“But why are you so sure this is the right scansion? Even granting that this handwriting is the nameless librarian’s, why couldn’t Paul also have written the titles of the still earlier pages?”
“Because among the acquisitions they recorded all bulls and decretals, and these are precisely dated. I mean, if you find here, as you do, the Firma cautela of Boniface the Seventh, dated 1296, you know that text did not arrive before that year, and you can assume it didn’t arrive much later. I have these milestones, so to speak, placed along the years, so if I grant that Paul of Rimini became librarian in 1265 and abbot in 1275, and I find that his hand, or the hand of someone else who is not Robert of Bobbio, lasts from 1265 to 1285, then I discover a discrepancy of ten years.”
My master was truly very sharp. “But what conclusions do you draw from this discrepancy?” I asked.
“None,” he answered. “Only some premises.”
Then he got up and went to talk with Benno, who was staunchly at his post, but with a very unsure air. He was still behind his old desk and had not dared take over Malachi’s, by the catalogue. William addressed him with some coolness. We had not forgotten the unpleasant scene of the previous evening.
“Even in your new and powerful position, Brother Librarian, I trust you will answer a question. That morning when Adelmo and the others were talking here about witty riddles, and Berengar made the first reference to the finis Africae, did anybody mention the Coena Cypriani?”
“Yes,” Benno said, “didn’t I tell you? Before they talked about the riddles of Symphosius, Venantius himself mentioned the Coena, and Malachi became furious, saying it was an ignoble work and reminding us that the abbot had forbidden anyone to read it…”
“The abbot?” William said. “Very interesting. Thank you, Benno.”
“Wait,” Benno said, “I want to talk with you.” He motioned us to follow him out of the scriptorium, onto the stairs going down to the kitchen, so the others could not hear him. His lips were trembling.
“I’m frightened, William,” he said. “They’ve killed Malachi. Now I am the one who knows too many things. Besides, the group of Italians hate me… They do not want another foreign librarian… I believe the others were murdered for this very reason… I’ve never told you about Alinardo’s hatred for Malachi, his bitterness.”
“Who was it who took the post from him, years ago?”
“That I don’t know: he always talks about it vaguely, and anyway it’s ancient history. They must all be dead now. But the group of Italians around Alinardo speaks often … spoke often of Malachi as a straw man … put here by someone else, with the complicity of the abbot… Not realizing it, I … I have become involved in the conflict of the two hostile factions… I became aware of it only this morning… Italy is a land of conspiracies: they poison popes here, so just imagine a poor boy like me… Yesterday I hadn’t understood, I believed that book was responsible for everything, but now I’m no longer sure. That was the pretext: you’ve seen that the book was found but Malachi died all the same… I must … I want to … I would like to run away. What do you advise me to do?”
“Stay calm. Now you ask advice, do you? Yesterday evening you seemed ruler of the world. Silly youth, if you had helped me yesterday we would have prevented this last crime. You are the one who gave Malachi the book that brought him to his death. But tell me one thing at least. Did you have that book in your hands, did you touch it, read it? Then why are you not dead?”
“I don’t know. I swear I didn’t touch it; or, rather, I touched it when I took it in the laboratory but without opening it; I hid it inside my habit, then went and put it under the pallet in my cell. I knew Malachi was watching me, so I came back at once to the scriptorium. And afterward, when Malachi offered to make me his assistant, I gave him the book. That’s the whole story.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t even open it.”
“Yes, I did open it before hiding it, to make sure it really was the one you were also looking for. It began with an Arabic manuscript, then I believe one in Syriac, then there was a Latin text, and finally one in Greek…”
I remembered the abbreviations we had seen in the catalogue. The first two titles were listed as “ar.” and “syr” It was the book! But William persisted: “You touched it and you are not dead. So touching it does not kill. And what can you tell me about the Greek text? Did you look at it?”
“Very briefly. Just long enough to realize it had no title; it began as if a part were missing…”
“Liber acephalus …” William murmured.
“I tried to read the first page, but the truth is that my Greek is very poor. And then my curiosity was aroused by another detail, connected with those same pages in Greek. I did not leaf through all of them, because I was unable to. The pages were — how can I explain? — damp, stuck together. It was hard to separate one from the other. Because the parchment was odd … softer than other parchments, and the first page was rotten, and almost crumbling. It was … well, strange.”
“ ‘Strange’: the very word Severinus used,” William said.
“The parchment did not seem like parchment… It seemed like cloth, but very fine …” Benno went on.
“Charta lintea, or linen paper,” William said. “Had you never seen it?”
“I had heard of it, but I don’t believe I ever saw it before. It is said to be very costly, and delicate. That’s why it is rarely used. The Arabs make it, don’t they?”
“They were the first. But it is also made here in Italy, at Fabriano. And also … Why, of course, naturally!” William’s eyes shone. “What a beautiful and interesting revelation! Good for you, Benno! I thank you! Yes, I imagine that here in the library charta lintea must be rare, because no very recent manuscripts have arrived. And besides, many are afraid linen paper will not survive through the centuries like parchment, and perhaps that is true. Let us imagine, if they wanted something here that was not more perennial than bronze … Charta lintea, then? Very well. Good-bye. And don’t worry. You’re in no danger.”
We went away from the scriptorium, leaving Benno calmer, if not totally reassured.
The abbot was in the refectory. William went to him and asked to speak with him. Abo, unable to temporize, agreed to meet us in a short while at his house.