Iacobus (13 page)

“We are safe now,” she said loudly, breaking the heavy silence; her words echoed from a thousand depths.

By the light of the flames I could see the walls of living stone that made up those ancient tunnels, carved out in forgotten times. Sara took me through tunnels that branched off time and time again and I told myself, worried, that if that woman left me there, I would be incapable of finding my way out. She knew the route by memory and moved quickly, although, maybe for safety reasons, she made certain variations now and again, because at one time I saw her lean down to the ground and then change direction. We walked for at least half an hour without stopping; we moved through secondary galleries that ended in large caves which, in turn, opened up to other galleries and other caves. The closer we got to the fortress, the more signs we found of the underground’s prior use by the Templar monks: A mutilated effigy of the Archangel Michael lay abandoned in a corner, a chest of three seals lay open and empty in the middle of the path, alcoves in the walls with strange paintings in the intersections (solar signs, three-masted lunar boats, two-headed eagles …). Every now and again we tripped over piles of rocks from where the ceiling had collapsed. Sara told me that years before, when she had snuck into that labyrinth, there were hundreds of chests, full of gold, jewels and precious stones lined up against the walls, some even stacked on top of others, forming columns that reached the ceiling. In those which were open, displaying their contents, she had seen shiny coins, rings, gorgeous pendants, tiaras, crowns studded with rubies, pearls and emeralds, ebony and ivory lockets, goblets, chalices, mother of pearl jewelery boxes, crosses with beautiful embellishments encrusted with gems, fabrics embroidered with gold and silver thread, candelabras as tall as a person and glowing like the sun, and many more objects that were just as marvelous. A treasure difficult to imagine if you haven’t seen it, she told me. How was it possible that all those riches had disappeared into thin air, I asked myself surprised, vanishing before the eyes of the guards, the King and the Parisians themselves, like smoke? When, and most of all, how had they removed the hundreds of chests that Sara said she had seen without arousing suspicion or curiosity? I found it inexplicable.

At last we stopped at an intersection of the paths.

“We’ve arrived. Now, complete silence, or the guards will hear us.

The Jewish woman walked over to one of the walls which, at first sight, looked no different from any of the others, and began to climb it like a cat using strategic slits carved into the rock. We entered what appeared to be the mouth of another tunnel and which proved to be the entrance to the sewers of the Templar fortress; we were suddenly hit by an overwhelming stench of decomposing excrement. Above our heads we could hear the dull echo of far-away voices and the endless sound of footsteps moving in all directions. We followed the path along those stinking canals until we reached an enormous iron grill which, despite its fearsome appearance, easily bent under the pressure from the witch’s hand. Minutes later the ceiling began to drop and when my hair began to graze the rock Sara stopped, gave me her torch, and with both hands gave a strong push upwards on one of the slabs. Mysteriously, the stone gave way and, looking like it weighed little more than air, moved to the side to let us through.

“Now, put out the torches. But careful not to get them wet, otherwise we won’t be able to use them to get back.”

After I had completed the order, I went up behind her and entered Evrard’s dark dungeon.

“Did you have any problems?” asked the voice of an old man from the corner. It was so dark that I wouldn’t have been able to see my own hand if I had held it in front of my face.

“No, none. How are you feeling tonight?”

“Better, better … But where is Galceran? Galceran?”

“I’m here, Sir Evrard, and glad to find you again after so many years.”

“Come here, boy,” he said weakly. “Come close so I can see you. No, don’t be surprised,” he said with a chuckle, “my eyes are so used to the dark that what you see as shadows, I see as light.

“Come … Oh, Jesus! You’ve turned into a man.”

“I have, Sir Evrard,” I smiled.

“Manrique heard from someone who knows you that you were living in Rhodes. I think he said that you took the Hospitaller vows.”

“That’s correct, freire. I am a St. John’s Hospitaller Knight. I normally work as a doctor in the Rhodes Order infirmary.”

“So, a Hospitaller, eh?” he repeated with sarcasm. “They’ve always said that our Orders were bitter enemies, although neither Manrique nor I ever had any problems with the Hospitallers we met throughout our lifetimes. Do you not think that at times we freires find ourselves wrapped up in false myths and unsubstantiated legends?”

