TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel

by Adriana Koulias

  ‘But you do not deny that a potion made from dragon’s blood destroys devils?’

  ‘Firstly, I have never seen a dragon, have you? Secondly, have you ever wondered, as there are so many potions to kill and ward off devils, why their population never seems to decline? Remember what I have told you about knowledge and opinion.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘What you call magic,’ he interrupted, ‘is nothing more than a clever suggestive art, that uses fear and superstition as its loyal agents. Of course, much can be accomplished by its use. Let us say that you come to me (the magician) because you want something very badly. I would tell you that you must pick a certain herb from a cemetery every night at midnight.’ He paused for a moment to inspect beneath the keys of the large instrument.

  ‘And, where was I? Yes, I say you must pick a certain herb at midnight and lay it on the steps of a church. If you were to follow my instructions precisely as I have told you, getting up at midnight, going to the cemetery, pulling out the herb, and so on, it is more than probable that your longing for achievement and your faith in such instructions will bring about what you desire. If you omit even one night of this ritual then I, the magician, cannot be blamed in the event of failure.’

  ‘So you say that magic is only in the mind?’

  ‘A man is so constructed that when his desire is strong enough, Christian, he will find the means of realising his objective. This is quite natural, and not in the least magical. In many cases it is science that is mistaken for magic because, you see, even learned men have not yet lifted their minds out of the dung heap of superstition.’

  ‘But a physician is a scientist as you have often told me.’

  ‘And that is why a physician must be as prudent in his cure as he is in his failure to cure.’

  ‘So you say that it is better not to cure an illness if it will be seen as something diabolical?’

  ‘No, that is not what I said.’ He stood, and straightened his bad leg with difficulty. ‘What I meant was that a cure often engenders more suspicion than a failure to cure, and so it must be approached with care. Do you know that there are several ailments that can be healed almost immediately? If one does so, however, one risks many things, not the least of which may be one’s skin! So one must bring the patient to health, so that his state of wellbeing comes about gradually. One chants many prayers, one cauterises, and bleeds the patient, advising him to visit his priest very often for confession. In this way after a few weeks he is cured and believes it to be God’s grace, and so, quite natural.’

  ‘So you keep your secrets to yourself, like Brother Setubar seems to keep much from Brother Asa?’

  ‘Here is another thing . . . When we surpass the world with our knowledge, we must be careful whom we allow to share in this knowledge. This is the art of prudence.’

  ‘But this art you call ‘prudence’ sounds like avarice, master, covetousness. Surely the world should have a share in a wise man’s accomplishments. Those who imparted their knowledge in the books we have just admired must have felt this way.’

  ‘They are truly wonderful books, and deserve praise to their authors, but as you have seen, they are hidden from public view, and quite wisely, for there is more wisdom in a prudent silence than there is in a thousand books.’

  ‘But I thought you loved books, I thought you believed in knowledge?’ I asked, confounded as always.

  ‘I do ... I do ... but it is important to know when and how information is to be distributed. In this way something good cannot be mistaken for something evil, and also misused by those of evil disposition. Look around you at this abbey, whose cures have brought it to the attention of the pope. Need I elucidate further?’

  ‘But is that not in essence what the abbot said on our first day here, about drawing a veil over things not understood . . . but then you disagreed with him?’

  ‘I disagreed with him because there is a distinction between the arcana – the mystery – of nature (whose celestial seal must not be broken irreverently) and the arcana of men, whose accidents may lead to heresy, and as we have seen, to the death of others.’

  ‘So what you are saying, master, is that there is no magic at all, only science, but that we must not allow others to know this,’ I said sadly.

  ‘I am afraid so . . .’

  ‘There is not much use in looking for something that has no magical or holy powers, is there?’

  ‘And yet we cannot discount that whatever lies beneath all this intrigue may indeed be something magical.’

  ‘But you do not believe in such things!’ I was becoming annoyed, believing that he was taunting me.

