The Gawain Legacy

by Jon Mackley

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t think I breathed too much in,’ Will said. ‘I’ll be okay.’ He looked down at her, steadying himself against the side of the tomb. ‘Can you give me a hand with this thing?’

  Lara nodded. Both taking a deep breath, they heaved up the tomb lid.

  The torchlight did not reach the interior of the tomb; instead the heart of the sepulchre was bathed in shadow. Lara leaned down and picked up the light. She dreaded to look inside, knowing the skeletal face of a child might be leering up at her. She squeezed her eyes shut as she pointed the beam inside, cutting away the shadows.

  ‘My God,’ Will said.

  Lara did not want to open her eyes, but, like Lot’s wife, she felt compelled to look. She squeezed one eye open.

  Parchments, leather-bound manuscripts, vellum documents. This tomb was a hive of information from a time long forgotten. Will leafed through them like a child in a sweetshop, not sure what he should try first.

  ‘This is brilliant,’ he said, his eyes glowing. ‘This must be the largest find of medieval papers ever.’ He started to look through a leather-bound manuscript and examine the pages. ‘This is a history of the Order of the Garter, these are sermons and ideas of early Christian philosophy, and this’ – he held up another set of pages –‘this looks like another manuscript written by Sir William.’ He grinned at Lara. ‘Do you think he had another code buried in this one? Do you think our journey has just started?’

  Lara shook her head. ‘For you, maybe. It would take the rest of your life to sort through these. I don’t see it has anything to do with me anymore.’

  ‘Disappointed that we didn’t find any gold?’ Will asked. ‘This is bigger than any hoard.’ He lifted the vellum and parchments carefully from the tomb, then rummaged at the bottom. ‘What’s this?’ he said.

  Will held a small piece of metal in the torchlight. Looking closely, she saw it was a golden signet ring. The pentacle from Gawain’s shield was engraved in the metal. ‘Looks like Sir William took his idea of Gawain’s virtues very seriously,’ Will said.

  ‘That little trinket?’ Lara said. She didn’t want to stay in the crypt any longer.

  Will offered her the ring, so she could examine it more closely. But it seemed to be calling to her, challenging her. She backed away. ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust,’ Lara said softly.

  ‘That’s not Twelfth Night.’

  ‘No, it’s T.S. Eliot. I think he was telling us not all treasures have a monetary, or even a physical value.’

  Will dropped the ring into his pocket alongside the manuscript. He turned back to the vellum.

  Lara stared around the room. The darkness seemed to be closing in on them. She wondered if the strange apparitions lurking in the corner of the rooms were their own shadows, or spectres of the past who had come to protect their treasures. More than once she thought she saw glowing eyes, then two pairs, stalking them, surrounding them, cutting off their escape to the world above.

  ‘Will, do we have to stay any longer?’ she breathed. ‘Can’t you read them outside?’

  Will did not appear to hear her. He had escaped into a forgotten world to which he had been granted limited access. It was as though the papers would melt away from him like a dream once he left the crypt.

  ‘These manuscripts were buried for a reason,’ Lara said. ‘Do we have the right to bring them to light?’

  Will moved his head towards her. He seemed reluctant to tear his eyes away from the papers. Eventually, he nodded. ‘These papers are of vital historical importance. They explain the importance of the Order of the Garter. This is big news.’ His eyes widened. He held up a large piece of vellum with a wax seal attached. ‘This is a Papal Bull. It says the Pope absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308.’

  ‘What’s the big deal?’

  ‘Most Templars were accused of being heretics. It means there was some serious pressure on the Pope.’

  Lara shook her head, not really understanding.

  Will began to gently leaf through the parchment. Some of the pages were brittle; fragments were falling away with his touch. Suddenly he stopped. His eyes widened.

  ‘Oh God,’ he managed to breathe.

  ‘What is it?’ Lara was at his side. He had turned to a page of vellum. The ink had faded, but Will was tracing his finger along the lines, and was mouthing the words.

  ‘What is it?’ Lara said again.

  ‘This is the document everyone’s has been looking for,’ Will said. ‘It’s written by Sir William.’ He traced along a few more lines.

