The Sixth Key

by Adriana Koulias

  Rahn picked up the scent. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘In the altar, usually, but it’s no doubt locked, and without a key . . .’

  ‘And yet, what better place could a priest find to hide something?’

  ‘Yes, but Eva said that the sacristan had the job of cleaning all the items used in the mass, and they are kept in the tabernacle. Surely the abbé knew the sacristan might see it,’ Deodat said. ‘That is, before he committed suicide.’

  ‘I’d wager the sacristan didn’t jump from the Pic de Bugarach, Deodat. I think he was pushed!’

  ‘Now you’re the one who is jumping – jumping to conclusions. You know what they say about the ingenious: they are often incapable of analysis because they get caught up in their own cleverness.’

  ‘And do you have any better ideas?’ Rahn said, suddenly annoyed.

  Deodat walked away, tapping his chin. Eventually he turned around. ‘I’m afraid there’s only one way to test this hypothesis: we have to go there and see for ourselves.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘To the church, to see if you’re right about the tabernacle.’ He put his glasses in his pocket.

  ‘What? Now?’ Rahn was suddenly faced with the consequences of his own cleverness.

  ‘If we’re going to break into the tabernacle, it might as well be at night. Besides, it’s easier at night to detect whether you’re being followed. I read that in a detective story. Come on, dear boy, tempus fugit!’

  ‘But how do you propose to get into the tabernacle without waking the entire township of Bugarach? Really, Deodat, it doesn’t seem very practical to me, and I can see the papers now: “Respected magistrate to appear in his own courthouse after being caught breaking into the tabernacle of Bugarach church”.’

  ‘Nonsense! I could say I was conducting an examination in relation to a suspicious case, as any magistrate has a right to do.’

  Rahn knew that once Deodat had made up his obstinate mind there was no stopping him. And so he watched helplessly as his friend slapped his black wool hat onto his head and put on his coat.

  ‘I don’t know what’s more fun,’ he said, ‘going off to do some hole-and-corner work in the night like a thief, or watching your face pale when we go in and out of churches.’

  16

  To Hit the Nail on the Head

  ‘. . . he dashed into the midst of the flock of sheep and began to spear them with as much courage and fury as if he were fighting his mortal enemies.’

  Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

  Rahn drove back to Bugarach. The night was cold and the moon that came out from behind the clouds to light the narrow road was almost full.

  He contemplated his mistake. He had allowed himself to be seduced by the mystery and its connection to the Cathar treasure and, in the fever of intellectual abandon, had forgotten the resolve he had made earlier in the day – the consequences of which were now quite plain to him: Deodat was becoming more deeply involved in this dangerous affair; and he was not on his way to a hiding spot in the Pyrenees but on his way to a church at night to break into a tabernacle.

  It didn’t help that a part of him was enjoying the hunt. To the contrary, his own excitement made that other part of him, the sensible part, vexed because it knew that such a hunt would not end well for either of them. And his mood was not lightened in any way by their arrival at Bugarach. For if it seemed sad and ominous in the day, it was so many times more foreboding now, with its silent houses and abandoned streets dominated by the old volcano swathed in moon glow. Bugarach was no ordinary church, there was something decidedly pagan and mysterious about it. It recalled to his mind stories of those ancient sibyls who foretold the future by drinking in the sulphurous fumes of volcanoes.

  Rahn parked the car discreetly on a dirt shoulder behind some low-lying bushes and together he and Deodat made their quiet way to the church, past the graveyard, which on this cold night looked windblown and secretive. Rahn steeled his heart as he made to open the door and nearly jumped out of his skin when the rusty hinges groaned.

  Deodat was in his ear. ‘Could you be louder, Rahn? After all, not everyone in the township heard your announcement: Here is the magistrate of Arques come to steal something from the church, wake up sleepy-heads or you will miss it!’

  ‘Very funny, Deodat!’

