Temple of the Grail(119)

‘Yes, Eisik, that too worries me.’

‘It seems to me you worry more about your puzzles,’ he reproached, saying aloud what I had been thinking all along. However, I too had been seduced by the mystery and had forgotten that lives were in peril.

As we rounded the stables Eisik departed to his cell above the animals, shaking his head and mumbling dire omens under his breath, and we continued in the silence of our own misgivings. Upon nearing the blacksmith’s workroom, however, our meditations were interrupted by a terrible sound. My master immediately left me alone for a moment at the entrance to the building while he inspected its source, and as I waited for his return, feeling a great deal of uneasiness under the stare of many eyes, I saw the bishop coming out of the cookhouse carrying something under his arm.

His haste and the folds of his habit hid whatever it was, and I could not see it, only that it was substantial. The friar, who was on his way to the service, almost bumped into him, as he rounded the church. There followed an angry exchange between them and the bishop continued through the aperture to the cloisters, while the friar looked on with malice. At that moment the Cistercian joined him, and they had a moment of conspiracy, each man looking around with suspicion, it seemed, before entering the church.

Also on the way to the holy office were the maiden and her father, making their way from the pilgrim hospice. Partially hidden as I was behind an old tree, I was able to observe her without being noticed. Her face, revealed by an imprudent wind that swept back her hood, was that of a young woman whose complexion was exquisitely fair, with noble features, and lofty demeanour. I saw the brilliance of her eyes, the perfect form of her teeth. With a casual air she tossed very slightly the sable tresses that, in little curls, fell upon her lovely shoulders . . . I was mute, as I should have been! Transfixed by her loveliness, I found my eyes riveted to the area of purest softness where her slender neck met the curvature of her shoulders. Here a large gold clasp brought together the folds of a crimson robe that hung loosely over a velvet gown of the same colour, and yet not concealing the form beneath . . . Thankfully, she soon entered the church, away from my sinful eyes. For a moment she had been the woman in my dream, the Goddess Natura, leaving the scent of jasmine in her step, and I felt myself blush violently.

I did not hear my master come up behind me, I only felt his hand as he slapped me on the back of the neck almost too sharply.

‘The world would be sweet if there was no such thing as woman!’ he said calmly.

‘But, master, we would not have been born!’ I answered a little annoyed, rubbing my stinging neck.

‘Ah . . . but, Christian, we would not need to be born! We would all be in paradise. In any case, if not for the recent terrible incident with the mountain she would not have been given permission to stay. As it is she offers distraction for stupid squires and the sooner she leaves the better!’

‘So what you are saying, master,’ I retorted, feeling that Andre was sounding too much like Setubar, ‘is that the beautiful should be shunned, but that is not what Plato teaches us.’

‘No, you are quite right,’ he agreed as we entered the hot oily room used by the blacksmith. ‘He tells us that when one falls in love with the beauty in one individual (for how can one help but fall in love with such a diabolical deception), one then sees that this beauty is similar to that in all human beings, and that by loving the beauty of the body he comes to know the love of the mind that he soon realises is far superior to the other kind, and in this way he recognises the beauty of all forms of knowledge, ergo, attaining a love for beautiful words and thoughts that hopefully leads to apprehension of that one supreme form of all knowledge, God himself,’ he ended.

‘Yes that is it exactly!’ I said triumphantly.

‘Ahh, but, Christian, there is something you have not thought of.’

‘Master?’

‘Plato was not a monk and he liked to look at beautiful boys.’

‘So,’ I said presently, because I had been outwitted and because I did not want to know such things about Plato, ‘what we heard . . . was that the sound of some animal being shoed or branded?’

‘No . . . it was the cook,’ he answered, and we climbed the stairs.

The cook was being kept in a small room that occupied a section of the building used by the blacksmiths. I sneezed immediately we entered the large space outside it, for there was heavy smoke coming from the furnaces and the smell of burning animal hair, tanning oil, and other irritating substances. We walked directly to a doorway guarded by two archers whose inscrutable expressions gave little insight into their persons, but rather made them look like those stone sculptures outside the church. My master ordered the two men to step aside in the name of the king. This caused a cloud of uncertainty to darken their brows, for my master’s demeanour was such that it required a strict adherence to his command, and so reluctantly they obeyed his order, and let us pass.