The Inquisitor's Key bf-7

by Jefferson Bass

  We recrossed the palace square, and then another narrow plaza; after a few more turns, Stefan stopped on a narrow street and pointed to the entrance of an old building. I read the sign above the door — THÉTRE DES HALLES — and turned to him with a puzzled look. “A theater. So?”

  “Non, non. Well, okay, oui, a theater. But read the other sign. The small one, beside the door.” On the wall was a historic plaque like the one I’d seen on the old prison. Beneath the French inscription was an English translation: Here, in the 14th century, stood a church where Petrarch first saw his Laura. Stefan studied me. “You know Petrarch?”

  I sensed another lecture coming. “Famous poet and philosopher, if my ancient memory serves.” Stefan nodded. “Somehow I’d thought Petrarch was Italian, not French.”

  “Oui, tous les deux. Both. His family was Italian, but they moved to France. He lived in Avignon for years.”

  “That must have been exciting for a poet.”

  “Yes and no,” he said. “He found his muse here — this Laura.” He gestured at the plaque, as if it were the woman herself. “But Avignon? Petrarch hated it. Despised it. He called it a sewer, called it Babylon. Called the papacy ‘the whore of Babylon.’”

  “Strong words.”

  “Some of his words were even stronger. ‘Prostitutes swarm on the papal beds,’ he wrote. He accused the pope and his entourage of rape, of incest, of orgies.”

  “So why did he stay in such an evil place? He couldn’t leave Laura?”

  Stefan smiled. “Perhaps. But also, he was nursing at the breast of the whore of Babylon.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He was the private chaplain to one of the Italian cardinals. The pope’s money supported Petrarch while he composed love poems and attacked the papacy.” Stefan glanced at his watch. “Come.”

  After several twists and turns, we started down yet another narrow street, Rue Saint-Agricol. He stopped in front of an arched opening between two small shops and pointed. A narrow vaulted passage, almost a tunnel, led through the walls, passing beneath the upper stories of a building, and then opened into a small courtyard. Within the courtyard were several large cloth umbrellas and café tables. I looked at him, puzzled; what was he showing me?

  “Here. The last stop on our midnight tour.” He led me farther into the courtyard. The back wall of the courtyard was formed by the side of an ancient stone building forty or fifty feet high. Arches in the wall showed traces of former glory: the outlines of tall Gothic windows whose stained glass was long since gone and whose stone tracery had been filled in centuries ago. “This building was once the chapel of the Knights Templar. You know about the Templars?”

  “A little. Not much more than you said the other day, the day I arrived. The Templars escorted pilgrims to the Holy Land during the time of the Crusades, right?” He nodded. “And fought the Muslims.” Another nod. “And they made Dan Brown a zillionaire a few years ago.”

  His brow furrowed. “Dan Brown?”

  “He wrote The Da Vinci Code.”

  “Ah, oui.” He snorted. “The book that says Jesus and Mary Magdalene made a baby, and the Templars guard their descendants. Crazy bool-shit. The Templars were destroyed by the king and the pope seven hundred years ago. King Philip owed them a lot of money. Instead of paying back the money, he accused them of heresy, locked them up, and took all their money and property. He made Pope Clement his accomplice.”

  “Clement? The Magnificent? I hate to hear that. I was starting to like the Magnificent.”

  “Non, non, not that Clement. The previous one — Clement the Fifth. Clement the Fifth was the first French pope, the first Avignon pope. He was the marionette — the puppet, I think you say — of King Philip. The king forced Clement to abolish the order and excommunicate the Templars, even though they had done nothing wrong. Shameful.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “Clement the Magnificent sounds like a better guy than Clement the Puppet. No wonder he got a better nickname.” Stefan walked to the heavy wooden door of the chapel and began tugging at the handle. “Stefan! What are you doing?”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I have a key. The owner is a friend of mine.” He opened the door and stepped inside. “Come on, don’t you want to see?”

