TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel

by Adriana Koulias

  ‘But what obliges you to go poking around in the abbey’s business, master? Are we not here simply to see that no injustice is done by the inquisition?’

  ‘The abbot has done what he could by asking me to seek the ‘evil roaming the abbey’, whose words echo those of Ezekiel that day before his death, if you will remember, and yet, in the end, nothing obliges us to do anything we will not do willingly, out of a desire to know, am I right?’

  ‘So our next move is?’

  ‘I would say that at this point, with all that has happened, our first priority may be to prevent the inquisitor from using our bones as faggots – but you will be glad to know that, among all these questions, we do know something, and that is, that there is a tunnel beneath the abbey that no one wants to mention and that the abbot seems anxious to safeguard. There have been two deaths, not one, and under similar suspicious circumstances. I don’t yet know what one thing has to do with the other – perhaps nothing, perhaps everything. But we must remember that if we know these things it is only a matter of time before the inquisitor also learns of them, that is, of course unless he has known about them all along . . . in which case this abbey is doomed.’

  Having said these things my master lapsed into a pensive silence and it was some moments before I had occasion to tell him of my conversation with the cook. He listened quietly and then rubbed his hands together, very pleased, ‘Good,’ he seemed cheered, ‘he may be of great help to us.’

  ‘Really? I don’t see how a cook can be of any help, master, after all, how much could such an ignorant man know?’

  ‘Why, you are a stupid boy!’ he looked surprised. ‘A living dog is better than a dead lion! We must not confound learning with intelligence for here is another who says those with garrulous tongues die in this abbey, and we had better start listening.’

  ‘And what shall we hear?

  ‘Something that will point to where we must investigate. I shall question him later . . .’ saying almost to himself, ‘but for now, we must look about us, and as Peter has said, we must be sober, we must be vigilant.’

  ‘What must we look for, master?’ I shivered.

  ‘Everything and nothing at all!’

  ‘But how does one go about looking for nothing?’

  ‘Christian, must I explain what should be as apparent as the colour of my skin? Nothing is only anything devoid of everything, or rather, a something lacking, which can be just as significant as its opposite.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, absolutely perplexed.

  ‘Sometimes we must look, as I have told you, not only for things of substance that add weight to our hypothesis, but also for things that, on the surface at least, may seem unimportant, so prosaic that they incite suspicion. Only a good physician hunts down the less evident symptom . . . that peculiar movement of the hand, that little tremble of the lip. All such things also apply to our investigations, because it is often the small, undetectable things, that point to deeper truths.

  The sun seemed higher now, but one could neither see it, nor feel it. We walked past the church, and in the daylight I realised that it rose far higher than I had previously thought, reaching dizzying heights, as though its architect had in his design attempted to echo the awesome elevations that surrounded it.

  All around us work carried on as usual, for even on Sundays a monk’s duty had to be performed. The animals had to be fed, there was bread to be cooked and ale to be brewed. Those whose tasks lay in less manual work engaged in fruitful intercourse. Some read the scriptures, while others prepared for mass. Still others sat in contemplation, meditating on the lives of the saints.

  We headed in the direction of the stables where our animals resided. Here, where the garden separated it from the kitchen, life was manifest in all its peculiar forms, in all its diverse movements, sounds, and smells: A young monk brought sour-smelling scraps from the cookhouse and threw them out to waiting chickens. Another set out from the great gates to collect kindling. We could hear the brother blacksmith straightening a horseshoe on the anvil. I rejoiced. There is nothing more wonderful! Nothing holier than devotion to work that sustains a community. Nothing more blessed than the study of the divine word through the daily ritual of life. Even under such difficult circumstances men went about their business as if it were any other day, and not the day in which the inquisitor had made his intentions clear. As we reached the garden, I reflected on the idea of the paradox, on inconsistencies and disparities, infinite universes of differences and similarities, that were at once distinct and yet the same, and in a state of confusion, I could not refrain from questioning my master further on the subject of heresy.

  ‘Master, I am confounded.’

  ‘That does not surprise me,’ he said, pausing to observe the sky above us. ‘Life is complex and confusing and yet if it were a simple matter, we would all be gods, for our life must be a simple matter to Him. What confuses you?’

  ‘Our enemies confuse me, master.’

  ‘Ah, I see. So, you are confused because here in France our foe is not who he seems to be,’ he said winking. ‘But our foe is seldom who we think he is.’

  ‘But an inquisitor, once a heretic, now burns those who follow the doctrines that he himself once believed? It sounds . . .’

  ‘Contradictory?’

  ‘Yes. Contradictory.’

  ‘And that is where one relies on one’s powers of good judgement.’

  ‘If that is the case, then I must surely have none,’ I said, ‘for I do not know whom I should fear!’

  ‘My good Christian,’ he said patiently, ‘you should fear all those whom you cannot like. This is always a good rule. Because it is likely that they do not like you.’

  ‘But what if you are faced with having to fear even those whom you should like . . . Why must there be so many contradictions?’

  ‘Contradictions are the way of the world! Listen to me. In the course of your life you will hear many things and occasions may arise when you will be tempted to allow your foolish heart to hold sway over your head, as you are now doing, and I tell you that you must never do it. Never decide even the most insignificant of things without first undertaking a fully reasoned deliberation.’

