The Gawain Legacy

by Jon Mackley

  Lara nodded. ‘The architecture is from the right time. There are two sections, the Old Palace, built between 1334 and 1342, and the New Palace built over the next decade.’

  ‘So the first palace wasn’t big enough for the new Pope? He needed an extension,’ Will said with a sarcastic laugh. ‘All right, let’s imagine we’re the poet. He’s doing his research, or maybe arranging the clues. So he’s a guest, maybe he’s met the Pope.’

  ‘Your point?’

  ‘We’re not going to find anything in the kitchens or the Pope’s bedchamber. The poet would have seen, or put something in, one of the chapels, or the audience rooms.’

  From the ticket office, they walked outside into the main courtyard, the Cour d’honneur. There was a huge arched window on the right hand side of the wall, about half way up. ‘I guess this is where the papal blessing would have been received,’ Will said.

  Lara nodded, looking at the guidebook. ‘But we’re not going to find what we want out in the cold, let’s go inside.’

  She hesitated. For a fragment of a second, she had seen something. The Pope standing at the window, surrounded by cardinals; the courtyard filled with people dressed in old costumes she didn’t recognise, their heads bowed in prayer, and the voice of the Pope had sounded with the sonorous tones of a deep, booming bell.

  The image was gone as quickly as it arrived, but it left Lara feeling uneasy. The image had appeared to all of her senses. She had felt a warm afternoon sun caressing her skin. She could smell the roasting meats and a thick oily stench of sewage.

  Then Will was by her side. ‘Are you all right?’

  Lara nodded. ‘I think I understand now, what you meant about reaching out and touching history.’ She shook her head, trying to shake away the image, but it had branded into her mind like a flash-burn on her retinas. ‘Come on, Will. Let’s get away from here.’

  They entered a huge hall. Enormous faded tapestries hung on white walls. At the far end on one wall were portraits of the seven Avignon Popes, and on the next wall, portraits of the two Anti-Popes, resident in Avignon during the Schism.

  Will shook his head at the tapestries. ‘Those are seventeenth century, the originals must have been destroyed.’

  ‘You’re not going to like this,’ Lara said, looking up from the guidebook. ‘This room was known as the Salle Brûllée, the burnt room. There was an accidental fire in 1413, which destroyed all the tapestries, the frescoes and most of the decorations.’

  Will made a face. ‘Bet the poet didn’t take that into account. What do we know about the frescoes?’

  ‘Painted by Italians, they had marvellous colours depicting scenes from the Bible and things like that.’

  ‘Damn, and you can bet one of them was the one we’re looking for.’ He swore under his breath. ‘That’s why no one’s found the end of the trail. The clues stop here.’ He tried to look resolute. ‘The fire can’t have destroyed everything. Let’s have a look around.’

  ‘You’ll like this even less,’ Lara said. ‘During the time of the French Revolution the Palace was turned into barracks and … “renovated” by the soldiers. What the fire didn’t destroy, they probably had a good go at.’

  ‘We’ve come too far to give up,’ Will said. ‘Let’s keep going.’

  Will became excited when they entered the chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. ‘St John is mentioned twice in Gawain,’ he said.

  ‘Be careful with those square pegs,’ Lara replied.

  Her excitement rose as she gazed around the chapel; she had hoped that some of the frescoes, some depicting scenes from the New Testament, would have survived. But Will shook his head in despair. The floor of the chapel was wooden: fire had raged through and destroyed most of the palace decorations. Nothing remained of the tapestries, the frescoes, the floors or the ceilings; they had been replaced with modern replicas.

  Room after room they searched, eventually arriving in the north sacristy, with the cross-ribbed ceiling, and animals and fantastic beasts at the base of the vaults. ‘We might find something here,’ he said, but his voice betrayed resignation triumphing over optimism. ‘All the fantastic creatures Gawain encountered on his journey …’

  ‘And the poet dismisses in a single line,’ Lara reminded him. She scanned through the guidebook. ‘These are all imitations, just something to show the punters rather than a load of empty rooms. Nothing here is original.’

