Iacobus (28 page)

“I’m sorry, Sara, really,” I lied. In fact, I wasn’t sorry at all.

“Even if his marriage was one of convenience,” she reasoned, “I wouldn’t agree to have anything to do with him. I don’t like sharing the man I love, or see him jump from one bed to another, especially if I am the other. If someone else can cope with that, that’s fine but I can’t.”

“Maybe he still loves you …,” I pointed out, wanting to see how deep her feelings ran and how sure she was of not going back to him. “You know that love doesn’t decide who marries who.”

“Well, I’m very sorry but as far as I’m concerned, three is one too many. I came here looking for him, I traveled many miles to see him again, and I didn’t care whether he was a freire, a monacus or the Pope of Rome himself. But with another … Not with another!”

“So you respect marriage,” I said, evilly; I wanted her to be enraged with Manrique, furious.

“What I respect is my pride, sire! I refuse to settle for half of the whole I came here looking for. I’m not that cheap.”

“That would be in the case that he still loves you because he may love his wife.”

“Perhaps,” she muttered, lowering her eyes.

“And what are you going to do? You can’t go back to France. Maybe Don Samuel could help you to buy a house in this aljama at a good price.”

“I don’t want to stay in Burgos!” she said enraged. “The last thing I would do would be to stay in Burgos! I never want to see Manrique of Mendoza again, not even by accident.”

“So?”

“Let me carry on traveling with you and Jonas until I find a place to stay!” she begged. “I won’t ask any questions. I won’t get involved in your dealings. You have already seen that even with something as serious as the events in San Juan de Ortega I have not made the mistake of inquiring. I will be blind, deaf and dumb if you let me go with you!”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said sadly.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because traveling with you in this state would be hell. You would be falling over and tripping all the time.”

And I laughed so loudly that it could even be heard in the street. For the first time, I had managed to beat the witch!

Very early the next day we left Burgos, headed towards Leon, and soon spotted the town of Tardajos. Even though there was only a few miles separating this town with neighboring Rabe, as we crossed the marshes we understood the truth behind the saying:

What wasn’t easy was coping with Sara and Jonas that day: The boy didn’t speak, didn’t look and almost wasn’t even there, and the Jewish woman, with a dark cloud hanging over her head, seemed lost in dark thoughts. I was glad to see that her expression wasn’t one of sorrow, and that there was no pain or sadness in her eyes when she looked at me. It was more like contained fury, outrage. And for me, released from a weight that I had carried for years, that seemed a magnificent thing. I felt good, happy, satisfied, walking into an unknown destiny with that unrefined son of mine and the most surprising woman in the world.

Following a desolate and endless plateau, we reached Hornillos, with the splendid Hospital of St. Lazareth at the entrance and further on, after a rocky stretch, the village of Hontanas. The sun was setting and we had to start looking for somewhere to spend the night.

“There are no inns around here,” said a villager, brandishing his staff ata herd of pigs. “Carry on until Castrojeriz. It’s not far. I’m sure you’ll find somewhere. But if you want my advice,” he mumbled, “don’t follow the road today. Tonight the St. Anthony Monks receive the sick and the Camino passes right by the front door. There will be many of them around the monastery.”

“There’s a St. Anthony monastery around here?” I asked in disbelief.

“That’s right, sir,” confirmed the swineherd. “As much as those of us who live here dislike it, in addition to the lepers and those people on a pilgrimage to Compostela seeking forgiveness and health, every week, on this day, those damn people suffering from the disease of St. Anthony’s fire come in the hundreds.”

“Antonians, here!” I snorted. It couldn’t be, I told myself, confused. What were they doing along the Way of the Apostle? Relax … I had to think clearly and let my surprise stop me from thinking. In fact, if I stopped to think about it, the real question was: Why was I surprised to find the strange Tau monks along a path that was strangely full of Taus? Until now, the ‘Tau-Aureus’, the sign of gold, had appeared in the statue of St. Orosia (in Jaca), on the wall of St. Oria’s tomb (in St. Millan of Suso) and in the capital of St. John of Ortega, always indicating the presence of hidden Templar treasure. Now, all of a sudden, it was presented in the most disconcerting manner: a monastery of Antonians located halfway between Jaca and Compostela.

