‘He knew of Aclar?’
‘Not really, Holiness. But he remembered something. He remembered long, long ago – he was a young man at the time – he was serving on a ship which was tied up at Genoa, or at Livorno, he really could not recall whether it was Genoa or Livorno, and they were tied alongside a ship with curious rigging. He said he and his fellow seamen were very struck by something about this rigging. He told me all about it, Holiness, and at great length, but I’m afraid I didn’t understand a word of it – something about keeping ropes from slackening. Anyway, as well as this business about the rigging, the ship was curious in another way – it didn’t have galley slaves. It just had crew. They all worked, he understood, and would all get paid. So his captain took fright and moved his berth across the harbour. He didn’t want the wretches in his own ship to get mutinous ideas, I gathered. The point is, Holiness, that my drunken friend thought he could remember asking one of the sailors on the other ship where he hailed from and being told he was an Aclaridian. That’s all. Just that one word, “Aclaridian”. And from some twenty years ago, as far as I could reckon.’
Severo sat for some moments in silence. Then he said, ‘Thank you, Rafal. You serve me well.’
‘Holiness, there is just one other thing. It probably doesn’t matter, but . . .’
‘Tell me.’
‘I quickly found out that being asked about Aclar was no novelty. Someone has been at the harbourside repeatedly, coming repeatedly for many months, asking the question before me. From the description of him, I think it must be Joffre, the atheist’s servant.’
‘Hmm,’ said Severo. ‘That’s a relief, I rather think. I feared for a moment it might have been some agent of Fra Murta’s.’
32
The abbess had been carried out into the garden as soon as the chill of the morning softened and set under the fig tree. She could no longer stand, nor even really sit, but was laid tenderly in a hammock in the open air. Pare Aldonza had absolved her from her duty to hear office, and while the work of the nunnery went on all round her, she simply lay quietly – not at ease, for her bodily condition prevented ease, but calm. Now and then one of the sisters came out to her, bringing drink or a little bread and cheese. She ate like a bird these days, but drank plentifully, water mixed with wine. All her daughters in God were gentle with her now, even the ones she had no love from before; she well knew why.
They were full of pity for her blindness. And yet it was not true that she could see nothing; the world of the garden in which she reclined was full of blotches of colour. That soft swaying cloud of green was the fig tree, which gave her shade, and the pale, shimmering watery colour that flowed around it was the sky. The earthy colours which bordered the garden in a blurry ribbon were the walls of her abbey, painted newly in deep terracotta wash some time back – not long since, so no wonder they were bright. Sor Agnete said it was twenty years ago, but she must be wrong. The world was a bowl of earthen pottery colour, in which fishes of soft hues floated and swam.
When people came near, she saw them as soft grey outlines if they stood between her and the light, not at all otherwise. Pare Aldonza brought her communion after mass, and sometimes he came and sat with her for a few moments in silent companionship – there was nothing to say. She knew he was anxious; he was afraid that the sisters would elect Sor Agnete to take her place and he thought Sor Agnete had no time for him, and would ask the cardinal for a younger chaplain. The abbess knew that the sisterhood would choose Sor Eulalie and that Sor Eulalie would ask for a younger chaplain. She knew these things without any ripple of disturbance to her mind; they belonged to another world and did not concern her.
There were many hours of quiet. She could hear the distant sound of the hours being sung only when they left the chapel door open. She took no notice of it. She was no longer sure whether she had entirely given up praying or whether she prayed all the time. She slept a good deal. And awoke, once, to find a hovering shadow before her. Someone; she could not tell who. The visitor stood so still, so long without speaking that she thought perhaps it was death, come for her. But at last the shadow did give voice – Amara’s husky, unaccented tones.
‘Mother, why I kept here? Why I prisoner?’
Recalled abruptly from the drifting limbo in which she floated, the abbess said, ‘They wanted to know what you would say, child.’
‘Not like it here,’ Amara said. ‘Closed in. Want to go.’
