He coughed again, but this time he was not alone. Many of those present were wriggling on their benches and clearing their throats. I saw the cardinal run his tongue over his lips and make a gesture, anxious but polite, to urge William to get to the point. And William now grappled with what seemed to all, even to those who did not share them, the perhaps unpleasant conclusions of his incontrovertible reasoning. William said that his deductions seemed to him supported by the very example of Christ, who did not come into this world to command, but to be subject to the conditions he found in the world, at least as far as the laws of Caesar were concerned. He did not want the apostles to have command and dominion, and therefore it seemed a wise thing that the successors of the apostles should be relieved of any worldly or coercive power. If the pope, the bishops, and the priests were not subject to the worldly and coercive power of the prince, the authority of the prince would be challenged, and thus, with it, an order would be challenged that, as had been demonstrated previously, had been decreed by God. To be sure, some delicate cases must be considered—William said—like those of the heretics, on whose heresy only the church, custodian of the truth, can pronounce, though only the secular arm can act. When the church identifies some heretics she must surely point them out to the prince, who must rightly be informed of the conditions of his citizens. But what should the prince do with a heretic? Condemn him in the name of that divine truth of which he is not the custodian? The prince can and must condemn the heretic if his action harms the community, that is, if the heretic, in declaring his heresy, kills or impedes those who do not share it. But at that point the power of the prince ends, because no one on this earth can be forced through torture to follow the precepts of the Gospel: otherwise what would become of that free will on the exercising of which each of us will be judged in the next world? The church can and must warn the heretic that he is abandoning the community of the faithful, but she cannot judge him on earth and force him against his will. If Christ had wanted his priests to obtain coercive power, he would have laid down specific precepts as Moses did in the ancient law. He did not do it; therefore he did not wish it. Or does someone want to suggest the idea that he did wish it but lacked the time or the ability to say so in three years of preaching? But it was right that he should not wish it, because if he had wished it, then the pope would be able to impose his will on the king, and Christianity would no longer be a law of freedom, but one of intolerable slavery.
All this, William added with a cheerful expression, is no limitation of the powers of the supreme Pontiff, but, rather, an exaltation of his mission: because the servant of the servants of God is on this earth to serve and not to be served. And, finally, it would be odd, to say the least, if the Pope had jurisdiction over the things of the Roman Empire’ but not over the other kingdoms of the earth. As everyone knows, what the Pope says on divine questions is as valid for the subjects of the King of France as it is for those of the King of England, but it must be valid also for the subjects of the Great Khan or the Sultan of the infidels, who are called infidels precisely because they are not faithful to this beautiful truth. And so if the Pope were to assume he had temporal jurisdiction—as pope—only over the affairs of the empire, that might justify the suspicion that, identifying temporal jurisdiction with the spiritual, by that same token he would have no spiritual jurisdiction over not only the Saracens or the Tartars, but also over the French and the English—which would be a criminal blasphemy. And this was the reason, my master concluded, why it seemed right to him to suggest that the church of Avignon was injuring all mankind by asserting the right to approve or suspend him who had been elected emperor of the Romans. The Pope does not have greater rights over the empire than over other kingdoms, and since neither the King of France nor the Sultan is subject to the Pope’s approval, there seems to be no good reason why the Emperor of the Germans and Italians should be subject to it. Such subjection is not a matter of divine right, because Scripture does not speak of it. Nor is it sanctioned by the rights of peoples, for the reasons already expounded. As for the connection with the dispute about poverty, William added, his own humble opinions, developed in the form of conversational suggestions by him and by some others such as Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, led to the following conclusions: if the Franciscans wanted to remain poor, the Pope could not and should not oppose such a virtuous wish. To be sure, if the hypothesis of Christ’s poverty were to be proved, this would not only help the Minorites but also strengthen the idea that Jesus had not wished any earthly jurisdiction. But that morning he, William, had heard very wise people assert that it could not be proved that Christ had been poor. Whence it seemed to him more fitting to reverse the demonstration. Since nobody had asserted, or could assert, that Jesus had sought any earthly jurisdiction for himself or for his disciples, this detachment of Jesus from temporal things seemed sufficient evidence to suggest the belief, without sinning, that Jesus, on the contrary, preferred poverty.
William had spoken in such a meek tone, he had expressed his certainties in such a hesitant way, that none of those present was able to stand up, and rebut. This does not mean that all were convinced of what he had said. The Avignonese were now writhing, frowning, and muttering comments among themselves, and even the abbot seemed unfavorably impressed by those words, as if he were thinking this was not the relationship he had desired between his order and the empire. And as for the Minorites, Michael of Cesena was puzzled, Jerome aghast, Ubertino pensive.
The silence was broken by Cardinal del Poggetto, still smiling and relaxed as he politely asked William whether he would go to Avignon to say these same thins to the lord Pope. William asked the opinion of the cardinal, who said that the Pope had heard many debatable opinions uttered during his life and was a most loving father toward all his sons, but surely these propositions would grieve him very much.
