The Tenth Chamber Part 8

'And I've heard of you too!' Hugo exclaimed. 'So lovely, so intelligent. Luc, come over here!'

Luc approached, shaking his head in antic.i.p.ation of what was coming. 'Don't be making trouble, Hugo.'

'Trouble? Me? It's just that, well, Sara, I'll be blunt. I met a lady tonight and I'd like to ask her out but a double-date might be less of a challenge for her. How about you and Luc joining us sometime this week? I'm only here for a couple of days.'

'Christ, Hugo,' Luc groaned.

'I'd love to,' Sara said, taking Luc aback but making Hugo smile knowingly.

'Then it's settled. All I need to do is ask this lady and we're set. Luc will tell you what I think about the countryside. This should make it more palatable.'

Luc switched on the office lights. The floor of the st.u.r.dy little building was vibrating along with the rumbling generator. He logged onto the web and let Hugo enter his own email portal.

The dapper man puffed out his chest and proudly announced he had twenty new messages, several from female friends, then spotted the important one. 'Ah, it's our code breaker!'

He opened the email. 'Fantastic! He says he's got six pages done. The secret keyword for the section was NIVARD, whatever that means. He's sent the deciphered pa.s.sages as an attachment and says he'll start working on the next section soon.'

'What does it say?' Luc demanded.

'Hang on, let me open it. I don't think he even read it. He's only interested in the code, not the text! Besides he says it's in Latin, which for our Belgian friend is just one more cipher, a boring one.'

Hugo scanned the doc.u.ment getting a feel for the language.

With Luc standing over his shoulder he slowly started to read on the fly. He soon cast off the dispa.s.sionate tone of a translator. The language was too volatile and Hugo began to ardently channel the old monk's words.

I am certain to meet a horrible and painful death. Unlike a martyr who dies for his beliefs and piety, I will die for the knowledge I possess. There has been blood and there will be more. To lose a friend is not an easy thing. To lose a brother is terrible. To lose a brother who has also been a friend for nigh on two hundred years is unbearable. I buried your bones, dear Nivard. Who will bury mine? I am not a saint, O Lord, but a pitiful soul who loved his knowledge far too dearly. Did it crowd out my love for You? I pray not, but it is for you my G.o.d to judge. For my sins I will pay in blood. I cannot confess to my Abbot for he is dead. Until they come for me I will write my confession. I will conceal its meaning in a cipher devised by Brother Jean, a scholar and a gentle soul who I miss terribly. The knowledge contained in my confession is not meant for every man and when I am gone it will disappear. If it is ever found again, it is because Christ has seen fit to make it manifest for reasons known only to Him. I am a scribe and book binder. Should the Lord give me time to finish it, I will bind the book and I will dedicate it to Saint Bernard. If the book is burned so be it. If it is torn asunder so be it. If it is found by another man in its intended hiding place and the words untangled, then I say to that man may G.o.d have mercy upon your soul, for the price you will pay will be great.

Hugo stopped to blink and wet his lips.

'Is there more?' Luc asked.

'Yes,' he whispered. 'There's more.'

'Then for G.o.d's sake, keep going.'

Alon drove his rental car the way he did everything in life: pugnaciously. He accelerated hard, braked hard and navigated the short distance from the camp in over-revved lurches. A gravel parking lot had been established near the top of the cliff and when he got there he braked aggressively, his tyres spraying up pebbles. Clouds blurred the edges of the crescent moon and the night sky had tendrils of black, like the veins on the back of one's hand. The temporary guard shelter that had been erected before the gates were installed was long gone. The CCTV images and telemetry data from the cave entrance and chambers now fed directly to the camp office.

He locked the car and zipped his bomber jacket to his throat. Convections of chilly air rolled over the valley. He felt around in his pocket for the key to the gate of the cave. It was large and heavy, a satisfying implement, almost medieval. He would have preferred complete authenticity, a flickering oil-fed lamp, but the small flashlight in his hand would have to do. He aimed it at the path and headed towards the cliff ladder.

