Temple of The Grail by Adriana Koulias

a
reed!’
    ‘You mean nothing is what it seems?’
    ‘Precisely.’ He bent over and
retrieved something from the ground beneath the seat. He inspected it, ‘Another
raisin . . .’
    ‘Do you think it was the inquisitor,
then?’
    ‘Hm?’ My master looked up from his
kneeling position. ‘The inquisitor? The inquisitor what? What are you saying
now?’ He bellowed.
    ‘Do you think he wrote the note?’
    ‘Why should he have written it?’ He
continued looking about beneath the seats. I looked away, for it did not seem a
very dignified position for a master.
    ‘Because he does not want our interference.’
I answered, ‘he may have been warning us not to meddle in the inquiry.’
    ‘Whoever wrote the note is clever,
for he has a command of Greek, and the inquisitor knows no Greek at all, not
having recognised my vulgar use of it at the dinner table this evening. No,
I’ll wager five hundred Saracen ducats that someone is playing a little game
with us.’
    ‘So, the librarian? Brother Macabus?’
    ‘It is possible,’ he nodded, ‘because
he has a good command of the language, however, we must not discount the
possibility that there might be others who know Greek. I suspect that the
author of our little note would not have been so imprudent as to announce his
identity in such an obvious way. Then there is Setubar . . . but he cannot use
his hands, have you seen them? They are so gnarled that he cannot pick up a
spoon, let alone a quill . . .’
    ‘Why Greek, then?’
    ‘That is a good question. Perhaps the
author wanted only those who knew Greek to understand it?’
    ‘Perhaps he did so, master,’ I added,
‘to throw suspicion on the librarian?’
    ‘Perhaps . . . though monks are
rarely so clever in matters of intrigue. Now help me up.’ I held out a hand to
him and he took it. I knew his knees caused him endless suffering. ‘Damn the
Count of Artois to the bowels of hell for ruining my legs!’ he said
breathlessly, then, after a moment of recovery, ‘Now, we shall hunt for
tunnels, there must be catacombs somewhere down there.’
    ‘Tonight?’ I inquired, hoping that I
sounded calm.
    ‘There must be a crypt. A ghastly
cold place . . . no, not tonight. My knees are frozen stiff and also, Asa
awaits us in the infirmary.’
    And so saying, we left the church,
stepping out into the cold cloister, and made our way to the aperture. We
found, however, that we could not exit through it because it was locked, so we
tried the kitchen door. It was open. My master ventured to the larder from
which he emerged holding two carrots, one of which he (most graciously) handed
to me. Taking an audible bite of it, he tried the door that led to the garden,
but it had been locked from the inside, forcing us to enter the church once
more and exit through the north transept door which was customarily open
throughout the night.
    ‘Strange that the cookhouse has one
door locked and not the other . . .’ my master said, thinking out loud as he
chewed.
    The night was cold, but the sky was
dotted with flickering stars. I noticed high above in the dormitorium the circa or night monk making his rounds and it occurred to me that his life must be
very lonely, for he must pass the endless hours of the night alone, saying
psalms. A moment later we entered the cheering warmth of the infirmary to see
that Brother Asa had already begun his gruesome investigation by washing the
body. Sitting a little way off, near a large fire of smouldering embers, was
old Setubar. Everything in the room seemed moulded by his venerable will,
including his pupil. But the old man’s face, so often sour and impassive,
beamed in a benevolent smile as he offered me a place beside him, and I
wondered what had occasioned his sudden good humour.
    ‘What have you found, Asa?’ my master
asked almost immediately, carrot in hand.
    The man looked up myopically from his
work, a deep scowl creasing his thin face. ‘Nothing. I find nothing.’
    ‘Well then, the