The Last Scion

by Richard Reed

  The team had negotiated space at the Villa Bethania, the luxurious mansion built at considerable expense by the secretive 19th century priest Bérenger Saunière and now owned by the town council, where they stored their finds and carried out the tedious process of cataloguing. The council was more than happy to have the National Geographic team on hand, throwing an even greater spotlight on a story that had proved a veritable money-spinner for the village over the years.

  The villa also acted as a ticket office and bookshop for the museum, which now occupied the old presbytery where Saunière had lived and died. Despite building the grandiose villa, which he used for lavish entertaining, the priest always slept in the presbytery.

  Rachel snatched a quick coffee and croissant from the makeshift canteen and was in the finds room 20 minutes later.

  “Hi Rachel,” said David, looking up from an artefact he was examining. “I’ve just had an interesting phone call. You’ll never guess who it was from.”

  “It’s too early in the morning for guessing games,” said Rachel, irritatedly. “Are you going to enlighten me?”

  “What if I told you it was from the Vatican?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “Absolutely not. As you know, so far I have been liaising with the Bishop of Carcassonne, Monsigneur Billard, over the dig. But who should I get a phone call from while you’re munching on your croissant but the Pope’s personal private secretary.”

  “No way!”

  “Indeed. Not only that, it seems that the person coming to inspect the crypt is none other than a papal legate. He’s going to be here at 10am on Wednesday morning. It shows how seriously they are taking this whole thing. I guess with an arch-conservative pontiff holding the keys to the Holy See, they aren’t taking any chances on what might be inside that crypt. Apparently the official’s title is legatus missus – literally ‘sent legate’, possessing limited powers for the purpose of completing a specific mission. He will decide whether we can go into the crypt or not, and if so under what conditions.”

  “And what if we can’t agree terms?”

  “As we’ve said before, it all comes down to who blinks first. But the Vatican seems to be playing hard ball on this one. They’re used to accusations of being reactionary, and may not care about the media storm that would follow if they refused us permission to go in there. If we’re not careful, there’s a risk they could end up calling our bluff.”

  “Damn! That only gives us today and tomorrow to come up with a solution,” said Rachel, thumping the door frame of the finds room in exasperation. She paused, her eyes screwed up in frustration, before exhaling sharply. “OK, we need to change our game plan here, and fast. In case we can’t get into the crypt, let’s go around the church while there’s still no-one watching and make sure we haven’t missed any vital clues.”

  “Clues? What good will that do us?”

  “I don’t know exactly, I’ve just got a gut feeling there’s a way through here; something we may have overlooked.”

  “Feminine intuition?” said David drily. “Still, I suppose we’ve nothing to lose.”

  They went out of the Villa Bethania, a classic Second Empire double-fronted mansion, and walked the few yards to the church that Saunière had so enthusiastically redesigned at a cost estimated to be in the region of €1 million in today’s money. There was little evidence the building dated back to the eighth or ninth century save for the semi-circular Romanesque apse at the eastern end of the building, so typical of the ancient village churches of the Languedoc.

  They stopped in front of the porch with its gaudy yellow frieze around the edge of the roof.

  “What wonderful taste this guy had,” said Rachel scathingly.

  “You can say that again.”

  “You know one thing I don’t understand is why Saunière spent so much time and money remodelling the church. I mean, the hideously distasteful redecoration one can understand, in the context of the times. He had the cash, from where we know not, and obviously had some kind of epiphany as a result of what he discovered. But why rebuild the altar and move the pulpit?”

  “Trying to make his humble village church look more grandiose – part of the renovation scheme?” ventured David.

  “Possibly,” said Rachel. “But I’m still not convinced. And then there’s the sacristy – why did he build that little semi-circular extension on the side? No-one ever went in there apart from him, if comments by local villagers at the time are to be believed.”

  “I’ve heard a theory from some French archaeologists that the sacristy was built after Saunière discovered the crypt. They think it contains a hidden entrance so he could go down there whenever he wanted.”