He was eager to spend half an hour on his own, wandering the pa.s.sages in the minimal light. He'd apologise to Luc in the morning in his own way, plead temporary insanity, but he had to do this. Luc would officially disapprove but the incident would pa.s.s, he was sure. The cave was calling out to him. He needed to have a private conversation with it. He'd write about the night. It would shape his thinking, maybe even shake some long-held, stubborn beliefs.

'd.a.m.n the shamans,' he whispered out loud, the thought escaping his lips. Could I have been wrong? Could I have been wrong?

He slowed his pace as he neared the ladder. It was a long way down and at his age he was no longer a mountain goat.

A flurry of footsteps! Running.

He startled and spun but never made it full around.

He didn't see the log that bashed his head, never felt himself being dragged to the edge and at the last moment, at his pa.s.sage through the membrane, he never heard the urgent fluttering of a pair of black-shouldered kites taking to wing, spooked by the sound of his body cras.h.i.+ng through the oaks.

TWELVE.

Clairvaux Abbey, France, 1118 On a crystalline winter morning the great woods surrounding the new monastery were silent. The fields were calm, the flat horizon at peace.

Inside a frigid room with no more than a straw mattress, a p.i.s.s pot and a basin glazed with ice, the young abbot had cast off his rough blanket because he felt his body burning, despite the cold. His skin was slick, as if freshly dunked in water. The hacking cough that had kept him up all night was quiet for now, but he knew that any minute it would return to rack his body and pound his head. He tried to breathe through his nose to prevent another spasm.

When, as a privileged youngster, Bernard became ill, a gentlewoman would attend him an aunt or a cousin. But he had banned females from the congregation and as a consequence he was forced to rely on the not-so-tender mercies of men. His feverish lamentations turned to his beloved mother, dead so long. He still had a fading memory from early childhood, lying in bed with a raw throat, being soothed with a song, a honeyed drink and her pretty face. He was a man now, twenty-eight years old and the head of Clairvaux Abbey. For him, there was no mother and no gentle hand. He had to bear his illness stoically and trust in the benevolence of Christ for deliverance.

If his mother had survived to old age surely she would have swelled with pride at how her pious plan had unfolded. At birth she had offered each of her children six sons and one daughter to G.o.d, and had fully devoted herself to their Christian upbringing.

By the time Bernard had completed his education, his mother was gone. His tutors had identified him as a special talent, a young man who, in addition to n.o.ble birth and natural intellect, had a sweetness of temper, a keen wit and the kind of immense charm which blesses a man infrequently. Despite a brief flirtation with the secular seductions of literature and poetry, there was never a serious doubt that Bernard would become a minister of G.o.d.

Certainly, the path of least resistance would have taken him to the nearby Benedictine abbey in Fontaines, but he shunned that option with vehemence. He had already aligned himself philosophically with the new men of the Church Robert of Molesme, Alberic of Citeaux, the Cistercians who felt the strict observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict of Nursia had been forsaken by corrupted abbeys and their clergy. These Cistercians were determined to strip away the excesses of flesh and spirit that had infected the Benedictines. They would reject fine linen s.h.i.+rts, breeches, furs, sheets and bedspreads. Their abbeys and cloisters would never be embellished by gargoyles and chimeras. They would take their bread hard, without lard or honey. They would charge no burial dues, take no t.i.thes, they would build their communities away from cities, towns or villages and ban all women to avoid all worldly distractions. And they would interrupt their prayers and meditations only by the kind of hard physical labour necessary for subsistence.

