‘Heresy!’ I cried, alarmed.
The old man laughed, poison escaping from his mouth, ‘Yes, my beautiful one, heresy! Your master knows it, as do all those who become knights.’
I looked at Andre in disbelief, but he said nothing.
‘Beneath the Dome of the Rock . . . your order found . . .’ he paused for breath, ‘the original Tables of the Law written by Moses. The Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament that had been buried when Jerusalem was threatened with invasion many years before. No one knows the treasures and also the abominations hidden here on this mountain.’
My master was silent, reflecting, as though the earth were not moving around us and about to descend over our heads.
The man fought for lucidity, grasping feebly at his legs. ‘Why do you think you were required to spit on the cross and deny Jesus at your initiation into the order?’ the old man said. ‘So that you would know what to do if you were captured by the infidel? Bah! You are a fool . . . you are all fools! You spit on the cross because it is evil. It represents the earthly death, the imperfection of men! And you also deny Jesus because Jesus was mortal and so full of sin. Christ was the God, not Jesus! You and I are not so different, preceptor, are we? We are cousins, so to speak! Ahh but you are proud, it does not sit well on your proud neck that your order is heretical, but it is this pride in your own erudition that I hope will do my bidding . . .’ He trailed off, breathing with great difficulty now. ‘They will use him to bring about a great sin . . . death and becoming, they will raise him from the dead!’ He was seized by a terrible spasm in his abdomen. ‘Do it! Stop them . . . do this, not for me, I am dung, do it for yourself . . . Can you hear the bees, boy?’ He stared at me for a moment and then rolled his eyes, filled with sin and hatred and bitterness, into his head.
Andre said a short prayer over his body and under his breath I heard him say, ‘The poor misguided fool.’
‘Master . . . is what he says true? Did you . . . did you . . .?’ I crossed myself, almost in tears, not knowing what to believe.
‘Come!’ my master grabbed me by the arm hastily, ‘there is not much time!’ I could see that he was right, for we experienced another loud vibration that sent me reeling unsteadily off my feet, landing only a short distance from the body.
‘Master –’ I insisted as we toiled down the next tunnel avoiding the rubble that had fallen there. ‘How could you have? To deny Christ! To deny the cross!’
‘There is no shame in denial, Christian, because in denying what we previously held to be true, we learn to see the truth more clearly. We discern knowledge from opinion, but what the old man doesn’t know is that such temptations are a test from the devils in one’s own soul, overcome time and again through fast and prayer. Of course I did not spit on the cross. I wear the red cross. The living cross not the dead one.’ That was all he would say as he tugged at my arm and pointed me in the direction of the next tunnel.
I wanted him to leave me alone. His hand was on my arm, the hand that had so many times soothed my brow and slapped my nape. The strong, earthy, heathen hands, so brown and strong, appeared to me now soiled, stained with sin. He had been deceiving me. He had deceived even himself for he was not the man I thought he was nor the man he presumed himself to be. I was angry, feeling like a fool for having believed in him, but with impending doom looming over my head, I forced myself to follow him and concentrated on staying alive.
Finally we arrived at the last antechamber, and as we entered the room and our lamp shone its light into the darkness, who should we find but Anselmo sitting in the dark, holding an unlit torch, a discarded lamp at his feet.
He gave us a dreadful look, but did not bother to stand.
‘Anselmo, good evening,’ my master said cheerfully. ‘I thought I might find you here. Why have you not gone into the inner sanctum, then?’ he asked. ‘We depressed the note, there should be no water.’
‘Ahh, but preceptor, the mechanism is not triggered off by depressing the note, but by lifting it! Anyway, the avalanche has damaged it, and as I cannot swim . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you can see I ran out of taper, but I knew you were coming and I have been waiting. You must have passed Setubar . . . is he dead yet?’
‘Very . . . Your doing, I suppose.’
‘Yes. How well you guess, preceptor.’
‘Naturally. But tell me, how could you be sure that we knew our way here, and the combinations?’
He smiled. ‘You are an intelligent man, preceptor. From the first day of our meeting I knew that you were a match for me, I knew that given time you would find out everything.’