XXIII
ALBERTUS GREETED GISBURNE with a cackling laugh and a hearty hug. He had not changed in the slightest – he was as thin and wiry as ever, with the same stoop, his lean face still as wrinkled as a dried apple, his eyes as keen. He was completely bald but for a kind of haze of white fluff that still clung to his head – but his steel-grey eyebrows and nasal hair were luxuriant. “My boy! My boy!” he cried as Gisburne’s arms wrapped around his almost nonexistent frame, and asked a seemingly endless round of questions aimed at establishing all the facts of Gisburne’s current life.
His cell was not the sparse chamber Gisburne had expected of a monk – every space was crammed with manuscripts, scrolls and piles of parchments. “I’m not supposed to own anything,” said Albertus, somewhat guiltily. “So I call this a library and myself its keeper. Now, what brings you out this way?”
“John the Baptist,” said Gisburne.
“St John the Baptist?” Albertus looked back at Gisburne in some astonishment. “You know of the solar alignment?”
Gisburne looked at Galfrid, then back again. “I’m afraid not...”
“Ah!” Albertus laughed. “Excuse me jumping ahead – or trying to. Not many know of it. It was a secret trick of the masons who constructed the basilica. At noon on midsummer’s day, the sun beams through the southern clerestory windows at such an angle that it creates a path of light the full length of the nave.” He chuckled. “It’s quite a thing! Midsummer’s day is the Baptist’s feast day, you see. But this is not what you wish to ask me?”
Gisburne and Galfrid exchanged looks again. “My enquiry is more concerned with holy relics... The skull of John the Baptist.”
“Ah...” Albertus’s expression darkened somewhat. He nodded slowly. “Of course, of course... Silly of me.”
“I need to see it,” said Gisburne. “Or an image of it, at least. To be able to recognise it. It is of utmost importance to me...”
“Well...” Albertus turned to a pile of books and parchments next to his pallet, and plucked one from the very top. “I suppose you mean the one from Antioch...?” He placed the manuscript on Gisburne’s lap. It was already open at the right page.
Gisburne looked. There was a coloured illustration of startling detail and strange beauty – parts were gilded, the gems picked out in red, blue and green, indicating the astonishing craftsmanship of the piece, but at the heart of it, staring back up at Gisburne with its long-dead eyes, was a human skull. Across the domed forehead, apparently etched into the bone, was a short phrase in Latin – Ecce Agnus Dei – andbeneath the illustration, in a lavish hand, the words: SANCTUS IOHANNES BAPTISTA.
“It is decorated all about with gold and precious stones,” explained Albertus. “There are gilded rays encrusted with rubies and garnets about the neck, symbolising the Baptist’s blood.”
“There are others? Like this?”
“Oh, there are always others,” said Albertus. “One Baptist. Several skulls. You know how it is... But none, I think, quite like this.”
“And this is completely accurate?”
“Completely. Drawn from life by an Armenian monk.”
“So I would be able to identify it from this, were I to see it?”
Albertus raised a bushy eyebrow. “Will you see it?”
Gisburne smiled. “That is my hope. I wish to be sure it is... the right one. What with all these skulls about.”
Albertus nodded sagely, looking as if he wished to ask further questions, but did not wish to press Gisburne to supply the answers. Gisburne sensed it. But Albertus deserved at least some explanation. He trusted him with his life.
“It is being sent by the Templars to the King of France,” he said. “A gift. A diplomatic gesture. It is my task to... To...”
Albertus held up a hand, and smiled. “Say no more.”
A question formed in Gisburne’s mind, then – one that, thus far, he had not thought to ask even himself. “This skull... Could it be genuine?”
Albertus, nodded slowly, and cocked his head. “It could. But if it is, why would such pious and acquisitive men as the Templars be content to part with it?”
“I have heard,” said Gisburne, tentatively, “that it is payment, and nothing more.”
“Maybe,” said Albertus. “Its value is great.” He frowned. “But let me venture another thought... In ancient times, Herod Antipas, who executed the Baptist, suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of Aretas of Nabatea, and afterwards died in exile. According to Josephus, his ill luck was brought upon him by the ill-judged execution of the saint. It is said the skull – this skull” – he tapped the page – “has the power to bring down a tyrant. A more cynical man than I – a more political man – might suggest that this gift is also meant as a warning. A reminder to the King of France to remember his place, and that he, too, can fall.”
Gisburne sat forward, a frown creasing his brow. “Another question... Might there be interest in such a skull from... Saracen quarters?”
Now it was Albertus’s turn to frown. “Saracen? Do you believe there to be such interest?”
Gisburne and Galfrid looked at each other. “Perhaps. Might it be possible that agents of Saladin would wish to take it?”
“Or destroy it?” added Galfrid. “To deny it to Christendom?”
Albertus shook his head – a gesture more of dismissal than disagreement. “John is honoured as a prophet by Muslims. I do not believe they would wish it destroyed. And if they wanted to take it for themselves, why not when it was at Antioch all those years?”
Gisburne nodded slowly.
“Guy, forgive me,” said Albertus. “Are you saying there are agents of the Sultan here, in France?”
“I can’t be certain,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s possible.”
Albertus went as if to say something more, hesitated, then continued. “Maybe I should not ask this,” he said, “but perhaps you can enlighten me as to why there is so much interest in skulls of the Baptist of late? You are the second in the past two days to come asking about it.”
Gisburne’s blood ran cold.
“Who?” he said, sitting forward.
“Of course, I did not tell them quite as much as...”
“Who?” interrupted Gisburne. “His name... Can you describe him?”
Albertus began to laugh. “Him?” he chuckled. “It was the daughter of the Count of Boulogne. Mélisande de Champagne.”