Temple of the Grail(137)
My master did not move, he said nothing.
‘You must know that I mean to learn everything, even if I have to resort to distressing means, preceptor. Right at this moment my guards have seized your Jew. They await my orders. Should I tell you by what methods the inquisition extracts the truth from devils? I am sure you are acquainted with them, though your squire may not be.’ He glanced at me with cold eyes.
‘Leave the boy out of it!’ cried Andre, getting up, his face red with anger, ‘and furthermore, leave Eisik out of it as well. He has nothing to do with any of it!’
‘No? Well I tend to disagree with you, preceptor. As I have told you, Jews are fomenters of dissent, known to dabble in necromancy and other unspeakable practices. It would take very little to convince the other members of the legation that he had some part to play in the murderous crimes.’
What was my master to do?
‘All I seek from you, preceptor, is the truth.’
‘Rainiero, you don’t seek the truth, you seek your idea of what truth is and these are two different things.’
‘My dear brother,’ Rainiero seemed amused, ‘there is only one truth!’
‘And you think you extract it under torture? You are a fool, and an evil one at that!’
Outside, the earth rumbled in response, like the sound, John tells us, of the chariots of many horses running to battle, but the inquisitor smiled. ‘In my experience, preceptor, there is pain in every truth, and therefore it is through pain that we come to know it. Like a child who is born into the world through the anguish of his mother – one instant of joy and a lifetime of sorrow – leading finally to the end, again, through pain. Do you see? You think of pain, and in it you observe only the detestable. I, on the other hand, can see only the holy.’ His smile broadened, as though he were contemplating a truly wonderful idea. ‘For pain, preceptor, is the purifying substance that denies nothing. Through it the mind becomes free because once it has tasted the greatest suffering, the body, whose sin is the seeking of pleasant things, is finally overcome. Pain is the gateway to God, the gateway to divine bliss, and celestial joy.’
These words reminded me of Brother Setubar, and I wondered if the inquisitor persecuted heretics so vehemently because he could never be free of his own heresy that, no matter how deeply hidden, managed to bubble to the surface like oil?
‘No, you are wrong,’ my master said bitterly, having lost his composure altogether, ‘what you call bliss is only the absence of pain, which is a contrast to the most intense pain and nothing else. Just as someone who has never seen white might contrast grey with black. It is an illusion, and so, too, do you delude yourself. Never having known joy, you naturally suppose that pain is necessary and the absence of it blissful . . . but how can you ever be sure that what you hear from the mouths of those wretched and abused souls is the truth, and not merely a reflection of what they see in your eyes?’
‘So says an infidel. Because that is what you are. Oh, yes, you may wear a cross over your breast and a prayer on your lips, but I know that you are a man who whispers Allah in your sleep, a man not trusted by either Christian or infidel. Everything you have said and done these days has pointed to your dissent. Do not presume to know the mystery of torture and absolution, preceptor, it is vouchsafed only to a few.’
‘A few who desire intensely to hear those things they are told, not because they are true, but simply because they want them to be true.’ He gave me a look (his hand poised over the note). In it I discerned the message: ‘When I depress it, run for the panel.’
‘Do you know, preceptor, what anguish I have suffered? Tortured always on the one hand because I may have convicted an innocent man to die, and at the same time knowing that there are those whose deception has allowed them to evade the law, so that they may continue their destruction of the church!’ Suddenly I saw the inquisitor’s face take on a form almost human. I now sensed that he truly believed that what he did was right, and this filled me with further uncertainties. ‘Can you for one moment comprehend such a dilemma? How can one ever know if he is avoiding the deceptions of the Devil, the misunderstandings to which he lures us? One no longer knows in these terrible times what distinguishes good from evil! So it is that we must let God choose for us. It is God, not as you would say, the Devil, who speaks through the mouths of those who are tortured because, in the throes of pain, that He too suffered for our sins, they see His shining light and cannot do otherwise than confess their own! You see? And so saying, I will remind you that one night with my guards will have your Jew begging to tell me everything, as God commands him, but I will not see him, not for three nights in which he will suffer countless agonies . . .’