  ‘What does it say?’ When Will did not answer, she asked again.

  Will was annoyed at the distraction. ‘Hold on,’ and he read out loud:

  ‘I, William de Maßci, surrendre my wisdom to þe, who haþ followed þe paþ of my laye Sir Gawayne, & which haþ brought þe to þis, mi last reßting place.

  Siþen þe deþe of mi dauAter, þere shal be no mor of þe lyne of de Maßci. Mi family is deßcended from þe grete crußader who founded wiþ Richardus Rex Cor-Leonam þe miᵹtie temple of ’

  Will stumbled when pronouncing the Hebrew writing: Beit HaMikdash.

  ‘What’s that?’ Lara asked.

  ‘The Holy House. It’s how the first Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem is described,’ Will said. ‘Destroyed two and a half centuries ago by the Babylonians. It was the place where Solomon kept the Ark of the Covenant.’ He continued to read:

  ‘Sir Gerard returned from þe Holy Londes with a great priß –þe legendary Ring of Solomon – for which þe ordre of þe Poore Fellowe Kniᵹtes of Krist and of þe Temple of Solomon was founded.’

  He breathed in astonishment. ‘The Ring of Solomon,’ he explained. ‘Lara, this “little trinket” is what King Solomon used to control the demons …’

  ‘And that’s why it cannot be left in your control,’ a voice said from behind them. Lara and Will turned as one. Will’s torch beam found a face at the foot of the stairs: Tantris.

  18

  The relief that washed over Lara at seeing Tantris, a familiar face, quickly subsided. There was something in his gait, his posture, his very presence, that made her feel uneasy. Will must have felt it too. His hand covered his pocket containing the manuscript and the ring. Tantris’s hands were in his own pockets as if concealing something.

  ‘How do?’ Tantris said pleasantly, but there was a bitter edge to his smile. He turned to Will and held out his hand. ‘The ring, if you please. It belongs to us.’

  Will clutched his pocket tighter, shielding it from Tantris. ‘Not a chance. Not after what we’ve been through.’ He stabbed a finger at Lara. ‘What she’s been through.’

  Tantris took a step towards them. Will backed away into Margery’s tomb. ‘You don’t have any choice, Will,’ Tantris said. ‘The ring is an object of absolute power. Power corrupts. It can’t be left in the hands of one man.’

  ‘It can’t be left in the hands of one Government either,’ Will said. ‘There’s no way we’d let you take this and let armies use it against their enemies.’

  ‘I never worked for the Government,’ Tantris said flatly.

  ‘Wait a second,’ Lara said. His voice was desperate. ‘What’s so important about it?’

  ‘If this is what Sir William says it is, then it’s the ring Archangel Michael gave to Solomon to discern the names of demons in order to control them to help construct the temple of Jerusalem,’ Will explained, looking anxiously at Tantris.

  Tantris nodded, ‘The Testament of Solomon also tells of someone who cannot control the power he is given and loses it all for the love of a woman.’

  ‘So what’s your interest in this?’ Lara demanded, finding new reserves of defiance.

  Will didn’t wait for Tantris to answer; nor did his gaze flicker from him. ‘You remember I told you there were two organisations following us in Avignon? Tantris here has been a member of one of them all the time.’ He shook his head. ‘That was p
retty sharp, getting to us at the canal in Chester. It’s like you knew what we were doing before we did.’

  Tantris nodded slowly. ‘It certainly could appear that way.’

  ‘I thought it was strange how you seemed to know all about the tunnels in Bath,’ Will continued. ‘At least you didn’t tell us “trust no one”,’ Will said bitterly. ‘That really would have been a cliché.’

  ‘You were doing a good job of trusting no one by yourself.’ Tantris smiled. ‘It may have been clichéd, but it would also have been good advice.’

  ‘And your name isn’t really “Tantris” is it?’ Will said. ‘I should have spotted that right from the beginning.’ He glanced at Lara. ‘In Béroul’s Tristan, Tristan arrives in Ireland and calls himself “Tantris” to avoid giving away his true identity.’

  ‘Not a very good pseudonym,’ Lara muttered. ‘Don’t suppose you’re going to tell who you work for?’

