Devil's Lair Read Free

poet brandished the book
like a mummers prop. “He traveled, yes: Rome, Padua, Forlì, Verona, Lucca,
Ravenna—possibly even Paris. But Oxford? ”
    William shrugged. “You don’t
have to believe me.”
    “You’re sure it was Dante?”
    “I saw no reason to doubt
the man.”
    “What did he look like?”
    “He had a nose like a flying
buttress.”
    Nadja laughed, but Giovanni
nodded.
    “We had lots of visitors in
those days,” the friar said. “John of Reading came to Merton to read the Sententiarum . William of Alnwick gave a lecture.
Later, I taught with Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham and, well, anyway, at one
point we had a rather famous visitor from Italy. Dante Alighieri by name; an
exile by law; a genius by reputation. His Vita Nuova preceded him to England, and the reading
was well-attended.”
    “He read from the Commedia ?” Giovanni asked.
    “I believe so, yes. In those
days I knew very little of Dante’s vernacular, so his poems were something of a
mystery, though the sounds were quite lovely in the ear.”
    “You didn’t understand a
word?”
    “A word here and there.
Afterwards we conversed in Latin.”
    “You talked to him?”
    William grinned. “For
several days, in fact. My friends and I gave him a tour of the library.”
    “What did he say?”
    “Well, let me think now. I
believe I asked him something about Saint Patrick’s Purgatory. Did he know the story?”
    “By Marie de France.”
    “We discussed some other
journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tundale’s Vision , Saint Brendan’s Voyage . He knew them all, of course. A very
learned man.”
    The poet leaned forward.
“What book was he searching for, when you showed him the library?”
    “Stories of King Arthur.”
    “Arthur?”
    “You mean romances?” Nadja
asked.
    William nodded. “The knights
of the round table, the quest for the Holy Grail, and all of that.”
    Giovanni flipped through the Inferno . “Dante
mentions Lancelot in the encounter with Paolo and Francesca. And then, where is
it?” He searched near the end of the book. “Yes, and Mordred. Dante saw Mordred
in the pit of Hell.”
    William said, “He asked me
for the works of Walter Map.”
    “Who’s that?” Giovanni
asked.
    “Archdeacon of Oxford.
Before my time. Walter Map wrote one of the Grail romances. You may know it in
the French.”
    “I’ve read Robert de Borron
and Chrétien de Troyes,” Giovanni said.
    “They borrow extensively
from Map. He spent a lifetime researching the history of the Grail, and he
discovered some curious things.”
    “Like what?” Nadja asked.
    “The Holy Grail, the cup
that caught the blood of Christ, was carved from a precious stone.”
    “Lucifer’s crown jewel,”
Giovanni said.
    Nadja seemed surprised, and
a little dismayed. “The Grail belongs to Lucifer?”
    “It did,”
said William. “It was bestowed on him in Heaven.”
    “By sixty
thousand angels,” Giovanni said.
    William
waited.
    “Do you
want to tell it, or shall I?” he asked.
    The poet
held his tongue, so William continued, “God
granted Lucifer power over the Earth. Much of Lucifer’s power passed into the
stone. It was with this power that the Devil tempted Christ, though by that
time he had already lost the Grail.”
    “How?” Nadja asked.
    “Lucifer rebelled
against God. He refused to bow down to man. In the final battle of the War in
Heaven, Michael the Archangel struck the crown from Lucifer’s head—”
    “The
stone broke free and fell to the earth,” Giovanni
said. “It’s only a legend, Father. A tale from the pen of Wolfram von Eschenbach.”
    “Borrowing, again, from Map.
Dante sought the original.”
    “But why?” Nadja asked.
    “Perhaps he knew the Devil
had found the Grail. Perhaps he saw the Grail itself in the Devil’s lair.”
    Giovanni snorted and shook
his head.
    Nadja asked him, “Are you
going to read it to me? The Inferno ? You promised you would.”
    “Yes,” William agreed,
“please do. Perhaps I’ll