Arseny handed the bag with Christofer’s manuscripts to holy fool Foma but he felt mournful inside. As he handed over the bag, Arseny thought about how his attachment to property seemed to have stayed with him, and he was ashamed of this feeling. Holy fool Foma grasped what was happening within Arseny’s soul and told him:
Do not mourn, O Arseny, for Christofer’s collected wisdom will enter you in an unwritten way. As far as the descriptions of the herbs go, I reckon that’s already ancient history for you. Heale the ill by taking their sins upon yourself. Herbs are not required for that sort of treatment, as I hope you understand. And also: from now on you are not Ustin but Arseny, like before. Prepare, comrade, for the journey.
Shortly thereafter, all of Pskov knew that Ustin had begun speaking. That his name was not Ustin but Arseny. And they all came to look at him but they could not see him because he was no longer living in the cemetery but in a guest cell at the John the Baptist Convent.
What do you think this is, a circus or something? the abbess asked the visitors. A person lived outdoors for fourteen years, so let him come to his senses.
Ambrogio came to see Arseny on one of those days.
Mayor Gavriil sent me to see you, said Ambrogio. He wants you to be my traveling companion for a journey to Jerusalem. I am presuming the end of the world will arrive no earlier than the year 7000, 1,492 years from Christ’s birth. So if everything works out right we can make it back.
What are you basing your calculations on? Arseny asked him.
It is all very simple. I will liken days to millennia for it was said in the ninetieth psalm: A thousande yeares in thy sight are but as yesterdaye that is past. Since there are seven days in a week, it results in seven millennia of human lyfe. It is now year 6988: we have another twelve years at our disposal. I think that should be plenty for repentance.
Are you sure, Arseny asked him, that it is now that precise year, I mean are you sure that it has been exactly 6,988 years from the Creation until now?
If I were not sure of it, Ambrogio answered, I probably would not have invited you to come with me to Jerusalem. Judge for yourself: Hellenic and Roman chronicles have been documenting all the emperorships ever since the year 5500, when Jesus Christ our Savior was born. Add up the years the Roman and Constantinople emperors ruled and you will get the sought date.
But why—forgive me, O you from other lands—do you think that precisely 5,500 years, no more and no less, passed between the Creation and the birth of our Savior? What served as the source of that conclusion?
Only that I read the Holy Scripture carefully, Ambrogio responded, and it is my principle source. For example, the Book of Genesis indicates the age of each of the forefathers at the time his firstborn arrives. Beyond that, there are also mentions of the number of years the forefathers lived after the arrival of their firstborn, as well as the overall sum of the forefathers’ years of life. As you see, O brother Arseny, the two final items are even redundant to my calculation. In order to find the overall number of years that have passed, it is sufficient to add up the forefathers’ years before the arrival of their firstborn.
But the letters that denote the numerical figures are subject to flaws, Arseny objected. For a long tyme what is wrytten has been erased and unknown. And yf just one of the two lines that form the letter т is erased, then it cannot be understonded if it was originally the letter т or rather the letter п, which has three lines, and that would be the difference between a quantity of eighty or three hundred, methinketh. Tell me, Ambrogio, how do you prove that your calculations are infallible and that the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ really happened in the year 5500? Using what harmony, one might ask, will you prove all this algebra?
The figures, O Arseny, have their own higher meaning, for they reflect that heavenly harmony you are asking about. Now listen carefully. The Passion of Christ fell on the sixth hour of the sixth day of the week and that indicates that the Savior was born in the middle of the sixth millennium, meaning the 5,500th year since the Creation. This is also indicated because the sum of the measures of Moses’ ark, according to the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Exodus, totaled five and a half cubits. Thus Christ, like a true Ark, should also have come in the year 5500.
This person is capable of sound reasoning, Arseny told Ustina. It truly is possible to go to Jerusalem with a person like this. If I am to believe his calculations (and I am inclined to do so), we have at least ten years for the journey. And so I, my love, am going to the very center of the earth. I am going to the point that is closest of all to Heaven. If my words are destined to fly all the way to Heaven, then it will happen there. And all my words will be about you.
That day, Arseny and Ambrogio began preparing for the journey to Jerusalem. Mayor Gavriil allotted a purse of Hungarian gold ducats to each of them for the trip. The ducats were recognized over the entire distance from Pskov to Jerusalem and pilgrims eagerly took them on the road. The mayor could have given even more but he knew coins rarely lingered very long with travelers in the Middle Ages. Like money, items also had trouble going the distance. Their possessors often returned home without one or the other. Even more often, they did not return.
Letters of recommendations and personal connections were sometimes more useful to wayfarers than money. In this epoch, which was anything but simple, it was important that someone in a certain place was either waiting for someone or doing the opposite: sending someone someplace, vouching for him, and asking that his travel be facilitated. In some sense, this was a confirmation that the person had a place in life before, too, and that he had not come out of nowhere and was traveling honestly around an expanse. In the most general sense, journeys confirmed to the world the continuity of the expanse, a concept that continued to evoke certain doubts.
Arseny and Ambrogio were issued letters of recommendation for several cities. These were letters to personages of princely rank, spiritual figures, and representatives of the merchantry: any of them could help if need be. Each man was granted two horses and two riding caftans. The pilgrims sewed the ducats into the hems of the caftans. They inserted small strips of leather between them so the coins would not jingle or be detectable. Dried meat and fish were purchased, too, as much as two unsaddled horses were capable of carrying. Ambrogio, who had experience in distant wayfaring, led the preparations.
They limited themselves as they gathered food and clothing. It was a warm time of year in Pskov but of course it was always a warm time in the land of Palestine. Warm and abundant, for in this lande watery brooks and sprynges flow from the depths along valleyes and hilles, watering grapes, fig trees, and dates, this land streams with olive oil and honey for truly this land is blessed and belongs to the Lord’s Heaven.
On the eve of their departure, Mayor Gavriil summoned Arseny and Ambrogio and presented them with a six-faceted silver icon lamp. The icon lamp was small, so as not to attract unwanted attention. For that same reason, the mayor presented them, separately, with six adamants. Upon arrival at the site, the adamants should be placed in the spots intended for them on each of the icon lamp’s facets. Place them and squeeze the pins, which bend easily. The mayor showed them how the pins bent.