by G. M. Dyrek
“That doesn’t sound like Abbot Burchard,” Volmar said defensively.
“I’m sure the Abbot suspects Brother Arnoul returned to his monastery in Amiens and knows nothing of his untimely death.”
“And the young novitiate who was guilty of this conspiracy, whatever happened to him?”
“I pressed Brother Arnoul on this very point. All he kept repeating was that ‘Judas betrayed me.’”
“Judas betrayed me,” Volmar repeated, incredulously. “Was he referring to the Judas from the Bible who betrayed Christ?”
“I am not sure. Judas can be a given name, though one rather unpopular with Christians,” Hildegard responded pensively.
“I wonder if the book is still lost.” Volmar mused, “I could ask the Librarian, Brother Cormac, if we still possess the book.” Volmar noticed in saying this, his conversation with this young woman was nearly as agreeable as it was with other more learned brothers at the monastery.
“Listen,” Hildegard suddenly whispered, motioning with her finger for him to be silent. There was a distinct dripping noise on the wall to their left. “Don’t you hear it? I believe this wall,” she said, rising and motioning to her right, “is not as thick as the one over there.”
Volmar got up as well and moved in close to her. There was definitely a small dripping sound of moisture coming from behind the wall.
“Hear that?” she said, her brows knitted together, “that means there’s a hidden room behind this wall. It is likely that the chill outside from the storm has caused condensation to gather on its walls.”
Volmar nodded. He ran his eyes up and down over the stone wall in question, methodically looking for a potential entrance into what might very well be a hidden chamber. He felt the wall up and down, tapping, feeling and listening, hoping for something that didn’t sound solid. His efforts were not in vain. At the far end there was a single stone protruding that did not seem a natural extension of the larger stone it was attached to. He went and felt around it, finding, to his pleasure, a cold iron lever hidden beneath its underbelly. “Stand back,” he said to Hildegard, having moved directly behind him, holding the oil lamp. He pulled the lever down.
There was a prolonged groan, like the yawn of a sleeping beast, which echoed throughout the cave. Both Hildegard and Volmar took a step backwards and watched in amazement as the large stone moved forward, dislodging itself and becoming flush with the protruding smaller stone. It was a finely chiseled piece of work, the same particular craftsmanship taken in the carvings on the wooden arch. From inside a chain could be heard moving as if it was turning on a wheel followed by the sound of a weight dropping from inside the hollowed out wall. The large stone started sinking slowly into what now appeared to be a false stone floor, revealing a small doorway clearly opening into a hidden chamber.
The two peered in. Benches lined the side and back walls of this newly revealed chamber with one or two steps leading up to the benches opposite the entrance. More surprising, though, were the skulls. There were at least fifty skulls all yellowed with age lining the benches. Their hollow eyes watched in eerie unison as the two entered and stood in the center of the small room.
“I believe we’ve stumbled onto an ancient ossarium29,” Volmar whispered, the thrill of their find evident in his low voice.
Hildegard nodded, clearly moved as well. “Could these be the remains of the founding brothers of the monastery at Disibodenberg?” She blew at the dust which had gathered on the skulls. The tiny particles danced about unnaturally in the sullen quietness.
“It is possible. No one knows where they were buried. It’s always been assumed that they would be nearby on our hillside.”
Hildegard curiously touched one of the skulls. “Anonymous in death, but not in life. Tell me,” she said, her luminous eyes turned to his, “of Saint Disibod and his followers. I know nothing of them.”
Volmar reached back into his mind to retrieve what little he’d heard in his early lessons of the monastery’s founding fathers. “They were Irish monks, I believe, who came to this region to establish a hermitage nearly five hundred years ago. You know the yew tree that is above our heads?”
“The one you were spying on me from?”
“I wasn’t spying,” Volmar retorted, blushing shamefully. “Well, anyway, it is said that the old yew tree is Saint Disibod’s own gnarled staff which took root after he stuck it in the ground and set up camp. He claimed this foreign soil as his new home and the heathens of this region his new converts.”
