‘Come to me, my groom!’ she said, for her voice was like honey and it tasted sweet in my mouth, but was bitter in my belly. And my hands became gold rings set with beryl: my belly as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. My legs were as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: my countenance as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.
And then she spoke, her voice like the waters of the Nile.
‘Marry the bride with the groom, oh, my beloved! Marry the fire with the water, for thy mouth is most sweet . . . Set me as a seal upon thy heart. As a seal upon thy arm: for love is as strong as death.’
Together we entwined, and like the best wine that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak, so we, like the waters that merge into one fierce body, like a river breaking its banks, rushed together with one objective. Hastening towards one end we plunged into a sea of molten fire, licked by a flame, consumed by its coolness. Oh, Solomon! Is this the beloved of your songs? I thought, and like a desperate man, climbed upon the peaks of her mountains to see the contours of her country, the formation and symmetry of her kingdom, for she was Jerusalem, the bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. With great care, I went down to the valley, caressing each little hill, drowning my thirst in her estuaries. There I smelt her earth, and stroked it tenderly, moulding it between my feverish fingers, kissing the fruits that, from out of the fertile belly sprouted, like berries, red and delightful. Then I tilled her soil, and reaped her corn, I gathered her roses and drank her milk, and when the storm threatened to tear my country asunder, I found sanctuary within her ample bays, waiting for that moment, the supreme moment when I would be as Moses before the burning bush.
Suddenly there was a great glow, a sudden shiver, a little earthquake shuddering beneath me, and she was my sister, my mother, my love, a dove . . . pure, undefiled. And the molten gold flowed from the aludel, prima materia – the original matter, flooded, unrestrained into the land, and . . .
The twelve became seven and the seven stars appeared.
AER
THE THIRD TRIAL
Easy is the way down to the Underworld: by night and by day dark Hades’ door stands open; but to retrace one’s steps and to take a way out to the upper air, that is the task, that is the labour.
Virgil Aeneid book 6, v. 1, line 126
17
Capitulum
I sat up with a jolt. Perspiration ran rivulets down my back and I was breathing heavily, my heart galloping like mad stallions. What had I done, I asked myself? I stood, and shamefully changed out of the habit that was soaked in my unchasteness, and dressed in the other garment the hospitaller had given me. Heavy of heart I then knelt, shivering from cold, fear and humiliation, and said one paternoster after another until I heard my master open my cell door.
Andre must have known something was amiss, though he said nothing, I only sensed that he was stealing an occasional glance in my direction. Perhaps he was working his peculiar logic on me?
We waited for Eisik, but he did not come, so we made our way to the church. I dived down into my cowl hoping to escape my master’s scrutiny, and I little noticed how cold it had become, or how the compound lay shrouded in a ghostly white blanket. I thought only of the dream, which, like an inner fire in my chest, God help me, warmed my being.
We entered the church through the north door and made our way cautiously past the Lady Chapel to the altar where we lit our two lamps at the great tripod and returned once again, by way of the ambulatory, to the north transept where, immersed in gloom, we waited.
‘By God’s bonnet,’ whispered my master harshly, ‘where is that confounded Jew?’
Time was passing and my master signalled that we should proceed to the Lady Chapel stealthily, in the shadows.
