“Tell us, Rabbi,” Dónall said. “I am eager to hear.”
“You will forgive me if what I tell you sounds strange,” the rabbi began, “but I would not be here if I did not think there is some truth in it. Since we met, my sleep has been plagued by dreams. In many, I have been haunted by a great beast as large as ten horses, long-necked and red-scaled like the dragon of Babylon, with broad wings like an eagle’s. I could smell the stench of its evil. It scoured the earth, searching for something. By the depth of my fear, I knew that it was looking for the Urim. Then this dream faded, and I was in another. I saw the Ark of the Covenant—beautiful beyond imagination, its sides gleaming with gold. Its lid, thick and adorned with Bezalel’s designs, bore the two cherubim kneeling atop the Ark, with outstretched wings that met in the Ark’s center, their tips touching at the very place where Moses would commune with God. My body trembled, although I could not see my hands or arms. It was as if I were a spirit floating in the darkened chamber that held the Ark. Voices were chanting in the darkness, but the language was one I could not comprehend. Then, as if guided by the invisible hand of God, the lid opened and rose above the Ark. The cherubim glowed as if wreathed by blue fire. A pair of hands emerged into my line of sight, and I wondered for a moment whether they were my own. They reached into the Ark, disappearing with the smoky mists that swirled within, like steam rising from a lake. When they emerged from the mists, they held the Urim.”
The rabbi spoke with closed eyes, recounting the dream as if he were experiencing it again. Ciarán hung on his every word.
“I could hardly imagine such a thing,” the rabbi said, his voice filled with awe. “It was like a diamond, slightly smaller than the palm of one’s hand, cut with hundreds of facets—thousands maybe—reflecting a light more brilliant than any I have ever seen. It was blinding in its brightness, like the sun itself, but with the purity of Sirius burning in the night. I felt as if I might die, so enrapt was I by its light. But then, fearing that my spectral form might cease to exist, I awoke, grateful that it was only a dream.”
“Could you tell where the Ark was?” Dónall asked.
“That is not the point,” the rabbi said. “The dream made me realize that when we last met, I had made a bad assumption: that the Urim remained in the Ark. Yet what if it was removed?”
Ciarán nodded. “We’ve thought of that, too.”
“But where does that lead us?” Dónall asked.
“That is where we must focus on history,” the rabbi said. “According to scripture, the Ark remained in the Temple of Jerusalem long after the time of Solomon, up until the time when the Babylonians came. When Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem and ravaged the temple six hundred years before the birth of your Jesus, the picture becomes less clear. The Second book of Maccabees states that the prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave, in the mountain that Moses had climbed to see the Promised Land. Yet some question the accuracy of that story, believing that it was written to raise the people’s spirits during the revolt against the Greeks. Also, there are far earlier writings that contradict the Maccabean account. The Second book of Chronicles, for one, states that when the Babylonians destroyed the temple and stole the sacred pillars of Boaz and Jachin, Nebuchadnezzar’s forces took all the temple’s vessels and treasures to Babylon. And the Fourth book of Ezra is even clearer, speaking to the destruction of the temple and the plundering of the Ark of the Covenant by the Babylonians. A half century later, Babylon was conquered by the Persians, led by Cyrus the Great. Cyrus allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem, but he took possession of the treasures that the Babylonians stole. If the Ark was among them, then it fell into the hands of the Persians.”
“What would have happened after that?” Ciarán asked.
“There is a place in the city of my birth,” the rabbi said, “where the answer may lie: in Córdoba, the greatest city in all Europe. A center of learning like nothing in all Christendom. Unlike your Christian towns, where the local abbey might have an armful of books, throughout Córdoba are libraries with hundreds of books. And there is one library grander than them all, grander than any other in Europe: the library of Al-Hakkam the Second, the wisest caliph ever to rule Córdoba. This library holds not hundreds of books, but hundreds of thousands.”
Ciarán could hardly conceive of such a place. He doubted there were that many books in all the world.