‘I know what you mean, Amara,’ the abbess said. ‘I too would like to go, now. But we must wait until we are called.’
‘Wait how long?’
‘I don’t know how long,’ said the abbess. ‘Soon, I hope. I would greatly like to talk to my mother again. What about you, child? What are you longing for?’
‘Being far,’ Amara said. ‘Going far. And snow lonely. No speaking.’ She took a long time to find each cluster of words. And the abbess seemed to be asleep. Amara wandered disconsolately away.
Severo woke in the middle of the night, sweating. He had been dreaming. His dream remained with him, clearer for a few moments than the ghostly outline of his window, a lilac grid admitting shadow to the total darkness of the cell, clearer than the damp and tangled bedsheets which appeared when he fumbled for a tinder-box and lit a candle. He had been dreaming an example – the example of the Saracen chess-player. The books of moral theology studied in the Galilea were full of examples. The students read and debated them. This one was the story of a Saracen prince. There came through his country a Christian knight, on his way to the Holy Land in fulfilment of a vow. The vow was a promise the man had made to God: if God would heal his daughter, he would build a church in Jerusalem and give money to feed ten poor men and women at its western door every day for thirty years. The Saracen prince was impressed by the virtue of the Christian’s intention and declared that he would not detain him nor hinder the fulfilment of a vow to Allah. Indeed, he would contribute gold himself, to feed the poor of Jerusalem more lavishly. However, the prince had a passion for the game of chess and could find few worthy opponents and, finding that the knight could play well, he detained him day after day at his court, always saying that after one more game he would escort the man to his ship and let him embark. At last the knight caught the plague which was the scourge of the Saracen’s court and died without fulfilling his vow. The question was, what part of the sin of the broken vow could be laid at the door of the Saracen prince?
Severo could remember excitable debate about this. He could remember – what pain it gave him! – Beneditx’s youthful face alight with enthusiasm, propounding some particular view of the matter. He could no longer remember what line Beneditx had taken, and he no longer cared, for he knew the answer now. With what biting remorse he knew the answer! How easily he could have put Palinor on some ship or other, and forgotten about him! Yet he had detained him, not, as he now realized, out of a desire to be guided by providence, or any such thing, but because he wanted to talk with him; he wanted a worthy player on the other side of his private board. And now see what followed. He was enmeshed in consequence, all of it terrible, all of it his, Severo’s, fault. As for that impulse of blind anger in which he had given Palinor into the inquisitor’s hands – what was it but the rage of a stupid child who upsets the board on which he is losing a game? Gnawing at his knuckles, Severo waited for the sickening miasma cast by the dream to fade, and it did not. After an hour he rose, wrapped himself in an ample cloak, drew a fold of it over his head, and went out.
A huddled mass of wretched-looking people were sleeping in the street outside the Inquisition prison. Moonlight gave them faint visibility where they lay under tattered coverings, as close as they could lie to the dying embers of little charcoal fires. They looked like the bottom right-hand corner of the great judgement scene in the cathedral, showing the damned piled upon the damned. Severo stepped carefully over prostrate bodies, not wishing to wake anyone. The prison watchman would not admit him until he thrust his hand through t
he grill and showed his ordination ring, worn by every priest. Then the door was opened for him and closed behind him.
The place was in total darkness, and full of an overpowering stench. The watchman led him, holding his elbow, many paces down a sloping corridor and some greasy steps. The stench thickened. At last there was a clank of keys, and Severo was pushed into a cell. The floor was awash with some dreadful liquid, and Severo slipped, and found himself sitting on straw. The cell was full of a rough and painful breathing.
‘Smells bad, doesn’t it?’ said the watchman.
‘No worse than my conscience,’ Severo thought. ‘Bring lights,’ he said.
‘He isn’t allowed them,’ said the watchman. ‘More than my job’s worth.’
‘Bring a light for me,’ Severo said. ‘I need to see.’
‘You won’t like it,’ said the watchman, shuffling away.
