Knowledge of Angels…

. . . by Jill Paton Walsh

Some readers will find there is altogether too much theology in this novel, especially of the medieval kind, with inquisitors, hermit scholars, narrow-minded nuns and much repression of thought and action. After first reading it 25 years ago and rereading recently, I get a different impression: that it’s built around two characters: the principled non-believer Palinor, and the little wolf-girl who prowls on all fours up in the summer pastures where she’s been glimpsed by shepherds. Can we be human without being educated into hand-me-down beliefs? Can there be an inbuilt experience of the divine without indoctrination by any set of beliefs? What is the divine if not an innate propensity for true love? What have repression, dogma and controversy got to do with it? Jill Paton Walsh’s Mediterranean island is an allegory of today’s world: her vision is prophetic.

The various arguments and anomalies reflect today’s world. On this revised reading, I reconfirm an intuition that the core of the book is a chapter which one Goodreads reviewer calls “creepy and luckily very short”. The content of this chapter was the only thing I could remember from before, and even that memory was vague and mixed-up. I couldn’t remember the title, author’s name, nor any part of the story. All I knew was that the author had been to a women-only college in Oxford. But I remained fascinated by this half-memory, it conveyed a warm feeling. I eventually tracked down “Knowledge of Angels”, read it slowly and thoroughly.

This core scene is both sweet and scandalous. It ends with Palinor saying softly to to the holy man Beneditx, “I could teach you a thing or two about triangles”. It turns out to be more than a scene. Palinor turns out to be the most steadfastly moral character in the book.

The clatter of the hooves of the departing horses woke Palinor from the light sleep he had been taking in the afternoon heat. He looked out of his window and saw Severo riding away through the garden approaches. It caused him no concern. Then he looked down and saw Dolca kneeling on a rock, washing some clothes of his in the torrent at the foot of the wall. She leaned forward, immersing the soaking cloth, and straightened, lifting it, working smoothly, her own clothes wet and clinging to her in the mist-like rainfall cast by the fountain over the garden. Palinor watched her for some time, and then retreated to his bed again. He lay thinking of his wife, imagining her walking away from him, as the time went by, and he seemed to have ever less hope of returning to her. She must think him dead. Perhaps by now she had turned to that cousin of his she always liked so much who always made her laugh.

When by and by Dolca came softly into his chamber, on some small errand, he turned back the sheet under which he was lying naked and said to her, ‘Come here.’ She came and stood at the bedside. ‘Off,’ he said, twitching her sleeve. He watched her undress, and stand trembling. With a brief twinge of self-disgust, he said, ‘You can refuse, if you like.’ She said, ‘It’s just that I don’t know what to do.’ `In that case, cover up again, and bring lamp oil, and honey.’ When she returned, she put the jars down beside the bed and stepped out of her shift. She was slender and dark. Lilac aureoles surrounded her nipples, and a scatter of dark freckles lay around her navel. He pulled her down beside him, scooped oil into his palms, and began to rub her skin. Then he parted her legs, opened the petals of her flesh with the angers of his left hand, and poured a golden trickle of honey from the jar. She raised her head from the pillow, looking with astonishment, and he smiled at her before lowering his head and licking the honey, Following the flow of it as far as his tongue would go. When he felt her begin to move against his butting head he rose. Kneeling between her legs and oiling his dark member, he thrust hard into her. He felt her flinch, and he knew he would be giving pain, but his own need now was urgent, imperative. Only as he shot and withdrew, did he realize that they were not alone.

Joffre had come into the room. He was standing in front of the door, left ajar, thunderstruck. Palinor rolled off the girl, propped his head on one elbow, and said, ‘Is this really your sister?’

Joffre said, ‘No, master. She is my sweetheart. We lied, to be together.’ His voice was choking.

‘If she is your sweetheart, why are you not further with her? Why is there blood, here?’

The boy blushed crimson and said, cannot . we want to . . but she seems afraid.’ .

Palinor said, ‘Close the door, take your clothes off and come here. I will show you something.’

Joffre obeyed. He stood beside the bed with his teeth chattering in his head. Palinor said to Dolca, ‘Sweethearts or not, you can refuse this if you like.’ She shook her head. ‘Lie down with her,’ he said to Joffre. Then, reaching over her, he took Joffre’s wrist between his fingers, dipped the boy’s hand in the oil jar, and laid it in place. As though the boy’s fingers had been the keys of an instrument, he played them with his own. ‘Like your lute,’ he said to the boy, softly. And then, as she began to cry, ‘Now!’
He leaned back and watched them. ‘You are too quick,’ he said in a while, ‘There’s more. I’ll finish for you.’ Taking her again, he lingered, moving slowly, till he had her mewing like a gull in flight. ‘Enough?’ he said, leaving her. She smiled at him, her eyelids drooping in that instant drowsiness coition brings.

Palinor got up, padded barefoot round the bed, and got in beside Joffre. ‘Our turn;’ he said. ‘I’ll show you something else.’ He kissed the boy hard and turned him face down on the crumpled sheets. Afterwards, rolling over, he said, `Nov you do that to me.’ Then for a while they all slept, the lingering heat of the afternoon lulling their sleek bodies. When Palinor woke, he found Dolca lying beside him wide-eyed, with a tear flowing down her right cheek. `Do you think we have deserted you?’ he murmured. ‘Give me your hand.’ And he showed her how with oil and honey, with a sliding palm and a greedy tongue she could accomplish for both of them a resurrection of the flesh, till satiety was overcome by ecstasies of lust.

Much later, after nightfall, when they were at last hungry, and the servants went, walking weak-kneed and as though drunk, in search of food, Palinor put on a cloak over his nakedness and went out on the colonnade. The moonlight was casting molten silver over the moving column of water he had raised up. At the far end of the colonnade Beneditx’s window was lit, and the grid between the panes made it appear like a large lantern in which Beneditx’s head, bowed over his books, was centred like the flame. ‘I could teach you a thing or two about triangles,’ said Palinor, softly, and he returned to his room, where Joffre was setting out a late supper on his table and Dolca was bundling up an armful of sheets musky with the blended odours of oil, honey, blood, semen and sweat.

Then, in the next chapter:

“The boy [his servant Joffre] said, Sir, is there such a thing for you as sin? Palinor smiled, laughed, nearly. Then he said gently. There are things one should not do. That self-love should keep one from. None of them bring joy. None of them have we done together.”

“Leave sin to churchmen. They have the expertise, said Palinor