Tales from the Vatican Vaults: 28 extraordinary stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Garry Kilworth, Mary Gentle, KJ Parker, Storm Constantine and many more

by David V. Barrett

  The red powder was originally created far away and is of rare worth. It is said that it was harvested from the rays of the sun over the course of ten thousand sunrises. The few rays that could be captured each day were those reflected from a tiny ruby set in gold upon the tip of a mighty rock that soared to the heavens. Only the very first rays of the morning were caught, for, as the sun rose into the sky, the angle of reflection was soon lost till the next dawn.

  For the white powder, again follow the formula, and blend it with other base metals and it will create a rare and precious pale gold. The white powder is also of most unusual origin, born from a thousand full moons, each of which willingly gave up some of its light. As a result it is of a most curious lustre and possesses an extraordinary brilliance.

  These powders are very rare and probably unique, for they were made in the first times, when the world was young, and the knowledge of how to create them has long since been lost. The powders you hold in your hands are all that there will ever be. That is of course unless the one who gave these gifts in the first instance had more. But that is another story, and one that I am not familiar with.

  The formulae to use the red and the white powders are all located at the end of this treatise. They detail the quantities to use and the processes to employ. They explain how to mix the powders with ores and metals and other common alchemical ingredients in order to bring forth the required gold of either ruddy complexion or pale sheen. Other formulae set out how a single grain, or in some cases a part grain, of either red or white will bring about the transformation of many other things. The red governs things that resonate with the sun and his energies, the white rules those that are of the moon and her powers.

  The good doctor was fascinated by this section, and re-read it several times. He wanted to believe it, for it confirmed his belief that baser metals could be transmuted into gold. It gave him hope that it had been done before, even though it was clouded in mystery. However, having this document come into his possession seemed to him to be a propitious omen to the success of his quest. He planned to analyse it later to try to unravel the symbolism in the description, and he noted that it read like many early medieval alchemical documents that he had previously studied. Was this because when it had been translated it was couched in the language of the translator? Or was it simply a true, word-for-word, translation of a third- to fifth-century document, containing important occult knowledge? He returned to the document.

  The second gift: Frankincense

  The second gift is that of frankincense, stored in the phial of amethyst closed with a stopper of faceted clear quartz. The incense is of crystalline form in fine granules. When it is burned on a hot flame, it produces a pure smoke that perfumes the room and makes the space sacred by its presence. If combined with specific other incenses and herbs, it gives a longevity to its effect that will last beyond the time of exposure. This is particularly helpful for prolonged meditative workings. Again, you will find the formula for this at the end of this scroll.

  This particular frankincense is made from the resin of one especial and most ancient tree. It is the rarest of its kind. This tree is said to have been already old at the dawn of history, and a sapling before time, as we know it, began. Its trunk is girded by entwining serpents who protect its precious fruits from the profane. The fruits and the resins of this tree may only be gathered by the priestess-guardian. She is the only one who knows the magic chants and the way to sound the words that calm the serpents. With her song she persuades the sentience of the tree to let go of its fruits and release its resins in a milky flow. It is said she is as old as the tree and that it sustains her far beyond the passage of her earthly years.

  The special quality of this frankincense is that it opens the portals between the spiritual and the mundane worlds and thus enables those present to see and to know the face of the divine. It is the revealer of mysteries; the opener of the mind, the awakener of the heart and the enlightener of the soul. It creates an altered state and produces an openness that attracts the genii of truth and spiritual knowledge. These genii speak directly into the heart, in the eternal tongue. Thus the mind will understand and the soul is enraptured. In its diluted form it enables communication with the angelic and demonic hosts, although caution must be employed when used in weaker concentrations, as it is sometimes hard to identify which is angel and which is demon, what is true and what is a test of the seeker’s integrity.

  Dee noted down that this was very interesting, for perhaps this could be a way to find out lost and hidden truths, if only he could manage to refine some of this precious aromatic from the rare frankincense that he already had in his laboratory. Breathless with anticipation, he read on.

  The third gift: Balsam of Myrrh

  The third gift is in the lidded pot made from black volcanic glass. The lid is engraved with the image of the Ouroboros, the snake who holds his own tail within his mouth, giving the eternal message that every ending is also a beginning. The contents of this pot need to be kept far from exposure to daylight and the deep black glass of the container keeps it safe so that its essence remains active.

  It is an ointment crafted mainly from myrrh, but with the addition of silken-sage, the crushed petals of the moonflower and safflower, combined with the bloom of sylvan moss. It has been prepared over a full thirteen-month moon cycle, with the various ingredients added into the myrrh salve at the designated time. The correct incantations have been spoken at each stage of its production, and it has rested in the light of the dark moon, absorbing the energies required to become effective.

  It has very special properties. When a small amount is applied to the lips and nose it induces a death-like torpor in which the body can endure intense pain and survive wounds that would normally destroy the earthly vessel. If a thin layer of the salve is applied to any wound it will heal during the passage of three days and three nights. However, after applying the salve to the wound the person should then apply some of it to their lips and nose so that they are in a state of deep slumber whilst the healing occurs. The patient should be left undisturbed during this time, and they should be kept within a darkened room, ideally with no light. It is not necessary to have someone there to care for the person, but if a loved one wishes to tend to the injured party a small oil lamp is permitted.