  ‘That has nothing whatever to do with it!’ he replied, astounded at my ignorance. ‘The fact that others believe is an important tool in solving our riddle. It is the riddle that concerns me, as it should interest you if you are to be a good physician. A good physician must first and foremost have a strong desire to solve riddles.’

  ‘What riddles do you speak of? There seem to be so many.’ I looked at him boldly, and he seemed pleased. He moved around the organ, with a curious smile on his face, and I heard his voice echo from various points behind it.

  ‘The greatest riddle of all . . . the riddle of man! The complex mystery of the universal human being as he stands within the threshold of universal laws. This is the most fascinating puzzle! Every riddle starts with a question. For instance, one might ask: does this organ exist?’

  ‘Of course it does. I can see it and touch it.’

  ‘So you say because to satisfy any inquiry in a scientific way we must first hypothesise, and we do that by either affirming as you have or by denying, as I shall . . .’ he said, moving around to the front of the organ, knocking some musical papers from their place over the keys and onto the floor. ‘But our inquiry does neither alter its existence, or its nonexistence, it serves as a starting point from which we set about proving our postulation. As the Greeks tell us in their profound wisdom, ‘the beginning is everything’. You saw me pacing the graveyard on our first day, after our conversation with the abbot. You were as annoyed with me as you are now . . . am I right?’

  I lowered my eyes. How could he read me so well?

  ‘At the time, Christian, I was asking the ‘first question’ . . .’

  ‘So what was the answer?’

  ‘I did not say that I answered my question, I resolved to let the nature of things speak their truth to me, even if at first I denied an absolute truth.’

  ‘But why would you want to deny an absolute truth?’ I asked, because such an idea seemed ludicrous.

  ‘Because there are no absolute truths, except the existence of God, and because sometimes a man must begin with doubt, in order to end in certainty.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, no further enlightened.

  ‘In any case, as Hippocrates tells us, observation holds the key to success in all such cases, and so observe we shall, and reserve our judgements. By the son of Apollo, boy, what has got into you today? You are taxing my mind! Now I have forgotten what we were doing!’ He picked up the papers, and holding them in his hand, uttered his thoughts aloud. ‘Some device, some key, redirects the body of water, and I believe that was the sound we heard, the loud sound in the last chamber. Someone diverted the water flow in preparation for entering the tunnels and that is why we heard footsteps coming from the direction of the church . . . Perhaps the same monk we caught the other night sneaking behind the curtains?’ my master said pensively. ‘Where would the clue be? Where to place a formula? Somewhere you would readily see it. If I was about to play this instrument . . .’ He sat down on a stool before the complicated conglomeration of pipes, keys, and knobs. ‘I would need to simply see it . . .’

  This could take forever, I thought dismally, yawning so hard that I almost displaced my jaw.

  ‘Look here, boy, for your eyes are better than mine, to the spot where these papers reside. What does this say?’ He pointed to an engraving on the wooden surfac
e, barely distinguishable in the dim light. It read in Latin, Cantus Pastoralis – the shepherds’ songs – and beneath a set of Roman numerals.

  CL: IV

  CIII: XIX

  CXLII: IV

  CXLIII: VI

  XC: XII

  CXLIV: IX

  CVII: XXXIII

  That was when the bell rang for matins, rhythmic and peaceful. I noted down the numerals on the back of my map and replaced it hastily within the folds of my habit. Soon there was the sound of many footsteps coming down the night stairs, and the long procession of monks made their way, cowls drawn, into the church.

  We took our place in the darkened stalls before anyone could see that we had been inspecting the organ. Brother Sacar intoned Domine labia mea aperies, and we replied et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam. My master noticed Brother Daniel missing from his place beside Brother Setubar in the choir and whispered in my ear that I should expect the worst. Later, when the reader announced that the homily would be lectio sancti evangelii secundum Mattheum xxi, and began the words in illo tempore, and there was still no Brother Daniel, we saw the abbot call a monk to his side, and after some anxious whispers the brother hastily left by way of the south ambulatory.