With this spartan ideal firmly in mind, the young Bernard was praying one day in a small wayside church, asking G.o.d for his guidance, and when he arose, he had his answer. Transfixed by the clarity of his decision, he persuaded his brothers Barthomieu and Andre, his uncle, Gaudry and soon, thirty-one other Burgundian n.o.bles, to venture with him to Citeaux, leaving the Kingdom of France for the Holy Roman Empire and leaving old lives for new. Two other brothers Gerard and Guy were away as soldiers though in time they would join him too. Only the youngest, Nivard, was left behind.

'Farewell, Nivard,' Bernard had called to this favourite brother the day the party rode off. 'You will have all the lands and estates for yourself.'

The boy cried out tearfully, 'Then you are taking Heaven and leaving me only the earth! The division is too unequal!'

These words greatly moved Bernard and there would be a pit in his stomach until the day when he and Nivard were finally reunited.

In the year 1112, Citeaux Abbey was still all wood and no stone. It had been established fifteen years earlier but the abbot, Stephen Harding, a flinty Englishman, had not received new novices for some time. He was overjoyed by this influx of humanity and he welcomed Bernard and his entourage with open arms.

That first cold night in the lay dormitory, Bernard blissfully lay awake, the crowded room resonating with the snores of exhausted men. In the days and weeks to come, the harder the travails the greater his pleasure and in the future he would tell all novices at his gate: 'If you desire to live in this house, leave your body behind; only spirits can enter here.'

His abilities were so exceptional and his labour so vigorous that within two years, Stephen had decided Bernard was more than ready to initiate a new sister abbey. He made him abbot and sent him off with his brothers Andre and Gerard and twelve other men to a house in the diocese of Langres in Champagne.

On a flat clearing, they built a simple dwelling and embarked on a life of extreme hards.h.i.+p, even by their own tough standards. The land was poor, they made their bread from the coa.r.s.est barley and in the first year they had to make do with wild herbs and boiled beech leaves. But they persevered and built up their monastery. They named it Clairvaux.

Because of Bernard's charisma, disciples flocked to Clairvaux and by the time he became ill there were over a hundred monks in residence. He missed the union of sleeping with his fellows in the long open dormitory but it was just as well he had agreed to move to a small abbot chamber adjacent to the church. His month-long coughing fits would have deprived the monks of what little sleep they had.

Gerard was always the most robust of the six brothers. Other than a sliced thigh, a proper soldier's trophy, he had never suffered a sick day in his life. He fussed over his frail brother and tried to have him keep down soups and infusions but Bernard was slipping away, a slack bag of bones. Too listless to lead the men at prayer, he delegated the authority to his prior but still insisted on being helped to the church to attend services and observe the hours.

One day, Gerard took it upon himself to ride off to inform the powerful cleric, William of Champeaux, Bishop of Chalons-en-Champagne, about the state of Bernard's health. William openly appreciated Bernard and acutely recognised his potential as a future church leader. On report of his illness, he obtained the permission of the Cistercian order at Citeaux to govern Bernard for a year as his superior. The decree in hand, he ordered the young abbot to be relieved of all clerical duties and freed from the harsh observances of the order until his body was healed. Bernard was taken by horse cart south, to the warmer climes of a richer and more comfortable abbey where a few years earlier his middle brother Barthomieu had been dispatched. And thus, Bernard of Clairvaux came to reside at the Abbey Ruac.

Ruac was a Benedictine community sluggishly shedding the excesses which Bernard had railed against. It was not yet fit to be part of the Cistercian order. Although new nuns were no longer admitted, the abbot, a benevolent old sort, did not have the heart to cast the old ones out. Nor did he cast away the wine cellar or the brewery or empty the plentiful larder and granary stores. Barthomieu and some other new men had been sent to Ruac as a vanguard of reform, but they began to relish the comforts they found there having endured hard years at Clairvaux. In truth, they were more changed by Ruac than Ruac changed by them.

On arrival, Bernard was too ill to notice the ecclesiastical shortcomings of his new environs, let alone protest them. He was given a one-room stone house on the outskirts of the abbey with a hearth, a comfortable bed, a reading table with horse-hair chair and an abundance of thick candles. His brother Barthomieu stoked the fire and hovered at his bedside like a worried lover, and an elderly nun, Sister Clotilde, plied him with fresh food and wholesome drink.

