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The Jerusalem Parchment

Page 38

by Tuvia Fogel


  Yehezkel thought Pelagius displayed the spite of men who never grew to be as tall as their childhood friends.

  The cardinal wasn’t finished with him. “Oh, and one more thing: the fact that you’re to be Brother Francesco’s interpreter doesn’t relieve you of your duties to the wounded. You will both leave only when every one of them has been tended to. You, Francesco, will take just one of your friars, and you, Master Ezekiel, your page.”

  He dismissed them, face suddenly sad. “You may go now; I have a hundred funerals to officiate.”

  A few days later, al-Kamil, thinking the Christians’ losses would make them see reason, and keener than ever to rid Egypt of the Frankish invaders, sent messengers renewing his offer of March, sweetening the deal by offering to return the prisoners he’d just captured. Again, King John and the orders—except the Temple—urged Pelagius to accept, and again the cardinal refused.

  Francesco had to choose which of his brothers would accompany him to face likely martyrdom, but his problem paled in comparison to Yehezkel who had to deal with Mother Galatea’s obstinacy in the face of hard realities. The abbess immediately started looking for a way to circumvent the cardinal’s limit on the size of the mission. Pelagius would never allow the abbess of a convent, especially a noblewoman, to join the suicidal enterprise. There was nothing for it; she would have to go in disguise.

  Huddling with Dorina, a muscular Venetian whore who’d become her closest confidante in the camp, she came up with a credible plan. Yehezkel would ask the cardinal to allow a fifth man to join the expedition, an armed squire to defend them from stray Bedouin who might attack on their way to the Saracen camp—and that squire would be Galatea, dressed as a man.

  Yehezkel considered the risks involved, secretly proud of her initiative and courage. When he smiled an agreement, Galatea marched off to the brothel tent to ask Dorina to cut her hair and hide her breasts under tightly wrapped linens. Noticing his admiring smile, she jested, “It’s easier to leave than to be left behind, Rabbi.”

  A week passed between the day Pelagius summoned them and their departure from camp.

  Near the end of their time in Damietta, when all that could be done for the wounded had been attempted, a young Templar squire approached Yehezkel and told him that Pedro de Montaigue, master of the Order of the Temple, wished to speak with him.

  Yehezkel had completely forgotten about Don Sancio’s letter to the new master. On arriving, he’d thought he would ask for an audience to deliver it, but then a thousand things pushed it out of his mind. He followed the squire to the Templar encampment. The master’s tent was large but spartan.

  Pedro de Montaigue was a Spaniard, as big as Yehezkel, who also wore a black beard, but his head was shaved, like the more rigorous Templars. He’d been elected master exactly a year before, on the death of his friend Guillaume de Chartres, but had been in Provence at the time and only joined the siege in January, leading—and surviving—all the Templars’ engagements since.

  But this time the order’s losses had been dramatic. Not since the siege of Acre had so many Templars fallen in one battle. The weight of the blow on Pedro’s morale was evident on his face. He told the page to leave and once they were alone directed Yehezkel to a low divan in a corner of the tent.

  “We both have little time to waste, Master Ezekiel, so I’ll come straight to the point. I was fortunate enough to learn from the cardinal of his deal with you, and that you claim to have credible sources in the sultan’s camp. Well, you see, I have such a source, too, so I thought the two of us should speak, to avoid damaging each other’s . . . operation.”

  Yehezkel was taken aback by Pedro’s outspokenness, especially as he had also decided to play all his cards at this meeting. He wouldn’t get another chance to speak with the person most likely to know the identity of the Old Man, so on the way there he’d decided to mention the Parchment of Circles and watch Pedro’s reaction. Now the master, by asking for the name of his contact in al-Kamil’s court, was turning the tables. Yehezkel thought furiously and then said, feigning confidence, “I’ll tell you the name of my old friend who is close to the sultan, but only after you tell me what the Parchment of Circles leads to, and if the Old Man has found it.”

  Pedro stared, and then his big shoulders dropped and he looked as if he’d just conceded a joust. “Guillaume knew about theology, heresies, secrets,” he mumbled. “I was always just a fighting man. I’m going to trust you for two reasons: first, I know you’re a friend of Arnald Arifat, who brought the Parchment to Syria ten years ago.”