“Al-Hakkam had hundreds of scribes,” the rabbi continued, “both Ishmaelite and Christian, translating works from Latin and Greek into Arabic. He acquired works throughout Christendom, from Rome and Aachen and Constantinople. And from Africa and the Arab lands. Baghdad and Damascus, and Alexandria and Jerusalem. And if you know anything about libraries . . .”
Dónall’s eyes lit up. “There’s a secret collection.”
“Of course,” the rabbi said with a mischievous smile. “All collectors have a special place for their rarest things. And Al-Hakkam was an extraordinary collector. We Jews often heard rumors that the library held texts from Solomon’s temple, taken by the Babylonians and, later, the Persians and now in the hands of the Muslim caliphs. There are other works rumored as well, acquired from Baghdad but originating from the ruins of Babylon, undoubtedly dating from the time of Cyrus the Great. If an account of the Urim’s fate exists, the only place in all of Europe you may find it is Córdoba.”
“So . . . you want us go to the Saracen lands?” Ciarán asked.
“There is no other way,” the rabbi replied. “Getting access to the secret collection will be very difficult. But my cousin in Córdoba is well connected. He will know people who can help us when we get there.”
“When we get there?” Dónall said. “You’re coming with us?”
“I am not a young man, Brother Dónall, and I have not seen the beauty of that city since long before my Sarah passed. And I dearly wish to see Córdoba once more before I die. I have stayed here only because the people needed their rabbi. But my nephew has finished his studies now and will do a fine job in my stead. It is time he came into his own.” The rabbi paused, a troubled look in his eyes.
“There’s more,” Dónall said, “isn’t there?”
“There was something about the script in your book that I have not been able to purge from my mind,” the rabbi said. “Those letters and their shapes—I could swear that each character, at its root, is Hebrew. Our mystics believe that God made the universe through the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, hewing them, weighing them, and combining them into creation. And now you show me what purports to be written in the tongue of angels, and they look like Hebrew letters. I would like very much to study them. And if this book speaks of the Urim . . .”
The rabbi closed his eyes for an instant and shuddered. “But there is something else: I fear from my dreams that some terrible evil seeks the Urim.” His eyes sprang open, as if compelled by the fierce determination burning within them. “We cannot let him have it!”
For a moment, Ciarán thought he caught something of Remi’s fervor in the rabbi’s eyes. “There’s something I still don’t understand,” Ciarán said. “The mystics have been searching for the Urim for centuries. If it’s as simple as digging through a library, why hasn’t anyone found it?”
“I do not know why,” the rabbi said. “But we have an advantage that they did not, no? A book written in the tongue of the angels! Perhaps it is the only advantage we will need.”
A smile crept across Dónall’s face. “Well, lad,” he said, rising from the bench, “grab your things. We’re going to Córdoba.”
*
They walked back to the city with Isaac, as the rabbi insisted on being called. Although Dónall advised against it, Ciarán made the short journey, still leaning on his stick but eager to regain the strength in his legs. Their first steps beyond the abbey’s gate were trepid, but once they had set foot on the road, and still the storm clouds did not manifest, Ciarán felt a degree of relief, though the whole time he kept a cautious hand on the talisman aro
und his neck. Dónall, too, seemed wary at first, ever vigilant of the air around them, but gradually he relaxed, confident perhaps that the Fae magic had worked. If the demons were about, they dare not approach.
By the time they reached the street of the Jews, Ciarán had learned much about the good-natured rabbi. Isaac hailed from a family of Córdoban merchants, Jews who prospered under the reign of the Moorish caliphs and eventually expanded the family’s business to Bordeaux, importing Spanish olive oil and African spices. Isaac had neither love nor aptitude for the merchant’s trade, so his younger brother succeeded their father in Bordeaux while Isaac studied under the Córdoban rabbi who had traveled with the family to Aquitaine. Years later, when the rabbi of Poitiers died and the Jews of the city needed another, Isaac settled here with his late wife, of whom he spoke so fondly even though she never bore him a child. With the exception of Benjamin, Isaac’s youngest nephew, his other nephews continued their mercantile trade in Bordeaux, prospering as well as any Jew in a Christian land could hope. To transport their goods, they owned a ship, and now that ship would take them to Córdoba.
