The Brotherhood of Book Hunters by Howard Curtis, Raphaël Jerusalmy Page A

helpless to do anything. His friend had stopped moving. The Turk was pummeling him with punches. Colin, quite limp now, was about to fall to the floor. But in the middle of his fall, he suddenly leapt at the Turk’s throat, again using his teeth, while his hands pulled the big man’s ears, which seemed to amuse the emir. François clearly heard the Turk’s throat crack under the pressure of his opponent’s jaws. Lower down, Colin was hitting the Turk’s belly with his knees, first the right then the left, as if he were running on the spot. It was nevertheless to his face that the Turk raised his arms. It was as if the pulling of his ears was the most intolerable thing for him, the most humiliating. The emir gave the signal, and guards separated the two fighters and took them promptly offstage. The music resumed.
    Still openmouthed, François saw the
qadi
advance toward him.
    â€œYour turn, poet!”
    The instruments fell silent.
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    Even though they had dressed him in a long Egyptian robe and slippers, François had been determined to wear his tricorn. He made a questionable bow, immediately spoiled by his half smile. He remained prostrate for a little too long, and in too exaggerated and ambiguous a fashion, which made the audience feel ill at ease. The emir, too, was showing signs of irritation. Total silence fell. His tricorn sweeping the floor, François slowly raised his head to confront the tyrant’s dark eyes. They shone with the same caustic gleam as those of Guillaume Chartier. François knew that expression well. Whether they wore helmets or skullcaps, whether they pouted condescendingly or turned up their noses, whether they had well-cut beards or hairless chins, prelates and knights, informers and tax collectors all seemed to come from the same mold, as if, beneath their various titles and appearances, there was only in fact one man. Yesterday, he had had the pale countenance of a bishop. Today, the pink complexion of a fat emir. But it was indeed him, always him, that François fought, under all of his masks, and whom he now decided to fight in his own way. The emir was no more fooled than François. He too had recognized, beneath the stranger’s falsely affable face, that gleam in the eye, that hint of defiance at the corners of the lips. He had tamed more than one recalcitrant subject. This one was no different than the others.
    The audience, which could feel the tension rising, was delighted. This skirmish promised to be as exciting as the barefisted fight earlier.
    â€œIt is in the French language that I wish to declaim the present ballad.”
    Â 
    Brother men who live when we have gone
    Against us do not let your hearts grow stern . . .
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    The emir took all this without flinching. Nobody present understood a damned word of French.
    Chanting the lines of his
Ballad of the Hanged Men
, François let their rhythm sway him. The prosody, combined with the softness of the language, the secret spell of the intonations, and adorned with the Latinate gestures performed by the reciter’s frail hands, seemed to cradle the audience, breaking with the vulgarity of the banquet and the violence of the fighting. The rhymes echoed from the walls, glided among the hangings, made their way between the tables, flowed along the candelabra. They were the melodious petition of a poor troubadour, but also the supreme act of arrogance of a condemned man, as if François were offering his neck to the hangman—an idea that was not disagreeable to the emir.
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    For if some pity on us poor souls you take,
    The sooner then God’s mercy you will earn . . .
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    François, having struck the fish, now reeled it in. He raised his voice, became more spirited, exaggerated his incisive urban accent. In an instant, he transported his audience to Paris, a Paris of the imagination, a Paris sure of its genius and its charms. The regular delivery of the