Moved, subjugated, I would certainly have sworn. And you, my good reader, would not be able now to read this faithful chronicle of mine. But at this point William intervened, not perhaps to prevent me from swearing, but in an instinctive reaction, out of irritation, to interrupt the abbot, to break that spell he had surely cast.
“What does the boy have to do with it? I asked you a question, I warned you of a danger, I asked you to tell me a name. ... Do you now wish me, too, to kiss the ring and swear to forget what I have learned or what I suspect?”
“Ah, you ...” the abbot said sadly, “I do not expect a mendicant friar to understand the beauty of our traditions, or respect the reticence, the secrets, the mysteries of charity. .. yes, charity, and the sense of honor, and the vow of silence on which our greatness is based. ... You have spoken to me of a strange story, an incredible story. About a banned book that has caused a chain of murders, about someone who knows what only I should know ... Tales, meaningless accusations. Speak of it, if you wish: no one will believe you. And even if some element of your fanciful reconstruction were true ... well, now everything is once more under my control, my jurisdiction. I will look into this, I have the means, I have the authority. At the very beginning I made a mistake, asking an outsider, however wise, however worthy of trust, to investigate things that are my responsibility alone. But you understood, as you have told me; I believed at the outset that it involved a violation of the vow of chastity, and (imprudent as I was) I wanted someone else to tell me what I had heard in confession. Well, now you have told me. I am very grateful to you for what you have done or have tried to do. The meeting of the legations has taken place, your mission here is over. I imagine you are anxiously awaited at the imperial court; one does not deprive oneself at length of a man like you. I give you permission to leave the abbey. Today it is perhaps late: I do not want you to travel after sunset, for the roads are not safe. You will leave tomorrow morning, early. Oh, do not thank me, it has been a joy to have you here, a brother among brothers, honoring you with our hospitality. You may withdraw now with your novice to prepare your baggage. I will say good-bye to you again tomorrow at dawn. I thank you, with all my heart. Naturally, it is not necessary for you to continue your investigations. Do not disturb the monks further. You may go.”
It was more than a dismissal, it was an expulsion. William said good-bye and we went down the stairs.
“What does this mean?” I asked. I no longer understood anything.
“Try to formulate a hypothesis. You must have learned how it is done.”
“Actually, I have learned I must formulate at least two, one in opposition to the other, and both incredible. Very well, then …” I gulped: formulating hypotheses made me nervous. “First hypothesis: the abbot knew everything already and imagined you would discover nothing. Second hypothesis: the abbot never suspected anything (about what I don’t know, because I don’t know what’s in your mind). But, anyhow, he went on thinking it was all because of a quarrel between ... between sodomite monks. ... Now, however, you have opened his eyes, he has suddenly understood something terrible, has thought of a name, has a precise idea about who is responsible for the crimes. But at this point he wants to resolve the matter by himself and wants to be rid of you, in order to save the honor of the abbey.”
“Good work. You are beginning to reason well. But you see already that in both cases our abbot is concerned for the good name of his monastery. Murderer or next victim as he may be, he does not want defamatory news about this holy community to travel beyond these mountains. Kill his monks, but do not touch the honor of his abbey. Ah, by ...” William was now becoming infuriated. “That bastard of a feudal lord, that peacock who gained fame for having been the Aquinas’s gravedigger, that inflated wineskin who exists only because he wears a ring as big as the bottom of a glass! Proud, proud, all of you Cluniacs, worse than princes, more baronial than barons!”
“Master ...” I ventured, hurt, in a reproachful tone.