  After the period of seventy-two hours the person will awaken restored and renewed. For a short while there will be a slight glow around them, which is visible to others. If they do not wish to attract attention it is best that they keep their solitude until the glow disperses.

  Dr Dee drew a deep breath and his eyes widened at what he had just read. This threw doubt on the miracle of the resurrection of Christ. The Church would view this treatise as heretical and would not want it to be in circulation. He realised that he would have to be very careful who he mentioned it to, because if the wrong people found out about it, it could attract the unwelcome attentions of the Church’s Holy Office of Inquisition to his work and even jeopardise his freedom and his life. Then he remembered that in 1489 the Roman Curia had accused Marsilio Ficino of heresy; could this have been a contributing factor? He was later cleared of all charges after Archbishop Orsino spoke up for him, and Ficino had then published an Apology. Dee had noticed an extract from this Apology was included in one of the letters he had read earlier.

  Looking back at the manuscript he saw there was only one more line, a note from the original translator.

  Here the manuscript ends. You can just see the top of the heading that reads ‘The Formulae’.

  Excited and shocked by what he had just read, Dr Dee turned his attention to the small box that he had previously found at the bottom of the scroll case. He examined it and realised that this box did not fit the description of any one of the three artefacts that he had just read about, being round and made of an aged red-coloured wood. He noticed a knot in the wood on the side. His fingers played over this and it gave slightly, and as it did the lid loosened and
sprang open with a click revealing three sections inside. In one were a few pinches of red powder, in the next were a few grains of a crystalline substance, and the third had merely a smear of ointment around the bottom edge.

  Could it be that these were some of the precious artefacts themselves? Did they date from the time of Our Lord? Or were they from the time of the translation during the twelfth or thirteenth century? Or from Ficino’s experiments after he had read this tract? He wondered if perhaps when Ficino and earlier alchemists before him had owned these things there had been more of the substances in the box? There was so little in the box that he thought he would surely be the last in the line to experiment with them. If they were truly the gifts that were given to Christ on his birth, that would make them even older, and their origins pre-Christian, as claimed in the manuscript itself. Were they created by Hermetic magic, or Platonic science, or something far older, wilder, pagan, and more mysterious? He could hardly dare to hope that with these treasures he might be able to make gold, talk to the angels, or heal an open wound.

  He would experiment . . .

  Ω

  John Dee’s experiments in transmuting base metal into gold, mainly in central Europe through much of the 1580s, all proved unsuccessful. When he returned to his home in Mortlake, London, in 1589, it was to find his library and laboratory largely destroyed and many of his books and manuscripts stolen. There is no record of the Marsilio Ficino documents surviving. It is possible that as books and documents from Dee’s ransacked library were dispersed and resold, this account eventually came into the hands of a priest or monk who, seeing its significance and the danger of its story sowing doubts about the historical basis of Christianity, sent it to the Vatican for safe-keeping.

  No box was found in the Vaults with this document.

  The sixteenth century was the heyday of alchemical research by Hermetic philosophers (the forerunners of both the non-existent Rosicrucian Brotherhood and the real Royal Society). Fake documents abounded. It is quite possible that the document about the three gifts, ‘a copy of a copy of a translation of another far more ancient manuscript’, was in its entirety little older than Dee himself; if it was older, then it might have dated from the twelfth or thirteenth century, as Ficino’s preparatory remarks suggest from the writing style. Or it could, as it claims, date back to the earliest centuries of Christianity, whether or not its core story by a friend of ‘Joshua’ ever happened. The writer’s casual Anti-Semitism in assuming that the Jewish rather than the Roman authorities were responsible for Jesus’ death could date it equally to the early centuries of Christianity or to medieval or Renaissance times.

  The document’s primary significance to Dr Dee was in its hope of genuine alchemical working, but its deeper significance, whenever it was written, is that its author was proposing, whether allegorically or literally, an alternative explanation for the resurrection of Christ, and thus challenging the very origins of Christianity.

  1591

  This file brings together two quite disparate journals. One is by Dr Richard Barret, President of the English College at Rheims, a Catholic seminary founded at Douai in 1569 which trained English priests, then sent them into England to minister covertly to Catholics. The other is by a fifteen-year-old English girl, Anne Barton. Together they tell a remarkable tale.

  Queen Elizabeth I attempted a difficult compromise during her reign between enforcing religious conformity and allowing freedom of conscience. For example, her parliament made it treason to refuse the oath of supremacy twice, but then Elizabeth would not allow the oath to be asked of anybody more than once.

  We preface excerpts from the two journals with an extract from a letter from Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham.

  Windows into Men’s Hearts

  E. Saxey

  Sir Francis Walsingham to M. Critoy, Secretary of State for France

  I find therefore her majesty’s proceedings to have been grounded upon two principles. The one, that consciences are not to be forced, but to be won and reduced by the force of truth, with the aid of time, and use of all good means of instruction and persuasion.

