The Sixth Key(48)

‘I’ve seen something like this before,’ Rahn said, intrigued.

‘Here it says that it means: The sower, Arepo, holds the wheels of work.’

‘“Arepo”? That’s not Latin?’

‘No, according to this book, that word has never been deciphered.’ Deodat continued reading: ‘Magic squares have been found in Italy dating back to the first centuries, both in Rome and in Lucca.’ He looked up. ‘You know, quite a few have been found here, in the south, as well. At any rate, the book says that it was once a code used by the early Christians to denote places of sanctuary, but it must predate Christianity because one was found in the city of Pompeii, in an engraving preserved by the volcanic ash of Vesuvius. It also says here that many believe it forms a kind of esoteric puzzle.’

‘What have you got on ancient puzzles in your library?’ Rahn asked.

‘Look under A, for ancient or R for Roman or P for puzzles . . . take your pick. That damned woman!’ he murmured with exasperation.

After some digging about, Rahn found that Madame Sabine had placed a book under the first name of the author, a certain Pitois. ‘Look, here’s a reference,’ Rahn said. ‘The Sator Square is also found in Solomon’s Keys.’

Deodat’s ears pricked up. ‘The first grimoire ever written?’ He returned to his shelves again, tapping on his chin as he looked over them.

Rahn smiled. ‘Don’t tell me you have a copy of it?’

‘Well, I’ve got two, actually,’ Deodat said over his shoulder, with a certain smugness. ‘One in French and one in English – doesn’t everybody have at least one?’ He took Les Clavicules de Rabbi Salomon from the bookshelf with particular reverence, blew the dust from it and turned the pages. ‘Here it is. What in the devil . . . !’

‘What is it?’ Rahn joined him by the shelf.

‘Look for yourself!’ He gave Rahn the book.

‘It’s the Sator Square, but now it’s in Hebrew.’

‘Yes.’ Deodat took the book back. ‘This means that the Sator Square not only has connections to the Roman and Christian mysteries but the Hebrew ones as well. Now, here in this grimoire, the Pentacle of Saturn displays the magic square, which Solomon relates to the Alpha and Omega, or Christ as He is known in Saint John’s Apocalypse.

‘It also says here that the magic square can be used not only for warding off adversaries, as a conjuration to repel Satan – Retro Satan; but that one can also, by making a slight variation in the words, use it as a prayer to invoke Satan – Satan, Oro Te. You see, this is the interesting thing about grimoires – they can be used for good or for evil.’

Clearly this thought prompted another because he took himself to his bookshelves again, looking about feverishly.

‘What now?’ Rahn asked.

‘I have a book written by Éliphas Lévi, a man you could call a “grey” occultist. It’s a book on magic rituals and it’s somewhere in this infernal disorder.’

It took some time but he eventually found it.

‘Look, do you see this? Lévi speaks of the word rotas, which is sator back to front. He says it’s connected to the tarot and to cut a long story short, the tarot is connected to the Alpha and Omega and Saint John’s Apocalypse. Over and over we are seeing a connection between grimoires and the Apocalypse.’ He paused. ‘You know, Abbé Cros asked me for this book years ago. He wanted to know something about the pope card. He kept the book for many months.’

But Rahn wasn’t listening – inside his mind two things were colliding to make a third. ‘So, Cros knew you would understand what sator meant, that is obvious to me, and he must have wanted you to find something connected to the grimoires and to the Apocalypse in the church. Now it all makes sense. The church was full of symbols: plaques depicting the Book of the Seven Seals – Saint John’s Apocalypse, on either side of the altar; the Grail over the doors; and to top it all off, a wheel of fortune in the stained-glass window, which is straight out of the tarot. The wheel is a symbol for life and death, it turns one way towards death and another towards a reversal of death.’

Deodat nodded. ‘The one who holds the wheel of fortune is Christ, sator, the sower, or the cultivator. The crux, or tenet, “what holds”, is the middle word, and it forms a cross at the centre of the magic square. Do you see it?’ He pointed it out to Rahn.





‘So what in the church could be related to the transformation of life and death and also to Christ, who died on the cross?’ Rahn asked.