The Inquisitor's Tale Read online

  The other peasants hesitated—and then began nodding vigorously.

  The knight with the lazy eye looked like he was going to be sick.

  “So how do you get her out?” the bald knight wanted to know.

  “Just stick your arms in there and feel around till you get her!”

  The knights’ eyes went wide.

  “I’d help you,” Jeanne’s mother added. “But she’d just wriggle away from me. Knows my tricks too well, she does.” Then Jeanne’s mother added in a loud whisper, “And don’t bother with the other peasants. They’ll just help the little devil escape. I’ve seen it before. You can’t trust a peasant. As dishonest as they are stupid. Right?”

  The bald knight nodded slowly, still eyeing the dung heap. At last, he said, “Okay, boys! Dig in!”

  The knights stayed exactly where they were.

  The bald one frowned at them. The chubby one raised his hands as if to say, You’re on your own, my friend.

  So the bald knight said, “Georges! Robert! Come on!”

  The two large, particularly stupid-looking knights came forward. “Do Sir Fabian proud!” the bald one barked.

  The knight with the heavy unibrow stuck out his chin and sighed. The one with the face like an anvil shrugged his shoulders and, without even rolling up his sleeves, shoved his arms into the dung with a squelch. A swarm of flies exploded from the heap’s surface.

  The other one pushed his woolen sleeves up above his elbows and plunged his hands in, too.

  Jeanne, huddled in the nearest stretch of wood, watched in disbelief. She had to bury her face in her sleeve to prevent herself from laughing out loud. Beside her, Gwenforte yapped. Jeanne hushed her. The greyhound yapped again.

  “Shh!” Jeanne giggled. “Don’t laugh at them. It isn’t nice.”

  But the dog turned toward the forest behind them and began to growl.

  Jeanne’s neighbors were hiding their smiles in their shirts now, trying not to give the game away.

  “Are you sure this is necessary?” the chubby knight was asking, watching his comrades with disgust.

  “Her own mother says she’s in there,” the bald knight snapped. “Peasants aren’t smart enough to lie to the gentry. You heard her yourself.” Suddenly, he had a thought. He turned to Jeanne’s mother. “This is just animal refuse, right? You peasants do your own business somewhere else?”

  Jeanne’s mother smiled sweetly. “Oh no, sir. We do our squatting right here.”

  The bald knight glanced skyward. The lazy-eyed knight gagged. The two big blokes kept digging away. Their upper bodies were almost entirely submerged in feces. It looked like they were swimming.

  Beside Jeanne, Gwenforte bristled, growling, staring into the forest. She barked. “Shh!” Jeanne hissed. “They’ll hear you!” She wrapped her arms around Gwenforte and held her tightly.

  And then, someone wrapped his arms around Jeanne.

  She was lifted from her feet. Jeanne tried to scream, but a strong, calloused hand was clamped over her mouth.

  Gwenforte spun and barked, and Jeanne kicked wildly. But the man’s wiry arms were wrapped around her, pinning her own to her sides. An oily beard scratched her cheeks.

  “Got you, little girl,” whispered Sir Fabian.

  Gwenforte snapped at the knight’s legs, but he kicked her in the face. The greyhound fell back, snarling. Fabian hoisted Jeanne under one arm, still holding her tightly. With his free hand, he drew his sword and swung it at the dog. Gwenforte tried to bite him again, but the knight’s long blade cut through air.

  “Run, Gwenforte!” Jeanne cried. “Run!”

  The greyhound stood, limbs aquiver, staring at little Jeanne. The sword flashed through the air again—and the dog had disappeared. Just a flash of fur, pelting through the forest and, in an instant, out of sight.

  The knight carried Jeanne across a peasant’s garden plot, scattering chickens as he went. His oily beard smelled. Jeanne tried to kick him, but her heels caught only air.

  But as Fabian and Jeanne approached the main road, the knight slowed. Then stopped.

  He gazed at his men, churning the village dung heap with their arms.

  “Why,” said Sir Fabian, “are my men swimming in crap?”

