20
Capitulum
Before Sext
Snow continued to fall in a thick blanket, and one could see no sun, only a greyness surrounding the monastery like a silent enemy. I shivered a little as I followed Eisik and my master into the bleakness. Moments before we had emerged from the infirmary, leaving Asa (under guard) attending to the young man. And as we walked the compound, I told them firstly of my conversation with Setubar in the stables, and that he had mud on his shoes, second of my conversation with Anselmo, and third what I had overheard in the kitchen
‘Excellent!’ Andre exclaimed, happily.
‘Oyhh!’ Eisik glared at him. ‘Now the poor child finds pleasure in your games . . . You use all of this to further your own vanity, Andre.’
‘He has done well!’ retorted my master in a good mood, ‘and at the same time atoned for worrying me. So, it is as I suspected.’
‘What did you suspect, master?’ I asked, when it seemed he was not about to expand on his thoughts.
‘That Rainiero has not come here to find heresy, but rather to use heresy as a pretext for finding something else, in this case, the murderers of the martyr. You see, now it all makes a little more sense . . . Only the killers of his beloved master, Piero, could have brought him here despite pressing matters that we know await him in Milan.’
‘Who is this Piero?’ I asked.
‘The inquisitor’s predecessor,’ my master answered, ‘murdered by a number of assassins. They ambushed him and his aide on a quiet country road and it is said that it was a violent and bloody mess. Two culprits were caught, but the others eluded the authorities. One of those who escaped was a certain Giacopo de la Chiusa. We are told he also tried to assassinate Rainiero, but that he did not succeed.’
‘I see now why he is so anxious to find this man.’
‘It does not look good to have the murderers of inquisitors go unpunished . . . however, in his seeking he has uncovered what the king and the grand master wanted kept from him.’
‘The Gospel you have tucked away in your mantle?’
‘It sounds like that might be part of it, and something else…he said Rainerio had to stop it before it was consummated…some form of initiation…perhaps…
‘What could the gospel do, master, if they were found?
Andre pulled absently at his beard that, these days, looked a little greyer. ‘It could undo the faith of many…I have not had time to read it, only in part…but believe me there is a reason it has been kept secret so long.’
Eisik muttered unintelligible things bitterly, and I was quiet for a moment thinking things through.
‘So Setubar was the traitor,’ I said.
‘Our dear old brother has led the inquisitor here using the murderer of Piero da Verona as bait, knowing the inquisitor’s obsession . . . hoping that he might stop whatever is happening in the catacombs. Something we know that all four brothers were party to, or at least knew of.’
‘But how does this tie in with the murders?’ I asked.
‘Let us go through what we know once again . . . Now, at least one of them, Brother Samuel, was curious enough to try to enter the tunnels . . . though he had been duly warned not to go. Ezekiel, we know, was the only one with authority to visit the library, but that does not mean that he ever entered the Sanctum Sanctorum. We must also remember his sight was poor. Daniel, on the other hand, knew the orienting formulas through the chambers, because he may have frequented the tunnels, or because he was given the formulas for safekeeping without ever going there. He told Samuel the formulas.’ He reflected. ‘There was some red dirt in his room, and yet that may have been another’s print we saw. I believe someone, very likely Setubar – who perhaps does not know the orienting formulas – may have been trying to draw this information from Daniel, but when he refused to disclose it, Setubar killed him, or perhaps he disclosed it and he was killed anyway . . .’
‘But my sons, my sons!’ Eisik threw in gloomily. ‘All this does not explain why some enter the tunnels and live whilst others die.
‘Yes, you are quite right. Yes, why is it that when Samuel entered the first chamber as we did he was overcome by something almost immediately or very shortly after, where others, we, for instance, were not?’
‘Perhaps it works in this way, master, perhaps each brother knew one secret, Brother Daniel knew the orientation, Brother Ezekiel the library, Brother Samuel the organ, and Brother Setubar something else, and it is this something else that is perhaps the secret to staying alive in the tunnels,’ I said, astounded at my own acumen.