‘Ethan,’ she said, ‘let me introduce Archimandrite Iustin Dumitreasa. Father Iustin is a hieromonk. That’s to say, he is a priest. But when his wife died, he entered the monastery here and now he serves as a monk as well.’
‘His wife?’ Ethan wasn’t sure he’d heard properly.
Ilona was about to answer, but the priest stepped forward and took Ethan’s hand.
‘Your Anglican priests marry, do they not?’ he said. ‘Well, so do Orthodox priests. We are part of the world. How can a man without a wife or family hope to understand the concerns of his parishioners? Ilona tells me your name is Ethan.’
Ethan nodded. He felt in awe of this strange priest. As he shook his hand he looked at his sunken cheeks and slow-burning eyes. This was not an ordinary man. He seemed driven, almost prophetic, a modern-day Isaiah or soothsayer who might perform miracles or utter forebodings of things to come.
Ethan broke away and brought Sarah forward. She would never understand her action later, but as she reached him, she got down on her knees. Father Iustin placed his gnarled and wrinkled hands on the crown of her head and whispered the words of a short prayer.
It was the Jesus Prayer, on the lips of Orthodox Christians at all times. ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ Sarah didn’t know what it was or what it meant, but something in the priest’s touch or in the timbre of his voice settled her. The gestures were alien to her. She was not a religious woman and had not been a particularly religious child. But whether it was the posture she had adopted or the laying on of hands that her kneeling had inspired, it was as if a shudder passed through her, and after it a stillness had followed. She got to her feet, still a little unsteady, like someone rising from her sickbed ready to walk. All around her the shadows stirred, and to her the lights of candles shimmered across the rich colours of the iconostasis, with its portraits of Jesus, Mary, and a high host of saints.
‘Let me take you to a place where we can talk without being overheard.’
The archimandrite led them out of the church. The building, which in some ways resembled a French chateau, was set in the centre of a square whose sides were made up of the defensive outer walls. They left through the south door, then went on to a doorway set in the southern wall. A half moon hung in a cradle of light, as though suspended directly over the monastery. Father Iustin took a large key from his pocket. It fitted a lock that had not been changed since the seventeenth century.
Once inside, the priest pressed a switch and the ceiling flickered and blazed with electric light.
‘I’m sorry about the lights,’ he said, ‘they’re a little harsh. This is our conference room. Putna is one of the country’s chief monasteries, so we end up hosting conferences for just about everybody. Let’s go to the table over there.’
They followed him to a large octagonal table and sat round four sides. The priest looked at Sarah with concern.
‘After this,’ he said, ‘I will take you to the refectory for food. There is always a table for guests. Until then, I want to talk to you. Later, you can ask me any questions you want. When we are with the other monks, say nothing about what I have told you. It is vital you say not a word.’
‘You speak very good English,’ Ethan said. ‘Where did you…?’
‘From my wife,’ he said. ‘She was English, from Canterbury. We lived for many years in London.’
Ethan raised his eyebrows.
‘You were in London?’
Father Iustin smiled and shook his head.
‘Romania may not be the centre of civilisation,’ he said, ‘but some of us have travelled. I used to be the senior priest at the Romanian church in Fleet Street, St Dunstan-in-the-West.’
He looked at Ethan as though he expected him to be familiar with the church.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ethan said, ‘I don’t…I don’t know London all that well. I don’t think I—’
‘St Dunstan’s is the oddest church in London. One half is an Anglican church, the rest is Romanian Orthodox. There’s an Anglican altar with icons in front of it, and to its right a large iconostasis. It’s a very special place. I have very fond memories of it. My wife was English, as I said. Her name was Jacqueline. She lived most of her life in Romania, with me. When she reached the age of fifty, she expressed a wish to go back home, and the Metropolitan kindly posted me to St Dunstan’s. And now I am an old man and a widower. My wife is buried in London and I am seeing out my last years here in Putna, singing the divine service morning noon and night, praying for a vision, listening for the voice of God, waiting to be reunited with the soul of my dear wife. I have become a man of sorrows. And now you are here, you and your sister. You have found me in my last refuge.’
