The Waste Land

by Simon Acland

  “But I have orders from my father not to let you out of my sight. If I let you go, I cannot answer for what he might do to Blanche. I cannot even be sure what he will do to me.” He sighed. “I had a brother once, you know. Ustad Hussain. He was six years older than me. My father suspected him of treachery, of murdering another da’i. He was put to death. Later the real murderer came forward. He was innocent.”

  “And how would it be if we go back to Alamut and tell him we know where his answer lies but have not dared to fetch it? How would he react then? Only I can find the matching document. I could not take you with me even if I wanted to. You would be discovered and slaughtered for an infidel before we even left Antioch. Anyway, I will only go back to France if I know you have taken this news back to your father, only if you have made sure that Blanche is safe. Mohammed, you must trust me. I give you my word, my solemn promise. We must trust each other. You know that whatever I find, I will return for my love of Blanche. I depend on you to persuade him of that.”

  Mohammed gave a sigh of regret. “All right. I will carry your message back. I will do my best. But I cannot answer for how your Lady Blanche might be treated. I just do not know how my father will react. He has little understanding of the power of the love that holds you to your course. I think I do trust you, but my father may think me a fool, or worse. Hurry. And be careful.”

  As he turned away I clutched his arm. “I saved your life once, Mohammed. I am relying on you to tell Blanche that I have not forsaken her. Tell her that I love her faithfully. Say that whilst there is breath in my body I will return to free her. For pity’s sake tell her that I will be back, however long it takes. Ask her to wait for me.”

  I scanned the Assassin’s dark eyes for sympathy. Before I could wholly understand what I read there, the black-robed figure had turned and slipped away towards the arched window. Mohammed looked to left and right before climbing silently through. I rushed to the opening and watched my friend melt into the shadows and disappear down the narrow street.

  Plague now broke out in Antioch and men began to drop like flies. The first symptom was a deep lassitude and tiredness, then a raging fever, accompanied by vomiting and diarrhoea. Then a sinister rash painted the skin in blotches of pale pink. The victims were force-fed to maintain their strength, but they could not keep down their food. Even bleeding had no beneficial effect. Once this terrible disease had its grip, death’s release usually came within a week. Bishop Adhemar was one of the first to succumb, taking his doubts about the Holy Lance with him to his grave. I hoped that he would not be too shocked by the truth when he reached the other side. Everyone who could planned to leave the city. Godfrey intended to lead a foraging party towards the North East. I resolved to desert him. The exodus of souls and bodies from Antioch provoked by the plague gave me the opportunity. It meant that there were many more boats now sailing west from the nearby port of Latakia. In the confusion bred of illness I was able to slip quietly from the city, sell my horse and take passage on a Phoenician ship captained by one Phlebas, sailing for Cyprus.

  SAINT LAZARUS’ COLLEGE

  “Is the Master not coming to dinner, then? Should we start without him?”

  The Chaplain’s solicitousness was partly prompted by his pleasure at the opportunity to take the head of high table in the Master’s absence.

  “I don’t think he will,” replied the History Don. “He really looked quite ill to me. Kept rubbing his stomach and complaining of dreadful cramps. It wasn’t quite the plague, but it did look to me as if it could be food poisoning.”

  “Oh dear,” said the Professor of English. “We’ve all been eating the same things, so if that is what it is, we’ll probably go down one by one. I’ve been saying for ages that we need to modernise the kitchens, but there is never enough budget.”

  The Modern Languages Tutor’s alarmed appearance could have been attributed to his fear of suffering the same disorder as the Master as much as to a guilty conscience. But, if so, the excessive nature of his agitation would have forced the conclusion that his dislike of an upset stomach was far greater than the norm.

  The Classics Fellow, on the other hand, was positively glowing with pleasure, as if he had no fear of food poisoning whatsoever.