  Tantris shook his head. ‘But it’s not the Government of any country, nor any terrorist organisation.’

  ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t admit to it, even if you were,’ Lara said acerbically. ‘Then who’s left?’

  Tantris removed his hands from his pockets and held them out, palms facing them, to show there was no threat. His head bowed slowly. ‘This is outside of the remit of a Government, or NATO, or even the United Nations. There are other powers in the world to which even these great organisations must bow.’ He stepped away from them and leaned against Gerard de Masci’s tomb. He looked at them, as if he were a storyteller, waiting for the children to settle before he began ‘There are some forces not bound by political rules.’

  ‘Such as?’ Lara asked.

  ‘Start with the weather,’ Tantris said. ‘No Government can stop it.’

  ‘Will!’ Lara said with sarcastic enthusiasm. ‘Tantris is an agent of the North Wind!’

  Will shook his head, suddenly serious. ‘You’re not talking about the wind. You’re talking about something more … super-natural.’

  Tantris raised an eyebrow and nodded. ‘The storm clouds are gathering.’

  Lara gave a cynical laugh. ‘And the earth shall shake and the ocean floors shall crack asunder, and the oceans will pour into the chasms. And nameless abominations shall ravage the earth. And the rest of the day will have light winds with scattered showers.’ She laughed, in spite of herself and was surprised when Will shot an angry glare at her.

  ‘This is important,’ he hissed.

  Tantris pointed to the pocket concealing the ring. ‘This is another weapon to help our war against chaos. From chaos, order will come, and from order, life will come.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, then reached into his pocket. Lara flinched. Then he took out a battered packet of cigarettes. He offered them to Will and Lara, who silently refused. He lit the cigarette with a flame-less lighter and inhaled deeply. As he breathed out the smoke coiled away from his mouth and hung in the still air like morning mist.

  ‘Have you read the Book of the Apocalypse?’ Tantris asked looking directly at Will.

  Will nodded. ‘It was called Revelation when I read it. I was fourteen. It scared me to death.’

  ‘But you’d have read it again since then?’

  Will grunted an acknowledgement.

  ‘Hit is a syngne þat Salamon set sumquyle,’ Tantris said, not faltering over the Middle English. ‘The seals of the Apocalypse are those which signify not the end of the world, but a “new” beginning as well as the fifteen signs before Judgement.’ He indicated up the spiral stairs with his head. ‘Here in the church is a seal. It is not one of the seals of Revelation, but the stone in which it is infused is ancient indeed.’

  ‘Infused?’ Will said, puzzled.

  Tantris nodded as he drew on the cigarette once again. ‘It was infused in Babylonian times, brought back by Gerard de Masci who was with the crusaders when they took Jerusalem in 1099. He also took the ring you now hold; it is called the pentalpha. Sal ad-Din fought to take Jerusalem almost a century later, solely to reclaim the ring.’

  ‘But he didn’t find it,’ Will said, reaching into his pocket and taking out the ring. His eyes took on a nasty shine. ‘You realise I could use this to discern your name?’

  ‘Would it do you any good?’ Tantris asked innocently. He pointed to the ring. ‘Of course, it was already in England, already under the careful guardianship of the de Masci family. But when Margery died, the line and the hopes of the de Masci family died with her. That’s why it was such a lamentable tragedy that led Sir William to write Pearl. It was a practice before he wrote Sir Gawayne.’

  ‘You knew this all along,’ Will accused. ‘Why did you need me to trail around and follow the clues? Why not just come and find it yourself?’

  ‘We cannot interfere with the course of time. You broke our predictions and stole the manuscript, you started to follow the path. You had to believe you were doing this yourself, doing this in defiance of us, not because of us.’

  ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Will said, holding up the manuscript. ‘There are a million copies of the Gawain manuscript available, even facsimiles of the original. What makes this one so important? Why couldn’t someone else get the Clarendon Press version and follow the clues?’

  ‘Because the manuscript you hold is not the B-text as you suggest, but the first that was written, the only one in the author’s own hand, not a copy like the one stored in the British Library. It is … infused with the poet’s knowledge. It is, as you would say, Lara, “the sweet Roman’s hand”.’