You must imagine, dear reader, the two of us crouched behind the curtains that adorned the walls, feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation. It was with such sentiments that I recited a paternoster once more, as my master made ready to open the panel. My heart was heavy, weighed down by a thousand weights. Brother Daniel’s admonition, ‘Beware the antichrist is near’, ran through my mind like a chant and I wondered if perhaps I had encountered the evil one in my dream, disguised as a woman, for I knew that he was skilful and ingenious. I remembered hearing discussions in lowered voices, among the young attendants and stablehands, they said that a man could become intoxicated with a woman, not only through her smell, which works like a potent magic, but also because of the colour of her lips, whose moisture and softness were like that of new wine that begged to be drunk with pleasure. A man, they said, was seduced by the slightest thing; the rise and fall of an ivory bosom, the milk and honey of a nape, the soft velvet of flesh . . . and by this infernal deception, induced to forget the holiest of vows to the mother church, to the order, and to God! Had I not been a witness to such things, even if only in a dream? I found I was breathing heavily, and my master gave me one of his odd looks. He, I knew, had always said that nature was the daughter of God and woman, as the daughter of nature, could be nothing less than divine. Now, as I looked on at the Virgin’s image in the chapel, I wondered how one could venerate her and not, at the same time, respect the same bond of femininity, that binds the mother with all women. Yet it was a woman, or the image of her (in some ways even more diabolical), that had induced me to sin. There was no denying it, and for this I felt a great guilt. I needed to confess everything to my master, my mouth even opened to say those terrible words, but as fate would have it just at that moment he depressed the two necromantic signs: first, Pisces, and then Saturn, and my mind was gratefully wrenched, if only for a brief time, from the sorrow of my guilt.
‘By the sword of Saladin!’ my master whispered harshly, ‘that’s not it!’
‘But master,’ I thought a moment, ‘you and Eisik were speaking of a celestial sequence ’
‘What did you say?’ Andre turned to me. ‘Of course! The sequence! Good boy, Christian!’ he whispered jubilantly. ‘You need to depress the sequence of planets with Saturn as the seventh, not Saturn alone!’
Andre tried to depress the sun sign but it would not move. ‘Why not?’ he whispered angrily. ‘For the love of all the saints, why did it move before and not now, by God?’
‘May the twelve become seven and the seven stars appear,’ I said, risking his rebuke.
‘Of course, I must be a donkey! The twelve and seven, Christian! They must go together, even you knew it.’
He depressed Pisces and held it down while he depressed firstly the sun, then moon, followed by Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and finally Saturn. There was a metallic sound and the panel began to move as though on a cushion of air, opening into a small antechamber only big enough to accommodate the two of us.
I waited for him to congratulate me on my acumen, but he merely paused before the door of the chamber, sniffing the air with suspicion.
‘We must not forget,’ he said, ‘Brother Samuel died from his carelessness. A sweet musky smell . . . but not a poison, in this case something else . . .’ He searched about with his nose, but seemed satisfied that no deadly poison awaited us, and so stepped inside, though he kept a vigilant eye about him. On the door ahead we illuminated with our lamps a sign inscribed into the wood that my master told me was the necromantic symbol for Saturn. To my right, a water stoup made out of stone dug into my thigh. No doubt it was filled with holy water for the ritual ablution. In this corner I also saw a number of strange long objects, and realised after a moment that they were torches, such as are dipped in mutton fat, and I was about to observe these further when my sandal touched upon something small though soft, and I looked down to see that it was a rat. I uttered a muffled cry, and my master shushed me, saying none too softly:
‘By God, boy, you cannot scare it away, the odious thing is dead!’
‘What killed it, master?’ I asked, thinking that it must be a terrible omen.
‘Perhaps the same thing that killed the old brother,’ he repli
ed thoughtfully.
‘Shall I take one of these torches with us?’
‘No. Touch nothing unless I tell you. These places are places of deception and, as we have seen, murder. Now, to open the door . . .’
He pushed it and it opened with little difficulty, revealing steps that led down into a pit of darkness. Just then I felt a presence behind us and turned expecting to see the hideous form of the Devil, instead it was Eisik, carrying a lamp of his own.
‘Thy word is a lantern unto my feet: and a light unto my paths,’ he said.
‘For the love of all the saints, what happened to you?’ my master whispered, taking Eisik’s lantern.
