Presbyter

That cold, damp August morning in 1553 smelled of rotting leaves and mushroom, the creaking of my carriage punctuated by the drips of rainy mist seeping through the canopy and dribbling onto leather, so it was with precocious pleasure that I signaled to stop at a public house near Chambéry to drink down a bottle of some exuberant wine. It was a fine day, having finally arrived from my escaped prison cell in Vienne to just outside Italy, and I was committed to keeping it so.

I was still in France, but my next stop would be Turin. Or, so I thought.

First, one word on my flight from injustice, if I may. And that word would be sublime, I should think. Myself, Miguel Serveto, arrested by the French Inquisition in Lyon just because of a few jealous colleagues. Yes, I had worked out the mechanics of the pulmonary system, how the heart pumps blood to the lungs to get air, then throughout the body, before circulating it back. It wasn't that hard to figure out, and I published my findings while editing the latest geography manuscript. Mathematics, meteorology, astrology, and of course the Bible in its original languages were among my many hobbies as well as practicing medicine and law. But my favorite topic was syrups. I had written many explanations of the pharmacological usage of syrups. And what was wine itself, but a medicinal syrup?

But I digress. I was discussing how I, Miguel Serveto, was arrested in Lyon and detained in a cell in Vienne just because I discovered the Catholic concept of the Trinity was wrong. There was, of course, no mention of three separate gods in the Bible; it was all made up by Greek scholars centuries ago. Well, my old pen pal Jehan Cauvin did not like that. I had never met him in person, but we had argued via letter over the years, and I always won. At first he was a good sport, but my unerring adhesion to reason unnerved him to the point that he spoke against me, demanding I burn for heresy, along with my books (of which there are plenty.)

Well. To die at the hands of the Catholics just wouldn't do, not right when we were getting the Reformation going. So on my third day of imprisonment I pocketed the key from one of the guards with some slight of hand, then convinced him to go outside and take a gander at the poetic luminescence which was the moon while I unlocked my shackles, slipped out the window, and lifted myself up to to the rooftop. Springing from one slanted sheet of tile to another, I sprinted across those close-cut buildings to the very end, where my horse awaited. I bolted to the countryside, swapped out my usual floppy hat to one stacked with an additional bob, and voila, I was now Michel de Villanueve.

Still wanted by the authorities, I worked for several months as editor, translator, and physician, slowly traveling east. Convicted of heresy in my absence, the Inquisition burned a pile of my books, along with a puppet that looked a lot like me, except the mustache didn't droop accurately. You know what they say, though -- a good old-fashioned book burning is a sure way to a best-seller.

So there I was, at the Inn of the Rancid Dog in Chambéry, thirsty, and on a mission to really make this day count.

Then the plague had to make an appearance.

I strolled into the inn at my jauntiest mood and ordered a bottle of Beaujolais from the proprietor while surveying the room before me. A man wearing a long-beaked plague doctor's mask sat next to the window. Dressed fastidiously in a well-cut, boot-length, buttoned-up black overcoat and wide-brimmed hat, he turned his bird-like visage toward me, his eyes concealed behind two large, round glass goggles embedded in the leather mask. We stared at each other for a moment, doctor to doctor, until I gave him a slight nod. He reciprocated. Then, without taking his huge avian eyes off me, he pulled his beak out from his face ever so slightly with a gloved hand, making room for the end of the bottle that he lifted off the table in front of him. He took a long drink.

The coughing came from either side of him, tables on the right and left, unmasked and normal, except one had dark discoloration on his nose, and the other was coughing blood into his handkerchief, sure signs of the disease. I crooked a finger at the proprietor, signaling for a glass, as I would drink standing at the bar instead of joining the others.

If this was a sign of things to come, my journey was in trouble. But it was the Renaissance, and I was a Renaissance man. Surely I was invincible?

The more I drank of that lightly sweet, translucent liquid, the more an idea began to take shape. Jehan Cauvin lived in Geneva, just 88 kilometers north, where he operated a church, exposing the Genevans to his shrill musings on the Trinity. This was the adversary who had me imprisoned, who had shown my own letters, edited and out of context, to the Roman Authorities.

But what are you suggesting, Monsieur Beaujolais? I drive up to Geneva, pop in on Cauvin's sermon, and prove to his congregation the fallacy of his ways? Would my driver, even now asleep in the carriage, even make it on time? Surely we could make the trip in three hours, possibly nearer to two. And then I could vanish, as quickly as I had disappeared, journey south, and down into Italy, to start anew, once again.

Pouring the last of the bottle into my glass, I turned and gave a sideways glance at the plague doctor, who was now coughing, himself. A shill ran through my spine, and I made my decision. Leaving money at the counter, I ordered two more bottles to go.

As the wheels creaked to life, turning north, horses full of new spirits, I felt immensely better. My fate had been cast.