  . . . her majesty, not liking to make windows into men’s hearts and secret thoughts . . . tempered her laws . . .

  but when, about the twentieth year of her reign, she had discovered in the king of Spain an intention to invade her dominions . . . and after that the seminaries began to blossom, and to send forth daily priests . . . yea, and bind many [English subjects] to attempt against her majesty’s sacred person . . . And because it was a treason carried in the clouds, and in wonderful secrecy, and came seldom to light . . .

  . . . then were there new laws made . . .

  *

  Journal of Dr Richard Barret, President of the English College at Rheims

  1 November 1591

  God be merciful – three more good men taken, in the last six weeks.

  Each of them was asked their profession, by officers, on arrival at a new town. All had rehearsed, with me, the most subtle dissimulations – and yet, all announced the truth! Treacherous truth: that they were priests, come secretly to England to restore the land and its monarch to the true faith.

  All these men were arrested. One has been hanged, winning his soul’s eternal exaltation. One is exiled, one rots in the Marshalsea.

  I do not understand these fits of honesty! The need for equivocation troubles all of us. But these men agreed that some lies might be told in the service of Our Lord – or they pretended to me that they agreed.

  I fear that these men – these novice boys – fix their minds too much on the martyr’s rose, and the glorious deaths of Briant and Campion. Our enemies say our Order delights in wasting the lives of young men. As though we flung them into England like coins down a well, hoping for good fortune.

  I must pray, and not succumb to despair, and recall that others of our Order thrive. One such, Edward Shepherd, was held by an officer of the law. But when questioned by his superior, the officer confessed that Shepherd had done no wrong within his sight, and that he ‘had the look of a good fellow’. Brother Edward was then set free – to preach, to travel, to minister to the faithful. Surely this is Providence?

  *

  Journal of Anne Barton

  1 November 1591

  God protect us, we are to have a priest. Father told us yesterday.

  We have had no priest in ten years – since old Father Rutter – and the laws have tightened a notch every year. Now, to shelter a seminary man means death.

  ‘It is but for a short while,’ Father said. ‘And I will bear all the consequence.’

  That was little comfort! And untrue, for Mother could be taken also, and perhaps our home seized from praemunire. And I as well, despite my youth? I am fifteen years old, and the Bedingfield child was charged with treason at eight. (Might a child not say ‘I hate the Queen’, meaning no more than ‘I hate cabbage’?)

  Mother bit her fist and spoke not. I hid my fear and smiled.

  Our faith has been a private solace to our family. I wish most fervently it had not become the business of Princes.

  *

  3 November

  The priest is here.

  Although he wore rough clothes when he arrived, he was soon dressed in a borrowed velvet doublet, and looked well in it (although he tugged at the collar frequently). He has dark hair and skin quite sallow, and deep-set wary eyes. He walked with Father and me in the courtyard garden.

  The priest said, ‘A beautiful house, sir.’

  ‘It is the cloister of the monastery that once stood here,’ Father replied.

  I know the family story: when the monastery fell, during King Henry’s time, my grandfather applied to purchase a part of it. Grandfather was a true Catholic but a practical man.

  The priest took my father’s hands in his. I noticed the priest’s fingers were somewhat askew. ‘Do your father’s deeds trouble you, Master Barton?’ asked the priest.

  ‘They
do. Where I dine and sleep and raise my daughter, Anne, I know that monks should be praying. I think I hear the Matins bell.’

  He had never said such things before.

  ‘You will not be judged for your father’s actions, but your own,’ said the priest. He released my father’s hands and pulled on a pair of fine calf-skin gloves. I fretted that I had stared at his deformity.

  ‘You must stay as long as you wish with us,’ said Father.

  *

  14 November

  Cheering news: Edward Shepherd is a guest in a house of some standing. He has all good things: a warm home, a horse to travel, and intelligence as to the roads and the dispositions of people. He will do much to kindle the zeal of Catholic families thereabouts, spreading like a fire in stubble.

  And there will be no need for Edward to hide in a sewer, should the house be ransacked by pursuivants: his host has summoned our man Nicholas Owen to build a hiding place.

  *

  14 November

  Owen the builder walked once round our whole house and clapped his hands in pleasure.

  ‘Will it do?’ asked Father.

  ‘Very finely. A house such as this, which has served two purposes, may be made to serve more.’ Owen showed how my grandfather’s work, to make the cloister a private dwelling, had left many hidden nooks and false walls.

  Owen sleeps during the day and the servants call him a sluggard, not knowing he has been cutting all night with a muffled saw.

  The hiding place is a curious work. A double plank of oak forms the door. If a pursuivant should rap on the oak, only a dull note will return to him, as though there is a wall beyond the wood. This weighty plank swings lightly when a certain floor tile is pressed.

  I dislike it. As a child I had dreams where a new door in the house opened to a strange room, and they troubled me more than nightmares. Owen’s work is another clever lie in the service of the truth. The wall is not a wall, the priest puts on the disposition of a gentleman. We are all outward conformity and secret heresy.