TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel

by Adriana Koulias

‘Actually, I have been wondering about the name the old monk kept calling out . . . the name . . .’

  ‘Sorath?’

  ‘A strange name. I’ve never heard it before, but it seemed to inspire such fear.’

  ‘Of course you’ve heard it! The man himself told us as much; he is the sun demon.’

  ‘So he is like a devil?’

  ‘His name comes from the Greek vernacular, and so he is a pagan devil more wretched than Satan or Lucifer, we are told.’

  ‘But I thought there was only one evil one?’

  ‘Evil wears many faces, dear boy, like a body with many limbs through which works the one infernal intelligence.’ My master smiled and I was afraid for his immortal soul.

  ‘Don’t look at me that way . . . I smile because here we have found another piece to our puzzle, like a hilt to a sword, it fits perfectly, that is all!’

  ‘Another piece?’

  ‘Sorath is a Gnostic devil, this is well

  known.’

  And so it did not surprise me that I did not know it, for very often what he mistook for common knowledge was simply not so.

  ‘And how do you know about him, master?’ I ventured, perhaps a little impudently.

  ‘I make it my business to know many things!’ he fired at me. ‘Now, stop asking me stupid questions, for you are interrupting the flow of my thoughts . . .’ He cupped his beard in one hand and supported his arm with the other. For all his bad mood, he appeared to be well pleased. But I, dear reader, was miserable, because I could not forget the look on the old monk’s face in that final moment; a face filled with so much pain that it seemed close to immense pleasure.

  ‘Also,’ he broke through my meditations, ‘did you not hear what he said?’

  ‘What he said?’

  ‘By the sword of Saladin, boy, where are your wits?’ he cried and his voice reverberated in the holy room, ‘Did you not hear these words, ‘They will not find the one . . .’?’

  ‘But the who one, master?’

  ‘Well, how should I know?’ He seemed at the point of exasperation. ‘It is not significant that we know whom, for that will come when we have discovered where and when, and this where could quite possibly be the cuniculus . . .’ Seeing my blank face, he said, ‘Come boy . . . the tunnel . . .’

  ‘What tunnel?’

  ‘If you had been asleep you might have a plausible excuse – though it would still be a poor one – for this lapse in observation. But as you were awake I must conclude that you were stupefied.’

  ‘I’m sorry, master, but it all happened so suddenly and even if I had heard what he said, I would still not have understood it. What tunnel?’

  ‘Precisely. That is what we must find out. It is again as I thought. There are tunnels under this abbey . . .’ he muttered, ‘tunnels . . .’

  I nodded, feeling ashamed at not having come to the same conclusion.

  Andre added, ‘He also said something about a widow being wise . . .’ ‘But what has a widow to do with a monastery?’ ‘It points to a sect called the Manicheans.’ ‘The who?’

  ‘A sect led by Manes, known in the early centuries as the ‘son of a widow’. Cathars, my boy, believe in Manichean ideals – in other words, heresy. The inquisitor was right about one thing, our dead brother spoke like a heretic.’ ‘So we know then, master, that there are heretics here, and that there are also tunnels in which, perhaps, some are hidden?’ ‘You have made up for your lack of wits! Yes, that’s it . . . for now that is what we know.’ I nodded a little pleased, though, to be honest, I remained confused.

  We made our way through the stalls to that which had previously been occupied by the dead brother. Here, on the ground where the poor man fell, there remained a little pool of brownish fluid.

  ‘And the note?’ I asked, looking away, trying not to imagine what it was like to die such an agonising death, ‘Do you think it has anything to do with the brother’s death?’

  My master seemed to ignore me, and began his inspection by picking up a small something, which I could not quite see. ‘Raisins.’ He sniffed it. ‘Old men are always eating raisins, it helps to restore the saliva . . . Now to answer your question: all things are possible in the beginning. Let us progress through our chain of causes, we shall then be in a better position to say many more things with confidence. If the poor monk was murdered, the question we must ask ourselves is why? The note read that he who seeks the light of knowledge dies in ignorance. What could this mean? Let us ruminate. Could it mean that our Brother Ezekiel was a seeker of knowledge? Or did he merely die in ignorance? Perhaps he sought the light of knowledge because he was going blind, or he may have been in possession of a knowledge that someone wants to keep in the dark? Only the abbot knew that we were about to ask him questions.’

