TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel

by Adriana Koulias

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How fortuitous. Some would say too fortuitous for a half infidel,’ he said, watching my master closely. Seeing no sign of anger on Andre’s face, he continued a little disappointed, ‘The life of a Templar knight in the East is certainly a dangerous one. But the life of a knight in France is also fraught with hazards. I hope you will take some advice from an old man who has seen many things in his life: there are two certainties in all this, one is that the mouth of an inquisitor speaks with the pope’s tongue, and the other is that his jurisdiction is absolute. Do your duty, see to it that justice is done! These are days of strange affiliations, preceptor, and we must stand together as men of God, despite our differences. Oportet inquisitores veritatis non esse inimicos!’ That is to say, there should be no enmity among seekers after truth.’

  The bishop left with a swirl of his robes, but it would not be long before he would do disservice to his parting words . . .

  It was later, during supper, as the weather grew more and more turbulent outside the refectory, that a discussion broke out which ignored the observance of silence, and resulted in a debate among the legation which, because of the anxiety felt by all, assumed a confused and distressed character. I would lie if I did not say, dear reader, that I was a sad witness to a tempest of tongues inappropriate to grave and responsible persons whose composure should mirror the qualities of still waters. My master sat back strangely amused, having started the entire incident with a careless remark that I shall now recount to you, by way of illustrating further the enmity that existed in those dark days among men of God. It seemed to speak to me, that moment almost comical if not also at the same time terrible, of the vanity and pride of men. That even the noble and the holy are apt to debase themselves to the level of peasants at the slightest provocation.

  It began when my master observed that the exquisite cross hanging from the bishop’s neck was dangling a little in his soup. The bishop answered by removing it and cleaning it with a moistened napkin. Andre then remarked that it was a beautiful work of art, marked by intricate gold filigree and studded with the most precious stones surrounding one great ruby whose dimensions were that of a small walnut.

  The bishop smiled, holding it timorously in his hands and as he brought it to his moist lips he said, ‘What better way to express one’s veneration, preceptor, than by using nature’s gifts. The ruby, as we know, suggests the countenance of the archangels, the gold is the sublime reflection of Christ whose radiance is only implied by its splendour. See the amethysts? See the diamonds? It is true . . .’ he said, lost in reverie. ‘They echo the marvels of the universe! Indeed, all the powers of the heavens are vested in the miracle of the stone in whose depths hide many levels of knowledge. In truth I feel a holy communion every time I hold it to my lips, subjugated by its secrets.’ He seemed to be speaking a little like the abbot when he had told me about the tiger’s eye, and yet differently.

  At this point, the Friar de Narbonne rolled his eyes in irritation and mumbled loudly, ‘How can one stand to hear our Lord’s cross depicted in this vulgar manner! Next you will say that his manger was stuffed with gold thread and not straw!’

  The bishop turned his vastness then, in the friar’s direction. ‘I do not expect a mendicant friar to understand these things, for they require a little erudition and subtlety of education. However your founder was not so simple-minded, for he knew how to seduce the pope to his bidding.’

  ‘Your grace!’ broke in the Cistercian by way of defusing the problem. ‘Surely you do not suggest . . .? Francis was a holy man! On this all agree.’

  ‘No doubt his nuns attested to his manhood!’

  ‘You irreverent snake!’ cried the friar, aghast, lifting himself a little out of his chair and banging both fists on the table. ‘How can you say such a thing against a most venerated saint of your own country? And his nuns! Those sainted women are as virginal as the holy mother!’

  The bishop smiled, ‘They are all virgins, you fool, until they become nuns.’

  ‘Brothers, please!’ The abbot moved in, but it was too late, each man was now at the other with escalating hatred.

  Below the dais all stopped eating, their mouths gaped open at the spectacle before their eyes, for now the friar, his face a deep crimson, shook his hand menacingly in the bishop’s face.

  ‘You vessel of greed! You filthy swine! You simonious thief! Whose wealth is gained by imposing penances that you overlook for a small fee!’

