4: Fire and Brimstone
Sitot amors mi tormenta
Ni m'auci non o planc re,
Qu'almens mor per la plus genta
Per qu'eu prenc lo mal pel be…
(Although love puts me to torture
And kills me, I don't complain,
For I die for the noblest lady,
For whom I take evil for good…)
Sordel de Goit, Ai las, e que.m fan mei uelhs (mid-13C)
Above Mother Sibylle's high bed hung a large crucifix carved in the latest style: the angular figure contorted as if in spasms of agony; the flesh coloured in hues of decay and blood; a gaping spear-wound in the right side, and the mouth twisted in the silent cry, Eli Eli lama sabachthani? It was a macabre depiction of human suffering, all the more terrible by flickering candlelight. But still, it was only wood and gesso and paint.
Beneath it lay flesh-and-blood reality: a tall, swarthy young man, naked, wounded, delirious from fever and pain. For two days and nights, humid and heavy with the threat of thunder, Sibylle Dorel and her ladies worked in shifts, changing poultices and dressings, applying cold compresses and salves. Betwixt times they prayed, their Ave beads click-clicking through their fingers:
…Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
Nunc et in hora mortis nostræ…(1)
Monsieur the Archdeacon of Josas had been in a dead faint when he was carried in on a makeshift stretcher of planks and a blanket. Since it was hardly fitting that so respected a cleric should share a mattress with an old pauper (why, they might as well have taken him to the Hôtel-Dieu!), she had the men carry him awkwardly up the narrow stone staircase. He was laid on her own bed, propped up with bolster and pillows to aid his shallow breathing. Obvious broken ribs, she thought, and shoulders out of joint. She feared internal injuries.
Water was brought, and herbs, and clean linen. Father Thierry arrived from the cathedral with pyx, holy water and chrism. He sprinkled holy water about the room: "Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor; lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor…"(2)
Tenderly, so tenderly, the Vowesses of St Anne began to undress Dom Claude. It was the first time since his early childhood that women's hands had touched his body, but even the lightest touch brought only pain. He was bruised and grazed all over, his skin hot. Strange, they thought: they had expected him to be in a cold sweat, as people in shock usually are.
He was drifting in and out of consciousness. He felt the cold metal of a crucifix pressed to his lips. The familiar words, which he himself had spoken so many times, washed over him: "Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatæ Mariæ semper virgini, beato Michaeli archangelo… quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…"(3)
The sisters cut and tore the buttons off the tattered black cassock, and cast it aside. His chemise of plain, but fine-woven, linen was stained about the chest and side, and across the back of the shoulders. If this meant the broken bones had torn through the flesh…
"Accipe, frater, Viaticum Corporis Domini nostri Jesu Christi, qui te custodiat ab hoste maligno, et perducat in vitam æternam. Amen."(4)
Claude murmured a faint "Amen". The priest placed the host in his mouth. He swallowed, and closed his eyes.
Mother Sibylle untied the laces of his chemise. Rather than risk further hurt to his shoulders by pulling it over his head, she decided it would be better to cut through the fabric. "The shears, please, Isabeau."
Father Thierry's patience snapped: "Mother, can you not wait –?"
Her nostrils flared, like those of the high-mettled horse she so strongly resembled. "You are saving him for eternal life; we are trying to save him for this one. We can work together, but I doubt time is something either of us can afford to waste!"
Catherine unlaced and removed the archdeacon's shoes and hose. His knees and shins were scraped and bruised as a schoolboy's, and needed much the same treatment: bathing and ointment.
The priest proceeded with the sacrament, applying the blessed oil first to his eyelids: "Per istam sanctam Unctionem et suam piissimam misericordeam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum deliquisti. Amen."(5) Then, with appropriately amended words, he moved on to his ears, nostrils, lips, hands and feet, and the sins committed by the relevant senses.
Sister Isabeau, whose nose was her most prominent feature, was suddenly struck by the sheer absurdity and improbability of committing any sin with it. She made an odd, choking sound, which the others took to be a sob of grief.
Meanwhile, Mother Sybille's thin fingers were already at work on the hair-shirt which Claude wore next to his skin, beneath his fine linen. It was stuck to his flesh with blood and sweat, and seemed to be home to a horde of vermin. "This'll have to be soaked off…"
Father Thierry was galloping through the prayers: "…Respice, quaesumus, Domine, famulum tuum Claudium, sacerdotem, in infirmitate sui corporis fatiscentem, et animam refove, quam creasti: ut castigationibus emendatus, se tua sentiat medicina salvatum. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen."(5)
"Hurry up, Father!"
"There's only the Domine sancte!"
"Then get on with it! – Have we run out of the rosemary and marigold water?"
"There's not much left, Mother," Catherine said.
"I'll have it now, please."
Father Thierry finished his last "Amen" with a sigh of exhaustion. "I'll inform the Chapter," he said. "Mass will be said for him."
"Very good. I shall write directly to the bishop, also," Mother Sibylle replied. "Has anyone told his brother?"
He sighed. "That won't be necessary."
