The Seer and the Scribe (29 page)

The Magistrate suddenly swept into the Chapter House with an entourage of burghers
⁹⁰
. Obviously he had also dressed in a hurry for his long silk cloak was flung about his shoulders inside out. Regardless, his disheveled presence did not distract from his air of confidence and his intelligent blue eyes. All mumbling ceased. The hall fell into a disquieting hush as the holy brothers and the guests moved aside, clearing a path for the Magistrate and his attendants to approach the Abbot. The whole power of the state was embodied in this one person.

“I came as soon as I got word, Father,” the Magistrate said, brushing back a thick clump of charcoal gray hair that fell across his face. The Magistrate was not a tall man but his heft carried with it a sense of an inner weight that proved he was not easily swayed one way or the other. In Volmar's opinion he was the classic enigma.

“I wish our meeting could have been under better circumstances, Wolfe.” The Abbot nodded with appreciation and clasped the man's hand in a friendly way.

“Seldom are circumstances in our control, eh, Father?” the Magistrate answered. “As you instructed, I've sent an armed scouting team with torches down the hillside to see if they could return with the suspects before they leave our valley.”

Brother Rudegerus rudely pushed his way forward to the Magistrate. “My Lord,” he said, kissing his outstretched hand, “you must not let them convince you of this man's murder. He was an unstable, demon-possessed man. What we have here is surely a regrettable but undeniable suicide.”

The crowd repeated the dreaded word “suicide” with a rush of renewed apprehension.

The Magistrate raised an eyebrow and removed Rudegerus's hand from his forearm, which the monk had clutched in his impassioned spectacle. “I prefer to make up my own mind,” he answered Rudegerus, dismissing any further speculation. “Which way are the stables, Father?”

“This way, My Lord,” the Abbot said, leading him by the arm through the parting crowd of monks and disheveled guests.

For a brief moment, Volmar and the Magistrate's eyes met. The young scribe bowed his head in respect. He thought curiously that there was something else in that short look they shared, something more tragic than even the present circumstances. He watched as a servant adjusted the Magistrate's cloak. Perhaps, this curious expression had to do with the fact that the Magistrate must be mentally checking his emotions, for in a few short moments he had to stare directly into the face of death and not flinch.

Volmar stepped back into the shadows behind one of the stone columns and watched as the other brothers and guests began to disperse. He was of two minds. If Hildegard wasn't among this crowd, then where was she? Should he approach the Abbot and also burden him with the fact that not only had there been two deaths, but one of the sisters in the Anchorage was missing? Maybe, he reasoned, he should wait until he knew more. Who knows—perhaps by now Hildegard could have made it back to the Anchorage and was safe within its comforting walls, nursing the Anchoress back to health.

Sanctuary of Disibodenberg Monastery

6
^th
of November, Dawn

Volmar paced back and forth slowly, keeping to the shadows, keeping an eye on the Abbot and the Magistrate as they assigned their assistants various duties. He read the Magistrate's lips easily. Many years ago Volmar had mastered the art of reading lips. It was a skill developed out of necessity, for in his training in the Scriptorium, Brother Thaddeus had insisted on silence. And now what was once only an amusing game became a godsend.

“No one is to leave the grounds of this monastery, understand?” the Magistrate said, turning to his men. “Report back to me if anyone should try to leave.”

Volmar knew that over the years the Abbot had nurtured a relationship with the Magistrate. They were really quite close. Few knew how often they would disappear for hours and come back with a string of fish. Those lazy afternoons were well-spent, Abbot Burchard would confide to Volmar. For, he would say, when a man is relaxed, he is also open to new ideas, such as how everyone will eventually appear before God as an equal and people should be the same in the eyes of the law.

If the two suspects who apparently took off with Matthias's and Atif's horses and possessions after murdering them were in fact
Knights of the Hospitaller of Saint John, then these murders would certainly test the Magistrate's resolve for justice. And if, as Matthias had implied, these two knights were on a secret mission ordered by the Blessed Gerard of Jerusalem to retrieve the Holy Relic and the church was somehow implicated, it would be highly unlikely that the Magistrate would publicly try them for murder. The Magistrate's hands would likely be forced to heed the church's authority and would simply fine these knights before sending them on their way. These men would never come before an inquisitor. Such injustice, Volmar knew, was commonplace in an era enamored with status, power, and personal fortune.

Volmar watched as many onlookers trailed after the Magistrate, his entourage, and the Abbot to the stables. It was as if they were hungry for each detail of this grizzly murder or suicide. Certainly, this incident would incite the village gossips and would likely feed that most contemptible quality of human nature, a morbid fascination with others' misfortunes.

“Like hungry bloodhounds,” he mumbled. “Wait until they find out there have been two murders,” he said under his breath, with growing contempt. “It will turn into a feeding frenzy.”

Paulus approached Volmar, having overheard the young monk's harsh appraisal. He put a hand on the young scribe's shoulder and patted it. “Human history,” he said thoughtfully, “is full of such evil deeds. I agree. It would be better if people would look upon such wickedness with deep sadness rather than an obsessive fascination.”

Volmar was perplexed by the unreality of the entire situation. Wasn't he, too, caught up in the thrill of unraveling this vile transgression? Then he remembered the cloth that he'd found on the thick wood rim of the delivery cart. “Brother Paulus, I found this outside the stable on a delivery cart. It looks like a torn piece of velvet from Atif's cape. The murderer may have used the cart to deliver his body to the Abbot's personal chambers.”

“A quirky sense of humor, wouldn't you say? Who in their right mind would position a dead body in a relaxed pose in front of the Abbot's hearth?”

