TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel

by Adriana Koulias

  12

  Capitulum

  Some time before Matins

  At first I could see nothing, but I then realised that my master was standing over me, a black shadow that I recognised instantly.

  ‘Master?’

  ‘For the love of God! If I were a Saracen you would now be singing discordantly in the great choirs of heaven.’

  Half asleep, and a little hurt by the word ‘discordantly’, I fell into a broody silence, but as I readied myself I told him because I could not hold it in any longer. ‘I had a dream, master,’ I said very quickly. ‘First there was a dragon and an eagle . . . Plato said it was the battle between good and evil.’ I held the little gem, given to me by the abbot, hotly in my hands.

  ‘I say it was too much mackerel at dinner. Now up with you! Tonight we search for a mystery. Come along, look alive!’

  ‘But master –’ I began to argue with him, but seeing his mood, thought better of it, for he was rubbing his knee.

  ‘Curses to all ignorant Frenchmen!’ he mumbled. ‘Damn the Count of Artois. Are you ready? Do not forget the lamp, boy, we are not bats!’

  I nodded, and taking the lamp in one hand and tapers in the other, joined him outside.

  It was snowing lightly. I pouted, feeling a great frustration. My master sniffed the air, pausing, and for a moment stood very still. ‘Tomorrow it will storm,’ he said emphatically.

  Who would have argued differently?

  We entered the church, and hid in the shadows behind the rood, waiting long moments. I thought of Eisik, who was usually praying at this time, and I wondered how curious it must be to be a Jew believing in only one God, and awaiting a Saviour who had already come. I hoped that he was praying for our safety, for I was afraid. Not of what we might see, crouched as we were like thieves, but rather of what we might not see, for it was my impression that the evil one in his infernal wisdom works invisibly, and therefore unknowingly. My master seemed unperturbed, even excited and in a very good mood. I must say that this worried me more than anything.

  When Andre deemed it safe, we moved past the choir stalls and to our right, in the direction of the north transept. Moments later we were in the Lady Chapel, at the altar of the Virgin of our sorrows. My master motioned for me to light the two lamps from our rooms on the perpetual flame of the bronze tripod. This I did, and on my return we began to inspect the area behind the great red curtains, near the exit to the graveyard, for this was where brother Daniel had pointed saying Virgil’s words, ‘Procul este, profani!’ Here there were stone panels around three or four paces square, and my master determined that there must be a device hidden somewhere. In the dim light we could see very little, but we continued looking for anything. Soon, however, I found that I was assailed by a desperate desire to sneeze, and it was as I attempted to emerge from behind the dusty curtains that I became entangled and fell. Luckily I held the lamp firmly, otherwise it would surely have set the curtains alight. It did, however, cast the lamp’s brilliance upon the lowest panel that, from my position near the stone floor, became visible to me. I could see something, at first only vaguely. My master was about to help me to my feet when he saw it also. He dropped painfully to his knees then, bringing the lamp closer, exclaiming perhaps a little louder than he should have, ‘Oh defender of the holy sepulchre!’ He must have hurt his knee, and in a strangled whisper said, ‘Hush!’ as though I and not he had uttered these words.

  Producing a parchment and quill, from the little repository inside his scapular, he copied the inscription quickly, but then we heard something that we later realised were footsteps headed in our direction. My master with presence of mind pushed me out from under the curtains, saying, ‘Quickly, through the door!’ and I was suddenly dragged to my feet and thrust out of the north transept door and into the cold night.

  ‘Master –’ I began in a bewildered whisper but was forestalled by the smell of damp and death that pervaded the graveyard.

  ‘Hush! Follow me, and don’t ask stupid questions!’ he said, putting out our lamps, and pushing me around the body of the church, past the crosses and to the east door, whose aperture remained open until midnight.

  ‘What are we doing, master?’ I asked, put out.