‘You sound as if you’ve been waiting for us,’ said Ethan. He was feeling bemused by the monastery and the old man. The priest’s words tangled him in brambles.
‘I have waited for you for many years. Perhaps not you in person. But I knew someone would come in the end. Someone who would bring me news of Egon Aehrenthal.’
‘How do you know—?’
‘Ilona here told me, of course.’
Ilona leant across the table.
‘I spoke to the minister in my church. My church is Hungarian Reform, of course, which is normal for most Hungarians; but my minister knows many Orthodox people, naturally, because he is very ecumenical. I told him about the relics. He sent me here and gave me Father Iustin’s name. When I got here, I explained as much as I could. The good father listened to me and told me to bring both of you here as soon possible. I think we got here a bit faster than expected!’
The priest leant forward. Ethan noticed that the lids of his eyes were red, as though he suffered from an eye condition, blepharitis or conjunctivitis.
‘Ethan,’ he said, ‘I need to know everything you can tell me. In return, I will tell you things you ought to know. Ilona tells me that you have seen some relics, that Egon Aehrenthal has tried to steal them. Can you explain them, please?’
Haltingly at first, Ethan explained. He started with the discovery of his grandfather’s body and repeated some of what he could remember from Gerald’s letter to Sarah. As he told their story, an hour passed, then a second hour. The old priest fixed his eyes on Ethan and did not take them off him once. Despite the bright lights, the room shrank to the confines of their table. On the walls, the photographs of long-dead priests and monks looked down on them, as though listening to Ethan’s narrative.
When he finished, Sarah took over, relaying what she knew and what she guessed, bringing her expertise to bear on Gerald’s story.
It was late by the time she finished. At first Father Iustin said nothing. The only movement he made was to rub his eyes with his knuckles, then cup them for a few moments beneath his palms.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘My eyes are painful. I have sat up every night praying ever since Ilona came to visit me. All things have their time. Now our time has come, and I pray for it to pass well, for if it does not, this beginning will have a bad ending.’
He breathed deeply several times, then murmured the Jesus Prayer for as many times again.
‘You must all be very hungry,’ he said. ‘You have travelled far today. I am sorry, I should have fed you when you first arrived, but I felt a great urgency to learn what you had to tell me. After we eat, I will tell you what I have to tell you.’
They ate together in an empty refectory, by candlelight. The food was plain, a mushroom stew and stuffed cabbage washed down with a weak red wine and followed by apricot dumplings. They ate with keen appetites, and the plain food tasted like dishes from a banquet. Sarah avoided the wine, and by the end of the meal she was too tired to go on. Ilona took her to a little house just outside the walls, where nuns looked after female guests. The long journey had worn Ilona out: she’d driven all the way, through harsh weather and sometimes difficult terrain. From Bistrita, they’d crossed the Carpathians, reaching high altitudes on icy roads. She needed sl
eep more than anything now. A smiling nun took her to her room and gave her nightclothes to wear. Before she even had a chance to undress, sleep took her and threw her sideways on the bed.
20
A Man for All Seasons
The ring of hunters that had been closing in on the little hut had been broken. A wolf was missing, and the two men leading it disabled by pepper spray. From deep in the forest, the screams had been muffled, impossible to trace. None of the hunters had carried a mobile phone. Aehrenthal himself had gone away for the day, and would only return that evening. A senior member of the Arrow Cross was in charge of the hunt, and as the day passed without result, he grew more and more worried that his prey might have slipped the net.
Just before dusk a pair of hunters came across a dreadful sight. In a clearing not far from the hunting lodge lay the bodies of two of their companions, their throats ripped open and their faces gnawed to bloody pulp. The wolf that had gone out with them that morning was nowhere to be seen, but when it was found two days later it was still maddened by something in its eyes and had to be put down.
