Using a pair of tongs, the Templar now lifted the cauldron from the brazier and set it aside on the table to cool. For the first time, I noticed that a length of twine had been dipped into the cauldron, one end submerged in the bubbling liquid, the other hanging over the lip of the pot. From time to time, William pinched one end of the string in his fingers and tugged on it gently, as if bobbing a line to tempt a fish.

“You dedicate your life on earth to Christ because he offers you an endless life hereafter,” he said. “That is the chief reason, is it not?” He toyed with the twine as the cauldron cooled. He smiled at me. “But what if I myself could promise you as much—not on faith but in truth, not hereafter but here and now?”

I glanced from William to Anselm, who watched us eagerly. “Promise me …?” I asked.

“That you should not perish, but have life everlasting,” the crusader said softly. “If I should offer you the power of Christ’s Sangreal and, as I believe, the secret of his resurrection, for your own use. If there were no prayers required, no sacrifice, if you need not wake to Matins and toil to Vespers and Compline. If I offered you an eternal joy not of hosannas but of the rich, round women of the earth, its wine, its powers, its free fresh air. Whom then would you serve, brother?”

I looked again from him to the abbot, from Anselm back to him. I was about to recite on the subject of the Last Judgement, which is to all men no matter how long their earthly lives.

But it was clear that this was no place for such hypocrisy. I said nothing. Indeed, my tongue felt as if it had turned to sand as I realized for a fact what I had until then only suspected: that my own corruption was but a dram of the poison that had eaten into the abbey’s very heart.

When he saw that I would make no answer, William smiled again. Again, he lifted the twine that ran into the cauldron. He lifted it this time until it came clear of the boiling mixture. He held it up before my eyes and I saw, through the mist, that a chain of bluish crystal had formed around it, and clung to it. Its facets grew out on every side like the petals of a blossom.