St Pierre Cathedral was a beautiful, Gothic monstrosity, all the trappings of a Catholic seat made available to Protestant reformers, and it brilliantly reflected the afternoon sun upon my approach. A heroic symbol of salvation, yes, but for whom?

The sermon already in session, no one saw me slip inside and take a seat in the back row. I took off my hat and was, once again, the revolutionary Miguel Serveto. I couldn't quite make out his face, as he was 40 or 50 meters away, preaching at the old pulpit, but that was my adversary, Jehan Cauvin.

I unveiled my own sermon slowly at first, then gaining in tempo and volume, with a few guffaws and throat clearings, until I had the attention of several adjacent rows of the back section. Whenever Cauvin made a point about one thing or another, I snickered, rolled my eyes, and hit him with notes of searing disapproval, such as, "Oh, really?"

My walk up the isle was something to be seen, sashaying with a little flip kick, my voice relaxed, sonorous, the words languishing in my mouth before my tongue released them upon Cauvin and his rapt congregation.

"This man," I said, "worships three gods, not one. I've read the Nicene Creed, and all the accounts before and after. That whole Holy Spirit thing was just a last-ditch effort to keep the Orthodox and Catholics from splitting. The Romans: there must be a logical explanation. The Greeks: no, there mustn't. So they invented a third person, pulling one God into three. I read the Bible, in all the original languages, and there are no holy ghosts in there."

"Is that...Miguel Serveto?" he asked, astonished.

Yes, of course it was me. I just showed up, uninvited, at the sermon of the very man who would have me burned alive. It was him who should be burned alive, the heretic. Continuing to advance up the isle toward the pulpit, I expertly dismissed him verbally, enacting insults to dispatch the very essence of his soul.

"Your mother was a hamster!" I said, swearing at him in his own French tradition. Our audience, now mine, was aghast. People were superstitious about rodents, and even then, suspected rats had something to do with the plague. But I didn't leave it at that. "Do you know why a hamster?" I continued. "Because they run on a little wheel. And what does a wheel do? It goes round and around. You see? I'm implying your mother gets around."

"Aaargh, the pain!" Jehan Cauvin whimpered. "It burns! You not only made a joke at my expense, but then you explain the joke to me, as if I were lacking enough intelligence or depth of experience to understand!"

"Yes," I said. "Your mother is a whore, and you're a bastard!"

"Why all these personal insults?" he pleaded. "Just because I had you tried for heresy?"

"It is you who should burn," I said, calmly. "And I can prove it." Then, addressing the congregation, I held up my right hand and wiggled the fingers. "Here is God, the all-powerful. He puts his Word into Mary of Nazareth, impregnating her with his own spirit, which miraculously turns into a human child." Here I raise my left hand. "Jesus is born a man. He was conceived by the Word of God, but he's just a man. Then, once he dies, he converts back to the Word again, and is God once more.

"Simple, right?" I confided in my audience while also admonishing them. "But this is what our respected Jehan Cauvin insists is the truth, that both God and Jesus are two separate gods at the same time, and there is a third!" Here I waggled two fists in the air to represent the two different gods, and then, because I didn't have a third hand, I unwrapped my waist, my pantaloons falling to the floor, revealing my profane member, curious, poking out for a look. "Blasphemy!" I cry.

At this point I won the argument, as Cauvin fainted right there, along with several congregants of the pew variety. Peasants ran to and fro in panic until I was approached by wonderfully-dressed pikemen who remind me there was a warrant out for my arrest.

Jehan Cauvin would have nothing of it; he wanted to ship me back to Lyon for another trial. (A puppet, in my absence, was already found guilty in the first one.) But no, I wanted a trial right there, in Geneva, as the Council was entirely made up of Libertines. And the Libertines absolutely hated Cauvin. That was the ace up my sleeve, and this was my chance to legally prove I was right and Cauvin was wrong.

The problem was, the Libertines didn't play along. I think they must have taken bribes from notable Catholics of Switzerland, because in the end they decided I was guilty.

So I was burned alive at the stake. Burned to death, that is. And it was quite painful.

But there are a few things I've learned upon my death. First, there's no god, and no heaven. No angels. But also, there are no demons, and no hell. True, there is no Holy Spirit; but there are spirits, there are ghosts. I know because I'm one of them.

Ultimately, I got the last laugh with Cauvin, because I haunted him, popping up beside his reflection every time he passed a mirror or something shiny. I had many great one-liners, but "Why the long face?" is perhaps my favorite.

After Jehan Cauvin died, there was nothing to do but wander down into Italy. That's where I am today, haunting a shop in Genoa, perched comfortably on a shelf like a cat and slowly shoving bottles to the edge until they tumble and shatter on the floor. I am the great Miguel Serveto, and this is my story. Perhaps you've read some of my books on syrups?