At first it seemed Bernard might not survive. He lapsed in and out of consciousness, intermittently recognised his brother, weakly blessing him anew each time, and called the nun 'mother', which seemed to please her no end.

On the twentieth day, Bernard's fever broke and he became aware of his surroundings.

He propped himself to a sitting posture as his brother adjusted his coverlet. 'Who brought me here?' he asked.

'Gerard and some of the monks from Clairvaux.'

Bernard rubbed the grit from his eyes and artfully concealed chastis.e.m.e.nt as compliment. 'Look at you! You look well, Barthomieu!' His older brother was fleshy and robust, his complexion pink as a pig, his hair in need of updated tonsuring.

'I'm a little fat,' Barthomieu said, defensively patting his middle through his good linen robe.

'How is that?'

'The abbot here is not so strict as you!'

'Ah, I have heard that said about me,' Bernard said. His down-cast eyes made it impossible to tell if he rued the austerity he had imposed on his community or Barthomieu's dismissiveness. 'How is your life here, brother? Are you serving Christ fully?'

'I believe I am, but I fear you will look upon my contentment with suspicion. I do love it here, Bernard. I feel I have found my place.'

'What do you do beyond prayer and meditation? Have you a vocation?' He recalled his brother's aversion to manual labour.

Barthomieu acknowledged he was more inclined to indoors pursuits. His abbot had freed him from planting and harvesting. There was a small scriptorium at Ruac turning out copies of The Rule of St Benedict The Rule of St Benedict for a tidy profit and he had been apprenticed to a venerable monk with a practised hand. He was also adept at caring for the ill, as Bernard had come to witness first-hand. He a.s.sisted Brother Jean, the infirmarer, and spent a good hour a day scuttling around the infirmary, making sure the fires were ample, lighting the candles for Matins, cleaning the bowls that had been used for bloodletting, was.h.i.+ng the feet of the sick and shaking their clothing of fleas. for a tidy profit and he had been apprenticed to a venerable monk with a practised hand. He was also adept at caring for the ill, as Bernard had come to witness first-hand. He a.s.sisted Brother Jean, the infirmarer, and spent a good hour a day scuttling around the infirmary, making sure the fires were ample, lighting the candles for Matins, cleaning the bowls that had been used for bloodletting, was.h.i.+ng the feet of the sick and shaking their clothing of fleas.

He hoisted Bernard to his feet, let the skeleton of a man lean on his back as he held the p.i.s.s pot for him. He enthusiastically commented on the improved flow and colour of his brother's urine. 'Come,' Barthomieu said when he was done, 'take a few steps with me.'

Over the weeks, the few steps turned to many and Bernard was able to take short walks in the spring air and start attending ma.s.s. The old abbot, etienne, and his prior, Louis, were both entrenched in the ancient Benedictine ways and were, as they admitted to each other, rather fearful of the esteemed young man. He was a fire-brand, a reformer, and their provincial minds were no match for his intellect and powers of persuasion. They hoped he would see fit to be a humble guest and let them keep their casks of wine and the likes of dear old Sister Clotilde.

One day while strolling in the meadow by the infirmary, Barthomieu pointed to the low building and remarked, 'You know, Bernard, there is a cleric here, sent to Ruac by confidants to recover from a horrific injury, who is the only man I ever met who is your equal in discourse, knowledge and learning. Perhaps when he is stronger, you may wish to meet him, and he, you. His name is Pierre Abelard and, though you will vigorously disapprove of certain aspects of his tempestuous life, you will surely find him more stimulating than your dull brother.'

