Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [137]
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “It was a long time ago, and I was born here. The American story.”
He tapped the pages with his fingernail. “This brother Joachim, on the other hand, sounds like a bigot, denouncing Dietrich to the Inquisition like that and calling the people ‘demons.’”
“Dietrich mightn’t have known who his accusers were.”
“Anonymous denunciation? Sounds like the Inquisition.”
“Well …”
Tom cocked his head. “What?”
“In the beginning, a lot of accusers wound up dead—killed by the heretics—so they were promised anonymity, and severe penalties were imposed for false accusations.”
He blinked. “The Inquisition had rules?”
“Oh, yes. More stringent than the royal courts, in fact. For example, they prepared a summary of the case where they changed all the names to Latin pseudonyms and presented it to a group of men chosen for their reputation in the community—the boni viri, the good men—who could then review it without prejudice. We know of cases where the accused deliberately committed blasphemy to get transferred out of the royal court to the inquisitorial court.”
“They used torture, though, didn’t they?”
“For questioning, never for punishment. But everybody used torture back then. The tribunals allowed it only long after the imperial courts had introduced it. The inquisitors’ own manual called it ‘deceptive and ineffectual,’ and allowed it only as the last resort, or when guilt was already clear from other evidence. Back then, a confession was required. They couldn’t convict on other testimony. Torture was allowed only once, and could not cause loss of limb or endanger life, and anything said must be sustained by oath given afterward.”
Tom wouldn’t buy it. “But a persistent prosecutor could find loopholes in that.”
“Or a corrupt one. Certainly. It was more like a modern grand jury than a trial.”
“Are you sure? I always thought …”
“It was my dissertation in narrative history.”
“Oh. That’s why you learned Latin, then?” In truth, Tom was often surprised by the granular details of history. Working as he did with the big picture, the particulars could vanish into faceless stereotypes.
He studied the printout again. How much more information was hidden the same way, deep in a Black Forest of words seven centuries thick? “I’d guess they were Chinese. Dietrich’s guests, I mean. The comments about skin color and eye shape. Oriental, at any rate.”
“There was such travel in the fourteenth century,” Judy admitted. “Marco Polo and his father and uncle. And William Rubrick, who was a friend of Roger Bacon.”
“What about travelers in the other direction? Did anyone from China head west?”
Judy wasn’t sure, but the Pigeon Hole was a Hot Spot, so she pulled out her wireless and poked an inquiry. After a few minutes she nodded. “We know about two Chinese Nestorians who came west. Hunh! At the same time the Polos were going east. They may have passed each other on the way. Hey, one of them was named Marco, too. That’s weird. Marco and Sauma. When they reached Iraq, Marco was elected Catholicos, the Nestorian Pope, and he sent Sauma on embassies to the Roman Pope and the English and French Kings.
“So Dietrich may have sheltered a similar party,” Tom said, tugging his lower lip, “one that met with disaster. Attacked by robber barons, maybe. Some were wounded, he says.”
“Perhaps,” Judy agreed, “but …”
“But what?”
“Chinese aren’t that different. And they can’t fly. So why call them flying demons?”
“If their arrival coincided with an outbreak of ergot hallucinations, the two events may have been connected in the popular mind.”
Judy pursed her lips. “If so, Dietrich seems to have converted at least one hallucination to Catholicism. Johann. Do you suppose it’s the same person as Johannes Von Sterne, the one whose baptism was referred to the bishop’s court?”
“I think so. And this was Dietrich’s response. Remember, the moriuntur document?”
“Yes. I think it must have been part of a journal kept by Pastor Dietrich.”
“Bestimmt. In a small village