  “Thank you, my friend, thank you,” he murmured to the Best-Selling Author as they sat down side by side. “I loved those Greek word games of yours. They definitely raise the tone!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LOOK TO WINDWARD

  There was a time when the prospect of a sea voyage, across that element so strange and unfamiliar, would have filled me with excitement. But now the sea was a mere irritation, another barrier to be surmounted. And beyond that barrier I would have to face a more daunting obstacle still – my former abbot.

  The Phoenician crew, expert with sail and oar, sped me to Cyprus. There I re-embarked on a Genoese ship destined for her home port. In Genoa I soon found a small vessel bound in easy stages along the short length of coast to Provence, and so it was at the beginning of December that I found myself disembarking in the port of Marseille under the brown fog of a winter dawn. All around, over the cries of gulls, I heard accents that brought the now distant Provençals Count Raymond and Peter Bartholomew closely to mind.

  I was still just monk enough to feel it meet and proper to give thanks in church for my safe voyage. And as the Basilica of Saint Victor was right on the quayside it was there that I went. The church looked new, built less than fifty years before, and boasted those modern pointed arches eschewed by my abbot for his edifice at Cluny. But when I entered, I saw that the new structure encased the skeleton of a building more ancient by far. Perhaps it had been partly destroyed in one of those Saracen raids, vengeance for which had started Count Raymond on his career as a warrior in the name of religion. I ventured to the venerable heart of the building, the deep undercroft, and fell to my knees in front of the altar. Above was set a silver reliquary from which grinned a toothy brown skull, wisps of hair still glued to parchment skin above its empty eye sockets. Putting my doubts about my faith aside, I managed to offer up sincere prayers of thanks. Then I turned to quit the low candlelit chapel. As I made to leave, I inquired politely of a priest standing by the door:

  “Father, tell me, please. Before whose saintly relic have I just had the honour to pray?”

  The priest looked at me with scorn for my out-of-town ignorance.

  “You see before you the head of the friend of Our Lord Jesus Christ – Saint Lazarus himself.”

  He must have taken my wide-eyed surprise for devotion, for he softened his tone, crossed himself and continued.

  “This church was built by Saint Cassian many centuries ago – on the very site where Saint Lazarus was martyred. On this very spot, the ungrateful heathen whose souls he wanted to save struck the head clean from his body. But the church and its monastery were dedicated to Saint Victor, for he too suffered martyrdom here. Saint Victor was ground between two millstones before being beheaded. That’s why he is called the patron of all millers as well as of the sailors of Marseille. But this ancient house of God might as well have been named for Saint Lazarus, his sister Saint Martha of Bethany, or even Saint Mary Magdalene. You see, it was close to here that they made landfall after the Jews set them cruelly adrift from the Holy Land. So many saints have passed through our port city, or been martyred here, that it is hard to honour them all. They even say that the famous library here was started with documents brought from the Holy Land by Saint Lazarus and his party.”

  I quivered with excitement. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if I could see this library. But before I could phrase my request the priest had continued.

  “Some time ago now – before my time here – the most ancient texts were taken for safer keeping to our Benedictine mother foundation at Cluny.”

  The stunned expression that passed over my face must have been taken for another sign of stupidity by my interlocutor, whose tone reverted to the scorn with wh
ich he had begun.

  “Surely you have heard of the great monastery of Cluny, even if you are from foreign parts?”

  I did not answer. I imagine that my sudden and silent departure added to the smug priest’s poor opinion of me.

  In the square outside the Basilica, I was accosted by a hawker selling little cakes crudely baked in the pointed shape of a ship. I was minded to brush him aside until I made sense of his thick Languedoc accent and understood that these boats were baked in a tradition to commemorate Saint Lazarus’ voyage. Thereupon I fished in the purse under my cloak for a small coin and tasted one of the cakes for luck.

