The Sixth Key(111)

There was a moment of contemplation. ‘Perhaps in the beginning this concerned me, but I have long been free of desire and have passed my days in peace.’

‘And the mask?’

‘A Jesuit who wears a hair shirt and who uses the strap on his back knows what it is to master the will. A member of the Company knows how to control the snake!’

The Jesuit nodded, and although he had never truly been one of those men who liked to mortify the flesh – indeed indulging in it was more to his taste – he knew the signal well. The mention of the snake meant he must now show the sign. He rolled up his sleeve, sat forward and took the lantern from the table to illuminate the tattoo for the masked prisoner.

The prisoner did likewise.

‘Who knows you have come here?’ the masked man said.

‘No one except your jailer and he has been well paid.’

‘If you were found here, you would soon see the glint from the king’s axe.’

Aramis smiled. ‘I should like to see them try! But we were wise, I think, to wait until you were moved here, to Italy.’

‘There is yet a musketeer in you, I see!’

‘I never could make up my mind – monk or knight. It has always bothered my friends.’ He paused a moment. ‘I am glad to see you alive.’

‘The king’s judges would not condemn an innocent man to death, so Louis made certain that I would be tortured this way for the rest of my life and for this reason do I choose to be at peace. In this way, you see, I wrest from him his victory over me.’

‘What will you tell me?’

The masked man gestured to the door and Aramis got up to ensure that the hallway was empty.

When he returned the prisoner began: ‘Poussin, the celebrated painter, has secreted something of import in his painting of the shepherds. When Louis asked me to send my own brother to Rome to speak with Poussin, I saw an opportunity to learn what it was that he had secreted. No doubt you know of the letter he sent me and that I am in this prison because I would not divulge its meaning. This is what I am to tell you, before I die.’

‘Does it concern the treasure of the Cathars, which we have awaited?’

‘Indeed. The painting tells the history of the treasure. In it there is a woman, Mary Magdalene, the first guardian of the treasure. After her death it was passed from woman to woman until the fall of Montsegur in 1244, whereupon it was passed to three known guardians: the man who took it from Montsegur, a troubadour; Nostradamus; and the family Perillos. These three guardians are the shepherds depicted in that painting by Poussin. But it does not only give the history, it also gives the solution to the cipher that was created by the family Perillos to guard its whereabouts.’

‘How did Poussin learn of it?’

‘The painting was commissioned by the family. You see, they could not have known that Poussin was one of us. At any rate the hidden clue is connected to a tomb in the painting on which is inscribed the words Et In Arcadia Ego. They mean: and in the sacred box lies the ego or the word – the master word.’

‘The master word that reveals the cipher?’ Aramis could hardly contain his excitement.

The masked man, Nicholas Fouquet, King Louis XIV’s old minister of finance, wheezed in the darkness. ‘Come closer, Aramis, and I shall tell you . . .’

The Bishop leant in until the iron of the mask touched his cheek.

‘It is . . . Mo—’

But at that very moment the door burst open. It was the jailer flanked by a number of guards.

‘Bishop!’ The Captain of the Guard came into the room brandishing a blade. ‘You are to come with us!’





40


A Box, a Tomb and a Word

‘It came upon me like a flash of lightning. I had got the clue. All you had to do to understand the document was to read it backwards.’

Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth


Campagne-sur-Aude, France, 1938

The three of them sat in the Peugeot hugging their coats to keep out the cold. Earlier, they had left the boulangerie via the back exit and circled around to La Dame’s auto, whereupon they had driven off, leaving the black Citroën behind them. La Dame’s driving had been fast and jerky, and Rahn was glad when he stopped near a high overgrown patch alongside the old road near Campagne-sur-Aude, where they were afforded some cover. The wind had died down and a few scattered opalescent packets of mist drifted over the lowland fields but Rahn paid them no mind, he was turning it instead to the contents of the note.


MITTO TIBI

NAVEM

PRORA PVPPIQVE

CARENTEM

PALIM


‘What does that mean?’ La Dame said.

‘It’s Latin: I send you a ship without stern – or prow – backwards.