by Angus Donald
At the simple wooden gate of the garden, we were stopped by a servant, an old man, who demanded to know our business with the Bishop. Once again I lied and said that I came from the Dean of Notre-Dame with a message, and we were admitted, without further questioning. I was dressed in my finest clothes, a new silk tunic with a velvet-trimmed mantel, mounted on a fine horse and accompanied by an armed attendant — so I was clearly a knight and a man of consequence — but it was nonetheless surprisingly easy to obtain access to the most powerful man in Paris after the King.
We left the horses tied to a stunted apple tree outside the garden, and Hanno and I pushed through the simple wicket gate. Bishop Maurice de Sully was sitting on a low stone bench in a patch of September sun with a bowl of cut thyme in his lap and he was carefully separating the tiny green leaves from the spindly stalks. He looked truly ill, thin and worn; his grey hair sparse, his face deeply cut with the marks of long years and hard struggles. He was perhaps seventy, I guessed, and in no little amount of pain. The heavenly smell of crushed thyme — fresh, woody and sweet — filled the air of the herb garden.
As we made our way over to the Bishop, I glanced around that square open space, admiring the blocks of plants arranged in the centre in neat geometrical patterns, and I noticed a figure in a dark robe on the far side, just leaving the garden and entering an outbuilding. He was a tall man and although he was turned away from me, and I glimpsed him for only a moment, there was something about the way he moved that stirred my memory.
‘Your Grace,’ said the servant, and Bishop de Sully glanced up from the thyme bowl. ‘I humbly beg your pardon for disturbing you, but this gentleman says he has a message from the Dean; he says-’
‘Your Grace, I must speak to you about a very urgent and private matter,’ I interrupted, and Maurice de Sully looked directly at me for the first time. He had pale, almost colourless eyes and seemed wary, even rather alarmed at my words.
I hastened to reassure him: ‘I mean you no harm, Your Grace,’ I said, ‘and I admit I lied to your servant about a message from the Dean. But I have a great need to speak with you about my father, Henri d’Alle, who was once a monk here in Paris. I only wish to trouble you for a few moments and then I will gladly leave you in peace.’
That was true: I had told the Seigneur that I would dine with him and his family that day, and had sworn to be at the Rue St-Denis by noon for the feast. The servant, a slight, elderly man, was now looking between Hanno and myself, his mouth working soundlessly, his arms waggling jerkily from the shoulders: he seemed not to know whether he should make an attempt to lay hands on us and forcibly eject us from the Bishop’s presence. He hesitated, flapping like a bird, torn between fear and his duty to his master.
‘It is quite all right, Alban,’ said the Bishop to his man. ‘Calm yourself. Please be so good as to go and fetch us some wine, and perhaps a little bread and cheese.’ Then to me: ‘Be seated, young man, here, sit beside me, and tell me how I might be of service to you.’
The Bishop put the bowl of thyme down on the warm yellow slabs at his feet, and I took a seat beside him on the stone bench. Hanno stood behind me, his back leaning comfortably against the sun-warmed bricks of the garden wall, alert and yet relaxed at the same time.
‘I have an ailment of the stomach,’ the Bishop said. ‘It discomforts me a good deal and my new doctor — a Jewish fellow, but very well regarded among the brotherhood of physicians — advises that I drink an infusion of honey and thyme every night. I pick the herb myself each morning, and tell my servants that it is part of the cure but, in truth, I come here mostly so that I may be alone with my thoughts for a while. So you have chosen a good time to speak to me, my son — we will not be disturbed. You said that this matter concerned your father, yes?’
‘Do you remember him, Your Grace? Henri d’Alle; a singer in the cathedral twenty years ago, a tall, blond man who I’m told has a good deal of resemblance to me?’
De Sully looked closely at me, his pale eyes crawling over my face, and then let out a long heavy breath. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘oh yes, I remember Henri d’Alle. And I see him in you. I remember well the manner of his leaving us, too — I may be old and not in the best of health, but my recall is still reliable.’
‘Would you be so kind as to tell me the circumstances leading up to his departure from the cathedral…’
The Bishop picked up his bowl of thyme and began plucking the leaves from the stalks again as he spoke, his white fingers and thumbs moving with speed and delicacy to strip off the tiny green rounds from the woody stalks.
