The Compendium of Srem (6 page)

But that day might never come. There would be no record anywhere of the existence of the
Compendium of Srem
, let alone where it was hidden. The two
relapsos
had no idea why they were digging the hole, and would not know what went into it. And even if they learned, what matter? Each had been sentenced to an
auto da fé
. Tomás would see to it that they had their time at the stakes early tomorrow.

Only Tomás and Ramiro would know its final resting place. The secret would die with them.

Together they watched the progress of the hole. The
relapsos
took turns in the pit: one would climb down the ladder with a shovel and fill a bucket with earth; the one topside would pull the bucket up on a rope, empty it, and send it back down. This went on until the top of the ten-foot ladder sank to a point where it was level with the surface.

“That is deep enough, I think,” Tomás said.

Ramiro ordered the
relapso
down below to come up and pull the ladder from the pit. He tied their hands behind their backs. After blindfolding them, he made them kneel, facing away.

He held out his hands to Tomás. “May I, Prior?”

Tomás handed him the
Compendium
and watched as he unwrapped it. The flickering lantern light revealed the strange cover. The background pattern was crosshatching now. He closed his eyes for a few heartbeats, and when he reopened them it had changed to asymmetrical swirls.

“This is the last time anyone will ever see this book from hell,” Ramiro said. He handed Tomás two cords. “I believe you deserve the honor of tying the covering around it.”

Tomás tied one cord vertically and one horizontally, forming a cross, then handed it to Ramiro.

“Do you not wish to consign it to the pit?”

Tomás shook his head. His legs were tired and his back pained him. “You do it, Brother Ramiro.”

“As you—?” His head shot up. “I believe I just saw a falling star.”

“Where?” Tomás searched the cloudless heavens.

“It is gone. A streaking flash that lasted less than the blink of an eye. Do you think that has meaning, seeing one fall at this moment? Is it the Lord blessing our work?”

“Some say they are damned souls being cast into hell, others say they are signs of good luck. And still others say that falling stars are just that: stars that have slipped free from the dome of heaven and are falling to earth.”

Ramiro was nodding. “Perhaps it is just as well not to read too much into these things.” He held up the tied bundle. “I would carry it myself to the bottom but I fear my girth will not allow it.”

He lifted one of the lamps as he approached the pit and held it high over the opening. Tomás watched the
Compendium
drop into the depths. Then Ramiro began shoveling dirt atop it. After half a dozen shovelfuls, he untied the
relapsos
and had them finish the job.

When they were done and the earth had been tamped flat over the hole, he bound them again, but this time he gagged them before leading them back to their cells.

Tomás remained seated, gazing at the bare earth. He would keep close watch on this patio until it was completed. Once the pavers were in place, the
Compendium
would be hidden from Mankind… forever.

The
relapsos
finally stopped screaming within their pillars of flame.

Ramiro lurched away from the town square and stumbled back toward the monastery. He had always avoided the square during an
auto da fé
but today he felt obliged to brave the dawn's chill and bear witness. Those two had repeatedly preached against the Church's practice of selling indulgences. In his heart Ramiro agreed with them, but would never be foolish enough to profess that aloud.

He had imagined the horror of seeing someone burned alive, but the reality proved worse than he had ever dreamed. Those
relapsos
, however, were gone for good. They would preach heresy no more, but more important, the location of the hole they had dug last night had been consumed with them.

As he walked along, the people who passed him averted their gaze—as usual.

He hated the Inquisition and what it had done to the Spains. He found it logical that the Church should want to safeguard the doctrines that empowered it, but at what cost? Thousands upon thousands had been tortured, hundreds upon hundreds had died in agony, tens of thousands had been banished from the land. A whole society had been upended.

But preserving the Faith was only part of it. The war for the crown of Castile, in which his family had been slaughtered, plus the war in Grenada—the whole
Reconquista
, in fact—had bankrupted the monarchy. Banishing the Jews and Moors did more than make the Spains a Christian realm. It left the abandoned properties to be looted by the Church and the royal treasury—an equal share between them. The same with heretics: the Church and the treasury divided their property and money down the middle.

Wealth and power—the two Holy Grails of church and state.

When he reached the monastery he ventured around the Royal Cloister to monitor the progress on the patio. The masons were hard at work, fitting the paving blocks snugly together, chipping away at the edges to assure a tighter fit. By tonight, or mid-tomorrow at the latest, the patio would be fully paved.

Satisfied, Ramiro moved on, entering the cloister that housed his quarters. His fellow monks spent spring mornings tilling the monastery's fields for planting. Soon he would join them, but first…

He descended to the basement that housed the heretics and what Torquemada liked to call the “instruments of truth”—the rack, the wheel, the thumbscrews, the boots. Adelard had been locked in one of the basement's windowless cells. No guards were needed because the doors were thick and the locks sturdy.

He approached the only locked cell and looked through the small iron-barred opening.

“Brother Adelard?” he whispered.

Adelard's face appeared. “Ramiro! Have you news? Have they decided what?”

“I am sorry. I have heard nothing. I feel terrible for betraying you.”

“I know. But you had no choice. I might have done the same. I don't… I don't know what came over me. Almost as if that book had put a spell on me. Against all reason, I had to have it, I had to save it.”

Ramiro nodded. He knew the feeling well.

He reached through a slit in his robe into a pouch strapped to his ample abdomen. From it he withdrew a small wineskin.

“Here,” he said, pushing it between the bars. “For strength. For courage.”

