‘Hush now, Christian, soon all will be revealed.’
22
Capitulum
‘And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.’
Genesis xxviii 12
Christian,’ the man said, ‘you have come finally. I have been waiting.’ ‘Who are you?’ I asked, for he looked peculiar, like an Arab in his dress, and yet not like an Arab at all.
‘My name is not important, only the words. Listen.’ He looked about him at the nothingness. ‘Listen to the key, for with it one can open the rings of knowledge.’
‘The rings?’
Suddenly I heard it, like the duration of eternity, or a moment of liquid purity; pinnacles of resonance, columns of exuberance, the spinning vibrations of space that is circumiectus then internus. Oh, raised cusps of praise! Singing, sighing neptunian notes in aeolian and dorian scales of concordance. Miracle of being, oh majesty! Oh dissolving, diffusing, dispersing notes of joy, fear, pain, tears, wails! Limb-limbering, movement-inspiring, howling, weeping, laughing, telluric and celestial vocalisms and melismas! And as my heart was dazzled by the articulate eloquence of an origin indiscernible and unanimous, multifarious and exposed, I heard myself say in wonderment:
‘What is this I hear?’
‘The spinning of the rings of wisdom .’
‘But I do not understand.’
‘Do you think that bodies so great do not produce sound with their motion?’ He pointed to the inky mantle pierced by light. ‘Even bodies on the earth do so. You must remember that the stars and planets move about the universe at a tremendous speed and their sound is concordant.’
‘But I have never heard it before.’
‘You have heard it always, and so you do not hear it, for sound is only perceived when there is silence.’
‘The pause!’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘The psalms reflect the tones whose rings are pure, the voice resonates forth and brings about creation. One day man will speak forth man. Even now his breath is filled with the promise of tomorrow.’
‘And the key?’
‘It has been hidden in the words . . . hear the words and the rings will sound.’
Then . . .
‘Whosoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death. Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. When you make two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, then you will enter the father’s domain…Remember that is how a god became man, and a man became a god!
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘I am the one who doubted. My eye were crossed but now I see!’
‘Thomas Didymus?’ I gasped.
‘You have heard the message. Now listen to the rings.’
23
Capitulum
Shortly after the service of Compline
Christian!’ I heard once again, but this time it was not St Thomas, it was my master, and I knew that I had dreamt. ‘Master, where am I, what time . . .?’ I sat up rubbing my eyes. ‘You slept through the service, dear boy . . . Anselmo was missing.’ ‘Anselmo?’ I said in a foggy way. ‘Oh! He must be dead!’ I saw that the brothers were leaving in a single file through the north transept, led by the inquisitor and the prelates. ‘Where are they going?’ I asked, disorientated. ‘To the pyres.’ I blanched. ‘Now?’ My master sighed. He seemed infinitely tired. ‘The prisoners await their fate outside.’
He helped me up, and soon we were tagging on the end of the line, following the solemn procession into the snowy cemetery grounds, where three stakes were erected atop a pile of faggots and straw. I realised that it must have snowed heavily while we were celebrating the holy service, for now the mud made by hail was covered with a soft powdery white that the wind (growing angrier with each moment) scattered about us like little phantoms. It was dark, but the area around the pyres was well lit by torches, for tonight all must bear witness to God’s justice.
We waited in anxious silence. I admonished myself for being fooled by my affection for Asa and my dislike of Anselmo who, no doubt, either lay in a pool of blood or was poisoned. I recognised that my master had indeed been right when he had told me to deliberate without emotion.
Finally the prisoners were brought before the inquisitor and my heart sank as I watched Asa climb the ladder to the top of the pyre. Though I knew now that he must be guilty, I felt for him, his face so thin and gaunt, his eyes resolute. Were they the eyes of a killer? I asked myself. They did not seem so. And yet, if I had learnt anything these last terrible days, it was that the Devil was cunning indeed.