Temple of The Grail (28 page)

‘What is he trying to tell us, and
why?’ My master thought deeply for a moment. ‘Brother Ezekiel was the old
translator, and what do translators translate if not the knowledge of others?

Could we then call him a seeker of
knowledge? It could be that the killer is forewarning us . . .’

‘You mean telling us the identity of
his next victim?’ I asked, suddenly enlightened.

‘Exactly! Whoever built the house
will be next.’

‘You mean whoever built the
monastery?’ I corrected him.

‘An architect, the builder of the
house
may be a metaphor for something else, such as some
thing
to be
accomplished, or some knowledge of the building, the configuration of
something.’

‘Perhaps it is the measurements of
Solomon’s Temple, that which was, before it was destroyed by pagans and
idolaters,’ Eisik offered.

‘This knowledge could be the
conclusion that Asa mentioned?’ I remarked.

‘Perhaps,’ my master said.

‘We know that the author of our note
is the killer master, otherwise, how could he know the identity of the next
victim?’

‘Perhaps he is privy to this
information, but does not have the courage to tell us face to face?’

‘Why doesn’t he write down the name
of the killer, master, instead of using riddles?’

‘I do not know,’ Andre said,
pensively, ‘perhaps he is prudent.’

Eisik raised one brow. ‘Perhaps he
likes toying with fumbling Templars.’

My master glared at Eisik and laid
his head back on his hands, now in a bad mood.

‘But what about the cook, master?’ I
continued soothingly. ‘He must know something.’

‘I shall have to speak with him, but
that is now difficult. At least we know many things, and I am beginning to
think that my assumptions are correct. There are two monasteries, Christian.
One that lives and breathes above the earth, and one that conducts its business
below.’

‘Is that not what the abbot said?
That what is above is like that which is below?’

‘Yes. Everything points to the
catacombs, and I believe there must be something of great importance hidden
there, perhaps important enough to occasion murder, and I aim to find out what
it is. Now, away with you, and let me think! Tonight, after all are in bed, we
visit the panel. We shall meet after compline in your cell, Christian.’

I
was in a magnificent garden. Around me nature seemed as
fresh as the very first day of creation. Everywhere I saw His fingerprint upon
the most sublime hues, and the most resplendent colours. Cool, limpid pools of
emerald and jade in their innocence cascaded down to a stream whose origin
seemed to be in some distant place, dissolving into an indistinct horizon. Here
light played upon everything, dancing on the gauzy wings of a breeze, resting
upon flowers of every kind that lay outspread like a blanket at my feet. They
seemed like disciples whose grace and simplicity were singularly beautiful,
their little faces upturned in the piety of their vestments.

I could have been in the paradise of Palladius,
or high atop Parnassus, or even above the hills of the Isthmus, for it was an
ecstatic vision of purest peace and concord the likes of which I had never
before experienced. I sighed with deep contentment, gazing up at the blueness
above, desiring nothing but that moment, knowing that God in his beneficence
and unfathomable wisdom had bestowed this array of supreme beauty for me alone.
For indeed I was alone . . . until I saw her . . .

. . . and she was much lovelier than
I had imagined. How disarmingly beautiful she was! How divinely constructed
were the bones of her face, how brightly shone her eyes and the jewels of her
mouth. She was like mineral springs at their source, like cinnamon and saffron,
like frankincense. She was illuminated, radiating all the colours of the
spectrum. Like the world contained in a drop of rain; she was intrinsic and
extrinsic, diaphanous and crystalline. All that she was, lay clearly before my
eyes . . . Isis unveiled.

It was then that I became afraid.
Perhaps because of what I had heard about the noon-tide devil; that woman being
a feminine creature – and therefore diabolical – was the oldest and
most powerful tool of Satan. Perhaps I was afraid because deep inside me I knew
this not to be true and therefore could only blame myself for the impurity of
my thoughts.

Proverbs tells us that ‘stolen waters
are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant’, and it was indeed pleasant
to remain transfixed, desiring to understand this most exquisite and enigmatic
creature better. I found that if I could empty my mind of all the trivial
little things about her, I could in a sense feel her essential being in a
curious way stripped bare before me. I saw that she was good. She was lovely. I
feel at a loss, patient reader, to explain why, or rather how, I sensed these
things, but they seemed to me as natural as inhaling the brisk mountain air,
observing how its crispness enters one’s lungs, purifying them. A kind of
fleeting knowledge, an intuition passing over the soul, and finally, oh sweet
melancholy . . .

She passed by and in her wake there
was the faint scent of jasmine as it is given forth from the hanging gardens of
Babylon. Her mouth beckoned me, redder than the wines of Cana, adorned with
teeth whiter than milk, each one like a little pearl. She walked as straight as
the towers of Lebanon that looketh towards Damascus, her breasts like unto
apples, for their scent was sweet, and her eyes like the tranquil waters of
Heshbon by the gate of Bathrabbin, for they conveyed peace.