‘There are guards everywhere, Andre,’ he said, hunching his shoulders in expectation of further evils. ‘I had to use the cunning of my forefathers. I told the assistant cook I needed a lamp so that I might read the Talmud, and that I would say a prayer that he be spared by the inquisitor if he would be so kind as to oblige. But I will tell you, Andre, I am only here because you have asked me, and because I do not wish to outlive you! Something tells me that this is foolish and yet,’ he sighed, ‘it is the destiny of an old Jew that no man will listen to him, though if he did he would doubtless live longer.’
So it was that cautiously we embarked on our journey into the unknown, down a long, and seemingly endless, flight of steps, leaving the panel in the first antechamber slightly ajar, as a precaution. The steps were damp, and spaced unevenly; some were broken, some worn smooth, and it was only by a small margin that I managed to maintain my balance. After what seemed an eternity we secured solid earth beneath our feet, but this was only a temporary comfort, for we would soon enter an exceedingly narrow passage that angled obliquely to our right. I made a calculation that this must bear north-east because the steps that led us to our present position were in a westerly direction, as the panel had been on the western side of the transept. This passage, being many feet below ground, smelt ancient and putrefied, and was so narrow that, if I diverged even slightly, I could touch the damp walls on either side with my shoulders. The light from our lamps played on the surface of rock and I thought I could see the faces of numerous devils on the crevices and forms created by different mineral substances.
I trembled.
Why must there be tunnels? Why also curious masters?
At last we entered through an arch and found that we were inside an antechamber. Its three doors were set at the oddest angles, somehow giving one the impression of having suddenly changed direction. I knew that it must be a clever trick. To add to this phenomenon the chamber was also diminutive and that meant that we had to stand very close at its centre, our breaths puffing out in unison in the still, dank air. We raised our lamps to inspect the walls, and noticed that above the doors – that no doubt led to other tunnels – there were torches such as I had seen on the floor of the first chamber, but these were not lit. Our lamps, however, were adequate in illuminating a number of strange signs carved into the rock above the doors. Directly ahead, the heavy angular aperture had above it the sign of the crescent moon, as well as the word ‘Pergamos’. To our right, my master elucidated the necromantic sign for Mars and the word ‘Thyatira’. On our left another crescent moon, and again the word ‘Pergamos’, and behind us ‘Ephesus’, and the sign for Saturn.
‘A labyrinth of tunnels!’ my master exclaimed. ‘Now what Daniel told us makes sense. He who follows the seven letters in number and order will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who would seek to go against the seven churches will wander the earth till the moment of death . . . This must surely mean the seven letters of the apocalypse, to the seven communities or churches . . . we must follow them precisely or find ourselves food for rats. Now, what was the first letter . . .?’ my master asked Eisik.
‘Smyrna . . . no, no, Ephesus . . . that’s it, Ephesus.’
‘Of course Ephesus . . . ‘I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; and what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira . . .’ Blast! What comes next?’
‘Unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea,’ Eisik added.
‘Eisik!’ Andre exclaimed suddenly. ‘You know the gentile Bible better than the gentile!’
‘Why should I not, my son?’ he said, but my master ignored him, for he was muttering other things under his breath.
‘And since this is our first chamber, we should surmise that our next should be Smyrna.’
‘‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God’,’ Eisik quoted.
I was the first to look up at the vaulted ceiling where, at its apex, a circle enclosing a smaller one could be discerned with Smyrna written in a semicircle at its perimeter. I pointed this out to my master and Eisik excitedly, but it only seemed to confound them all the more.
‘If we are in Smyrna, the first was that little chamber before we entered the tunnels. In this case it stands to reason that we should take the door marked ‘Pergamos’, for that is the subsequent letter. However, there are two of them!’
‘Oh, holy fathers . . .’ Eisik whispered, wringing his hands, ‘which door to take?’
My master looked in this direction and that, pulling on his beard. ‘A good question . . . perhaps we are best advised to try one. Shall we?’ He moved forward a pace.
‘No!’ I cried, and felt immediately ashamed. ‘There might be something hideous waiting for us on the other side of the wrong door, master.’ I reminded him of the story of the Minotaur of Greek legends, and he paused for a moment, nodding his head a little. ‘Perhaps then we shall make him a very fine dinner.’