“Interesting, isn't it?” Volmar answered, thinking back over a year ago, when he found the mummified body of Brother Arnoul in the
chamber under the clearing. Could this be a pattern suggesting that the murderer of Atif and Brother Arnoul was one and the same person?

Paulus turned the scrap of material over. He licked it; then sniffed it before he rubbed it against his hand. “There's a faint but distinctive sweet smell to it. I dare say it smells like Theriac, the ointment I had Atif apply to Matthias's gums the night he brought him into the Infirmary.” Volmar watched, bemused. There was much he could learn from this scientific approach to everything. Paulus was an avid follower of Aristotle and the Arab physicist Alhazen, and had spoken often with Volmar about the powers of simple observation, the need to formulate a hypothesis, and the value of experimentation.

“Well done, Volmar. I see our talks have found fertile ground. I will check for rips in Atif's cloak.” Paulus took the wrapping with the scrap of cloth and carefully placed it in his pocket before lifting his hood, readying himself once again to brave the cold wind. “Rest assured, my young brother, justice will be served, if not in this life, then in the next.”

A few guests lingered. Those at the altar took a few more moments to pray for mercy, while the others decided that there was nothing more they could do but return to bed, comforted that they were now not only protected by the church but, perhaps more importantly, by this august, fierce representative of the law.

Volmar's troubled eyes came to rest on the benevolent gaze of Saint Disibod, the frescoed features of their founding saint above him reading in a cell with a rosary. Reaching out over four centuries, the young scribe felt the saint wanted to help. “Where is she?” he asked Saint Disibod, knowing the rush of people around him were not paying him any attention. “Is she tied up on Matthias's horse, being dragged through the snowstorm by two murderers?” The depth of his feelings for Hildegard surprised him. Sophie, he knew, had certainly found a space in his empty heart; for he loved her as he had loved his sister Anya. But, his feelings for Hildegard were deeper and less easy to put into words. Volmar wondered if Saint Disibod could read these forbidden thoughts as well. Surely, Saint Disibod had struggled with his own human failings. He knew of life's bitter hardships and broken dreams. “More will follow,” the saintly reformer seemed to say, with wry cynicism. “For that is the way of human discourse.”

Sanctuary of Disibodenberg Monastery

6
^th
of November, Dawn

The chanting finally died down and there were no more echoes of conflicted voices. It was as if the Sanctuary were holding its breath in awkward anticipation. Volmar lingered, watching the old man with the polished and laced shoes move out of the shadows to approach the lone hooded figure of Brother Rudegerus. Unobtrusively, the young scribe fell into line behind the last group leaving. Moments later he ducked behind the last stone column and stood in the curve of St. Peter's alcove, beside the stone altar. Here he had a better view of what was happening between these two suspicious men.

“I know you,” the old man said abruptly, his voice loud in the quiet of the now deserted Sanctuary. He approached the hooded monk.

Rudegerus backed off, petrified. As he did so, his hood fell away. The monk's appearance shocked Volmar. Rudegerus' eyes appeared hollow and his face seemed drawn as if he was dying of thirst. Rudegerus replied in an astonished rasping whisper. “Are you a messenger of Satan, sent here to torment me further?”

“What if I am?” The old man laughed; a long, heartless laugh. Volmar recognized the laugh, he too had fallen victim to its apathetic sneer. Could this old man be Ulrich, the one he'd dueled with behind the Infirmary? If so, here was their murderer, hiding in plain sight. The hooded hunchback abruptly snorted and said, “I will haunt you to your death until you return what is rightfully mine, the Holy Relic. Give it to me.”

Again Brother Rudegerus murmured fearfully. “What Holy Relic? I possess no relic! Leave me, demented demon!” The monk collapsed at the feet of the stranger, his knees surely bruised by the hard fieldstone floor. He began weeping uncontrollably. His sobs echoed throughout the empty hall, sadly unanswered.

The old man's voice was cold, divorced from feelings, from sympathies. “I am neither angel nor demon.” His hunched back straightened and with a practiced hand he held his cane menacingly under the
monk's chin. “You have until the bells toll for Prime to place the Holy Relic in the bucket at the old well behind the stables. Otherwise, another grave will need to be dug in the Monks' Cemetery.”

Rudegerus nodded in agreement, gasping from the pressure of the cane against his throat.

Volmar sensed that whatever evil stood before Rudegerus had the power to crush more than a human spirit. The old man tapped his cane against the stone in rhythmic time, while humming a macabre funeral march as he exited the sanctuary.

Volmar panicked, realizing that he needed to hide; otherwise his eavesdropping would surely be discovered by Ulrich as he passed by. Hastily he tripped the lever behind the Altar of St. Peter. In turn, a stone slid to one side, revealing a small polished brass door handle in the shape of a lion. Volmar lifted the handle, relieved by how silently it revealed an entrance through a hidden door. “The Lion and the Lamb,” the Abbot had said in one obscure lesson, “symbols of our Lord and evidence of the duality of our own natures as well.”

Sanctuary of Disibodenberg Monastery

6
^th
of November, Dawn

Volmar slipped inside a tiny room built specifically for monks who were to say penance for misdeeds and were to suffer in isolation sometimes for years—a practice, thankfully, Abbot Burchard disagreed with. This was the same small room that connected to the underground tunnel he and Hildegard had stumbled upon a year ago. Volmar hadn't visited it since that fateful day.

After a moment, he pulled back the velvet curtain, to watch as Rudegerus lay prostrate on the floor, his arms splayed in the sign of the cross. Seeing him suffer so made Volmar's entire body ache in sympathy. Fear was a powerful weapon, he observed, for it could paralyze a grown man. Volmar sat very still, thinking through the scene, when suddenly he was surprised by a movement in the far corner of the prayer closet.