He smiled a little. ‘I am a seeker, yes, but I am also a slave to my seeking. I now know that one only frees oneself from that insane desire for truth when one is prepared to doubt in the existence of truth itself, for it is only to be found when you have discarded it! Only then are you truly free! I have always expounded just that! I have simply failed to take my own instruction, you see? It further illustrates how I have behaved stubbornly. My heart was eaten up. Perhaps I am indeed no better than Anselmo, no wiser than Setubar.’
‘And yet, knowledge is a good thing, as you have always told me.’
‘Yes, but knowledge is dependent on the piety of the one who has it, Christian, in this case it can be a blessing or a danger. I want you to remember something. Wisdom walks alone, but learnedness, learnedness can easily walk hand in hand with the greatest stupidity.’
‘In all cases it is the beginning, is that not so? As you have always told me, knowledge is the seed of a faith that must follow. Because you were wise and good we proceeded in faith (for I surely would have given up) to see it, for ourselves, surely that is of far greater value than parchments!’
‘To see what for ourselves?’ he said with frown.
I realized at that moment, that my master had not seen anything at all! I did not know what to say to him.
He sighed. ‘No. Eisik was right, Christian, never desire knowledge for its own sake. To desire it with such devotion is as dangerous, if not more so, as remaining ignorant, you see? It is only now that I begin to doubt, and that is a good thing, for as Augustine tells us, when a man doubts he knows that he is truly alive. Now you must go, Eisik and the others are waiting for you. It is safer if we are separated.’
We embraced for one last time. I held the small gem that had sustained me all these days, the tiger’s eye, in the palm of my warm hand. This I gave him, placing it in his. He looked at it endearingly and smiled a little, and it was then that he turned and walked away. I was never to see him again.
28
Capitulum
Draught of remembrance
Later, after I arrived in my present exile upon Gilgamesh (for Eisik had saved him from the avalanche and my master, in his selflessness, had given him to me as a parting gift), I heard that the inquisitor, Rainiero Sacconi, had escaped death and had travelled to Paris, where he could not convince Louis King of France to send men to scour the countryside for Templar heretics. His reputation, however, was done a great service in the apprehension of a conspirator to Piero’s death, and he was to rise to the position of supreme inquisitor in Lombardy. Many years later, he approached Philip le Bel on the subject of the monastery and its secrets, but the king found a great resistance from Pope Boniface, who had set his own designs on obtaining the elusive treasures of the monastery. There ensued a terrible schism on the matter of jurisdiction that saw the king attempt to kidnap and kill Boniface. He did not succeed . . . but there are many ways to get a pope or two out of the way!
After a few years, how many I cannot say, I received word that my master had been relocated to a preceptory near Paris, and I was heartened to know that, under another name, he was teaching once more, having been granted permission to travel there several times a year to give discourses at the university. Even now I smile a little, warmed by memories.
At the university, he may have come to know Thomas Aquinas, who, I believe, occupied a teaching chair at about the same time. A man rumoured, so they tell me, to have caused quite a stir among the intellectuals with his aim to Christianise Aristotle. How strange . . . I seem to recall a dream . . .
And so Acre fell finally, and more and more of our brothers have fled to this place, though I have never seen them, for my cell window looks out onto the Mediterranean and I see nothing else save its monotonous blue. No one here knows my identity, except the grand master, and Eisik. The others think that I am a leper and so they do not burn with curiosity.
Yestereve the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, came to see me, for I have, of late, become his confidant. He helped me to my palette and poured out his heart to me. He told me the Order is in peril. King and Pope are plotting to take the Order’s treasures, both temporal and eternal. I told him something he must take with him to the end. At dawn I watched his galley leave for France from my little window and my heart sorely aches to think on it.
Soon what I have spent so many years setting down will find its way to the only man I can trust, a friend of my father’s, Jean Joinville. I trust that he will vouchsafe it for the sake of the world.
I therefore bequeath to you in all humility: this gospel and my account of how I came by it. I know its pages will survive even as my poor sinner’s corpse is eaten by worms and I hope you have read it carefully, turning each page with fondness, recognising that you have been the witness of my conscience, and the interpreter of my meditations.