The Black Chalice

by Marie Jakober

  “And what is this relic?” Mainz asked.

  “He called it a truthstone. He said it was made of tears — the tears of the Virgin, and of John the Apostle, and of the angels — all the tears which were shed when Christ was slain, which turned into crystal and formed this miraculous stone. And because Christ by his dying gave his truth to the world, so will these tears speak truth to those who serve him.”

  “It is amazing,” said Franconia, “the way relics turn up when men really need them.”

  Some told me he spoke mockingly, and others said his words were reverent. But he was always Konrad’s man, so I don’t think he was pleased with the direction of Gottfried’s argument.

  “What precisely are you trying to say, my lord duke?” the papal legate asked. “Did you bring this… object… back with you? And are you telling us it speaks?”

  “It does not speak in words, my lord; it gives forth images—”

  “By God’s power?” Mainz demanded. “Or by sorcery?”

  “That’s what I asked myself,” Gottfried said. “And so I gave it to the archbishop of Stavoren, so he could examine it.”

  At this point everyone looked at the archbishop, who sat among Gottfried’s delegates.

  “I also had grave doubts about the stone, my lords,” the archbishop said. “And I told his lordship so. I kept it for more than a week. I tried many tests of its virtue, even to placing it on the altar beside a consecrated host. Finally, I gave it into the hands of our duchy’s most revered exorcist, Father Mathias of Dorn, of whom you have all heard. He assured me there was nothing sorcerous in it— quite the opposite. It is a very holy thing, he said.”

  “And this stone is what revealed to you the treachery of the count of Lys, Duke Gottfried?” Mainz asked.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  At this point, I have been told, the assembly fell into a brief and troubled silence. I am sure the same questions raced through the mind of every man there: Is the thing a true relic, and trustworthy? And if it is, what else can it tell us? Can it tell us who murdered our king?

  “Where is the relic now?” asked the duke of Bavaria.

  “I have brought it with me,” Gottfried said. “For if ever God’s guidance was needed in this land, it is now.”

  “I find it strange, my lords,” offered the duke of Thuringia, “very strange, in fact, that this thing could have existed for centuries, and no one in Christendom ever heard of it. The cross was always known to us, and the shroud, and the lance— even the Holy Grail, though no one can say where it is, or prove he’s ever seen it. Still we’ve heard of it. But this crystal of tears was tucked away right in the Holy City itself, all these years, and remained a secret? I find this hard to believe.”

  “It’s God’s privilege to hide or reveal things as he chooses,” Mainz said. “That doesn’t trouble me at all. What troubles me is how we can discover if it’s genuine.”

  “Surely we’ve done so already!” the archbishop of Stavoren insisted.

  “To your satisfaction, excellency,” replied Mainz. “Not to mine. Nor, I think, to the satisfaction of this assembly. Will you show us the stone, my lord duke?”

  And so Gottfried took out the crystal pyramid, and everyone marveled at its beauty. But they were very uneasy— not least because of all the talk of sorcery. How could they be sure the stone wasn’t evil? Perhaps the prelate of Stavoren had been misled. He was old, after all, and he was known to be terribly devoted to his duke.

  “My lords, in God’s name!” Prince Konrad was on his feet. “This is precisely what we were warned about— that this man would use some sorcerous trick to get his hands on my father’s crown! Can’t you see where he’s leading us? He’ll twist the assembly any way he chooses with this cursed thing!”

  “Enough, my lords, I beg you. Enough.” The archbishop of Mainz got slowly to his feet. It was late, he said, and tempers were frayed to breaking. The meeting was adjourned. The pyramid, he said, would be carried to the cathedral, and kept there under guard. The bishops themselves, and other priests, and several holy monks from the abbey, would all remain to pray over it.