  Perhaps my purchase really did bring me good fortune, for shortly afterwards I fell in with a group of pilgrims making the trip northward through the Provençal hills towards Cluny. They welcomed the addition of a well-armed fighting man to their number, especially one, their leader said, whom they could tell was a hardened veteran of the great battles in the East. They hoped to hear exciting tales of the war against the infidel, but were disappointed by my reserve. Denied entertainment, they were nevertheless willing to accept the additional protection of my presence. I certainly had no wish to satisfy their curiosity and their thirst for fancy tales of the Crusade. I had seen too many horrors and too much cruelty to curry popularity by relating those terrible events. And I was too tense, too wrought up, to give blandly the easy banter and stories that they desired. I struggled instead to plan out what to tell the Abbot when I arrived back at my former home. Then I turned cold at the thought that the Abbot might be absent on one of his diplomatic missions. I knew that any delay might prove fatal for Blanche, languishing helpless in her distant prison. And perhaps Lazarus had not after all brought a copy of his book with him to Marseille; maybe it was too much to hope that it was one of the documents founding Saint Victor’s library and taken from there to a safer home further inland at Cluny. Perhaps the strange irony that had brought my journey around in a great circle was no more than a bitter joke by fate at my expense. What if my memory was playing cruel tricks? What if the papyrus that I remembered seeing inside Saint Victorinus’s Commentary was after all no twin of the one that I now wore so carefully pouched around my neck?

  How those pilgrims complained at the hard road over the hills behind Marseille, at the cold and the biting wind! To me this journey of a few days seemed a nothing; my endurance had been forged in a hotter flame out east. We reached Avignon, where the party planned to recuperate from their exertions for a while, but I disdained the idea of rest and immediately attached myself to another group travelling up the easy main road alongside the River Rhone. My former companions had become tired of my sullen silences and my monosyllabic replies to their eager questions. I could tell that they were far from sorry to see me hurry on whilst they lingered.

  As I approached the abbey through the grey-trunked beeches, I filled with memories of my first arrival with my mother a decade before. Then spring had brightened the forest, and little shoots of green had announced the renewal of life. Sun shafts had reached down to gild the thick carpet of brown leaves on the ground. Now everything was dead in the grim grasp of winter. Snow dusted the forest floor, but its whiteness did not sparkle; it merely stole the warmth from the fallen leaves and greyed them in dirty monochrome. The trees themselves seemed smaller, punier than I remembered, robbed of their splendour by the dull light and belittled in my eyes by the passage of time.

  I emerged into the clearing around the abbey itself and shivered for the monks working outside in their black habits. There, unchanged, loomed the double-doored gate through which I had passed as a boy, and the squat guardhouse crouching beside it. There above the doors was the Cluniac coat of arms – those keys crossed over the raised sword. I remembered the message it had spelt to me that first time – that here I would be locked away from the knightly life I so desired. But that sword I now proudly wielded. For a moment my spirits rose. I had conquered Cluny once before; now perhaps its keys would unlock the mystery I needed to solve. But when I entered the bare room where I had parted from my mother, I shrivelled inside. I became just a frightened little boy again. My gaze was forced to the crucifix, still there on the wall. Once I had seen an expression of pity in Jesus’ face; now all I saw was pain and blank helplessness.

  A monk entered the gatehouse to ask the travellers’ business. I recognised Brother William, a former contemporary in the novitiate. My face was well hidden beneath my hood as I asked for an audience with the Abbot. William assessed me with an arrogant sneer, taking in my worn and patched cloak, the proud red cross on its left shoulder all but erased by many soakings and its long sojourn in the bleaching sun.

  “Our noble and saintly Abbot Hugh does not make himself available to greet common travellers. He consorts with bishops and princes and talks with God.”

  I stepped closer and threw back my hood, exposing the mail cowl underneath. I watched with pleasure as the arrogance drained from the monk’s eyes to be replaced by nervous recognition.

  “Hugh de Verdon…” He crossed himself urgently.

  “Sir Hugh to you,” came my brusque interruption. “I see that you have forgotten your vow of humility. I hope for your sake that you are not quite so careless of your vow of obedience.”

  I pointedly loosened the long sword in my scabbard.

  “If I were you, I’d hurry to tell my Father Abbot that I am here, and that I beg him for an audience.”

