by C. M. Palov
‘Actually, it explains a longstanding mystery,’ he informed her. ‘In the Hadith, which is the collected sayings of the prophet Muhammad, Jesus is referred to as the “Prince of Travelers”. Anyone who’s ever seen a map of the Holy Land knows that the journey between Galilee and Jerusalem hardly warrants such a noteworthy title.’
‘So why isn’t Jesus called the “Prince of Travelers” in the New Testament?’
One side of Caedmon’s mouth twisted in a caustic sneer. ‘Because in the third and fourth centuries, the Church Fathers carefully cultivated the image that they wanted us to have of Jesus.’
Edie shook her head, angered by the centuries-old deception. ‘What do you wanna bet that it was the Church Fathers who concocted the myth about Jesus building furniture with Joseph in the carpentry shop?’
‘Oddly enough, it’s a myth grounded in the truth. Just a moment . . . I need to retrieve my Aramaic dictionary.’ Gripping the arms of his chair, Caedmon pushed himself to his feet and walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases on the other side of the study. Hands on hips, he perused several rows before pulling the wheeled ladder to the center case.
A few moments later, he walked back to the club chair, a leather-bound volume tucked under his arm. ‘Keeping in mind that Aramaic was the language spoken by Jesus and his disciples, the Aramaic word naggar, which was used to describe Jesus, has two distinctly different definitions.’ Retaking his seat, Caedmon balanced the heavy dictionary on top of his legs and flipped through the yellowed pages. ‘Ah! Here it is. The first definition is a carpenter or woodworker. However, the second meaning of the word naggar is a learned man. Given that Jesus studied with religious teachers from the age of six to twenty-nine, he was a scholar by anyone’s definition.’ Point made, he closed the dictionary and set it on a side table. ‘The Church does not want the Faithful to know that Jesus was influenced by the ancient Eastern religions.’
Putting her wine glass down, Edie drew her knees up to her chest. ‘I actually think that the Evangelium Gaspar can bring the world religions closer together by uniting the East and the West,’ she ventured tentatively.
‘Interestingly, the Knights Templar believed the very same thing.’ Straightening his spine, Caedmon reached for his coffee mug. He took a few sips before saying, ‘Two days ago when we were at Casa de Pinós, the Marqués de Bagá mentioned a doctrine known as the Prisca Theologia. Do you happen to recall the conversation?’
‘Not really.’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry. Everything that happened two days ago is a mashed-up jumble.’
Caedmon gave a commiserating nod. ‘A Prisca Theologia, or pristine theology, is a religious concept that presumes there is one pure and fundamental belief that originated from the pre-eminent Divinity. That belief was then woven into all of the world’s religions. A common thread, as it were.’
‘In other words, a universal path to God,’ Edie murmured, intrigued.
‘To derive the Prisca Theologia, the Templars knew that the layers of ritual, dogma and orthodoxy that had been heaped upon Jesus’ original teachings by the Church Fathers had to be stripped away.’ Leaning forward in his chair, Caedmon rested his elbows on top of his thighs, his hands steepled together. ‘I can only presume that the Knights Templar sought the Evangelium Gaspar because they’d hoped it contained the Prisca Theologia. Alas, they paid a heavy price for their beliefs,’ he added solemnly.
‘It’s as though the Church doesn’t want us to be one big, happy, harmonious family.’
Caedmon snorted derisively. ‘I rather doubt that they do. Particularly since Jesus’ teachings were hijacked by ambitious fourth-century bishops hell-bent on creating “a religion”, an institution by which and through which they could maintain and exert power over the congregants. And they have zealously held on to that power ever since. Even in our own day and age, one doesn’t have to look far to see what a callous lot they can be.’
Edie could hear the fury building, Caedmon having quickly gone from blasé to slow simmer to rip-roaring boil.
‘Through heavy-handed editing, forgery, repressive censorship and purposefully omitting eighteen years of Jesus’ life from the gospel accounts, the Church Fathers cobbled together the divine Son of God, the Gentile Jesus of Nazareth,’ he continued. ‘They then set themselves up as the intermediaries through whom one must pass in order to have communion with this divine savior.’
