‘Take us?’ I asked.
‘You, my young one, are to go into exile,’ he said to me, ‘they will be after what you know. And you, preceptor,’ he continued, ‘the grand master has found a place for you in another preceptory under a false name, since there are men in your own order who are in league with the crown of France, so we must be cunning. Come, there is little time.’
I looked up to the monastery. ‘Asa and the others?’
‘Carcasses, all of them,’ the older man said.
‘Where will I go? Master, do not leave me,’ I whispered, sinking to the ground with exhaustion.
27
Capitulum
Draught of forgetfulness
We travelled to the little city of Prats de Mollo, a retreat in times gone by for the kings of Aragon. Here we were kindly treated, given some hot broth, and the lord acquired more horses and provisions for our long and difficult journey.
It was as we thawed a little in the pale mid-morning sun, after having changed into laymen’s clothes, that my master and I had a moment alone.
Eisik had, some moments before, said his tearful goodbyes and had left us to pray.
Now, my master was chewing some herbs. His eyes and the crease in his brow echoed the pain that my heart also felt, for how does one say goodbye?
I sat motionless, not wishing to utter the words that I knew must be said. Not wishing to turn my mind to Setubar’s words in the tunnels. Instead I looked out at the mountains beyond the walls of the city and to what must be Spain. All was grey and milky white, silent, still, and peaceful, the river on one side and the endless range of mountains on the other. Everything spoke to me of the duality of existence, a sign of our fragility in the presence of godly designs. I watched the swineherds and the shepherds moving their animals beyond the great gates, and I breathed the air, cold and moist, into my lungs. Were we not like those poor creatures, that, unguided, never proceed directly, but diverge here and there, always at the mercy of the mystery of the paradox, the contractions that rule the cosmos? Were we tended lovingly by the great shepherd, safeguarded from perils to attain that one ultimate goal to which our entire lives have been directed? To inevitably succumb to death? I had tasted death and it was not bitter, but neither was life whose brilliance spoke of that other and yet, in some ways, differently. I looked to my master. Perhaps my face had gained some wisdom, and lost some innocence, for he smiled and caught me in his embrace, patting me on the back with great affection.
He looked in the direction of the abbey, to the majesty of nature that was only a mirror of our Lord’s countenance. ‘An unjust king once asked a holy man what was more excellent than prayer. The holy man replied that it was for the king to remain asleep until midday, for in this one interval he would not afflict mankind.’ He looked at me. ‘What have we done, Christian? It is all lost…the Gospel is gone forever!’ he sighed.
I was silent for a long time, thinking again a great many things, and then I spoke to him, for the first and last time, concerning these things.
‘No, master,’ I said, ‘I believe all is not lost. You only say this because you grieve for those material things you fear were destroyed. But you must remember what you have always taught me; that nothing in this universe disappears. It is merely transformed, in the same way the alchemists make steam out of water and water out of steam . . .’
‘It is a good argument, Christian, but what little consolation it gives me! I am torn between sadness that the only evidence of the gospel is gone, and relief that it did not survive to end up in some bastion of a library, the property of a few who long only to caress each page as if it were a woman’s thigh. Perhaps war is less complicated? I long for some act of will, to leave all this thinking to someone else.’
‘But master, the parchments were only outward signs from which shines an outward truth. Remember Plato’s cave?’
‘That is true, I have taught you well.’ He smiled and there was a strange weariness in his eyes, ‘but you must know, Christian, that a man of science can only ever hope to see phantoms, praying that they will lead him ultimately to the reality that lies behind them. I am afraid that I have devoted my life (and risked yours) to preserving the fire in order that I may see the shadow, indeed it has been wasted. Perhaps Setubar was right? Man should not thirst for something that he can never attain or scarcely formulate. It is the curse of my race that we thirst . . . The inquisitor was right, nothing can alter the colour of a man’s blood.’
‘And you have Christ in your blood, he is in your thinking, in your feeling, in your willing. I have seen it! I know now what you have been trying to tell me. Christ did not die. You were right, master, he lives in our hearts, in our blood. The black cross signifies nothing. Remember how you once told me that one must look for the antichrist in the eyes of a man? You were right there, too, for I saw him in the inquisitor, and I saw him in Setubar also. This is the stamp of the antichrist: ugliness and ignorance. I saw both in those men because they were blind, their vision was distorted and so it could not see a world that speaks to us of beauty, of divinity. Is it not by learning to read the book of nature with the eyes of faith that we come to recognise the drop of divinity that resides in our own souls though hidden, master? In the end is this not faith; to seek the light that takes us further, the light of Christ that brings that to which reason and knowledge alone can never raise itself? This is truth! I am certain of it, and you are a seeker of truth!’