“What’s that?” Phoebe wondered what could surprise J.J. more than a book by Leonardo and the other half of the Hope diamond.
“’We speak unto you by parables,’” Peter said, seeming to be quoting from something, “’but would willingly bring you to the right, simple, easy and ingenuous exposition, understanding, declaration, and knowledge of all secrets.’"
J.J. sat still for a moment, then answered Phoebe’s question, saying, “The Fama is an extremely important esoteric book that tells a story about Father C.R., or C.R.C., taking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It describes his esoteric studies in the Arab world with important wise men of the east and says that after a time he returned to the west. The story is about the development of his soul.
“Father C.R.C. is often identified as Christian Rosenkreuz. At some point he made his way to Germany where he established an esoteric Christian Brotherhood called The Fraternity of the Rose Cross.”
Peter said, “The Brothers went out into the world to work, guided by six rules: That none of them should profess any other thing than to cure the sick, and that for free. None of them should be required to wear a habit, but should follow the customs of the country where they were. Every year, upon the day C., they would meet together at the house Santi Spiritus, or write the cause of their absence. Every Brother should seek a worthy person to succeed him after his death. The word CR should be their seal, mark, and character. The Fraternity should remain secret for one hundred years.”
“Wow,” Phoebe said. “It sounds very Da Vinci Code.”
“It’s what the Da Vinci Code could have been, should have been, if Dan Brown had known anything about genuine esoteric Christian writings or practices,” J.J. said. “Unfortunately, he didn’t.”
“There’s still one more item left to look at, something in a velvet sack. No insult to either of you guys, but this Fama book wasn’t made or even handled by CR himself. But whatever’s in that bag, he created with his own hands. Should I open it?” she asked.
“Please,” Peter said. “I believe the contents are the reason you were led here.”
Phoebe loosened the silk cord and reached inside. Her hands were shaking as she encountered rounded metal edges. When she pulled the object out of the bag, she saw that it was an exotically shaped book.
She described it to J.J., “It’s about the size of my hand, six inches across, and the cover is metal. I believe it’s copper because it’s extensively oxidized to green and gray, verdigris. The cover is totally plain, no writing or embossing of any kind. The book is a funny shape I’ve never seen before, like if you took a thin slice through an apple from top to bottom. It’s almost a heart-shape, but rounded off on the bottom instead of coming to a point.”
“You’re describing a cardiod,” J.J. said. “There have been rumors that such a book existed, but there have never been any confirmed sightings of it, ever.”
Phoebe opened the strange book. “The pages are covered with handwritten equations and calculations in dark colored ink and a little bit of text in a language I don’t recognize. There are lots of drawings of geometric shapes, especially doughnut shapes.”
“Those are toruses, or toroids,” J.J. said.
Phoebe paged through the book until she came to a complex colored image. “One of the doughnuts looks like a rainbow. Something like ribbon or string or wire, is wrapped at a forty-five degree angle, passing through the hole in the middle each time, and wrapping all the way around the doughnut. It’s like the colors of a prism are in some sort of spiraling motion. It’s very beautiful.”
J. J. sighed and leaned forward to touch the book. Phoebe set it into his hands. He held it reverently, running his fingers over it to understand its size and shape.
“It’s a work by CR describing the fundamental nature of the universe. The torus shape is the image of energy being continuously thrown back onto itself. It creates a double vortex surrounded by a continuous surface that is simultaneously both inside and outside. Esoteric scholars believe this image depicts the boundary between created and uncreated light, in effect—Christ. It’s where the physical and the spiritual worlds meet and influence each other.”
“So it’s important?”
“Exceedingly important. It describes an extraordinarily efficient power source that can be used in magnetic or electric engines, or in fusion reactors. It has many uses, but it’s too early for mankind to handle it. Information like this must not get out. Humans don’t yet have the moral development to cope with something like this. The abuses would be terrible. This book has to remain hidden until men have evolved to the point where they can be trusted with the contents. We’ve been looking for it for hundreds of years.”
