The Dream of Scipio (17 page)

“So that’s me unmasked,” he said. “But at least you like it. Eh? Don’t you?”

“I think it’s the best thing I have ever seen,” she said.

He bowed. “And that’s the best compliment I have ever received. Are you going to complete my happiness and buy it?”

Julia gasped. “I couldn’t possibly. Why, it must cost at least a hundred francs!”

“A hundred francs! Oh, dear me! It is worth millions of francs, my child. But my—dealer—here tells me that in fact a picture is worth only what someone will give for it. How much money do you have?”

Julia took out her purse and counted. “Four francs and twenty sous,” she said, looking up at him sadly.

“Is that all the money you have in the world?”

She nodded.

“Then four francs and twenty sous it is.” He took it off the wall. “And in return I can say I have a patron who bankrupted herself, gave me every penny she possessed, just to have one of my works. Besides, it’s more than this greedy little pig will ever get for it.”

He handed it to her, taking the four francs and twenty sous, counting them carefully before pouring them into his pocket. “You see?” he said over his shoulder. “You see how charming I can be with a real client? A worthy client, rather than one of these self-assured morons with too much money who lecture me about what is wrong with my paintings. Now, my child, you must have a proper receipt. What’s your name?”

“Julia. Julia Bronsen.”

He paused, and looked at her. “A Jew, are you?”

Julia thought carefully. “No,” she said, looking at him carefully. “My father says I am not.”

“A pity,” he said. “Perhaps you should pay less attention to your father. Never mind.” And he scribbled on a piece of paper, which he handed to her with a flourish.

Julia looked at it. “Received, from Mademoiselle J. Bronsen for a portrait of Madeleine, four francs and twenty sous. Picasso.” He signed it with a prideful gesture, which Julia tried to emulate on her own works for months afterward.

 
 
 
IN 1938, Julien read an article published in an English journal of that year on the Italian banking house of the Frescobaldi, who dominated European finance in the fourteenth century. It was not his usual sort of reading, far from it, but a colleague remembered his quirky interest in Provençal poetry and passed it on to him: the story of Olivier de Noyen’s end was well enough known, but the reference to the Comte de Fréjus, Isabelle’s husband, caught his eye. The article was concerned with laying out something of the network of the bankers’ interests, trying to show how international and sophisticated its operations were before it was brought to ruin by impolitic lending to the English king to finance his wars: The king defaulted, and the Frescobaldi, together with most of the international banking system, went down as well, adding extra misery to people already battered by the Black Death.

As part of the argument, the author was at pains to show how important the Frescobaldi were for the smooth running of the church across Europe and, in one example, cited the business they did with Cardinal Ceccani. This included a loan given to the Comte de Fréjus on his behalf, to finance the purchase of land in Aquitaine.

The implications were fascinating and not only because Aquitaine was then owned by the English, against whom de Fréjus had fought only three years previously. More, it demonstrated that de Fréjus, like Olivier, was within the network of patronage controlled by Ceccani; by attacking Olivier the count had attacked one of his own. Initially this confirmed Julien’s suspicion that Olivier must indeed have murdered Isabelle de Fréjus as legend said, for only such a dreadful deed could possibly have prompted such internecine violence. Only later did he reconsider this comfortable conclusion.

The first stage in the events that were ultimately recorded in the article was in fact perfectly simple; the comte came to Ceccani’s great palace for a loan. And in his brusque way, he indulged in no elaborate phrases.

“I have to pay two thousand crowns to the king of England to complete the payment of my ransom and gain the release of my cousins,” he said. “We were all taken captive at Crécy, and the king of France refuses to help us. So we must fend for ourselves. And I do not have the money.”

There was a defiance in his voice that suggested that he anticipated a rejection, that he was used to such rebuffs already. He was a big man, trained to the horse and the sword, used to commanding. He was not one who had ever had to plead. He had no objection to priests, but had never been in their power before. The fact that circumstance had given someone like Ceccani a dominance over him incited him to defiance and petulance. He had in fact been in captivity in the English castle in Aquitaine only a few months, scarcely enough for his pretty young wife to realize how pleasant his absence was. But the cost of his release had been high, and he had promised those relations captured with him that he would not rest until they, too, were set free. He was a man of his word, too straightforward and too uneducated to be anything but honorable. This was why he so bitterly resented the fact that those for whom he had fought had not stepped forward to help him in the same way that he had so dutifully gone to fight for them. In this lay Ceccani’s opportunity.

