Temple of The Grail (23 page)

W
hen I woke, the light in the church seemed brighter. I rubbed
my eyes, and resolved to find Andre. Perhaps, I thought in dismay, he was dead,
a victim of the antichrist! Would I come by his twisted, poisoned body outside
the church? I could see him now, drenched in sweat and blood (for he would have
fought the Devil like a valiant knight) with his face distorted in that now
all-too-familiar way of poisoned cadavers. Alas! I once again wondered at the
wisdom of a mother who leaves her only child in the care of so careless a
caretaker! And yet if I found him alive I told myself with a shiver I would
soon forgive him, not only because I loved him, but also through relief at not
being left alone in this terrible place of murder and of evil. Thinking these
things, filled with a deep anxiety, trembling at the knees, I stepped out of
the choir enclosures and through the aperture in the pulpitum to the other side
of the screen, but I was not prepared for the light whose sharp rays assaulted
my eyes.

At first I thought that it must be
the great burning star of heaven which John calls ‘wormwood’, whose poison
kills the iniquitous, but after a moment of blindness, I realised that it was
the daystar rising over the eastern buildings, storming through the east door,
and invading the temple. I then remembered the orientation of the church with
some relief and watched it move (as though controlled by some invisible hand)
beyond me and upward to the crucifix . . . and, oh, what magnificence did I
behold! Whose majestic splendour, even now I am pressed to relate, dear reader,
using words that are inept and unsuited to describe things sublime! That moment
was possessed of a beauty whose dwelling is the light of rising suns that now
breaks, or now directs its rays to chase away the dead of gloom. Scaling the
heavens it recalls the resurrection, the beginning. It is the blossoming of
innocence that urges the flowers to awaken, and man to prayer. So caught was I
in this mood that I did not notice the brothers return to their stalls, and
begin to sing ‘
Deus qui est sanctorum splendor mirabilis. Iam lucis orto
sidere
’
–
expressing the beauty of light that is God, so that
it reverberated sweetly in the nave, magically disembodied.

My meditation disturbed, I re-entered
the chamber between the rood and pulpitum, expecting to see my master seated at
his usual place, for the sun had risen and with it came hope. I searched among
the brothers in their stalls, passing their matching shadows with my eyes,
until they fell upon that empty spot and my heart sank. He had not returned. I
was seized by a sudden panic, excited perhaps by a lack of sleep, the events of
these last days, and my still burgeoning mysticism. So I ran. I ran from the
church and out into the compound and headed in the direction of my master’s
cell. Thinking a great number of terrible things, I burst through his door and
found him lying on his pallet.

I thought him dead, for he lay very
still. However, I realised that he was breathing and, with a measure of
trepidation, I ventured closer. Had he, too, been poisoned? I thought in
dismay. Did someone suspect that we knew about the entrance to the tunnels? Was
it the inquisitor? The librarian? Or the Devil himself? I said a shaky
paternoster, possibly omitting words, before placing a trembling hand on his
shoulder. That was when he bounded from the bed with such swiftness that I let
out a loud and immodest yell, having been scared out of my wits.

‘By the curse of Saladin, let me get
at them!’ he bellowed. Placing a hand on his head then, he moaned and sat back
down.

‘Are you hurt, master?’

‘Who are you?’ he asked, gazing at me
myopically. ‘Are you a heathen? I will smite you . . . where is my sword!’ He
reached out with his hands and then, I suspect because of the pain in his head,
he came to his senses. ‘Christian? Is that you? I can barely see . . . someone
. . . my head . . .’ He handed me a parchment that lay crushed in his right
hand, whose contents were written once again in Greek.

‘Except the Lord build the house:
their labour is but lost that build it,’ I said out loud.

‘Help me up, for God’s sake, boy . .
.’ He sat up wincing. I could see a very large bruise on his forehead, and a
graze on his cheek.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked, feeling
a little weak myself.

‘How say you? A knight who survives
the battle of Mansourah in which so many good knights died can surely survive a
small blow to the head.’ He growled in very bad humour.