He held out a hand and asked for the bag, then put the little book back inside.
“Please take it somewhere safe,” Peter said. “I am too old to be able to protect it for much longer. Do not tell me where you are taking it.”
He gestured at the pile of boxes and books on the table and said, “And please take all these other items as well. Madame loved beauty but she never really cared for things. All the jewels he gave her, she gave back to him whenever he needed funds. You can see she saved only the most sentimental pieces—the first ring and the small carving of him.
“If she kept this large diamond, it was not for ornament or for money, it was because it has esoteric powers associated with it. CR might have told her something about it. Perhaps your people will know what to do with it.”
“She would want you to have the ring and the cameo, I think,” Phoebe said as she handed the boxes containing the ring and the cameo to Peter. “Is that okay J.J.?”
“Certainly,” he said. The old man accepted them and held them reverently.
“You must be exhausted,” Peter said. “Why don’t you both rest for a while? No one will be moving about in this snow. You will be safe here. I will wake you in a few hours. Armand will enjoy making you a breakfast before you leave. Then I will have you delivered to wherever you want to go.”
Phoebe asked J.J. if he minded. She wanted to lay flat with her ankle elevated to try to bring down the swelling as much as possible. He agreed, but he slipped the velvet bag inside his shirt.
Peter gave them each a splendid room. Phoebe wanted to stay awake and enjoy her surroundings, but she dropped off to sleep within minutes. Before long a knock at the door roused her and she got up and rolled to brunch in the wheelchair. When they’d finished their meal Peter called the chauffeur and instructed him to take them wherever they wanted to go. “You may be confident that Jérôme will be able to get you to your destination,” he assured them.
They said their goodbyes. There were tears in Peter’s eyes as he hugged and kissed and blessed them both before sending them out to the waiting Toyota Land Cruiser.
As they drove away, Phoebe looked back at him through the car window. He was standing in the doorway in his perfectly tailored suit and a blue tie the same shade as the cordon worn by French kings. The rising sun painted him in gold. He raised a hand to her in a wave. She waved back, and then they were off again, tire chains jingling softly like sleigh bells.
Chapter 22.
“Where would you like to go?” Jérôme asked.
“Abbaye De Fontevraud,” said J.J. without hesitation.
Jérôme laughed and turned the car sharply. “Then we are in the wrong vehicle. I can get you there more quickly by boat.”
He drove around the side of the extensive complex of outbuildings that surrounded the château. He put the car back in the garage, parking it next to the Kia he’d retrieved during the night. “Don’t worry, we will return it for you,” he said.
He removed their luggage and directed them to a service entrance that led into the basement of the château.
“Can you walk or shall I help?” Jérôme asked Phoebe.
“I can make it,” she assured him. “The splint and the cane really help.” Several hours of bed rest helped, too.
“T
here is a tunnel from here to the boat dock. It was created many years ago, but Monsieur Botsaris improved it.” They made their way along the clean, well-lighted tunnel and emerged into a small pavilion in the lower part of the garden. Not far beyond, Phoebe could see a boathouse and a dock.
Jérôme unlocked the building using a keypad. Several boats were inside. There were rowing shells and kayaks in racks on the walls. A sleek, expensive looking powerboat was hanging from a motorized winch, and an even more expensive looking small luxury yacht was tied securely to several cleats.
Jérôme activated the winch and lowered the heavy speedboat into the water. It was daylight as they raced along the Loire toward Fontevraud Abbey. “The Loire and Cher rivers have been navigable for over 2,000 years, since pre-Roman times,” Jérôme said. “This area is the French version of the Valley of the Kings.”
This was a wonderful way to see France, Phoebe thought. She was gradually adjusting to quirky tours of exotic locales in high-end modes of transport, where everything happened at the maximum possible speed.
She was no longer sure what day it was, though. The headlong sequence of high-speed movement had so far encompassed two oceans, two continents, and more aircraft, landcraft, and watercraft than she cared to recall, as well as climatic conditions from a tropical island to a blizzard.
