Temple of The Grail (13 page)

‘What wonders . . .’ he told me in a
husky voice, leaning his belly across the table. ‘
Is
your order brings
such things in ships. Ahh, but you know, you have been in the Holy Land, no?’

I told him that Templar life was
meagre and sparse on campaign.

‘
Dios mío!
’ he cried with
emotion. ‘Your master
matas moros,
he kills the infidel?’

I nodded. He raised huge hands high
in the air, grabbed me in my seat, pulled me to him – very nearly
crushing my bones – and kissed me on both cheeks, ‘Deliver us from evil,
libera
nos a malo. Amen!
I am your servant.’

I flushed, his foul breath lingering
on my skin. ‘But you were speaking of something else . . .’

‘Eat, eat!’ he interrupted me, ‘I am
your servant, I am your servant!’

So I did, not wishing to insult him.
After a time, however, I began to feel sated and a little tired, so I leant
back in my chair, patting my middle as I had seen the bishop and the others do
the previous night. ‘You must have been highly favoured for your abilities. Did
you work for a king or a duke, perhaps a wealthy merchant?’

He laughed a great guffaw that echoed
loudly because he was a lay brother and therefore not so strictly bound by the
rule on laughter. ‘Dukes? Kings?
Niño!
Boy, I say to you it was the
great ruler of the empire!’ He then hesitated and his face became ashen.

‘Frederick?’ I sat up so abruptly that
I almost fell off my seat.

‘O! My tongue is sinful!’ he said. ‘What
I said . . . I did not mean . . . Frederick . . . I . . .’

‘You have worked in the kitchens of
the excommunicated emperor! Tell me, I am intrigued.’

He looked at me with sharp eyes, ‘Are
your lips wise, or are they as loose as a whore’s?’

‘They are wise, very wise,’ I said
anxiously.

The man moved from his position
opposite and sat down beside me at the table. He smelled of onions and garlic. ‘Frederico,
he was
un buen hombre!
A good man, but you have heard the stories, no? A
man with strong body and good brain, a hunter . . . a lover of women . . .’ he
said in a low, wistful voice. ‘The emperor’s court!
Qué maravilla!
I was
a craftsman in his kitchen! My dishes were the delights of infidels, the
ecstasies of magicians, the enjoyments of astrologers, the pleasures of
mathematicians.
Poetas
, troubadours, concubines! What women!’ He closed
his eyes, seeing in some corner of his corrupted mind their superior form. ‘Delicious
like pears, lush, with the flesh of pomegranates, rounded, brown like berries
and sweet like . . . Yes, what would they do with a little Templar like you,
eh?’ He laughed again, seeing me turn a violent scarlet.

‘Why did you leave the emperor’s
court?’ I changed the subject, putting an end, or so I hoped, to such talk.

‘Is my luck that is good the nose,
eh?’ He tapped his large, veined nose, ‘It smells when a stew is cooked, yes,
yes. Sicily it came to troubles, pestilence and I left.
Frederico estaba
muerto,
dead, and his son Conrad . . . coward! No like his father, no like
him! Then the other son Manfred . . .’ He lowered his voice, ‘An illegitimate!
Un
bastado
from the wombs of a whore! A whelp of a she-wolf!’ He spat and
smiled. ‘
Con perdo ’n
... And now ...
Dios mío
the inquisitor has
come, and we shall all be burned . . .’ He blessed himself. ‘
Domini Canes
–
the Lord’s dog, not a man, a devil!’

‘Sir! You are speaking of a
representative of the holy inquisition!’ I said indignantly.

‘Ahh, si, but you do not think that
only heretics are – how you say? – inspired from the Devil eh? Eh?’
he pressed. ‘No!
El
inquisitor
también
– also! He does not
look for monsters . . . he makes them! Big ugly ones! With my eyes I have seen
them.
Tiene miedo? Sí?
Are you scared? You must be scared, tremble and
beg like an animal,
como un animal
, and the holy mother will let you die
before the flames eat your flesh!’ He began to howl like a wolf and I felt my
stomach tighten into a knot and the food that I had so eagerly consumed became
sour in my belly.