Bernard Gui, who until then had not opened his mouth, now spoke up: “I would be very happy if Brother William, so skilled and eloquent in expounding his own ideas, were to submit them to the judgment of the Pontiff. ...”
“You have convinced me, my lord Bernard,” William said. “I will not come.” Then, addressing the cardinal, in an apologetic tone: “You know, this fluxion that is affecting my chest dissuades me from undertaking such a long journey in this season. ...”
“Then why did you speak at such length?” the cardinal asked.
“To bear witness to the truth,” William said humbly. “The truth shall make us free.”
“Ah, no!” Jean de Baune exploded at this point. “Here we are not talking about the truth that makes us free, but about excessive freedom that wants to set itself up as truth!”
“That is also possible,” William admitted sweetly.
My intuition suddenly warned me that another tempest of hearts and tongues was about to burst, far more furious than, the earlier one. But nothing happened. While de Baune was still speaking, the captain of the archers entered and went to whisper something into Bernard’s ear. Bernard rose abruptly and held up his hand to speak.
“Brothers,” he said, “it is possible this profitable discussion may be resumed, but for the moment an event of tremendous gravity obliges us to suspend our session, with the abbot’s permission. Something has happened there. ...” He pointed vaguely outside, then strode through the hall and went out. Many followed him, William among the first, and I with him.
My master looked at me and said, “I fear something has happened to Severinus.”
SEXT
In which Severinus is found murdered but the book that he had found is to be found no longer.
We crossed the grounds with a rapid step, in anguish. The captain of the archers led us toward the infirmary, and as we arrived there we glimpsed in the thick grayness a stirring of shadows: monks and servants were rushing about, archers were standing outside the door to prevent access.
“Those guards were sent by me, to seek a man who could shed light on many mysteries,” Bernard s
aid.
“The brother herbalist?” the abbot asked, dumbfounded.
“No. You will see now,” Bernard said, making his way inside.
We entered Severinus’s laboratory, and here a painful sight greeted our eyes. The unfortunate herbalist lay, a corpse, in a pool of blood, his head bashed in. On every side the shelves seemed to have been devastated by a storm: pots, bottles, books, documents lay all around in great disorder, ruined. Beside the body was an armillary sphere at least twice the size of a man’s head, of finely worked metal, surmounted by a gold cross, and set on a short, decorated tripod. On other occasions I had noticed it on the table to the left of the front door.
At the other end of the room two archers were holding the cellarer fast, though he wriggled and proclaimed his innocence, increasing his noise when he saw the abbot enter. “My lord!” he cried out. “Appearances are against me! Severinus was already dead when I came in, and they found me staring at this massacre, speechless!”
The archers’ captain went over to Bernard, and with his permission made a report, in front of everyone. The archers had been ordered to find the cellarer and arrest him, and for over two hours they had searched for him throughout the abbey. This, I thought, must have been the command Bernard had given before entering the hall; and the soldiers, foreigners in this place, had probably pursued their search in the wrong places, without realizing that the cellarer, unaware of his fate, was with the others in the narthex; the fog had also made their hunt more difficult. In any case, from the captain’s words it emerged that Remigio, after I left him, went toward the kitchen, where someone saw him and informed the archers, who reached the Aedificium after Remigio had left it again, missing them only by a moment. In the kitchen was Jorge, who declared he had just finished speaking with the cellarer. The archers then explored the grounds in the direction of the gardens, and there, emerging from the mist like a ghost, they found old Alinardo, who seemed lost. It was Alinardo who said he had seen the cellarer, a short while before, going into the infirmary. The archers went there and found the door open. Once inside, they discovered Severinus lifeless and the cellarer furiously rummaging over the shelves, flinging everything on the floor, as if he were hunting for something. It was easy to see what had happened, the captain concluded. Remigio had entered, had attacked the herbalist and killed him, and then was seeking the thing for which he had killed.
An archer picked the armillary sphere up from the floor and handed it to Bernard. The elegant architecture of brass and silver circles, held together by a stronger frame of bronze rings grasped by the stem of the tripod, had been brought down heavily on the victim’s skull, and at the impact many of the finer circles had shattered or bent to one side. This side was the one brought down on Severinus’s head, as was revealed by traces of blood and even tufts of hair and horrible gobbets of cerebral matter.
William bent over Severinus to verify his death. The poor man’s eyes, veiled by the streams of blood from his head, were fixed, and I wondered if it were ever possible to read in the stiffened pupil, as it has been said in some cases, the image of the murderer, the last vestige of the victim’s perception. I saw that William sought the dead man’s hands, to see if he had black stains on his fingers, even though, this time, the cause of death was obviously quite different: but Severinus was wearing the same leather gloves with which I had occasionally seen him handling dangerous herbs, lizards, and unfamiliar insects.
