Iacobus Read Free Page A

having no information about what was happening inside, although at the end of the first week we had got used to the situation and were even enjoying ourselves, as the presence of the abbot of Bellicourt helped to improve the quality and quantity of the food: On meat days, the cook brother gave us rations of up to three quarters more beef, mutton or lamb, depending on what there was, and as we were nearing summer, the food was accompanied by parsley or blueberry sauce; Wednesdays and Saturdays was stew, and the daily amount of bread increased by an average of a whole pound per person.
    We were already into the third week of the chapter when, on a warm morning where silence reigned throughout, the novicius from the lantern vigorously rang the bell announcing the arrival of visitors. The sub-prior left the funeral to see to the newcomers and the cellarer pulled several servants from the garden to whom he entrusted the service and hospitality duties in the absence of the monks.
    Jonas and I were working at the forge, filing delicate surgical instruments which, with great sacrifice and ineptitude, we had made to resemble the ones displayed on the pages of the master Albucasis. That task required enormous concentration because in the absence of the blacksmith monk the alloys and forging left much to be desired and the instruments broke in our hands like clay figurines. We were so concentrated on what we were doing that we didn’t go to greet the travelers which would have been the correct thing to do. They, meanwhile, took no time at all to make an appearance at the forge.
    “Knight Galceran of Born!” shouted a familiar voice. “How dare you wear that dirty blacksmith’s apron in the presence of other frates milites from your Order!”
    “Joanot of Tahull! Gerard!” I exclaimed, quickly lifting my head.
    “You will be severely punished by the Provincial Master!” bellowed my brother Joanot, giving me a big hug; the noise of the steel from his chain mail and the sheath of his sword knocking on his greaves abruptly awoke me from a long sleep.
    “Freires!” I stammered, still amazed. “What are you doing here?”
    “Your holiday is over, freire, you have to go back to work,” laughed Gerard, also hugging me.
    “We have come to get you, so you don’t continue getting old and fat with this easy life of a convent monk.”
    I sat down heavily, overwhelmed, on one of the benches and looked at my brothers who were full of enthusiasm. There they were, in front of me, the most dignified and honored Hospitaller Knights in the Christian world, with their black cloaks, their long beards hanging over their ventails and their blessed swords at their hips. We had fought so many battles together, traveled so many roads to near death, studied, trained and served for so many hours! I hadn’t even realized up until then just how much I missed them, how much I yearned to go home …
    “O.K.,” I said, standing up, “let’s go. I have learned everything I can here!”
    “Stop right there! Where do you think you’re going?” My brother Gerard stopped me in my tracks, resting his chain mail glove on my chest.
    “Did you not say that I must return?”
    “But not to Rhodes, brother. You’re not going home yet.”
    I assume that I must have had a stupid look on my face.
    “Oh, no, not that!” warned Joanot. “I swear, I cannot stand to see tears in the eyes of a Knight Hospitaller!”
    “Don’t be silly, freire. The tears will be in your dirty eyes as soon as I recover my sword … and as soon as I recover the strength to wield it, of course.”
    “Well said, brother, because you look like a ….”
    “Quiet, both of you!” yelled Gerard. “And you, Joanot, give him the letters!”
    “The letters? What letters?”
    “Three very important letters, freire Galceran: one from the Seneschal of Rhodes himself, whose orders you remain under; another from the Grand Commander of the French Hospitallers, whose orders you will now