‘And one can see why.’ He looked about him and moved closer. ‘Anselmo is very young. None so young has ever been given such a privilege . . . and yet, preceptor, we must remember our vow of obedience, an obedience that is prompt and unquestioning. We must not follow our will, neither must we obey our own desires and pleasures, but follow the commands and directions of the abbot and his obedientiaries. If Anselmo was the abbot’s choice, then Brother Macabus should have been happy that a fine translator could be found in the monastery and not procured elsewhere. In any case Brother Macabus is not a great translator, mediocre so I’m told, though I do not mean this in an unkind way. Anselmo was the better choice, but he proved too young and . . . petulant.’
‘So Brother Ezekiel changed his mind about him?’
‘Naturally, that is, when he went about boasting of the things he had seen in the library, what else could he do? It is also rumoured that Anselmo was not satisfied with the work that Brother Ezekiel was giving him, but that he wanted more, to see more, to do more . . . but this is monkish gossip.’
‘Has Anselmo expressed to you his anger at being rejected?’
‘To the contrary. He told me that it was a good lesson in humility and also in obedience.’
‘And what of the other novice, the young Jerome?’
Brother Sacar’s face darkened. ‘He has disappeared . . . some say he sneaked away in the middle of the night, all for the better I say. He was a strange one.’
‘How do you mean strange, brother?’
‘There was something unnatural about him . . . a feminine quality . . . but he was good in the medicinal arts. A natural healer, the infirmarian told me once, though he also mentioned that the boy was a little too . . . enthusiastic.’
‘Come now, brother, how can a physician be too enthusiastic?’
He lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘All I can say is that Brother Asa had admonished his desire to know too much too soon on more than one occasion. There are certain things one must learn gradually, preceptor, as one’s maturity dictates.’
‘Did he say what these things were?’
‘Not exactly, for I believe he did not know many things himself. Poor Brother Asa.’ He sighed. ‘In his master’s eyes he would always be a student. I do not believe Setubar would part with many of his secrets and this led to a rift between them. In any case, it was not his belief that a physician should interfere with nature . . .’
‘And Brother Asa was seeking to do so?’
‘Oh no!’ he cried aghast and his hand flew to his mouth, perhaps fearing that the devil might access an indiscreet portal with greater ease. ‘I do not believe . . . I do not know.’
‘I see . . .’
‘But he is innocent of all these insinuations of sorcery. Of that I am sure.’
My master must have been satisfied because he changed the subject. ‘So this is a monastery not only of fine music but also of translators?’
‘Since the beginning,’ smiled the master of music, suddenly relaxed.
‘I thank you for your insightful observations. We must not keep you further, brother, I can see that you are busy.’
‘I hope that I have been useful to you, though I am indeed limited in the affairs of gossip . . . You do not think that the Devil of jealousy is responsible for these terrible events do you, preceptor?’ he asked a little anxiously.
‘I do not know, Brother Sacar, but I am making it my aim to find out. One last thing, the organ, how does one operate it, is there a code perhaps?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he answered with reluctance, ‘and I shall take that secret to my deathbed, preceptor, where I shall whisper it into the ear of my successor, as it was whispered into mine.’
‘But surely if Brother Samuel died suddenly, as we have heard from all accounts, how could he have told you?’
He was momentarily caught off guard. ‘Yes, it is strange. He came to me the night before he died and told me, as if he knew his end was near . . .’
‘This begs another question, do you have an oblate to replace you? Perhaps now that he is free of his obligations in the library . . . Anselmo?’
‘Perhaps . . .’ The other man fell silent.
‘So you, too, will keep secrets from your acolyte, just as Setubar did with Asa, and Samuel with you?’
‘Oh, it is only tradition,’ he shrugged. ‘What more can a good monk do than follow tradition?’
‘I thank you again,’ my master said with a bow, and the master of music left us for the church.
