The Tenth Chamber Part 19

Thursday Morning Paris looked pristine in the flat cold light of the autumn morning. As Luc's taxi drove from his hotel in the centre of the city, east towards the Peripherique, the neighbourhoods became dingier until they were in the suburbs, in Montreuil, where if you strained your eyes you could just spot the Eiffel Tower glimmering hopefully on the western horizon.

Off the Boulevard Rouget de Lisle, they drove through a section where there were as many black faces as white, and outside an old Catholic church in the middle of a crowded block, black people were streaming up the steps.

Luc had never met Pierre's father but Philippe Berewa obviously had his eye out for him, because the man rushed down the steps as soon as Luc sent the taxi off.

They embraced. As tall as Luc was, Philippe was a head taller and had the same type of athletic physique as his son. His face was creased with age. He was wearing a three-piece suit with a gold watch chain, an elegant throw-back to another time and place. Luc knew he'd been a doctor in Sierra Leone, and that he'd never been able to get his certification in France and had been relegated to more lowly work as a hospital technician. Luc nevertheless, called him Doctor.

The church was already packed. Luc was led to the front pew where a seat of honour had been reserved for him, next to Pierre's mother, a heavyset woman in a sombre dress and small black hat, who was weeping openly.

As the Requiem Ma.s.s progressed, the contrasts to Jeremy's funeral were manifest. The mourners here were under none of the emotional constraints of Jeremy's kith and kin. There was open sobbing and wailing and the moment Pierre's casket was met by the priest, who sprinkled it with Holy Water and began intoning the De Profundis De Profundis, a tsunami of grief ran through the church.

Afterwards, there were no questions about what had happened, as if G.o.d's will was a universal explanation, a completely soothing balm. What his parents and siblings wanted Luc to know was that Pierre had died doing something he loved more than anything on earth and that it had been an honour for him to be the student of the ill.u.s.trious Professor Simard.

All Luc could do was hold on to them, say a few choice words about how special he was and tell them a plaque with Pierre's name would be driven into the cliffs at the mouth of Ruac Cave.

Luc was in a taxi again, heading back into town, limp from mourning. He checked his voicemail; there was nothing, so he called up the detective inspector in Cambridge he'd spoken to the previous evening about Sara. The detective had promised to check accident and other police reports and local hospital admissions for any mention of a Sara Mallory.

He reached DI Chambers on his mobile. The man seemed rushed and distracted, in the middle of something else. He said there had been no police, ambulance or hospital records involving Professor Mallory but he'd be sure to let Luc know if that were to change. Luc couldn't even be sure if he'd done anything. Maybe he was lying through his teeth. And when Luc asked if there'd been any developments in the Science Park explosion, the officer frostily referred him to the Cambridge Police website for information. That was that.

Luc had seen Hugo's people at his memorial service, so when he returned to the office of H. Pineau Restorations on Rue Beaujon there was no need to replay words of grief and loss. The sentiment was on everyone's face it wasn't necessary to put it on their lips.

Even the effervescent Margot was incapable of more than a wan smile. He followed her past Hugo's office, sealed like a mausoleum, to Isaak Mansion's office down the hall. Isaak was on the way, she told him, and offered a coffee.

When she came back with a tray, he asked how things were going.

'Not well. Isaak can tell you.' She had something in her hand and opened her palm to show it, as if it was a jewel or a relic. Hugo's mobile. Small, thin and modern, just like him. 'The police sent it back. Maybe I shouldn't have but I looked through it. There were some lovely photos of you and Luc with some women.'

'Ah,' Luc said faintly, 'our dinner at Domme. His last night.'

'You all looked so happy. Would you like them?'

He thought about it, the sadness of it all, but said he would.

'I'll email them to you, if that's okay,' and she was off, crying again.

Isaak was a few minutes late. He came striding in, with a troubled look on his face. With a minimum of smalltalk, he launched into an agitated apologia for his foul mood.

'You were his friend, Luc, so I can tell you that it's all going to h.e.l.l. I had to take over the books, of course, and I can tell you, the business wasn't as good as Hugo made out. He had big loans against the a.s.sets, to feed his lifestyle, you know. It was barely profitable and now, without him, business is way down. We're in the red. It's not sustainable.'

'I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?'

'Other than join me in the restoration business? No, just venting. We'll have to sell it to settle his estate. I'm talking to bankers. This is my problem. You have your own. I'm sorry to equate mine with yours.'