‘Giving them all of the power.’ Like so many people, Edie took comfort in reading the New Testament. But she now wondered which passages were factual and which were some ancient bishop’s flight of fancy. ‘So, in other words, we’re talking about a major religious conspiracy and subsequent cover-up.’
‘That is precisely what occurred.’ Caedmon paused, his chest heaving with the force of his emotions. ‘Yeshua’s mission was to enlighten the world with a doctrine centered on love, compassion and tolerance. Too often, the Vatican pays lip service to that spiritual triune while acting in an overtly aggressive manner. Theirs is a long and ruthless history of eradicating anyone who didn’t practice the Catholic faith. Europe, India, the New World, the list is endless.’
‘But the Evangelium Gaspar contains vitally important information about the most important man in history,’ Edie insisted, certain that Buddhists, Hindus and open-minded Christians, once they all got past their initial shock, would be excited by the gospel’s contents.
Caedmon rose to his feet and carried the Aramaic dictionary back to the bookcase. ‘Since Cardinal Franco Fiorio undoubtedly intends to use the Evangelium Gaspar to blackmail the upcoming conclave, the gospel will probably never see the light of day.’
‘Then we have to stop him!’ she exclaimed.
Abruptly spinning round, Caedmon shot her a silencing stare. ‘To do so would endanger Anala’s life,’ he rasped through clenched teeth. ‘Cardinal Fiorio can drag the Church down in flames for all I care. A fitting end, I might add. God knows that they tossed enough innocents on to the bonfire.’ Scowling, he checked his wristwatch. ‘Enough said on the topic. I need to call Gita and give her an update before we leave.’
58
Fort Cochin, India
‘– and I uncovered documentary evidence which proves that Jesus did visit India when he was young man,’ Gita informed Caedmon and Edie, having just called them back via Skype. ‘Corroborating what Gaspar wrote in his gospel account.’
After she’d examined the translated text of the first two plates that Caedmon emailed to her, Gita had done a quick fact check. Surprised by what she’d discovered, she’d immediately phoned to apprise him of the startling find.
Seated beside Caedmon, Edie scooted a few inches closer to the computer monitor. ‘What kind of evidence are we talking about?’ she asked, wide-eyed.
‘There’s a lengthy mention of Jesus in the ancient Hindu scripture known as the Bhavishyat Maha Purana.’
Caedmon thoughtfully tapped an index finger against his chin. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Puranas describe the history and mythology of the Hindu pantheon, don’t they?’
‘That’s correct. In this particular Purana, written around the year 115 AD, verses seventeen to thirty-two describe an encounter between Jesus and an Aryan king called Salivahana.’
‘Fascinating,’ Caedmon murmured as he scribbled the details on to a sheet of paper.
‘So, what happened during this encounter?’
Having anticipated Edie’s query, Gita reached across her desk for the text from which she’d mined the astonishing revelation. ‘Since the passage is rather lengthy, I’m only going to translate the pertinent details.’ Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, she slipped on a pair of glasses before reading aloud: ‘“The king asked the teacher, ‘Who are you?’ To which the young man replied, ‘I am the teacher of the true religion. Because our souls are torn between good and evil, a man can only attain a state of purity by speaking the truth, worshiping the immovable Lord, and living in harmony with all of life. I preach these principles and thus I
am known as Isha-Masiha.’”’
Finished reading, Gita closed the text and removed her glasses.
‘Of course, you know the follow-up question,’ Caedmon said on cue. ‘What does “Isha-Masiha” mean?’
Gita paused a moment before replying, ‘It means “Jesus the Messiah”.’
‘Wow,’ Edie murmured, her eyes having got a tad rounder. ‘Why don’t Christians know about this?’
‘I presume for the very same reason that the Church doesn’t want anyone to know about the Evangelium Gaspar.’ Wrapping her hands around the cup of chai that she’d brewed, Gita stared at the untouched beverage.