  Finally, they arrived at the Clementine Chapel, the room with the great window from which the Pope would have blessed the crowds in the courtyard. This was larger than any church that Lara had seen. It was light and airy inside, with huge windows in a northern Gothic style, and the cross-ribbed vaults made the ceiling appear higher, although their footsteps echoed noisily around them as they walked through.

  There were no decorations inside and Lara saw Will was crushed. Even when she took his hand in her own and gave it a comforting squeeze, he did not look down at her, but kept his eyes fixed upon the window, as if seeking some divine inspiration. ‘Perhaps we came to the wrong place after all,’ Will said, his voice shallow and forlorn. ‘Maybe we were supposed to go to Rome.’

  ‘And where would we start looking?’ Lara wondered. ‘Rome’s a big place and with just the word “pilgrimage”, we could spend a lifetime there looking through every building, every document, trying to locate a single Seal of Solomon.’

  ‘We could spend the rest of our lives scouring all the fourteenth century buildings in Avignon,’ Will said stiffly.

  His melancholy had transferred to her. Her shoulders slumped in dejection. ‘Perhaps it was destroyed by the fire then,’ she said sadly.

  Will had a far-off look in his eyes, but he suddenly snapped back into reality. ‘No,’ he said forcefully and his words hammered around the walls. ‘I refuse just to give up now. Let’s look at this logically. The Life of Winefride uses a French word, not Latin, not Italian. There were plenty of other pilgrimage sites in France, but both Gawain and Winefride saw the Pope.’ His jaw was set. His eyes flicked from one wall to another. ‘Where would the poet have gone if he came here? We didn’t see the guest quarters, just audience rooms,’ he scratched the back of his head vigorously. ‘We’re missing something obvious.’

  Lara shook her head and walked towards the Indulgence window. ‘The guest quarters have been turned into storage for the archives now. There’ll be nothing in there.’ She was already tired. By the window there were stairs outside to go down to the ground floor and into the courtyard. ‘He would have made some kind of contingency,’ Lara said. ‘Something which would have stood the test of time.’

  ‘Let’s assume he wasn’t the Pope or a cardinal,’ Will said. ‘Let’s assume he was an English noble who made a pilgrimage to Avignon to receive the papal blessing.’

  ‘All right,’ Lara said. ‘What’s your idea?’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t have seen any of these things. He wouldn’t have gone into the cardinals’ chambers. If he’d been allowed in this building at all then he’d have gone into the big audience chambers. What section of the Palace are they in?’

  Lara flicked through the guidebook. ‘It’s directly beneath us, on the other side of the ticket office.’

  They walked quickly down the stairs. Beneath the Great Chapel was a similar sized room with a profusion of intersecting ribbed vaults, the bases of which were sculpted to depict more mythical beasts. There was a fresco around one of the arched windows. It showed a starry blue sky and some of the prophets from the Old Testament. Lara stared at it in disinterest, wondering if she could make a pentacle from the constellations. At the far end of the chamber, a short, dark-haired woman was speaking in a loud voice. ‘A guide,’ Will said. ‘We should have followed her around, or asked her right at the start.’

  ‘You can’t just barge in on their tour,’ Lara said indignantly.

  Will paid no attention. He walked with determination across the room, his footsteps clattering noisily a
round him. He waited for her to finish speaking before approaching, then giving her a polite smile, he asked: ‘S’il vous plaît, madame. Est-ce qu-il y a une peinture ou une statue du Roi Solomon ici dans le palais?’

  The woman appeared surprised at the question, then smiled and nodded. She pointed to the arch under which Lara was standing. ‘Voilà, monsieur.’

  Lara looked up. There were twenty characters from the Old Testament, all of them associated with prophecy, except one. The haloed figure of Salomon stood with a forked ginger beard and hair down to his shoulders. His face was the colour of old ivory; his nose was sharp and pointed. His gold-hemmed, long white robe was adorned with eagles or dragons. He carried a phylactery in his hand, a Jewish parchment scroll, bearing an inscription from the books.

  ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ Will asked, bounding over to her. His eyes were wide with excitement once more. ‘How could this have survived?’

  Lara read the paragraph in the guidebook. ‘It says this has been reconstructed because the painter left a clear description of how it looked.’ She stared up ‘But I can’t read the scroll from here.’

  Will squinted at the ceiling. ‘You’d not have much hope of reading it if your Latin isn’t very strong.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘I can make out a few words, but it should be enough.’ He pulled out his notebook and wrote the letters as he spelled them out loud: ‘Q … U … A … E … R … E, Quaere lapidem in stella. That’s all it says. ’ He sucked on his lip. ‘Doesn’t sound like anything I’ve read in the Bible.’

  ‘But what does it say?’ Lara was leaning towards him with anticipation.

  ‘It says, “Search for the stone within the star”.’

  ‘What star? What did he mean?’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue. It’s another of the poet’s riddles. And it was typical of him to put the clue under everyone’s nose. Or over it anyway. Everyone’d expect to see Solomon standing among the Old Testament prophets. No one would think it out of place.’

  ‘So what does he mean, then?’ Lara wanted to know.

  ‘That,’ said Will, ‘will take a little longer to find out.’

  10

  ‘All right,’ Will said as they walked away from the Palais des Papes towards one of the few open cafés south of the square. He sat down at one of the tables outside. Lara sat opposite him, looking up at the decorations on one of the buildings. All of the windows of this residential house had been bricked over on one wall and instead someone had painted in open windows, with characters from nineteen-fifties films conversing with each other. She smiled at the simplicity and effectiveness of the design.

  It was a cold morning despite the sun. She pulled her coat tightly around her to keep warm.

  ‘The star is obviously a reference to the Seal of Solomon, the star Gawain carries on his shield,’ Will was saying. ‘All we have to do is find out what the poet meant by Hit is a syngne þat Salamon set sumquyle.’ He started to leaf through the manuscript. ‘There must be a reference to a stone somewhere nearby.’

  Lara shook her head. ‘I think we’re trying to put a square peg in a round hole again. We’ve already used the clues from the Seal of Solomon in Chester Cathedral. The same clue can’t be relevant to both, can it?’

  ‘Can’t it? Perhaps the clues were contrived so just the one clue needed to be hidden within a poem. Then anyone who was looking for whatever the poet was hiding would be scouring the whole of the poem looking for other clues rather than concentrating on the one stanza. ‘But then again, you might be right. It’s got to be something the poet knew, something important,’ Will said. He shook his head in frustration. ‘Any guesses?’

  ‘I’d thought about the line where he talks of “þe fordez” and “þe forlondez”, talking about something the audience would know. He talks about the stone and the star.’

  Will nodded. ‘At least we know we’re on the right track. It’s the same vocabulary.’ A waitress appeared at their side. Will smiled. ‘Deux cafés, s’il vous plaît,’ he said. When the waitress left, he stared at Lara. ‘If someone asked you to think of a star, what’s the first thing that comes to you?’

  Lara grinned. ‘Twinkle, twinkle.’

  ‘All right, aside from nursery rhymes?’

  ‘Something from Twelfth Night: In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness.’

  ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them,’ Will added with a smile. ‘What about the other one?’

  ‘My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours.’

  ‘The malignancy of my fate,’ Will mused. His eyes became distant. He looked back at her. ‘Anything from The Comedy of Errors?’

  Lara thought for a moment. ‘A few suns, but no stars.’ She chewed her lips. ‘I keep thinking of when I was in a nativity play. I still remember the words I had to say “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you”. I keep thinking of the Star of David and that the sign that led the shepherds to the stable was a star.’

  Will thought about that. ‘It doesn’t follow. The Star of David has six points. The Seal of Solomon is based on the Star of Hermes – only five points.’

  ‘What was so important about Hermes?’

  ‘In Freemasonry, Hermes is thought of as the Great Teacher.’ His eyes became distant once more. ‘Jerusalem stone was used to build the western wall. It might even have been used to construct Solomon’s first Temple.’