  I followed him through the doorway, expecting an empty, ruined shell. But in the opposite wall, three of the soaring leaded-glass windows remained intact; moonlight poured through them, illuminating an astonishing sight. The chapel’s high, vaulted interior was filled with tiers of modern, auditorium-style seats on elevated risers. The seats faced what had once been the altar; in its place now was a small stage. Over the stage and directly over our heads as well, gleaming metal trusses held clusters of high-intensity spotlights.

  Stefan laughed at my obvious confusion. “Not what you thought, huh? It’s a theater and conference center now. It’s all set up now for the festival. The Avignon Theater Festival starts in two weeks. There are theaters all over the city — fifty, maybe even a hundred small theaters. There will be a thousand performances in Avignon during the three weeks of the festival. Performances all day, all evening, sometimes even all night. One year, in the courtyard at the Palace of the Popes, I watched a ballet that started at sunset and finished at sunrise the next morning. Crazy. Exhausting. Also magnifique.” He gestured at the stage in the chapel. “Someone should write a special drama for this place,” he went on. “Something about religion and money and power. A deadly combination, don’t you think?”

  “Certainly for the Templars,” I agreed.

  We left the chapel; he locked the door behind us, and we returned through the narrow passageway to Rue Saint-Agricol. He pointed me toward Lumani and stood at the opening. When I looked back from the corner, he was still there, watching and waving good night as I turned down another corner of the maze.

  When I reached the inn and crawled into bed, my mind finally spiraling toward sleep, I thought about Stefan’s account of the Templars; about the dangers of mixing religion with money and power; about Avignon’s long history of drama. The modern theater festival surely paled in comparison to the real-life pageants and power plays enacted here centuries earlier by popes and peasants, kings and cardinals, painters and poets. And a man who appeared to have been nailed to a cross seven centuries ago. Or was it twenty centuries ago?

  All the world’s a stage, I thought drowsily. All of Avignon’s a stage.

  The tune of Miranda’s childhood lullaby entered my sleepy head. Sur le pont d’Avignon. How did it go? I couldn’t recall the words so I substituted new ones, the only words I could think of that fit the half-remembered tune carrying me down, down, deep into sleep.

  Avignon, Avignon. All roads lead to Avignon. Avignon, Avignon…

  CHAPTER 9

  AVIGNON

  1328

  Avignon, Avignon. Why did he come to Avignon?

  For the old man who is groaning on the rack, the road has led inexorably to Avignon, and to this agonizing moment, but why? Because, he reminds himself, it is God’s will. There is no moment but this moment; no reality but this pain; no will but God’s will.

  He gasps as the lever swings again, the taut ropes creak under the added strain, and the ratchet clicks into the next cog in the gear. He has been on the rack for an hour now, and each quiet, metallic click of the ratchet, as the jailer lifts the lever that turns the gear, brings the excruciating certainty that this time, surely, his limbs will be torn from their sockets.

  A rotund figure, cloaked in white, stands beside the jailer and leans over the old man. The robe is topped by a conical white hood; within its dark interior, the eyes burn like coals. “I put you to the question once more. Tell me the truth. Where did you learn these errors?”

  “What errors?” gasps the old man. “Tell me, Fournier.”

  The hooded figure draws an angry breath. “There are no names here. Only you, heretic, and I, Inquisitor.”

  “You want the truth? Here is the truth: You are Jacques Fou
rnier, a shoemaker’s son turned cardinal, and you are afraid, or you would not be hiding beneath that hood. But does the hood change your voice, alter your fears and your weaknesses? Does your beloved white robe hide the belt of fat that your gluttony has fastened around your belly? Will these ropes sunder the name Eckhart when they tear apart my body?”

  “Insolence will not save you. Insolence to this holy office only confirms that you are indeed a heretic. You have preached that God is not an intelligent being. Who taught you that heresy?”

  “God taught me that, Fournier. God is not a being; God is more than a being. God is everything.”

  “You understand nothing of God.”

  “Of course not. If I could understand God, he would not be truly God. God is as far above my intelligence, Fournier, as you are below it.”