When the archaeology team had first excavated the Maharaja plate from the silt at the ancient port of Muziris, the curatorial staff at the Cultural Museum had been ecstatic. Other than Marco Polo’s epic journey, there was little evidence of European travel to India during the Middle Ages.
Certain that the discovery, and subsequent publication of the find, would mean career advancement, Gita had insisted on conducting the historical research herself rather than delegating the laborious task to a junior curator. Riding high on accolades not yet earned, she’d contacted the Vatican Secret Archives to request information pertaining to Fortes de Pinós, the knight mentioned by name on the Maharaja plate. Little did she know that her communiqué would incite a religious firestorm, someone on the receiving end wrongly believing that she knew the whereabouts of the long-lost Evangelium Gaspar.
And because of that damning email, Gita had unwittingly placed her daughter in great peril.
Anala’s abduction is my fault entirely. If I’d not been so ambitious and –
Feeling the sting of bitter tears, Gita self-consciously turned away from her laptop.
‘Gita, I need you to look at me,’ Caedmon urged in a quiet tone of voice.
Embarrassed by her loss of composure, Gita hastily raised a fold of her linen sari, dabbing at the telltale tears. Braving the monitor, she saw that Edie Miller was no longer in the camera frame. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just that the ransom is due tomorrow at twelve noon and I’m terrified that –’
‘Very shortly, I shall have the third plate,’ Caedmon said over her. ‘Rest assured that this nightmare will soon be over.’
Comforted by his assurance, she unthinkingly blurted out, ‘You must believe me, Caedmon, when I say that years ago I wish that I had – Call me as soon as you can,’ she said abruptly, some things better left unsaid.
‘I will.’
An instant later, Caedmon’s image blipped off the screen. Shoulders slumping, Gita closed her laptop.
Stay strong, daughter! Your father is on the way.
59
Anala Patel flipped off the flashlight to conserve the battery, instantly plunging the subterranean prison into an ebony darkness
‘Welcome to Bleak House,’ she muttered. Having hit the depths of despair, her emotional control was fragile at best.
Waking up from her drugged sleep, she’d been terrified to find herself locked in a small cellar. Approximately three meters by five meters, the underground burrow had a hard-packed dirt floor and stone walls which were lined with empty shelves. Once upon a time it had been used for storage, but given the surfeit of dust and old cobwebs, she assumed that had been eons ago. There were no windows or electric lights, the lack of which was depressing beyond words. A condemned woman, she had nothing to warm the cockles of her heart save for a scratchy wool blanket, a plastic jug of water, a can of raw almonds and several packets of dried fruit. No bed. And no toilet.
Heartless monsters!
In Hinduism, every living thing – every creature, tree, stone and blade of grass – was imbued with divinity. But where was the divinity in this? This was hell on earth. A death sentence.
‘“To be or not to be,”’ she muttered, wondering why her captors even bothered to supply her with food and water.
Perhaps it’d been done to alleviate the priest’s guilt. And how absolutely bizarre was that? A priest masterminding her abduction in order to obtain some ancient gospel? That her mother was involved in the plot was beyond surreal.
Confined to the murky dungeon, her sense of time had slipped away. The fact that her hands and feet weren’t manacled indicated that her captors were confident she couldn’t escape. And they were right. She’d spent an excruciating amount of time crawling on her hands and knees with the flashlight, examining every square inch of the bunker. The only point of egress was through a trapdoor that she surmised had been secured on the other side with a heavy chain. There wasn’t a tincture of hope that she’d be able to escape her new prison.
Huddled on the dirt floor, Anala propped her back against the stone wall. Pulling her arms and legs against her chest, she rested her cheek on top of her knees. She struggled mightily to hold back the flood of tears as her thoughts drifted into decidedly morbid territory, going through a mental checklist of what would happen once she died. Somewhat crazily, she imagined the backlog of emails that would never be answered.
Ping, ping, ping. You have mail.
Silly thought. Or was it? Since she’d never written down her passwords, no one would be able to access her email accounts. And while her friends and acquaintances would eventually be apprised of her death, spam and junk mail would be piling up, unopened and –
Oh, sod it.
