Temple of The Grail (34 page)

Many monks now peered through the
door, over the heads of others, and soon the room began to fill with the sound
of their voices. I forced myself to look at the body clinically, concentrating
on the stony face, the eyes open, perhaps with a look of surprise. My master
walked over to the body of the old brother and I saw him pick up the man’s
foot. He removed a sandal and inspected the sole, but said nothing. He simply
replaced it, leant over the body, felt for a pulse, and finding none, closed the
man’s terrible eyes and pronounced him dead to a chorus of gasps and strangled
whispers.

My master then turned to the
inquisitor who had been ordering his archers to search the compound for a
weapon. ‘Now you can see that this is not the work of the cook nor the
infirmarian.’

‘I do not see that at all, preceptor!’
he answered. ‘It is well known that sorcerers can kill from a distance by the
use of their infernal powers.’

‘This is clearly a case of violence,
Rainiero, otherwise you would not be wasting your men’s time looking for a
weapon,’ my master said exasperated. ‘Somewhere the murderer has left his
indelible mark and I believe it is a physical one.’

‘Physical or metaphysical, it matters
little. The ways of sorcerers are many and varied. No, this death only serves
to emphasise the urgency of appropriating guilt and carrying out punishment as
soon as possible.’

‘This one differs from the others . .
. Brother Daniel was killed by an instrument, a sharp instrument, we see that
here . . .’ he pointed to some substance on the ground which, to my horror,
looked like fragments of brain matter, ‘ . . . it has penetrated his skull. The
others, I believe to have been poisoned . . .’

At that moment, Brother Setubar
entered the group. His tortured frame moved awkwardly to the body of his friend
and then he let out a groan that seemed to emanate from the pit of his soul. He
made the sign of the cross and turned, bestowing a look pregnant with fierce
malevolence on all of us.

‘Satan has struck us once again!’ he
cried, as though he himself had been struck on the chest by a blow. He steadied
himself on the abbot’s arm and continued a little out of breath, ‘God has
turned his countenance away from us all. Brother Daniel, architect of our
destiny, venerated brother and friend, dies because this very night the Devil’s
instrument has once again penetrated the sanctuary where no man must go!’ This
was followed by a great agitation. Setubar shook his head. ‘Now God will turn
His rage on all men and as Joel has warned, He will make it that the sun shall
be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. The earth will tremble, and
the stars shall fall to the earth, and the earth shall shake with His anger and
when men hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains then we
shall cry to the mountains and rocks to fall upon us and hide us from the face
of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the lamb!

You!’ He pointed a deformed finger at
the inquisitor. ‘Sanctify ye, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all
the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God and cry unto
the Lord, alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a
destruction from the Almighty shall it come!’

The old man was led away by the abbot
who encouraged the assembly to disperse, and the poor body was taken to the
infirmary. My master, having been given permission to inspect the room before
it was summarily cleaned, remained. He paused before the doorway, and kneeling
on the ground, investigated something that he could see on the floor.

‘Red dirt.’ He brought the clay-like
substance nearer to his face. ‘But why not on the brother’s shoes?’ He paused,
thinking. ‘Of course!’ he exclaimed. ‘Not on his shoes because not he, but
another here tonight, has entered the tunnels besides us. That is why Daniel’s
death is achieved by a different means.’

‘We may have partially solved our
mystery then,’ I said, ‘we can surmise that the red dirt has something to do
with the deaths.’

‘Do not place too much faith in syllogisms.
It is true the other three may have had red dirt on their shoes, but you also
had red dirt on your shoes, and you are not dead, moreover whoever stood here
tonight with red dirt on his sandals is also not dead. This leads me to
postulate that merely entering the tunnels has not caused the demise of the
other three, but plainly something else . . . some substance in the cursed
place with which neither you nor I, nor indeed the killer has come in contact.
This death satisfies the assumption that it was a desperate act of violence.
Furthermore I would like to know how our venerable Setubar knows that we
entered the tunnels tonight, for he said someone had broken the interdict once
more?’

‘He also mentioned that Brother
Daniel was the architect of their destinies, that is close enough to builder,
is it not? If so, then our note has once more been exact in its prophecy.’

‘Excellent!’ He patted me on the
back, in a good mood. ‘You are learning. The author of our note has once again
been correct, and we shall see if he tells us any more secrets, only then shall
we know that he is not one and the same as our poor brother. Did you see
Anselmo in the crowd of faces?’

I shook my head.

He walked around the room, setting
straight a small table that had been overturned. ‘We see evidence of a scuffle.’
He pulled absently at his beard. ‘This adds weight to our argument . . .’ He
looked down at the bloodied floor and at the wall behind the pallet, splattered
in strange patterns of dark red. ‘The killer will have blood on his clothes and
on his shoes, therefore, we should see some prints on the floor . . . yes, here
we see the print of a day shoe, perhaps belonging to the monk who found him, perhaps
belonging to the killer. We cannot discount that they may be one and the same
person, for there is also a little of our red dirt surrounding it . . . but
that could have been there before his footstep, at which time the two combined.
It may have belonged to Daniel himself from another time . . .’

‘So we are still no closer to
arriving at the truth.’

‘We are always closer. In the next
few hours we must notice any dark stain on the shoes or clothes of any of the
monks. But one moment!’ He paused suddenly very still. ‘We heard those
footsteps in the tunnels around an hour before the holy service, that is some
time between the tenth and the eleventh hours.’

‘Why do you say an hour, master?’

‘Because we had enough time to
investigate the library and to make our way back to the church before matins.
The circa says he helped Daniel to the latrine at about that time, so he was
still alive, though he could not have been the one we heard coming towards us
in the labyrinth, for he was too frail, the footsteps we heard were those of a
youthful monk.’

