The Pendragon Legend

by Antal Szerb

Osborne roared with laughter.

  “Lady friends? That’s not very likely. At most, the Pendragons tolerate women within the limits of marriage, and even then without much enthusiasm … Now, we have a notion to go up there. Won’t you join us, vicar? We might well need you for a spot of exorcism.”

  The vicar went pale.

  “Osborne … Do you really intend going there?”

  “Of course. I see no reason why I shouldn’t.”

  “Oh dear God,” … He wrung his hands. “It’s impossible, impossible … My dear sister, as you know, is endowed with some remarkable abilities.”

  “I know.”

  “Just this morning, she said … ”

  “Well?”

  “That some mortal danger awaited you if you went up to Pendragon.”

  “Sensational. How would she know that?”

  “Don’t forget, she foresaw the recent attempt on the Earl’s life, which almost succeeded. I didn’t mention it then because I didn’t fully trust her abilities, I didn’t want to cause unnecessary alarm, or be thought superstitious. My conscience has troubled me ever since for my faint-heartedness.”

  “Tell me, vicar … Could we not discuss this with Miss Jones herself?”

  “But of course—that would be best of all. We should be greatly honoured if you would visit our humble abode.”

  We stepped out of the car. The vicarage was a few yards away, and we went in.

  Miss Jones was seated beside the window in the back room. She apologised for receiving us sitting down.

  The tiny old woman was almost completely hidden under the pile of blankets. Only her long, narrow and remarkably ugly face could be seen. She had the intense, burning eyes of visionaries and myopics, that seem to gaze inwards rather than out.

  “Jane,” the parson began, rather anxiously, “Osborne desires to go up to Pendragon.”

  The old woman’s face became convulsed, as if she’d received an electric shock. She voiced some meaningless sounds, regained her capacity for speech with much difficulty, then said:

  “Dear, dear, dear Osborne, do not go to Pen-Annwn. Penn-Annwn is the mouth of Satan. A terrible time awaits the whole House of Pendragon. You are every one of you in mortal danger. For you in particular, it would be death to enter the grounds of Pen-Annwn.”

  “Thank you very much for the depth of your concern for me, Miss Jones. But, as an interested party, and an admirer of the science of prophecy, I’m enormously curious to discover exactly how you can know this with the certainty of something you’d read in a newspaper.”

  She became completely calm, and deadly serious.

  “Do you believe in the power of dreams?” she asked.

  “No, I don’t,” he replied. “If I did, I should long ago have had some terrible experiences with women. I often dream of one who turns out to have no face. Then I need to climb this staircase, but I always slip back down. But this has never happened to me in real life.”

  “I believe in dreams,” I chipped in.

  “Really?” the old woman said.

  “In psychoanalytic terms.”

  “In what?” she asked. She was a little behind the times.

  “Well, it isn’t the sort of thing one would explain to a young lady.”

  “Whether you believe in dreams or not … ” she began: “if you don’t, so much the worse for you.”

  There could be no more joking. It was obvious that the old woman would be deeply offended if we didn’t take her seriously.

  “Would you please, Miss Jones, tell us your dream, and explain its meaning,” said Osborne.

  The old woman’s face assumed an expression of satisfaction.

  “Pull your chairs up closer and listen carefully. Last night I dreamed I was a young girl, walking outside, along the bank of the river. I was wearing an enormous Florentine hat.”

  This, for a start, stretched the imagination.

  “And Arthur Evans … did you know Arthur Evans? No, you couldn’t have known him. But I’m not going to tell you everything, only the most important things. Well, I told Arthur to go on ahead, and I’d follow just behind. And then suddenly there it was, standing before me, the dog … Do you understand? The dog.”

  The old woman began to cough, expressively and heart-rendingly.

  “Forgive me, what dog?” Osborne asked, when Miss Jones had done coughing. “This one here?”—and he pointed to the half-dead Pekinese at her feet.

  “Oh no, it wasn’t a dog, it was an angel. The dog was standing there, don’t you see? The one with the white coat and the red ears.”