  ‘Shut up! Innocent should have listened more attentively to Cardinal Albano,’ the bishop spat, at the apex of anger, ‘who advised him to keep the mendicants down below the feet of the lowest priest!’

  ‘Yes, and the same day he died of a broken neck!’ the Franciscan cried.

  ‘Therein lies your guilt!’ the bishop shouted. ‘You murderers . . . you steal the food from the mouths of the poor because you are not only as dumb as asses, but as lazy! Because for all your talk of poverty and austerity you smell of money, along with your wealthy Cistercian brothers whose preference for sheep is well known and has made them rich!’

  ‘And your order, Otto,’ the Cistercian stood, his face purple and his body shaking with rage, ‘recalls a fat pig lolling about in its own excreta, opening its mouth to whatever is thrown to it!’

  ‘Is that so? You patron of depravity!’ the Bishop of Toulouse shouted. ‘Defender of Fransciscan dung! Have you forgotten that William St Amour said they are beggars, flatterers, liars, and detractors, thieves, and avoiders of justice! How should I allow myself to be insulted by a smelly old goat who knows nothing of the greatness of the Benedictines! If you could read you would know that our divine order was established when your founder’s grandfather was not even a seed in his mother’s belly. We were here before you and we will exceed you in wisdom, years, and numbers.’

  ‘Perhaps, but only because you receive your own bastard sons as oblates to plump up your diminishing population!’ cried the Franciscan triumphantly. ‘How many nephews do you have, bishop? You are, of course yourself, a nephew . . .’

  ‘You profane devil!’ The bishop lunged forward, trying to grasp the friar by the scapular.

  ‘Brothers! Brothers!’ cried the abbot, standing between the two men, avoiding a volley aimed at the bishop who, snarling, prepared to land a punch squarely on the friar’s weak chin.

  ‘May the Devil take you!’ yelled the Franciscan from behind the abbot, his animated face contrary to his nature. ‘It is no wonder there is so much unrest in Italy! I begin to sympathise with the Ghibellines of Umbria!’

  This struck the bishop better than a blow. ‘Traitor!’ he vociferated, breathing heavily and waving his fat fists about. ‘I can see why even the heretic Frederick would not allow your kind into Sicily, for you give off the odour of a woman!’

  ‘I would rather give off the odour of a woman than to be the son of a whore!’

  ‘And I would rather be a good son, even to a whore, than to slip into your lice-infested habit each miserable day!’

  ‘Mind your tongue, you desecrator of saints!’ broke in the Cistercian, waving his knife at the bishop. ‘You Benedictines are a bunch of idolaters who build your grand churches stuffed with gold and silver so that you can seek your own greedy reflections on every surface!’

  ‘And your order’s bare walls are only a reflection of St Bernard’s buttocks; pale and exceedingly dull!’

  My master cast a look of victory at the inquisitor, and again I noted that the Devil of rivalry that existed between the two men was almost at the point of embodiment. I began to wonder if the bishop had been right – if the infidel in my master’s blood was stronger than the Christian, since it seemed that he took pleasure in division and confusion as much as the inquisitor took pleasure in fear and pain. At that moment, it appeared that they had much in common.

  ‘Venerable brothers!’ the inquisitor shouted, raising his arms in an effort to stop the blows and cries. ‘Peace! Peace!’ He frowned at those respo
nsible, and continued only after he was certain that they had each calmed down, ‘I pray that we might sit down and collect ourselves before it is too late. Might I remind you of our sensitive mission here, and of the great peril that faces us? Surely this is the work of the Devil who seeks to divide us, so that we may not come to a judgement, for if I have ever seen him, I have seen him tonight, snarling from out of the mouths of pious men the most odious and disdainful words! Let us be filled with contrition, let us pray for guidance and also for forgiveness. The enemy is among us and we feed him with our dissension and our hatred of one another.’

  He sat down and silence reigned once more but, in truth, it was an unhappy silence, because once a word is spoken it has the ability to alter things, create things, even destroy them.

