The Priests' Code

by B. B. Balthis

  ‘Whenever I see triangles in symbol form I always think of Lithuania. In Vilnius, the capital, they’re everywhere, especially with the eye inside. It’s like being spied on, the ancient version of a security camera. Of course, the Teutonic knights were all over the Baltics. Lithuania and Poland were very powerful rulers in their time, and the crossover of knights during the crusades was well known. I can’t stop thinking about our father, though. What role did he play in all of this, and why do we know so little about him?’

  ‘I was thinking about him last night, too. I’ve known he was my father for some time, and I suppose I saw him about as much as you did, but he feels so distant, even more so than our mother. We need to find out more.’

  ‘When this is over, I’m thinking of going back to Lithuania to do some digging around. There must be something or why so secretive? But then I think I might not like what I find, which is always a possibility.’

  We fell silent for a moment, hearing nothing but the familiar ticking of the clock. What a con time was. When you were young, you were tricked into thinking that you had plenty of it, but in reality, there was almost none. A few breaths, and you were finished. We were fifty-five, and had barely known our parents at all. How could that have happened? I thought about the painted room downstairs. Clearly our parents and grandparents knew of the room, but why were they so adamant that we never see it? Was our mother’s fury that day based on fear, and a desire to protect us from an involvement with something that might, potentially, be dangerous? It certainly hadn’t felt like that at the time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Caro began to run the discs through her fingers, making a solid chinking sound as they fell.

  ‘I don’t think these are coins in the traditional sense. The Templars moved about an awful lot and often used passwords or objects for rites of passage or entry, sometimes to deposit or access money or other things that they needed, like a horse or a boat. I’m pretty sure that this is what they are, but it doesn’t look like they’ve ever been used. Maybe they didn’t have time to circulate them, and hid them somewhere. And, by the way, if you go to Lithuania I’m coming too.’

  ‘Understood. I’ve been thinking about the painted room in the cellar. Someone, a Templar, one assumes, spent quite some time down there. Do you think he was in hiding?’

  ‘I would say that’s very likely,’ she replied. ‘They were horribly persecuted in the end, although many of them did survive in various places around the world. When the king’s men arrived at La Rochelle, the port where the Templar ships were anchored, they were all gone. Every single one. Apparently, quite a few joined up with the Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights. They didn’t just cease to exist, although there certainly seems to have been considerable propaganda spread around that they were entirely annihilated.’

  ‘I have a feeling that we shall find out where the discs originally came from, and maybe more about our parents too, when we get the papers that Hortense has put with her will. Meanwhile, we must keep on trying to work it out for ourselves, and I’ve have had a few ideas.

  ‘I’ve done a lot of research on this house over the years, but it’s been difficult to be exact about dates. I know it was given over as a seminary or abbey of some kind for several hundred years. I also know that the de Nègre, d’Able’s and de Couderc families all intermarried, and were the lords of the manor here in Antugnac and owned the original château that is now, in part, this house. The Coudercs, in particular, had established and well-known Templar connections in the region.

  ‘As you know, the château dates back, in part at least, to the thirteenth century, with some fairly major rebuilding in the early seventeenth century after the wars of religion. I think the cellars below are almost certainly original to the earliest building. It seems quite plausible that a Templar knight or knights would be allowed to hide out here in troubled times, by either the lords or the abbot. I’m almost sure that there would have been a passageway up to the church, and one down to the river, if the directions of the blocked passageways are anything to go by. Imagine being shut down there for days on end, with the marauding king’s men baying for your blood. I should think a spot of painting would be very therapeutic. Seriously, if you thought you were about to die and have all your records destroyed, then leaving messages and documents of a different kind would seem like a very urgent and important thing to do.’

  ‘You’re right. We know that the church here had Templar involvement. The stained-glass window has Templar symbolism, although it doesn’t date to that period, and many of the saints’ statues are the same as the church at Rennes-le-Château, but I’ve come across something much more important than that. I haven’t had time to tell you about it yet. I’ll go and get my papers. Can you give Hortense a quick ring? I’m worried about her.’

  She ran up the stairs, and I called Hortense’s number.

  ‘Ah, hello, Benoît. Are you checking up on me? I’m fine, and I’ve just been polishing up my pistol. Charles got it for me years ago, and I like to be prepared. There’s trouble afoot, which I know is why you’re back here, but please don’t worry about me. Look after yourselves, and stay in that castle of yours. Angeline will be back this evening.’

  ‘Please, Hortense, let me come and fetch you, and bring you here. And I’m not sure you should have a gun. Have you got a licence? Do you know how to handle it?’

  ‘My dear boy, I was active in the Resistance against the Nazis for the whole of the war, and I’m not sorry to say that I shot quite a few of the bastards, although nowhere near enough for my liking. And I won’t come there. This is my home, and this is where I’m staying.’

