their throats slit,
their ransacked houses left to smolder.
The high priest’s council met in its chambers,
hearing screams and smelling fire,
expecting a knock on their own brass doors –
suspecting each peer of being the traitor.
The knock that came was Nuncis at the portal.
He said, “My lords, excuse me for venturing
into your hallowed halls. But it’s my people
who’ve taken the city, and I’ve been pleading
with their chieftains to save you all.
Their great leader, old Lorcas, fell,
leading the charge into the city.
As his son, I inherit his mantle.
These savages know my paternity
and seem bent to do what I counsel.”
“Do you mean to take my throne?”
asked the high priest in a frail, cracked voice.
“No, because the nomads would spurn
any regime that was just like yours,
only with me as their new sovereign.
I suggest a far subtler strategy.
We must gradually teach them
that their chiefs are landlords of the prairie
that has always been their home.
Then they’ll accept peaceful authority.
These warriors are really tenants.
They’d better plow and plant the plains
if they mean to pay their rents –
or else enlist as salaried riders,
serving the empire with sword and lance.
As for the chiefs, they’ll learn they love
high comfortable tower houses,
shady loggias ten stories above
the wealthy city, pretty wives,
fur collars, power—all the fruits of
their monthly rents.” The priests wanted
to believe him, but the smoke and wailing
reminded them that outside death waited.
Soon they heard much louder pounding
on the main door, and turned for aid
to Nuncis, who looked sincerely shocked.
The portal flew open and in strode Sesthi,
the first woman who had ever violated
this chancery. She wore a tunic and high
riding boots, and waved a bloody sword.
“Nuncis,” she said, “I want that old prelate
to crown me where he’s drowned so many.
I’ll be empress, and you’ll be my consort.
Do it now, or I’ll hang the whole assembly.
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->3.3 VATNA]]
3.3 Vatna
The tenth year of the principate of Sesthi:
prosperity, order, and progress prevail.
Level highways—cambered and cobbled—lie,
like the web of a punctilious, watchful
spider, across the land, built to carry
commerce, duly weighed and taxed; soldiers,
stern-faced guarantors of peace; and agents
of the huge and able secret service,
bearing intelligence from the ends
of the system back to the great palace
at the center, where Sesthi sits in state.
By noon, she has read a hundred reports,
scanning columns of names and numbers brought
promptly from every point of the compass:
crop forecasts and news from criminal court,
customs receipts and examination
results. No one but the sharp-eyed empress
would have spotted the repetition
of a troubling pattern. A suspicious
fellow turned up here and there, often
described in the same words. He was a boy,
chubby, round-faced, asexual, with soft skin
and curly locks; only he was heavy,
bigger and taller than any normal man.
So they said who’d seen him—usually
frantic parents who’d gone looking for lost
children and caught sight of revelers,
wild folk streaming, screaming through the forest
in delight or horror. The runaways
could not be enticed to end their strange pursuit.
Sometimes the parents returned, loath to talk;
but most vanished for good. Her Highness
called her spy master and, apoplectic,
demanded to know why no witness
had been found and convinced (or forced) to speak.
Knowing that failed spies went to the gallows,
the chief begged for time and hastened to find
anyone who’d seen the sylvan carousers.
Hours later, a gaunt prisoner stood
before Sesthi, smiling, with vacant eyes
and bones showing through his pallid skin.
He wore only the burlap his captors
had wrapped around his waist; lean fingers ran
through his long and matted hair. The empress
demanded to know everything he’d done
and seen. “Vatna,” the prisoner whispered.
“What about Vatna? What plot do you concoct
in that god’s name?” “Vatna,” he whispered.
“Stretch this man on the ratchet wheel,” Sesthi said,
“and see if he knows any other word.”
But as his long bony arms pulled away
from their sockets, he only smiled
and whispered, “Vatna.” “Show some mercy,”
said the empress; “slice off his vacant head –
or something.” Disgusted and uneasy,
she had her old horse saddled, left orders
for her cowed consort Nuncis, and rode off
by herself to find the freak whose perverse
disciples were leading their chaotic life
beyond the reach of sanity and rules.
She rode for several weeks, following
a faint and indistinct trail of rumor,
fear, fascination, and disappearing
children. Her quarry always hid further
away, in the next forest, retreating
as she advanced—or leading her along.
For in the gaps between the royal roads
she’d laid down, patches of virgin woods clung
to life, and there the fractious elements,
the lunatics or base law-defying
traitors concealed themselves, never standing
to face their ruler. Tired and gloomy,
Sesthi turned back toward home, cantering
on a stony beach beside the shifting sea
near the marshes where the great river, slowing,
ended its run. What she took for a boulder
in the surf turned out to be human,
a living sack of bones and soggy hair
squatting on seaweed—an ancient woman
with intense gray eyes. Sesthi tried to steer
her horse around this distasteful sight,
but the sound of her given name stopped her.
“Sesthi,” said the old woman, “you’ve quit
your search for Vatna. Now you may acquire
what all your reckless chasing would never find.”
She continued as the baffled queen stared:
“All your life you have struggled, but for what?
For power? This decaying world can’t be ruled.
Even if you mastered every will and
natural process, your sovereignty would end
with your death. Or do you want to be different –
better, stronger, nobler than your subjects?
All differences diminish with contact,
and you are dissipating your reserves
of energy as you struggle to uphold
your excellence. When you run out completely,
you’ll be a pile of dust no different
from all the other cold corpses. Or maybe
it’s happiness you seek. But what is that,
if not freedom from craving, liberty
from ambition, discontent, and desire?
If you achieved happiness, you would
cease to be Sesthi, the constant struggler.
I conclude that you want not to exist.
Know your real object, and you’ll find rapture.”
“Is that what you’ve got,” scornful Sesthi asked,
“sitting in the mud—starving, apparently?
If you’re a picture of bliss, then I’d elect
to remain as I am.” “I came from the sea.
It will take me back when the time is right.
I need nothing, want nothing, use nothing,
change nothing. Absolute peace is mine.”
Back at the capital, the empress, mulling
over what she’d heard, became a withdrawn,
meditative figure. She emerged holding
eccentric views that she declaimed at every
public ceremony and before swelling
crowds of common folk. Her theme: the vanity
of idols and the folly of treating
unattainable ideals as holy
creatures to be bribed with snacks and begged for gifts.
Nuncis assumed that she was plotting some
intrigue against the priests, whom she’d slaughter once
the people no longer venerated them.
He sought her out, wanting to know her plans
so that he could be sure to end up among
the winners. She delivered a long and ardent
speech against all optimistic striving
for a better life: “Since each sentient
being survives only by consuming
others, it is the grave of thousands, or a link
in a chain of painful deaths.” Bewildered,
Nuncis ventured, “Doesn’t our life look
beautiful, though? Think of the exquisite
twinkling heavens, sunbeams, bucolic
landscapes …” “What is this world—a pantomime?
The flora and fauna may be pretty
to look at; it’s another thing to be them,
to suffer, struggle, kill others, and die.”
Nuncis tried again: “What of the wisdom
that placed earth just so distant from the sun
that it’s warm enough for life, but not too hot;
that arrayed all the planets in a pattern
of safely scattered paths so they won’t collide;
that separated dry land from ocean,
instead of mixing them together as mud …?”
“Stop your pious sophistry,” Sesthi said.
“If the earth had been made a bit more hot,
we couldn’t live on it, and would be spared
all anguish. Ours is the worst possible world.”
Every night thereafter, mobs formed, chanting
against the idols—above all Drahmen –
to the dismay of those who were expecting
the vengeful god to seek retribution.
Nuncis walked the torchlit streets, observing
rampant lunacy. At last he saw a scene
that turned him ashen. Drahmen’s ancient idol
had been pulled off its pedestal, broken
in two, and the biggest chunks of rubble
were marching past, borne by an insane
horde chanting, “Dump it, dump it in the river.”
Nuncis, breathing raggedly, went looking
frantically for the one person with power
to stop this madness. He found her sitting
where the idol had stood. She looked thinner
than he recalled, and was dwindling away
for lack of food. She wore sackcloth and a
beatific smile. While she serenely
expired, those who watched her whispered: “Vatna.”
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
[[Next section->3.4 LEFNI]]
3.4 Lefni
Lefni’s city covered five hills,
all within a perfectly circular wall.
From above, its serpentine streets
formed an intricate pattern, a model
of the moon and planets’ pathways.
The streets were lined with identical
buildings, numbered white cubes of stone,
amply lit, clean, spare, and practical.
Some were dormitories for women
or for men, others sunny nurseries full
of state-supervised children. Adults
in loose white gowns walked the avenues
that connected libraries, gardens,
observatories, choir practice halls,
and stainless experimental forges.
One young worker was Ochyroë,
born under another name in
Drahmeniya, and planted as a spy
in this last autonomous nation.
She had a striking, native capacity
for numbers—was so ingenious
that the emperor himself hoped
she’d rise high in Lefni’s service.
But she was hesitant, afraid
to be unmasked by the colleagues
who worked and slept and ate with her,
all in common, each one as serious
and clever as the next. Since capture
frightened her more than the disgrace
of failing her distant emperor,
she concealed her talents and tried
to blend with the others, lying
awake at night on the fifty-third cot
of the Seventh Women’s Sleeping
Building, homesick and dejected.
Her work team was occupied in
massive serial calculations,
too complicated for anyone
to grasp as a whole. Their results
guided the masons who built the town,
laboring to erect an ever more
elaborate dynamic system that,
like an anthill, was much wiser
than those who inhabited it.
One morning the mother superior
paid them a surprise visit. She was
Oxymanchë, recently chosen
to be director of studies
by competitive examination:
for a period of eighty-one months,
the city’s sole and absolute monarch.
She walked alone, unarmed, with stately
carriage, observing the laborious work
of the white-clad women. Ochyroë
held her breath, just a nameless clerk,
hoping to attract no special notice,
yet eager for her team to impress
their august visitor, whose presence
she now felt behind her. “Novice,”
said the matriarch, “will you please
tell me your name?” Ochyroë
answered in a very small voice,
far too bashful to look away
from her elaborate abacus.
“I ask you to stop and come with me,”
whispered the visitor in her ear.
Ochyroë’s heart pounded as
she followed the rustling, slender,
spotless gown of her new mistress
between twin aisles of scholar-
workers and out into balmy
morning air. Oxymanchë led her
to the modest Director’s Study,
invited her to eat, rest, restore
herself, so that after lunch they
might begin their weighty work.
From then on, the girl slept curled
below her brilliant mistress’s bed, took
notes of everything her mentor said,
followed her on rounds, awestruck
at her erudition. A deep, hopeless,
ardent love filled her thoughts all day,
her dreams at night; and nothing else
mattered. She couldn’t conceal her joy
one winter evening when icy drafts
swept the study floor, and Oxymanchë
invited her to share her bed. A week
later, the director’s hand gently
came to rest, perhaps just by luck,
on Ochyroë’s waist, and rarely
thereafter ceased to touch her.
After long days of inspections
and meetings, while all the other
citizens slept in separate beds
(procreation being an infrequent chore),
Ochyroë and Oxymanchë
covered each other’s clinging bodies
with tender kisses, and fondly
whispered one another’s names
in the dark, snug, book-lined study.
The older woman slowly revealed
information that would have shocked
Ochyroë, if she hadn’t been consumed
with doting love. Those savants who studied
living systems had also isolated
dreadful plagues, and kept collections
of infected rats, capable of killing
countless humans. The clever alchemists
who invented alloys had been making
new, combustible, floating gels
and coal-like nuggets that, when lit,
would release thick, purple plumes
to rise, float idly in the current,
and scorch the lungs of all the creatures
that ran and breathed their last downwind.
Oxymanchë saw that her besotted
amanuensis had no interest
in these inventions. So she summoned
a dozen guards, had a coach prepared,
and took Ochyroë for a country ride.
When they had ventured deep into
Drahmen’s land, Oxymanchë ordered
the startled girl out. “What did I do?”
she cried, shaking, still too shocked
for tears. “Child, it’s time for you to go.
Would you betray your fatherland?
You came to discover our most dreadful
secrets, and by now you’ve surely learned
enough. Thanks to Lefni, we are able
to annihilate any foe who should
dare to offend us. Run, sweet girl,
and tell your masters what you know.”
The coach pulled away, leaving miserable
Ochyroë to stand and follow
her vanishing love with eyes brimful
of bitter tears. After several days
and nights spent stumbling, weeping
through forests and cultivated fields,
the girl turned up in Drahmeniya, seeking
an audience with august Nuncis.
She told the wizened, terrible
emperor what she’d learned, but not how
she’d obtained her knowledge. Doubtful,
Nuncis eyed her, thinking, “Somehow
that ravishing, clever, ethereal
mother superior has entrapped
my little spy. Part of what she tells
me is truth; part lie. I understand
this much at least. For all of us,
a sure peace would be a better state
than looming war; spared the expense
of great armies, we could share
our knowledge and exchange our wares
in safe prosperity. However,
what if we suddenly breached their walls
and sacked their city? We’d acquire
everything they own. This outcome
would profit us more than a secure
peace, but would be far worse for them.
Likewise, Lefni’s folk might prefer
to attack and plunder our capital,
except that we’re ready to win the war.
Consequently, despite our mutual
regard and love of peace, we prepare
on both sides for a suicidal battle.
I fear that Vatna’s inescapable
logic demands not just readiness
for this deadly struggle, but a lethal
first attack as well. Their empress
wants me to know what terrible
weapons she has, so that I’ll surrender
at the first whiff of smoke. Lest she
be tempted to strike first, I’d better
send back word of our new cavalry,
using this charming spy as courier.
Ochyroë set out in high spirits
for Lefni’s city. She gave no thought
to the contents of the letter Nuncis
had given her, regarding it instead
as a pretext to visit her mistress.
So it was that she was among
the first to smell an acrid smoke
drifting across the border, burning
her lungs, making her retch and choke.
3.5 Vithren
No one remembered how war had started,
nor why they fought. Most of the elders
were long dead by now, having succumbed
early to a plague that spread over the lines
and killed indiscriminately. It was said
that in the beginning, armies had ranged
over the plains, advancing and defending,
wheeling and feinting, seizing the high ground.
But as time passed they’d bogged down, settling
into long parallel lines, fortified
stockades, fully encircling the land
they called, for no remembered reason, “Lefni.”
Their ramshackle walls were lightly manned –
each side being short-handed—and hardly
anyone dared to raise a helmeted head
above the top to survey the burnt terrain.
Toxic smoke still blew in random patterns,
but those who’d survived were mostly immune
and accustomed to the annoyance
of constant, stinking, foul pollution.
Whenever anyone was so foolhardy
as to approach the enemy lines,
flaming arrows or buckets full of fiery
liquid would fly lazily across
and burn him to death. This happened rarely,
for the generals now saw no point
in opening new offensives, the foreign
lands being as ruined and deserted
as their own. They had not forgotten
their twice-daily obligation to conduct
a bombardment of the enemy lines,
catapulting diseased rags and flammable
oils over; but now it was their practice
to begin the barrage at predictable
hours, so that the enemy soldiers
could escape unscathed and would return
the favor. Death had ravaged the species –
and still found victims, whose corpses would burn
in pyres eyed by the fat, thriving crows.
So the population went slowly down.
Now and then the cry of a newborn
was still heard. But usually its father
was a raider whose patrol had broken
through the lines of battle to plunder
and rape; and the victim would soon
starve her child, rather than bring it up
to fight. Meanwhile, those men and women
who served on the line had to drill and sleep,
forage, cook, eat, drink, defecate, sicken,
and perish where they hid, in the same deep
muddy ditches where so many had died
before them. But now, each evening, as the sun
cast its last long shadows over the field
of battle, and a first star or crescent moon
shone in the sapphire sky, soldiers forgot
their misery and listened to song.
At scattered points along the front, someone
with a rich voice would be improvising
rhythmic, dulcet ballads to entertain
friends and enemies alike. Respecting
the tranquillity, both armies would lay down
their weapons and fall silent, confident
that the adversary would also refrain
from war while the dusk and music lasted.
One of the singers was a veteran
of three winters at the front, a woman
who could carry water, bury corpses,
and handle a sword as well as anyone,
but who also had a gift for stories.
This singer used to tell tales of Vithren:
a god, she claimed, who had founded a tribe
of bards or troubadours, her own forbears.
Other evenings, her verses would describe
Vithren’s noble peers, and relate their affairs
with mortals, for gods sometimes used to rub
up against human beings, and the transfer
of their intense heat would produce tragedy,
ecstasy—at any rate, some birth or
metamorphosis—while useful energy
was spent. Or so they believed who heard her
nightly songs, drank in the words, and spread them
along the front. For an epilogue,
she composed these lines: “Once a lucky poet
had a profusion of entertaining
stories to retell, myths inherited
from a fading civilization
still revered for its elegance and splendor.
When he told of vengeful gods, conceited men,
and the passions of each for the other,
people half believed his tales, and no one
heard what he said without pious awe –
which only heightened their pleasure. The world
he described was the one they knew.
But the way he retold the myths explained
the origins of human vice and virtue,
why ravens were black, why the sun moved
as it did, and why some nations were
especially superstitious. At the end,
he gratefully said that his labor
was complete. What he’d made would abide,
he hoped, even though the righteous king
of gods might vent his rage with hurricanes
and earthquakes. Even time’s greedy, devouring
hunger would never consume this masterpiece.
The poet knew that a day was approaching
when his life would sputter out, his mind fail.
Still, he hoped that the best part of himself
would be safe, would become immortal,
and would be carried above the vault of
heaven. His name would be perpetual,
recalled and honored in every country
ruled over by his efficient, aggressive
countrymen or their countless progeny.
As long as he was read, he remained alive.”
She would recite these lines, and then say,
“I envy this poet’s his wit, insight,
erudition, and exuberance.
I envy him, too, because he possessed
a rich treasury of myth and romance
as his birthright. What I have made,”
she added, “hardly merits longevity
or fame. But I hope that my stories
can make some sense of memory,
the record of direct experience.
I’ve also sung of life in society,
where we know ourselves as distinct
from others, from law, and from nature.
Last, I’ve painted some efforts to correct
ourselves and the world, to make better
what exists and to render our thought
and desire more harmonious
with what must be. This last is reason’s work.
If you recognize in my fictions
familiar truths made coherent, then a spark
from the fire I’ve built may catch and blaze
hotter in your mind. What we invent
will be more potent than its fuel; our thoughts
will radiate, enkindle, create heat –
flouting nature, as only reason does.”
[[Table of Contents->Ajita's epic: table of contents]]
|dharmadasa>[<img src=" http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Dharmadasa.png" align="right">](click-prepend: ?dharmadasa)[Dharmadasa, “The Story of the Princess of the Black Pavilion” for Akhbar’s collection of epic poems (detail), 1593-5
]This picture, unlike those that have come before, has a horizon. Flowing toward it is an expanse of fields and vineyards interspersed with steeples and cottages that diminish and grow indistinct in the distance. The details look novel and exotic. The scale sometimes seems wrong: for example, the cross that surmounts each church tower is far too big. But Ajita has perceptively observed how a house can be constructed of black timbers, the spaces filled with whitewashed mud, and the roof made of neatly pleated straw; or how martins hang their nests from the eaves. And he has noticed how peasants throw sticks to knock acorns to the ground for their pigs.
<i>A question for you, reader: When artists begin to see the world a different way because they are exposed to new cultures, is that ...?
[An increase in human knowledge.]<Answer1|
[An increase in entropy as the cultures mix.]<Answer2|
(click: ?Answer1)[(set: $knowledge to it +1)Knowledge increases. ](click: ?Answer2)[(set: $entropy to it +1)Entropy increases.]</i>
The fields here are open and worked in common by rows of threshers. As in some backward parts of Flanders and England, each man still plants scattered strips of land that are his own by inheritance. But it is most efficient for the whole village to harvest together; and everyone may hunt or graze his animals in the stubble once the grain is cut. Such places are governed by customs, superstitions, endless gossip shared in impenetrable dialects, and family ties that verge on incest. [[As more pages turn, the pastoral mood shifts to tragedy.]]
The red-bearded knight and Ajita encounter peasants who flee their homes in evident distress. A woman holds a baby in her arms and weeps. The muscles of her long twisted limbs show through her robes, as in a print one could buy in Antwerp or London. An old man staggers along on a crutch, looking back fearfully like Adam cast out of Eden. A boy and a girl in rags hold hands as they run. Smoke wafts over their heads, rising from the thatch of a cottage that is burning in the distance.
Soon the source of all this suffering is revealed. Men with their visors over their faces are axing down doors, smashing shutters, igniting thatch. They wear livery with the device of a silver ostrich that holds a horseshoe in its beak. The red-headed knight knows his duty: he vows an errand of mercy. Someone is oppressing the weak, ravaging their women, and besmirching the tenets of chivalry. “On, faithful retainer!” cries the redhead as he spurs his steed and drops his lance into place for a charge. Ajita trots behind him on foot, looking warily left and right.
[[Ajita attempts to forestall tragedy]]
|quixote>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/DonQuixote.png">](click-prepend: ?quixote)["El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha” (1605).
]
“Master,” he pants, “before you gird yourself for a fearsome battle against overwhelming odds and we both get chopped up like almonds for a cooking paste, might this not be an excellent time for me to tell you that story from my homeland? Remember?—I said I’d illustrate a romance for you in bejeweled pages like the gift books that my Shah has sent your grateful Queen? You said you’d translate my story into French alexandrines and sell it with my illustrations for an enormous sum. Despite your astounding courage, might, dexterity, valor, etcetera, there is a pretty good chance that this will be my last afternoon among the living, for it’s going to be you with a lance and me with my paintbrush against about fifty Franks and those enormous axes. Don’t you want to hear my story first, and then go off on your errand of mercy?”
“Fine,” says the Knight, “but make it succinct. No digressions or similes; we can add those later when you paint your miniatures. No tropes or descriptions—just the plot. That’s what makes a book sell.”
“Very well,” says Ajita, “Once upon a time, and may good be our reward, and may evil strike him who wishes evil—"
“I told you to omit everything unnecessary. That certainly includes a benediction, which doesn’t belong in a romance in the first place. Besides, I thought you said you were an atheist.”
[[Ajita continues his story]]
“I’m just relating the story as it is always told in my homeland. If I had the wit to invent literature of my own, I’d certainly skip all prayers and other pious nonsense. However, as you know, I am a painter and not a poet. I’m reciting the words verbatim from my aunts.”
“Fair enough, but even a witless fellow should be able to delete unnecessary verbiage and digressions from a story he’s memorized. Anyway, you must hurry—the villainous Frenchmen are moving away, and I shall lose my chance to smite them.”
“I was trying to say,” says Ajita, [(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[“that once upon a time in a mountain village of Kashmir there lived a goatherd, and this goatherd, who will be the hero of my story, was called, ah, Lopay. And this Lopay was deeply in love with a shepherdess called, er, Sumeru. And this Sumeru was the daughter of a rich herdsman, and this herdsman—".
“By the Queen’s white paps, man, get on with it!” the redhead cries. “No more repetitions! Half of these French scoundrels are out of sight entirely.”
“I am endeavoring, sir, to translate into a harsh European tongue the rhythms and cadences of the East,” says Ajita huffily, but with diminishing fear in his voice now that the prospects of battle seem to be fading.
“As you like then,” says the redhead. “Proceed. I need some time to decide which way to charge, now that most of the rogues in armor have withdrawn.”
“As I was saying, master, the herdsman Lopay was in love with the shepherdess Sumeru, who, truth be told, was rather large and bulky, almost a man’s size and girth around the shoulders; and I had begun to notice quite a moustache on her upper lip—”
“<i>You</i> had noticed? You mean, you knew this wench? I thought this was an ancient tale of the orient.”
“That was a painter’s mistake: thinking that I saw whereof I spoke. I never had the honor personally to behold Sumeru, because her story was passed down to me from our ancestors. They relate that Kalki—a troublesome god, or as you might say, a devil—chose to poison the love between Lopay and Sumeru by tempting the shepherdess with other boys and then turning Lopay’s heart to jealous rage. One day, Lopay was so fed up that he decided to drive his whole flock away to another valley entirely, where he wouldn’t even have to see Sumeru again. However, as soon as Lopay began to shun and despise her, Sumeru’s love was restored and she became passionate about him.”
“That’s always the way,” says the redhead absent-mindedly. “But look, you must get to the point. I see some armored Frenchies passing by, and if I don’t charge them in a minute or two, they’ll get by without a scrap.”
“Yes, master. To cut right to the heart of the matter, young Lopay had to drive his 530 goats over some dry foothills, down some cool passes, through some fragrant forests, and at last across the Jhelum river, while all the time Sumeru was whining and moping about fifty paces behind him. Well, Lopay reached the banks of the fabled Jhelum at last, and there he found a boat lying free and ready to take him across. Alas, it was only big enough for him and a single goat. So he ferried one goat across the treacherous river, left it to graze amid the ferns, and returned for a second goat. He took the second goat across the river, left it contentedly with the first, and rowed back again. He picked up the third goat, a plump brown nanny of about two years—”
“You jackanape! You don’t have to tell me about each and every goat! The scoundrels have completely left the village and there are no iniquitous heads for me to lop off.”
“Well, how many goats did I tell you about already? In the interests of time, I’m willing to resume where I left off and not repeat myself; but I’ve lost track of the whole story now. You should have kept count while I ran through the animals ….”]]<quoteCervantes|(click: ?quoteCervantes)[
//By detecting this allusion to// Don Quixote// (1605), you remove some entropy from the system//.(set: $entropy to it -1, $Cervantes to 1)]
[[Anna reflects on time]]
[[Another page turns]]
(set: $perspective to "Ajita")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>The redhead knight is staying behind in France to supervise the rebuilding of the ransacked village; the raiders seem to have moved on without a fight. Ajita is on his own now, bearing a letter from the knight to his beloved. With the letter visible in his hand, he crosses what must be the English Channel in a two-masted herring buss and lands in a port that looks like Southend, down where the Thames loses its direction and definition as its fresh water merges irreversibly with the sea. A single illustration shows Ajita’s progress on horseback through a landscape of hop fields and sheep.
[[To the last page of the Indian illuminated manuscript]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>Dr. Burby often notes that time moves in only one direction. To return a clock or any other mechanism to a state that existed in the past would require energy and intelligence, the use of which alters the world irreversibly. There is no going back, no stopping the downward flow. Yet we can divert time by telling stories that emerge limitlessly from our memories or imaginations. When I was a little girl in Bruges, my mother’s stories used to forestall the night, and that is what I miss most.(set: $perspective to "Anna")
[[Another page turns]]
On the last page of the book, Ajita is indoors, facing a blond, round-faced young woman in a simple hoop skirt. She has blue eyes and freckles on her cheeks and plump arms. Her face is friendly but impassive. Ajita is slim and slightly shorter. These two modeled and glossily finished figures stand like cutouts from an oil painting. Anna’s vision moves behind them to the paler, flatter, more evenly lit background of beams, flagstones, bay windows, low ceilings, and an oak desk. She stares at this space, which seems reasonably coherent and plausible--a Northern European interior. But there is something wrong with it, something off.
[[Anna goes back to the stake]](set: $return to 7)
[[Anna looks into the image]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>(set: $perspective to "Anna")(if: $knowledge > 3)[You have attained considerable understanding of the situation, and that means that Anna has knowledge she can use.](if: $knowledge < 4)[The situation remains obscure to you, and therefore Anna will be confused]
(if: $knowledge is 0)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd1-e1474385228707.png">](if: $knowledge is 1)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd2-e1474385282680.png">](if: $knowledge is 2)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd3-e1474405118398.png">](if: $knowledge is 3)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd4-e1474385340641.png">](if: $knowledge is 4)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd5-e1474385370995.png">](if: $knowledge is 5)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd6-e1474385399447.png">](if: $knowledge is 6)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fludd7-e1474385434863.png">]
(if: $knowledge > 3)[[[Continue->higher knowledge]]](if: $knowledge < 4)[[[Continue->lower knowledge]]]
(if: $return is 6)[[[Return to the main narrative->She examines the book]]](if: $return is 7)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna looks into the image]]](if: $return is 8)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna wonders what happened to Ajita Brihaspathi, her Indian cellmate, after he left the Oxford Gaol]]](if: $return is 9)[[[Return to the main narrative->A fork in the path]]](if: $return is 10)[[[Return to the main narrative->Fame]]](if: $return is 11)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna's memory goes back to Oxford Gaol]]](if: $return is 12)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna recalls her encounters with Lucy]]](if: $return is 14)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna's choice]]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>
Anna has a strong sensation that this image is like a memory, yet everything has been pulled out of proportion and dyed an unfamiliar color. The figures in the foreground begin to fade as the space behind them grows more vivid, darker, and (to Anna’s eyes) more lifelike. The angles and ratios shift rapidly as the whole room coalesces into a new shape around her. The beams in the ceiling now lead toward a single point that flies across Anna’s field of vision until it comes to rest to her left. Motes now swim in the bright air within the bay of the window. Edmund Burby’s cell, the Tower of London, the Italian reader’s hand—all that has melted away as Anna crosses a familiar room near Beckley in Oxfordshire. The people are gone, the room is empty, but there are papers on the desk.
[[Anna recalls Chrisopher Bannock]]
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[Whether by a miracle, magic, or a feat of memory or imagination, Anna-or rather the unfringed curtains of Anna’s eyes-have entered the home of Christopher Bannock and his wife Mary.]]<quote|(click: ?quote)[
//Cf. Prospero to Miranda: "The fringèd curtains of thine eye advance / And say what thou seest yond."
By detecting this allusion, you raise knowledge by 1.//(set: $knowledge to it +1)]
Anna does not innumerate the facts that she knows about these two people, but a great quantity of information is wrapped up in their names. The syllables that form “Christopher” and “Mary” signify memories and emotions that Anna could recite for a whole afternoon. Indeed, these two people are her closest acquaintances in England, and she has often sat with them in this very cottage parlor.
Like Anna, Christopher Bannock is a protégé of Dr. Burby. Mr. Bannock already holds a degree but he remains a member of Balliol College, living on an ambiguous kind of fellowship. Anna generally dines alone in the college hall and worships alone in the chapel. She is entirely marginal to the students’ society—an odd foreigner with no prestige, no evident fortune, and no graces—and she prefers to maintain some distance from her peers because of her disguise as a man. She counts herself lucky when the boys ignore her and do not flick their crusts at her. But Bannock always sits with her when he spots her and peppers her with questions in Latin or (contrary to the college rules) in whispered French. What does she think of Phillip William, the Prince of Orange? What about Rudolf the Second in Prague? What is she reading? Has she ever read Montaigne? Who, in her opinion, wrecked Dr. Dee’s house in Mortlake while the doctor was overseas, visiting the Emperor Rudolf? Will she join Mistress Bannock and himself for Sunday dinner?
[[Anna considers why Christopher sought her out]]
Perhaps he seeks her out because he, too, is rather marginal. He is older than the typical student (even the masters of arts); and several clues—a scar on his neck, his colloquial French, his sophistication about continental politics—suggest that he was previously a soldier. It is not uncommon for a young man of modest fortune to fight in France or the Low Countries, or even as far afield as the Barbary Coast or Russia, to amass some savings from his pay or plunder, and then to buy himself admission to the university. This was Sir Walter Raleigh’s path to enormous wealth and prestige. Nowadays, no one doubts Sir Walter’s social standing, but he came originally from tenant stock. Perhaps Christopher Bannock has similar origins that he has not yet shed. He never mentions his family or his birthplace, and that is a second reason for his marginal status among the student gentry.
|cecil>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Cecil.png">](click-prepend: ?cecil)[The network around Sir Robert Cecil, according to Six Degrees of Francis Bacon, http://www.sixdegreesoffrancisbacon.com/
]
He has a habit, too, of disappearing frequently and for long stretches. Mr. Bannock began this pattern when he was still enrolled as a student, thereby violating strict college rules about residency. Yet there is no sign that he was fined or otherwise disciplined for his absences. That suggests that he is under some kind of protection and probably travels on assignments from a powerful figure. His patron could be Sir Robert Cecil, her Majesty’s Mr. Secretary, who employs an army of “intelligencers” on government business. It could be Robert Devereaux, the Second Earl of Essex, who has a rival spy network bitterly opposed to Cecil’s. Conceivably, it could be a foreign power, even a Papist king or Rome itself. But that would make Mr. Bannock a traitor in peril of his life, and he seems too confident for such a role. Besides, to obtain a degree, one must swear the Oath of Supremacy--impossible for a Catholic. Anna assumes that he is a loyal Protestant who once fought on the Huguenot side before he came up to Oxford and who still hunts the Queen’s enemies at home and abroad.
Even though Christopher Bannock is most likely a government agent, his fellow students have reason to keep their distance from him. The intelligence world is murky, full of factions, double agents, retainers of great lords who can suddenly fall into disfavor, and men called “projectors” who organize fake plots to test their fellows’ loyalties. Probably one in four students at Oxford is a secret Catholic or comes from a Catholic family. Consequently, one in four is a potential traitor; yet members of this minority have plenty of Protestant friends who prefer not to ask political or theological questions. For men who are neither zealous sectarians, nor ambitious to work in the secret world, it is generally wiser to stay clear of scarred older students who disappear during term time. Men like Mr. Bannock are trouble. Better not to attract their attention.(set: $quiz1 to 0)(set: $quiz2 to 0)
[[Anna wonders where she has seen Bannock lately]]
Anna does not rehearse these thoughts, which she has considered at other times. What she does recall is Mr. Bannock’s face, and it reminds her of something she has seen recently. At first she cannot place it, but then she thinks ...
[[He was in the Tower of London]]
(if: $quiz1 is 0)[(link-goto: "He was at her place of execution", "He was at her place of execution")]
(if: $quiz2 is 0)[(link-goto: "He was in the Indian manuscript", "He was in the Indian manuscript")]
Actually, not that we know of.
[[She recalls Mary Bannock]]
He was, but who was he?
[[One of the men on stage->Incorrect guess]]
[[One of the men laughing at her->Incorrect guess]]
[[The strong man in the forefront->Correct choice]]
At first she cannot place it, but then she thinks: He was the redhead knight! Ajita painted him with bright orange curls and beard, very pale skin, and a fierce expression. In other words, the Indian artist exaggerated Mr. Bannock’s English features. But Anna has little doubt that he was the model for those paintings.(set: $knowledge to it +1)(set: $quiz2 to 1)
[[He was also somewhere else->Anna wonders where she has seen Bannock lately]]
[[She recalls Mary Bannock]]
Even more obviously, Mistress Mary Bannock was the model for the figure who stood facing Ajita on the last page of the illustrated manuscript. Ajita portrayed Mary much as Anna would remember her; he captured her sandy coloring, her plumpness, her frank and friendly face. He depicted a woman of about nineteen, which is Mary’s true age.
Anna pictures a scene in the kitchen garden on a summer day. Because Anna’s English is poor, Mary is asking simple, slow questions about her life in Flanders. Anna can hear her voice, deliberate and artificially loud: “Miss your mother and father, do you then, love?” In this mental image, Mary’s kindly face appears straight ahead, and Anna’s back is to the viewer. Anna realizes that we go through life with a mute, blind, defenseless side trailing always behind us. That is one of things that she has missed ever since the pyre in Oxford.
[[Raise entropy and knowledge->Anna recalls another episode with Mary]]
[[Proceed without changing either->Anna looks at the desk]]
(set: $knowledge to it + 1)(set: $quiz1 to 2)Yes, he was the strong man near the front of the crowd. That information will come in handy later.
[[She recalls Mary Bannock]]
No. You'll have other chances later on.
[[She recalls Mary Bannock]]
Yes! Knowledge increases by one.(set: $knowledge to it +1)(set: $quiz1 to 1)
[[He was also somewhere else->Anna wonders where she has seen Bannock lately]]
[[She recalls Mary Bannock]]
Anna’s mind shifts to another occasion, a spring evening from about six months before her arrest. She, Mr. Bannock, and Mary had sat together before the hearth, and Anna had felt comfortable and companionable with these two English hosts. Mr. Bannock had left the cottage briefly to call for more beer. Suddenly Mary’s face had lost its customary sweetness; she had reached a finger behind Anna’s leather jerkin, found her nipple under her man’s shirt, pinched it, and hissed, “I know what kind of a creature thou art.” She added: “Enchant not my husband, thou [(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[flax-wench]]<quote3| bitch, or I shall have thee hanged to death for a witch.” As soon as Mr. Bannock returned, Mary entirely regained her composure and nothing more was said, but Anna’s heart was left pounding.
(click: ?quote3)[
//My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name As rank as any flax-wench//
By detecting this allusion to A Winter's Tale, you raise knowledge by 1.(set: $knowledge to it +1)]
(set: $knowledge to it +1)(set: $entropy to it +1)Shaking off that memory, [[Anna looks at the desk]]
Anna moves her vision from the center of the room toward the desk. It is bare except for some papers, and the first document Anna sees is a letter. It is written in English, beginning:
<i>Too my Deere Husbannde
Syrre, …</i>
|handwriting>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/handwriting.png">](click-prepend: ?handwriting)[
Sample of Elizabethan handwriting, from a will
]
There follows a mass of garbled and heavily blotted writing, squeezed into the space of a single page, with syntax and spelling to befuddle anyone, especially a foreigner who is most at home in Augustan Latin. It reads more like notes or a list than a real letter, probably because Mary’s education is limited. Anna cannot translate it line-for-line into Dutch or any other language, but she begins to understand its drift after four or five readings.
[[She interprets the text]]
She realizes, first, that sweet Mary was furious at her husband when she wrote this letter. Mary’s rage must have boiled under the conventional sentiments that she had learned to write in correspondence, suddenly overflowing when she used a phrase like “malt worm” or “hedge pig”—which she blotted after she wrote it. Christopher’s offenses appear to be: first, that he persisted in mysterious, unprofitable, and possibly illegal research with his former tutor when he should have pursued a career in the law or at the court; second, that he disappeared for long periods, sometimes abroad, leaving his wife unable even to travel to town along the dangerous public highroad, and having nothing to do all day but to wait by the window; and third—by far the worst fault, for she was used to the others—that he had introduced into their home a dark-skinned, strange little fellow who spoke no English and whom he had locked in the root-cellar near their woodshed.
[[She imagines Mary and Christopher]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Englishlady')</script>Mary had put the question to Christopher directly: “Is he a slave?” She believed that English soil was free, that slave-holding was only for Spaniards; but this person was held literally under three feet of their own good English soil. Was he at liberty to leave?
Her husband admitted that he had purchased the Indian fellow in Venice, but only to discharge him once he paid his bond price. Ajita, as he called him, was an indentured servant.
“And how will the poor lamb find so much as a farthing in our root cellar, with which to buy his freedom?”
“He will dig up many a crown for us, my love. He is painting pictures that, with my words added, shall fetch us a fortune on Paternoster Row.”
[[Anna recalls Ajita in the house]]
(set: $perspective to "Mary")(set: $characters to $characters + (a: "Mary"))
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>But Christopher and Ajita often quarreled about the pictures, shouting in broken Italian or simultaneously in their respective languages. The promised book never seemed to emerge from the cellar, although Chris brought up some pretty pictures of Mary for her to keep. Apparently, Ajita could see her through the chute whenever she tended her garden, and his portraits were flattering. She liked them well enough that she gardened more than usual that autumn and even took to singing “The Shepherds Hey” or “An I were a Maiden” outside the cellar in case it pleased Ajita. She also lowered sweetmeats down the chute to vary his diet, which otherwise consisted of roots plus bread, water, and sometimes a little cheese.(set: $perspective to "Ajita")
[[Christopher leaves]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>Then, one day, a rider arrived with a letter for Christopher, who, as so often before, threw his clothes in a sack, saddled his mare, and galloped away with hardly more than a kiss and a promise to write. He took a book out of the cellar but left Mary alone with the man from halfway around the world whose skin was as dark as the Oxfordshire earth.(set: $perspective to "Ajita")
[[Mary goes to Hindby]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Englishlady')</script>Their cottage was a mile from Beckley, where her nearest friends and acquaintances lived. Mary was not supposed to walk in the country without an armed escort, since there was talk of a peasant rising this winter and vagabonds and beggars were everywhere. She was not completely sure that she was safe alone with a savage; but she pitied him. As the weeks passed, the weather turned cold. She often heard coughing and sneezing from the root cellar, which must have been perpetually dark now that the sun was so low. She knew little about the Indies, but she understood that the weather was generally warm and bright there. No letters came from Chris. She was lonely and desperate. At last, she let the Indian fellow out, bundled his shaking body in women’s clothes for warmth and security, summoned her two servants, and quick-marched them all to Hindby Hall, ten miles hence, where she was raised.(set: $perspective to "Mary")
<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Huntsman.jpg">
[[Hindby Hall]]
**The Anachronist**
by **Peter Levine**
[[Start new game->The Argument]]
{(if: (saved-games:) contains "Slot A")[
(link: "Load saved game")[(load-game:"Slot A")]
]}
Version 1.0
December 2016
Hindby—Anna knows the place, having visited it once with the Bannocks. [(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[It’s not a nasty, dirty, damp tradesman’s house, filled with latrines and storerooms and an acid smell, nor yet a dry, bare, stone-lined castle with nowhere to sit: it is an Elizabethan manor house, and that means comfort.]]<quote2|(click: ?quote2)[
//By detecting this anachronistic allusion to// The Hobbit, //you lower entropy by 1.//(set: $entropy to it -1)]
It is built of bricks whose contrasting colors form a handsome cross-hatched pattern. A dozen brick chimneys rise in clusters over the Dutch-style stepped roofs. The grassy moat is left over from an old priory on the site, seized by King Harry and sold to Mary’s grandfather. You enter, Anna recalls, by way of a bridge and a wooden door with a shiny brass knob. The inside is spacious and comfortable. The floors are inlaid with bold, geometrical tiles polished to a high sheen; the walls are paneled in oak; and allegorical carved figures support the fireplace mantels in the gallery and hall. The oriel windows overlooking the moat are large and finely leaded. The furniture is heavy, dark, and richly carved.
|Gheeraerts>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ghaerarts.png">](click-prepend: ?Gheeraerts)[Marcus Gheeraerts, Queen Elizabeth dancing la volta with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, c.1580 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Penhurst Palace, Kent]
Mary is the sixth daughter of the current master of Hindby, Robert Feld, esq. She is a gentlewoman without a fortune, hence fit to marry a university man without a pedigree. Her family is well-to-do and respectable, yet there is a shadow over Hindby. Mr. Feld is a recusant; his conscience prevents him and his young third wife from attending weekly services in his parish church, for which absence he is regularly fined. Although he does not publicly explain why he stays away from church, the reason is surely Popery. Everyone assumes that the Felds are Roman Catholics.
[[Mary's arrival at Hindby]]
Anna imagines how Mary and her retinue must have been greeted at Hindby: the father’s joy, the stepmother’s suppressed emotions, everyone’s consternation at the disappearance of Christopher and the arrival of a mute black savage in Mary’s company. Hindby’s hearths must have roared and nieces and nephews peeked from upstairs galleries while dance tunes played on the virginal.(set: $perspective to "Anna")
|Unton>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Unton.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Unton)[Sir Anon, Henry Unton, circa 1596 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> National Portrait Gallery NPG 710]
[[Mr. Trafford]]
Mary’s letter does not say how many of her own brothers and sisters were home to greet her, but it does mention a visiting gentleman, a Mr. Trafford. Anna knows him from subsequent events. He is a keen hunter and card-player, a raconteur, a wit. He wears his silk shirt open to the fourth button and practices fencing daily, yet he never mentions a duel or a battle in his own past. He drops Italian phrases when flirting with the ladies, but he has no wife or lover. He has court manners and an education from both Cambridge and a continental university, but no English degree. Protruding from the back of his doublet, a strip of rough goat-hair fabric can sometimes be seen, worn for mortification. After cards, he retires to his study to pray, and his candle burns until dawn. He sits privately with each member of the family, hearing their confessions. He expects and even hopes to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, for he is a Jesuit priest eager for martyrdom’s palm.
|jerome>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Jerome-e1475333558339.png">](click-prepend: ?jerome)[
Caravaggio, San Gerolomo, ca. 1605, <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> via en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Jerome_Writing#/]
[[Mr Trafford's past]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Jesuit')</script>(set: $perspective to "Trafford")(set: $characters to $characters + (a: "Trafford"))This is Father Trafford’s fifth clandestine visit to England. On the fourth, the rumors say, he was betrayed by a servant and held in London’s stinking Bridewell Prison for months. The Queen’s own Attorney, Mr. Coke, visited to put the “bloody question” to him: “Suppose the Pope sends his army to England, for whom willst thou fight, the Bishop of Rome or thy Queen?”
Trafford replied that he would, as always, be a loyal subject.
“A subject of whom?” Coke demanded to know.
“Only a prince hath subjects.”
“Therefore, thy prince being Elizabeth, thou swearest thou shalt fight for thy Queen and kill any Jesuit who lands upon these shores?”
“I will for my gracious Queen most sincerely pray.”
That is no answer, Coke sputtered. Trying another tack, he asked whether Trafford knew the whereabouts of other seminary priests.
He did not; and if he did, he would not say.
Again, this is not an answer; it is a Jesuitical paradox, an equivocation.
And what would Mr. Attorney do, Trafford replied, if a house-breaker demanded to know where his own daughter slept? Would he be bound to tell the whole truth to such a criminal? He would equivocate, would he not? Surely there is no obligation to reveal a precious secret to one who has no right to it.
The Queen’s unhinged torturer, Mr. Topcliffe, then arrived to hang Trafford by his wrists. When Trafford asked to see the warrant for his torture, Topcliffe showed it—and it was valid—but he also raved that the virgin Queen would let him do anything he wanted, even feel her bare legs and thighs, even let him bury his face in her skirts. Hanging three feet above the floor, the priest lost consciousness many times; but as long as he was alert, he never stopped smiling or exchanging quips with his tormenters. He was released at last on bail and slipped out of the country, only to return a month later under a new name.
[[Mary and Trafford at Hindby]]
(set: $Lucyquiz to 1)According to Mary’s letter, Father Trafford tried to convert Ajita while at Hindby. Anna presumes that the two men could communicate in Italian. Ajita must have learned that it is unwise to confess atheistic opinions west of the Indus River, so he probably described himself merely as a seeker and a philosopher. For Trafford, an unconverted but intelligent soul would be a target, like a handsome stag grazing within crossbow range. The two men surely sat up late, developing their Italian vocabularies as they conversed about //menti, anime, aspetti, idee, illusioni, and fenomini.// Art as well as faith may have entered their discussions. Ajita would have been more drawn to Titian than to Titian’s God.
