Paris: The Novel

mostly rabbit and squirrel, the kind that clerks and merchants used for transactions. Slipping the dagger through the middle, he found that he could carry it quite hidden, but pull it out with ease. Thus armed, he descended into the street to join his fellow students.
    Everything seemed normal. He felt some comfort from being in a crowd, but he couldn’t help wondering—if he were suddenly attacked, would his fellow students protect him? From some angry townsman with a club, probably. From two or three armed men? Perhaps not. Even as he walked back in their company toward his lodgings after the lectures, he found himself glancing over his shoulder to see if he was being followed.
    Another thought also occurred to him. Shouldn’t he try to protect his body in some way? Could he wear a leather vest, like a man-at-arms, under his clerical dress? Some of them had metal studs. If he could somehow attach the ends together between his legs, might that give him some protection, or would his assailants just slit it with a knife?
    On the western side of the Latin Quarter, there was a gate in the city wall where the road led out to a church in the suburbs called Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Just inside this gate there was an armorer’s workshop. He’d never been in there, but he’d heard it was one of the best. In the afternoon, therefore, he paid the place a visit.
    The little factory was certainly busy. It had forges like a blacksmith. He saw swords, helms, chain armor, all manner of implement and protective clothing for the fighting man. But while everything was designed to protect the head and arms, the torso and the legs, there was no individual item to protect a man between his legs. And I can hardly walk around in a suit of body armor, Roland thought.
    He asked for the master armorer, and was pointed toward a short, brisk figure with a close-cropped graying beard, who listened carefully as he explained the protection that he wanted.
    “Never been asked for that before,” the craftsman remarked. “Did you get caught with somebody’s wife?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Well, I always say we can make anything. You want something like a chastity belt, only it would have to be bigger. Difficult to make that out of metal. I doubt you could sit down.” The armorer considered. “To be flexible, it would have to be like a short hose, chain armor over a leather backing, I should think. It’d be quite heavy, you know, and it’ll cost you.”
    “You could do it?”
    “Not for a month, at least, maybe longer. I’ve orders waiting from some of the greatest nobles in the land.” He looked up at the unhappy young man. “Can it wait that long?”
    “Probably not.”
    “Better hang on to yourself, then.” The craftsman grinned.
    Roland departed sadly. He probably couldn’t afford such a thing, even if he could find anyone to make it.
    It was almost a day and a half since he had slept, and he was starting to feel light-headed. He hardly knew what to do with himself. Returning to the rue Saint-Jacques, he turned down toward the river. Soon, on his left, he passed the Church of Saint-Séverin. And in the hope that the place might calm his spirits, he went in there to rest.
    There was something very intimate about its strange, old, narrow vaults. Though rebuilt from time to time, the church had already been there for seven hundred years, since the days of the early Frankish kings. As he sat on a stone bench, his back to the wall and his eyes on the door, with his dagger concealed in the roll of parchment across his knees, young Roland reflected on his situation.
    The facts were all too obvious. He had sinned, and God was punishing him. He deserved it. That much was clear as day. But what could he do? He must repent. He must beg forgiveness with all his heart, though whether it would be granted was another matter.
    A terrible thought occurred to him. Could it be that God actually intended he should be castrated? Was God not only punishing him, but saving him from further temptation? Had God decided to ensure that his life was dedicated to religious service as a celibate priest or monk? Surelyit could not be. Wasn’t it God’s will that he should overcome temptation, more or less, rather than have temptation removed from him? Abelard might have suffered that fate, but Abelard was a great scholar and philosopher. His own place in the world was far more modest. He wasn’t worthy of so much attention. Plenty of other men