by Steve Berry
“He was a nonbeliever, an atheist. I believe you understand that I’ll do what is necessary to achieve my goal. I wear the white cassock. I’m master of this abbey. Nearly five hundred brothers await my orders. Our Rule is clear. The order of the master is as if Christ commanded it, for it was Christ who said through the mouth of David, Ob auditu auris obedivit mihi. He obeyed me as soon as he heard me. That, too, should place fear in your heart.” He motioned with the journal. “Now tell me what this puzzle says.”
“Lars thought it revealed the location of whatever it was Saunière found.”
He reached for the cart. “I swear to you, your feet will become nothing but stubs if you don’t answer my question.”
Claridon’s eyes went wide. “What must I do to prove my sincerity? I only know parts of the story. Lars was like that. He shared little. You have his journal.”
An element of desperation clothed the words with believability. “I’m still listening.”
“I know Saunière found the cryptogram in the Rennes church when he was replacing the altar. He also found a crypt where he discovered that Marie d’Hautpoul de Blanchefort was not buried outside in the parish close, but beneath the church.”
He’d read all that in the journal, but he what he wanted to know was, “How did Lars Nelle learn that?”
“He found the information about the crypt in old books discovered at Monfort-Lamaury, the fief of Simon de Montfort, which described the Rennes church in great detail. Then he found more references in Corbu’s manuscript.”
He despised hearing the name Simon de Montfort—another thirteenth-century opportunist who commanded the Albigensian Crusade that ravaged the Languedoc in the name of the Church. If not for him, the Templars would have achieved their own separate state, which would have surely prevented their later downfall. The one flaw in the Order’s early existence had been its dependency on secular rule. Why the first few masters felt compelled to link themselves so closely with kingship had always perplexed him.
“Saunière learned that his predecessor, the abbé Bigou, erected Marie d’Hautpoul’s tombstone. He thought the writing on it, and the reference Bigou left in the parish records about the painting, were clues.”
“They are ridiculously conspicuous.”
“Not to an eighteenth-century mind,” Claridon said. “Most were illiterate then. So the simplest of codes, even words themselves, would have been quite effective. And actually they have been—staying hidden all this time.”
Something from the Chronicles flashed through de Roquefort’s mind, from a time after the Purge. The only clue recorded to the Great Devise’s location. Where is it best to hide a pebble? The answer suddenly became obvious. “On the ground,” he muttered.
“What did you say?”
His mind snapped back to reality. “Can you recall what you saw in the painting?”
Claridon’s head bobbed up and down. “Oui, monsieur. Every detail.”
Which gave the fool some value.
“And I also have the drawing,” Claridon said.
Had he heard right? “The drawing of the gravestone?”
“The notes I made in the archive. When the lights went out, I snatched the paper from the table.”
He liked what he was hearing. “Where is it?”
“In my pocket.”
He decided to make a deal. “How about a collaboration? We both have certain knowledge. Why don’t we pool our efforts.”
“And how would that benefit me?”
“Having your feet intact would be an immediate reward.”
“Quite right, monsieur. I like that a great deal.”
He decided to appeal to what he knew the man wanted. “We seek the Great Devise for reasons different from you. Once it’s found, I’m sure a certain monetary remuneration can compensate you for your trouble.” Then he made his point crystal clear. “And besides, I’ll not let you go. And if you manage to escape, I will find you.”
“I seem to have little choice.”
“You know they left you to us.”
Claridon said nothing.
“Malone and Stephanie Nelle. They made no effort to save you. Instead, they saved themselves. I heard you pleading for help in the archives. So did they. They did nothing.” He allowed his words to take root, hoping he’d correctly judged the man’s weak character. “Together, Monsieur Claridon, we could be successful. I possess Lars Nelle’s journal and have access to an archive you can only imagine. You have the gravestone information and know things I don’t. We both want the same thing, so let’s both discover it.”