After a brief rest at the rabbi’s home, refreshed with roasted chestnuts and cups of spiced wine, Dónall and Ciarán bade farewell to Isaac. By design, they would leave just after the Christian New Year, to give Isaac time to alert his nephews in Bordeaux and to prepare Benjamin to serve as rabbi to the Jews of Poitiers. Both Dónall and Ciarán were grateful. For without Isaac’s family wealth and his offer of assistance, they would be nothing but two stone-broke Irishmen wandering this foreign land. Ciarán could not shake the feeling that they had been touched by the hand of fate.
*
Christmas came the next morning. Ciarán and Dónall joined the procession of monks that traveled from Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand to the Church of Saint-Etienne in Poitiers, where the duke of Aquitaine would celebrate Christmas mass. The procession entered the city under a platinum sky—seventy-nine monks walking two-by-two and chanting Christmas hymns.
A chorus of church bells rang through the streets, and on nearly every door hung wreaths of holly, ivy, and bay, while from the bell towers and church steeples fluttered banners of crimson and gold. The citizens, dressed in their finest clothes, made their way to mass, stopping at times to watch the monks.
If the monks of Saint-Hilaire’s felt any Christmas spirit, it had been dampened by the manner in which Prior Bernard had commenced their procession. For he had gathered the brethren a full half hour early in the abbey’s freezing courtyard and forced them to listen to an overlong sermon about God’s anger at all the wickedness in the world some 997 years since the birth of Christ. And yet, among the citizens of Poitiers, Ciarán sensed genuine happiness, for Christmas was a day when they were excused from work and when some were even invited to feasts of wine and roasted beef, hosted by their lords, while those less fortunate received gifts of bread and soup from the local abbeys and churches. Thus, the people throughout Poitiers showed good cheer toward the monks and their blessings.
The brothers of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand entered the Church of Saint-Etienne, where the rich smell of incense wafted through the narrow nave. On pillars along the arcade burned candles set in sconces and surrounded by wreaths of pine boughs. The procession split to walk down the right and left aisles that flanked the vestibule, beneath the rounded archways while intoning their rhythmic Gregorian chants. Worshipers filled the nave. There were nobles, ladies, and men of warrior stock, though no common folk that Ciarán could see. He followed Dónall down the left aisle as the monks filled the transept of the cross-shaped church. In the chancel, beyond the altar, where priests in white vestments gathered around the aged bishop of Poitiers, stood rows of black-robed monks from another monastery, who joined the chant as the monks of Saint-Hilaire took their places in the far transept.
The monks nearly overflowed the cramped transept, and Ciarán found himself on the edge of the nave, just feet from the first row of worshipers. At their head, Duke William prostrated on the stone-tiled floor, his crimson cape gathering in folds around him. Behind the duke stood members of his entourage—the same people Ciarán and Dónall had supped with just days ago: Emma of Blois and Lord Ramiro of León, Lord Dalmas and Lord Guy, and, of course, Lord Raymond. And beside Raymond, looking like a winter angel, stood Alais.
Although Ciarán had hoped to catch a glimpse of her before they left Poitiers, he was unprepared for what he saw. Her lithe form was wrapped in a green damask dress cinched tightly around her slender waist, with a mantle of silver and white above her breasts. Ciarán glimpsed her eyes, gray like the storm, but they made no search among the monks to find him.
His gaze left her as two columns of nuns filed into the aisles alongside the nave. They walked silently amid the joyous processional, for women were not allowed to raise their voices in the church. Canons closed the towering church doors behind the nuns, and then the mass began. The monks sang canticles, and the bishop read from the Gospel of Saint Matthew. The congregation prostrated for the great litany, and the choir sang during the communion, and all the while, Ciarán found himself drawn to Alais.
The chanting swelled before the benediction. The bishop stepped to the threshold of the nave and raised his arms above the prostrate duke. Before the bishop could speak, the vestibule doors swung open. A rush of wintry air blew through the nave, and a hush fell as the congregants near the vestibule began to part. The bishop looked up, startled, and the duke, too, stood and turned toward the open doors.