  ‘So the abbot is a suspect, then?’

  ‘Right now, it is as though we were a good distance away from a friend, and in our eagerness we run to him and call out his name…’

  ‘Only to find that he is not our friend at all, but one who bears a likeness to him.. .’

  ‘So you remember Plato, well done! We will have deceived ourselves, because we were looking only at the general things, which, from a distance, are only ill defined; his height, his weight, the colour of his hair, so on. And not at the particulars which, on closer inspection, reveal his nose, eyes, the peculiar turn of his mouth. You see, from a distance, he could be anyone. And that is how we must think, until we come closer. We will then see with clarity, that is, one step at a time. Sometimes, however, one can see better from a distance, and at other times it is preferable if the object of our attention comes to us. Remember to follow outward signs is to be like the captive in a cave who believes the shadows cast by a fire to be the real world and not what lies above and outside the cave. So, as captives we must allow the nature of things to tell us their secrets. That means that we must listen carefully, and reserve our judgements for a later time. At any rate, at this stage all we see is a man who is not a man but a eunuch, throwing a stone that is not a stone, but a pumice-stone, at a bird that is not a bird, but a bat, sitting on a twig that is not a twig, but a reed!’

  ‘You mean nothing is what it seems?’

  ‘Precisely.’ He bent over and retrieved something from the ground beneath the seat. He inspected it, ‘Another raisin . . .’

  ‘Do you think it was the inquisitor, then?’

  ‘Hm?’ My master looked up from his kneeling position. ‘The inquisitor? The inquisitor what? What are you saying now?’ He bellowed.

  ‘Do you think he wrote the note?’

  ‘Why should he have written it?’ He continued looking about beneath the seats. I looked away, for it did not seem a very dignified position for a master.

  ‘Because he does not want our interference.’ I answered, ‘he may have been warning us not to meddle in the inquiry.’

  ‘Whoever wrote the note is clever, for he has a command of Greek, and the inquisitor knows no Greek at all, not having recognised my vulgar use of it at the dinner table this evening. No, I’ll wager five hundred Saracen ducats that someone is playing a little game with us.’

  ‘So, the librarian? Brother Macabus?’

  ‘It is possible,’ he nodded, ‘because he has a good command of the language, however, we must not discount the possibility that there might be others who know Greek. I suspect that the author of our little note would not have been so imprudent as to announce his identity in such an obvious way. Then there is Setubar . . . but he cannot use his hands, have you seen them? They are so gnarled that he cannot pick up a spoon, let alone a quill . . .’

  ‘Why Greek, then?’

  ‘That is a good question. Perhaps the author wanted only those who knew Greek to understand it?’

  ‘Perhaps he did so, master,’ I added, ‘to throw suspicion on the librarian?’

  ‘Perhaps . . . though monks are rarely so clever in matters of intrigue. Now help me up.’ I held out a hand to him and he took i
t. I knew his knees caused him endless suffering. ‘Damn the Count of Artois to the bowels of hell for ruining my legs!’ he said breathlessly, then, after a moment of recovery, ‘Now, we shall hunt for tunnels, there must be catacombs somewhere down there.’

  ‘Tonight?’ I inquired, hoping that I sounded calm.

  ‘There must be a crypt. A ghastly cold place . . . no, not tonight. My knees are frozen stiff and also, Asa awaits us in the infirmary.’

  And so saying, we left the church, stepping out into the cold cloister, and made our way to the aperture. We found, however, that we could not exit through it because it was locked, so we tried the kitchen door. It was open. My master ventured to the larder from which he emerged holding two carrots, one of which he (most graciously) handed to me. Taking an audible bite of it, he tried the door that led to the garden, but it had been locked from the inside, forcing us to enter the church once more and exit through the north transept door which was customarily open throughout the night.

  ‘Strange that the cookhouse has one door locked and not the other . . .’ my master said, thinking out loud as he chewed.

