The Compendium of Srem

by F. Paul Wilson

  “That will not be necessary. What I want to know is, will it work?”

  “If gold cannot stand against aqua regia, how can the Compendium?”

  Tomás remembered having similar confidence about holy water last night.

  “Please stand back, Prior. I am going to try a small amount first.”

  Tomás held his ground. “Start your trial.”

  He watched as Adelard tilted the flask and allowed a single drop of the smoking liquid to fall onto the cover. It stopped fuming on contact. It neither bubbled nor corroded nor marred the patterned surface in any way. Frowning, Adelard slowly poured a little more over a wider area with similar result. A container of spring water would have had the same effect.

  Adelard used his sandaled foot to flip the cover open, revealing a random page onto which he emptied the flask. The corrosive had no more effect there than on the cover.

  Adelard’s shoulders slumped, and Tomás imagined his own did as well.

  “I see no recourse but a deep-sea burial,” Tomás said.

  Adelard lifted his head. “Not yet, good Prior. I am not yet ready to surrender. Give me three days before I must admit defeat.”

  Tomás considered this. Yes, they could spare three days.

  “Very well. Three days, Brother Adelard, but no more. And may God speed.”

  9

  Tomás spent those three days in prayer, often with Brother Ramiro at his side. Tribunal matters were postponed, meetings were canceled for the time being. Two relapsos awaited their auto da fé but Tomás delayed the sentence until this more pressing matter was resolved.

  They did not know what Brother Adelard was up to, but Tomás was aware of the monk making many trips to and from his workroom carrying mysterious bundles of materials. Questions were raised by other members of the order, inquiring as to the cries of anger and anguish, the cacophony of hammering and sawing and smashing glass issuing from behind the closed door. Tomás was able to put them off with the simple truth: Brother Adelard was engaged in the Lord’s work.

  Toward the end of the third day with no results, Tomás called Ramiro to the tribunal room. He squinted at the stains and sawdust on the monk’s black robe. Ramiro must have noticed the scrutiny.

  “I have been making some changes in the library, Prior—doing the work myself since I no longer have a carpenter to call on.”

  Tomás wasn’t sure if he detected a barb in that last remark. Never mind…

  “While Brother Adelard’s efforts have been heroic, every time I pass him in the hallway he reports no progress. I have given up hope of success by philosophical means. I see the ocean bottom as the only remaining option.”

  Ramiro nodded. “Yes, Prior. I am afraid I agree. I will be happy to make the voyage.”

  Tomás smiled. “How well you anticipate my thoughts. I was just about to tell you that I was assigning you the task. I do not think Brother Adelard has slept at all these past three days and he will be in no condition to make the journey.”

  “It is the least I can do after all his efforts.”

  Just then they heard a voice calling in the hallway.

  “Prior Tomás! Prior Tomás! I have done it!”

  Praying that Adelard was not mistaken, Tomás allowed Ramiro to help him down the hall to the workroom.

  “I have been trying one combination of elements after another,” Adelard said, leading the way. His eyes looked wild and his robe was pocked with countless holes burned by splashes of the corrosive compounds he had been handling. “Finally I found the one that works—quite possibly the only combination in all Creation that works!”

  He reached the door and held it open for them. The workroom was full of fumes, which billowed out and ran along both the floor and ceiling of the hallway.

  Ramiro waved his free arm ahead of them, parting the fumes as they reached the threshold. Tomás squinted through haze to see an odd structure sitting in the middle of the floor. It appeared to be a wooden cabinet but a deep glass bowl took up most of its upper surface. Through the smoke rising from the bowl Tomás spied what appeared to be a rectangular block of metal, immersed in a bubbling, fuming orange solution.

  “What is happening here?” Tomás said.

  “The Compendium! It is dissolving!”

  Tomás prayed he wasn’t dreaming. The letters and designs had been eaten off the cover, and the whole book appeared to be melting.

