Temple of The Grail (35 page)

‘Oh, I see . . .’, he gave me another
one of his peculiar looks, and I was coming to realise that they were meant to
signal me to attention. ‘This must have been a source of much anguish on your
part. An erudite man is by nature curious . . .’

‘You do not know preceptor . . .’ the
other man said, opening up as a flower does to the warm rays of the sun, ‘how
many long nights I have contemplated my shortcomings, I have mortified the
flesh seeking the reasons for my exclusion, and yet . . . ‘I am a worm and no
man:
adversus eos qui tribulant me
’.’

My master gave the man a look of warm
commiseration.

‘And yet it is the worm that makes
the earth fertile, brother. No one could blame you for becoming so overwhelmed
with emotion that you would do almost anything to hold those precious codices
in your hands, at the very least . . . to see them.’

Macabus eyed my master shrewdly and
raised his chin in defiance. ‘Not anything, preceptor, I would not lose my
virtue, nor would I kill for it, if that is what you mean.’

‘Oh, no, no, of course not, but I
wonder, has anyone seen these gospels? Or are they speculation on your part?’

‘There is one, though he is not
worthy.’ He lowered his eyes, but not before I saw a deep resentment in them. ‘These
last months, because of his weak vision and sudden frailty, Brother Ezekiel had
been working on a project of great importance with the young translator
Anselmo. He was working on the translation of a certain...gospel.’

‘Is this true?’ My master smiled as
though the man were not serious.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he was given the
sanction to accompany the brother to the library.’

‘No!’ my master exclaimed with
indignation. ‘Yet you, the librarian, have never been there? That is absurd!’

The other man’s eyes softened, ‘My
very sentiments, preceptor.’

‘But how do you know this was their
task?’

‘Anselmo told me, perhaps to make me
feel even more inferior. In any case when the brother heard that Anselmo was
puffed up with pride, he ended his work with him.’

‘No doubt that upset the boy.’

The brother looked about. ‘He was
very calm, as is his nature, but his eyes grew black with hate.’

‘I see . . .’ my master said
thoughtfully.

The man, perhaps sensing that he had
been imprudent, said, ‘Now, if you will excuse me, preceptor, soon the bell
will toll, and I must make ready. I hope you will not mention what I have just
told you to anyone . . .’ he trailed off.

‘Your words are safe with me, brother
librarian. Thank you for a most erudite discussion.’ My master bowed and we
began to leave when he suddenly remembered that the aperture would be locked as
was customary. ‘Oh, Brother Macabus, if you will be so kind as to let us out?’

The brother searched his vestments. ‘The
cook’s assistant must still have the keys, preceptor, I gave them to him when
the poor cook was . . . detained. You will have to leave via the north transept
door.’

‘I see,’ said my master with a smile.

Moments later, after entering the
church, my master said that it was a pity that our investigations of the organ
would have to wait, but it was far too dangerous to pursue this matter with the
inquisitor roaming about. Instead we left through the north transept and found
ourselves within the stormy elements, at the perimeter of the graveyard.

‘So is Macabus a suspect now, master?’

‘It is possible. He was all too ready
to incriminate Anselmo, perhaps to save his own skin by diverting us . . . To
be librarian and have the library denied you, especially when it is purported
to hold such treasures, and to have one much younger and less experienced given
the sanction to use it, must have caused him a great deal of shame. Never
underestimate this emotion, for no man is more capable of hatred, Christian,
than a man who feels he has been unfairly or shamefully treated. We also know
that he had access to poisons, and that he knows Greek . . .’

‘So if he does not know it as well as
Anselmo, that may explain the errors in the note?’

‘Yes, you could be right, and yet I
am not convinced of anything. Did you notice that he was right-handed?’

‘What about Anselmo? He
also had a motive.’

‘Yes . . . too many
possibilities too little time . . .’

‘Master?’

‘Yes, Christian, what now?’

‘I am confounded. Greek,
Hebrew, Aramaic!’

‘Firstly we must differentiate
between the Old and New Testaments.’ He winced, for the wind assailed us. ‘The
New Testament was given to us in Greek from the first. The Old Testament was
handed down to the Jewish people in Hebrew, and then translated into Aramaic
and Greek. Macabus was correct, however, in saying that Greek may have
corrupted the original intentions of Moses and other Hebrew writers of the Old
Testament, because a translation is never an easy thing. If we take, for
instance, the word ‘soul’ and translate it into Greek we arrive at the word
‘psyche’, a very good word as words go, but also one that has been given a
meaning by the Greek philosophers that was not intended by the Old Testament
authors. You see to the Greeks ‘psuche’ or ‘psyche’ also includes the function
of the mind and reason, in Hebrew the equivalent means only soul as a spiritual
entity.’