  • • •

  “Hey!” Marc son-of-Marc father-of-Marc cried. “Look!” Villagers turned from the spectacle of the dung heap to see little Jeanne, carried like a willful calf in the arms of the weasel-faced knight.

  “Sir Fabian!” cried the bald one.

  When her parents saw Jeanne, their faces went white as wool. Her mother’s stupid-peasant act fell away. She ran for Jeanne, and Jeanne’s father followed. The villagers went after, surging toward the little girl and her captor.

  Behind them, the two big knights raised their heads from their fetid, stinking task. “Where’s everyone going?” one asked. The other shrugged and got back to digging.

  Sir Fabian held Jeanne tightly. His knights pushed past the villagers. “Stay back!” they cried. “Avaunt!” They interposed themselves between the peasants and their leader. Jeanne gave the bald one a swift kick from behind. He turned and growled at her.

  “You put her down!” Jeanne’s mother screamed. “You have no right! We are free peasants! I’ll find a magistrate! You’ve no right!”

  But Sir Fabian barked back, “I have every right! We are here on the orders of Saint-Denis.”

  The name momentarily halted the villagers’ onslaught. Then Jeanne’s mother cried, “You have orders to kidnap little girls?”

  “We have orders to stamp out the pagan worship of a dog!”

  “Who? What dog do we worship?” Jeanne’s father objected.

  “We would never!” someone shouted.

  “But it’s true!” Bailiff Charles piped up from the back. “You do worship a dog!”

  “Gwenforte?” Marc son-of-Marc father-of-Marc called out. “We don’t worship her! We venerate her proper! As the saint she is!”

  And Marie the brewster said, “So do you, Charles! You bald-faced suck-up!”

  Marie grinned. “So I did.”

  But Sir Fabian took on a superior air, as he squeezed Jeanne with his thin, strong arms. “A dog can’t be a saint. That’s blasphemy. We found this girl cavorting with and protecting that dog. That’s why we’ve the right to take her. And anyone who tries to stop us will be put to the sword!” The bald knight, following his leader’s cue, drew his and brandished it in the faces of the villagers.

  But the peasants had fallen silent.

  Jeanne’s mother said, “What dog?”

  “Gwenforte, the greyhound,” Fabian snapped. “You peasants really are slow.”

  Bailiff Charles chewed on his mustache and stared at the knight.

  “Gwenforte is dead,” Jeanne’s father said. “She has been for ten long years.”

  Sir Fabian heaved Jeanne higher to get a better grip on her. “Then what was this little brat doing with a greyhound in your grove? A greyhound with a white coat and a copper blaze on its nose? Is that not your holy dog?”

  Jeanne’s parents stood stock-still. Other villagers crossed themselves. Some stepped back. They were staring at little Jeanne.

  “What have you been doing, my girl?” Jeanne’s father whispered.

  “I saw her during one of my fits!” Jeanne shouted, trying to tear herself from the knight’s hard hands. She didn’t mean to let the truth come pouring out of her. But, after all these years, it did. She was young, you see. And she was scared. “I saw Gwenforte during my fit, so I went to the grove. She was there! That’s all! That’s all I did!”

  “Gwenforte was there?” her mother murmured.

  Jeanne nodded, tears beginning to cloud her vision.

  The villagers were now looking away from the little girl and her family. “Jeanne,” her
father said. “What have you done?”

  “Mama! Papa!” Jeanne’s voice was rising to a panicked pitch. “What did I do wrong?” But her parents did not answer. Her father bowed his head. Her mother looked away, tears in her eyes. “Mama!” Jeanne screamed.

  “Practicing magic is a sin against God and a violation of the law,” Sir Fabian announced. “We will take her to Saint-Denis to be tried.”

  “Mama!”

  “And where she goes, maybe that damned dog will follow.”

  “Mama! Papa!” Jeanne’s throat was straining, and tears were streaming down her face.

  But her parents just stood there, staring. They were afraid.

  “Mama! Papa!”

  Afraid of their daughter.

  Everyone at the table is leaning in, our lips open, our eyes wide.

  “And then . . . ?” I ask.

  The nun sits back on her rough stool. “They took her away! Just as Marie said. Isn’t that true, Marie?”

