1356

‘I shall go to the hills,’ Fra Ferdinand reassured her, ‘close to the angels,’ and next morning he walked southwards and only when he was well out of sight of the village and sure that no one watched him did he turn north. He had a long journey to make and a treasure to protect.

He would return la Malice to her rightful owner. He would go to Poitou.

A small man, dark-faced and scowling, with a paint-spattered shock of black hair, was perched on a high trestle and using a brush to touch brown pigment onto an arched ceiling. He said something in a language Thomas did not understand.

‘You speak French?’ Thomas asked.

‘We all have to speak French here,’ the painter said, changing to that language, which he spoke with an execrable accent, ‘of course we damned well speak French. Have you come to give me advice?’

‘On what?’

‘On the fresco, of course, you damned fool. You don’t like the colour of the clouds? The Virgin’s thighs are too big? The angels’ heads are too small? That’s what they told me yesterday,’ he pointed his paintbrush across the ceiling to where flying angels played trumpets in the Virgin’s honour, ‘their heads are too small, they said, but where were they looking from? From up one of my ladders! From the floor they look perfect. Of course they’re perfect. I painted them. I painted the Virgin’s toes too,’ he dabbed the brush angrily at the ceiling, ‘and the goddamned Dominicans told me that was heresy. Heresy! To show the Virgin’s toes? Sweet holy Christ, I painted her with naked tits in Siena, but no one threatened to burn me there.’ He dabbed with the brush, then leaned back. ‘I’m sorry, ma chérie,’ he spoke to the image of Mary that he was painting onto the ceiling, ‘you’re not allowed to have tits and now you’ve lost your toes, but they’ll come back.’

‘They will?’ Thomas asked.

‘The plaster’s dry,’ the painter snarled as though the answer was obvious, ‘and if you paint over a fresco when it’s dry then that paint will peel off like a whore’s scabs. It will take a few years, but her heretical toes will reappear, but the Dominicans don’t know that because they are damned fools.’ He switched into his native Italian and screamed insults at his two assistants, who were using a giant pestle to mix fresh plaster in a barrel. ‘They are also fools,’ he added to Thomas.

‘You have to paint on wet plaster?’ Thomas asked.

‘You came here to have a lesson in how to paint? You damned well pay me. Who are you?’

‘My name is d’Evecque,’ Thomas said. He had no wish to be known by his real name in Avignon. He had enemies enough in the church, and Avignon was the home of the Pope, which meant the town was packed with priests, monks and friars. He had come here because the disagreeable woman in Mouthoumet had assured him that the mysterious Father Calade had come to Avignon, but Thomas now had a sinking feeling that his time was being wasted. He had enquired of a dozen priests if they knew of a Father Calade, and none had recognised the name, but equally no one had recognised Thomas either or knew he had been excommunicated. He was a heretic now, outside the church’s grace, a man to be hunted and burned, yet he could not resist visiting the great fortress-palace of the Papacy. There was a Pope in Rome too, because of the schism in the church, but Avignon held the power, and Thomas was astonished by the riches displayed in the vast building.

‘From your voice,’ the painter said, ‘I’d guess you’re a Norman? Or perhaps an Englishman, eh?’

‘A Norman,’ Thomas said.

‘So what is a Norman doing so far from home?’

‘I wish to see the Holy Father.’

‘Of course you damned well do. But what are you doing here? In the Salle des Herses?’

The Salle des Herses was a room that opened from the great audience chamber of the Papal palace, and it had once contained the mechanism that lowered the portcullis in the palace gate, though that winch and pulley system had long been taken out so that, evidently, the room could become another chapel. Thomas hesitated before answering, then told the truth. ‘I wanted somewhere to piss.’

‘That corner,’ the painter gestured with his brush, ‘in that hole beneath the picture of Saint Joseph. It’s where the rats get in, so do me a favour and drown some of the bastards. So what do you want of the Holy Father? Sins remitted? A free pass to heaven? One of the choirboys?’

‘Just a blessing,’ Thomas said.

‘You ask for so little, Norman. Ask for much, then you might get a little. Or you might get nothing. This Holy Father is not susceptible to bribes.’ The painter scrambled down from the scaffold, grimaced at his new work, then went to a table covered with small pots of precious pigments. ‘It’s a good thing you’re not English! The Holy Father doesn’t like the English.’

Thomas buttoned up his breeches. ‘He doesn’t?’

‘He does not,’ the painter said, ‘and how do I know? Because I know everything. I paint and they ignore me because they can’t see me! I am Giacomo on the scaffold and they are talking beneath me. Not in here,’ he spat, as if the chamber he decorated was not worth the effort, ‘but I am also painting over the angels’ naked tits in the Conclave Chamber, and that’s where they talk. Chatter, chatter, chatter! They’re like birds, their heads together, twittering, and Giacomo is busy hiding tits on the scaffold above and so they forget I am up there.’