  The night was cold, but the sky was dotted with flickering stars. I noticed high above in the dormitorium the circa or night monk making his rounds and it occurred to me that his life must be very lonely, for he must pass the endless hours of the night alone, saying psalms. A moment later we entered the cheering warmth of the infirmary to see that Brother Asa had already begun his gruesome investigation by washing the body. Sitting a little way off, near a large fire of smouldering embers, was old Setubar. Everything in the room seemed moulded by his venerable will, including his pupil. But the old man’s face, so often sour and impassive, beamed in a benevolent smile as he offered me a place beside him, and I wondered what had occasioned his sudden good humour.

  ‘What have you found, Asa?’ my master asked almost immediately, carrot in hand.

  The man looked up myopically from his work, a deep scowl creasing his thin face. ‘Nothing. I find nothing.’

  ‘Well then, the poor man must have died of excitement,’ my master concluded, ‘and yet I can see why you look troubled.’

  ‘You can? I mean . . . I do?’ the infirmarian asked, as bewildered as I.

  ‘Yes, of course, and I cannot say that I blame you.’

  ‘No? But . . .’ Asa looked to his master Setubar for guidance. ‘I do not understand, preceptor? You have not even seen the body?’

  ‘I do not need to see it, brother, to know that you have a problem.’

  ‘I do?’

  ‘Of course. You have a problem, a most unfortunate, puzzling one, because you know that the symptoms this corpse displayed in the throes of death coincide precisely with death by poisoning.’

  The man was shocked into silence and my master savoured his next words. ‘A problem . . . and yet at this point we must be prudent, my dear colleague.’

  ‘Prudent?’

  ‘Yes, Asa,’ the old man broke in, in the solemn way of Germans. ‘The Templar preceptor, who is also a respected doctor as you know, is displaying wisdom. We cannot be certain, and so we must be very circumspect, for we do not wish to alarm our community nor disturb the inquiry with foolish assumptions.’

  Asa’s eyes held the old man’s gaze for a moment. ‘Master, perhaps . . .’

  ‘Nonsense!’ the old man exclaimed with authority, ‘The monk was old, it was time he died, perhaps his heart ceased to beat?’

  My master sensed that he had stirred up something between the two men, and this pleased him, for he took another bite and chewed his carrot smiling. ‘Brother Setubar, you were the infirmarian before Brother Asa?’ he asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  The old man eyed Andre with a great, unreserved suspicion. ‘I held this esteemed position for many years, though I did not particularly relish it. Now I am enjoying the accomplishments of my pupil, though he still needs a little guidance.’

  ‘Was it you then that amassed this fine collection of simples?’ he asked, investigating the shelves crowded with vials, earthenware pots, and jars of thick glass in which various coloured powders were distinguished by labels in strange vernaculars. He stopped more than once to investigate further, picking one out from the rest, opening its lid, and sniffing its contents.

  ‘A small, though comprehensive, collection that you might find interesting,’ the man said a little proudly, suddenly unguarded. ‘Some were gifts from pilgrims travelling from every part of the known world, as repayment for lodgings and food.’

  ‘And what lies behind this door?’ my master pointed with his carrot to an aperture on the far wall to one side of the fire.

  The infirmarian, without glancing up from his work, answered, ‘The chapel, preceptor.’

  I knew it was common practice for monasteries to have a small chapel near the infirmary for those whose illness prevented them from attending the services in the community church. However, I noted a lingering curiosity in my master’s eyes.

  ‘Yes, of course . . . and now, on another matter, do you keep poisons here or in the herbarium, Asa?’

  ‘Any potentia, used incorrectly, may be said to be a poison, preceptor,’ Asa pointed out.

  ‘No, I mean a specific poison, something very potent, that only requires the smallest amount to kill.’

  ‘We do have various substances, powders, derived from herbs we dry in our herbarium, atropa belladonna, colchicum autumnale, digitalis purpurea, datura stramonium. These compounds are very good in minute amounts for various treatments, but they are at the same time deadly. You don’t think that . . .’

  ‘I am exploring all possibilities, brother, and also I have to admit, all things curious interest me . . .’

  ‘We are not here to satisfy your curiosity of insignificant things, preceptor,’ the old man snarled.

