Heretic

‘And the tree is the tree of life.’

‘Which is why it has apples,’ the Cardinal said.

‘And the nails reveal that it will be the tree from which our Lord’s cross was made,’ Gaspard finished his explanation.

‘That had not escaped me,’ the Cardinal observed. He carried the beautiful wax cup back to the table and set it down carefully. ‘Where is the glass?’

‘Here, your eminence.’ Gaspard opened a box and took out a cup that he offered to the Cardinal. The cup was made of thick, greenish glass that looked very ancient, for in parts the cup was smoky and elsewhere there were tiny bubbles trapped in the pale translucent material. The Cardinal suspected it was Roman. He was not sure of that, but it looked very old and just a little crude, and that was surely right. The cup from which Christ had drunk his last wine would probably be more fit for a peasant’s table than for a noble’s feast. The Cardinal had discovered the cup in a Paris shop and had purchased it for a few copper coins and he had instructed Gaspard to take off the ill-shapen foot of the glass which the prisoner had done so skilfully that the Cardinal could not even see that there had once been a stem. Now, very gingerly, he put the glass cup into the filigree wax bowl. Gaspard held his breath, fearing that the Cardinal would break one of the delicate leaves, but the cup settled gently and fitted perfectly.

The Grail. The Cardinal gazed at the glass cup, imagining it cradled in a delicate lacework of fine gold and standing on an altar lit by tall white candles. There would be a choir of boys singing and scented incense burning. There would be kings and emperors, princes and dukes, earls and knights kneeling to it.

Louis Bessières, Cardinal Archbishop of Livorno, wanted the Grail and, some months before, he had heard a rumour from southern France, from the land of burned heretics, that the Grail existed. Two sons of the Vexille family, one a Frenchman and the other an English archer, sought that Grail as the Cardinal did, but no one, the Cardinal thought, wanted the Grail as much as he did. Or deserved it as he did. If he found the relic then he would command such awesome power that kings and Pope would come to him for blessing and when Clement, the present Pope, died, then Louis Bessières would take his throne and keys – if only he possessed the Grail. Louis Bessières wanted the Grail, but one day, staring unseeing at the stained glass in his private chapel, he had experienced a revelation. The Grail itself was not necessary. Perhaps it existed, probably it did not, but all that mattered was that Christendom believed that it existed. They wanted a Grail. Any Grail, so long as they were convinced it was the true and holy, one and only Grail, and that was why Gaspard was in this cellar, and why Gaspard would die, for no one but the Cardinal and his brother must ever know what was being made in the lonely tower among the windswept trees above Melun. ‘And now,’ the Cardinal said, carefully lifting the green glass from its wax bed, ‘you must make the common wax into heavenly gold.’

‘It will be hard, your eminence.’

‘Of course it will be hard,’ the Cardinal said, ‘but I shall pray for you. And your freedom depends on your success.’ The Cardinal saw the doubt on Gaspard’s face. ‘You made the crucifix,’ he said, picking up the beautiful gold object, ‘so why can you not make the cup?’

‘It is so delicate,’ Gaspard said, ‘and if I pour the gold and it does not melt the wax then all the work will be wasted.’

‘Then you will start again,’ the Cardinal said, ‘and by experience and with the help of God you will discover the way of truth.’

‘It has never been done,’ Gaspard said, ‘not with anything so delicate.’

‘Show me how,’ the Cardinal ordered and Gaspard explained how he would paint the wax cup with the noxious brown paste that had repelled the Cardinal. That paste was made from water, burned ox-horn that had been pounded to powder and cow dung, and the dried layers of the paste would encase the wax and the whole would then be entombed in soft clay, which had to be gently pressed into place to cradle the wax, but not distort it. Narrow tunnels would run through the clay from the outside to the entombed wax, and then Gaspard would take the shapeless clay lump to the furnace in the yard where he would bake the clay and the beeswax inside would melt and run out through the tunnels and, if he did it well, he would be left with a hard clay mass within which was concealed a delicate cavity in the shape of the tree of life.