The swineherd moved away, hitting the legs of his pigs with his stick, and Sara and Jonas looked at me puzzled while I stood stock still, as if I had grown roots.

“It seems as though the presence of those freires has upset you,” said Sara, scrutinizing me with her eyes.

“Let’s walk,” I ordered dryly by way of response. Not once since we had found Manrique of Mendoza’s message had I associated the Tau with the Antonian monks. For me, their existence was too seperate from the plot, even though there was nothing more logical than them being connected. Although neither rich nor powerful, the Antonians shared the fundamental knowledge of the inscrutable secret with the Temple freires and some say that they had been appointed as direct heirs to the Great Mysteries. They appeared to be the inferior brothers of the powerful milites Templi Salomonis, those second-class members that every family, for lack of a better legacy to leave, gives to the Church, and they stand out for their prudence, shrewdness and effectiveness. They had just five or six congregations distributed between France, England and the Holy Land which is why I was surprised to discover their unexpected presence in Castile. For some strange reason that I didn’t understand, they wore black habits with a big blue Tau sewn onto the chest.

I was struggling to remember everything I knew about them, searching for some forgotten information that could link them to my mission, when Sara, who was walking on my right, asked me why those monks bothered me so much. I would have preferred the curiosity to have come from Jonas but he was still locked in his stubborn silence. Nevertheless, I wanted him to pay attention to what I was saying and put the pieces together himself, because with Sara there, I couldn’t do it for him.

“The Antonians,” I began, “are a small monastic Order whose origin is shrouded in a thick fog. The only thing known about them is that more than two hundred years ago, nine knights from Dauphine
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(nine ring any bells?),” Sara nodded without understanding to encourage me to keep speaking, and Jonas raised his gaze from the ground for the first time, “left for Bizancio in search of the body of Anthony the Hermit, the Egyptian anchorite, canonized as St. Anthony Abbott and also known as San Anton which was in the possession of the Eastern emperors after being miraculously discovered in the desert. Upon their return, the relics were placed in the Sanctuary of La Motte-Saint Didier and the nine knights created the Antonian Order, placed under the dedication and the patronage of the hermit saint and the anchorite saint, Mary of Egypt, who hid in the desert for forty-six years until she was discovered by Monk Zosimus.”

“St. Mary of Egypt?” said Sara, surprised. “Do you mean to tell me that the Christians have canonized a witch?”

Jonas, whose bad mood had been overshadowed by the news of the Antonians, was about to burst with curiosity and he could not continue to force his isolation.

“Who is a witch?” he asked.

“St. Mary of Egypt.”

I smiled to myself.

“Why?” he continued to ask.

“Because St. Mary of Egypt,” I explained, getting ahead of myself, “was in fact the beautiful Alexandrian prostitute Hipacia, famous for her brilliant intelligence, founder of a powerful and influential school where, among other things, they taught mathematics, geometry, astrology, medicine, philosophy ….”

“As well as necromancy, alchemy, thaumaturgy, magic and witchcraft,” added Sara.

“Yes, that as well,” I agreed.

“And why did they sanctify her?”

We could begin to see a great glow in the distance, among the far away shadows. The walk was pleasant, the moon shone, waning, high above, and the descent was steep, making our feet move faster.

“In actual fact, they didn’t sanctify her. The truth is that Hipacia found a fierce enemy in St. Cyrus, whose irate homilies turned the mob against her. That happened in Egypt at the end of the fourth century. Little is known about what happened but it seems that Hipacia had to flee to the desert to avoid death and forty-six years later (or at least that’s what the legend says) she was found by the blessed man, Zosimus. The Roman Church, in an effort to explain the miracle of her unlikely survival, of the strange powers she had, and of her miracles, renamed her Mary and consecrated her on the alters. In other words, they invented a new person.”

“What strange powers?”