He was right. The lantern, when it appeared, showed Palinor lying askew, held by the neck. There were no shackles left in the chain, and his neck-iron held him tight to the soaking and mouldy wall. He was held just too high to rest his shoulders on the ground. The sodden straw beneath him was foul with excrement, and he was covered with weeping sores.
Severo let out a great bellow of rage. ‘Get this iron off him!’ he cried.
‘I wouldn’t dare, Father,’ the man said, ‘and that’s the truth.’
Severo produced his great cardinal’s ring of office.
‘Holiness,’ the man said, trembling, ‘I have done nothing except under orders . . .’
‘Get that iron off him!’ cried Severo.
‘Sir, it needs the blacksmith . . .’
‘Fetch him!’
‘He has gone home, Holiness. It cannot be done until morning . . .’
‘By morning you will be in irons yourself, if he is not freed.’
The blacksmith was sent for. Severo sat on the stinking straw, waiting. It was indeed nearly dawn before the blacksmith arrived. He had a great axe with him. ‘Close your eyes and tilt your head as far forward as you can,’ he said to Palinor. Then he swung the axe high above his head and brought it down with speed and force between the man’s head and the wall. The bracket was severed, and Palinor fell forward on his face. His shoulder blades had rubbed raw against the wall.
Severo leaned forward and lifted Palinor, propping him in his arms. Looking up, he saw a young man and woman standing beyond the grille, holding hands like children.
‘Do you serve this man?’ he asked.
‘When we are allowed to, Holiness,’ the man said. ‘We have not been let in for many days.’
‘Why not?’ asked Severo.
‘Against orders,’ the watchman said. ‘Holiness, I implore you, do not take this man from the prison. Consider the scandal, Holiness. The people will think their cardinal is a heretic-lover. The inquisitor will go berserk, Holiness, and find a way of punishing me. I’ll find the prisoner a dry cell with a window and a bed, I’ll let his servants come and go, I’ll find clean water . . .’
‘At once,’ said Severo. ‘Do these things at once.’
Later, he said to Palinor, ‘Listen to me, my friend. If for one moment you admitted to Fra Murta that you have ever believed in God, at any time in the past, then you would be lost. You would be punished as a renegade, and I could not save you. But if you were to tell him that though you never were a believer in all your life before, you have suddenly come to believe now; if you told him, for example, that an angel had visited you in prison, and the knowledge of angels had convinced you, then I would baptize you, and you would be beyond his reach.’
‘No angel has come,’ said Palinor, wearily.
‘Listen: if there is no God, but you behave as though there were one – what do you lose? A few transitory pleasures in this world. Whereas if there is a God, in behaving as he desires, you gain eternal happiness and avoid eternal pain. Surely a prudent man should behave as if there is a God, simply to avoid so great a risk? Dissemble; invent that angel. If there is a God, he will not blame you for so innocent a deception, since it leads you to do the right thing . . . What would you stand to lose?’
‘My integrity,’ said Palinor. ‘The nearest thing I have to what you would call a soul. And besides, it is my right to entertain my own beliefs.’
‘How can a man claim a right who does not believe in God?’ said Severo, miserably.
‘I claim it, not because there is a God, but because I am a man,’ said Palinor.
33
‘Torture,’ said Fra Murta, ‘is the only way to break the will of an obdurate man.’
‘What you call obduracy is the conduct of a man following his conscience, which is his conscience though it be mistaken,’ said Severo.
‘You cannot exculpate him with that, Holiness,’ said Fra Murta. ‘For a false conscience does not bind.’
‘I would have thought that any man was bound to follow his conscience – how else can he suppose himself to be doing right?’ said Severo.
‘There are mighty authorities on my side in this,’ said Fra Murta. He had a habit of staring very brightly and directly at Severo as he began to speak and looking away thereafter. He was always looking away from anyone who answered him, Severo noticed. Now he turned his head away and stared out of the window of the chapter-house in which the two of them were seated, conferring. ‘For example, the great Augustine says that a sin is a word, deed, or desire contrary to God’s law. But a false conscience is not in accordance with God’s law. Therefore it cannot be sinful to ignore a false conscience.’