Adelard pulled off the stopper and drank greedily.

“They don't feed me and give me very little water.”

How does it feel? Ramiro thought. How many have you treated the same to make them weak and more easily persuaded by your tortures?

When Adelard finished the wine he pushed the empty skin back through the opening.

“Thank you. I had no hope of any kindness here.”

“I will save you some bread from the midday meal and return with it.”

Adelard sobbed. “Bless you, Ramiro. Bless you!”

“I must go. I have no business here and do not wish to be caught.”

“Yes. Go. I anxiously await your return.”

“Good-bye, brother.”

As Ramiro climbed the steps to the ground floor, he knew he would have no reason to return. The poison in the wine would kill Adelard within the hour.

He sighed with relief when he reached the library on the second floor. As usual, he had the library to himself at his time of day.

At the rear of the room he lifted one of the larger tiles and gazed at the
Compendium
of Srem where it rested in the space he had hollowed out for it. He ran his fingers over the cover.

The crimes I have committed for you…

The
Compendium
had been under his family's care seemingly forever, handed down from father to first-born son for more generations than he could count. But no generation had taken credit for fashioning it. The book simply
was
.

Ramiro had not been his family's first son, but after the Battle of Toro he was the only son left. He had guarded the
Compendium
then, from the Inquisition and from others who had been searching for it down the ages. But as the Inquisition progressed, strengthening its hold on the populace and penetrating deeper and deeper into the lives of all within reach, he realized that possessing such a magical tome endangered his life. His anxiety grew to the point where he knew he had to change his ways: either flee to a different land, or hide in the belly of the beast.

He chose the latter and joined the Dominicans. He brought the
Compendium
with him, thinking the last place anyone would look for a heretical book would be in a monastery inhabited by the very order running the Inquisition. His family had never followed any religion, merely pretending to be Christians to fit in. After joining, Ramiro had found it easy to pretend, and came to enjoy the serene life of a monk.

But still his anxiety grew. He kept the
Compendium
hidden in a false bottom of his tiny bureau of drawers, but if someone found it, he would end up on the rack. He decided that he wanted to be done with guarding the
Compendium
. That had been his family's tradition, but he could no longer honor the commitment. He had to rid himself of the book, hide it for some future generation to find. But he could not allow himself to know where it was hidden, for he did not think he could resist digging it up and paging through it one more time. And one more time after that. And again after that…

So he had wrapped it and tied it and given it to Pedro the carpenter. He trusted the simple man to follow his instructions: Do not disturb the wrapping and bury it somewhere safe of his own choosing; he was to tell no one the location, not even Ramiro. Pedro had agreed and hurried off into the night.

Days later, Ramiro had almost swooned with shock when Adelard had invited him into his room to see the wondrous new book he had bought in the marketplace.

Pedro had betrayed him.

Right then and there Ramiro had known he wanted it back. The
Compendium
had to be his again.

He pretended to be ignorant of the book and followed along with Adelard until the trail led them to Pedro. When he'd entered the carpenter's hovel alone, he drew a knife from the sleeve of his robe and stabbed him in the heart. He had felt no remorse then and felt none now. He had trusted Pedro with a task and the man had betrayed him in a way most foul, a way that could have cost him his own life.

Ramiro knew from his family tradition across the generations that the
Compendium
had survived flood and blade and fire. That was why he had attacked it so enthusiastically with the headsman's axe: He had known the book would be impervious.

And then Adelard's pathetic attempt to fool them into thinking he had found a solvent to destroy the
Compendium
. Torquemada's eyes were poor, but Ramiro knew the book too well and had recognized the decoy for what it was. After that it was a simple matter of finding where Adelard had hidden the original.

Regaining possession had been the easiest. After making sure Torquemada had tied up the
Compendium
himself, Ramiro pretended to see a falling star. While the old man was searching the sky, Ramiro reached through the slit in his robe into the same pouch where he had hidden Adelard's wine this morning. He removed Adelard's tin fake, wrapped identically as the original. The true
Compendium
took its place in the pouch and Adelard's fake went into the earth.

Ramiro shook his head. He had lied for the
Compendium
, killed for it, betrayed and killed a friend for it, then stolen it back from the Grand Inquisitor himself.

Perhaps you are from hell, he thought, touching the raised lettering. Look what you've made me do.

But no, the
Compendium
was not from hell. Adelard had been right: It came from the past, from before the Deluge. Indeed, it
was
the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World. But it must remain hidden from the modern world. Not for Torquemada's reason of a threat to the Faith—Ramiro cared not for any faith—but because the world did not need it yet.

He replaced the tile and headed for the fields.

Pedro and Adelard and the two
relapsos
were dead. One look at Torquemada and anyone could tell that the Grand Inquisitor would soon be joining them. The Morisco from the marketplace was practically illiterate and had no idea what treasure he had held. Only Asher ben Samuel remained, and as a
converso
targeted by the tribunal, he would never talk about it.

The
Compendium
seemed safe… at least for the moment.

Ramiro's family tradition said the
Compendium
was a thing of destiny, with an important role to play in the future. Ramiro had rededicated himself to preserving it for that future. It would be safer hidden under the library floor than in the chest of drawers in his room or buried in a field. Someday it would find its place in the future and fulfill its destiny.

One day he would leave the order and find a wife. He would have a son and start a new tradition of protecting the
Compendium
.

But until then it would belong to him and him alone. No one else could touch it or read of the marvels described and pictured within. Only him.

Ramiro liked it that way.

~

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