But he works?'
Oh, he works,“ Charles said grimly. Too scared to be idle/ He eats? He is in good health?”
He eats, he sleeps and he nails his woman/ Charles said. He has a woman?' The Cardinal sounded shocked. He wanted one. Said he couldn't work properly without one so I fetched him one/
What kind?'
One from the stews of Paris.'
An old companion of yours, perhaps?“ the Cardinal asked, amused. But not one, I trust, of whom you are too fond?” When it's all done,“ Charles said, 'she'll have her throat cut just like him. Simply tell me when.”
When he has worked his miracle, of course,“ the Cardinal said. They followed a narrow track up the ridge and, once at the tower, the priests and the armed men stayed in the yard while the brothers dismounted and went down a brief winding stair that led to a heavy door barred with three thick bolts. The Cardinal watched his brother draw the bolts back. The guards do not come down here?” he asked.
Only the two who bring food and take away the buckets,' Charles said, the rest know they'll get their throats cut if they poke their noses where they're not wanted/
Do they believe that?'
Charles Bessieres looked sourly at his brother. Wouldn't you?' he asked, then drew his knife before he shot the last bolt. He stepped back as he opened the door, evidently wary in case someone beyond the door attacked him, but the man inside showed no hostility, instead he looked pathetically pleased to see the Cardinal and dropped to his knees in reverence.
The tower's cellar was large, its ceiling supported by great brick arches from which a score of lanterns hung. Their smoky light was augmented by daylight that came through three high, small, thickly barred windows. The prisoner who lived in the cellar was a young man with long fair hair, a quick face and clever eyes. His cheeks and high forehead were smeared with dirt, which also marked his long, agile fingers. He stayed on his knees as the Cardinal approached.
Young Gaspard/ the Cardinal said genially and held out his hand so the prisoner could kiss the heavy ring that contained a thorn from Christ's crown of death. I trust you are well, young Gaspard? You eat heartily, do you? Sleep like a babe? Work like a good Christian? Rut like a hog?' The Cardinal glanced at the girl as he said the last words, then he took his hand away from Gaspard and walked further into the room towards three tables, on which were barrels of clay, blocks of beeswax, piles of ingots, and arrays of chisels, files, augurs and hammers.
The girl, sullen, red-haired and dressed in a dirty shift that hung loose from one shoulder, sat on a low trestle bed in a corner of the cellar. I don't like it here,“ she complained to the Cardinal. The Cardinal stared at her in silence for a good long time, then he turned to his brother, ff she speaks to me again, Charles, without my permission/ he said, whip her.”
She means no harm, your eminence,' Gaspard said, still on his knees.
But I do,“ the Cardinal said, then smiled at the prisoner. Get up, dear boy, get up.”
I need Yvette,“ Gaspard said, 'she helps me.” Tm sure she does,' the Cardinal said, then stooped to a clay bowl in which a brownish paste had been mixed. He recoiled from its stench, then turned as Gaspard came to him, dropped to his knees again, and held up a gift.
For you, your eminence,“ Gaspard said eagerly, I made it for you.”
The Cardinal took the gift. It was crucifix of gold, not a hand's breadth high, yet every detail of the suffering Christ was delicately modelled. There were strands of hair showing beneath the crown of thorns, the thorns themselves could prick, the rent in his side was jagged edged and the spill of golden blood ran past his loin cloth to his long thigh. The nail heads stood proud and the Cardinal counted them. Four. He had seen three true nails in his life. It's beautiful, Gaspard,' the Cardinal said.
I would work better,“ Gaspard said, if there was more light.” We would all work better if there were more light,“ the Cardinal said, the light of truth, the light of God, the light of the Holy Spirit.” He walked beside the tables, touching the tools of Gaspard's trade. Yet the devil sends darkness to befuddle us and we must do our best to endure it.'
Upstairs?“ Gaspard said. There must be rooms with more light upstairs?”