“I agree, Sir Evrard, but I don’t want you to talk now. I have come to examine you and I don’t want you to use your energy until later, answering my questions.”

I heard a dull laugh escape from his body. Bit by bit I became more accustomed to the dark and although of course I still couldn’t see much, I could make out his face and shape. Knight Evrard — I never knew his surname —, the person who in my dreams, like Manrique, was as big as a giant with the strength of a thousand Titans, had become, to my surprise, little more than a pile of skin and bones holding up a head that was no more than a skull. His sunken eyes, his cheekbones which stuck out of a ravaged face, that old, dirty, gray beard, were not, however much I had been warned of his poor state, those of the invincible crossed warrior of my youth who I had stupidly wished to meet again.

Unfortunately, the smell of the cell was unmistakable: Every disease emits a characteristic odor, in the same way that old age smells different from youth. There are many factors that influence body odors: food and its ingredients, the material used to make clothes, the texture of the skin, the materials with which one works or the places in which one lives and even the people we live with. Evrard’s disease smelled like a tumor, of one of those tumors that eats away at the body and liquefies the internal organs, expelling them from the body in vomit and excrement. Judging by his appearance, he only had a day or two left.

Evrard, without a shadow of a doubt, had the plague. I went over to him, and pulling up his tattered shirt, gingerly palpated his swollen, hard stomach, taking great care not to touch the painful buboes, swollen to unbelievable proportions which ran from his thighs to his abdomen and from his chest to his neck, going underneath his armpits. His fingers and toes were black, his arms and legs covered in bruises and his tongue was swollen and white. Despite the gentleness of my examination, his cries of pain indicated the terrible extremity that the destruction of his body had reached. He had a very high fever which I felt in my hands when I touched him, his pulse was racing — much faster than racing! — and irregular, and rapid chills shook him every now and again as if he had been beaten with a mallet.

“I must have been bitten by a flea,” he murmured, exhausted. I pulled his shirt back down and thought. The only thing that I could do for him was the same that I had done for the dying abbot in Ponç de Riba: Give him large amounts of opium to make his death less painful. But if I gave him the opium — and I had it in my bag —, I couldn’t take advantage of his final hours to talk to him, I couldn’t ask him anything about the things I wanted to know, I wouldn’t be able to satisfactorily end my investigation. I think that was one of the hardest decisions I have had to make of the many that I had come across throughout my life.

In the silence of the dungeon (where was Sara?), the sad moans of the dying man resounded like the shattered cries of a tortured man. He was suffering, and there is nothing more absurd than physical pain when death is imminent. That pain was no more than pain — absurd and cruel —, and I had the remedy in my bag.

“Sara,” I called.

“Yes …?” She was right behind me.

“Go forth, knights, let’s defend Jerusalem!” the old Templar shouted at that moment at the top of his lungs; he was delirious. “Jesus protects us, the Virgin Mary watches us from above, the Holy City awaits us, our Temple awaits us! Ahh, I’m dying …! A Saracen scimitar has severed my arms and is ripping out my insides!”

“Sara, prepare some water for the opium.”

“Remove the books from the cellar! Leave nothing in the Temple! Put the chests in the esplanade and we’ll meet at the door of the Al-Asqa at nightfall!”

“It’s the delirium of death,” said the Jew, passing me the bowl of water. Her hands were trembling.

“It’s the delirium of the plague. Why haven’t you caught it?”

Her voice was sharp as she replied:

“It’s not the black plague, sire, it’s only the bubonic plague. Do you think that I am so ignorant that I would fall into that trap? Even a Jew like me knows that buboes must not be touched and you must wash thoroughly so as not to fall ill.

“The Baphomet! … Hide the Baphomet!” shouted Evrard, as taught as a bowstring. “They mustn’t find anything, anything! The Ark of the Covenant! The books! The gold!”

“The Ark of the Covenant!” I exclaimed, impressed. So it was true, they had the Ark of the Covenant.