‘With my own eyes I have
seen it!’ he asserted.

‘And how does a cook know
so much?’ I asked.

‘From a kitchen I see everything,
life and death. You must be
discreto,
but the truth should be spoken,’
he whispered, ‘I know this man,
este hombre
Rainiero Sacconi . . .
un
traitor to his people.’ He spat, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

‘A traitor?’

‘Well known is his history. You too
must know it but I will tell you!’ He moved closer and I could smell his sour
breath. ‘He was
un
Cathar, a heretic in
Italia
high in the
Catharan Church. He taught
la doctrina
. Many
inocentes
followed
him in believing that all laws were lies and laughing at
las reglas,
the
rules of fasts and feasts . . . taking the
consolamentum
.’ The cook
leant forward, both hands on the table. ‘Like the Devil in the garden, he
seduced them.’

‘How did such a man become an
inquisitor?’

‘How?’

At that moment two assistant cooks
entered the kitchen, their eyes to the floor, cowls over their faces. One
lifted a massive tray upon which an assortment of bread and cheeses was laid
out. The other was handed an immense pot in which a vegetable broth had been
cooking since the early hours. This the young monk placed, with some
difficulty, on a wooden trolley. The cook handed him a ladle and shooed him
out. ‘Out with you! Out all of you!’ he yelled, and as they scurried away, they
reminded me of the rat.

He wiped both hands on his shirt,
then gathering the folds of his vestments blew his nose loudly. ‘Aaah . . .
sí
...
sí
, this
herético
...
sí
, one day he was
iluminado
,
saw his errors and was
convertido!
A miracle –
un milagro
–
hágase el milagro y hágalo el diablo!
‘

I looked at him blankly.

‘Do not they say ‘if the work is good
what matter who does it’, eh? Rainiero entered the Church in Milan and swore to
hold the faith of the fathers, promising to obey
el papa
in the order of
the dogs!
Ole!
That is the end.’

‘What do his former followers think
of him?!’ I exclaimed.

‘They hate him! Is natural!’ he said
shrugging his shoulders. ‘He mistreated his old
amigos
very much, very
brutal since he replaced the old man Piero, Prior of Como . . . the martyr that
was killed at the hands of the assassin Giacoppo della Chiusa. This man also
tried to kill Rainiero at Pavia, but he was
estúpido
because he did not
succeed . . . Rainiero is a clever man,
listo e despierto!
And now he is
the pope’s dog, an inquisitor with a heretic up here.’ He tapped an index
finger against a sweaty brow. ‘Innocent was clever too, better if the smart
ones are on your side and not the enemies, even more because on Italian soil
there is conflict,
terrible,
the church fights against the emperor, and
the emperor against the church. Now he is here and I smell flesh burning in my
nostrils . . . it is the smell of pig! Poohf! But I will speak no more. Those
with loose tongues die in this abbey, those who know too much die also. I want
to be
ignorante
,my young one, so that I may live a long and sinful life!’

I asked the cook for an apple, and
left.

I wandered the grounds feeling a
strange sensation, a kind of light-headedness. On seeking my master, I found
him not in the dormitories, but in the scriptorium, leafing through a large
book and having a most cordial discussion with the librarian, Brother Macabus,
and a copyist whose present work (I would soon see) was filled with the most
precious illuminations. I entered the enclosure of the scriptorium and made my
way to them as quietly as possible, though a number of monks looked up from
their work with barely concealed suspicion. Almost immediately, as if the sight
of me caused them discomfort, they hung their heads over their shoulders and
continued their work in silent rebuttal. But I took this rare opportunity to
watch them discreetly, as they scraped away at an old palimpsest, or carefully
marked the margins of a new one. Today I know this is how we have lost many a
precious manuscript because a monk’s work is less about appropriating and
perpetuating wisdom than perpetuating appropriate copying. As we are told a
busy monk is only troubled by one devil, while an idle monk is troubled by
many. This philosophy has sustained copyists and illuminators alike for
centuries, as they proceed day by day to work unhurried, as though all eternity
lay before them, erasing the works of the most orthodox and revered Christian
fathers to make palimpsests of relatively little importance.

