Andre lay stretched out on his pallet staring into nothingness, his mouth working the nuts that he, from moment to moment, popped into his mouth. Eisik paced the floor like a caged animal and I sat on a chair impassively.
‘Master?’ I asked.
‘Yes?’ He raised his chin.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I am thinking, boy.’
‘About the deaths?’
‘Yes, that too.’
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I am thinking that there are far too many things to think about, nevertheless, I believe we are progressing in our hunt.’
‘To which hunt do you refer, master? I must admit I no longer know whether we are hunting for murderers or for ways to get into tunnels or for . . . final conclusions, or monks who disappear . . .’
‘We are hunting all those things,’ he answered calmly.
Eisik shook his head from side to side. ‘And the hunter shall become the hunted . . . mind what I say, Andre! Holy tribes of Israel! What a predicament you have found for us!’
‘Firstly,’ Andre said, ignoring his friend, ‘in the matter of the . . . we shall call them murders, we have two dead monks whose deaths are preceded by similar symptoms, at least one had, at the moment of death, a curious sensation of flying.’
‘But a sensation of flying, master? Is that not also what the cook said?’
‘Yes, he has come in contact, though only slightly, with the poison. I have read something, somewhere, about a certain compound . . . if only there was order to be found in my poor confounded head!’ He sighed, ‘In any case, we must cheer up, we must think . . . What do we know? Firstly we know from our conversation with Asa that Samuel was seeking to go down to the tunnels to see something, though he was warned by Setubar against it. We then learn that a young novice, a friend of our Greek genius, has gone missing, having broken the interdict and ventured where no man must go.’
‘Too many loose ends! There are too many!’ cried Eisik, jubilantly pessimistic.
‘Precisely, and so we must tie them all together, but not too soon. Let us not be overcome by it all, for there are many things to consider, and if we act in haste we may indeed tie the wrong ends together!’
‘But the dying are piling up, master!’ I said impatiently.
‘Hurry not, learn deliberation! Remember that an Arab horse makes a few stretches at full speed, and breaks down, while the camel, at its deliberate pace, travels night and day, and gets to the end of its journey. Now let us ponder things a little, shall we? What were the similarities between the two dead monks?’
‘They were both old enough to know many secrets about the past of the abbey?’ I ventured.
‘Precisely, old enough, as we have seen, to know something of the tunnels, and what is hidden therein.’
‘Perhaps the killer wants these secrets to remain secret, master? Perhaps the killer did not want them going down to the catacombs?’
‘That would be the less taxing explanation,’ he answered, ‘but just because something is plausible that does not make it probable. In any case, first let us examine the profile of our killer from what we know of him.’
‘But we do not know anything, master, only that he knows Greek and that he is left-handed.’
‘Nothing, he knows nothing!’ Eisik thundered, waving his arms about. ‘And still he meddles . . . The inquisitor hates him and still he baits and taunts him so that, in his sleep, the Dominican dreams of pyres whereupon he burns innocent Jews and Templars. In truth, Arabs are renowned for their arrogance, and you are the proof. Say nothing, think nothing. Do nothing more than what is asked of you.’
‘What do you say? One impatient and one reticent?’ my master said, sitting up a little. ‘My lord, if you are not the most empty-headed . . . You are, you are human beings, therefore you can think! Think! If we are surrounded by enemies we must alter our management of affairs and change our strategies to keep the enemy from recognising them, that is all. One moment we are submissive, the next we are forceful. One moment we act, the next we wait. We must secretly guard our advantages.’
‘Which are?’ Eisik raised a black brow.
‘That we know a great deal.’
‘Do we, master?’
‘Of course, we can construct the murderer’s character as one constructs a house. Each brick is a little scrap of knowledge that we have of him, and even that which we don’t have, and can only hypothesise. Firstly, we must venture a propositum of his motives because motives are closely tied to characteristics . . . We do what we do, Christian, because of who we are, is that not so?’