  Rahn concentrated on keeping calm and stepped inside. Once across the threshold all his symptoms returned: his mouth was dry; his hands trembled; sweat formed on his brow; and his knees weakened. He looked about. The church seemed redolent of decay, the flickering candles made shadows loom over the walls. Shadows and shadows of shadows created sinister demons of those saints upon their high stations. His mother’s words rang in his ears.

  Don’t be afraid, Otto, there are only angels in churches.

  ‘Yes, but are they good angels?’ he whispered out loud, making Deodat turn around.

  They had made it to the choir enclosures without Rahn passing out, which was a relief to him, and now Deodat showed him the tabernacle. Rahn forced his mind to turn away from imponderables and focused his thinking to the moment. The bronze box was built into the front of the altar directly beneath the crucifix, whose hideousness was lit by a perpetual flame. Rahn tried the lock. It wouldn’t give. He took a candle behind the altar, which to him seemed less sinister than the front. He thought that the sacristan or the abbé may have left a key here for convenience but he found nothing more than a little bottle of oil, a box of matches and a couple of dirty rags. He opened the matchbox – it was full of matches but no key.

  Deodat whispered his name and Rahn placed the matchbox absently in the pocket of his pants and went to him. Deodat was trying to open the sacristy door under the Grail plaque but it was also locked. Rahn went to the opposite door but he too had no luck.

  ‘What now?’ Deodat whispered harshly.

  ‘We have to break into it.’

  ‘How?’

  Before Rahn could reply, they were interrupted by a noise.

  ‘What in the devil is that?’ Deodat whispered.

  Rahn, who was facing the length of the nave towards the west, paused. The door was groaning. He brought out his old Swiss Army knife, knowing it would be no use at all against a man holding a gun. Without another thought he gestured for them to move behind the altar.

  The footsteps were slow, light and deliberate.

  A small man, Rahn thought, was headed in their direction. Whoever it was had already come past the enclosures. Rahn’s breathing grew rapid. His heart was pounding. Had they been followed? Perhaps it was the same person who had killed the sacristan, perhaps one of Serinus’s men, or the inspector, or worst still the Gestapo . . . Who knew how many people were after him by now? Another noise pierced the gloom – the sound of metal against metal and a click that reverberated a little in the church.

  Rahn understood. Whoever it was had opened the tabernacle, not having yet reckoned their presence. He had to act now. The element of surprise would give him an advantage. He figured he would come from behind the altar, allowing the moment to dictate his actions and whatever came after that, he did not dare contemplate. He looked at Deodat and pointed in the direction of the altar, suggesting that they move to attack.

  He sprang vigorously from his position in the darkness into the space in front of the altar, his every muscle and sinew straining into action. What came next was a blur of images and sounds: he saw a figure in black, he heard a gasp and then something heavy came down and turned night into day in a spray of stars. The ground then opened up beneath him and he felt himself falling . . .

  . . . he was falling into a fissure in the volcano of Bugarach, redolent of sulphur and crowded with sibyls.

  ISLAND OF THE DEAD

  17

  Prospero

  ‘Who?’ replied Don Quixote. ‘Who can it be

  but some malignant enchanter . . .’

  Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

  Venice, 2012

 
There was a pause. I was suddenly no longer in the church of Bugarach with Rahn; I was in the library on the Island of the Dead with the Writer of Letters, who seemed to me like a modern version of Shakespeare’s Prospero.

  ‘So, what do you think of it?’ he said, sitting forwards, looking at me probingly.

  ‘It has the makings of a decent mystery, so far. I like the way you’ve interpolated the inscription into your plot.’

  ‘My plot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He smiled. ‘This is your story, remember?’

  ‘Right.’ I nodded, returning his smile. ‘So, does the church in Bugarach exist?’

  ‘Of course! All of those things that Rahn saw are there. You could see them today if you wanted to; not much changes in little villages like that.’

  ‘All those clues?’

  ‘Indeed. The interesting thing about clues is that you can find them everywhere – but are they an illusion? For instance, one can add two and two to make four, but four of what? You see, you have to know what you are adding before it can make practical sense. Sometimes knowing the number is not enough.’