It was manic. Just like her previous trip—with dizzying changes of time zones, totally disrupted sleep rhythms, and irregular meals of fabulous foreign foodstuffs. But at least the people were nice.
Most of them, anyway—the ones who weren’t chasing her.
Jérôme was one of the nice guys. He reminded her of her male friends in White Oak who could pilot anything. “You’re a great driver,” she said.
“We are not far from Le Mans, you know,” he said, smiling. “A race of 24 hours.”
“Would you prefer to race cars?” Phoebe asked him.
“I enjoy my current duties. I get to drive many things. I was in the military before I came to Monsieur Botsaris, a helicopter pilot. Then Monsieur requested if I would come as his chauffeur. Monsieur is a great man. There will never be another like him.” Jérôme said this with obvious respect and palpable sadness.
Phoebe sat next to J.J. on a padded bench behind two swiveling captain’s chairs that severed the console area where Jérôme stood. She kept a tight grip on the black case given to her by Monsieur Botsaris to protect the book they’d retrieved from Chambord and the books and objects they’d been given at Menars. She and J.J. were well dressed to be outside on a winter day, but it was still a bracing ride out in the wind and icy spray. She scooted close to J.J. and he draped an arm around her to help keep them both warm.
Jérôme made a call on his cell phone when they were underway, shouting to be heard above the wind and motor noise. Then he explained, swiveling his head to speak over his shoulder, “I have friends at Fontevraud. I asked for a car to be brought to a landing near the Abbey. They will send someone to receive you and take you there. The Abbey is quite close to the river.”
* * *
When Jérôme pulled the speedboat up to a modest wooden landing jutting out from the riverbank, someone was indeed waiting for them. A young man came down to help transfer the couple and their luggage from the boat to the car. Jérôme introduced his friend as Sébastien. Phoebe and J.J. thanked Jérôme and waved as he expertly moved the boat away from the dock, turned it around, and headed back to Menars.
Phoebe and J.J. gratefully piled into the back seat of a white SUV with a Fontevraud logo on the side, thrilled at how much warmer it was inside a heated vehicle. They sat shivering, still red-faced from the cold, windy ride. Sébastien asked where they wanted to go and J.J. said the new Abbey hotel s’il vous plait.
In no time at all they turned onto Place de Plantegenêts. Phoebe asked Sébastien about the sign and he said, “This is a royal Abbey. Fifteen members of the Plantegenêt family are buried here. Louis XIV’s daughters were raised here.”
They were passing through a medieval village approaching a jumble of looming stone buildings. “This place is huge,” Phoebe said. She was from a different world. She was never going to get used to the size of these buildings.
“It’s the largest Abbey complex in Europe,” said Sébastien. He pointed out the various buildings as they drove past—Saint-Michel Church, Madeleine Convent, the Abbey Church, Saint-Mary’s Cloister, the Refectory, the Infirmary, Chapter House, Saint-Benedict’s Chapel, the Abbey Manor, the Kitchens, and the Fannerie which had been the stables.
“One of the buildings, the Saint-Lazare Priory, used to be a hospital for lepers,” Sébastien said. “It is undergoing construction to become a hotel. Part of it is already open. Is that where you are staying?”
J.J. said it was. This was news to Phoebe, but what the heck. Why not stay in a leper colony? She didn’t mind if he didn’t.
Sébastien parked at the hotel entrance and carried their luggage inside. Phoebe and J.J. went to the front desk and J.J. spoke to the clerk in rapid French. It was far to early to check in, so he made arrangements to store their luggage until they returned.
The clerk gave Phoebe a map of the Abbey grounds and J.J. said, “Let’s go.” He was obviously in a hurry to get somewhere.
“Where are we going?” asked Phoebe, clutching the case and map to her chest with one hand and her cane in the other.
J.J. stood with his back to the hotel and seemed to be looking around. “Straight ahead should be the Abbey Manor and behind it the Fannerie. To our right should be the largest building. That’s the Abbey itself.
