The Inquisitor’s Tale

The jongleur continues his story, telling how he fell in with the knights and the captive children by offering to entertain them. The knights like his bawdy songs and let him tag along. He observes a conversation between Jacob and one of the knights, Marmeluc, who questions Jacob about Judaism. Jacob explains that Jewish people believe in God, but not the Trinity. Marmeluc is confused, but receptive, and listens thoughtfully.

When they make camp for the night, Jeanne asks Marmeluc about a thin howling sound she’s hearing. Marmeluc tells her that—surprisingly enough—it’s Sir Fabian, crying in his sleep.

Marmeluc explains the knights’ shared traumatic past. They went as a group to fight in the Crusades together, having been told that these were holy wars, and easy to win. They found the reality much bloodier and more brutal. Deciding to abandon the wars and head for home, they became brigands to pay their way, and in the course of committing one of their robberies, Sir Fabian killed some innocent Hospitaliers—religious doctors sworn to care for those injured in the wars.

When the knights finally made it home to France, their families disinherited them for this terrible act. Marmeluc says that he thinks Fabian, in particular, is crying for his twin sister, who refused to speak to him anymore after she heard what he’d done.

The morning after the telling of this tale, the travelers find a deep gash in the ground beside some burned fields. At this sight, Jeanne has one of her prophetic fits and sees that a dragon has been there.

The jongleur’s story stops there, as he runs away as soon as Jeanne predicts the dragon. Another figure arrives to take over the story: a monk and chronicler from far-away Scotland, who promises to tell the tale of the Dragon of the Deadly Farts.

The chronicler tells of how he was visiting one Lord Bertulf and his wife, Lady Galbert-Bertulf, when the knights brought the children to Bertulf’s hall. Sir Fabian tells the Lord and Lady the stories of the children and of Jeanne’s prediction, and Lady Galbert-Bertulf accuses Jeanne of being a witch.

She withdraws her accusations when the chronicler steps in to explain that there really is a dragon out marauding. It’s not just any dragon, however: it’s a dragon that kills with deadly poisonous farts. Lord Bertulf asks Fabian to kill this dragon, but Fabian is too scared. Instead, Jeanne pipes up: Jacob can kill the dragon. Lord Bertulf agrees that if Jacob kills the dragon, he’ll have the knights escort the children to Saint-Denis for an audience with Abbot Hubert. Jacob, meanwhile, is startled at the revelation that he’s going to have to kill a dragon.

The chronicler notes that it’s hard to keep telling a story, even a good story, when you’re feeling thirsty. The narrator obliges him with another drink.

The chronicler picks up his story over dinner at Lord Bertulf’s house, where he guesses that Jacob is Jewish because of his dietary restrictions, and where Jeanne samples a very strong French cheese, remarking that it’s the most disgusting thing she’s ever tasted and she kind of likes it: in its stinky rich complexity, it’s just like life.

The next day, the companions go out to try to find the dragon. Their plan is to startle it and observe its deadly fart-attack. Their plan gets more complicated when Jeanne falls out of the tree she’s hiding in and the dragon creeps up on her. As two of the knights try to rescue her, one is struck by the terrible farts and bursts into flames. His friends extinguish him, but he’s badly hurt. The dragon retreats.

Jacob saves the burned knight with his healing powers, making a poultice of chewed-up moss and praying over the knight’s wounds. This process also reveals to him how they can conquer the dragon.

Jacob has his friends stuff a dead sheep with foxglove flowers and leave it for the dragon to eat. The dragon does so, and throws up yellow goo everywhere, making a repulsive stench. On Jacob’s command, the companions startle the dragon again and find that its farts have been cured.

Jacob explains: he reasoned that the dragon, which recently destroyed an inn in the area that Jeanne’s stinky cheese was from, must have eaten too much of that cheese and gotten indigestion. And indeed, that’s where the yellow vomit came from.

With both the dragon and the burned knight cured, the other knights all fall to their knees and ask the children to bless them.

The chronicler tells the narrator that he thought the children must be saints. The narrator says: perhaps so. But what if they were something else? The chronicler continues his story. 

The companions celebrate their victory with another feast (though they aren’t very interested in eating more cheese). After dinner, Lord Bertulf listens to the requests and the arguments of his tenants. A hunchbacked figure appears and accuses Lord Bertulf of possessing something that is not his. When Lord Bertulf protests, the figure reveals itself to be none other than William—and his “possessions” to be Jeanne and Jacob. He attacks the knights, and the dining hall is destroyed in the battle. At last, Jeanne manages to leap on William’s back, get him in a headlock, and explain that they’ve befriended the knights now.

The next day, the knights, the children, the chronicler, and Gwenforte all take off on their journey to Saint-Denis. The chronicler observes that William seems worried the other two children have formed a bond without him and reflects that he probably learned to feel that way through being treated as an outsider for his whole life.

The children discuss Jacob’s cousin Yehuda, whom he hopes to find at Saint-Denis. It turns out he’s a rabbi famous for his writings. William and Jacob argue over whether Yehuda’s work is blasphemous or sacred but agree that it’s beautifully written. The children have become good friends across their disagreements.

The knights leave them at the monumental cathedral of Saint-Denis, an architectural wonder and the first of its kind in the world. They don’t have long to marvel at it, though: just inside, they find Michelangelo waiting. Together, they flee him; the chronicler takes them to the Abbot’s door and stays behind to head off Michelangelo.