There are,“ the Cardinal said, there are, but how do I know you will not escape, Gaspard? You are an ingenious man. Give you a large window and I might give you the world. No, dear boy, if you can produce work like this”, he held up the crucifix, then you need no more light.“ He smiled. You are so very clever.” Gaspard was indeed clever. He had been a goldsmith's appren tice in one of the small shops on the Quai des Orfevres on the lie de la Cite in Paris where the Cardinal had his mansion. The Cardinal had always appreciated the goldsmiths: he haunted their shops, patronized them and purchased their best pieces, and many of those pieces had been made by this thin, nervous apprentice who had then knifed a fellow-apprentice to death in a sordid tavern brawl and been condemned to the gallows. The Cardinal had rescued him, brought him to the tower and promised him life. But first Gaspard must work the miracle. Only then could he be released. That was the promise, though the Cardinal was quite sure that Gaspard would never leave this cellar unless it was to use the big furnace in the yard. Gaspard, though he did not know it, was already at the gates of hell. The Cardinal made the sign of the cross, then put the crucifix on a table. So show me,' he ordered Gaspard.
Gaspard went to his big work table where an object was shrouded in a cloth of bleached linen. It is only wax now, your eminence,“ he explained, lifting the linen away, and I don't know if it's even possible to turn it into gold.”
It can be touched?' the Cardinal asked.
Carefully/ Gaspard warned. It's purified beeswax and quite delicate.'
The Cardinal lifted the grey-white wax, which felt oily to his touch, and he carried it to one of the three small windows that let in the shadowed daylight and there he stood in awe. Gaspard had made a cup of wax. It had taken him weeks of work. The cup itself was just big enough to hold an apple, while the stem was only six inches long. That stem was modelled as the trunk of a tree and the cup's foot was made from the tree's three roots that spread from the bole. The tree's branches divided into filigree work that formed the lacy bowl of the cup, and the filigree was astonishingly detailed with tiny leaves and small apples and, at the rim, three delicate nails. It is beautiful/ the Cardinal said. The three roots, your eminence, are the Trinity/ Gaspard explained.
I had surmised as much.'
And the tree is the tree of life.'
Which is why it has apples/ the Cardinal said.
And the nails reveal that it will be the tree from which our Lord's cross was made/ Gaspard finished his explanation. That had not escaped me/ the Cardinal observed. He carried the beautiful wax cup back to the table and set it down carefully. Where is the glass?'
Here, your Eminence/ Gaspard opened a box and took out a cup that he offered to the Cardinal. The cup was made of thick, greenish glass that looked very ancient, for in parts the cup was smoky and elsewhere there were tiny bubbles trapped in the pale translucent material. The Cardinal suspected it was Roman. He was not sure of that, but it looked very old and just a little crude, and that was surely right. The cup from which Christ had drunk his last wine would probably be more fit for a peasant's table than for a noble's feast. The Cardinal had discovered the cup in a Paris shop and had purchased it for a few copper coins and he had instructed Gaspard to take off the ill- shapen foot of the glass which the prisoner had done so skilfully that the Cardinal could not even see that there had once been a stem. Now, very gingerly, he put the glass cup into the filigree wax bowl. Gaspard held his breath, fearing that the Cardinal would break one of the delicate leaves, but the cup settled gently and fitted perfectly.
The Grail. The Cardinal gazed at the glass cup, imagining it cradled in a delicate lacework of fine gold and standing on an altar lit by tall white candles. There would be a choir of boys singing and scented incense burning. There would be kings and emperors, princes and dukes, earls and knights kneeling to it. Louis Bessieres, Cardinal Archbishop of Livorno, wanted the Grail and, some months before, he had heard a rumour from southern France, from the land of burned heretics, that the Grail existed. Two sons of the Vexille family, one a Frenchman and the other an English archer, sought that Grail as the Cardinal did, but no one, the Cardinal thought, wanted the Grail as much as he did. Or deserved it as he did. If he found the relic then he would command such awesome power that kings and pope would come to him for blessing and when Clement, the present Pope, died, then Louis Bessieres would take his throne and keys, if only he possessed the Grail. Louis Bessieres wanted the Grail, but one day, staring unseeing at the stained glass in his private chapel, he had experienced a revelation. The Grail itself was not necessary. Perhaps it existed, probably it did not, but all that mattered was that Christendom believed that it
