The Camino, completely invaded by sick people along a huge stretch, passed under an arch that joined the door to the monastery which had some cupboards in front of it, and right there, at the top of the stairs, a small group of Antonian monks were handing out tiny brass medallions with the symbol of the Tau to the crowd, medallions which we could see in the hands of those who were leaving. The one who must have been the Abbott gently touched those who passed under the arch with his Tau shaped staff while the other monks held up smaller Taus in their hands with which they were imparting blessings.
“We mustn’t mix with the lepers,” said Sara with a gesture of apprehension.
“Nonsense! You should know that in my many years of working with people infested with the plague I have never known anyone to get infected. Myself included.”
“It doesn’t make any difference, I still don’t want to go down there.”
“Neither do I, just in case,” added Jonas.
“Fine, don’t worry. We won’t go down there. What’s more,” I added, “we will camp behind that bend and spend the night out in the open.”
“We will die of cold! We’ll freeze!”
“It’s a small inconvenience but I’m sure that we’ll be alive tomorrow.”
We lit a good fire, sheltered by a rock and got ready for dinner, sitting on our cloaks which we had laid out on the ground. We took the food that we had brought from Burgos from our bags and, with the help of two sticks and an iron pin, we spit roast some pieces of beef — bled according to the law of Moses — that Samuel had given us for our journey. We didn’t talk much: Sara and Jonas, because they had both returned to their thoughts, and I, because I was busy planning how to enter the Antonian monastery that night.
One of the things that worried me the most was Sara’s affinity with the Templars (with the exception of Manrique’s insolence). The truth is that I was dying to tell her the real reason for our pilgrimage, so that Jonas and I could act freely without having to worry about the pretenses and the nonsense. But telling Sara what we were doing would put her in danger with Le Mans so I was damned if I told her and damned if I didn’t. On the other hand, Jonas’ attitude wasn’t helping either to make my decision but sooner or later things would have to get back to normal and as upset as he may have been, it was the first time that he hadn’t threatened to go running back to the Monastery of Ponç de Riba which proved to me that even on bad terms for now he wanted to stay by my side.
“Jonas,” I called him.
The only reply I received was silence.
“Jonas!” I repeated, gathering my patience but without hiding my growing anger.
“What do you want?” he muttered in disgust.
“I need you to help me make a decision. Sara is well aware that there is some reason behind our journey that has nothing to do with a devout pilgrimage and, if she was still in doubt, she could see that something serious happened in Ortega. On the one hand, I’m worried about her friendship with the Templars,” Sara quickly turned her head towards me, with a start, and looked me straight in the eye, “and on the other hand, there’s Count Le Mans. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
He nodded his head and seemed to be thinking hard about what I had just said.
“I think we should trust her,” he said, “and anyway, Le Mans must already assume that she knows what’s going on and he won’t pay much attention to the small details.”
The fire crackled at our feet, and above us, the heavens were full of shining stars.
“Well, Sara, Jonas has made a wise decision, and I stand by it. Here goes.”
It took me about an hour to tell Sara about the most important aspects of the papal commission and Jonas added the picturesque details with growing enthusiasm as if refreshing his memory brought him back to normality. By the end of the story he was glancing at me every now and again, looking for my consent and even my approval. Sara, meanwhile, listened attentively; The restless spirit of that woman had finally found the adventure it needed.
“You’re right to be worried,” she said when we had finished telling her the facts. “I would have been hesitant too to tell that to someone who owes a lot to the Templar freires, as is my case. But I must make it clear that even though you can never make me betray them, I understand that you, sire Galceran, are obliged to carry out your mission and that you are only following the orders that you have been given by your superiors. There is no way that you could have refused to do what you are doing and I think that Count Le Man’s harassment is good proof of that. I promise to keep the secret that you have entrusted me with,” she declared, “and I will help as much as I can, provided that you don’t ask me to do anything that goes against my conscience and for the respect that I feel not towards Templars like Manrique of Mendoza, to whom I owe my life, even though he is a bastard, but towards men such as Evrard, good and honest men.”
“I would never ask anything of you that would make you uncomfortable, Sara,” I said. “Only you can decide your actions.”
“We will never offend you, Sara,” added Jonas, pushing the coals around with the end of his sandal.
“I know, I know,” she said satisfied.
Sara’s eyes, lit up by her smile and the fire, were like precious stones, much more beautiful than the ones we had found in Ortega. For a moment I almost forgot what I had to tell her next. I could have looked at her without getting tired until the end of the world, and even longer, because at that time I was convinced (or I wanted to convince myself) that I could feel and think whatever I wanted as long as I didn’t go against my Rule which, like that of the Templars and the Teutonics, absolutely forbid any contact with women, and we even had to (at least in theory) avoid looking at them. The prohibition even went as far as to include our mothers and sisters, whom we weren’t allowed to kiss, and ‘any female, widow or maiden’. Loving Sara in silence and without hope was a conviction that I gladly accepted, excited with my own feelings and convinced that it was the most I could aspire to.
