by Richard Reed
The Last Scion
by Richard Reed
© Copyright Richard Reed 2012
The author asserts his copyright over this material
To Jayne, without whose belief and constant encouragement this book
would never have been written.
“And thou, O tower of the flock [Magdaleder], the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.” Micah 4 v8
Chapter 1
The old priest shuffled across the cluttered room clutching his arms around himself nervously, picking his way unseeingly through the piles of books that littered the floor.
She should be here by now. She should be here. Where was she?
He stumbled against a bureau, reaching out wildly with a withered arm to steady himself. His hand found a pewter jug and sent it flying, the contents spattering his dishevelled clothing.
A key turned in the lock. “C’est toi, Emilie?” he called hoarsely, a fleck of spittle hanging from his unshaven face.
“Oui, c’est moi,” came the reply. “Uncle Jean, look at yourself!” she exclaimed, entering the room and taking in his wine-stained chemise and the crumbs of food sprinkled over his jacket and trousers. “Come, let me tidy your clothes.”
The priest shied from her ministrations. “My spectacles… I cannot find my spectacles,” he muttered.
“Why, they are here on your desk, under all these papers. You must take more care – if a candle were to fall…” she stopped and shuddered, then handed him the spectacles before leaning across to scoop up the scattered documents.
Her arm was grasped in an iron-tight, bony grip. “Leave those alone, Emilie.”
She dropped the papers and he released her arm, glaring at her angrily. “You know it is forbidden to touch my work.”
She stared back defiantly, rubbing her arm where his fingers had left livid marks. “That was unnecessary, uncle,” she said icily. “I was trying to help. If you don’t keep this place tidy, it will be the death of you.” She stooped to pick up a wicker basket she had placed on the floor. “Here’s your supper, and some more wine. Just don’t get drunk again.” She turned to leave.
“You’ll not stay?”
“On All Hallows’ Eve? Everyone will be out celebrating.”
“All Hallows already?” Abbé Gelis shuddered.
“If you went outside the presbytery even occasionally you would know what month it is – and what your flock are doing. They’ve barely seen you in two years. How will you answer to the bishop when he asks why you’ve been absent from mass? You’re lucky to have Abbé Saunière to help.”
A dark shadow crossed the priest’s face. “Don’t mention that man’s name,” he said angrily. “He haunts me, day and night.”
“Such gratitude, after all he has done for you! Enough, I must go. I will see you in the morning.” She left the room abruptly, and after a brief pause, he heard the sound of the key turning in the front door.
Gelis picked up the basket, placed it on his desk and sat down wearily. He broke off a hunk of baguette and started chewing slowly on the rubbery bread – stale again – absent-mindedly leafing through the files Emilie had picked up.
The heavy clock on the wall ticked away the hours. Gelis ate more bread and cheese, then poured himself a flagon of wine, slurping greedily at the rich, blood-red liquid. After a while, he began to doze.
He awoke with a start. It was dark outside. In the distance he could see the flames from the village bonfires; hear the singing and chanting. Peasants! Still clinging to their pagan customs. He picked up the wine bottle and drained the dregs into his glass. A noise made him stop abruptly, and he turned in his seat, still holding the bottle as if to pour. There it was again; a strange scraping noise at the door. He got up from his seat and shuffled into the hallway.
“Is that you, Emilie?”
There was no reply. The sound stopped, and he turned to go back to the study.
He froze at the sound of the latch turning and felt a cold blast of night air enter the house.
“Emilie?” he said again, half-turning back towards the door.
A heavy body cannoned into him and hurled him to the floor, its suffocating weight pinning him to the ground.
“Emilie! M’aidez, m’aidez!” He tried to shout out, but the air had gone from his lungs and his voice was feeble.
“You think anyone will hear you, tonight of all nights, old man?” said a voice. A powerful hand tightened around his throat. “Now, tell me where the papers are, or it will go worse for you.”
“Papers? I have many papers… I don’t know what…”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Abbé. I know what you know. You are not long for this world, and before you die, I will remove all evidence from this house. One way or the other. I want the papers. Anything and everything you have written about it. About her. I can make it easy – or I can make it hard. It’s up to you. But you will tell me.”
“I cannot – the secret must survive. If you know, too, then you also know this cannot die with me or Saunière. The truth must be protected. The Church must be told, when the time is right…”
“The time will never be right for this… this heresy,” snarled his attacker.
“Heresy or truth, that is for His Holiness to decide.”
“Do you really think the Pope wants this sacrilege to spread? This will go no further. Now show me the evidence.” The man dragged Gelis to his feet by the scruff of his neck and frogmarched him to the study, his frail legs dragging feebly on the floor. The Abbé tried to peer round at his attacker and glimpsed a clerical collar beneath the heavy cloak. The man gripped his head and turned it away.
“Mon dieu! You are a man of the cloth?” gasped Gelis in disbelief.
“A true believer! Not a worshipper of Isis.”
“She is not Isis! How dare you blaspheme against…”
“Enough! Give me the papers.”