It seems from the letter that Father Trafford also confessed Mary, even though she was an observant member of her Anglican parish at Beckley. He probably pressed her to break once and for all with the Protestant heresy and to shelter seminary priests when her husband was away. He may have interrogated her, too, about Mr. Christopher Bannock’s activities and encouraged her to glean more information about this man’s secret travels and his friends. Who, for instance, was the Flemish student with whom Mr. Bannock often conversed? The lubbery one with the soft limbs and mere down on his upper lip?
[[Their conversation]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna")Anna pictures the scene as her Catholic countrymen would. Father Trafford and Mary Bannock appear close up, filling most of her visual field. They are indoors and lit from above by a narrow band of natural light. The background is so dim that the whole scene appears basically without depth. Father Trafford’s shirt is a dark and lustrous crimson with black folds and bright highlights. A tiny gold crucifix on a chain slips out from under his white cuff, and his left hand rests carelessly on three rusted nails, symbols of the Jesuit order and of martyrdom. Trafford has an ecstatic, aristocratic face. His piercing eyes alight on the downcast Mary, to whom he points with his long right finger, brilliant in the sunlight.
[[Mary's thoughts]]
[[Pursuivants at the door]]
(set: $perspective to "Mary")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Englishlady')</script>Perhaps as they talk Father Trafford reminds Mary of nuns cast out of priories, of whitewashed paintings and church windows smashed to shards, of priests hanged or cut open on scaffolds. Perhaps he recalls her secret family pilgrimage to the Holy Well of Saint Winifred in Wales, whose water seemed to sooth her dying mother. Does he hum one of the old songs that both he and Mary learned in their cradles? So many of those lullabies were dialogues between the baby Jesus and the Virgin Lady, who talked nonsense, kissed, played peek-a-boo. Nowadays, Jesus is allowed to say nothing except what is recorded in the Gospels. Holy wells, passion plays, mummers, Morris men, maypoles—all that has been banned in Protestant England.
|tapestry>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/embroidery-e1476296302887.jpg">](click-prepend: ?tapestry)[Garden of Eden, English embroidery, 1575-99 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Metropolitan Museum of Art DP159807.tif
]
Despite Mary’s mourning for the old ways, she says in her letter to Christopher that she resisted Father Trafford’s pressure. Anna believes her. It is one thing to miss old customs; quite another to plot the overthrow of Queen Bess. Mary may wish that Puritans would leave the old churches and holidays alone, but she prays just as fervently that Pope Sixtus will cancel his excommunication of Elizabeth. Why must disguised Jesuits come all the way from Rome to chastise the local Catholics and make them conform to newfangled rules and ceremonies? Neither Rome nor London cares much for the old priests of the “Cotsall” hills, with their ignorance of doctrine, their instinctive patriotism, their charms for warding off worms, and their collections of Saxon martyrs’ bones. Mary remembers an old lady, a prioress until Henry the Eighth dissolved her nunnery. In her attic, the ancient nun still hid away a garter, worn a thousand years ago by Oxford’s Saint Frideswide, that could help women with menstrual cramps.
[[Pursuivants at the door]]
At any rate, these are the sorts of topics that Mary Bannock and Father Trafford may have discussed when they held the private conferences to which Mary briefly refers in her letter. Anna knows for certain why they <i>stopped</i> their talk. According to Mary’s letter, pursuivants banged at Hindby’s door one afternoon, with no notice at all. These armed men must have crept through the woods of the park, sprinted across the moat bridge, and waved a warrant from a Justice of the Peace while threatening to knock the door in. The J.P. himself rode up just as the door opened from the inside. It was Sir Thomas Lucy, portly scourge of local papists.
(if: $Lucyquiz is 1)[<i>A question for you, reader: Sir Thomas Lucy is known for having persecuted ...</i>
[[Father Trafford->wrong answer]]
[[Mary Feld->wrong answer]]
[[William Shakespeare->right answer]]
[[Foreigners in England->wrong answer]]
[[I'd rather not guess->The priest hole]]]
Sorry, wrong guess. (set: $knowledge to it - 1)(set: $Lucyquiz to 2)
[[The priest hole]]
Correct. Knowledge increases by 1.
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Lucy-1-e1475335211989.png">(set: $knowledge to it +1)(set: $Lucyquiz to 2)
[[The priest hole]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Jesuit')</script>(set: $perspective to "Trafford")Fortunately, Hindby had been equipped, like most such Catholic manors, with a “priest hole.” This hiding place was built by the master of that art, Little John, a crippled man, less than five feet tall, whose real name was Nicholas Owen. As an act of devotion, Little John had cunningly constructed a narrow chamber reachable from above the flue of the kitchen fireplace. He had altered the chimney so that all the heat from the fire was drawn to the right, and the secret chamber was on the left. It was just big enough for two men to sit facing each other, their knees entangled. A pipe leading from the roof to the chamber was always full of collected rainwater; waste could be discreetly flung in the fire.
Father Trafford leapt into this place as soon as he heard the first knock on the door, and someone bundled Ajita in after him. Who knew whether harboring an Indian heathen was a crime, like hiding a seminary priest? Better to conceal both men together, and maybe the good father could continue his ministry in the hiding place.
[[Lucy settles in]]
(set: $perspective to "Lucy")(set: $characters to $characters + (a: "Lucy"))Justice Lucy knew perfectly well that a house like this would contain priest holes. He had issued a warrant on the basis of a note that specifically identified Father Trafford and placed him at Hindby. Sir Thomas was now prepared to starve the priest out. He ensconced himself in Hindby’s gallery, stationed armed retainers in every room, and settled in for a long wait. If food could be secretly passed into the hiding place, the wait might be weeks; but sooner or later he would succeed. A servant would crack, or a cough would emerge from behind the oak paneling. Catching Father Trafford would not only be a great service to the reformed faith and the established church; it would also help Sir Thomas Lucy, M.P. and J.P., to win preferment in London.
[[In the hidey hole]]
The days must have passed at an excruciating pace. Sir Thomas’s men and the Felds’ servants shared the same space in a hostile, silent truce. Trafford and Ajita had no food beyond a few pieces of hard tack that had been left in the chimney for emergencies; their hunger pangs must have been terrible. No one can say precisely what passed between them, but Anna later comes to know Mr. Trafford well, and she finds she can imagine the situation from his perspective.
His face must be only inches from Ajita’s, which is lit warmly from below by the roaring kitchen hearth. The dark fellow’s brow is dotted with sweat. [(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[This rude and savage man of Ind]]<quoteInd| has obviously been terrified into silence; his eyes are closed most of the time. Trafford would like to minister to him, but his voice might attract attention from Sir Thomas Lucy’s men.(click: ?quoteInd)[
//Do you put tricks upon's with savages and men of Ind?//
By detecting this allusion to //The Tempest,// you get some entropy out of the system.(set: $entropy to it -1)
]
Besides, the Indian discourages even a whisper by refusing to look at him. Trafford therefore returns to Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s //Spiritual Exercises,// which he has memorized as his daily guide and solace.
[[Trafford proselytizes in the chimney]]
[[Skip his "Exercises"->Meanwhile, downstairs in the vast kitchen of Hindby Hall, Mary paces near the hearth.]]
Saint Ignatius suggests beginning the daily Exercises with a Preparatory Prayer. The sinner, in this case Father Trafford, must seek divine grace so that all his thoughts will have the pure purpose of exalting and serving God. He must then choose a concrete scene to contemplate //con la vista imaginativa//—with the sight of his imagination. While envisioning this holy scene, he will meditate on one of his own particular sins and remind himself that his soul is imprisoned in corruptible flesh. As long as he is embodied, he can see nothing but flesh, physical objects, and backgrounds—not abstractions such as Mercy or Salvation, which will be revealed only in paradise. However, through //contemplación//, also known as //meditación visible//, the sinner can choose to observe corporeal scenes that have transcendent significance.
Two round cakes of ship’s biscuit, previously chewed by rodents, are all the food that’s left in the priest hole. They sit on a ledge within Father Trafford’s sight. He wishes that he could eat one--or better, both. His whole body aches for the touch of the dry, mealy crumbs on his lips and tongue. They would turn sugary on contact with his saliva. But that is a sin: gluttony. Therefore, gluttony shall be the topic of Trafford’s //primer exercisio// for the day.
[[The spiritual exercise]]
What is an appropriate scene to aid in his contemplation of gluttony and temperance? Surely, the Marriage at Cana. When the Virgin Mary saw that the wine for the wedding had run out, she said: //“Vinum non habent”//: they have no wine. Our Lady’s concern was for the holy ceremony and the guests (“they”), not for herself. Because she addressed Jesus instead of seeking to obtain more wine on her own, her Son miraculously changed water to wine and there was plenty for all.
|veronese>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Veronese.png">](click-prepend: ?veronese)[Paolo Veronese, Feast at the House of Simon, 1570, <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> via commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Veronese,_Paolo_-_Feast_at_the_House_of_Simon_-_1570-1572.jpg/]
Trafford’s //vista imaginativa// conjures up a long hall with a coffered ceiling and a Corinthian portico of veined marble at the end, through which one can see fleecy clouds in a Mediterranean sky. The colors are matte but vivid. A table recedes toward the vanishing point that also attracts the beams overhead and the tiles below. At the table’s head, directly below the focal point, sits a bearded young man with a glowing aureole around his head. Male disciples line the table’s left side; women in gorgeous silk gowns sit along the right. The women’s long necks, chests, golden hair, jewelry, brocades, and diadems are lit by high windows. Our Lady, with pearls strung around her neck and woven into her red hair, turns graciously to show Martha the jugs of water that have changed to wine. Another woman, wearing a lovely pearl diadem, reaches across the table to serve Saint Peter a full goblet.
Father Trafford, having contemplated this scene, must now make an appropriate petition to God. He asks humbly that instead of wanting to devour the ship’s biscuits, he may yearn only for the //spiritual// repast of Holy Communion and the bodily comfort of his companion.
[[Ajita's response]]
(set: $perspective to "Ajita")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>His companion, meanwhile, has shut his eyes in order to suppress his hunger and irritation through yogic meditation. It infuriates Ajita that he should have traveled halfway around the globe, escaping many perils, only to be imprisoned in a chimney because of a spat between two sects of superstitious Franks. These people seem to hold different opinions about a type of cracker they eat in their temples on Sundays. They do not quarrel about the best recipe for baking this item, nor about the proper etiquette for chewing it, but rather about its metaphysical status. Because they cannot reach consensus on this matter (and a few equally obscure issues), they are killing one another all over their continent. Right now, Ajita would kill to eat any wafer at all, regardless of its metaphysical status.
But it is irrational to be angry when one cannot improve the situation. In a condition of discomfort, one should either obtain the thing one wants or remove one’s desire for it. In this case, the things that Ajita wants include tall piles of steaming buttered pilaf, a soft bed on which to rest horizontally, and Mary Bannock lying next to him.
|Kama>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Persian_miniature-e1475336697471.png">](click-prepend: ?Kama)[Persian miniature, expurgated detail, <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> via upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Persian_couple_copulating_Wellcome_L0033260.jpg/]
All three objects appear completely out of reach. Thinking about them only makes matters worse. Hence Ajita employs ancient techniques for reducing the activity of his brain, shutting out sensations, and shrinking his will to a vanishing point. He feels a breath enter his body and notes the instant when it turns to exit; then another. When irritating thoughts come into his mind, he merely notes them dispassionately and sets them aside, returning to his contemplation of breath. In, out. In, out.
[[Trafford interrupts]]
Trafford interrupts him with a whispered question in Italian: “When you were in Venice, did you visit the Brotherhood of the Crossbearers to see the //Marriage of Cana// that Tintoretto painted for the refectory?”
At first, Ajita is irritated by these words, which, along with the acrid smell of Trafford’s breath, drag him back to consciousness. But actually, he did see Tintoretto’s Marriage of Cana during the period when he was first “indentured” to Christopher Bannock in Venice. Whereas Father Trafford had noticed a deep volume of space, defined by sharp receding lines and shadows, and filled with solid interacting figures whom he could identify and name, Ajita’s eyes were drawn to the translucence of the glassware, the intense white of the tablecloth (surely based on lead), and the way just a few bold brushstrokes conjured yards of drapery.
[[The fugitives reflect on art]]
Trafford is considering the biblical text. He asks, “Does Jesus //notice// the miracle of the wine?”
Ajita replies that, in his recollection of the picture, Jesus is seated very far back from the amphoras and wine-filled goblets and seems to pay no attention to the excitement about the miracle.
Trafford murmurs the Gospel passage aloud, translating the memorized Latin text into Italian so that Ajita can understand him: “When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother told him, ‘They have no more wine.’ And Jesus replied: ‘What is that between you and me, lady? My hour is not yet come.’ And his mother said to the servants, ‘Do everything he tells you.’”
It has always seemed an enigmatic exchange. Father Trafford wonders what Jesus’ reply means, and why He proceeds to create wine even after saying that the problem is not His. Is he curt with his mother? Did she say the wrong thing? With what expression should one read Jesus’ words?
For his part, Ajita imagines how he would illustrate the miracle at Cana. He ponders the mystery of why the same precise scene, painted by two people from different backgrounds, will appear so different. Even if both artists observe the same physical reality from the same vantage point, or even if they both follow the same highly detailed written instructions to the best of their abilities, their products will inevitably look different. Does this mean that we see the same world divergently? And what about representations of the world--do we all see them alike? Finally, Ajita wonders, has he seen reality in new ways since he experienced Tintoretto’s images?
The two men’s heads bow together as they close their eyes and visualize the refectory wall in faraway Venice. The fire crackles below them while rain, driving on the slate roof, refills their water pipe. After a time, they each take a biscuit, eat half of it pensively, and replace the rest on the ledge.
(link: "Click to lower the system's entropy, as Ajita and Trafford find some harmony")[(set:$entropy to it - 1)]
[[Meanwhile, downstairs in the vast kitchen of Hindby Hall, Mary paces near the hearth.]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Englishlady')</script>(set: $perspective to "Mary")Mary hopes to hear sounds of Father Trafford and Ajita that will reassure her that they still live. She hopes not to hear them in case their noises are audible to others. She hopes to be present near the kitchen fire when pursuivants come by, so that she can distract them. She hopes that her presence does not attract anyone’s attention. She decides to leave the kitchen but returns within minutes. She sits on a three-legged stool and works on her lace. She hears what could be a whisper from the chimney, but it is probably only rain. She stands and paces while a drowsy yokel with a pike tries to keep his eye on her from across the room. She sits and stitches. She sings, in case her voice may please her friends. She stops, in case the pursuivants wonder what her singing means. She puts her lacework in her lap and broods.
|Sheldon>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/tapestry.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Sheldon)[Tapestry, workshop of William Sheldon, Cotswolds, 1580-90]
[[Suddenly standing before her is Sir Thomas Lucy]]
He wears puritan black from his square cap to his buckled boots, except for his gold chain of office. His beard is a magnificent specimen, ample and neatly trimmed. His belly is almost as impressive, clasped by his chubby fingers.
Mary rises, drops her lace, thinks to courtesy, but restrains herself in anger. She hates this man, and not merely for what he has done to Father Trafford. He treats her father high-handedly, like a criminal. She will not be civil to him.
Her mouth opens and closes. Justice Lucy smiles slightly and says, “Knowst thou know who gave me the intelligence of Mr. Trafford: his being here?”
Mary can only shake her head.
“Thy husband,” says Lucy, “in a letter.” He pulls a sheet out of his coat and waves it at her.
[[Mary and her husband]]
Her husband! The thought no doubt drives her to fury. And yet it makes sense. Mary and Christopher have often quarreled about her link to a Catholic family. In fact, they have quarreled about many topics. If truth be told, it is not only he who flies away from their home whenever the mood is particularly unhappy. Mary has frequently packed up her bags and moved to Hindby, refusing to open letters from Christopher while they are apart. Even on this visit, she has been handed four separate messages from her husband that she has consigned unopened to the fire.
Her sojourns at Hindby Hall generally end when her stepmother persuades her father to send her back home. But Mr. Feld is indulgent and usually allows his child to postpone the return journey for weeks. This time, evidently, Christopher has chosen to destroy the whole idyll. By bringing the Justice of the Peace into their midst on a warrant for high treason, Christopher threatens to close Hindby forever. He is prepared, it seems, to send her father to the executioner’s block just so that she will have no place to run away.
“I have letters to attend to and shall be in your father’s study,” Sir Thomas says. Mary watches him turn his back and walk away with the paper still clutched in his hand. Although a Calvinist, he moves like a Roman priest up the aisle for mass, she thinks. Rain drives against the small kitchen window, and after a while, a mouse pokes its nose from behind a coal shuttle.
[[“What does he want?” she asks herself.]]
Mary has no words for her first answer, but an image of very explicit sexuality comes into her mind. With a shudder, she shakes away the idea of a huge, shaking, hairy stomach. Still, Lucy has no such reputation. Usually, the servant girls know when a man has filthy habits or desires. She has heard nothing of the kind about this magistrate, who is known as a pious and sober gentleman.
Not that the servants //like// him. His wealth, it seem, comes from forcing tenants off the common fields, erecting stone walls around their perimeters, and raising sheep. Mary knows that her own grandfather enclosed Hinby Park for his sport, ejecting the tenants who had once gleaned firewood and water from this monastic forest. But the monasteries were closed by act of Parliament; someone had to buy their property. Besides, Sir Thomas encloses land on a much grander scale than the Felds have ever attempted. The servants report that he even has designs on the Oxford Common; several members of the City’s Corporation are in his pay and are inclined to sell Port Meadow to him for private grazing.
It is possible that Justice Lucy is after Hindby Hall. If its master were convicted of treason for harboring a Jesuit, the Hall would fall to the crown; and Thomas Lucy could probably buy it at bargain rates.
[[What could Mary’s husband have to do with this business?]]
Chris is obviously in league with Mr. Lucy. Would he profit somehow from Hindby if his own father-in-law went to prison or the block? It occurs to Anna that Christopher’s most recent letter was sent from Otmoor. That’s her late mother’s country, northeast of Oxford; and there is talk that the moor might be enclosed. Thomas Lucy could profit from the enclosure, and maybe Chris is there as his agent. Mary, who has been angry at Chris for weeks, now views him as a monster who plans to destroy her own father. It would be almost equally monstrous to destroy Otmoor--and thus perfectly in character for Chris.
[[Mary recalls Otmoor]]
The people of Otmoor say that Our Lady rode around the moor carrying a sheaf of burning oats, and every acre that was touched by the ash was theirs forever, to be worked in common. Although Mary Bannock cannot put her knowledge in words, deep down she knows that the Lady who brings the flowers to Otmoor is not only the Holy Mother of God, but also Blodeuwedd, the ninefold goddess of the Western Isles, who was fashioned out of broom, Queen-of-the-Meadow, and oak blossom in the days of old King Lear. Blodeuwedd became Flora when the Roman legions tramped up from Aquae Sulis, and then Saint Mary in the time of Saint Frideswide of Oxenforde. The land will be the Lady’s forever, whatever Sir Thomas Lucy does with it.
[[Mary plots her next steps]]
Mistress Mary Bannock now has more purpose and motivation that at any previous time in her nineteen years. It is clear that Sir Thomas Lucy wants to buy her adored Otmoor, her beloved Hindby Hall, and maybe Oxford’s Common, which King Alfred himself gave to the freemen of the city, all at bargain rates so that he can cast the ancient tenants out and graze thousands of his ravenous sheep for the Flanders wool market. The fortunes to be made from that kind of enterprise are enormous, sufficient to turn a man’s sons into great peers of the realm—sufficient to obtain whole shires of Ireland or to erect palaces in London Town. Mr. Lucy is willing to kill dear old Mr. Feld to get his way; and he has employed Mr. Bannock as his factotum. Mary’s task on earth is to stop both wicked men, even if she must slay them with a dagger, like Arria that old Roman lady, or like Mary the Queen of the Scots, or like any of those fierce and vengeful women you have to whisper about.
But it would be better not to burn in hell for breaking the First Commandment. Crossing herself, Mary decides she needs to know more. Thomas Lucy must have some weakness she can exploit. Her information about Otmoor and its possible enclosure came from her tiny old nursemaid, Dame Ford. That woman is toothless, distressing to look at close up, and obscure of speech; but she listens as she sews in the kitchen or the horse barn, and she knows a great deal.
[[Mary finds Dame Ford in a store room]]
Mary and sits silently next to Dame Ford for a long time, because that is how you have to start, no matter how maddening the wait may be. The servant darns and Mary embroiders.
“My dear nurse,” she finally blurts out. “What news of Mr. Lucy?”
Dame Ford spits something—Mary fears it’s a tooth. She mutters a completely unintelligible phrase, a sound that rises out of the Cotswolds. She adds, “Corn is eleven shillins, they say. Beans is six and seven pence at ’Bury Mart.”
“Terrible dear,” Mary says, hoping that is the right response.
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Privy-e1475342207137.png">
“Never’s such a dearth and famine been seen in the land. A sorrowful tyme. ’Ow can the poorest make shift?”
“And Mr. Lucy?”
“Them as keeps men as curs shall be bit ’isself, in tuyme.”
This sounds like good news, assuming Lucy is the one to be bitten; but the prediction is too vague. “What do you mean, nurse?”
“Shortly, py’re Lady, shall we ’ave a great ado.”
“An ‘ado’?”
“Better slain in market than starved in t’ouse.”
“Who says that?”
The old lady’s eyes narrow and she purses her lips. She has said too much already to a gentlelady, even one who sucked at her breast not so many years ago.
[[Mary asks about Issac]]
“Nurse,” says Mary after an appropriate pause, “why was Isaac, the fletcher’s boy, whipped before the house?”
|whip>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Foxe_whipping-e1478472667457.png">](click-prepend: ?whip)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1563
]
It had happened a few days before, on Justice Lucy’s orders. There had been a strange silence about the matter ever since—none of the gossip that one would expect if an apprentice had been caught drunk or had forgotten his chores. A justice of the peace would rarely punish a lowly servant in another man’s household, unless that servant had somehow interfered with the course of justice. Something had happened that no one wanted to tell Mary.
“I know not,” said Dame Ford. Mary returned to her embroidery and stitched almost a whole rose before the nurse added, “But I ‘ears sommat.”
“What’s that that thou heareth, nurse?”
“That ‘e were carryin’ a letter, like, when ‘e were snatched oop by the Justice’s men neigh at village.”
“Carrying a letter out of Hindby, then?”
“Aye, like as not.”
“I wonder to whom he was carrying it,” Mary said, realizing that any correspondent of Mr. Trafford or of her father might be an ally to whom she could turn.
“Well, it ain’t that I can read, or naught like ‘at –“
“No, nurse.”
“But I do ‘ave ears, and I ‘ave ‘eard the letter bore the name of Doctor Burby. A University man, or so they say.”
[[Mary thinks about Dr. Burby]]
Now //three// planets circle in the dark sky of Mary’s thoughts: Bannock, Lucy, and Burby. Bannock is Burby’s student; this suggests an influence or affinity. Bannock told Lucy that a seminary priest was hidden at Hindby Hall: evidence of a second affinity. But the intercepted letter was going from Hindby Hall to Dr. Burby. It couldn’t be a message from Mr. Lucy, because he flogged the boy who tried to deliver it.
Or so the nurse says. Can Mary believe this old lady? Dame Ford is sharp and canny, but she has no breeding or manners at all. Does she really understand the complex actions of her betters, especially now that she is well into her forties and sounding more and more like a country crone?
Mary needs someone to talk to, someone who is entirely trustworthy and competent. Her father certainly won’t divulge anything that he happens to know, and that leaves only one man under Hindby’s roof. Father Trafford may well be the author of the intercepted letter. Even if he knows nothing of it, he is a worldly man (despite his vocation) who has made it his business to understand politics, starting with the university. If Dr. Edmund Burby is a potential ally, Father Trafford probably knows why. Unfortunately, the priest is hidden halfway up the kitchen chimney, which is always watched by an armed constable.
//An entropic situation//
(if: $entropy > 14)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy15.png">](if: $entropy is 14)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy14.png">]
(if: $entropy is 13)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy13.png">](if: $entropy is 12)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy12.png">](if: $entropy is 11)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy11.png">](if: $entropy is 10)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy10.png">](if: $entropy is 9)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy09.png">](if: $entropy < 9)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy08.png">]
[[Mary seeks to talk with Trafford]]
Mary paces the close-cropped grass outside the kitchen—observed by another constable who stands across the moat with a blunderbuss under his arm—and slowly forms a plan. Back in the kitchen, she slyly sizes up the guard of the hour, a straw-haired fellow of about twenty. He has a fleshy pink face despite his skinny frame, and his mouth hangs slightly agape. He’s probably new to his office and very unwilling to leave his cottage plot and humble beasts for this unpaid parish duty. He may never have seen the inside of a grand place like Hindby before; Mary catches him scanning the rows of gleaming pots that hang from the rafters. Families like Mary’s eat heartily while men like this sometimes make due with boiled acorns, especially when they must leave their farms for weeks to obey a hue and cry.
[[She calls for Rose, her stepmother’s girl.]]
“Rose,” she says, “make some almond puddings for supper.”
Rose considers resisting this surprising order. Mary’s status in the household is marginal, and it’s not clear that servants must do what she says. Rose squints back a little insolently and doesn’t move.
“Come, girl, we’ll use a whole pound of currents, an equal weight of sugar; and I shall answer for it if my mother questions thee. There will be plenty left for our tasting,” she adds, managing a cheerful laugh.
Rose is a plump, unmarried woman of nearly thirty who is fond of sweets. Mary’s offer is too good to resist. They set about cooking, with Mary doing as much of the manual work as a lady may, while giving all the instructions. First, Rose fetches a quart of thick cream from the dairy while the constable pretends not to watch Mary, who looks dreamily out the window. The rain has stopped and mist is creeping along the moat. Then Rose goes for water while Mary weighs a pound of almonds on a balance-scale and the constable sneaks another peek. Mary judges that both she and the almonds have caught the young man’s interest.
[[They cook]]
When Rose is back from the well, the two women hang a gleaming ten-gallon pot over the fire and boil the cream along with nutmeg and a tiny pinch of clove. Rose stirs constantly with a wooden paddle to prevent burning. In a second pot, they boil the almonds. Then the almonds and their steaming water go into a colander held outside the kitchen door. The water runs through brown grass and leaves toward the moat, filling the air with a rich and complex favor. Two geese waddle up to look for leavings.
<img src="http://elizabethanenglandlife.com/elizabethan-drinks-2.jpg">
The women take turns with a mortar and pestle, reducing the blanched nuts to a paste which they dilute with rosewater from an old glass decanter. The almonds go into the pot with the cream and Rose stirs the thick mass, singing “Green Grow the Rushes Ho.” Meanwhile, Mary is separating eggs and yolks, making sure that the constable can see her soft neck under her bonnet as she works.
The pot comes off the fire and sits on the floor to cool a bit; then in go yolks and the beaten whites. Rose walks to an outbuilding for animal parts, and Mary puts the pot back on. She gives the constable a slight smile that elicits a deep blush. Rose’s suet and marrow go into the mix along with more sugar than the poor constable and his whole family have eaten in a decade. For several minutes, the brown crystals pour into the rich hot cream in a thin, delicious stream and one can almost hear them melt. A scent of almond and caramel fills the air and—it occurs to Mary—rises up the chimney to reach Father Trafford and that black heathen in their hiding place. She hopes they are not very hungry.
[[They finish the pudding]]
“Are the guts scraped well clean?” Mary asks Rose.
“Aye, the butcher’s boy worked ’em all afternoon, thinking they was meant for Mr. Feld’s sausages.”
“Marry, he //shall// eat sausages.”
They both laugh to think of the delicious surprise that almond puddings will present. They weigh a pound of currents, mix them into the pot, and remove it again from the fire. Then Rose holds the sheep innards open with tongs while Mary spoons in steaming dollops of creamy almond pudding. When they are done, fifteen or twenty fat white almond-cream sausages sit in a pile on a pewter tray. Rose comes back with another bucketful of water from the well, and once it boils, the sausages take a tumble in the pot. Parboiling makes them swell almost to bursting and turns their casings translucent.
“Put them outside on the stone bench to cool,” Mary tells Rose. “Thou mayst take the pot with thee to wipe clean in thy chamber.”
[[Mary uses the puddings]]
|Banbury>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Banbury_Cake.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Banbury)[Recipe from Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, 1615 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Banbury_Cake_Gervase_Markham_1615.jpg
]
Mary stands with her back to the still-flickering hearth. The constable is stationed by the leaded window, not more than twenty paces from the steaming almond sausages on the bench outside. No one has counted them, and they are numerous enough that a single missing one would never be noticed. Even for someone as generally well-fed as Mary, the smell in the room is luscious and almost irresistible. The constable risks a quick glance at Mary, half smiles and then averts his eyes, shoulders his pike, and marches outside in a military style—for all the world like a member of the Queen’s Guard.
He won’t dare to eat his stolen pudding in the kitchen, Mary thinks; and even if he rushes, he will need several minutes to consume the piping-hot stuffing.
“Ho there,” she says quite loudly, but with her back still turned to the hearth. “The guard is gone. Father, do you live?”
[[Trafford speaks]]
“Jesu! We can hardly breathe for want of those puddings,” says a weak voice. “We starve in this bunghole.”
Mary tries to envision a safe way to get a pudding up the chimney. On a poker? In a basket? Nothing workable comes to mind.
“Dr. Edmund Burby and Justice Lucy,” she says: “Are those two men friends or enemies?”
“By the holy visage of Jesus and his five open wounds,” Trafford cries, all his Jesuit discipline completely lost. “What know //I// of that? I am a rat in a crack with nary a crumb, and thou hast cooked a queen’s feast of almonds and boiled cream right under my nose. For pity’s sake—food! Or shall I climb down and get it myself?”
Mary hears a rustling sound and some coal dust slides down the side of the chimney. “Nay!” she almost shouts. “The fire! And the guard, he’ll return.”
At just this moment, [[a shadow appears in the kitchen door.]]
Mary steps away from the fireplace, hissing “Shhhh” in a low, frightened tone.
It is worse than she expected—not the constable, but the massive figure of Sir Thomas Lucy crosses the threshold.
“Alone, are we?” says the Justice after he has observed the whole kitchen from his vantage point near the door. “And yet methought I heard talking.” He speaks quietly, probably too quietly to be heard up the chimney.
Mary’s mouth opens and shuts. Behind her, she hears shifting or rustling. She prays it is only the burning log settling onto the irons. Her heart pounds and her face is flushed.
[[Lucy interrogates Mary]]
“My constable hath quit his post, I see. He’ll be stocked and whipped for’t.”
“Like poor Isaac, the fletcher’s boy,” Mary says involuntarily, recalling the sound of thick rope snapping on Isaac’s bare buttocks. She could hear the twenty blows and Isaac’s stifled cries from her chamber, even though the stocks had been set up across the moat.
“Isaac was beat for trying to carry a message from your father unto a mad Oxford doctor that meddles with demons. The warrant of her Majesty’s Privy Council forbids all traffic with Hindby Hall until such time as her Majesty’s Justice of the Peace, which is I, shall lift the ban. Isaac well earned his whipping, but by rights, old Mr. Feld had joined him i’the stocks for penning the note. A touch o’ the whip would save many a gentle soul worse torments in the next life.”
Sir Thomas looks satisfied and composed. He clasps his hands under his belly and watches Mary. The only sound is hissing from the fireplace, until a sudden pop makes her jump and shake.
“You like this kitchen, eh, and the hearth fire? It makes a warm kind of company for a young lass.” His eyes travel up the chimney. “Aye, this is where ye most like to wait.”
Mary feels that her body is interposed between the Justice and his two potential victims. She experiences a wave of courage and protectiveness, like a grouse before her chicks when a fox nears. But then Justice Lucy takes a step closer and, to her shame, she flees the kitchen and rushes up a spiral staircase. In her chamber, she falls on her bed and weeps from fear and disappointment.
[[Mary in her bedroom]]
The almond pudding was a fatal mistake. She expects any moment to hear shouting, wailing, and footsteps marching on the stone floors. Father Trafford will hang, Hindby will close, and her father will be lucky to escape the block. She cannot shake the image of him bent over and naked like Isaac—although he would face the ax rather than a whip for harboring a Jesuit.
When her sobs subside, she realizes that there is nothing else to hear. The funereal silence that arrived at Hindby with the pursuivants still blankets the house. She creeps to her oriel window and peers out, her chin at the sill. It’s a misty autumn late afternoon under overcast skies. The background is woodland of gray and pale green, the ground shrouded in mist. Already, one cannot see far into the wood; full darkness will come quickly. In the privy garden beneath Mary’s window, a mossy sundial, left over from the days of the Benedictine priory, is surrounded by short boxwood hedges clipped to an intricate pattern. The whole bed has a square outline and is surrounded by a gravel path and an ancient stone wall that once enclosed a cloister. A constable stands near the gate of the privy garden with his musket, while another walks the paths beyond, his eyes on the house. Both men look bored and move slowly. They cast no shadows in the weak light.
[[A small figure approaches along the boundary path.]]
The brim of his hat covers his face, but Mary gradually makes out that this hunched man is her father. She watches him fondly as he hobbles closer. He’s taking his evening walk around his estate, dreaming of the day when it will all be safely his again. Perhaps he’s chanting //Deus in adjutorium meum intende// for Vespers, being far enough from any pursuivant that no one will catch him at the monkish rite.
Another figure exits Hindby Hall and approaches Mr. Feld. This man wears a black conical hat with a broad rim. He is stout and moves in a smooth and stately fashion. Mary concludes that it is Sir Thomas Lucy. She winces to see the two men draw near, expecting to witness a confrontation. But Lucy merely doffs his hat, one squire to another, and moves away along the perimeter path. Mr. Feld touches his hat in return and then enters his own home, his body noticeably more hunched after the encounter.
For whatever reason, Father Trafford must still be safe in the chimney, at least for the time being.
While the calm holds, Mary wants to ask Isaac about that message to Dr. Burby. Isaac hasn’t been seen at Hindby since his flogging; he is probably at his master's house in the village a mile hence.
There are three powerful reasons why Mary may //not// go to the village to talk to Isaac: ladies do not walk abroad by themselves, especially at a time of famine and unrest; no resident is permitted to leave Hindby, which is under constant guard; and the forest between the hall and the village is a fearsome place at night. That ancient wood, preserved by druids and the monks who succeeded them, is surely haunted by their various spirits. Not to mention the bears, boars, and occasional lone wolves that still lurk in Cotswold forests.
[[She decides to risk it]]
[[She chooses not to]]
Obedience and prudence were never Mary’s strongest virtues. As a little girl, she had snuck around Hindby, avoiding chores or spying on the boys and pelting them with pine cones from hiding places. At sixteen, she’d let Christopher steal through the wood, crawl between a particular clipped hedge and a certain stone wall, scurry under the piers of the back bridge, climb a thick vine that reaches a window to a little-used staircase, and slip into her bedchamber. There Chris would find her barefoot in a silk flowered chemise, reading by candlelight the verse, [(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[“NOW welcome night, thou night so long expected”:
//Spread thy broad wing over my love and me,
that no man may us see,
And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,
From feare of perrill and foule horror free.//]]<quote2|”(click: ?quote2)[
//This is not really an anachronism. Mary is just quoting from Edmund Spenser's Epithalamion of 1594.//]
|Herbert>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Herbert-e1475630604779.png">](click-prepend: ?Herbert)[Isaac Oliver, Portrait of Edward Herbert. His motto, //Magica Sympathia,// suggests an interest in alchemy <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Herbert,_1st_Baron_Herbert_of_Cherbury]
She banishes that sweet memory, but recalls precisely how Chris used to climb the vine. Where he’d gone up—shielded from view by the curve of the spiral staircase—she can go down. She waits for the sky to turn a shade or two darker, wraps herself in her grayest stole, and slips out the staircase window. It’s a quick descent on the thick, gnarled trunk. She peeks around the corner, drops almost on all fours, and slips into a culvert.
[[Into the wood]]
(set: $knowledge to it - 1)She sleeps in her own room, undisturbed. The next morning, men come from her and march her upstairs to her father’s study, passing cousins and servants who watch in fear and fascination amid the painted ancestors on the walls.
The study is a small chamber, darkly paneled except for the fine leaded window. Mr. Feld usually hangs devotional pictures on the wall, but these have been taken away as Romanist idols—all but an oil of the Holy Family on their way to Egypt, which passes as a history painting. Mary knows that there was once a crucifix relief on the wall, but that panel has been flipped to hide it from Government agents. The effect now is suitably spare and Protestant.
Sir Thomas Lucy sets down a quill, rises from her father’s small desk, and walks quite close to Mary. She cannot back away because a foul-smelling constable has twisted her arm behind her. She watches spittle form on Sir Thomas’ lips.
[[Lucy interrogates Mary again]]
|Bol3>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/HansBol3-e1477612618658.png">](click-prepend: ?Bol3)[Hans Bol, 1550-93, Wooded Landscape with Buildings Along a Lake <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bol
]
The rest of her route is exactly as she remembers it, and soon she is under the cover of trees. The margin of the wood is overgrown with elder bushes, nettles, and bramble clumps, now dry and leafless. Once Mary fights her way through, she is among mighty oak trunks. The thickly matted earth rises near each tree and falls away between. She can see just far enough to count a few trunks. She hastens forward, hoping that the path to the village is on her right. As she goes, she thinks of elves, aufs, hobgoblins, and fairies. Coming over the next rise, she might catch them at their sport, playing merrily with their glowworms and radiant toadstools, wearing little coats and pointed hats of bright colors; but any mortal who spies them must die. She thinks of crazed men with antlers growing from their heads, doomed to run by night while by day their sins are purged and burned. She turns around quickly lest she is followed by a man with cloven hoofs, a tail, and eyes like coals. All these have been seen in the Oxfordshire woods; she has heard the stories since her cradle.
[[And now she’s sure she’s lost]]
She has been hurrying along for ages; she should have reached the village long ago. Maybe she should bear right to pick up the road? She would rather walk along it and risk meeting a parish patrol or even a pack of highwaymen, rather than face the horrors of a forest by night. (How did Christopher manage this journey? she wonders, sympathetic for a moment—and pleased to think that desire for her drew him through this dolorous place like a knight errant.) She bears right, then sharper right, and comes upon an oak that she is sure she has already passed.
Just as she is near despair, she catches a glimpse of light. It vanishes, but she can make it reappear by taking three steps back. It could be a fairy lamp or a will-‘o-the-wisp luring her to drown. It could be Hindby’s towers, and then she’d be back where she began.
[[It comes from the village]]
[[She gives up and goes back to Hindby->She chooses not to]]
In fact, she hopes that it is a lighted window in Hindby Hall, meaning safety and the end of her foolish adventure.
But as she approaches, she sees the faint outline of thatched roofs. A dog begins to bark. She has reached the village.
[[Isaac is not hard to find.]]
He is sitting on a stone wall outside the thatcher’s cottage, where he lives. A few other villagers are visible, but each is absorbed in his own work—one herding ducks into a house for the night; another bolting a gate. As Mary approaches silently along the shadowy margin of the village, she considers how to persuade Isaac to speak. She has seen him before but does not know his character. What kind of village boy will this prove to be, she wonders? (Or is it Anna who asks herself this question, just before the dialogue begins?) Poor Isaac may be too skittish to look Mary in the eye; he may even run away in terror. He may be one of those resentful, bitter peasants who look away and mutter darkly. He may be a simpleton, unable to grasp her questions and ignorant of the message he was supposed to carry to Oxford. He may be a master of rustic evasion, replying politely but vaguely and unintelligibly. He may be a religious zealot; that type is common. Since he has served Mr. Feld, he would most likely be a Catholic, fingering his secret rosary and dreaming of martyrdom. But she can’t rule out the possibility that he’s one of these puffed-up Puritans, so arrogant in his cold faith that he holds the gentry in open contempt.
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[Isaac is a short fellow, but he reaches Mary’s height when seated on the wall. He wears a shiny waistcoat. His thin legs are crossed and he is puffing on a pipe. He has a baby face yet the composed demeanor of an old man. Mary, who stands directly before him, fears she must make a surprising sight: a lady wrapped in gray emerging from the dark woods. But Isaac seems to pay her no attention whatsoever. His large eyes barely shift or blink. He and she stare at one another while Mary tries to think how to introduce herself.]]<quoteIsaac|(click: ?quoteIsaac)[
//By detecting this allusion to //Alice's Adventures in Wonderland// (1865), you reduce entropy.//(set: $entropy to it -1)
]
[[Isaac speaks]]
Isaac slowly removes the pipe from his mouth and says, very languidly or sleepily and almost in a drawl, “Who are you?”
“I, I—well that’s of no consequence.” She doesn’t want to say her name, because she is not supposed to have left Hindby. (This is a problem that she has not considered until now.)
“It matters to //you// who you are,” Isaac observes, still speaking very slowly and without a hint of perturbation in his voice.
|Isaac>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Alice.png">](click-prepend: ?Isaac)[Sir John Tenniel, Alice meets the Caterpillar, 1865 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/5.1.html/]
“Indeed, but I have come to ask you a question, you know.”
“I do //not// know,” says Isaac, putting his pipe back in his mouth.
Mary can’t decide what to make of this response. “This is my question,” she says at last. “I wish to know …”
“//You// wish to know?” Isaac breaks in contemptuously. “Who are //you?”//
They seem to have returned to the beginning of the conversation, which is not going at all as Mary had expected. She considers declaring her name and rank and demanding his respect, but that might put her in danger. She blurts out, “Rude wretch!” and stomps away a few paces.
[[Isaac speaks again]]
“Come back!” Isaac says. “I’ve something to say.”
Mary returns quickly, her hopes rising.
“Keep thy temper,” says Isaac, matter-of-factly.
Mary does her best to stifle her fury. “Is that all?” she says.
“No,” says Isaac.
They return to staring at one another. Mary would try to resume the conversation, but she is so flustered and angry that no words come to mind. It seems better to wait than to walk back home through the forest.
[[Isaac asks a question]]
Isaac removes his pipe and says, at last, “What message had I for Dr. Burby?”
“That is my question for you!” says Mary in great excitement.
“No, that is my question for you.”
“Well, //I// know not the answer,” Mary says, tears rising.
“I do.”
“Tell me, please.” Mary considers kneeling to beg.
“Why?”
“To save a man from an ordeal most cruel and most unjust.”
“No one saved //me//,” Isaac observes without evident emotion.
The pipe goes back into his mouth and smoke curls out lazily. This time, Mary decides it is best simply to wait. After a dozen puffs or more, Isaac swings his legs over the wall, climbs off, and walks slowly toward the house. As he goes, he says without turning to face Mary ...
[[Isaac's riddle]]
//Justice Lucy, he would make
Dr. Burby quake and shake.
Dr. Burby, he would fain
Justice Lucy suffer pain.
Use the one against the other;
That’s the way to help your father.//
Mary stares for a long time at the closed door of the thatcher’s cottage, where Isaac has gone in. She stares and thinks—at first in a jumbled, fretful way but soon with clarity and conviction. She turns and hastens back to Hindby Hall along the Queen’s highway.
(if: $entropy < 12)[(link-goto: "A question","game1")](if: $entropy > 13)[(link-goto: "A question","game2")](if: $entropy < 14 and $entropy > 11)[(link-goto: "Back toward Hindby", "She turns and hastens back to Hindby Hall")]
On a night when even the thatcher’s apprentice sounds bewitched, she’d rather be dunked for gossip than take a single step into that forest. The canopied road will be murky enough.
It’s a ten minute walk from the village to the hall, if one is young, fit, and very anxious to be home. Five minutes into it, Mary turns a corner and sees a band of men in wide-brimmed hats holding lanterns on poles. She steps into the forest, but they have already heard or seen her. “Ho there!” she hears, and then a lot of leaves crunching and sticks breaking. She runs helter-skelter, rising and falling with the rolling forest floor, until she finds the cleft trunk of a great oak in which to hide herself—hobgoblins or no. But the men have caught her in the beams of their lanterns, and soon she feels rough hands on her shoulders.
[[Back to Hindby]]
She spends the night in Hindby’s wood cellar with a guard posted at the door. In the morning, she’s marched upstairs to her father’s study, passing cousins and servants who watch in fear and fascination amid the painted ancestors on the walls.
The study is a small chamber, darkly paneled except for the fine leaded window. Mr. Feld usually hangs devotional pictures on the wall, but these have been taken away as Romanist idols—all but an oil of the Holy Family on their way to Egypt, which passes as a history painting. Mary knows that there was once a crucifix relief on the wall, but that panel has been flipped to hide it from Government agents. The effect now is suitably spare and Protestant.
Sir Thomas Lucy sets down a quill, rises from her father’s small desk, and walks quite close to Mary. She cannot back away because a foul-smelling constable has twisted her arm behind her. She watches spittle form on Sir Thomas’ lips.
[[Lucy interrogates Mary again]]
“Where is Mr. Trafford?” he asks in an even voice.
“Long gone. To ’scape from Hindby is an easy matter. I do it myself—often.”
“Were those rats, then, that I heard scuffling in the kitchen chimney at midnight last?”
This question frightens Mary, but she is able to answer in a calm enough tone: “I should think so. In any house, there’ll be more vermin than men.” She adds an afterthought: “And some of the men may //be// rats.”
“Just so,” the Justice says. “Waiting to be caged and drowned. Shall I have that chimney broke open and scoured for hidey-holes?”
[[Mary makes an offer that may save Ajita and Trafford at Anna's expense->Mary bargains with Lucy]]
... or ...
[[Mary refrains from acting]]
(set: $entropy to it +1)“If you do, I will never tell you what I know of Dr. Edmund Burby.”
There is a flicker of surprise on the Justice’s face, but he recovers almost instantly. His face looms closer as he says, “What know ye?”
“Something that would ruin him.”
“Then you must tell it to Her Majesty’s Justice of the Peace.”
“Nay.”
“I’ll stock thee to loosen thy tongue.”
“On what charge? And with what warrant?” Mary is in fighting form now, as fearless and effective as she’d be in a spat with Christopher. This is just an old man, she thinks; he has no chin under his bushy beard.