‘And the cow dung?’ the Cardinal asked. He was genuinely fascinated. All beautiful things intrigued him, perhaps because in his youth he had been denied them.

‘The dung bakes hard,’ Gaspard said. ‘It makes a hard shell around the cavity.’ He smiled at the sullen girl. ‘Yvette mixes it for me,’ he explained. ‘The layer closest to the wax is very fine, the outer layers are coarser.’

‘So the dung mixture forms the hard surface of the mould?’ the Cardinal asked.

‘Exactly.’ Gaspard was pleased that his patron and saviour understood.

Then, when the clay was cold, Gaspard would pour molten gold into the cavity and he must hope that the liquid fire would fill every last cranny, every tiny leaf and apple and nail, and every delicately modelled ridge of bark. And when the gold had cooled and become firm the clay would be broken away to reveal either a grail-holder that would dazzle Christendom or else a mess of misshapen gold squiggles. ‘It will probably have to be done in separate pieces,’ Gaspard said nervously.

‘You will try with this one,’ the Cardinal ordered, draping the linen cloth back over the wax cup, ‘and if it fails you will make another and try again, and then again, and when it works, Gaspard, I shall release you to the fields and to the sky. You and your little friend.’ He smiled vaguely at the woman, made the sign of a blessing over Gaspard’s head, then walked from the cellar. He waited as his brother bolted the door. ‘Don’t be unkind to him, Charles.’

‘Unkind? I’m his jailer, not his nurse.’

‘And he is a genius. He thinks he is making me a Mass cup, so he has no idea how important his work is. He fears nothing, except you. So keep him happy.’

Charles moved away from the door. ‘Suppose they find the real Grail?’

‘Who will find it?’ the Cardinal asked. ‘The English archer has vanished and that fool of a monk won’t find it in Berat. He’ll just stir up the dust.’

‘So why send him?’

‘Because our Grail must have a past. Brother Jerome will discover some stories of the Grail in Gascony and that will be our proof, and once he has announced that the records of the Grail exist then we shall take the cup to Berat and announce its discovery.’

Charles was still thinking of the real Grail. ‘I thought the Englishman’s father left a book?’

‘He did, but we can make nothing of it. They are the scribblings of a madman.’

‘So find the archer and burn the truth from him,’ Charles said.

‘He will be found,’ the Cardinal promised grimly, ‘and next time I’ll loose you on him, Charles. He’ll talk then. But in the meantime we must go on looking, but above all we must go on making. So keep Gaspard safe.’

‘Safe now,’ Charles said, ‘and dead later.’ Because Gaspard would provide the means for the brothers to go to Avignon’s papal palace and the Cardinal, climbing to the yard, could taste the power already. He would be Pope.

At dawn that day, far to the south of the lonely tower near Soissons, the shadow of Castillon d’Arbizon’s castle had fallen across the heap of timbers ready for the heretic’s burning. The firewood had been well constructed, according to Brother Roubert’s careful instructions, so that above the kindling and around the thick stake to which a chain had been stapled there were four layers of upright faggots that would burn bright, but not too hot and without too much smoke, so that the watching townsfolk would see Genevieve writhe within the bright flame and know that the heretic was going to Satan’s dominion.

The castle’s shadow reached down the main street almost to the west gate where the town sergeants, already bemused by the discovery of the dead watchman on the walls, stared up at the bulk of the castle’s keep outlined by the rising sun. A new flag flew there. Instead of showing the orange leopard on the white field of Berat it flaunted a blue field, slashed with a diagonal white band that was dotted with three white stars. Three yellow lions inhabited the blue field and those fierce beasts appeared and disappeared as the big flag lifted to an indifferent wind. Then there was something new to gape at for, as the town’s four consuls hurried to join the sergeants, men appeared at the top of one of the bastions that protected the castle gate and they dropped a pair of heavy objects from the rampart. The two things dropped, then jerked to a stop at the end of ropes. At first the watching men thought that the garrison was airing its bedding, then they saw that the lumps were the corpses of two men. They were the castellan and the guard, and they hung by the gate to reinforce the message of the Earl of Northampton’s banner. Castillon d’Arbizon was under new ownership.

