After the actor has left, Heinrich sits staring out of the small stained-glass window. Through the azure and gold figure of the archangel Gabriel proclaiming the annunciation to the Virgin Mary—an image the archbishop desperately hopes might be an allegory for his recent visitor—he can see the struggling branches of a grape vine given to him as a gift by a visiting Cistercian abbot a few years earlier. The twisting tendrils remind him of the beauty of the vineyard it originated from. Suddenly he has an idea, a plan which promises to resolve everything.
Cheered, the archbishop laughs then bellows for Detlef.
The low marble table is set amongst the vines beside an ancient stone bench. A burning lantern sits at one end, casting a crimson glow that makes ruddy the faces of the monks gathered around it. The moon, the slenderest of crescents, still hovers in the dawn sky. Carlos, a fur jacket wrapped around his hooded robe, shivers. Heinrich, who has metamorphosed into the quintessence of conviviality, well lubricated with the best Rheinwein since his arrival, stands with his bare head bowed in prayer, indifferent to the strong wind blowing up from the Rhine below.
‘May this season bring bounty to the vines, joy to our parishioners and fecundity to the Rhineland. In the immortal words of our own Saint Hildegard: Mann macht den Menschen gewund; der Wein macht den Menschen gesund; man hurts men but wine heals them. Amen,’ the prelate finishes.
‘Amen,’ murmur the Cistercian monks, pale ghosts in their white cassocks.
The archbishop suddenly yawns, stretching his arms wide against the cosmos. Standing at the top of the moun
tain of Ruesdesheim, his figure cuts an imposing cross against the vast panorama filled with nothing but the last of the night’s stars and the paling moon. It is five o’clock and Heinrich has insisted that the inquisitor accompany him and an entourage of seven local monks, each carrying a stone flask of wine and a glass, to witness the ‘birth of the day’ from the highest point within the ancient walled vineyard.
It is the morning of the third day of their sojourn and, although Carlos distrusts the prelate’s motives for inviting him along, he cannot help but be seduced by the gentle rhythm and unspoken camaraderie of the white monks, the result of years of cohabitation and shared labour which has transformed them into a perfectly coordinated colony of superb viticulturists. Their discipline and unquestioning acceptance of his presence, the severity of the terraced slopes descending down to the river, the immaculately groomed ancient vines now bedecked with luminous spring growth, the simple beauty of the white and red wooden monastery with its old press-house containing giant wine presses from the Middle Ages, are all balm to his Spanish soul. It is the first time the inquisitor has felt welcome since his arrival in Germania. And, to his surprise, he begins to feel a begrudging gratitude towards his host.
‘Ahh, there fades Venus, the first and last of the celestial goddesses.’ The archbishop points to the planet whose glistening light dims until, all of a sudden, it disappears.
Carlos gazes up; the empyrean hangs over them like a billowing tapestry embroidered with the most delicate of gold and silver threads. Noticing the slight shift in the position of the stars, the Dominican cannot help but long for his own Spanish sky.
‘This year has not been well aspected, your grace. You must have seen in January, as we did from Vienna, the inauspicious comet that blazed its fiery way over all of Europa. A bad sign, I fear: the rest of the year will bring much suffering and perhaps more war.’
Carlos stares grimly into the brightening firmament where the first glow of buried sunshine is just beginning to bleed into the mauve horizon.
Heinrich glances at the Spaniard. The proximity of the last few days has allowed him the luxury of observation: now he can see the hues and subtleties of the man. There is some buried tragedy which has scarred this man, the archbishop muses, having found that in discussion he always hits the same immovable spot in the inquisitor’s soul: a boulder of hate that, like a hostile coastline, defines his character.
‘Indeed,’ Heinrich responds. ‘However, my personal astrologer is more optimistic than the hacks who make money foretelling doom and disaster. He predicts a hot summer and a good harvest—that’s enough future for me. We cannot choose the times we live in. Just as, sometimes, we cannot choose whom we love.’
‘Of such secular matters I know nothing. My only love is for Jesus Christ, our Good Lord who died on the Cross for our sins,’ the inquisitor replies with the taint of the prude in his voice.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I think the nature of faith is love and love of the goodness in man. Hate is not Christian; it is a toxin that can only fester like a canker, do you not think, Monsignor?’
The sun is now a throbbing crimson lip pushing up over the muddy vineyards. The inquisitor turns from the archbishop feeling like a crab which has been stripped of its shell. Torn between the temptation to unburden his heart and the terror of his constructions and beliefs being dismantled, Carlos hesitates and stares directly into the ascending ball of fire. A grey cloud has begun to race across the edge of the orb. It is like Apollo himself, the friar fancies, imagining that the thin wisps of vapour are the fiery steeds, with the beautiful young god, his golden hair streaming behind him, his naked body a muscular arc of honed grace, following the stallions in his chariot of spun gold. Shall I ever be that brave, Carlos thinks; was I ever that rash? Frightened of the answer that is forming deep within him, he turns back to Heinrich.
‘I have faith and love for my mission, your grace. It is not an easy task and often requires me to harden my heart. Righteousness is not to be confused with hate,’ he finishes, his shell now firmly clamped back around him.
Disappointed that he has failed to liberate the man within the inquisitor, Heinrich gestures to the waiting monks. With silent decorum they place the seven bottles of wine—each with two wine glasses beside it—on the table before the two men.
‘I have arranged a little tasting for our pleasure, Monsignor Solitario. Seven bottles for the seven stages of Christ’s life. It is a beloved allegory of mine that I have been meditating upon for many years. I hope you will appreciate it.’
The Dominican cannot help but smile at the gleeful gleam in the prelate’s eye. ‘Indeed, I am honoured.’
The archbishop takes up the first bottle. He pours out two glasses then lifts one up against the sunrise. The wine shines a pale yellow.
‘This is for the baptism of our Lord by John the Baptist. I think of the Galilean, infused with belief but still uncertain of his calling, up to his knees in the clear water of the River Jordan as the fervent words of his black-eyed and wild-haired cousin stir his soul. The wine is a simple innocent white, a youthful Chasselas from Alsace, a favourite once with the English playwright Shakespeare. Still green but dry, soft and gently fruity, laced with tremendous promise—just like our young Lord, and ourselves once upon a time.’
He goes to the second bottle, this time pouring out a dark red.
‘The temptation of Christ in the wilderness. Satan’s manifestation, every sinful seduction whirling before our Lord’s eyes.’
Heinrich glances wryly at the Spaniard, searching for a glint of recognition, having sensed that the sins of the flesh might be the inquisitor’s weakness. Carlos’s face remains an expressionless mask.
‘Christ’s torment is the anguish that strikes every young monk once he resigns himself to his vocation. After all, are we not all men under the robe?’
Heinrich laughs but Carlos remains ominously silent. Shrugging off the inquisitor’s sudden frostiness, the prelate turns to the wine, lifts a glass and sniffs it.
‘Naturally I have chosen a red wine from the Benedictine vineyards at Savigny-les-Beaune. A vineyard once owned by the Knights Templar, who themselves were guilty of succumbing to all sorts of temptations, accused of buggery and many other profanities by King Philip IV. So this wine has a dangerous history of temptation—satiated and otherwise. Wickedly full-bodied, it lingers on the palate like a lascivious dream.’
Carlos lifts the wine to his face. The aroma is rich and pungent and, tickling the back of his nose, reminds him of something. Blushing furiously he realises it is the smell of the sex of a woman. Heinrich, watching, winks knowingly at him then turns to the next wine.