  ‘We are spying on the Devil,’ he said, and I thought I could see a devilish grin on his face, but it was too dark, my imagination was having its way with me. Even so, I had never seen my master so excited, and I feared he was fast becoming Aristotle’s model of an intemperate man whose desire for what gives him pleasure is insatiable, and draws its gratification from every quarter. What pleasure, though, could a normal person derive from scampering in the dark in graveyards? I shuddered to think and admonished him for his terrible curiosity.

  Presently we found ourselves moving down the nave with the instinctive movements of a fox training its nose to the hunt, and it was only a matter of moments before we were once again on the other side of the screen, dashing quickly in the shadows, to a place behind the choir enclosures. That was when we saw the figure of a monk moving silently past the great bronze tripod, not too quickly, for he was carrying something. He was headed in the direction of the Lady Chapel. I surmised that he must have stopped to pray before the great altar, otherwise we would not have caught up with him. A devil that prays? We followed him, coming upon the arch that separated us from the transept. My breath pulsated before me in time with my racing heart.

  ‘For God’s sake! Breathe quietly,’ my master whispered harshly into my ears and moments later the figure disappeared behind the curtains.

  ‘He is going down into the catacombs!’

  ‘Who, master?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  After a brief moment the monk’s shadow came out into the pale light, but we did not see his face, covered as it was by a cowl, and he disappeared into the inky gloom of the ambulatory.

  ‘By God’s bonnet!’ my master cursed, and moved hurriedly to the chapel, lifting the curtains. ‘By my hilt! Nothing!’ Pausing a moment, he said, ‘Stay here, wait for the bells. I shall soon return.’

  He left hurriedly, and I, fearing the Devil himself around every corner, huddled in the shadows of the ambulatory, praying many paternosters, thinking that my master must return at any moment. But matins came and went. There were whispers.

  ‘Where is the preceptor?’ they asked in fearful tones, glancing at his empty seat. I waited as the last of the brothers filed out. What could have happened? I was becoming exceedingly worried, but being very weary, and not wishing to disobey my master, I huddled in a corner, anticipating his return like a dutiful child, and in this way I fell into an uncomfortable sleep.

  13

  Capitulum

  Before Lauds

  When I woke, the light in the church seemed brighter. I rubbed my eyes, and resolved to find Andre. Perhaps, I thought in dismay, he was dead, a victim of the antichrist! Would I come by his twisted, poisoned body outside the church? I could see him now, drenched in sweat and blood (for he would have fought the Devil like a valiant knight) with his face distorted in that now all-too-familiar way of poisoned cadavers. Alas! I once again wondered at the wisdom of a mother who leaves her only child in the care of so careless a caretaker! And yet if I found him alive I told myself with a shiver I would soon forgive him, not only because I loved him, but also through relief at not being left alone in this terrible place of murder and of evil. Thinking these things, filled with a deep anxiety, trembling at the knees, I stepped out of the choir enclosures and through the aperture in the pulpitum to the other side of the screen, but I was not prepared for the light whose sharp rays assaulted my eyes.

  At first I thought that it must be the great burning star of heaven which John calls ‘wormwood’, whose poison kills the iniquitous, but after a moment of blindness, I realised that it was the daystar rising over the eastern buildings, storming through the east door, and invading the temple. I then remembered the orientation of the church with some relief and watche
d it move (as though controlled by some invisible hand) beyond me and upward to the crucifix . . . and, oh, what magnificence did I behold! Whose majestic splendour, even now I am pressed to relate, dear reader, using words that are inept and unsuited to describe things sublime! That moment was possessed of a beauty whose dwelling is the light of rising suns that now breaks, or now directs its rays to chase away the dead of gloom. Scaling the heavens it recalls the resurrection, the beginning. It is the blossoming of innocence that urges the flowers to awaken, and man to prayer. So caught was I in this mood that I did not notice the brothers return to their stalls, and begin to sing ‘Deus qui est sanctorum splendor mirabilis. Iam lucis orto sidere’ – expressing the beauty of light that is God, so that it reverberated sweetly in the nave, magically disembodied.