Only the central part of the chamber was bathed in a warm light filtering through a crystallized rock roof overhead. Its edges, however, were cloaked in shadows.
“Here it is,” Hildegard said, excitedly steadying her lamp, “an inscription on the wall.” Below a canopied niche that may have held a crucifix or even a small statue of the Virgin and Child, was a plaque.
Volmar went and stood by her side. He read aloud the verse quoted from the Bible: “If I take the wings of the morning: and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there also shall thy hands lead me: and thy right hand shall hold me. In the Year of our Lord, 8 September 700.”
“A comforting passage from Psalm 139, for ones who’ve traveled so far from home and suffered piously so that strangers’ souls may be saved. However, this inscription was only made four hundred and eleven years ago,” she added teasingly, “not five hundred years.”
Volmar grinned sheepishly. “I was close . . . only off by a hundred years.”
Hildegard inclined her head towards the skulls and listened. “The consensus of the group seems to be that they are at peace and do not want to be moved.”
“So you can hear them speak as well,” Volmar muttered, wrinkling his brow, not sure what to make of Hildegard’s professed supernatural abilities.
“Volmar, step to one side. Look at where you are standing.” Hildegard knelt at his feet and tentatively touched the outline of what appeared to be an iron floor plate. It measured no more than two square feet.
Suspecting a hollow space underneath, Volmar felt for the iron plate’s side handles and slid it open with Hildegard’s help. A wickedly cold breath reached up from its earthy darkness, as if it was beckoning them to come down.
“Wait here,” Volmar said, taking the oil lamp. The stone steps were narrow and steep, slipping into the darkness leading to another floor below. “I’m not sure what lies down there.”
Hildegard nodded, “Watch your head,” she said just as he bumped it against the low ceiling.
He rubbed it and muttered, “Thanks,” before descending further into the pit below. Cobwebs tickled Volmar’s exposed skin as he tore through their flimsy defense. At the base of the steps, Volmar found himself in a rather large room, mirroring the size of the ossarium above. To his left, he saw what appeared to be a passage to a second, much smaller chamber. Clearly the air had been freshened earlier, for there was no musty odor which one would expect when entering an enclosed, unused chamber. He called up to Hildegard, “It’s a double cave.”
“What else do you see?” Hildegard’s voice called tentatively from overhead.
“There’s a wooden trunk here in the far corner, with a latch and lock and . . . wait, there’s clothing here too.” Volmar lifted the cloak, surprised to find that it was a monk’s robe. He sniffed the neckline of the cowl. He smelled sweat mingled with a sweet cinnamon scent. The cassock too was folded neatly beside the trunk. It was black and distinctively Benedictine in cut and make. There was no distinguishing tear or frayed hem which gave any specific clue as to who its owner might be. Whoever it belonged to was certainly taller than he was by nearly half a hand’s length.
Volmar then turned his attentions to the wooden trunk and jiggled its lock. It held fast, determined to keep its secrets. He tried to lift it but found it too heavy and filled with what sounded to him like coins knocking against one another with a characteristic metallic resonance.
Volmar put the trunk down and froze
, sensing that something, or someone, was in the room with him. Whoever or whatever it was must be alive, he thought, as he now heard the sound of its unnatural hum, a noise no human could make. As Volmar listened in silence, he was able to determine that the humming was coming from the adjoining chamber. Slowly, he made his way across to this smaller chamber, carefully placing each step as the flagstone floor was uneven. The stones were pushed on their sides by the roots of the trees overhead which, like living ropes, were intertwined haphazardly across the walls and the floors. His jaw muscles tightened and his heart thundered as he entered the adjoining smaller chamber.
