Temple of the Grail(27)

‘Yes, the skill of the Greeks,’ said Asa, who then became very thoughtful. ‘You remember his continual somnolence, Brother Setubar? His thirst, and constant need to relieve himself?’

Brother Setubar grunted a little in answer.

‘Of course . . . I am a fool!’ The infirmarian slapped the side of his face with one hand, then.

‘No, it is not always easy to diagnose,’ my master assuaged, ‘and yet his breath could have secured your confidence in this hypothesis, for it would have been very sweet. Did his urine have the familiar smell?’

‘Sweet?’

‘No, caustic.’

‘Caustic?’

‘Caustic . . .’ My master washed his hands in a bowl of warm water and took his carrot stub from me. ‘One whose body is afflicted with this condition cannot dissolve the materia of sweet potentia, it remains in the patient like a fermentum and infects the entire corpus. The adepts from the far eastern lands have written a great deal about this complaint. You see, because the corpus is not able to use sweet substances in the process of combustion, it looks for other calcinated substances to replace it. And the remnants of these unholy dissolutions are excreted in the urina, leaving an acrid smell. I myself have come across it several times. Older men of large proportions, and likewise obese women, are particularly prone to such visceral aberrations. Still, I have heard of some who are born this way, though they die early.’ He finished his morsel pensively.

‘But this is caused only through the ingestion of sweet things, master?’ I asked.

‘No, all foods have a certain measure of sweet potentias, Christian, bread, for example, and wine. The venerable brother drank his share of wine tonight.’ He pulled a sheet over the body.

‘And yet we cannot be sure he did not simply die because he was old,’ Setubar said, annoyed.

‘You are correct. This unfortunately remains a hypothesis,’ my master assented.

‘Yes . . .’ Asa nodded in agreement, ‘whatever it was, we will perhaps never know.’

‘And yet there is only one likely cause of death,’ Andre said.

‘You mean poisoning?’ asked Asa.

‘Nonsense, you fool!’ The old man waved a hand impatiently.

‘I believe,’ my master ignored him, ‘that if our brother had died of this disease, he would have died peacefully, as many do, perhaps after a seizure or two, but he would not have experienced the violent spasms and other symptoms we witnessed tonight. And so I’m afraid that we still have a problem, a stubborn one.’

‘Yes . . . his condition may have been incidental.’ Asa frowned, washing his hands.

‘And chance is incidental cause,’ the old man quoted Aristotle.

‘But if he was poisoned, master,’ I said and was thrown a sharp look by Setubar, ‘it is not likely that it was by chance, is it? The disease, as you have said, could have been incidental, but not the poison.’

‘Christian,’ my master answered me more patiently than was his custom, ‘it could also be that the poison was incidental, or accidental, but we must take care not to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent deliberating it.’

The old man stood, but he may as well have remained seated, for his back was so bent that he only gained a few inches. ‘Stop all this absurdity, and let the body of our dear old friend rest in peace!’ he cried, raising the stick he used to steady himself. ‘He is the happy one now. Resting in the bosom of our Lord, in the arms of the mother whose milk will nourish him for all eternity. He prayed each day that it might be his last, and his prayers have been answered. You are young.’ He looked at us with malice. ‘You know nothing of the suffering of the old whose bones are brittle and whose teeth are gone, who piss all night and who cannot keep awake all day! The old smell death in their nostrils as young men smell flowers, their youthful form withers before the eyes, and the mind! The mind, once a joyous manifestation of erudition and wisdom, becomes a playground for delusions and deceptions. The old forget what they should know, instead of knowing what they should forget, and because of this they see the things that God reveals only per speculum et in aenigmate, that is to say, through a glass darkly, and call it wisdom. No . . .’ he shook his head. ‘Physicians want to cure every illness, bestowing long life to their patients. I know. I was once filled with such delusions, but now I understand this is merely the wiles of a vanity that cloaks its true intentions with the artifice of charity. The body is evil and so it must be endured until it can be shunned. To be rid of it is a blessing. Concern yourselves with the living. Our dead brother was old, and so he died, that is all!’