The cardinal’s eyes narrowed. He had taken the precaution of discovering much about the comte’s finances before the interview took place and knew quite well that he was desperate. Five banking houses had already turned him down, and if he did not find the money within a month, he would have to return to Aquitaine. Those were the rules; no one broke them readily.

“That is about five years’ income for you,” he said. “I would guess. I would not, could not, charge any interest, of course. But a donation to the bishopric’s finances equivalent to, say, one-twelfth of the total each year would be in itself more than you could easily support. How would you ever pay down the principal?”

“You talk like a banker, not a man of God.”

“I talk, I hope, like a man who takes due care of the funds entrusted to me,” Ceccani said severely. “You are not asking to borrow my money, but the church’s. I am charged with its good governance. I have many requests, most of them worthy, still more of them desperate. It is my regrettable task to have to choose. And, sir, I must say you do not seem like the best or most secure way of laying out money.”

The comte was not a man to beg; his dignity was too great to allow such a thing. But the way his jaw tightened; the look of despair that passed over his flaccid, somewhat stupid face; the set of his shoulders; all these confirmed what Ceccani already knew: This was a man waiting to fall into his hands.

“Surely,” the cardinal said, delicately putting his touch onto the most painful of wounds, “you must understand that the king of France has many difficulties at the moment. You cannot expect him to trouble himself over such matters.”

“I can, and I do. I fulfilled my obligations to him, even though I had my own troubles. I left my new wife, raised a mortgage on my land to pay for my soldiers, marched the moment I was summoned. I served him faithfully.”

“Then if he does not reciprocate, your duty to him is the less, is it not? He is defeated in battle, yet will not repay the help you offered him at that time.”

“He is still my lord.”

“But so are the counts of Provence. Perhaps the Lady Joanna might be prevailed upon?”

“I think not. I have in the past rendered her homage, but not service. She owes me nothing, and has troubles of her own at the moment, I believe.”

The cardinal sighed. “Of course, we all have troubles. And any man who might help with those would earn the blessing and indulgence of many. If, for example, you chose to ally yourself to the countess, and found some means by which you could dissociate yourself from the king of France, then you might find yourself amply rewarded and compensated for any loss.”

“I would forfeit all my lands in France.”

“Which produce about seven hundred livres a year, as I understand. That could be rectified.”

“And my ransom, and my cousins’ ransom?”

“Those would both be forgiven you. Indeed, you might well find yourself compensated by double their value.”

“And what service, exactly, would be required of me?”

The cardinal smiled. “Nothing.”

The count smiled back for the first time. “No countess or cardinal is ever so generous for nothing.”

“A word then. I believe you have in your service a man who is currently seneschal of Aigues-Mortes?”

“That is true.”

“Bring him to Avignon. And make sure he does as he is told. His obedience will pay your ransom.”

 
 
BISHOP FAUSTUS of Riez himself conducted the baptism of Manlius, performed the ordination two days later, and also took charge of the meeting of the faithful that was to elect the new Bishop of Vaison. His advocacy was an important factor, for his holiness was already well known, and it was assumed that in the fullness of time, miracles would affirm his presence among the saints. Already stories attested to the cures that resulted wherever he went, and he was a man whose desires were not easily denied. He made a forceful case; humbly refusing to give his opinion as members of the congregation bandied name after unsuitable name, intervening solely to make sure that no decision was taken, and the meeting eventually became bogged down with too many names of the mediocre and unfit. Then a leading member of the congregation walked up to him and went down on his knees.

“Gracious sir,” this man cried, “God is not with us. We see it all around us, and we see it here today. We are without guidance, and we need a shepherd to show us the way. Help us, sir. Tell us your opinion. Help us make a choice.”