‘Come down, my beloved. Why tarriest
thou?’ I heard myself say. ‘O beautiful maiden, rising over the horizon like
the moon over Jerusalem. Vanquishing the darkness, and warming the senses like
a radiant fire!’ I felt a pang . . . Oh, sweet sweetest love! What miseries
dost thou bestow upon a man! I knew that she must be the work of a cunning
craftsman for I felt feverish. Who is this woman who, in her necklaces, hides
precious fruits shining like the sun? Who, with one blush, could shame all the
stars of heaven? I found myself at once relieved and also anguished, lured to
the infernal gates of hell.

‘Come to me, my groom!’ she said, for
her voice was like honey and it tasted sweet in my mouth, but was bitter in my
belly. And my hands became gold rings set with beryl: my belly as bright ivory
overlaid with sapphires. My legs were as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of
fine gold: my countenance as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.

And then she spoke, her voice like
the waters of the Nile.

‘Marry the bride with the groom, oh,
my beloved! Marry the fire with the water, for thy mouth is most sweet . . .
Set me as a seal upon thy heart. As a seal upon thy arm: for love is as strong
as death.’

Together we entwined, and like the
best wine that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to
speak, so we, like the waters that merge into one fierce body, like a river
breaking its banks, rushed together with one objective. Hastening towards one
end we plunged into a sea of molten fire, licked by a flame, consumed by its
coolness. Oh, Solomon! Is this the beloved of your songs? I thought, and like a
desperate man, climbed upon the peaks of her mountains to see the contours of
her country, the formation and symmetry of her kingdom, for she was Jerusalem, the
bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. With great care, I went down to the
valley, caressing each little hill, drowning my thirst in her estuaries. There
I smelt her earth, and stroked it tenderly, moulding it between my feverish
fingers, kissing the fruits that, from out of the fertile belly sprouted, like
berries, red and delightful. Then I tilled her soil, and reaped her corn, I
gathered her roses and drank her milk, and when the storm threatened to tear my
country asunder, I found sanctuary within her ample bays, waiting for that
moment, the supreme moment when I would be as Moses before the burning bush.

Suddenly there was a great glow, a
sudden shiver, a little earthquake shuddering beneath me, and she was my
sister, my mother, my love, a dove . . . pure, undefiled. And the molten gold
flowed from the
aludel, prima materia –
the original matter,
flooded, unrestrained into the land, and . . .

The twelve became seven and the seven
stars appeared.

I
sat up with a jolt. Perspiration ran rivulets down my back
and I was breathing heavily, my heart galloping like mad stallions. What had I
done, I asked myself? I stood, and shamefully changed out of the habit that was
soaked in my unchasteness, and dressed in the other garment the hospitaller had
given me. Heavy of heart I then knelt, shivering from cold, fear and
humiliation, and said one paternoster after another until I heard my master
open my cell door.

Andre must have known something was
amiss, though he said nothing, I only sensed that he was stealing an occasional
glance in my direction. Perhaps he was working his peculiar logic on me?

We waited for Eisik, but he did not
come, so we made our way to the church. I dived down into my cowl hoping to
escape my master’s scrutiny, and I little noticed how cold it had become, or
how the compound lay shrouded in a ghostly white blanket. I thought only of the
dream, which, like an inner fire in my chest, God help me, warmed my being.

We entered the church through the
north door and made our way cautiously past the Lady Chapel to the altar where
we lit our two lamps at the great tripod and returned once again, by way of the
ambulatory, to the north transept where, immersed in gloom, we waited.

‘By God’s bonnet,’ whispered my
master harshly, ‘where is that confounded Jew?’

Time was passing and my master
signalled that we should proceed to the Lady Chapel stealthily, in the shadows.

