‘You lie too easily, cook, it will do no good to evade the truth. Come now, confess to me and I will see that you are judged fairly.’
The cook became hysterical, laughing and spitting and coughing, and for a moment I saw a hint of his former self in his eyes. ‘Fairly! Too late, preceptor, for fairness, I am like un cerdo – a pig the day of the feast of St John. There is no hope for me. Now I am the one who is cooked, no?’
‘Tell me, so that I might relieve your distress. If you are honest with me I can save your life, for I have a letter sealed with the king’s seal. I am to return with all those accused! Did you poison the old brothers?’
‘I did not kill anyone!’ he cried.
‘Then how did you come by the substance?’
‘What?’ The man’s face was suddenly inscrutable.
‘The substance that induces your visions!’
‘I saw la Virgen! La Virgen!’
‘Tell me for I know you have abused some forbidden thing. Tell me or we shall soon see what the inquisitor thinks of it.’
The man blanched. ‘Porel amor de díos! I did not kill anyone . . . I only . . . the honey !
‘Honey?’
The man looked about him, and lowered his voice to a loud boom, ‘What Rodrigo is told, Rodrigo does, as penance . . .’
‘What did you do? I lose my patience, come now!’
The great man trembled. ‘Sí ...sí . . . before you came here, preceptor, I was told to take some miel, some honey, and put it in a pot, in this I put dry herbs given to me and I was to leave it aside for the old monks. Sometimes I dip raisins in it, sometimes it is poured into wine in the rooms of the old ones, to make it sweet. One day, María Santísima, I had a drink of it . . . vos sabeís, yo también soy muy curioso . . . I am curious like you, I wanted to know what makes it so special . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘She came . . . so dry was my mouth and I feel the heart, beating, and I fly to her . . . Ahh! But he found out, he was very angry muy nervioso – very nervous. Never do it, he told me . . . but I want to see la Virgen, no? I went to Brother Asa I told him I need some hierbas from the herbarium for the food. He let me in. I remember what the herbs look like and took a bunch to dry over the fire . . .’
I was suddenly struck, for now I knew two things. Firstly, I remembered seeing the cook doing exactly as he said when I waited outside the blacksmith’s workroom, the day my master was hit on the head. Secondly, I was beginning to see why I had been having the strange sensations! The dreams! It was the wine!
‘Who asked you to prepare the honey, and who told you never to taste it?’
The man hesitated.
‘Who told you, cook?’
‘The old man, he told me it was for the old monks. He said if I ever opened my mouth he would tell the abbot my secret.’
‘Setubar . . .’ said my master pensively, ‘The poison . . . on the raisins . . . and also in the wine . . . but Brother Samuel died quickly, only moments after entering the tunnels. The raisins, the wine, were poisoning the brothers slowly over a period of time in order to evade suspicion. Tell me about the tunnels!’
‘Tunnels?’
‘Answer me for I know that you are responsible for taking food to them!’
‘How? Who?’
‘I have seen you with my own eyes.’
‘Madre mía!’ The man was aghast, and so, too, was I.
‘Tell me everything.’
‘The secret! I have been sworn . . .’
‘Tell me! You must tell me!’ my master said a little roughly.
‘The hidden manna!’ the man exclaimed, falling to his knees. ‘I was told one cannot know the secret and live.’
‘But you are alive,’ my master pointed out.
‘I could not speak and the old man knew it . . . He said if ever I opened my mouth he would tell the abbot my secret. Do not ask me of the ghosts that are not ghosts, for ghosts do not eat! I did this as penance for sins, but if I tell you what I know, you will help me?’
‘That depends on what you know.’
He thought for a moment, weighing things up. ‘There are twelve,’ he whispered finally, for he was in the grip of far too many fears to worry about one more. ‘They are called the ‘silent ones’, I know there are twelve because I am told to take them twelve bowls of broth, and twelve measures of bread . . .’
‘Should there not be thirteen?’ I asked, ‘including the boy?’
‘You know of the boy?’ The man trembled, visibly afraid. ‘I . . . I . . . his name is not known, I have never seen him, others have, but only a few, only the old ones who bring him here . . . he was solito, alone, away from everyone, living in his own room only, close to the abbot since he came, years ago. They say that all those years the ‘silent ones’ have been ‘teaching him’, and so he visits the tunnels, the catacombs . . . this is well known, all know of it, but few speak.’