“This thing that ye know—ye’ heard it from Mr. Bannock?” Lucy asks, taking a step backward and calculating.
“Nay, ’tis a scandal he knows nothing of.”
“How great the outrage?” Lucy squints like a merchant assessing the likely worth of a cargo.
“Plenty for thy purposes. Not just a shame; also a crime.”
“And your price?” Lucy asks, looking ever more eager. The constable who has been holding Mary’s arm relaxes his grasp, sensing that this is now a negotiation, not an interrogation.
“Two men’s safe passage.”
“Two, eh? Tell me the scandal, and they may go.”
“Let them go, and I will tell you the scandal.”
[[Lucy considers the offer]]
Lucy scowls and counts on his fat fingers: “Concealing a pair of traitors: two felonies. Withholding evidence of conspiracy or other scandal: a third crime. Thy silence is triple-criminal, and bargaining compoundeth the fault.”
In quarrels over matters of principle, Mary is often inspired. She looks Lucy in the eye and quotes, “For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: you afflict the just, you take a bribe, you turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. Therefore the prudent shall keep //silence//; for it is an evil time.”
Lucy slaps her, not as hard as she has been slapped in the past, but hard enough to turn her face. She elbows her way past the constable and out of the chamber to the landing of the main stairs.
Lucy follows her, saying: “If I leave, what reason have you to tell me this thing?”
“If I tell you first, what reason have you to go?”
She starts down the polished walnut stairs. Her little half-sister Dorothy, her hair in dark ringlets, watches wide-eyed from the bottom step.
[[Lucy's decision]](set: $return to 12)
“Halt,” says Lucy. “All my men I shall withdraw unto the village. When you are ready, come thou there and tell me what ye’ know.”
And so it happens. Justice Lucy rides up the highway at the head of his band of a dozen straggling retainers. Mary and all the servants scour the house and garden for hidden agents while Mr. Feld stands by looking bewildered and his young wife clutches his arm. Finding no pursuivants, the servants call for Father Trafford and Ajita Brihaspathi, who stagger down the chimney and must be supported under their arms once they reach the floor.
Trafford wants to say a mass for the household before he goes, but everyone insists there is no time. He and Ajita are dragged out the back door, across the moat, and into the wood, followed by a lass who bears crusts and apples. Mary watches them go and then walks alone to the village. Finding Justice Lucy on the church green, she walks right up to him and simply says: “Dr. Burby’s other student, the Dutch one, is no pretty, clean-faced lad. It’s a woman, learned in the crafty arts.”
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[A mankind witch, then,]]<quote2| Lucy says, with unsuppressed delight: “a damnèd sorceress that I shall gladly hang.”(click: ?quote2)[
//Out! A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door. A most intelligencing bawd!//
By detecting this allusion to A Winter's Tale, you raise knowledge by 1.(set: $knowledge to it +1)]
[[Anna goes back to the stake]]
[[Anna recalls her encounters with Lucy]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>Anna needs no //meditación visible,// no //vista imaginativa,// no art of elaboration, to conjure what happened next. The subsequent scenes are riveted to her literal memory, but it requires courage to revisit them.
She can tell herself the story by going back to a Saturday, the second of Michaelmas term. It was mid-October then, and the days were growing dark and short. The lanes around New College were lost in inky darkness by four in the afternoon; gowned figures with lamps moved about in clusters like fishing boats off Zeeland. Some were serious men: Puritans zealous to master Hebrew, or humanists smitten by Tasso and Ariosto and quickened by music. Others were raucous fellows with thoughts of ale and brawling. The youngest, mere undergraduates, must frequently be flogged in their college halls for dicing, brawling, lewdness, or rudeness to elders. But this hour was a quiet one, and the fog dampened all spirits.
Anna, herself in a scholar’s gown, [[walked toward Balliol]] to keep a regular appointment with Dr. Burby.
(set: $knowledge to it -1) Mary's face dissolved into shame and confusion. She fled from the chamber and awaited the Justice's actions.
[[Anna recalls her encounters with Lucy]]
She was nervous in the English city’s streets. The statutes of Balliol forbade its scholars and fellows, when residing in or near Oxford, from bearing any weapon other than a hunting bow. Gentlemen were used to wearing rapiers on city streets for protection; and although Anna had no martial skill or training, she would have been grateful for the feel and sight of steel at her waist.
Entering the college’s gatehouse was a relief, although Balliol’s single court was deserted at this time on a Saturday. Anna exited the court through a dark passage at the back and made her way to Dr. Burby’s staircase in a half-timbered outbuilding. She walked along gravel pathways, amid muddy patches where the fellows grew cabbages and peas to supplement their “commons” in the summer season. Balliol had been founded for poor scholars and retained some of that air, notwithstanding the “gentlemen commoners” who belonged to the college, hired its fellows as private tutors, but resided in more comfortable apartments elsewhere in town and shunned the plain fare and discipline of the hall.
Nearing Dr. Burby’s door, Anna was startled by a sudden cry of anguish. A woman crouched on her haunches in the doorway. Her face was smeared with soot and her hair was wild. She moaned something like, “Mercy, help.”
[[Anna took a step closer.]]
“No!” said the person in the doorstep, stopping Anna with an open hand. “A lady! Only a lady.”
Anna felt a surge of pity, fear, and confusion. She turned and mounted Dr. Burby’s stairs, hearing muffled sobs below and wondering why a Christian in distress would need the attention of a gentlewoman, not a man. Various female complaints occurred to her. But how could such a person find her way inside the college grounds?
She found Dr. Burby’s chamber door open slightly; knocked; and pushed her way in. This room has already been described: it was exactly the arrangement that Edmund Burby later recreated in the Tower of London, his chamber of books, instruments, and curiosities—even the portrait of Queen Elizabeth after Nicholas Hilliard. Anna saw no one inside, although a lamp burned in the window and a fire burned in the grate, illuminating everything with an even, warm light. The great bell of St Frideswide’s rang five times, telling her that she had been punctual, and she settled down to wait for her master. She prayed a little and listened quietly; a soft weeping sound could be heard from below.
[[She learns more from exploring the study]]
[[She goes immediately downstairs to help the victim]]
After a considerable time, Anna rose from the window seat and circled the main table in the middle of Dr. Burby’s study.
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy1.png" height="297" width="136" align="right">Alchemists’ instruments caught her eye among the books and papers: specifically, two glass vessels connected by a tube, one suspended over an unlit candle, and each half-filled with a clear liquid. Dr. Burby was always talking to her about the ways that hot and cold substances acted when they were put together. He spoke about such matters in a sad and serious tone that seemed to her completely inappropriate, as if he were lamenting the decline of public morals or the ignorance of the common folk. In the oriel window, near the lamp, a medallion hanging from a thin string turned slowly, alternately showing sides of dark black and white. It was strange to see an object move perpetually when there was no sign of a mechanical device or a breeze. Dr. Burby had explained it once: something about how the wax painted on one face of the object expanded as it warmed in the light and then inevitably became as cold as its surroundings.
[[There were handsome volumes open on the desk near the glassware.]]
Anxiously, she tiptoed downstairs again and found the women squatting in the doorway, moaning for help.
“No--I want a gentle//woman//,” she cried when Anna approached. Anna backed away and thought that some outrage must have been committed against this poor person. That idea frightened her. She rose a step or two and looked into the dim college grounds, alert for movement. With a start, she realized that she was a gentlewoman and could reveal herself as such. That thought frightened her even more, and she allowed herself to retreat to Dr. Burby’s study to reflect and pray. She latched the door behind her and sat near the fire.
Its light picked out a [[toy that Dr. Burby had ordered from Augsburg.]]
Most were thick books, bound in soft vellum so that they flopped like a pile like fish, and stuffed with extra pages and memoranda. Anna hoped to find a Bible, a sermon, or a learned commentary. Instead, one book seemed to be legal, a collection of the various statutes and deeds of old King Alfred. Anna saw the word “oxfordiensis” in Gothic type and decided that it was something about the charter of the city. A small volume was printed in the elegant italics of Aldus and was evidently a portable edition of Ovid. Dr. Burby loved the Metamorphoses and often remarked how the gods needed men or else, for all their perfection, they would have no stories to tell on Olympus. Immortal life without stories, he said, was no life at all.
The third volume was simply an accounting book, in an Italian hand, with goods listed and their various prices. This item reminded Anna of [[another of Dr. Burby’s distracting interests.]]
|Playfair>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Playfair.png">](click-prepend: ?Playfair)[Chart Showing at One View the Price of the Quarter of Wheat, and Wages of Labour by the Week, from 1565 to 1821 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chart_Showing_at_One_View_the_Price_of_the_Quarter_of_Wheat,_and_Wages_of_Labour_by_the_Week,_from_1565_to_1821.png
]
Despite being a gentleman, a don, and a divine, he seemed interested in the prices of commodities in various ports. He was always asking Anna how much corn or wool fetched by the pound in Bruges. Had these prices changed much since her childhood? And what about the price of an hour’s work, say, if the worker was a strong young man? These would have been distasteful questions if there had been any evidence that Dr. Burby speculated in commodities or sought to profit from differences in prices. But Anna knew a bit about markets, of which Bruges was one of the world’s foremost; and Dr. Burby’s questions seemed perfectly impractical. His chief concern seemed to be the way that prices were converging across Europe, a matter of which he spoke with as much sadness as he evoked when he mixed his hot and cold liquids. Yet rarely did she notice a frown when he preached of hellfire and damnation in chapel; then his voice was lively and his eyes twinkled.
Anna saw his [[portrait in a framed miniature on the table.]]
Mr. Burby wore a black velvet waistcoat and ruff from forty years earlier, and the face was of a serious and confident young man. As a good Protestant, he had fled abroad under Queen Mary, when the pyres were lit for men of his faith; this portrait seemed to have been painted in the Rhineland. In gold paint near the bottom was written the word “tempi,” with the crossing of the “t” continued as a thin arrow with its head through the “i.” It was to be read as //“telum tempi”//--“time’s arrow”--the Burby motto.
|Huddleston>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Sir_Edmund_Huddleston.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Huddleston)[Portrait of Sir Edmund Huddleston, 1566 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Edmund_Huddleston.jpg]
She had loved that man--not, of course, in 1557, which was long before she had been born, but in the year after her arrival in England. In those days, she had prayed nightly for a miracle that would have allowed her to marry Dr. Burby and thereby become his servant and amanuensis. She would have needed a miracle, indeed, for she was passing as a man at Oxford, and even before then had never thought herself attractive to men; besides, Dr. Burby was old enough to be her grandfather, and he seemed dedicated to the celibate community of the college. Yet it would have given her life purpose and a certain grandeur, she had felt, to become the helpmeet of an ascetic sage. She had burned to live in the days of Luther and Calvin, when individuals could advance the designs of providence with great public acts of conscience founded on their own erudition. Nowadays, it seemed, most men were either sheep or fools, and the only thinkers worthy of note were Papist Spaniards spreading their own mistakes.
[[Anna recalls her journey]]
Of course, great public acts could never be appropriate for women; and sooner or later, Anna would have to revert to being one. For the Lord had said unto the woman Eve, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Anna fully accepted this duty, which was not, in any case, fundamentally different from the much-deserved punishments inflicted on sons and fathers. Intercourse and childbirth were trifling pains compared to perpetual hellfire, which was the deserved fate of all mankind. But the state of marriage had certainly presented no temptation to her. Her peculiar sin had been to desire nothing but mental discipline, the exercise of her faculties of memory and concentration in perfect nunlike silence. It was only when she had met Dr. Burby and envisioned herself as his loyal assistant, copyist, and escort that marriage had seemed to offer worldly rewards. When Burby’s //Key to All History// finally appeared in print, the shelves that held Luther and Calvin would have to make room for new volumes. The followers of Loyola and Xavier would curse their defeat. For Dr. Burby was a man of grand and sweeping intellect, a man to whom providential designs might be disclosed. She criticized herself now for dwelling on his failings, which (at worst) were signs of some slight mental decline: //telum tempi//, indeed. After the shelter he had given her, his patience, and all the knowledge that he had poured into her like a vessel, she should feel nothing for him but the deepest charity. To link her life to his would be the greatest satisfaction.
[[She looked again at the portrait]], which looked back at her.
We may inhabit the same room as a painted image, but we are fundamentally estranged from it because we live and it does not. Likewise, we live in the same space as someone of a different generation, breathing the same air that he breathes and feeling the same warmth. Yet we are fundamentally estranged from him on account of time. One party remembers years that the other can never know; the other has a future that is denied to the first.
There was still no sign of the real Dr. Burby when St. Frideswide’s bell chimed six. Meanwhile, the weeping from downstairs had grown somewhat louder. Anna peered through the window and saw no one in the sepulchral garden. She had heard some footsteps earlier but they had quickly passed. Despite the fire, her breath curled against the window as a billow of steam.
[[The victim cried out again->She goes immediately downstairs to help the victim]]
You mixed together marbles of black and white that were apparently identical in shape and weight. You poured the mixture into a funnel and watched them roll down a kind of track. They reached a little wooden fellow in a red hat who wore a diabolical expression. He turned when each marble arrived and pushed it one way or the other, depending on its color. Once the balls came to rest in bowls below, they were sorted into blacks and whites. Anna idly picked out three marbles and watched the toy man sort them. Dr. Burby had never explained how this mechanism worrked, but he found it endlessly delightful.
|Maxwell>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Maxwell-e1475347382512.png">](click-prepend: ?Maxwell)[J. Clerk Maxwell, Theory of Heat, 1871, p. 374]
Anna tiptoed to the door and listened until she heard sobbing again. She walked back to the window and searched outside for college servants or a passing band of students. There was no sound or movement in the darkness, no one to release her from an obligation to assist. She recalled a passage from the Bible: //“De Samaritaan knielde naast hem neer.”// “What think you?” Jesus had said. “Who was the good neighbor?” And the wise man of the law had said, “The Samaritan.”
She should go and serve in a like manner. [[Anna very slowly walked down the stairs]], still hoping for an interruption.
At the bottom, she heard, flung at her from the darkness: “Get thee away; I need a woman.”
Anna replied in English, “Come vit me upshtairs. I am a vooman.”
A grimy hand was raised to Anna’s face, meaning: “stay back.”
“Vas der some--[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[detested rape?”]]<quoterape|(click: ?quoterape)[
//"Where bloody murder or detested rape ..."//
By detecting this allusion to Titus Andronicus, you lower entropy by 1.(set: $entropy to it -1)
] Anna asked softly, in her female voice.
“Back!”
Anna looked left and right and then opened her cloak and unbuttoned her shirt part way. She pulled it back to reveal a corset stitched with dried reeds that she used to flatten her chest. The woman’s wild eyes fixed on it, and Anna pulled the top down far enough to reveal her breast almost as far as the nipple.
“The Dutch boy is a witch!” The woman stood and pointed triumphantly. She dropped all pretense of being hurt or frightened and spoke in a sharp, confident tone. Two men in dark wool cloaks stood up from behind a low garden wall, and one shone a lantern’s light at Anna’s chest. They wore swords and the livery of the Justice of the Peace. [[They seized Anna by her arms]].
The men marched her roughly through the college gates, into the Haymarket, then into the city proper via its north gate, and on toward the Castle. Crowds parted and stopped to watch. Anna and her captors mounted a steep hill and crossed a bridge over a fetid moat.
|march>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/march.png">](click-prepend: ?march)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1576 edition, author's family collection
]
Once inside the castle gates they were accosted by beggars with trembling palms, Abraham-men speaking wild gibberish, counterfeit cranks rolling on the ground near the open fires and pretending to foam at their mouths for alms, “dells” or virgin thieving girls with arms round one another’s waists and hips, and a pack of boy and girl rogues no taller than Anna’s belly. There was a powerful stench in the yard, and the muck, as deep as Anna’s shoes, looked like excrement. At an iron grill, the prisoners extended desperate hands toward the street, crying “For the Lord’s sake!” Their only source of food was the alms that a few passers-by dropped into their palms.
Anna and her captors passed a very tall grassy motte and [[entered the door of the gaol]].
The smell was no better inside. The overwhelming noise was composed of wailing, crying, singing, laughing, and pounding or clanking. The rooms were dark but Anna could discern chained bodies packed together like sailors below decks. As they passed one opening, someone cried, “That loverly one is mine, that one is!” and a great shout went up.
To Anna’s relief, they progressed up two flights of winding staircases and into a quieter area within the huge Norman keep. In fact, all the noise now came from downstairs or the castle ward. Anna was propelled into a stone chamber perhaps ten paces across, with one narrow window and a smoking lantern. There were straw palettes in each corner under iron chains and some debris in the middle. Anna was not chained but merely pushed inside, and the door was locked behind her.
She found herself trembling with a combination of relief and terror and managed a brief prayer.
[[Anna changes.]]
On one palette there lay a white chemise, a plain linen bodice, two skirts, and a cloak: the outfit of an ordinary townswoman. Anna peered quickly outside the window to make sure she could not be observed. There was enough light still in the overcast sky to show dimly the towers and turrets of the University. No one could possibly see up and through her slit of her window, so she hurriedly changed into women’s clothes. She walked a quick circle around the cell, feeling the swish of cloth around her legs for the first time in years. With the breeches gone, she felt liberated but also vulnerable. Skin met air and rustling fabric. Although she made no sound, she could sense an alteration in her throat as she let go of the effort to speak in a deep and manly tone. Her whole body was trembling.
Because she had pretended to be male while she lived in England, Anna had been interested in the legal treatment of those who were caught counterfeiting their sex. This was certainly a rare occurrence, but stray conversations over the years had given her some information. It was indeed illegal for a woman to pass as a man in the Kingdoms of England and Wales. The usual punishment was to be displayed in the stocks, although violators might also be whipped or even branded; justices of the peace had wide discretion. Strangely enough, the prisoner was displayed in men’s clothing as a form of humiliation, even though her crime had been to wear those very clothes by choice. Before Anna had passed as a man, this punishment would have seemed to her perfectly appropriate. Now, with her new perspective, it seemed paradoxical—but no less frightening. It would be soul-crushing to be stocked, and she knew that she would be lucky if she were charged merely for dressing in men’s clothes. Given the other crimes that could be alleged against her, the gallows seemed as likely as the stocks. She had noticed them on Castle Street as they had approached the jail, with clusters of bodies hanging like fruit and flies swarming around in clouds.
[[A night in prison]]
The cell felt safe compared to the madhouse below, but immensely lonely, especially as the last traces of daylight disappeared and the taper burned low. Anna prayed long and hard and fell asleep only after she’d heard the midnight bells, the Castle had fallen quiet, and the city had vanished completely into darkness as if it were an ancient forest. Lying in a huddle for warmth, she dreamt that a man rode into the Castle court on a mighty horse and released her—like Orlando saving Olimpia from the orc, or Ruggiero rescuing Angelica from the dragon. Those were immensely popular stories that she condemned in principle but was unable to banish from her imagination.
[[She was awakened when the door flew open to admit a great commotion.]]
|Barocci>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Barocci.png" align="right">](click-prepend: ?Barocci)[Federico Barocci, The Nativity, 1597 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Barocci#
]Where all had been quiet a moment before, now there were more people in her cell than she could count—constables, gentlemen with swords, and prisoners in chains. Wan morning light illuminated the cell. Anna withdrew to a corner and sat on the straw with her arms clasped around her knees. She watched as three people were pushed into the remaining corners, forced to the ground, and locked into iron collars. At first, no one paid attention to her, but then constables approached and forced a collar around her neck. She was chained to her corner; the other prisoners in theirs. The door was closed and they were left to stare at one another.
[[The three prisoners]]
One captive was a gentleman in midlife with a ragged beard, long features, and a bald head. He wore a silk shirt that was open halfway down his chest and velvet leggings. His features were very handsome but his face looked gaunt. The second prisoner was a rough-looking, paunchy fellow with three day’s growth, stained teeth, piratical clothes, and a ring in his right ear. And the third was a remarkable sight. His skin was darker brown than Anna had ever seen before, to the point that she wondered whether he was human. He was dressed like a lady in a chemise and skirt; but he pulled the latter garment off to reveal a doublet and then unlaced his chemise to show a simple white tunic. As if to follow his example, the first man removed //his// shirt to expose a coarse black tunic and a crucifix. He folded the silk garment carefully on the bed and spoke in Italian to the brown prisoner, saying, “We might as well appear as we are. They know all.”
He glanced at the paunchy man and then at Anna. In the Italian that she knew from traders in Bruges and from students at Oxford, she said in a deep voice, “A good morning to you.” She was about to introduce herself but realized that she would have to use her real name; and women didn’t boldly introduce themselves to strange men. She felt her voice rising to an alto register even though she did not speak more. Being female again was going to take some getting used to.
[[Trafford introduced himself]]
//“Sebastiano Trafford, dottore e sacerdote della Compagnia di Gesù,”// the man introduced himself with a bow of the head. A Jesuit priest with a doctorate: an elite soldier, then, of the Pope.
//“Anna Clauwaert di Bruggia in Fiandre, anche uno studento—una studentessa--di questa universitá.”//
The black man introduced himself, too: //“Ajita Brihaspathi, gentiluomo del corte di Akbar, l’imperatore dell’India intera, detto Il Magnifico.”// His Italian was strangely accented but perfectly clear and quick. He bowed graciously and smiled.
The fourth prisoner seemed not to understand the conversation and was absorbed, in any case, with trying ineffectually to extract himself from his chain and collar. Trafford got his attention and asked him in English who he was.
“Mine nime is Toby Greene,” he growled, “and I am an Englishman wot speaketh none o’ thy devilish gibberish.”
“What are you in here for, then?” asked Trafford.
[[Toby spoke]]
“I’ll be back //out// afore thou’rt hanged, priest.” He struggled some more with his collar before adding, “The charge ‘vented ‘gainst me is pamphlet-writin’.”
“A religious tract?” Trafford asked, unable to suppress some hope for the man’s soul.
“Twere //’ardly// religious,” said Greene with a grin. But then he added, “I never wrote nuffink at all. ‘Tis a false charge that soon will out, and then it’ll be straight back to Moorfields for good old Toby.”
|Caravaggio>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Caravaggio-e1477613527433.png">](click-prepend: ?Caravaggio)[Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew, 1599-1600 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio
]
There was a long and anguished scream from downstairs, and Greene (having started visibly at the noise) turned his back to his cellmates. They gradually forgot about him and talked in Italian, Anna deferring to Trafford to pose questions and volunteer remarks. She learned thereby that he and Ajita had spent most of the last fortnight hidden in a chimney and were half glad that they’d been caught. “My Indian friend should be especially relieved,” said Trafford, “considering that he had no real quarrel with the law in the first place.”
(set: $Ajitainterrogation to 0, $Annainterrogation to 0, $Tobyinterrogation to 0, $Traffordinterrogation to 0)
[[Who will be taken away?]]
(set: $Ajitainterrogation to 1)Ajita looked momentarily startled when the constables came and picked him out, but he covered his fear. While he was gone—for at least an hour—the cell was silent and the prisoners listened out for cries amid the hubbub below. Crows circled the keep and cawed excitedly.
Ajita was thoughtful and reserved after the constables brought him back and locked him in his corner. There was no sign of violence to his person.
“Well, we all want to know how they treated you,” Trafford said at last--again using Italian. “No resort to the //strappado// or the dreaded //bastinado,// I presume, for our good foreign emissary. How did it go?”
[[Ajita's interrogation]]
(set: $perspective to "Ajita")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>“These men are confused, nervous, suspicious, basically ignorant, and not a little superstitious—but acquisitive,” Ajita said.
“Like functionaries everywhere, they sense an opportunity for profit or preferment but fear a misstep that might bring criticism or discipline from above. If they alert their superiors to my presence, they will lose control of the situation and thus any opportunity for pleasurable cruelty, petty heroism, saving a soul, or taking a bribe. They will not even know how the story ends if I am carried away to London. What then will they tell their friends over their tankards, except that their prisoner had skin the color of mud, and the Queen’s agents took him? They would rather keep me to themselves. But I could be telling the truth. Maybe I really do come from the court of a great eastern prince with whom Her Majesty wishes to trade, with whom Her Highness has exchanged precious gifts. Imprisoning that kind of gentleman in such a stinking hole would be a serious error—and on what charge? With what justification?
“Of course,” Ajita added after some silent thought, “one traditional way out of such a predicament is a quick slitting of the throat in the middle of the night, the body in the river, the pockets clean, and no need to mention that particular prisoner in any records.”
[[Trafford's proposal]]
|fire>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Foxe_prison-e1478472601458.png">](click-prepend: ?fire)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1563
]
“It is a question beneath the dignity of a gentleman to entertain, let alone to pose,” said Trafford, “and yet, as your friend and as one who has shared a very intimate chamber with you in perfect Christian charity, I cannot help but wonder whether you have any wealth hidden away to which you could refer when speaking to these villains?”
Toby Greene tipped his head noticeably when Trafford used the word //“ricchezza.”//
“I was smuggled into England as a slave,” Ajita said. “My only wealth is half the world away, not counting a book I was painting that was stolen from me.”
[[Who will the guards take next?->Who will be taken away?]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Jesuit')</script>(set: $perspective to "Trafford")(set: $Traffordinterrogation to 1)Rough men removed the Father. He was not back until the sun had been set an hour or more. He looked unshaken and submitted rather nonchalantly to be locked in his place. It emerged that the room where he had been interrogated had been furnished with a rack, but no one had mentioned it, let alone used it to break him. Instead, several distinguished Puritan divines had visited to offer him ecclesiastical preferment. If only he swore the Oath of Supremacy, he might have the deanship of Westminster, the mastership of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, or the bishop’s throne in Exeter. Thus he might choose a public podium in the metropolis, a life of scholarship, or eminence in an important province of the kingdom. Nor were any of these ports the last that he might reach on his voyage within the Church of England. He could dock his ship finally as the Archbishop of Canterbury. “But it is impossible,” Trafford added, with a strong but enigmatic emotion, “that I should testify and declare in my conscience that the Queen’s Highness is the only supreme governor in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes. As a gentleman, I esteem this fine lady; as her subject, I stand ready to die at her command; but as a Christian, I cannot pretend to see her on Peter’s throne without endangering both of our souls.”
“They seem eager to obtain your cooperation,” Ajita noted.
Trafford hastened to assure his cellmates that he had not been promised offices and dignities as bribes. The Church of England needed capable men. So many priests had fled abroad, or been hanged, or had slunk off to obscure parishes where they might preach according to their consciences, that the senior ranks were filled with politicians and mediocrities. The Privy Council saw that national morale and prestige depended on being able to match the Roman Church with men of talent. England might import learned Protestant scholars, but foreigners could never preach to crowds or manage the church as an institution. For those tasks, the government needed home-grown talent, men like Trafford.
[[Trafford described his career]]
He had had such offers before. Even the Lord Treasurer had spoken to him once, when Trafford was a young tutor and the Queen was visiting Oxford. In those days, Trafford had not yet broken with her church. He had been selected to entertain the Queen with a Latin oration, and after that great and successful event, the Lord Treasurer had clambered up his staircase, sat by his fire, and offered him the deanship of Southwark Cathedral or a handsome living near Aylesbury. And he a man of four and twenty! Trafford described the scene in detail.
|Bradford>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Bradford-e1480127751258.png">](click-prepend: ?Bradford)[
From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1576 edition, author's family collection
]
Ajita asked, “How did you answer their offer today?’
The father replied, “I proposed to debate three articles of faith before the Queen and her assembled court. For what is the chance that a few Englishmen of our time have grasped the truth, when the rest of Christendom and a thousand years of English history stand against their heresies? As soon as they see that their poor, ignorant churchmen are ranged against St. Augustine of Canterbury, St. Edward the Confessor, St. Anselm, and St. Thomas à Becket (among so many other learned English doctors and martyrs), their obstinacy will falter and they will beg to be instructed again in the tenets of their fathers’ church.”
Father Trafford continued in this vein for some time. When he stopped, the cellmates fell silent, but their room filled with disturbing noises from below—cries, shrieks of laughter, singing, and body-blows. Sleep was impossible, and Anna was still only fitfully dozing at dawn.
[[Who will the guards take next?->Who will be taken away?]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna", $Annainterrogation to 1)<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>She was marched across the castle courtyard, where crows hopped from one smoking heap of trash to another and rats brazenly watched the passers-by. She was taken into a small building under the castle wall.
The room to the right of the entry was well-swept, sunny, built of bare sandstone blocks, and perhaps three hundred years old. The main item of furniture apart from a gothic fireplace was a large wooden frame with ropes and pulleys at either end. An iron mask hung on the wall along with pokers of various sizes and a student’s gown that looked very like Anna’s own. Seated beside the fire in a comfortable chair—the only chair in the room—was the man we have come to know as Sir Thomas Lucy. Anna simply observed a middle-aged, bearded gentleman in the clothes of a rich puritan.
The interview proceeded with Anna standing between two guards. She faced Sir Thomas and saw the rack and her old gown constantly out of the corner of her eye. They spoke in Latin: the Englishman’s a little rusty and halting, Anna’s as fluent and perfect as Cicero’s.
Sir Thomas began with a long series of basic questions, which Anna answered promptly and honestly.
[[The dialogue]]
She had been born in Bruges in 1571. Her real name was Anna Clauwaert. Her father had been a merchant and burgher; her mother came from the minor nobility. Both were killed in the Spanish Fury of 1576. At Sir Thomas’ prompting, Anna described the situation in Antwerp on November second of that year. In the citadel were thousands of mutinous Spanish soldiers who had not received their 400,000 florins of pay because Queen Elizabeth had confiscated the gold from Spanish ships that took refuge in her ports. Their leader was Sancho d’Avila, a general who was officially loyal to King Phillip of Spain but who saw the mutiny as an opportunity to slaughter Protestant heretics. In the city were armed burghers, including Anna’s father (come from Bruges to guard his warehouse), and Protestant soldiers from as far away as Wallonia and Germany.
The city was represented by Count Oberstein, who met d’Avila over dinner in the citadel and drank far too much Spanish red. Before the evening was over, he promised d’Avila to disarm his forces and open the gates of the city. Sober the next morning, Oberstein realized his mistake and refused to organize a surrender. D’Avila’s cannons began knocking out chunks of the walls along with houses inside the city. Hot balls of iron whined through the air and smashed through stained glass or bounced off walls to crush limbs and skulls. The Spanish tercios, disobedient to their king but still disciplined and ruthless in battle, broke through, shouting, //Santiago! España! A sangre! A carne! A fuego! A sacco!// Anna’s head had been buried in her mother’s sleeves, but she still recalled those voices.
|Antwerp>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Antwerp.png">](click-prepend: ?Antwerp )[Frans Hogenberg, Sack of Antwerp <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/381466]
The Spaniards had burned and raped, literally run through the streets with their breeches off and burning tapers in their hand, turned the city upside-down for gold, and hanged those Protestant heretics whom they didn’t incinerate or drown in the blood-red Schelde. Her mother had forced Anna into a cold bread oven where the little girl had hidden silently for three days. Then, tottering through the city like a beggar-girl, she had found the rows of gallows and prayed vengeance near two lifeless bundles that could have been her parents.
[[Lucy questioned her]]
“And you have remained ever since a true Protestant?” Lucy asked.
“God has granted me constancy.”
“Then why did you lewdly consort with men, in men’s clothing, and lie to gain entrance to our University?”
Anna tried to explain that she had felt called to the great religious struggle, like Esther or Judith against this modern Roman tyrant and his Spanish henchman. She had never imagined that she could bear a harquebus or a pike, but from an early age she knew that she had a gift for books. She was not a prodigy; ideas did not fix automatically in her mind like ink on the page. But she had a fierce determination to master languages, the Art of Memory, Ramist logic, dry and tedious works of theology—any tools with which she could smite the Pope or convert the wavering Christian.
Her genius was naturally weaker than a man’s; she could contribute nothing original on her own. When she heard university masters from Leiden and Louvain disputing in Bruges, she knew that she could never match their brilliance; even the attempt would be an affront. But hard work had won her reliable technical skills. She could be a fine secretary to a brilliant Protestant divine, a Scaliger, a Casaubon, or a Burby. Few could find an apt passage quicker than she, or make a better précis from the Hebrew. This, she felt certain, was the special purpose for which Providence has spared her in that Antwerp bread oven. Her complete lack of interest in marriage and motherhood must be an inner sign that God had meant her for a different service.
[[Lucy replied]]
Sir Thomas Lucy had listened so far with a neutral expression, but at the last point, his face betrayed distaste. “The unnatural, even the devilish,” he said, “is easily confused with the providential. God made woman to wear a skirt and to be a wife. An urge to live like a man can hardly be called holy.”
“We were made to be helpmeets,” Anna said, “but not always spouses. Virginity is a holy estate.”
“It is only Roman Catholics who have--nuns,” Lucy said, using the English word because he had forgotten the Latin. “In the Reformed Church, good women marry and submit to the discipline of their husbands, for the saving of their souls.”
“Our church imitates in every possible way the primitive church of Paul, does it not? Remember how Paul resided with Phillip the evangelist at Caesaraea. And we read that this same Phillip had ‘four virgin daughters who prophesied.’ Shall we deny their example and say that they should have married and held their tongues rather than spread the Word?”
[[Sir Thomas considered his position.]]
(set: $perspective to "Lucy")Sir Thomas could think of a riposte—surely Phillip’s daughters had married after Paul’s visit; for to marry is better than to burn—but he feared a learned dispute as unfavorable ground. His opponent was an M.A., even if she happened to be a girl and possibly a witch. Masters of theology were clever fellows (well, generally they were fellows) and very hard to answer when the argument turned to scripture. For her part, Anna had no desire to match wits against a man, let alone an officer of the state. It seemed sinful to contradict him, and the debate posed dangers for her. If she lost, she would be shown to have sinned. If she won, this man who had all power over her would be humiliated and angry.
It was Lucy who shifted ground from theology to law. Passing for a man, he said, was a crime in England. If Anna confessed, he would be duty-bound to put her in the stocks and brand her with a hot iron. She would also appear before the University’s Chancellor’s Court and face expulsion. [[What did she say in her defense?]]
"Nothing,” Anna replied simply. “You arrested me in doublet and hose.”
“That transgression is a trifle compared to the felonies that concern me. I need to know what you did while you consorted with this fellow Burby. If his house was the witches’ coven that I suspect it was, you shall hang. If, however, you perform your Christian duty and fully divulge Burby’s crimes, I may be moved to ignore your disguise and even treat you as a clever government agent.”
But what could she tell him about Edward Burby? She had every desire to cooperate with a Queen’s officer, but her fluency deserted her as she thought about this teacher who had mystified her so thoroughly. She stammered that he was writing a Key to All History that would vindicate the Protestant cause. True, she had not actually seen him at work on that particular volume since she had arrived in Oxford. What was he doing, then? Well, there was his correspondence with learned men on the Continent—Protestants, of course. (She also knew of Italians, whom she neglected to mention, and of one Turk.) No, she did not know the subject of his letters, but she knew they ranged over antiquities, natural philosophy, and the discipline that Aristotle called //oikonomikos// or care of the household.
[[She reflected on Dr. Burby]]
[[She cleared her mind and waited->Sir Thomas Lucy’s attention seemed to have wandered]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>In the back of her mind were certain general principles that Anna thought Dr. Burby held. He collected and relished differences in both the natural and the human worlds; he recognized diversity and contrasts that others overlooked. He enjoyed the moment of encounter between contrasting objects: Normans and Saxons, mineral acids and alkalis, Mars and Venus. He believed that usually such encounters made the objects more alike, thereby reducing their capacity for any further interesting activity. However, he maintained that it was possible for human beings, through deliberate thought and intentional cooperation, to create coherent new structures out of the contrasts that they observed. Instead of allowing opposites to become automatically alike, humans could combine them and thereby construct more complicated ideas or institutions that, in turn, would clash with their own opposites. These creations embodied intelligence, defied the general degeneration of nature, and were especially pleasing to the learned Doctor.
Anna explained none of this to Mr. Lucy because she did not understand it clearly, and what she grasped upset her deeply. It all seemed almost perfectly contrary to the concept of Providence. To be sure, Dr. Burby deployed scriptural examples, especially his favorite story of Babel, when he made his arguments. But the overall burden of his thinking seemed deeply heterodox. Instead of even hinting at her master’s metaphysics, she mentioned random examples of his work that seemed reasonably respectable. He had recently written, for instance, a long //essai// about translation, the copying of documents, and testimony in court. His theme was the tendency of error to creep into each new version of a text, and how that problem might be overcome by teams of scholars checking one another’s work.
[[Sir Thomas Lucy’s attention seemed to have wandered]].
Perhaps Anna’s Latin was hard to follow, and her information did not interest Lucy. “I will send you to your cell to pray and reflect,” he said at last. “Consider your duty as a Christian subject of her Majesty. If you provide me with valuable intelligence against this man Burby, I shall consider mercifully sparing you any punishment worse than expulsion from the Kingdom. If you persist in obscuring what you know, you may hang for it.”
Back in the cell, Father Trafford, Mr. Greene, and Ajita Brihaspathi lay silently in their corners. Anna was locked back into hers. The day passed slowly, and after several hours Trafford broke the silence by asking Ajita to relate how he had come to Europe; what had impelled him to make this immense journey; and what adventures he had experienced along the way.
[[Ajita's remarks]]
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[“I hate traveling and explorers!” Ajita exclaimed. “Why should I provide details about all my trivial and insignificant experiences, the endless waits, periods of boredom and hunger, fevers and rashes, fruitless negotiations, and efforts to glean information from natives who shared no common tongue with me? Why would you want to know all this?”]]<quote2|(click: ?quote2)[
//Cf. Claude Levi-Strauss, //Tristes Tropiques,// 1955, MS shown below.//
By detecting this anachronism, you lower entropy by 1.(set: $entropy to it -1)]
|LeviStrauss>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LeviStrauss.png">](click-prepend: ?LeviStrauss)[Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, 1955, MS in the Bibliotheque Nationale
]
But Trafford pressed him, and Anna was glad. Travelers’ stories are always popular, and these prisoners were in desperate need of distraction. Ajita began by trying to convey what it was like to contemplate the remote regions of the world from the center, from the plains south of the eternal Himalayas, those well-populated, long-cultivated, organized and comfortable lands watered by the Ganges and Indus. He described this place as if sitar music and women’s singing hung over it every day.
[[Ajita's journey]]
(set: $perspective to "Ajita")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>Beyond the mountains and the ocean, people live in indescribably hostile lands, from the harsh deserts of Africa to the frozen wastes of Europe to the endless malarial swamps of China. Upon first hearing stories from these distant nations, one is struck by the sheer strangeness of their unfortunate inhabitants. They urinate in bowls inside their rude homes because it is too cold to venture outdoors. Their babies defecate in cloths wrapped around their loins. They never wash their teeth or chew betel leaves to sweeten the breath. Their respectable women promenade alone with most of their chests completely exposed. They employ fascinating and repellent tortures for apparently arbitrary reasons. They eat the meat of practically any beast, giving no thought to the animals’ suffering or to the religious scruples of their guests. They wrap their bodies in layer upon layer of wool and rarely bathe—never publicly in rivers. They rinse their hair in urine and listen to cacophonous drumming and blaring that they call “music.” Their towns, even the seats of their government, are so small that you can see unpopulated hills from every window. Their nobles have so little gold that they could hardly afford a simple home in Agra or Delhi, let alone a gentleman’s house with a walled garden furnished with swings and bowers, a suite for the women, and an inner room just for pleasure whose low bed has pillows at each end and a canopy above it.
|Hamza>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Hamzanama.png">](click-prepend: ?Hamza)[From the Hamza-nama, ca. 1562-77, National Gallery of Victoria <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/mughal-painting-under-akbar-the-melbourne-hamza-nama-and-akbar-nama-paintings/]
[[Ajita's question]]
One naturally asks whether these strange foreign people possess the fundamental traits of humanity, such as compassion and reason. It was to answer this question that Ajita set out, on orders from his learned, beneficent, and insatiably curious Shah. Several years of wandering helped him to see that the peoples northwest of Arabia were not a single horde, but were quite heterogeneous. Although at first they all looked and seemed to act alike, their differences began to interest him. In fact, he developed a list of questions that he liked to ask people wherever he went, from Syria to England. He recorded their answers and began categorizing the various nations, sects, and castes accordingly. Might he ask his fellow unfortunate cellmates some of these questions right now, to pass the time?
They agreed, mystified and not particularly enthusiastic. Ajita asked each prisoner in turn: “Which is more refined, boiled food or roasted food?” He had no writing equipment but appeared to be making careful mental notes.
All agreed that boiling was more suitable for gentle palettes. However, Trafford observed that roasting was especially appropriate for large feasts, at which the host was likely to be wealthy and refined. The Queen herself offered mostly roasts to her guests. Anna simply nodded.
“Is salad a raw food or a cooked food?”
[[The prisoners answered]]
|Goltzius>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Goltzius.png">](click-prepend: ?Goltzius)[Hendrick Goltzius, The Adoration of the Shepherds, ca 1599 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Städel Museum
]
Trafford said immediately that a salad was cooked, emphasizing that it often included boiled carrots and cabbages. When it was her turn, Anna said very softly (although she was reluctant to argue with a man) that salads were basically raw, in contrast to cooked dishes like stews and soups. Tafford remarked that a cook made a salad, so it must be “cooked.” Besides, the root of the word “insalata” was surely “salt”; thus it required a process of cookery. Anna let the point pass. Greene was not consulted.
“Is honey raw or cooked?”
Trafford said it was a cooked food, a kitchen ingredient. Anna again felt too shy to disagree with a gentleman, but when asked directly, she whispered that she thought honey was raw. When Ajita requested an explanation, she explained that no heat was applied to the substance that bees made for our consumption. Trafford muttered that he supposed the bees cooked it for us, then. He translated the question for Mr. Greene, who rolled his eyes and remarked that honey might be pickled, for all he cared, if only these bloody foreigners would shut their bloody gobs and let him sleep.
"[[Would you cook an insect?]]”
Trafford noted with a pleased smile that you might smoke insects out of a house, and some of the pests would be killed in the process; however, that would not be called “cooking,” because insects are of course inedible. He sounded rather donnish at moments like this and was hard to follow. Anna blurted out a question about the locustae that John the Baptist ate. (She didn’t know the Italian word, and the Netherlandish word //sprinkhanen// would mean nothing to her English cellmates.)
“[[What is this story?]]” Ajita wanted to know.
Trafford spoke in English, presumably because he had not memorized biblical texts in Italian: “‘In those days John Baptist came, and preached in the desert, and said, Do ye penance, for the kingdom of heavens shall approach. For this is he, of whom it is said by Esaias, the prophet, saying, A voice of a crier in desert, Make ye ready the ways of the Lord; make ye right the paths of him. And this John had clothing of camel’s hairs, and a girdle of skin about his loins; and his meat was locusts, or perhaps honeysuckles’—the Greek is ακριδες; better scholars than I dispute its sense—‘and honey of the wood.’”
Once Trafford had translated the passage into rough Italian, Ajita wanted to know about John the Baptist’s role in the plot. Trafford recalled the major incidents, providing a decidedly Catholic interpretation of baptism.
When John poured water on the God’s head, Ajita asked, [[was that like cooking him or preparing him to be cooked]]?
|Swallows>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/swallows.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Swallows)[Gervase Markham, olye of swallowes recipe
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, MS 10a214, fols. 5-6.]
This question provoked suspicious and embarrassed looks from Protestant and Catholic alike. Even Mr. Greene looked uncomfortable because of the atmosphere in the room. Hearing no answer, Ajita asked what happened to John in the end.
“His head was served on a plate,” Trafford said.
“Raw or cooked?”
“Raw,” said Trafford. “Even Salome wasn’t so barbarous as to cook a man.”
Ajita seemed intrigued and satisfied, but he moved on methodically: “Does one cook shellfish?”
Trafford explained that clams, mussels, and the like were unpalatable and therefore fed mainly to swine; although the Biblical prohibition had been lifted, thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice, and therefore a starving man might eat an oyster, whether roasted or steamed. Anna let pass the opportunity to say that raw oysters were eaten with enthusiasm in her homeland and sounded delicious at the moment.
[[And so they passed an entire afternoon.]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>(set: $perspective to "Anna")Anna watched Ajita and worried about his soul. He seemed to observe the beliefs of mankind as if from a great distance, like one of the immortals on Olympus, and with a similar smile. Well, that was better than being a confirmed Mohammedan or an idol-worshipping heathen. At least Ajita revealed no beliefs that stood in the way of the one faith that could save him from the eternal roasting below.
Anna saw that Father Trafford was her rival. He had all the advantages of learning, wit, age, and sex. These advantages gave him much better odds of converting the Indian, whose soul would then be damned for Popery. It would break her heart, she thought, to see the fellow go to the hangman without visible faith in the inerrant word of God. But perhaps she might serve as a simple witness of charity, modesty, and fellowship. With God’s grace, Ajita might see the truth through her example. Trafford’s sometimes ponderous learning might work to her advantage.
She resolved to answer Ajita’s questions accurately, briefly, and with due respect. While Trafford belabored an obscure Italian witticism, Anna caught Ajita’s eye and exchanged just a quick smile. It was strange to interact that way with a gentleman while wearing female clothes. She had not thought of Ajita as a man at first, probably because he arrived looking so singular: a slight and dark-skinned figure wearing a dress. Besides, she was so used to the male company at college that sex was not a category that she noticed immediately. But he was a man. You could call him wiry or sinewy rather than slight. You could see the sharp definition of his thigh muscles beneath his “Venetians.” His very short hair had receded and left a high forehead that bespoke intelligence. Dimples formed when he smiled, as he often did.
[[Who will the guards take next?->Who will be taken away?]]
(set: $Tobyinterrogation to 1)Toby Greene was taken away at about three in the afternoon.
His absence seemed to discourage the others from speaking, even though he had not conversed with them. Perhaps they worried that he would return bearing signs of torture. A bond of sympathy had formed among the prisoners, despite their differences.
By four o’clock, Greene was back, looking none the worse for wear and saying nothing about his experience. Once again, Father Trafford broke the silence by asking [[Ajita to explain how he had arrived in England]].
(set: $return to 1)“I came as a prisoner,” he said. “An Englishman bought me at the slave market in Venice. He saw that I was making an illustrated book of my experiences. Such books fetch high prices in Europe. He forced me to alter the plot to incorporate a man rather like himself, only depicted as a hero from one of your romances.”
“Did you write the book?” Anna couldn’t help asking.