  So it was done. Many believed the stone would shatter into fragments the moment it was taken inside the church, or that it would simply melt into smoke and blow away. But instead it seemed to brighten and grow even more beautiful. They sprinkled it with holy water, and laid a crucifix across it, and then a locket with a bone of Saint Martin of Tours. They called upon all the evil spirits whose names and kinds were known within the world, and commanded them to leave if they were present. The crystal remained serene and shimmering. As the night passed a kind of awe began to fill the watchers: if they could find no evil in the stone, in such an hour as this, with so much need and with so many prayers, then surely no evil could be there.

  And although every member of the assembly had been sworn to keep the matter quiet, long before dawn crowds were gathering outside the cathedral, and hundreds of soldiers had to be called out to contain them. Cripples came, and blind men, and women with dying children, all of them begging to see the relic, or to be allowed to touch it. No one ever learned how the word got out, and many saw it as a miracle. There was a sacred presence in the stone, they said, a presence so powerful that people could discover it without needing to be told.

  In the morning, the archbishop offered Mass with the truthstone shimmering on the altar. After the consecration, with great reverence and great fear he touched the Sacred Host against the stone.

  And both glowed with a golden, mesmerizing light.

  I wish I had been there. It was one of those moments, so rare in our vile and sinful history, when God reached into the mortal world and acknowledged us. From that moment on, there should have been no doubt about the authenticity of the stone. But of course, some men will always doubt. And others, to serve their interests in the world, will always pretend to do so.

  The stone was carried back to the council room. And here all the tellers of the tale agree: several minutes passed before anyone would speak. It was awe, perhaps, but I think it must also have been fear. For they all had their secret sins, their secret ambitions. And most of them — as history would soon bear out — did not love truth or Christendom nearly as well as they loved their places in the world.

  It was Mainz who finally led the prayers, and called upon God through his sacred relic:

  “Tell us, if it be thy will, oh Lord, by whose hand our king, your beloved servant, died.”

  And the surface of the stone muddied, and took on a hint of color. Men gasped and stared, some rising to their feet, most crossing themselves; no one could have looked elsewhere to save his life. They argue to this day about what they saw— about the colors of the room, and whether the king was dressed or in his bedclothes, and whether the assassin smiled. But on this they are compelled to agree: Ehrenfried was alone with his son. And Konrad gave him a cup of wine, and while he raised it to his lips, the prince slipped like a footpad behind him, and drove a blade three times into his back.

  “Cursed lying sorcerer!”

  Konrad leapt to his feet, a dagger in his in hand, shouting curses and denials and accusations all together, shoving savagely at the men who tried to restrain him. He would have tried to hack the stone to pieces with his blade, if he had been allowed to reach it.

  Chaos erupted in earnest then— fury because Konrad had secretly retained a weapon, cries of sorcery answered with cries of treason and patricide, and the young prince vainly shouting challenges to men who could no longer hear him for the clamor.

  “You’ll fight me, von Heyden! By God and all his angels, you’ll answer for this in the field!”

  “Seize him!” commanded a voice. Whose voice it was no one could afterwards say. “Seize the murderer! Put him in irons!”

  “Not just yet, by God!” roared the duke of Thuringia, flinging men away in both directions and leaping across the table to take his place by the prince’s side.

  Thus the assembly collapse
d, as the empire would do within days. Men rallied to one side, or the other, or to none, as it pleased their affections or their hopes for gain. Some were ready to fetch their swords, but others kept their heads and restrained them. Then the great doors of the assembly hall swung wide, and everyone turned, expecting the bishop’s guard. But it was Konrad’s men who marched in, in full armor and bearing drawn crossbows.

  And that, finally, reduced the electors to silence again. Aye, and according to some accounts, to a certain degree of pallor.

  “My lord prince,” Mainz said harshly. “This is an unforgivable outrage—!”

  “Enough!” Konrad struck the table with his fist. “I’ve listened to the lot of you babbling long enough! You’re so blind with this sorcerer’s tricks you can’t recognize an outrage when you see one!

