The Inquisitor's Tale: Chapters 11–15

It is a low and musty place, with a dozen tables on a dirt floor and a raised dais with a moldy tapestry behind the high table.

At first, the knight was talking and gesticulating, pointing at the two children.

We stood on the ramparts of the keep, looking out between the stone crenellations at the bare trees and scarred hills of Bertulf’s domain.

He discovered it in the ruins of a famous inn, the Ale and Cheese. The patrons and innkeeper were all scattered or dead, and the dragon was making quick work of the provision they’d left behind.

The patrons and innkeeper were all scattered or dead, and the dragon was making quick work of the provision they’d left behind.

And I say, "For God's sake, get him another drink! Now!"
The innkeeper obliges, and Gerald goes on.

Jeanne stared at the cheese balefully. “On the one hand, I’m still hungry. On the other hand, it smells like my cow’s butt.”

And he followed his brother into a thick copse of fern and gorse.

He had been coming for the ewe. But the sheep runs around to the other side of the tree, and Jeanne is just sitting there.

The flames are gone, but now, suffusing the clearing is the sickening smell of the dragon’s fart—and the more frightening smell of charred skin, hair, and flesh.

“Spit it out! Here!” Jacob commands the knights, holding out his hands. So the knights disgorge the bitter leaf, black with saliva, into Jacob’s small palms.

He smears the masticated leaf all over Haye’s body, and then packs it with mossy soil.

The dragon pulled himself backward along the grass, letting the yellow fluid flow in a long, viscous trail.

“I vill now accept petitions and reqvests. If dere are any grievances, I shall hear dem.”

“I shall light dis candle. Ven dere is no tallow left, the period for grievances shall end. Then, ve shall have song!”

Lord Bertulf rarely let his tenants and vassals finish their claims before announcing his judgment.

Everyone quieted to see this lump of rags, shuffling forward, his weight leaning on a gnarled stick, his legs bent like bows and caked with mud.

“You have something that is not yours,” the hunchback intoned. “Return it, and I shall leave your august presence.”

Knights and courtiers charging to the front, ladies and children either hiding below tables or standing on them to get a better view, a troupe of jongleurs (the now-superfluous entertainment for the evening) grabbing as many pewter serving plates as they could carry and running for the doors.

“And remember, Hubert is a serious man. More pious than anyone I have ever met. Do not joke with him or be flippant. Be straightforward. Be honest. So he will be with you. And there it is.”

I hurried them forward, past the refectory, the infirmary, the stairwell to the crypt.

She looks at me like I'm being very impertinent.

“Are you? You’re so...big!”
William nodded, a little taken aback by the banality of the comment.

William was warming up, his words ebbing and flowing like the sermon of a wandering preacher.

We wanted to know everything. To plumb the depths of the divine plan, to understand all creation, from the Garden of Eden until today.

“And so I have never forgotten the torment of my dearest friend. And whenever the Devil leads poor sinners astray with black magic and false saints, I rescue them from their error.”

“Some will say you were saints, martyred for your beliefs. But we will know the truth.”

Theresa is a woman of God. Your bailiff—Charles was his name?—he had denounced her as a witch. What could I do but take her elsewhere?

He ate slowly, listlessly, stealing occasional glances at the old man sitting in the corner.

Jacob again glanced furtively at Yehuda.

“And the Kingdom of Heaven is near indeed! The Cistercians have carved wood and bent iron into a pump of perpetual movement! In Chartres, they have erected a cathedral that literally touches the belly of Heaven! And wise men like you and Roger Bacon and Rashi show the benighted the error of their ways!”

She shrugged diffidently and eyed him from under her brown brows.

“And have you ever met anyone who could break a stone bench with his fist? Or dispatch a dozen fiends using nothing but flesh and bone?”

His church served only the poor and had no funds, until one day a rich woman died and left the church a great deal of money. When the Roman emperor heard this, he sent his soldiers to get the treasure to add to the empire’s coffers.

“There is to be a burning. A great conflagration. Of books. They are to be stacked like logs, or thrown on a pyre, in the center of Paris,” Michelangelo explained.

“There is to be a burning. A great conflagration. Of books. They are to be stacked like logs, or thrown on a pyre, in the center of Paris,” Michelangelo explained.

The Talmud is the collected wisdom of the rabbis—a discussion of the Bible. But apparently, since we are the People of the Book, we only get one. The Bible. The rest are to be consigned to the flames.

Yehuda, almost imperceptibly, smiled.

"Yes, a miracle can be performed by a saint," I say. "But it can also be performed by a charlatan! A trickster! I bet that jongleur sleeping out in the barn could dazzle our eyes if we let him."

"Magic alone does not a saint make. A saint must do God's work. A saint must be the embodiment of God's goodness on earth. Saint Lawrence gave great wealth to the poor. Besides healing your head, what have these children done?"