“Some of it. It wasn’t going very well, because this fellow had vague and incomplete ideas about the plot. He sent it to someone in London who understands the book business. We both hoped that this person would purchase my manuscript, because then I would be given my freedom. Instead, he wrote that the pictures were good but the story was a failure. No one would buy it.”
“You must have been on the verge of losing hope,” Father Trafford remarked, in a sympathetic, pastoral tone of voice.
“No, because I had more work to do. The London correspondent sent us a different story that he thought I could illustrate for a good profit. He claimed that he had translated it from an Eastern tongue, although I’m not sure that was true. We received it in Italian, which is the perfect language for young gentlemen who love Tasso and Ariosto.”
“How did it go? Do you remember it?” Anna asked.
“I have it by heart,” said Ajita, “for I spent many days illustrating it.” He began to recite in a softly musical tone, and as he spoke, he removed painted miniature illustrations from a sheaf of papers in his pocket and showed them to his listeners.
[[Hear Ajita's poem->1.1 DRAHMEN]]
[[Proceed to the next events]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna", $chapter to 1)After Ajita stopped his recitation, there was a long period of silence. Anna found herself moved by the story and images but disturbed by their moral and religious doctrines. It was an allegory, she saw that immediately. The idea that things may end in a “tepid broth” reminded her forcefully of Dr. Burby’s eccentric worries, and so this god “Drahmen” appeared to be an embodiment of his perspective—whether that resemblance was accidental or planned. The origins of this work were difficult to place; some of its phrases and concepts were unintelligible to her, and the style was quite unfamiliar. Father Trafford also looked meditative, although his thoughts were surely different.
[[Toby Greene interrupted their thoughts]].
“Look 'ere,” he said. “I might as well tell you that I understand Eyetalian as well as any university gent, though I can’t speak the lingo meself. I’m ‘ere as an informant, payin’ off a sort of a debt to Her Majesty’s Privy Council on account of some love poems I published that were, shall we say? –averse to the good 'umor of Milord of Essex. Of course, I’m not supposed to let on that I know what you blokes are gossipin’ about. But listen, you swarthy Indian lad, this book of yours could be worth a nice purse at a bookseller’s in Paternoster Row, which ‘appens to be where old Toby 'as eked out 'is own livin’ ever since ‘e were an 'ungry little orphan lad, scribblin’ prose or verse for pennies a page and landin’ 'isself in the Marshalsea every time some worvy took offence. Give the book to Toby, why don’t you, like a good lad? I’ll put in a word with the J.P. when he next takes me orf for a private chat. You and I will both be sprung out of ‘ere. I’ll sell yer book for you and give you 'arf. You can use it to buy yer passage ‘ome to the Indies. What say you?”
Father Trafford had to translate the offer, which he did with a certain distaste but reasonable accuracy. “It is not my place to advise how you should respond,” he added in Italian.
“I shall consider it,” said Ajita with a nod to Toby.
[[Who was taken next?->Who will be taken away?]]
It was Trafford who was taken away next, and he was gone for a long time, well into the evening.
When Trafford returned—or rather, when he was dumped back into the cell by three men who carried his limp body on their shoulders—he was a changed man. His mouth hung open; his body was limp. He was deathly pale. His voice was almost inaudible and lost in low, piteous moaning. Still, in the course of an hour, he managed to convey that he had been granted his theological debate, after all—only the Queen had not chosen to attend, and Mr. Topcliffe had prepared him first by breaking him on the rack. His limbs had been stretched six inches or more and pulled from their sockets. After his back had made a terrible cracking sound, his legs had stopped responding.
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Topcliffe.png">
In that condition, he had been driven on a bouncing tumbrel to King’s College Hall, where he had been propped in a chair and confronted with a panel of seventeen beneficed clergymen. He and they had debated the primacy of the Pope: they in long, prepared Latin passages; he in muttered responses. At the end of the session, he had been declared the loser and asked to sign a confession of treason. It asserted that he had planned to win an audience with his gracious monarch and then stab her in the heart with a poisoned Spanish dagger. He refused to sign, moaning “God save the Queen.” He was taken back to his cell to await further questioning in the morning. Topcliffe had ridden with him, smiling and tipping his hat to the gawkers in the streets, who knew very well who her majesty’s torturer was and what he did. The two men had parted in the Castle ward, Father Trafford being carried upstairs and Mr. Topcliffe retiring to his rooms in the outbuilding to rest until dawn.
[[Anna reflected on his condition]]
It was a merciful God, Anna thought, who sent the sweating, shaking Father into a deep sleep or other unconscious state before midnight. She watched him, trying to reconcile her natural pity and her revulsion at the government’s tactics with her recognition that the whole world had descended into a war between good and evil—and Father Trafford was of Satan’s Party. Jesuits carried thumbscrews to use on Protestant innocents, she reminded herself. In Paris on Bartholomew’s Day, Catholic mobs, urged on by bishops and priests, had thrown Protestant children over the bridges for sport. And their priests had rushed into Antwerp with the Papist mutineers when she was a girl. Yet she could pray for the soul of a broken sinner, could she not? And she could lament that man is a wolf to man.
When the door opened at dawn, [[the constables came for Anna]], not for Trafford
Her heart racing, she was marched to the outbuilding and into the room with the rack. Once again, she found herself facing Sir Thomas Lucy. She told herself that torture was not authorized for suspected witches in England; but she had little confidence that a man in Lucy’s position would care about such rules. If he put her to the rack, who would know? And who, if he knew, would object?
“I have [[a proposition]] to present to you,” the Justice said in his slow and deliberate Latin.
“Testify that Dr. Burby has committed a felony, such as treason or sorcery, and I shall release you with a purse of silver and safe passage to Flushing.”
“Of course, I can do no such thing,” said Anna, “because I cannot lie. ‘A false witness shall not be unpunished,’ //Proverbs,// nineteen.” Her voice trembled because she feared the consequences of what she had said.
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Puritan.png">
“Very well, but you should know that I have made a similar offer to your teacher. If he testifies that you beguiled him with witchcraft, he may have his freedom and his honor. You will be hanged. (You can only give thanks that this is not Spain or Germany, where Satan’s mistresses are burned.)”
“He will not give evidence against me, for I am innocent.”
“I would not be so confident if I were you. If he testifies that you are a witch, we have told him we shall commute his sentence on the grounds that he was a victim of witchcraft. He will suffer a short prison sentence but will face no charge of treason.”
“He has done nothing wrong. Neither have I. He will not say that I have.”
[[Burby's advice->Trafford's advice]]
“It is best for you to testify against him. Consider it well. If he also gives evidence against you, I will still reward you for your testimony and commute your death sentence. You will be branded for pretending to be a man, but will not be executed for treason. If he does not name you a witch, then even better for you—you will walk free.”
The prisoner was marched back to her cell to think about her dilemma. But surely the choice was simple. She was not a witch, and Dr. Burby was not a traitor. It would be wrong for either party to testify against the other; therefore, neither one would. Anna would be stocked for wearing men’s clothes, and Dr. Burby would be embarrassed. The shame would be profound, but no one would die.
No one, that is, except Father Trafford, [[who was carried out]] as Anna was led back into her cell.
(set: $return to 2)They passed on the spiral staircase and the Father raised two long fingers as a Papist blessing. His face was lit by a band of sun passing through a narrow slit; the rest of the scene was dim. The Father had an aura now of ecstatic suffering. Anna would not have been surprised to see a delicate gold halo around his head, although of course she believed in no such thing.
Inside, Ajita was reciting verses to Greene, apparently from a later part of his book.
[[Hear this part of Ajita's book->1.4 LEFNI]]
[[Proceed to Anna's reaction]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna")(set: $chapter to 1)<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>Anna listened attentively but without appreciation. Given her own situation and Father Trafford’s, her mood was naturally bleak. The sight of fat old Toby Greene, sprawled on his back and grinning to a heathen story, offended her. Ajita had sung in a soft recitative that might have been lovely in a moonlit Agra courtyard or even at Richmond Palace on a summer’s night, where a lute could have replaced the sitar that he heard in his mind. To Anna in the Oxford Gaol, his voice sounded lascivious. The hint of what almost happened between the two women in his story had planted vague new ideas in her mind that she wished to banish. Later, in her ruminations on the story, the allegory began to seem more important to her, and more relevant to her own case, Lefni emerging as the embodiment of a path that she could choose. But when she first heard the poem, its sensuality was paramount and it offended her.
[[Anna asked Ajita a question]]
“I presume you have decided to collect your forty pieces of silver,” she told Ajita in Italian.
He missed the reference. “Is that how much you’d expect an illustrated poem to fetch in London?” he asked.
“//Gold//, more like it,” said Toby in English, winking broadly. “Quarante pieces of oro for us to split in ‘arf, and you’ll be dancin’ a jig on the next ship east from Wapping, whilst old Toby will settle down with ‘is ancient Nellie on a nice acre in Surrey and grow cabbages for the London markets. What say you, lad?”
Ajita addressed Anna: “Selling the book is my opportunity to escape from this place so that I can try to arrange your release as well mine. I would be more than happy to spend my profit on your freedom,” he added, perhaps forgetting that he would need the money for his own passage to the Levant.
“I should rather hang than be the beneficiary of a bribe.”
Ajita was all concern: “Do you expect them to hang you?”
Anna softened a bit and [[began to explain her situation]].
In essence, Dr. Burby and she would each be safest to give testimony against the other, but if both could manage to hold their peace, both would go free.
“I can say nothing against my master,” Anna said, “for he has done nothing wrong, at least nothing of which I am aware.”
Actually, she had seen him practice alchemy and correspond with Catholic divines, which were crimes against English law. But she could never divulge those facts (even though she privately disapproved of them) if it caused her master’s ruin.
“This Oxford J.P. is comin’ after your Dr. Burby with a full codpiece, ain’t 'e?” said Toby—“if you’ll pardon the expression, ma’mselle. Wonder what’s got 'im so excited, then.”
“In my experience,” Ajita said, “it is mainly trivial points of theology that drive Christians to internecine violence. Perhaps an instinct to associate in tribes is native to our species; we naturally obey local chiefs and compete for territory. In modern times, when nations number in the millions, a sense of tribal security is lost among the anonymous crowds. Men invent arbitrary differences to distinguish their own small factions from outsiders. That is the only explanation I can offer for why men enjoy torturing and murdering each other over metaphysical subtleties, such as whether the Godhead demands faith, or deeds, or both.”
“You don’t think that’s a matter of some significance?” asked Anna, responding as always to Ajita’s Italian speech in the same language.
[[Ajita replied]]
“I don’t believe that there is a Godhead. If there were, its desires would perforce be our concern. But if this deity were wise, its compassion would be limitless, and we could do no wrong in its eyes.”
“But what about our sins?” Her eyes slid inadvertently toward Toby Greene as she spoke that word, although she counted herself, just as much as him, among the sinful.
“Our misdeeds merely reflect our frailties. The more one desires, the less happy one becomes. Therefore, the greediest or lustiest or most ambitious sinner feels the worst pain on this earth and merits the deepest compassion from anyone who has escaped the cycle of desire.”
[[Anna regarded Ajita in silence.]]
He sat cross-legged and composed in his corner, with the iron collar around his brown neck like a decorative band. He breathed evenly and his breath formed a wreath of steam around his face in the cold air. She realized that she could see the world from his perspective. Practicing this new skill was a bit like bursting up through the forest canopy and looking down on the green below. One was free up there, but distinctions were lost and one had no footing. It would be all right to believe what Ajita did, or what she did, but to see both worlds at once was vertiginous.
Anna recalled the doctrine of Giles of Viterbo, which she had heard from the mad Neapolitan Friar, Giordano Bruno, on his famous visit to Oxford to debate the dons. According to Giles, the world is a dark forest. It is not evil, for God made it, and God is good. But it is dark and confusing on account of the limitations of human perception. In the forest, we seem to see numerous imperfect objects, superfluous duplicates of one another, blended and crowded and heaped together in an indiscriminate tangle. But God has ensured that this forest harbors footprints, traces of the true creation, which is without duplication, excess, or confusion. The spiritual life is a hunt for these traces of perfect truth. Diana, the virgin huntress, teaches us to pursue these tracks through the forest, but she also transcends it by rising (whenever she wishes) into the clear light of Apollo, where each necessary idea shines sufficient unto itself.
Giles’ allegory had impressed Anna, even though he had used pagan imagery. But now she saw the same simile differently. The dark forest was the tangled mass of human forms, institutions, beliefs, and (in a word) customs. Pindar says, “Custom rules all,” and [[Montaigne gives examples]]:
//There are places where brothels of young men are kept for the pleasure of women; where the wives go to war as well as the husbands, and not only share in the dangers of battle, but, moreover, in the honours of command. Others, where they wear rings not only through their noses, lips, cheeks, and on their toes, but also weighty gimmals of gold thrust through their paps and buttocks; where, in eating, they wipe their fingers upon their thighs, genitories, and the soles of their feet: where they circumcise the women: where they eat all sorts of herbs, without other scruple than of the badness of the smell: where they crack lice with their teeth like monkeys, and abhor to see them killed with one's nails: where in all their lives they neither cut their hair nor pare their nails; and, in another place, pare those of the right hand only, letting the left grow for ornament and bravery. In one place, men feed upon human flesh; in another, 'tis reputed a pious office for a man to kill his father at a certain age. Moreover, has not Custom made a republic of women separately by themselves? And does she not, by her own precept, instruct the most ignorant vulgar, and make them perfect in things which all the philosophy in the world could never beat into the heads of the wisest men?//
What we thought we knew, we only believed, as a matter of custom. Every man wandered through the thicket of customs, looking for truth; but truth was permanently inaccessible from within the forest (whose materia was our own perspective). The footprints were simply traces of previous hunters, following other hunters. As soon as one understood the nature of the human forest, one saw it as a whole, as if from above. But high up there, there were no ideas or convictions at all—only crystalline, empty light.
This thought faded as Anna reminded herself that her Indian cellmate was an atheistical heathen, in serious peril of eternal hellfire.
[[She contemplated Ajita.]]
Anna recovered the mix of disapproval and pity that is proper in dealing with a lost or ignorant soul. But how to persuade him of the Gospels’ truth? The text would not prove itself to one who denied its divine authorship. Logical arguments must proceed from fundamental premises, and Ajita would not share hers. She prayed silently for the apostolic gift of tongues.
While she prayed, Ajita sat completely still with his eyes closed, his thumbs touching his forefingers, and his palms raised; and Toby Greene snored. A band of constables carried Father Trafford back into the cell on a stretcher, deposited him gently in his corner, and left him to lie unbound. It turned out that an Oxfordshire jury had taken less than an hour to convict him of high treason. (The jurors were all sworn Anglicans, as the law required; as soon as Trafford confessed he was a seminary priest, the trial was effectively over, even though he had protested that he loved and honored the Queen and would give his life for hers.) Sir Thomas Lucy had sentenced him to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Carfax on Saturday next.
[[Trafford spoke]]
|Tomas>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Greco.png">](click-prepend: ?Tomas)[El Greco, Santo Tomás, started 1608 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Tom%C3%A1s_(El_Greco)]
“My friends,” added Sebastian Trafford to his cellmates in a weak but steady voice, “my most earnest prayer has at last been granted, after a decade of fasting and supplication. Although I am unworthy even to utter the word, I have been offered the crown of a martyr. On Saturday, I will break my fast with you, but share my dinner with the saints in heaven. God has chosen to delay my journey for three days. His purpose is evident. None of you has ever properly confessed or taken Holy Communion. Before I leave this earth, each of you must be saved.”
“I propose,” said Ajita, “that anyone who wishes to make a speech for the conversion of his fellows shall do so in turn. It will be my pleasure to listen to yours, Father, and you shall perhaps find that what I say at least passes the time of day.”
Trafford was a gentleman and a sportsman and immediately consented to the challenge. [[He encouraged Ajita to begin.]]
|Lepakshi>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Lepakshi-e1475425991260.png">](click-prepend: ?Lepakshi)[Ceiling painting from the Veerabhadra Temple, Lepakshi, after 1540 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veerabhadra_Temple,_Lepakshi]
“I was once in a remote region of India,” Ajita said, “far in the south where it takes days to cut through a half-mile of jungle. There are tigers down there, and wicked crone goddesses with wild hair who live on semen. At least, there are people who believe in such goddesses. I had been meeting one tribe after another, and each was harder to communicate with than the last, because they shared hardly any vocabulary with known peoples. I was trudging along with my guides when we were ambushed by a band of men who had only rocks for weapons. They marched us into the cave warren that served as their village, and made us stand there while they talked.
“The head woman and I had a strange discussion; neither of us said anything that made any sense to the other. I pointed at various objects—a tree, the sun—but she just stared at my hand, not where I pointed. When one of my guides laughed, she seemed startled, as if the very sound was strange. I was getting a bit nervous. Some of these peoples are cannibals, you know, and I thought I might look tasty to them. On the other hand, I was fascinated, because I’d finally found what every explorer dreams about: a people so different they share no signs with us. At last: The Other.
“I blurted out, ‘So this is it, then.’ I spoke, of course, in my own language.
[[Ajita continued his example.]]
“Well, there was a lot of commotion, a lot of gesticulating and waving of rocks, and finally an ancient crone emerged from the cave, borne on a kind of litter. The tribesmen flattened their palms on their foreheads, which I interpreted as a gesture of respect. And then everyone cried out, ‘So-this-is-it-then!’ ‘So-this-is-it-then!”
After a long perplexed silence, Anna said, “That was her name?”
“I think so. Or maybe her title. I never found out for sure.”
“And she was their ruler?”
“That’s right, their chief and their priestess, all rolled into one. It was a matriarchy, you see, and she had precedence among their women. Even better, she’d been to Goa in her youth and remembered a little Portuguese. She was the one who had introduced hot peppers to South India after the Europeans brought them over from Mexico. We got along famously.”
“Why did you tell us this story?” Trafford asked, thrown off stride. The last thing he had expected to face on his path to Calvary was a frivolous diversion.
“To prove that deep down, we are all one, a single family; and our differences are superficialities that should never worry us. Tell these men you’re an Anglican—why not? I can assure you, from ten thousand miles way, you and they seem as similar as two of the fifty-nine flavors of Syrian rosewater. If you publicly join their church, they will be overjoyed and will surely spare your life. You will be safely on your way to that throne you want in Canterbury.” Ajita had spoken through a mild smile and ended by bowing respectfully.
“Never!” said Trafford, his body broken but his soft voice still resonant of the pulpit and the podium. “I have heard your story, and now [[you shall hear mine]].”
(set: $perspective to "Trafford")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Jesuit')</script>And he began to speak of Teresa of Jesus--Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada--the famous wondering nun of Ávila, who had once blessed him personally at Salamanca. Trafford spoke for more than two hours. It was a sermon, an oration, a performance. It began with the Father lying on his pallet, addressing only his cellmates in a quiet, conversational tone. Somehow, by the time he had reached his peroration, he was propped in the lancet arch of the window, addressing a rapt audience of bareheaded prisoners in the courtyard below. The tattooed felons were as docile as spinsters before the cathedral pulpit on a Sunday morning.
According to Trafford, the blessed Teresa had once faced an //auto-da-fé//. She had been condemned, in his story, to be burned alive and was being displayed before a sea of monks in black pointed hoods that covered their faces. In the minds of stout Englishmen, masked Spanish monks were incarnations of evil. These fanatics had dressed Teresa in a yellow tunic on which painted devils fanned lurid orange flames. A rope hung around her neck, a tall pasteboard cap sat upon her head, and her mouth was stuffed with a rag to silence her. The famous founder of the “shoeless Carmelites,” who had wandered Spain barefoot in her humility, had been forced to wear fancy pasteboard shoes from the commedia del arte.
|Magdalen2>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Magdalen2-e1477271151407.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Magdalen2)[El Greco, The Penitent Magdalen, 1580-5 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Nelson-Atkins Museum http://www.nelson-atkins.org/greco-masterpiece/]
Anna was fairly sure that all this was fiction; the popular Papist writer had died of old age some years before. But it was a powerfully effective conceit. In his own masculine voice, Father Trafford [[conveyed the private memories of the condemned nun.]]
He began with the little girl who had taken her even smaller brother in hand and toddled off down the stony road to the land of the Moors to be martyred. When her uncle rode up to save her, Teresa recalled, she had first mistaken his silhouetted figure for a Moor and had trembled with that combination of terror and joy that was always her special gift. The uncle had scooped her and Roderigo onto his horse and taken them safely home—but from then on she had known her path.
Trafford portrayed Teresa as a woman always in peril of her life. Even her ancestry had been a danger to her. For his gentile audience, who had never used “Jew” as anything but a curse, Trafford painted an image of Teresa’s elderly Jewish grandfather living in terror among suspicious Christians. He asked them to imagine the old man hobbling through the mazelike streets of Toledo, built centuries ago by his Hebrew ancestors to wind among their blank-walled compounds. Juan was on his way to take the sacrament and to confess his mild frailties to the stern and suspicious Dominicans. The city still stank from the pyres of his relatives; they had sworn that they were faithful Catholics, but the Inquisition had decided they were secret and unrepentant Jews, and so they had burned by the hundreds. Soldiers seized the old man at the door of the monastery and hauled him before the masked tribunals. He escaped the fire but was paraded through Toledo in a yellow robe embroidered with lying tongues. Who knows whether inwardly he recited the Ave Maria or the Hebrew psalms of exile?
Juan had fled to Ávila and raised a son to be as good a Catholic as a man could be. The family became wealthy and attained the minor nobility. But then his granddaughter [[Teresa had arrived to challenge and perplex them.]]
First she ran away to a nunnery—which was not so unusual—but she would not behave like a proper nun, saying the ritual Latin prayers prescribed by tradition and authority. Like her grandfather’s grandfathers, she felt compelled to struggle with ancient texts and apply their paradoxes to her own implacable conscience. Like a Protestant heretic, she held private dialogs with Jesus in the common tongue, often perceiving him as a bodily (if invisible) presence in the room beside her. Other spirits also visited her as she exercised her prodigious memory and imagination. Angels arrived frequently as intellectual presences and once as a visible form. On one unforgettable occasion, a seraph drove a fiery lance again and again through her heart and left her scorched and tingling.
Women who summoned spirits through private incantations were generally known as witches. Friends and elders warned Teresa that her visions could be diabolical, and privately she feared that they were. Yet her struggles with her conscience led inevitably to terrifying moments of insight, and her imagination made those moments tangible. It was not by choice that she was extraordinarily sensitive and receptive. But it was her choice to train her sensitivity through laborious intellectual and spiritual exercises. The results—audible conversations with invisible spirits, reports of fiery angelic penetrations—could hardly fail to provoke deep suspicion. All of Spain’s most dangerous enemies acted rather like Teresa, whether they were Mayan priests in trances with bloody hearts in their hands, Protestants claiming brazenly that they conversed directly with God, witches fornicating with Satan, or mystical Jews and Moors enraptured by musty texts.
[[Teresa's mission to the poor]]
If her spiritual exercises weren’t bad enough, Teresa was driven to condemn the social order by force of her example. Daughter of a wealthy knight, she had run away to a convent for gentle ladies. It was a comfortable place where spinsters lived together in only partial seclusion. One spoke there in refined accents, relied on servants for manual labor, entertained visitors, and expected the deference of the poor. The cloister was decked in American gold; the porcelain Christ-child on the altar wore the finest Manila silks. But the //real// Jesus had consorted with poor fishermen and prostitutes. When Teresa vowed poverty, she meant it. She founded a new convent that was utterly humble, just a rough stone shed with straw on the floor. She walked barefoot and ministered to the poor and sick. Her closest confidants were a motley assortment of women and men from every social background.
|Magdalen>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Magdalen.png">](click-prepend: ?Magdalen)[El Greco, Mary Magdalen, 1585-1590 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Greco_-_Mary_Magdalen_in_Penitence_-_WGA10476.jpg]
Hers was a revolutionary example. Trafford’s humble audience of English prisoners felt it. They heard the learned and famous priest speak of equality and humility as Catholic virtues. His voice was genteel, but his fellow gentry had sentenced him to a gory death. Now he was one of them, and through him they felt the call of a half-caste barefoot Spanish nun. The last shall be first and the first shall be last.
Trafford emphasized that Teresa was a tireless organizer as well as a mystic. She traveled thousands of miles, wrote innumerable letters, personally founded scores of reformed convents. She took flawed human material and built institutions. Yet the arrogant powers always circled her. Her friend John of the Cross was kidnapped, imprisoned in a Toledo monastery, and there viciously flogged every morning for favoring reforms like Teresa’s and for writing unpretentiously moving poetry on her model. She eluded the same enemies year after year, until (in Trafford’s version) she finally faced the Inquisition.
[[A thesis emerged from the father’s narration.]]
To be a Catholic was to be faithful to the one true, global community, to be a loyal spiritual subject of Rome; it was not to set oneself apart or to imagine that one’s personal conscience could be an infallible guide. For had not Jesus himself placed Peter upon the throne and founded the Holy Church as His own body? And had not Saint Peter traveled to Rome to establish there the Holy See? But if the actual Catholic Church coddled and embraced you, your faith was never tested. The highest form of faith was to die at the hands of the very Church that you loved and served with all your being. It was to die utterly alone, condemned by the entire communion as a traitorous heretic, because you had ministered better to the Church community than any inquisitor or cardinal did. It was to die in doubt that your own visions and beliefs were true, because they were personal inspirations and they might be diabolical. It was to die in hope, and in love, and by choice, but without any arrogant certainties.
Trafford left his audience in suspense, not knowing whether Teresa would be delivered from the flames. They followed her imagination on its journey through her own saintly memories to the point of crisis. He left them to pray for her soul and their own.
[[Anna goes back to the stake]](set: $return to 8)
[[Anna wonders what happened to Ajita Brihaspathi, her Indian cellmate, after he left the Oxford Gaol]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>Ajita had said he would meet with Dr. Burby in London. She had begged him not to try to alter her master’s actions; Dr. Burby would do what was best in all circumstances and hardly needed a reminder to tell the truth on her behalf. How insulting such a request would be! Anna would rather face the rack. If Ajita met with Dr. Burby at all, let him simply share some interesting news. For instance, Anna had overheard prisoners in the Oxford castle talking of plans for a peasant uprising. They sounded quite serious and optimistic, and that would interest the learned doctor.
Anna has no documentary evidence, no letter or testimony, that recounts what happened after Ajita left their cell in Oxford. She knows what he said he would do, and she knows what happened at the end of the story. [[She uses her imagination to supply some of the intervening details.]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>(set: $perspective to "Ajita")For imagine that //you// were a foreign visitor to Queen Elizabeth’s England, ignorant of its harsh and simple speech and dismissive of its people’s crude art, filthy personal habits, violence, and superstition. You don’t even want to be there; you’ve been marched to England at sword-point. You should care nothing for any of the inhabitants, especially since your philosophical school teaches that life is mere pain. To live is to will; the will cannot have what it wants; and death ends every human tale in tragedy. Freedom and peace lie within, when the self quietly abandons its entanglements. For instance, a father should not say, “My child has been murdered,” but rather, “A life has ended; it is nothing to me.”
And yet you have formed an emotional bond with a Brahmanical fellow, a priest of the local religion, with whom you were hidden in a chimney. He is pompous (just like his Sanskrit-spouting counterparts in your homeland), but he is also clever, curious, and compassionate. The two of you have shared an unforgettable experience. Now he is to be tortured to death. You find that you cannot regard his fate with detachment. It is some consolation that the priest seems to anticipate his own execution happily; at least he suffers no terror. But that is because his superstition has persuaded him that martyrdom will be the gateway to eternal bliss (and a horrible posthumous revenge for those who have executed him). This obviously cannot be true; his death will be a tragic waste, notwithstanding his expectations. Nor will his religious beliefs anaesthetize him once he is on the scaffold and they are chopping off his private parts.
(if: $entropy > 10)[All this is bad enough, and (link-goto: "and another factor compels your moral attention", "another factor compels your moral attention")](if: $entropy < 11)[[[You consider options]]]
It was your fault that the priest was arrested at Hindby Hall. You sent a letter to the Justice of the Peace that brought him there. But that was before you had met Father Trafford.
(link: "Click to lower the system's entropy by confessing what you did.")[(set:$entropy to it - 1)]
How can you intervene to save Trafford? You are severely handicapped by knowing just a few words of English and just a few people in the whole country. Its politics and institutions, although rudimentary and backward, are complicated enough to be opaque to you. Besides, you are chained to the floor of a prison cell.
You contemplate a bribe. Your manuscript would be worth a substantial sum in the London book trade. You could turn it over the jailor in return for the priest’s release, or find a way to sell it and pay in gold. But you have learned that this Father Trafford is a personal enemy of the Queen herself. If the local authorities manage to execute him, they will gain enormous credit and renown. If they let him escape from the keep of Oxford Castle, they will risk utter disgrace and possibly a charge of capital treason. One would need all the treasure of Shah Akbar to buy Father Trafford’s release. To make matters even worse, it appears that Justice Lucy is a sincere bigot who genuinely hates the priest’s religious views and believes that his Creator God is watching and waiting for the execution. This may be a ludicrous myth, but it is no less influential for being false.
You contemplate an escape. The image comes to mind of several cloaked figures lowering themselves out of the Castle window by night, leaving their chains and picked padlocks behind them. But you have none of the skills you would need for such an adventure. And once again, a religious factor makes what would otherwise be highly improbable seem utterly impossible. Even if you could find a way out of the cell, the priest might not choose to follow you. Father Trafford wouldn’t miss an opportunity to be martyred.
Whom do you know in England?
[[The girl Mary who led you to Hindby.]]
[[Dr. Burby, with whom you began a correspondence when you were in Venice]]
[[The Dutch woman with whom you are imprisoned.]]
[[Sir Thomas Lucy]]
She won your respect with her courage, loyalty, and cleverness. She is young, and her soft, plump face and limbs are lovely. You have not touched a woman since India and would be delighted to make Mary your partner in further adventures. But you have no way of reaching her, and you doubt that she holds any power or knowledge that would help you save Father Trafford.
[[Dr. Burby, with whom you began a correspondence when you were in Venice]]
[[The Dutch woman with whom you are imprisoned.]]
[[Sir Thomas Lucy]]
He is learned, broad-minded, and seemingly free of prejudice. But he is enigmatic and you suspect his motives; you even guess that he ordered you purchased in the Venetian slave market. Besides, he is locked in the Tower of London, where he would be difficult to reach and unable to help.
[[The girl Mary who led you to Hindby.]]
[[The Dutch woman with whom you are imprisoned.]]
[[Sir Thomas Lucy]]
You resolve to talk to Mr. Justice Lucy. After you send word to him through the jailor, the Justice meets you in his castle chamber: the room that is equipped with a rack. He has brought an Oxford tutor with him to translate your Italian: a skinny young fellow with long fingers, cheap foppish clothes, and an ingratiating smile. Mr. Lucy himself is civil.
|Morocco>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Moroccan.png">](click-prepend: ?Morocco)[The Moroccan ambassador to the English court, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, 1600 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Moroccan_alliance
]
You ask to have a private letter transmitted to al-Caid Ahmed be Adel, the Sultan’s Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Of course, you have no business with this diplomat, a Moroccan official working for the Muslim Turk. You are a Charvaka atheist and a lowly subject of the Moghul Emperor of India. Your homeland is half the world away from Morocco. But you believe you can count on Mr. Lucy not to know the difference. He will simply recognize the “Caid” as an oriental diplomat who caused a sensation when he reached London with thirty mounted retainers in turbans and silk.
Mr. Lucy gives you a piece of parchment and a goose quill pen and watches with evident disappointment as you write in your mysterious script. You scrawl some Persian verses from //The Walled Garden of Truth//¸ because they happen to come to mind:
//The true path is made of neither words nor deeds.
Naught but desolation ever comes from these.//
If the Sultan’s Ambassador should receive this note, he may not even be able to decipher its Persian words. He will certainly have no idea why he got it.
But the note is enough to [[make Mr. Justice Lucy worry.]]
She is too passive and quiet for you to develop much of a sense of her. She is all eyes, constantly watching and listening. (You have learned that the Dutch are a nation of watchers, most content when relishing a wide landscape or luxurious objects piled on a table.) The woman’s few remarks suggest that she is a bigoted follower of the same sect as Mr. Lucy, and you are confused why he has imprisoned her. Yet you think you can detect a softness and uncertainty beneath her formulaic phrases. She watches you more than anyone else; her look is warm when you are not staring back. Indeed, you are fond of her, despite her pale and doughy look, and would strive to free her along with Father Trafford if you could. But she is in no position to help you, and you are unimpressed by her initiative and her worldly knowledge.
[[The girl Mary who led you to Hindby.]]
[[Dr. Burby, with whom you began a correspondence when you were in Venice]]
[[Sir Thomas Lucy]]
Lucy wasn’t looking for you in the first place, and the last thing he needs is some kind of diplomatic intrigue. Imprisoning the correspondent of a foreign ambassador does not strike him as a safe move. True, the Queen has banished all Africans from her dominions, a policy to reduce demand for food in a famine year and to make the peasants less anxious about the importation of slavery. But Mr. Lucy is under the impression that India is not actually part of Africa, so this decree is irrelevant to your case. His safest course is to throw the letter away and deliver you to someone who understands foreign policy--a courtier who may be grateful for information gleaned from an oriental.
And that is how you find yourself in the rear seat of a three-man, oared boat, [[making its stately way downstream.]]
You face forward, watching the rowers who sweat in the cold November morning, their oars rhythmically stirring the reedy Thames. A mallard pair paddles in your wake, hoping for scraps. Mist lingers by the earthen banks, which are topped by ferns, grass, and dry decomposing flowers. Loose iron cuffs encircle your wrists, connected by a light chain that passes under your seat so that you cannot jump overboard. The arrangement leaves you comfortable to recline and enjoy the prospects that open with every turn of the widening river: now a village nestled around a crenellated church tower, now a vale dotted with sheep, now a grand castle on a hill.
This is your second long day in the boat. You were taken away from Oxford early one morning after saying a hasty goodbye to your prison companions and promising to try to help them. That night you slept, or tried to sleep, in the verminous straw bed of a riverside inn that you shared with one of the oarsmen. Your companions cannot make themselves understood to you and hardly speak to each other; they row and eat in silence.
This morning, you were back in the boat before sunrise—which arrives far later than it would in your native country—and have been floating downstream ever since. The rhythmic splash and pull of the oars is a great aid to meditation, and you have been able to pass more than an hour at a time without a single active thought.
[[But an image comes unbidden into your mind.]]
It is a painting on the walls of a villa in Venetian territory. You first saw it on your way to Britain, in the uneasy company of the tall, choleric, orange-hued man who was either your owner or your rescuer.
After the first day’s silent travel (by barge on the River Brenta), you had arrived at the villa’s landing stage, and your companion had led you inside. This was when you learned that it is a Frankish custom for aristocrats to leave their doors wide open and for travelers to give themselves tours. The building—made of handsome marble, symmetrical, but not large—reminded you of a Mughul hunting lodge. After passing through the round, pink atrium and a small, dark, heavily frescoed study, you entered a room with a huge canopied bed and tall glazed windows overlooking the Brenta.
|Foscari>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Foscari-e1475440514406.png">](click-prepend: ?Foscari)[Stanza dei Giganti, Villa Foscari, after 1560
]
Its interior wall displayed, in vibrant colors, [[the following scene]].
On the right, a galley, much like the one that seized your ship in the Mediterranean, plowed into view through high waves. It was propelled by naked oarsmen with huge ruddy muscles and wild eyes. The strongest man of all, wearing only a breastplate and a helmet decorated like a tiger’s head, sat astride the galley’s ram, his enormous thighs in the water. In the center, from a confection of fluffy clouds above, tumbled two fat winged toddlers, bearing rings. At the right, various plump ladies emerged from the waves. Their yellow hair was bound with strings of pearls, foam lapped and eddied around their stomachs and pink thighs, their hands sought unsuccessfully to cover their breasts.
You asked what scene this picture illustrated. It had captured your attention and reinforced your growing sense that the Frankish barbarians had skill as painters. Also, you were eager to establish a more familiar relationship with the Englishman who had purchased you in Venice and who might prove your friend.
He did not recognize the scene, but by inquiring of the villa’s steward, he was able to obtain its source and even the text that it illustrated, the opening of Song 64 by the ancient Roman poet Catullus. That passage [[might be rendered thus ...]]
//Sprouted at the peak of Mt. Pelion,
the pines, they say, pushed right through Neptune’s waves
to the surf at Phasis, Aeëtes’ realm,
when the hand-picked force, those young oaks of Greece,
wanting to snatch from Colchis the Golden Fleece,
risked riding the salty waves on a ship,
and brushed the sky-blue sea with fir-wood oars.
Athena, who protects their citadel,
invented their light flying vehicle,
weaving the pine boards into one curved keel.
This ship was a first for the sea goddess.
When with its prow it plowed her wind-blown swell,
and its oar strokes sprayed white spume on her waves,
a face arose from the froth-covered strait,
a miracle the sea nymphs marveled at.
This one and many others they beheld,
the mortals, staring in the ocean sun:
nymphs rising out, naked, breasts in the foam.
Then Peleus was on fire for the nymph Thetis.
Then Thetis was not above a human match.
Then even father Jupiter knew it:
she was meant to be wife for Peleus.//
[[Ajita and Christopher discuss the allegory]]
You and your companion identified Thetis as the naked figure closest to the front, and Peleus as the man sitting on the prow. The winged infants, presumably, were messengers from Jupiter.
“Do the owners of this house use this room to worship Thetis?” you asked, in all innocence.
The Englishman was quick to reply, “Who would not? Just look at the shape of that nymph.”
“But—are you serious? You believe she exists?”
“//Dio mio//, no,” he said. “This is an antique scene: just a story, you know? We don’t believe in these heathenish gods. We just decorate our houses with 'em. Honestly, I rather doubt even Catullus believed in the stories he told. He was a poet, eh?”
“You said that the man in the last room, the one with a lion under a desk, he was a saint. Do you not worship him?”
“The people who built this house, my lad, are Papists. They have a tendency to idolatry, and I would not be surprised if they sometimes forgot themselves and actually worshipped their pictures of saints. But that is an error, as even they would admit in a sober humor. Jerome was a man. The fresco is just a painting of a man. There is only one God to whom all prayers are due, and He is infinite and omnipresent.”
“Yet you believe in this Jerome, but not in Thetis?”
“Indeed, because he lived and Thetis did not.”
[[Ajita reflects on myth.]]
It did not surprise or confuse you to learn that the same painters depicted both truths and fantasies. In your homeland, pious monotheistic painters often illustrated the //Shahnameh// or //Book of Kings// for their courtly Mughul patrons. That old book was full of heroes and magicians and even featured an emperor, Dhul-Qarnayn, from Greece. He was the fellow who was tutored by Aristu in Macedonia and then conquered most of the world, including parts of your own homeland. He believed in the very gods depicted in the villa. You had seen him in a helmet and breastplate like the one Peleus wears astride his galley’s prow.
|Shameneh>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Shamaneh.png">](click-prepend: ?Shameneh)['Abd al-Vahhab, illustration from the Shahnameh ca. 1530 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bizhan_Shahnameh_Met_1970.301.42_n02.jpg]
But why do people think in allegories? That question gave you, in an instant, one large idea. From the high plateau north of your homeland to the thick forests in the south, from one side of the Middle Ocean to another, the stories that people tell about gods and heroes vary. Brahma is not Jupiter; Nagpo-Chenpo is not Osiris. Yet a finite number of fundamental principles are accessible to the human brain. These principles can only be combined in a finite number of composites. Name a principle or a composite of principles: that is a god. Bring that god into conflict with another: that is a story. A list of all the myths of the known world would be a compendium of the fundamental concepts and interactions that are possible to conceive.
You suddenly see an exciting new purpose for your travels—especially if you can escape the clutches of the Englishman. You will write this compendium and publish it for the Shah himself.
But the Great King would ask another and more important question. Which of the stories is right? Not every combination of abstractions can be correct. The ultimate success would be writing a new allegory that had the virtue of being true.
You already have [[your own hypothesis]], based on your reading and direct experience of life.
(set: $return to 3, $chapter to 1)You believe there should be a god for power, energy, and mass--a [[male god of lordly demeanor->1.1 DRAHMEN]]. His [[consort should be a goddess of abstraction and order->1.4 LEFNI]]. Their [[sibling will represent conflict: the clash of opposites->1.2 VITHNI]]. As mass, order, and conflict play out their stories, time passes. Their interplay gradually reduces their differences, and the energy drains from the system—enhancing a [[fourth deity, a neuter figure that represents stillness and death->1.3 VATNA]]. Meanwhile, their stories are stored [[in minds that observe and remember->1.5 VITHREN]]. These minds enrich and complicate themselves even as the world burns itself out.
That would make an interesting myth. It could be written, illustrated, sung. But how would you be sure that the structure was the correct one? You could explore it experimentally. You could set real people of unlike traits into deliberate juxtaposition, and observe the stories that emerged. For instance, you might find one person whose primary character was abstract order, and another who was strongly inclined to power and force. You could plant a rumor of infidelity or betrayal between them and see what happened. In this way, you would not only observe the stories of mankind but make new stories unfold in the real world.
Since that day in the villa, this has been your work. You are zealous and impatient to get on with it, enraged by the many obstacles in your path, and eager to bask in the satisfaction of finding the truth.
[[Back to the river]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>(set: $chapter to 1, $perspective to "Ajita")As such memories chase themselves through your no longer meditative mind, you see in the distance at least a dozen round, gray, pointed objects shaped a bit like onions, each topped with a colorful standard. You float on down the Thames and an intervening grassy hill moves aside, revealing that these are lead turrets surmounting tall stone towers, which, in turn, emerge from a palatial building of many stories.
|nonsuch>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Nonsuch-e1477846401125.png">](click-prepend: ?nonsuch)[Joris Hoefnagel, Nonsuch, viewed from the south 1568 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> via http://onthetudortrail.com/]
But you are not going to the palace. Your boat turns toward the opposite bank and enters a canal, partly overgrown by trees and vines. Beyond the bare trees on either side, you see well-cropped fields. The boat reaches a landing stage beside a house. It is no palace, but a handsome structure (even by the standards of Delhi or Venice): symmetrical wings of patterned brick, big windows that catch the red light of the setting sun, and a tall door with some words carved over it.
An aged and stooped butler appears, lends you his shaking hand to climb out of the boat, and leads you up a flagstone path and into the house. You wait in a hall of dark, inlaid wood, squinting from the light that streams in through rippled glass.
[[A gentleman emerges.]]
He wears an unusual costume: a green hat and a light-purple, glossy gown with wide sleeves over a green shirt. He holds a clove-studded orange; you assume it protects him against any stink or infection that you might bring into the house. He bows and wishes you a good evening.
“Signor Lucy tells me that you are a learned visitor from the Indies, by way of Venice, and that we may converse in the language of that country,” he says in Italian.
You tell him that you will be glad to do so, and ask whether he is the master of the house.
“This modest lodge is mine,” he says, “and you shall be my guest in it. Those cuffs are an insult to my guest and shall be removed immediately. I trust you are not too weary from your long journey to join me and several other gentlemen for an evening meal?”
You gladly assent and are led into a long room whose main feature is an oak table. Soft sunlight passes through the oiled cambric of the windows and evenly illuminates the squashes, gourds, apples, and autumn leaves that have been strewn on the table for color. The table also bears pewter pitchers, glasses filled with red wine, tallow candles, china bowls, loaves, knives, and lacy cloths.
Two men rise to welcome you; three more follow behind and take their seats. You are placed in the middle of the table; your host sits opposite. A servant emerges with a ring of keys and opens your handcuffs. Glasses are raised.
As you eat, [[your host asks questions]].
"What country do you come from? What is its climate? What form of government? What do the people there most commonly eat? What language do they speak? Are they learned in astronomy? Metallurgy? Alchemy?"
You answer courteously and accurately, to the best of your ability. You notice that as you speak, your host’s gaze often rises above your face and settles on a point toward the ceiling; but when he catches himself, he forcibly moves his eyes back down to meet yours. He speaks quickly and in a somewhat high-pitched voice, but sometimes he seems to slow and deepen his tone by deliberate effort. He fidgets and then brings his hands together in a sober position on the table. Overall, he strikes you as a person whose natural inclinations would be odd and off-putting, but who has studied the ways of men and is applying conscious rules to govern his own behavior.
|Delves>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Delves.png">](click-prepend: ?Delves)[Portrait of George Delves and a Female Companion, British School, 1577 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Delves
]
[[The discourse continues]]
You remark that no one has expressed as much curiosity about your homeland since you left it.
A gray old clergyman, seated to your left--whose name you think is “Lancelotto”--says that this is always the way with Francesco Bacone. “He is the most curious fellow in all of England, and his appetite for facts is like a--a boar’s taste for mushrooms, ha, ha.”
“You mean, he is more curious than a virgin chorister at a brothel window,” adds a younger, beak-nosed fellow across the table--this one dressed in a white ruff and skullcap. Both speak Italian for your benefit.
“Sir, you must think my questions rude,” says Signor Bacone, “but they come involuntarily to my mouth and can hardly be suppressed, so enamored am I of the facts themselves.” As he lingers over the vowels of “tanto inamorato sono,” his eyes drift over your head again. A servant who is refilling glasses looks reassuringly at his master, who notices the look and returns it shyly.
[[Mr. Bacon expounds]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Occult')</script>(set: $perspective to "Bacon")(set: $characters to $characters + (a: "Bacon")) “I wish that I could live,” your host continues, “in a land where every stranger is greeted as I have welcomed you, so that my series of questions would be understood as natural and not as a strange impertinence. Each foreign visitor would be invited to a generous table and a comfortable bed. His health would be inquired into, his body’s needs met. He would then be questioned in an orderly fashion about the knowledge and customs of his homeland. Clerks would attend the interview and take detailed notes, using a new sheet for each topic: alchemy, anatomy, apiology, arithmetic, astronomy, and so forth. Each completed sheet would be carried to specialists in the appropriate discipline, who would dwell together in a kind of college, fully equipped for their researches. The alchemists would use retorts, burners, chemicals, metals, furnaces, and the like; the anatomists would use skeletons or pickled corpses of men, of women, of prodigies of nature (neither male nor female), and of the diverse inferior species of animal, whether furred, feather, scaled, or otherwise. And so forth,” he continues, remembering to slow and lower his voice and return his eyes to your face, for they have drifted to the stockinged legs of his favored servant.