  “I suppose that’s a possibility. But if that’s the case, why did no-one find the crypt before now? And why are there no signs of an entrance to the crypt from within the church, either from the sacristy or anywhere else?”

  “I agree it’s odd,” agreed David. “It was one of the first things we looked for. But then we’ve not been allowed to excavate from inside the church, whereas Cholet, who as we know was the first person in the modern era to get permission for excavations, did uncover the start of a stairway leading downwards. But for some reason he didn’t explore further.”

  “Perhaps he wasn’t allowed to.”

  “Perhaps. But if there was pressure not to proceed further, wouldn’t he also have been pressurised not to even mention it in his report?”

  “The whole thing’s odd,” mused Rachel. “In fact the more I find out about this place, the less I know. What was it Churchill said about Russia? ‘It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’ That describes Rennes perfectly.”

  “But as he also said, ‘Perhaps there is a key’.”

  “Well talking of keys, let’s start with the obvious – the keystone in the door arch. Terribilis est locus iste – ‘this place is terrible’. An odd welcome for church-goers, don’t you think? I know that it comes from the Old Testament, and some people argue that it simply means ‘this place is awesome’, in the sense that God is awesome. But does that fit in with the pattern of Saunière’s thinking? There are little idiosyncrasies scattered all over this church, and the domain he built around it – the gardens, the towers, the villa itself. Nothing is quite what it seems. That phrase isn’t there by coincidence. Could it be that the church is guarding a ‘terrible’ secret?”

  “Well, it’s clearly a possibility. If he discovered something that would embarrass the Church, and they were paying him to keep his mouth shut, it could certainly explain where the money was coming from.”

  “But he didn’t want the information lost forever,” said Rachel, thinking out loud, “so he left these clues so that one day, someone else would discover the truth. If we could piece them together, it might give us a clue as to what is hidden in that crypt. What else is there that we might be missing?”

  “I’m afraid as an atheist, religious symbolism isn’t my strong suit,” said David drily.

  “I should have guessed you were an atheist – you’re just the type,” said Rachel, frowning.

  “What’s type’s that, then?”

  “I don’t know – heavily sceptic; always reducing things to their empirical basics; refusing to accept the possibility that something might not conform to the laws of Newton and Darwin.”

  “Sounds pretty much like me!”

  “Oh. I guess I misjudged you, then,” said Rachel, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

  “Being an atheist isn’t a crime, is it?”

  “No, it’s just… Never mind. Let’s get on with this. Is there anything in that stone relief of Mary Magdalene above the door that looks odd to you?”

  “Not that I can see. You would expect to see a statue of Mary on the front of a Catholic church dedicated to her, and I assume all that ‘cake icing’ around her is pretty much what you would expect from a 19th century neo-Gothic restoration – but I’m no architect
ural expert.”

  “That ‘icing’, as you so marvellously put it – it’s a bit unusual to have a turret popping up out of the corner of the statue, isn’t it?” queried Rachel.

  “Doesn’t Magdala mean ‘tower’ in Hebrew?”

  “Sure, but it looks totally out of place in that relief – and it also looks just like La Tour Magdala across the way.”

  David stared hard at sculpture, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight. “Yes, I’ll give you that – now you’ve drawn attention to it, it does seem a little odd. It could be a reference to La Tour. But why? I guess we’ll have to see if we get anything else that ties in with it.”

  “And those pots of flowers,” continued Rachel. “They look like marigolds to me. Aren’t they named after the Virgin Mary, not the Magdalene? Her flower is the lily, surely.”

  “There is plenty of fleur-de-lys symbolism there as well.”

  “Yes, but why the marigolds? It means Mary’s gold, doesn’t it… Is that too obvious?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes people look too hard for an answer when it’s staring them in the face,” said David. “This guy wasn’t a cryptographer. He was a country priest – albeit a well-educated one. Perhaps this is the start of his trail – it is in the entrance to the church. Maybe there is gold here, after all.”

