The Inquisitor's Tale Read online

  So is William a Saracen? He has devoted every waking moment to living a Christian life. And yet his brown skin and black hair have always set him apart.

  “Saracens,” Brother Bartholomew said, dipping into the word like some savory sauce. “Saracens.” He rolled it around in his mouth. “If peasants are the Devil’s slaves and if Jews are his emissaries and if women are his spies, Saracens are his foot soldiers. Are they not?”

  William no longer controlled his throat or his tongue or any other organ used for speaking. Entirely against his will, he said, “Do you mean Muslims?”

  Bartholomew grinned. He had provoked William. As he had intended all along, I imagine. “If you like. Muslims are Satan’s foot soldiers, then.” He beamed at William from his piggy little eyes.

  “I do not like,” William announced, and his voice bounced around the stone walls of the chapter house. “What of the great Muslim scholars, who saved Aristotle from oblivion?”

  “What’s Aristotle?” Bartholomew snapped.

  William chose to ignore the staggering ignorance of the man who was supposed to be his teacher. “What about Algoritmi?” William went on. “Who introduced the idea of zero to the Western world?”

  “Guess how much I care about that?” cried Bartholomew. “Zero! Ha!”

  William’s face was becoming hotter and hotter. “And last spring, when your urine was thick and dark as beef stew, how did Brother Jacques treat you? By consulting the work of Doctor Avicenna! You might be dead if not for that ‘foot soldier of Satan’!”

  Bartholomew, for once, was struck silent.

  William’s voice could now be heard throughout the monastery: “Just as peasants can be popes and Jews can teach us the Bible and women can be disciples of Jesus, Muslims can save your very life!”

  Bartholomew had, at last, recovered himself. His voice became quiet, and almost . . . sweet. “You want to defend the legions of Satan. I wonder why you would want to do such a thing?”

  William held his breath.

  “Why would you want to defend the allies of the Devil? You don’t have to, you know. You might be a big brown bastard. But at least you’re not a Saracen harlot, like your mother.”

  William did not entirely understand what happened next. He saw white flecks of spittle on Bartholomew’s red lips. He saw the sun on the frosted grass of the cloister. He heard distant monks, meditating in the covered walkway, muttering softly. He smelled his own sweat. He felt his hand come down, swiftly and with great force, on the stone bench.

  There was a sharp cracking sound.

  The bench shattered.

  It was solid stone, carved into the wall. It was very sturdy and very expensive.

  And it exploded when William hit it. Into a thousand pieces.

  All the oblates went crashing to the floor.

  Brother Bartholomew’s mouth transformed from a smug smile to a great, wide O.

  Jerome leans back on his stool and strokes his beard.

  “The bench exploded?” I ask.

  “I assure you, there is nothing left but shards and dust. The masons have no idea how to repair it. The whole wall may have to be rebuilt.”

  The innkeeper had taken a seat during Jerome’s story, and now he says, “That Bartholomew is a pig. The abbot’s going to let him keep teaching the children?”

  “Funny you should ask,” Jerome replies. “And funny you should make that comment about pigs. Our master of swine recently fell ill. So Bartholomew has been transferred. He now presides over the abbey sty. And, to be perfectly honest with you, I believe he prefers it.”

  When the laughter subsided, I said, “So William was expelled?”

  “Indeed he was.”

  HAPTER 4

  The Second Part of the Librarian’s Tale

  William gazed through the small stone window down onto the cloister. Even in these early days of March, the grass was green. Three crows sat on the edge of the fountain, clacking at one another. Each looked just like the other, without freak or flaw. If God made them so uniform, why didn’t He do the same for humans?

  “William, are you listening?”

  William’s attention was jerked back to the abbot’s gaunt face and long, ruddy nose. Our abbot’s lips pouted, but in his sunken eyes, ringed with dark circles, I thought I detected pleasure. Or maybe it was relief.

  “I’m afraid you can’t stay here, William,” the abbot said. “You don’t fit. I promised your father I’d try, and try I have, but . . . I say, look at you! You eat three times as much as anyone else—we tried to feed you less when you were little, you know; you nearly died of starvation. You fight with your teacher Bartholomew constantly. You squirm like a fox in a trap during services. And now you’ve shattered a very costly stone bench. Don’t ask me how you shattered it . . .”

  I tried to suppress a chortle. I hadn’t meant to laugh. It wasn’t funny. It was just . . . amazing.

  The abbot shot me a dark look and went on. “No,” he said with a sigh, “you don’t fit here at all. So I am sending you to Saint-Denis. You’ll have a donkey and some books that Abbot Hubert has requested. Hubert can figure out what to do with you. He’s a good man. The best. As pious as any in France, save perhaps the king. Hubert will find the proper pasture for your tempestuous soul.”

  William blinked. Again. Once more. Saint-Denis? He was being sent to Saint-Denis? Saint-Denis was one of the greatest monasteries in the world! Second home of the kings of France! He’d thought he was going to be punished. This was hardly a punishment . . .