Down the newly formed passageway strode a column of Benedictine monks, their hands steepled in prayer. A miter crowned the head of the monks’ leader, who wore white episcopal vestments trimmed with silver.
From the first row of worshipers, Alais gasped.
The intruder tilted his bearded chin toward the ceiling before leveling a wolflike gaze on the chancel. Ciarán’s blood froze.
For Adémar of Blois had come to Poitiers.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
GOD’S WRATH
“What is the meaning of this?” the bishop of Poitiers stammered.
“Heresy, Lord Bishop, is what brings me here.” Adémar let his accusation linger in the air. William’s eyes flew wide, and behind him, Poitiers’ elderly bishop had grown suddenly pale.
“Heresy,” Adémar proclaimed, “which darkens my joy on the day of Christ’s birth. Heresy, which has spread through the Touraine like a disease, from Selles-sur-Cher and across the rivers to threaten all Aquitaine.”
Dónall tugged at Ciarán’s sleeve. “Stay sharp,” he whispered, “Lucien may be among them.” Ciarán nodded subtly, but he could not be any more alert. His muscles tensed as he eyed the monks in the bishop’s entourage, searching for the prior of Saint-Bastian’s.
In the candlelit nave, flustered nobles looked to William, who stood just paces from the bishop, separated by a thin haze of incense smoke. William pursed his lips before speaking. “Bishop Adémar, I beg your pardon. I have heard accounts of the atrocities that Fulk the Black inflicted on Selles-sur-Cher—atrocities which you yourself witnessed and did not abate.”
“Fulk of Anjou is a devil indeed,” Adémar said, “whose passions I could not abate. But know well, Lord Duke, sometimes God uses the devil as his sword. Especially when God has grown angry at how his subjects behave.”
“Explain yourself!” William demanded.
Adémar implored the congregation with outstretched arms. “Is it any wonder why God has not favored your forces in battle? Why the Almighty allows the devil Fulk to build castle upon castle, such that you are becoming a prisoner in your own lands? My dear duke, God favors the victor. So why is Fulk so often the victor?”
William looked stricken, and a palpable tension filled the church as Ciarán saw Dónall’s hand move to the hilt of his hidden blade. Ciarán searched for a way out but found only the vestibule doors, still open to the wind. And the aisle to those doors remained clogged by nuns engrossed in the unfolding drama.
“Th
e answer,” Adémar announced, his eyes burning with passion, “is because God’s wrath burns like fire!”
William moved back a step. Among the nobles gathered beside him, Alais ducked toward the aisle. Just feet from Ciarán, a skeletally frail woman in an abbess’s robes pulled her behind the column of nuns.
“God’s wrath burns,” Adémar continued, “when the king whom you hold so dear has unholy relations with his first cousin, warranting excommunication by Pope Gregory in Rome; when heresy runs rampant in your own lands; when your own cousin adorns her neck with a devil’s sign, practicing witchcraft against the servants of Christ and cavorting with sorcerers from a pagan isle!”
Ciarán’s pulse quickened. He reached for Alais, brushing her arm with his hand. She glanced back, terrified, until her gaze met his. She held his hand tight, and he could feel her body tremble.
Beside Ciarán, Dónall nodded toward the vestibule doors, his expression grave.
“So,” Adémar exclaimed, “should it surprise anyone that as we stand here today, Fulk’s ally, the viscount of Limoges, gathers an army to his new castle at Brosse on the banks of the river Anglin, seizing your eastern flank for his own?”
The color drained from William’s face. “Brosse?”
“Yes,” Adémar replied. “It is time, Duke William, that you lived up to your pious reputation. That you regained God’s favor through courage. As the winter snows thaw, summon your cavalry. Gather your army. Raise the crimson banner of Poitiers and strike against the allies of Fulk the Black. Earn God’s blessing of victory!”
Adémar’s call hung in the air. Behind the curtain of complicit nuns, Ciarán and Alais shuffled along the wall toward the doors, with Dónall hurrying behind them.
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