The Abbé fell silent. A hand grabbed his throat once more, and Gelis held out his hands palms upwards in supplication. The hand released its grip.
“Very well. Now find them.”
Gelis moved unsteadily towards his desk and began leafing through the untidy piles of papers. His eye rested on the candle that stood at one corner. Emilie had been right. They would burn easily. Better that than this man knowing the full truth. He could not know that. He would not know that.
With a sudden movement, Gelis knocked the candle onto the floor, where it fell among scattered documents. They caught light instantly, and Gelis hurriedly pushed more papers onto the flames.
For a second the stranger stood hesitating, taken by surprise, then swiftly looking around him, picked up a heavy poker from the grate and smashed it over the Abbé’s head. Without waiting for him to fall, he rushed forward, and pulling off his cloak, beat out the flames. He stood, panting, before turning his attentions once more to Gelis.
The dazed priest was dragging himself forward towards the fireplace, his eyes doggedly focused on the axe that stood beside a pile of logs. Snarling, the man leapt forward, and grabbing the axe from the reach of his outstretched fingers, brought it down on the priest’s head again, and again and again.
He stood trembling, staring at the mutilated body before him, appalled at what he had done. Struggling to control his emotions, he made the sign of the cross before crouching down over the body.
“I am sorry, Abbé,” he muttered haltingly. “I had no wish for this.” He dragged the priest into the middle of the floor, straightened his limbs and placed his hands on his chest as if in prayer. Then, reaching under his own shirt, he pulled out a crucifix and signed himself once more. “In nomine patris et filius et s
piritus sanctus. Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam aeternam. Indulgentiam, absolutionem et remissionem peccatorum nostrorum, tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus. Amen.” He finished the Last Rites and paused.
“It is for the greater good,” he said quietly, as if seeking endorsement for his actions. Starting out of his reverie, he began to rummage through the piles of documents in the study, throwing to the floor those of no interest.
An ever-bigger heap grew at his feet – scribblings, scrawlings, the ravings of a maniac, but not what he had come for… There was nothing, nothing. He shouted in rage and frustration, looking frantically around the study for inspiration. His eyes fell on a heavy brass-bound Bible on a chest of drawers in the corner. Could that hold the key? It would be suitably sacrilegious. He struggled across the cluttered room, stumbling against tottering towers of books. Reaching the Bible, he heaved it over his head and held it open, upside-down. Several loose pieces of paper fluttered to the ground. Remembering what he was holding, he placed the Bible to his lips and placed it reverently back on the chest before stooping to pick up the fallen papers.
“No. No, No, NO!…” He discarded the sheets with increasing frustration. Then he paused at one folded parchment much older than the rest. He opened it slowly and began to read.
His skin went pale and he began to tremble. “This cannot be… In the name of God, this cannot be!”
Chapter 2
“And as I was saying, this programme will shed dramatic new light on the mystery of Rennes-le-Château, and exactly what it was that Bérenger Saunière, the local priest, discovered there that made him so fabulously rich.”
The interviewer turned to the attractive 30-something woman sitting at her side. “Rachel Spencer, you’re leading this investigation for National Geographic. What is it you claim to have found?”
“Well, first let me give the viewers a little background about Rennes-le-Château,” said Rachel, artfully tossing her mane of chestnut hair and smiling winningly at the camera. “There have been so many theories about this beautiful little village perched on a hill-top in south-west France… that it was the hiding place for treasure plundered from Rome by the Visigoths; that it holds the riches of the Knights Templar, who hid some of their immense wealth there; or that it is somehow linked to the mysterious Priory of Sion, who are alleged to have been guarding some dramatic, world-changing secret for centuries – although, of course, that particular organisation has now been exposed as a fake.” She smiled. “According to its former president, the Priory was nothing more than a ‘club for boy scouts’.”
Rachel smiled at the presenter conspiratorially.
“The story begins in the late 19th century, when the parish priest, Bérenger Saunière, a man of previously modest means, mysteriously started spending huge sums of money – he would have been a millionaire by today’s standards.
“He renovated the village church, dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, at vast expense, and in the process included some unusual – one might even say bizarre – features. For instance, over the new porch there is an inscription that reads: ‘Terribilis est locus iste’. That’s Latin for ‘This place is terrible’. An odd inscription for a religious building.
“Then he built a stone tower that looks like something from a fairy-tale castle just to house his extensive book collection. He called this building La Tour Magdala, after Mary Magdalene. Her name means ‘tower’ in Hebrew, which is an odd coincidence, to say the least.
“He also built a grandiose new house for himself, the Villa Bethania, again, at considerable cost. The name is another Magdalene reference – Bethania is where the gospels say Mary lived with Martha and Lazarus. As well as restoring the church and building his quixotic tower, Saunière created some unusual gardens, laid out in strange geometric patterns. The total cost of his elaborate building programme is estimated to have been in the region of three-quarters of a million dollars, in today’s money, at a time when labour was cheap.