‘It is such a fine distinction,
master, for thinking is a function of being that constitutes the soul.’

‘Yes but a distinction is most
significant when it is least obvious.’

‘So when translating one cannot
escape the distortions produced by one’s philosophy and politics?’ I said.

‘Precisely,’ he answered.

‘It is all much clearer now . . . but
master, before when you were speaking to Brother Macabus, you sounded as though
you knew very little about translations.’

‘Yes.’

‘But now it appears that you know a
great deal?’

‘It is always best to seem ignorant
when measuring another’s wisdom, Christian.’

‘Why? It seems to me that an honest
exchange of knowledge can only further us in our investigations.’

He rolled his eyes heavenward and I
am ashamed to say that he uttered a blasphemy in Arabic. ‘Have I taught you
nothing! We are not at a university exchanging pleasurable views on varied
topics of interest. We are conducting an investigation where our goal is to
test a suspect’s knowledge when his guard is at its lowest.’

Once again I thought he sounded very
much like the inquisitor.

‘So your empathy was another formula
to loosen his tongue?’

‘There’s nothing better . . . Once a
man senses that you understand him, that you too think the same way, he will
say almost anything . . . Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, Christian,
but not so many as have fallen by the tongue.’

Once at my cell door Andre bid me to
take a rest, for he said lauds would be a most unhappy service this day.

‘Keep your door locked,’ he said, ‘and
your ears sharp! The inquisitor is a fool. Indeed, I know there are murderers
at large and they are as real as we are.’

Entering my cell in silence I
discarded my shoes and lay down in a foetal position, fearful. I huddled in my
pallet, praying silently.

Qui sedes ad dextram Patris miserere
nobis
. .
. Thou who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.

TERRA

THE FOURTH TRIAL

I
dreamt that I was surrounded by bees. They entered the
cavities of my ears and I could hear the word as spoken by the fathers, the
interpreters of scripture, of whom it is said that they make the honey of the
spiritual understanding of the word of God. They penetrated my mouth, and I
spoke forth words of majesty and splendour! They whispered profound mysteries
through the continual movement of their wings. They told me that individual
freedom was the future of mankind, that heresy wears two faces, that violence
is evil and love conquers above all human emotions, that poverty was the ideal
but sacrifice was greater. Below me on earth, I saw the inquisitor, but his
eyes were the colour of blood, like the eyes of a devil, and his mouth became
like that of a serpent, and he was about to swallow the monastery whole, when a
light from out of the depths, from out of the catacombs, shone out all around
and into the cosmic spaces where the angels rejoiced! This light was indeed the
brightest light I have ever seen, and inside this light I saw a figure, and I
knew it to be the sick boy. The one that the monks would not discuss. The
elusive dying novice. A voice then rang out through space, and I heard it say,

‘Have you sufficient oil in thine own
lamp? Make it such that the twelve become seven and the seven stars appear.’

I woke and found myself sitting up on
my pallet, trembling from cold, and perspiring profusely. Another vision! Would
I never escape this torment! Outside I could hear the wind, as a faint light
heralded dawn through my window. I would not be able to sleep now. There were
too many things to consider, so I resolved to ready myself for prime and,
putting on my sandals, I ventured out into the gloom.

The wind had whipped up the freshly
fallen snow, making it difficult to see, especially as I had no light to guide
me, for I had to ask the hospitaller for more oil and tapers and I knew that he
would become suspicious were I to do so. A groaning whistle met me as gusts
circled the abbey, swirling and surging around the bell tower. Coiling and
entwining, the wind encountered the hardness of stone and was deflected in
countless directions. I heard other sounds, too. Sounds that were almost human,
and I realised, to my great relief, that the noises were coming from the
direction of the stables. The awful night had disturbed the animals. I changed
direction and headed there to see that they were safely tied and had enough
water. This took me some time, for I seemed to be taking more steps in a
backward direction than in a forward one. By the time I entered the building I
was cold and exhausted.

The stables afforded one little
comfort from the conditions outside, and I did not remove my cowl immediately
but walked inside, patting my sides and stamping my numb feet. I found old
Brutus, whose whining began the instant he saw me. I gave him a morsel that I
had procured from the kitchen the day before and looked for Gilgamesh. The
beautiful steed raised his head when he saw me, and as I neared him he edged
forward, nudging my arm with affection. I must confess to having saved him the
best morsel and this I gave gladly, patting his long graceful neck and
smoothing out his mane.

I resolved not to tax my mind with
unnecessary thoughts. If nothing else, these last days had taught me to be
economical with my emotions, for I was sure to need them in ample measure in
the not-too-distant future. Instead I decided to delight in the quietude and
peace of familiar smells; well-oiled leather and animals, dung, and hay. I
would forget the tunnels, and the Cathars, the girl in my dream, the bees.