“You be quiet, you are made of the same stuff. Your band are not simple men, or sons of the simple. If a peasant comes along you may receive him, but as I saw yesterday, you do not hesitate to hand him over to the secular arm. But not one of your own, no; he must be shielded. Abo is capable of identifying the wretch, stabbing him in the treasure crypt, and passing out his kidneys among the reliquaries, provided the honor of the abbey is saved. ... Have a Franciscan, a plebeian Minorite, discover the rat’s nest of this holy house? Ah, no, this is something Abo cannot allow at any price. Thank you, Brother William, the Emperor needs you, you see what a beautiful ring I have, good-bye. But now the challenge is not just a matter between me and Abo, it is between me and the whole business: I am not leaving these walls until I have found out. He wants me to leave tomorrow morning, does he? Very well, it’s his house; but by tomorrow morning I must know. I must.”
“You must? Who obliges you now?”
“No one ever obliges us to know, Adso. We must, that is all, even if we comprehend imperfectly.”
I was still confused and humiliated by William’s words against my order and its abbots. And I tried to justify Abo in part, formulating a third hypothesis, exercising a skill at which, it seemed to me, I was becoming very dextrous. “You have not considered a third possibility, master,” I said. “We had noticed these past days, and this morning it seemed quite clear to us after Nicholas’s confidences and the rumors we heard in church, that there is a group of Italian monks reluctant to tolerate the succession of foreign librarians; they accuse the abbot of not respecting tradition, and, as I understand it, they hide behind old Alinardo, thrusting him forward like a standard, to ask for a different government of the abbey. So perhaps the abbot fears our revelations could give his enemies a weapon, and he wants to settle the question with great prudence. ...”
“That is possible. But he is still an inflated wineskin, and he will get himself killed.”
We were in the cloister. The wind was growing angrier all the time, the light dimmer, even if it was just past nones. The day was approaching its sunset, and we had very little time left.
“It is late,” William said, “and when a man has little time, he must take care to maintain his calm. We must act as if we had eternity before us. I have a problem to solve: how to penetrate the finis Africae, because the final answer must be there. Then we must save some person, I have not yet determined which. Finally, we should expect something from the direction of the stables, which you will keep an eye on. ... Look at all the bustle. ...”
In fact, the space between the Aedificium and the cloister was unusually animated. A moment before, a novice, coming from the abbot’s house, had run toward the Aedificium. Now Nicholas was coming out of it, heading for the dormitories. In one corner, that mornings group, Pacificus, Aymaro, and Peter, were deep in discussion with Alinardo, as if trying to convince him of something.
Then they seemed to reach a decision. Aymaro supported the still-reluctant Alinardo, and went with him toward the abbatial residence. They were just entering as Nicholas came out of the dormitory, leading Jorge in the same direction. Seeing the two Italians enter, he whispered something into Jorge’s ear, and the old man shook his head. They continued, however, toward the chapter house.
“The abbot is taking the situation in hand ...” William murmured skeptically. From the Aedificium were emerging more monks, who belonged in the scriptorium, and they were immediately followed by Benno, who came toward us, more worried than ever.
“There is unrest in the scriptorium,” he told us. “Nobody is working, they are all talking among themselves. ... What is happening?”
“What’s happening is that the people who until this morning seemed the most suspect are all dead. Until yesterday everyone was on guard against Berengar, foolish and treacherous and lascivious, then the cellarer, a suspect heretic, and finally Malachi, so generally disliked. ... Now they don’t know whom to be on guard against, and they urgently need to find an enemy, or a sc
apegoat. And each suspects the others; some are afraid, like you; others have decided to frighten someone else. You are all too agitated. Adso, take a look at the stables every now and then. I am going to get some rest.”
I should have been amazed: to go and rest when he had only a few hours left did not seem the wisest decision. But by now I knew my master. The more relaxed his body, the more ebullient his mind.
BETWEEN VESPERS AND COMPLINE
In which long hours of bewilderment are briefly narrated.
It is difficult for me to narrate what happened in the hours that followed, between vespers and compline.
William was absent. I roamed around the stables but noticed nothing abnormal. The grooms were bringing in the animals, made nervous by the wind; otherwise all was calm.
