‘We haven’t been in Rome two days,’ Maximin shouted, ‘and already you’re out all night – drinking, whoring and gambling, I’ve no doubt.’
He was angry. No, he was furious. I hadn’t seen him so lose control before. His face was red. His hands shook. He walked restlessly up and down in my public room. Martin sat quietly, looking at the wall. He looked embarrassed – yet also still frightened.
‘I haven’t made a big point of this – though it’s in my full report – but you came here to seek penance for your existing sins, not to commit fresh ones.’ He went to a detailed recitation of what I’d been up to in Canterbury. Martin heard it all.
I tried to explain that I’d been in perfectly safe company. But I couldn’t think of anything convincing to say that wasn’t other than an admission of what he’d accused me of doing, or a confession of truth that might kill him from shock.
He calmed down a little. ‘Listen, my son, you may think I want you to live like a monk. I don’t. But I must warn you – Rome is a dangerous city. You know we’re being followed everywhere. You know our rooms have been searched. Don’t you ask yourself why?’ He didn’t pause for an answer, but continued, ‘There are things here that you can’t begin to understand – wickedness upon wickedness upon wickedness. It is the home of our Holy Mother Church. Before then, it was the home of all vileness and sin, and this is with it still. Rome is evil. Rome is dangerous. I want us out of here in the time given by the prefect. Between now and then, I don’t want you to go out alone.’
I tried to tell him about my walk though the city with Lucius, and how safe we’d been. Maximin wasn’t interested.
‘The dangers of which I speak are not to be repelled by a few armed slaves. There are evils outside this house that will swallow you whole. I don’t want you ever to go out alone at night again. You go with me. You go with Martin. Or you stay in this house.’
The lecture was over. Maximin went back to his big speech. I slunk off to bed, wondering what he could have meant by his ‘full report’ – hadn’t he given that the day before? How many of these meetings were there to be?
Martin had disappeared. Slaves can always make themselves scarce when they need to. Gretel was nowhere to be seen. In any event, I was shattered. I’d felt quite full of myself as I threw stones over the outer gate of the house to get the attention of Marcella’s watchman. I’d felt good groping my way upstairs. Then I’d tripped over Maximin’s boots, put out for cleaning, and his door had flown open. Now, all I wanted was to get some sleep. I pulled up the bedclothes, barely noticing how some smell of Gretel still clung to them.
When I woke, the sun was pouring into the room. No one had disturbed me, and I’d lost much of the morning. Previous lack of sleep and a bellyful of wine had given me a ferocious headache. I looked out into the corridor and stopped a slave. Soon, a couple of them were carrying water up for a bath.
I eased myself into the cold water. It did seem colder than at Richborough. But cleanliness has a price that must usually be paid. After a while, I got used to the chill, and sat there scrubbing myself. And I began to feel more human. I started to think of Edwina – not the Edwina of untutored passion, but an Edwina who knew all the wicked things Gretel had introduced me to the night before last. That really perked me up.
Better still, as I was drying myself, there was a knock at the door. The tailors had finished some of the clothes I had ordered. Some things still needed a few touches to be perfect. But the suit of blue I’d ordered fitted exactly. It was in the mixed Roman and barbarian style then the fashion in Italy – both trousers and tunic. I’d specified it should follow the shape of my body without being tight.
The tailors had done an excellent job. I looked down at my reflection in the bath water and loved what I saw.
I went downstairs and showed myself to Marcella and the slaves. They agreed. I saw Gretel’s mouth fall open with wonder and with lust. That night, I’d not disappoint either of us, I told myself. Marcella was so pleased she had me go out into the street to show off to the neighbours and passers-by what manner of guests she was able to attract. Sure enough, every head turned as I walked up and down in the hot Roman sun. This was our first hot day in Italy. Until then, the days had been like the best days of a Kentish summer. Now the sun burned with a wondrously pleasing heat.
I thought I could order a little cap to go with the suit: it would really set off those golden curls. Or would it? I was considering whether to imitate Lucius and have it all cut short but for a fringe. It was a very neat style. And it was the fashion. On the other hand, those curls were part of my charm. I pondered the question as others in the street nodded and smiled at me.
As we prepared for an early lunch, Maximin seemed a little recovered from the morning. He glanced at the fine clothing and grunted, making no comment otherwise. He was at his writing table, looking up a reference in one of Marcella’s books. He closed this, marking his place with a piece of scrap. He looked at me and sighed.
‘It is your intention, I take it, to visit one of the libraries today?’
