Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum (16 page)

"No need to apologize,"
Belbo said. "You did it. Just tell us the rest."

"Gentlemen, I will now
show you this text. Forgive me for using a photocopy. It's not
distrust. I don't want to subject the original to further
wear."

"But Ingolf's copy
wasn't the original," I said. "The parchment was the
original."

"Casaubon, when
originals no longer exist, the last copy is the
original."

"But Ingolf may have
made errors in transcription."

"You don't know that he
did. Whereas I know Ingolf's transcription is true, because I see
no way the truth could be otherwise. Therefore Ingolf's copy is the
original. Do we agree on this point, or do we sit and split
hairs?"

"No," Belbo said. "I
hate that. Let's see your original copy."

After Beaujeu, the Order
has never ceased to exist, not for a moment, and after Aumont we
find an uninterrupted sequence of Grand Masters of the Order down
to our own time, and if the name and seat of the true Grand Master
and the true Seneschals who rule the Order and guide its sublime
labors remain a mystery today, an impenetrable secret known only to
the truly enlightened, it is because the hour of the Order has not
struck and the time is not ripe...

¡XManuscript of 1760, in
G. A. Schiffmann, Die Entstehung der Rittergrade in der Freimauerei
urn die Mitte des XVIII Jahrhun-derts, Leipzig, Zechel, 1882, pp.
178-190

This was our first,
remote contact with the Plan. I could easily be somewhere else now
if I hadn't been in Belbo's office that day. I could be¡Xwho
knows?¡Xselling sesame seeds in Samarkand, or editing a series of
books in Braille, or heading the first National Bank of Franz Josef
Land. Counterfactual conditionals are always true, because the
premise is false. But I was there that day, so now I am where I
am.

The colonel handed us
the page with a flourish. I still have it here among my papers, in
a little plastic folder. Printed on that thermal paper photocopies
used in those days, it is more yellowed and faded now. Actually
there were two texts on the page: the first, densely written, took
up half the space; the second was divided into fragments of
verses...

The first text was a
kind of demoniacal litany, a parody of a Semitic
language:

Kuabris Defrabax Rexulon
Ukkazaal Ukzaab Urpaefel Tacul-bain Habrak Hacoruin Maquafel
Tebrain Hmcatuin Rokasor Himesor Argaabil Kaquaan Docrabax Reisaz
Reisabrax De-caiquan Oiquaquil Zaitabor Qaxaop Dugraq Xaelobran
Di-saeda Magisuan Raitak Huidal Uscolda Arabaom Zipreus Mecrim
Cosmae Duquifas Rocarbis.

"Not exactly clear,"
Belbo remarked.

"No, it isn't," the
colonel agreed slyly. "And I might have spent my life trying to
make sense of it, if one day, almost by chance, I hadn't found a
book about Trithemius on a bookstall and noticed one of his coded
messages: ¡¥Pamersiel Oshurmy Delmuson Thafloyn...' I had uncovered
a clue, and I pursued it relentlessly. I knew nothing at all -about
Trithemius, but in Paris I found an edition of his Steganographia,
hoc est ars per occultam scripturam animi sui voluntatem absentibus
aperiendi certa, published in Frankfurt in 1606. The art of using
secret writing in order to bare your soul to distant persons. A
fascinating man, this Trithemius. A Benedictine abbot of Spannheim,
late fifteenth-early sixteenth centuries, a scholar who knew Hebrew
and Chaldean, Oriental languages like Tartar. He corresponded with
theologians, cabalists, alchemists, most certainly with the great
Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim and perhaps with
Paracelsus...Trithemius masked his revelations about secret
writings behind magical smoke screens. For instance, he recommended
sending coded messages like the one you're looking at now. The
recipient was then supposed to call upon angels like Pamersiel,
Padiel, Dorothiel, and so on, to help him decipher the real
message. But many of his examples are actually military dispatches,
and his book¡Xdedicated to Philip, Count Palatine and Duke of
Bavaria¡Xrepresents one of the first serious studies of
cryptography."

"Correct me if I'm
wrong," I said, "but didn't you say that Trithemius lived at least
a hundred years after the manuscript we're talking about was
written?"