  The brewster nods thoughtfully. She’s gazing at the little nun. “That’s just how it happened,” she murmurs. “Though I can’t fathom how you know all that.”

  Instead of answering, the little nun picks up her mug and drains a long draft. When she puts it down, she has a foam mustache over her little mouth. “Maybe someone else could tell something. Perhaps about one of the boys?”

  I study her impish smile and innocent eyes, and am about to press her for more information, when the innkeeper, who’s been waddling around us, bringing fresh mugs to the nearby tables, says, “Brother Jerome, you said you knew the big boy, didn’t you?”

  We turn toward an old monk with a long white beard, sitting at the far end of the table. His thin hands are stained with ink.

  The monk smiles and runs his hand over his whiskers. “Ah, I do, I do! I am the librarian at the monastery where the boy called William grew up. I know him rather well.”

  I can’t believe my luck. As if all of these people had gathered together to make my job easy.

  Which is great. I like easy. “Tell us about William,” I say.

  The monk inclines his white beard. “I shall—but I must warn you: This tale is darker and bloodier than the last. I wouldn’t want to upset any of the present company.” He gestures at the ladies.

  I say, “Darker than a dog getting killed?”

  “Indeed,” says Jerome.

  Marie tips her mug back, empties the last drops into her open mouth, and then slams it down, shaking everything on the table. “The bloodier the better!” she announces. And everyone laughs.

  Old Jerome grins. “If you insist . . .”

  HAPTER 3

  The Librarian’s Tale

  I am the librarian at the Monastery Saint-Martin.

  It is a simple monastery. A good place. Life there runs smoothly. At least, it did, until William arrived.

  William was delivered to us as a baby. We get many infants that way. They are the sons of wealthy lords and ladies. Often they are younger sons, who will not inherit their father’s lands. We teach them to read and write and love God, so they are ready for the universities at Paris or Bologna, and then for service in the courts of great men thereafter.

  But a few of the children who will become our oblates—our young monks-in-training—are delivered to our doors in the dead of night. These are the sons of sin. And William was such a boy. His father is a great lord, fighting in Spain against the Muslim kings there. I believe William’s mother must have come from Northern Africa, for her son looks like the people of that land—he has their hair, their coloring.

  This makes him unique in our monastery. We have French and Italian monks, English and Flemish. But he is our first African.

  But much more extraordinary than his color is his size. It is known that his father is a big man, and when William came to us he was already an unnaturally large baby. But the father cannot be as big as the son—for now that William is eleven years old, the tallest monk in the abbey barely reaches his collarbone.

  He eats a great deal, of course. And he laughs a lot. And he talks. And talks. And talks. Which, you can imagine, is a problem at a monastery. We read, we pray, we do our tasks and our chores. That is all. We do not make conversation. But William is perpetually bursting with opinions, with questions, with ideas. To be blunt about it, he will not shut up.

  And yet, I must admit, that I have never cared for an oblate more than I care for William.

  He is as intelligent and inquisitive as any student I’ve ever known. He debates theology with me as if he were a master from Paris. He wants to read every page of every book in the library. And he makes me laugh.

  Which is why I was heartbroken when I learned that William had been expelled from the monastery.

  Things came to a head a week ago. The oblates had taken their places on the stone bench that runs along the walls of the chapter house. It was just after breakfast, and the frost was still visible on the grass at the center of the cloister.

  Brother Bartholomew, the boys’ teacher, shuffled in from the adjacent cloister and pulled back his hood, revealing his flabby face, tiny eyes, and permanent sneer. Heat rose from the thin hair atop his head. You should know that Brother Bartholomew hates children. He believes that they are closest to the state of original sin, and he tells them this. Constantly. He claims that the abbot assigned him his role because of his zeal for eradicating sinful thoughts from children’s heads. I’m pretty sure that the abbot just doesn’t like Bartholomew, and is torturing him intentionally.

  “Today we shall discuss,” Bartholomew began, his voice sharp and nasal, “the two kinds of people in the world.”