De Roquefort gripped a knife lying on the table between Claridon’s outstretched legs and severed the bindings.
“Come, we have work to do.”
THIRTY-NINE
RENNES-LE-CHTEAU
10:40 AM
Malone followed Mark as they approached the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene. Services were not held there during summer. Sunday was apparently too popular a day for tourists, as a crowd was already milling about outside the church, snapping pictures and recording video.
“We’ll need a ticket,” Mark said. “Can’t enter this church without paying a fee.”
Malone stepped into the Villa Béthanie and waited in a short line. Back outside, he found Mark standing before a railed garden where the Visigoth pillar and statue of the Virgin that Royce Claridon had told him about stood. He read the words PENITENCE, PENITENCE and MISSION 1891 carved on the pillar’s face.
“The Notre Dame de Lourdes,” Mark said, pointing at the statue. “Saunière was enthralled by Lourdes, which was the premier Marian vision of his time. Before Fatima. He wanted Rennes to become a pilgrimage center, so he built this garden and designed the statue and pillar.”
Malone gestured at the people. “He got his wish.”
“True. But not for the reason he imagined. I’m sure none of the people here today even knows that the pillar is not the original. It’s a copy, put there years ago. The original is difficult to read. Weather took a toll. It’s in the presbytery museum. Which is true for a lot of this place. Little is as it was in Saunière’s time.”
They approached the church’s main door. Beneath the gilded tympanum Malone read the words, TERRIBILIS EST LOCU ISTE. From Genesis. Terrible is this place. He knew the tale of Jacob who dreamed of a ladder on which angels traveled and, after waking from his sleep, uttered the words—Terrible is this place—then named what he’d dreamed about Bethel, which meant “house of God.” Another thought occurred to him. “But in the Old Testament, Bethel becomes a rival to Jerusalem as a religious center.”
“Precisely. One more subtle clue Saunière left behind. There are even more inside.”
They’d all slept late, having risen about thirty minutes ago. Stephanie had taken her husband’s bedroom and was still inside with the door closed when Malone suggested that he and Mark head for the church. He wanted to talk to the younger man without Stephanie around, and he wanted to give her time to cool down. He knew she was looking for a fight, and sooner or later her son was going to have to face her. But he thought delaying that inevitability might be a good idea. Geoffrey had offered to come, but Mark had told him no. Malone had sensed that Mark Nelle wanted to speak to him alone, too.
They entered the nave.
The church was single-aisled with a high ceiling. A hideous carved devil, crouching low, clothed in a green robe, and grimacing under the weight of a holy water stoup, greeted them.
“It’s actually the demon Asmodeus, not the devil,” Mark said.
“Another message?”
“You apparently know him.”
“A custodian of secrets, if I recall.”
“You do. Look at the rest of the fount.”
Above the holy water stoup stood four angels, each one enacting a separate part of the sign of the cross. Beneath them was written, PAR CE SIGNE TU LE VAINCRAS. Malone translated the French. By this sign ye shall conquer him.
He knew the si
gnificance of those words. “That’s what Constantine said when he first fought his rival, Maxentius. According to the story, he supposedly saw a cross on the sun with those words emblazoned beneath.”
“But there’s one difference.” Mark pointed to the carved letters. “No him in the original phrase. Only By this sign ye shall conquer.”
“Is that significant?”
“My father discovered an ancient Jewish legend that told of how the king managed to prevent demons from interfering with the building of the Temple of Solomon. One of those demons, Asmodeus, was controlled by being forced to tote water—the one element he despised. So this fount’s symbolism is not out of character. But the him in the quotation was clearly added by Saunière. Some say the him is simply a reference to the fact that by dipping a finger in the holy water and making the sign of the cross, which Catholics do, the devil—him—would be conquered. But others have noticed the positioning of the word in the French phrase. Par ce signe tu le vaincras. The word le, ‘him,’ represents the thirteenth and fourteenth letters. 1314.”