  My meditation disturbed, I re-entered the chamber between the rood and pulpitum, expecting to see my master seated at his usual place, for the sun had risen and with it came hope. I searched among the brothers in their stalls, passing their matching shadows with my eyes, until they fell upon that empty spot and my heart sank. He had not returned. I was seized by a sudden panic, excited perhaps by a lack of sleep, the events of these last days, and my still burgeoning mysticism. So I ran. I ran from the church and out into the compound and headed in the direction of my master’s cell. Thinking a great number of terrible things, I burst through his door and found him lying on his pallet.

  I thought him dead, for he lay very still. However, I realised that he was breathing and, with a measure of trepidation, I ventured closer. Had he, too, been poisoned? I thought in dismay. Did someone suspect that we knew about the entrance to the tunnels? Was it the inquisitor? The librarian? Or the Devil himself? I said a shaky paternoster, possibly omitting words, before placing a trembling hand on his shoulder. That was when he bounded from the bed with such swiftness that I let out a loud and immodest yell, having been scared out of my wits.

  ‘By the curse of Saladin, let me get at them!’ he bellowed. Placing a hand on his head then, he moaned and sat back down.

  ‘Are you hurt, master?’

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, gazing at me myopically. ‘Are you a heathen? I will smite you . . . where is my sword!’ He reached out with his hands and then, I suspect because of the pain in his head, he came to his senses. ‘Christian? Is that you? I can barely see . . . someone . . . my head . . .’ He handed me a parchment that lay crushed in his right hand, whose contents were written once again in Greek.

  ‘Except the Lord build the house: their labour is but lost that build it,’ I said out loud.

  ‘Help me up, for God’s sake, boy . . .’ He sat up wincing. I could see a very large bruise on his forehead, and a graze on his cheek.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, feeling a little weak myself.

  ‘How say you? A knight who survives the battle of Mansourah in which so many good knights died can surely survive a small blow to the head.’ He growled in very bad humour.

  ‘Did you get a glimpse of who did this to you, master?’

  ‘No, by Saladin! I came here to fetch my compass in case we should need it, and when I entered my cell I saw a shadow; something struck my head. I must have lain here for a long time. What hour is it?’

  ‘It is lauds, even now the services are in progress. I think he hit you with your helmet.’ I showed him the helmet, which I recognised as his, beside him on the floor. There was a dent at the right eye-slit.

  ‘Blast!’ he cried with annoyance. ‘Was anyone missing from the service?’

  I was too ashamed to say that I had closed my eyes, and in the time it took to say an Ave, the service had finished. I shook my head.

  ‘Blast! In any case, I shall have to see the brother blacksmith, but not just now, firstly you must take me to Eisik . . . By St Peter of Spain! That savage monk nearly cracked my skull in two!’

  ‘You say ‘monk’? So you did see him?’

  ‘Who else would it be but a monk, Christian? We are in a monastery, after all. Besides, I only saw his shoes.’

  ‘Oh, that is good,’ I said, ‘were they singular in appearance?’

  ‘No . . . just shoes, like any other shoes,’ he snarled.

  We walked to the stables slowly. It had been snowing heavily and the ground was covered in a thick layer of powdery white – a detail that I had not noticed in my anxiety to find my master. Now my feet were numb and the hems of my habit wet. What misery!

  Eisik was in his little cell above the animals reading the Talmud, absorbed in the content of talmudic lore, when we entered.

  ‘Oh, holy Abraham!’ he exclaimed, immediately deserting his precious scrolls to come to us. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘Do not fuss, Eisik! I need you to see that I have not cracked my skull, for I cannot tend to my own wounds. By God, if only I had a mirror!’

  Eisik was horrified but also angry. ‘Oh, by the beard of Moses, someone has hit you with a sharp object.’ He inspected the cut and the lump that was now quite blue and sizeable. My master showed him his helmet, and Eisik was seized by a second, terrible anxiety. ‘You are lucky to be alive!’

  ‘I don’t believe luck had much to do with it, Eisik. Whoever hit me was not in the mind to kill me, otherwise he could easily have done so. I merely disturbed him in his work.’

  ‘Do not tax the faculties of an old Jew. What work did you disturb?’

