Fifth Gospel (15 page)

ISIS

S
he finished her words and I realised that it was morning again and another night had passed. That is how it was during those nights with Lea, sitting in the upper room by the fire. The hours went by in a dream, but a dream more awake than life itself, for it was a life that took me to the heights of knowledge. When day came then, and life in the fortress resumed its dismal rhythm, I was forced to fall back to earth, forced to face the siege with its moments of frenzied fighting, followed by long hours of inactivity.

In the
daily hours I received those who wished to see me, I bandaged wounds and applied compresses and saw to men and women who were dying from injury or from disease. It was an endless round of waiting and prayer, of hope and despair for the injured and the dying.

The night was my solace.

But when some nights had passed without a visit from Lea it made me full of concern and I resolved to go in search of her. Perhaps she was not an apparition but a woman after all? If so, she may have fallen sick, like so many, from lack of food and clean water, from the cold and the crowded conditions. I imagined her in some corner of the fortress, coughing, with a fever on that brow as pale as a pearl, and felt my heart quickening with devotion. I could not tell if this devotion was not an illusion sent by the devil to try me and so I put it out of my mind and searched, looking for her in the pentagonal courts and where people gathered for the sermons.

Sometimes
I thought I did see her, or at least something of her. But what I saw was the warm smile of a mother, the peculiar turn of the head of a lover, the wisdom in the eyes of a grandmother – evidence of the soul that is shared by all women, but which a man can only aspire to love from afar. I was thinking this, as I looked for Saissa de Congost, that wonderful woman whose castle at Puivert had once been the home of music and troubadours before the French seized it.

Saissa had taken it upon her
self to keep the young girls of the fortress busy, and I reasoned that she might know something of Lea if she were, indeed, a real woman.  But along the way I was diverted from my task by a tearful boy wandering among the crowds of people without aim. A beautiful child with delicate features and far reaching eyes. I asked him his name but he did not answer and those around me did not know who he was. I took him by the hand to Saissa who was teaching embroidery to a group of young girls.

S
he recognised the boy as the charge of the Marquésia de Lantar. The boy, she said, was a special child and needed care. He could not yet speak despite being near seven years of age. She asked one of the girls to take him back to the Marquésia and as he was being led away, he turned to look at me. What hovered in the space between us at this point was a glimpse of something rare, as old as eternity, and as new as a moment. When I blinked the child was gone and the revelation faded from my heart.

I became aware of
Saissa regarding me with a curious eye, and I was struck by the realisation that my nightly dreams were turning into daydreams! Surely, if I did not soon harness my thoughts I might never again wake up!

There was one way to
clarify the mystery that was occupying my every waking hour and driving me from sanity. I asked Saissa if she knew a woman called Lea. I told her that she might be a
credente
or believer or perhaps the child of a perfect. I said I was worried that she was unwell, for I had not seen her for some time. Saissa shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. She did not recognise the name, but she would ask among the other women and would let me know.

More nights pass
ed in silence, and I felt deserted and abandoned by my dream vision, that is, until the seventh night.

I
had fallen asleep at my parchments and woke with a start. The wind had picked up and was fanning the flames in the hearth to a bright glow. When I adjusted my eyes I saw her, sitting on the bench, as was her custom. And oh, how it pierced my heart’s deep chambers to see her! Tears veiled my eyes and I had to speak to forestall them.

‘You were gone long…
’ I said. ‘I went looking for you. No one seems to know you. I am thinking that perhaps you are just a dream.’

She found this amusing,
‘What is a dream? When men are awake, that is when they are truly dreaming. Besides, have you never been with people who do not know you though you are always with them? They do not know you because they are asleep. To be awake to what others cannot see – this is love.’

I
do not say that I always understood her. She was a strange creature, full of wisdoms and secrets and riddles, and I did not press her lest she melt away and leave me with an unfinished dream. I decided to ask no more. From now on, I would think of her as an angel…as the evening star!

‘Of what will you speak this night?’ I said
, holding my quill tightly, lest she see my hand tremble.

‘
I will show you Mary Magdalene,
pairé
...’

‘
That makes sense...since you last spoke of her brother, Lazarus. It is said that she came to France with him on a boat, that she married Jesus and bore him children.’

Her nod was faint,
her azure eyes narrowed a little, and I felt deeply scrutinised. ‘That would mean that Jesus did not die on the cross…is that what you believe?’

I told her the truth
. I told her that I did not know, but that the tale came from the troubadours, who sang of such things.

‘Th
ere are hidden truths buried deep in these tales,
pairé,
but one must know how to decipher them. Did you know that the name Magdalene is connected to the word Magda? Magda is a high tower that unites the soul with God. In Egypt too there were such women, but they were called brides of Osiris, or Priestesses of Isis.’

I was aghast
. ‘Are you implying that Mary Magdalene was a bride of Osiris, the Egyptian God?’

Lea
’s smile was wide now, and her teeth were like a flock of sheep, each one whiter than the next.

‘
Why is this so strange to you,
pairé
? In another life, Mary Magdalene had been a priestess, yes, but she came again to be the first bride of Christ. Not in a physical sense – in a spiritual one. You see how misunderstandings arise?’

‘
That may be…but what of her travelling to France on a boat? What do you make of that?’

