The Last Scion

by Richard Reed

  “So no-one has really decoded the inscription on the tombstone, then,” said Rachel, deciding not to pursue that line for the moment.

  “Not as far as I’m aware. Most of the world’s top cryptographers live in the States, and I’m guessing few of them speak French. They’ve probably never even heard of Rennes-le-Château – few people in England know anything about it, and we live next door.”

  “Why don’t we take a look at the code? I mean, this cypher wasn’t put together by a Nazi Enigma machine. As I understand it, the tombstone was made on the orders of Abbé Bigou, one of Saunière’s predecessors, in 1781, shortly before fleeing across the border to Spain from the terrors of the French Revolution. And from what I’ve picked up, a lot of people think Bigou originally discovered the secret of Rennes, and deliberately left behind clues which Saunière duly discovered a century later. One thing’s for sure – all those spelling discrepancies aren’t just the typos of some illiterate stonemason.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s worth a try – though I tend to think we’re clutching at straws. Brighter people than us have failed to come up with anything meaningful.”

  Rachel bit back a sarcastic rejoinder.

  “OK, we’ll do this scientifically,” continued David. “First of all, let’s list the apparent discrepancies in the inscription. First of all the ‘T’ in CT. CI GIT means ‘here lies’, as in ‘here lies the body’, but for some reason the ‘I’ has been changed to a ‘T’. Then, on the same line, the ‘e’ of NOBLE has been made lower case. Immediately after that, the name ‘MARIE’ has been split, with the M on the first line, and the rest of the word on the next. And so it goes on.”

  They noted down the anomalies as they worked their way down the inscription. “There’s an odd one there in the date,” David noted. “It should be MDCCLXXXI for 1781, but the second ‘C’ has become an ‘O’ – and there is no zero in Roman numerals.”

  “I do realise that, David. Honestly, sometimes you talk to me as though I’m still at High School. The next one is even odder, though – that final phrase, ‘REQUIESCAT IN PACE’ – which I do know is Latin for ‘Rest in peace’ – has been written ‘REQUIES CATIN PACE’. Now it just so happens that a few weeks ago I was in the bar at Rennes-les-Bains when a woman stormed in and accused one of the other locals of having an affair with her husband. It got pretty damned heated and at one point she screamed out ‘Catin!’ at the top of her voice, following which a cat fight ensued. I discreetly asked the barman, who happens to fancy me, what she said. You’ll never guess.”

  “He fancies anything in a skirt. But do go on.”

  “He said she called her a whore. And what was Mary Magdalene known as, to the Catholic Church, from the 6th century right up until a Vatican missal in 1969 cleared her name? The penitent whore! Even to this day, half the people you ask think she was a prostitute – that’s how Bigou and Saunière would have known her.”

  “My God, you could be on to something. What other reason could there be for including that word, even as a misspelling, on the tombstone of a noblewoman – the lady of the manor, no less? Bigou would have had the mason strung up, and ordered a new headstone made, in the unlikely event it was a pure accident.”

  “Which takes us back to the third line,” said Rachel excitedly. “We were trying to figure out the Arles connection – assuming DARLES is a misspelling of D’ARLES – when her title was actually Marie de Nègre d’Ables. But isn’t Arles very close to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the little seaside town on the edge of the Camargue where Mary Magdalene is said to have come ashore? Is Bigou trying to make us see a connection here?”

  David grabbed a French road atlas he had put out on the table. “Right again, Ms Spencer! It’s the nearest town – just a few miles up the road. Back in the 1700s, Saintes-Maries would have just been a tiny fishing village; referencing Arles makes a lot more sense. It’s also easy to disguise as a misspelling. So we have an apparent reference to the ‘whore of Arles’. Maybe the coding isn’t so cryptic as people think. Let’s face it, most people couldn’t read and write in the 18th century, only the nobility, the clergy, and a small section of the middle class – merchants, clerks and so on. Bigou was probably banking on one of his successors deciphering the clues.”