When his eyes did finally adjust, what he saw neither frightened him nor sickened him. It did, however, mystify the young monk. In the corner of the antechamber, a partially decomposed body sat upright on a stone bench, leaning absurdly forward with its arms and legs crossed, ridiculously staged as if it were reading. Curiously, Volmar approached the body, still dressed in the shreds of a robe of a holy order he was unfamiliar with. The body’s hands were shriveled like twigs, giving the perception of abnormally long and pointed fingernails. The right hand was positioned so one finger was up its nose and the left hand was turned so it could hold the book it was reading. The facial features preserved by the inner chamber’s dry chilly air, however, belied this comical pose. On it was a petrified expression of outright rage. Volmar was grateful Hildegard did not have to witness such disdainful profanity.
Volmar roused himself, feeling a need to speak aloud, to say something to confirm that here in front of him was proof that Hildegard’s story of Brother Arnoul was at least in part true. He gave in to the feeling, swallowed hard and said, “Brother Arnoul, we meet at last.”
The petrified skin on the back of the body’s skull was cracked and showed distinctive bruising suggesting a head injury. But other than a few other skin discolorations, Volmar did not see any visible indications of puncture wounds caused by a knife or sword.
Suddenly, two honey bees flew from the body’s left ear, followed by six more buzzing irritably. Volmar backed off quickly, realizing that a beehive must have formed in the folds of the dead monk’s habit. He recalled the story of Samson in the book of Judges and the riddle he made up after finding a beehive in the carcass of a dead lion.
“In death there is life, eh brother?” Volmar said, thankful the bees ignored his presence and seemed more attuned to escaping through the ceiling’s opening. Whoever visits down here, he surmised, does so on a regular basis, at least enough to allow the survival of this hive. All of this confirmed what Hildegard had said about her apparent conversation with Brother Arnoul’s left-behind spirit. He felt ashamed that he had doubted her story.
“May I?” he asked politely, lifting the book from the remains of what he surmised was Brother Arnoul. The book, however, was not the missing codex he half expected to find. Instead, it was a dummy copy with the crudely scrawled title of Benedictus, clearly meant to mimic the original missing tome and to further add to this cruel joke. Who would do such a thing? “The very same soul who wants to hoard treasures in this cave rather than in heaven,” he said aloud, answering his own question. He slipped the dummy copy of the book into his leather pouch, determined to find out who amongst his holy brethren would have a sense of humor bizarre enough to find such an inhuman shrine amusing to look at for over ten years.
Before turning the lever to seal the entrance to the hidden chamber, Volmar looked around one last time. Hildegard was there beside him. She had said very little after he’d mentioned that he had seen the remains of Brother Arnoul in the chamber below. She had listened to him with her soft eyes shining in the darkness. It was as if he was simply confirming a fact she’d already known. There was a certain analytical logic to her response.
“Do you think you could find out if the codex has been returned to the library at the monastery and report back to us in the clearing tomorrow afternoon?”
He accepted the “us,” knowing that this second person was a dead monk trying desperately to right a terrible wrong. “I will try, I promise, even if I will be assigned extra duties to make up for missing Vespers this afternoon. But,” he added rather wistfully, “it was worth it.”
“Come, Brother Volmar.” Hildegard lifted the oil lamp high. “Brother Arnoul assured me the corridor under the wooden arch leads to the Altar of Saint Peter. Perhaps, if we hurry, you’ll be able to attend prayers after all.” In the warm flickering glow of the flame, Hildegard paused and said frankly, “I’ve never met one whose curious nature so evenly matches my own.”
“I could say the same.” Volmar smiled, something he rarely did. He stood gazing into her pale, penetrating eyes, mesmerized by the way the lamp’s light suddenly seemed to play with the energy emanating from her soul.
The young scribe reached to carry the oil lamp. “My turn, your arm must be tired.” He paused for one brief moment as his fingers lightly touched hers. Together they crossed the cave floor, which was slippery with lichen, and went into the dryer tunnel marked by the stout wooden arch.
