Temple of the Grail(125)
‘Shall we go down?’
‘What for, boy? What shall we find but more tunnels? No we are best to head for the chapter house, lest we incur suspicion, but now my dear Christian many things are clearer. This may explain why Asa was late to dinner that first night, perhaps he was in the tunnels looking for Jerome?’
‘So Asa could have left the infirmary via this exit at any time. He could have killed Setubar and Daniel, even with guards at the door.’
‘Yes, though Setubar may not be dead, Christian. Perhaps it is he who has been taking the food down to the brothers in the tunnels in the absence of the cook. Asa may have nothing to do with it and our dear Anselmo is putting two and two together and making three . . . then again perhaps he has everything to do with it. We must not be fooled, however, merely because we are sympathetic to him. Remember, never allow sympathies and antipathies to rule your reasoning.’
As we re-entered the infirmary once again we heard a muffled sound. It was the young man. We found him sitting up in his pallet, his black curls plastered to his skull and a bead of sweat framing his feverish lips. On seeing us his eyes widened and he said in the rough whisper of the infirm, ‘He is here . . . I have seen him.’
My master moved to his side and placed the palm of his hand over his brow. ‘You have a fever, my son, you must rest.’
The young man said something inaudible and my master knelt by his side, in order to hear him better, ‘What did you say?’
‘My name is Trencavel…before I die,’ he said, ‘I must have the consolamentum! You understand? I must see my father…hurry!’
My master’s darkened brow showed me that he knew something about what the boy had just intimated, but he said nothing.
He stood, peeled back the sheets, and a sickly smell assailed our nostrils.
We left the boy in Eisik’s care, and as we stepped out into the cheerless afternoon Andre said, ‘His leg is rotting . . . gangrene. The meat will soon be ‘off the bones’ as they say, though every precaution was taken. I am afraid his only hope now is cauterisation or amputation.’
The snow was wet, churned to mud by hail. My master ordered the guard standing outside to find the boy’s father, for his death was imminent.
‘But, master,’ I said, ‘we must do something!
‘But we cannot, dear boy.’ He looked sad.
‘Why not? In God’s name!’
‘Because he is a Cathar, he is a Trencavel.’
‘A Trencavel?’
‘The house of Trencavel was well known for its heresy during the Albigensian Crusade. He is ready for death, he has asked for the consolamentum.’
‘But how do you –’
‘Consolamentum is last rite given by a perfect or a pure one, to a believer before death. A ritual of purification. He is in effect asking to die.’
‘But he may yet live!’
‘You do not understand. To a Cathar death is a release from the bonds of the Devil. If he does not receive the consolamentum he believes he will die impure . . . His father must be a perfect.’
‘What makes one perfect?’
‘One who has taken the consolamentum and has lived a pure life, a very strict and austere life. You see the life of a perfect is so austere, Christian, so taxing on the mind and body, that few are able to live it. That is why most are given the consolamentum on their death bed, that way they can live life as they choose to and when the time comes they may go to God cleansed of sin . . .
it is a matter of convenience,’ he remarked.
‘Not unlike our extreme unction, master.’
‘No, not unlike it.’
‘So they are heretics. What about what he said? A face behind the outward one?’
‘Hush, Christian, do you want the world to hear? Our main concern now is saving our own carcasses. This whole thing may end up in the lap of our order with you and me as convenient pawns.’
My master looked pale, his eyes troubled, his shoulders weighed down with responsibilities. For the first time I realised how much he suffered because of his erudition. Knowledge, I now realised, did not afford much pleasure. It was a painful thing. For a wise man bears the great cross of honour, integrity, and principle. His every word is a certainty haunted by the possibility of error. I wondered how many nights he lay awake wondering, had his thoughts become deeds, would they have been good ones? Now I was more than ever in awe of him, as I looked up at his knitted brows, the unsettled movements of his dark green eyes, his beard whose tip was moulded to a point by the stroking of his hand. I wished that I knew him better. And yet, I wondered if he knew himself, as Plato has commanded us, or whether Eisik was right. Was he becoming hopelessly lost in the universe of his ideas? I shivered, hugging my cold tired self, and noting the apple I had taken for him in the repository of my habit, I handed it to him. He shook his head, he did not want it. My heart sank. I wished there were something noble or clever that I could say to help him. What could I say? I may not have been as erudite as he was, but I knew that as we prepared to set foot in the chapter house we were indeed preparing to enter into the mouth of the dragon.