In which a new cellarer is chosen, but not a new librarian.
Was it time for lauds already? Was it earlier or later? From that point on I lost all temporal sense. Perhaps hours went by, perhaps less, in which Malachi’s body was laid out in church on a catafalque, while the brothers formed a semicircle around it. The abbot issued instructions for a prompt funeral. I heard him summon Benno and Nicholas of Morimondo. In less than a day, he said, the abbey had been deprived of its librarian and its cellarer. “You,” he said to Nicholas, “will take over the duties of Remigio. You know the jobs of many, here in the abbey. Name someone to take your place in charge of the forges, and provide for today’s immediate necessities in the kitchen, the refectory. You are excused from offices. Go.” Then to Benno he said, “Only yesterday evening you were named Malachi’s assistant. Provide for the opening of the scriptorium and make sure no one goes up into the library alone.” Shyly, Benno pointed out that he had not yet been initiated into the secrets of that place. The abbot glared at him sternly. “No one has said you will be. You see that work goes on and is offered as a prayer for our dead brothers … and for those who will yet die. Each monk will work only on the books already given him. Those who wish may consult the catalogue. Nothing else. You are excused from vespers, because at that hour you will lock up everything.”
“But how will I come out?” Benno asked.
“Good question. I will lock the lower doors after supper. Go.”
He went out with them, avoiding William, who wanted to talk to him. In the choir, a little group remained: Alinardo, Pacificus of Tivoli, Aymaro of Alessandria, and Peter of Sant’Albano. Aymaro was sneering.
“Let us thank the Lord,” he said. “With the German dead, there was the risk of having a new librarian even more barbarous.”
“Who do you think will be named in his place?” William asked.
Peter of Sant’Albano smiled enigmatically. “After everything that has happened these past few days, the problem is no longer the librarian, but the abbot….”
“Hush,” Pacificus said to him. And Alinardo, with his usual pensive look, said, “They will commit another injustice … as in my day. They must be stopped.”
“Who?” William asked. Pacificus took him confidentially by the arm and led him a distance from the old man, toward the door.
“Alinardo … as you know … we love him very much. For us he represents the old tradition and the finest days of the abbey…. But sometimes he speaks without knowing what he says. We are all worried about the new librarian. The man must be worthy, and mature, and wise…. That is all there is to it.”
“Must he know Greek?” William asked.
“And Arabic, as tradition has it: his office requires it. But there are many among us with these gifts. I, if I may say so, and Peter, and Aymaro…”
“Benno knows Greek.”
“Benno is too young. I do not know why Malachi chose him as his assistant yesterday, but…”
“Did Adelmo know Greek?”
“I believe not. No, surely not.”
“But Venantius knew it. And Berengar. Very well, I thank you.”
We left, to go and get something in the kitchen.
“Why did you want to find out who knew Greek?” I asked.
“Because all those who die with blackened fingers know Greek. Therefore it would be well to expect the next corpse among those who know Greek. Including me. You are safe.”
“And what do you think of Malachi’s last words?”
“You heard them. Scorpions. The fifth trumpet announces, among other things, the coming of locusts that will torment men with a sting like a scorpion’s. And Malachi informed us that someone had forewarned him.”
“The sixth trumpet,” I said, “announces horses with lions’ heads from whose mouths come smoke and fire and brimstone, ridden by men covered with breastplates the color of fire, jacinth, and brimstone.”
“Too many things. But the next crime might take place near the horse barn. We must keep an eye on it. And we must prepare ourselves for the seventh blast. Two more victims still. Who are the most likely candidates? If the objective is the secret of the finis Africae, those who know it. And as far as I can tell, that means only the abbot. Unless the plot is something else. You heard them just now, scheming to depose the abbot, but Alinardo spoke in the plural….”
“The abbot must be warned,” I said.
“Of what? That they will kill him? I have no convincing evidence. I proceed as if the murderer and I think alike. But if he were pursuing another design? And if, especially, there were not a murderer?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly. But as I said to you, we must imagine all possible orders, and all disorders.”