  “Ah.”

  “I was terribly afraid. But I couldn’t run away. Then the dog looked at me and asked, ‘What are you having for your tea?’ ‘Cauliflower,’ I said. ‘And coffee. Oh yes, and there was a little strawberry cake,’ I told him. I didn’t want to be less than truthful. ‘Young shoots must be eaten,’ he said. ‘They’re very nourishing. It’s what I’m having today.’ ‘And where are the young shoots?’ ‘In my head,’ said the dog. And there was something green sprouting from his head. This frightened me so much I woke up.”

  “A very interesting and instructive tale,” said Osborne. “I particularly liked the bit about the strawberry cake: tell the truth and shame the Devil. It’s just that I don’t see where I, and Pendragon, come in.”

  “You don’t understand? Truly? But it’s as clear as day. The dog—of course you know this, don’t pretend otherwise—was Cwn Annwn, the dog of Hell. The young shoot it wanted to eat was you, Osborne, the young shoot of the family. And the dog’s head, the head of Cwn Annwn, is Pen-Annwn. Pen is Welsh for head. Pen-Annwn is the true, the Welsh, name for Pendragon. Dreams always speak in Welsh.”

  “I see.”

  “Well then … dear Osborne … promise me, a poor old soul, that you will never go up to Pendragon.”

  For a moment he hesitated. Then, to our great surprise, he gave his word. We took our leave of the vicar and his sister, and climbed back in the car. Osborne drove out of the village, towards Pendragon.

  “So what now?” asked Maloney. “We’re not going up?”

  “Of course we are. But I had to promise. I know the old girl. She’d die of worry. The poor old thing has been on the point of death these three years, anyway. She’s particularly fond of me. Besides … what a sensation if I really did die now up in Pendragon. The prophecy would be fulfilled. I’d become a legend, like my ancestors who lived in nobler times. I’d be like one of those Homeric heroes whose death is prefigured three cantos beforehand. Sensational.”

  At the bend in the road he stopped the car and we debated whether to look for the secret entrance or go on up the usual way. In the end my view prevailed: given that people in those days built secret entrances precisely to be secret, we had little hope of finding it unless we stumbled on it by sheer chance. Much simpler to go up the proper way. And so we did.

  The old abandoned track was the one formerly used by horsemen and was not excessively steep. The car was able to get almost to the top. Just below the ruins we were at last forced to get out and continue up a series of broken steps, overgrown with moss.

  Of the old castle, only the walls remained. The roofs and upper storeys had been stripped away by the centuries. The ground had risen above the level of the stone floor and grass had covered it with a green carpet. The walls reared up crazily, like theatrical scenery, with the sky lowering down above our heads in place of the vanished ceilings.

  We made our way through echoing squares that had once been halls. Only the window apertures had retained their original outline, defying the bombardment of the ages. Devoid of glass and sightless, they maintained their Gothic contours, in the form of that special English variation the ogee arch, which soars upwards, thinks again, and deviates into a horizontal ridge.

  We finally reached the west wing, the best preserved section of the entire castle. Here even the roof remained. We traversed rooms that were more like rocky caves, stirring up the bats as we w
ent, before arriving, to our surprise, in a little courtyard with the ancient tower rising up before us.

  The tower was perfectly intact. From all sides, at irregular intervals, narrow windows gazed down without expression. The keep had probably once been a prison, as was the old practice, and interior lighting had never been regarded as a matter of importance. The sheer, almost unbroken expanse of its bleak walls exercised a forbidding power over the viewer.

  We walked all round the circular structure, examining everything minutely, but could find no sign of human life. Nor indeed could we find an entrance.

  “What’s this, then?” asked Maloney. “Did your ancestors fly in through the air?”

  “On ceremonial occasions, naturally,” said Osborne, “but I believe there should be a pedestrian entrance for working days as well. I seem to remember having been shown it once.”

  He led us back to the west wing where, after a brief search, we came across some stone steps, in almost pristine condition. We made our way down them and arrived at a corridor lit by holes cut in the roof.