  The abbot gazed across his long red nose at William. “Try not to smirk like that, young brother. You’ll make me change my mind.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Besides, you must do some penance. So you won’t go straight to Saint-Denis. Instead, you’ll take the long route. Through the forest of Malesherbes.”

  The legs of my chair slammed onto the stone floor of the library. “Henry, you aren’t serious!”

  “Indeed I am, Brother Jerome. I have often warned you that you coddle the boy.”

  “Malesherbes? They’ll kill him! That’s not penance! That’s certain death!”

  William sat up. His big feet spread wider on the floor. “Who’ll kill me? I’d like to see them try!”

  “Try they would, William,” I scolded him, “and succeed, too. The Foul Fiends live in Malesherbes.”

  “Who?”

  The abbot scoffed. “That’s an old myth! Cold porridge left over from the Romans!”

  “It certainly is not!” I exclaimed. “I have been to the forest of Malesherbes. I ventured in but a few leagues and feel very lucky to have escaped with my life. It is an entirely—”

  William could not contain his curiosity. “What are the Foul Fiends, Brother Jerome?”

  I must admit, despite myself, I smiled. Teaching William has been one of the great pleasures of my life. “The Foul Fiends, Brother William, are men and women—or they were, once. They refused to be governed by the laws of man or God. In the time of the Romans, a thousand years ago, they fled into the deep woods, to hide from God’s sight. But no one can escape the sight of God. They have lived in wickedness for a hundred generations.”

  “What kind of wickedness?” William asked, leaning over the old wooden table.

  “Watch it, Jerome,” the abbot muttered.

  “Every and any evil you can imagine. Theft, deceit, betrayal. And eventually, murder, too. A cabal of criminals, living without any laws or codes at all. Anything they felt like doing, anything against God, they did.”

  “With impunity,” the abbot added.

  “What’s impunity?” William asked.

  “You should know that, William,” the abbot scolded. “It means ‘without consequences.’”

  “Oh, but there were consequences,” said I. “Over the generations, these peop
le changed. Their hearts became shriveled and black, like plums kept till Easter. Their skin became pale and their eyes pink from living in the darkest places. Just like you can breed dogs for friendship and faithfulness, these people bred for cruelty and viciousness and lack of human sympathy.”

  “They were evil,” William said.

  “Yes. So evil that from behind their heads there shines a black light. An inverted halo.”

  William gazed at me in the gray light of the little window. “Is that true?”

  “I doubt it,” said the abbot.

  “I’ve seen them, Henry. It is true.”

  William sat back in his chair. It creaked so loudly the abbot flinched, expecting it to splinter under the boy’s enormous weight. “I’m not afraid of them,” William announced. “I’ll cut their wicked heads from their wicked necks. Just give me a sword. Or an axe. Anything. I’m not afraid!”

  I pulled at my beard, and the abbot said, “William, you have taken the vows. You wear the robe. You will soon be tonsured. You may not fight. Anyone. For any reason.”

  “If the Foul Fiends were to try to kill me, I couldn’t fight back?” William asked, appalled.

  “Even if they should threaten your very life, you could not fight back.”

  “And if they tried to take Abbot Hubert’s books?”

  “You may not fight.”

  “What if they wanted my robes? I would just have to take off my clothes for them?”

  The abbot squinted. “I don’t see why they would want your robes, William. But yes, even then, you could not fight back.”

  “Even if they wanted my underwear?”

  “Why on earth would anyone want your underwear?” the abbot snapped.

  But I laughed and wagged a finger at my abbot. “Actually, he has a point, there, Father. It is a sin to expose your nakedness to a stranger.”

  The abbot brooded on that for a moment, and then said, “Fine. If they try to take your underwear—though God knows why they would—you can fight back.”

  “So I’ll need a sword!” William announced, like he’d just won a debate.

  “Under no circumstances!” the abbot replied. “If you are forced to fight, you may use nothing. Nothing but flesh and bone.”

  “Fine,” William said, grinning, tipping his stool back on two legs. “I’d like to see those Foul Fiends try me.”

  I leaned over the simple wooden table. The gray light from the window cast spidery shadows across it. “No, William,” I said. “You wouldn’t.”

  The next day, we sent him on his way. I have not seen my young friend since.

  “But did he end up in that crazy forest?” Marie asks. “Did he see the Foul Fiends?”

  Jerome shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if we’ll ever know.”

  For some reason—some reason that I cannot explain—my gaze slides to the little nun, whose face is buried in her mug at the end of the table. The innkeeper follows my gaze. So does Marie. Finally Jerome joins us. We’re all staring at her.

  After a moment, she looks up. “What?” she says. She’s acting surprised. Definitely acting.

  “Do you know, little Sister?” Jerome asks. “Do you know if William ventured into the Forest of Malesherbes? And if he did, do you know what happened there?”

  “How should I know that?” she asks. She is suppressing a smile.

  “I don’t know, little Sister. But you seem to know more than you let on.”

  “Maybe I know,” she says, after a space. She raises her cup. “And maybe my mug is empty.”

  The innkeeper pushes himself to his feet. “Ale for a tale. That’s the fairest trade I know.”