"Trithemius was
associated with a Sodalitas Celtica that was concerned with
philosophy, astrology, Pythagorean mathematics. You see the
connection? The Templars were an order whose initiates were also
inspired by the wisdom of the ancient Celts; that has been widely
demonstrated. Somehow Trithemius also learned the cryptographic
systems used by the Templars."

"Amazing," Belbo said.
"And the transcription of the secret message? What does it
say?"

"All in good time,
gentlemen. Trithemius presents forty major and ten minor
cryptosystems. Here I was lucky¡Xeither that or the Templars of
Provins simply didn't make any great effort, since they were sure
nobody would ever crack their code. I tried the first of the forty
major systems and assumed that only the first letter of each word
counted."

Belbo asked to see the
page and glanced over it. "You still get nonsense:
kdruuuth..."

"Naturally," the colonel
said condescendingly. "The Templars may not have made a great
effort, but they weren't altogether lazy either. This first
sequence of letters is itself a coded message, and I wondered
whether the second series of ten minor coding systems might not
give an answer. For this second series, you see, Trithemius used
some wheels. Here is the wheel for the first system."

He took another
photocopy from his file, drew his chair up to the desk, and, asking
us to pay careful attention, touched the letters with his closed
fountain pen.

[...]

"It's the simplest
possible system. Consider only the outer circle. To code something,
you replace each letter of your original message with the letter
that precedes it for A you write Z, for B you write A, and so on.
Child's play for a secret agent nowadays, but back then it was
considered witchcraft. To decode, of course, you go in the opposite
direction, replacing each letter of the coded message with the
letter that follows it. I tried it, and I was lucky again; it
worked the very first time. Here's what it says." He recited: "
¡¥Les 36 inuisibles separez en six bandes.' That is: the thirty-six
invisibles divided into six groups."

"Which means
what?"

"Apparently nothing, at
first glance. It's a kind of headline announcing the establishment
of a group. It was written in secret language for ritualistic
reasons. Our Templars, satisfied that they were putting their
message in an inviolable inner sanctum, were content to use their
fourteenth-century French. But let's look at the second
text."

a la...Saint
Jean

36 p charrete de
fein

6...entiers avec
saiel

p...les blancs
mantiax

r...s...chevaliers de
Pruins pour /a...j.nc.

6 foil 6 en 6
places

chascune foil 20 a...720
a...

iceste est
I'ordonation

al donjon It
premiers

it li secunz joste iceus
qui...pans

it al refuge

it a Nostre Dame de I
¡¥altre pan de I ¡¥iau

it a I ¡¥ostel des
popelicans

it a la
pierre

3 foiz 6 avant la
feste...to Grant Pute.

"This is the decoded
message?" Belbo asked, disappointed and amused.

"Obviously the dots in
Ingolf's transcription stand for words that were illegible. Perhaps
the parchment was damaged in places. But I've made a final
transcription and translation, based on surmises that are, if I do
say so myself, unassailable. I've restored the text to its ancient
splendor¡Xas the saying goes."

With a magician's
gesture, he flipped over the photocopy and showed us his notes,
printed in capitals.

THE (NIGHT OF) SAINT
JOHN

36 (YEARS) P(OST) HAY
WAIN

6 (MESSAGES) INTACT WITH
SEAL

F(OR THE KNIGHTS WITH)
THE WHITE CLOAKS [TEMPLARS]

R(ELAP)S(I) OF PROVINS
FOR (VAIN)JANCE [REVENGE]

6 TIMES 6 IN SIX
PLACES

EACH TIME 20 Y(EARS
MAKES) 120 Y(EARS)

THIS IS THE
PLAN

THE FIRST GO TO THE
CASTLE

IT(ERUM) [AGAIN AFTER
120 YEARS] THE SECOND JOIN THOSE

(OF THE) BREAD AGAIN TO
THE REFUGE AGAIN TO OUR LADY BEYOND THE RIVER

AGAIN TO THE HOSTEL OF
THE POPELICANS

AGAIN TO THE
STONE

3 TIMES 6 [666] BEFORE
THE FEAST (OF THE) GREAT WHORE.

"Clear as mud," Belbo
said.

"Of course, it still
needs interpretation. But Ingolf surely must have done that, as I
have. If you know the history of the order, it's less obscure than
it seems."

A pause. He asked for a
glass of water and went over the text with us again, word by
word.

