Temple of The Grail (49 page)

I woke, shaking violently, but it was
not the mountain this time, it was only me, racked with cold. I looked up and
could see that the monastery was a long way above. We must have travelled a
great distance in the watery darkness. I listened, for I thought that I could
hear voices coming from a short way away and I saw the first survivors of the
avalanche coming down the road we travelled some days before. My eyes moistened
as I saw Eisik moving ahead of them, rushing to my side.

‘Praise the God of our fathers!’ he
cried. ‘You are saved.’

Suddenly there were blankets placed
over my shoulders, and a beautiful voice saying, ‘We must go. There is no time.
Even now the inquisitor is looking for you. Quickly, we have some horses.’

‘But my master!’ I said, looking
around dazed and saw that he was being helped to his feet by the girl’s father.

‘Your son, my lord, he cannot be
moved,’ Andre said.

‘He and so many others are dead,
preceptor, the abbey is now under a mountain of snow,’ the man said with
sadness. ‘We came here to take you.’

‘Take us?’ I asked.

‘You, my young one, are to go into
exile,’ he said to me, ‘they will be after what you know. And you, preceptor,’
he continued, ‘the grand master has found a place for you in another preceptory
under a false name, since there are men in your own order who are in league
with the crown of France, so we must be cunning. Come, there is little time.’

I looked up to the monastery. ‘Asa
and the others?’

‘Carcasses, all of them,’ the older
man said.

‘Where will I go? Master, do not
leave me,’ I whispered, sinking to the ground with exhaustion.

Draught of forgetfulness

W
e travelled to the little city of Prats de Mollo, a retreat
in times gone by for the kings of Aragon. Here we were kindly treated, given
some hot broth, and the lord acquired more horses and provisions for our long
and difficult journey.

It was as we thawed a little in the
pale mid-morning sun, after having changed into laymen’s clothes, that my master
and I had a moment alone.

Eisik had, some moments before, said
his tearful goodbyes and had left us to pray.

Now, my master was chewing some
herbs. His eyes and the crease in his brow echoed the pain that my heart also
felt, for how does one say goodbye?

I sat motionless, not wishing to
utter the words that I knew must be said. Not wishing to turn my mind to
Setubar’s words in the tunnels. Instead I looked out at the mountains beyond
the walls of the city and to what must be Spain. All was grey and milky white,
silent, still, and peaceful, the river on one side and the endless range of
mountains on the other. Everything spoke to me of the duality of existence, a
sign of our fragility in the presence of godly designs. I watched the
swineherds and the shepherds moving their animals beyond the great gates, and I
breathed the air, cold and moist, into my lungs. Were we not like those poor
creatures, that, unguided, never proceed directly, but diverge here and there,
always at the mercy of the mystery of the paradox, the contractions that rule
the cosmos? Were we tended lovingly by the great shepherd, safeguarded from
perils to attain that one ultimate goal to which our entire lives have been
directed? To inevitably succumb to death? I had tasted death and it was not
bitter, but neither was life whose brilliance spoke of that other and yet, in
some ways, differently. I looked to my master. Perhaps my face had gained some
wisdom, and lost some innocence, for he smiled and caught me in his embrace,
patting me on the back with great affection.

He looked in the direction of the
abbey, to the majesty of nature that was only a mirror of our Lord’s
countenance. ‘An unjust king once asked a holy man what was more excellent than
prayer. The holy man replied that it was for the king to remain asleep until
midday, for in this one interval he would not afflict mankind.’ He looked at
me. ‘What have we done, Christian? It is all lost…the Gospel is gone forever!’
he sighed.

I was silent for a long time,
thinking again a great many things, and then I spoke to him, for the first and
last time, concerning these things.

‘No, master,’ I said, ‘I believe all
is not lost. You only say this because you grieve for those material things you
fear were destroyed. But you must remember what you have always taught me; that
nothing in this universe disappears. It is merely transformed, in the same way
the alchemists make steam out of water and water out of steam . . .’

‘It is a good argument, Christian,
but what little consolation it gives me! I am torn between sadness that the
only evidence of the gospel is gone, and relief that it did not survive to end
up in some bastion of a library, the property of a few who long only to caress
each page as if it were a woman’s thigh. Perhaps war is less complicated? I
long for some act of will, to leave all this thinking to someone else.’

‘But master, the parchments were only
outward signs from which shines an outward truth. Remember Plato’s cave?’

‘That is true, I have taught you
well.’ He smiled and there was a strange weariness in his eyes, ‘but you must
know, Christian, that a man of science can only ever hope to see phantoms,
praying that they will lead him ultimately to the reality that lies behind
them. I am afraid that I have devoted my life (and risked yours) to preserving
the fire in order that I may see the shadow, indeed it has been wasted. Perhaps
Setubar was right? Man should not thirst for something that he can never attain
or scarcely formulate. It is the curse of my race that we thirst . . . The
inquisitor was right, nothing can alter the colour of a man’s blood.’

‘And you have Christ in your blood,
he is in your thinking, in your feeling, in your willing. I have seen it! I
know now what you have been trying to tell me. Christ did not die. You were
right, master, he lives in our hearts, in our blood. The black cross signifies
nothing. Remember how you once told me that one must look for the antichrist in
the eyes of a man? You were right there, too, for I saw him in the inquisitor,
and I saw him in Setubar also. This is the stamp of the antichrist: ugliness
and ignorance. I saw both in those men because they were blind, their vision
was distorted and so it could not see a world that speaks to us of beauty, of
divinity. Is it not by learning to read the book of nature with the eyes of
faith that we come to recognise the drop of divinity that resides in our own
souls though hidden, master? In the end is this not faith; to seek the light
that takes us further, the light of Christ that brings that to which reason and
knowledge alone can never raise itself? This is truth! I am certain of it, and
you are a seeker of truth!’