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/steward.gif">
He begins again, slowly at first but then accelerating: “These learned gentlemen would put each belief of the foreign visitor to an experimental test. Any beliefs that were proved valid would be entered on a national register of truths. Those that were shown to be myths or errors of the visitor’s nation would be forwarded to the department concerned with foreign affairs and antiquities. Accumulated truths would be compiled, sorted, and fully indexed in a printed concordance so that every man could quickly search the entire stock for words or phrases. This knowledge would be applied to build instruments so that man might extend his dominion over nature—machines for flying in the air, for breathing beneath the waves, for drawing disease from organs.”
He catches himself, stops abruptly, and blushes. “Percy,” he says in English, “refill these gentlemen’s goblets; I shall return apace.”
[[Passtime of wits]]
He vanishes, leaving his friends to exchange wry glances. “Now, what //news// on the Rialto?” quotes an elegant clergyman near the end of the table, in English.
“The Turk has slaughtered thirty thousand Christians of Hungary on the field of battle,” says Signor Lancelotto. “That is the news I heard on the Royal Exchange--//il Rialto di Londra//,” he explains, for your benefit.
|Rubens>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Rubens.png">](click-prepend: ?Rubens)[Peter Paul Rubens, The Four Philosophers, ca. 1611, 18th century engraving in the author's family collection
]
Having switched back to Italian, the conversation makes the rounds of foreign and court gossip. The main topic becomes Her Majesty’s saucy godson, Mr. Harington of Kelston, who, having been banished from court for his erotic verse, has invented a chair for defecation, equipped with a cistern that can be opened with the pull of a chain, and a sewer below. Her Majesty, after using the device at the banished Mr. Harington’s home, has restored him to favor and now expects him to install a similar chair at Richmond Castle--just across the Thames from where you sit.
A gentleman to your right interrupts to observe, in English:
//Methinks that’s the chair I now long for,
But the ferry’s aft would tempt me sore,
Whilst I was rowed to the good Queen’s shore.//
[[Bacon returns]]
Amid laughter, Signor Bacone returns and takes his seat silently opposite you. It is a house party; the guests one by one excuse themselves to sleep in their rooms on the second story. The master, however, shows no signs of flagging. As the candles sputter and the long northern night drags on, Bacone resumes asking you his questions, accompanied now only by the faithful Signor Percy, whose head rests on the master’s knee. He queries you about metaphysics, logic, harmony, prosody, printing, and bricklaying.
“Is there any service I may offer you, who have been so generous with his knowledge?” Bacone asks at last.
You tell him that you have become friendly with a priest who is sentenced to die and have pledged to try to help him.
“Mr. Trafford is beyond human help,” says Signor Bacone.
Seeing that he has startled you, he assures you that your friend is not yet dead. “But he has no more chance of life than Saint Lawrence, once he was strapped to the fiery griddle. The Tyrant of Rome, the so-called Pope, has urged all his followers to slay our Queen. A professional agent of his cannot be pardoned.”
“My friend has harmed no one and threatens no one.”
“Of all treasons, to compass and imagine the death of the monarch is the worst, the capital of all capital crimes. Is it not so in your country?”
You assent, but you are about to object to the implication when Signor Bacone interrupts with the next step of his deduction: “Of all ways to compass and imagine the death of the monarch, is not this fellow’s the worst?”
“How? I would have thought that to stab the Queen, or even to plan to stab her, would be far worse than Trafford’s actions, which are mere beliefs or motions of his inner mind.”
[[Mr. Bacon his reasons]]
“Not so.” Bacone counts his points on his long white fingers.
“First, Mr. Trafford’s mental treason rests on a pretended religion; false religion is a trumpet to inflame the hearts of men. Second, an ordinary conspiracy is no great danger, since commonly the man who has the wit to plan the deed lacks the stomach to do it; and someone among his fellows nearly always betrays him. On the other hand, preaching a religion that inflames men’s hearts against their sovereign is a great danger, like feeding a fire that is past being stomped out. Third, consider the precedent that should be set if any man may preach against his own sovereign on account of his faith. What crowned head then would be safe?”
You see that this conversation is not headed in a useful direction. Law seems to be one of your host’s many disciplines, and there is no arguing with a lawyer, in any country.
A cock has finally crowed and the oilcloth windows are turning into faint rectangles of gray. When true morning arrives, your interview must surely end.
“I had another companion in prison,” you say, “and for this one you may feel more sympathy.” You proceed to explain Anna’s predicament, beginning with her arrest in student’s clothes, and ending with the choices that have been presented separately to her and her master, Dr. Edmund Burby.
[[Mr. Bacon offers assistance]]
“I have the honor to be the Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary,” Signor Bacone tells you, “responsible for many a successful prosecution. The trap that Her Majesty’s Government has set for these two separated prisoners is customary and usual. It was already used by Serjeants-at-Law and sheriffs in the reign of King Edward the First. Each prisoner testifies against the other because they lack trust. If they had a reliable pact of silence, they could avoid the worst by refusing to cooperate with their inquisitors. However, not knowing what the other will say, each is wise to give evidence against his confederate—even if it is false. The trouble with this whole technique,” he adds, “is its tendency to convict the innocent. If only we could love—not vain legal victories or flowery words—but the facts themselves.”
“My friend is innocent and also faithful. She has already refused to give evidence against her teacher, whom she loves.”
“In that case, the solution lies in communicating her decision to Dr. Burby.”
“How is that possible? He is in prison.”
“No ordinary prison. This doctor has an apartment in the White Tower of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress. He may not leave, but the Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary may visit him there at his convenience.”
“Would you be willing to do that?”
“Sir, I am already deeply in your debt for sharing your rich knowledge. The balance will be even more in your favor if you do me the honor of continuing your stay at this lodge for some more days. A visit to Dr. Burby is no trouble, sir, no trouble at all.”
(link: "Click to lower the system's entropy as Francis Bacon offers help")[(set:$entropy to it - 1)]
[[Another dinner with the wits]]
Your host seems to need no sleep. He is gone in an hour, riding his own boat to London on your errand and—as he assures you—other business at the Inns of Court. You sleep comfortably through most of the short hours of sunlight, your room a large, oak-paneled chamber on the third floor that overlooks sheep fields, the serpentine river, and Richmond Castle. As you doze to sleep, you watch a procession of rowboats and sailing vessels pass to and fro.
That evening: another dinner. The guests overlap with the first night’s company, although there are some replacements. Once again, they are all men, and you think that you detect some couples, or at least some pairs that are mutually attracted. You make a mental note for your planned treatise on the Mores and Laws of the Franks.
The conversation drifts in and out of Italian. Even when you understand the language, the quick and witty references to English courtiers and privateers leave you adrift. On this second evening, music from a stringed instrument and a woodwind can be heard from another room during the whole meal. You give more attention to its rhythms and harmonies than to the men around you. Seeing that your mind is elsewhere, Signor Bacone suddenly suggests that everyone join the musicians. You and the others file into a small study adjacent to the dining room, where two notably handsome young men are still playing their instruments. After listening to sprightly dances, the guests begin to offer their own songs, some bawdy and some melancholic. The viols scrape and creak (or so their sound strikes your ears) as a countertenor sings [[his plaintive villanelle in French.]]
//Is autumn the one true season of life?
(Or must a long cold winter follow fall?)
October paints with fragile colors rife
the early twilights, and with black, the nights of strife,
when a suffering wind repeats the call:
"Is autumn the one true season of life?"
Sweet roots and crisp apples under the knife
yield scented juices that summer sun recall.
October paints with fragile colors rife.
With thoughts of fledgling days the small
birds huddle tight as husband clings to wife.
Is autumn the one true season of life?
It is the soft wind whistling like a fife
that spins the dancing leaves, holds them in thrall.
October paints with fragile colors rife.
The vein to the past was cut with a knife.
The days drop like leaves, and ripeness is all.
October paints with fragile colors rife.
Is autumn the one true season of life?//
[[Mr Bacon his news]]
When the last cadence dies away, your host waggles a finger at you and leads you into a separate little chamber that is equipped with a bed. This special attention makes you uncomfortable, but he launches directly into an explanation: “Signor Brihaspati, I had the honor today of meeting with your friend Dr. Burby in the Tower of London, where he is regrettably confined. An estimable man. We exchanged information for several hours; I profited the more. I did tell him about the possible peasant uprising, as you had suggested. He seemed mildly interested.”
You mutter that you are glad and then await any hints about your friends in Oxford Castle.
“I would judge Dr. Burby to be a man of high integrity and commitment,” says your host.
“So you do not think he will falsely accuse Anna Claewart of witchcraft, or of any such crime?”
“That would surprise me profoundly.” Bacone smiles ingratiatingly. The meeting seems to be over, and you begin to back toward the door. “With one exception,” he adds.
“Yes?”
“I judge him to be involved in some business of high importance and grave risk. I do not mean a selfish enterprise—rather something in the common good. He is enigmatical about it; I learned nothing. It could be scientific, theological. I must say, I found him in more a contemplative than an active humor. In my own case, the two moods alternate rapidly and I am never fully happy in one mode because I miss the other. Do you find the same? Are these two categories, the active and contemplative life, often debated in your homeland? Perhaps your people have found some middle road? I should like to know of five or six philosophical works from India that I should read. I would pay to have them translated. What chief authors would you recommend, in the order of their births?”
You acknowledge vaguely that people in your homeland do talk about engaging in the world or withdrawing from it. But what does Dr. Burby’s current project have to do with Anna’s future?
“Ah, well—if it were necessary to make a sacrifice in the interest of the greater good, I do not doubt the learned doctor would make it. He would sacrifice himself quicker than a hothead knight. And he would sacrifice his student almost as willingly, if that were the surer path.”
[[Anna goes back to the stake]](set: $return to 11)
[[Anna's memory goes back to Oxford Gaol]]
(set: $perspective to "Anna")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>Anna recalls the day that the soldiers came for Father Trafford. He left the cell with a peaceful smile and again raised two long fingers to bless his fellows. They listened to the noises from the Castle Court as he was strapped face-down in his wicker cage. The crowd stood by respectfully, and Anna could hear Trafford tell them that his journey might start in a bumpy way, but it would end with a ride in an invisible chariot. He would smile down as he rode. With a harsh “giddy-up” and a drum-roll, he was dragged away at the horse’s tail.
|Campion>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Campion.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Campion)[The Martyrdom of St Edmund Campion SJ <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> from http://jesuitinstitute.org/Pages/Campion.htm]
His sentence was to be hanged naked, cut down alive, and then emasculated and eviscerated. But according to prison rumors, a devout Catholic had rushed forward when the priest was gasping for air and had hugged him downward to break his neck. When his dead body was sliced open, witnesses had tried to catch his blood for their forbidden reliquaries. His last words had been, “God save our Queen.”
Anna prayed for him, for the bystander who had risked his soul by ending the priest’s life, and for herself, lest her reformed faith should weaken under the pathetic influence of these Papist examples. The priest’s death (she almost called it his martyrdom) shook her and filled her with fear, pity, doubt, and self-criticism.
Anna’s own trial was held later that day in Sir Thomas Lucy’s private hall, before twelve Oxfordshire Puritans.
(if: $entropy < 12)[(link-goto: "A question","prisoner1")](if: $entropy > 13)[(link-goto: "A question","prisoner2")](if: $entropy < 14 and $entropy > 11)[(link-goto: "Anna's trial", "own trial")]
The jurymen were grocers, dyers, glovemakers, butlers, and franklins or small landowners. Some retained pot bellies even in this famine year, but others looked gaunt. Their eyes wondered across vast expanses of plaster and rows of portraits. To Anna, a Netherlander, the full-length paintings of Lucy’s relatives seemed naïve; but to the jury, they represented unthinkable wealth. Two crude black marble putti upheld a balcony on which Mrs. Lucy and her children sat to watch, eight boys arrayed neatly in order of height and dressed in identical black coats with white ruffs.
|Family>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Family.png">](click-prepend: ?Family)[Antoon Claeissins, Family Saying Grace, ca. 1585 detail <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoon_Claeissens
]
The charges were read: high treason against the person of Her Majesty the Queen by means of diabolical proceedings popularly called witchcraft. Plots against the state in league with foreign powers and potentates. Espionage by a Flemish female agent disguised as a boy. Atheistical, papist, and Annabaptist heresies. Fornication in the semblance of a man. Seditious publications and correspondence.
“How plead ye?” Sir Thomas asked when the long list ended. He aimed for a deep and sonorous tone but nervousness caused his voice to crack.
“Innocent, my lord,” Anna replied in English, after a long pause. She felt faint and gripped the edge of Sir Thomas’ dining table for support. The details of the indictment were utterly unexpected and horrifying; but she reminded herself that she had expected to face some kind of capital charge.
“And [[what say ye]] about your master, Dr Edmund Burby?”
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[“He is an honorable man.”]]<quote5| (click: ?quote5)[
//By detecting this allusion to //Julius Caesar//, Act 3, Scene 2, you raise knowledge by 1.//(set: $knowledge to it +1)]
“Have ye something to tell the jury about the policies of this honorable man?”
“No, my lord.”
“It availeth you to tell these good gentlemen all ye know.”
“So I shall, my Lord. I know that Dr. Burby is an honorable man, a loyal Englishman, and true minister of the Queen’s Church, so please you, your honors.” Anna hoped that these English phrases were appropriate. Her voice sounded very small.
The Justice of the Peace instructed the Bailiff to show the first item of evidence, Anna’s outfit as a scholar. She acknowledged under oath that she had worn it, and her motive had been to pass as a boy.
[[Item the second]] was a letter found in Anna’s own apartments that had been written in Spanish in the Low Countries.
She acknowledged that it was her property and that she had violated the law by corresponding with a Catholic scholar. But she managed to interject that the topic of the letter was nothing but the prevailing rents in Brabant, and she had acted under the instructions of her master. Dr. Burby’s motives must have been benign, she added, because the topic of the correspondence was trivial.
The next item was a letter testifying very tersely that Anna was a spy and a witch who sought to kill Her Majesty with a devious potion. Upon hearing this document, the jury turned ashen and would no longer meet Anna’s eye.
“It is a lie,” she said softly but stoutly.
The Justice asked the Bailiff, “Who wrote this letter?”
“So please your honor, Dr Edmund Burby, late a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, now resident of her Majesty’s Tower of London, did write it, so please the court, your lordship, sir,” said the Bailiff, his voice trailing off as he sought the proper formalities. “And he gave it to me, 'isself,” he added.
“No!” said Anna, clutching the table. “Impossible!”
“Show the prisoner the hand,” Lucy instructed.
[[She examined the letter]]
She received the parchment and immediately recognized Dr. Burby’s humanist cursive. If it wasn’t his writing, it was a clever forgery.
“What say ye now about your master? This merciful court may o’erlook yet thy previous prevarications if thou spillst what thou knowst about this honorable man.” Lucy’s voice dripped with scorn.
“I know him, your honor, as a most honest gentleman.”
“Are there no faults that may weaken this jury’s faith in his damning evidence?”
Anna choked through the fear in her throat: “Where is he, that he may speak about me in person?”
“He remains confinèd in London, by order of the Privy Council. His written testimony sufficeth. Dost deny that his hand wrote this letter?”
“I cannot deny it. Nor believe it, neither.”
“The court offers you a third chance to testify about your master,” Lucy said, evidently overlooking the Biblical parallel that struck Anna immediately. In the silence that followed, she inwardly listed Dr. Burby’s faults and crimes: alchemy, secret correspondence with subjects of the Spanish Crown. But she could not wash her hands of this man.
“He is innocent, my lord. The letter must be a //subjectio//.” She used the Latin noun, not knowing the English word “forgery.”
“Then thou accusest this court of cunning trickery and perjury?” Lucy thundered.
“I stand before you innocent,” Anna replied, simply and with some dignity. She almost added, //“Ich kann nicht anders,”// but censored that arrogant thought.
[[The trial continued]]
“Not innocent, wench, for thou hast confessed already thy counterfeit as a boy. Why should this jury believe any words from a harlot and spy?”
“I am innocent of any harm ‘gainst England or her gracious Queen.”
“And Dr. Burby, he is also a loyal subject of the same Queen?”
“Aye.”
“Always and in every respect?”
“Aye.”
“Notwithstanding this letter that he hath written to damn you, still ye say that this Dr. Burby is an honorable man?”
“So must I, your lordship.”
Justice Lucy was looking nonplussed, but he pressed on: “Thou denyest what the letter says, but not the author?”
“I deny not my master, sir.”
Sir Thomas Lucy turned to the jury and asked, “What kind of a bond is this, twixt a young wench in doublet and hose and an old bachelor? Think ye on’t. Tis not natural.”
“My bond is with the truth, and the truth shall set me free.”
|cutpurse>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mollcutpurse-e1476040334182.jpg">](click-prepend: ?cutpurse)[Mary Frith, cutpurse, dressed as a man <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Frith]
Reflecting on the trial later on, Anna decided that Sir Thomas had been disappointed and confounded at this point in the proceedings. His goal had not been to convict her but to obtain her testimony against a much grander foe. But he could hardly release her after what the jury had seen. With evident distaste, he rested the Crown’s case. The jury filed out and returned in a quarter hour with a simple verdict: high treason. For a woman (who could not be publically emasculated and eviscerated), the penalty was to burn. The date was three days’ hence; the place, St. Giles.
(set: $fork to 0)(set: $fork1 to 0)
[[A fork in the path]]
A maze is a pattern of crossroads and choices. A labyrinth is a winding path without any forks. In the superstitious and corrupt centuries before Anna was born, her countrymen sometimes depicted labyrinths on the floors of their cathedrals’ crossings. As one stepped along the narrow course, windows and statuary revolved and mutely retold their story of conception, birth, teaching, crucifixion, resurrection, and return. At last the pilgrim came to the center, faced the altar, and retraced the same path back out.
Anna feels her labyrinthine memory taking her back into the solitary underground cell of the Castle, where she waited after Trafford’s execution and Ajita’s release, to her final meetings with Justice Lucy, to the tumbrel where she was taken in chains, and thence …. If she thinks where she rode on that little cart, she may find herself back there again. Her intense concentration is beginning to falter. She has postponed the end of her story with memory, imagination, digression, narrative, supposition, invention--all the tools of mind with which, according to Michel de Montaigne and Giordano Bruno, we can make ourselves sick or well, aroused or impotent, strong or weak. She has turned a straight path into an intricately winding one. But no mind’s control is perfect.
Was that a lick of flame in her peripheral vision?
She cannot remember her way back to the present; she must stop, turn, and retrace her steps through the labyrinth, or [[she will burn->Anna goes back to the stake]]. Before the castle, her arrest; before her arrest, Mary Bannock hiding the priest at Hindby Hall; before that, Mary’s letter on the desk in her house. How had Anna had come to Mary’s house? Because it was pictured in the book in Dr. Burby’s cell at the Tower of London—the same book, surely, that Ajita Brihaspathi had written on his journey from India and described for her in their Oxford Castle cell.
Anna has memorized every detail of Dr. Burby’s study as a visual mnemonic. She can picture that place with phantasmagoric clarity. As she tries to picture it, she remembers that there are two such chambers, the original in Balliol College, Oxford, and the one that Burby has recreated in the Tower. It turns out that her memory is a maze, not a labyrinth.
(set: $return to 9)[[She chooses the fork into Burby’s London chamber.]]
[[She chooses the path into Oxford Goal]]
(set: $fork to 1)This place looks to her like a picture from her father’s time. She envisions rich velvet draperies lit with a soft, indirect light from the top left. The floor tiles and roof beams establish a deep, stage-like space. The foppish Italian, a smallish figure in this image, is turned away so that all she sees is the feather from his hat and a part of his face extending from his jaw to his nose. He is slouched over a table that is covered with a Persian rug and furnished with a marble bust, an alchemical retort, and some heavy folio volumes. In the middle of the table, drawing the Italian’s attention, is Ajita’s glowing illuminated manuscript. On the other side of the book sits an elderly scholar, a Saint Jerome figure, with a bald pate and a curly white beard. She studies his hawk-like nose and his watery downcast eyes. Her master looks down at the manuscript, but one finger absent-mindedly points to another document, a yellowed and rumpled sheet of parchment.
|Ambassadors>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Holbein.png">](click-prepend: ?Ambassadors)[Hans Holbein, The Ambassadors 1533, detail <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_The_Ambassadors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg]
This item is severely foreshortened from Anna’s vantage point. Its original rectangle has been reduced to a thin oblong with scratches of black ink. The writing is Dr. Burby’s, and he has used a cipher. For a long time, Anna stares at the flattened numbers and hieroglyphs, each a stand-in for a Latin letter. She concentrates on frequencies, short words that might be prepositions, and repeated patterns. The code gradually resolves itself and she reads a series of brief entries: Dr. Burby’s summaries of detailed reports from Christopher Bannock. She has found another lengthy [[stretch of maze]] that may not take her directly to the finish.
As she reflects on these notes, she realizes that some of the flames that have been flickering in the periphery of her attention have been fires of peasant rebellion. In their hamlets—Christopher reports—the folk are hungry. Grain is piled in the gentry’s granaries, but the country people cannot afford eleven shillings a bushel. There is a Lenten fast on the land, even though Michaelmas is still weeks away. By the time the real Lent comes, mothers’ breasts will be dry, old women will forsake their shares of food to save their children, men will take to the roads, crows will gather on church roofs, and a north wind will whistle though abandoned villages.
Assembled for many hours every day at Greenwich, the Lords of Her Majesty’s Privy Council [[regard these developments]] with the concern of learned physicians whose patient shows the early signs of a fever or plague.
The Council’s patient is, of course, the Realm of England, which they view as a single precious organism. Famine is a characteristic disease of this Commonwealth; rebellion often follows it, like spots after a fever. The great lords of the Privy Council know, from centuries of experience, a treatment that can reliably prevent this illness from running its full and deadly course. Like any proper cure, their therapy must address all of the humors and organs that have slipped out of harmony. One important organ of a state is the peasantry—lately observed to be both lean and splenetic. Just as a physician raises the body’s temperature to bring forth sweat that can be wiped away, along with its toxins, so Her Majesty’s Government will provoke the peasants’ anger in order to bring the most dangerous troublemakers to the surface where they can be trapped and blotted out.
|map>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Saxton.png">](click-prepend: ?map)[Christopher Saxton, Map of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, 1579 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> British Library, http://prints.bl.uk/art/477442/map-of-oxfordshire-berkshire-and-buckinghamshire
]
It would, however, be an ill-balanced treatment that directed itself only at the basest organ of the political body. The Privy councilors are concerned that the gentry, too, have upset the organism’s harmony by their stinginess and overbearing pride. The councilors are anxious about Her Majesty’s poore, lovinge subjectes who have suffered these two harde years in great myserie and penury from the dearth of corne and other vyctualles. Messages go forth ordering the bishops of England to preach charity, and the knights and squires to pay alms, to open their halls for Christmas feasts, to offer employment to the poor of their parishes, and to postpone any provocative acts, such as enclosing common land. Just as a few peasants must hang, so a few gentlemen must receive public reprimands or be sent down from the court for failing tests of Christian charity. These pills may be ill-tasting, but they are reliable.
Their Lordships know [[astounding amounts]] about the Commonwealth that they serve in order to preserve.
The Lord Treasurer, Sir William Cecil, has organized an immense network of informants who send him daily letters and memoranda that he files in thick bound books and commits to his prodigious memory during his sleepless nights. Sir William’s humpbacked and dissembling son, Sir Robert Cecil, is Her Majesty’s Mr. Secretary, whose informants overlap with his father’s but are growing rapidly in number and reach. The Queen favors Sir Robert, her “pygmy,” because everyone else hates and despises him; he is hers alone.
|Cecil>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Cecil.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Cecil)[John de Critz the Elder, Robert Cecil, ca. 1602 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil,_1st_Earl_of_Salisbury]
She also favors her Master of the Horse, Robert Devereux, the Second Earl of Essex, but for a different reason: he is a great knight, a flower of the old aristocracy, and a plausible suitor even now that she is old and thickly painted. (Gloriana’s status requires that she is always credibly but unsuccessfully wooed.)
|Essex>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/essex.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Essex)[Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, after Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Devereux,_2nd_Earl_of_Essex]
Essex has an equally effective network, completely separate from that of the hated Cecils but likely to work for the same purpose in this emergency. Meanwhile, the Queen’s Attorney, Mr. Edward Coke (another rich bourgeois, like the Cecils), stands ready to prosecute in the courts that he dominates by virtue of his encyclopedic knowledge of the law, his remarkable ability to produce surprise witnesses and facts, and his overwhelming advantages as the lawyer for the Queen’s side. Every case that he has prosecuted so far has ended swiftly with a conviction and a death sentence. (If only he could find a way to send Francis Bacon to the block—that sniveling, conniving, ambitious sophist who tries to frustrate Mr. Coke’s every move.)
|Coke>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Coke.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Coke)[Edward Coke in his 40s <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Coke]
[[The Council’s meetings]] are long but highly substantive and professional.
The atmosphere is as cold as a crypt, and every other word seems calculated to shame or weaken a colleague. Sometimes the Queen listens from behind a curtain, her upper lip curling into a quiet smile. William Cecil quietly relishes the daily struggle; he is surpassingly good at it and feels the confidence of a man who believes that his wealth and power are signs of his own manifest election and God’s irresistible grace. His son Robert is learning to be equally skillful and takes even more pleasure when the verbal knife slips in. Both men are happy to let it be known that they have prodigious appetites for work; mental labor is a mark of godliness. Essex, in contrast, affects a languid and leisurely air. He is not bad at the maneuvering, but it pains him to struggle with clerks over papers when his place is the field of honor, where they would dare not show their faces.
|Somerset>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Somerset.png">](click-prepend: ?Somerset)[Anon, The Somerset House Conference, 1604 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_House_Conference_(painting)]
It is the elder Cecil who employs Christopher Bannock as an intelligencer. The Lord Treasurer personally pays his Oxford college accounts. Cecil employs hundreds of such retainers, but Christopher has a rare advantage, which is the disadvantage of his birth. This young master can quickly shed his university accent and clothes and pass again as a child of his father, who was a penniless cottager from Northhamptonshire.
Cecil [[sends Christopher to Oxfordshire, to the vicinity of Bicester,]] where the rustics are said to be particularly restless.
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Englishman')</script>(set: $perspective to "Christopher")Christopher enters that country from the direction of his birthplace, to the north. He is now Chris Cotter, formerly a wainwright in the household of a gentleman of Brackley, until he was cast out by this master of churlish disposition to save the old gent a few shillings. Chris frequents taverns and fairs, where he seems willing to spend his last pennies on ale for the whole company. In his cups, he mutters darkly against gentlefolk and draws other young men with similar views.
At Marsh Gibbon, east of Bicester, Chris falls in with some fellows who think the gentry are deliberately withholding corn from the markets to drive up the price. This talk interests him; he reports it to Sir Robert Cecil and separately to his old tutor, Dr. Burby. But these fellows seem all bluster and have no plans other than to steal a few bushels from their squire’s barn. The same squire soon receives a formal letter from Her Majesty’s Privy Council tersely reminding him of his Christian responsibilities to the poor. Chris enjoys this magical action at a distance: he sends a report; thus the squire distributes corn. Such is the reward of his secret life.
|statutes>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/statutes-e1475517175690.png">](click-prepend: ?statutes)[From The Statutes at Large From the Magna Charta, to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, Anno 1761
]
At Piddington, Chris hears talk of a “fair price” for corn; it is said that any higher charge is a fraud. He writes to Dr. Burby with this information and two questions: What //is// the fair price of a commodity, and how can it be calculated? Anna reads the questions but cannot see Dr. Burby’s response. She is, however, familiar with his thoughts on the matter. In Dr. Burby’s youth--as he has often recalled—-corn and other staples fetched different prices in each market across Europe. But he has observed the prices converging; any differences can now be explained as the built-in costs of transportation and rent. The value to which all the prices are converging must be the natural one, or so he maintains.
At Fencott, where the land is sodden and untamed and the sky is wide, [[Chris joins the funeral train of a baby who has died of famine.]](set: $characters to $characters + (a: "Christopher"))
On either side of the raised path, lopped sticks lie bubbling in the loam, and starlings circle overhead. The vicar stands above the little black pool of the grave; in his provincial grammar-school accent he is thanking God for releasing the dead child from “the miseries of this sinful world,” when a wild-eyed fellow with a beard down to his belly begins preaching about the horsemen of the Apocalypse. The White Horse, he claims, was King William with his invaders from France who took the land from the people. The Red Horse was Old King Harry the Sixth making war on the folk of England. The Black Horse is Famine. “And I 'eard as a voice in the middle of the four beasts, sayin', A bilibre of wheat for a penny, and free bilibres of barley for a penny; and 'urt thou not wine, nor oil.”
The mourners stand quietly to hear him, presumably not understanding a word, but also not lifting a hand to protect the shamefaced vicar. The ranter wears a wide-brimmed, conical hat even in the midst of a holy service and babbles about refusing to render nuffink unto Ceasar and them wot bears the un-'oly sword of stayte. Chris dutifully reports this incident to their Lordships and sends a note to Dr. Burby, although he frankly doubts that Anabaptism has any future in the English countryside. Within three days, the ranter is tracked down by sheriff’s men, beaten within an inch of his life, and dumped over the border in Buckinghamshire.
[[To Murcott]]
At Murcott, in the back room of the Nut Tree Inn, Chris Cotter drinks and sings riotously with a group consisting of a vagrant from Worcester, a runaway saddler’s apprentice, three hungry franklins, two fullers, a baker in service to a gentleman, a soldier recently returned from Holland, and a London pamphleteer who is evading the Earl of Essex’s men. Broken clay pipes lie underfoot; dogs sleep in a pile as near as they can to the scanty hearth. When the singing dies down, Chris and the writer find themselves trying to impress the others with their interpretations of recent events.
For the Londoner—who has a great belly, stained and crooked teeth, an earring, and wild hair—all the nation’s problems can be blamed on machinations at court. Ralegh is banished; Sidney and Leicester, dead; Burghley is hanging on by his teeth; and Essex has lasciviously charmed the Queen into doing whatever he wants. No wonder the poor old girl, God bless her, has let the affairs of her realm slip into such a state. She is besotted by a prancer, and not for the first time.
|tavern>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/tavern.jpg">](click-prepend: ?tavern)[Elizabethan tavern scene
]
Chris makes a mental note to describe this fellow to Dr. Burby, who knows many men in the London book trade. (He won’t mention the printer to the Privy Council, because he doesn’t want anything serious to happen to this dissolute old sinner.)
Meanwhile, in the back room of the Nut Tree Inn, [[Chris spins his own story]], watching to see whether any of the local churls have already been thinking along the same lines as he.
As Chris explains, the vast majority of the property and wealth of the realm takes the form of land. Nothing else can secure a loan, because only land cannot walk away. Besides, there is simply far more land than anything else. What would all the clothes, trinkets, and furnishings of England amount to if they were piled together in a heap? They would be worth nothing compared to the great expanse of arable earth from Cornwall to Northumbria. It is the land that God made; the land that sustains the people; the land that makes some men rich.
And when his father, plain John Cotter, was a young lad, who owned all this land?
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/peasant-e1476042525618.jpg">
This question provokes some head-scratching and staring at the floor. The peasants may not know the answer, or they may be cautious in case Cotter is referring to the monasteries. Monks owned almost a quarter of the country until 1538. If Chris is about to lament the dissolution of the monasteries, then he must be a Catholic apologist. This crowd is in no mood for Papist preaching. Chris could even be one of those disguised Roman priests, in which case his arrival would mean nothing but trouble for the village. The London printer suddenly looks suspicious and cunning. Chris wonders if he has slipped up, perhaps by using a gentleman’s vocabulary without noticing it. He refills the Londoner’s tankard all the way to the rim.
[[Chris answers his own question.]]
//We// owned the land, Chris says. An acre wasn’t like a bedpan or a pair of boots, was it? You couldn’t just buy it, or trade it. You were born to it, just the same whether you were the yeoman who plowed it, the squire who organized the plowing, the lord who protected you, or the King in Westminster who was the lord’s lord. You were of the place, just as your father had been before you. It was yours, but it wasn’t yours to sell or barter. It was yours to plant and to harvest, to know and to nurture. You plowed your strips of earth, you helped your neighbors harvest theirs, you prayed and were buried in your parish churchyard alongside your fathers, you feasted sometimes in your manor’s great house, and best of all, you hunted and fished and gathered free firewood in your common land. Round these parts, that common land was half underwater, wasn’t it? So much the better--ducks and geese made the best meat, didn’t they?
He has them now: the locals watch his lips with fascination and agreement, while the fat Londoner settles back to enjoy his ale and tobacco and concede the field.
Chris resumes his speech, asking: It wasn’t an easy life, even back then, was it? When Henry the Seventh or his son, jolly old Harry, sat on the throne, it wasn’t like we lived merrily in the Land of Cockaigne, now did we? We struggled and sometimes we went hungry. A master might beat you until your back was bloody. He might even have you branded or hanged, if he claimed that you’d stolen a loaf or wandered the high road without his license. But no gentleman could turn you off your land, any more than he could sell his own birthright as if it were a pewter mug. You and he were born to the same village. It was yours unto death.
The locals [[know what happened next]]; Chris does not have to spell it out for them.
The gentry discovered that an acre filled with sheep produced a lot more profit than an acre planted with oats or barley, not to mention an acre left fallow for the peasants to hunt. Every eleven sheep would yield a tod of wool, and each tod would fetch at least a pound in the local market. A farm of moderate size could accommodate fifteen hundred sheep. A squire now regarded the fields that his yeoman had plowed as his own freehold property, capable of generating some hundred and fifty pounds per annum. The men and women who had traditionally worked that land were his tenants. It was up to him whether to rent his fields to them or to someone else, to fill the land with his own sheep, or to sell it to another gentleman. He could also clear his woodland and drain his marshes to fill with more sheep.
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/gentleman.jpg">
Lombard and Florentine bankers in London would lend such a gentleman the money to buy extra land. The gentleman would send his fleeces to Antwerp or Bruges to be spun and sold, and some of the profit would go back down to Italy to repay the loan and build great palazzi by the Arno. With each passing year, the squire would snap up more acres. Where once ten men had pulled their plows by hand, now one boy could watch five hundred sheep munch and grow their winter coats. A shepherd on the dell might be a pastoral sight, but there was a bitter dearth on the land.
As Chris can see, the peasants of Murcott fully agree with this; in fact, they have said the same things themselves before. That means that this //is// fertile ground for rebellion, just as the Lord Treasurer had predicted. The common land around here, known as Otmoor, is particularly cherished, because the marshes make fine hunting and the isolated villages have strong communal traditions. Outsiders even say that the men of Otmoor have webbed feet, so comfortable have they grown with their watery commons (and so inbred are they). But a gentleman could put a hedge around an Otmoor fen, drain the water in a single season, and then use the rich alluvial soil to grow hay for his sheep.
The peasants already feel the pressure on every side; the price of grain reflects the shortage of land devoted to crops. They are still better off than their brethren to the west around Woodstock or Headington--and just for that reason they are eager to make a stand.
[[Chris continues his intelligencing]]
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/brew014.jpg">
None of the men in the back room of the Nut Tree Inn strike Chris as leaders, but he is a patient intelligencer. He will sleep in a barn near Murcott, beg for food and seek occasional labor, and see what happens. The London printer also settles in Murcott for a few days, residing in the much more comfortable upstairs room at the Inn; but he is dragged away one dawn by men in the livery of the Earl of Essex, who march him to Oxford Castle.
Word reaches Chris of a dispossessed yeoman from Charlton-on-Otmoor, a man named Bartholomew Steere, who is capable of drawing small crowds to talk about the famine. Bartholomew, known familiarly as Batt, has occasionally shouted out from the pews during Sunday services, wearing his hat in blatant disrespect for the priest, and claiming that the church belongs to everyone and is not the squire’s to sell to an ignorant and pimpled young pup as a benefice. He asserts the right of all laymen to preach, and favors passages like the second chapter of the Epistle to James. (“For if a man that hath a golden ring, and in a fair clothing, cometh in your company, and a poor man entereth in a foul clothing, and if ye say to him, Sit thou here well; but to the poor man ye say, sit under the stool of my feet, ye have despised the poor man and have made yourself a doomsman of wicked thoughts.”)
There is a warrant for Steere’s arrest in Bicester, but he has eluded capture and still speaks in private granges around Otmoor. One evening, [[Chris finds him]] addressing a crowd of locals in a mill house near the village of Oddingtont.
Chris stands near the back among drunken men whose mouths steam foully in the autumn air. Steere is spouting the old line that social distinctions are arbitrary and corrupt, devious Norman inventions designed to oppress the common folk. “When Adam delved and Eve span, who //then// was the gentleman?”
Steere claims that one rich man is privately buying up large chunks of Otmoor’s fenland. This wealthy malefactor uses intermediaries who may include some of the very people who have come to hear Batt Steere speak. Poor men are paid for the labor of enclosing common spaces with fences or ditches. Burgesses and other local officers are bribed to erect notices announcing that the land now belongs to shadowy individuals from Oxford or Aylesbury. City lawyers stand by with elaborate deeds and covenants. Each acre seems to change hands several times a year, but the sheep always graze and fatten.
Steere demands to know who this secretive rich man is. He implores his audience to tell him whatever they may know. Most are probably ignorant; those who have information are silent.
The next morning, Chris writes to ask Dr. Burby what he knows about the Otmoor enclosures. Anna cannot see her master’s reply, but in his later notes, she decodes the name of Justice Thomas Lucy. Chris spreads the word that it is Lucy who is strangling Otmoor with his fences and ditches, thereby inflating the price of corn. The so-called “Justice of the Peace” is actually Famine, the Black Horseman of the Millennium.
[[Chris makes an escape]]
Chris is in a public house near Fencott, talking in this apocalyptic way about Sir Thomas, when a band of constables bursts in with swords drawn. He is quick, for a big man; before they can collar him, he has slipped into the kitchen, dodged them among the great hanging pots, and headed into the marsh, where he leaves them puffing behind. But now he is wanted. Fortunately, the house where he and Mary live their normal lives is only a few miles away, at Beckley, where the low fenland of the upper Cherwell Valley begins to rise into the Cotswold Hills. Chris spends two nights at home (as Christopher Bannock, esq., of Balliol College, Oxon.)--missing the company of his wife, to whom he sends a penitent letter. The tone is not fully sincere; he blames her more than himself for their last fight. But he’d rather have her with him, even if it is on her terms.
On the third day, [[Chris composes the outfit of a country peddlar.]]
|Kempe>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Kempe-e1476038636725.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Kempe)[William Kempe, from Nine Days Wonder, 1600 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kemp
]
Ever since he began this mission, he has allowed his red hair and beard to grow; now he dyes everything brown and shaves to produce a rakish goatee. He slips wedges into his boots to change his gait, fills a sack with gloves and bracelets, pins and masks, ribbons and printed poems--all scooped up from around the house--and finishes the picture with a broad and floppy hat. He is Chris Clough, passing through Otmoor on his way to the market in Kidlington, with a heigh and a ho and heigh nonny-no, and a fardel full 'o surprises.
While he is polling his way across the marshland near Charlton in a stolen flat-bottomed boat, someone steps out from behind a stand of fen sallows and calls him by his previous alias, “Cotter.” Chris is startled to be so intercepted, but relieved when he sees that it is Bartholomew Steere, who has been following him skillfully and now wants him to join a gathering near Merton at dawn the next Tuesday.
“Is it a rising?” Chris asks. That is the ancient term for an armed revolt.
“Nay, let the gentry bare their swords and risk their souls for’t. We shall rise not, but dig down.”
On the appointed day, Chris comes (a little late) over the crest of a hill [[to find seven humble men with spades]], standing in a circle.
It is a misty November dawn and the air is still. The close-cropped grass is littered with sheep pellets; the field has been enclosed with ditches on three sides and a hedgerow on the fourth. The peasants break the crust of the grass with a solemn air, their hats off in respect. There is something sacramental about this act of digging private land to sew their marrow seeds. When the seeds are safely covered again, they break a single piece of bread and share a flask of wine.
|beggar>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/beggar-e1480127572758.png">](click-prepend: ?beggar)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1576 edition, author's family collection
]
Steere is one of the seven, but he defers to an older man whom they call William. This William invites them to eat always thus in common, laying the foundation for a better house to be built on the ruins of the old one, just as the Apostles built the true church in their days. For the priests have deceived the people, William says, with their sacrifices, forms, and customs which are but the mothers of our burthens, and oppressions, and poverty.
And they have stamped their graven images upon their coins, though their money is naught but a fence that keeps most men from God’s bounty. And they have their courts, ‘sizes, sessions; their justices and clerks of the peace (//so called//); and their bailiffs, and their committees, which imprison the freeman of England and clamp us in cords and bonds and manacles, yea, and hang us ‘pon their gibbets for gleaning God’s bounty to feed our babes.
//They hang us// (he repeats). No man may kill another, for so it is written in the plainest words: Thou Shalt not Kill. But who merits execution, if any man doth? That man who breaketh the Eighth Commandment when he stealeth this good earth that the Lord did make for Adam and all his descendants by erecting fences and ditches against nature, reason, justice, and law.
The other men listen with bowed heads, as if in church, until they hear a bark and some distant rustling. A man with a musket and a pack of dogs has entered the field near the bottom of the hill and is making his way in their direction. They hesitate, then break into a rout and disperse.
[[Christopher considers his plans]]
(set: $Oxford to 0)Chris refrains from mentioning this rather pathetic showing to the Privy Council, although he tells Dr. Burby about it. In the same letter, he asks his master an unrelated question: What has happened to the Indian manuscript that he sent to London to be sold? Notwithstanding the generosity of the Lord Treasurer, he (Chris) is sorely wanting for money. He will be happy to split the proceeds with Dr. Burby, half-and-half. Is there a buyer?
Dr. Burby has added a single word to this note: “ambitious.”
Why would Christopher Bannock need money? He has a government stipend--also a wealthy father-in-law and prospects of a church benefice. Anna knows Christopher Bannock from Oxford, and she thinks that ambition is indeed the reason for his greed. Chris is one of those young men, she feels, who has used the chaos of the world--its wars and drastic changes of opinion and custom--to desert the humble station of his birth. He has glimpsed men of fame and power: even conversed with them. He can sound like one of the great; he reads the same books as they. They entrust him with responsibilities because he has natural ability that would have been overlooked had he remained a cottager. And yet he walks down Oxford High Street or The Strand and no one knows who he is. He is nearing thirty and may have no more than a decade left on earth. Unless he makes a dramatic break, he will lie finally beneath a country church: “Rev. Chr. Bannock, M.A., Vicar of thysse Parrisshe, & his Lovinge Wyffe Mary, RIP.” That would be a kind of oblivion. It enrages him to think of it.
His first chance was the religious war in France, where he learned to be ruthless. Even after a band of unarmed friars had fallen to their knees for mercy, Chris and his Protestant soldiers had cut them to pieces. In truth, he had found the young monks effeminate and repugnant, with their soft white hands and baby faces; but slaughtering them had left him with nightmares and sweats. Still, news of his work had traveled from Burgundy to the Cecils and had earned him an assignment to Ireland, which he had fulfilled with equal dispatch—assassinating a Papist chieftain who was thought to have corresponded with the Spanish King.
|Ireland2>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ireland2.png">](click-prepend: ?Ireland2)[From Derricke's //The Image of Ireland//, 1581]
Chris was beginning to imagine a shadowy life of discreditable violence, of which only the Lord Treasurer would be aware. To be connected to Sir William Cecil was a great leap upward; but such a lord would always retain a cautious distance from a man like Bannock, communicating via intermediaries and denying any knowledge of him should he be caught abroad. This was no route to worldly success.
[[So Chris has repeatedly gambled.]]
[[Chris remembers his literary efforts->Chris gambled several more times.]]
(set: $Oxford to 1)Chris had set his sights on the university. He first saw the City of Spires in the company of a Protestant exile, Albert Laski, who was a Polish prince. The Privy Council considered Laski friendly and a useful ally on the Continent. All the same, their Lordships thought it prudent to place informants in Laski’s retinue. Sir Phillip Sidney, a purported friend and companion of the Prince, was conscientious about sending regular private reports to the Earl of Essex. Far down the social scale, Christopher Bannock served as a guardsman to the Prince (under the name of Chris Mortimer) and reported the servants’ gossip to Cecil.
Prince Albert Laski [[visited Oxford in pomp]], preceded by orders from the Queen that he be suitably entertained.
The University arranged Latin comedies and formal disputations for the diversion of their royal Polish guest, who proved to be a learned and elegantly dressed noble with a remarkably long beard and a record of leading Protestant forces in some forty battles. A visit from such a figure provoked much academic optimism. Masters and deans dreamed of endowments for their colleges; dons and masters hoped to advance their careers by shining in public; and tradesmen and servants looked for tips and leftover food. However, Chris reported that Laski’s purse was nearly empty; he was barely able to extend his credit; and he might leave the country any day.
Standing behind the Prince with a halberd, Chris heard the plays and disputations as his first dose of academic life. Anna, disguised as always as a master of arts, was seated in the same hall. Neither would ever forget the debates that involved Giordano Bruno. This was another famous Continental visitor, late of the French court and a former professor at Paris, who was now a refugee under Catholic excommunication. Bruno had a reputation for theological unreliability--having been chased out of a Neapolitan monastery, Calvinist Geneva, and the University of Paris--and was even thought to practice black magic. He was as short, irascible, and shady as Prince Albert Laski was tall, courteous, and respectable.
[[Bruno in Oxford]]
Bruno had come to Oxford to curry favor and to find an academic position. But even on this introductory visit, he could not suppress his contempt for the local dons, with their pedantic reliance on Aristotle, their obsolete tastes in literature and art, and their provinciality. He made back-handed compliments about the elegance of their academic robes and the contributions of their university back in the days of Roger Bacon--sneering inwardly at the complete asininity of their actual thought. (“Ass” was his favorite word.) He was famous enough that the Vice Chancellor asked him to debate some Oxford divines as entertainment for Laski. By Bruno’s own account, he utterly humiliated the local asses who were sent against him, one by one, to joust verbally. They knew more about beer than philosophy, he privately maintained. Most of Oxford, however, considered Bruno laughable and slightly unhinged. They mocked his strong Italian accent, which distracted them from his actual ideas.