The seed planted, Bernard wondered about this Abelard. As spring turned to summer and his strength increased, each time he walked the perimeter of the abbey, he would peer into the arched windows of the infirmary hoping to catch a glimpse of the mystery man. Finally, one morning after Prime prayers, Barthomieu told him that Abelard had requested a visit. But before it took place, he felt his brother was obliged to hear Abelard's story, so that neither man would need to suffer embarra.s.sment.

In his youth, Abelard had been sent to Paris to study at the great cathedral school of Notre-Dame under the same William of Champeaux, now Bernard's superior. Before long, the young scholar was able to defeat his master in rhetoric and debate and at the age of only twenty-two had established his own school outside Paris where students from all over the land elbowed each other to be at his side. Within ten years, he himself would occupy the chair at Notre-Dame and by 1115 he had become its canon. Bernard interrupted at this point and remarked that yes, of course, he had heard of this brilliant scholar and wondered what had become of him!

The answer: a woman named Heloise.

Abelard met her when she was fifteen, young and pet.i.te, already skilled and renowned in cla.s.sical letters. She lived in Paris in the gilded home of her uncle, the wealthy canon Fulbert. Abelard was so smitten he arranged for her uncle to give him lodgings for the ostensible purpose of rendering private tutoring to the sharp-minded girl.

Who seduced whom would become a matter of debate but no one could deny that a pa.s.sionate affair did ensue. Abelard giddily ignored his teaching duties and indiscreetly allowed songs he had written about her to be sung in public. Tragically, their affair culminated in a pregnancy. Abelard had her sent away to his relatives in Brittany. There she delivered a child she called Astrolabe after the astronomical instrument, a name that spoke volumes about Heloise's striking modernity.

The child was left in the care of her sister and the two lovers returned to Paris where Abelard began to tensely negotiate a pact with her uncle. He would agree to marry her but he refused to make the marriage public lest his position at Notre-Dame be compromised. Fulbert and he almost came to blows over disagreement on this point. In turmoil, Abelard convinced Heloise to remove herself to the nunnery at Argenteuil, where she had gone to school as a girl.

She went against her will, for she was an earthly person with no inclination towards a religious life. She sent Abelard letters questioning why she had to submit to a life to which she had no calling, especially a life that required their separation.

It was 1118, a few months before Bernard had arrived at the Abbey Ruac. Her uncle was incensed that Abelard had seemingly dealt with the inconvenience of his niece by sending her off instead of publicly taking a stand for an honest union. Fulbert could not let the matter rest peacefully. He bade three of his sycophants to accost Abelard in his rooming house. Two held him down on his bed and one used a knife to crudely castrate him like a farm animal. They plopped his severed t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es into his wash basin and left him moaning in a coagulating pool of blood.

Abelard hoped to die but he did not. He was a freak now, an abomination. In agony he contemplated his fate: did not G.o.d Himself reject eunuchs, excluding them from His service as unclean creatures? Fever set in and the numbing asthenia of blood loss. He languished in a dangerously precarious state until William of Champeaux, that perennial protector of fine minds, intervened and sent him to Ruac to be attended by the noted infirmarer, Brother Jean. And in that peaceful countryside, after a long physical and spiritual convalescence, he was ready to meet Ruac's other notable invalid, Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bernard would long remember their first encounter. He waited outside the infirmary that summer morning and there emerged a dangerously thin, stoop-shouldered man with a domed forehead marked with worry lines and a shy almost boyish smile. His gait was slow and shuffling and Bernard winced in empathy. Abelard was forty, an old forty, and despite his own infirmity Bernard felt robust compared to this poor soul.

Abelard extended his hand, 'Abbot Bernard, I have so wanted to meet you. I know well your esteemed reputation.'

'And I too have wanted to meet you.'

'We have much in common.'

Bernard arched an eyebrow.

'We both love G.o.d,' Abelard said, 'and we both have been nursed back to health by Sister Clotilde's green soups and Brother Jean's brown infusions. Come, let us walk, but pray not too swiftly.'