‘Oh yes,’ said I brightly, still thinking about caps. ‘I asked Martin yesterday to find some copying secretaries. We’ll soon be turning out as many books for Canterbury as we can ship there.’
As we were about to go downstairs, a messenger was shown in. He was the monkish clerk we’d seen yesterday. The dispensator was calling Maximin to an unscheduled meeting in his office.
‘At your earliest convenience,’ the clerk emphasised.
Maximin looked unusually troubled as we ate lunch. Silent, he ate little, instead drinking much.
‘Shall we go together down to the Lateran?’ I asked.
Maximin gave me a bleary look. ‘I don’t think you have time for waiting around any longer,’ he said with a glance at my white boots. ‘You’d better get moving. I’ll follow you down to the Lateran when I’ve sorted some papers.’
Down at the Lateran, Martin had indeed found and assembled the copying secretaries. There were twenty of them. There was little demand for their services in Rome, and so we had got the hire of them all for much less than the bill that would follow from the tailor.
I think they had been there much of the day when I finally arrived. All solid, respectable slaves in early middle age, they had the inky hands and crabbed posture of their occupation. All rose to greet me as I was shown into the room. Good slaves never show impatience or disappointment. I might have kept them waiting all day and all night before seeing them: still they’d have stood before me with the same polite looks.
I motioned them to sit, and began the little speech I’d prepared. Turning the phrases over in my head, it had seemed an easy matter to give the thing. I’d imagined how the sound of my balanced, melodious Latin would fill the room, and leave my audience crying out for more. But this was my first ever speech, and, even if it was to slaves, I found my mouth was dry. Worse, I began to shake.
The slaves continued to stand, their looks still mechanically polite. I opened my mouth again, now desperate for the constriction in my throat to clear and for some sound to issue.
‘You may find this useful,’ Martin whispered, passing a cup of wine.
I drained the cup. I pulled myself together. I opened my mouth and spoke. ‘We have been brought together during the next month for a work of the highest importance,’ I said. ‘As you know, Holy Mother Church expects much of its mission to the English. Churches are rising all over the land. Schools are opening. Soon, there will be English priests to send on missions deeper into the island. All of England is to be reclaimed from the darkness of heathen superstition.
‘I have come here to gather and to return with books for the libraries of England. The youth of England are hungry for knowledge of every kind. The books already there are insufficient to satisfy this hunger. If I can send back two hundred books on this first visit, I shall be content.
‘I will select the books. Under the direction of Martin, you will copy all that I give you. I want the best copies you can produce. I will provide you with the finest parchment and the best inks. I will feed you all that you can eat and drink. I will have what you produce bound in rich and heavy leather that will protect your work for ages to come, and will let it be used for making further copies. In return, I want copies that the finest Church dignitary here in Rome would not be ashamed to have on his shelves.
‘Above all, I want accurate copies. Don’t think I’m some pretentious barbarian who can’t tell when words are dropped from a passage, or the metre of verse or the prose rhythm is garbled. I shall notice these things. If I think you have been negligent, I shall give you to Martin, who will whip you, and I will have you make the copies again in time that would otherwise have been yours for relaxation. If, on the other hand, you do well, I will reward you so that you look forward to my next visit… Do I make myself clear?’
From the expectant muttering among the secretaries, I had. Perhaps I could have done it better. At least I hadn’t disgraced myself on the first day.
I suddenly noticed I’d given the whole speech with that wine cup in my hand. And, without noticing, I’d somehow managed to crush it. I passed it to Martin with an attempt at nonchalance that was spoiled when he dropped it on the floor. Everyone looked at it.
‘I’m so sorry, sir-’ he began.
I cut him off with what I wanted to be a friendly jest, but that turned out when I said it to sound rather spiteful.
I gave up on the effort to look good and motioned everyone toward the books.
Martin first, I second, and the secretaries hurrying behind, we passed through a maze of corridors and public rooms. We moved deep into the interior of the palace. At last, we entered a high, bright room, its windows facing into a large courtyard. This was the first room in the Papal Library.
We were greeted by a birdlike little priest who was the head librarian. He closely inspected the permit Martin had drawn for us.
‘All is in order,’ he said. ‘I have arranged for the scriptorium to be cleared out. I think the writing frames are still in good order, but I’m glad you have brought your own instruments otherwise.’
He took us into another, smaller room. This was still easily big enough for the secretaries, and was cleverly sited, so that the best light, but the minimum of direct sun, fell in through the long windows. The secretaries seemed pleased, and began setting up their instruments.
