With the infirmary, we abandoned my poor hypothesis, and as we were crossing the vegetable garden I asked William whether he really trusted Benno. “Not entirely,” William said, “but we told him nothing he didn’t already know, and we have made him fear the book. And, finally, in setting him to watch Malachi, we are also setting Malachi to watch him, and Malachi is obviously looking for the book on his own.”
“What did the cellarer want, then?”
“We’ll soon know. Certainly he wanted something, and he wanted it quickly, to avert some danger that was terrifying him. This something must be known to Malachi: otherwise there would be no explanation of Remigio’s desperate plea to him. . . .”
“Anyway, the book has vanished. . . .”
“This is the most unlikely thing,” William said, as we arrived at the chapter house. “If it was there, as Severinus told us it was, either it’s been taken away or it’s there still.”
“And since it isn’t there, someone has taken it away,” I concluded.
“It is also possible that the argument should proceed from another minor premise. Since everything confirms the fact that nobody can have taken it away . . .”
“Then it should be there still. But it is not there.”
“Just a moment. We say it isn’t there because we didn’t find it. But perhaps we didn’t find it because we haven’t seen it where it was.”
“But we looked everywhere!”
“We looked, but did not see. Or else saw, but did not recognize. . . . Adso, how did Severinus describe that book to us? What words did he use?”
“He said he had found a book that was not one of his, in Greek. . . .”
“No! Now I remember. He said a strange book. Severinus was a man of learning, and for a man of learning a book in Greek is not strange; even if that scholar doesn’t know Greek, he would at least recognize the alphabet. And a scholar wouldn’t call a book in Arabic strange, either, even if he doesn’t know Arabic. . . .” He broke off. “And what was an Arabic book doing in Severinus’s laboratory?”
“But why should he have called an Arabic book strange?”
“This is the problem. If he called it strange it was because it had an unusual appearance, unusual at least for him, who was an herbalist and not a librarian. . . . And in libraries it can happen that several ancient manuscripts are bound together, collecting in one volume various and curious texts, one in Greek, one in Aramaic . . .”
“. . . and one in Arabic!” I cried, dazzled by this illumination.
William roughly dragged me out of the narthex and sent me running toward the infirmary. “You Teuton animal, you turnip! You ignoramus! You looked only at the first pages and not at the rest!”
“But, master,” I gasped, “you’re the one who looked at the pages I showed you and said it was Arabic and not Greek!”
“That’s true, Adso, that’s true: I’m the animal. Now hurry! Run!”
We went back to the laboratory, but we had trouble entering, because the novices were carrying out the corpse. Other curious visitors were roaming about the room. William rushed to the table and picked up the volumes, seeking the fatal one, flinging away one after another before the amazed eyes of those present, then opening and reopening them all again. Alas, the Arabic manuscript was no longer there. I remembered it vaguely because of its old cover, not strong, quite worn, with light metal bands.
“Who came in here after I left?” William asked a monk. The monk shrugged: it was clear that everyone and no one had come in.
We tried to consider the possibilities. Malachi? It was possible; he knew what he wanted, had perhaps spied on us, had seen us go out empty-handed, and had come back, sure of himself. Benno? I remembered that when William and I had gibed at each other over the Arabic text, he had laughed. At the time I believed he was laughing at my ignorance, but perhaps he had been laughing at William’s ingenuousness: he knew very well the various guises in which an ancient manuscript could appear, and perhaps he had thought what we did not think immediately but should have thought—namely, that Severinus knew no Arabic, and so it was odd that he should keep among his books one he was unable to read. Or was there a third person?
William was deeply humiliated. I tried to comfort him; I told him that for three days he had been looking for a text in Greek and it was natural in the course of his examination for him to discard all books not in Greek. And he answered that it is certainly human to make mistakes, but there are some human beings who make more than others, and they are called fools, and he was one of them, and he wondered whether it was worth the effort to study in Paris and Oxford if one was then incapable of thinking that manuscripts are also bound in groups, a fact even novices know, except stupid ones like me, and a pair of clowns like the two of us would be a great success at fairs, and that was what we should do instead of trying to solve mysteries, especially when we were up against people far more clever than we.
“But there’s no use weeping,” he concluded. “If Malachi took it, he has already replaced it in the library. And we would find it only if we knew how to enter the finis Africae. If Benno took it, he must have assumed that sooner or later I would have the suspicion I did have and would return to the laboratory, or he wouldn’t have acted in such haste. And so he must be hiding, and the one place where he has not hidden surely is the one where we would look for him immediately: namely, his cell. Therefore, let’s go back to the chapter house and see if during the interrogation the cellarer says anything useful. Because, after all, I still don’t see Bernard’s plan clearly; he was seeking his man before the death of Severinus, and for other reasons.”
We went back to the chapter. We would have done better to go to Benno’s cell, because, as we were to learn later, our young friend did not have such a high opinion of William and had not thought he would go back to the laboratory so quickly; so, thinking he was not being sought from that quarter, he had gone straight to his cell to hide the book.
But I will tell of this later. In the meantime dramatic and disturbing events took place, enough to make anyone forget about the mysterious book. And though we did not forget it, we were engaged by other urgent tasks, connected with the mission that William, after all, was supposed to fulfill.
NONES
In which justice is meted out, and there is the embarrassing impression that everyone is wrong.
Bernard Gui took his place at the center of the great walnut table in the chapter hall. Beside him a Dominican performed the function of notary, and two prelates of the papal legation sat flanking him, as judges. The cellarer was standing before the table, between two archers.
The abbot turned to William and whispered: “I do not know whether this procedure is legitimate. The Lateran Council of 1215 decreed in its Canon Thirty-seven that a person cannot be summoned to appear before judges whose seat is more than two days’ march from his domicile. Here the situation is perhaps different; it is the judge who has come from a great distance, but . . .”
“The inquisitor is exempt from all normal jurisdiction,” William said, “and does not have to follow the precepts of ordinary law. He enjoys a special privilege and is not even bound to hear lawyers.”
I looked at the cellarer. Remigio was in wretched shape. He looked around like a frightened animal, as if he recognized the movements and gestures of a liturgy he feared. Now I know he was afraid for two reasons, equally terrifying: one, that he had been caught, to all appearances, in flagrant crime; the other, that the day before, when Bernard had begun his inquiry, collecting rumors and insinuations, Remigio had already been afraid his past would come to light; and his alarm had grown when he saw them arrest Salvatore.
If the hapless Remigio was in the grip of his own fear, Bernard Gui, for his part, knew how to transform his victims’ fear into terror. He did not speak: while all were now expecting him to begin the interrogation, he kept his hands on the papers he had before him, pretending to arrange them, but absently.
His gaze was really fixed on the accused, and it was a gaze in which hypocritical indulgence (as if to say: Never fear, you are in the hands of a fraternal assembly that can only want your good) mixed with icy irony (as if to say: You do not yet know what your good is, and I will shortly tell you) and merciless severity (as if to say: But in any case I am your judge here, and you are in my power). All things that the cellarer already knew, but which the judge’s silence and delay served to make him feel more deeply, so that, as he became more and more humiliated, his uneasiness
