Iacobus by Matilde Asensi

the Kind referring to?
    Jonas came back a couple of hours later with his shirt hanging out of his doublet, his shoes covered in mud and his cheeks rosy.
    “What news do you bring me?” I asked him, smiling.
    “Paris is the most beautiful city in the whole world!” he exclaimed, letting the length of his body fall on his cot.
    “Have you by any chance met a pretty girl?” I lifted my head slightly and he looked at me with reproach.
    “I am still a novicius.”
    “It seems that you won’t be for much longer,” I commented, placing my pen and scaepellum to one side. “Did you manage to give the letter to Beatrice of Hirson?”
    “It was terrible, sire! You see, I got to the area of the palace they call La Conciergerie, where the court lives, and which is truly the most beautiful building in France. The gate guards wouldn’t let me through, of course, and I asked them to advise the lady that I had an important message for her. First of all they laughed at me but, with my insistence, they sent a boy inside the palace. He took a long time to come back and when he did he said that the lady would not see me because she didn’t know who I was nor who you were, sire. I really don’t understand,” he said grouchily, “how you sent me so innocently on such a complicated mission. Didn’t you know that you can’t just go and see nobility like that?”
    “Nobility, my dear Jonas, the real nobility, doesn’t have much to do with the courtiers.”
    “Well, sire, you can’t just get a message to the courtiers like that.”
    “And how did you resolve the problem?” I asked with interest.
    “And how do you know that I resolved it?”
    “Because your attitude would have been very different had you not been able to fulfill your order. To start with, you wouldn’t have come in here with that joyous look on your face, nor would you be telling your odyssey with that tone of reproach if you had not succeeded. Thus, you emphasize your victory.”
    “What is odyssey?”
    “Good heavens, Jonas! You are ignorant! Did you not read the beautiful work of De bello Troiano by Iosephus Iscanus at the monastery, or the popular Ilias Latina by Silio Italico, that even the goliards in universities recite?”
    “Do you want to hear the end of my story or not?” he interrupted, annoyed.
    “I do, but we are going to have to have a serious conversation one of these days about the matter of your education.”
    “Well, I was walking around the Cité for a while, looking at the work of the new Cathedral of Notre-Dame and visiting the chapels of St.-Denis-du-Pas and St.-Jean-le-Rond, where people leave abandoned babies like me at night, did you know that?”
    “How would I know that?”
    “Well, after a while I returned to La Conciergerie, determined not to move until I had found a way to deliver the message. Since I was bored, I sat down next to an old woman who was selling fried cakes at the gate and struck up an interesting conversation about the habits of the inhabitants of the palace. She told me that Matilda of Artois’ carriage would soon be coming out, just as it did every day, through one of the side gates on the rue de la Barillerie, and if I kept my eyes open, I would be able to see her go down the Tour de l’Horage. Then she told me that a woman of such importance cannot go out during the day if she is not accompanied by her ladies, so this Beatrice of Hirson would most surely be inside the carriage. As soon as the old woman pointed out the luxurious vehicle belonging to the Queen’s mother, I calculated the distance, the speed and the jump necessary to climb through the door of the carriage.”
    “Good God, Jonas!”
    “You would do well not to swear in front of me, sire, or I will be forced to stop talking to you!”
    “Don’t be so prissy, boy!” I protested angrily, stamping my foot firmly on the ground, shaking the wood. “Rather than a novicius, you seem more like a delicate damsel at times. I have known