“Oh, come on, Hospitaller frey of St. John, are you going to believe those fairy tales as well?” Sara reproached, emphasizing my recently discovered St. John identity. It was obvious that she had been paying close attention to my conversation with Evrard.

Shortly after, Evrard’s cries had ceased and his breathing had improved. Every now and then he let out a whine, as if he were a child, or a moan, but his dementia worked with the potion to gradually remove him from the suffering and, unfortunately, from life.

“He won’t make it through the night; at best until tomorrow but no longer.”

“I know,” she replied, moving forward and sitting down on one of the corners of the rock covered in dirty straw that served as a bed for Evrard.

We stayed there until dawn, watching that sick man in silence. My mission had ended. As soon as the old Templar had died, I would go back to Avignon, inform His Holiness that I couldn’t find the evidence needed to confirm his suspicions and, shortly after, would return to Rhodes, to continue with my work at the hospital. As far as Jonas, I would help him get back to Ponç de Riba, if he so wished, and leave the secret about his life in the hands of fate. If his mother had given him up forever, why couldn’t I, his father, do the same? At the end of the day, what importance could another bastard have in this life? In any case, it pained me to leave my son. I suppose that the total lack of feelings inside me for so many years had left me feeling vulnerable to the idea of losing him.

The witch and I left when the first lights of the new day shone through a small window situated at ceiling height, leaving the dying man in a deep sleep. If he survived, he had a long day of lonesome agony ahead of him.

When I got back to the inn, Jonas was waiting up for me.

“I want to know why you didn’t let me go with you.”

“I had several reasons,” I explained, yawning and falling onto the bed, exhausted. “But the main reason, if you must know, was your safety. If they had caught us, you wouldn’t have had any more future than that poor old man who is rotting in the dungeon. Is that what you wanted?”

“No, but you were also in danger.”

“True,” I murmured, half asleep. “But I have already lived my life, boy, while you still have many years ahead of you.”

“I’ve decided to stay on with you,” he said humbly.

“I’m glad, I’m very glad.” And I fell asleep.

When Sara and I returned to the fortress the following night, surprisingly Evrard was still alive. The opium had helped him to fight it, although it had not returned his sanity. Nevertheless, with the new dawn, the old Templar exhaled his last breath following some convulsions, and his gray head twisted to the side until it remained still with his mouth open. In honor of the deceased, I was glad that I had helped him to go in peace, even though it had prevented me from clearing up certain details that would remain hidden forever. I must admit that in some way this thought pained me. Sara gently brushed her hand over his face, performing the sad ritual of closing his eyes. She then leaned over and kissed his forehead, neatened up his clothes, removed the dirty straw from under him and, putting her hands together, invoked her God, Adonai, chanting beautiful prayers for Evrard’s soul. I also prayed; I was sad that that poor man had died without the aid of the sacraments of confession and extreme unction, although deep down I’m not sure that he would have wanted them, because amongst other things, the Templars could only be seen to by their own ratres capellani, thus ensuring the inviolability of their secrets.

We ended our prayers, and while Sara gathered our things, I took charge of removing any signs of our presence: Sooner or later they would realize that the prisoner was dead and would have to come in to take his body away and burn it. All of a sudden, in line with those thoughts, something very powerful caught my attention: Why couldn’t I see any of Evrard’s belongings anywhere? As much as I looked, I couldn’t find any sign that gave away the presence of a person having been in that cell for such a long time, other than, of course, the body of the dead Templar. There had to be something, I told myself, something like there always is in any dungeon inhabited by a prisoner: a manuscript, utensils, papers, belongings … It’s common for prisoners to treasure small, insignificant things which have huge value to them but curiously, it looked like Evrard had never even been there and that didn’t make sense.

“How long has Evrard been locked up in this cell?” I asked the witch, intrigued.

“Two years.”

“Two years and he didn’t have any belongings, however small?”

“Yes, he did,” replied Sara, nodding her head towards a corner. “His spoon and his bowl are over there.”

“Nothing else?”

The witch, with her bag hanging over her shoulder, stared at me. I could see doubt and then certainty cross her eyes. All at once I knew that all was not lost.