Galat Lorret, the oldest and richest of the consuls, the same man who had questioned the friar in the church the previous night, was the first to gather his wits. ‘A message must go to Berat,’ he ordered, and he instructed the town’s clerk to write to Castillon d’Arbizon’s proper lord. ‘Tell the Count that English troops are flying the banner of the Earl of Northampton.’

‘You recognize it?’ another consul asked.

‘It flew here long enough,’ Lorret responded bitterly. Castillon d’Arbizon had once belonged to the English and had paid its taxes to distant Bordeaux, but the English tide had receded and Lorret had never thought to see the Earl’s banner again. He ordered the four remaining men of the garrison, who had been drunk in the tavern and thus escaped the English, to be ready to carry the clerk’s message to distant Berat and he gave them a pair of gold coins to hasten their ride. Then, grim-faced, he marched up the street with his three fellow consuls. Father Medous and the priest from St Callic’s church joined them and the townsfolk, anxious and scared, fell in behind.

Lorret pounded on the castle gate. He would, he decided, face the impudent invaders down. He would scare them. He would demand that they leave Castillon d’Arbizon now. He would threaten them with siege and starvation, and just as he was summoning his indignant words the two leaves of the great gate were hauled back on screeching hinges and facing him were a dozen English archers in steel caps and mail hauberks, and the sight of the big bows and their long arrows made Lorret take an involuntary step back.

Then the young friar stepped forward, only he was no longer a friar, but a tall soldier in a mail haubergeon. He was bare-headed and his short black hair looked as if it had been cut with a knife. He wore black breeches, long black boots and had a black leather sword belt from which hung a short knife and a long plain sword. He had a silver chain about his neck, a sign that he held authority. He looked along the line of sergeants and consuls, then nodded to Lorret. ‘We were not properly introduced last night,’ he said, ‘but doubtless you remember my name. Now it is your turn to tell me yours.’

‘You have no business here!’ Lorret blustered.

Thomas looked up at the sky, which was pale, almost washed out, suggesting that more unseasonably cold weather might be coming. ‘Father,’ he spoke to Medous now, ‘you will have the goodness to translate my words so everyone can know what is going on.’ He looked back to Lorret. ‘If you will not talk sense then I shall order my men to kill you and then I shall talk to your companions. What is your name?’

‘You’re the friar,’ Lorret said accusingly.

‘No,’ Thomas said, ‘but you thought I was because I can read. I am the son of a priest and he taught me letters. Now, what is your name?’

‘I am Galat Lorret,’ Lorret said.

‘And from your robes,’ Thomas gestured at Lorret’s fur-trimmed gown, ‘I assume you have some authority here?’

‘We are the consuls,’ Lorret said with what dignity he could muster. The other three consuls, all younger than Lorret, tried to look unworried, but it was difficult when a row of arrow heads glittered beneath the arch.

‘Thank you,’ Thomas said courteously, ‘and now you must tell your people that they have the good fortune to be back under the Earl of Northampton’s rule and it is his lordship’s wish that his people do not stand about the street when there is work to be done.’ He nodded at Father Medous who offered a stammering translation to the crowd. There were some protests, mainly because the shrewder folk in the square understood that a change of lordship would inevitably mean more taxes.

‘The work this morning,’ Lorret said, ‘is burning a heretic.’

‘That is work?’

‘God’s work,’ Lorret insisted. He raised his voice and spoke in the local language. ‘The people were promised time from their labour to watch the evil burned from the town.’

Father Medous translated the words for Thomas. ‘It is the custom,’ the priest added, ‘and the bishop insists that the people see the girl burn.’

‘The custom?’ Thomas asked. ‘You burn girls often enough to have a custom about it?’