  HAPTER 5

  The Second Part of the Nun’s Tale

  The night before William left, he lay in his narrow bed in the dormitory, staring into the darkness. The beds nearby were filled with boys snoring into the crooks of their arms. At the other end of the dormitory, the adults dreamt of rich food and friends from years gone by.

  Once William was sure that his neighbors were asleep, he eased himself out of his wooden cot until he was kneeling on the cold stone floor. He reached through a hole in his mattress, into the hay. His hand closed around a belt.

  William lifted his robes above his waist. He unbuckled the leather belt he used to keep up his underwear.

  William slipped the belt that had been hidden in his mattress into the loops of his underwear. He hid his old leather belt in the mattress. He lay down again.

  He smiled to himself in the darkness.

  • • •

  The next morning, William was given a donkey and two sacks of books for Abbot Hubert, of Saint-Denis. He began thumbing through a few of the titles: Isidore of Seville, an illuminated copy of The Rule of Saint Benedict, Saint Augustine’s Confessions. Then, near the bottom of the first sack, William saw a strange book—it looked beat-up and flimsy, as if made not in a monastery but by some amateur hand. He began to reach for it, but the abbot, who was watching William carefully, stopped him. “Please don’t dawdle, young William. You have a task ahead of you.”

  William replaced the books, said farewell to the abbot, and then to his dear Brother Jerome.

  “Keep studying, William,” Brother Jerome told him. “And be careful.”

  William replied, “I will.”

  “You will what?” said Brother Jerome.

  William smiled. “I’ll keep studying.”

  Jerome bursts out laughing. “He did indeed say that! The scamp!” He shakes his white beard and sighs.

  The day was cold, the sky was as gray as wet wool, but William had never felt so free in his life. He could go anywhere. Do anything. Yes, he would go where the abbot told him to and do what he had been asked. But there was no one to watch him, no one to tell him he was doing it wrong. It was his responsibility entirely. It was the most incredible feeling in the world.

  William passed peasants working the abbey’s fields, and their little dark hovels, lining the road. He wondered what their lives were like. He wondered how many of them were liars and loafers, as Bartholomew said. Unexpectedly, a door to a hut opened, and a young woman emerged. A daughter of Eve! William thought. She was tall and her hair was thick and auburn and the very sight of her made William feel strange. Perhaps Bartholomew was right. Perhaps she did possess some Satanic power. He hurried on.

  On to the forest of Malesherbes.

  Nature has a way of warning you. Don’t come here, don’t taste, don’t touch. Sometimes the warning is black-and-yellow stripes. Sometimes it’s bared fangs. Sometimes, though, it is just a feeling. A feeling that says, “Go away. You are not wanted here.”

  The forest of Malesherbes is like that. Dark as twilight—even in the middle of the day. The trees brood over you, the streams don’t babble—they growl, and each call of an animal seems like a dire warning of imminent danger.

  You begin to notice the shadows. There are more than there should be. And they follow you.

  Next, you see the eyes. Pink eyes, staring from the darkness. It is when you see the eyes that you want to turn and flee. And indeed, most everyone does. But not William. He pressed on.

  Frogs croaked aggressively at the young oblate, each croak like a curse. Large insects, like enormous walking sticks, were frozen on the trees. More than once William walked into a spider’s web and frantically shook the tiny, invisible spiders from his dark, curly hair.

  As the forest’s warning became louder, more plangent and strident, William’s buoyant mood shivered, quailed, and fled like a routed army from the field. The walking-stick bugs grew even larger—some of them four feet in length. William put his arm around the donkey’s neck. Its neck quivered.

  Suddenly, the donkey stopped walking.

  William tried to drag the beast forward by its halter, but it would not budge. He could have dragged
it along the path had he wanted to. He considered this. He put his hands on his hips.

  Then they fell to his sides.

  There were pale figures ahead of him on the road. Their shoulders were hunched. Their fingers curled like claws. Darkness seemed to hover around their heads.

  And then the shadows emerged from the trees.

  A frigid sweat beaded up on William’s forehead and under his arms.

  If Jerome had told the truth, and fiends had pink eyes and pale skin and evil, wrinkled hearts, then these men and women surrounding William now were, without any question, fiends. They wore tattered rags. In their claw-like hands many of them gripped hatchets and maces with spiked heads. A few carried short bows, with quivers of arrows slung across their backs. And darkness hovered around their heads.

  One of them, a stringy woman with a nose like a pig’s, stepped forward. The other fiends seemed to shrink from her.

  “I am the Wicked One,” she announced. “And you will do what I say.” Her voice sounded like breaking wood.

  William did not move. He did not speak. He just stood there. The trees creaked, though there was no wind.

  “Well?” he replied, after a moment. “What do you say?”

  “We’ll start with whatever’s in those sacks,” the Wicked One snarled, pointing a crooked finger at the sacks of books. “Give ’em over!”

  William sighed grandly. “Oh, the books? Sure!” He laughed. “For a moment, I was worried you were going to ask for my robes!” He unfastened the two leather satchels from the donkey’s back and tossed them into the dirt.