‘Things are a little clearer, inshallah!’ Andre said, carefully adding the precautionary exclamation (if God please) after the monk was out of earshot, the infidel in his nature momentarily surfacing like a hydra.
‘How so, master?’ Frankly, I found that hard to believe. There were further suspicions to confuse us and I was speculating on the abbot’s motives, and even on those of Sacar!
‘There is now little doubt this monastery has two functions; it operates on the surface as any monastery of its kind and below the surface as a centre for the translation of secret texts. Moreover, the four old brothers had only been here ten years and this date coincides with another event of interest.’
‘The year of the siege at Montsegur,’ Eisik added.
‘It proves that Setubar was not lying to the inquisitor. The Cathar castle is some distance away, but not too far to discount its connection to this place. I am convinced that the old brothers were indeed the heretics of Montsegur, all four of them. Let us look at what we know. Firstly, the abbey was established the year before the fall of Jerusalem. Brother Sacar said nine of the founders were monks from distant lands, he did not say they were Cistercian monks. Four were from France. All the abbots had either lived in the Holy Land or knew the most important Eastern languages for translating. Each abbot was head translator before becoming abbot. We have seen one Templar grave in the cemetery, the first abbot of the monastery. Sacar told us this in his own way. There may be more unmarked ones that we have not seen.’
‘Are you saying that the founding monks were Templars?’ I asked.
‘I told you, Andre! I could smell them,’ Eisik waved a threatening finger at him, ‘but you did not listen.’
‘That may explain . . .’ my master said absently, as though he had not heard Eisik, ‘why the grand master was present at our meeting with the king and also why we have been sent here.
This is only an assumption, a hypothesis, and we must bear in mind what a dangerous thing it is to hypothesise because it may limit us to one idea when there may be others just as worthy of our attention.’
‘Why would nine knights establish a Cistercian monastery so far from the Holy Land? Why not a preceptory?’ I asked.
‘Perhaps to carry out some arcane translations, with the sanction of St Bernard, away from ecclesiastic scrutiny, and that may explain why the abbots of this monastery have never attended a meeting of the general chapter. Perhaps our order in those days found the eternal gospel hidden in the bowels of Temple of Solomon . . .’
As we walked past the stables, my master said, ‘Whatever it is the monks of this monastery are doing, we must above all stop the inquisitor from getting his vulturous claws on the original copy of the gospel.’
‘But Netsamur!’ Eisik exclaimed, his eyes fairly popping out of his bony skull. ‘From what the boy says, Setubar may have already told him everything!’
‘Yes, but I do not think Setubar knows the formulas of orientation . . . unless he dragged them out of Daniel . . . We must see him and question him ourselves.’ He looked around him reflectively. ‘Where would the old man be? What time is it?’
‘Almost sext, master,’ I answered.
‘We must also figure out what the strange numerical code on the organ means.’ He looked a little distracted. ‘The inner room . . . the sanctuary perhaps where a young boy brought here by the four brothers is sequestered . . . along with original sacred texts . . .’
‘We had best sharpen our wi
ts!’ Eisik whispered harshly, afraid. ‘Stop musing, Andre! The living are becoming rare in this monastery! Look around you, the corpses are piling up!’
‘Yes, Eisik, that too worries me.’
‘It seems to me you worry more about your puzzles,’ he reproached, saying aloud what I had been thinking all along. However, I too had been seduced by the mystery and had forgotten that lives were in peril.
As we rounded the stables Eisik departed to his cell above the animals, shaking his head and mumbling dire omens under his breath, and we continued in the silence of our own misgivings. Upon nearing the blacksmith’s workroom, however, our meditations were interrupted by a terrible sound. My master immediately left me alone for a moment at the entrance to the building while he inspected its source, and as I waited for his return, feeling a great deal of uneasiness under the stare of many eyes, I saw the bishop coming out of the cookhouse carrying something under his arm.
