by Lazlo Ferran
It seemed incredibly tall, and is in fact the highest vaulted Cathedral in Europe, the vaulting in the choir reaching forty-eight metres. From the outside, the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre, as it is officially known, is faced with an impressive array of flying buttresses, which reach to its full height.
“It’s just so enormously high!” I said.
“Can we go in?” she asked.
“We can try. Let’s park somewhere.” While looking for a space in a side street, I saw a couple of Gendarmes lazily leaning against a wall. We noticed four more on the way to the Cathedral entrance, more than one would expect, and I tried to keep my face turned away.
“Sorry. You cannot come in tonight. There is a special service in progress”, a clergyman explained on the door in French. Ayshea explained politely that we only wanted a glimpse of the choir vault, and that we were just passing through. He relented and let us walk up to the railed-off portion of the choir, where the service was taking place. I looked up and was astonished at the height of the vault far overhead. For a moment I was dizzy; I felt something like vertigo. I imagined what it would be like to be up near the vaulted ceiling. The black and white tiled floor seemed somehow to add to the effect, making the vast space fluctuate.
“We can’t stay. Come on. Let’s go,” I said.
We reached the corner of the Cathedral just in time. Two Gendarmes were just rounding the opposite corner and approaching the huge wooden doors to the Cathedral.
“Damn. I need to get in that Cathedral as soon as possible. Where do you think it iS, do you think?”
“The crypt?” Ayshea shrugged. “Usually they are in the basement.” She laughed, and I laughed too – at her use of the word ‘basement’.
We found a small restaurant in a side street and I treated Ayshea to a four-course meal with wine, coffee and after-dinner chocolates. It was pleasant enough, with candles and soft, lush orchestral music, playing through hidden speakers.
“Now we have the problem of where to stay tonight,” I said.
“We could drive out of town and sleep in the car?”
“No. We would probably be spotted and anyway, that’s not a fit rest place for a young lady.” She giggled. “No. We have to find a hotel but you will have to smuggle me in somehow.”
Driving across town in the car, I suddenly had an idea. “I have to do something before we get a hotel.” I drove around for a few minutes, trying different streets before I saw what I was looking for. I parked the car, took my jacket and left Ayshea, mystified in the car for a few minutes. I returned with a carrier-bag and smiled at her as I placed it on the back seat.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A tape-recorder.”
“Ah I see.”
“Do you? It’s for Rose as much as anything.”
“Yes, but it’s a good idea anyway.” Her face was creased with concern.
The Hôtel de Royale was just what I was looking for. Modern, with plenty of large windows, and large sections of flat roof, it was also only three floors so there was a good chance we could get a ground floor room.
“Here’s the money. Two-hundred francs should be plenty for two nights. Find a good room, unpack and then, when you are ready, go out for a walk. I will be waiting for you. Remember. Get a ground floor room if you can.”
“Okay. I have never booked a hotel room before. My alias is Madamoiselle Cheuvelle?”
“Yes.”
Thirty minutes later she left the front entrance and turned left, towards the town centre. I followed her and when we were out of earshot from the Hotel, I caught up with her.
“Hi!”
“Hello. Who are you?” She laughed. It was the first time I had seen her without her glasses, and her hair was down. She had even applied some blusher and lipstick, God knows where she had hidden that, as I hadn’t even seen so much as a purse on her, let alone a handbag. Women have an extraordinary talent for having the right things with them when they need them.
“You look lovely.”
“Thank you. You are kind.”
“I need a shower. I must look awful,” I said.
“Oh. Don’t worry. It’s a lovely evening. Let’s just walk.”
She was right. It was warm with just a faint breeze and the many planted flowers, in beds alongside the road, gave the air a sweet tang.
I looked up at the moon, and remembered what time of the month it was. The last quarter had started the day before and the waning gibbous moon looked slightly yellow. I shuddered and tried to put it out of my mind. Ayshea entwined her arm in mine, and we walked like that, past many couples enjoying the evening.
“You are very tense. Are you worried about what might happen tomorrow, in the Cathedral?” she asked.
“Yes. Of course. But I’m more worried that I might not get to the Crypt in time. I didn’t tell you the whole truth the other day.”
“I know. I know tomorrow is the last day.”
“You do?”
“I have been following the ‘crusher’ murders as they have crossed France. The first one was three hundred and sixty-four days ago, five tomorrow. I know about the heartbeat of God and I know that the Serpents have a lunar year period when they can exist on the earthly plane.”
I looked at her in astonishment. She seemed about to tell me something more but something was stopping her. I waited but eventually she looked away.
“You know a lot,” I said.
“I should do. I have been studying the subject for years.”
“Are you a sorceress?”
She laughed and this time it was shrill.
“One of those. No! I know what you mean though. The followers of the dark cult, they call themselves servants of the Concilium Putus Visum.”
“They use another name too. Sometimes they call themselves the Ordo Loup-garou.” I laughed bitterly. “Isn’t that funny. It’s so similar a name it caught me out.” I stopped, knowing I had said too much.
“You mean Georgina? She was one of them?”
“I don’t want to talk about her,” I said quietly.