  After the prescribed lessons we did not sing the Te deum because of the proximity of Easter when songs of jubilation are not appropriate. Instead we prepared to intone the previous responsory by replacing our cowls and standing. My master and I, noting that all the others had their cowls drawn and could not observe us, glanced in the direction of the organist, Anselmo, as he prepared to play the instrument. He sat down and placed his hands over the keys but we could see nothing else because of the angle of our seating.

  I heard my master utter some terrible thing under his breath and I sang a little louder so as to disguise his indiscretion, ‘Domine Deus auxiliator’, praying not only that my master might be wrong about Brother Daniel, but also asking God to release me from the bonds of all my doubts and anxieties when, at that moment, the monk entered the church, his face struck with terror.

  He made his way to the abbot who calmed him with a gesture, but on hearing what the man whispered in his ear, his face, too, became very pale, and he rose, rushing out of the church.

  The singing stopped abruptly, and my master pulled me to my feet, but by now others had done the same, and we found ourselves pushing our way through a group that seemed on the verge of hysteria.

  On our way up the night stairs Andre pushed me past many monks until we were beside Brother Macabus, and asked him if he knew what had happened.

  ‘Brother Daniel of Carcassonne,’ he whispered loudly as we neared the last step, and the landing, ‘dead!’

  My master shook his head. I felt my stomach tighten into a knot.

  We were at once in a darkened hallway, dotted with apertures leading to small individual cells. Arriving at an open door, we followed the librarian, the inquisitor, and the abbot, leaving the others, including the members of the legation, outside.

  The room was bare and small, though the ceiling was high, having a large inset window facing east. We could see very little until a monk entered with a lamp. As soon as there was light, a terrible sight assailed our eyes. There on the floor lay the poor brother, in a pool of blood, his face contorted in a horrible grimace. His head had been badly beaten, but there seemed to be no weapon about. The circa was telling the abbot with a trembling voice, that his last round had been at the tenth hour and at that time he had helped Brother Daniel to the latrines and back to his room. Thereafter he had neither heard nor seen anything suspicious.

  Many monks now peered through the door, over the heads of others, and soon the room began to fill with the sound of their voices. I forced myself to look at the body clinically, concentrating on the stony face, the eyes open, perhaps with a look of surprise. My master walked over to the body of the old brother and I saw him pick up the man’s foot. He removed a sandal and inspected the sole, but said nothing. He simply replaced it, leant over the body, felt for a pulse, and finding none, closed the man’s terrible eyes and pronounced him dead to a chorus of gasps and strangled whispers.

  My master then turned to the inquisitor who had been ordering his archers to search the compound for a weapon. ‘Now you can see that this is not the work of the cook nor the infirmarian.’

  ‘I do not see that at all, preceptor!’ he answered. ‘It is well known that sorcerers can kill from a distance by the use of their infernal powers.’

  ‘This is clearly a case of violence, Rainiero, otherwise you would not be wasting your men’s time looking for a weapon,’ my master said exasperated. ‘Somewhere the murderer has left his indelible mark and I believe it is a physical one.’

  ‘Physical or metaphysical, it matters little. The ways of sorcerers are many and varied. No, this death only serves to emphasise the urgency of appropriating guilt and carrying out punishment as soon as possible.’

  ‘This one differs from the others . . . Brother Daniel was killed by an instrument, a sharp instrument, we see that here . . .’ he pointed to some substance on the ground which, to my horror, looked like fragments of brain matter, ‘ . . . it has penetrated his skull. The others, I believe to have been poisoned . . .’

  At that moment, Brother Setubar entered the group. His tortured frame moved awkwardly to the body of his friend and then he let out a groan that seemed to emanate from the pit of his soul. He made the sign of the cross and turned, bestowing a look pregnant with fierce malevolence on all of us.

