Temple of The Grail (46 page)

These words reminded me of Brother
Setubar, and I wondered if the inquisitor persecuted heretics so vehemently
because he could never be free of his own heresy that, no matter how deeply
hidden, managed to bubble to the surface like oil?

‘No, you are wrong,’ my master said
bitterly, having lost his composure altogether, ‘what you call bliss is only
the absence of pain, which is a contrast to the most intense pain and nothing
else. Just as someone who has never seen white might contrast grey with black.
It is an illusion, and so, too, do you delude yourself. Never having known joy,
you naturally suppose that pain is necessary and the absence of it blissful . .
. but how can you ever be sure that what you hear from the mouths of those
wretched and abused souls is the truth, and not merely a reflection of what
they see in your eyes?’

‘So says an infidel. Because that is
what you are. Oh, yes, you may wear a cross over your breast and a prayer on
your lips, but I know that you are a man who whispers Allah in your sleep, a
man not trusted by either Christian or infidel. Everything you have said and
done these days has pointed to your dissent. Do not presume to know the mystery
of torture and absolution, preceptor, it is vouchsafed only to a few.’

‘A few who desire intensely to hear
those things they are told, not because they are true, but simply because they
want them to be true.’ He gave me a look (his hand poised over the note). In it
I discerned the message: ‘When I depress it, run for the panel.’

‘Do you know, preceptor, what anguish
I have suffered? Tortured always on the one hand because I may have convicted
an innocent man to die, and at the same time knowing that there are those whose
deception has allowed them to evade the law, so that they may continue their
destruction of the church!’ Suddenly I saw the inquisitor’s face take on a form
almost human. I now sensed that he truly believed that what he did was right,
and this filled me with further uncertainties. ‘Can you for one moment
comprehend such a dilemma? How can one ever know if he is avoiding the
deceptions of the Devil, the misunderstandings to which he lures us? One no
longer knows in these terrible times what distinguishes good from evil! So it
is that we must let God choose for us. It is God, not as you would say, the Devil,
who speaks through the mouths of those who are tortured because, in the throes
of pain, that He too suffered for our sins, they see His shining light and
cannot do otherwise than confess their own! You see? And so saying, I will
remind you that one night with my guards will have your Jew begging to tell me
everything, as God commands him, but I will not see him, not for three nights
in which he will suffer countless agonies . . .’

Suddenly there was a deafening roar
that shook the monastery church. It sent the book vibrating off the pulpit, and
the inquisitor to the ground.

How am I to narrate the moments that
followed? Things happen so quickly and yet so slowly.

As we heard the sound, my master
– with unequalled presence of mind – depressed the note on the
organ, but the inquisitor was upon him and they were struggling in the shadow
of the pipes as a wall of snow hit the monastery from above, breaking through
the rose window and flooding the church.

Almost instantly I could see nothing
but white, an opaquely cold world filled with a light numbing. The white became
grey, then black, and I no longer cared one way or the other . . . the struggle
would soon be over. Images passed before my eyes. From out of the mist I saw
Asa dressed like a goose, waving his glass instrument at the abbot who appeared
in the shape of a monkey and did not look in his direction. The abbot was busy
holding a phial of poisoned urine to the cook’s lips who drank of it gladly
saying that it was like the nectar of the gods, while Setubar sat back,
laughing as though the end had come and so he could be merry, ‘Levity in a nut
is a sign of its emptiness!’ he cried, after which he climbed atop the back of
a devil but not before giving me raisins that were sweet like the breasts of
the sainted mother who was the beloved of my dreams and who held in one hand a
rose cross and in the other Eisik’s severed head from whose mouth came these
words, ‘No good will come of it!’ There were voices then, and thunderings, and
lightnings and an earthquake, and I was an angel in the midst of heaven saying
with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitors of the earth for they were
wrenched down to the bottomless pit where arose smoke like the smoke of a great
furnace and so a terrible pain assailed my chest. But I realised that it was
not the Devil plunging his great white teeth into my lungs and tearing out my
heart but my master who, having pulled me out of that dry, powdery sea, was
hitting my back with much force. The vastness of the organ, with its pipes and
keys, had preserved him and the inquisitor also.

