TEMPLE OF THE GRAIL - a Novel

by Adriana Koulias

  Into its depths we plunged. I surfaced moments later, but I could not see my master, so I dived into the numbing coldness that stung my eyes and looked for him. There, lying among rocks and weeds and things that live in the watery element, was his form, easily discernible in its white mantle. Taking hold of his habit, I pulled, but he was heavy. I concluded that he must have hit his head and so I pulled again, but something was impeding me. I moved around in front of him, not looking up – lest I see his mouth open, his eyes in a deadly stare – and found that his waist rope had become caught beneath a stubborn rock. I released it and was able to pull him out into the air, dragging him to a nearby bank where I turned him on his front and gave his back a sharp slap. He coughed violently, and slowly came to his senses. I rolled over, dazed and weak.

  I woke, shaking violently, but it was not the mountain this time, it was only me, racked with cold. I looked up and could see that the monastery was a long way above. We must have travelled a great distance in the watery darkness. I listened, for I thought that I could hear voices coming from a short way away and I saw the first survivors of the avalanche coming down the road we travelled some days before. My eyes moistened as I saw Eisik moving ahead of them, rushing to my side.

  ‘Praise the God of our fathers!’ he cried. ‘You are saved.’

  Suddenly there were blankets placed over my shoulders, and a beautiful voice saying, ‘We must go. There is no time. Even now the inquisitor is looking for you. Quickly, we have some horses.’

  ‘But my master!’ I said, looking around dazed and saw that he was being helped to his feet by the girl’s father.

  ‘Your son, my lord, he cannot be moved,’ Andre said.

  ‘He and so many others are dead, preceptor, the abbey is now under a mountain of snow,’ the man said with sadness. ‘We came here to take you.’

  ‘Take us?’ I asked.

  ‘You, my young one, are to go into exile,’ he said to me, ‘they will be after what you know. And you, preceptor,’ he continued, ‘the grand master has found a place for you in another preceptory under a false name, since there are men in your own order who are in league with the crown of France, so we must be cunning. Come, there is little time.’

  I looked up to the monastery. ‘Asa and the others?’

  ‘Carcasses, all of them,’ the older man said.

  ‘Where will I go? Master, do not leave me,’ I whispered, sinking to the ground with exhaustion.

  27

  Capitulum

  Draught of forgetfulness

  We travelled to the little city of Prats de Mollo, a retreat in times gone by for the kings of Aragon. Here we were kindly treated, given some hot broth, and the lord acquired more horses and provisions for our long and difficult journey.

  It was as we thawed a little in the pale mid-morning sun, after having changed into laymen’s clothes, that my master and I had a moment alone.

  Eisik had, some moments before, said his tearful goodbyes and had left us to pray.

  Now, my master was chewing some herbs. His eyes and the crease in his brow echoed the pain that my heart also felt, for how does one say goodbye?

  I sat motionless, not wishing to utter the words that I knew must be said. Not wishing to turn my mind to Setubar’s words in the tunnels. Instead I looked out at the mountains beyond the walls of the city and to what must be Spain. All was grey and milky white, silent, still, and peaceful, the river on one side and the endless range of mountains on the other. Everything spoke to me of the duality of existence, a sign of our fragility in the presence of godly designs. I watched the swineherds and the shepherds moving their animals beyond the great gates, and I breathed the air, cold and moist, into my lungs. Were we not like those poor creatures, that, unguided, never proceed directly, but diverge here and there, always at the mercy of the mystery of the paradox, the contractions that rule the cosmos? Were we tended lovingly by the great shepherd, safeguarded from perils to attain that one ultimate goal to which our entire lives have been directed? To inevitably succumb to death? I had tasted death and it was not bitter, but neither was life whose brilliance spoke of that other and yet, in some ways, differently. I looked to my master. Perhaps my face had gained some wisdom, and lost some innocence, for he smiled and caught me in his embrace, patting me on the back with great affection.

