Читать «Айвенго / Ivanhoe» онлайн - страница 48

“You are right. I will not give him a chance to expel me. Rebecca doesn’t appreciate my love, then I will leave her to her fate. Unless…”

At noon several knights came for Rebecca and led her to the great hall of the Preceptory. This huge apartment was filled with squires and yeomen who came to watch the trial. When Rebecca was walking to her place, somebody put a piece of paper into her hand, which she received almost unconsciously.

* * *

On an elevated seat, directly before the accused, sat the Grand Master of the Temple. At his feet was placed a table, occupied by two scribes.

The Grand Master raised his voice, and addressed the assembly.

“Knights, Preceptors, and Companions of this Holy Order, my brothers and my children! – you also, Christian brothers, of every degree! – We have brought here a Jewish woman, by name Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York—a woman famous for sorcery, which she used to drive mad a Preceptor of our Order, our brother, Brian de Bois-Guilbert.

We cannot believe that a man who has such a high position in our order suddenly decided to forget about our rules and his promises and live with a Jewish woman and was so mad as to bring her to one of our own Preceptories. We say that some demon or spell made the noble knight behave in this way. The punishment for what this knight has done is very hard, but if he was influenced by magic, then we shouldn’t punish him, but the witch instead. We ask the witnesses come forward.”

Several witnesses described how Bois-Guilbert risked his own life to save Rebecca and the manner in which Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca arrived at the Preceptory.

“Let us now hear somebody talk about the life of this woman, brothers,” said the Grand Master.

There was in the crowd a man who really was cured by Rebecca. He told that some time ago he suddenly fell ill, while he was working for Isaac of York. He couldn’t move his arms or his leg, until Rebecca’s treatment helped him. He was not perfectly cured, but he could work. Rebecca even gave him a pot of her warming and spicy-smelling balsam and some money to return to the house of his father.

“Stupid peasant, who plays with magic, do you have this balsam with you?” asked the Grand Master.

The peasant took out a small box. The Grand Master asked if there was a doctor who could tell him the ingredients of this mystic balsam. Two doctors, as they called themselves, the one a monk, the other a barber, appeared, and swore they knew nothing of the materials, except that they smelled like Eastern herbs. But with the true professional hatred to a successful competitor, they said that, since the medicine was beyond their own knowledge, it was magical. When this medical research was ended, the Saxon peasant asked humbly to have back his medicine, but the Grand Master frowned and said, “What is your name, fellow?”

“Higg, the son of Snell,” answered the peasant.

“Then Higg, son of Snell,” said the Grand Master, “I tell you it is better to be paralyzed than to accept the help of unbelievers’ medicine.”