You must imagine, dear reader, the
two of us crouched behind the curtains that adorned the walls, feeling a
mixture of excitement and trepidation. It was with such sentiments that I
recited a paternoster once more, as my master made ready to open the panel. My
heart was heavy, weighed down by a thousand weights. Brother Daniel’s
admonition, ‘Beware the antichrist is near’, ran through my mind like a chant
and I wondered if perhaps I had encountered the evil one in my dream, disguised
as a woman, for I knew that he was skilful and ingenious. I remembered hearing
discussions in lowered voices, among the young attendants and stablehands, they
said that a man could become intoxicated with a woman, not only through her
smell, which works like a potent magic, but also because of the colour of her
lips, whose moisture and softness were like that of new wine that begged to be
drunk with pleasure. A man, they said, was seduced by the slightest thing; the
rise and fall of an ivory bosom, the milk and honey of a nape, the soft velvet
of flesh . . . and by this infernal deception, induced to forget the holiest of
vows to the mother church, to the order, and to God! Had I not been a witness
to such things, even if only in a dream? I found I was breathing heavily, and
my master gave me one of his odd looks. He, I knew, had always said that nature
was the daughter of God and woman, as the daughter of nature, could be nothing
less than divine. Now, as I looked on at the Virgin’s image in the chapel, I
wondered how one could venerate her and not, at the same time, respect the same
bond of femininity, that binds the mother with all women. Yet it was a woman,
or the image of her (in some ways even more diabolical), that had induced me to
sin. There was no denying it, and for this I felt a great guilt. I needed to
confess everything to my master, my mouth even opened to say those terrible
words, but as fate would have it just at that moment he depressed the two
necromantic signs: first, Pisces, and then Saturn, and my mind was gratefully
wrenched, if only for a brief time, from the sorrow of my guilt.

‘By the sword of Saladin!’ my master
whispered harshly, ‘that’s not it!’

‘But master,’ I thought a moment, ‘you
and Eisik were speaking of a celestial sequence ’

‘What did you say?’ Andre turned to
me. ‘Of course! The sequence! Good boy, Christian!’ he whispered jubilantly. ‘You
need to depress the sequence of planets with Saturn as the seventh, not Saturn
alone!’

Andre tried to depress the sun sign
but it would not move. ‘Why not?’ he whispered angrily. ‘For the love of all
the saints, why did it move before and not now, by God?’

‘May the twelve become seven and the
seven stars appear,’ I said, risking his rebuke.

‘Of course, I must be a donkey! The
twelve and seven, Christian! They must go together, even
you
knew it.’

He depressed Pisces and held it down
while he depressed firstly the sun, then moon, followed by Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter and finally Saturn. There was a metallic sound and the panel
began to move as though on a cushion of air, opening into a small antechamber
only big enough to accommodate the two of us.

I waited for him to congratulate me
on my acumen, but he merely paused before the door of the chamber, sniffing the
air with suspicion.

‘We must not forget,’ he said, ‘Brother
Samuel died from his carelessness. A sweet musky smell . . . but not a poison,
in this case something else . . .’ He searched about with his nose, but seemed
satisfied that no deadly poison awaited us, and so stepped inside, though he
kept a vigilant eye about him. On the door ahead we illuminated with our lamps
a sign inscribed into the wood that my master told me was the necromantic
symbol for Saturn. To my right, a water stoup made out of stone dug into my
thigh. No doubt it was filled with holy water for the ritual ablution. In this
corner I also saw a number of strange long objects, and realised after a moment
that they were torches, such as are dipped in mutton fat, and I was about to
observe these further when my sandal touched upon something small though soft,
and I looked down to see that it was a rat. I uttered a muffled cry, and my
master shushed me, saying none too softly:

‘By God, boy, you cannot scare it
away, the odious thing is dead!’

‘What killed it, master?’ I asked,
thinking that it must be a terrible omen.

‘Perhaps the same thing that killed
the old brother,’ he replied thoughtfully.

‘Shall I take one of these torches
with us?’

‘No. Touch nothing unless I tell you.
These places are places of deception and, as we have seen, murder. Now, to open
the door . . .’

He pushed it and it opened with
little difficulty, revealing steps that led down into a pit of darkness. Just
then I felt a presence behind us and turned expecting to see the hideous form
of the Devil, instead it was Eisik, carrying a lamp of his own.

‘Thy word is a lantern unto my feet:
and a light unto my paths,’ he said.

‘For the love of all the saints, what
happened to you?’ my master whispered, taking Eisik’s lantern.

‘There are guards everywhere, Andre,’
he said, hunching his shoulders in expectation of further evils. ‘I had to use
the cunning of my forefathers. I told the assistant cook I needed a lamp so
that I might read the Talmud, and that I would say a prayer that he be spared
by the inquisitor if he would be so kind as to oblige. But I will tell you,
Andre, I am only here because you have asked me, and because I do not wish to
outlive you! Something tells me that this is foolish and yet,’ he sighed, ‘it
is the destiny of an old Jew that no man will listen to him, though if he did
he would doubtless live longer.’