"What do you mean?"
"They say he was one of those slain in last night's disturbances."
"Oh, the poor boy! Does he know?"
"That I don't know."
They looked at each other, thinking the same grim thought: if the fall were not an accident, but a mortal sin…?
"Well," said she, "least said, soonest mended. No scandal should be made of it."
"Indeed not."
"And there's the crippled child, too: break it to him gently."
"Quasimodo? He's deaf as a post, but I'll try!"
"Ask him to pray for him."
Father Thierry nodded. "If he gets worse, send for me by name. He was a good priest, a good archdeacon: hard-working, dedicated – not like some."
Was? That made her shudder. She was not ready to give up. She pulled the hair-shirt away from Claude's body: he moaned. As the priest went out, she hurled the pieces to the floor in disgust.
"Touch it as little as possible!" she ordered Catherine. "Take it down and throw it on the fire – whatever Sister Geneviève says – and tell Louise to bring up some more rosemary and marigold! Where's that surgeon got to? Did they send all the way to Montpellier or Salerno? – Isabeau, look at this! Oh, what has he been doing?"
It was not the fact that the archdeacon's broad shoulders were raw from recent scourging that alarmed her. He had always struck her as the intense, ascetic sort – inclined to self-mortification – and the weals were not especially serious. But his left breast and side were gashed by several older but deep flesh-wounds, which appeared to have partly healed and then broken open – more than once. The suppuration was foul to eye and nose alike.
"No wonder we've not seen him about for a while!" muttered Sister Isabeau.
Mother Sibylle examined the largest hurt, which ran across the pectoral muscle, through the nipple and down on to the flank. The flesh around it was swollen, marked with red lines, like the veins of a leaf, visible despite the bruises blackening his body.
"His death-wound, I fear," she said quietly, and crossed herself.
Someone tapped at the bedroom door. It was Sister Louise, clutching a pitcher of rosemary and marigold infusion, and accompanied by a burly, grizzled man in a sombre gown. "Mother, Maître de Saint-Loup is here!"
"Ah! Thank Christ! Come in! – Louise, thank you! Now, please tell Geneviève to make up plenty of brimstone poultices."
The surgeon bowed. "Rogier de Saint-Loup at your service, Mother. So, this is your patient? I couldn't believe what was being said… The Archdeacon of Josas, eh?"
"They said he fell from the North Tower on to a roof. But he's already got a fever from these," she said, indicating the open wounds.
He rolled up his sleeves. "First things first: put him on the floor."
He helped the women lift the patient from the bed and on to the floorboards. He then forced each shoulder back in joint: inserting his foot into the armpit, and then pulling as hard as possible on the arm. Claude cried out, then fainted again. (Geneviève heard him in the kitchen, and in the yard, the hens squawked and fluttered in alarm.)
"Well, that'll shut him up for a while," Saint-Loup said. "Sometimes, brute force is all that works." He checked his body and limbs for any other broken bones, before putting him back up on to the bed. "Any signs of internal bleeding?"
"At first he coughed up a little, but that seems to have eased off."
"That's not unusual, with a knock on the ribs." He tapped Claude's back with his fingers, sounding his lungs. "Well, there's nothing serious, for now. It may get worse, but for the present…"
He used his fingers to ease the fractured ribs into alignment. Mercifully, they were clean breaks, and, in a lean young man, were easy enough to find by touch.
"Usually, I'd strap them, but not with this…" He shook his head over the infected injuries. "What's happened here?"
"I don't know," said Sibylle.
"Knife-wounds, I'd hazard, although after all this time… You've got brimstone poultices being made downstairs, haven't you?"
She nodded.
"Well, that's a start. Draw and drain the pus. It's good sign that it's forming already: a step towards healing, as Lanfranchi says. Laudable pus – good old Galen! Cool him down. Watch for these lines fading and retreating: if they do that, he's on the mend. If they spread, there may only be hours."
He supervised the first application of the sulphur poultices, and placed Claude's right arm in a sling. To allow easy changing of the dressings on his chest and side, his left arm could only be supported on pillows, and his ribs eased with cold compresses.
"Watch for any signs of bleeding in the lungs or belly, or more troubled breathing," Saint-Loup advised. "But if there are no complications of that order, the ribs should heal well. His shoulders just need rest, and soothing salves. These old wounds carry the most pressing danger. You know what to do: change the poultices every couple of hours. And break the fever. Cold water, herbs – buy ice from the ice-house, anything – but break it!"
"What about the pain?"
"What about it? In his state, the poppy could stop his breath completely! External use, though… And cold compresses will ease the bruising and swelling. But he'll just have to grit his teeth for a lot of it."
"You think he'll live?"
"I'm a surgeon, not a fortune-teller. In his favour: he's young and otherwise strong. He's been fighting this for a good few weeks at least – bouts of fever and delirium while the pus gathers, then a brief respite when it breaks; then it starts up again. A weaker man would have succumbed before now."
"And against him?"