  “It runs under the courtyard,” said Osborne. “The entrance is at the far end.”

  We followed it all the way, coming to a halt before a vast oak door reinforced by ancient iron bands that made me think of the Seven Seals.

  “I don’t remember this door,” said Osborne. “Either it wasn’t here when I came, or it must have been open.”

  As we feared, it was locked.

  “Well, so far and no further,” he went on. “This is where the interesting stuff begins—right under our noses, and it’s locked away. The story of my life.”

  “We should have a go—we might be able to get it open,” Maloney suggested. “I’ve managed quite a few in my time. We Connemarans know about these things. True, this one looks pretty serious. The mechanism looks like the inside of an old clock.”

  “No, don’t bother,” said Osborne. “You probably wouldn’t succeed, and anyway it wouldn’t have been locked if we were meant to open it. Let’s do the decent thing.”

  We made our way back, somewhat downcast.

  “Let’s take a look at that room next to the stairs. We might find something interesting in there.”

  The room was vaulted, dimly-lit, and empty. We were just about to leave when, having adjusted to the semi-darkness, my eye fell on something familiar hanging on the wall.

  “Look, it’s the Rose Cross!”

  A finely-carved stone cross, with stylised stone roses at its four points, stood out in relief against the wall.

  Suddenly Maloney called out: “Don’t you see?—the stone around the cross, and the cross itself, aren’t the same stone as the walls.”

  “Well, of course,” I replied. “It’s a relief; it was attached at later date.”

  “Yes, but what if … what if … ?” He said no more but went up to it, fiddled with it for a few moments, and behold, the cross moved. Very slowly, he rotated it.

  At the same moment a section of the wall moved with it, drawing inwards like a door opening. The mouth of the secret entrance stood before us.

  “Shall we go down?” we asked one another. In the pitch dark we could make out nothing of what lay beyond. Maloney produced a small torch.

  “We absolutely must. Who knows, we might even find treasure. Come on, don’t worry about it. Trust my instincts as a rock climber.”

  We made our way along a narrow, damp corridor to an antiquated spiral stairway. We began to descend, going round and round the stout stone column at its centre, for what seemed hours. Finally we reached the bottom.

  We found ourselves in a vast, vaulted room, the far end of which could not be seen. From what we could make out by the light of the torch, it contained a row of elongated rectangular tables.

  Approaching nearer we realised they were not tables. They were stone coffins, all bearing the Pendragon coat of arms. Rose crosses everywhere. We were in the crypt.

  We did a tour around the walls. Oh, how vast that crypt was! Whoever constructed it could have had no doubt that his family would multiply down the centuries, and had provided amply for them when they returned to the womb of the castle.

  “Is this crypt still used?” I asked Osborne.

  “No. I didn’t even know it existed. Since the seventeenth century the family have been buried in the park at Llanvygan.

  “I think we should go back now,” he concluded. I readily agreed. I’d had enough. The spiral stair and the crypt had exhausted me. My old misgivings had begun to return and I couldn’t wait to step into the light of day. Subterranean wanderings of this kind don’t entirely agree with me.

  “Wait a second,” said Maloney. “Just now, when we were going round the walls, I noticed another of those crosses. There could be another door behind that one too. Maybe those old fellows used them for handles.”

  We located the rose cross, though it was somewhat different from the first. Beneath it was an inscription. The moment I finished reading the inscription I staggered back, and would have fallen had Maloney not caught me.

  “What is it? What did you see?” they asked, in some alarm.

  “It’s exactly what was in the book!” I cried out—in Hungarian—and was surprised they failed to understand me.

  POST CXX ANNOS PATEBO

  (After one hundred and twenty years, I shall open.)

  The very words as on the entrance to the grave of Rosacrux.

  Maloney had started to loosen my necktie.

  “No, no, leave me alone, there’s nothing wrong with me,” I said, as I came to. “I’ve read about this place, I know all about it. There must be a door here. And behind it is something really amazing.”