  “It’s a start. Anyway, let’s go in.” They walked inside the church they had come to know so well, trying to look at its exotic array of statuary with fresh eyes.

  “Well, the first thing that hits you is our friend here,” said David, gesturing towards the hideous statue of the crouching Devil immediately inside the door. “A rather rude welcome for parishioners, don’t you think?”

  “Yes – though it was all about fire and brimstone in those days, wasn’t it? There’s a church in Barcelona with a similar statue, though there the Devil is being defeated by the archangel Michael. Here you’ve got a group of angels above him with the cross – all female, I might add – and the inscription Par ce signe tu le vaincras, which even I know means ‘By this sign you will vanquish him’. But isn’t the usual phrase found in French churches just Par ce signe tu vaincras – without the ‘him’? I think that’s what over the door outside, above Mary’s statue.”

  They went back out and had another look. “Actually, it’s in Latin here,” said David. “In hoc signo vinces, which means ‘By this sign, you will conquer’. It’s what the emperor, Constantine, is alleged to have heard when he saw the sign of the cross before the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, which led him to victory, and his conversion to Christianity. But you’re right, there’s no reference to the ‘him’ of the inscription above the Devil.”

  “I wonder if adding the two letters ‘le’ in French is part of a code, or something,” said Rachel, counting out the letters on her hands. “The extra two letters bring the total to 22… Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Not that I can think of. If I remember rightly from my Bible classes as a kid, I think it’s Psalm 22 that Christ quotes on the Cross, when he says, ‘My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ But I can’t think of any other obvious reference.”

  “Hmm. Can’t see any obvious link with that. There’s something else I can’t figure out, though – the ‘BS’ seal stamped on the crest above his head,” said Rachel. “Are those really Bérenger Saunière’s initials, as most people seem to think – or is it a code or something?”

  “Bull Shit, perhaps?” said David, with heavy irony. He wandered into the nave, gazing around the flamboyantly decorated church. His eye caught the Stations of the Cross placed at regular intervals on both sides. “If there are any clues here, it’s a given he will have done something with these,” he said, turning to Rachel. “Not to mention the statues of the saints. We should be writing this down and cross-referencing it. And I’d like to mark out on a plan where all this stuff is” – he waved a hand at the garish statuary – “so we’ve got a contextual reference. Let’s treat it like a dig. I’ll go and get the Nikon and take some close-ups of these oddities. Perhaps something will come to us. Don’t go away, I’ll be back in a second.”

  Rachel mooched over to look at some of the 14 Stations of the Cross. They seemed pretty typical of 19th century religious art – over-the-top, technicolour artefacts that looked as though they were made of icing. David returned to find her poring over Station IV, where Jesus meets his mother. “This is odd,” she said, glancing round. “What’s that behind that Roman spear? It looks like a sail to me.”

  “Odd shape for a sail,” said David, threading his way along the pew to join her. “Sails from that era were square, not diamond-shaped,” he said, peering over her shoulder. “Are you sure it’s not some kind of banner attached to the spear?”

  “If that’s the case, why don’t the identical spears – with those three roundels – that appear in some of the other stations have the banner, too? If you look closely, it seems to be attached to a tall wooden pole by some rigging.”

  “Maybe,” said David dubiously. “But even if it were, what’s the relevance? Ah, you’re thinking of the French connection, aren’t you?” he said with dramatic sarcasm. “The legend that Mary Magdalene came to France to escape persecution.”

  “Yes,” said Rachel defiantly. “It’s perfectly feasible. If Mary had fled Palestine, she would have wanted to escape to the further reaches of the Roman Empire – Gaul, now France, would have been ideal, just across the Mediterranean. One local tradition has it that Mary and some companions crossed the Mediterranean in a small boat and landed in France. So maybe Saunière is hinting at something here.”