  ‘Is that what you do, master? Do you never feel a thing passionately?’ I asked.

  ‘It is better to say that I choose to be dispassionate. Because a man who wants to live to a full age, to gain the respect of his equals, and the envy of his enemies, must never allow sympathy and antipathy to rule his reasoning. My advice to you is to remain unhampered by the trifles and trivialities of an emotional disposition and you will be a happy man. Rational thinking is the key.’

  So says a man, I thought, whose temper is often foul. ‘I’m sorry, master,’ I said aloud, ‘but heresy does not afford occasion for rational thinking.’

  ‘Everything in life, my impertinent young rogue, affords one with occasion for rational thinking. Life is not simple, life is perplexing and convoluted, as is the question of heresy.’ He paused in deep reflection and I knew he was thinking a great many things. ‘In the East, you knew the enemy because the differences between you were more obvious, am I right?’

  ‘Of course. That is it, exactly.’

  ‘The infidel denies Christ, he believes in Mahomet. His skin is a different colour and his customs are infinitely at variance from yours, and though as human beings you share a common physical law – as do all living creatures – that is all you share. Here in France, however, the enemy is far more deceitful, far more cunning.’

  ‘Because the enemy here professes to believe what I believe?’

  ‘Yes, his customs, too, are your own, and he has your complexion, your colouring. He may be your neighbour your friend, even . . . your priest. He is not who he pretends to be.’

  ‘Who are you speaking of, master? The inquisitor or the church or the heretics?’ I asked.

  ‘All of them! Because even the faithful shepherd, whose task it is to guard the sheep from the hungry
wolves, may be anticipating a good lamb stew! But we must begin at the beginning, if there is such a thing, for God had six days in which to create the world and how are we poor sinners to elucidate it in a few moments before mass?’

  We entered the stables into the wonderful world of smells that are earthy and good, but murderous on my nasal passages. I sneezed twice in succession.

  ‘Now then, heresy,’ He sought Gilgamesh and found him in the stall next to Brutus. From a little repository in his habit he produced, as always, a morsel and fed it to him, patting the animal affectionately. ‘You have heard no doubt of the dualists?’ he continued, as though I should know what he was saying, ‘such as the Cathars, for they were renowned in these parts (as you have found out of late) and are the very form of heresy that we suspect here at this abbey in one form or another, but there are many more . . . and we do not want to be here all day! You see, one must also consider those who have diverged, even from the essence of heretical doctrine, and call themselves by other names, or no names at all!’

  ‘But that would mean that there are heretical heretics?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘But how is one to tell one heretic from another when they are so similar that even the heretics become confused?’

  ‘It is only from a distance that they may seem that way because human nature is both complex in its distinctions and similar in its simplicity. From a distance one plant looks very much like another, and yet one may be poisonous, while another may be harmless. You see Gilgamesh? Is he not in substance a similar creature to Brutus?’

  ‘No, master, Gilgamesh is fiery of spirit, gallant, and speedy, while Brutus is slow, obstinate and exceedingly loud,’ I answered.

  ‘Yes, but you are only describing particulars, and not universals. If you were to see them from a great distance you would be hard-pressed to say that they were different.’

  ‘It would have to be a great distance,’ I retorted.

  ‘Let us look at it another way. They each have four legs, a neck, a tail. They both eat oats and grass, they breathe air and drink water?’

  ‘Yes, master, but Gilgamesh is a beautiful beast, high and slender. Your sight must not be as good these days if you can compare the two creatures.’

  ‘But, my boy!’ he cried, I believe exasperated. ‘That is not the point! Both creatures are in substance similar and yet different in temperament, and in particular qualities that distinguish them even from other animals in their own breed.’

  ‘And so you say that some heresies like Gilgamesh are better than others like Brutus?’

  ‘No, that is not what I meant!’ He sighed deeply. ‘I mean that one heresy, from a distance, may be similar to another by virtue of its body of dissent, but not, in proximity, by virtue of its accident.’

  ‘But they are both heresies. They are, like Gilgamesh and Brutus, of the same substance.’

  ‘Yes. All heretics have fallen from the one true way, but some have fallen further than others. Finally you understand!’

  ‘I think so, I see now that all heresies are evil and detestable.’

  ‘Ahh, but if we believe Aristotle when he says that the endeavour of a human being always aims at some good, then we must surmise that there is an element of virtue in all human thought.’

  ‘But if there were any measure of virtue in their heretical ideas, surely the church would not persecute them?’

  He brought out one more morsel, popping it into the horse’s mouth, and proceeded to a thoughtful pause. ‘What is good and what is evil? Therein lies the key,’ he answered finally.

  ‘But that is plain and unquestionable.’

  ‘Is that so?’ my master asked, raising one eyebrow very high, and I knew that I had made a mistake. ‘Then perhaps you would like to elucidate this age-old problem for me and all the great philosophers who are now basking in heavenly glory and for whom this very question was never answered? No, I think not! You have far too much confidence in your own perspicacity, and this will, one day, lead to your undoing!’

