Authors: Joseph Finley
“L
ord God, let him forgive
me,” Dónall prayed quietly. “And grant me the wisdom to understand what is happening.”
He knelt before the altar of the abbey church, breathing in the rancid scent of tallow candles. Ciarán had not spoken to him since he found the lad in the cloister last night while the monks of Saint-Germain-des-Prés filed from the church after Vespers. The gatekeeper had met the two Irish monks and escorted them to a guesthouse not far from the house where the abbot lived. Dónall’s apprehension over Remi’s latest theories and the fate of dear Nicolas was enough to keep him awake, although it was his guilt over deceiving Ciarán that tortured his sleep. By Prime the next morning, the solemn-faced lad could barely look at the man who had raised him since childhood, and the dagger of guilt twisted deeper in Dónall’s breast.
Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned his head to see a gray-robed figure in the left transept. Dónall rose, making eye contact with Ciarán, who stood before an alcove containing a casket-shaped reliquary of Saint Vincent the Martyr, the abbey’s patron until the death of Saint Germain. A golden crucifix stood next to the reliquary, which itself was overlaid in gold leaf and flanked by sweet-scented beeswax candles in silver holders—a display perhaps surpassing all the wealth in Derry.
“Ironic,” Dónall said, approaching the lad, “that Saint Germain was also known as the ‘father of the poor.’”
Ciarán stared at the reliquary. “When do we leave?”
“To return to Ireland?”
“No. To find Enoch’s book. I want to know what my parents died for.”
“I feared you’d be of such a mind,” Dónall said gently. “You must understand, you are not of Charlemagne’s line. I believe what I saw in Winchester.”
“But what about the rest? What about this prophecy? My parents believed in it and died for it. I deserve to know if even a shred of it is true.”
“I remain skeptical,” Dónall replied.
“Yet what of your friend Nicolas? What if Adémar of Blois did have him killed, all for this, just as Remi said?”
Dónall grimaced. “I swear, it was Adalbero’s inquisition and Gerbert’s treachery that led to the deaths of most of my brothers at Reims, including your father. But Gerbert has fled France, cast out of Reims as a usurper by the pope himself. And Adalbero is long dead. But if someone has taken up their cause, then I must know. This has to end.”
“And if this is about more than accusations of heresy?” Ciarán asked.
“We’ll know soon enough.” Dónall was glad to see that Ciarán’s anger had subsided, but the lad’s question raised more troubling thoughts. “Let’s pray this is nothing more than a bishop’s inquest,” Dónall said. “Because if what Remi believes should prove true, then God help us all.”
*
After Nones, they took supper in the abbey’s refectory with Remi, who, much to the astonishment of his fellow monks at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, had left the crypts. The open hall, lit with rushlights, was filled with the scents of smoke and cooking fat. After washing at a small basin near the refectory door, the monks gathered at the long trestle tables arranged in a U. An elderly Benedictine called them to silence and spoke a prayer, and at his amen, the monks sat down on the benches as others brought food from the kitchen.
The monks of Saint-Germain-des-Prés ate like kings compared to Dónall and Ciarán’s Irish brethren. Loaves of wheat bread, spits of roast crane, and bowls of dried apples and nuts were served, along with pepper and mustard and carafes of red wine. Dónall watched with amusement as Ciarán wolfed down his food the way only a growing young man could, and then licked the grease from his fingers to avoid wasting a single drop.
Later that night, after the holy office of Compline, Ciarán slept quietly, but Dónall tossed and turned despite the warm blankets and pallets amply stuffed with straw. His guilt at deceiving Ciarán all these years hung over him like a lead cloak, while the implications of Remi’s theories stabbed at his mind like tiny knives. Dónall closed his eyes, recalling the first time Remi voiced his troubling concerns—the night Canon Martinus died.
Dónall remembered it vividly. In the hours after the murder, he and nine of his brethren had gathered in one of the classrooms. For light, they had only a few tallow candles, dancing in the cold gusts that invaded the chamber through coin-size chinks in the stone walls. Thomas, who had called the gathering, stood in the classroom’s well, while the others sat in the nearest of the desks that rose in tiers on the chamber’s stepped floor. They were whispering about the fate of Omer and Vicelin, whom Archbishop Adalbero had arrested for the murder of Canon Martinus.