“I have researched this. The French name for a werewolf, is loup-garou. Obviously you know the Latin noun lupus meaning wolf. The ‘garou’ bit is thought to be from Old French garoul meaning ‘werewolf’. This in turn is most likely from Frankish wer-wulf meaning ‘man-wolf’.”
“It’s clever. Most people wouldn’t realise it was a counter-cult. It would allow them to insinuate themselves into The Brotherhood. And yet I don’t even know anybody in Ordo Lupus. Not for sure. I think my grandfather was a member. No, I know he was. But he’s dead now. I haven’t met anyone else.” It occurred to me that Ayshea might be. “Are you?”
“Noooo. I am just a historian. My father had no interest in these things, if that is what you are wondering. Neither did my mother.”
“Oh.”
There was an awkward silence but she ended it. “I haven’t met anybody in either cult. My life has been very boring, until now.”
“How about your childhood? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“No. I am an only child. Spoiled really, I suppose.”
“No. I don’t think so. I have met many spoiled women and you are not like them. You are thoughtful and caring.”
“I wasn’t in the Library.”
“Well, I was rather cheeky with that piece of paper. You probably thought I was chatting you up.”
“Ah. That English phrase. You mean making a pass at me?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.” She blushed. “I am not very experienced with men. There have been a few, especially at college, but I was always too impatient with them. I expect too much, I suppose.” She laughed nervously at her own little joke.
“Gendarmes!” I whispered and took her hand in mine.
“Oh!”
Her little hand seemed cold to the touch, almost as cold as the metal band on a ring she wore. I kept her close as the Gendarmes on the other side of the street passed us, w
ithout really noticing us.
“Tell me a little about yourself, how you came to be here,” she said.
“I wonder myself how I came to be here.” I told her something about my childhood in Highgate, my two sisters, who I rarely saw these days but talked to on the phone, my time in the War and M.I.6, and life in Bulgaria. I told her how I met Rose, and about life in the Civil Service. Lastly I told her about the statues we had found, Rose and I, and how they had formed the basis of a hobby, which had grown into a business, and now had become a matter of life and death.
When I had finished, she gently withdrew her hand from mine, I had forgotten I was still holding hers, and said, “Let’s go back to the Hotel. I am tired.”
“Yes.”
The room was on the ground floor, and when she opened the window, I climbed in quietly with the carrier-bag. It was a large and comfortable room with an en-suite bathroom. I took a shower while she dozed on the bed.
I came out with just a towel around my waist and she was still lying on the bed, but with an impish grin. “My turn. I had a quick shower earlier but I like to soak in a bath every night.”
“Yes. I noticed we had a shower and a bath.”
I collapsed on a stiffly upholstered chair, hooked my leg over an arm, and let my eyes close. I was exhausted.
“Wake up!” It was Ayshea shaking me gently. “I have been out of the bath for an hour! I ordered some coffee from Room Service and they are coming so you better hide in the bathroom.”
“What’s that noise?” I could hear a tap-tapping somewhere.
“Wind. A branch on the window. The weather has changed while you were asleep.”
I came out of the bathroom after the waiter left, and Ayshea, fully dressed again, was busying herself with a tray of coffee. Served in white porcelain with a cute little sugar bowl, and cream, I thought the hotel service was better than I had expected.
“Now. If only we had a wood-fire,” said Ayshea.
“Well, we can imagine it. It is very warm anyway.”
“Yes, but it’s getting colder. Can’t you feel it?”
I could hear the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops on the window panes. “A storm do you think?”
“Probably. Sugar?”
“One please.”
“Cream?”
“Yes please.”
“You sound like a little boy!”
“That’s not fair. I’m not properly awake yet. You are taking advantage of me.”
“There is something I want to talk to you about. So drink your coffee and then we will talk.”
After I had finished that cup, she refilled it.
“How much do you know of this ‘Magic Weapon’?”
“Not much. Just that it is large, too large to conceal in your clothes. I know that there were two of them and that they were brought out of Montségur by the two monks, just before the siege in the 13th Century. Oh yes and the Crypt was built shortly afterwards. That’s about all I know.”
“That is quite a considerable amount of information, considering that most people have not heard at all of the weapons. There is more though.” She pulled her legs up underneath her on the other chair, and settled herself, cradling her cup of coffee on her knee with both hands. “The weapons, which are swords the size and shape of Great Swords, were made from a casket of pure silver which was blessed by Jesus. They were lost, or hidden for many centuries.” Her voice soothed me and as she spoke, I closed my eyes to listen.
***
“Vos fossor! Quare did vos dico Abbatis nos es leprous! Iam nos es damno pro umquam!”
“Exsisto quietis quod servo pedes!”
The two monks were just dark shapes in the gloom under the battlements of the castle. It was darkness such as is rarely glimpsed in the 20th Century; no candles, no street lights, no faint glow from a city on the horizon. Like wriggling artifacts in a grainy black and white photo, they moved across the mossy rocks towards the steep grass slope that would lead them down off the rock bluff, upon which the castle was perched. The Latin they spoke was crude.
“You fool! Why did you tell the Abbot we were leprous? Now we are damned forever!”
“Shut up and keep walking.”