“Legend has it that Saunière’s tale of rags to riches started when he was renovating the church and found a parchment hidden in a pillar under the old pulpit. According to one theory, this led him to find an ancient buried treasure – perhaps the lost treasure of the Templars, hidden when their order was outlawed by the King of France in 1307. Saunière later dug up half the graveyard looking for something.
“According to another theory, the parchment revealed a shocking secret about the Catholic Church which paid him to keep his silence. Saunière is known to have made a number of long-distance journeys, including several trips to Budapest – one of the twin capitals of the once mighty Austro-Hungarian empire – allegedly returning with a suitcase stuffed full of cash.
“The theories have become even more wild in recent years, with claims that the hidden treasure is none other than the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.
“The number of parchments Saunière is supposed to have discovered multiplied as the story spread – some have subsequently been exposed as fakes.
“There was also a tombstone in the churchyard of a noblewoman, Marie de Blanchefort, which appears to have contained a coded message. I say ‘was’ because Saunière deliberately destroyed it. Luckily, unknown to him, it had already been recorded by a local historian. But even though the text contains enough oddities to make it obvious there must be some hidden meaning, so far no-one has successfully deciphered it – at least, not in a way that makes any sense.
“What we do know, however, is that shortly after finding the original parchment in the pillar under the pulpit, Saunière found a hidden tomb inside the church. The discovery is recorded in his own diary on September 21st, 1891, six years after he took up his post as parish priest. He instructed two workers from the village to remove a stone slab in the floor in front of the altar, and underneath was a tomb.
“It seems he knew exactly where to look, so he must have been led there by a clue in the parchment. Two workmen saw him climb down into the tomb and return with a small pot of gold coins and jewellery. Saunière claimed they were worthless souvenirs from the nearby shrine of Lourdes – but he immediately dismissed the locals and completed the job with men from outside the area. All the evidence suggests Saunière found something pretty spectacular down there – but his obsessive behaviour was only just getting started. He was later censured by the mayor after villagers complained about him digging up the graveyard.
“To add to the enigma, the Church authorities did eventually discipline him – but for selling masses. There does seem to be some basis for this accusation, which while not unusual for a priest at the time, was officially frowned upon. However, this could only account for a fraction of his wealth. After this censure, Saunière resigned, but many villagers continued to attend mass at a makeshift chapel attached to his villa, rather than attend church with the new priest.
“Where it really starts to get interesting, at least from the conspiracy theory point of view, is that Saunière allegedly told his secret to another local priest, Abbé Gelis, who became so paranoid about his own safety that he would only let his niece into the presbytery. Despite his precautions, however, he was murdered on All Hallows’ Eve – but although the house was ransacked, nothing of value was taken and, bizarrely, the body was laid out by the attacker according to Catholic ritual.
“Saunière’s long-serving housekeeper, Marie Dénarnaud – whom villagers referred to as his ‘bit of skirt’ – is also thought to have known the secret. The two were inseparable, and Saunière left everything to Marie in his will. It’s claimed that after Saunière’s death in 1917, she told local villagers they were ‘walking on gold, and didn’t know it’. According to some stories, when the French currency changed after the Second World War, she was seen burning heaps of banknotes so she didn’t have to account for the origins of her wealth.
“Marie later suffered a serious stroke and was unable to talk before her death in 1953. However, her wealthy b
enefactor, Noel Corbu, whom she may have confided in, was later killed in a mysterious car crash.”
The camera cut sharply to the presenter. “Fascinating stuff,” she glowed. “I can see why you were able to persuade National Geographic to fund your research – it’s going to make great TV. Now you told me before we came on air that you had made a ground-breaking new discovery that shed some light on all of this. What is that, exactly?”
“Well the dramatic news is that, thanks to the latest archaeological techniques, using ground-penetrating radar, we have found hard evidence of a crypt beneath the church. We think this is what Saunière discovered during his renovations, and we’re hoping the crypt will contain some of the answers researchers have long been looking for. We know the original building dates back to the eighth or ninth century AD, and we also know it was at one time the official manorial chapel for the château.
“There are several historical references to local nobility being buried there, and one of Saunière’s predecessors as priest of Rennes-le-Château, Abbé Bigou, referred directly to a crypt beneath the church ‘dating to the times of the ancient kings’ which he had deliberately sealed up so that ‘documents did not fall into the wrong hands’.”
“Mysteriouser and mysteriouser,” said the presenter. “And what do you think those documents could be?”
“We can only speculate,” said Rachel. “Perhaps they contain clues as to the whereabouts of hidden treasure, as some believe – or perhaps it’s something more spiritual; some information the Church didn’t want to get out.”
“Obviously you’re hoping to discover some treasure – to have your own Howard Carter moment!”
“That would be fantastic. But from an academic point of view, written treasures can be worth far more than any amount of gold – we’re hoping to find clues that could lead to an even more spectacular discovery than hidden Templar treasures. A discovery that would explain the hold Bérenger Saunière appears to have had over the Catholic Church.”