‘Keep sharp, boy!’ he cried as I spat
out so much snow. ‘Don’t go dying on me, by Saladin!’

He grabbed a lamp from the wall
behind the organ, miraculously still lit, and seeing that the inquisitor was
unconscious, pushed or rather pulled me down what was left of the north
ambulatory and into the transept chapel. I saw the Virgin only faintly, for I
was then shoved behind the curtain where both of us stopped to listen to the terrible
silence. The pause. I knew instinctively that it was only a herald of the next
beat.

Another roar shook everything. ‘Quickly,
the panel.’ My master depressed the corresponding symbols releasing the lock
and we were diving down into the bowels of the abbey once again.

The rest was a blur of images. We
stumbled through the tunnels, in and out of antechambers, following our
previous tortuous path, not caring to leave anything in the way of the doors,
for there would be no turning back. I thought with sorrow of our dear friend
Eisik, perhaps buried somewhere, I thought of the monks and the Trencavels and
I prayed silently for them all. Above our heads a great stirring could be heard
and here and there rocks had fallen, making our path hazardous, but we reached
the second-last antechamber with little mishap. It was as we entered ‘Philadelphia’
and our lamp shone into its interior that we saw the figure of a monk sitting
in an awkward way, his head to one side, obscured by his vestments. My master
held the lamp to the monk’s face and pulled back his cowl to reveal the
identity of the poor wretch. It was Setubar.

His face now showed the familiar
signs of the poison; dark honey was smeared everywhere. I concluded that he
must have taken his own life.

He was not yet dead, however, for his
eyes opened suddenly, causing me to gasp in surprise.

‘So,’ he coughed, ‘you have found
your way, very good. . . now you must stop them . . . go . . . Stop them,
Templar!’ He managed to raise himself a little and grabbed my master’s habit
with his gnarled hands, letting some raisins fall to the floor.

‘Your legs are broken,’ Andre
observed, bending over the man, and noticing the unnatural angle of his legs.

The old man winced. ‘The devil is
here! Stop them!’

‘Tell me, Setubar!’ my master said in
a commanding voice that took the old man by surprise.

There was a pause in which Setubar
took in a torturous breath and then, perhaps hoping my master would accomplish
what he in his wretched state could not do, he told him everything.

‘Nine . . .’ He swallowed. ‘Nine
knights were initiated into the secret doctrine of St John the Apostle. Into
the mystery of the children of the widow . . . vouchsafed by Ormus disciple of
St Mark.’

‘Heresy!’ I cried, alarmed.

The old man laughed, poison escaping
from his mouth, ‘Yes, my beautiful one, heresy! Your master knows it, as do all
those who become knights.’

I looked at Andre in disbelief, but
he said nothing.

‘Beneath the Dome of the Rock . . .
your order found . . .’ he paused for breath, ‘the original Tables of the Law
written by Moses. The Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament
that had been buried when Jerusalem was threatened with invasion many years
before. No one knows the treasures and also the abominations hidden here on this
mountain.’

My master was silent, reflecting, as
though the earth were not moving around us and about to descend over our heads.

The man fought for lucidity, grasping
feebly at his legs. ‘Why do you think you were required to spit on the cross
and deny Jesus at your initiation into the order?’ the old man said. ‘So that
you would know what to do if you were captured by the infidel? Bah! You are a
fool . . . you are all fools! You spit on the cross because it is evil. It
represents the earthly death, the imperfection of men! And you also deny Jesus
because Jesus was mortal and so full of sin. Christ was the God, not Jesus! You
and I are not so different, preceptor, are we? We are cousins, so to speak! Ahh
but you are proud, it does not sit well on your proud neck that your order is
heretical, but it is this pride in your own erudition that I hope will do my
bidding . . .’ He trailed off, breathing with great difficulty now. ‘They will
use him to bring about a great sin . . . death and becoming, they will raise
him from the dead!’ He was seized by a terrible spasm in his abdomen. ‘Do it!
Stop them . . . do this, not for me, I am dung, do it for yourself . . . Can
you hear the bees, boy?’ He stared at me for a moment and then rolled his eyes,
filled with sin and hatred and bitterness, into his head.