‘But . . .’
‘The Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Romans – I can give you the exact reference if you require it – has written, “Let every soul be subject to higher powers,” and in his commentary on this passage St Augustine says that we should not obey a lower power contrary to the commandment of a higher power, just as we should not obey the proconsul if his order is contrary to that of the emperor. And a false conscience is inferior to God. Need I go on, Holiness?’
‘To the contrary,’ said Severo. He was choking with hatred, struggling to contain himself and level his tones. ‘Consider Romans 14:23. I will remind you: the text says, “For all that is not of faith is sin.” And the commentary says, “That is, it is a sin in conscience, even if it is good in itself.” But a conscience which forbids that which is good in itself is false. Therefore, the text teaches that such a conscience binds.’
‘God is merciful,’ said Fra Murta. ‘More merciful than a temporal lord. But a lord does not hold his servant blameworthy in something which he did by mistake. Therefore, in God’s sight a man is much less obliged by a mistaken conscience.’
‘The holy Damascene,’ said Severo, ‘after whom you are yourself named, Fra Murta, wrote that “Conscience is the law of our understanding.” But to act contrary to a law is a sin. Therefore, it is also a sin to act against conscience in any way.’
‘Are you telling me,’ said Fra Murta, ‘that a man can stand up before us defending any blasphemous belief and any foul conduct by saying that his conscience commands it? If a mistaken conscience binds, then one who has fallen into error sins if he follows his conscience and sins if he does not. But a merciful God would not allow us to be so perplexed. A man is bound to follow his conscience only when it commands him to do what the Church teaches is right.’
‘Think again,’ said Severo. ‘Someone who has a false conscience, but believes that it is correct, clings to his false conscience because of the correctness he thinks is there, and strictly speaking clings to a correct conscience but one which is false accidentally, in so far as this conscience which he believes to be correct, happens to be false. We should say therefore that he is bound by a true conscience, but accidentally by a false conscience.’
‘You have a most delicate intellect, cardinal,’ said Fra Murta. ‘What a loss to the Inquisition that you did not elect to become a friar! Confronted by a man in the grip of a false conscience we should seek to cha
nge it. And if reason fails we should use force. One hour in the torture chamber will change his conscience like wax in the fire. You must allow this.’
‘You have yet to convince me that a false conscience does not bind a man so long as it remains.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Fra Murta, glancing at Severo, and looking away again, ‘that the false conscience I must seek to change may not be only that of the atheist but that of a churchman with too tender a regard for heretics – I had nearly said for heresy. One who acts according to conscience and sins against the law of God sins mortally. For there was sin in the error itself, since it happened because of ignorance of that which one should have known.’
‘But that is the very question under dispute!’ cried Severo, exasperated. ‘This argument goes in a circle! Should he have known of God, or might he in good faith be ignorant? That was the very matter for which the wolf-child’s testimony was independent evidence. And she said “No”, Fra Murta.’
‘She did not understand the question. We should ask her again.’
‘Very well, then,’ said Severo. ‘We will ask her again. And keep your hands off him until we have her answer, do you understand?’
The nuns were sitting round their long refectory table, their hands folded neatly in their laps. Even the novices were there, even Josefa. Only one chair was empty, and that was the great chair at the head of the table, the abbess’s. She was asleep under the fig tree, and there was no point in waking her. She might be able to understand her daughters’ deliberations – who could say? – but she could not answer their views, or enunciate her own. Like her dreaming soul, her authority was adrift and for the moment was nowhere. The sisterhood was holding a quiet conclave, to decide upon urgent affairs. Agitation fluttered in the air of the room; the sisters were like passengers of a vessel at sea, summoned to the deck because the captain was overboard and asked to sail the ship.
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