  “ ’Just across the Mediterranean’?” said David incredulously. “It’s the best part of 2,000 miles from Palestine to France! It would have taken them at least three weeks if they sailed non-stop, longer if they stopped off en route to pick up supplies and shelter from storms. It’s a pretty long shot.”

  “We know merchant ships travelled those routes in that era – in fact, there’s evidence of Mediterranean trade with Britain going back to the Bronze Age, let alone France in Roman times,” said Rachel, unconvinced.

  “Yes, but you said the legend was she came with a few companions in a small boat – not a cargo vessel! Come on, let’s be scientific about this.”

  “There you go again… Maybe she was on a merchant ship – maybe they put her off in a small boat when they reached France, to avoid awkward questions that might have arisen with the Roman authorities had they put into port. Legends often get distorted, but there’s usually a grain of truth in them. OK, you want to be scientific, let’s be scientific. You’ve got the writing pad – let’s mark down all the statues, stations and paintings around the church, annotate any irregularities against each one, and see what we get.”

  It took them the best part of an hour to carefully measure out a floor plan and mark down the relative position of the statues.

  “Look,” said David, “we’re not going to have time to go through all the Stations of the Cross in detail before the church closes. Let me photograph them now, while it’s still light, and we can go through them this evening.”

  Rachel took the A4 pad and studied their notes, while David started walking round systematically, taking photos. Why this obsession with saints, she thought? She had never understood the need for the pantheon of saints, when the central message revolved around just one person. Was it a throwback to pagan times; a substitute for the myriad of gods and goddesses that fell victim to Rome’s new monotheistic religion?

  Looking at the sketch of the floor-plan, she noticed that the statue of Mary Magdalene inside the church was situated half-way along the wall, next to that of an obscure local saint, St Roch, rather than nearest the altar. Instead, pride of place was reserved for St Anthony of Padua. She looked at the other saints to see if there was any particular order. Opposite St Anthony, at the back of the pulpit, was St Luke. Next was St Anthony the Hermit, then St Germaine, then back on the other side again. An odd sel
ection, she thought.

  Rachel picked up David’s pencil and idly started sketching lines between the statues to see if there was any kind of pattern to their positions. After a few minutes she froze, digging the pencil into the pad in astonishment. “Hey, look at this,” she shouted at David, who had disappeared behind the altar. “David!”

  He reappeared a few moments later. “What’s the panic?”

  “These statues that we’ve marked down – look at the way they’re arranged.”

  “What about them?”

  “Look! “She turned the pad around. What shape is that?”

  “An M, I guess. Oh, please tell me you’re not thinking of the Magdalene again… It could just as easily be a W.”

  “But look at what’s at the apex of the M! It’s the statue of Mary herself – it has to be this way up.”

  “You’re definitely clutching at straws on that one. There are some unusual features on these statues and paintings, though – it will be interesting going through them tonight.”

  “Saunière left nothing to chance – we know he was a pedant for detail, micro-managing the entire restoration process. He had the Calvary cross in the churchyard taken down and rebuilt twice before he was satisfied. Why isn’t Mary at the front of the church? It’s dedicated to her, after all. Instead, we’ve got St Anthony of Padua up by the altar. There’s a reason for all this.”

  “Even if it is an M, what does it prove? As you say, it’s her church. So what?”

  Rachel looked crestfallen. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m getting caught up in the mystery of this place.”

  “Look, don’t beat yourself up. It’s pretty easy to get carried away over something like this – hell, it’s a real-life computer game. Come on, I think we’ve got everything we need, and they’ll be locking up soon. Let’s go back to the chambre d’hôte, get scrubbed up and download these pictures to the laptop. Then we can go through them over dinner.”

  “Sounds like a plan. And I don’t know about you, but after last night’s firework display, I’m staying at Rennes-les-Bains for the next few days. I don’t want to appear dishevelled in front of the papal legate.”