  ‘No, you are quite right, I shall endeavour to be curious only of significant ones . . . and as it appears significant, I shall ask you where you keep these herbal compounds. Not in the reach of any person who might wander in, I hope?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ Setubar answered. ‘No one but the infirmarian and I have access to such things in the herbarium. We alone hold the keys.’

  ‘A prudent decision.’ There was a thoughtful pause. ‘On another matter, do you supply the monastery with any other substances apart from medicinal ones?’

  ‘We make our own ink,’ Asa said, ‘from the wood of thorntrees. I collect this wood for I am very often in the forest. However, the making of amalgam for applying gold leaf, the tempering of colours, and the production of glue, these things I leave to others who specialise in these arts.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’ My master then moved closer to the body on the great table, whose ashen features were troublesome, especially since there was a strange redness collecting on those parts beneath the trunk, lower arms and legs. Later my master was to tell me that when the heart stops beating the blood no longer circulates around the body, but collects in the areas where the body happens to be lying for a time after death, and this sometimes can indicate the length of time between a death and its discovery.

  ‘There is no bruising?’ he asked.

  ‘No, preceptor.’

  My master handed me the stub of carrot and proceeded to his inspection of the body, firstly the feet, noting that they were covered in a red mud.

  ‘This is curious . . . clay?’

  The infirmarian peered at the dead man’s feet. ‘So it is.’

  ‘But the abbey rests on dry, rocky earth,’ my master said thoughtfully.

  ‘Indeed, though if one digs lower, as I have occasion to do in the garden, a moist red earth reveals itself.’

  ‘I see.’

  He continued working his way up the legs of the body, the torso, arms, and finally the fingers and hands.

  ‘His hands are sticky.’

  ‘Brother Ezekiel had a sweet tooth,’ said the old man in reply.

  ‘Ahh yes, the raisins.’ My master then searche
d the cadaver’s face, his ears, his eyes, and mouth. I looked away as he opened it and sniffed inside. ‘Was the venerable brother suffering from any illness or disorder that might account for his death? I can see his blood did not circulate well around his legs for here we see evidence of past ulceration, am I correct?’

  ‘Yes, if he were to bump his extremities in the slightest, his skin would tear, and within a few hours a terrible wound would develop,’ Asa answered.

  ‘And he was going blind, was he not?’ my master said, looking up.

  ‘Yes, for many years.’

  ‘We are then perhaps looking at the body of a man who suffered from a disease known in the east whose designation escapes me . . .’ He then quoted a medical text. ‘Just as the corpus of a man does not respire aqua,’ he said, ‘and a fish does not breathe air, so do many innocent substances kill those whose organisms find them unsuitable. It is only conjecture at this point, of course,’ my master stated, ‘but much knowledge can be gained by using the art of diagnostics.’

  ‘Yes, the skill of the Greeks,’ said Asa, who then became very thoughtful. ‘You remember his continual somnolence, Brother Setubar? His thirst, and constant need to relieve himself?’

  Brother Setubar grunted a little in answer.

  ‘Of course . . . I am a fool!’ The infirmarian slapped the side of his face with one hand, then.

  ‘No, it is not always easy to diagnose,’ my master assuaged, ‘and yet his breath could have secured your confidence in this hypothesis, for it would have been very sweet. Did his urine have the familiar smell?’

  ‘Sweet?’

  ‘No, caustic.’

  ‘Caustic?’

  ‘Caustic . . .’ My master washed his hands in a bowl of warm water and took his carrot stub from me. ‘One whose body is afflicted with this condition cannot dissolve the materia of sweet potentia, it remains in the patient like a fermentum and infects the entire corpus. The adepts from the far eastern lands have written a great deal about this complaint. You see, because the corpus is not able to use sweet substances in the process of combustion, it looks for other calcinated substances to replace it. And the remnants of these unholy dissolutions are excreted in the urina, leaving an acrid smell. I myself have come across it several times. Older men of large proportions, and likewise obese women, are particularly prone to such visceral aberrations. Still, I have heard of some who are born this way, though they die early.’ He finished his morsel pensively.