There was a long pause and I assumed the abbot was debating the wisdom of his forthcoming decision. ‘You have my permission to ask what questions you deem necessary, preceptor. However, I cannot allow you to wander about the abbey at any hour of your choosing, especially at night. No one should, indeed, no one must.’
‘But if you will forgive me, it is often at night, away from the distractions of everyday life, that one gains a true impression of . . . things, your grace.’
The abbot became annoyed. ‘Your impressions can surely wait for the appropriate hour. I would like you to conform to our simple rules. In this way we can best prevent this tiresome inquiry from trespassing unnecessarily on the life of the community.’ He gave my master a pointed look. ‘I trust a Templar’s vows of obedience are as sacred as ours . . .?’
My master bowed. ‘Without obedience, your holiness, there is precious little.’
‘Having said this, obedience begs that I must leave, for the bell will soon toll the hour.’
‘One last thing, your holiness?’ my master added, once again demurely, but I could see how brightly his steely eyes were shining. ‘May I ask who is the oldest member of your community?’
The other man hesitated, perhaps wondering what my master was up to. ‘Why, the brother whom you met in the church, Brother Ezekiel of Padua. But I will not have him disturbed, do you understand? He is very frail, needing constant care. His mind is . . . shall we say detached. After all he is very old.’
‘I see,’ Andre answered, a frown darkening his brow.
‘However, you must not tax him with unnecessary questions.’
‘Of course, your holiness, we will only disturb him for the most important of reasons.’
The abbot hesitated, perhaps a little unsure of my master’s sincerity, then he blessed us and disappeared into the grey void of the church.
‘Very well,’ my master whispered to me, in heightened spirits, ‘now we know three things.’
‘Do we?’ I asked, amazed.
‘Naturally, haven’t you been listening? We know firstly that when this abbey was built, its architects used underground tunnels to divert running water. We also know that the abbot is most anxious that we do not inspect the abbey by night, and also that he is not comfortable with us asking the old brother questions. A man who may know with accuracy the abbey’s history! I should think this is enough for one afternoon.’
‘If you ask me, master, I say we still do not know anything at all!’
‘Patience, patience! Knowledge does not consist of what one knows, but rather, knowing what one does not know, as Plato tells us.’
‘What do we do next?’
‘We disobey the abbot, and inspect the monastery by night.’
‘Disobey? But, master –’
‘Hush, Christian, in this case God will forgive us.’
I hesitated, observing how the shadow of dusk was settling over the compound. ‘And what about the antichrist?’
‘The only devil, Christian, exists in ignorance and folly, as I have told you, don’t look for Satan behind every shadow, rather learn to distinguish his form in the eyes of a man. Now to vespers!’
It was only later, after the holy office, as I lay on my pallet that memories of Mansourah returned with vividness. I had no wish to cast my mind back to those days. I tried rather to forget (if only it were possible!) the crazed blood of battle, the anguished cries and tortured faces, the clatter and thunder of hoofs stirring up grit, the rattle of armoured bodies charging, pressing. Yet in my ears the groans still echo with such clarity that I almost feel the pain of wounds that gape and fester. I watch as though I am standing, once again wide-eyed, as the standards are raised and the banners unfurled. I hear the wild snorting of animals on the spur, the cries of the young captains. I observe the carnage, and note everything on parchments for future chroniclers. I see the bits of bodies flung about, discarded, and I watch as others lose their stomachs, or cry silently. Everywhere life-blood, sweet and metallic, and the suffocating smoke that settles to reveal the charred flesh of Greek fire. I witness my master’s devotion as he stitches up flesh, stuffs bowels back into abdomens, cauterises or uses his fist in a vain attempt to stop the rush of blood . . . hours and hours, too many bloody days with his arms to the elbows, his white mantle stained with carmine, wading through the fields of bodies.
I remember now, old man that I am, how a cloud of scourge struck those of us who survived in waves of fever and dysentery, sending mucus spilling from the nostrils and spasms wrenching the gut. I see my master, so clearly, cutting out the lower parts of his drawers and continuing his work in a camp that is no longer filled with the stench of blood, but excrement and doom.