  Pedro sighed deeply and then stood up and started pacing in front of the rabbi. “And second . . . I can no longer bear the pressure from Domingo of Guzman to hand over the Old Man and whatever he found! You know of the parchment, and there’s no way you could be Domingo’s man, so I think I’ll benefit from your advice on this whole mess, because what to do with the Old Man and his search has become a curse for me!”

  Yehezkel thought, “If the Templars have really been blackmailing the popes for almost a century, then the current master is nothing if not a master of dissimulation!”

  He caressed his beard, considering how to react to Pedro’s apparent frankness, and then said, “I agree that in Domingo we have a common enemy, Master Pedro. I’ll be as open with you on what we know of the parchment, and as discreet with everyone else, as you will be with me.” After a pause, he added, “But first, please, tell me what you know of the mysterious Old Man.”

  Pedro sat down again, relieved by his newfound alliance with a clearly informed Jewish player. “Even I don’t know who he was before faking his death and moving to Jerusalem. Guillaume and I were friends from the old days, before going to Acre, but I was never as interested in mystics and heretics as he was. Anyway, Guillaume met the Old Man some twelve years ago when he’d just arrived and was moving around Jerusalem, asking everyone about maps of the Holy City. He had officially been dead for two years, and his greatest fear was bumping into someone who knew him.”

  Pedro paused. “I think Guillaume knew who the Old Man is . . . but he never told me.”

  A knight poked his head into the tent and asked the master if he was ready for the funeral. Pedro looked down and told the page to say he was unwell and would join them later. He resumed his tale. “When we entered the order, Guillaume was already a disciple of the Old Man’s personal heresy and helped him become a chaplain, first in isolated outposts and then in central positions. Ten years ago, the Old Man became powerful enough to arrange Guillaume’s election as the next master.”

  Pedro hesitated, careful not to reveal any secrets of the order to the rabbi, but then went on. “As you already seem to know, the Parchment of Circles is in fact a map. Arnald brought it to the Old Man during Innocent’s war on the Cathars, but the Old Man says the relic is not the real thing. I cannot tell you what the real map leads to, but it is something . . . of great importance to our order. Unfortunately, the pope ordered Domingo to find the map before we do. I recently learned that ‘God’s Dog’ even had the gall to infiltrate one of his men in my order!”

  Everything the master said tallied perfectly with what they’d learned from Sancio. Yehezkel wanted to somehow reward Pedro for his forthrightness. “Some rabbis in France and Portugal heard of a secret cabal inside the order of the Temple, a group . . . opposed to Christianity,” he murmured.

  “That was him again!” cried Pedro. “Once Guillaume was master, he gathered a dozen brothers with Manichean leanings—you know, the sort who go to Jerusalem dressed as pilgrims to meet with heretics and plan a theological orgy of all religions! That was when Domingo was unleashed on us and sent monks to find out who Guillaume was meeting with in Acre. Oh, but I put an end to that! First thing I did on becoming master was to disband his Baphomet rubbish and expel all the knights involved!”

  Pedro was quiet for a moment, clearly fearing he’d said too much.

  “I will try to meet him,” said Yehezkel. “Don Sancio said h
e’s the chaplain of Château Pèlerin now. But tell me,” asked Yehezkel on a whim, “how old do you think the Old Man actually is?”

  “Oh, he looks a hundred and twenty, but I believe he ‘died’ at around eighty and must be ninety-four or ninety-five.”

  “I presume you know why the Old Man says the Cathar Parchment is not the real thing.”

  “Because it is in Greek. He says the real thing is in Hebrew.”

  “I must meet the Old Man,” whispered Yehezkel intently. “And in any case, whatever it is they’re both after, I hope he finds it before Domingo!”

  “Is your advice to keep protecting him from the pope himself?”

  Many have said that the three most powerful men in Christendom in those days were the emperor, the pope, and the master of the Temple. Yehezkel savored his momentary influence over one of them. “Master, you said that what the map leads to is ‘of great importance to the order.’ Well, if the map is in Hebrew, something tells me that were I to join the Old Man’s quest things could start to move. I’m sure you would only have to hold off Honorius for a few months.”

