I told him that Templar life was meagre and sparse on campaign.
‘Dios mío!’ he cried with emotion. ‘Your master matas moros, he kills the infidel?’
I nodded. He raised huge hands high in the air, grabbed me in my seat, pulled me to him – very nearly crushing my bones – and kissed me on both cheeks, ‘Deliver us from evil, libera nos a malo. Amen! I am your servant.’
I flushed, his foul breath lingering on my skin. ‘But you were speaking of something else . . .’
‘Eat, eat!’ he interrupted me, ‘I am your servant, I am your servant!’
So I did, not wishing to insult him. After a time, however, I began to feel sated and a little tired, so I leant back in my chair, patting my middle as I had seen the bishop and the others do the previous night. ‘You must have been highly favoured for your abilities. Did you work for a king or a duke, perhaps a wealthy merchant?’
He laughed a great guffaw that echoed loudly because he was a lay brother and therefore not so strictly bound by the rule on laughter. ‘Dukes? Kings? Niño! Boy, I say to you it was the great ruler of the empire!’ He then hesitated and his face became ashen.
‘Frederick?’ I sat up so abruptly that I almost fell off my seat.
‘O! My tongue is sinful!’ he said. ‘What I said . . . I did not mean . . . Frederick . . . I . . .’
‘You have worked in the kitchens of the excommunicated emperor! Tell me, I am intrigued.’
He looked at me with sharp eyes, ‘Are your lips wise, or are they as loose as a whore’s?’
‘They are wise, very wise,’ I said anxiously.
The man moved from his position opposite and sat down beside me at the table. He smelled of onions and garlic. ‘Frederico, he was un buen hombre! A good man, but you have heard the stories, no? A man with strong body and good brain, a hunter . . . a lover of women . . .’ he said in a low, wistful voice. ‘The emperor’s court! Qué maravilla! I was a craftsman in his kitchen! My dishes were the delights of infidels, the ecstasies of magicians, the enjoyments of astrologers, the pleasures of mathematicians. Poetas, troubadours, concubines! What women!’ He closed his eyes, seeing in some corner of his corrupted mind their superior form. ‘Delicious like pears, lush, with the flesh of pomegranates, rounded, brown like berries and sweet like . . . Yes, what would they do with a little Templar like you, eh?’ He laughed again, seeing me turn a violent scarlet.
‘Why did you leave the emperor’s court?’ I changed the subject, putting an end, or so I hoped, to such talk.
‘Is my luck that is good the nose, eh?’ He tapped his large, veined nose, ‘It smells when a stew is cooked, yes, yes. Sicily it came to troubles, pestilence and I left. Frederico estaba muerto, dead, and his son Conrad . . . coward! No like his father, no like him! Then the other son Manfred . . .’ He lowered his voice, ‘An illegitimate! Un bastado from the wombs of a whore! A whelp of a she-wolf!’ He spat and smiled. ‘Con perdo ’n ... And now ... Dios mío the inquisitor has come, and we shall all be burned . . .’ He blessed himself. ‘Domini Canes – the Lord’s dog, not a man, a devil!’
‘Sir! You are speaking of a representative of the holy inquisition!’ I said indignantly.
‘Ahh, si, but you do not think that only heretics are – how you say? – inspired from the Devil eh? Eh?’ he pressed. ‘No! El inquisitor también – also! He does not look for monsters . . . he makes them! Big ugly ones! With my eyes I have seen them. Tiene miedo? Sí? Are you scared? You must be scared, tremble and beg like an animal, como un animal, and the holy mother will let you die before the flames eat your flesh!’ He began to howl like a wolf and I felt my stomach tighten into a knot and the food that I had so eagerly consumed became sour in my belly.
‘With my own eyes I have seen it!’ he asserted.
‘And how does a cook know so much?’ I asked.
‘From a kitchen I see everything, life and death. You must be discreto, but the truth should be spoken,’ he whispered, ‘I know this man, este hombre Rainiero Sacconi . . . un traitor to his people.’ He spat, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
‘A traitor?’
‘Well known is his history. You too must know it but I will tell you!’ He moved closer and I could smell his sour breath. ‘He was un Cathar, a heretic in Italia high in the Catharan Church. He taught la doctrina. Many inocentes followed him in believing that all laws were lies and laughing at las reglas, the rules of fasts and feasts . . . taking the consolamentum.’ The cook leant forward, both hands on the table. ‘Like the Devil in the garden, he seduced them.’