“We need to go around it clockwise, to the front, then over to the side opposite from where we are now. Then we can go through the Abbey to our destination.”
“I take it you’ve been here before?” Phoebe said, laughing.
“Many times,” he said.
Phoebe consulted the map and, of course, he was right about where they were and the route they needed to take.
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of Monsieur Botsaris or Jérôme or Sébastien, but there is a repository for holy relics at this place. Very few people know about it. Because of what we are transporting you will now know of its existence, but you should never speak about it to anyone but me and Le Seignuer.”
Phoebe set out for the Abbey with J.J. at her side. “Does your map show the Chapter Room?” he asked.
Phoebe checked. It did.
“That’s where we are headed.”
They walked through the grounds toward the church. Phoebe tried to remember what little she knew about monasteries. “Is the Chapter Room where the monks had their meetings?”
J.J. smiled. “Women inhabited Fontevraud. The Chapter Room would have been filled with nuns, not monks. This place was run for 700 years by a succession of women abbesses.
“Men were a minor footnote here. They were given a small monastery inside the larger enclosure, but outside the main Abbey walls. They were put next door to the lepers and diametrically across the compound from the fallen women.”
Phoebe snorted.
“This place was extraordinary in its time. The Abbey was founded in 1100 and became a double monastery, with both monks and nuns on the same site. The genders were confined to totally separate compounds, but the women were always in charge of it all.
The abbesses here were from royal families or the high nobility, and a few of them were retired mistresses of the king.
Phoebe laughed again. France!
* * *
They crunched through the snow along the route suggested by J.J. Eventually they got to a place where Phoebe could see movement. They crossed the threshold into the Abbey and a young nun came to greet them. Phoebe wasn’t sure if she was a real nun or wearing a costume. The place was obviously a tourist magnet.
Phoebe introduced herself and started to say J.J.’s name, but he touched her hand to stop her and asked the young woman a question in French. There was a brief conversation that ended with J.J
. saying the words, Le Archiviste. Even Phoebe could understand that.
The nun’s eyes widened and her superficial smile vanished. She made a formal bow to J.J. and looked at Phoebe with open curiosity. She signaled that they should follow her.
Hmmmm, Phoebe thought. The existence and location of a repository and the Archivist must be the need to know stuff he didn’t want to tell her. She wondered who the Archivist was. She suspected she was about to find out.
Chapter 23.
The nun walked ahead of them, but kept looking back over her shoulder as if to make sure they were still back there, following her. She led them to the Chapter Room, then through it to an ancient looking, heavily carved wooden door that was so low Phoebe had to hold her hand on J.J.’s forehead to protect him as he stooped to go through. She felt like a policeman putting a perp into a cop car. Women really were in charge of this place.
They were shown into an office and introduced to an elderly woman who sat behind an elegant desk, wearing an old style floor length black habit with a fanciful starched cap that made her look like the Flying Nun. The younger nun left the room.
The old woman stood and came around the desk. She took J.J.’s hand and greeted him with obvious affection. He introduced the woman to Phoebe as Soeur Violette. The Sister welcomed her in charmingly accented English.
“We need the assistance of two curators right away,” J.J. said, “Jewels and books, please.”
Sister Violette turned and made a couple of extremely brief telephone calls. She had refreshments brought while they waited. Tea, milk, sugar, and lemon tarts. Although Phoebe loved Armand’s cooking, she decided this was the real breakfast of champions.
She had a small glass of the French milk, which was the polar opposite of American skim. All of the heavy cream had been left in. A lemon tart with that milk made Phoebe feel like a Marvel Comics character. She decided to call her character Super Spinster. She would be Phoebe, Queen of the Queenagers!
She was glad no one could hear her thoughts, or at least she hoped they couldn’t. She was obviously high on the near toxic load of caffeine, sugar, and fat. She hadn’t felt this good in days.
Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 03 - The School for Psychics Page 13
