Temple of the Grail(37)

‘How did such a man become an inquisitor?’

‘How?’

At that moment two assistant cooks entered the kitchen, their eyes to the floor, cowls over their faces. One lifted a massive tray upon which an assortment of bread and cheeses was laid out. The other was handed an immense pot in which a vegetable broth had been cooking since the early hours. This the young monk placed, with some difficulty, on a wooden trolley. The cook handed him a ladle and shooed him out. ‘Out with you! Out all of you!’ he yelled, and as they scurried away, they reminded me of the rat.

He wiped both hands on his shirt, then gathering the folds of his vestments blew his nose loudly. ‘Aaah . . .sí ... sí, this herético ... sí, one day he was iluminado, saw his errors and was convertido! A miracle – un milagro – hágase el milagro y hágalo el diablo! ‘

I looked at him blankly.

‘Do not they say ‘if the work is good what matter who does it’, eh? Rainiero entered the Church in Milan and swore to hold the faith of the fathers, promising to obey el papa in the order of the dogs! Ole! That is the end.’

‘What do his former followers think of him?!’ I exclaimed.

‘They hate him! Is natural!’ he said shrugging his shoulders. ‘He mistreated his old amigos very much, very brutal since he replaced the old man Piero, Prior of Como . . . the martyr that was killed at the hands of the assassin Giacoppo della Chiusa. This man also tried to kill Rainiero at Pavia, but he was estúpido because he did not succeed . . . Rainiero is a clever man, listo e despierto! And now he is the pope’s dog, an inquisitor with a heretic up here.’ He tapped an index finger against a sweaty brow. ‘Innocent was clever too, better if the smart ones are on your side and not the enemies, even more because on Italian soil there is conflict, terrible, the church fights against the emperor, and the emperor against the church. Now he is here and I smell flesh burning in my nostrils . . . it is the smell of pig! Poohf! But I will speak no more. Those with loose tongues die in this abbey, those who know too much die also. I want to be ignorante,my young one, so that I may live a long and sinful life!’

I asked the cook for an apple, and left.

I wandered the grounds feeling a strange sensation, a kind of light-headedness. On seeking my master, I found him not in the dormitories, but in the scriptorium, leafing through a large book and having a most cordial discussion with the librarian, Brother Macabus, and a copyist whose present work (I would soon see) was filled with the most precious illuminations. I entered the enclosure of the scriptorium and made my way to them as quietly as possible, though a number of monks looked up from their work with barely concealed suspicion. Almost immediately, as if the sight of me caused them discomfort, they hung their heads over their shoulders and continued their work in silent rebuttal. But I took this rare opportunity to watch them discreetly, as they scraped away at an old palimpsest, or carefully marked the margins of a new one. Today I know this is how we have lost many a precious manuscript because a monk’s work is less about appropriating and perpetuating wisdom than perpetuating appropriate copying. As we are told a busy monk is only troubled by one devil, while an idle monk is troubled by many. This philosophy has sustained copyists and illuminators alike for centuries, as they proceed day by day to work unhurried, as though all eternity lay before them, erasing the works of the most orthodox and revered Christian fathers to make palimpsests of relatively little importance.

Once again obedience.

Still, I must confess to having envied them a little at that moment, if only because their life seemed a truly satisfying one. A life of constancy, devotion and fidelity. Where work is carried out for the sake of continuity and of permanence, and not – as overcomes so much of human endeavour – to satisfy the sin of pride. Here there was peace, and order, and the goodness of the word, which is God. And I remembered what the inquisitor had said on the day of our arrival at the abbey, magna est veritas, et praevalet, that is to say, great is truth and it prevails.

Shortly my master drew me to his side, I gave him his apple, and his eyes told me that he would perhaps have preferred a dumpling. Even so he bit into the apple eagerly, and between mouthfuls, proceeded to tell me that despite the unfortunate circumstances (by this he meant that he had found nothing in Brother Ezekiel’s room) he had passed a valuable morning looking through herbals and bestiaries provided by the librarian Brother Macabus. He then introduced me to the other monk, Brother Leonard, who was presently instructing him on the various inks and parchments used by him in his works.