‘It connects you, sire, with the world of the dead from which something shall speak to you.’
He thought of all the hunted creatures, the trophies of his soul. ‘The dead shall speak to me?’
‘Something more potent than the dead, sire, shall speak to you, and I shall decipher the meaning of its words. You may not be able to interrogate the Templars, but you shall know all that you desire to know.’
The King narrowed one eye. ‘How is this astonishing deed accomplished then?’
‘The draught shall open your soul to a higher spirit! A terrifying, cruel and ingenious spirit!’ Iterius said. ‘A spirit known to you of old, and from whom you have learnt much. This spirit shall illuminate for you the secrets of the Templars.’
‘Get to the point!’ he thundered. ‘From whence comes this spirit?’
‘From other times, long ago, when human beings knew more concerning magic. This spirit shall tell you, sire, what has made the Templars so powerful . . . how to command the power over living . . . and . . . and . . . dying things.’
The King was astonished. ‘They know this?’
‘Yes, sire, of course! How else could they become so powerful in so short a time? It is magic!’
‘Sorcery?’
‘As surely as Paris is the centre of the world, sire.’
‘I hit it on the nose then?’ Philip marvelled. ‘And I did not even know it!’ He grew sceptical. ‘But if they know magic, why did they not use it to save themselves?’
‘Because, sire, they have forgotten the secret.’
The King paused, thinking this contradiction through. ‘And this draught will tell me how it is to be found, this secret?’
‘You must drink, sire, begin to commune. Soon there shall be a coincidence of the nodal lines of Venus and Uranus, a con-junction in the descending nodes, which shall bring about the forces that are tied to the aphelion of the earth. When these great conjunctions and oppositions, one near the descending node of Saturn, and another between the descending node of Neptune and the Perihelion of Mars, are seen in the night’s sky, it shall be a most efficacious time. All things shall be made apparent.’
‘I wish to kill you, Egyptian,’ the King said, breathless with pleasure.
‘Ahh . . .’ The astrologer kneeled before Philip. ‘Well you may, well you may, sire, for I am like a lover that arouses your hate but also your lust and so you cannot do without me. It is as if you were holding a wolf by the ears. Aribus teneo lupum ... you dare not let go, but you cannot hold on . . .’
His voice entered the cavity of Philip’s head and he was lulled.
‘Drink, sire!’
Iterius removed the stopper and brought the vial to Philip’s lips. The King drank and it was as if a violent storm of will seized him to the very bones, as though his body were being torn asunder by lightnings and thunderings.
He was lifted up, and from above he saw himself lying before the figure of the astrologer. He saw the stretch of his limbs and the quiver of his body, and the smile on the astrologer’s face.
THE FOURTH CARD
STAR SOPHIA
35
THE WOMAN
Eternal woman draws us upwards.
Goethe, FAUST
January 1309
Etienne felt as if he’d slept a thousand years and was now awakening into a new season. His heart was a cup of love and dreams. His memory was released and he was naked with joy – like a flower whose face was turned to the sun and whose petals opened to unfurl a secret.
My heart, my mother . . . within me! I lay between heaven and earth, between goodness and evil. I am a child. Life is brilliant, dazzling. Only God can explain such miracles.
His eyes opened and his breath came in a rush. His hand went at once to the ring-seal upon his finger and from his half-closed eyes he saw that he was in a warm firelit room. Outside the wind whistled, and in the darkness of the hut made of stone a woman with long hair fed him gruel and ale and a dog barked at the swirling of the world.
The woman was young.
He felt for the wound in his side and was filled with a sensation of death, a terrible certainty more certain for its painful eloquence – then nothing but sun and darkness alternating, and the sound of a never-tiring wind.
‘Drink this,’ the wind said, and a cup was bent to his lips and a brew was poured into his parched mouth. The woman kneeling beside him was a Jewess. This he knew instantly by the darkness of her looks and the way of her dress. He had sensed, therefore, in her the spirit of the Madonna, with a face full of life and sorrow-filled compassion. She was, all at once, the silence and mystery of God, the flooring of all that was, is and will be. The wise Sophia reflected in earthly form whose home was in those stars that crowned her head and shone bright from out of those eyes. This brightness burnt into his heart as if it had been pierced by pieces of coal from the fire and he stretched forth his fingers to catch the apparition, but they did not seem to reach across the gulf between them – his fingers lingered in the air and touched nothing.