Still Faustus dissented. “I would not presume to interfere,” he said. “I have no right to do so. The choice of bishop is your own, and must be taken by you. But I must disagree when you say God is not with you; you must learn to see. For His ways are often hidden from man’s sight, and are not easily discerned. Rather than interfere, then, I wish only to give you succor by showing how what I say is true. For I have recently witnessed a miracle, a great sign of the Lord’s care for all his sheep.”

The crowd rumbled with excitement at this, as all were in awe of miracles.

“There is a man among you known as a great sinner, careless of God. Throughout his life he had given himself up to the things of this world only, and turned his face from the faithful. And yet the Lord cared for him and gathered him in. He had a dream in which he saw a man weeping, and asked, ‘Why do you cry so? What can I do to stop your sadness?’ And the other said,

“ ‘Save your soul, for I weep for you.’

“And he looked up, and this sinner saw the marks of the crown of thorns on his head, and saw the wounds in his hands, and, in his dream, fell down before him and said, ‘Lord, I believe.’

“The next day this man came to me on hands and knees, begging to be baptized, and so I did. And here he sits with us now. His name is Manlius, servant of God.”

The tale caused all except Manlius to rise from their seats and rejoice, and when they quieted once more, one man stood up and said, “Sir, surely this is a sign that the Lord has work for this man, that He should appear to him now? What is your opinion?”

“I do not know,” said the bishop. “I simply rejoice at a sinner saved, a man of such skill and birth and wealth and learning now adds faith to all his other qualities. It may be indeed that the Lord needs him, or that He sees our needs more clearly than we do ourselves.”

“He must be our leader,” shouted another man. “This must be the meaning of this vision. Manlius must be our bishop.”

Even then, after such careful preparation and such an allegorical interpretation of Manlius’s embracing of the faith, there were doubts among many in the meeting, whose prevarications had been stoked well in advance by Felix’s family, and particularly Caius Valerius, who saw what he considered his bishopric being stolen from under his very nose. There was no split in the meeting, but even Faustus’s great authority had to be deployed in full to achieve the result he desired. And he, afterward, had a sense of foreboding. He knew, of course, that raising Manlius would not be easy; he had not realized that the Adenii clan would object so much. He was a bishop. But a politician enough to realize that if Manlius was to be effective, he would have to deal with what threatened to be a constant thorn in his side.

He could have retreated, of course. Announced that the will of God was not with the meeting, called an end to it all in order to reconsider. But this man of great qualities and high ability had one fault: His belief in his judgment, and belief that his judgment and the will of God were one and the same, was all but complete. For his recommendation to be rejected was the same as the entire congregation throwing off the word of the Lord; it could not be allowed. He pressed, and insisted, used all his skills, and finally prevailed. Manlius, weeping with dismay, was dragged from his chair and brought to the front of the meeting.

All his plaintive cries about his unworthiness were brushed aside in the enthusiasm for what was now accepted as God’s will. He cried with humility, threw himself at Faustus’s feet, and begged to be relieved of this terrible burden for which he was entirely unfitted, and by his behavior began to confirm his suitability for the position.

At the end, only Manlius himself was unhappy, disgusted by his own actions and even more contemptuous of the vessel he had chosen to save everything he held dear. It was necessary; that he saw all too well. But the utter vulgarity of it, the stink of the congregation in their enthusiasm, the incoherent babble of their voices, the way they had been so easily led, left him in a misery so profound it endured for days afterward.

ON THE OCCASION of his thirty-first birthday, Julien gave a dinner party at a small restaurant near Les Halles, for he was leaving the life of the Lycée and had won a position teaching at the University of Montpellier. It would be a new life, far from Paris, and deserved to be marked with some style. As he did not care for large gatherings, he invited three friends only: Bernard Marchand, Marcel Laplace, and Julia Bronsen. The friendship between the three men was a strange one, for neither of his two friends liked the other, and endured each other’s company only for his sake. Both knew the moment they saw Julia that she was different to Julien’s usual women friends, with the result that the evening, inevitably, turned into a hunt to discover why.