From that day forward, the two men were constant companions. Bernard could scarcely believe his good fortune. Abelard was more than his equal in matters of theology and logic. Through debate and discourse, he was able to exercise his mind as well as his body. As they took the air, they discussed Plato and Aristotle, realism and nominalism, the morality of man, matters concrete and abstract. They verbally sparred, swapping roles of teacher and student, lost in argument for hours at a time. Barthomieu would sometimes look up from his ch.o.r.es and point out the infirmary windows towards the two men walking the meadow, gesticulating. 'Look, Brother Jean. Your patients are thriving.'

Bernard was keen to talk about the future his desire to reengage in church matters, his ardour for spreading Cistercian principles. Abelard, for his part, refused to look forwards. He insisted on dwelling in the present as if he had no past and no future. Bernard let him be. There was no profit in insisting on candour from this pitiful soul.

One morning, some distance from the abbey on a favourite high outlook over the river, they stopped to take in the view. Both men sat on rocks and fell silent. The first warmth of spring and the first petals of the season combined to make heady fragrance. Abelard suddenly said, 'You know of my past, do you not, Bernard?'

'I know of it.'

'Then you know of Heloise.'

'I know of her.'

'I would like you to know her better, for if you know her, you will know me better.'

Bernard gave him a look of non-comprehension.

Abelard reached into his habit and pulled out a folded parchment. 'A letter from her. You would honour me to read it and give me your thoughts. She would not object.'

Bernard began to study it, hardly believing it was the product of an eighteen-year-old woman. It was a love letter, not low in any way, but lofty and pure. He was moved by the melody of her words and the pa.s.sion in her heart. He had to stop after some minutes to clear a tear from his eye.

'Tell me what pa.s.sage is that?' Abelard asked.

Bernard read it aloud. 'These cloisters owe nothing to public charities; our walls were not raised by the usuries of publicans, nor their foundations laid in base extortion. The G.o.d whom we serve sees nothing but innocent riches and harmless votaries whom you have placed here. Whatever this young vineyard is, is owing only to you, and it is your part to employ your whole care to cultivate and improve it; this ought to be one of the princ.i.p.al affairs of your life. Though our holy renunciation, our vows and our manner of life seem to secure us from all temptation.'

Abelard nodded sadly. 'Yes, please finish it.'

When he was done, Bernard folded it and returned the letter. 'She is a remarkable woman.'

'Thank you. Though we are married, she can no longer be my wife. I am dead inside, the joy for ever gone. Nevertheless, I aim to dedicate the remainder of my life to her and to G.o.d. I will live as a simple monk. She will live as a simple nun. We will be as brother and sister in Christ. Though I will live with the perpetual misery of my fate, through our love of G.o.d we will be able to love each other.'

Bernard touched the man's knee. 'Come, brother. It's a fine day. Let's walk further.'

They wandered downstream, the river far below. The summer had seen heavy rains and run-off from the banks turned the river muddy-brown and turbulent, but on their wide ledge the ground was dry and firm. Their sandals snapped against their heels with each step. They approached the furthest point along the cliffs they had ever travelled but the weather was perfect and both of them had the energy to carry on. There was no need for talk; competing with the sounds of the wind rustling through the foliage would have been a shame. High on the cliffs they felt privileged to be in the realm of the hawk, the realm of G.o.d.

In time, Bernard said. 'Look! Let's rest here.'

On a wide ledge with a marvellous view over the valley, there was a gnarled old juniper tree seemingly growing out of the rocks. Its twisted branches provided a zone of cool shade. They sat, resting their backs against the rough trunk and continued to revel in silence.

'Shall we go back?' Abelard asked after a spell.

Bernard stood up and surveyed the path forward, s.h.i.+elding his eyes from the sun, searching the top of the cliffs. 'I have a notion that it may be possible to return to the abbey by continuing on, finding a gentle climb to the top and walking through the meadows to the north of the church. Are you feeling fit enough?'