I entered the cubicle in which
Gilgamesh resided, and from his saddle found the brush with the ivory head that
my master had procured in the East. I brushed his fine muscular body with long
strokes, making comforting noises that seemed to soothe him. Looking out beyond
the abbey, through a small aperture in his cubicle I could see a faint dullness
over the eastern mountains. The daystar would not be discerned today, there
would be thick grey clouds above. Below, a fierce wind, and a brilliant
whiteness. Everything moved in time to the impetuous weather. There was,
however, no smoke from a fire that I had come to expect, below the abbey.

Suddenly from behind me I heard a
voice.

‘Be ye not like unto horse and mule,
which have no understanding; whose mouths must be held with bit and bridle,
lest they fall upon thee.’ I jumped, and a gasp escaped my lips. Gilgamesh twitched
in alarm, sensing my fear.

My terrified eyes located Setubar
sitting low on a chair to the far right of the stalls, his angular frame
drowned by his voluminous habit, his eyes wrinkled and wickedly intelligent. He
nodded, lifting his long tapered hands to beckon me to him. ‘Come, come, my
beautiful boy . . . Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why art
thou so disquieted within me?’ He laughed a little, ‘Have you put thy trust in
God? Oh, the young never trust God,’ he answered himself, waving a pale hand in
the air. ‘They trust only in their youth! But youth is fleeting . . . You see
me? I was once red-blooded and sinewy, like you.’

I stood motionless, not knowing what
to do.

‘I see you love your horse, after all
he is beautiful and strong,’ he continued, ‘but he is a creature of pleasure
and all pleasure is rooted in evil . . . The mule is unpleasant to behold, and
though he is stubborn, he is loyal. The mule is a creature of service.’ He
nodded his head, and a faint trickle of saliva escaped his mouth.

‘Yes, venerable brother,’ I answered,
very frightened, ‘but he is not my horse, he is my master’s.’

‘Ahhhh,’ the old man hissed, ‘so it
is that you covet your
master’s
horse?’

I felt a cold sweat snaking its way
down my back and I shuddered. This man seemed to be the Devil himself. ‘I
confess to having a fondness for him, master.’ I trembled.

‘Oh, a fondness! Yes, when one is
young one is fond of everything. Everything is new and wondrous, but as one
grows older those very things that one thought wondrous cause us the greatest
anguish, for as Ecclesiastes tells us, ‘He that increaseth knowledge increaseth
sorrow.’’ He leant forward and waved me over to him. ‘Come, tell me what gives
your youthful face that pallor . . . I am old and my teeth are nearly all gone
. . . I will not bite you!’

Oh, dear God, how I feared that man!
Yet I knew that my desire to know the truth should outweigh all other
considerations. It was my duty, I told myself, as a soldier of Christ, or very
nearly so, to get close enough to the old man to see if his shoes were stained
with blood or clay. Determined, I made my way out of the stall, walking timidly
what seemed an eternal distance between us. I could see his grey eyes,
sparkling malevolently beneath his cowl, drawing me with their intensity. What
else could I do but follow his wish? Should I kneel at his side? I wondered.
No! I thought in sudden terror. Once I was within reach he would caress me with
his cold fingers, as was the custom of older men, what if I should flinch? He
would suspect that I knew the truth! I bit my lip. I was no coward, this was my
opportunity to find out if he was indeed the cunning murderer. He was not
physically strong and so, easily overpowered, and yet, I realised, placing one
foot ahead of the other, his victims had not overpowered him! But they were
old, ahh . . . but what of young Jerome?

The door to the stables creaked open
for a moment allowing a cold gust to invade the relative warmth, then it banged
shut with such force that I gasped, jumping out of my skin, as they say.
Indeed, it must have been a comical sight, for it occasioned a chuckle from the
old man.

‘Come, come . . . You think I am a
wicked old man, don’t you?’ he asked.

How could he know? I resolved that he
must be a sorcerer, in league with the Devil, how else could he know my every
thought? It is only now, after much reflection, that I know Setubar’s power not
to have been diabolical, it lay rather in observation, the quiet skill of every
good physician. His was a strength born of many years studying faces, hands,
gestures, inflections, tones, to arrive at a diagnosis of the state of a man’s
inner as well as outer being. But it also vested him with the ability to
penetrate the soul and wrench from it every human desire, thought, passion. In
this respect he was indeed formidable.

‘Did you know that once they burnt
those whose complexions were as pale as yours?’ he grinned, waiting.

I said nothing.

‘The pale ones were naturally
suspected of being Cathars, for Cathars do not eat meat . . . They did not know
that the old are cold and therefore always pale, because they treasure a life
which they know they will soon forfeit, and this paves the way to cowardice
that leaves a kind of pallor on the skin.’ He touched his face absently. ‘Youth
is warm-blooded and brave. You are not afraid of me, are you, my boy?’ He
searched for my face, and I thanked God that I had not removed my cowl.