  ‘He was leaving another note in my room when I entered, looking for my compass, and he hit me rather hard in order to get away. Elementary.’

  ‘Oyhh!’ Eisik slapped his forehead, his big black eyes widening with fear. ‘No! Do not tell me what the note said! I do not want to know it! I do not want to know anything, nothing at all.’ He walked over to a basin of water beside his bed, moaning dire omens under his breath, and soaked a clean cloth in it. After placing the cloth on my master’s bruise, he continued, agitatedly. ‘I swear by the Talmud, Andre, this will come to no good! You should have listened to me from the first.’

  My master ignored Eisik’s comment and said, ‘We found the entrance to the tunnels.’

  ‘I do not want to know, I tell you!’ he reiterated, and dressed the wound with a little square of muslin cloth, but after a long moment he asked – because I believe he could not help himself – ‘Well? I suppose you think that I want to know who told you . . . but I am a Jew, and if a Jew knows anything, it is that he is wise if he knows nothing.’

  ‘Brother Daniel told us.’

  ‘Another old brother?’ He raised his thick black brows in unison and became thoughtful, ‘I suppose I cannot stop you from telling me what you found?’

  My master grinned. ‘I thought you didn’t want to know anything, Eisik?’

  ‘And I do not . . . do not tell me anything . . .’ He waved a hand, shaking his head, but a moment later, ‘How is the accursed thing reached then?’

  ‘That is the mystery. There is an inscription. A kind of coded formula which when deciphered will, I am hoping, open a panel. All is possible.’

  ‘Yes . . . yes . . . it is very common for such panels to lead to a crypt or an ossuary, that is to say, the place where bones are kept for all eternity, beneath the graveyard.’

  ‘I believe so,’ my master affirmed.

  ‘But do not tell me the inscription. I do not wish to know it . . . there is nothing more foul on this earth than an inscription. Evil things . . . however, if it is encrypted it is true that perhaps only I can help you.’

  My master showed him the parchment on which he had copied the strange symbols and words carved on the stone of the panel. Eisik looked at it reluctantly, but I believe that he was fascinated.

  Mors Fiensque DC and beneath, a strange wheel of sorts.

  Eisik became excited, ‘Mors Fiensque . . . You know, in such cases letters are more than symbols, they are vessels, manifestations of concealed virtues!’

  ‘How do you mean, Eisik?’ I asked.

  ‘My son, all the wonders and sanctities of the law an
d the prophets result from combinations of twenty-two letters, letters that stand for numerals, and numerals that stand for letters.’

  ‘Like the ciphers and acrostics mentioned by the inquisitor that night at dinner?’ I waited for an acknowledgement of my acumen but there was none – perhaps I, too, was falling prey to the sin of pride?

  ‘There are,’ Eisik continued, his eyes shining like lamps, ‘many rules and permutations, all holy methods by which one can evade the scrutiny of the uninitiated. Do you know, my young one, that the Bible was written from such coded messages? The oral law became a written law . . . but it is at most an incorrect interpretation of the sacred Cabbala. In all, there are three methods that are known. In the first each letter . . . no, no . . . let me see, that’s not it.’ He thought for a moment, tapping his head. ‘It is the sum, the sum of the letters . . . yes! The sum of the letters that compose one word, are equal to the sum of the letters that compose various others, and so certain words come to mean certain things. Then again one may construct words by means of the first or final letters of several other words, but that is too complex. In truth, my son, all codes are not simple, and it is a fact that many are impossible to decipher, especially where words are transposed according to certain rules, that is, one divides the alphabet by halves, or is it quarters? One then places one half above the other in reverse order, so that A becomes T, or T becomes A. Lastly there is another code whose indiscriminate substitutions and permutations are obtained by forming a square of numbers, subdividing it by 21 lines in each direction into 484 smaller squares . . .’ He trailed off, lost in contemplation.

  ‘And one can always work out the meaning of codes by the use of one of these methods?’ I asked, amazed.

  ‘For centuries men have pondered the sacred art,’ he nodded, ‘but to answer your question, no. One is almost never succesful, for there are too many to choose from.’