The chronicler ends his story there, but the narrator suspects that the nun may know something about what happened next. 

The nun tells of Abbot Hubert’s surprise to find three strange children and a dog in his study. William quickly takes over, telling the story of Gwenforte’s resurrection and the children’s journey. Meanwhile, Michelangelo begins banging violently at the door.

The Abbot is confused: why, he asks, would the children bring him the dog, when he’s the one who ordered that she should be killed?

He tells the children a sinister story. As a student, he says, he made a pact with a close friend that whichever of them died first should return from the dead and tell the other what the afterlife was like. His friend died first, and the Abbot saw no evidence of him—until two years later, when he appeared as a horrible rotting apparition, spoke of the torments of Hell, and warned the Abbot to begin a holy life before it was too late.

Having told this awful tale, the Abbot prepares to kill Gwenforte and to burn the children at the stake in the name of holiness. Michelangelo at last bursts in, and he tells the Abbot to stop what he’s doing. Gwenforte happily trots after him.

Without explanation, Michelangelo takes the children to the house of Jacob’s cousin Yehuda and his wife, Miriam, introducing the children as saints.

At this point, the narrator interrupts to ask if the nun is sure that Michelangelo called the children saints. Old Jerome wonders why the narrator seems so invested in that question. The narrator calms down and asks the nun for more of her story.

The confused children eat in Yehuda’s house and question Michelangelo. Jeanne accuses him of taking Old Teresa away to be killed; Michelangelo explains that, in fact, he took her away to save her from the town bailiff, who was accusing her of witchcraft.

Jacob discusses his family with Yehuda and Miriam and finds that they have not (as he’d hoped) arrived in town. Jacob begins to mourn his parents, and William and Jeanne grieve with him. Miriam puts them all to bed.

The next morning, the children eat breakfast while Yehuda and Michelangelo bicker affectionately about the state of the religious world. Michelangelo calls Yehuda a satan, but he explains: that’s the Hebrew word for “an advocate of the alternative, the one who makes the arguments you don’t know how to refute” (186). The two are deeply fond of each other. Jacob, however, doesn’t have much patience for this: he runs into the street, grieving for his lost parents.

Later, Michelangelo tells the children that he believes them to be saints, emphasizing that there are saints in all religions. But Yehuda cautions: saints become martyrs. He tells them the tale of Saint Denis, for whom the cathedral was named: after his head was chopped off, the saint picked it up and carried it to the place where the cathedral was to be founded, preaching a sermon all the way. Jacob scoffs at this story, but Yehuda asks him, why he doesn’t believe that alongside all the other miracles he’s seen.

Michelangelo wishes to recruit the children to help to stop a book-burning. Yehuda explains that this burning is the result of the slow souring of relations between the Jewish and Christian communities, which once coexisted relatively peacefully. Now, Jewish holy texts like the Talmud are going to be burned. Jeanne speaks for all of the children when she says that they will help, and together, they will be saints.

The narrator, increasingly agitated, jumps in and says that you can’t just decide to be a saint. The others around the table protest that the children performed miracles; the narrator says that demons and tricksters can perform miracles, too.

The well-dressed man the narrator noticed earlier speaks up and says he, too, has a story about the children.

The children set out to rescue the books from burning. It turns out that the books are under the guard of the King: to steal them will be treason.

They come to the abbey of an order of silent monks, the Grandmontines. In the abbey’s garden, they find a young, handsome man wearing a crown: presumably the King himself, disguised and working among the monks. Then, the other monks reveal themselves to be the King’s companions. William and Jacob immediately bow to the King, but Jeanne does not: instead, she walks toward one of his companions, a much less striking young man, and asks for his royal blessing. Jeanne has correctly seen through the double-disguise and found the real king.

The decoy king, it turns out, was the handsome and well-dressed companion who’s telling the story now. His fellow storytellers mock him for his arrogance in describing himself as handsome, but he replies that false modesty is not modesty at all, and that the King, while less good-looking than he is, is far more beautiful on the inside.

The King wonders how Jeanne has correctly identified him. Jeanne can’t answer, but Michelangelo steps in to explain the miraculous children. Responding to the King’s trust in her, Jeanne tells him of a vision she had of him throwing a tantrum at the foot of the Cross while a huge bird circled overhead.

The monastery’s abbot appears and delivers bad news: The Holy Nail, a relic of the crucifixion, has disappeared from Saint-Denis. Jeanne confirms that the final part of her vision was that the crucified Christ didn’t have any nails through his hands or feet. Just as in her vision, the King throws a massive tantrum.

The companion notes that this all seems awfully convenient and might easily be a trick so that the children can gain favor with the King. The children, meanwhile, suggest that maybe the answer is simple, and the nail was just dropped while it was being venerated.

A search of Saint-Denis reveals that this is exactly what happened. In fact, the nail fell into the mouth of one of the big eagle statues in the church, confirming the final piece of Jeanne’s vision. The King is overjoyed.

The companion interrupts himself, remembering that he must hurry away. He’s part of the party that’s going to try to capture and kill the three children. The narrator wonders how on earth the children went from being so thoroughly in the King’s favor to being outlaws. The nun says she knows they committed “a crime most terrible” (215).