His haste and the folds of his habit hid whatever it was, and I could not see it, only that it was substantial. The friar, who was on his way to the service, almost bumped into him, as he rounded the church. There followed an angry exchange between them and the bishop continued through the aperture to the cloisters, while the friar looked on with malice. At that moment the Cistercian joined him, and they had a moment of conspiracy, each man looking around with suspicion, it seemed, before entering the church.
Also on the way to the holy office were the maiden and her father, making their way from the pilgrim hospice. Partially hidden as I was behind an old tree, I was able to observe her without being noticed. Her face, revealed by an imprudent wind that swept back her hood, was that of a young woman whose complexion was exquisitely fair, with noble features, and lofty demeanour. I saw the brilliance of her eyes, the perfect form of her teeth. With a casual air she tossed very slightly the sable tresses that, in little curls, fell upon her lovely shoulders . . . I was mute, as I should have been! Transfixed by her loveliness, I found my eyes riveted to the area of purest softness where her slender neck met the curvature of her shoulders. Here a large gold clasp brought together the folds of a crimson robe that hung loosely over a velvet gown of the same colour, and yet not concealing the form beneath . . . Thankfully, she soon entered the church, away from my sinful eyes. For a moment she had been the woman in my dream, the Goddess Natura, leaving the scent of jasmine in her step, and I felt myself blush violently.
I did not hear my master come up behind me, I only felt his hand as he slapped me on the back of the neck almost too sharply.
‘The world would be sweet if there was no such thing as woman!’ he said calmly.
‘But, master, we would not have been born!’ I answered a little annoyed, rubbing my stinging neck.
‘Ah . . . but, Christian, we would not need to be born! We would all be in paradise. In any case, if not for the recent terrible incident with the mountain she would not have been given permission to stay. As it is she offers distraction for stupid squires and the sooner she leaves the better!’
‘So what you are saying, master,’ I retorted, feeling that Andre was sounding too much like Setubar, ‘is that the beautiful should be shunned, but that is not what Plato teaches us.’
‘No, you are quite right,’ he agreed as we entered the hot oily room used by the blacksmith. ‘He tells us that when one falls in love with the beauty in one individual (for how can one help but fall in love with such a diabolical deception), one then sees that this beauty is similar to that in all human beings, and that by loving the beauty of the body he comes to know the love of the mind that he soon realises is far superior to the other kind, and in this way he recognises the beauty of all forms of knowledge, ergo, attaining a love for beautiful words and thoughts that hopefully leads to apprehension of that one supreme form of all knowledge, God himself,’ he ended.
‘Yes that is it exactly!’ I said triumphantly.
‘Ahh, but, Christian, there is something you have not thought of.’
‘Master?’
‘Plato was not a monk and he liked to look at beautiful boys.’
‘So,’ I said presently, because I had been outwitted and because I did not want to know such things about Plato, ‘what we heard . . . was that the sound of some animal being shoed or branded?’
‘No . . . it was the cook,’ he answered, and we climbed the stairs.
The cook was being kept in a small room that occupied a section of the building used by the blacksmiths. I sneezed immediately we entered the large space outside it, for there was heavy smoke coming from the furnaces and the smell of burning animal hair, tanning oil, and other irritating substances. We walked directly to a doorway guarded by two archers whose inscrutable expressions gave little insight into their persons, but rather made them look like those stone sculptures outside the church. My master ordered the two men to step aside in the name of the king. This caused a cloud of uncertainty to darken their brows, for my master’s demeanour was such that it required a strict adherence to his command, and so reluctantly they obeyed his order, and let us pass.
Inside we found the cook, sitting on the floor of the large room that smelled very bad. His hands were tied behind his back at an awkward angle, and there was a rope on a kind of device hanging from the ceiling. Before us stood the inquisitor flanked by two more archers, his face red with anger.
‘What say you, brother Templar, to this interruption!? We have grave matters to attend to here. If you will leave us . . .’
