‘Oh, this is astounding, La Dame!’
‘And it gets more astounding. You know that society you asked about, the Society for the Reparation of Souls? Well, apparently Verger belonged to them . . . some refer to them as the penitents.’
‘What?’ Rahn caught his breath. ‘This is just too fantastic to be true!’
‘Yes. They were a nasty lot, dabbled in the cult of the dead – you know, graveyard services, masses for the dead, that sort of thing. Their cry was “Penitence, Penitence!” It was an order founded by a man called Joseph-Antoine Boullan, apparently a brilliant theologian. I don’t know many details except to say that Boullan began to experiment with new methods of exorcising demons. He prepared concoctions out of Eucharistic wafers mixed with excrement and urine.’
Rahn paused: The consecrated wafers in the tabernacle . . . the Sign of the Lamb . . . so Cros had been protecting the wafers from black magic!
‘It’s also rumoured that Boullan made a nun pregnant and that she subsequently gave birth to a child in secret, a child Boullan is said to have summarily sacrificed on the high altar.’
Rahn gasped. ‘A priest! Sacrificing his own child on an altar!’
‘Yes, diabolical, isn’t it? Anyway, the child was never found, nor was any incriminating evidence, but the black masses continued. To cut a long story short, Boullan was publicly disavowed during an ecclesiastical trial but His Holiness Pope Pius eventually pardoned him – after which he simply started a new order and continued as before.’
Rahn thought this through, touching the lumps on his head as if a little delicate prodding might make his thinking clearer. ‘Saunière was involved with this order of penitents.’
‘Who is Saunière?’
‘Never mind. It looks like Monti, Crowley, the Church, the Freemasons, Lévi – everyone was after this grimoire.’
‘Perhaps it would be easier, Rahn, if you just told me who wasn’t after it!’
‘Good work, La Dame. Listen, why don’t you take a room in a little hotel outside Paris and lay low; the bill’s on me – and keep your head down.’
‘What for? What’s going on?’
‘Look, I didn’t want to tell you – something terrible has happened. Deodat was kidnapped early this morning, I think . . . at least I hope, because he has just disappeared, his house was ransacked and a man tried to kill me but someone killed him before he could finish the job. This is becoming dangerous and I would feel better if I knew you were somewhere out of the way.’
‘What? Are you joking? Someone tried to kill you? This isn’t funny, Rahn!’
‘I wish I were joking, La Dame, but to put it mildly, I’m deadly serious.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In a strange little backwater called Rennes-le-Château.’
‘What are you doing there?’
‘This is Saunière’s village and I believe I’ll get to the bottom of this tiresome thing soon. At least I hope so – for Deodat’s sake, not to mention my own.’
The voice at the other end of the line was nervous. ‘All right, I’ll take a room at the university, you know the number . . . call me there in a couple of hours, by then I should have an answer for you about that sign. You know what, Rahn? Seems like Cervantes was right after all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Hell must be paved with priests’ skulls!’
28
Another to Add to the List
‘What the devil’s the matter now?’
Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Premature Burial’
They made their way back to Madame Corfu’s house, with the wind beating its fists into their faces, both of them grateful to have a place to stay for the night. Rahn indulged in an overdue wash, a shave and a change of clothes. Afterwards, he met Eva at Madame Corfu’s table and he had to admit that she looked rather more than fetching.
For her part, Madame Corfu was dressed in her best blue dress and fake pearls, and presided over the table, opposite her sour-faced, unshaven and scruffily clad husband. The mood was sombre and they ate in silence – a surprisingly tasty plate of mushrooms à la Languedocienne followed by a cassoulet washed down with a bottle of Carignan. Afterwards the madame served a dessert cake made of wine and they savoured it, while outside the wind whipped up a frenzy, thrashing the limbs of the trees whose woody fingernails scratched at the shuttered windows.
The madame broke the silence. ‘This is the way it is. Some days before it blows, it is calm just like you saw today. The air is clear, dry as a stick, a dryness that makes the palms itch, and then from nowhere – it comes! And you know, it stays for days. The noise of it is so incessant it drives people mad, that’s why some call it Les Vent des Fous. Around these parts, they call it the Devil’s Wind, but I call it the Wind of Death because there is a legend that when the wind blows, someone will die,’ she said this, as if it pleased her immensely. ‘And if it storms . . . well.’ She left the rest open to their interpretation.