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to convince her otherwise, and rang off, promising to call later. I was worried about the gun though. I was sure that she had been a great shot all those years ago, but she was ninety-two! I told Caro about my conversation when she came back down.

  ‘Oh, she’s always had guns. I’ve got one too. Charles always had guns and taught me how to shoot, and I came out with you and grandfather many times. I did a fair bit of training a few years back when you were abroad, and I’ve kept up my licence. I still think of my real father as Charles, you know, and I always will. He was a good man, and I’ve no regrets at all about growing up in that household rather than here. Let’s call Hortense again later when Angeline’s there.’

  She put a pile of papers on the table.

  ‘I knew you’d done some shooting, but had no idea you still kept a gun. Mine’s in the safe if you need it, cleaned and ready to go. You know the code. Well, you’re still able to surprise me, you and Hortense. I like a nice quiet, simple life!’

  ‘You could have fooled me. There isn’t much about your life that’s simple and never has been. Quite the opposite, in fact. Perhaps you’re more like our parents than you think, addicted to danger and intrigue.’

  ‘Do you really think so? Until recently, I never even considered it, but maybe you’re right.’

  ‘There’s no maybe about it! Anyway, let’s not go there now… let’s go through this. I’ll start with the Rennes-le-Château stuff first. There’s loads of it, but I’ll stick to the most important bits. Get comfortable, Ben. This could take quite a bit of time.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ‘I think we’re in agreement about a lot of the hype that’s around. Dossiers, maps, faked documents, treasure trails, and implied codes so complex that no one can decipher them. That’s because there is no code to decipher. People have been set up, I’m convinced of it. Smokescreens and mirrors to send them on an array of random wild goose chases and deflect from what is right in front of their eyes. I think there are several organisations involved in doing this, either separately or jointly. The Church and worldwide governments are at the top of the list, but I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I do see that there may be concerns about world order if the basis of Christ
ianity were disproved, but essentially I believe that money, power, and control are the main driving forces in trying to maintain the status quo.’

  ‘Agreed, but many people might not want to believe it, even with hard evidence, you do realise that? And even if there was evidence that shattered everything that so many people base their lives on, would you want that responsibility? I’m not sure.’

  ‘People can construct whatever reality they want, Ben; they always have. What I simply cannot accept is a pack of lies being fed to millions of people across the world. It’s wrong, and nothing so far has convinced me otherwise.’ She passed me a sheaf of papers, and twisted her long, curly blond hair into a knot on the top of her head.

  * * *

  ‘Right. I’m going to start with Dame Marie de Nègre. Could you get me some water, please?’ She waited until I had sat back down.

  ‘She and her gravestone are central to the story that Saunière left to be deciphered. She was the last of the nobility to live in Rennes-le-Château, outliving her husband by some twenty-eight years. There were no surviving male heirs, although she had several daughters that she didn’t get on with. Abbé Antione Bigou was the priest at the time of her death in 1781, and it was he who had her gravestone made and placed in the churchyard. The inscription is bizarre to say the least, and you and I have looked at it numerous times and not made any sense of it.

  ‘I was beginning to think it was all another con. An assumption was made that her tomb was below it, and why wouldn’t anyone think that? No tomb for her has ever been found, though, and she certainly wasn’t placed in the crypt with the rest of her husband’s family, since it had been sealed by then. There was probably a headstone as well, and my theory is that the upright cross on Saunière’s original grave may well be hers. The inverted N on the INRI would fit in with that, quite literally symbolising a turnaround of the truth. The “supposed” Priory of Sion documents that were leaked about the inscription on another stone were nothing but fakes. It wouldn’t surprise me if money had changed hands at that point, and the documents were put out solely as a diversion. Eventually, the men involved admitted it was rubbish. They’re all dead now anyway.’ She took a long drink of the water, ice cubes chinking against the sides of the glass.

  ‘I totally believe that she told Bigou about various secrets that had been held within her family over the centuries. I think he did his best and hid parchments and various other things for her. Quite rightly, he felt the need to leave information and messages for those who would follow him, or it might all be lost forever. Hence the bizarre tombstone.’

  ‘I agree with you so far, but it’s important to remember that Marie’s nobility wasn’t just from her marriage. As I said earlier, her family were lords of the manor here in Antugnac and other surrounding areas for centuries. It’s known that the Cathars lived and worked here, and when Montfort and his crew arrived to take over, the people of Antugnac refused to be ruled by him and senior officials became involved.’

  ‘OK, noted. A few years on, and there were troubled times ahead with the French Revolution. Bigou decided to go into hiding, as so many clergy did at that time, possibly to Spain. It’s likely that Bigou left further information hidden in the church around the time that he left, and it would certainly make sense if he did. Enter the journal, and de Clare and William Harcourt.