  I nodded my head demurely.

  ‘Now, if I may continue,’ he cleared his throat. ‘Plato tells us that a man cannot be good, for that is a privilege of the gods, and that he cannot be evil for those same reasons. He can become evil or good, but he therefore cannot be evil or good.’

  ‘Well, if man can be neither good nor evil, what is left to him?’

  ‘The middle state which, Plato says, is preferable to either. Perhaps it is the natural function of man to seek the middle way and this is the cause of heresy.’

  ‘But tell me, master, for I become more and more confused, what makes the Cathars different from the Waldensians, and the Waldensians from the Spiritualists who seem to be so similar to the Franciscans?’

  ‘It is all a matter of how far they have wandered from the middle way. Cathars, my boy, believe in a Manichean ideal of evil which rests on the belief that everything created in the material world – including man himself – is the work of the evil God. They deny the cross, for they do not believe Christ died upon it and they do not believe in the sacrament as it is given in the Roman church. St Augustine confesses to having been a Manichean before he was converted.’

  ‘And what of the others like the Waldensians?’ I pressed.

  ‘The Waldensians do not seek doctrine outside the church, but their downfall rests in that they abhor wealth, believing it to be sinful, condemning rich bishops and priests of being corrupt and so not worthy to give the sacrament. A pious ideal when applied with temperance, but a terrible weapon in the hands of the poor and hungry, or those of extreme propensity whose violence leads to murder and plunder. These sects then become, after a time, like old encumbered trees whose branches are laden with fruit, whose seeds cause new trees to grow . . . perhaps birds carry the seeds a very long way from their place of origin . . . and thus, when they are carried to many diverse places, the trees they generate are different, because they are influenced by this or that; climate, soil, etc so that they become almost unrecognisable. This makes it exceedingly difficult for the church, as you can imagine, for her captains are constantly facing new strains of the old heresies.’

  ‘So what can be done?’

  ‘Not too much. Here in Languedoc we see that even when the rivers are awash with blood it is impossible to stem the tide of dissent because it is characteristic of the human spirit that it is infinitely resilient. You may quash a movement here and before too long new movements linked with the old can be seen springing up there. Like those seeds we spoke of earlier, having become estranged from the mother tree, they develop independently, and often in confusion, for they consist of members that had perhaps belonged to the Cathars or the Waldensians, or Bogomils from the ordo Bulgariae elsewhere. Often these men bring with them no subtlety of doctrine, only simple moralistic ideals. The accidents of one then are attributed to the other, and they are seen as one and the same, though initially in principle they were very different. It is a being that comes to life through a mixture of elements.’

  ‘So you are saying that it makes no difference what heresy it is because they eventually intertwine, and so all must be equally punished?’

  ‘No, that is not it.’

  ‘But ...’

  ‘No, because what a man confesses when persuaded with a hot iron, my boy, may far exceed the extent of his sin. One can never be certain that one hears the truth under torture.’

  ‘But why lie? How could one confess to terrible crimes if they are not true?’ I asked because I did not know, at that tender age, that the flesh is weaker than the spirit.

  My master shook his head in dismay, and at that moment he looked more like a Saracen than a Christian. ‘Firstly, we are not all born to endure a martyred end, my boy, otherwise we would all be saints! When one is tortured – and we must remember with what zeal an inquisitor pursues his victim – one will often confess to anything in order to die and in order to escape pain and humiliation. A person will often conf
ess to the most remarkable things. Theres is also a strange phenomenon, something not explained by medicine or science that occurs between an inquisitor and his captive. An unnatural, unholy bond that sees the accused confessing to greater and greater sins in order to please the inquisitor. After a time even the accused believes his lies. It is a terrible thing.’

  ‘And yet,’ I retorted, ‘if a person confesses to having committed a sin that he did not in truth commit he is then compounding that sin with an even greater one!’

  ‘You say these things, Christian, because when one is young, one believes very simply, as you have said before, in black and white, right and wrong, good and evil, but just as nature adorns herself in manifold colours, so, too, are there various shades of virtue, as there are various shades of depravity.’

  ‘How must I differentiate to what extent one evil is greater than another, and one good is less good than another good, master?’

  ‘One must look into the heart of it to see what is heresy. In its most extreme case it is a noxious weed which seeks to strangle the good plant, but we must eradicate this weed wisely, for as we know, some poisons are not only harmful to the weed, but also to humans and horses and others only to cattle or dogs.’

  Seeing my blank look, Andre considered another explanation.

  ‘In my opinion the only true heresy seeks to take Christianity as a living spiritual reality, and transform it into a dead animal, one that only seems to live, but is decayed and lifeless . . . theoretical.’

  ‘Do you mean, like the theologians do?’

  ‘Yes, but they have the help of the Arabic philosophers who interpret Aristotle in such a way that man begins to lose sight of the spirit.’

  ‘Master,’ I interrupted, seeing my chance, ‘I had a very strange dream last evening, in which I –’

  ‘Did you? Well, you must tell it to me sometime . . .’

  ‘But it concerned this very subject. A monk called Thomas and his companion were living in the shelter outside the abbey.