“She could read the thoughts of others, remain motionless for days and weeks without eating food and without breathing, move objects without touching them and perform prodigious healings.”

“Us witches,” added Sara, refusing to give up her her patron saint and teacher to Christianity, “use many of her ancient formulas in our magic today.”

We had gotten quite close to the source of the glow and it would be difficult to forget the image we saw before us: a building so tall that its peak was lost in the dark night, with awesome shapes, whose sacred ornamentation, full of spires, steeples and gables looked like it was designed to scare souls rather than calm spirits, and was frighteningly illuminated by the flames of hundreds of torches carried by those suffering with St. Anthony’s fire. Some of them, most of them, made their own way on foot with greater or lesser difficulty, leaning on a staff but others could only do it with the help of relatives who carried them on their shoulders or on stretchers. From the distance, we could see an endless river of fire that slowly moved around the monastery, driven by a mysterious force. But the weirdest thing was a strange blue light that was pouring out through the tall, narrow windows, which was most likely due to the stained glass. In any case, whatever was creating that glow, the result was chilling.

The Camino, completely invaded by sick people along a huge stretch, passed under an arch that joined the door to the monastery which had some cupboards in front of it, and right there, at the top of the stairs, a small group of Antonian monks were handing out tiny brass medallions with the symbol of the Tau to the crowd, medallions which we could see in the hands of those who were leaving. The one who must have been the Abbott gently touched those who passed under the arch with his Tau shaped staff while the other monks held up smaller Taus in their hands with which they were imparting blessings.

“We mustn’t mix with the lepers,” said Sara with a gesture of apprehension.

“Nonsense! You should know that in my many years of working with people infested with the plague I have never known anyone to get infected. Myself included.”

“It doesn’t make any difference, I still don’t want to go down there.”

“Neither do I, just in case,” added Jonas.

“Fine, don’t worry. We won’t go down there. What’s more,” I added, “we will camp behind that bend and spend the night out in the open.”

“We will die of cold! We’ll freeze!”

“It’s a small inconvenience but I’m sure that we’ll be alive tomorrow.”

We lit a good fire, sheltered by a rock and got ready for dinner, sitting on our cloaks which we had laid out on the ground. We took the food that we had brought from Burgos from our bags and, with the help of two sticks and an iron pin, we spit roast some pieces of beef — bled according to the law of Moses — that Samuel had given us for our journey. We didn’t talk much: Sara and Jonas, because they had both returned to their thoughts, and I, because I was busy planning how to enter the Antonian monastery that night.

One of the things that worried me the most was Sara’s affinity with the Templars (with the exception of Manrique’s insolence). The truth is that I was dying to tell her the real reason for our pilgrimage, so that Jonas and I could act freely without having to worry about the pretenses and the nonsense. But telling Sara what we were doing would put her in danger with Le Mans so I was damned if I told her and damned if I didn’t. On the other hand, Jonas’ attitude wasn’t helping either to make my decision but sooner or later things would have to get back to normal and as upset as he may have been, it was the first time that he hadn’t threatened to go running back to the Monastery of Ponç de Riba which proved to me that even on bad terms for now he wanted to stay by my side.

“Jonas,” I called him.

The only reply I received was silence.

“Jonas!” I repeated, gathering my patience but without hiding my growing anger.

“What do you want?” he muttered in disgust.

“I need you to help me make a decision. Sara is well aware that there is some reason behind our journey that has nothing to do with a devout pilgrimage and, if she was still in doubt, she could see that something serious happened in Ortega. On the one hand, I’m worried about her friendship with the Templars,” Sara quickly turned her head towards me, with a start, and looked me straight in the eye, “and on the other hand, there’s Count Le Mans. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

He nodded his head and seemed to be thinking hard about what I had just said.

“I think we should trust her,” he said, “and anyway, Le Mans must already assume that she knows what’s going on and he won’t pay much attention to the small details.”

The fire crackled at our feet, and above us, the heavens were full of shining stars.

“Well, Sara, Jonas has made a wise decision, and I stand by it. Here goes.”