  Now, only the wind outside could be heard beating itself against stone, making the candles flicker about, casting ominous shadows on the walls of the refectory. I wondered as I looked at all the now solemn and frightened faces around me if any here was without sin.

  AQUA

  THE SECOND TRIAL

  And he dreamed

  Genesis XXVIII

  10

  Capitulum

  I was in the midst of a storm, alone within elements that burst forth in the most violent manner. Thunder shook the world, and out of a bolt of lightning, these are the things that I saw.

  Behold a door was opened in heaven and emerging, a throne, surrounded by four creatures. I saw four and twenty seats upon which sat four and twenty elders, dressed in white raiment.

  ‘Give Glory and honour and thanks to Him that sitteth upon the throne who liveth forever and ever!’ a voice cried. ‘Woe be unto him that followeth the foulness that is spewed from the belly of the underworld.’

  Suddenly I heard a grumbling coming from below, and from out of the penumbral night, a crack in the earth thrust out lava whose sulphurous light illuminated the firmament, revealing waves of mud, smoke, scum, and dung. Creatures of every kind in bursts of liquid fell upon mankind, the multitude who, like little ants at first congregated, dispersed as the progeny of demons sought them out. Vipers, minotaurs, salamanders, serpents, hydras, lizards and vultures, gryphons, crocodiles and scorpions, became one boiling convulsing substance – a thick oily matter that, ignited by the first rays of a black sun, descended upon a convention of discord, an assembly of abominations, a cohort of transgressors. They tore eyes from their sockets, ripped souls from out of mouths, stripped the flesh from naked bodies with sharp, jagged teeth.

  At this point, I could see a giant eagle, ablaze with stars, so that in its luminous wake other beings followed, lured like drunken moths. The creature whose brilliance was an offspring of the celestial bodies that clot the sky, descended through the dark area of mountains possessed of such fury and determination that I felt a sudden rush of air escape my lungs. He began by darting at the loathsome creature with seven heads, whose form only now emanated from the schism. The battle had begun.

  The beast curled in fury, winding its body around itself, each profane mouth emitting whole chromatic scales, shrieks, and whimpers. Craftily it dodged the eagle, but the great bird aimed at his mark with care, and in one swift slash of a long, sharp talon, he tore out the heart of the creature, whose cry of agony rose to the great heights of heaven. The dismembered parts were then flung to the four corners of the earth, and thereupon four temples appeared. From the beast’s heart, a red blood, thick with life – as though in it convulsed a multitude of reptiles, abundant in the power of transmuted creation – surged, forming a river. And I saw this river divide into two, then the two became four, each branch finding its way to one tabernacle. Along its banks, where gleaming sandy beaches wound around peninsulas, canyons, and valleys, there appeared blood-red roses whose upturned petals praised the great primordial power of the universe. Stars fell then, from the great galactic desert, burning holes through the mantle of the night, uniting with each temple. And a voice said:

  ‘Glory be to Manes for he has seen the power of good and evil. Glory be to Zarathustra for he has seen the sun in its divinity. Glory be to Buddha for he has experienced the starry light. Glory be to Scythianos for he raiseth the Temple to the highest summit.’

  The eagle transformed itself into the countenance of a man, and brandishing a blade, with one swift move, he pierced the dismembered belly, out of which spewed forth seven books, bound in red. These he placed at my feet and with a voice like that of thunder he spoke these words:

  Take these seven books, for they are the gifts of cosmic Intelligences.

  For all time these books have belonged to me,

  Now I must forsake them for the sake of humanity.

  Be ye their guardian, that whosoever,

  Out of a purity of thinking, feeling and willing

  Can tread the long steady path to intelligence,

  Let him eat of these books and be saved.

  Suddenly I found myself falling into an abyss. Devoid of self, suffused with a sense of selfless union, I plunged into the synthesis of the universe; expanding, growing into all that was around me, until within me I beheld unintelligible constellations, celestial deities, whole worlds residing. I was a cosmos, and all around me concealed nature became exterior form; organs were as macrocosmic satellites mapping out their course through the microcosm of my planetary being. I saw with awed reverence, a liver circumnavigate a spleen, whose own revolutions around a heart whispered astrological philosophies, profound harmonies. It was a rhythmic oscillation and vacillation, a universal school, where cosmic secrets murmured to the sweeping orbits of distant suns.