Once again obedience.

Still, I must confess to having
envied them a little at that moment, if only because their life seemed a truly
satisfying one. A life of constancy, devotion and fidelity. Where work is
carried out for the sake of continuity and of permanence, and not – as
overcomes so much of human endeavour – to satisfy the sin of pride. Here
there was peace, and order, and the goodness of the word, which is God. And I
remembered what the inquisitor had said on the day of our arrival at the abbey,
magna est veritas, et praevalet,
that is to say, great is truth and it
prevails.

Shortly my master drew me to his
side, I gave him his apple, and his eyes told me that he would perhaps have
preferred a dumpling. Even so he bit into the apple eagerly, and between
mouthfuls, proceeded to tell me that despite the unfortunate circumstances (by
this he meant that he had found nothing in Brother Ezekiel’s room) he had
passed a valuable morning looking through herbals and bestiaries provided by
the librarian Brother Macabus. He then introduced me to the other monk, Brother
Leonard, who was presently instructing him on the various inks and parchments
used by him in his works.

‘The skins of young lambs . . .’
Leonard smiled, displaying prominent incisors, ‘is the preferred choice for
works of great importance because it lasts so well. One may also re-use it many
times because of its thickness. We also use vellum when we are graced to have
some on hand, and rarely papyrus, for as you know, preceptor, it is brought
from the lands of the infidel and is, of course, very rare.’

‘But where are your treasures,
Brother Macabus, I do not see any bookcases?’ my master asked, taking another
large bite of his apple, looking perplexed, though many times I had occasion to
observe that he already knew the answers to his questions.

The man showed no hesitation in
answering. ‘They are safely stored in the library, away from heat and humidity
that

can be so damaging to old
manuscripts.’

‘It must be a most comprehensive
library, brother librarian.’

‘Yes, it is comprehensive,’ Macabus
said, ‘though, by most standards, very small. Still it is our life work. Our
most notable pieces are on the medicinal arts, and music.’

‘Ahh, then . . . I would very much
like to see them.’

‘And your order is so often maligned
for its illiteracy!’ he raised his chin in a suggestion of superiority. ‘It
heartens me to think that erudition can complement a soldier’s life and yet I
hear that you studied in Paris before joining the order, and Salerno also?’

‘Yes.’

‘How fortunate.’

‘I do not believe in fortune,
brother, only in tenacity. May I have your permission to visit the library?’

‘Impossible! For that you shall
require the abbot’s permission, preceptor,’ the librarian answered with the
slightest hint of bitterness, ‘there are not many who are given that privilege.’

‘Oh, I see . . . but where is the
library situated, I have seen no building . . .?’

The monk looked a little embarrassed
and Leonard interrupted, by means of changing the subject. ‘Have you been to
the library at Bobbio, preceptor? Their catalogue is said to enumerate well
over six hundred works. There is also St Gall. Have you heard that in Rhenish
monasteries they are now using woodcuts?’ Straightening his back proudly he
said, ‘I have seen one or two works of supreme excellence, but here we prefer
the traditional use of stylus, reed, or quill, with inks and pigments
unsurpassed in luminescence.’

My master was thoughtful for a
moment, ‘Yes . . . so you translate many Greek texts?’

‘How did you know?’ Macabus asked, a
little amazed.

‘When you said that your most notable
works were on the medicinal arts, I assumed you meant the works of Hippocrates,
and Galen.’

‘You are correct,’ the man said
smugly. ‘We have had, and do have, I believe, the finest translators in Europe.’

‘Really?’ my master nodded, very
pleased.

‘Oh, yes, indeed.’

‘And who might be your most notable?’

‘That would be Anselmo,’ Leonard
answered and was immediately sorry, for a dark cloud moved over his superior’s
brow.