  “My father was warned about Gottfried von Heyden. He failed to heed the warning, and now he is dead.”

  His bitter eyes turned then to the Reinmark duke. “You expected a lot, villain, if you expected me to wait like a lamb for the second axe to fall. I will not let you slaughter me, nor will I let you take the crown of Germany, no matter what’s decided in this room. You accuse me of killing my father—”

  “It is not I who accuses—”

  Three crossbows raised and leveled at the duke’s chest, and his voice fell away.

  “Thank you, my lord sorcerer; you will wait until I’m finished. Now, as I said, you accuse me of killing my father. And I swear to you, to all of this assembly, as God is my witness and my judge, I’m innocent of his death. And I’ll defend my oath in the field. Will you stand behind your slander with your body, von Heyden?”

  Gottfried, they say, met the prince’s eye unflinching.

  “I’m guilty of no slander. It is the stone of truth which accuses you, not me.”

  “Stop playing games, damn you! The stone is yours! You’re the one who brought it here, and you’re the one it serves!”

  “My lord prince,” said Mainz, “for your soul’s sake, my lord, beware of blasphemy. It is a sacred relic—”

  “Relic be damned! It’s a piece of trickery and nothing else. Let me remind you of something, my lords. There is one person in this room who knows, without the smallest trace of doubt, whether or not I killed my father. I think there’s more than one, but there is one for certain, and that one is me. So I know that damnable stone is lying— do you understand me, my lords? I know! It’s no relic, and you can’t threaten me with it. Now, by God, von Heyden, will you fight me or will you not?”

  “We’re a civilized and Christian nation,” the archbishop said. “We don’t judge men’s guilt or innocence in duels— much less their right to govern us. This is not a matter for personal combat.”

  “Then it will be a matter for war!”

  And the prince, they say, lifted the dagger he was holding, and drove it into the council table with such force that no one afterwards could pull it out. Which is a hard thing to believe, but that is what they say.

  “I will fight this Reinmark traitor!” he said savagely. “And if I must, I’ll fight you all! You speak of blasphemy, archbishop— beware of it yourself! Do you think God will allow the future of Christendom to be decided by a sorcerer? Do you really?”

  At a signal his squire fetched him his cloak and his sword. He put them on, and spoke again.

  “Decide as you please, my lords. But mark me: while I live, I am king. Lord Gottfried’s stone makes clever pictures; we’ll see if it’s as clever at turning back an army.”

  “Do you threaten this assembly, highness?” the papal legate demanded. “Do you dare?”

  “Call it a threat, call it a fact. I’ll fight for what’s mine. You may choose another as your king— but if you do, you’re choosing war!”

  And with those words, Prince Konrad left the palace, and rode out of the city in a great band of armed men, and set up a war camp on a hill beyond Mainz, and waited for the council’s judgment.

  They sat for three days more. I cannot hope to recount everything they said, or who said it, for it is clear they went around the matter and around it. No one was sure of anything except that one side or the other was evil beyond words.

  But which side? Which man was the conspirator, the evil one?

  — The prince. There’s no doubt of it.

  — Is there not?

  — I can’t see why he would he kill his father, when he was already heir, and almost certain to be chosen.

  — They fell out. They were quarreling all the time; everyone heard them. He called his father names, and said he was unfit to be a king.

  — And you’ve never quarreled with your father, I suppose? Or I with mine? Did we kill them afterwards? We’d be a room full of patricides in that case— and matricides, too, and Christ knows what else! The prince is young and hot-headed; quarrels like his mean nothing.

  — The truthstone named him as the murderer.

  — Aye, and what is this so-called truthstone? And where did it really come from?

  — I will lay you odds it was forged in a demon’s fire, my lords.

  — That’s utterly outrageous!

  — Is it? Aren’t any of you thinking straight? Ehrenfried is dead. If Konrad is disgraced and deposed, it’s the end of the Salian kings, and Christ knows who will replace them.