CHAPTER 7: PREPOSTEROUS FACSIMILE
Library at Disibodenberg Monastery
Harvest Festival, Evening
After dinner Volmar had plenty of time to think, while serving out his punishment for missing Vespers. He cleared the tables and scrubbed clean the pots and bowls from dinner. The Kitchener, Brother Amos, took to heart his role as the monastery’s improvised disciplinarian. He felt, especially towards Brother Volmar, that despite all of his eloquence, this young monk needed to be humbled and reminded that no task was too menial. Volmar obediently carried out Brother Amos’s more outrageous orders and served out his sentence in silence, all the while thinking of Hildegard and Brother Arnoul.
Vespers were over and the sanctuary had been serenely quiet as the two slipped out together from behind Saint Peter’s Altar. The rain had eased and the clouds parted only to reveal a meager sun setting in the west. Hildegard insisted that he leave her beside the team of carriage horses waiting in the church’s forecourt, urging him to join his holy brothers in the refectory for dinner.
It was an awkward moment. Volmar imagined that the horses were stamping nervously to register their displeasure over his and Hildegard’s forbidden afternoon spent together.
“I shall come for you in the morning and report on the visit to the library,” he had said politely, his hands tucked in the cuffs of his sleeves. Turning back after they had parted, Volmar had caught her eye and in it he knew that she also felt as bewildered as he. Not only had they stumbled on an unsolved murder, it seemed she’d also awakened in him dormant feelings he didn’t know he possessed.
An hour later, humbled from kitchen duty, yet determined to find answers, Volmar climbed the winding staircase with its high clerestory leaded-glass windows leading to the Library. Once he mounted the precipice of the last step, he leaned against the wall and knew he had stayed away too long. He missed his leisure study time. It was a high price to pay for being Brother Paulus’s apprentice.
The heavy oak doors of the Library stoically served as guardians to the region’s most prestigious collection of literary and canonical30 works. They were propped open to allow the Librarian to participate in the holy offices of prayers without having to leave his post. Reverently, the young monk entered, surveying the vast room hung majestically with iron balconies. Every available wall was lined with leather-bound books and scrolls, top to bottom, stone floor to vaulted ceiling. Volmar breathed in their familiar smell. If only his mind could take in as easily what his eyes marveled at. Among the treasures of Disibodenberg’s library was a Latin-German dictionary dating back to A.D. 790, a German translation of the Lord’s Prayer, and a copy of the Nicene Creed. The pride of place, however, was reserved for a three–volume giant Bible given to the monastery by visiting brothers from Britain’s Tewkesbury Priory. Their library was in a condition of ruin and decay, and many of their valuable books were brought to Disibodenberg for safe-keeping after Brother Corm
ac became the Librarian and his acquisitive reputation spread.
There were many empty carrels31, but only one heavy table in the center of the large reading room, and it alone had light. Almost everything else was shapeless and lost in the dusty edges of the encroaching twilight shadows. Such austerity suited Brother Cormac, who was seated at the table. He was alone as usual and bent over, dutifully and meticulously writing out his newly revised contents list of the monastery’s vast collection. Beside each entry he assigned a mysterious location number and alongside it he inscribed an even more inscrutable symbol of which he alone committed to memory its meaning. Once he completed the last entry he would start all over again, as was customary. In this way, Disibodenberg’s incalculable treasures were fully known to only this one man.
“Do not breathe on any of the books,” he snapped automatically without looking up. “Hot air curls the pages.”
Volmar recalled his first visit to Cormac’s library and the dread this man had provoked in all the younger students with his litany of rules. Punishment for disobedience was immediate, severe, and unpardonable: banishment from the collection. To Volmar, such an edict seemed unduly harsh, as if he were being forced to leave Eden. In this way, Volmar realized, Cormac had kept his own contact with the outside bustling world of Disibodenberg on only a need to know basis, nothing more. Cormac went on in his gravelly voice, still not lifting his head up from his work, “Be sure to put on a mask and gloves. They’re in the cumdachs.32”
Volmar knew all this. Quietly, he lifted the book-chest’s lid, finding the mask and gloves in the crimson velvet interior. As he took them out, Volmar wondered to himself how he was going to get this obstinate, surly monk’s attention without regretting it.