Meanwhile, Bernard Gui was addressing the cellarer: “Remigio of Varagine—that is your name, is it not? I had sent my men after you on the basis of other accusations and to confirm other suspicions. Now I see that I acted properly, although, to my regret, too slowly. My lord,” he said to the abbot, “I hold myself virtually responsible for this last crime, because I have known since this morning that this man should be taken into custody, after I heard the revelations of that other wretch, arrested last night. But as you saw for yourself, during the morning I was occupied with other duties, and my men did their best. ...”
He spoke in a loud voice so that all those present could hear (and the room had meanwhile filled up, people crowding into every corner, looking at the things scattered and destroyed, pointing to the corpse and commenting in low voices on the crime), and, as he spoke, I glimpsed Malachi in the little crowd, grimly observing the scene. The cellarer, about to be dragged away, also glimpsed him. He wrested himself from the archer’s grasp and flung himself on his brother, grabbing him by the habit and speaking to him briefly and desperately, his face close to the other man’s, until the archers seized him again. But, as he was being led off roughly, he turned again toward Malachi and shouted at him, “You swear, and I swear!”
Malachi did not answer at once, as if he were seeking the most suitable words. Then, as the cellarer was being pulled across the threshold, he said, “I will do nothing to harm you.”
William and I looked at each other, wondering what was the meaning of this scene. Bernard had also observed it, but did not appear upset by it; rather, he smiled at Malachi, as if to approve his words and to seal with him a sinister bargain. Then he announced that immediately after our meal a first court would meet in the chapter hall to open this investigation publicly. And he went out, ordering the cellarer to be taken to the forges, but not allowed to speak with Salvatore.
At that moment we heard Benno calling us, at our back. “I came in right after you,” he said in a whisper, “when the room was still half empty, and Malachi was not here.”
“He must have entered afterward,” William said.
“No,” Benno insisted, “I was near the door, I saw the people come in. I tell you, Malachi was already inside ... before.”
“Before what?”
“Before the cellarer entered. I cannot swear it, but I believe he came from behind that curtain, when there were already many of us in here.” And he nodded toward an ample hanging that concealed the bed where Severinus had usually made anyone who had been given some medication lie down and rest.
“Are you insinuating he killed Severinus and hid there when the cellarer came in?” William asked.
“Or else from behind the curtain he witnessed what happened out here. Why, otherwise, would the cellarer have implored him not to harm him, promising in return not to do him harm, either?”
“That is possible,” William said. “In any case, there was a book here and it should still be here, because both the cellarer and Malachi went out empty-handed.” William knew from my report that Benno knew; and at that moment he needed help. He went over to the abbot, who was sadly observing Severinus’s corpse; William asked him to make everyone leave, because he wanted to examine the place more closely. The abbot consented and then left, not without giving William a skeptical look, as if reproaching him for always arriving too late. Malachi tried to remain, inventing various reasons, all quite vague; William pointed out that this was not the library, and that here Malachi could claim no rights. William was polite but inflexible, and he got his revenge for the time when Malachi had not allowed him to examine Venantius’s desk.
When only three of us were left, William cleared the rubble and papers away from one of the tables and told me to hand him, one after another, the books in Severinus’s collection. A small collection, compared with the immense one of the labyrinth, but still there were dozens and dozens of volumes, of various sizes, which had formerly stood neatly on the shelves and now lay in disorder on the ground among other objects, already disturbed by the cellarer’s frantic hands, some even torn, as if he were seeking not a book but something that could be placed between the pages of a book. Some had been ripped violently, separated from their binding. To collect them, rapidly ascertain their subject, and pile them up on the table was no easy undertaking; and everything had to be done in haste, because the abbot had given us little time: the monks had to come in and lay out Severinus’s battered body and prepare it for burial. We also had to move about, search under the tables, behind the shelves, in the cupboards
, to see whether anything had escaped the first inspection. William would not let Benno help me and allowed him only to stand guard at the door. Despite the abbot’s orders, many were pressing to enter: servants terrified by the news, monks mourning their brother, novices carrying clean cloths and basins of water to wash and enshroud the corpse. ...
So we had to act fast. I grabbed the books and handed them to William, who examined them and set them on the table. Then we realized it was a long job, and we proceeded together: I would pick up a book, smooth it out if it was ruffled, read its title, and set it down. In many cases there were only scattered pages.
“De plantis libri tres. Damnation, that’s not it,” William said, slamming the book on the table.
“Thesaurus herbarum,” I said, and William snapped, “Drop it; we’re looking for a Greek book!”
“This?” I asked, showing him a work whose pages were covered with abstruse letters. And William said, “No, that’s Arabic, idiot! Bacon was right: the scholar’s first duty is to learn languages!”
“But you don’t know Arabic, either!” I replied, irked, to which William answered, “At least I understand when it is Arabic!” And I blushed, because I could hear Benno snickering behind my back.
There were many books, and even more notes, scrolls with drawings of the heavenly vault, catalogues of strange plants, written on scattered pages, probably by the dead man. We worked a long time, exploring every corner of the laboratory. William, with great coldness, even shifted the corpse to see whether there was anything beneath it, and he rummaged inside the habit. Nothing.
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