  “But how—?”

  “Through trial and error, Prior! I kept adding different compounds and solutions to the aqua regia until… until this! Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Yes. It was indeed wonderful.

  “Praise God. He has worked a miracle.” Tomás looked at Ramiro. “Don’t you agree?”

  Ramiro’s expression was troubled, then it cleared and he offered a weak smile. “Yes, Prior. A miracle.”

  Tomás wondered what was distressing him. Jealous of Adelard’s success? Or disappointed that he would not be going on the ocean voyage?

  They watched for nearly an hour, with Adelard periodically adding fresh solution, until the Compendium was reduced to a mass of semi-molten metal. Adelard used tongs to remove it from the solution and lay it on the floor.

  “As you can see,” he said, his voice full of pride, “the Compendium of Srem is no more. The solution has fused it into a solid mass. It is not even recognizable as a book.”

  “I’ll dispose of the remains,” Ramiro said.

  Adelard stepped forward. “Not necessary, Brother Ramiro. I—”

  “You’ve done quite enough, Brother Adelard,” Tomás said. “Go rest. You have earned it.”

  “But Prior—”

  Tomás lifted his hand, halting discussion.

  He did not understand Adelard’s uneasy expression.

  10

  Tomás awoke to soft knocking on his door. It reminded him of that night not too long ago when Adelard had shown up with that accursed tome.

  “Yes?”

  “It is Brother Ramiro, Prior. I must speak to you on an urgent matter.”

  “Come, then.”

  He remained supine in his bed as Ramiro entered with a candle. “Good Prior, I must show you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “It would be better to see with your own eyes.”

  Tomás looked up at him. “Tell me.”

  Ramiro took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “I wish to show you the Compendium.”

  “It was not destroyed?” Tomás closed his eyes and groaned. “How is this possible? I thought you buried what was left of it.”

  “I regret to inform you that what you saw dissolving was not the Compendium, Prior. That was a sheaf of tin sheets.”

  “But—”

  “In addition to gold and silver and platinum, aqua regia dissolves tin.”

  The meaning was suddenly all too clear.

  “You are accusing Brother Adelard of deceiving us!”

  “Yes, Prior. Much as it pains me to say it, I fear it is so.”

  “This is a terribly serious charge.”

  Ramiro bowed his head. “That was why I wanted to show you.”

  “Show me what?”

  “Where he has hidden the Compendium.”

  Tomás realized he would have to see for himself.

  “Light my candle and wait for me in the hall.”

  Ramiro pressed the flame of his candle against the cold wick of the one on the desk and left. Tomás struggled from his cot and slipped on his black robe. He grabbed his cane and joined Ramiro in the hallway, then followed him to Adelard’s workroom.

  “I found it here,” Ramiro said, opening the door.

  He stepped to the acid-scarred cabinet in the center of the floor. The glass bowl in the top still contained residue from the dissolution they had witnessed yesterday. He knelt and removed a panel from the side of the cabinet. Then he removed a board from the base of the inner compartment.

  “A false floor,” Ramiro said.

  From wit
hin the hidden compartment he removed a blanket-wrapped parcel. He placed it atop the cabinet and unfolded the wrapping, revealing…

  The Compendium.

  For a moment Tomás did not know what to think. Was this a trick? Was Ramiro so jealous of his fellow monk that he would—?

  Just then Adelard rushed in, gasping. “Oh, no! Prior, I can explain!”

  No denial on the young monk’s part, only the offer of an excuse. Tomás felt crushed by this betrayal.

  “Oh, Adelard, Adelard,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Preserving heresy.”

  “It is not heresy if it is true!”

  “It goes against Church doctrine, and it will raise dangerous questions. We have discussed this.”

  “But Prior, it won’t burn, it won’t be cut, it laughs at the most corrosive compounds we have. It is ancient and it is a wonder—truly a wonder. The Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Lighthouse at Alexandria—six of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are gone. Only the Pyramids at Giza remain. Yet we hold the Eighth Wonder here in our hands. We have no right to keep it from the world!”