‘Henri was not comfortable being a monk,’ he began. ‘I don’t think it was his true calling; I think God did not mean him for that, although He had endowed him with an exceptionally fine voice. Your father was, I recall, unruly and disobedient — and I think lecherous, too. I know that the Dean was forced to discipline him on a number of occasions for minor transgressions. Having said that, I believe he was a good man and a true Christian.’
The Bishop paused for a moment, and put down the bowl of thyme again. He laid an almost translucent, blue-veined hand, blotched here and there with the brown spots of old age, along his cheek, remembering. ‘The visit of Bishop Heribert, God rest his soul, was a grand affair — it must have been in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of King Louis, oh, twenty-one years ago — it smacked of rather too much pomp and ceremony for my liking, but Heribert came from a powerful family in the south, and his wealth allowed him to make an occasion of his visit — and he was an important man, after all, a bishop, one mustn’t forget that. His money also allowed him to indulge his two great passions in life: Heavenly music and holy relics.
‘He came to Paris to hear the monks of Notre-Dame sing — your father being one of the leading choristers at the time — and I believe he found the experience rewarding. He spent many hours in the old cathedral listening to the holy offices being sung — and in my grand new cathedral, too, though in those days only the choir had been built and it was hellishly cold in wintertime. But while he was in Paris he also purchased a sacred relic — I think it was supposed to be a toe bone of John the Baptist — from a trader in such items and he had it mounted in a beautiful golden reliquary with a crystal top and sides, so that the bone could be viewed — and venerated. He had a collection of such pieces — a hair from Christ’s beard, the dried arm of St Gregory of Tours, and as many as four fragments of the True Cross — and he took them with him wherever he travelled, which I thought foolish. Indeed, so it proved to be.
‘I am afraid that I am somewhat wary of relics — perhaps it is a foible of my upbringing, or perhaps I merely lack the proper amount of faith — you young people all seem to be very keen on them and rush to pray before them whenever they are revealed, but I have always felt that, while there are undoubtedly some genuine relics, which do indeed have tremendous spiritual power, there are also a goodly number of charlatans offering items for sale that are no more than midden-fodder in a golden box. I have twice personally been shown a scrap of dried leather that was claimed — each time in earnest by a most pious and respected high churchman — to be the foreskin of Christ. And yet there is nothing in the Holy scriptures about Our Lord being so unusually endowed as to require two circumcisions!’ The Bishop gave a dry chuckle — but Hanno shifted uneasily behind me and when I turned to glance at him I swear that tough old Bavarian warrior looked deeply shocked by the Bishop’s crude words.
‘And so, when Heribert showed me his newly acquired holy toe at dinner one day, I was not as awestruck as perhaps I might have been. The good Bishop sensed this and my indifference to it seemed to make him desperate to impress me with the sacred grandeur of his collection. He mentioned this item and that, and extolled the special powers of this object and the rarity of another — I am afraid he did not command my full attention. And while, God knows, I tried to show the proper enthusiasm for his collection of old rags and bones, I was not successful. And eventually Heribert became quiet and sul
ky, and spent the rest of the meal indulging his prodigious appetite.
‘I regretted it the next day, of course, for that same night someone broke into the storeroom where the Bishop’s possessions were kept, and the thief made away with several of his much-vaunted relics — and it was the ones that were closest to his heart that were taken.’
‘Do you remember which particular relics were stolen?’ I asked, interrupting the old man for the first time.
‘Yes I do,’ he said, looking at me with his colourless eyes. ‘He was reluctant to tell me at first, but I pressed him and it all came flooding out eventually.’
‘And what were they?’ I asked. I could feel my pulse beating faster; a bead of sweat ran down my spine.
‘They were the most preposterous cluster of costly rubbish imaginable: a silver carving plate, a pair of golden candlesticks, an old lance head, and something he called a “ graal ”, a sort of serving bowl. I never fathomed the significance of the carving plate and the candlesticks, though Heribert claimed they had vague miraculous qualities — but the lance head, he told me, came from the weapon that a Roman soldier used to pierce the side of Our Lord Jesus Christ while he suffered on the Cross — and this graal, well, that was the vessel that Christ used at the Last Supper and also, rather conveniently, I must say, it was the vessel used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect the blood of Christ after he had been cut down from the tree at Calvary.’