He smiled a little. ‘I am a seeker,
yes, but I am also a slave to my seeking. I now know that one only frees
oneself from that insane desire for truth when one is prepared to doubt in the
existence of truth itself, for it is only to be found when you have discarded
it! Only then are you truly free! I have always expounded just that! I have
simply failed to take my own instruction, you see? It further illustrates how I
have behaved stubbornly. My heart was eaten up. Perhaps I am indeed no better
than Anselmo, no wiser than Setubar.’

‘And yet, knowledge is a good thing,
as you have always told me.’

‘Yes, but knowledge is dependent on
the piety of the one who has it, Christian, in this case it can be a blessing
or a danger. I want you to remember something. Wisdom walks alone, but
learnedness, learnedness can easily walk hand in hand with the greatest
stupidity.’

‘In all cases it is the beginning, is
that not so? As you have always told me, knowledge is the seed of a faith that
must follow. Because you were wise and good we proceeded in faith (for I surely
would have given up) to see it, for ourselves, surely that is of far greater
value than parchments!’

‘To see what for ourselves?’
he said with frown.

I realized at that moment,
that my master had not seen anything at all! I did not know what to say to him.

 
He sighed. ‘No. Eisik was right,
Christian, never desire knowledge for its own sake. To desire it with such
devotion is as dangerous, if not more so, as remaining ignorant, you see? It is
only now that I begin to doubt, and that is a good thing, for as Augustine
tells us, when a man doubts he knows that he is truly alive. Now you must go,
Eisik and the others are waiting for you. It is safer if we are separated.’

We embraced for one last time. I held
the small gem that had sustained me all these days, the tiger’s eye, in the
palm of my warm hand. This I gave him, placing it in his. He looked at it
endearingly and smiled a little, and it was then that he turned and walked away.
I was never to see him again.

Draught of remembrance

L
ater, after I arrived in my present exile upon Gilgamesh (for
Eisik had saved him from the avalanche and my master, in his selflessness, had
given him to me as a parting gift), I heard that the inquisitor, Rainiero
Sacconi, had escaped death and had travelled to Paris, where he could not
convince Louis King of France to send men to scour the countryside for Templar
heretics. His reputation, however, was done a great service in the apprehension
of a conspirator to Piero’s death, and he was to rise to the position of
supreme inquisitor in Lombardy. Many years later, he approached Philip le Bel
on the subject of the monastery and its secrets, but the king found a great
resistance from Pope Boniface, who had set his own designs on obtaining the elusive
treasures of the monastery. There ensued a terrible schism on the matter of
jurisdiction that saw the king attempt to kidnap and kill Boniface. He did not
succeed . . . but there are many ways to get a pope or two out of the way!

After a few years, how many I cannot
say, I received word that my master had been relocated to a preceptory near
Paris, and I was heartened to know that, under another name, he was teaching
once more, having been granted permission to travel there several times a year
to give discourses at the university. Even now I smile a little, warmed by
memories.

At the university, he may have come
to know Thomas Aquinas, who, I believe, occupied a teaching chair at about the
same time. A man rumoured, so they tell me, to have caused quite a stir among
the intellectuals with his aim to Christianise Aristotle. How strange . . . I
seem to recall a dream . . .

And so Acre fell finally, and more
and more of our brothers have fled to this place, though I have never seen
them, for my cell window looks out onto the Mediterranean and I see nothing
else save its monotonous blue. No one here knows my identity, except the grand
master, and Eisik. The others think that I am a leper and so they do not burn
with curiosity.

Yestereve the Grand Master, Jacques
de Molay, came to see me, for I have, of late, become his confidant. He helped
me to my palette and poured out his heart to me. He told me the Order is in
peril. King and Pope are plotting to take the Order’s treasures, both temporal
and eternal. I told him something he must take with him to the end. At dawn I
watched his galley leave for France from my little window and my heart sorely
aches to think on it.

Soon what I have spent so many years
setting down will find its way to the only man I can trust, a friend of my
father’s, Jean Joinville. I trust that he will vouchsafe it for the sake of the
world.

I therefore bequeath to you in all
humility: this gospel and my account of how I came by it. I know its pages will
survive even as my poor sinner’s corpse is eaten by worms and I hope you have
read it carefully, turning each page with fondness, recognising that you have
been the witness of my conscience, and the interpreter of my meditations.

Some men will find only the
chronicles of a young monk here, whose life was transformed during several
terrible, though wondrous days in a monastery now destroyed and unrecognisable.
Others will see my journey to the Grail, to the Revelation of the Gospel and
seek to emulate it. I have marked the way, though slow and perilous, to the
cornerstone, now you must make your way to it. For if this little book
stimulates the eye to see the world differently, if it invigorates the ear to
hear the ineffable silence of the word, which it contains, then indeed it has
rewarded its master.

Now there is little that can be said.
After all, I have been here before, I am no stranger to death, and as you close
these pages, you may deign to pray for me in the name of our Lord; for at last
the twelve have spoken, the seven have resounded in the Temple of the Grail.
That is all that I am permitted to tell you. As for all that remains? It is
better hidden,
Sacramentum regis abscondere bonum est.

J
ean de Joinville’s servant left in the cover of darkness. As
a solitary figure he incurred no suspicion and he set foot on Spanish soil in
the early hours of Friday 13th of October 1307, as Philip le Bel’s troops were
moving in on all the preceptories of the Knights Templar in France. It was also
the day Christian de St Armand flew into the arms of the Virgin . . . the
Sophia . . .

And she was indeed beautiful.