  A closer look at the wall revealed the faint outline of a door. Maloney manipulated the rose cross for a while, and it swung open. The three of us leapt back in fright, struck by the light that poured through the opening, brighter than any light bulb.

  And then … it was just as in the book.

  We entered a seven-sided room. The floor was engraved with mystical figures representing the nations of the world; the ceiling likewise, representing the heavenly spheres. And at the centre of the room floated the indefinable white glow of the luminous body, the other, the subterranean sun, that the old volumes had described.

  As if I had been there before, I boldly led my companions deeper into the room, and pointed out to them the altar and the inscription:

  ACRC HOC UNIVERSI COMPENDIUM VIVUS

  MIHI SEPULCHRUM FECI

  (Living, I built this tomb for myself

  in the image of the universe)

  We were standing over the grave of the legendary Rosacrux. The story that had been derided for centuries was in fact true. We had come to the House of the Holy Ghost. There stood the altar, inscribed exactly as the Fama had recorded it. And over it, the ever-burning flame.

  But then … perhaps the rest was also true? If so, under the altar we would certainly find … the body of Rosacrux—or the man who had called himself Rosacrux—perfectly preserved despite the passing of centuries.

  Could I possibly dare?

  But intellectual curiosity, the strongest of all my passions, began to master my superstitious fears.

  “Give me a hand,” I said to the others. “Let’s raise the altar and take a look at the grave itself.”

  Maloney crossed himself and drew back. Osborne and I applied ourselves to the weight. But it moved as easily as if it had been expecting us. Beneath it lay a stone slab of the sort you see on tombs. Engraved on it was the Rose Cross of the Pendragons, and around it, the family motto:

  I BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

  and, a little lower down, the inscription:

  HERE LIETH ASAPH CHRISTIAN PENDRAGON

  SIXTH EARL OF GWYNEDD

  I stood there, deep in intense thought, over the tomb of the midnight rider. What could explain this mystery? It was the tomb of Rosacrux, as described in the ancient books, and it was also the tomb of Asaph Pendrag
on. There was only one possible explanation. Rosacrux and Asaph were one and the same person. The four letters of the inscription reinforced my conclusion. ACRC could only mean Asaph Christian Rosae Crucis.

  This discovery was greater than any I could ever have made had I read my way through the entire Pendragon library. I had found the historical basis of the legend of the Rose Cross. For a brief moment I saw, in my mind’s eye, the volume unfolding in which I laid the foundations of my international reputation as a scholar.

  Then I remembered the tomb and the body. The real wonder was still to come.

  “What do you think: could we manage to lift this stone?”

  “I don’t think we have the right,” said Osborne. “We can’t disturb my ancestor’s rest out of idle curiosity.”

  “But, Osborne, you must understand. This isn’t idle curiosity; it’s curiosity of quite a different kind. If everything else is true to the description, under this stone slab we shall find the body of Asaph Pendragon, uncorrupted and intact.”

  Maloney interposed:

  “Let’s just get out of here. I don’t like any of this. A grave is a grave and the dead are dead. Better to let them be. The whole place is so creepy I just wish to God I’d never come.”

  “Now listen, Doctor,” Osborne added. “We’ll either succeed in opening it, or not. If we do, we’ll have two alternatives. Either we’ll find a skeleton—which is the more probable—or else everything in your book is true and we’ll find Asaph Pendragon’s body … lying there, perfectly intact, with his arms folded on his breast and his finger bearing the magic rings described in the family tradition … Well, Doctor, forgive me, but I have no wish to see it. Something in me protests against prying into the secrets of the dead.”

  He was deathly pale, staring at me with eyes of terror.

  I realised nothing could be done. I had come up against the timidity, the discretion, the sheer lack of curiosity of this island race. Had I in any way insisted, they would have thought me utterly cynical, or something worse.

  While I was locked in argument with Osborne, Maloney was studying the altar. A sudden movement caught my eye, as the slab covering the tomb began to move back, just as the two doors had done. Maloney had found another rose cross and, half-unconsciously, had been manipulating it in the same way that he had before.