When Andre deemed it safe, we moved past the choir stalls and to our right, in the direction of the north transept. Moments later we were in the Lady Chapel, at the altar of the Virgin of our sorrows. My master motioned for me to light the two lamps from our rooms on the perpetual flame of the bronze tripod. This I did, and on my return we began to inspect the area behind the great red curtains, near the exit to the graveyard, for this was where brother Daniel had pointed saying Virgil’s words, ‘Procul este, profani!’ Here there were stone panels around three or four paces square, and my master determined that there must be a device hidden somewhere. In the dim light we could see very little, but we continued looking for anything. Soon, however, I found that I was assailed by a desperate desire to sneeze, and it was as I attempted to emerge from behind the dusty curtains that I became entangled and fell. Luckily I held the lamp firmly, otherwise it would surely have set the curtains alight. It did, however, cast the lamp’s brilliance upon the lowest panel that, from my position near the stone floor, became visible to me. I could see something, at first only vaguely. My master was about to help me to my feet when he saw it also. He dropped painfully to his knees then, bringing the lamp closer, exclaiming perhaps a little louder than he should have, ‘Oh defender of the holy sepulchre!’ He must have hurt his knee, and in a strangled whisper said, ‘Hush!’ as though I and not he had uttered these words.
Producing a parchment and quill, from the little repository inside his scapular, he copied the inscription quickly, but then we heard something that we later realised were footsteps headed in our direction. My master with presence of mind pushed me out from under the curtains, saying, ‘Quickly, through the door!’ and I was suddenly dragged to my feet and thrust out of the north transept door and into the cold night.
‘Master –’ I began in a bewildered whisper but was forestalled by the smell of damp and death that pervaded the graveyard.
‘Hush! Follow me, and don’t ask stupid questions!’ he said, putting out our lamps, and pushing me around the body of the church, past the crosses and to the east door, whose aperture remained open until midnight.
‘What are we doing, master?’ I asked, put out.
‘We are spying on the Devil,’ he said, and I thought I could see a devilish grin on his face, but it was too dark, my imagination was having its way with me. Even so, I had never seen my master so excited, and I feared he was fast becoming Aristotle’s model of an intemperate man whose desire for what gives him pleasure is insatiable, and draws its gratification from every quarter. What pleasure, though, could a normal person derive from scampering in the dark in graveyards? I shuddered to think and admonished him for his terrible curiosity.
Presently we found ourselves moving down the nave with the instinctive movements of a fox training its nose to the hunt, and it was only a matter of moments before we were once again on the other side of the screen, dashing quickly in the shadows, to a place behind the choir enclosures. That was when we saw the figure of a monk moving silently past the great bronze tripod, not too quickly, for he was carrying something. He was headed in the direction of the Lady Chapel. I surmised that he must have stopped to pray before the great altar, otherwise we would not have caught up with him. A devil that prays? We followed him, coming upon the arch that separated us from the transept. My breath pulsated before me in time with my racing heart.
‘For God’s sake! Breathe quietly,’ my master whispered harshly into my ears and moments later the figure disappeared behind the curtains.
‘He is going down into the catacombs!’
‘Who, master?’
‘How should I know?’
After a brief moment the monk’s shadow came out into the pale light, but we did not see his face, covered as it was by a cowl, and he disappeared into the inky gloom of the ambulatory.
‘By God’s bonnet!’ my master cursed, and moved hurriedly to the chapel, lifting the curtains. ‘By my hilt! Nothing!’ Pausing a moment, he said, ‘Stay here, wait for the bells. I shall soon return.’
He left hurriedly, and I, fearing the Devil himself around every corner, huddled in the shadows of the ambulatory, praying many paternosters, thinking that my master must return at any moment. But matins came and went. There were whispers.
‘Where is the preceptor?’ they asked in fearful tones, glancing at his empty seat. I waited as the last of the brothers filed out. What could have happened? I was becoming exceedingly worried, but being very weary, and not wishing to disobey my master, I huddled in a corner, anticipating his return like a dutiful child, and in this way I fell into an uncomfortable sleep.