‘I do not mean to interrupt you in your holy work, Rainiero, only that it has been brought to my attention that Brother Setubar remains missing since before the service. I need not mention what this may signal . . .’
The man frowned, a look of alarm crossed his face and then his eyes narrowed. ‘Have you searched the abbey?’
‘We have, but to no avail.’
‘This will have to wait.’ He ordered his two archers out of the room. ‘We may have to add one more carcass to the rest!’ he remarked, in order that all might hear his predictions and so pronounce him wise when they proved to be true. He paused before my master, measuring him with his eyes. ‘I must go and order the captain of the guard to look for the old man, but the inquisitio will continue today even if all the monks of the monastery are found dead.’
With this he left the room, and we were alone with the cook.
The poor man’s face was so disfigured that I found it difficult to recognise his former person. His left eye could not be seen, and his mouth I cannot describe. It will suffice to say that whatever teeth he had had were now gone and that his bruised and battered lips contorted into a hideous smile as he saw us.
My master untied his hands and helped him to stand. Later I was to learn that he had been hung by a rope from his wrists, tied as we saw, behind him. Then he would have been lowered abruptly a little at a time. The aim of such torture was to inflict the most terrible pain in the shortest time, because it did not take much to break both arms and occasion a terrible dislocation of the shoulders.
‘Por favor señor!’ he cried, tears running down the broken bones of his cheeks. ‘Madre mía! Díos mío! I have done nothing . . . nothing! Escape I must! No one is safe! Ohh, miseria, miseria, I have done nothing, you must believe me!’
Was it possible that this was the giant of a man that I had met that first day in the kitchen?
‘If I am to believe you, you must tell me everything!’ my master said.
The man looked up innocently, like a little child. ‘It is my sin that in the kitchen of the popes’ enemy I worked . . . that is true, but I have always been un good católico . . .! Mi único error, señor ...’
‘Indeed, your only error is that you have been a heretic in league with heretics,’ my master said sharply.
‘What is heresy, señor? Is it heresy to do honest work? To think with your cabeza – your head? No . . . no!’ he cried defiantly, shaking his head, and then broke into a sob, the great span of his chest moving rhythmica
lly with his wide and now disfigured shoulders.
‘Perhaps not,’ my master conceded, ‘but that still leaves us with the fact that you have not convinced me sufficiently of your innocence in the terrible matters of these last days.’
‘Por favor . . .’ He came closer and the stench of onion filled my nostrils. ‘You must forgive me . . . I have not been totally sincero . . . is very difficult for me, señor . . .’ he coughed, spitting.
‘Tell me the truth, for Brother Setubar has told me of your secret.’
The man looked aghast. ‘He told you?’
‘He told me you were among those who murdered Piero da Verona.’
There was a terrible silence.
‘You are then not only a murderer,’ my master continued harshly, ‘but also a heretic and an enemy of the church, a man quite capable of killing again to stop his secret from being known.’
He straightened what he could of his back and answered defiantly, ‘Is true, I murdered one filthy inquisitor . . . but never have I killed again. Penance I have done . . . but the others, they are free, Giacopo he is free . . . we were fighting a war, you must understand? You fight wars . . .’
‘I have never brandished a sword against a Christian,’ my master answered calmly, and so I knew him to be agitated.
‘And you think you are better than me!’ the cook said bitterly, ‘I hear what they say about you, you are un infidel, you kill your own kind!’
‘I am a Christian.’
‘You think this makes you a saint because you wear a cross? How does it feel to kill your own blood? You are like me, you kill when it suits you!’ For one moment he raised his chest, like a cock in those seconds before a crow, then he became disheartened, his shoulders drooped, perhaps he realised there was nothing to be gained by arguing with the one man who could help him. ‘I have done penance, I have been absolved, I have come back to the bosom of the mother!’
‘You lie too easily, cook, it will do no good to evade the truth. Come now, confess to me and I will see that you are judged fairly.’
TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel Page 33