‘Did you get a glimpse of who did
this to you, master?’

‘No, by Saladin! I came here to fetch
my compass in case we should need it, and when I entered my cell I saw a
shadow; something struck my head. I must have lain here for a long time. What
hour is it?’

‘It is lauds, even now the services
are in progress. I think he hit you with your helmet.’ I showed him the helmet,
which I recognised as his, beside him on the floor. There was a dent at the
right eye-slit.

‘Blast!’ he cried with annoyance. ‘Was
anyone missing from the service?’

I was too ashamed to say that I had
closed my eyes, and in the time it took to say an
Ave
, the service had
finished. I shook my head.

‘Blast! In any case, I shall have to
see the brother blacksmith, but not just now, firstly you must take me to Eisik
. . . By St Peter of Spain! That savage monk nearly cracked my skull in two!’

‘You say ‘monk’? So you did see him?’

‘Who else would it be but a monk,
Christian? We are in a monastery, after all. Besides, I only saw his shoes.’

‘Oh, that is good,’ I said, ‘were
they singular in appearance?’

‘No . . . just shoes, like any other
shoes,’ he snarled.

We walked to the stables slowly. It
had been snowing heavily and the ground was covered in a thick layer of powdery
white – a detail that I had not noticed in my anxiety to find my master.
Now my feet were numb and the hems of my habit wet. What misery!

Eisik was in his little cell above
the animals reading the
Talmud
, absorbed in the content of talmudic
lore, when we entered.

‘Oh, holy Abraham!’ he exclaimed,
immediately deserting his precious scrolls to come to us. ‘What has happened?’

‘Do not fuss, Eisik! I need you to
see that I have not cracked my skull, for I cannot tend to my own wounds. By
God, if only I had a mirror!’

Eisik was horrified but also angry. ‘Oh,
by the beard of Moses, someone has hit you with a sharp object.’ He inspected
the cut and the lump that was now quite blue and sizeable. My master showed him
his helmet, and Eisik was seized by a second, terrible anxiety. ‘You are lucky
to be alive!’

‘I don’t believe luck had much to do
with it, Eisik. Whoever hit me was not in the mind to kill me, otherwise he
could easily have done so. I merely disturbed him in his work.’

‘Do not tax the faculties of an old
Jew. What work did you disturb?’

‘He was leaving another note in my
room when I entered, looking for my compass, and he hit me rather hard in order
to get away. Elementary.’

‘Oyhh!’ Eisik slapped his forehead,
his big black eyes widening with fear. ‘No! Do not tell me what the note said!
I do not want to know it! I do not want to know anything, nothing at all.’ He
walked over to a basin of water beside his bed, moaning dire omens under his
breath, and soaked a clean cloth in it. After placing the cloth on my master’s
bruise, he continued, agitatedly. ‘I swear by the Talmud, Andre, this will come
to no good! You should have listened to me from the first.’

My master ignored Eisik’s comment and
said, ‘We found the entrance to the tunnels.’

‘I do not want to know, I tell you!’
he reiterated, and dressed the wound with a little square of muslin cloth, but
after a long moment he asked – because I believe he could not help
himself – ‘Well? I suppose you think that I want to know who told you . .
. but I am a Jew, and if a Jew knows anything, it is that he is wise if he
knows nothing.’

‘Brother Daniel told us.’

‘Another old brother?’ He raised his
thick black brows in unison and became thoughtful, ‘I suppose I cannot stop you
from telling me what you found?’

My master grinned. ‘I thought you
didn’t want to know anything, Eisik?’

‘And I do not . . . do not tell me
anything . . .’ He waved a hand, shaking his head, but a moment later, ‘How is
the accursed thing reached then?’

‘That is the mystery. There is an
inscription. A kind of coded formula which when deciphered will, I am hoping,
open a panel. All is possible.’

‘Yes . . . yes . . . it is very
common for such panels to lead to a crypt or an ossuary, that is to say, the
place where bones are kept for all eternity, beneath the graveyard.’

‘I believe so,’ my master affirmed.

