4

Rue Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie

March 13, 1355

Flamel sighed. The Templars and the Saracens. The furrier was narrow-minded and superstitious.

“Master Maillard, Baphomet isn’t the Saracens’ god, but a simple idol, nothing more. And the Templars were tortured. Chained to a stone and subjected to God knows what, they would have confessed to anything.”

“Not another word. Do you want to end up burned at the stake?”

Flamel made the sign of the cross. It had been many years since anyone in Paris had been sent to the pyre. The king had little desire to invoke the sentence. The last executions by burning had taken place forty years earlier, with the Templars. And the grand master’s curse on the royal family and its descendants still resonated in the minds of the people. Since then, France had known nothing but woe: the collapse of the House of Capet, the English invasion, and the plague, which had decimated the country.

“To order such a punishment, King John would need a very good reason,” Flamel said. “God does not forgive the burning of the innocent.”

Master Maillard chuckled. “It’s a Jew who’s being burned. That’s what the uproar by the river is all about. And who better to burn? He’s a scholar, from what I’ve heard. From Spain. Our king, whose goodness is without limits, even hosted the man. Jews know much. Don’t forget that they were the ones who crucified our Lord Jesus Christ. Since then, the Devil has showered them with favors.”

“But—”

“Our king was deceived,” Master Maillard said, his face hard. “That is all. And when he realized he had opened his home to evil, he called for an inquisition.”

Flamel shivered.

“You do know what that means, don’t you? And that Jew didn’t come alone. He brought his daughter and…”

Across the street, a door opened with an otherworldly creak. For years, the façade had been mute, the windows boarded up, and the door nailed shut. Rumor had it that the building belonged to the Dominicans, who had inherited it and let it fall into ruin. But since Christmas, someone had been living there.

A hooded man dressed in black emerged and slipped down the street. He was heading toward the Seine.

Master Maillard grabbed Flamel’s sleeve. “For the salvation of our souls and the survival of our bodies, pray that he didn’t hear us.”

Flamel was wondering if he did, indeed, spend too much time with his books. Even his wife, Lady Perenelle, who mingled with gossips every day at the market, had said nothing about this new neighbor.

“Master Maillard, you speak in enigmas. First you allude to a pyre, and then you tremble at the sight of that man.”

The furrier waited for the stranger to turn the corner. “My dear neighbor, I simply do not like coincidences, with that mystery man dressed in clothing as black as death.”

“That hood was hiding his face.”

“He wears it to remain anonymous and keep himself safe. Who knows how many people would assault him if they knew who he was!”

“Master Maillard, would you, for the love of God, tell me who he is?” The usually calm Flamel was getting perturbed.

“He’s the new torturer.”

Nicolas Flamel visualized a scene of hell sculpted on a cathedral tympanum.

His neighbor continued. “That’s why the Dominicans gave him that house. You know they are the ones charged with tracking heresy. For that, they need a powerful man, a man no one can touch.”

Flamel remembered another scene: a body washed up alongside the Seine. The man’s arms and legs were hanging by threads. His belly was filled with water, and his mouth was frozen in terror.

“The work of the torturer,” a bargeman had told him.

Master Maillard checked the locks on his house. The Angelus bell rang out from the Notre Dame.

“Let us give thanks that we are good Christians and sons of the Church. The night will be long for some. You have worked hard this week. Come with me to the river to see this Jew be punished. It will be a great joy for all the good people of Paris to witness the spectacle.”