Utterly forlorn, she suffered from an existential dread. And who wouldn’t? She had enough food and water to last for only a few days. Once her meager supplies were depleted, this miserable hole in the ground would become her final resting place. Buried alive in a dark womb room.
How ironic, since her hopeless predicament had something to do with her mother and the father she’d never met. A man named Caedmon Aisquith.
Bloody bastard, she railed silently, thinking him as good a person as any to blame.
When she was younger, she’d missed having a father in her life. But now she didn’t know what she’d do with one, quite frankly. At her age, ‘dear old dad’ seemed rather superfluous. However, it did explain why her mother never spoke of the past, as though the family history was a crate of eggs that she was terrified of smashing. Because of that, Anala had never been able to knit her life together in a tidy narrative. There were gaping holes in the story. Still were. Just not as many as before.
Thinking of her mother, Anala envisioned her dressed in a cotton sari, carrying a plateful of flowers – jasmine, hibiscus and pavizhamalli, her favorite night flower. When she was a young child, her mother had explained to her that plants and flowers had a special energy that could express the contents of one’s heart.
Such a lovely memory.
Overcome with emotion, Anala sniffled loudly, causing those bits and bobs of memory to scatter like frightened tadpoles.
There are so many things that I need to ask my mother. So many things that I should have said but didn’t.
Since she had no flowers to give to her mother to convey what was in her heart, Anala pulled her hands close together, moving her thumbs over an imaginary keypad. Knowing how Gita loathed emoticons and anything that smacked of an abbreviation or acronym, she ‘typed’ out the message in its entirety. Even going so far as to include proper punctuation. While the digital device was a figment of her imagination, the sentiment of the message had never been so keenly felt.
‘I love you, Amma.’
Tears puddling at the corners of her eyes, Anala hit the ‘Send’ button.
60
Paris, France
0445h
Caedmon raised the ceiling hatch. ‘Tread gently,’ he cautioned. ‘We don’t want to awaken the occupants below.’
Who would undoubtedly freak out if they thought there were two burglars prowling on the apartment rooftop, Edie mused. A case of mistaken identity to be sure. But try telling that to the Paris Metropolitan police.
While they weren’t looters with sacks full of plunder, she and Caedmon were trying to make a getaway, the roof
the only point of egress where they could exit the apartment building undetected. Hector Calzada and his sullen-faced sidekick had been keeping a vigilant eye on the building entrance since they’d returned from St Germain-des-Prés, taking turns manning the courtyard below.
Edie held on to the steel service ladder anchored into the wall of the upper-story hallway as she popped her head through the hatch opening. Above her, the stars in the night sky twinkled in the firmament. Almost immediately the celestial lights induced an onslaught of vertigo, the stars appearing to spin like tops on steroids.
Buck up! It’s just an illusion.
‘All in my mind,’ Edie murmured to herself, repeating the ‘buck up’ mantra a few more times to stiffen her resolve.
Mentally shoving her anxiety aside, she scrambled through the opening. Too much was at stake for her to suffer a panic attack. She’d trekked in the Himalayas, scaled climbing walls and even hiked to Machu Piccu without incident. However, there was something about being on top of a building that always gave her the heebie-jeebies. Why rooftops should prompt such extreme anxiety, she had no idea. Rooftop entertaining was popular in Washington DC and she’d had to give a stammering excuse to more than one hostess when she’d been forced to make an abrupt party exit, having succumbed to severe vertigo.
Other than bulky vents and one or two skylights, there was nothing of interest on the rooftop. Farther afield, the lights of Paris gleamed. A million plus glow-worms illuminating the urban landscape. Although Edie knew that it wasn’t physically possible, it felt like every hair follicle on her body was standing on end. She swayed slightly, her heart racing.
‘Are you all right, love?’ Knowing that she suffered from vertigo, Caedmon solicitously grasped her by the elbow.
‘I’m fine.’ Edie shot him a shaky smile . . . even as she envisioned herself plunging off the side of the apartment building. She was, as the saying went, whistling in the graveyard. Trying desperately to keep the ghosts at bay.