  The Inquisitor pushes the jailer away from the lever and seizes it himself, then leans into it with his considerable weight. It is an action Fournier has imagined performing a thousand times or more these past fourteen years — ever since the day the two Templar heretics were burned on the Isle of the Jews. Ever since the day Eckhart dared to criticize inquisitors, prompting young Fournier to fume God is not pleased. The ratchet clicks once, clicks twice, as the older, heavier Fournier forces the lever and turns the gear. The body of the aged man on the rack reaches a breaking point; tendons tear, and he screams before losing consciousness.

  When he comes to, he is crumpled on the cold stone floor of a low-vaulted cell, which is tucked into the foundations of a building that is formidable on the outside, palatial on the inside.

  * * *

  Two floors above the crumpled old man, the Inquisitor sits in a carved chair in a marbled audience hall. Atop the white robe he has draped a red shawl, and he has exchanged the Inquisitor’s hood for the broad-brimmed red hat that marks him as a cardinal, a Prince of the Church. Facing him, on a throne, slumps His Holiness, Pope John XXII, who croaks out a question. “Are you sure of this, Jacques?”

  “Quite sure, Holy Father. I have put him to the question several times.”

  “You mean…?”

  “Yes, Your Holiness. Today I nearly tore him apart, yet he clung defiantly to his heresies. You’ve read his defense; he accuses his critics of ‘ignorance and stupidity.’ He is as arrogant and proud as Lucifer himself.”

  The pontiff sighs, or wheezes. “We had hoped you’d be able to correct his understanding. Your success in rooting out the Cathar heretics in Montaillou was remarkable.”

  “The Cathar heretics in Montaillou were simpletons, Holy Father. Shepherds and shopkeepers. Consider the woman Beatrice. She didn’t consider it a sin to have carnal relations with a priest, because it brought them both pleasure — and besides, her husband gave her permission. Idiots, all of them.”

  The pope waves his hand impatiently. “Yes, yes; I’ve read the transcript of her confession. Hers and hundreds of others. You were very thorough in your pursuit of heresy. And quite exhaustive in your record keeping.” Fournier feels a flash of anger; is the pontiff mocking him now? The old man sighs before continuing. “So in view of your prior success with heretics, we had hoped you could bring Eckhart to heel.”

  “Eckhart is no country bumpkin,” snaps the cardinal. “Some compare him with Aquinas. He has a quick wit and a dangerous mind. And he delights in spinning circles around those who are less nimble.”

  “Has he spun circles around you, Jacques?”

  The plump cardinal gives the shriveled pontiff a mirthless smile. “It’s hard to spin circles when one is stretched on the rack.”

  “Will he ever confess his errors and submit himself to correction, do you think?”

  “Never, Holiness. He’s old, arrogant, and stubborn.”

  “A pity. Well, do what you must to keep him from leading more people astray. Still, it would be good if he could be brought to repentance before he dies.”

  Fournier smiles a broader, more genuine, more sinister smile. “I pray without ceasing that he will die in a state of grace, Holy Father.”

  CHAPTER 10

  SIENA, ITALY

  1328

  Simone Martini leans forward and stares into the eyes of Jesus, frowning. The Savior’s face is scarcely a foot away, and Simone’s not sure he likes what he sees. Can these really be the eyes of the Son of the Almighty? If so, shouldn’t they be larger, wiser, more…godlike, somehow?

  “Not bad,” says a voice, so unexpected and startling that Simone jerks upright, whacks his head on a ceiling beam, and nearly topples off the scaffold — a twenty-foot fall to a stone floor, which would surely smash his skull like a ripe melon. His surprise and dizziness swiftly give way to pain and to anger. Who has dared to interrupt him at this delicate moment, as he’s making the final repair to the fresco? Didn’t he give strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed? The paint must be applied before the plaster dries; otherwise it won’t bond properly and the fresco will be ruined. Truth be told, Simone had been on the verge of laying down his paintbrush, satisfied with the Savior’s eyes after all. Still, he finds the intrusion doubly infuriating: His order was ignored, and now a bump on his head hurts like the devil. Rubbing the rising knot, he looks down to see which of his assistants has just earned a thumping.