  Pedro winked. “Now you can tell me, Rabbi. Who is your old friend in al-Kamil’s court?”

  “Fakhr ad-Din al Fârisî,” said Yehezkel, naming the sultan’s personal adviser and spiritual guide.

  Pedro whistled softly. “Your source is more highly placed than mine,” he said, and stood up. “I am pleased with our conversation, and will follow your advice concerning the Old Man.”

  Pedro offered Yehezkel his wrist. “Brother Rupert here will give you a laissez-passer with my seal on it. It could come in useful when you’re in Syria.”

  Yehezkel bowed deeply to the bearded man with the big red cross on his chest and left the tent.

  The next day Yehezkel related to Galatea what Pedro had revealed about the Old Man. She was as surprised as he’d been that the master should refer to what the map led to as ‘something of great importance to our order.’ After all, if the confession existed, it would lay waste to Christianity.

  “The focus of my prayers and meditations has been Brother Francesco piccolo’s mission, Rabbi,” she said, “but what you tell me reminds me that we’re here because of the enigma in Jerusalem, much as I find it hard to believe that the holy friar has no role in that quest.”

  “If he comes back alive from his mission,” said Yehezkel, “he may decide to complete his pilgrimage. Then we might meet him again, perhaps in Jerusalem. So there may yet be a role for him.”

  “Tell me, after we find the letter in Fustat, how do you plan to go to Jerusalem?”

  “The simplest way is to join a Bedouin caravan. They take money from passengers, just like ships.”

  “So they should. After all, camels are known as ships of the desert, are they not?” she quipped.

  Yehezkel laughed. “Remember Spiro? Well, the Talmud says ‘All camel drivers are wicked, all sailors are righteous,’ so we can expect the Bedouin to make Spiridione look like a God-fearing man!” They shared the fearless laugh of people who feel the touch of the Lord’s hand on their heads.

  Galatea, in artful disguise, was a credible squire. Her shoulders were wide for a woman, and her chest nowhere near as buxom as Gudrun’s. The problem, of course, was her eyes. Anyone seeing them, a Christian in one camp or a Saracen in the other, would instantly know that squire was a woman. So she practiced being a melancholy squire, head low and eyes on the ground, to the great amusement of Yehezkel and Aillil, who knew how much this nun was used to holding her head high. Yehezkel told Aillil he must treat her as a man of his own, lowly rank at all times, but Aillil found that hard to do.

  One day, as she tested her disguise by doing squirish things around camp, Yehezkel, looking from a distance, caught himself wondering what his life would have been like if instead of sweet, silent Naomi, he’d married a woman as unpredictable, rebellious, and proud as this nun.

  Francesco, to no one’s surprise, chose Brother Illuminato to sustain him in the sultan’s tent. In his month at camp, the friar had won some souls to his mendicant order. As was often the case in Italy, they were well-off, educated men—in fact, two of them were young clerics in the bishop of Acre’s retinue. Jacques didn’t like it one bit. When taking his leave from Francesco in his tent, he blessed him, embraced him, and kissed him but then said, with unexpected harshness, “Francino, are you at all aware of the unhappiness you bring to the families from which you wrench your followers, who so often abandon parents, wives, and children to marry Lady Poverty like you? And do me a favor, don’t bring out the ‘This is my family’ Gospel.”

  Francesco looked pained, but his answer was ready, “When I was in my father’s house in Assisi, there was a medicus who cured everyone for love of God, without asking any money. What I saw was that people trusted and respected him less than the ones who leeched them of both blood and money. The unhappiness they cause to fathers and wives is the price these sick souls pay when they come after me to be healed. And they heal, Jacques, because they believe in the most expensive medicus they found.”

  Rattled as he was by the loss of two of his brightest students, Jacques couldn’t help smiling.

  The departure was postponed by a day because of Ugo’s sudden plea to Yehezkel to help extract two arrowheads from the shoulders of an Italian knight, a nobleman from Lucca close to his family. This gave Aillil time to say goodbye to Iňigo.