  He looked in the direction of the abbey, to the majesty of nature that was only a mirror of our Lord’s countenance. ‘An unjust king once asked a holy man what was more excellent than prayer. The holy man replied that it was for the king to remain asleep until midday, for in this one interval he would not afflict mankind.’ He looked at me. ‘What have we done, Christian? It is all lost…the Gospel is gone forever!’ he sighed.

  I was silent for a long time, thinking again a great many things, and then I spoke to him, for the first and last time, concerning these things.

  ‘No, master,’ I said, ‘I believe all is not lost. You only say this because you grieve for those material things you fear were destroyed. But you must remember what you have always taught me; that nothing in this universe disappears. It is merely transformed, in the same way the alchemists make steam out of water and water out of steam . . .’

  ‘It is a good argument, Christian, but what little consolation it gives me! I am torn between sadness that the only evidence of the gospel is gone, and relief that it did not survive to end up in some bastion of a library, the property of a few who long only to caress each page as if it were a woman’s thigh. Perhaps war is less complicated? I long for some act of will, to leave all this thinking to someone else.’

  ‘But master, the parchments were only outward signs from which shines an outward truth. Remember Plato’s cave?’

  ‘That is true, I have taught you well.’ He smiled and there was a strange weariness in his eyes, ‘but you must know, Christian, that a man of science can only ever hope to see phantoms, praying that they will lead him ultimately to the reality that lies behind them. I am afraid that I have devoted my life (and risked yours) to preserving the fire in order that I may see the shadow, indeed it has been wasted. Perhaps Setubar was right? Man should not thirst for something that he can never attain or scarcely formulate. It is the curse of my race that we thirst . . . The inquisitor was right, nothing can alter the colour of a man’s blood.’

  ‘And you have Christ in your blood, he is in your thinking, in your feeling, in your willing. I have seen it! I know now what you have been trying to tell me. Christ did not die. You were right, master, he lives in our hearts, in our blood. The black cross signifies nothing. Remember how you once told me that one must look for the antichrist in the eyes of a man? You were right there, too, for I saw him in the inquisitor, and I saw him in Setubar also. This is the stamp of the antichrist: ugliness and ignorance. I saw both in those men because they were blind, their vision was distorted and so it could not see a world that speaks to us of beauty, of divinity. Is it not by learning to read the book of nature with the eyes of faith that we come to recognise the drop of divinity that resides in our own souls though hidden, master? In the end is this not faith; to seek the light that takes us further, the light of Christ that brings that to which reason and knowledge alone can never raise itself? This is truth! I am certain of it, and you are a seeker of truth!’

  He smiled a little. ‘I am a seeker, yes, but I am also a slave to my seeking. I now know that one only frees oneself from that insane desire for truth when one is prepared to doubt in the existence of truth itself, for it is only to be found when you have discarded it! Only then are you truly free! I have always expounded just that! I have simply failed to take my own instruction, you see? It further illustrates how I have behaved stubbornly. My heart was eaten up. Perhaps I am indeed no better than Anselmo, no wiser than Setubar.’

  ‘And yet, knowledge is a good thing, as you have always told me.’

  ‘Yes, but knowledge is dependent on the piety of the one who has it, Christian, in this case it can be a blessing or
a danger. I want you to remember something. Wisdom walks alone, but learnedness, learnedness can easily walk hand in hand with the greatest stupidity.’

  ‘In all cases it is the beginning, is that not so? As you have always told me, knowledge is the seed of a faith that must follow. Because you were wise and good we proceeded in faith (for I surely would have given up) to see it, for ourselves, surely that is of far greater value than parchments!’

  ‘To see what for ourselves?’ he said with frown.

  I realized at that moment, that my master had not seen anything at all! I did not know what to say to him.

  He sighed. ‘No. Eisik was right, Christian, never desire knowledge for its own sake. To desire it with such devotion is as dangerous, if not more so, as remaining ignorant, you see? It is only now that I begin to doubt, and that is a good thing, for as Augustine tells us, when a man doubts he knows that he is truly alive. Now you must go, Eisik and the others are waiting for you. It is safer if we are separated.’