'Don't apologise,' Luc said. 'We'd both be better off if Hugo were still here. Look, it's good of you to make some time. What do you have for me?'

'Like I said in my voice message. More of your ma.n.u.script. Hugo's Belgian contact decoded another chunk.'

'Did he say what the key word was?'

Isaak's desk was in chaos, files and papers everywhere. He searched and cursed for a good minute before laying hands on the folder. 'HELOISE.'

'Not a shock,' Luc said. 'It's in Latin, no?'

'It's not a problem. I read Latin, Greek, even a bit of Hebrew and Aramaic. Hugo picked me for my background. He didn't want a guy who only knew spreadsheets.'

'Do you have time to translate it now?'

'For a friend of Hugo's, of course!' He scratched his beard. 'Also, I'm curious, and it's more fun than sorting through accounts payable.'

Luc's phone rang and he excused himself when he recognised the number.

'Luc, it's Father Menaud calling.' There was a tremor in his voice.

'h.e.l.lo, Dom Menaud. Are you all right?'

'It's a silly thing to be upset about, what with the horrible tragedy of the murders but...' His voice trailed off.

'But what, Father?'

'I've just found out the ma.n.u.script is gone! It was in the box on my desk. You recall it?'

'Of course.'

'I opened the box this morning to look at it and it wasn't there! You don't know anything about it, do you?'

'No, nothing. When was the last time you saw it?'

'Perhaps a week ago. Before the tragedy.'

'Could someone have gone into your rooms and stolen it Sunday night?'

'Yes. Nothing is locked here. I and the Brothers were at prayer when your people were attacked.'

'I'm sorry, Father. I don't know what to say. We have a very faithful colour copy of the ma.n.u.script, of course, but that's no subst.i.tute. You should call Colonel Toucas and let him know. And listen a little good news, I suppose. Another section has been decoded. I'll send you the information when I have it.'

Luc re-pocketed his phone and saw that Isaak was staring at him.

'On top of everything, Isaak, the Ruac Ma.n.u.script was stolen, perhaps the night of the murders. I'm not buying the randomness of all the s.h.i.+t that's happened. Not for a minute. It's more important than ever for us to know what the ma.n.u.script says. It has to be the key, so please, let's go.'

Isaak had the lengthy email from Belgium printed out. He put on his reading gla.s.ses, and began translating the Latin, on the fly, apologising for his stumbles and wistfully interjecting that Hugo was the superior Latin scholar.

It is a mystery to me how like-minded men, united in exaltation of Christ, could come to opposite conclusions about a shared experience. Whereas myself, Jean and Abelard were firmly of the belief the red infusion we prepared was a path to spiritual enlightenment and physical vigoir, Bernard was strongly opposed. Whereas we took to calling the liquid, Enlightenment Tea, Bernard declared it a Devil's brew. Bernard's rebuke was a great blow to us all, but none more so than Abelard who had come to love and respect my brother as deeply as if they were of the same flesh and blood. Bernard took his leave of Ruac and returned to Clairvaux when we three declared we would not forego the pleasures of the infusion. We would not, and indeed, felt we could not.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

Priory of St Marcel, 1142 For a priory as modest as the one in St Marcel, it was an extraordinary gathering. Well set back from the River Saone and nestled in a dense thicket, the priory was ill equipped to deal with the influx of pilgrims. They arrived from all the compa.s.s-points of France, and how such a diverse population had efficiently learned about one man's imminent death, no one could say for sure.

Abelard, the great teacher, philosopher and theologian lay dying.

There were students, disciples and admirers from all the way-stations of his life Paris, Nogent-sur-Seine, Ruac, the Abbeys of Saint-Denis and St Gildas de Rhuys, the Paraclete in Ferreux-Quincey, and finally, this friendly final sanctuary near Cluny. He had spent his life teaching and wandering, thinking and writing and were it not for the dreaded white plague, the consumption that was eating away at his lungs, he would have continued to attract many more followers. Such was his charisma.

The infirmary was little more than a thatched hut and in the trodden-down clearing between the hut and the chapel, perhaps forty men had pitched camp to pray, to talk and to visit at his bedside in ones and twos.

