It had taken time, but Erkenbert had noticed before too long that his answers corroborated each other and came freely for some areas. Contradicted each other in others. Then the business was to find someone from a reliable area who could give reliable information about the unreliable areas. Then find out the core, the center, of the unreliability. Even the names of the villages had helped him. Once he knew the name of every village in the area, furnished where possible by outsiders such as wandering peddlers and muleteers, it was striking how often three of them were omitted by people who must have known them well: the Hidden Villages, he called them privately. Then within the villages, when he called the roll of their inhabitants, how often were prominent men strangely forgotten, sometimes by their close kin. They were the men he could not find or hunt down. But the attempts to deny their existence by the amateur liars of their kin, they told him whom he should hunt down. Even when their lies were unimportant, liars were punished, to deter further lying. Those who came under Erkenbert’s suspicion, they went, in the end, to the Shed. Erkenbert did not believe in torture except where, as with the boy Maury, you knew the victim knew something and you knew what he knew. It was too time-consuming, and the tortured invented too much that might be true but could not be checked. The Shed was a better answer.
Richier’s self-control broke as the two soldiers heaved the door open. “What is inside?” he croaked.
“Come see,” replied the Lanzenbrüder.
The secret was very simple, and Richier took it in at a glance. Along the whole length of the building ran a central timber. Over the timber ran a line of a dozen thin cords. From every cord dangled one of the men who had been taken inside, noose round the neck, hands tied, toes sometimes almost brushing the floor. Some of the corpses, in the stifling heat of the closed room, were swollen and unrecognizable. Others, there only a day or two, showed the terror and pain of their deaths on their faces. There were two perfecti among them that Richier could recognize. The last and most recent man on the line was one whom Richier knew to be a fierce enemy of the heretics, a devout Catholic, though of a heretic family. He too dangled from the strangling cord.
The monks had produced a three-legged stool, lifted Richier, hands tied, onto it. Seconds later the thin rope was round his neck. Richier could feel it cutting already into his flesh, could imagine all too vividly how it would cut further. And there would be no neck-break. He would die slowly, and alone.
One of the monks had turned to him, the face of the big man almost on a level with Richier’s even though he stood on the stool.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen good.” The German could hardly be understood, his accent was so thick. There was something terrifying in the fact that the Christians had not even sent an interpreter, as if they did not really mind whether anyone spoke or not. The German did not care whether Richier lived or died. He was following his orders, and would turn the key on the shed and walk into the sunshine without a thought.
“You know where this graal is, you tell me, I bring deacon. You don’t tell me, I kick the stool away. You don’t know, I kick the stool away. Someone tell me in the end. We got plenty rope, plenty space on timber.”
The man grinned. “Only need one stool.”
His mate guffawed, said something incomprehensible in their own language. They both laughed again. Deciding that he had spent enough time on this chore, the first one drew back his foot for the kick as the second began to walk already towards the door. He did not mean even to wait while his victim strangled.
“I know,” gasped Richier.
The German paused in mid-kick. “You know?” He called something over his shoulder. His mate returned. A brief colloquy.
“You know where graal is?”
“I know where graal is. I tell.”