Temple of the Grail(138)
Suddenly there was a deafening roar that shook the monastery church. It sent the book vibrating off the pulpit, and the inquisitor to the ground.
How am I to narrate the moments that followed? Things happen so quickly and yet so slowly.
As we heard the sound, my master – with unequalled presence of mind – depressed the note on the organ, but the inquisitor was upon him and they were struggling in the shadow of the pipes as a wall of snow hit the monastery from above, breaking through the rose window and flooding the church.
Almost instantly I could see nothing but white, an opaquely cold world filled with a light numbing. The white became grey, then black, and I no longer cared one way or the other . . . the struggle would soon be over. Images passed before my eyes. From out of the mist I saw Asa dressed like a goose, waving his glass instrument at the abbot who appeared in the shape of a monkey and did not look in his direction. The abbot was busy holding a phial of poisoned urine to the cook’s lips who drank of it gladly saying that it was like the nectar of the gods, while Setubar sat back, laughing as though the end had come and so he could be merry, ‘Levity in a nut is a sign of its emptiness!’ he cried, after which he climbed atop the back of a devil but not before giving me raisins that were sweet like the breasts of the sainted mother who was the beloved of my dreams and who held in one hand a rose cross and in the other Eisik’s severed head from whose mouth came these words, ‘No good will come of it!’ There were voices then, and thunderings, and lightnings and an earthquake, and I was an angel in the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabitors of the earth for they were wrenched down to the bottomless pit where arose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace and so a terrible pain assailed my chest. But I realised that it was not the Devil plunging his great white teeth into my lungs and tearing out my heart but my master who, having pulled me out of that dry, powdery sea, was hitting my back with much force. The vastness of the organ, with its pipes and keys, had preserved him and the inquisitor also.
‘Keep sharp, boy!’ he cried as I spat out so much snow. ‘Don’t go dying on me, by Saladin!’
He grabbed a lamp from the wall behind the organ, miraculously still lit, and seeing that the inquisitor was unconscious, pushed or rather pulled me down what was left of the north ambulatory and into the transept chapel. I saw the Virgin only faintly, for I was then shoved behind the curtain where both of us stopped to listen to the terrible silence. The pause. I knew instinctively that it was only a herald of the next beat.
Another roar shook everything. ‘Quickly, the panel.’ My master depressed the corresponding symbols releasing the lock and we were diving down into the bowels of the abbey once again.
The rest was a blur of images. We stumbled through the tunnels, in and out of antechambers, following our previous tortuous path, not caring to leave anything in the way of the doors, for there would be no turning back. I thought with sorrow of our dear friend Eisik, perhaps buried somewhere, I thought of the monks and the Trencavels and I prayed silently for them all. Above our heads a great stirring could be heard and here and there rocks had fallen, making our path hazardous, but we reached the second-last antechamber with little mishap. It was as we entered ‘Philadelphia’ and our lamp shone into its interior that we saw the figure of a monk sitting in an awkward way, his head to one side, obscured by his vestments. My master held the lamp to the monk’s face and pulled back his cowl to reveal the identity of the poor wretch. It was Setubar.
His face now showed the familiar signs of the poison; dark honey was smeared everywhere. I concluded that he must have taken his own life.
He was not yet dead, however, for his eyes opened suddenly, causing me to gasp in surprise.
‘So,’ he coughed, ‘you have found your way, very good. . . now you must stop them . . . go . . . Stop them, Templar!’ He managed to raise himself a little and grabbed my master’s habit with his gnarled hands, letting some raisins fall to the floor.
‘Your legs are broken,’ Andre observed, bending over the man, and noticing the unnatural angle of his legs.
The old man winced. ‘The devil is here! Stop them!’
‘Tell me, Setubar!’ my master said in a commanding voice that took the old man by surprise.
There was a pause in which Setubar took in a torturous breath and then, perhaps hoping my master would accomplish what he in his wretched state could not do, he told him everything.
‘Nine . . .’ He swallowed. ‘Nine knights were initiated into the secret doctrine of St John the Apostle. Into the mystery of the children of the widow . . . vouchsafed by Ormus disciple of St Mark.’