The path from Ruac to St Marcel had been a twenty-four year exploration of life and love. Abelard had left Ruac, his health and outlook restored and had travelled to The Abbey of St Denis, where he had a.s.sumed the habit of a Benedictine monk, and had begun an explosively rich period of meditation and writing. Not only did he produce his controversial treatise on the Holy Trinity, much to the discomfort of the Church orthodoxy, but he also continued to write letter after letter, ever more pa.s.sionate, to his beloved Heloise, still ensconced at the nunnery of Argenteuil.

He was nothing, if not feisty. His inquisitive temperament, rapier intelligence and boundless energy led him to argue and probe and shake established thought from its foundations. And whenever his spirits flagged or his pace slowed, he would set off with his wicker basket into the fields and meadows to collect plants and berries, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of his fellow monks who knew not what he did with them.

He had his own personal trinity of sorts that occupied all his waking thoughts: theology, philosophy and Heloise. Of the first two, few men had the sufficiency of mind to spar with him or share his intellectual proclivities. Of the last, all men could understand his longings.

Heloise, sweet Heloise, remained the love of his life, the fiery beacon on a faraway hill that beckoned him home. But she had taken the veil and he had taken the cloth and Christ was their proper object of devotion. All they could do was exchange letters that singed each other with their pa.s.sion.

Neither he nor Bernard of Clairvaux, would have ever imagined that Bernard's new-found enmity of Abelard would have formed the bridge that would unite the star-crossed lovers.

When Bernard left Ruac, and returned to Citeaux healed in body but troubled in spirit, he bitterly rued the decision his brother Barthomieu had taken not to forsake the devil brew. On reflection, he blamed no one more than Abelard for the turn of events because among the players in this affair, none was more ample of mind and persuasive than that eunuch. His poor brother was a mere p.a.w.n. The true evil-doer was Abelard.

For that reason, he used his ever-widening sphere of ecclesiastical influence to keep tabs on that renegade monk and when Abelard's treatise on the Trinity made it into his hands, he seized on its heresies, as he saw them, to have him summoned before a papal council at Soissons in 1121 to answer for himself.

Was he not proclaiming a Tritheistic view that Father, Son and Holy Ghost were separable, each with their own existence, Bernard fumed? Was the One G.o.d merely an abstraction to him? Had the devil brew made him lose his mind?

With no little satisfaction, Bernard learned that Abelard had been forced by the Pope to burn his own book and retreat to St Denis in disgrace. But bitter seeds had been sown. The monks at the abbey saw fit to rid themselves of Abelard and his heresy and he withdrew to the solitude of a deserted place in the vicinity of Troyes, in a hamlet known as Ferreux-Quincey. There, he and a small band of followers established a new monastery they called the Oratory of the Paraclete. Paraclete the Holy Ghost. A stick-in-the-eye to his accusers.

The place suited Abelard. It was remote, it had a good spring nearby, fertile soil and an ample source of wood for building a church. And, to his satisfaction there was an abundance of possession weed, barley gra.s.ses and gooseberries in the environs.

When the basics of the oratory were constructed and there was a chapel and lodgings, he did something he could not have done had he not been the abbot of this new place: he summoned Heloise.

She came from Argenteuil on a horse-drawn cart, accompanied by a small entourage of nuns.

Though veiled in the simple habit of a sister, she was as captivating as he had remembered.

Surrounded by their followers, they could not embrace. A touch of hands, that was all. That was enough.

He noticed her crucifix was larger than her companions'. 'You are a prioress, now,' he observed.

'And you are an abbot, sir,' she countered.

'We have risen to high office,' he jested.

'The better to serve Christ,' she said, lowering her eyes.

He came to her at night in the little house he had built. She protested. They argued. He was wild-eyed, talking too fast in a dreamy way, cogent but fluid without the starts and pauses of normal discourse. He had drunk his Enlightenment Tea earlier in the evening. She did not need to know that. He was pressed for time. His mood would curdle soon enough and he did not want her to bear witness.

Her wit and tongue were rapier-sharp, as ever. Her skin was as white as the finest marble in her uncle Fulbert's salon. Too little of it showed from under her chaste rough habit. He pushed her down on her bed and fell onto her, kissing her neck, her cheeks. She pushed back and chided but then yielded and kissed him too. He pulled at the coa.r.s.e fabric that covered her to her ankles and exposed the flesh of her thigh.

'We cannot,' she moaned.

'We are husband and wife,' he panted.

'No longer.'

'Still.'

'You cannot,' she said, and then she felt his hardness against her leg. 'How is this possible?' she gasped. 'Your mishap?' cannot,' she said, and then she felt his hardness against her leg. 'How is this possible?' she gasped. 'Your mishap?'