  Tomás had heard enough—more than enough. Adelard was condemning himself with every word.

  “Brother Adelard, you will confine yourself to your quarters until members of the Inquisition Guard bring you before the tribunal.”

  His eyes widened further. “The tribunal? But I am a member!”

  “I am well aware of that. No more discussion. You will await judgment in your quarters.”

  As the crestfallen Adelard shuffled away toward his room, Tomás had no worries that he might run off. Adelard knew there was no escape from the Holy Inquisition.

  What concerned Tomás was bringing a member of the tribunal before the tribunal itself to be judged. It was unprecedented. He would have to give this much thought. In the meantime…

  “Brother Ramiro, wrap up that infernal tome and make certain that no one else sees it. Prepare to take it to sea on the earliest possible voyage.”

  “Yes, Prior.”

  He watched him fold the blanket around it, then carry it off toward his quarters. Tomás made his way to his own room and was just about to remove his cowled robe when he heard a knock on the door.

  Was he never to have another full night’s rest?

  Ramiro’s hushed voice came through the door. “I am so sorry, Prior, but I must speak with you again.”

  Tomás opened the door and found the portly friar standing on the threshold with a stricken expression. He held the wrapped Compendium against his chest. The blanket looked damp.

  “It floats,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dropped it into a tub of water in the kitchen. It will not sink.”

  Tomás was not surprised. Why should it sink? That would make it too easy to dispose of.

  “We will place it in trunk weighted with lead and wrapped with iron chains and—”

  “Trunks rot in salt water, as do chains. Sooner or later it will surface again.”

  Tomás could not argue with that.

  “What do we do, Brother Ramiro?”

  “I have an idea…”

  11

  Tomás stood to the side while the two relapsos dug a deep hole at the rear of the Royal Cloister.

  King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella would be arriving in a week or two to spend the summer, and the cloister would be empty until then. The queen had wanted a patio on the north side that would be shaded in the afternoon. Since the royal treasury was funding the monastery, her every whim was a command. The area had been cleared and leveled, and was now half paved with interlocking granite blocks. The remainder was bare earth. That was where the relapsos labored. Lanterns placed around the hole illuminated their efforts.

  “Here, Prior,” said Ramiro from behind him. “I brought you a chair.”

  He set the leather upholstered chair on the pavers and Tomás gladly made use of it. He had been holding the wrapped Compendium against his chest. Standing for so long had started an ache in his low back.

  “This is a brilliant plan, Ramiro,” he whispered.

  “I live to serve the Faith. I would like to think that the Lord inspired me.”

  His plan was simple and yet perfect: Bury the Compendium in a section of the grounds that was scheduled to be paved over with heavy blocks. The Monasterio de Santo Tomás would stand for centuries, perhaps a thousand years or more. The Compendium would never be found. And if it ever were, perhaps the monks of that future time would know then how to destroy it.

  But that day might never come. There would be no record anywhere of the existence of the Compendium of Srem, let alone where it was hidden. The two relapsos had no idea why they were digging the hole, and would not know what went into it. And even if they learned, what matter? Each had been sentenced to an auto da fé. Tomás would see to it that they had their time at the stakes early tomorrow.

  Only Tomás and Ramiro would know its final resting place. The secret would die with them.

  Together they watched the progress of the hole. The relapsos took turns in the pit: one would climb down the ladder with a shovel and fill a bucket with earth; the one topside would pull the bucket up on a rope, empty it, and send it back down. This went on until the top of the ten-foot ladder sank to a point where it was level with the surface.

  “That is deep enough, I think,” Tomás said.

  Ramiro ordered the relapso down below to come up and pull the ladder from the pit. He tied their hands behind their backs. After blindfolding them, he made them kneel, facing away.

  He held out his hands to Tomás. “May I, Prior?”