  William shifted on his stone bench. Already Bartholomew had uttered a falsehood. They would not “discuss” anything today. Bartholomew would harangue them until the bell tolled for sext, the midday prayers. William and the dozen other oblates would be expected to sit quietly and absorb the “wisdom” that Bartholomew bestowed upon them. He clenched his jaw and silently asked God for strength.

  “The two kinds of people are these: those who are in league with the Devil, and those who stand on the side of God. There are no bystanders in this war, between evil and good, between God and the Devil. Do you understand? You are either on the side of the Devil or on the side of God!”

  Brother Bartholomew shuffled toward a tiny Italian boy sitting at the far end of the stone bench. There is a small group of Italian oblates at our monastery. “You!” he shouted. Bartholomew always thinks the Italians understand him better when he shouts. “Are you on the side of God? Or the Devil? God? Or Devil? Understand?” He poked his finger into the boy’s face. He also thinks it helps to poke his fingers into the Italians’ faces and speak in broken sentences. “God? Or Devil?”

  The boy stared up at Brother Bartholomew impassively. William always admired the Italian boys’ way of looking up from under their eyebrows that was either totally respectful or utterly disrespectful, and you could never tell which. William told me once that he wanted to learn how to do it, but he never got a chance since he was too tall to look up at anyone.

  Bartholomew strolled along the length of the bench. “The allies of the Devil are legion! Too many to number! There are murderers, of course! Criminals! There are liars! There are loafers and gluttons and tricksters! And peasants! All peasants are liars, loafers, or both!”

  William nearly shouted when he heard this. Surely, some peasants were liars and loafers and allies of the Devil. But all? That was preposterous. Hadn’t Pope Sylvester the Second started life as a peasant? For that matter, hadn’t Jesus been born in a manger? The son of a carpenter? This was an excellent argument, and William decided that Brother Bartholomew really wouldn’t mind hearing it. He opened his mouth to interrupt, but Bartholomew was already barreling past peasants.

  “Jews, too, are in league with the Devil! For they deny the divin
ity of Christ!” Bartholomew’s piggy eyes were flashing. “Jews are particularly dangerous, for while a peasant is made plain by his filthy clothes and the stench of farm animals, Jews can disguise themselves completely. Like the Devil himself! Beware the sneaky, evil, diabolical Jew!”

  Now this was preposterous. Yes, Jews denied the divinity of Christ. But were they evil? All of them? Was Moses evil? Abraham? King David? And there were modern Jews who clearly were on the side of wisdom, instead of ignorance. William thought about the texts that he and I had read together—the great Rashi, who had shown our bishops the errors in our translations of the Hebrew Bible. And Rabbi Yehuda, who still writes to this day beautiful odes to God in His Glory. Not that I always agree with what he says about God . . . but in league with the Devil? William decided that it was time to interrupt and mention not just Jesus, but Rashi as well.

  But it was too late, for Bartholomew had already moved on. “And women! The daughters of Eve, who tempted Adam to taste the forbidden fruit, and thus introduced evil into the world! The world was perfect before women came along and ruined it! Beware the daughters of Eve, for they indeed are in league with the Devil!”

  Women? thought William, squirming so intensely he was in danger of falling off the bench and onto the floor. All women? Weren’t we all born from women? Wasn’t the great Hildegard of Bingen a woman? And Mary the Virgin? And Mary Magdalene? And more saints than William could count? Lucy and Elizabeth and Anne and Agatha and Abigail and—

  Bartholomew was really getting worked up now. His face and neck were purple as a beet, and the spittle was flying all over the oblates as he spewed his sermon. “And of course, we should never forget the Saracen!”

  He was looking directly at William.

  William stopped squirming. All thought of women and Jews and peasants went straight out of his head.

  Saracen is a word that William does not approve of. William likes precision. He likes clarity. He likes to understand things. The word Saracen, as you all know, means two completely different things. On the one hand, we use it to mean Muslim, a follower of Mohammed. On the other hand, we use it whenever we talk about someone who looks foreign. The Mongols are “Saracens,” the pagan nomads of Arabia are “Saracens,” the Muslims of Spain are “Saracens.”