“What’s in these boxes anyway?”
“How should I know? Who cares? They needed mules and we are it! Just thank God we are out of there!”
“I will, when I get a decent meal, and a barrel of ale.”
Montségur loomed like a jagged tooth against the faint star-light above them. The siege of 1244 was almost at an end, there was no more food, precious little water, and most of the Cathars were ready to risk surrender. On the darkest night, with black clouds obscuring the sliver moon, the two monks had slipped out through a hidden tunnel, carrying their precious cargo. For monks they were brawny, and hefted the five-foot long crude wooden boxes on their shoulders with ease, as they negotiated the rocks and came to the grassy slope.
“Shh! The enemy lines are near. The buggers will eat us for dinner if they don’t burn us.”
Huddling low on the rocks, so as not to show a silhouette against the sky, they crawled and scrambled between two large boulders, and found themselves between a tent and a row of tied-up horses.
“Nice horse,” whispered the leading monk to a horse, patting its nose, fearful that it would give them away. They crossed a roughly defined causeway between two rows of tents, and saw a sentry leaning lazily against a rock, flagon of ale slung lazily over his arm. He was looking from side to side, but was on the lookout for superior officers rather than the enemy. He didn’t notice the two shadows, close to the ground, fifty metres in front of him. They passed alongside another tent with voices within, and then chose a path cutting obliquely across the steep continuation of the slope on the other side of the causeway. This part of the slope was too steep for tents and soon they were safely out of earshot of the camp.
“Gratiae exsisto ut Deus” The rearmost monk offered up a prayer to God. “We’re through.” A small town lay only half a mile below them but they didn’t head for it. They started for a large cave they knew that cut into the rocky hillside, a few miles further down the valley.
“Will we ever see any of the others again, do you think?” said the leading, lankier monk.
“I don’t think so. If they surrender they will be burned or at least tortured. Lord Raymond will be burned for sure.”
“It’s a shame. He’s a noble Lord.”
“Yeah. Not a bad type.”
And then they were gone into the night. When they reached the cave, they found a niche deep inside, dug a trench into the dusty soil beneath their feet, and buried the two long boxes. Then they went their own ways, each seeking shelter with Cathar families they knew in the area.
***
I felt I was in a dream. Perhaps I was listening to Ayshea’s voice and perhaps it really was a dream. I started, and suddenly I was listening to her normal voice again.
“Probably, they were hidden in the Crypt which if it is in Beauvais Cathedral, would have been built at the correct time. In any case, sometime early in this century, a man who is now known as the Interfeci- meaning ‘cruel slayer’, found one, and began using it to fight, and indeed, kill the Serpents. He since became the most successful Serpent Slayer of modern times, perhaps of all time. However it is not known if the other Weapon still exists.”
“Where did you find all this?”
“Oh. It has taken years to piece it all together.”
“Do you know anything more about Ordo Lupus?”
“Only what you probably know already.”
“Well, tell me. You would be surprised how little I know.”
“Okay. Another coffee?” She was kneeling on the thick rug next to the low carved oak coffee table, pouring another for herself: black.
“Maybe one more. I really should get a good night’s sleep.”
“Really! You don’t know much about flattering a woman do you?” It was such a playful and inte
lligent flirt, that I knelt on the rug on the opposite side of the low table. I was probably old enough to be her grandfather and when I had come out of the bathroom with just a towel around me, I had sucked my sagging belly in, more to save her sensibilities than my own embarrassment, but now, flirting seemed harmless, and even necessary, to calm both our nerves.
“One thing I was going to ask,” I said. “You said these Swords are in the shape of great swords, but made of pure silver? So presumably they are completely useless as real weapons? I mean they won’t cut very effectively.”
“Yes. That is true. But they are not purely ornamental. Silver is believed by many to have a sort of purity, hence the legend of killing vampires by impaling them with a silver knife. In fact these Swords may well be the origin of that legend.”
“So they are for stabbing the Serpents with?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“So you were going to tell me some more about the Brotherhood.”
“Well it is only what you probably know already. The story goes that the winged snakes are really demons and that they are fighting these winged wolves who are really fallen angels, and trying to get back to heaven by killing the snakes. God gave them the form of wolves, so they would be different from the snakes, and he also gave them the silver swords. Of course you know the rest. The snakes are invisible normally, and ‘constrict’ the fabric of the world, making evil things happen to people, and living off the souls of the dead. Every sixty years, the fabric of space is torn for a period of one year, and the snakes have to survive by actual killing and they take real bodies.”
“That bit about the snakes ‘constricting’ space and making bad things happen to people; it sounds exactly like a quote I have heard before. Henry was reading from the ‘De Secretis Scientia Occultis’.”
“Really? It probably is the same text, but from another source.”
“So I guess these wolf-angels have something to do with Ordo Lupus.”
“Yes. Exactly. I would think that the Interfeci was a Lupus Angelus. Sorry. I forgot your coffee!” She laughed and poured the now luke-warm coffee. She leaned over the table to hand it to me but then she lost her balance, and her elbow crashed into the glass top of the table. “Wo!” she cried, and then there was a gasp as her back hit the floor. I rushed around the table.