Chris had no background to assess the quality of Bruno’s thought. Nevertheless, he began following the Italian around Oxford, his instinct telling him that this man was bound for success, or scandal, or both—and that it would be useful to know more about him. Thus he was present in the cellar room of the Spotted Cow Tavern when [[Bruno met one Dr. Edmund Burby of Balliol College.]]
Anna, as Edmund Burby’s student, was also present at that meeting. She remembered that Bruno began in a state of deep suspicion, defensiveness, and vanity, dropping the names of the popes and French monarchs he had personally met and treating every word of Burby’s as a possible slur. Bruno was still reeling from the catcalls and laughter that had drowned out his latest speech at Christ Church. He literally rolled up his sleeves to renew the intellectual combat with this new challenger. But Burby was patient, respectful, and courtly, and he gradually persuaded the Italian to describe his own views.
Bruno maintained that the universe was infinite: one cluster of planets circling a star, followed by another, and then another—literally forever. He explained this cosmic vision passionately, with much use of his hands and staring of his magnetic black eyes.
[[The dialogue of Bruno and Burby]]
—In that case, there may be an infinite number of Spotted Cow taverns? Burby asked, apparently quite serious.
—Indeed, there must be, for although it is unlikely that another dank and moldy underground alehouse of exactly this description appears on any given planet, there are infinite planets, and so others must sooner or later appear.
Bruno further maintained that God had placed hot stars near cold planets to create dynamic systems that would never cease to cause motion and activity.
—But don’t the stars gradually warm the planets, and the planets gradually cool the stars, until both are alike? Burby asked, winking subtly at Chris.
—Nonsense! Bruno cried, returning to his original state of anger and suspicion. In that case, the universe would run out of energy and everything would die pointlessly, which is an unbearable thought.
—Yes, said Burby, too horrible to be true. He winked again and drained a tall tankard of ale.
[[The dialogue continued]]
As often happens when foreigners meet, the conversation drifted into a comparison of nations: Italy, England, France. Bruno was polite about the English, praising their sagacious queen, but he agreed when Burby observed that Englishman could be uncouth. At this moment, he looked like a man caught in a dilemma: a well-bred Neapolitan could hardly defend the manners of the barbarous English without showing obvious insincerity—yet to criticize them in their own land would be as rude as they were.
Denouncing Spaniards was safer ground. From Madrid, King Philip threatened England and already oppressed Bruno’s homeland of Naples as its colonial master. Bruno began to inveigh against the barbarity of the Spanish both in Italy and the New World. He spoke of tortures and burnings, contrary to every true word of the Gospel.
Burby had not offered his own opinions at any length, but at this point he remarked that the Spanish conquest had adulterated the pure metal of the Indies with the alien substance of Europe until the two elements could no longer be distinguished. The world, he added, was poorer for having lost this difference. This alchemist’s metaphor seemed to strike Bruno forcefully; it even made him stop talking for a moment. It was the first time since he had arrived at Oxford that he showed the slightest interest in what anyone else said.
For Chris, the whole exchange [[stimulated uncomfortable memories.]]
He had served in Ireland, where Englishmen were as tyrannical as Spaniards in Mexico. He had been tormented ever since the massacre at Derry, not only by the blood and the screams of the women and children, but also by a conflict in his own soul. He was a Protestant and an Englishman, just like Ralegh and Spenser—his captains at that slaughter. He was also a poor peasant born, just like the Irish whom they had decapitated by the hundreds at the field called Gort a Ghearradh, until his arms had hurt from the sheer labor of the job.
|Ireland>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ireland.png">](click-prepend: ?Ireland)[From Derricke's //The Image of Ireland//, 1581]
As the two scholars drank more, they began to compete in the Art of Memory, of which Dr. Burby was Oxford’s only practitioner. A small crowd gathered round and kept score with chalk marks on a thick black beam that was usually used to track games of cards. Burby and Bruno vied to list the descendents of Adam, from the First Book of Chronicles (Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered ...); the gods of Olympus, arranged in one family tree; the types of written laws, according to the Justinian Code; the order of the spheres, according to Ptolemy (whose name made them snicker); the uses of the different parts of the human body, according to Galen; and then, with increasing delight, the books in the Library of Saint Victor of Paris, according to Rabelais (The Codpiece of the Law, The Pomegranate of Vice, The Henbane of the Bishops, Ars honeste fartandi in societate, The Mustard-pot of Penance, &c). They left arm in arm, swaying slightly, and singing Neapolitan bawdy songs that Bruno taught Burby, and Cockney drinking songs that Burby taught Bruno.
Chris wanted to know more about this Dr. Edmund Burby. He began by knocking on the old man’s study door, introducing himself by his real name, and offering—as a sign of his admiration—an iron figurine of Hermes Trismegistus no bigger than his thumb. Dr. Burby wanted to know where it came from, and that gave Chris an opportunity to talk about Venice and about the old Greek monk from whom he said he had bought the statuette (although in truth a smith in Southwark had made it for him, and he had rusted it himself in the drain of his Beckley house; the monk was an invention).
[[Chris visits Burby]]
After they has spoken for some time about the Rialto--“where all save discretion may be bought,” as Dr. Burby observed--and about other Venetian sights and monuments, the old master asked Chris whether he had met a Signor Vedder in Italy. Since Jan Vedder was an agent of her Majesty’s Privy Council, this was Burby’s way of asking Chris whether he also worked for the Secret Service. A quiet nod let each man know that the other was a colleague.
“What think you of this Signor Bruno?” Chris asked in forbidden English.
Dr. Burby gave his opinion in the same language. He said that he considered Giordano Bruno brilliant, insightful, and courageous—but lazy in the way of younger men these days. Bruno had endorsed Copernicus, for example, because the idea of an earth that moved seemed radical, original, and upsetting. But Copernicus’ treatise was full of intricate cosmological observations and calculations that must be either true or false. Some of the Oxford puritans whom Bruno scorned as provincial pedants were actually at work checking those details and making new confirmatory observations of the earth and heavens. It was not clear that Bruno had even read the difficult parts of the //De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.// If Bruno wanted to make his mark on philosophy, he would have to acquire the very skills that the Oxford hair-splitters taught.
Likewise, Bruno liked to speak about infinity, his black eyebrows flapping like a raven’s wings whenever he used the word. He had vague thoughts about how an infinite number of infinitely small things might make a finite total. But this was the sort of thought you had to work out with a quill in hand or explain one careful step at a time. It wasn’t enough to wax eloquent with the words //infinitus, immensus,// and //incomprehensibilis// while mocking your skeptics as cowards and asses.
Bruno, said Burby, is like a dueler or a privateer. He prizes courage and fame so highly that his every third thought is how he will be remembered after his glorious death. That is why he courts danger wherever he goes; he cannot wait for his own martyrdom. But any fool can have himself condemned for heresy—especially in Papist Rome or Calvinist Geneva. The trick is to invent a heresy that is //worth// condemning.
This advice struck a chord with Chris, who also knew the charms of daydreaming about one’s posthumous reputation and who also failed to concentrate in the present. But [[he went straight from Burby’s study to the Spotted Cow]], where Giordano Bruno had become a regular customer.
Chris gave the Italian a second iron statuette, which was received with a hint of irony and not much gratitude. Chris guessed that Bruno recognized the forgery but took him for a dupe, not a trickster.
Chris told Giordano that he was a magnificent debater and a formidable intellect.
—Indeed, said Bruno, the marvel of the age, the indisputable master of all humane studies, penetrating observer of the heavens, debunker of every common and received philosophy, confidant of kings and princes, scourge of the stupid, a most terrifying adversary with tongue or sword, one whom the vulgar and the spineless shun and the hypocritical ass fears, but whom the true lover of knowledge kisses as a long-lost brother.
Chris requested Bruno’s services as a tutor in mathematics, proposing that they read Copernicus together. The two men met daily for lessons. Chris knew no advanced mathematics and found his teacher too quick and impatient to follow, yet intuitive and scintillating. Bruno often digressed, and Chris was happy to spend the Privy Council’s silver on those rambling minutes, which were more likely than any table of astronomical calculations to contain useful information. Chris learned nothing scandalous or criminal—not even any court gossip that he hadn’t heard before—but he did [[form a fuller impression of Bruno.]]
The man is interested in //people,// he thought, not in stars or in logic. He is drawn to Copernicus because heresy requires courage. But Copernicus is not banned in England, so in England the heliocentric doctrine bores him. The reason he cannot learn from the local puritans is not laziness or a failure to grasp the importance of their methods. It is because they fail to provide characters that might inspire his fiction. He acts outrageously and ridiculously in debates because his instinct is to provoke people into interesting behavior. He brags because he wants to see them denounce him, crumple under the force of his personality, or boast in return. All they do is bow politely and laugh behind his back, and he is driven to further outrages.
Bruno left Oxford one day without a farewell or an apology. Thereafter, Chris became a member of Dr. Burby’s inner circle and even found a place at Balliol. This is how he became friends with Anna, believing her to be a Dutch student boy. He found conversation with their common master stimulating and clarifying, and he enjoyed the private missions on which Dr. Burby sent him; but again he found his advancement frustrated. Unfortunately, the scholarship of Edmund Burby, D.Phil., which had once attained international acclaim, was now sliding into eccentricity. Oxford’s most learned men were gossiping about whether he was even fit to lecture and preach.
While still a Bachelor of Arts, [[Chris gambled several more times.]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>(set: $fork1 to "1")(set: $perspective to "Ajita")Ajita was born with a different name (one that he never revealed to Anna) in a land of mountains so lofty and numerous that no European, least of all a flatlander like Anna, could possibly conceive its glimmering and vast faces of rock. His village stretched along a sharply winding road lined with conifers taller than any trees in Europe. Hairy, horned, cow-like beasts drew ploughs on terraces thousands of feet above and below the road. Smoke from wooden houses tinged the clean, forest air. An idol-house in this region looked like a tall stack of square hats in a milliner’s window, each stone roof smaller than the ones below it. Inside stood gruesome statues of many-armed devils.
|thanka>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/thanka-e1476228687176.jpg">](click-prepend: ?thanka)[Central Tibetan //thanka// of Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra, 1600s <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Rubin Museum of Art via en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thangka ]
Ajita used to run those roads, his slender body heaving in the thin air. He ran to train for the race that would be held upon the death of his people’s duke. All the boys and men of the duchy were eligible to compete; the fastest would be named the new ruler. In this way, his warlike people insured that each generation would be led by a man of strong body and will.
Ajita trained alone. On the cold roads whose silence was broken only by his own bare feet, he dreamed of victory. The other boys would be jealous to see him first pass the line, he thought, but his benevolence and wisdom as a leader would persuade them that the right person had won.
When the smoke of the old duke’s cremation still lingered in the valley, the men and boys gathered outside their greatest idol-house and prepared to run the ten-league, uphill course. Ajita was a little sobered to realize that he was one of the shortest and slightest of the competitors and that no one else seemed to be watching his preparations with any interest. Several older and bigger men drew more attention, and none more than a strapping contemporary of Ajita’s named Nawang. The two had played together as small children, but now Nawang was a head taller than Ajita and spent much more of his time with the grown men. His brief smile seemed to indicate benign surprise that the younger boy was even competing.
[[The race continued]]
He wrote a scandalous play in blank verse about Jack Cade. It never found a printer or a playhouse, despite its delicious goriness. He got a first taste of magic when Prince Albert Laski paid a personal visit to Dr. Dee at Mortlake. Chris learned additional lessons in divination and angelology on missions to Paris and Prague--but nothing very dramatic ever seemed to happen with his crystal balls and steaming pots of rare ingredients. He found a strange and talented heathen at the slave market in Venice, where he was investigating the price of labor for Dr. Burby. He purchased the fellow in the hopes that he could appropriate his writing and illuminations--and then generously free him. But that scheme, too, seemed to have stalled for lack of a market. Besides, the Indian’s paintings were beginning to look rather European, thus losing their exotic allure as well as their particular excellence.
[[Back to the present->we find Chris wading through cold Oxfordshire fens]]
(if: $Oxford is 0)[(link-goto: "Chris recalls his Oxford days", "So Chris has repeatedly gambled.")]
And so we find Chris wading through cold Oxfordshire fens, looking for angry peasants and feeling increasingly angry himself.
At this moment, he is itemizing his own varied and prodigious talents, which were sewn in his commoner’s soul by an unprejudiced Fortune, and then nurtured and tended with his own exertion, discipline, and guile against the storms and droughts of a closed and hostile Society. He is congratulating himself on his own witty writing, public eloquence, grasp of continental languages, humanistic learning, martial courage, swordplay, commanding presence, and statesmanlike grasp of policy—none of which the world recognizes, because his father was a cottager instead of a lord. There is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction in this soliloquy, because Chris knows that his tragedy wasn’t as good as Marlowe’s, his speeches are articulate enough for the provinces but not for London, and he could be sliced to pieces by any Italian fencing master in Holborn. Chris is that unfortunate kind of young man who has lived richly enough to recognize excellence and to imagine himself justly renowned for great works, yet who understands that his own products have never yet been great. He has elbowed his way into the vicinity of the truly successful and the truly fortunate, and he has learned that he is not one of them. His mood oscillates between resenting the injustice and disparaging his own talents. His handsome ruddy face is stormy.
For the second time, Steere the peasant appears from behind a stand of reeds and [[hails him by the name of Christopher.]]
“What thought you, sir, of our rite of digging?”
“Methought it a lamented spectacle, fit for a puppet show in a rustic fair, yet lacking the wit to wake the housewives’ mirth; a show of force as awful as a pup’s.”
Steere admits that he had the same reaction. Apparently, the question was a test of Chris’ militancy. Because Chris has passed, Steere is now authorized to invite him to a select gathering of harder men, who convene each Saturday at dusk by a broad oak near Middleton Stoney.
They turn out to be young fellows, for the most part. Some are baby-faced. But they are the kind of lads who will gather to thrash an unpopular village youth, or bait a bear, or stone a dog, or who might even slit a man’s throat for a fat enough purse. They look like youths who fear and avoid any kind of authority, even that of respectable older peasants, and who enforce silence. They don’t strike Chris as husbands or fathers—more like sons who still live at home past twenty but hardly speak to their parents. In short, an ideal group for his purposes.
They put him through quite a catechism: age, village, trade, father, religion, reason for coming to Oxfordshire. After the meeting, they will take every opportunity to check his story, interrogating their distant relatives and the kinds of tradesmen who can move freely across south-central England: men like carters and thatchers. If someone they know knows someone from Chris’s old village, and that person knows that Chris matriculated at Oxford University, then he will be unmasked as a gentleman spy.
But Chris’s cover story is meticulous and elaborate, a Dutch fireplace smoothly tiled with safe truths, plausible obfuscations, and the minimum of outright lies. Chris says nothing under the oak tree that provokes suspicion, and he is confident that not even diligent research will reveal his other life.
Once he has a chance to speak, [[he presents himself as desperate and impatient.]]
Given half a chance, he would knock down a gentleman’s door and “spoil” him and his family, and take the rich churl’s horses, daub his face and don antlers, and ride to the next manor that has a great park around it, and knock down that one’s door, and cut off all their heads, and make a camp there and set up gallows for corn-mongers and hoarders, and try them like justicers and have sport with them, and cast down the fences and hedges all around, and then ride into Oxford Town and find some good fellows there among the apprentices to make an ado in the streets, and make merry there with all the ale from the college larders, and draw a greater number of good fellows from all around, and spoil the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and cut off their heads, and cut down their sons too, and light the thatch of their houses, and mass there in the common field with many lusty fellows, and have speeches and toasts, and receive ambassadors from the London apprentices, and bestow titles and offices, and fire muskets for practice, and receive pleading letters from Parliament, and spoil the Lords’ messengers and cut off their heads, and set off for London with streams of merry fellows behind them, and lasses lining the road to cheer their progress and call them good masters, and all the time pulling down fences and hedges and spoiling the gentlemen around.
“Aye,” says one fellow, “if there be a risin’ of many men, I’ll be one of 'em.”
“But you’ll not rise alone?” says another. “That’s the same answer I 'eard all round Water Eaton, Islip, and Shipton-on-Cherwell.”
This is--as Chris Bannock and Dr. Burby have often discussed--[[the fundamental dilemma of the poor.]]
They are by far the most numerous element of the commonwealth and could easily seize the government if they could coordinate. Then they could live “merrily” on equal portions of the wealth of the land. But when they rise, it is a just a few at a time; and the rebels inevitably hang at Tyburn.
In this case, it doesn’t look as if they will get as far as a rising. They are not even speaking treasonous //words//; their plans are too vague for prosecution. What they need is a sharp poke, such as would provoke a snoozing bull. During the week after his first meeting under the oak tree, Chris has an idea. He learns that Hindby, where his wife has taken refuge, is under siege from none other than Sir Thomas Lucy. Old Mr. Feld must have hidden a seminary priest in one of his hidey-holes, and an indiscreet or treacherous servant must have invited the predatory puritan to smoke the priest out.
Isaac, the fletcher’s boy, has been carrying messages in and out of Hindby for Edmund Burby. Chris originally recruited Isaac to spy for Dr. Burby; hiring him gave Chris something to do while he lodged at his in-laws’ house, and it gave Dr. Burby an informer among Catholic families in the Midlands. Chris learns that Isaac has been intercepted with a message and beaten for it. (Perhaps that was a timely lesson for the novice spy, who should have destroyed the message before Lucy got his hands on it.) Chris summons Isaac to the Otmoor fenland and introduces him at the next [[midnight meeting under the Middleton Stoney oak.]]
“This is the lad that the Justice had flogged,” says Chris, “though ‘twere never justice to do that deed.”
There are a few sympathetic looks, but these young men are used to beatings. They respect people who avoid the lash through trickery or who bear it without whining. Isaac, who’s a small and sad-looking youth, provokes chuckles and winks. Chris realizes he has lost touch with his rustic roots and must get to the point.
“Tell these good fellows wherefore ye was whipped.”
|whipping>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/whipping.png">](click-prepend: ?whipping)[Pauper being whipped <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> via http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/6856]
“On account of the letter that I bore.”
“And what said it, this note they caught you with?
Isaac produces the letter--or at any rate, a sheet of paper with ink scrawled all over it. Steere, who is better schooled than most of his fellows, snatches it and reads. It takes him a long time to get through it; the others watch him patiently. Finally, he lets his hands drop to his side and explains what he has learned. It seems that Sir Thomas Lucy, MP, has gathered an armed party at Hindby Hall, home of a well-known encloser of common land. Hindby lies northwest of Oxford Town. Sir Thomas is frightened of peasant unrest and greedy for land. He intends to marshal his forces at Hindby and march on Oxford. As a Justice of the Peace, he will lead a lawful party, but he intends to stretch the law to its utmost, trying and hanging all the men on his list of enemies and provocateurs. He will preside over a grim and bloody Assizes that will end the local struggle between the gentry and the yeomanry once and for all, on the gentry’s terms. As soon as the criminal trials and executions end, the Justice will shift to civil actions that will conclude with his owning most of the public land around the city. Armed men are trickling into Hindby every day, but Sir Thomas’ total force is still modest. This is a moment of relative weakness for his side. Now is the time they must strike.
[[Anna wonders what motivates Christopher.]]
(set: $joyce to 0)Does he wish to lead a successful rising and spill gentle blood? Does he hope to provoke a rising only to crush it and gain preferment at the Privy Council? Is he trying to rescue his own wife and his Indian friend and save his father-in-law? Or does he wish to bring slaughter to their house? It occurs to her that his motives may be mixed and opaque even to himself.
In her head, Anna hears Chris and his followers progress across the Oxfordshire fens and fells and dales and dells toward Hindby. They tramp through dark patches of oak, ash, and elm, across tilled fields where mud adheres to their shoes as thick paste, beside cold streams. She hears their footsteps, their low murmuring voices, and in the background, [[a kind of narration.]]
<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Occult')</script>(set: $perspective to "Burby")(set: $characters to (a:))(set: $characters to $characters + (a: "Burby"))
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[//Bum cledyf yn aghat//—I was a sword in fist
//Bum yscwyt yg kat//—I was a shield in battle
//Bum tant yn telyn//—I was a string on a harp
Lead us, bright ones, light ones, lead us.]]<quote10|(click: ?quote10)[
//The whole section that begins here echoes the Oxen of the Sun episode from Joyce's //Ulysses// (1918-20). By detecting that allusion, you lower entropy by 1.//(set: $entropy to it -1, $Joyce to it + 1)]
The interior part of Britain [is] inhabited by those whom they say, this being handed down by memory, [that they were] sprung from the Island itself. The multitude of their men is immense, and the number of the buildings similar to that among the Gauls; the number of their cattle also [is great]. All Britons stain their faces with wood, which creates a bluish color; thus they make a frightful sight in battle; and they have long hair. But on this evening the multitude of their warriors [is] not great, being only Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagulus, Segonax, and a few others. It is said that these Britons have for deliberation and colloquy a proclivity. Among them, in every public work of gravity, prudent preparation [is to be done] and to plan is the obligation of the wise citizen. Hence, therefore, not surprising is it that, the hours passing and the sun nearing its terminus on the second day, a dozen of sturdy Britons about an oak in tense argument stands.
At night’s oncoming, in wanhope icumen a trickle more wayfarers, and more yet at darkest night, lhude singing misericord for that they are poor folk and meek. Christ’s green rood call they the oak and think they then of Otmoor’s sweet lady, that she might walk with them til Michaelmass. And counting their number they find themselves twenty and they lament, crying, Everyman, join us
[[While they parlay]]
|Froissart>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Jacquerie.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Froissart)[Illus. from Jean Froissart, Defeat of the Jacquerie, 15th cent. <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquerie
]
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[And whiles they parlay there at the oak, there come an honest man yclept Bartholomew, and he with a dozen stout goodfellows like him, all clad in green. And it is a marvel to see the crowd swell wondrously to three score, and a great mickle noise goes up. And, childe Christopher at their head, they set their course westward, singing right merrily, mayhap to hide their meekness. And they beg at the reverence of Jesu our one true Liege that they may have rest, good fellowship, and mead, the battle done.
At around this time, a great number of these common and rustical people, either provoked by a certain young capteine of goodlie nature and right pregnant of wit or else desirous of change (which thing the commons ever most covet and desire) make an insurrection, publishing and proclaiming openlie, that their onelie purpose and intent be horrible slaughters, rapines, and bloodshed upon the whole English nation. A citizen of Bicester approaching them most courteously to inquire unto their meaning, they with murtherous minds come out with stones, staves, pitchforks, and other things wherewith they so bethwack him, that they lay him a stretching, and rid him almost of life. O what singular villainie which nature abborreth, law disalloweth, heaven disclaimeth, God destesteth, humanitie condemneth, and every good bodie to the very death deffieth]]<quote11|(click: ?quote11)[
//This whole section echoes the Oxen of the Sun episode from Joyce's //Ulysses// (1918-20).//(set: $entropy to it -1, $Joyce to it + 1)]
[[In the bog]]
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[Whereupon these yeomen pass through a narrow wicket and draw nigh to a miry bog, and some do topple into it and are grievously bedaubed by the mud. Now, as they are sinking into this mire, whose name is Retreat (for they are greatly afraid that the man of Bicester may return with soldiers), Bartholomew Steere rises before them and bids them, Hear my voice, hearken unto my speech (Gen. 4:23).
//Bartholomew: Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them, says Bartholomew, for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee (Deut. 31:6). Do you see yonder that church, wherein the cross is covered every year so that it looks like a Leafy Green Man? That is our church of our Lady of Charlton in Otmoor. Whoso prays in that church will walk in the strength of that Lady.//]]<quote12|(click: ?quote12)[
//This whole section echoes the Oxen of the Sun episode from Joyce's //Ulysses// (1918-20).//(set: $entropy to it -1, $Joyce to it + 1)]
|Bunyan>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Bunyan.png">](click-prepend: ?Bunyan)[Frontispiece of the third edition of The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan, printed at London, 1679 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Pilgrim%27s_Progress_frontispiece_and_title_page_third_edition_1679.jpg#filelinks
]
[[In the church at Otmoor]]
|Otmoor>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CharltonGarlands1823.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Otmoor)[Corn dolly garlands on the Rood at Otmoor, illustration ca. 1823. <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> via https://en.wiki2.org/wiki/Rood/]
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[Then they enter the church and fall on their knees before the green cross and think they hear in their heads a sweet and distant voice of a Lady who has dwelled in that place and sewn flowers there for a thousand years. She is in an angry manner, because that trespassers, who know her not, have stolen her fens for their profit and greed.
//Lady of Otmoor: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears, says the Lady. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ (Joel 3:10) for I the Lady of Otmoor will go with you (1 Sam 23:23). Ye shall stone them with stones and execute them with swords; ye shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn their houses with fire (Ezekiel 23:47).//]]<quote13|(click: ?quote13)[
//This whole section echoes the Oxen of the Sun episode from Joyce's //Ulysses// (1918-20).//(set: $entropy to it -1, $Joyce to it + 1)]
[[Marching through the lanes]]
|Eliot>[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Middlemarch-e1476143577288.png">](click-prepend: ?Eliot)[From George Eliot, //Middlemarch,// 1871
]
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[It is by now a delicious morning, one of those November days when the newly planted hedgerows, warmed by a still eager if weakening sun, release scents redolent of warmer months and demonstrate an estimable spirit in putting forth a late show of delicate green. A young gentleman is coming along the lane, conscious of the charms of the day yet troubled by the condition of fellows such as he, who lack capital and connexions. What secular avocation is open to a man of twenty, who has prepared diligently for recreation but who has neither the money for a sporting life nor an education fit for gainful employment? While he is contemplating such thoughts, the young man perceives a ragged band of men in frock-coats emerging from a church and brandishing pitchforks in an offensive fashion. They are only an advance party of the greater throng, but he is able to deter them with admonishments. He rushes back across the country to offer his report.]]<quote14|(click: ?quote14)[
//This whole section echoes the Oxen of the Sun episode from Joyce's //Ulysses// (1918-20).//(set: $entropy to it -1, $Joyce to it + 1)]
[[And a most curious country it is.]]
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[There are perfectly straight brooks running in parallel, and each is crossed at regular intervals by thin green hedgerows and parallel strips of iron to form a pattern of squares. Here and there a tower smokes placidly like a pipe. “I declare it looks exactly like a great green chessboard,” thinks Anna. “There ought to be some men moving about somewhere—and so there are!” she adds in a tone of delight as she spots a tall, red-headed man moving boldly by knight’s turns across the subdivided moor, followed by a ragged row of pawns who are constantly grumbling and muttering behind him. Ahead of them, the way seems blocked by a fat, bearded black rook with a censorious expression.]]<quote15|(click: ?quote15)[
//This whole section echoes the Oxen of the Sun episode from Joyce's //Ulysses// (1918-20).//(set: $entropy to it -1, $Joyce to it +1)]
|Rook>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/chessboard.png">](click-prepend: ?Rook)[John Tenniel, The Chess-board, 1871 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/
]
The protesters have by now converged near [[Steeple Aston, northwest of Oxford.]]
[(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[Thames Valley Police say they fear continued violence as the marchers include anarchist elements and radical environmentalists in addition to some peaceful activists. “We facilitate lawful protests,” a police spokeswoman said last night. “But some of the anarchists unfortunately are exploiting the controversy over the local authorities’ rural development programme to damage property and injure civil servants, for their own radical agenda.” Police have erected roadblocks and are asking members of the public to make alternative arrangements.
Civil liberties groups continue to call for an independent investigation of the death of anarchist protester Bartholomew Steer. The Government have acknowledged that Steer was taken into custody during the recent violent altercation in Oxfordshire. He was detained under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, transported to London, and questioned personally by the Queen’s Attorney, Mr. Coke. His death was announced late Tuesday but no cause has yet been disclosed. Militant spokesperson Christopher Clough, meanwhile, has disappeared and efforts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful. The Protest Coordinating Committee issued a statement of concern for his safety, but confidential sources inside the movement say that the former spokesperson is suspected of being a police informant.]]<quote16|(click: ?quote16)[
//This whole section echoes the Oxen of the Sun episode from Joyce's //Ulysses// (1918-20).//(set: $entropy to it -1, $Joyce to it + 1)]
(if: $Joyce > 1)[(set: $temp to $entropy + $Joyce - 1)](if: $Joyce is 0)[(set: $temp to $entropy)]
//[[Anna feels the flames flickering again in her peripheral vision]]//
(set: $entropy to $temp)(set: $perspective to "Anna")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Flemish')</script>She has lost her focus on Chris' story. She can let her mind rejoin her body by [[going back to the stake->Anna goes back to the stake]].
(if: $fork1 is 0)[Or she can turn her memory back to the Oxford Goal, and from there, (link-goto: "choose a different fork", "Fame")](set: $return to 10)
Fame has no allure for Anna. Women who seek the public stage are harlots—unless they have been obliged to hold princely office (in which case their renown belongs properly to their thrones, not to them), or, like the Virgin Queen of Heaven, they have been selected to suffer gloriously. More even than a typical woman, Anna is shy; the horrors of her childhood taught her that shadows mean safety.
But all the young men whom Anna knows want public recognition. That desire seems natural. If it is wrong, their sin is venial and closely akin to the virtue of honor. Anna even thinks that she detects, beneath men’s appetites for wealth and power, a more basic urge to be acknowledged. For why accumulate gold if not to walk the streets in livery and feed five hundred admirers before one’s own roaring hearth? Why move spies or armies around the map if not to earn a place for oneself in the history books?
Men, she thinks, do not care about the sheer number of people who happen to know or admire them. If, for example, Christopher Bannock were informed that his name was on the lips of every Russian in Muskovy, he would treat the news as a mere curiosity. If the Queen’s Mr. Secretary learned that all the pubs of London rang with his name, he would shrug. And if Mr. Justice Lucy could know that three centuries hence, he would appear in the footnotes to books about a playwright named Shakespeare, he would be unimpressed. Such men maintain mental lists of particular others whose acknowledgement is all that matters to them.
Often it is the people we knew at age ten whose admiration counts most at five-and-twenty. Sir Robert Cecil, raised at court, would care only for the esteem of a few great courtiers and one royal lady. Hence his willingness to reserve his speeches for the privy council and to sit up all night scratching ciphered letters to a private spy network. If Queen Elizabeth, the Duc de Sully, Antonio Pérez, Don Juan of Austria, and just a few other statesmen understood his influence on the European drama, that would be fame aplenty. Meanwhile, for Edmund Burby, only the most learned divines of Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Louvain, and Rome would count.
This theory of fame took shape in Anna’s mind as she heard the man she called “the gentile” tell his own story on the floor of their Oxford Castle cell. If she had the opportunity to retell his story from her own memory, [[it would go something like this.->Ajita's story begins]]
The pack of runners had hardly turned the first bend when it began to thin out, with Ajita near the back. He was panting hard already. The pace was far quicker than he had practiced or even imagined possible on his solitary runs. After another two sharp turns, Ajita lost sight of the quickest men and was beginning to think, not of winning, but whether he could finish the race. By the time he reached the string of colorful flags that marked the end, heaving and stumbling, there was no one to watch him arrive. The whole town was already carrying Nawang around the duke’s house on a chair.
It took not more than a single summer for Ajita to realize that his former playfellow would be a forceful ruler, probably the last to allow the succession to be determined by a footrace. As Ajita watched the head come off an old man accused of treason, he realized that his village would be no place to earn respect and renown—unless one’s name were Nawang.
It was customary in Ajita’s country for the idol-houses and mausolea to be tended by a kind of mendicant friar who came, in orange robes, from the lands to the north. These friars also served as some of the most important teachers, taking individual youth as disciples for a time. A boy was supposed to follow a friar and argue with him, assessing all of his doctrines critically and skeptically, until he was certain that the older man was wise. At that point, he was to swear obedience and surrender his will to the teacher.
|paubha>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/paubha-e1476228199763.png">](click-prepend: ?paubha)[Banner of the Goddess Ushnishavijaya, detail, Nepal, 1500s <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Art Institute of Chicago www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/131816
]
Not more than a year after Nawang had become the absolute ruler of the valley, one such monk or friar—Ajita called him his “Lama” when he described him to Anna—came into the village with his wooden begging bowl, a box of quills and ink, and a walking staff.
[[The Lama]]
|Lama>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Lama.png">](click-prepend: ?Lama)[A Lama, Eastern Tibet, Karma Gardri school <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Himalayan Art, http://www.himalayanart.org/items/163]
The first thing Ajita noticed was the respect this visitor attracted. It was not until much later that he understood the friar’s doctrine, and then the contrast between Lama’s belief in total self-abnegation and the high esteem in which all the peasants held him began to irritate Ajita. But that was long after they had left the village together, both carrying wooden begging bowls that were always overfilled with rice, tapping their walking sticks on the hard earthen roads, Ajita a few steps behind his master, as peaks of pure white began to dominate the views in all directions.
As the path wound toward the cold mountain, wind sang in the pines and white clouds sometimes swallowed them or passed below. The mossy rocks were slippery even when dry; mostly they were slick with rain or snow. The going was slow, so slow that time almost seemed to pause.
[[The Monastery]]
They might, for example, create a large portrait of a long-dead physician, surmounted by five divine and enlightened beings, with eight healer goddesses at his sides and eight protective devils below, each waving four arms and mounted on a nine-headed beast. The whole image, painted in real gold on a background of vermillion and covered with a diaphanous layer of silk, would be stunning. But it would have no individual author, being the product of a large team of self-denying monks who followed a long-established pattern.
Ajita found more opportunities to shine in the monks’ debates. These were competitive and spirited affairs, conducted before an audience. Ajita had little to say about named gods and their stories, but when the most abstract issues—contingency, emptiness, impermanence, nothingness—arose, he could be a sharp and effective litigant. The secret of his success was long hours spent wrestling with manuscripts, including those written in the difficult scripts and tongues of the remote south.
He began to uncover a tradition in which the gods and heroes were metaphors [[hinting at a deeper view.]]
In this philosophy, which Anna would categorize as Stoic, the universe lacked intrinsic value and meaning; it was just matter randomly distributed across infinite space. Over time, some of the matter had cohered into complex structures that seemed to want to survive, grow, and reproduce. Because they were motivated by their own will, they had proliferated, at least on our planet. Whether they were plants, insect hives, animals, or human animals, they could succeed or fail, thrive or languish, in a way that was impossible for a rock or a river. A few had even developed an awareness that they were striving. Their sentience was not a gift or something contrived for them; rather, the physical stuff that composed their bodies just happened to be so organized that it produced states of pain or pleasure in their own brains, much as certain icy mountains make notes or even chords when the wind whips past them. One would have to be very cold oneself not to hear those notes as moans of pain.
The appearance of sentience on our planet had introduced the potential for happiness or satisfaction. It had also introduced the potential for suffering—indeed, the //inevitability// of suffering, because all living things were fragile and short-lived, capable of surviving only by killing each other—and even then, doomed to fear, disease, and death. Not only were sentient creatures constantly aware of their own fragility, but they naturally cared for offspring and other beings which, like them, must die. Suffering, in short, was an inevitable companion of will.
The solution taught by the ancient manuscripts and the ancient-seeming monks was simple: renunciation of the will. The mountain only //seems// to moan. Having no desire, it sounds a harmless note in the wind. People can reduce their desire by lessening their attachment to worldly things, becoming, in that sense, more like mountains. The old monks, with their patient smiles and distant eyes, seemed to have neared that state.
[[Ajita heard their lesson.]]
He agreed with it, endorsed it, and adopted it as a premise in debates, both public and inward. And yet what he wanted was to make something new that would bear his name, to win a reputation within the monastery that would carry down the valleys to his home village, where an abbot was even more revered even than a duke. Every time he developed an argument for renunciation, he thought of it as an important contribution that ought to be credited to himself.
It was traditional in Ajita’s heathen religion to choose a phrase and repeat it endlessly as a source of guidance, rather like the Latin passages that Papists mumble to themselves. When Ajita paused from his reading and talking, the phrase that he heard in his mind was one that he would not choose or even defend. It rose up unbidden, saying in his own voice, “I will be famous.” He was fully aware of the conflict between this desire and his philosophy. The contradiction troubled him, but he was equally bothered by signs of hypocrisy in other monks. They preached selflessness while enjoying the high standing that Ajita sought.
Gradually, he felt himself become bitter against them. Bitterness was a source of suffering, well defined and analyzed in the philosophical manuscripts that Ajita pored over; he recognized its cause and its potential cost to his own soul. He tried to defeat it by willing compassion toward his fellow monks. When that failed, he decided that he ought to remove himself from their company, at least for a time.
[[He could travel in either of two directions.]]
|Ming>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ming.png">](click-prepend: ?Ming)[Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Ming_Hunyi_Tu#]
To the north and east, a mighty and profound nation shared a scriptural canon and fundamental beliefs with Ajita and his fellow monks. But its language was difficult, the writing a series of baffling pictograms, and outsiders were generally despised.
To the west and south lay another impressive empire. Its king was the grandson of Mongols, but his reputation for refinement and tolerance had spread even into the mountains. Although he was a Moor and a speaker of Persian, his polyglot empire encompassed many people whose script and lingua franca were familiar to Ajita from his childhood. There, a young mendicant friar from the mountains might make a reputation and return to his homeland wise and useful, to live the rest of his life among his kin.
[[To the lowlands]]
Helter-skelter streams merged and matured into great rivers as Ajita tapped along their banks, wooden staff in hand, an orange robe covering just one shoulder, sandals on his feet. Fields gave way to tiger-infested jungles, and then the trees thinned until Ajita found himself on an arid plain. At first, he walked alone under a sky that seemed to him immense and indeterminate, shading from pale blue into dusty brown near the horizon. Although the heat was painful and a huge sun glowed above, his sweating body hardly cast a shadow, so thick was the atmosphere. Then huts and little shops began to line the road, and Ajita had companions: pilgrims, peasants, soldiers, and elegant silk-covered carts pulled by yoked pairs of small bulls. The traffic and the settlements thickened until Ajita could see, emerging gradually through the murk, a mighty red wall surmounted by formidable towers.
He passed unremarked through a gate that, as Ajita emphasized to Anna, was the biggest in the world, standing as tall as thirty men. He saw no other orange-cloaked monks, but the City of Victory—Fatepoor in the King’s language—was jammed with such a diversity of costumes—and housed so many clerics of different and often indistinguishable faiths—that no one paid another monk any special notice.
[[In Fatepoor]]
Anna turns her mind back to the last days when Ajita was still with her in the Oxford prison cell. She reconstructs his past from the fragments he told her then.
[[Ajita's story begins]]
The scale was calculated to awe. The main worshipping place of the city’s Moors, for example, was an elegant (although roofless) structure capable of comfortably accommodating ten thousand believers kneeling on their prayer rugs, with room left over for wide aisles. Although ten thousand was itself a mighty throng, the city also housed many men of other faiths, women, and children, for a population far exceeding London’s. The King himself owned thirty thousand horses, one thousand elephants, and fourteen hundred tame deer, all quartered within or immediately outside the city’s walls.
The whole city had sprung from virtually nothing a decade before, when King Akbar had decreed a stately new capital on the site of a desert village that had boasted only a shrine. Still a Mongol nomad at heart, he had imagined his City of Victory as a kind of encampment of tents laid out on a regular pattern, except that these tents had been frozen into stone, intricately carved and inlaid, and had transformed themselves into the monumental structures of the capital, rising above shacks and lean-to’s.
Everything else was under construction, every person was an immigrant, and the atmosphere was one of constant hurry. People shouted, argued, and pushed their way toward the things they wanted. Thirst struck Ajita as the dominant urge—thirst as a metaphor for human desire, and also literal thirstiness for the water that sprung in mighty but intermittent bursts from ingenious public fountains, while every other inch of the city seemed coated with sand and dust.
[[Ajita found a living.]]
At first, Ajita slept in a suburban encampment for wandering monks and hermits, some devout and meditative, some half-mad. A person could survive here on alms, although half the holy men seemed intent on fasting themselves to death. Some of them frightened Ajita—especially the ones who had let their nails grow more than a foot long and walked naked—and he sensed that the whole community was marginal. It had taken him no more than an hour to realize that the men inside the city who wore robes, beards, and turbans held the dominant position.
Within a week of wandering the parallel streets and ubiquitous building sites, Ajita had discovered a painter’s atelier. He had carried his brushes to India and was able to demonstrate, by means of pantomime and some rudimentary use of the city’s vernacular, that he knew how to paint. He was quickly taken on as an apprentice: in Fatepoor, there was a job for anyone with a skill, but newcomers were always ready to take it away.
All the world over, apprentices are subject to beatings and humiliations as they learn their trade. But Ajita’s master was a timorous and basically gentle artist, newly arrived from Persia, fat, quiet, and happiest when left alone to work on his own miniatures while the small workshop managed itself. Ajita was a bit older than the other apprentices, skillful with a brush, and able to project a certain dignity. Soon he had graduated from mixing paints to sitting beside the master, adding horses and peacocks to illustrations of romances. Although the two men hardly spoke, and Ajita could barely decode the texts they illustrated, by painting scenes of courtly life [[he began to learn the beliefs and habits of Mughul India.]]
By now his orange robe was gone and he sported a beard and a silver earing. He saw a path before him as a master miniaturist in the City of Victory. But he recognized that this path could only take him so far. Unlike authors, miniaturists did not sign their work. Unlike singers and scholars, they had no place at court. In keeping with ancient tradition, King Akbar had surrounded himself with Nine Worthies. One of these favored courtiers was a gentile of low birth who served as a kind of wise fool. Another was a musician said to be able to melt marble with his voice. A third wrote mournful verse about love. That poet’s father, also a royal favorite, read and wrote difficult treatises about the ancient philosophy of the Greeks.
|Jahangir>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Jahangir.png">](click-prepend: ?Jahangir)[Emperor Jahangir, ca. 1610, Victoria & Albert Museum <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Edmund_Huddleston.jpg]
Evidently, to become a great worthy, you didn’t have to be a Moor or a soldier—but painting would never get you there. You might as well try to win a place at Akbar’s side by making excellent pots. So Ajita was a dissatisfied young man, like many whom Anna had known at Oxford and before. But instead of drinking, whoring, and dueling, he squatted in public places and watched.
[[Anna thought of him with some tenderness.]]
She knew what it was like to be reduced, in a foreign land, to a pair of eyes. Ajita had been frustrated by his own lack of importance and reputation. But years later in the Oxford jail, when he confessed his youthful yearning, Anna forgave him easily. She imagined him watching the passing throngs of Fatepoor, not with compassion or tenderness (those would come much later), but at least with curiosity. When he could suppress desire, he was an excellent interpreter, capable of seeing and feeling what others did, whether they were clerics hurrying disdainfully through the wicked city, frightened urchins, arrogant grandees, low-caste peasant women, condemned prisoners focused only on the last steps ahead, eager packs of hounds, or darting sparrows. Their interactions interested him, too: how the peasant, stepping aside for the cleric who unwittingly scattered the sparrows, blocked the urchin from reaching into the pocket of the grandee. Or how the peasant’s sincere awe combined with a quiet pride to make her step aside a little slower than she could have moved; and how the cleric noticed her subtle resistance, weighed rebuking her, but decided in less than one step that she was not worth his concern.
One day, Ajita squatted outside an unusual building called [[The House of Worship.]]
Two stories high, it centered on a pillar of extraordinary intricacy and beauty, atop which His Majesty sat. Leading away from Akbar’s seat toward all four compass points were high catwalks. At the end of each narrow walkway was a comfortable balcony on which could sit the representatives of an honored faith of the realm. The clerics and scholars were supposed to exchange ideas across the open space of the House, discovering their common beliefs and restoring the one original and universal faith for all who stood below to adopt. To Akbar’s frustration, they spent most of their time accusing one another of shocking blasphemy and error.
|Worship>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/House_of_Worship.png">](click-prepend: ?Worship)[Akbar in the House of Worship, from the Akbarnama, illus. by Nar Singh, ca. 1605 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibadat_Khana#/media/File:Jesuits_at_Akbar%27s_court.jpg]
At any rate, this is how Ajita heard their debates described. He could get no closer to the House of Worship than its perimeter wall and had never seen its famous column. But he liked to observe the various holy men process in and out and draw conclusions about their religions.
Even to count their faiths was a puzzle. The Moors set themselves apart by saying that they believed in one god and one prophet, yet they seemed to come in quite different varieties. The few native Jews and European merchants and priests also claimed to believe in one god, and his name was the same as the Moor’s god, at least in the vernacular. So Ajita wondered whether these were varieties of the same faith or different, and if the latter, what it meant to have a different religion.
[[Gentiles at the court]]
Moors, Christians, and Jews alike called everyone else “gentiles.” According to the Moors’ holy book, gentiles who worshipped false gods deserved correction or punishment, but “peoples of the book” merited respect and toleration. Akbar had decreed that the ancient works of India were holy books, so everyone would be tolerated. But the gentiles clearly were not all of one mind. There were followers of Shiva (or Bhairava), of Krishna, of Indra, of Padmavati, of Ahura Mazda, of Vahiguru, and even a few who cared for the one whom they had called “The Enlightened” in Ajita’s monastery. When Ajita asked these devotees about their mutual differences, all but the Moors seemed uninterested. More than once he heard that a diamond has many faces, and to stare at one does not imply the others are not real or beautiful. Yet to Ajita’s eyes, the distinctions were real and significant. Perhaps because he now had no beliefs of his own, he saw belief as a force that directs and gives meaning to human life, rather like language, clan, or caste.
(Thinking of young Ajita without belief shook and moved Anna in ways she could not have explained if she had been willing to face them.)
(if: $knowledge > 3)[
[[An exchange]] ]
[[The Jesuits]]
He was pondering such matters one day when two bearded men emerged from the House of Worship, looking very serious.
|Jesuits>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Jesuits-e1477255107867.png">](click-prepend: ?Jesuits)[Two Jesuits bring gifts to a Mughul prince, ca. 1590 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> British Library blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2013/03/easter-celebrations-at-the-mughal-court.html]
They wore blocked black hats, black robes down to the ground, and stiff white material around their necks. Each man carried a leather-bound book. One was tall and thin; his gray beard was long enough to blow in the dry wind. The other was stocky and ruddy under his square black beard. Apologetically, Ajita explained to Anna that he had found their faces disagreeably pale—only because he was then unaccustomed to Europeans.