I went with Martin though the library. It went on for room after room. I had never seen so many books. There must have been tens of thousands of them. In most cases, the titles were embossed on the leather spines. Sometimes, the titles were written on gummed sheets of papyrus. The head librarian did mention a catalogue. But I was as yet unfamiliar with the apparatus of a great research library. So far, I’d never been among more books than could be comprehended by a few moments of walking up and down the shelves.
I wandered about, getting my bearings, seeing what was where. Sadly, nearly all the books were religious. When I had finished exploring, I began pointing at volume after volume to some ordinary slaves Martin had also rounded up. All the books were dirty through years of neglect. I had no intention of touching any until they had at least been dusted. And the slaves had to heave and strain to pull down the largest, heaviest volumes. I stepped back to avoid the clouds of dust they raised. I soon had over a hundred volumes of all sizes dusted and piled on the floor beside my reading table.
This done, the rest was very fast. I skimmed every volume, rejecting all that were badly written or particularly absurd. I had to be tolerant in this second matter. I have never failed to be astonished at the nonsense men can write when they believe God is dictating to them. I rejected a lot, but allowed much through that I’d never, given free choice, put into the hands of the impressionable.
The twin filters of grammar and common sense soon left me with about fifty volumes. These I had carried into the scriptorium, where the secretaries now set to work.
I stayed awhile to watch them, learning much I had never considered. Perhaps you never have either. I’m writing at present on single sheets of papyrus. I fill the whole of one side, and then add the sheet to a growing pile in a wooden box. Copying books is a very different matter. Martin had bought in great stacks of parchment, each sheet of which was around two foot by three. The sheet would ultimately be folded in two across the long side, and then folded again across the new long side. This produces a section of eight sheets. These pages must be written in the right order if they are to make sense when bound. On the first side, on the bottom, there is page eight and then one. Then the sheet must be turned upside down, so that pages four and five can be written at the new bottom. Next the sheet is turned over: pages six and three fall on the obverse of pages five and four, and pages two and seven on the obverse of pages one and eight.
Then there is the matter of the grain. Skin is made of tiny fibres. When it is scraped and dried into parchment, pages must be so written that, when folded into a section, the folds go with, rather than against, the grain. And there is the matter of colour. Parchment is darker on the skin side, and the pages must be arranged so that the two facing pages in a book have the same colour. You can see what care must be taken by a copying secretary. Martin had got parchment mostly of the right size, the grain running down the long side. But mistakes are easily made. On two occasions that afternoon, sheets had to be scrapped. Since we were putting the secretaries under great pressure of time, it would have been unreasonable to punish them for these slips.
‘We can get most of the ink sponged off these,’ Martin said, regarding the wasted sheets. ‘They can be reused when dry.’
Even so, my ambitions had grown beyond what I’d discussed with him the previous evening. These were only the first books I had in mind for copying at the Lateran. We hadn’t even looked at what Anicius might have. Two hundred volumes might be sent to Canterbury. Many more would follow.
You may have noticed in my speech that I said ‘send’ back to England, not ‘take’. I had no intention of going back there myself. Partly it was Ethelbert. Partly, though, it was Rome. Yes, the place might be a stinking slum. But it was the best I’d seen. And, all considered, it was turning out quite a jolly place to be. It might turn better still with Maximin out of the way for part of the year. If he wanted to see France again, he could ride through in the good months, on a good horse, at the head of a caravan, and with an armed guard. Or perhaps the sea journey might be faster and safer. I made a note to check in some of the wine shops down by the river port.
Martin had to go out for a while to order more parchment. ‘I don’t know how much there is in town,’ he said. ‘At your likely rate of consumption, we may need to use the dispensator’s name to pre-empt every sheet. I’m sure you don’t want prices to go through the roof.’
Going back to those books, once written on, each sheet is folded the required number of times, stitched with the other sections, and glued onto a spine. When dry, the pages are cropped so that all the folds except those at the spine are removed. Then it all goes off for binding in wood or leather. The quality of the finished product depends on the skill and care of all those involved in its making. I’m sure you’ve seen tatty little things that fall apart almost as you read them – faded ink on the pages, gross errors in the text, and so on. What I had in mind for England was something that would last forever and delight all future generations. And I wanted it fast.
Watching the secretaries at work, leafing backwards and forwards for the correct order of pages to copy, was decidedly more interesting than reading all that prosy trash – even if it was to be in pretty editions – I was about to inflict on the English mind.
The room was filled with the gentle murmur of reading. I’d noticed that, like me, Martin read quietly. Everyone else in Rome read aloud, like boys at school.
I had expected Maximin to come and join us when finished with the dispensator. But it seemed his meeting was running longer than expected – or he was still out of sorts with me.