PH
Diary entry, Queen Chipsa of the New Kingdom
This is a document fragment that I found in Brother Bede’s archives. This translation I will keep in my diary and not send to the Bearsgard Academy. This fragment contains sensitive material. I do not want the scholars at the Academy to get bogged down in the politics and religion of the Other World. There is no need for that. The individuals who have access to my diary will understand the meaning of this fragment and the need to keep it under wraps. Brother Bede is recording recollections from his novitiate, when he was still called Huw Fitzroy. He did not take the name Brother Bede until he took his full vows.
When I became a novice at age eighteen, after four years as a postulant, my Abbot sent me on a trip to Rome with some documents. I was selected for this task because of my language skills and book-learning. Also, I was young and vigorous enough to withstand a long journey on short rations.
This journey was only three years after the uprising of Wat Tyler and John Ball, so I avoided Kent and London and found a boat departing from the south coast.
Upon arriving in Rome, I delivered the documents to the Father Superior of a Benedictine monastery on the outskirts of the city and was told to wait one week for a reply for my Abbot. I was given lodgings in the guest-house.
A few days later, the monks sent me out at dusk to buy three loaves of bread at the local market. They always purchased bread at the end of the day when the price was reduced.
I purchased the bread and began to walk back to the monastery with the bread in a large basket.
Someone jumped me from behind and I blacked out.
When I woke up, someone was shaking my shoulder. Night had fallen and the cloudy sky was dark. I was naked and covered with offal and muck from the gutter of the street. My habit and the bread and basket were all gone.
A kind voice spoke to me out of the dark, in Italian. I answered in Latin and we continued the conversation in Latin.
The kind voice did not ask me what had happened – that was obvious. “Come with me,” said the man, “I can help you.”
I was stiff and sore and my head throbbed, but no bones were broken. The man put my arm around his shoulders and we hobbled up the street.
My rescuer took me to his simple one-room lodging. He woke the porter and gave him a few coins. He spoke to the porter in Italian and told me the porter would fetch some water and a towel.
When we entered the room, I was glad to see pens, parchment, ink, and several manuscripts. The kind man was a fellow scholar.
“We have no way to heat the water,” said the man, “cold water will have to do.”
“I am a Benedictine,” I replied, “I am used to cold water.”
“I am a Franciscan,” said the man “at least, I used to be. Now I earn my living as a Notary. One of my clients died last night, and his widow sent me to fetch his Will. On my way home, I found you in the street.”
“I am staying at the guest-house of the monastery,” I said, “we should send word that I am still alive.”
“True,” said the man, “when the porter comes back with the water, I will give him another coin and send him with a message.”
“My name is Huw Fitzroy,” I said, “a novice from an Abbey in far-away Wales.”
“I am Silenus,” said the man, “and the only person of that name you will ever meet who is cold sober every day.” We both laughed at that.
“When I send the message to the monastery,” he continued, “I will say that you will stay with me for a couple of days, okay? I would love to hear about Wales. We won’t tell the monastery my name — I will use my landlord’s name. I will say you are with Gaius the Jeweler and that will sound more respectable. They will recognize the porter as belonging to Gaius anyway, so that is okay.”
At that moment the porter arrived with water and a towel, and after a conversation in Italian with Silenus the porter departed again with the message to the monastery.
“The monastery may be able to pay you back some of your expenses,” I said, “you have spent a handful of coins on me already.”
“No,” said Silenus, “I am a Black Sheep of the church. I would rather just take the loss. You can repay me by being my friend. Can you wash yourself?”
“Yes,” I said, and began to do so.
“What was the trouble with the Church?” I asked in Greek. “Is that why you are no longer a Franciscan?”
“Yes,” replied Silenus in Greek, “I was ordered to serve the Holy Office and refused. I was excommunicated.”
“What is the Holy Office?” I asked.
“Ask your Father Abbot when you get home,” he said, “he can explain it to you. It is not safe to discuss it here, not even in Greek.”
I finished washing and Silenus handed me an old Franciscan habit. “Here, put this on,” he said, switching back to Latin, “I am not allowed to wear it anymore. This will serve until you get back to the monastery.”
At that time the porter returned and spoke to Silenus in Italian. He handed Silenus four coins, gave us a black look, and went back to bed.
When we were alone again, Silenus said, “The monastery sent some money for your care. The porter probably kept some of the coins for himself. That’s okay — what we have here will feed us for a couple of days. When the sun comes up we will go get some nourishing food. Would you like to sleep?”
“No,” I said, “let’s talk. The local Benedictines are a dull lot and I would love to hear about your life and your studies.”
Silenus and I had two days of companionship and shared many thoughts and dreams. After our midday meal, he showed me some poems in Italian. “These are something new out of Sicily,” he said, “they are called sonnets.” When I said I could not read Italian, he replied, “Why don’t you sleep for an hour or two and I will write you some sonnets in Latin.” In the years since then, I have written sonnets in English and Welsh.
We taught each other how to address letters one to the other, and we worked out a code in Greek and Latin that no-one else could understand.
When I left Silenus I went back to the guest-house, picked up the documents from the Father Superior, and headed back to the Abbey in Wales.