“Here is what we know,” Thomas said, shushing the whispers. “The door to the Secret Collection was cracked, which means Canon Martinus either discovered it or discovered his killer, who was heading for that door.”
Orlando, a swarthy Genoese, shook his head. “None of the canons know of the Secret Collection.”
“Unless someone told them about it,” Lucien replied.
“Who would tell them?” Orlando demanded.
Lucien’s gaze turned to Gerbert. “One who wished to curry favor with the archbishop.”
“He was whispering in Adalbero’s ear,” snapped Burghard, a quick-tempered Frank with the build of an ox.
Already nervous and fidgety, Gerbert protested, “You think I would betray our oath?”
“Men have betrayed lesser promises for power,” Lucien suggested.
“We’ve no proof the canon knew about the hidden door,” Dónall said.
“But the man who killed him did.” Again Thomas commanded the attention of the entire room. “Which leaves only the twelve of us.”
“Omer couldn’t have done it,” Nicolas said, his eyes red with tears. “He wouldn’t have hurt a mouse.”
“What about Vicelin?” asked Sigbert, an awkward monk who was one of the keener scholars among them. His question lingered in the air.
“He was with me,” said Theodulf, whose shaven head and pockmarked face were veiled in shadow behind an upper desk. “We were studying in this very room at the time of the murder. Vicelin was Omer’s closest friend—that’s why they arrested him.”
“Which means all of us could be in danger,” Sigbert fretted.
And one of us is a killer.
Dónall could not rid himself of that horrifying thought.
“Especially if someone has betrayed us to the archbishop.” Lucien again directed his remarks to Gerbert.
“You’ve no proof I was anywhere near that corridor when the murder took place,” Gerbert argued. “I resent your implication!”
Burghard pointed to Gerbert from across the room. “Yet you did not deny it!”
“I was in the library,” Gerbert snapped.
“Are there witnesses?” Sigbert’s question came more as an accusation.
Gerbert scowled. “I do not need to defend myself to you!”
“Brothers,” Thomas implored, “let us use logic, not accusations.”
“Careful, Thomas,” Burghard warned. “Logic is his weapon. He’ll trick us all with his devil’s tongue.”
“Enough!” Dónall said as sharp words erupted around the room. In an instant, the brethren were out of their seats and face-to-face, shouting in anger and threatening with gestures, their venom focused on Gerbert of Aurillac.
“To hell with your lies!” Gerbert cried. Grimacing, he stormed for the door. Orlando reached for him, but Gerbert shoved him away and Orlando staggered back, nearly toppling a desk before Lucien grabbed his arm to keep him upright. The door slammed, and Gerbert was gone.
“His flight betrays his guilt!” said Burghard.
“Brothers!” Thomas said, fighting to maintain order. “We are not some angry mob. We are scholars!”
This quieted the room to a grumbling murmur. Remi, who had been silent until now, finally spoke. “There is one possibility that all of you have failed to mention. What if our enemy is not in this room? What if there are darker forces at work? Forces beyond these four walls—even beyond the world itself—that wish to divide and disperse us.”
“What do you mean?” Sigbert asked as the chamber abruptly fell silent.
“Is it not obvious?” Remi said. “We have deciphered the prophecy, which means we have become dangerous to them. We are the only ones who can stop them, and they will not rest until every last one of us is dead.”
Remi’s words lingered in Dónall’s mind as the image of the room faded. The events that followed seemed a blur.
Thomas had stolen the Book of Maugis d’Aygremont, and he came to Dónall the next evening, when the moon was dark and an early frost blanketed the ground. “I don’t know whom we can trust,” Thomas said, clutching the book in his arms. “But one among us has blood on his sword, and I fear he was going for the book, to steal it for himself.”
Dónall didn’t know if paranoia had sparked those words, but suspicions had been spreading like a plague among the group, ever since the rumors of heresy had begun to circulate. Many of them feared that the book might be lost. Could the Fae arts have proved too strong a temptation for one of them, with the book supplying the source? Could it have driven a man to
kill
?
That night, Dónall and Thomas hid in one of the city’s brothels—a place Adalbero would never think to look. They had paid the prostitutes for their accommodation but not their services, and escaped Reims the next morning as soon as the gates were open. The initial plan was to contact their brethren one by one and determine who could be trusted. Yet Adalbero’s inquisition proved relentless. Omer and Vicelin burned at the stake within the first week. Many of the others fled the school, but Adalbero’s men pursued them. Burghard and Theodulf were arrested in Paris, trying to procure passage aboard a ship to England. They were tried, convicted, and burned at the stake in the square outside the cathedral of Saint-Étienne. Orlando made it as far south as Troyes before the inquisition found him. Sigurd, who had stayed at the school and professed his innocence, was caught a year later practicing the Fae arts. Adalbero himself presided over the execution.