  Rachel paused to rummage through the pile of books until she found a tourist guide of the area. “Hey, listen to this: ‘According to legend, during the persecution of Christians after the crucifixion, Lazarus, his sisters Mary Magdalene and Martha; Mary Salome, mother of the apostles John and James; and Mary Jacobe fled Egypt in a small boat. They eventually came ashore in the south of France at a village that is now called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. The town is a pilgrimage destination for gypsies, who gather on May 24 every year for a religious festival in honour of Saint Sarah, a dark-skinned girl who is said to have been the Egyptian servant of one the three Marys. Another version of the legend has the three saints being deliberately cast adrift in a rudderless boat with Joseph of Arimathea, rather than Lazarus.’

  She paused and looked at David. “Hey, do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “Go on.”

  “We are looking at the tombstone of Marie de Nègre d’Ables… Doesn’t that mean ‘Black Mary’?”

  “That would be a literal translation.”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I mean, southern France wasn’t exactly a racial melting pot in those days. And she was singled out; they included her colour in the family name.”

  “I agree it’s unusual, though having said that, there are a significant number of Black Madonnas in southern France, which no-one has really explained.” He paused. “We need the internet on this one. I’ll go and grab my MacBook – I assume it’s been left in my room, as Marianne promised.”

  “I heard her tell one of our minders to go and fetch it,” said Rachel.

  “OK, I’ll be right back. Don’t go away.”

  David returned a short while later clutching his laptop, and fired it up. “Let’s hope we don’t need a password to access their wi-fi,” he muttered. “Nope! I guess they don’t really need passwords out here. OK, let’s Google Marie de Blanchefort and see what we come up with. Hmm… quite a lot, is the answer.”

  He started clicking through the links on the page until he found one that appeared to explain something about the family history. “Right, I’m translating from the French, so you’ll have to bear with me. ‘In November 1732, at the age of 44, François d’Hautpoul married a young orphan girl of 19, Marie de Nègre d’Ables (1714-1781), the last representative of that branch of her family. François d’Hautpoul reinstated the lapsed title of Marquis of Blanchefort, brought to him by the marriage to his wife Marie, Lady of Niort, and Roquefeuil Blanchefort.’“

  “That’s interesting,” said Rachel.

  “What, specifically?”

  “That she was an orphan. And that the ‘de Nègre’ and the Blanchefort title came from her side of the family.”

  “I guess,” said David doubtfully. “What else have we got? Hang on, there’s a photo on this website of her family coat of arms, as seen on her marriage bed – believed to still be in the château at Rennes…” He paused, slack-jawed, the colour draining from his face.

  “What is it?” said Rachel, peering at the screen.

  “Look at her coat of arms – the shield on the left; the one on the right is her husband’s Hautpoul crest.”

  “My God! It’s a pentagram – the Star of David! I knew it! I just knew it! This proves everything Anne-Marie and Marianne told us…”

  “Proves is a strong word…”

  “Oh for God’s sake, David, stop being such a bloody sceptic. Sometimes the truth is in plain sight! You’re always banging on about being a scientist – what about Occam’s Razor? The simplest explanation is often the most likely one.”

  “I was going to say, before you went off on the rampage, that this definitely shifts the balance of probability. For now I’m happy to go with Occam on this one.
This has to signify a Jewish bloodline – what else could it be? And who knows, maybe there is something in the ‘de Nègre’ thing. I’ve heard one theory that Mary Magdalene may have actually been Egyptian. Anyway, let’s go back to the Blanchefort inscription and see what we can come up with. First of all, let’s take the words ‘DARLES’ and ‘CATIN’ out of the mix, since they have already been deciphered. What does that leave? By my reckoning, the letters t,e,m,e,e,a,n,t,e,p,o. What French words could that be re-arranged into?”

  “What we need is an anagram solver,” said Rachel. “You’re good at crosswords, aren’t you?”

  “Not French ones! But you could be on to something there. I wonder if there’s a French website that solves anagrams for you? A bit of a long shot, but worth a try… Hang on a minute, here we go – it’s amazing what you can find on Google. Right, let’s see what this comes up with…”

  Rachel moved across and peered at the screen over his shoulder. “There are a few possibilities there… met, epee, notat… Could that mean anything?”