They stopped in the shade within a few paces of Ajita and began an intense conversation in a language he had never heard before. He listened and made mental notes, focusing on their anxious tone and the abstract rhythms of their speech and trying to assess the relationship between the two. Since he had averted his eyes so that he would not seem to be prying, he was startled to find the men suddenly close by and looking at him. They had positioned themselves so that Ajita was between them and a wall. He would have to push between them to leave.
The taller and older one said something in his own language. When Ajita looked back blankly, the man said in the vernacular, “How much Latin do you know, then?”
Ajita shrugged, not recognizing the word “Latin.”
“We have nothing to fear from an informant,” the older man told Ajita, “even if he should serve the Great King.”
“//Especially// not if he serves the King,” the younger man added, with an impatient look at his companion. “Our hearts burn only for the King’s salvation. Our every private word is meant for his ears.”
[[Ajita was expected to say something.]]
After a long silence, he said, “I am just a monk from the mountains, here to study painting. The King knows nothing of me.”
“The mountains?” said the shorter man, and his companion seemed equally interested. “Not the great ones to the north?”
“Oh yes, the greatest ones of all, the ones at the world’s ceiling who give that water.” Ajita pointed at the fountain, which had just belched a burst.
|India>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/India.png">](click-prepend: ?India)[India, from the map known as the Honkōji copy of the Kangnido Map, probably made in Edo ca. 1560 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnido]
“You are dressed like a Moor,” said the tall European. “What is your habit like, when you wear it?”
“An orange robe.” Ajita gestured to the fold that would cover one brown shoulder.
The Europeans conversed eagerly in Latin; Ajita caught the word “Thibetia” more than five times.
“Reverend Lama,” said the short European, with a Mughul-style bow, “please allow me to introduce myself. I am Father João. This is my companion and mentor, Father Juan.” (Even at the time, the two names had seemed amusingly similar to Ajita, and that was before he learned that their meaning was identical.) “We would be honored if you would join us for tea in our mission.”
That was how Ajita fell in with the Jesuits of Goa. If he had chosen to disclose his own identity, he would have called himself a Charvaka atheist and a materialist from the Katmandu Valley: in Anna’s terms, an Indian Epicurean. But the Jesuits evidently wanted him to be an abbot from Tibet, and that was a role he could play easily enough. They wanted to teach a Lama, and he wanted to learn something distinctive, something that might rival the specialized attainments of the Nine Worthies.
|Ortelius>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ortelius.png">](click-prepend: ?Ortelius)[Ortelius, Typvs Orbis Terrarvm, 1570 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatrum_Orbis_Terrarum#/media/File:OrteliusWorldMap1570.jpg]
Ajita doubted there was any intrinsic merit in the ideas of these European barbarians, but the lands they come from were becoming significant trading partners, and the Great King might wish to know more about them. Rumors held that Akbar was genuinely moved by elements of their faith, especially their reverence for the lady whom they called the mother of their God. Ajita began to visit the Fathers daily, sipping tea and exchanging information.
[[For the first time, he found life satisfying.]]
He spent his whole days mastering painting at the atelier and Latin from the Vulgate New Testament at the Jesuit mission. Thanks to his painting, he could afford to dress and comport himself with sufficient dignity that the two Father Johns treated him as an equal. If they despised him privately as a superstitious gentile, he secretly thought just as little of their beliefs.
They evidently hoped to travel with him to the land they called Thibet, reaching its benighted souls before the Capuchins or the Protestants could gain that glory. But early in the summer monsoon season, a letter arrived ordering them back to Goa once the roads south of the desert were passable. Father João was to go from there to Lisbon; Father Juan, to Manila. These orders put a limit on Ajita’s days of learning.
Near the end of the summer, as Ajita was walking from his atelier to the Jesuit mission, four hands suddenly seized him from behind and thrust him into a covered bullock cart.
[[Ajita in captivity.]]
He smashed his knee on the lintel and was pressed face-down on the floor, a linen bag thrown over his head. Once the cart stopped, he was propelled, still covered with the bag, a short way through daylight and then into a dark room where he was left behind a slammed door.
A long time later, the door opened and the bag was removed. Ajita saw that he was in some kind of cell with iron tools hanging on the wall. These tools had cage-like elements and serrated edges and points. Two soldiers wearing conspicuously bare swords at their belts and one mullah had entered. The mullah was a small, portly man dwarfed by a huge, billowing, off-white turban and his own equally striking, snow-white beard. Ajita got down on his knees and touched his nose to the stone floor.
[[The interrogation]]
“You have been consorting with Franks from Goa,” said the mullah, with no ceremony and little evident emotion.
Ajita silently assented.
“Have you committed apostasy? ‘Any one who, after professing faith in God, shall deny it (except under compulsion, if his heart remains inwardly firm) has the wrath of God upon him and shall be terribly punished.’”
“No, sir,” Ajita managed to stammer. “I am only a gentile and I have not converted to the Christian religion.”
“Then why do you pass your time in the den of these idolaters? Do they ply you with wine and opium?” The mullah still seemed not to care very much.
“No, sir. I am teaching them some of our common tongue and they are instructing me in their bookish language.”
“For the purpose of espionage and treason?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why? They have nothing to trade.”
Ajita was silent. One of the soldiers took a large iron contraption down from its hook on the wall and opened the cage-like part. The other soldier stirred the coals in the fire with a poker.
Trembling, [[Ajita resorted to truth.]]
Lama’s monastery was remote but grand, an ancient building that sprawled along the rocky face of a forbidding mountain, its rooms so numerous that even the oldest monks claimed never to have visited every chamber. (Anna pictured gloomy vaulted corridors, sun-speckled cloisters, fluffy clouds frescoed on the ceilings, and chapels choked in gold and purple.) Pilgrims visited from long distances, throwing themselves prostrate on the road, picking themselves up, walking a few more steps toward the monastery, and falling face down again. So there could be no doubt that this was an important place; and the abbot, a man of high repute.
|Arhat>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Arhat.png">](click-prepend: ?Arhat)[Arhat, Chinese, 15th century <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Himalayan Art, http://www.himalayanart.org/items/77137]
All the young monks participated in painting, and [[Ajita proved himself adept at this art.]]
“Curiosity,” he said.
“You are studying their tongue and their strange ways because you are curious?”
“Yes, sir, and because I hope to obtain information of value to my Sovereign or his countless mighty advisers—may they prosper and multiply.”
“What do you think?” the mullah asked one of the soldiers. “Just another young fellow looking for his chance?”
The soldier shrugged and bent his head toward each shoulder in turn, signaling cautious assent.
[[The mullah's tale]]
[[Skip his tale]]
“My name,” said the cleric, “is Mullah Do Piaza. I was born of humble stock, but from an early age I wanted only to be honored at court for my learning. I memorized the holy scriptures and the sayings and acts of the Prophet. My reputation spread from my own village to reach even the roving court of The Magnificent. He had me called up to Agra to meet him. I expected that we would converse, but it turned out that I was one of fifty at that single audience, and the King held three audience sessions every day. Before a knew it, he had heard me recite a verse, commended me, blessed me, and put me in charge of his royal chicken coop.
|DoPiaza>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mulla-do-piazza.jpg">](click-prepend: ?DoPiaza)[The Mullah Do-Piaza]
“I was bitterly disappointed, but I reflected that if my calling must be to tend chickens, I should do so with the highest excellence. For ten years, I managed the Great King’s fowl and made his the finest coop in the world.
“One day, as our Sovereign went over his accounts with his finance minister, Raja Todar Mal, he remarked that the court seemed to be paying next to nothing for chicken feed, yet the kormas and biryanis were always ample and succulent. I was summoned, flung face-down before The Majesty, and asked to explain.
“‘Your Magnificence,’ I stammered, ‘I care for the royal fowl as if they were my sons, for I know that one in every hundred of these fortunate birds is destined for your own sovereign mouth. I have discovered, O my dread lord, that hens thrive very well on discarded stale chapatis and the dough we use to seal our clay ovens. These foodstuffs cost your Unsurpassed Magnificence nothing and seem to produce tender meat.’
“Our world-conquering sovereign turned to his minister and remarked, ‘A clever fellow.’ Then he directed a question at me: ‘Are you interested only in chickens, or do you have other talents?’
“This was my chance! [[I sprang at it.]]
Ajita reached Goa in the company of Fathers João and Juan. They traveled there in a bullock cart, leaving as soon as the rains south of Fatepoor had subsided. With many tears, they watched Father Juan depart to the south in a Portuguese sailing ship; he was soon martyred in the Spice Islands. João and Ajita left together on an Arab boat, which hugged the coast as it sailed in the opposite direction, toward Persia and Araby.
|Xavier>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Xavier-1-e1477355528535.png">](click-prepend: ?Xavier)[André Reinoso, St. Francis Xavier Preaching in Goa, 1610 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa via www.discoverbaroqueart.org
]
Ajita would have gone all the way to Europe with João, except that during their voyage toward the Persian Gulf, the Jesuit grew eager to convert him. Ajita felt as if he had an amorous suitor, but João’s desire really only was for his soul. He wheedled and badgered the Indian to explain and defend his current beliefs. In a moment of weakness, Ajita confessed that, although he really was a monk, he privately denied the existence of any god. This disclosure greatly agitated Father João, who from then on would not stop trying to engage Ajita in theological discussions. His black eyes twitched over his thick black beard, and his finger constantly pointed heavenward.
One night, they were moored in Port Comorão, which is a Portuguese harbor on the southern coast of Persia. As they sat on barrels at the high aft of the dhow, beneath a sickle moon, with a warm breeze blowing off the sea, Ajita agreed to debate Father João formally on the question of the existence of a divine creator.
[[The debate]]
[[Skip the debate]]
A decade’s toil would not go to waste after all. ‘O Terror of the Nations,’ I said, ‘in your miraculous wisdom you personally assigned me to your chicken coop because I had been called to court as one learned in the scriptures.’
“‘Did I?’ said The Magnificent, with an indefinable smile. ‘An odd decision. Go and be the curator of my Royal Books instead.’
“At this, my heart again sank, for the curator of the King’s books only shelves and unshelves volumes in silence and obscurity, whereas I felt my chest bursting with important ideas. But again I went forth from the Diwan with the feeling that I must do my very best.
“Another decade passed, and one day His Supreme Excellence was reading Persian erotic verse from a small bound volume when he noticed its bright silk slip-cover. ‘All my books are covered this way, nowadays, and I do not recall authorizing this expense. [[Bring me my librarian.]]
“Once again, I was thrust unceremoniously at the foot of The Magnificent, who said, ‘Book-shelver, I approve of these covers, but I cannot imagine how you have obtained them, for the price of the silk would far exceed your humble means, even if you forewent all food and lodging. How have you conjured them up?’
“‘O Splendor of the World,’ I replied (from a prone position rather like yours at the moment), ‘on account of your compassion and your liberality, numberless are the subjects who come before you each day bearing written petitions.’
“‘I have noticed that,’ said Our Sovereign, with another of his wry smiles. ‘What of it?’
“‘Well, O Majesty,’ said I, ‘Each of these subjects writes his petition on fine parchment and places it in a small silk bag to hand to your learned counselors—may they prosper. For your convenience, the counselors remove and sort the petitions and throw away the bags. From these, I sew book-covers to protect your Almighty Highness’s books.’
“‘Well, that is rather clever,’ said the Scourge of the Infidels. ‘Who made you librarian?’”
“‘Your Lordship did,’ I explained, ‘on account of my mastery of the scriptures, which I have now extended to encompass all the books in your peerless collection.’”
“And that is how I, Mullah Do Piaza, became one of the Nine Worthies of Akbar the Magnificent, with whom I converse daily on informal terms, even exchanging jokes and riddles.”
|Birbal>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Birbal.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Birbal)[Raja Birbal, one of the Nine Worthies: the royal jester.
]
By now, Ajita was feeling less frightened, but the purpose of the mullah’s story escaped him. Do Piaza removed the mystery. “In other words, I know what it’s like to come to town as an ambitious young fellow who’s got his eyes open for a chance. And I’ll give you one. Go with these Jesuits to Goa and get them to send you to their capital, Rome. Write and illustrate a narrative of your travels. Find out whether they know anything worthwhile. I will give you a sack of coins and a letter from His Majesty. Your report is for my eyes only. If it is worthy, it will make your name and your fortune for you. But don’t let them impress and convert you; remember that they are only superstitious heathens.”
[[Ajita's journey continues->Skip his tale]]
They argued in Latin. Both men were trained polemicists who had practiced frequently before critical audiences. Each could pull finely honed logical structures from memory. The Jesuit cited Saint Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God; Ajita countered with Brihaspati’s argument that the soul was really the body because we cannot perceive the self. The Jesuit said that nothing can come from nothing, so the universe must have a creator. Ajita countered that there never was nothing; the universe has always been.
Each man found the other a worthy opponent, but there was a difference between them. In the past, Father João had debated atheism with other men who abhorred it as much as he did; none of them really fought for the godless side. He was shaken to meet a true Devil’s Advocate. His voice rose in agitation as he fervently urged that hope depends on believing we are not alone in the universe; we must have been made for a purpose and with an end. Meanwhile, as Ajita quietly maintained the ultimate reality of suffering, [(css: "font-weight:normal; color:black")[the eternal note of sadness came back in.]]<Arnoldquote|(click: ?Arnoldquote)[
//By detecting this allusion to Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, 1851, you reduce entropy.//(set: $entropy to it -1)
]
[[They attract attention->Skip the debate]]
The Jesuit’s urgent tone attracted several of the Arab seamen, who gathered around, watching with amusement. Everyone onboard shared some of the lingua franca of North India, and the sailors began asking what the two passengers were talking about.
“Nothing important,” said Ajita.
“It must seem important to the Christian: look at his face!”
“You, Christian mullah: what’s the argument about?”
Father João swallowed, calmed himself, and said rather primly, “We are discussing the existence of God.”
“Well, that’s nothing to get angry about. What’s the mountain boy saying that has made you so angry?”
“Nothing,” said Ajita. “He just thinks I am wrong about some religious matters.”
“You aren’t trying to convert a Moslem to Christianity, are you?” said a different seamen, a big man with upper arms like a bullock’s legs. The group edged closer to João and Ajita and stopped smiling.
“No, I am not a Moslem,” said Ajita.
“Well, what are you then?”
Father João blurted out, “The poor fellow has no faith!”
“What?” said a sailor. “He denies the very existence of God?”
“He argues against it?” said another.
“On our boat?—long may she safely sail!”
Now all the anger and anxiety of the sailors was [[directed at Ajita’s slim frame.]]
He backed toward the aft of the boat, which was closest to the open harbor. Seamen were making signs to avert the evil eye and reaching for long knives.
“Now, brothers,” said Father João, “to convert by the sword is forbidden to you and me alike. Let us discuss in peace and pray for this lad’s soul.”
“A denier has been aboard since Goa!” cried a voice from the back. “No wonder the mutton spoiled.”
Knives slid from sheathes with a shrill noise. Ajita turned around and stared into the black ripples. He could not swim, and this water had to be deeper than the drought of the dhow. Men were pressing close behind him, but Father João seemed to have interposed his stocky body to protect him and was pleading in broken Arabic.
[[Ajita in peril]]
|guards>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/guards.png" align="right">](click-prepend: ?guards)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1576 edition, author's family collection
]Choose who will be taken away for questioning.
(if: $Ajitainterrogation + $Tobyinterrogation + $Traffordinterrogation + $Annainterrogation is 4)[[[
Trafford was taken a second time->Trafford returned]]]
(if: $Ajitainterrogation is 0)[[[Ajita->Ajita was taken away]]]
(if: $Tobyinterrogation is 0)[[[Toby->Toby Greene was taken away at about three in the afternoon]]]
(if: $Traffordinterrogation is 0)[[[Trafford->Trafford was the next prisoner they took]]]
(if: $Annainterrogation is 0)[[[Anna->Anna's interrogation]]]
Double-click this passage to edit it.
Ajita spotted a tow-line leading from the dhow toward the dock. He swung over the boat’s edge, hung from the rope, and began working his way hand-over-hand toward safety.
Someone cut the rope and Ajita plunged into the water. Fortunately, he had closed his mouth on the way down and held on. In the shocking, whirling vortex, choking in terror on the salt water, he still managed to pull himself toward land. His knees found the stony bottom, he stood up heaving, and stumbled to a little beach.
The sailors were running down the main gangplank to pursue him, but his fear made him faster. While Ajita cowered under a market stall that had been pushed into an ally for the night, the sailors gave up and returned to their boat.
[[Toward Persia]]
And that is how Ajita parted from the Goa Jesuits and made his way across Persia in a camel caravan, posing as a miniaturist from far to the east. Since the Shah of Persia and the Ottoman Sultan were not then at war, he could reach Konstantiniya without incident. Mullah do Piazza’s bag of silver financed his passage. The journey was long and tedious but uneventful: nights in caravanserais, days bobbing through terrain that Ajita found dreary and depressing.
Konstantiniya lifted his spirits. The vast mosques that stud the nine hills were solider and lower than their kin in Fatepoor but still reminiscent of civilization as he knew it. The city was damper, cooler, older, and steeper than Akbar’s capital, but comparably vast and polyglot. The crooked streets and covered markets were jammed with a fascinating mix of people who seemed intent on using costumes as uniforms to identify their membership in various communities. Ajita could not interpret these signs but soon recognized that pale men with square black or grey beards, flat hats, and silver crosses were one type; darker men in flowing robes, swords, and skullcaps were another—and he could name many more.
|Ottomans>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ottomans.jpg">](click-prepend: ?Ottomans)[Jean Jacques Boissard, Habitus Variarum Orbis Gentium, 1581
]
[[Ajita's research]]
The pale faces reminded him that he was, officially, in Europe. He wasn’t sure if his instructions to collect information about Europeans extended to subjects of the Sultan, but he began to take notes. While in Konstantiniya, he realized that there are only so many possible rules that can govern speech, law, family relations, social rank, and religion; all the differences that we take so seriously are just variations on an underlying structure. This was an exhilarating perspective, rather like the view from the minaret of the Mosque of the Conqueror when one looks out over the motley quarters of the great city, and the beggars, clerics, laborers, slaves, guards, peasants, courtiers, snow-merchants, felt-makers, shipbuilders, shopkeepers, fools, mimics, mystics, firework-makers, torturers, armorers, nomads, teachers, masons, nurses, pimps, physicians, and generals of all the many tongues and faiths are reduced to specks of different colors.
Ajita had one substantial handicap: language. He presumed that the people around him were mostly speaking Turkish, with Arabic as a lingua franca and several European languages thrown in. But he knew none of these tongues, nor could he even identify and distinguish them. He could purchase food and lodging by hand gesture (although it took him some time to realize that a nod meant “no” and a shake meant “yes”). Being unable to hold a real conversation with anyone, he would have great difficulty finding a route to Italy.
In the bazaar, he saw a script that he recognized from the Jesuit’s small library in Goa. [[This was Greek.]]
Greeks were remembered in the mountains of Ajita’s childhood, for their king Dhul-Qarnayn had brought a conquering army there long ago. His artists were the ones who had first inspired the lamas to depict the Enlightened One as a human being in sculpture and painting. They retained a reputation for wisdom in India, but Ajita knew none of their letters and could not determine whether they lived in any particular quarters of the capital. He looked for naked men with wavy hair and bare-armed ladies wrapped in white drapery, but neither could be found anywhere in Konstantiniya.
|Alexander>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Alexander.png">](click-prepend: ?Alexander)[Alexander Visits the Sage Plato in his Mountain Cave, India, 1598-8 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Metropolitan Museum of Art 13.228.30
]
[[Christians in Konstantiniya]]
One rainy day when he was wondering the steep hill opposite the Golden Horn from the Sultan’s palace, he noticed a cross affixed to a large stone building that was shaped like the crucifixes Jesuits wore. In this district, which was almost completely encircled by weedy, crumbling walls, some of the men wore high white collars and very tall, conical felt hats that clearly marked them as a distinct community. Their language was no more decipherable than any other in the city, but it reminded Ajita of the vernacular in which João and Juan used to speak privately. Although the residents’ skin and features did not necessarily distinguish them from other Konstantinians, Ajita could persuade himself that they were Franks of some kind. He spent several days in the area (whose name he later learned was Pera) observing the people, their buildings, and their trades and taking notes discreetly. He also began illustrating his notes with miniatures in the Mughul style.
On the third day, he discovered a sign that he could read. In Latin letters, it identified a blank-walled building as the church of Saint Benedictus. He entered the cold and gloomy space and looked up with interest at the high vaulted ceiling. Candles dimly illuminated and perfumed the air. A figured emerged from the gloom, carrying a light; Ajita’s heart leapt when he recognized the habit of [[a Jesuit Father.]]
The Jesuits of San Benedetto welcomed Ajita to their community and were happy to advise him on the best routes to Rome. By far the easiest way would have been to book passage on a Venetian galleass, a large ship with oars, masts, and sails. The Venetian community was rich and respected; its bailo, Gianfrancensco Morosini, was the dean of the whole diplomatic corps at the Sublime Porte; the Sultana herself was of Venetian birth; and the ships of the Republic clogged the waters of the Golden Horn. But the Jesuits of San Benedetto did not like the Venetians. They advised Ajita to travel by Turkish ship to Crete, whence he could find an Italian vessel to carry him to Brindisi.
Knowing no better, Ajita took their advice and left the Golden Horn on a small Turkish galley that carried messages, wealthy passengers, and just a pair of cannon for protection. They hugged the coast and slept each night at anchor until they were forced to leave the sheltering coast for the run across to Crete. Halfway across, they spotted a galleon that appeared of Venetian build, although it bore no flag. Since relations between the Sultan and the Republic were excellent, Ajita’s ship actually pulled closer to exchange greetings.
[[The other ship]]
<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Turkish.png">
The first pirate broadside took down their mainsail and cleanly removed the entire forecastle and its inhabitants. The structure had stood solidly until the blast but was utterly gone an instant later. While the remaining passengers and sailors screamed and ran pointlessly around the canvas-draped deck, the galleon turned about to fire again. Just in time, the Turkish captain struck his colors.
The next voyage was not terrible. The captured ship was simply towed behind the pirate vessel, and the captives were allowed to stand in a tight knot at the aft, guarded by wicked-looking men with rapiers and blunderbusses. Well before dusk, a stark peak had come into view to the north. The pirates steered toward it and Ajita soon made out an island, then a harbor, and then a village of white cubes scattered down the slopes and bright-blue domes surmounted by golden crosses. The ship tied up at a jetty and the passengers were marched into the town square, a small paved area surrounded by square buildings of pure white except for their blue doors.
They were made to walk one-by-one toward a cluster of men in garish costumes who looked each one over, said a few words, and then directed each person either left or right. When it was Ajita’s turn, he was looked over by a man with long hair and a moustache, asked a question in a tongue he did not understand, and directed left to join a small clump of people. After a long, silent wait, they were marched up a flight of whitewashed steps to the roof of a building. There, to Ajita’s horror, he saw a bloody wooden block and a man with an ax.
[[Ajita turned to run down the steps]]
Ajita turned to run down the steps, but coming up behind him was a whole band of pikemen. Along with his companions, he edged up the stairs and began to think of jumping over the wall. But the pikemen surrounded the prisoners, points down. A young man was pulled from their group and dragged shouting toward the block. Ajita averted his eyes but heard a “thunk” as the shouting, which had risen into a scream, ended. The remaining four or five prisoners moved closer together. Time seemed to slow; Ajita’s ears roared.
|Koufos>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Skoufos.png">](click-prepend: ?Koufos)[Philotheos Scoufos, The Forty Holy Martyrs, Crete, circa 1665 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ph.Skoufos_40_Martyrs.Cretan_c.1665.jpg
]
He heard himself saying quite loudly, //“Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum …”// (Anna approves of the sentiment, although not of the Papist Latin.) His words seemed to astonish the pikemen. As he continued with the Lord’s Prayer, remembering the words from his Jesuit Fathers, the executions ceased and the captors huddled in conversation. One shouted a question at Ajita, who did not understand it but replied, “Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison” (recalling that those words from the Roman Mass are in Greek).
A seemingly endless period of waiting and trembling ensued, broken only by the sudden and horrifying decapitation of a second prisoner, this one an old man with a Moslem prayer cap. His head and body, both streaming with blood, were flung over the wall.
A priest arrived by the stairs, his flat-topped, black hat coming first into view, then his bearded face, his silver cross, and his rough, black habit. The pikemen pointed out Ajita. The priest asked him something unintelligible. Then he switched to a strangely accented Latin and asked, “You are a Christian, son?”
[[Ajita's answer]]
Ajita decided that his conscience could permit prevarication. (Anna, although she feels she ought to disapprove, understands and is glad.) “Yes, Holy Father,” he said, “I am one whose soul was saved by the truth.”
“How came you to be a passenger on a Turkish ship?”
“I am making a pilgrimage to Rome, like Saint Paul on the vessel named for Castor and Pollux. That was no Christian ship, yet Paul’s voyage was God’s will.”
The priest nodded, crossed himself, and disappeared down the stairs. Ajita’s arms were pinned behind him and he was pushed down after the priest, then thrust through a bright-blue wooden door into a room whose small window overlooked the sparkling sea. The door slammed behind him; Ajita was alone. He crossed to the window but found it barred with iron; far below, the surf pounded jagged rocks. The whitewashed room was unfurnished. Ajita sank to the floor and for the first time truly felt the danger and horror of his situation. He began to shake uncontrollably.
He lifted his face from his hands when he heard the door open. The priest had returned with two armed men. Ajita rose clumsily to his feet and raised trembling hands in supplication.
[[The priest's verdict]]
|Spyridon>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Spyridon.png">](click-prepend: ?Spyridon)[Theodoros Poulakis, St. Spyridon, Crete, 1650-99 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Poulakis
]
“Son, you have fallen prey to pirates,” the priest said. “They understand no Latin,” he added in a lower voice.
“What country is this?”
“This island is the Sultan’s domain,” said the priest, “but his ships and men come here but rarely. The people are poor Christians of the Orthodox faith. Our lord, a vassal to the Sultan, is an Italian Catholic. In this particular village, the pirate captain is master and answers to know one, although he was raised a good Orthodox and still has some fear for God.”
“What—what does he want? I have silver.”
“He will take that, of course. It is not enough. He has separated the passengers who may command a ransom from the sailors and slaves. He is killing the ones whose lives are worth nothing to him, to save the cost of feeding them. Is there someone who might ransom you?”
“Certainly,” said Ajita, thinking of Mullah do Piaza in Fatepoor.
“Someone in Constantinople?”
Ajita paused, then lied: “Certainly.”
“I think not,” said the priest. “[[But I have a suggestion]].”
A Venetian merchant galleon stops here from time to time. Perhaps the pirates would sell you to its captain. Your Latin would give you some value in Venice.”
“//Sell// me? As a slave?”
“Not exactly,” said the father. “The Serene Republic frowns on slavery and has closed its slave market. Instead, the Venetian Senate has instituted a form of indenture. Your signed papers would commit you to ten years of servitude. Until that time, you can be bought and sold, like almost anything, on the Rialto.”
“Ten years?”
“That is the customary term, and I have some hope that I may, with the grace of God, persuade the pirate captain to show you such mercy. Some of our islanders have indentured themselves to escape poverty.
“Of course, if the Venetian merchants do not offer a satisfactory price for you and your papers, then your Christian faith will probably not save you. In that case, I will pray that you may be sold instead in the slave markets of Constantinople or Alexandria. I will have little hope, however—for of what value is a slight, brown Christian lad who speaks only church Latin? And how would the pirates transport you to a market other than Venice? That is why they have been executing the others. Your best hope is a Venetian indenture.”
[[Ajita enslaved]]
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|slave>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Tintorettoslave.png" align="right">](click-prepend: ?slave)[Tintoretto, The Miracle of the Slave, 1548 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Slave_(Tintoretto)> commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Edmund_Huddleston.jpg
]Anna has never considered how slavery would feel, let alone what it would be like to be enslaved suddenly in a strange land by exotic people. Every now and then, Arab raiders land in England or Ireland—even Iceland—and seize a few townsfolk for the Barbary markets. That is a fate (like being suddenly crushed by a falling tree or drowned in quicksand) that fascinates but is soon forgotten—unless it befalls you. Ajita manages to convey a hint of the rage and despair that filled him from the time he signed his indenture to the day he found himself on the high bridge of the Rialto, enchained, with a hand-lettered sign hanging from his neck that read, “For sale: savage from a desert island. Naturally knows the language of the Gospels. Prodigy, miracle, will fascinate visitors. Also cleans pots and waits tables. Signed for the full ten years.”
[[A purchaser]]
This was written in colloquial Venetian that Ajita could not decode. But it was translated for him by a tall man with orange hair who spoke fluent Latin in a strange and uncouth accent.
“I’ll see if I can afford you,” said the man. There ensued a long period of negotiation, with many expressions of astonishment, dismay, and mock regret. It ended with a handshake and smiles on both sides. Ajita was led away to comfortable quarters in the Santa Croce district.
“I can’t release you,” said Chrisopher Cotter. “I used all my savings to buy you. But perhaps there is some way you can earn your freedom. Do you have any possessions or accomplishments, other than speaking Popish Latin?”
[[Ajita's manuscript]]
Ajita removed from under his jerkin some crumbled pieces of parchment that contained his notes and illustrations of Constantinople. The papers were torn and smudged, but the pictures were still vivid. Cotter turned them over several times, stared at the Persian script, and pocketed the papers. “I have no sense of their value on the London market,” he said, “but they would at least be curiosities there. I know a man who would be able to appraise them. Meanwhile, I feel certain they would capture a better price if they told a story that the English could follow. Why don’t you begin by illustrating your own journey here? People like pirate tales. I will add the words.”
Christopher and Ajita settled for a winter in Venice as gentleman and servant. Ajita’s rage and contempt were never quenched, but he was able to recognize his luck in having been spared the ax and then purchased by a man of somewhat benign intentions.
[[In Venice]]
|Venice>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Veronese-1.png">](click-prepend: ?Venice)[Veronese, The Feast in the House of Levi 1573 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feast_in_the_House_of_Levi
]
If he had arrived under different conditions, he might have found Venice impressive, if not gorgeous. Even for someone who has seen Dal Lake and its fabulous houseboats, a city constructed on a lagoon is a remarkable sight. But slaves are not inclined to appreciate the homes of their captors. Ajita was generally appalled by the stench, the cruelty, the greed, and the pleasureless license of Venice. He never attempted to illustrate the city but contented himself by depicting scenes from his Mediterranean voyage.
[[Arrest]]
Before dawn one morning, Chris and Ajita were awakened by someone pounding on their door. Opening it, they found themselves confronted by //sbirri//, secret agents of the State Inquisitors, dressed in black cloaks and wide, concealing hats. After a quick journey in a gondola, the two prisoners were confined to a room under the lead roof of the Doges’ Palace.
That first day, the room was freezing, and the two men’s steaming breath mingled as they stood and stamped their feet, wondering how they could ever sleep. But as spring turned into summer, the prison became an oven, the bare lead radiating heat, and the tiny, barred windows admitting only wafts of putrid air from the canal below.
Cellmates came and went: some ruffians, others interesting men of culture. Ajita added Italian to his languages, finding the formal tongue of Tuscany closely related to the Latin that he already knew. Chris was occasionally removed for questioning by the State Inquisitors, but for thirty days of every month, nothing broke the monotony other than conversation. And then, with as little explanation as they had offered when they arrested Chris and his servant, the //sbirri// [[let them go]].
Chris was eager to leave the Republic’s borders, lest the Council of Ten should change their minds. He took Ajita by barge to the mainland and thence up the River Brenta toward Padua. Once they had crossed into Mantuan territory on mules, Ajita thought he might try to escape. Perhaps his indenture papers would mean nothing outside Venice. At any rate, Chris might be unable physically to control him. Once free, Ajita could travel south by way of Modena and Bologna and ultimately reach the Franks’ capital at Rome—although he was not sure how he would pay his way or obtain food and lodging.
One evening at dinner, Chris left Ajita sitting in the tavern's common room among travelers and ruffians. Ajita collected some scraps of bread and cheese, rose, and slipped out through the crowd.
|cards>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/cardsharps-e1477778741866.png">](click-prepend: ?cards)[Caravaggio, The Cardsharps, 1595 <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardsharps_(Caravaggio)
]
He ran silently under dank arcades until he found a church’s doorway, where he could sleep until morning. But when he woke, he found himself facing two watchmen with clubs. They brought him back to Chris, joking as they walked about a black-skinned heathen’s slim chances of hiding in Lombardy. Chris beat him savagely for trying to escape. Ajita tried to punish his owner by refusing to speak until they were well into France. Although his discipline broke down and he resumed a relationship with Chris, he never again allowed himself to think that they were friends.
[[To Paris]]
After some adventures in the French countryside (which Chris evidently knew well from previous visits), they stayed for a month in Paris. Still basically miserable and angry, Ajita could find nothing to praise in this cold, grim town. He did, however, learn from the university lectures that he and Chris attended. His Latin improved as he followed the subtle and sophisticated arguments of the masters, both in their lecture halls and over crowded tables in the Latin Quarter.
In Paris, a thought occurred to him that he was never able to shake. He had come to believe that all human ideas are just variations on an underlying structure that his observations might reveal. But his own theory would also have to be one of the variations. Ajita could not regard the many faiths and languages of man from a vantage point like the view from the minarets of Konstaninya or the towers of Saint Etienne du Mont. He could not see other people as they actually were. Like them, he could see only what his special faith and language showed him.
|Derrida>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Derrida.png">](click-prepend: ?Derrida)[Derrida, annotations on his copy of Barthes //On Racine//, via http://library.princeton.edu/
]
Ever since Venice, Ajita had been afraid to face the end of their journey, for no one (Italian or French) had seemed impressed by the land that Chris called Anglia or Britannia--and no one had even heard of such a place in India. All Ajita knew was its location in the far north; he assumed it was frigid and even more provincial than the Europe he had seen so far. He feared he would be sold into a slave mine or made to row in the galleys.
[[To England]]
The channel crossing was wretched, but the countryside proved as lush and placid, at least, as that of France. In Oxfordshire, Ajita was allowed to live like a servant to Chris and his attractive young wife—except on the frequent occasions when Chris left the house, at which times Ajita was consigned to a root cellar. He labored at his paintings and writings, sometimes imagining that he might carry them to Mullah do Piaza or even to the Shah, at other times simply trying to pay off his indenture by giving Chris work to sell in London. The two men quarreled frequently about what kind of pictures looked best, what the English public would appreciate, and how much Chris was likely to pocket from the sale of Ajita’s work.
When Chris had been gone for a particularly long time, his wife released Ajita and made him walk with her to her father’s house. Ajita’s disposition and presence had by now been shrunk to a pathetic level—he acted like a whipped dog—but he was grateful to arrive in a place of roaring hearths and comfortable beds. Shunned by the servants and the family alike, he spent his time alone in a turret room, trying to revive his spirits by painting himself at Akbar’s court, surrounded by citrus and herbs.
And then, for the fourth time in his life, Ajita heard the banging of officials’ fists at the door and he found himself bundled off—only this time, it was to a chimney, and his companion was a Jesuit.
[[Back in prison]]
Anna indicates that she knows this part of his story. Ajita thanks her for her attention; it has been a relief to unburden his soul at such length. He feels they have some characteristics in common, these two quiet observers—these judgers and forgivers of men.
It is odd to find themselves alone in a prison cell, a man and a woman. Probably the jailors have overlooked what they have allowed to happen because Anna arrived dressed as a man, and Ajita, as a woman. Both are strange foreigners, the one a witch and the other, a heathen.
Ajita asks Anna if she would like to tell her story. She demurs, but he gently extracts it from her, starting with the fires and rapes of Antwerp when she was a little girl. At the end, she confesses her rising spiritual doubts, her fear of death as blank extinction. Sleep teaches us what it feels like to lose consciousness, but to lose it permanently is a horror just beyond our powers of imagination.
[[Ajita's teaching]]
(set: $return to 4)Ajita says that he has been consumed his whole life with ambition and will. But now he sees that each one must indeed die—and whether the end comes sooner or later hardly matters—yet the whole goes on. The “we” is just as fundamental as the “I,” for I knew my mother before I knew myself. If we have compassion for all the other beings, our own end seems immaterial.
Ajita asks Anna to think of lost dogs, of robins huddled in the winter wind, of beggars, of prisoners. He portrays Toby Greene for her—the man was covetous, lecherous, and cowardly, but that was because he had scrambled all his life to survive. And Thomas Lucy: is he not a fearful person at his core? Afraid every instant that man will recognize his inner weaknesses, which his god already knows and condemns. They all suffer; they all need her mercy. Anna prays for these men’s souls and Ajita meditates on their suffering. Their breaths mingle.
(link: "Click to lower the system's entropy, as Ajita and Anna find harmony")[(set:$entropy to it - 1)]
To soothe and distract her further, Ajita recalls a story from the book he had been illustrating. He tells Anna that she has influenced it and should look for herself in the latest version. He sits cross-legged and sings
[[Hear the poem->2.1 DRAHMEN]]
Skip ahead to [[Anna's choice]]
(set: $chapter to 1, $perspective to "Anna", $return to 14)We picture the world not as it is or as it ought to be, but always as a particular style dictates. A century before Anna was born, the artists of old Bruges had believed that they could represent eternal heaven as if tracing its reflection on a looking-glass. They had assumed that the real Virgin Mary sat on a throne bedecked in Turkish carpets, while behind her, a narrow castle window would reveal canals, step-roofed houses, and distant blue hills. Now, in Anna’s time, artists see that the old Netherlandish painters had a maniera, a particular way of painting, as did Leonardo and Raphael, who exercised their wills and their prejudices differently to the south. Today, each artist prizes his own manner; he makes a virtue of it. It is his hand, his eye, and his style—not the thing represented—that makes his art.
To occupy a body is to have one maniera—one place in time and space, one way of representing what is reflected on the back of one’s retina, all driven by one set of desires. Imagination and compassion offer some freedom from this embodiment, for we can enter other minds by understanding them. With each style that we adopt sympathetically, our attachment to our original manner lessens, for it seems a narrow, arbitrary thing. A perfect imagination would be bodiless.
Anna’s faculties of invention and compassion have liberated her to digress and to describe without conditions. She feels that she could continue hearing different kinds of voices, different ways of talking and describing the world, forever. Even as her mind can slip back and forth through time, her own coming and going have ceased. The dense forest has fallen below her. She has no tie to the fiery stake back at St. Giles. She can view the site of her execution as an illustration. This would be an exhilarating freedom if she had a body to register exhilaration. Instead, she finds a profound quiet, a peace. To explore it further, she realizes, would take her into abstract regions where the particularities of manners, customs, wills, and beliefs would hardly seem to matter.
Yet she has no voice of her own. In her own manner, she cannot say what has happened to her or to others, or what consequence it all may have. In fact, she has no literal voice at all, not even an inward one. That means that she has no capacity to influence events. She dwells in a house of non-action. She has been entirely passive since her sight turned around the corner in Oxford. She has watched the pages of Dr. Burby’s book turn and has read Chrisopher Bannock’s letters but has said nothing—not even to herself. This passivity has not bothered her in the usual physical way, but it has troubled her ethically. She is allowing a wrong to transpire. The peace that she has found is also a kind of death.
With that thought, the maze presents another fork—or, if it is a labyrinth, she has reached the center and can choose either to stay or to turn and walk back out. As thought, Anna is passive; but she has the option of embodiment. She can renounce pure imagination for harsh experience.
[[Anna goes back to the stake]]
(if: $fork is 0)[(link-goto: "She sends her memory back to Dr. Burby's chamber", "She chooses the fork into Burby’s London chamber.")]
(if: $fork1 is 0)[(link-goto: "She imagines what happened to Ajita", "Ajita's story begins")]
(if: $entropy > 10)[The situation is quite disordered. Entropy is (print: $entropy), and less is better. Thus Anna faces grave danger. The natural tendency will be for her intricate organism to disentegrate into dust and ash, notwithstanding her intelligence.](if: $entropy < 11)[The situation is fairly ordered. Entropy is (print: $entropy), and a number below 11 is acceptable. This means that Anna's fate is promising. She should be able to preserve her intricate organism against disintegration by fire.]
(if: $entropy > 14)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy15.png">](if: $entropy is 14)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy14.png">]
(if: $entropy is 13)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy13.png">](if: $entropy is 12)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy12.png">](if: $entropy is 11)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy11.png">](if: $entropy is 10)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy10.png">](if: $entropy is 9)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy09.png">](if: $entropy < 9)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy08.png">]
(if: $return is 6)[[[Return to the main narrative->She examines the book]]](if: $return is 7)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna looks into the image]]](if: $return is 8)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna wonders what happened to Ajita Brihaspathi, her Indian cellmate, after he left the Oxford Gaol]]](if: $return is 9)[[[Return to the main narrative->A fork in the path]]](if: $return is 10)[[[Return to the main narrative->Fame]]](if: $return is 11)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna's memory goes back to Oxford Gaol]]](if: $return is 12)[[[Follow some more plot before returning to the stake->Anna recalls her encounters with Lucy]]](if: $return is 14)[[[Follow some more plot before returning to the stake->Anna's choice]]]
(if: $entropy > 10)[[[Continue->high entropy high knowledge]]](if: $entropy < 11)[[[Continue->low entropy high knowledge]]]
(if: $entropy > 10)[The situation is quite disordered. Entropy is (print: $entropy), and less is better. Thus Anna faces grave danger. The natural tendency will be for her intricate organism to disentegrate into dust and ash. And, given her poor understanding of the system, she will have no grasp of solutions.](if: $entropy < 11)[The situation is quite ordered. Entropy is (print: $entropy), and less is better. With low entropy, she should be able to preserve her intricate organism against disintegration by fire. Her problem is a lack of knowledge.]
(if: $entropy > 14)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy15.png">](if: $entropy is 14)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy14.png">]
(if: $entropy is 13)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy13.png">](if: $entropy is 12)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy12.png">](if: $entropy is 11)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy11.png">](if: $entropy is 10)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy10.png">](if: $entropy is 9)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy09.png">](if: $entropy < 9)[<img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/entropy08.png">]
(if: $return is 6)[[[Return to the main narrative->She examines the book]]](if: $return is 7)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna looks into the image]]](if: $return is 8)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna wonders what happened to Ajita Brihaspathi, her Indian cellmate, after he left the Oxford Gaol]]](if: $return is 9)[[[Return to the main narrative->A fork in the path]]](if: $return is 10)[[[Return to the main narrative->Fame]]](if: $return is 11)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna's memory goes back to Oxford Gaol]]](if: $return is 12)[[[Return to the main narrative->Anna recalls her encounters with Lucy]]](if: $return is 14)[[[Follow some more plot before returning to the stake->Anna's choice]]]
(if: $entropy > 10)[[[Continue->high entropy low knowledge]]](if: $entropy < 11)[[[Continue->low entropy low knowledge]]]
Smoke stings Anna’s throat, and she coughs. At first, she thinks that she is already aflame, but when she looks below her feet, she sees that the tight bundles of sticks on which she stands are cold and still. The constable is still scratching his flints to her left; the sparks that he makes are small and seem harmless, although a pitched taper lies ready to receive their flame. A college gardener must be burning piles of raked leaves that send their autumnal scent her way. The wind is cold; her frock is thin. She feels the solid beam at her back and the tight rope wound around her.
The pyre is set on top of an area of packed earth, behind a retaining wall. On chairs below it sit the //consilium majoris// of the city, consisting of the Mayor, the four Aldermen, and eight Assistants—all senior members of guilds. These men began their lives working with their hands, as brewers and farriers, cordwainers and smiths. But they preside over the city’s most prosperous businesses and have left manual labor to apprentices and servants so that they may pass their time in guildhall, inn, and committee. Their faces are brown from beef and ale, not from the sun. Aware that they are on public view, these bearded, portly men have arranged themselves in a pleasing pattern, one staring forward, the others showing their profiles or three-quarters of their faces; some reclining, others leaning forward attentively. The lustrous black of their clothes is broken by bleached ruffs, ruddy skin, and the glitter of buckles and chains. They are trying to look serious on this solemn civic occasion; but an execution is a rare entertainment, and they cannot conceal their anticipation. Some may be a little nervous that they will betray a sensitive emotion at the moment of conflagration.
[[Anna seeks aid]]
Smoke stings Anna’s throat, and she coughs. At first, she thinks that she is already aflame, but when she looks below her feet, she sees that the tight bundles of sticks on which she stands are cold and still. The constable is still scratching his flints to her left; the sparks that he makes are small and seem harmless, although a pitched taper lies ready to receive their flame. A college gardener must be burning piles of raked leaves that send their autumnal scent her way. The wind is cold; her frock is thin. She feels the solid beam at her back and the tight rope wound around her.
The pyre is set on top of an area of packed earth, behind a retaining wall. On chairs below it sit the //consilium majoris// of the city, consisting of the Mayor, the four Aldermen, and eight Assistants—all senior members of guilds. These men began their lives working with their hands, as brewers and farriers, cordwainers and smiths. But they preside over the city’s most prosperous businesses and have left manual labor to apprentices and servants so that they may pass their time in guildhall, inn, and committee. Their faces are brown from beef and ale, not from the sun. Aware that they are on public view, these bearded, portly men have arranged themselves in a pleasing pattern, one staring forward, the others showing their profiles or three-quarters of their faces; some reclining, others leaning forward attentively. The lustrous black of their clothes is broken by bleached ruffs, ruddy skin, and the glitter of buckles and chains. They are trying to look serious on this solemn civic occasion; but an execution is a rare entertainment, and they cannot conceal their anticipation. Some may be a little nervous that they will betray a sensitive emotion at the moment of conflagration.
[[Anna searches the crowd]]
The constable scratches again, and this time a sharp light flares and the taper catches its flame. The constable rises slowly from his haunches and walks, with the brand before him, like a deacon up the aisle. A prelate is intoning something from the Wycliffe Bible: “therefore every tree that maketh not good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.” Christopher is in motion, but he is not doing anything useful: just shifting from one foot to the other.
There are two horse-loads of chopped wood and piney furze stacked around her, including the bundle she stands on. They make a modest pile. The Corporation felt burdened by the expense of the great bonfire that consumed the Protestant bishops in ’55, so Oxford has opted for a cheaper load. The smaller the fire, the longer the victim will take to die, her clothes and body actually blistering and smoking before she blacks out.
The constable bends over and touches his taper to a faggot that begins to smoke and then sputters, leaving Anna to feel relief that she knows is foolish.