  Tomás handed him the Compendium and watched as he unwrapped it. The flickering lantern light revealed the strange cover. The background pattern was crosshatching now. He closed his eyes for a few heartbeats, and when he reopened them it had changed to asymmetrical swirls.

  “This is the last time anyone will ever see this book from hell,” Ramiro said. He handed Tomás two cords. “I believe you deserve the honor of tying the covering around it.”

  Tomás tied one cord vertically and one horizontally, forming a cross, then handed it to Ramiro.

  “Do you not wish to consign it to the pit?”

  Tomás shook his head. His legs were tired and his back pained him. “You do it, Brother Ramiro.”

  “As you—?” His head shot up. “I believe I just saw a falling star.”

  “Where?” Tomás searched the cloudless heavens.

  “It is gone. A streaking flash that lasted less than the blink of an eye. Do you think that has meaning, seeing one fall at this moment? Is it the Lord blessing our work?”

  “Some say they are damned souls being cast into hell, others say they are signs of good luck. And still others say that falling stars are just that: stars that have slipped free from the dome of heaven and are falling to earth.”

  Ramiro was nodding. “Perhaps it is just as well not to read too much into these things.” He held up the tied bundle. “I would carry it myself to the bottom but I fear my girth will not allow it.”

  He lifted one of the lamps as he approached the pit and held it high over the opening. Tomás watched the Compendium drop into the depths. Then Ramiro began shoveling dirt atop it. After half a dozen shovelfuls, he untied the relapsos and had them finish the job.

  When they were done and the earth had been tamped flat over the hole, he bound them again, but this time he gagged them before leading them back to their cells.

  Tomás remained seated, gazing at the bare earth. He would keep close watch on this patio until it was completed. Once the pavers were in place, the Compendium would be hidden from Mankind… forever.

  12

  The relapsos finally stopped screaming within their pillars of flame.

  Ramiro lurched away from the town square and stumbled back toward the monastery. He had always avoided the square during an auto da fé but today he felt obliged to brave the dawn’s c
hill and bear witness. Those two had repeatedly preached against the Church’s practice of selling indulgences. In his heart Ramiro agreed with them, but would never be foolish enough to profess that aloud.

  He had imagined the horror of seeing someone burned alive, but the reality proved worse than he had ever dreamed. Those relapsos, however, were gone for good. They would preach heresy no more, but more important, the location of the hole they had dug last night had been consumed with them.

  As he walked along, the people who passed him averted their gaze—as usual.

  He hated the Inquisition and what it had done to the Spains. He found it logical that the Church should want to safeguard the doctrines that empowered it, but at what cost? Thousands upon thousands had been tortured, hundreds upon hundreds had died in agony, tens of thousands had been banished from the land. A whole society had been upended.

  But preserving the Faith was only part of it. The war for the crown of Castile, in which his family had been slaughtered, plus the war in Grenada—the whole Reconquista, in fact—had bankrupted the monarchy. Banishing the Jews and Moors did more than make the Spains a Christian realm. It left the abandoned properties to be looted by the Church and the royal treasury—an equal share between them. The same with heretics: the Church and the treasury divided their property and money down the middle.

  Wealth and power—the two Holy Grails of church and state.

  When he reached the monastery he ventured around the Royal Cloister to monitor the progress on the patio. The masons were hard at work, fitting the paving blocks snugly together, chipping away at the edges to assure a tighter fit. By tonight, or mid-tomorrow at the latest, the patio would be fully paved.

  Satisfied, Ramiro moved on, entering the cloister that housed his quarters. His fellow monks spent spring mornings tilling the monastery’s fields for planting. Soon he would join them, but first…

  He descended to the basement that housed the heretics and what Torquemada liked to call the “instruments of truth”—the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrews, the boots. Adelard had been locked in one of the basement’s windowless cells. No guards were needed because the doors were thick and the locks sturdy.