The Inquisitor's Tale: Chapters 16–21

William hesitated, and then he said, emphatically, “Yes!”

Suddenly, one of them shushed the others, and they became silent. They looked chastened.

Like all the monks, his head was covered with the gray cowl of the order.

Each of the king’s men had the bearing of someone who expects to be respected and accepts that respect gracefully.

But, to the utter horror of William and Jacob, she was not bowing to the king. And then, as if the situation was not horrifying enough, Gwenforte trotted up and sat down beside Jeanne, as if she, too, were refusing to pay obeisance to King Louis IX of France.

The refectory of a Grandmontine abbey is as spare as the monks’ lives.

In stark contrast to the darkness of his hair, though, his eyes are limpid and blue.

These apparent contradictions express themselves in everything that he does, down to his elocution.

It is exact and perfect in every way—and yet it is not ostentatious. Like his clothes. The richest in France—and yet simple, almost forgettable.

She’s seen a drawing, Your Majesty. A picture. Your royal seal, emblazoned with your face.

“Then you gave it away!" I said. “Your kingly bearing, your imperious gaze. Your royal regard!”

I didn’t mind the rebuke—it is an honor to be rebuked by the king. But I did not like him trusting her so soon, and so far.

Instantly, we crossed ourselves—thumbs inward, shoulder to shoulder, forehead to sternum.

“My lord,” I cried, beseeching him, “My lord, what’s happened?”

I don’t know what you did with the Nail. Sell it? Or maybe you’ll return it, having ‘found the culprit’ and pinned your crime on some poor fool? Either way, you'll have ingratiated yourselves with the king.

Louis understood, too. He stood up and turned to the abbot. “Do you have horses?”
“Of course, my liege.”

The rain was falling harder now, beating the roof of the refectory like the drums of war, running down the sluices in torrents.

Like turning over a log in a wood and finding the underside teeming with life, and then realizing that the entire forest floor teems, too, and that this log, pulsing with creatures, is only one sliver of the great seething masses of life spreading out in every direction all around one’s feet—just so, as the royal oxcarts rolled on, each street of Paris appeared to the children like its own world, its own universe of life, teeming with more humans than they had ever seen.

And then they would be reminded, by some skittering side alley or diagonally crossing lane, that this stretch of street was but an infinitesimally small slice of Paris, and that the city multiplied out and out and out.

There were proud young knights, pushing past the wet rabble, their sheathed swords swinging like ship booms, occasionally smacking in the face the children who ran behind them, begging for bread.

“The disputes of the moneylenders. The Lombards only recently brought their usury to Paris, you see, where the money-lending trade has always been Jewish. The Lombards are not used to the competition. I don’t think they like it.”

“What is your name?”
“Johann Montefiore, of Lombardy!” the man said, groveling.

What power, what riches, the children wondered, could cover the entire earth with finely hewed stone?

Straight ahead of the cart, emerging from the gray mist, were walls as gray and imposing as Notre Dame herself.

Fine spires poked up above them into the rain.

In the corner, five pallets—with thin mattresses and undyed blankets on each—stood in a tall stack.

So the children, even William, wore red silk stockings and blue tunics, like royal squires.

“But we have come to the crux of our campaign. Tonight, at dinner, we will be introduced to Blanche of Castile—the king’s mother.”

“And this revulsion you feel—where does this come from?”

Gwenforte raised her head to ascertain the reason that he had stopped stroking her back.

The torches sputtered and spoke in their sconces on the walls of the corridor.

“Gwenforte!” Jeanne reprimanded her. But Gwenforte would not quiet. She growled and barked, growled and barked some more.

Once the trumpet fanfare faded away, a chorus of men began to sing, their voices blending like threads of silk on a loom.

“So, children,” Blanche of Castile began. “You are a strange and piebald crew!”

“Oh, it’s just a joke, my darling! No need to be so pious all the time! God knows I don’t blame the poor man for wobbling like venison jelly!”

“And you—” She turned to William, pointing with the hand that wore the ovoid sapphire.

“They’re Talmuds. New laws. Not God’s. They are misreadings of the Good Book, perpetrated by rabbis to lead the Jews away from God’s word.”

O Lord God, we have tried to hear Your voice above the din of other voices.

But they were loved all the more, the only possession of a poor section of Jewish houses on the outskirts of some French town, passed down delicately from generation to generation, losing tiny scraps of leather and corners of parchment each year.

Students laughed and pointed, reveling in the spectacle, the drama.