“Well,” I said tearing myself away from my madness since I couldn’t remain in silence for any longer. “Tonight Jonas and I will go into the Antonian convent while you, Sara, stay here waiting for us.”
“We’re going to go where?” shouted Jonas with fear.
“To the Antonian monastery, to find out the link between the Tau monks and the Templar treasures.”
“Are you serious?” he shouted again, looking at me as if I were mad. “No way. I’m not going!”
Well, he was back to being the same idiot as before which I was rather glad about.
“If you don’t want to continue helping me, then you can go back to Ponç de Riba! The monks will be glad to welcome back the young novicius Garcia!”
“That’s not fair!” he exclaimed indignantly in the middle of the night.
“Well, let’s go, it’s getting late!”
“After you!”
He reluctantly made his way towards the Antonian monastery which now, lonely and dark, seemed more like a malevolent shadow than ever.
We edged our way around the walls with extreme caution so as not to be discovered although we couldn’t help but scare the thousands of birds, crows and pigeons nesting on the ground, in the nearby trees and in the gaps of the buttresses. At the back of the building we came across a door, whose hinges came off with the help of the dagger. An owl hooted behind us and both the boy and I jumped but everything went back to being quiet and nothing else moved. I took the door off its hinges and, laying it aside, we went in.
A small, wet corridor awaited us on the other side. It would have been useless trying to light a lamp because the light would have given us away, so we had to wait for a while until our eyes got used to the dark. We then carried on until we reached the kitchen, where huge iron pots looked like they were going to swallow us up as soon as we got close enough. We walked through the pantry — very well stocked with large amounts of food —, and followed long, winding passageways deep in
to the monastery. It quickly came to my attention that there weren’t any religious signs anywhere. If someone had taken me there with my eyes covered and uncovered them in one of the areas we were walking through, I would have sworn that I was inside a castle, palace or fortress since luxurious tapestries covered the walls, blue velvet curtains separated the rooms, ironworks and chains decorated the free walls, and many other objects that I wouldn’t have been able to name, much less describe, covered the mantelpieces and the splendid furniture.
To begin, I was looking for the monastery’s chapel, since all of my discoveries up to that point had been made in similar places but looking for a chapel in that place was harder than trying to find a needle in a haystack. There just wasn’t a chapel. No chapel, no church, no prayer room, nothing to remind you that you were in a house of retreat and prayer.
For a while I had been hearing soft rustling noises to my right and from behind me, like that made by silk dresses when women walk. At first I didn’t pay any attention to it, as they were too difficult to make out to be sure that I had even heard them but after a while, seeing as the noise didn’t stop, I began to get worried.
“Jonas,” I whispered, grabbing the boy by the wrist. “Can you hear something?”
“I’ve been hearing things that I don’t understand for a while now.”
“Let’s stop and listen closely.”
Everything was silent. There was nothing to be afraid of, I told myself to calm down. But then I heard a chuckle from the corner. My blood froze and my skin prickled, as if someone had tickled my neck with a quill pen. Jonas’ hand closed around my arm like a clamp.
We heard that mean chuckle again, and as if it were a signal for attack, a river of loud laughter erupted around us while arms of steel tore Jonas away from my side and others grabbed me and shackled me. The flame from a torch flashed in front of us, lighting many others held by that army of ghosts. Antonian monks, dressed in their black habits with the blue Tau on their chests were standing along the walls of the chamber the boy and I had entered without knowing that we were walking straight into a trap.
“Welcome, Galceran of Born,” happily exclaimed a voice from behind the balustrade of an upper gallery. “Do you remember me?”
I looked up, and in the darkness, tried to make out the silhouette of the man who was talking to me.
“From the sound of your voice I would say that you are Manrique of Mendoza,” I replied.
“Quick as ever, Galceran! And I presume that the boy over there is my nephew, the bastard son of my sister, Isabel. Pleased to meet you, Garcia! I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Jonas didn’t utter a word. He merely looked at his uncle with contempt as if he were looking at a rat or some insect instead of his uncle. Manrique let out a loud laugh.
“Rodrigo Jimenez told me that you had inherited your father’s pride! Oh, but you don’t know who Rodrigo Jimenez is, do you? Even though you don’t think you do, you actually know him rather well but under the strange name your father gave him: Nobody. Nobody would love to see you again, Garcia. He’ll be back in just a minute, he and his men went to find Sara the Witch. By the way, Galceran, why on earth did you get her involved in all of this?”
“Do you think she’s that stupid that she wouldn’t have figured it out on her own?” I replied. I couldn’t see him all that well from where I was standing. The light from the torches barely allowed me to see his outline up there.
“Well it’s a good thing that you explained everything to her tonight,” he laughed. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. Your future, the future of the three of you, is already written, and I’m afraid that it’s not pleasant.”