[[A cry from the audience]]
Smoke stings Anna’s throat, and she coughs. At first, she thinks that she is already aflame, but when she looks below her feet, she sees that the tight bundles of sticks on which she stands are cold and still. The constable is still scratching his flints to her left; the sparks that he makes are small and seem harmless, although a pitched taper lies ready to receive their flame. A college gardener must be burning piles of raked leaves that send their autumnal scent her way. The wind is cold; her frock is thin. She feels the solid beam at her back and the tight rope wound around her.
The pyre is set on top of an area of packed earth, behind a retaining wall. On chairs below it sit the consilium majoris of the city, consisting of the Mayor, the four Aldermen, and eight Assistants—all senior members of guilds. These men began their lives working with their hands, as brewers and farriers, cordwainers and smiths. But they preside over the city’s most prosperous businesses and have left manual labor to apprentices and servants so that they may pass their time in guildhall, inn, and committee. Their faces are brown from beef and ale, not from the sun. Aware that they are on public view, these bearded, portly men have arranged themselves in a pleasing pattern, one staring forward, the others showing their profiles or three-quarters of their faces; some reclining, others leaning forward attentively. The lustrous black of their clothes is broken by bleached ruffs, ruddy skin, and the glitter of buckles and chains. They are trying to look serious on this solemn civic occasion; but an execution is a rare entertainment, and they cannot conceal their anticipation. Some may be a little nervous that they will betray a sensitive emotion at the moment of conflagration.
[[A shout]]
Anna searches deeper into the crowd for that tall, red-haired fellow in a velvet jacket and a broad, feathered cap. He is facing away, but she recognizes his build. Those long muscled legs must be Christopher Bannock’s.
Her vision focuses beyond Christopher, beyond the small boys he faces, and onward to the two women who huddle beneath baggy white muffin caps and woolen scarves. Their costumes are contrived to hide as much of their skin as possible, but Anna has noticed that one of them is strikingly dark. Ajita Brihaspathi has also joined this company, and that must be Mary Bannock with him. She has a fashionable body even wrapped in peasant clothes.
[[Anna fits broken pieces together]]
There is obviously some contrivance underway. This is a ceremony, a tableau, or a masque, and that implies an artist or an author. Who has drawn four or five significant characters together into this particular crowd? Probably it is the same person who informed Justice Lucy by letter that there was a recusant priest at Hindby Hall. (Lucy claimed that the letter was signed by Christopher Bannock, but signatures can be feigned; recipients can be fooled.) Could the same writer have informed the Privy Council that Toby Greene lodged in the Murcott tavern, so that he would find himself in the Castle cell along with Anna and the others? Probably the same person also sent Christopher to Otmoor to investigate a rising, and told him that the man behind all the enclosures was none other than Lucy. Was this the one who spread rumors that Anna was a woman, so that she would be detected and carted away to the Oxford Castle? And who but this person could have signed the letter that caused the Oxfordshire jury to convict Anna?
She has always suspected the [[machinations of one particular man.]]
He took pains to show her Indian illuminated manuscripts, espionage reports, alchemical instruments, and maps of the British midlands. Ignoring her distaste for such secular distractions and trifles, he shared these obsessions with her. He thereby placed all the necessary pieces in her mind, so that after he vanished to the Tower of London, Anna would be able to assemble the whole story from her memories alone.
In the minutes since she was bound to the stake, she has sorted and re-sorted the elements that he gave her. Whenever we speak, we hear ourselves express a whole idea that must have been already present in our minds before the words came. We hem and haw, searching for words to convey what we have instantly thought. Likewise, Anna’s memories have been coiled inside her, and she has explored them and tried to put them into a coherent order during her short time on the pyre. Now she must play an active role—she must be the heroine of the masque—but she cannot understand how the story is intended to end.
Intention is the key. [[What does Dr. Edmund Burby want?]]
Anna cannot say for sure, but she doubts he has any of the usual reasons: money, lust, revenge, or power. She guesses that something like boredom or curiosity moves him—or perhaps a feeling that his own story is winding down and that he should make something complicated happen, one last time. He may want human wills and perspectives to clash in an interesting way. The suffering of the protagonists would not concern him, even if he were one of those who suffered. He is like a god in Ovid, needing to trifle with mortals to break the Olympian monotony.
Anna ventures a look to her right, where Sir Thomas Lucy still sits composedly, his gold rings and chains glittering against his black furs. Her fiery death will cause him satisfaction. The Justice is her immediate problem; if she could somehow strike at him, she might win her freedom. Ajita would advise her to pity him his trespasses, but she cannot. What motivates him? Why is he an enemy to Dr. Burby? [[What vulnerability has he?]]
Someone cries, “Put fire! Set on fire!” Ann’s eyes scour the crowd for the source of these harsh words. They came from somewhere below her, uttered with great malice and impatience. The city’s elders sit quietly, but there are plenty of drunkards and leering fellows who are eager to see whether the tongues of fire will pierce her body and cause blood to flow from her heart, as they did to old Bishop Latimer at the same spot. Anna also sees dour puritan families, come for the satisfaction of witnessing public justice. Behind these predictable observers, a surprising number of men stand quietly in little knots of two or three: rustic youth, to judge by their homespun clothing and a certain set of their bodies that says they’re uncomfortable in a city street. Otmoor men—could they be?—dispersed after the fight with the parish watch at Steeple Eaton. Possibly it was to observe or to signal these men that Christopher Bannock turned away from the scaffold.
[[She watches]]
She feels these thoughts rise physically in her torso, and her face flushes. Perhaps she needn’t //do// anything; Christopher has come with his peasant followers to save her. She will soon be behind him on the back of a great black mare, galloping up the Woodstock Road.
But he is maddeningly slow. The constable scratches again, and this time a sharp light flares and the taper catches its flame. The constable rises slowly from his haunches and walks, with the brand before him, like a deacon up the aisle. A prelate is intoning something from the Wycliffe Bible: “therefore every tree that maketh not good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.” Christopher is in motion, but he is not doing anything useful: just shifting from one foot to the other.
Anna never knows what Chris wants or which side he has taken. He happens to be in Oxford on the day of her execution, but has he come to file a report with the Privy Council? To write Dr. Burby about how the story turned out? To turn the peasants against the city fathers in a bloody rising? Or to intervene and save a lady in peril?
[[Anna acts]]
Anna decides she must put Sir Thomas Lucy at the center of the action. She should speak, accusing him of some villainy that will outrage the Otmoor men or Oxford’s citizens, or both. But she has no proof that he has done anything wrong—not even a well-formed charge that she could throw at him.
There are two horse-loads of chopped wood and piney furze stacked around her, including the bundle she stands on. They make a modest pile. The Corporation felt burdened by the expense of the great bonfire that consumed the Protestant bishops in ’55, so Oxford has opted for a cheaper load. The smaller the fire, the longer the victim will take to die, her clothes and body actually blistering and smoking before she blacks out.
The constable bends over and touches his taper to a faggot that begins to smoke and then sputters, leaving Anna to feel relief that she knows is foolish.
“Burn the witch!” someone shouts from the side. An Anglican minister appears with a bible open in his hand and starts to read a psalm. A raindrop spatters in Anna’s neck, possibly the last rain she will ever feel. If more drops come, the bailiffs may have to apply burning pitch to get the pyre alight.
[[Anna speaks]]
Anna opens her mouth and says, “Justice Lucy …” She is not loud enough to be heard beyond the pyre itself, and no one pays any attention. A chamberlain of the city approaches with a second burning taper, and again someone shouts, “Burn her!” The chamberlain displays the taper over his head, enjoying the attention. There is scattered applause.
“Justice Lucy,” Anna says, a bit louder and in her best English, “Justice Lucy, you are murthering me. You would strike at my master, Dr. Burby.”
Voices from below ask, “What? What did the woman say?”
The chamberlain does not want to seem to pause because the condemned has begun to speak; at the same time, he doesn’t want to disappoint the crowd by killing her before they have heard her final words. He dallies by walking slowly to the other side of the pyre, affecting a formal air. Meanwhile, Anna adds, “You would enclose the Oxford Common, Port Meadow, for your sheep!”
[[The council's reaction]]
The gentlemen of the City Council exchange smiling looks that tell Anna they find this charge preposterous. If Justice Lucy really wanted to enclose Port Meadow, these men would approve. Anna had no evidence for her wild charge. She thought she had taken a lesson from Dr. Burby: you don’t have to know that something is true in order to weave it into a story. But her accusation was not plausible enough to help her. The chamberlain kneels and moves his taper toward a bundle of furze. The clergyman is reading in his nasal voice: “Your gold and silver hath rusted, and the rust of them shall be to you into witnessing, and shall eat your fleshes, as fire.”
Anna’s eyes are roving, darting—tempted by the distant corner where she might turn and move again out of sight. That horse is still chomping on his bucket, his tail out of sight around the pub’s wall. But the flame of the taper is playing on the fringes of the kindling, making its needles smoke and shrivel. The fire will not stop just because her attention leaves this place.
[[Anna's eyes search the audience]]
Her vision alights on Ajita. He is too distant for her to make out his expression, but she imagines that his great brown eyes are deeply compassionate, and she feels a jolt of self-pity. He is the only living creature who cares for her; everyone else would deliberately make her suffer and die. His skin is visibly dark even from this distance; perhaps he has exposed his face so she can recognize him. It is final gesture, she thinks, of fellowship.
Could he be of any practical use to her in this extremity?
[[She speaks again]]
The following words rush out of her mouth before she has thought them: “It is not enough to drive the men away,” she cries: “to fill the freemen’s fields with chomping sheep.” She directs her gaze at the burghers seated below. “He would, like the Spaniard, reap vaster profit. He seeks men he need not pay, fight, nor fear. Into England’s unbounded commonwealth, he would import black men in chains to work his fields, where once the stalwart Saxon tilled his row.”
The furze bundle is smoking and popping now, sending up a grey cloud and sparks. The logs will soon take its fire. Below Anna, the burghers are looking quizzically, and she thinks she hears someone say, “Black men, what? Wherefore did the bitch say ‘black’?”
[[She addresses Mr. Lucy]]
“Sir Thomas Lucy, Justice of the Peace,” she turns her head to address him, “Deny you that a slave, a fugitive” (she adds) “from your henchmen—hides in this very crowd?”
“Silence, ye mad, raving, traitor witch!” Lucy looks angry and officious but not concerned; he thinks her second arrow has missed him, like the first. But a shout goes up in the distance and there is a commotion around Ajita. He is running with several men after him, who shout, “The black fugitive! Here is the black man!”
Most eyes turn away from Anna’s pyre toward the knot of people near Ajita. She feels the burning faggots, but she can still bear their heat like the radiance from a huge winter hearth. She squirms, but the ropes are too heavy and tight for her to wriggle free. Ajita is also a captive, his arms held on either side. He has been turned to face Anna on the prye, his hat, scarf, and shawl ripped away to reveal his short black hair.
[[Mrs. Bannock speaks]]
Mary Bannock runs through the crowd, her arms in the air in a wild gesture. “Christopher Bannock, recall thou thy duty!” she shouts.
Chris turns at last to reveal his face, and his eyes shift from Mary, to Anna, to Thomas Lucy. Mary is moving in his direction, crying, “It is for thee to stop this double wrong.”
Chris looks up at Anna, puzzled. He must be asking himself the purpose of her last utterance. He cocks his head like a puzzled dog and several seconds pass. Finally, his eyes light in recognition. “Free men of Otmoor! Freemen of Oxford!” He turns slowly as he speaks in his slow, steady voice. “This maid has spoken in spirit and truth. Justice Lucy would own the man of Ind!” That introduction has captured everyone’s attention. Silence falls and all eyes are on him. Chris clears his throat, revolves slowly to make eye-contact with all his listeners, then stands still with feet apart and hands raised, ready to emphasize his points.
[[Mr. Bannock's speech]]
In the speaking style that he generally uses with common audiences—conversational and vivid—Chris invites the audience to think of breezy Caribbean shores, where once sturdy Indians delved the sandy earth and spun their own linen beneath the palms. True yeomen, they owned only what they made or what they chose to give to one another. But then came the great galleons with golden crosses painted on their billowy canvasses, and breastplated, helmeted conquistadors on their decks. At musket-point, the gentle Caribs were forced off their land so that Spaniards could use their acres for profit. At first, a few Indians were put to work for their Spanish masters while the rest of their tribes wandered and starved, like the poor beggars who crowd Oxford’s Carfax on a market day. But the workers wasted away under the Spanish lash, forced to plant crops for distant markets and other men’s profits, their ancient liberties only a tragic memory. Left with no serfs on the islands, and despising labor themselves, the Spanish gentlemen began buying other men—//African// men—in Portuguese markets. Today the islands are dreary plantations owned by a few haughty grandees, worked by thousands of black slaves who bend beneath the lash.
Chris pauses for dramatic effect. Now think of our ancient fields, he says, to mutters and murmurs. He gestures over the roof of the Bocardo prison to the countryside beyond. Think of our green rolling hills, he says, where we ran barefoot as lads. Think of our greenwoods and our sparkling steams where trout leap. Masters like Mr. Lucy have already cleared the fields of men and filled them with sheep. The folk whom they banished gather in the towns, swelling into hungry, angry mobs that lament their ancient rights and liberties. For every idle gentleman who strolls in his empty park, there are a hundred former tenants who would run him off the earth and restore their inheritance.
[[The smoke rises]]
|aflame>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/aflame.png" align ="right">](click-prepend: ?aflame)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1576 edition, author's family collection
]By now the smoke is pouring upward in a chimney of fire, its source not six feet from Anna. Her right cheek is smarting from the heat. The back of her neck is drenched in sweat. But Chris continues at a steady, patient pace, explaining that the gentry must devise a mechanism to ensure their continued tyranny. Who will work their lands, feed their children, and protect their houses against the dispossessed?
Someone cries, “Slaves!”
Chris nods. Yes, they mean to copy a page from the Spaniard’s book. Why not import their own black slaves to sweat over hoes in England’s green and blessed plot? If Oxford’s freemen resist greed and slavery, then rich merchants shall ship in new men who were born in chains.
By now the Otmoor youth have begun to close menacingly around the city fathers. One member of the council, a muscular man who once might have been an ironmonger, says, “Mr. Lucy, what say you then to this?”
[[The flames rise]]
|fire>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/foxe-fire.png">](click-prepend: ?fire)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1563
]
Not much attention is being paid to Anna in the fire; she is squirming with all her strength to pull away from the heat, tears streaming down her face. She is dimly aware that the constable has not extinguished the fire, but he has kicked some of the bundles apart so that they burn less fiercely. It was a subtle action that may prove wise if she turns out to be innocent, but that no one will notice if she is still meant to die.
She shrieks a plea for help, probably in Dutch. Christopher Bannock seems to remember the urgency of her situation and takes two steps toward her, until he is blocked by pikemen of the watch. “Stop the fire, that we may discuss this matter.” He directs his order at the Lord Mayor of Oxford, not the Justice of the Peace.
“Let the witch burn, and seize this miscreant,” says Lucy forcefully, pointing at Chris.
[[The Lord Mayor's reply]]
The Lord Mayor vacillates, looking in turn at the grim crowd that presses closer, at the Justice of the Peace with his armed retainers, and at the stake. A patch of Anna’s frock catches fire and burns bright yellow, but the spot of flame fades, leaving only a circle of her flesh burned and smarting. “Cut her loose,” someone shouts.
Mary Bannock is close to Christopher now, and she cries, “Chris, thou art a faithful man of good heart. So the savage heathen taught me, in my doubt. It is thy burthen now to stop this crime!”
[[A scuffle begins, Otmoor men versus liveried retainers of Sir Thomas Lucy]].
The center of that small fight acts like a lodestone, drawing people closer from every direction. Some step cautiously forward, peering with interest, chins raised for a better view. Others rush with fists up or hands on sword-pommels and knife-handles. Anna hears agitated voices above the roar of the flame, and above the popping of her fire, sharper explosions. Men are falling with blood stains on their chests, and cobblestones are flying overhead. Ann is pulling with all her might away from the heart of the fire, and the ropes feel slightly looser, but she is still bound to the stake.
Chris is standing on a barrel, his chest above the heads of the surging mob. He is shouting something that Anna cannot hear. “Mr. Justice Lucy, by order of ...” And then suddenly she knows that her hair is burning, an intense band of pain amid all the fierceness of fire.
[[In the flames]]
She throws her body away from the stake and breaks free—whether because the flames have severed the ropes or because someone has slit them, she will never know. She is flying across the stage-like dais, her body a flaming brand. In an instant, she is among black-clad city fathers who scatter to avoid her, but she throws herself upon the ones who are still rising from their chairs. As they collapse into a heap of rolling bodies and toppled furniture, the fire is choked.
|fleeing>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/fleeing.png">](click-prepend: ?fleeing)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1576 edition, author's family collection
]
Christopher Bannock is reading from a parchment that he holds in both hands. “Mr. Justice Lucy, by writ of her Majesty’s Privy Council, I order you arraigned before the Queen’s Star Chamber to answer these charges against you.”
[[Coda]]
(set: $perspective to "Ajita")<script>$('body').removeClass().addClass('Indian')</script>And so, Father Giordano—son of the late Giovanni Bruno of Nola, formerly friar, deacon, and priest of the Roman Catholic Church, now a layman and her prisoner—this story has a happy ending. May it comfort and divert you in your present predicament, for that is why it was written. It is infused with the happy spirit of your own tales and disquisitions, remembered fondly.
You will wonder whether this narrative is a //historia// (something that actually happened), a //fabula// (a tale that could not possibly occur), or an //argumentum// (something that did not but could happen, because it is both plausible and consistent with the right and good). Be assured that it is literally true, at least as an account of what Anna Claewart knew. It is something made (//fictus//), yet no fiction. Of course, it has an entirely different form from Anna’s original thought, which was elusive, private, silent, and mostly instantaneous. To narrate her memory in letters on pages must transubstantiate its matter (if you will forgive that verb), but the essence stays the same.
You will want to know what happened to the major characters. (set: $traffordfate to 0, $greenefate to 0, $lucyfate to 0, $burbyfate to 0)
[[Father Trafford's fate]]
[[Toby Greene's fate]]
[[Sir Thomas Lucy's fate]]
[[Edmund Burby's fate]]
(set: $greenefate to 1)Toby Greene got his hands on an exotic illuminated manuscript that he was able to sell for a substantial sum in the London book trade. In fact, it found its way via intermediaries to the Queen’s own library. The proceeds enabled him and his mistress to buy the quiet cabbage farm that they had dreamt of. At least so far, Mr. Greene has been able to keep his head down and his enemies at a distance. He is busy on a long prose narrative, something about a foolish gentleman who thinks he still lives in the time of Richard Coeur de Lion. Toby cannot help including topical references that would land him back in the Marshelsea Prison if powerful gentleman could read the manuscript. But he has promised Mrs. Greene that it will be an //opus posthumus.//
(if: $traffordfate is 0)[ [[Father Trafford's fate]] ]
(if: $lucyfate is 0)[ [[Sir Thomas Lucy's fate]] ]
(if: $burbyfate is 0)[ [[Edmund Burby's fate]] ]
(if: $greenefate + $lucyfate +
$burbyfate + $traffordfate is 4)[ [[Our fate]] ]
(set: $traffordfate to 1)Father Trafford perished some weeks before Anna’s escape. His last thoughts were triumphant and peaceful. Although the pain of his death must have been sharp, his life’s story had precisely the shape that he would have chosen for it, his destiny fitting his character. What became of him beyond the grave is not for us to know.
(if: $greenefate is 0)[ [[Toby Greene's fate]] ]
(if: $lucyfate is 0)[ [[Sir Thomas Lucy's fate]] ]
(if: $burbyfate is 0)[ [[Edmund Burby's fate]]]
(if: $greenefate + $lucyfate +
$burbyfate + $traffordfate is 4)[ [[Our fate]] ]
(set: $lucyfate to 1)Sir Thomas Lucy spent some unpleasant weeks under house arrest in London, parrying questions from Her Majesty Council about why he had allowed peasant discontent to reach such a pitch in Oxfordshire. He protested complete ignorance about slavery. The Indian fellow, he insisted, was never of any interest to him. That black man had been found in the company of a Jesuit, was held in the Castle so that a prison informer could probe him, but was released immediately once the papist agent was safely dead.
Sir Thomas confessed that he had quarreled with Dr. Edmund Burby, chiefly concerning Burby’s strange views of the Saxon Constitution and the common ownership of land. In Sir Thomas’ opinion, the Doctor’s theories were seditious, and when he began to preach them publicly at St. Mary’s, where the commons worshipped, Sir Thomas dutifully filed a report with Her Majesty’s Government. That report had, indeed, landed Dr. Burby in the Tower. But there was no conspiracy against the old fellow; Sir Thomas personally considered him harmless. He was glad to know that Burby was back in his college study.
The Council was not thoroughly persuaded by Sir Thomas’ testimony. Still, hard evidence of perjury was lacking, and one had to weigh in his favor his ardent pursuit of seminary priests. He was released with a warning to keep matters in hand in his Shire. He realized, as he bounced back to Oxfordshire in his carriage, that his hopes for a great London career had faded.
(if: $greenefate is 0)[ [[Toby Greene's fate]] ]
(if: $traffordfate is 0)[ [[Father Trafford's fate]] ]
(if: $burbyfate is 0)[ [[Edmund Burby's fate]]]
(if: $greenefate + $lucyfate +
$burbyfate + $traffordfate is 4)[ [[Our fate]] ]
(set: $burbyfate to 1)When Dr. Edmund Burby was released from the Tower of London, he returned to his identical room in Oxford, his daily routines and spirit hardly affected by the shift. He labored on various projects, including a still-fragmentary history of the Church of England and some correspondence with you, Signor Bruno, concerning your theory of infinite worlds. Dr. Burby had learned that your theory was also common in India. He could even quote from the Hindu scriptures: “The worlds are all alike, endless. He who worships them as finite obtains a finite world, but he who worships them as infinite, obtains an infinite world.” This ancient text, dating from the time of Plato, Moses, Hermes, and Zoroaster, must contain some fragment of the prisca theologia¸ the original wisdom that you, sir, uncovered in Egypt. It is only a sign of our degenerate and enfeebled minds that we presume that our world is alone at the center of the cosmos. We have not the breadth of soul and courage to face infinity.
Dr. Burby struggled to understand what had happened to several of his associates in Oxford. During his captivity, his students had scattered without leaving so much as a note. He wrote several times to his favorite, Christopher Bannock. After more than a month, his letters produced a surprise visit to Balliol. Chris had renounced both academic life and government work to take a parish in Sussex. The fact that a comfortable church appointment had suddenly become available suggested to Dr. Burby that perhaps Her Majesty’s Council still had an interest in the young gentleman. Sussex was alive with Catholics and would be the likely landing point for Spanish invaders; thus Chris might have other assignments beside his Christian ministry. But outwardly, he seemed content and peaceful. He and Mary were especially passionate young people—to Burby, they were essentially children—but their passion seemed to draw them together now instead of sewing discord. In public they were inseparable and affectionate and they were even more often closeted alone. Mary’s belly was visibly swelling, and Chris seemed more excited about that development than about any affair of court.
Edmund Burby marveled to hear Chris tell of the Jesuit in the chimney and the near execution of Anna Claewart. He admitted that he had harbored some suspicions regarding the sex of his Dutch former student, but such a violent punishment amazed and horrified him.
[[A letter]]
As Christopher Bannock related their adventures, Burby remembered a letter he had once sent to one Toby Greene, a London scribbler of his acquaintance. The two men shared an interest in illustrated romances. Both men were also great lovers of the theatre, and they had begun a play about witches. Mr. Greene had devised the overall structure; Dr. Burby composed passages here and there. Recently, Mr. Greene had requested a scene in which a young woman was unmasked as a diabolical assassin, bent on murdering the Queen. For that purpose, Dr. Burby had written a letter that would be read on stage at a climactic moment. Now, suddenly, he understood how Justice Lucy had used these words at Anna’s real trial.
Well, that is what he told Chris. A different possibility also occurs to us, and you can judge for yourself. Perhaps Edmund Burby genuinely hoped that a peasant revolt would succeed in Oxford, bringing about the fundamental reforms that he had come to favor. When he received promising news from Sir Francis Bacon, he decided that he’d better get out of the Tower of London as quickly as possible to lend the peasants his help. He wrote the letter that sacrificed Anna in return for his own release. But once Chris informed him that the peasants’ rising had fizzled, he helped to orchestrate her rescue. Now he is lying to conceal his own Olympian detachment and callousness.
Those are two paths out of our maze. You will have to let your imagination be your guide. The truth depends on where you stand, and from where we stand, Edmund Burby’s inner thoughts are concealed.
(if: $greenefate is 0)[ [[Toby Greene's fate]] ]
(if: $lucyfate is 0)[ [[Sir Thomas Lucy's fate]] ]
(if: $traffordfate is 0)[ [[Father Trafford's fate]]]
[[Our fate]]
We write from the Silk Road, somewhere between the mountain stations of Tlön and Uqbar, to the north of the Great Shah’s domains. We entrust this long letter to a Venetian who promises to carry it all the way to you in Rome, where he has business. We send affectionate greetings and fond memories of our past acquaintance. Ajita remembers his days locked with you in the Venetian cell, where, to tell the truth, you were prone to make incautious statements about the sacraments, priests, the pope, and Jesus himself. But what a font of stories and jokes you were! And how hungry for new ideas! Ajita thanks you, too, for introducing him via letters to Dr. Edmund Burby, who sent his student to buy Ajita’s freedom on the Rialto and then led him back to Oxfordshire.
For her part, Anna remembers you in Oxford, debating with the silly asses of the faculty. In the face of their grating pedantry, you couldn’t help yourself: you threw out mad, speculative ideas, visions, dreams, and heathen allusions that they missed entirely. You didn’t believe much of what you said; it was just a manifestation of your frustrated genius.
[[Our gift]]
We have collaborated on this volume, as our gift to you. Ajita is mainly responsible for the illustrations and verse passages; Anna, for the prose. But we have worked closely together. Anna has meditated with intense concentration on her own memories, so that our story could be told from her perspective, just as she knew it. Ajita has shared the background that Anna could not know, which forms the ghostly perimeter of her story. Only he, for example, could disclose that he wrote the letters that brought Sir Thomas Lucy and Christopher Bannock together at Hindby Hall. His motive was research: he wanted to understand the minds of these Franks, and that required some experimentation. An alchemist stirs his pot to encourage the elements to mingle; Ajita’s method was similar. A Puritan, a Jesuit, and a malcontent spy seemed interesting elements to stir together.
[[Ajita's apology]]
Of course, Ajita never imagined that the servants of Hindby would bundle //him// in the chimney or that the local authorities would jail him when they found him there. One has to be careful on expeditions; they easily go awry. Ajita admits that he gained more knowledge from his correspondence with Dr. Burby (begun in Venice) than from his interventions in England. Besides, as he began to know the English folk better, he lost his appetite for experimenting with them. He became concerned about their welfare and thus went to quite a bit of dangerous trouble to engineer Anna’s rescue from the stake. He admits some responsibility for Father Trafford’s arrest, but not for Anna’s. (We think it was Mary Bannock who informed the bailiffs that Anna was a maid.)
[[A farewell]]
<script>ga("send", "event", "passage", "loaded", "Success");</script>|plums>[<img src = "http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/plums-e1477872388898.png">](click-prepend: ?plums)[Wang Guxiang, White and Red Plum Blossom, 1546, <img src="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-11-at-2.34.36-PM-e1473618964246.png"> Minneapolis Institute of Art
]
This whole book has been made by the two of us, together. We consider it, esteemed Signor Bruno, as our first child, and you as its godfather. Our second child is kicking its mother even as we write. Whether it proves to be a boy, like Ajita, or a girl, like Anna, its skin will surely be halfway between her pale and his brown. We fear that no place will welcome a child of Christian and atheistical Buddhist parentage whose mother and father are united by knowing too much to believe anything. That is why we move ever eastward, seeking a place of compassion, waiting for our arrow to fall.
//[[finis]]//
(goto-url: "http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/2016/09/19/comments/")
“Burn the witch!” someone shouts from the side. An Anglican minister appears with a bible open in his hand and starts to read a psalm. A raindrop spatters in Anna’s neck, possibly the last rain she will ever feel. If more drops come, the bailiffs may have to apply burning pitch to get the pyre alight.
Anna’s eyes are roving, darting—tempted by the distant corner where she might turn and move again out of sight. That horse is still chomping on his bucket, his tail out of sight around the pub’s wall. But the flame of the taper is playing on the fringes of the kindling, making its needles smoke and shrivel. The fire will not stop just because her attention leaves this place.
|fire>[<img src ="http://peterlevine.ws/anachronist/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/foxe-fire.png">](click-prepend: ?fire)[From Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1563
]
She feels the burning faggots, but she can still bear their heat like the radiance from a huge winter hearth. She squirms, but the ropes are too heavy and tight for her to wriggle free.
By now the smoke is pouring upward in a chimney of fire, its source not six feet from Anna. Her right cheek is smarting from the heat. The back of her neck is drenched in sweat.
She shrieks a plea for help, probably in Dutch.
A patch of Anna’s frock catches fire and burns bright yellow, but the spot of flame fades, leaving only a circle of her flesh burned and smarting.
[[The flames engulf her]]
Indiscribable pain, noise and confusion. Smoke chokes and sears her but will not end her agony until her whole form is burning like a dry autumn branch. Her last breath is a scream.
//[[finis]]//
//Reader, do you trust the author--or authors--of this book to be reliable narrators?//
[[Trust->Result 1]]
[[Don't trust->Result2]]
//Your naïveté is misplaced. Entropy rises.//(set: $entropy to 13)
[[Back to Hindby]]
//Your cynicism is misplaced. Entropy rises.//
(set: $entropy to 13)
[[Back to Hindby]]
//Reader, do you trust the author--or authors--of this book to be reliable narrators?//
[[Trust->Result 3]]
[[Don't trust->Result4]]
//Your trust is wise and it reduces the entropy in the system.//(set: $entropy to 12)
[[Back to Hindby]]
//Your skepticism is wise and it reduces the entropy in the system.//(set: $entropy to 12)
[[Back to Hindby]]
//Reader, do you think Ajita is a trustworthy friend to Anna?//
[[Trustworthy->Outcome 1]]
[[Not trustworthy->Outcome2]]
//Reader, do you think Ajita is a trustworthy friend to Anna?//
[[Trustworthy->Outcome 3]]
[[Not trustworthy->Outcome4]]
//Your naïveté is misplaced. Entropy rises.//(set: $entropy to 13)
[[Anna’s trial->own trial]]
//Your cynicism is misplaced. Entropy rises.//
(set: $entropy to 13)
[[Anna’s trial->own trial]]
//Your trust is wise and it reduces the entropy in the system.//(set: $entropy to 12)
[[Anna’s trial->own trial]]
//Your skepticism is wise and it reduces the entropy in the system.//(set: $entropy to 12)
[[Anna’s trial->own trial]]
Someone cries, “Put fire! Set on fire!” Ann’s eyes scour the crowd for the source of these harsh words. They came from somewhere below her, uttered with great malice and impatience. The city’s elders sit quietly, but there are plenty of drunkards and leering fellows who are eager to see whether the tongues of fire will pierce her body and cause blood to flow from her heart, as they did to old Bishop Latimer at the same spot. Anna also sees dour puritan families, come for the satisfaction of witnessing public justice. Behind these predictable observers, a surprising number of men stand quietly in little knots of two or three: rustic youth, to judge by their homespun clothing and a certain set of their bodies that says they’re uncomfortable in a city street.
[[Challenging Mr. Lucy]]
Anna decides she must put Sir Thomas Lucy at the center of the action. She should speak, accusing him of some villainy that will outrage the Otmoor men or Oxford’s citizens, or both. But she has no proof that he has done anything wrong—not even a well-formed charge that she could throw at him.
There are two horse-loads of chopped wood and piney furze stacked around her, including the bundle she stands on. They make a modest pile. The Corporation felt burdened by the expense of the great bonfire that consumed the Protestant bishops in ’55, so Oxford has opted for a cheaper load. The smaller the fire, the longer the victim will take to die, her clothes and body actually blistering and smoking before she blacks out.
The constable bends over and touches his taper to a faggot that begins to smoke and then sputters, leaving Anna to feel relief that she knows is foolish.
“Burn the witch!” someone shouts from the side. An Anglican minister appears with a bible open in his hand and starts to read a psalm. A raindrop spatters in Anna’s neck, possibly the last rain she will ever feel. If more drops come, the bailiffs may have to apply burning pitch to get the pyre alight.
[[She addresses Thomas Lucy]]
Anna opens her mouth and says, “Justice Lucy …” She is not loud enough to be heard beyond the pyre itself, and no one pays any attention. A chamberlain of the city approaches with a second burning taper, and again someone shouts, “Burn her!” The chamberlain displays the taper over his head, enjoying the attention. There is scattered applause.
“Justice Lucy,” Anna says, a bit louder and in her best English, “Justice Lucy, you are murthering me. You would strike at my master, Dr. Burby.”
Voices from below ask, “What? What did the woman say?”
The chamberlain does not want to seem to pause because the condemned has begun to speak; at the same time, he doesn’t want to disappoint the crowd by killing her before they have heard her final words. He dallies by walking slowly to the other side of the pyre, affecting a formal air. Meanwhile, Anna adds, “You would enclose the Oxford Common, Port Meadow, for your sheep!”
[[A woman intervenes]]
A young woman runs through the crowd, her arms in the air in a wild gesture. “Christopher Bannock, recall thou thy duty!” this woman shouts.
Anna is mystified. Chris here? Who is this who called his name? The young woman has vanished behind other bodies. Anna scans the crowd for her and for Chris.
She hears his voice but cannot turn her head to see him. His words are indistinct. He's talking of risings and Indians and the Privy Council. A babble of other voices interferes with Anna's hearing.
It must have been Mary Bannock who called to Chris, and she is saying, “Thou art a faithful man of good heart. It is thy burthen now to stop this crime!”
[[A cry from the audience]]
Anna searches deeper into the crowd for that tall, red-haired fellow in a velvet jacket and a broad, feathered cap. He is facing away, but she recognizes his build. Those long muscled legs must be Christopher Bannock’s.
Her vision focuses beyond Christopher, beyond the small boys he faces, and onward to the two women who huddle beneath baggy white muffin caps and woolen scarves. Their costumes are contrived to hide as much of their skin as possible, but Anna has noticed that one of them is strikingly dark. Ajita Brihaspathi has also joined this company, and that must be Mary Bannock with him. She has a fashionable body even wrapped in peasant clothes.
[[Anna reasons]]
There is obviously some contrivance underway. This is a ceremony, a tableau, or a masque, and that implies an artist or an author. Who has drawn four or five significant characters together into this particular crowd? Probably it is the same person who informed Justice Lucy by letter that there was a recusant priest at Hindby Hall. (Lucy claimed that the letter was signed by Christopher Bannock, but signatures can be feigned; recipients can be fooled.) Could the same writer have informed the Privy Council that Toby Greene lodged in the Murcott tavern, so that he would find himself in the Castle cell along with Anna and the others? Probably the same person also sent Christopher to Otmoor to investigate a rising, and told him that the man behind all the enclosures was none other than Lucy. Was this the one who spread rumors that Anna was a woman, so that she would be detected and carted away to the Oxford Castle? And who but this person could have signed the letter that caused the Oxfordshire jury to convict Anna?
She has always suspected the machinations of one particular man.
[[Her thoughts on Dr. Burby]]
He took pains to show her Indian illuminated manuscripts, espionage reports, alchemical instruments, and maps of the British midlands. Ignoring her distaste for such secular distractions and trifles, he shared these obsessions with her. He thereby placed all the necessary pieces in her mind, so that after he vanished to the Tower of London, Anna would be able to assemble the whole story from her memories alone.
In the minutes since she was bound to the stake, she has sorted and re-sorted the elements that he gave her. Whenever we speak, we hear ourselves express a whole idea that must have been already present in our minds before the words came. We hem and haw, searching for words to convey what we have instantly thought. Likewise, Anna’s memories have been coiled inside her, and she has explored them and tried to put them into a coherent order during her short time on the pyre. Now she must play an active role—she must be the heroine of the masque—but she cannot understand how the story is intended to end.
[[Intention is the key.]]
Anna cannot say for sure what Dr. Burby wants, but she doubts he has any of the usual reasons: money, lust, revenge, or power. She guesses that something like boredom or curiosity moves him—or perhaps a feeling that his own story is winding down and that he should make something complicated happen, one last time. He may want human wills and perspectives to clash in an interesting way. The suffering of the protagonists would not concern him, even if he were one of those who suffered. He is like a god in Ovid, needing to trifle with mortals to break the Olympian monotony.
Anna ventures a look to her right, where Sir Thomas Lucy still sits composedly, his gold rings and chains glittering against his black furs. Her fiery death will cause him satisfaction. The Justice is her immediate problem; if she could somehow strike at him, she might win her freedom. Ajita would advise her to pity him his trespasses, but she cannot. What motivates him? [[Why is he an enemy to Dr. Burby?]]
Someone cries, “Put fire! Set on fire!” Ann’s eyes scour the crowd for the source of these harsh words. They came from somewhere below her, uttered with great malice and impatience. The city’s elders sit quietly, but there are plenty of drunkards and leering fellows who are eager to see whether the tongues of fire will pierce her body and cause blood to flow from her heart, as they did to old Bishop Latimer at the same spot. Anna also sees dour puritan families, come for the satisfaction of witnessing public justice. Behind these predictable observers, a surprising number of men stand quietly in little knots of two or three: rustic youth, to judge by their homespun clothing and a certain set of their bodies that says they’re uncomfortable in a city street. Otmoor men—could they be?—dispersed after the fight with the parish watch at Steeple Eaton. Possibly it was to observe or to signal these men that Christopher Bannock turned away from the scaffold.
[[The Otmoor men]]
She feels these thoughts rise physically in her torso, and her face flushes. Perhaps she needn’t //do// anything; Christopher has come with his peasant followers to save her. She will soon be behind him on the back of a great black mare, galloping up the Woodstock Road.
But he is maddeningly slow. The constable scratches again, and this time a sharp light flares and the taper catches its flame. The constable rises slowly from his haunches and walks, with the brand before him, like a deacon up the aisle. A prelate is intoning something from the Wycliffe Bible: “therefore every tree that maketh not good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.” Christopher is in motion, but he is not doing anything useful: just shifting from one foot to the other.
Anna never knows what Chris wants or which side he has taken. He happens to be in Oxford on the day of her execution, but has he come to file a report with the Privy Council? To write Dr. Burby about how the story turned out? To turn the peasants against the city fathers in a bloody rising? Or to intervene and save a lady in peril?
[[Anna takes action]]
Anna decides she must put Sir Thomas Lucy at the center of the action. She should speak, accusing him of some villainy that will outrage the Otmoor men or Oxford’s citizens, or both. But she has no proof that he has done anything wrong—not even a well-formed charge that she could throw at him.
There are two horse-loads of chopped wood and piney furze stacked around her, including the bundle she stands on. They make a modest pile. The Corporation felt burdened by the expense of the great bonfire that consumed the Protestant bishops in ’55, so Oxford has opted for a cheaper load. The smaller the fire, the longer the victim will take to die, her clothes and body actually blistering and smoking before she blacks out.
The constable bends over and touches his taper to a faggot that begins to smoke and then sputters, leaving Anna to feel relief that she knows is foolish.
“Burn the witch!” someone shouts from the side. An Anglican minister appears with a bible open in his hand and starts to read a psalm. A raindrop spatters in Anna’s neck, possibly the last rain she will ever feel. If more drops come, the bailiffs may have to apply burning pitch to get the pyre alight.
[[Anna's words]]
Anna opens her mouth and says, “Justice Lucy …” She is not loud enough to be heard beyond the pyre itself, and no one pays any attention. A chamberlain of the city approaches with a second burning taper, and again someone shouts, “Burn her!” The chamberlain displays the taper over his head, enjoying the attention. There is scattered applause.
“Justice Lucy,” Anna says, a bit louder and in her best English, “Justice Lucy, you are murthering me. You would strike at my master, Dr. Burby.”
Voices from below ask, “What? What did the woman say?”
The chamberlain does not want to seem to pause because the condemned has begun to speak; at the same time, he doesn’t want to disappoint the crowd by killing her before they have heard her final words. He dallies by walking slowly to the other side of the pyre, affecting a formal air. Meanwhile, Anna adds, “You would enclose the Oxford Common, Port Meadow, for your sheep!”
[[The Council reacts]]
The gentlemen of the City Council exchange smiling looks that tell Anna they find this charge preposterous. If Justice Lucy really wanted to enclose Port Meadow, these men would approve. Anna had no evidence for her wild charge. She thought she had taken a lesson from Dr. Burby: you don’t have to know that something is true in order to weave it into a story. But her accusation was not plausible enough to help her. The chamberlain kneels and moves his taper toward a bundle of furze. The clergyman is reading in his nasal voice: “Your gold and silver hath rusted, and the rust of them shall be to you into witnessing, and shall eat your fleshes, as fire.”
Anna’s eyes are roving, darting—tempted by the distant corner where she might turn and move again out of sight. That horse is still chomping on his bucket, his tail out of sight around the pub’s wall. But the flame of the taper is playing on the fringes of the kindling, making its needles smoke and shrivel. The fire will not stop just because her attention leaves this place.
[[Anna looks for friends]]
Her vision alights on Ajita. He is too distant for her to make out his expression, but she imagines that his great brown eyes are deeply compassionate, and she feels a jolt of self-pity. He is the only living creature who cares for her; everyone else would deliberately make her suffer and die. His skin is visibly dark even from this distance; perhaps he has exposed his face so she can recognize him. It is final gesture, she thinks, of fellowship.
Could he be of any practical use to her in this extremity?
[[She utters more words]]
The following words rush out of her mouth before she has thought them: “It is not enough to drive the men away,” she cries: “to fill the freemen’s fields with chomping sheep.” She directs her gaze at the burghers seated below. “He would, like the Spaniard, reap vaster profit. He seeks men he need not pay, fight, nor fear. Into England’s unbounded commonwealth, he would import black men in chains to work his fields, where once the stalwart Saxon tilled his row.”
The furze bundle is smoking and popping now, sending up a grey cloud and sparks. The logs will soon take its fire. Below Anna, the burghers are looking quizzically, and she thinks she hears someone say, “Black men, what? Wherefore did the bitch say ‘black’?”
[[She speaks to Mr. Lucy]]
“Sir Thomas Lucy, Justice of the Peace,” she turns her head to address him, “Deny you that a slave, a fugitive” (she adds) “from your henchmen—hides in this very crowd?”
“Silence, ye mad, raving, traitor witch!” Lucy looks angry and officious but not concerned; he thinks her second arrow has missed him, like the first. But a shout goes up in the distance and there is a commotion around Ajita. He is running with several men after him, who shout, “The black fugitive! Here is the black man!”
Most eyes turn away from Anna’s pyre toward the knot of people near Ajita. She feels the burning faggots, but she can still bear their heat like the radiance from a huge winter hearth. She squirms, but the ropes are too heavy and tight for her to wriggle free. Ajita is also a captive, his arms held on either side. He has been turned to face Anna on the prye, his hat, scarf, and shawl ripped away to reveal his short black hair.
[[Mrs Bannock's words]]
Mary Bannock runs through the crowd, her arms in the air in a wild gesture. “Christopher Bannock, recall thou thy duty!” she shouts.
Chris turns at last to reveal his face, and his eyes shift from Mary, to Anna, to Thomas Lucy. Mary is moving in his direction, crying, “It is for thee to stop this double wrong.”
Chris looks up at Anna, puzzled. He must be asking himself the purpose of her last utterance. He cocks his head like a puzzled dog and several seconds pass. Silence falls and all eyes are on him. Chris clears his throat, revolves slowly to make eye-contact with all his listeners, then stands still with feet apart and hands raised, ready to emphasize his points.
[[Mr. Bannock's reply]]
Chris directs his words to the Council. "Gentle sirs," he says, "I prithee spare this wench. Guilty she is, i' faith. But if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; and if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
"And whoso should //you// be?" says Thomas Lucy.
"Mr Christopher Bannock, your honor. In service to her Majesty's Privy Council, and also to your worships."
"Our verdict has been read. Come ye to challenge it? Are those ruffians your retainers?"
[[Mr. Bannock's answer]]
"No, sir. Only to recall to your honors the noble virtue of mercy."
"Tis by our mercy that the wench be consigned today to earthly flames, lest she may be merged for the next life."
[[A cry from the audience]]
//Reader, you have attained considerable knowledge. According to information theory, it might be possible to trade knowledge for greater order. You would forget, and entropy would fall.//
(link: "Make the exchange")[(set:$entropy to it - 1, $knowledge to it -1)]
[[On with the story->The Jesuits]]
Double-click this passage to edit it.
How can you intervene to save Father Trafford? You are severely handicapped by knowing just a few words of English and just a few people in the whole country. Its politics and institutions, although rudimentary and backward, are complicated enough to be opaque to you. Besides, you are chained to the floor of a prison cell.
You contemplate a bribe. Your manuscript would be worth a substantial sum in the London book trade. You could turn it over the jailor in return for the priest’s release, or find a way to sell it and pay in gold. But you have learned that this Father Trafford is a personal enemy of the Queen herself. If the local authorities manage to execute him, they will gain enormous credit and renown. If they let him escape from the keep of Oxford Castle, they will risk utter disgrace and possibly a charge of capital treason. One would need all the treasure of Shah Akbar to buy Father Trafford’s release. To make matters even worse, it appears that Justice Lucy is a sincere bigot who genuinely hates the priest’s religious views and believes that his Creator God is watching and waiting for the execution. This may be a ludicrous myth, but it is no less influential for being false.
You contemplate an escape. The image comes to mind of several cloaked figures lowering themselves out of the Castle window by night, leaving their chains and picked padlocks behind them. But you have none of the skills you would need for such an adventure. And once again, a religious factor makes what would otherwise be highly improbable seem utterly impossible. Even if you could find a way out of the cell, the priest might not choose to follow you. Father Trafford wouldn’t miss an opportunity to be martyred.
Whom do you know in England?
[[The girl Mary who led you to Hindby.]]
[[Dr. Burby, with whom you began a correspondence when you were in Venice]]
[[The Dutch woman with whom you are imprisoned.]]
[[Sir Thomas Lucy]]