‘
Once again,
pairé,
you must look for the hidden truth; the soul is the woman in every man. In this tale, the soul is not just a woman, however, it is also a vessel, a boat, and it travels upon an ocean of time. In this boat there is a child, the spirit, waiting to be born. These understandings came to France and inspired your troubadours, who sing of a love for a lady, though she is not a woman at all. She is their soul, seeking the spirit.’

I
was confused. ‘Oh, Lea…I am a feeble-minded man, all this talk of souls and boats and children and spirits – all of it confounds me!’

‘
Do not be too impatient,
pairé,
soon you will understand, just listen to me again…’

She
began to tell how Mary Magdalene had to suffer many things before she could find her way to Christ.

And I
wrote it down, as best I could.

‡

From the day she was born, all could see the child was blessed. For not only was she quick of mind and full of mischief, she was also possessed of physical attributes rarely seen wholly together in one parcel.

‘One day,’ they said, ‘
her beauty will be her undoing!’

In time, h
er hair grew to a deep shade that trapped the sun’s light and fell long over her shoulders. Her face, unblemished and lucid was made more pale by the redness of her lips and the darkness of her almond shaped eyes. To her parents the child was a jewel in their crown and they turned a deaf ear to all who suggested that they not dote on the girl; that they not dress her in resplendent clothes, and sit her upon fine cushions and expensive carpets, to display her to all who came by.

But
her parents died, one after the other, and she became the responsibility of her sister Martha, who was five years older. Martha was pale and sickly, and prone to a nervous temper, the result of an issue of blood, a disease that defiled her and prevented her from ordinary social intercourse, from attending the synagogue, and even from marriage. This meant that Martha lavished all her love on Mary, and appeased her mothering urges by nurturing her as if she were the centre of her world. Martha dressed her in only the finest garments under embroidered silk girdles studded with precious stones and dusted her hair with gold and adorned it with the sheerest Arabian veils.  Her arms she garlanded with the finest bracelets and wherever Mary walked all heads turned, not only for her unparalleled beauty and the fineries of her toilette, but also because around her ankles Martha had wrapped numerous lengths of silver chain, specially wrought to make little sounds!

This attire
, far from being unusual in young Galilean women, composed the dress of the distinguished and the fashionable, but when such richness was wedded to a girl of Mary’s exceptional beauty it created a vision that attracted both the attention of men and also the derision and jealousy of women.

Mary herself
did not think much of these luxuries, and Martha would scold her when she returned from the markets bare of purse and jewellery, having left rings and bracelets and money in the hands of some unfortunate beggar.

In truth
, Mary felt smothered by her sister’s incessant fussing and preferred her own company and would often wander out far beyond the scrutiny of the people to sit alone in the valley, or on the green hillsides or in the cool shade of a sheltering tree where she could think her deep thoughts.

She did not know when it was that a second sight began to unfold in her soul, for this transformation was a quiet creature
whose footsteps were soft and left no trace. She only knew that at one moment she was gazing at the sky, and at another she was noticing how the sun dreams the world, how it shines over the minerals and stones, and penetrates even into the plants, unfolding the work of the nature beings. But such visions were not meant to last, for soon something changed these ecstasies into agonies.

It was autumn and she was sat, as was her custom, beneath a low hanging tree. The crops were off the meadow
, and the wind that came now from the north brought a chill. Not far from her a bee was making traffic with a flower that grew wild in this valley. When she reached out to touch the creature she felt a sting.

A strange lightness in her head made her swoon.

The world fell away and she saw herself in a dream
.

She sees a
long river, cast silver in moonlight, striking a snake’s path through a dark valley that lay between the clefts of a black-faced mountain. She is in this river, on a boat, among other women who wear their hair braided and their breasts oiled and their eyes painted. When they arrive at the shores of a great dark Temple they adore the moon, they intone auguries and they make sacrifices. She is taken to the Temple where she is admitted into the torch-lit antechamber.

In the warm half-light they dress her and adorn her in fine white robes and costly veils. They sprinkle the essence of roses on her hair and they braid its lengths with copper and gold. The women attendants point to the layers
of the heavens, to the realms above the open roof where lives her bridegroom. She sees the starry cluster from which He shall descend. She is the virgin priestess.

She waits.

When he comes into the womb of her heart, she is overcome with ecstasy, for she is the keeper of the light, she is the Wife of the Sun, His mother, His sister, His servant and handmaiden.

She is the image of Isis
…the tower that unites heaven with earth.

Awakened by cold
, the pain in her hand was returned to her. She realised that night had already descended over the valley and shaking, she gathered her wits about her and ran home with tears in her eyes and the palm of her hand to her mouth.

Amid
the pain and the cold of her run, she recalled her mother’s jar of Alabaster, full of the fragrances of Egypt. It had been left to her and she had always imagined that her mother’s very essence lived in it. For this reason she had thought it deeply holy and had never once used it on herself, and had long forgotten about it.

Now she understood th
e thread of destiny that wove her soul with Egypt.

A
fter that day, she began to see other visions and she realised that the world was not only populated by beauty-bearing, life-begetting beings, but also beings of darkness, beings of death and foulness. Everywhere she turned her eye she saw legions of demons lying in wait for any error or failing in men and women. Lies, jealousy and gossip were food to them, nourishing their growth and they attached themselves, like parasites, to those who would feed them according to their nature.