  — We don’t lack for worthy lords in Germany.

  — No, we don’t. But what lord has Konrad’s legitimacy? What lord can take his crown unchallenged? Don’t you think other men will ask the same questions I’m asking? Don’t you think other men will notice how damnably convenient this relic has turned out to be? In one fell stroke the royal line of Germany is undone, and the whole empire is in disarray. Is this God’s will? Did he send that stone to enlighten us? Or did someone else send it to destroy us?

  — But it was in the cathedral! It was touched with sacred relics, with the Host itself!

  — What of it?

  — Really, my lord Franconia, do you think God is less jealous of his honor than a man? To allow something so foul and deceitful upon his altar, against his sacred flesh?

  — He allowed the Pharisees to humiliate him, and the Roman soldiers to nail him to a cross.

  — That’s not the same thing at all!

  — And they challenged him just as we’re challenging him now: if you’re divine, put a stop to it! He had his reasons then; who knows what his reasons might be now?

  — Maybe he’s testing us to see if we can think.

  — God’s blood, it’s not the same thing at all! You can’t possibly believe it’s the same.

  — I believe God is a lot more complicated than you imagine. And ambitious men are always claiming to know exactly what’s on his mind.

  — And you’re not an ambitious man, of course. You just happen to be blood kin to the Salian kings; Prince Konrad just happened to be fostered in your castle! If he were king you’d be first man in Germany. But of course, you’re thinking only of the truth!

  — My lords, I beg you, personal attacks will get us nowhere. We must try to determine God’s will. If Konrad is innocent, why did he come armed to this assembly? Why is he gathering men, and threatening us with war?

  — Oh, for Christ’s sake, what should he have done? Walk in here like a lamb, when his father has already been murdered, and he’s likely to be next? His actions merely prove he has enough good sense to be a king.

  — Consider the possibility that he’s innocent. Hard as it may be for you, excellency, just consider it for one moment. And then consider this: If he is innocent, then the relic is false. And if the relic is false, what are we to think of the man who brought it here?

  — Can’t we test the relic some more?

  — How?

  — We could ask it questions. Things no one knows but ourselves. Like what name my little cousin used to call me when we were boys. He’s dead now, and I told no one, because it was embarrassing. If the stone could answer that, it would convince me.


  — So ask it.

  But the stone remained serenely silent— to this and to all their other questions. And at last Gottfried said to them:

  “Really, my lords, why should it answer to such foolishness? You’re not treating it as a holy thing, but as a magician’s toy. You’re mocking it with these questions. God will reveal to you what he judges necessary. He will not play games.”

  Even his enemies had to see some wisdom in his words. And though they went on quarreling about it until the end, it was already obvious that, unless some very extraordinary miracle occurred, those who believed in the stone were likely to go on believing, and those who doubted would go on doubting till they died.

  At twenty I could not understand it. But I have learned since that most people go through life believing what they wish. It does not matter what is obvious; they will shove aside a thousand proven facts, and close their minds upon a single supposition, because it comforts them.

  So in the council chamber, and so after in the war.

  The likelihood of war increased with every passing hour. Franconia’s question, however self-serving it might have been, was a valid one: what lord could claim the crown unchallenged? They named perhaps a dozen, but from the first there were really only two: Konrad himself, and Gottfried von Heyden.

  It was Ludwig of Bavaria who first put forward Gottfried’s name for the kingship. He was an aging and saintly man. His enemies called him stupid, but he was really just unworldly, a man whose mind was always more on heaven than on earth.

  God, he said, had clearly shown the duke extraordinary favor. The empire would surely be blessed if he were king.

  Whereupon a great many rude, appalling things were said, and the old man was insulted to the point where he threatened to go home. Then the landgrave of Swabia stood up, and said he would support Duke Gottfried, and suddenly it was not an old man’s silly notion any longer. It was a serious possibility. The room grew very still.