  We embraced for one last time. I held the small gem that had sustained me all these days, the tiger’s eye, in the palm of my warm hand. This I gave him, placing it in his. He looked at it endearingly and smiled a little, and it was then that he turned and walked away. I was never to see him again.

  28

  Capitulum

  Draught of remembrance

  Later, after I arrived in my present exile upon Gilgamesh (for Eisik had saved him from the avalanche and my master, in his selflessness, had given him to me as a parting gift), I heard that the inquisitor, Rainiero Sacconi, had escaped death and had travelled to Paris, where he could not convince Louis King of France to send men to scour the countryside for Templar heretics. His reputation, however, was done a great service in the apprehension of a conspirator to Piero’s death, and he was to rise to the position of supreme inquisitor in Lombardy. Many years later, he approached Philip le Bel on the subject of the monastery and its secrets, but the king found a great resistance from Pope Boniface, who had set his own designs on obtaining the elusive treasures of the monastery. There ensued a terrible schism on the matter of jurisdiction that saw the king attempt to kidnap and kill Boniface. He did not succeed . . . but there are many ways to get a pope or two out of the way!

  After a few years, how many I cannot say, I received word that my master had been relocated to a preceptory near Paris, and I was heartened to know that, under another name, he was teaching once more, having been granted permission to travel there several times a year to give discourses at the university. Even now I smile a little, warmed by memories.

  At the university, he may have come to know Thomas Aquinas, who, I believe, occupied a teaching chair at about the same time. A man rumoured, so they tell me, to have caused quite a stir among the intellectuals with his aim to Christianise Aristotle. How strange . . . I seem to recall a dream . . .

  And so Acre fell finally, and more and more of our brothers have fled to this place, though I have never seen them, for my cell window looks out onto the Mediterranean and I see nothing else save its monotonous blue. No one here knows my identity, except the grand master, and Eisik. The others think that I am a leper and so they do not burn with curiosity.

  Yestereve the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, came to see me, for I have, of late, become his confidant. He helped me to my palette and poured out his heart to me. He told me the Order is in peril. King and Pope are plotting to take the Order’s treasures, both temporal and eternal. I told him something he must take with him to the end. At dawn I watched his galley leave for France from my little window and my heart sorely aches to think on it.

  Soon what I have spent so many years setting down will find its way to the only man I can trust, a friend of my father’s, Jean Joinville. I trust that he will vouchsafe it for the sake of the world.

  I therefore bequeath to you in all humility: this gospel and my account of how I came by it. I know its pages will survive even as my poor sinner’s corpse is eaten by worms and I hope you have read it carefully, turning each page with fondness, recognising that you have been the witness of my conscience, and the interpreter of my meditations.

  Some men will find only the chronicles of a young monk here, whose life was transformed during several terrible, though wondrous days in a monastery now destroyed and unrecognisable. Others will see my journey to the Grail, to the Revelation of the Gospel and seek to emulate it. I have marked the way, though slow and perilous, to the cornerstone, now you must make your way to it. For if this little book stimulates the eye to see the world differently, if it invigorates the ear to hear the ineffable silence of the word, which it contains, then indeed it has rewarded its master.

  Now there is little that can be said. After all, I have been here before, I am no stranger to death, and as you close these pages, you may deign to pray for me in the name of our Lord; for at last the twelve have spoken, the seven have resounded in the Temple of the Grail. That is all that I am permitted to tell you. As for all that remains? It is better hidden, Sacramentum regis abscondere bonum est.

  Epilogue

  Jean de Joinville’s servant left in the cover of darkness. As a solitary figure he incurred no suspicion and he set foot on Spanish soil in the early hours of Friday 13th of October 1307, as Philip le Bel’s troops were moving in on all the preceptories of the Knights Templar in France. It was also the day Christian de St Armand flew into the arms of the Virgin . . . the Sophia . . .

  And she was indeed beautiful.

  Glossary

  Abbot – The superior Monk of the monastery

  Ambulatory – The covered passage behind the altar. Linking, in this case, the north transept and its chapel with the south transept.