  But it’s not an assistant. Simone can’t see the man’s features — the hood of a cloak shrouds the face in shadow — but Simone knows his half-dozen apprentices by their shape and stance, and this stooped, stumpy creature isn’t one of them. “The face is quite good,” the stranger adds. “But the hands are too small and the fingers are much too short.” Simone can hardly believe his ears. Who is this rude fellow, and how dare he criticize the work of Siena’s most respected painter? “If you’re depicting Christ giving a blessing, the right hand must be more prominent; the first two fingers must be long and slender.” Insolence! thinks Simone. Insufferable insolence! Quivering with rage, he scampers down the scaffold and draws back his fist.

  The little stranger removes his hood, and Simone gasps. “Master Giotto!”

  Giotto di Bondoni, the best artist in Tuscany — and therefore the best in the world — springs into an old man’s parody of a fighter’s crouch. Then he laughs, steps forward, and flings his arms around Simone in a hug. When he releases him, he steps back and surveys the immense fresco, which covers an entire wall of Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico, the city’s center of government. Originally painted by Simone in 1315, the fresco depicts the Virgin Mary surrounded by saints and — above her, at the top of the painting — Jesus, raising his right hand in benediction. During a storm a few weeks ago, a leak in the roof damaged a bit of the painting. Had the rivulets appeared a few inches lower — streaking Christ’s cheeks, rather than discoloring his hair — the change would have been hailed as a miracle: “Behold! The Savior weeps!” Instead, it was dismissed as water damage, requiring a big scaffold and a small repair.

  The old master makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses the entire fresco. “Not bad,” he says again, this time in a voice whose warmth and admiration are unmistakable. “Not bad at all, especially for a plaster boy who was always slow.”

  Now it’s Simone’s turn to laugh. “I wasn’t slow — just overworked. You were too cheap to hire enough helpers.”

  “Cheap? Cheap? Are you kidding? Do you know what I got paid for those frescoes in Padua? Nothing. Less than nothing. Three years I worked like a dog in that chapel, and that bastard Scrovegni paid me a pittance. You know what I had to do to make ends meet? I’m ashamed to tell you, Simone. I made copies of Duccio’s paintings and signed his name — pretended they were his work! — because Duccio fetched better prices than I did back then. And that’s not the worst of it. Once, when I needed money to buy more pigments, I put greasy pig bones in gilded boxes and sold them as relics of saints.” Simone is shocked; he opens his mouth to ask a question, but Giotto waves him off. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s too degrading.” He makes a face of distaste. “And the Scrovegnis rich as kings
. You know how they made their money, yes?” Simone shrugs; he’d heard the rumors, of course, swapped by gossiping assistants as they mixed plaster or ground pigments, but he’s not sure how much he’s supposed to know. And besides, he doesn’t want to deprive Master Giotto of the pleasure of telling the story. “Usury,” Giotto hisses. “Lending money at ruinous rates. Worse than the Jews, that family. Ever read Dante’s Inferno?” Simone shakes his head. “Dante puts Scrovegni’s father in the seventh circle of Hell for usury. I’d put Scrovegni the younger in the eighth circle, for fraud. Usurers, liars, and thieves, the whole family.”

  Giotto spits — right on the floor of the public palace, the most beautiful building in Siena! — then looks again at the fresco, and beams. “Ah, but this is wonderful, Simone. Huge, too—almost as big as my Last Judgment in the Scrovegni chapel.” He turns to Simone and looks his former apprentice up and down. “How old are you now?”

  “Forty-four, Master Giotto.”

  “Amazing. You were a beardless boy when you mixed plaster for me in Scrovegni’s chapel.”

  “That was twenty-five years ago, master.”

  “Amazing,” he repeats. “Just think, Simone — if you’re already painting so big and so well at forty-four, what will you be doing at sixty-two, when you’re as old as I am?”

  “I’ll be studying the things you’re painting at eighty,” the younger man answers, “despairing of ever catching up.”

  “Nonsense.” Giotto shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but Simone can tell by the half-suppressed smile that the compliment is appreciated. “I hear you married into a family of painters. Memmo’s daughter — what’s her name?”

  “Giovanna.”