So it was that cautiously we embarked
on our journey into the unknown, down a long, and seemingly endless, flight of
steps, leaving the panel in the first antechamber slightly ajar, as a precaution.
The steps were damp, and spaced unevenly; some were broken, some worn smooth,
and it was only by a small margin that I managed to maintain my balance. After
what seemed an eternity we secured solid earth beneath our feet, but this was
only a temporary comfort, for we would soon enter an exceedingly narrow passage
that angled obliquely to our right. I made a calculation that this must bear
north-east because the steps that led us to our present position were in a
westerly direction, as the panel had been on the western side of the transept.
This passage, being many feet below ground, smelt ancient and putrefied, and
was so narrow that, if I diverged even slightly, I could touch the damp walls
on either side with my shoulders. The light from our lamps played on the
surface of rock and I thought I could see the faces of numerous devils on the
crevices and forms created by different mineral substances.

I trembled.

Why must there be tunnels? Why also curious masters?

At last we entered through an arch
and found that we were inside an antechamber. Its three doors were set at the
oddest angles, somehow giving one the impression of having suddenly changed
direction. I knew that it must be a clever trick. To add to this phenomenon the
chamber was also diminutive and that meant that we had to stand very close at
its centre, our breaths puffing out in unison in the still, dank air. We raised
our lamps to inspect the walls, and noticed that above the doors – that
no doubt led to other tunnels – there were torches such as I had seen on
the floor of the first chamber, but these were not lit. Our lamps, however,
were adequate in illuminating a number of strange signs carved into the rock
above the doors. Directly ahead, the heavy angular aperture had above it the
sign of the crescent moon, as well as the word ‘Pergamos’. To our right, my
master elucidated the necromantic sign for Mars and the word ‘Thyatira’. On our
left another crescent moon, and again the word ‘Pergamos’, and behind us ‘Ephesus’,
and the sign for Saturn.

‘A labyrinth of tunnels!’ my master
exclaimed. ‘Now what Daniel told us makes sense. He who follows the seven
letters in number and order will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who would
seek to go against the seven churches will wander the earth till the moment of
death . . . This must surely mean the seven letters of the apocalypse, to the
seven communities or churches . . . we must follow them precisely or find
ourselves food for rats. Now, what was the first letter . . .?’ my master asked
Eisik.

‘Smyrna . . . no, no, Ephesus . . .
that’s it, Ephesus.’

‘Of course Ephesus . . . ‘I am the
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; and what thou seest, write in a book,
and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto
Smyrna and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira . . .’ Blast! What comes next?’

‘Unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia,
and unto Laodicea,’ Eisik added.

‘Eisik!’ Andre exclaimed suddenly. ‘You
know the gentile Bible better than the gentile!’

‘Why should I not, my son?’ he said,
but my master ignored him, for he was muttering other things under his breath.

‘And since this is our first chamber,
we should surmise that our next should be Smyrna.’

‘‘To him that overcometh will I give
to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God’,’
Eisik quoted.

I was the first to look up at the
vaulted ceiling where, at its apex, a circle enclosing a smaller one could be
discerned with Smyrna written in a semicircle at its perimeter. I pointed this
out to my master and Eisik excitedly, but it only seemed to confound them all
the more.

‘If we are in Smyrna, the first was
that little chamber before we entered the tunnels. In this case it stands to
reason that we should take the door marked ‘Pergamos’, for that is the subsequent
letter. However, there are two of them!’

‘Oh, holy fathers . . .’ Eisik
whispered, wringing his hands, ‘which door to take?’

My master looked in this direction
and that, pulling on his beard. ‘A good question . . . perhaps we are best
advised to try one. Shall we?’ He moved forward a pace.

‘No!’ I cried, and felt immediately
ashamed. ‘There might be something hideous waiting for us on the other side of
the wrong door, master.’ I reminded him of the story of the Minotaur of Greek
legends, and he paused for a moment, nodding his head a little. ‘Perhaps then
we shall make him a very fine dinner.’

Eisik came to my defence, ‘Andre, the
boy is right, we must be careful, tunnels are evil places wherein one may
become hopelessly lost not only in body but also in soul.’

‘That is why I have brought a piece
of charcoal and a parchment on which we shall draw a map.’ My master handed me
the articles that included a strange device set inside a bubble of glass. ‘This
way our bodies may find a way out, and hopefully our souls will follow.’

‘What is this, master?’ I asked,
rolling the circular thing.

‘That, my dear boy, is the instrument
I have often mentioned to you and yet never shown you, it is called a compass.’

‘Oh, yes, the reason you returned to
your cell . . . What does one do with it?’ I placed it against my ear
tentatively, but I could make out no sound coming from it.

My master smiled. ‘It seeks north.’

‘Take it away!’ Eisik whispered
harshly. ‘It is wicked, an astronomer concentrated his thoughts on it for many
years and his thinking is said to have created a wicked force, as it might
create also a good one, and this force seeks the pole star, because proceeding
from it is a great emptiness that sucks this force into itself. It is said to
have also sucked into it the soul of the astronomer! Take it away!’ He brought
his hands up to his face as if to defend his soul.