  “Literally ‘He should note the sign of the sword’.”

  “Hey, that’s interesting. I mean, it makes sense, after a fashion. Obviously we need some kind of context, but it’s a hell of a lot more meaningful than blue apples.”

  “Of course, what we don’t know is whether this clue – assuming it is a clue – is referring to the existence of the tomb of Mary Magdalene, which we already know about, or the Lost Gospel.”

  “You’re right, for once,” said Rachel, crestfallen. “I was getting carried away there for a moment.”

  “Still, it could be referring to the gospel,” said David, hurriedly. “After all, we can be pretty sure Saunière discovered the crypt, complete with the Magdalene’s tomb, quite early on in the process. If you remember from your spiel on the TV trailer, that first parchment that he found in the wooden pillar under the pulpit led him straight to the slab in front of the altar, which the local workmen removed to reveal a tomb. At which point he chucked everyone out and hired outside help. That slab had been turned upside down – the reverse side, which would originally been uppermost, had been carved with a magnificent Carolingian bas-relief dating from the 9th century, showing two knights on horseback. Clearly, the stone originally marked the entrance to the crypt, and had been turned over to throw people off the trail – almost certainly by Bigou, before fleeing to Spain, so that the Revolutionaries wouldn’t find it. If the clue to the crypt was hidden in the first parchment – which no-one has ever seen since – then why go to all the time and trouble to create that headstone for Marie de Blanchefort, with all those anomalies? Just as a back-up to the parchment? It seems unlikely. I think Saunière thought it unlikely, too, because he kept on digging the place up.”

  “So there is a chance it might lead us to the gospel?” said Rachel.

  “I think so, yes. Marianne told us she thought it was hidden somewhere in the undercroft. And we know there are Visigoth tombs down there – they would be an obvious hiding place. I think we only have one option – to go back down there…”

  Rachel shuddered. “God no! I couldn’t face going back into that place.”

  “Then I’ll go with Guy. He’s ‘in’ on everything – well, almost everything.”

  Rachel frowned. She wasn’t going to be beaten by this thing. “No. Guy knows too much already – after what’s happened we need to keep a lid on the number of people involved. If we have to go down there again, I’ll come with you.”

  “You don’t have to…”

  “No arguments!”

  “That’s more like the bossy cow I know,” laughed David, jumping out of the way as she tried to punch him.

  “I think you two make a very happy couple.”

  They both spun round to see Marianne standing a few feet away, an amused expression on her face. Rachel blushed violently.

  “So how are you getting on?”

  “Marianne!” exclaimed Rachel. “You made me jump. We think we’ve made a little progress on deciphering the Blanchefort tombstone.”

  “Really?” said Marianne. “I’m impressed. That has eluded people for more than two centuries. Why don’t you tell us about it over dinner? I had just come to say that we plan to eat at 7pm, if that suits you.”

  “That would be absolutely wonderful,” said David. “It’s very kind of you.”

  “What kind of hosts would we be if we didn’t share our food with you?” laughed Marianne. “I’ll see you later, then. Follow the main staircase down to the next floor and turn left. You’ll find the dining room about half-way along.”

  Chapter 44

  Rachel and David joined Marianne and Gilles for dinner that evening in the sumptuous oak-panelled dining hall to find Marianne wearing a stunning powder blue evening gown that flowed like liquid velvet down her slight figure. But it wasn’t the gown that caught Rachel’s attention. A delicate gold disc emblazoned with a three-pointed crown hung from a fine chain around her neck.

  “The necklace!” she gasped, unable to believe her own eyes.

  “This?” said Marianne smiling, lifting the pendant.

  “It’s the crown necklace Mary’s wearing in The Last Supper!” gasped Rachel. “Look, David – it’s exactly the same motif. Now, does that convince you!”

