Twisted immortality

XVII - Reminiscing

Henry stopped his hand on one of the bindings in early history. He remembered he had only been writing about ten years by that journal.

Thanks to Ibn Sina he had written down almost everything that happened with him, and everything he was involved in. He brushed a finger over a journal that had a small cross drawn on the right corner of the cover. It was about the time he found himself in the middle of the Westminster Abbey drama, the time it was constructed.

Henry could still remember how hard it was to work on that site. Not just the stones or the building itself, but all the drama that was going around it. How Edward started constructing it, how the whole court was against it. Henry was only a worker then, he had no status. His only purpose there was to earn money. On the side, he helped everyone who had one ailment or another. He was rather selfless then. After Ibn Sina had died, Henry tried to recreate his teachings in any way he could.

He was learning English on the side. It seemed a marvel to him, not only that he could learn something so easy and have a chance to communicate with strangers through that, but also. Because as time went on, Henry discovered more and more people being able to speak through that one universal language.

Everything there felt sophisticated and new. Thanks to the time with Ibn Sina he was able to look a bit through the curtains. Henry's eyes were not so easily deceived by the grandiose structures or the strutting lords. Behind the doors, everyone was going on about how to get power. Or how to stay in power for even a bit longer. Also, how to undermine someone else's power. No reason to think that much of the power struggles of the 11th century English aristocrats.

Henry did remember quite clearly how it was to build the Abbey and what feelings it brought on then and every time he went to see it after that. It had been so beautiful. With its Gothic style of pointed arches, flying buttresses, and huge windows. Now it felt different. All the renovations, annexes, made it somehow totally different from what they were building until 1060s.

*

When Henry moved on, looking at the covers of other journals, the year 1077 jumped out. The Tower of London. It was another big construction, which he had the honor of witnessing with his own eyes. Though not until later, did he see it as it is today? All of the expansions in the 12th and 13th centuries. After that, the general layout remained mostly the same though there was much activity on the site later on. The Tower of London was in the center of London and it didn't matter whether you were new to the city or not, it never ceased to amaze people. It didn't thrill him much as a prison. Especially, because it wasn't built for that. But as a monument, and an incredible fortress, it still amazed him and looking at it, he still experienced a sense of awe.

Some years later Henry was thrilled to find the threads of rumors that there was this university of a sort, formed in Italy. The thought of a new language overwhelmed Henry, but he really felt like there was so much new he needed to know. From the time he was in Iran, Henry felt like a new person. The greed of knowledge had found him. He wanted to learn as much as possible and was willing to travel to a new country and learn another language because of it. So that's exactly what he did. He had made a small fortune curing a lover of Edward the Confessor's and now he was spending that gold for traveling, living expenses and bribing himself into the university.

The first university in Europe. Henry had no way to show himself as a studied and well-educated scholar, but as he could show his knowledge in medicine quite easily, it wasn't hard to learn more of everything he already knew and more.

All the problems that university student's dorm could find, from a sprained ankle to penis fracture, gave him a chance to earn some money as well as favors. Well, let's be honest. Anything could happen.