"Now then. The night of
Saint John's Eve, thirty-six years after the hay wain. The Templars
charged with keeping the order alive escaped capture in September
1307 in a hay wain. At that time the year was calculated from
Easter to Easter. So 1307 would end at what we would consider
Easter of 1308. Count thirty-six years after Easter 1308 and you
arrive at Easter 1344. The message was placed in the crypt inside a
precious case, as a seal, a kind of deed attesting to some event
that took place there on Saint John's Eve after the establishment
of the secret order. In other words, on June 23, 1344."

"Why 1344?"

"I believe that between
1307 and 1344 the secret order was reorganized in preparation for
the project proclaimed in the parchment. They had to wait till the
dust had settled, till links could be forged again among Templars
in five or six countries. Now if the Templars waited thirty-six
years¡Xnot thirty-five or thirty-seven¡Xclearly it was because the
number 36 had mystical properties for them, as the coded message
confirms. The sum of the digits of thirty-six is nine, and I don't
have to remind you of the profound significance of this
number."

"Am I disturbing you?"
It was Diotallevi, who had slipped in behind us, on padded feet
like a Templar of Provins.

"Right up your alley,"
Belbo said. He introduced him to the colonel, who didn't seem
particularly disturbed. On the contrary, he was happy to have a
larger, and keen, audience. He continued his exegesis, Diotallevi
salivating at those numerolog-ical delicacies. Pure
gematria.

"We come now to the
seals: six things intact with seals. Ingolf had found a case closed
with a seal. For whom was this case sealed? For the White Cloaks,
for the Templars. Next comes an r, several missing letters, and an
s. I read it as ¡¥relapsi.' Why? Because, as we all know, relapsi
were confessed defendants who later retracted, and relapsi played a
crucial role in the trial of the Templars. The Templars of Provins
bore their identity as relapsi proudly. They were the ones who
disassociated themselves from that wicked farce of a trial. So the
message refers to the knights of Provins, relapsi, who are
preparing¡Xwhat? The few letters we have suggest ¡¥vainjance,'
revenge."

"Revenge for
what?"

"Gentlemen! The whole
Templar mystique, from the trial on, was focused on the plan to
avenge Jacques de Molay. I don't think much of the Masonic rite¡Xa
mere bourgeois caricature of Templar knighthood¡Xbut nevertheless
it's a reflection, however pale, of Templar practices. And one of
the degrees of Scottish Masonry was kadosch knight, the knight of
revenge."

"All right, the Templars
were preparing for revenge. What next?"

"How much time would it
take to carry out the plan of revenge? In the coded message there
is mention of six knights appearing six times in six places;
thirty-six divided into six groups. Then it says ¡¥Each time
twenty.' What follows is unclear, but in Ingolf's transcription it
looks like an a, for ¡¥ans,' or years. Every twenty years, I
conclude; six times or one hundred and twenty years in all. Later
on in the message we find a list of six places, or six tasks to be
performed. There is mention of an ¡¥ordonation,' a plan, project,
or procedure to be followed. And it says the first group must go to
a donjon or castle while the second goes somewhere else, and so on
down to the sixth. Then the document tells us there should be
another six documents, still sealed, scattered in different places.
It is obvious to me that the seals are supposed to be opened in
sequence, at intervals of a hundred and twenty years."

"But what does twenty
years each time mean?" Diotallevi asked.

"These knights of
revenge are to carry out missions in particular places every
hundred and twenty years. It's a kind of relay race. Clearly, six
Templars set out on that night in 1344, each one going to one of
the six places included in the plan. But the keeper of the first
seal surely can't remain alive for a hundred and twenty years.
Instead, each keeper of each seal is to hold his post for twenty
years and then pass the command on to a successor. Twenty years
seems a reasonable term. There would be six keepers per seal, each
one serving twenty years. When the hundred and twenty years had
gone by, the last keeper of the seal could read an instruction, for
example, and then pass it on to the chief keeper of the second
seal. That's why the verbs in the message are in the plural: the
first are to go here, the second there. Each location is, so to
speak, under surveillance for a hundred and twenty years by six
knights who serve terms of twenty years each. If you add it up,
you'll see that there are five spaces of one hundred and twenty
years between the first location and the sixth. Five times one
hundred and twenty is six hundred. Add six hundred to 1344 and you
get 1944. Which, by the way, is confirmed in the last line.
Perfectly clear."