‘Because they were strong and steady
of gait.’

‘Precisely. If this imprint of dirt
belongs to the killer then the murder must have occurred after the killer
returned from the labyrinth with red dirt on his shoes.’

‘So the murder must have been
committed sometime while we were in the library or on our way to the church,
and not after, otherwise we would have seen the suspect leave the labyrinth,
for he would have had to come out of the Lady Chapel.’

‘That is true, or perhaps he left the
tunnels later by way of the scriptorium, the same way we did, in which case the
murder was perpetrated between the time we left the scriptorium, and the bells
for matins, that is, while we were inspecting the organ . . . On the other hand,
there may be other exits . . . and then again, perhaps others who come and go
from the tunnel, and that means our hypothesis is shot! We must find out where
our Brother Setubar was during the time of the murder.’

‘But does Setubar know Greek?’

‘That is the second thing we must
find out, assuming that the author of the note is the same monk who has
commited these crimes.’

We made our way down the night
stairs, intending to leave by way of the aperture, but when we walked past the
scriptorium we noticed Brother Macabus sitting at his desk.

His figure cut an ominous shape in
the dim light from his lamp. Surrounded by shadows he appeared to be in deep
concentration. I followed my master until we were almost upon him, giving him a
start, and causing him to stand up abruptly. I saw him cover his work with a
sheet of vellum as he greeted us with a saddened expression that appeared not
altogether genuine.

‘Such dedication,’ my master
commented amiably.

A pale smile moved his thin lips, ‘I
find, preceptor, that when I am disturbed, it is best if I apply myself to some
work. Tonight I fear that we are all disturbed . . .’

‘Yes, and to what work do you apply
yourself?’ My master lifted the sheet of vellum to reveal pages of what looked
like Hebrew, and alongside this another sheet where he had begun only a few
lines in Latin.

‘You are translating the Old
Testament directly from Aramaic?’

‘Yes.’ The man looked a little nervous.
Everyone seemed so nervous.

‘Extraordinary. I know very little in
comparison with true men of learning such as you. Why not from Greek?’ My
master asked.

‘The Semitic language was, of course,
the original language of the Old Testament, preceptor, it was only much later
that it was translated into Greek.’

‘However, Moses, having been raised
by Egyptians, could have used the language of his keepers, could he not?’

‘There are differing schools of
thought on this subject. This could be the case, some translations may have
been from Egyptian into Hebrew and also, later into Coptic, however, Aramaic
was the Semitic language of the people, and incidentally the language of Jesus.
Hebrew was the language of the priests. I prefer to think that Aramaic is the
purest. At least it is purer than the pagan Greek language which has corrupted
everything . . . Saint Jerome, God Bless him, translated the Bible from Hebrew
to Latin, but it is fraught with errors. Moreover, the Greek text is known to
have included a number of books not present in the texts used by the Hebrews,
Saint Jerome did not include them and called them ‘apocryphal’.’

‘You mean . . . heretical.’

‘Actually, it means hidden,’ he said
with a grin, ‘The Apocrypha has been embraced by some, others believe it to be
inspired by Gnostic philosophy.’

‘And what of the gospels? I have
heard there are a number not included in the new Testament. The gospel of
Thomas for instance, and others like the secret Gospel of Matthew?’

The librarian turned an ash-grey, ‘The
Gospel of Thomas, Matthew? Yes, I have of heard them.’

‘Curious, is it not? Though one can
hardly believe that such things exist.’

The librarian moved closer. ‘Oh, but
they do, preceptor!’ The man betrayed himself. ‘We are told they were not found
to be canonical, firstly the gospel of Thomas does not mention the crucifixion
and other important events while the secret Gospel of Matthew . . . better that
the world not know of their existence, we must leave these decisions to those
wiser than we.’

My master smiled a little. ‘Ah, yes,
but think what a dull world it would be if one always deferred knowledge to wisdom.
Still I know that you are right. One cannot help wondering, though, what such
gospels might tell us . . .’

‘Yes, one can only wonder,’ Macabus
narrowed his eyes, ‘and yet what can one more gospel tell us that we do not
already know, preceptor?’

‘Indeed, I suppose we shall never
know.’ Then my master made a gesture that signalled that we were about to
leave, and the other man made a noise, a kind of clearing of his throat as
though he were about to say something.

Dear reader, you may ask why brother
Macabus embarked on the following conversation when there was no outward reason
that he should do so. All I can say is that perhaps the sin of the intellect is
best nurtured in collusion, because instruction is like an act of seduction
that one man uses to gain advantage over another, or as in this case, to affect
a semblance of importance. It seemed that the circumspect librarian, given the
first opportunity, was about to divulge many things.

‘There have been rumours,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘Rumours that we . . . that we have
these same gospels here in the abbey.’ He held a hand over his mouth suddenly,
as though he had uttered a blasphemy. ‘Held in the treasury as a relic given to
us by a generous benefactor.’

‘Is this true?’ My master managed a
look of incredulity that would have fooled anyone, no less the man standing
before him. ‘And yet surely if such a precious item existed in the abbey it
would be at your disposal?’

The man smiled a little wanly, ‘That
is a logical conclusion and yet we do not live in a world ruled by logic,
preceptor, but one ruled by obedience.’

‘Yes, however, as librarian you must
have access to all the books belonging to the library, is that not so?’

The man straightened his shoulders. ‘No,
in fact Brother Ezekiel alone was sanctioned to enter the library proper . . .
Now, we must await the abbot’s decision . . .’