‘So what does the Holy Father say about the English?’

‘You want my knowledge? You pay.’

‘You want me to throw paint on your ceiling?’

Giacomo laughed. ‘I hear, Norman, that the Holy Father wants the French to defeat the English. There are three French cardinals here now, all yammering in his ear, but he doesn’t need their encouragement. He’s told Burgundy to fight alongside France. He has sent messages to Toulouse, to Provence, to the Dauphiné, even to Gascony, telling men it is their duty to resist England. The Holy Father is a Frenchman, remember. He wants France strong again, strong enough to pay the church its proper taxes. The English are not popular here,’ he paused to give Thomas a sly look, ‘so it is good you’re not an Englishman, eh?’

‘It is good,’ Thomas said.

‘The Holy Father might curse an Englishman,’ Giacomo chuckled. He climbed the scaffolding again, talking as he went. ‘The Scots have sent men to fight for France and the Holy Father is pleased! He says the Scots are faithful sons of the church, but he wants the English,’ he paused to make a brush-stroke, ‘punished. So you came all this way just for a blessing?’

Thomas had walked to the chamber’s end where an old painting faded on the wall. ‘For a blessing,’ he said, ‘and to look for a man.’

‘Ah! Who?’

‘Father Calade?’

‘Calade!’ Giacomo shook his head. ‘I know of a Father Callait, but not Calade.’

‘You’re from Italy?’ Thomas asked.

‘By the Grace of God I come from Corbola, which is a Venetian city,’ Giacomo said, then nimbly descended the scaffolding and went to the table where he wiped his hands on a rag. ‘Of course I come from Italy! If you want something painted, you ask an Italian. If you want something daubed, smeared or splattered, you ask a Frenchman. Or you ask those two fools,’ he gestured at his assistants, ‘idiots! Keep stirring the plaster! They might be Italians, but they have the brains of Frenchmen. Nothing but spinach between their ears!’ He picked up a leather quirt as if to strike one of his assistants, then abruptly fell to one knee. The two assistants also knelt, and then Thomas saw who had entered the room and he also snatched off his hat and knelt.

The Holy Father had come into the chamber, accompanied by four cardinals and a dozen other priests. Pope Innocent smiled absently at the painter, then stared up at the newly painted frescoes.

Thomas raised his head to look at the Pope. Innocent VI, Pope now for three years, was an old man with wispy hair, a drawn face, and hands that shook. He wore a red cloak, edged with white fur, and he was slightly bent as if his spine was crippled. He dragged his left foot as he walked, but his voice was strong enough. ‘You’re doing good work, my son,’ he said to the Italian, ‘most excellent work! Why, those clouds look more real than real clouds!’

‘All for the glory of God,’ Giacomo muttered, ‘and your own renown, Holy Father.’

‘And for your own glory, my son,’ the Pope said, and sketched a vague blessing towards the two assistants. ‘And are you a painter too, my son?’ he asked Thomas.

‘I am a soldier, Holy Father,’ Thomas said.

‘From where?’

‘From Normandy, Holy Father.’

‘Ah!’ Innocent seemed delighted. ‘You have a name, my son?’

‘Guillaume d’Evecque, Holy Father.’

One of the cardinals, his red robe belted tightly about a glutton’s belly, turned fast from examining the ceiling and looked as if he was about to protest. Then he shut his mouth, but went on glaring at Thomas. ‘And tell me, my son,’ Innocent was oblivious of the cardinal’s reaction, ‘whether you have sworn fealty to the English?’

‘No, Holy Father.’

‘So many Normans have! But I don’t need to tell you that. I weep for France! Too many have died and it is time there was peace in Christendom. My blessing, Guillaume.’ He held out his hand and Thomas stood, walked to him, knelt again and kissed the fisherman’s ring that the Pope wore above his embroidered glove. ‘You have my blessing,’ Innocent said, laying a hand on Thomas’s bare head, ‘and my prayers.’

‘As I shall pray for you, Holy Father,’ Thomas said, wondering if he was the first excommunicate ever to be blessed by a pope. ‘I shall pray for your long life,’ he added the polite phrase.

The hand on his head quivered. ‘I am an old man, my son,’ the Pope said, ‘and my physician tells me I have many years left! But physicians lie, don’t they?’ He chuckled. ‘Father Marchant says his calade would tell me I have a long life yet, but I would rather trust my lying physicians.’

Thomas held his breath, conscious suddenly of his heartbeat. There seemed a chill in the room, then a quiver of the Pope’s hand made Thomas breathe again. ‘Calade, Holy Father?’ he asked.