I entered the church. Everyone was already in his place among the stalls, but the abbot noticed Jorge was absent. With a gesture he delayed the beginning of the office. He called for Benno, to dispatch him to look for the old man, but Benno was not there. Someone pointed out that he was probably making the scriptorium ready for its evening closing. The abbot, annoyed, said it had been decided that Benno would close nothing because he did not know the rules. Aymaro of Alessandria rose from his stall: “If Your Paternity agrees, I will go and summon him. ...”
“No one asked anything of you,” the abbot said curtly, and Aymaro sat back down in his place, not without casting an inscrutable glance at Pacificus of Tivoli. The abbot called for Nicholas, who was not present. Someone reminded him that Nicholas was preparing supper, and the abbot made a gesture of annoyance, as if he were displeased to reveal to all that he was upset.
“I want Jorge here,” he cried. “Find him! You go!” he ordered the master of novices.
Another pointed out to him that Alinardo was also missing. “I know,” the abbot said, “he is not well.” I was near Peter of Sant’Albano and heard him say to his neighbor, Gunzo of Nola, in a vulgar dialect from central Italy which I partly understood, “I should think so. Today, when he came out after the colloquy, the poor old man was distraught. Abo behaves like the whore of Avignon!”
The novices were bewildered; with their innocent, boyish sensitivity they felt the tension reigning in choir, as I felt it. Long moments of silence and embarrassment ensued. The abbot ordered some psalms to be recited and he picked at random three that were not prescribed for vespers by the Rule. All looked at one another, then began praying in low voices. The novice master came back, followed by Benno, who took his seat, his head bowed. Jorge was not in the scriptorium or in his cell. The abbot commanded that the office begin.
When it was over, before everyone headed for supper, I went to call William. He was stretched out on his pallet, dressed, motionless. He said he had not realized it was so late. I told him briefly what had happened. He shook his head.
At the door of the refectory we saw Nicholas, who a few hours earlier had been accompanying Jorge. William asked him whether the old man had gone in immediately to see the abbot. Nicholas said Jorge had had to wait a long time outside the door, because Alinardo and Aymaro of Alessandria were in the hall. After Jorge was received, he remained inside for some time, while Nicholas waited for him. Then he came out and asked Nicholas to accompany him to the church, still deserted an hour before vespers.
The abbot saw us talking with the cellarer. “Brother William,” he admonished, “are you still investigating?” He bade William sit at his table, as usual. For Benedictines hospitality is sacred.
The supper was more silent than usual, and sad. The abbot ate listlessly, oppressed by grim thoughts. At the end he told the monks to hurry to compline.
Alinardo and Jorge were still absent. The monks pointed to the blind man’s empty place and whispered. When the office was finished, the abbot asked all to say a special prayer for the health of Jorge of Burgos. It was not clear whether he meant physical health or eternal health. All understood that a new calamity was about to befall the community. Then the abbot ordered each monk to hurry, with greater alacrity than usual, to his own pallet. He commanded that no one, and he emphasized the words “no one,” should remain in circulation outside the dormitory. The frightened novices were the first to leave, cowls over their faces, heads bowed, without exchanging the remarks, the nudges, the flashing smiles, the sly and concealed trippings with which they usually provoked one another (for novices, though young monks, are still boys, and the reproaches of their master are of little avail in preventing them all from behaving like boys, as their tender age demands).
When the adults filed out, I fell into line, unobtrusively, behind the group that by now had been characterized to me as “the Italians.” Pacificus was murmuring to Aymaro, “Do you really believe Abo doesn’t know where Jorge is?” And Aymaro answered, “He might know, and know that from where Jorge is he will never return. Perhaps the old man wanted too much, and Abo no longer wants him. ...”
As William and I pretended to retire to the pilgrims’ hospice, we glimpsed the abbot re-entering the Aedificium through the still-open door of the refectory. William advised waiting a while; once the grounds were empty of every presence, he told me to follow him. We rapidly crossed the empty area and entered the church.