He recalled his reading from the Templar book. “The year Jacques de Molay was executed.”
“Coincidence?” Mark shrugged.
About twenty people milled about snapping photographs and admiring the gaudy imagery, which all oozed a cryptic allusion. Stained-glass windows lined the outer walls, lively from the bright sun, and he noticed the scenes. Mary and Martha at Bethany. Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Christ. The resurrection of Lazarus.
“It’s like a theological fun house,” he whispered.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
Mark motioned to the checkerboard floor before the altar. “The crypt entrance is there, just before that wrought-iron grille, hidden beneath the tiles. A few years ago some French geographers conducted a covert ground-penetrating radar survey of the building and managed to make a few soundings before the local authorities stopped them. The results showed a subsurface anomaly beneath the altar that could be a crypt.”
“No digging was done?”
“No way the locals would allow that. Too many risks to the tourist industry.”
He smiled. “That’s the same thing Claridon said yesterday.”
They settled into one of the pews.
“One thing is certain,” Mark said in a hushed tone. “There’s no path to any treasure here. But Saunière did use this church to telegraph what he believed. And from everything I’ve read about the man, that act fits with his brazen personality.”
Malone noticed that nothing around him was subtle. The excessive coloration and overgilding tainted any beauty. Then another point became clear. Nothing was consistent. Each artistic expression, from the statues, to the reliefs, to the windows, was individual—without regard to theme, as if similarity would somehow be offensive.
An odd collection of esoteric saints stared down at him with listless expressions, as if they, too, were embarrassed by their garish detail. St. Roch displayed a wounded thigh. St. Germaine released a bevy of roses from her apron. St. Magdalene held an odd-shaped vase. Try as he might, Malone could not become comfortable. He’d been inside many European churches and most exuded a deep sense of time and history. This one seemed only to repel.
“Saunière directed every detail of the decoration,” Mark was saying. “Nothing was placed here without his approval.” Mark pointed at one of the statues. “St. Anthony of Padua. We pray to him when searching for something lost.”
He caught that irony. “Another message?”
“Clearly. Check out the stations of the cross.”
The carvings began at the pulpit, seven along the north wall, then another seven on the south. Each was a colorful bas-relief that depicted a moment in Christ’s crucifixion. Their bright patina and cartoonish detail seemed unusual for something so solemn.
“Strange, aren’t they?” Mark asked. “When they were installed in 1887, they were common for the area. In Rocamadour, there’s a nearly identical set. The Giscard House in Toulouse made those and these. Much has been made of these stations. Conspiratorialists claim they have Masonic origins or are actually some sort of treasure map. None of that’s true. But there are messages in them.”
Malone noticed some of the curious aspects. The black slave boy who held the wash bowl for Pilate. The veil Pilate wore. A trumpet being sounded as Christ fell with the cross. Three silver discs held aloft. The child confronting Christ, wrapped in a Scottish tartan blanket. A Roman soldier throwing dice for Christ’s cloak, the numbers three, four, and five visible on the faces.
“Look at station fourteen,” Mark said, gesturing toward the south wall.
Malone stood and walked to the front of the church. Candles flickered before the altar and he quickly noticed the bas-relief beneath. A woman, Mary Magdalene, he assumed, in tears, kneeling in a grotto before a cross formed by two branches. A skull rested at the branch base and he immediately thought of the skull from the lithograph last night in Avignon.
He turned and studied the image of the last station of the cross, number 14, which depicted Christ’s body being carried by two men as three women wept. Behind them rose a rocky escarpment above which hung a full moon in the night sky.
“Jesus being carried to the tomb,” he whispered to Mark, who’d approached close behind him.
“According to Roman law, a crucified man was never allowed burial. That form of execution was reserved only for those guilty of crimes against the empire, the idea being for the accused to slowly die on the cross—death taking several days and for all to see, the body left for the carrion birds. Yet supposedly Pilate granted Christ’s body to Joesph of Arimathea so that it could be buried. Have you ever wondered why?”