‘Of course not, master,’ I said a
little nearer.

‘So your pallor beneath that cowl
suggests something other?’

‘I –’

‘The Arab philosopher,’ he
interrupted, ‘on the other hand, believes that there are two reasons for pallor
. . . infatuation with those feminine creatures,’ I lowered my eyes, ‘because
this sin never leaves one satisfied, but rather, by virtue of its heinous
nature – that one may never in truth apprehend – leaves one
insatiated and melancholy. The other reason escapes me . . . Ah, yes,
discontentment. Confusion.’ He left his mouth open, waiting for my response.
When there was none, he huffed, shrugging his shoulders. ‘You are confused
because life is complicated, is that not so . . .? Or are you perhaps in love?’

‘I am not in love, venerable brother.’

‘You are confused then. Yes? Love,
confusion and discontentment are one and the same. One may be discontented
because one is confused about love, and then one may be confused because his
love leaves him discontented, still one’s confusion and discontentment may lead
one to seek out a love that will ease his pain . . . The young love so easily.’
He smiled. ‘So trustingly . . . but the old love as though they will some day
hate and hate as though they will some day love, as Aristotle tells us . . .
but we do not speak only of the temporal malady, my fair one, which is
inappropriate to those who have chosen to live their lives in the service of
the Lord, but also the love of God can be tainted by unholy sentiments.’

‘In what way unholy?’ I asked, almost
at his side, and he ordered me to kneel with his hand in an impatient way.

‘When it falls into disorder, for
disorder is to be shunned as a tool of Satan, because it leads to discord and
discord leads to confusion, and soon one does not know the difference between
the good love and the bad . . . You see? Your mind is in disorder, you no
longer know what to believe, is that so?’

‘Master, I . . .’

‘Beliefs and unbeliefs . . .’ he
dismissed, ‘we must learn to forget and unforget, to remember, and unremember!
Because when we grow older those same beliefs, like our faces or our hands,
change.’

‘But our belief in God does not
change?’

‘Ahh . . .’ he wheezed, placing a
cold hand on my wrist, and I felt like snatching it away, for his skin felt
moist, ‘perhaps not our belief, but the way we believe changes. Our belief of
what is good, and what is evil, changes, or perhaps it is not our belief that
changes but our faith in that belief,’ he said. ‘And yes, this finally is
wisdom, my boy . . . not as many young men think – a knowledge bestowed
from above when one reaches a venerable age. Wisdom is knowing that life is not
a path to perfection, but a path to recognising our imperfections . . . You
have had a dream? You are a dreamer?’

I blushed violently, worried he was
referring to my sinful dream, and buried my head deeper in my cowl. Seeing that
I was trying to hide, he snatched it off my face leaving me exposed to his
scrutiny. Before I could make a move he took me by both wrists with his sticky
fingers, and in horror I realised that he was looking for a pulse.

‘Did you know, fair one, that the
heartbeat changes when one is not telling the truth? Avicenna was close to
discovering this, but he was not clever enough. You have a vernicular pulse, my
boy, either you are in love or you are frightened of me . . . Tell me, for I
know that you have had a dream. Did you dream of bees?’

I swallowed a gasp and he eyed me
shrewdly.

‘Ahhh, yes. Do not despair, a peasant
from the village of Vertus was also tormented by bees in a dream. They entered
his body through his private parts, stinging him horribly as they made their
way out through his mouth and nostrils. He said they bid him to do things
possible only for devils, so the wretched man went to the village church and
desecrated the crucifix! Therefore he was burnt. And yet, the bee remains a
symbol of purity, messenger of the word, as Bede tells us. But the purity of
its message depends upon the recipient of that message. Do you follow, child?
Like the purity of the wine is dependent on the vessel that carries it . . .’
He paused, somehow finding this humorous, cackling like an old hen. ‘You see,
in the case of the poor unfortunate, the bee’s good function was reversed
because of the man’s iniquity, so that it became a messenger of evil, entering
his body through a shameful gate.’ He sighed, a little tired. ‘One man may have
a dream in which bees herald God, and another may have a dream in which it
heralds the beast!’ He looked at me pointedly. ‘The Lord clothes his messages
to suit his purposes . . . you see?’ He stroked my head as though I were a
favourite cat. ‘I have been young and now I am old, you too will be old, and
the old are best dead! Because you begin to care less about what is good and
more about what is useful, and the useful is only what is good for oneself, it
is rarely what is good absolutely, and that is where the danger lies. Would you
like a raisin?’ he asked changing the subject so abruptly that it took me by
surprise. I thanked him, but declined his offer, fearing that it might be
coated in some poison.