The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 8: A Knight in the Scriptorium

"Of course, Brother Ríg," the monk said with a slight bow and departed.

The Jewish boy was astonished at the exchange between the two men, and unsure if his surprise lay in a lack of knowledge about Christian customs or monastic protocols.

Ríg had just casually given orders to a man at least twice his age!

As with his initial distrust at Ríg's physical appearance being so at odds with this scholastic area of the castle, now, too, the boy couldn't reconcile the easy air of authority that Ríg seemed to have in the presence of one who was so obviously an elder.

That feeling became even more pronounced when Ríg emerged from the inner chamber garbed in a long black Hospitaller robe, a fighting garment with white cross emblazoned on it. Ríg placed a scabbarded sword and dagger on the bench, and then began lacing one of his boots.

Jacob watched the young man before him casually getting ready for war. The boy felt confusion slow his thoughts like a dense patch of reeds to a river current.

Hadn't Master Khaldun called Ríg a squire? No, Jacob corrected himself, he'd used two terms almost interchangeably, although each word had vastly different meanings. At one point, the aged scholar had called Ríg his 'apprentice,' and at another time-especially when inside the castle walls-he'd called Ríg a 'squire.'

Jacob might not know a tome's worth of facts about nazaro culture, but he knew enough to discriminate between the two very distinct roles of a scholar's apprentice and a knight's squire. If Ríg were a student, then shouldn't he have been wearing the same kind of monastic habit worn by all the other monks in this section of the castle? If a squire, then perhaps a tunic and leggings with solierssimilar to Jacob's own?

Yet, there on the bench before the boy lay the weapons of a veteran warrior.

But, it wasn't the dagger that amazed Jacob-that awe was reserved for Ríg's scabbarded falchion sword. Almost three feet in length, longer than any other he'd seen!

He followed Ríg back through the entryway and turned immediately left into the main scriptorium area. An assortment of lecterns, desks, and tables were arrayed in the broad space, and a mix of young oblates and middle-aged scholars occupied most of the benches and stools. They all were bent over parchments and books, trying to make the most of the midmorning light. In the center of the work area, an old man noticed Ríg and impatiently began waving at him with a beckoning hand.

Ríg acknowledged him with a wave of his own, but leaned to the side and spoke to a person standing in a niche whom Jacob hadn't initially seen.

"Andreas, quiet those fellows down, will you?" Ríg whispered to the lean adolescent who stood like a sentry to the left of the entryway. The boy's smile of greeting turned to a scowl as he followed Ríg's nod toward the far end of the chamber.

"Wallace and Edward," Andreas said. "Again. I'll tell them to shut up, but they're hopeless. Sérieusement. They spend as much time chasing the local girls as they do copying their assigned texts. They don't belong here, Ríg. Why don't you have Jeremiah put them with 'Baron Poo-doo' for a while, and get Pellion back in here?"

"I'm working on it. We'll see what Perdieu says when I see him in a few minutes," Ríg said, "but in the meantime, I don't mind if you have our two court jesters run the circuit for the next hour."

Andreas smiled at that, but glanced at the framing bar in his hand as if still tempted to use the heavy wood to brain the two still-giggling boys at the back of the scriptorium.

"Ríg, arrêter de parler et viens ici maintenant! ["Ríg, stop talking and come here now!"] The old monk at the largest of the center tables barked, his voice strong in spite of the long decades of life that wizened his face and left him in a perpetually stooped posture. "I want you to see something."