  ‘Satan has struck us once again!’ he cried, as though he himself had been struck on the chest by a blow. He steadied himself on the abbot’s arm and continued a little out of breath, ‘God has turned his countenance away from us all. Brother Daniel, architect of our destiny, venerated brother and friend, dies because this very night the Devil’s instrument has once again penetrated the sanctuary where no man must go!’ This was followed by a great agitation. Setubar shook his head. ‘Now God will turn His rage on all men and as Joel has warned, He will make it that the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. The earth will tremble, and the stars shall fall to the earth, and the earth shall shake with His anger and when men hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains then we shall cry to the mountains and rocks to fall upon us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the lamb!

  You!’ He pointed a deformed finger at the inquisitor. ‘Sanctify ye, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God and cry unto the Lord, alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come!’

  The old man was led away by the abbot who encouraged the assembly to disperse, and the poor body was taken to the infirmary. My master, having been given permission to inspect the room before it was summarily cleaned, remained. He paused before the doorway, and kneeling on the ground, investigated something that he could see on the floor.

  ‘Red dirt.’ He brought the clay-like substance nearer to his face. ‘But why not on the brother’s shoes?’ He paused, thinking. ‘Of course!’ he exclaimed. ‘Not on his shoes because not he, but another here tonight, has entered the tunnels besides us. That is why Daniel’s death is achieved by a different means.’

  ‘We may have partially solved our mystery then,’ I said, ‘we can surmise that the red dirt has something to do with the deaths.’

  ‘Do not place too much faith in syllogisms. It is true the other three may have had red dirt on their shoes, but you also had red dirt on your shoes, and you are not dead, moreover whoever stood here tonight with red dirt on his sandals is also not dead. This leads me to postulate that merely entering the tunnels has not caused the demise of the other three, but plainly something else . . . some substance in the cursed place with which neither you nor I, nor indeed the killer has come in contact. This death satisfies the assumption that it was a desperate act of
violence. Furthermore I would like to know how our venerable Setubar knows that we entered the tunnels tonight, for he said someone had broken the interdict once more?’

  ‘He also mentioned that Brother Daniel was the architect of their destinies, that is close enough to builder, is it not? If so, then our note has once more been exact in its prophecy.’

  ‘Excellent!’ He patted me on the back, in a good mood. ‘You are learning. The author of our note has once again been correct, and we shall see if he tells us any more secrets, only then shall we know that he is not one and the same as our poor brother. Did you see Anselmo in the crowd of faces?’

  I shook my head.

  He walked around the room, setting straight a small table that had been overturned. ‘We see evidence of a scuffle.’ He pulled absently at his beard. ‘This adds weight to our argument . . .’ He looked down at the bloodied floor and at the wall behind the pallet, splattered in strange patterns of dark red. ‘The killer will have blood on his clothes and on his shoes, therefore, we should see some prints on the floor . . . yes, here we see the print of a day shoe, perhaps belonging to the monk who found him, perhaps belonging to the killer. We cannot discount that they may be one and the same person, for there is also a little of our red dirt surrounding it . . . but that could have been there before his footstep, at which time the two combined. It may have belonged to Daniel himself from another time . . .’

  ‘So we are still no closer to arriving at the truth.’

  ‘We are always closer. In the next few hours we must notice any dark stain on the shoes or clothes of any of the monks. But one moment!’ He paused suddenly very still. ‘We heard those footsteps in the tunnels around an hour before the holy service, that is some time between the tenth and the eleventh hours.’

  ‘Why do you say an hour, master?’

  ‘Because we had enough time to investigate the library and to make our way back to the church before matins. The circa says he helped Daniel to the latrine at about that time, so he was still alive, though he could not have been the one we heard coming towards us in the labyrinth, for he was too frail, the footsteps we heard were those of a youthful monk.’