Despite the Bishop’s dismissive, almost blasphemous, tone, I felt a jolt of lightning run down my spine at his words. This graal, this Grail — if it were indeed the true artefact — was claimed to be the very bowl that Christ had used and drunk from and blessed with the touch of his hands; and as if that weren’t enough, it had held his sacred blood! If it were real, I could scarcely imagine an object more worthy of deep veneration. This Grail had held the sacred blood of Our Lord, it had cradled the life fluid of God himself! To those who believed, it was indeed a wondrous object — that would be well worth killing for. Indeed, for some, it would be worth dying for. It was without a doubt the holiest thing that I had ever heard of.
I pulled myself together and dampened my excitement — though I noticed that Hanno had stepped a little closer, to listen, and that his face seemed to be all eyes. Then I asked the question that had been nagging at the back of my mind. ‘Who else was at this dinner when Bishop Heribert spoke so eloquently of his collection of holy relics?’
‘No one — it was just Heribert and me. And the duty monks who served the meal, of course.’
‘And my father, Henri d’Alle, was he one of the monks who served at the dinner table that day?’
‘He was — him and some of his young friends had been chosen to serve. I don’t recall exactly. It was one dull meal, with a dull, greedy, credulous fool, twenty-one years ago.’
‘Do you believe that my father was the man who stole this graal?’ My question came out flat and heavy, like a sheet of lead being dropped on wet turf. At first I thought that Bishop de Sully would not answer me, so lengthy was the pause between my question and his response.
‘A bishop must be a man of God, a devout follower of Christ’s teachings,’ said de Sully, ‘and as such, I shall answer you truthfully: no, I do not now believe that Henri d’Alle stole any of Heribert’s ludicrous collection of relics. But a bishop is also a lord of men, and a power in the land, and sometimes it is necessary to do things that a good Christian would not normally countenance. I shall answer to God for my actions, of course, but at that time I deemed that it was necessary for your father to shoulder the blame for that crime. I was not certain of his innocence, I may even have convinced myself of his guilt at the time; but I knew that I needed Heribert’s goodwill. And Heribert demanded a scapegoat for his loss. You must understand that the Bishop of Roda was a very wealthy man, absurdly wealthy, and he had agreed to make a vast contribution to the building of the cathedral, to Notre-Dame, to my life’s work. I decided that the building of a sacred monument to God’s greatness, a sublime edifice that would proclaim the glory of Our Lord, which would stand as a testament to the Christian faith for a thousand years — I decided that this work was more important than the continued employment of a young monk who did not have a true vocation for a life in the Church. Would you have made a different decision? I think not. So I sent Henri d’Alle away — he was not punished for the crime; he was asked to leave Notre-Dame and make his way elsewhere in the world. And, as I say, God will judge me for this, but I think not harshly.’
‘You are mistaken,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘Henri d’Alle was punished — he paid for that crime, a crime he did not commit, with his life. He was put to death by someone who calls himself the “man you cannot refuse” because he was innocent. He was innocent and this “man you cannot refuse” was guilty, and was attempting to keep his guilt a secret. Your negligence in seeking out the true perpetrator of the crime led indirectly to my father’s death!’
I found I was jabbing my index finger at Bishop de Sully, my voice rough and barely quieter than a shout. De Sully looked up at me as I ranted at him, his mouth open in surprise and showing his few remaining teeth. All the authority seemed to have gone from him and I recognized, quite suddenly, how old and tired and sick he was, and dropped my arm, feeling ashamed.
‘Peace, my friend, peace,’ said a familiar voice behind me, ‘this garden is meant as a haven of tranquillity.’ And I turned to see Brother Michel standing behind me, smiling serenely, his arms folded across his belly, his hands tucked into the opposite sleeves of his simple habit. Beside him stood the servant Alban, astonished at my rudeness, but bearing a tray of wine and cheese. ‘It is time, Your Grace, for your nap,’ said Brother Michel in a soothing voice. The sun was approaching the meridian.