  I chuckled at the cowed figure who scurried from the room to do my bidding. A wave of relief had washed over me to learn that the Abbot was indeed in residence, only to subside again, leaving trepidation at the confrontation ahead.

  The chastened monk soon returned and respectfully beckoned me through the gate that led into the abbey proper. Now Brother William added silence to his rediscovered vows of humility and obedience as he politely ushered me into the Abbot’s presence.

  “Hugh, my son, what pleasure it gives an old man to see you.”

  That spiritual voice, at once firm and gentle, soothed the worries I had harboured about my reception.

  “You have been in my prayers recently. But I never thought that Our Lord would show me such favour as to actually bring you here before me.”

  Now his voice shook. To my surprise, and for the first time I could remember, I saw his eyes brimming with tears. My own now also filled with reciprocal emotion. Partly to hide this weakness I went down on one knee and made to kiss the Abbot’s ring. But he would have none of it; instead he lifted me to my feet. He embraced me warmly, his head over my shoulder and mine over his, for long enough to get his emotions back under control. Then he stepped back to regard me.

  “So you are no ghost, but definitely flesh and blood. You return like the prodigal son; I should find a fatted calf to kill in your honour.”

  I immediately felt uncomfortable once more under the silent inquisition of those grey eyes, clear again, staring out full of wisdom beneath the shaggy eyebrows, which were surely whiter than before. I saw pity and regret flit across the Abbot’s face as he took in my appearance. Had I altered so much? Could he really see so much change wrought in me by time and war? Then he reassumed his normal calm expression.

  “How you have filled out and strengthened! I am sure that when you left me you were at least two fingers’ breadth shorter than me. Look at you now. You are fully a man. But I see in your face sorrows and sadnesses. Your innocence has been wounded by the weapon of war. I hope not mortally so. But I am sorry, my excitement makes me forget my manners; you have travelled far; take a goblet of wine – you will surely remember our flavoursome vintage; sit, tell me why you are here. Do you want to return to the abbey? Renew your vows? Embrace a life of prayer again?”

  At the warmth of this greeting, and this effusion of radiant love, I filled with guilt. I forced out a wan smile.

  “My Lord Abbot, you have been more than a father to me. I would have been wiser to follow your advice and stay here. But I cannot come back. I have seen to
o many things in the world outside…I have done too many things. I couldn’t now return to my previous life.”

  The Abbot sighed. “Remember the sacramental power of the confessional. Remember how Our Lord Jesus Christ took all the sins of the world upon His own shoulders. When He died on the Cross and rose again He conquered death and all that is evil. Perhaps you have come to seek absolution? Would you like me to hear your confession? It will help to restore your inner peace.”

  Instead of peace I felt horror at the thought of exposing my sins to my former Father Confessor. In my eagerness to avoid the subject I moved hastily – perhaps too hastily – to broach the purpose of my visit.

  “My Lord Abbot, let me tell you why I have come. I am on a quest. In a far off land a prisoner languishes. To secure that prisoner’s release I must find a rare and valuable book and take it back to her gaoler. Then perhaps she will be set free.”

  The Abbot’s eyebrows rose at my involuntary announcement of Blanche’s sex.

  “I believe that only two copies of that book were ever made. One of them, I think, lies in the library here. The book I seek is an ancient Greek text. It is known as the Gospel of Lazarus.”

  As I spoke these words, the Abbot raised his hand in a peremptory gesture, commanding me to stop. He no longer looked at me with warmth. A wintry cloud gathered across his brow. Sorrowfully he shook his head.

  “Hugh, Hugh, if you knew what that book contained, you would not wish to read it – nor to take it back as ransom for any prisoner. I read the book many years ago. It was sent here from our daughter foundation at Saint Victor in Marseille. I read it, yes indeed. And when I had read it I burned it…I burned it under that very chimney there,” he pointed to the fireplace in his room, “so that none might read it after me. Then I scattered its ashes.”

  My disappointment erupted in anger. “What gives you the right to read such a book and then to deny its knowledge to others? How dare you play God? Whatever was written in that book has done you no harm; why should it harm me?”