AFTER COMPLINE
In which, almost by chance, William discovers the secret of entering the finis Africae.
Like a pair of assassins, we lurked near the entrance, behind a column, whence we could observe the chapel with the skulls.
“Abo has gone to close the Aedificium,” William said. “When he has barred the doors from the inside, he can only come out through the ossarium.”
“And then?”
“And then we will see what he does.”
We did not discover what he did. An hour went by and he still had not reappeared. He’s gone into the finis Africae, I said. Perhaps, William answered. Eager to formulate more hypotheses, I added: Perhaps he came out again through the refectory and has gone to look for Jorge. And William answered: That is also possible. Perhaps Jorge is already dead, I imagined further. Perhaps he is to the Aedificium and is killing the abbot. Perhaps they are both in some other place and some other person is lying in wait for them. What did “the Italians” want? And why was Benno so frightened? Was it perhaps only a mask he had assumed, to mislead us? Why had he lingered in the scriptorium during vespers, if he didn’t know how to close the scriptorium or how to get out? Did he want to essay the passages of the labyrinth?
“All is possible,” William said. “But only one thing is happening, or has happened, or is about to happen. And at last divine Providence is endowing us with a radiant certitude.”
“What is that?” I asked, full of hope.
“That Brother William of Baskerville, who now has the impression of having understood everything, does not know how to enter the finis Africae. To the stables, Adso, to the stables.”
“And what if the abbot finds us?”
“We will pretend to be a pair of ghosts.”
To me this did not seem a practical solution, but I kept silent. William was growing uneasy. We came out of the north door and crossed the cemetery, while the wind was whistling loudly and I begged the Lord not to make us encounter two ghosts, for the abbey, on that night, did not lack for souls in torment. We reached the stables and heard the horses, more nervous than ever because of the fury of the elements. The main door of the building had, at the level of a man’s chest, a broad metal grating, through which the interior could be seen. In the darkness we discerned the forms of the horses. I recognized Brunellus, the first on the left. To his right, the third animal in line raised his head, sensing our presence, and whinnied. I smiled. “Tertius equi,” I said.
“What?” William asked.
“Nothing. I was remembering poor Salvatore. He wanted to perform God knows what magic with that horse, and with his Latin he called him “tertius equi: Which would be the u.”
“The u?” asked William, who had heard my prattle without paying much
attention to it.
“Yes, because ‘tertius equi’ does not mean the third horse, but the third of the horse, and the third letter of the word ‘equus’ is u. But this is all nonsense. ...”
William looked at me, and in the darkness I seemed to see his face transformed. “God bless you, Adso!” he said to me. “Why, of course, suppositio materialis, the discourse is presumed de dicto and not de re. ... What a fool I am!” He gave himself such a great blow on the forehead that I heard a clap, and I believe he hurt himself. “My boy, this is the second time today that wisdom has spoken through your mouth, first in dream and now waking! Run, run to your cell and fetch the lamp, or, rather, both the lamps we hid. Let no one see you, and join me in church at once! Ask no questions! Go!”
I asked no questions and went. The lamps were under my bed, already filled with oil, and I had taken care to trim them in advance. I had the flint in my habit. With the two precious instruments clutched to my chest, I ran into the church.
William was under the tripod and was rereading the parchment with Venantius’s notes.
“Adso,” he said to me, “ ‘primum et septimum de quatuor’ does not mean the first and seventh of four, but of the four, the word ‘four’!” For a moment I still did not understand, but then I was enlightened: “Super thronos viginti quatuor! The writing! The verse! The words are carved over the mirror!”
“Come,” William said, “perhaps we are still in time to save a life!”
“Whose?” I asked, as he was manipulating the skulls and opening the passage to the ossarium.
“The life of someone who does not deserve it,” he said. We were already in the underground passage, our lamps alight, moving toward the door that led to the kitchen.
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