  “So is there a link to Da Vinci?” asked David. “Or is it just pure coincidence? A crown is a pretty common icon, after all…”

  “Oh there’s a link, David,” interrupted Marianne. “So much of my story revolves around the Cathars, and this is no different. The last Cathar parfait in the Languedoc, Guillaume Bélibaste, was executed in 1321, and their faith became more or less extinct locally, thanks to the torturers of the Inquisition. But the legacy of the Cathars, and France’s other so-called heretics at the time, the Waldensians, lived on elsewhere – especially in northern Italy, where many fled to escape the ravages of the crusade.

  “Leonardo Da Vinci was born to a woman whom we know simply as Caterina, at a house in Anchiano, near Vinci in Tuscany. Caterina was a Madeleine; the direct descendant of Philippa de Mirepoix. After fleeing Montségur while under siege, she and her child made their way to join the other refugees in Piedmont. She was fundamental in encouraging the growth of Waldensianism – the first true Protestant sect that evolved in parallel with Catharism. Though their beliefs differed from the Cathars, like them they rejected papal authority and the corruption endemic in the Catholic Church at the time.

  “You must understand that at this time the Catholic Church held its flock in a vice-like grip; even if they could read, ordinary men and women were not allowed to study the Bible for themselves. Your English king Henry VIII was the first European monarch to place a Bible in every church for everyone to read. If someone challenged the authority of the Church, they could be excommunicated – which as far as they believed, meant that on their death they would not receive salvation, but instead be condemned to an eternity in Hell. All this on the say-so of the Pope.

  “Anyway, I digress. Da Vinci’s father, Ser Piero da Vinci, had met and fallen in love with Caterina, but was already betrothed to a young girl who was the daughter of a fellow notary in Florence. We can only guess what happened, but it may be some pressure was put on him to fulfil his pledge to marry this girl.

  “Nature, however, had already taken its course, and Caterina was with child. Unable to be with Ser Piero, she ended up marrying a local man by the name of Acchattabriga. It is commonly thought that his name – more of a pseudonym, really – suggests he was an outlaw, but in fact this was only because he had been out-lawed and dispossessed of his lands by the Church for holding heretical beliefs. He was, in short, a Waldensian.

  “Although Da Vinci only stayed with his mother until he was five years old, when he went to live with his father, he never forgot her and paid her frequent visits. She told him of his heritage and his true bloodline. Later, he would paint a portrait of her, which he took everywhere with him during the course of his life. We know
it today as the Mona Lisa.”

  “You’re kidding!” exclaimed Rachel.

  “Indeed not. He even had it with him on his deathbed at Tours in France, where Leonardo had gone to serve the king, Francis 1, in 1519. That’s why the Mona Lisa now hangs in the Louvre in Paris, and not in Rome. It was one of only a handful of paintings he kept.”

  “Perhaps that explains the enigmatic smile,” said Rachel. “He was painting his own mother! She must have been so proud of him. No wonder he was one of the world’s greatest geniuses and visionaries if he carried Christ’s bloodline. So Da Vinci wasn’t simply one of the shadowy figures in this fictitious Priory of Sion, guarding some secret about a holy bloodline; he was actually part of that bloodline.”

  “Exactement. And he stayed in touch with his mother – although she had other children with Acchattabriga, she later moved to Milan to be close to Leonardo.”

  “So he knew the whole story?”

  “Oui. That is why, in many of Da Vinci’s religious works, we see the mysterious symbols, particularly the finger pointing to the heavens: he was making a cryptic reference to his own bloodline, and the fact that he knew the real truth – a truth that made a mockery of the Pope.”

  “Could that finger gesture have been intended as an insult to the Pope, and the Catholic Church?”

  “With Leonardo, it’s highly possible,” laughed Marianne.

  “Oh come on Rachel, you don’t seriously believe all this, do you?” said David witheringly. “Where’s the proof?”

  “Would it surprise you to know, David, that scientists have recently proven that Da Vinci was of Middle Eastern descent?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said David, taken aback.

  “Yes – Italian researchers have analysed fingerprints of Leonardo found on his works, and they show a distinctive whorl pattern that are dominant in the Middle East.”