  ‘So does this mean we’re heading out to Israel?’

  ‘Not unless we can fund an archaeological expedition to find something no one else has managed. The temple was destroyed around two and a half thousand years ago. No one really knows where it is.’ He pulled out his notebook and read through his scribbles. He shook his head: ‘Solomon’s scroll was written in Latin, not Hebrew. The language is important, just like finding a French word in a Latin document. What we’re looking for can’t be far from here.’

  ‘Or are we just looking at the ecclesiastical language of the fourteenth century?’ Lara asked. ‘Are we trying to look for too much?’

  Will leaned across. ‘You’d like to go to Israel?’ he asked.

  Lara nodded. ‘But Avignon’s fine as well,’ she said with a warm smile.

  The waitress appeared with the coffees. Will gave her a smile of thanks and stared at his cup as he poured some cream. He watched absently as the white mingled with the brown, as if it might produce an answer.

  ‘Problem is we could spend a month going through each of the churches and not find the answers we want.’ He took a small battered map of the city from one of his coat pockets, circling some of the churches. ‘Église Saint-Didier,’ he said, drawing a ring around one of the buildings on the map. ‘What else? Église Saint-Agricol, Église Saint-Pierre, Église et Cloître Saint-Martial, Église et Cloître des Célestins … not to mention the Cathédrale Notre-Dame des Doms. We could be here all day trying to find out where all the churches are.’

  ‘I don’t suppose joining up all the points of the churches would give us a shape of any sort?’

  Will looked down at the map, then shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t work.’ They’re generally on the left hand side of the city, except one.’

  Lara took a sip of her coffee and grimaced at the bitter taste. She gave a long sigh. ‘Then I guess we have to do this the hard way,’ she said. She ran her fingers over the map. ‘Pick a church, any church,’ she said with a grin.

  ‘The Église Saint-Didier is the closest,’ Will said. ‘Shall we check that one out?’

  Lara nodded. She finished her coffee, making a face at how bitter it tasted. Will left some coins on a saucer and they walked along the Rue de la République. The streets were busy: shoppers jostled them as they hurried by. Lara glanced around nervously, wondering if their pursuers had been able to pick up their trail and had already arrived in Avignon. She was relieved when Will ducked down a back street to the church.

 
It was dark inside the church; almost no light came from outside. Two spotlights illuminated the pulpit making it the focus for the congregation. Flickering candles lit some of the shrines and alcoves. Even the altar at the far end was plunged into blackness.

  Lara took a moment to become accustomed to the darkness. There was almost no sound. Somewhere, concealed in shadows, she heard the footsteps of another visitor. She almost didn’t dare breathe for fear of breaking the silence. The church felt hostile and unwelcoming.

  Will touched her arm and smiled at her. His face looked strange, bathed in the shadows. He pointed at the rows of wooden seats. Midway along the chairs, obscured in the gloom, a couple were sitting. The woman stroked the man’s hair. Their faces were close together. He whispered to her.

  ‘Lovers, meeting illicitly, no doubt.’ Will’s voice was almost inaudible, but a cheeky grin had covered his face. ‘What better place to hide than right under the nose of God? No one would think of looking for them here.’

  Lara shivered. This building had no heating and the darkness seemed to be closing on her. She cleared her throat and the sound thundered around the building. The lovers did not look up. ‘What are we looking for here?’

  ‘A star?’ Will said. ‘And a stone.’ Lara was about to set out to examine the tiny alcoves and shrines but Will caught her arm. ‘Don’t waste your time. We don’t know this is the right place. We could spend hours looking here; that’s time we could spend trying to work out about the stars and the stones.’

  ‘Then why are we here?’

  ‘Looking at the church. Seeing if something jumps out at us. We may as well try another.’

  Lara looked at Will uncertainly. ‘Do you mind if we head to the Pont St Bénézet?’

  Will gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Not at all. Do you think we’ll find anything there? Or are you going as a tourist?’

  Lara shook her head. ‘I’ve heard so much about the bridge, I thought it might be worth going to see it.’