  ‘That which is here spread out and around thee, thou art that!’ I said to the orbs at the perimeter of my existence.

  ‘I am a god, and thou art my people,’ I said to the internal cosmos that I now embraced.

  What was intrinsic was also extrinsic, within, and without, form became formless, and the formless embodied. Soon, Christian de St Armand would cease to exist, his sun eclipsed by the light of a moon whose effulgence was far greater than his own. Then the twelve became seven, and the seven stars appeared.

  11

  Capitulum

  At this point I awoke, and yet I knew that I was still asleep, for before me stood the figure of Plato. You may find this curious, but far more curious was the fact that I did not find it curious at all, but quite the most natural thing.

  ‘Herein lies the difficulty,’ Plato said, ‘that I may never solve to my satisfaction.’

  ‘What is it, Plato?’ I asked.

  ‘I ask myself what is the meaning of this dream?’ he said, pacing my cell, long Grecian robes rustling in the still, dead of night, one slender hand cupping his chin in a remarkable manner, a little reminiscent of my master. ‘Are we to say, then, that you have dreamt a vision?’

  ‘A vision,’ I considered, ‘a vision of what?’

  ‘The battle between good and evil?’

  ‘Indeed, that may be so,’ I nodded my approval.

  ‘A vision also of a kind of knowledge . . . whose guardian you shall become . . .’

  ‘It stands to reason, Plato,’ said I, ‘but what knowledge is this? And why have I been chosen?’

  ‘My art is in examining your thoughts – as my tutor, Socrates, would have said – and not in promulgating my own. You must not see me as an originator of ideas, for I am like a midwife who in her barren wisdom, can never bring forth. It is you who must give birth, you must labour, and I will see to the delivery . . . Come . . . what could this knowledge be? If it were known to all men it would not be vouchsafed to you, am I right?’

  ‘I should think not,’ I affirmed.

  ‘So it is a secret thing . . . and so not easily learnt or attained?’

  ‘Following this line of reasoning,’ I replied, ‘quite rightly.’

  ‘It is not of a practical nature, for it would not be called an intelligence, it would be called wisdom.’

  ‘But wisdom is the same as intelligence. Is it n
ot?’

  ‘You forget my friend that I am ignorant, you are the person who is in labour.’

  ‘But I am in pain!’

  ‘And so, I will comfort you. Do we call a man wise, whose nature is prudent?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And from whence does the fount of prudence spring?’

  ‘From practical experience.’

  ‘Excellent! And what of intelligence?’

  ‘From understanding?’

  ‘Yes! It is the understanding that enables you and I to grasp the first principles – as my pupil Aristotle has said. And, as an outpouring of the gods, it is therefore divine. Prudence, on the other hand, is merely the result of the practical use of this understanding, and therefore human. So we may say that the knowledge vouchsafed to you is of divine origin?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then we are in agreement,’ he said.

  ‘But what does this have to do with the monastery?’ I asked.

  ‘It is clear from our discussion that this intelligence is mysterious, and now we also know that it is divine. Am I right in saying that opposite natures and substances attract?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then nothing attracts a great evil more than a great good. If this knowledge is a great good, it shall attract a great evil, and so the battle will ensue. The monastery is merely the battleground.’

  ‘But how to find these books and therefore unlock the secret?’

  ‘Like the act of birth, all understanding is preceded by a little pain. This you must undergo with courage, but it is only the beginning, for when one learns a thing, it leads one to desire to know other things, and questions give birth to other questions, and so one conceives afresh. I, Plato, on the other hand, am dead.’ He sighed, ‘Having delivered too many men when I was alive . . .’

  ‘Alive . . . Come alive, boy!’ I heard these words echo through a darkened consciousness, and I found that my body was being shaken violently . . .