  He stood, then. ‘Lunch?’

  I followed him out to the garden to a table set for two. Prosciutto crudo, pane di casa and bresaola, with a bottle of recoaro.

  ‘Before,’ I ventured as we sat down, ‘you said you knew Otto Rahn.’

  ‘Did I?’ He seemed surprised.

  ‘Yes, you said that you knew him, but you didn’t reveal how you knew him.’

  ‘There are many ways of knowing an individual.’ The Writer of Letters placed a linen napkin over his lap. ‘I am an objective observer . . . and he has interested me for a long time. Just as you have.’

  ‘You keep speaking of him as though he were still alive.’

  ‘Do I? How remiss of me. They say he took his own life.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘We won’t know that until we finish the story. If I were your character, would you have me disclose something crucial to the plot so soon in the narrative?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘Then again, you could always edit it out, if it turned out not to be true.’

  ‘Is it true or not?’

  ‘Perhaps the answer to the riddle you came here to solve, the inscription about death, is related to the mystery of Rahn’s life?’ he said, as enigmatic as ever.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘To write about the Grail is to write about eternal life. To know the meaning of life, one has to understand death and to understand death, one has to know the meaning of evil. You see they are interdependent. The idea of a Grail chalice is really quite old. Priests used to drink from a chalice long before Christ. That was how He revealed Himself to His priests in the old mysteries. When He came to Earth, He was a revelation of the mysteries and drank from the cup, that is, He died so that He could rescue life from death ... good from evil – that is the secret of the blood in the chalice – the secret of the Holy Grail.

  ‘But I’m not writing about the Grail . . . I want to write a book about the Apocalypse of Saint John.’

  ‘Oh, I know what you’re writing about . . . but what is the Apocalypse if not a revelation of the Grail – and what is the Grail if not a vessel of revelation? You see, the two always go together. In fact, Rahn’s last book was about this very mystery – but I’m not talking about Rahn’s little travel diary that Himmler had printed and bound in calfskin; the one he made compulsory reading for the SS. That book, Lucifer’s Court, was just something Rahn patched together in a hurry. No, Rahn’s last book has not been published yet.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His eyes were full of jocularity and it annoyed me. ‘You’re the one writing the story. I’m just one of your characters. What would you have me suggest?’

  I sat back in the pale sun. ‘A character only comes to life when he starts to disobey the writer.’

  ‘Well countered! In that case I shall divulge that what Rahn found in the south of France was not what anyone had expected. Perhaps it is not even what you expect.’

  ‘So where do we go to from here?’

  ‘Imagine we are once again in that universe consisting of endless interlocking galleries. Let us turn away from Rahn, who is lying in a stupor in that church at Bugarach, to another aspect of the past. We need only find the gallery marked 1238.’

  ‘That’s exactly seven hundred years before Rahn’s time.’

  ‘Yes. Rahn was living seven hundred years after a very significant happening, you might say, an event which cast both its light and its shadow into the future, seven hundred years forward in time.’

  ‘But as you stated earlier: in a room full of galleries, time is one with space. So what does time matter anyhow?’ I tried to trip him up.

  ‘It is true that time is significant only in the world of the living, in the world in which history happens. But insofar as these things occurred in the world of time, their timing is of great importance. Do you remember that young boy, Matteu, who was saved by the Templar knight in Béziers? Well, by now he is a Templar troubadour. He has been to the East crusading against the infidel; he has sat with Sufi poets in the courts of Frederick II; and he has cheated death countless times. Now his task is to run messages from the Temple to the Cathars during the war of religion and sometimes to escort important Cathars to safety.’

  ‘So they were affiliated, the Cathars and Templars?’

  ‘Of course, the Templars called the Cathars their cousins and they did what they could, in a “quiet way”, to help them during those years of Catholic persecution. If you read Rahn’s books, you will see how he is trying to remember something of that time, in fact, he’s trying to keep his promise to the Countess P.’