“Not really.”
“Others have. Remember, Christ was killed on the eve of the Sabbath. He could not, by law, be buried after the sun set.” Mark pointed at station 14. “Yet Saunière hung this representation, which clearly shows the body being carried after dark.”
Malone still didn’t understand the significance.
“What if instead of being carried into the tomb, Christ is being carried out, after dark?”
He said nothing.
“Are you familiar with the Gnostic Gospels?” Mark asked.
He was. They were found along the upper Nile in 1945. Seven Bedouin field hands were digging when they came across a human skeleton and a sealed urn. Thinking it contained gold, they smashed the urn open and found thirteen leather-bound codices. Not quite a book, but a close ancestor. The neatly written, ragged-edged texts were all in ancient Coptic, most likely composed by monks who lived at the nearby Pachomian monastery during the fourth century. They contained forty-six ancient Christian manuscripts, their content dating from the second century, the codices themselves fashioned in the fourth century. Some were subsequently lost, used as kindling or discarded, but by 1947 the remainder were acquired by a local museum.
He told Mark what he knew.
“The answer as to why the monks buried the codices came from history,” Mark said. “In the fourth century Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, wrote a letter that was sent to all the churches in Egypt. He decreed that only the twenty-seven books contained within the recently formulated New Testament could be considered Scripture. All other heretical books must be destroyed. None of the forty-six manuscripts in that urn conformed. So the monks at the Pachomian monastery chose to hide the thirteen codices rather than burn them, perhaps waiting for a change in church leadership. Of course, no change ever occurred. Instead, Roman Christianity flourished. But thank heaven the codices survived. These are the Gnostic Gospels we now know. In one, Peter’s, it is written, And as they declared what things they had seen, again they saw three men come forth from the tomb, and two of them supporting one.”
Malone stared again at station 14. Two men supporting one.
“The Gnostic Gospels were extraordinary texts,” Mark said. “Many scholars now say the Gospel of Thomas, which was included i
n them, may be the closest we have to Christ’s actual words. The early Christians were terrified of the Gnostics. The word came from the Greek gnosis, which meant ‘knowledge.’ Gnostics were simply people in the know, but the emerging Catholic version of Christianity eventually eliminated all gnostic thought and teachings.”
“And the Templars kept that alive?”
Mark nodded. “The Gnostic Gospels, and several more that theologians today have never seen, are contained in the abbey’s library. The Templars were broad-minded when it came to Scripture. There’s a lot to be learned from these so-called heretical works.”
“How would Saunière know anything of those Gospels? They weren’t discovered until decades after his death.”
“Perhaps he had access to even better information. Let me show you something else.”
He followed Mark back to the church’s entrance and they stepped out onto the porch. Above the door was a stone-carved box upon which words were painted.
“Read the writing beneath,” Mark said.
Malone strained to make out the letters. Many were faded and hard to decipher, and all were in Latin.
REGNUM MUNID ET OMNEM ORNATUM SAECULI CONTEMPSI, PROPTER AMOREM DOMININ MEI JESU CHRISTI: QUEM VIDI, QUEM AMAVI, IN QUEM CREDIDI, QUEM DILEXI
“Translated it means, ‘I have had contempt for the kingdom of this world, and all temporal adornments, because of the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, whom I saw, whom I loved, in whom I believed, and whom I worshiped.’ On its face an interesting statement, but there are some conspicuous errors.” Mark motioned. “The words scoeculi, anorem, quen, and cremini are all misspelled. Saunière spent one hundred and eighty francs for that carving and for the letters to be painted, which was a sizable sum at the time. We know this because his receipts still exist. He went to a lot of trouble to design this entrance, yet he allowed the misspellings to remain. It would have been easy to repair them, since the letters were only painted.”
“Maybe he didn’t notice?”
“Saunière? He was a type A personality. Nothing slipped by him.”