“There’s no need for you to enjoy telling us about it,” I said. “My son and I will face whatever comes our way — although I can’t believe that you would hurt a child —, but Sara doesn’t need to pay with her life after having remained faithful to both you and your Order, and given that you were listening to our earlier conversation, you already know that she was never planning on betraying those to whom she owes so much and respects.”
“But she offered to help you, freire, and that’s sufficient.”
He stopped talking because, all of a sudden, we could hear the loud rumble of footsteps approaching along one of the corridors. Sara appeared, bound and gagged, followed by five or six Templars proudly wearing their now banned robes. At the front of the group, standing straighter and with a new appearance, was Nobody who, as if by magic, had transformed into a proud Temple freire, two palms taller and looking like a knight. I was amazed by his ability to transform so drastically.
“So many good people in one room!” he said when he saw us. His voice had also changed and was now deeper and less stentorian. “Don Galceran! Young Jonas! It’s nice to see you again.”
“You understand, Don Nobody,” I replied coldly, “that we can’t say the same.”
“Of course I understand,” he said, while giving Sara a hard shove, pushing her towards us. She crashed into me, and Jonas managed to stop her before she fell to the ground.
“You don’t need to use force, Brother Rodrigo!” Manrique reprimanded him from above. “We now have them in our power and can end this unpleasant story.”
Sara quickly turned towards the voice she had just heard and her eyes reflected a pain that, until then, I had not seen …
“Damn Manrique of Mendoza! Damn all the Mendozas!”
“You are wrong, sire,” I said, containing my rage, purposely using the secular expression to highlight the difference between us. “This story is in no way finished. Pope John will not stop until he has all of your riches. He is so ambitious that, if we disappear, he will send another, and then another, until he gets what he wants.”
“I don’t mean to flatter you, freire, but none of the hounds hemay send will get as far as you have.”
“You are wrong again, sire. The Pope is a suspicious and dangerous man which is why we have been watched the whole time by one of his best soldiers, Count Joffroi of Le Mans, who knows all about my discoveries. He only needs to explain what he has seen me do and someone else will carry on from where I left off.”
Mendoza let out another of his thunderous laughs.
“Poor Count Joffroi never left San Juan de Ortega!” he said amused. It wouldn’t have been very smart on our part to let him get away, don’t you think? Our spies in Avignon told us early on about your visits to His Holiness in July and due to your great fame, Perquisitore, and the fact that we thought you were in Rhodes, we began to get worried: Why were you returning from Rhodes and talking to John XXII? Someone as dangerous as yourself doesn’t go to speak innocently with His Holiness twice in one month. It may have had nothing to do with us but we thought it best to keep you under watch which is why, when you began the pilgrimage to Compostela, we knew that the time had come to act. Brother Rodrigo, who is one of our best spies, had the job of accompanying you. But you’re clever, Galceran! When I speak of you, I always tell the anecdote of when, at the age of fifteen, you discovered that it was the servant who was stealing wine from my father, just by the way he held a jug with his left hand. Do you remember? Good God! That was amazing, yes sir. Brother Rodrigo, who doesn’t often fail, couldn’t find out anything, despite his efforts, and that made us very uncomfortable. When we saw that you had managed to get him out of your way with that purgative, and that the hiding place of St. Oria had been compromised, there was no doubt in our mind. We were just waiting for the right time to bring you in. And that time is now. Thank you for coming,” he laughed.
“I’m not interested in your story, sire. Just like your father, you always act with arrogance and pride. I had a job to do and I did the best I could. Now it’s your turn to do yours. So please, spare me the ridiculous spectacle of your absurd arrogance.”
Manrique snorted.
“Someday, Galceran, you will understand the foolish things that a man like yourself says at times like these! Put them in the wagon!” he or
dered with urgency, and then, lowering his voice, said, “Goodbye, Sara, my sweet friend. I’m sorry that we had to meet again under such unpleasant circumstances.”
Sara turned her back on him, turning to face me but I didn’t have time to look at her because the monks rushed towards us and before I knew it we were inside a narrow wooden box with a tiny vent covered by bars. It was a locked wagon for transporting prisoners. The three of us fell to the floor with the first jolt and thus began our journey which I thought would be short and towards our death but in actual fact lasted for four entire days, during which we sped through the endless plains of Tierra de Campos and the stony wasteland of Leon, listening to the mad gallop of the horses, the cries of the postilion and the incessant crack of the whip.
Our journey ended in hell. At sundown on the last day, having crossed the Mountains of Mercury (44),we were pulled out of the wagon and our eyes were covered with black cloth. Nevertheless, for a moment we had time to see a devilish scenery of breathtaking red peaks and orange spires, splashed by valleys of green forests. Where the hell were we? On one side, a huge opening of about sixteen or seventeen fathoms (45) gave way to a gallery of rocky walls that twisted and turned until lost from sight in the depths of the earth. We were roughly pushed inside the tunnel and walked for quite a while, slipping in some kind of water and repeatedly falling over, and then all of a sudden things became confused: The echo of the demands people were shouting in those Cyclopean passages slowly faded after I received a violent blow to the head.
Iacobus Page 25