"Does he want to live? He's studied surgery and medicine – I know, I've discussed it with him a few times – so why in God's name has he let his wounds get into this state?"
"Knife-wounds, you said?"
"Certainly from the general look of them. Clergy do get into brawls – mostly over women or dice! I've patched up my share of them!"
"Too ashamed, then? As a penance? Mind, I'd never have thought he was the brawling type!"
"You never can tell! But did no-one else notice? Did no-one else care? This hasn't come on suddenly! He must have been looking feverish – behaving strangely – having episodes of delirium! He won't have been in his right senses –"
"Well, he hasn't been about much for some weeks, that much I can tell you. I think I last saw him when that gypsy harlot was doing public penance for stabbing the captain, and that odd crippled boy of his snatched her into sanctuary. All very peculiar! The only person who's seen much of him lately is that poor child, and I doubt he had the wit to realise…"
"That's true enough! But all the same… We must do all we can."
The nights were the worst, close and stifling. Throughout his delirium, Claude was haunted by the stench of sulphur. He knew that he was in Hell. He was lying naked on hot coals, surrounded by glowing-eyed demons dressed as nuns. From the pain in his back and shoulders, he knew that he must be on the rack. His chest was on fire. One of the devil-nuns, a hag-like creature with a raven's beak, was leaning over him, leering into his face.
"Fire and brimstone …" he murmured. "So this is Hell… Confiteor Deo omnipotenti…"
"Hush!" Sister Isabeau said, changing the poultice. "It hurts and it smells, I know, but it's to cleanse your wounds."
"…peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere…"
"Hush, dear!"
"…Get behind me, daughter of Satan…"
"That's not very polite, is it? I'm trying to help you!"
A little after midnight on the second night, the storm broke. Through the open window, Sister Catherine, silently telling her beads, saw the cathedral illuminated by forked lightning.
Claude was trying to force his way through a crowd in the Grève. He could hear jeering voices, crying insults at him. He was disgraced, a false priest… "Filth! Filth!" they cried, buffeting him. "Heretic! Murderer! Apostate!" He fell to his knees. The mob surged about him: he would surely be trampled. But she was there, reaching out to him – or was she mocking, also? There was a rope around her neck; the more she reached out, the more it tightened. Her eyes bulged, her tongue protruded: the face of a hanged woman, becoming the mask of Medusa… Her hands became claws, tearing at his flesh, just as he had given her to the claws of the anchoress. Their faces seemed to merge before him, maiden and hag, becoming in turn the gorgon. Her talons were lodged in his breast…
He moaned: "Mortal sin… Esméralda…"
Mother Sibylle held him down, to stop him writhing on his pillows.
"Courage," she said softly. "Courage."
She made him drink more of the cooled yarrow infusion, and bathed him. Her eldest boy, Philippe, would have been about the same age, had he lived: fine-looking, too. She could not look upon his suffering without feeling her own renewed.
Slowly, rain began to patter against the leaded panes. It grew faster and heavier, entering the room, falling on Catherine's face. The air began to grow cooler, less oppressive. She closed the casement.
Claude sighed: "Esméral…" At last, he lay still.
Mother Sibylle placed her hand on his forehead. Catherine looked at her, questioning. She smiled, but the candlelight caught the tears in her eyes. "I think he'll win through after all. He's asleep."
They took turns keeping vigil, watching as his breathing grew steadier. Only in the cool light of morning did they pause to wonder why he had called out for a street-dancer; moreover, one who was lodged below.
The storm flashed through the body of the cathedral, scattering patterns of brilliant colour across its floor. But in his small, lonely room in the tower, Quasimodo – who could not hear the thunder – only saw the white darts of lightening. Father Thierry had told him, in word and gesture, that his master lived, but was badly hurt. He did not know whether to be glad that he had not killed him, or afraid of some punishment to come.
"And Esméralda?" he had asked. "Did they hang her?"
The priest had shaken his head. "I don't know about any hanging," he said, emphasising his words so that the deaf boy could follow the movement of his lips. "I haven't heard that one took place."
Hope, then…
As the brightness danced around him, and kept him from sleep, he clung to that hope: that perhaps he had not lost all that he loved, after all.
1. …Holy Mary, Mother of God,/ Pray for us sinners,/ Now and in the hour of our death…
2. Sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (And yes, a bit mischievous to quote this, given that the first word, Asperges, puns on Claude's essential nature. He's one of the greatest Aspies in literature, though the label wasn't around in Hugo's time.)
3. I confess to almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever virgin, to the blessed Archangel Michael… that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed, through my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault…
4. Receive, brother, the Viaticum of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ; and may he keep you from the malign foe and lead you to eternal life. Amen.
5. By this holy unction and his own most gracious mercy, may the Lord pardon you whatever sin you have committed by sight. Amen.
6. Look down, Lord, upon your servant, Claude, a priest, who is failing in the weakness of his body; refresh the soul you created, so that, brought to amendment by chastisements, he may feel himself to be saved by your healing. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
To be continued: Esméralda faces harsh truths about her origins, and Pierre keeps a secret