Andre said a short prayer over his
body and under his breath I heard him say, ‘The poor misguided fool.’

‘Master . . . is what he says true?
Did you . . . did you . . .?’ I crossed myself, almost in tears, not knowing
what to believe.

‘Come!’ my master grabbed me by the
arm hastily, ‘there is not much time!’ I could see that he was right, for we
experienced another loud vibration that sent me reeling unsteadily off my feet,
landing only a short distance from the body.

‘Master –’ I insisted as we
toiled down the next tunnel avoiding the rubble that had fallen there. ‘How
could you have? To deny Christ! To deny the cross!’

‘There is no shame in denial,
Christian, because in denying what we previously held to be true, we learn to
see the truth more clearly. We discern knowledge from opinion, but what the old
man doesn’t know is that such temptations are a test from the devils in one’s
own soul, overcome time and again through fast and prayer. Of course I did not
spit on the cross. I wear the red cross. The living cross not the dead one.’
That was all he would say as he tugged at my arm and pointed me in the
direction of the next tunnel.

I wanted him to leave me alone. His
hand was on my arm, the hand that had so many times soothed my brow and slapped
my nape. The strong, earthy, heathen hands, so brown and strong, appeared to me
now soiled, stained with sin. He had been deceiving me. He had deceived even
himself for he was not the man I thought he was nor the man he presumed himself
to be. I was angry, feeling like a fool for having believed in him, but with
impending doom looming over my head, I forced myself to follow him and
concentrated on staying alive.

Finally we arrived at the last
antechamber, and as we entered the room and our lamp shone its light into the
darkness, who should we find but Anselmo sitting in the dark, holding an unlit
torch, a discarded lamp at his feet.

He gave us a dreadful look, but did
not bother to stand.

‘Anselmo, good evening,’ my master
said cheerfully. ‘I thought I might find you here. Why have you not gone into
the inner sanctum, then?’ he asked. ‘We depressed the note, there should be no
water.’

‘Ahh, but preceptor, the mechanism is
not triggered off by depressing the note, but by lifting it! Anyway, the
avalanche has damaged it, and as I cannot swim . . .’ He shrugged his
shoulders. ‘As you can see I ran out of taper, but I knew you were coming and I
have been waiting. You must have passed Setubar . . . is he dead yet?’

‘Very . . . Your doing, I suppose.’

‘Yes. How well you guess, preceptor.’

‘Naturally. But tell me, how could
you be sure that we knew our way here, and the combinations?’

He smiled. ‘You are an intelligent
man, preceptor. From the first day of our meeting I knew that you were a match
for me, I knew that given time you would find out everything.’

‘But all these deaths have been for
nothing, all this anguish which you and Setubar have brought about together,
one out of curiosity, and the other out of a mad belief, for now you will never
see what you so dearly desire to see, leaving your friend Asa to die on the
pyre.’

‘I had suspected for some time that
Asa was not interested in the wondrous treasures of the catacombs, he was
seduced by the idea of the immortal man . . . as if there could ever be such a
thing, and so he died for his ideal.’

‘And what of poor Jerome, the friend
whom you infected with your lust for the new, with your desire for the unknown?’

‘Jerome is a sad case, he had an
unnatural affection for me, he came here of his own accord to find the codices
. . . the ass! No doubt he expected a kiss for his labours . . .’ Anselmo
laughed and it echoed down many tunnels. ‘I was not sorry to find he had indeed
been kissed . . . by death. But tell me, have you worked it all out yet? It
intrigues me.’