  ‘I’m not following you,’ Lara said. ‘Why should that make a difference?’

  Tantris’s kept looking at Will. ‘You can empathise with items from the past simply by touching them. You can see through Sir William’s eyes by holding the manuscript; feel his thoughts around you so thick that you have to push them away.’ He took a step towards Will. ‘If you concentrated,’ Tantris continued, and Lara wondered if she could see a look of trepidation in his face, ‘you could even see the things that Solomon saw.’ He took a long, deep breath. ‘I don’t advise it.’

  Lara stood straight. ‘Hold on. I’m the one who was injected. I’m the one who can supposedly do this.’

  Tantris slowly shook his head. ‘You were both injected,’ he said in a quiet voice.

  Will did not answer for a long time. His mouth fell open, flapping in soundless speech. His eyes were wide, and Lara wondered if she saw fear etching its way across his face. His shoulders slumped as he eventually found his voice. ‘Bastards.’

  Tantris cocked his head and took another long draw on the cigarette. An eternity passed before he spoke again. ‘I’m afraid you’re as much a part of this experiment as she was, Will. Your circumstances had to be manipulated for you to get to Bath.’

  Realisation crossed Will’s face. ‘They killed Roger.’ His voice was like air escaping from a tyre. ‘Then Janet. They killed them just to get me to play their games.’

  ‘It was necessary,’ Tantris replied. There was no hint of apology or remorse in his voice. These three words where his way of offering an explanation.

  Will screamed as he lunged across the room. The torch clattered to the floor. It bounced once and the light failed. Lara heard the sound of scuffling where Tantris had been leaning. She fumbled across the floor, trying to find the torch, hoping the fall had only dislodged the batteries, not broken the bulb.

  Her hands closed over something small and cold. Bolts of pain seared through her hand. With this came the realisation that Will had dropped the ring as he had leapt at Tantris. She held the ring of Solomon.

  The ring called to her, more than that, it was commanding her. She twisted it between her thumb and forefinger. This was an artefact of unspeakable power. She tried to resist it, but knew she had neither the strength nor the will. She wanted to throw it away, but the more passionate part of her mind wanted to see why it was so important.

  There was no light. In the distance she heard the two men struggling. It seemed
so far away, they could have belonged to a different time. Surely no one would notice if she was quick. Deftly she slipped the ring onto her finger.

  For a moment she felt no different, but when she tried to remove the ring she felt it fighting her, challenging her. Now I know how Frodo felt, she thought unhappily.

  A great void opened in front of her, and she knew she was no longer in her view of present day, but in a time before history was recorded.

  The chamber melted away. She no longer felt the cold; instead she felt the abrasive sandy winds of the desert buffeting her. In front of her the great King Solomon was standing, holding aloft the ring of power. She smiled, realising that Solomon did not have ginger hair and a forked beard as he had been depicted in Avignon. He was a handsome black man, his hair and beard streaked with grey. She heard him shouting; his voice was powerful and it rose high above the winds. The words were a foreign language to her, but at the same time they seemed familiar.

  She did not hear the words. She tried to block them from her mind. She squinted through the shimmering heat haze of the desert, seeing unnameable shapes as they manifested themselves at Solomon’s command, bowing to his power. When they spoke, they spat and growled at him, begrudging his command of them. They each told him their names and the celestial body that ruled over them. She saw one of the demons refusing to co-operate. Solomon sealed it in a small earthenware vase. The stopper was marked with the same seal, but with four letters: ‫הוהי‬

  Solomon commanded the demons to construct the Temple, spinning hemp for the construction ropes, cutting blocks of Theban marble and moulding clay for the Temple vessels. An Arabian Wind demon moved an immense corner stone that could not be lifted by all the workers and the demons together. Then the Twelve Tribes joined with the building, until the temple was complete. It was a construction of brilliant beauty and perfect geometry. Lara could barely take in the details: pillars with bases of gold, silver and bronze; courtyards full of trees, flowers and fountains; lamps glittering with emeralds, hyacinth sapphires and lapis lazuli, and graven seraphim and cherubim guarding the altar.