The Arrow Cross man – a Hungarian from Debrecen called Ágoston Fodor – was furious. He punished the man who brought him the news with a series of heavy blows to the face, followed by a whacking with the stick he always carried. Desperate to do something before Aehrenthal returned, Fodor knew he had to find help. Leaving the hunter moaning and writhing on the ground, he headed back to the castle.
Castel Lup was currently being made ready for a council of leading members of the Ordo Novi Templi. Some fifty luminaries had arrived already. It was their presence that had prompted the hunt for Sarah, for Aehrenthal wanted desperately to parade her before his peers and to use more pressing methods to extract from her the coordinates of Wardabaha.
Fodor scurried up to the castle, which he knew as Vár Farkasnak. When he arrived, preparations were already under way for that evening’s meal. Already designated Aehrenthal’s deputy in Hungary, he was in charge of the castle during his leader’s absence. He explained the situation to a small group of his fellows, dressing the tale to cover up his own incompetence in not guaranteeing better communications between the hunters and himself.
By the time Aehrenthal arrived, over an hour later, the meal was ready and Fodor had laid out a plan that would lead them to Sarah and Ethan. He met the Austrian in the entrance hall and helped him out of his coat. With a shaking voice, he explained what had happened.
‘It may even be to the good that they escaped,’ he explained, fearing the snarling insult or the driving fist that might relegate him to the lowest ranks or worse.
‘I’m listening to you, Ágoston. You did wrong to let this happen. I may have you punished. But for the moment I’m listening to you. Why is it good that they escaped?’
There was a sound of knives and forks on plates. Aehrenthal, though exceedingly hungry, paid no attention. Cringing inwardly, Fodor tried to keep an upbeat tone in his voice.
‘They may lead us to the monk, wherever he is. And he may lead us to the others you told me about.’
‘What makes you think they know of this monk? Even I don’t know his name.’
‘Sir, the girl who helped them escape, she’s considered clever. She attended Bucharest University, studying English. But she took a course in Romanian architecture, specifically ecclesiastical architecture. She wrote a dissertation on the painted monasteries. It’s a popular subject with students.’
‘And from this, you think she may know the monk, may know the man who sniffs around us like a dog sniffing another dog on heat, may perhaps know whatever it is he knows about us?’
‘Not so much, perhaps—’
‘Not so much. The girl knows nothing, but she may still lead us to something. You, follow me.’
Aehrenthal led the Hungarian into the great dining room. It was a high-ceilinged chamber that dated from the earliest days of the castle. A fireplace the size of a small dwelling stood to one side, its two-storey chimney piece built from great slabs of Usak white marble, in which figures turned and twisted like mythical beings turned to stone: two caryatids and two atlantes held the great roof, while all about them tumbled centaurs, Nereids, minotaurs, satyrs and gorgons with wings of gold, claws of brass and tusks of boars. Limbs wrestled with limbs, heads seemed to stop and turn and look at the viewer, griffins with the bodies of lions and the heads and wings of eagles flew against the screeching of harpies, and furies with the wings of bats hovered about a finely carved figure of the winged goddess Nemesis.
The eye travelled upwards, drawn by these creatures and their wars and alliances, until it reached an entablature between chimney piece and ceiling, where a long row of flags strutted from end to end. Aehrenthal glanced at them, invigorated as ever by what they signified. On certain days in the year, they took them down and paraded with them far away from prying eyes: the original Führerstandarte, Hitler’s personal flag; a Deutschland Erwache standard, a battle flag bearing the iron cross; an SS HQ flag, the ever-popular swastika set on a white disc against a red field. Next to them hung the green flag of Romania’s Iron Guard, on which lay a triple cross like prison bars, the red banner with four joined arrows that belonged to Hungary’s Nyilaskeresztes Párt, and the Austrian Vaterländische Front’s Kruckenkreuzflagge.