'I told you there was a way for us to be man and wife again,' he said, and he lifted her habit high over her waist.

Hypocrisy.

It weighed on them. She was married to Christ. He had taken the vows of a monk and those vows included chast.i.ty. Both of them had towering intellects and full knowledge of the religious, ethical and moral consequences of their actions. Yet, they could not stop.

After Matins, several times a week, Abelard would retire to his abbot house, drink a draught of Enlightenment Tea, and in the middle of the night come to her. Some nights she said no, initially. Some nights she spoke not a word. But every time he came, she would consent and they would lie together as man and wife. And every time, when they were done, he left her in a hail of self-deprecation and tears. And he too, when he was alone, would pray fervently for the absolution of his sins.

Their liaisons could have continued without interference. He was a eunuch. This was universally known. Their relations.h.i.+p, was by this twist of fate, beyond suspicion or reproach.

Yet it could not stand. In the end, Christ was stronger than their l.u.s.t. Their guilt tore them to pieces and threatened their sanity. Their stealthy practice ground them down. She said she felt like a thief in the night and he could not disagree. He always insisted on leaving her after they made love and warned her of a dark side that had him in its grip, which he would not let her witness. And then he would run off into the woods before the rage overtook him. There, until the cloud pa.s.sed, he would flail the trees with branches and pound the earth with his fists until the pain made him stop.

Their continual cycles of sin and repentance made them into oxen yoked to a grist mill, turning, turning, going nowhere. Did they not, they asked each other when they were spent from lovemaking, have higher purposes?

In time, despite his overwhelming desire and affection, he bade her to return to Argenteuil and she fitfully agreed.

They continued to write each other, dozens of letters, pouring their souls on to parchment. None affected Abelard more than this missive, which he reread every day for the rest of his life: You desire me to give myself up to my duty, and to be wholly G.o.d's, to whom I am consecrated. How can I do that, when you frighten me with apprehensions that continually possess my mind both night and day? When an evil threatens us, and it is impossible to ward it off, why do we give up ourselves to the unprofitable fear of it, which is yet even more tormenting than the evil itself? What have I hope for after the loss of you? What can confine me to earth when death shall have taken away from me all that was dear on it? I have renounced without difficulty all the charms of life, preserving only my love, and the secret pleasure of thinking incessantly of you, and hearing that you live. And yet, alas! you do not live for me, and dare not flatter myself even with the hope that I shall ever see you again. This is the greatest of my afflictions. Heaven commands me to renounce my fatal pa.s.sion for you, but oh! my heart will never be able to consent to it. Adieu.

In her absence, Abelard threw himself back into a world of writing, teaching and fervent prayer. He was always a magnet for students who possessed the finest minds, and they found him at Paraclete.

But Bernard, now entrenched in the role of nemesis, found him too, or at least found his new writings. For several years, he taught and wrote but once again, Abelard's views on the Trinity set him on a collision course with orthodoxy and by 1125, bowing to Bernard's remote but powerful hand, his position at Paraclete became untenable.

Abelard summoned Heloise one more time to Paraclete, a.s.suring her there was important business, not pa.s.sion on his mind. This was a half-truth, for his pa.s.sion had never ebbed.

He told her he had been offered a position as head of the monastery of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys in Brittany, and he had accepted it. Yes, Brittany was far away, but he could make a fresh start, further from the sphere of influence of his adversaries. He had much to write and still much to learn and his energy and ambitions had never been greater. And he could visit with their child, Astrolabe, who had since birth lived in Brittany with Heloise's sister.

And this he saved for last. He placed both hands on her shoulders in a manner both tender and authoritarian and bestowed on her the t.i.tle of Abbess of the Oratory of Paraclete. The monastery was hers now. He would return to Paraclete only in death.

She wept.

Tears of sorrow for their lost love, for her daughter who did not know her mother.

But also tears of joy for Abelard's miraculous triumph over her uncle's cruel hand and his indomitable spirit and vigour.

Her nuns were summoned from Argenteuil to join her in this new place. Abelard's brothers would vacate so Paraclete could be a community of women.

In a ma.s.s in the church, he formally consecrated her as abbess and pa.s.sed on to her a copy of the monastic rule and the baculum baculum, her pastoral staff, which she firmly grasped, looking deeply into his eyes.