  The Spanish knight was recovering fast and grabbed the boy by the shoulders. “Good luck, Aillil! When you become a knight, as I’ve no doubt you will one day, just remember this: the difficult thing is not to kill a mamluk, it’s to convince him that he’s dead!”

  They both laughed hard, like the old friends they had become.

  At dawn the next day, the 12th of September, the small band set out, accompanied for a few hundred yards by a crowd of well-wishers. They all knew of Francesco’s plan and were divided in their opinion of how it would play out. Some were sure that with God on his side the friar would prove to the sultan that only Christ could save his soul. Others, though aware of being men of little faith, thought instead that they would never again see any of the five men leaving the camp.

  The squire who was supposed to protect friars, rabbi, and page should anything happen in those five leagues walked a few steps in front of them, eyes on the ground, dressed in light chain mail, an expensive sword hanging at his side. Yehezkel quickened his pace, flanked him, and whispered, “Madame, your demeanor is so manly that if I were a Bedu scouring these dunes, I would probably leave this little group well alone.”

  Galatea smiled. “Rabbi, do you know why Ugo de’ Borgognoni asked for your assistance yesterday?”

  Yehezkel looked at her, puzzled. “No, why?”

  “Well, last time,” she said, “on the galley sailing from Limassol, you told me you’d added up the days we had stayed on the two islands. Well, this time I did the arithmetics and guess what? We spent forty days outside Damietta, but only because we left today. Yesterday it would have been thirty-nine days!”

  Yehezkel whistled his surprise and admiration. “My student makes me really proud, madame!”

  For just one moment, the squire stopped looking at the ground, and his dangerous, forbidden eyes swept the delta of the Nile as if he owned it.

  BOLOGNA, 12TH SEPTEMBER 1219

  As the five figures left camp walking south, a monk with an exaggeratedly wide tonsure sat at his scriptorium in the preachers’ house in Bologna, poring over a parchment. With Domingo was Reginald of Orléans, his most trusted brother and the only one who knew of the Parchment of Circles.

  “Here it is, Reginald, listen!” said the Spanish monk as he started reading from the most ancient one of the dozen parchments on his desk. “‘In the year 809 from the Incarnation of our Savior, I, Timothy, Metropolitan Bishop of Seleucia, came to know from the Jews of Jerusalem that ten years ago, in a cave near Jericho, a collection of jars was discovered containing hundreds of Hebrew parchments bearing Old
Testament and other sacred writings, including two hundred unknown psalms by King David and two apocryphal Gospels.’ Gospels in Hebrew! Do you grasp the import of this, Reginald?”

  He was corroded by illness, but his indomitable spirit egged him on, and the search for the map gave him the strength to ignore fever attacks.

  “Timothy says the Parchment of Circles was among those found in Jericho. He says it mentions ‘the Heart of the Messiah’ in Hebrew, specifying where it is buried!”

  He put down the folio and frantically searched for the other one to show his partner the connection he’d made. He rummaged for a while, sweat dripping from his forehead. “By the Holy Womb of the Virgin, here it is! This is a letter on the Bogomil heretics that a Greek monk called Euthymius Zigabenus wrote to Pope Paschal more than a hundred years ago.”

  Reginald couldn’t help thinking that there was no longer a single document in the whole papal archive that Domingo couldn’t lay his hands on, if he so wished.

  “Come and read this. Euthymius says that the Bogomils received the Parchment of Circles, which is now in Cathar hands, from the Paulicians—and that it is in Greek!”

  Domingo raised his hand to underline what emerged from collating the two documents. Reginald saw his arm tremble as it went up and rushed to his side, but the founder waved him away.

  “Do you understand, Reginald? The parchment I chased for ten years is in Greek; therefore, it is not the original! Someone in Jerusalem, four hundred years ago, made a Greek copy of it!” With age, the blue of Domingo’s eyes had, if anything, become deeper, and now they were glowing.

  Just then, a novice knocked and introduced an emissary from Pope Honorius. A Cistercian monk walked in, greeted the founder, and blurted out, “The Holy Father just had to move to Viterbo with the whole court, again! Rome is once more in the hands of the friends of the Antichrist, Emperor Frederick!!”

  CHAPTER 21

  HA-TENINIM HA-G’DOLIM

 

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