‘But I must explain to this boy, I must tell him…’ quavered the Bishop.
Brother Michel smoothly interrupted him: ‘You know what the new doctor has said about complete rest, Your Grace — and you may talk again with Sir Alan later. Perhaps this evening. Perhaps we can even persuade him to stay with us for a while.’
The Bishop nodded, and got obediently to his feet and began meekly to walk towards the corner of the garden and the house, shepherded by Brother Michel with his right arm around his shoulders.
I said: ‘Your Grace, I cannot stay, I am afraid: but I would ask one more question, if I may: do you have any idea of the identity-’
But the monk turned his head back to me: ‘Be patient, Sir Alan, I beg you — refresh yourself: eat, drink, and I shall be with you very shortly. Then we can discuss the right time to arrange another interview with His Grace.’ And then he caught sight of the bowl of thyme that the Bishop had left on the stone pathway. ‘We mustn’t forget your medicine,’ said Brother Michel, and he took two steps back towards us and reached down with his left hand to pick up the fragrant clay bowl.
I looked at his hand as it descended, grasped the bowl and picked it up, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from crying aloud in surprise. In a blinding flash, I knew the identity of the ‘man you cannot refuse’ — for I saw with a sense of chill horror that the left hand, which Brother Michel had used to collect the bowl of thyme, had two tiny thumbs, each perfectly formed and sprouting from a single thick root.
Chapter Eighteen
As Brother Michel and the Bishop walked away towards the big stone house, it took all my self-discipline to turn to the servant and say: ‘Just set the tray there, please, and leave us in peace for a few moments.’ And while Alban, the serving man, slowly walked away, shaking his head at the foolishness of his betters, I whispered to Hanno: ‘We must go, now; we must leave immediately.’ So many pieces of the puzzle had suddenly fallen into place that my head was reeling. I had to find somewhere safe and quiet to think. ‘We must get out of here, right now!’
Hanno did not argue. As soon as the servant had disappeared into one of the outbuildings, we began to saunter casually towards the gate in the garden wall, and the waiting ho
rses, not hurrying, certainly not running.
‘Why do we go?’ said Hanno quietly.
‘Brother Michel is the “man you cannot refuse”,’ I said. ‘I am certain of it. He was a friend of my father’s when they were at Notre-Dame together, and he is the one who stole the relics from Bishop Heribert. He is the one who has been killing clerics, or rather ordering their deaths, and he is the one who’s been trying to kill me these past months.’
Hanno stopped. ‘Maybe I just go and kill him now.’ We were a dozen paces from the garden gate, and before I could answer, it swung open and a tall knight strode into the walled garden: it was Sir Eustace de la Falaise, the dull, cheery Templar I had last seen with Sir Aymeric de St Maur in the Order’s compound north of the city.
He was not alone.
Behind Sir Eustace came a file of men-at-arms; half a dozen men each carrying a loaded crossbow — and pointing it at Hanno and myself. But it was not the sight of so many men aiming their weapons at my unarmoured body that gave me pause — it was the clothing that they wore. Each man, including Sir Eustace, wore a white linen surcoat with a shield depicted on the chest: a blue cross on a white field with a black border.
They led us out of the garden, in silence, through the house and out the other side — the crossbowmen keeping their weapons trained on us at all times. I knew that it was useless to protest, and the slightest wrong move would leave us lying pierced and bleeding on the ground. We were ushered by Sir Eustace into a private chapel beyond the Bishop’s palace, near the abbey wall, and made to stand with our hands in the air while the men-at-arms appropriated all our weapons, even the dagger Hanno hid in his boot-top. The men-at-arms stripped us down to our under-chemise and braies and tied us tightly to two heavy, high-backed oak chairs by the wrists, waists and ankles. Sir Eustace checked the ropes, then without a word they all filed out of the chapel, leaving us bound and helpless, in that house of God. Alone in the chapel, both Hanno and myself spent a futile few moments struggling against our bonds, and both discovered that we were well secured. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he gave me a half-shrug — there was nothing to say — and so we waited in silence, contemplating our surroundings and our likely fate.