Eisik came to my defence, ‘Andre, the boy is right, we must be careful, tunnels are evil places wherein one may become hopelessly lost not only in body but also in soul.’
‘That is why I have brought a piece of charcoal and a parchment on which we shall draw a map.’ My master handed me the articles that included a strange device set inside a bubble of glass. ‘This way our bodies may find a way out, and hopefully our souls will follow.’
‘What is this, master?’ I asked, rolling the circular thing.
‘That, my dear boy, is the instrument I have often mentioned to you and yet never shown you, it is called a compass.’
‘Oh, yes, the reason you returned to your cell . . . What does one do with it?’ I placed it against my ear tentatively, but I could make out no sound coming from it.
My master smiled. ‘It seeks north.’
‘Take it away!’ Eisik whispered harshly. ‘It is wicked, an astronomer concentrated his thoughts on it for many years and his thinking is said to have created a wicked force, as it might create also a good one, and this force seeks the pole star, because proceeding from it is a great emptiness that sucks this force into itself. It is said to have also sucked into it the soul of the astronomer! Take it away!’ He brought his hands up to his face as if to defend his soul.
‘Sorcery, master?’
‘I suppose it is,’ he said, and then, seeing that I was about to drop the object in my horror, he steadied my hand. ‘Don’t be a goose, Christian! Mon dieu! It is most delicate, and may indeed be the only one of its kind on the continent. Although it may be a kind of sorcery, it is also a wonderful one, invented by the Arabs . . . It was a present given to me by a great Saracen convert . . . an Islamic scientist who credited this knowledge to the courts of Haroun al Rashid.’
‘But are we in peril of our souls, master?’
‘I shall tell you quickly how it works and you will see that it is merely scientific. A strange stone,’ he said, ‘whose curious properties are not known, is passed over the metal of the needle. The needle, in turn, is said to acquire the same properties as the stone. After this the needle will always seek the northerly direction by pivoting on its axis.’
I was thoughtful, turning it around many times. ‘I see, that explains
the markings denoting east, south and west. No matter which way you turn it, the needle always points to the north and in this way one may know in which direction one is travelling.’
‘Very good!’ I believe he was proud of me.
‘Then it is a marvel!’ I cried, elated at this interesting discovery.
‘It may help us. It seems to work this far below the ground. Do not lose it now!’ he admonished.
Presently, Eisik held the lamps high above us and my master pushed the door to our left. We were surprised to find that it opened easily onto what looked like more steps, and to my great relief revealed no terrible creature. My master moved forward, preparing to descend ahead of us, when something stopped him abruptly. He shone his lamp into the void.
‘Mon Dieu! ‘ he exclaimed in a whisper, ‘there are three steps and then . . . nothing!’
‘By the blood of all the tribes!’ Eisik murmured.
‘Where does it go, master?’
‘Down, and so would you or I or Eisik, had we descended those steps in haste.’ He pulled the door closed and moved to the other. It too opened in the same way, but this time led down some steps to solid ground. My master went through first, then Eisik, mumbling prayers, with me going down last. I held the little stone the abbot had given me in one hand – for it was fast becoming a kind of amulet – and the compass and articles in the other as I proceeded down the perilously steep steps. Before I let go of the door, I was assailed by a terrible rank odour, and I sneezed. This, in turn, caused me to lose my footing and I let go of the stone, dropping it behind me as I fell the entire length of the stairs. Luckily, the bones of the young are supple and strong, and I did not fracture any part of me. I did, however, have a graze on both my hands, though somehow I had managed to hold on to the compass. Eisik helped me to my feet, at the same time inspecting me for any sign of injury. My master, now at the top of the stairs, called to us in a relieved voice, ‘Thank the armies of God and all His angelic hosts! Mon ami, your sneeze has saved us!’
TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel Page 24