  Apocrypha – Meaning to hide away – it is used to describe a group of important religious writings from antiquity that were not universally regarded as belonging to the authentic canon of scripture. They were found in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. The Jews rejected the Septuagint and Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, also came to reject writings found only in Greek and so left them out of his translation and called them the Apocrypha. Later there was controversy over the Apocrypha, with many believing that the books were important and genuine, while a minority believed them to be inspired by Gnostic thought. I have shown in my characters knowledge of the Apocrypha for it was well known among men of learning. However, at the same time, the characters are hesitant to quote from it, especially in a setting where there is suspicion of heresy.

  Apostasy – Abandoning of the faith in a public way.

  Aramaic – A north-western Semitic language related to Hebrew but somewhat different. By the first century CE, Aramaic was in general use in Palestine and targums or interpretations of the Hebrew Bible in Aramaic are known to have existed. The books of Jeremiah, Ezra and Daniel were in Aramaic. Also there have been Aramaic texts found at Qumran in this language, these include parts of Enoch and a Targum of Job. Aramaic is known to have replaced Hebrew as the language of the people, and therefore it was the language of Jesus. I was therefore able to make two postulations, firstly, that a full version of the Bible written in this language existed at that time, alongside the Hebrew version, and secondly, that a translation of the Old Testament from Aramaic to Latin might be a desirable achievement for a learned monk wanting to distinguish himself.

  Aristotle – Greek philosopher, pupil of Plato (c. 384–322 BC).

  Benedictines – Monks who follow the rule of St Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–553 AD). They were renowned for their learning, their copying and their libraries and in time individual monasteries grew in wealth, playing a prominent role in secular life. The order was criticised by the younger, stricter orders, for its decadent use of ornate sculpture, gold and colourful adornment. Even so, Benedictines were chosen more often than monks from other orders for distinguished positions in the hierarchy of the church. They wore dark habits and were known as the Black Monks.

  Bier r
ight – A pagan tradition, the ‘Ordeal’, was sometimes adopted by judges to confirm the judgement of God. This particular ordeal had as its foundation the premise that at the approach of the murderer the corpse of the slain would bleed or give some other sign.

  Cabbala – study of a secret esoteric philosophy preserved among the Jewish people dealing with the profound mysteries of God. It is the hidden thoughts of Israel upon doctrines of Jewish religion that in many cases are also Christian doctrines.

  Canonical Hours – Time in the Middle Ages was measured by the ecclesiastical method of division into matins, lauds, prime, terce, nones, vespers and compline. Depending on the time of year and therefore the hours of sunrise and sunset, matins, the night vigil corresponded to the hours between 12 and 2 a.m., lauds was directly after it at sunrise, prime at 6 a.m., terce at 9 a.m., sext at noon, nones at 3 p.m., vespers before the evening meal and compline at sunset, before bed.

  Cathars – Adherents of the heretical Cathar sect sometimes called Albigenses, after the city of Albi in Languedoc where their persecution began. This sect drew its inspiration from Manichean belief. The Manicheans were followers of the Persian Mani and believed in the duality of existence, i.e. good and evil, light and darkness. All material things were said to be intrinsically evil and created by an evil God. All flesh, all matter, was ultimately to be renounced and transcended in favour of the spirit where true divinity resided. Those who achieved this life of strict austerity were called ‘Perfects’ or ‘Pure ones’. Others could become pure prior to death by taking the consolamentum– a sacrament. Cathars incorporated elements of Gnostic dualism, which flourished in Alexandria. Gnosis – meaning knowledge – was acquired first-hand without the need of an intermediary priesthood. It is not surprising that the church violently opposed this form of ‘heresy’. Pope Innocent III ordered the persecution of the Cathars in 1208 and it became known as the Albigensian Crusade. Christian knights from all parts came to Languedoc and were ordered to kill men, women and children indiscriminately – for God would recognise his own in heaven. Many Templar houses became the only refuge for Cathar families. The siege of the Cathar fortress of Montsegur led to the well-known ‘Massacre at Montsegur’.