‘But do not tell me the inscription.
I do not wish to know it . . . there is nothing more foul on this earth than an
inscription. Evil things . . . however, if it is encrypted it is true that
perhaps only I can help you.’

My master showed him the
parchment on which he had copied the strange symbols and words carved on the
stone of the panel. Eisik looked at it reluctantly, but I believe that he was fascinated.

Mors Fiensque DC and beneath, a strange wheel of sorts.

Eisik became excited, ‘
Mors Fiensque
. . . You know, in such cases letters are more than symbols, they are
vessels, manifestations of concealed virtues!’

‘How do you mean, Eisik?’ I asked.

‘My son, all the wonders and
sanctities of the law and the prophets result from combinations of twenty-two
letters, letters that stand for numerals, and numerals that stand for letters.’

‘Like the ciphers and acrostics
mentioned by the inquisitor that night at dinner?’ I waited for an
acknowledgement of my acumen but there was none – perhaps I, too, was falling
prey to the sin of pride?

‘There are,’ Eisik continued, his
eyes shining like lamps, ‘many rules and permutations, all holy methods by
which one can evade the scrutiny of the uninitiated. Do you know, my young one,
that the Bible was written from such coded messages? The oral law became a
written law . . . but it is at most an incorrect interpretation of the sacred
Cabbala. In all, there are three methods that are known. In the first each
letter . . . no, no . . . let me see, that’s not it.’ He thought for a moment,
tapping his head. ‘It is the
sum,
the sum of the letters . . . yes! The
sum of the letters that compose one word, are equal to the sum of the letters
that compose various others, and so certain words come to mean certain things.
Then again one may construct words by means of the first or final letters of
several other words, but that is too complex. In truth, my son, all codes are
not simple, and it is a fact that many are impossible to decipher, especially
where words are transposed according to certain rules, that is, one divides the
alphabet by halves, or is it quarters? One then places one half above the other
in reverse order, so that A becomes T, or T becomes A. Lastly there is another
code whose indiscriminate substitutions and permutations are obtained by
forming a square of numbers, subdividing it by 21 lines in each direction into
484 smaller squares . . .’ He trailed off, lost in contemplation.

‘And one can always work out the
meaning of codes by the use of one of these methods?’ I asked, amazed.

‘For centuries men have pondered the
sacred art,’ he nodded, ‘but to answer your question, no. One is almost never
succesful, for there are too many to choose from.’

‘And,’ my master interjected in an
annoyed fashion, ‘since we do not have centuries at our disposal we shall have
to guess as to which method may have been used.’

‘What say you, Nazarene?’ Eisik
looked up from his vague calculations as one who had just been wrenched from a
deep sleep. ‘I have never guessed a thing in my life! No, no, it is impossible!
Do you know how many variations there are on a single word? We must work with
strict principles. Strict principles!’

‘Yes, but Eisik, we don’t have time
to test all such systems, that you have just said are too complicated, so by
the sword of Saladin let us try one!’

‘This illustrates to me why gentiles
will never come to know the truths contained in the old texts . . .’ He closed
one eye, measuring my master with the other. ‘Such matters cannot be attended
to in haste. However, if I am to be forced I shall start by adding the letters,
or the value of the letters together, this is the simplest of all systems and
so one likely to be used by a gentile . . .’ Eisik added, giving my master a
caustic look. ‘Now then, in this system A is equal to one, B to two, and so on,
so on . . . and if we follow this principle we find that the sum of your code’s
numerical value comes to . . . one hundred and forty.’

‘Is that a good number?’ I asked
excited, not immediately realising that the closer we came to solving the
puzzle, the closer we came to inspecting the tunnels.

‘No, child, it is very bad!’ Eisik
shook his head with pessimism. ‘Any number that is not significant is bad,
though many significant numbers are also not good. However, this number is not
without merit, for it can be divided by seven which is perhaps the most
venerated of all numbers, and by four, the number of the unpronounceable name.
And although one can divide it by the number of gospels, and by eight, the
number of the perfect tetragon and by five, the five world zones, it is not
significant.’