  ‘If we run with the belief that the journal is a record of events at that time, then they too were concerned about what might happen to the documents and secrets. It’s possible that the old tombstone was replaced with the coded one then, but I’m fairly sure that even if it was, Bigou left information of his own. Either way, whoever wrote it was no Pythagoras but, given the fact that no one yet has worked it out, they did quite well. Of course, I say no one has deciphered it yet. I have. In the end, it was easy.’

  She paused, and drank more water. It was mid-morning, and the sun streamed in through the open doors and windows, with the promise of a very hot day. I went to speak, but she raised her hand in a gesture not dissimilar to that of Hortense.

  ‘Hear me out, and I’ll show you how it works… it’s all about the oddities in the script, each one being part of the clue. I started at the top and then made the word from the random letters, like an anagram.’ She handed me a piece of paper with the inscription of Marie de Nègre’s gravestone on it.

  The letter T is missing from the name HAUTPOUL

  T

  The capital E after NEGRE is smaller than the rest.

  E

  The M from Marie is standing out on its own

  M

  The letter P from SEPT is below the word and small

  P

  The letter L is from NOBLE because the letter e is in lower case. So you go back to the letter before

  L

  The I in CATIN is in the wrong place. It should read ‘REQUIESCAT IN’ PACE

  I

  The E from DE is smaller than the rest

  E

  The R in DARLES is wrong. It should be B

  R

  The S from the REQUIES is wrong. It should be REQUIESCAT

  S

  ‘TEMPLIERS… Templars. It was that easy, and the more I looked, the more I found. Bigou and any helpers he had, perhaps Harcourt and de Clare, were smarter than I first thought. In the general text, I can also find Marie Magdalene, Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, and, get this one, “Jesus n’a pas mourir sur la croix.” Jesus didn’t die on the cross. That’s particularly interesting considering what he wrote in the church records just before he fled. “Jesus de galilee n’est point icy,” Jesus of Galilee is not here, over and over again.

  ‘Now, if he was telling someone that Jesus wasn’t there, he wouldn’t write ‘Jesus de Galilee.’ As a priest, he, and everyone else locally knew full well who Jesus was. I suspect that what he did was copy something that was told to him, or that had been written by someone else from a long time ago; I’m sure of it. I’m not sure about the spelling of ici with a ‘y,’ but maybe they used both then? Either way, wherever he got it from, it shocked him enough to feel the need to write it down. Anyway, that phrase is written on Marie’s tombstone as well, using an I, not a Y. And “Antugnac” is written backwards, using letters from the bottom two lines, and the top two lines. 2+2 = 22, which is a common denominator in Rennes-le-Château.’

  * * *

  ‘And there’s more again. The word Croux and Croix is written all over the text if you look for it. Even more importantly, Chappelle de Croix.’

  ‘OK, I get all of that. Clever old Bigou, and clever you too. All that from a few words on a gravestone. But that last bit, Croux and Chappelle de Croix? What’s that about?’ She got up and began to walk around the room.

  ‘The area of Croux is just up the road, and part of Antugnac. The Rue des Templiers is in Croux. The little church, Chappelle de Croix? It’s in the Rue de Templiers, in Croux. The word Croux isn’t French… its most likely origin is Occitan. The Templars used Occitan, of course, and a mixture of languages too. And the Occitan cross is now used to represent a Templar cross. There’s an ancient Templar-style cross on the top of the chapel that has a more recent date on it now, but that was added later. The original building is now a ruin, but is believed to have Templar connections.’

  ‘I do know that, a few years ago, a major archaeological dig discovered it to have a Mikveh, a pool for Jewish ritual bathing, dating back to at least the third century, which confirms without doubt that a Jewish community was there at that time. Croux was certainly known to have been a very important place over the past
few hundred years. In the nineteenth century, it raised its head as a place of historical interest and then died back down again, especially after the arrival of Saunière.’

  Caro nodded. ‘That’s right, and I’ve wondered if Marie was buried there, somewhere near the Mikveh, or in the little chapel or its grounds. I believe bodies were found there when they did the dig and don’t doubt that someone else had thoughts about her being up there too. I think Antugnac church was stripped around the same time. It certainly sounds like someone was looking for something. Moving on, the de Fleurys married into the Hautpoul/Blanchefort family too, but I’ll come back to that.’

  ‘When we can, let’s go and have a look… I haven’t been up there for years. I’m beginning to see how Harcourt and de Clare might fit in now. The journal on its own is historically very interesting, but the problems lie with the parchments coming along at the same time.’

  ‘You’re right, Ben. It was bad luck, but on the other hand maybe not. Last night, I kept thinking about what Hortense said, about luck being a question of attitude. Maybe we need to change our mindset?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘The parchments, and I’m making the assumption that they’re not forgeries, the painted room, the journal, our old research, and my new discoveries; they all confirm what I already believe about Mary and Jesus being here in France, and Jesus not dying on the cross. It’s a story that’s been around for hundreds of years anyway. I’ve still got a fair bit to tell you, but the very fact that so much interest has been stirred up by the parchments and journal, adds weight to the theory.’