  ‘Which was?’ I asked.

  ‘To be a guardian . . .’

  18

  Isobel

  ‘To that I may reply,’ said Don Quixote,

  ‘that Dulcinea is the daughter of her own works . . .’

  Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

  Montsegur, 1238

  The red valley gouged out by giants was already in shadow when Isobel and her mistresses, Rosamunda and Blanche, came to the base of Montsegur. Ahead of them the Templar troubadour, Matteu, led the way – a man already past his prime and yet eternally youthful. She had always felt safe with him and she did so now despite the dangers of this journey. In truth, they had been walking for days in fear of being caught, and despite their exhaustion they would have to climb that steep narrow path to the château before dark.

  Yes, Isobel was tired, so tired she could barely feel her feet, and to add to everything else the dark clouds above were scudding across the coppering sky and threatening a downpour. She felt she must soon collapse from the weight of the belongings she carried added to that of the child in her belly. For they had been forced to leave the animals below in the township, since the way to the château could only be scaled on foot and a perilous way it was, with its narrow path and smooth stones. She dared not look down, forcing her eyes to stare ahead to the straight backs of her mistresses who led the way, pausing now and then to lend her a hand.

  She had never seen the mistresses tired, nor had she ever seen them afraid. They had made this pilgrimage each year for as long as she could remember and she recalled them walking just as they were doing now, alongside one another, both with their black dresses flapping, each moving one leg after the other in a rhythm that matched the rhythm of their prayers.

  Soon, she told herself, they would reach those walls – and safety – but now, through the trees, she could hear the herdsmen gathering the goats before the storm broke. In the distance, bells clanged their discordant resonance and the sky grew closer. Such sounds made her want to hide behind a clump of hazel bushes fearing danger, for she was a child of war.

  She couldn’t remember a time without it, nor the fear of the Dominicans or their familiars. She knew the stories back to front. A papa
l legate had excommunicated the Count of Toulouse for protecting the Cathars and he was, in turn, murdered by one of the count’s officers, causing the pope to call for a Crusade against the heretics. She would not be here if her mother, just a bundle at the time, had not been spirited away from Béziers by the two sisters on the eve of the Feast of Magdalene. They had taken the small child and the treasure that had once belonged to Mary Magdalene herself – the Cathar treasure, which must be handed down from woman to woman. From that time on, the sacred treasure in its pouch had been safely hidden beneath the folds of Rosamunda’s dress, and it was there now.

  Isobel looked up to see the clouds gathering in counsel and preparing to drizzle their concerns over the valley floor. A low rumble made the Earth tremble and she pulled the shawl over her shoulders and recalled the stories. After the fall of Béziers in 1209 and the terrible massacre of all its citizens, the world turned over into a hell pit. Siege after siege, battle after battle. Those were terrible years. War in the Corbieres, war in the Minverois and in the Razés, war in Foix and in Toulouse. The land was laid to waste, and villages and towns were destroyed. Who would want to tend crops that would surely be trampled to dust? Who would want to repair a stable door or to fix a leaking roof when at any moment everything might be put to the torch? Insecurity and chaos ruled the land, and the nobles, despoiled of their inheritance, went into hiding, striking out at the Crusaders from their high strongholds. In the meantime a vast network of secret agents, troubadours like Matteu, had brought news of planned attacks, sieges and skirmishes. Her mother had been seventeen and pregnant with Isobel when the young Count Raymond, having returned from exile with an army, took over the city of Toulouse against the foreign enemy. Alongside the other women her mother dug walls, hauled rubble through the streets and worked the siege engines. For three weeks they waited for Simon de Montfort, the leader of the Crusade, to come to rescue his wife from the Château de Nabornnais. Isobel’s mother was among the women recruited to fire the heavy blocks of masonry from a trebuchet and they had been firing at random into a confused mass of soldiers when Simon de Montfort was struck on the head and killed. That same hour her mother collapsed and some time later died giving birth to Isobel.