For a time, Dónall and Thomas sojourned in England until Thomas’s pursuit of the prophecy took them back to France, to Laon. The city was racked by war between King Lothair and Otto the Red, the Holy Roman Emperor, who had laid siege to the walled city. That was where they had met Martha.
Beautiful Martha.
If only the conflict had not forced them to go back through Reims.
Dónall recalled their last night together, in a cramped, musty inn room, where Thomas was drunk on wine and his obsession with the prophecy. He was bearded by then, his hair grown long and wild, and the strain of five years as a fugitive lined his once angelic face. He wore layman’s clothes, having cast off the last vestige of his monastic station. By then, they had broken so many vows, it was pointless to live as monks. Behind them, Martha tried to rock her and Thomas’s infant child to sleep, but the child wailed incessantly.
“The Dragon hunts us,” Thomas said, ignoring the infant. “All along, Remi was right.”
“Adalbero thinks he’s doing God’s will,” Dónall said, trying to prevent Thomas from slipping deeper into one of his dark melancholy moods.
“Adalbero is being deceived,” Thomas said bitterly. “It’s the Dragon’s nature; it’s what he does. But we know his secret, his weakness. And for this, he will not stop hunting us till we’re dead.”
“So today you see only doom?”
Thomas’s eyes brightened. “No, I see hope. Don’t you?” He gestured to the infant and Martha. “
There
is our hope. We’re already fulfilling the prophecy. When the time comes, we’ll be ready.” Grinning like a madman, he drained his cup of wine. “When we lose hope, that’s when we’re doomed.”
The image blurred once more, and Dónall could hear the crackling of flames and smell the burning pitch as if it were happening again. He hid among the hundreds of people who had gathered outside the cathedral of Reims at noon. The archbishop’s guardsmen, hard-faced warriors wearing mail and bearing spears, kept the crowd at bay while Adalbero, surrounded by his personal troops, presided over the spectacle. Standing at his side, looking frail and wan in his Benedictine habit, was Gerbert. His hands touched his lips as if in prayer, and his eyes were closed, unable to gaze upon the friend he had betrayed. Bound to two stakes, above pyres of pitch-coated wood, Thomas and Martha gazed into each other’s eyes. Their arms and legs were bound, though the fire had not reached their flesh. Tears ran down Martha’s face, though Thomas’s steely gaze told her to be brave. The end would come soon, but before it, the inferno.
Dónall, with the child swaddled in cloth and cradled protectively in his arms, watched in silent horror. Slung over his back, a leather book satchel concealed the Book of Maugis. But not even the Fae arts could save them—there were too many guardsmen. Adalbero or Gerbert would spot him, and he would accomplish nothing but to share his friends’ fate. When the fire licked their feet, and his friend could not help but scream and cry out prayers to God, Dónall lowered his head. The crowd, whipped into a frenzy, shouted cries of “Heretic!” “Witch!” “Let them burn!”
The rabble surrounding him stank and screamed, and the infant started to wail. Dónall feared that one of the guardsmen had seen him—or soon would if the infant continued to cry. His heart raced.
“Kill the devils!”
“Curse them!”
“Damn their souls!”
The crowd had become a seething mass of hatred and bloodlust. Dónall tried to push his way free, past wild-eyed rabble with their rotting teeth and dirt-streaked faces twisted in rage. The crowd enveloped him, and he struggled for breath, wedged between bodies. The child had grown strangely silent and still in his arms.
Dónall shuddered as his thoughts returned to the present. Sitting in the guestroom of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, he uttered a promise to himself: “
never again
.”
Beside him, Ciarán stirred awake. “What is it?”
“Just a bad memory.” Dónall drew his blanket more tightly around himself. “Nothing more.”
By morning, he, Remi, and Ciarán were ready to set off on the ten-day journey to the small village where they hoped to find the Book of Enoch. Remi seemed exuberant over their mission, and Ciarán, too, appeared eager to leave. Yet Dónall’s mind was no more at ease.