There was a loud scraping of chairs, and at the tables, everyone stood to attention before raising their arms in the traditional fascist salute. A deep silence fell and was transmitted down to the kitchens, where the banging of pans and dishes came to a halt.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Aehrenthal, ‘you are most welcome. I trust our council will be a successful one. Tonight, we shall have our first session. I have important news for all of you. But first there are some matters to attend to here.’
He turned to Fodor, who was still standing next to him.
‘This man,’ he said, ‘is called Ágoston. Ágoston Fodor. The Hungarians among you will know him well. Before I went away, I made him my deputy here at Vár Farkasnak, the Wolf’s Lair. I told him to launch a hunt for some people who have defied me and gone into hiding nearby. They include the woman I have mentioned, the woman I wanted to introduce to you tonight.
‘But today the woman and her companions escaped. Mr Fodor was in charge of the hunt, and Mr Fodor must be held responsible for its failure. He must be punished. I would have him shot, but he is one of our best men, and I have work for him in future.’
He looked Fodor up and down.
‘Strip,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Don’t question me! Take your clothes off. Or are you afraid I am a homosexual, that I intend to rape you?’
The menace in Aehrenthal’s voice was unmistakeable. The entire room shivered into silence. In the great fireplace, logs spat and roared up in flame, casting a shimmer of red and gold light across the assembly. Fodor obeyed his order and stood at last, ruddy with flame, naked before his fellows. His mind cast about for every possible punishment, but he could think of nothing that would entail his stripping beforehand. Perhaps this was the punishment, he thought, perhaps stripping was all.
Aehrenthal nodded at two men seated not far away.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Now, hold him. Take his arms. That’s right. Hold him steady, don’t let go for a moment.’
Saying which, he reached beneath his jacket and took out a Nieto sheath knife with a wooden handle, his constant companion when out hunting.
‘Now, Mr Fodor, you will see what it costs a man to interfere with my plans.’
Bending slightly, he reached down and put his left hand on Fodor’s penis, limp and shrivelled despite the warm air. He sawed breath through his nostrils. With his left hand, he played with the limp organ, stroking and teasing it as a woman might do until, in spite of Fodor’s innate reluctance to respond, it did respond and grew slowly erect. He drew back the foreskin delicately, and the shaft of the penis elevated itself further.
‘Please, sir, please, I’m sorry. It will n
ever happen again, I will never let you down again. Don’t cut off my penis, I can’t live without it, please…’
Aehrenthal did not seem to hear. Leaving the penis in its half upright position, he grabbed Fodor’s testicles and, with a single movement, sliced them away. He stood up, holding the bloody things in one hand and threw them, high over the heads of the staring diners, into the blazing fire. There was a sudden sound of sizzling, as though bacon were being fried, then a silence everywhere in the room, behind which the logs spat and cracked as always. Fodor screamed and slumped unconscious in the arms of the men who held him.
‘Take him away,’ shouted Aehrenthal. ‘Someone clean up this mess. I have no time to lose.’
A servant hurried in and set about cleaning the blood from the glistening floor. The two men who’d been in charge of Fodor dragged him from the hall.
‘I’m sorry if I have ruined your appetites,’ Aehrenthal said. ‘But there may be serious consequences for all of us as a result of Fodor’s lack of control. He has been punished, and I take responsibility for that. You have all known, from the day you vowed to serve our Order, that it is an order of iron discipline and rigorous obedience.
‘Gentlemen, we have reached a crossroads. I have in my possession things you have scarcely dared to dream of. After so many years in our quest, and the quests of those who have gone before us, we can see and touch the unreal, and know that it is very real indeed. At midnight tonight, I shall parade them before you. I shall keep them with me at all times and in all places. All here will bear witness to the truth that gives life to this Order. All here will touch tonight the Spear of Destiny and the Crown of Thorns. I shall give you wine to drink from the Holy Grail. Your journeys have not been in vain, your sacrifices have not been wasted.
‘But before that there is someone we have to find, someone who can lead us to the place where these things came from, to the bones in their caskets, to the bones and the dry flesh.’
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