‘Yes, frightening indeed!’ she said, and walked ahead.
Rahn gathered what pride he had to him and followed.
This girl is something else!
As Rahn had foreseen, the tunnel came to an end. It looked like someone had tried to wall up what might have once been an entrance to another chamber. When he inspected it further, he found a short, narrow opening in the wall at head height. He managed to pull down some rocks, and shone his candle into it. He had been right, there was another chamber behind it. He was in his element: his heart pounded with excitement and this made his head throb. He looked around but there was nothing on which he could stand.
‘I’ll give you a hoist,’ the girl said.
‘What? Nonsense!’ he answered. He tried to lift himself up but it was too hard.
‘Like this – just put one foot here and I’ll hoist you up. I said you would need me.’ She was smiling as she held out her laced hands for him. ‘Am I going to wait all day?’
With Eva’s help he was soon scrambling through the aperture. He told her to wait for him and fell into a round chamber for his efforts. He walked about the perimeter, looking to the centre and couldn’t believe his eyes. A circular depression had been cut into the floor of the rock that looked just like the one at Wewelsburg, only half the size. He was filled with a nauseating memory: the man pleading for the life of his children; Himmler grimacing; the sounds of shots.
‘Are you alright?’ Eva said, behind him.
‘I thought I told you . . . wait a minute, how on Earth did you get here?’
‘I’m very athletic. Look,’ she said, pointing to the walls. ‘What are these?’
Still vexed, he took his candle to the symbols drawn on the walls. ‘I’ve seen them before, in grimoires. This is proof that we’re on the right track! This crypt has been used for black magic rituals.’
‘But why here, in the tombs of the dames?’
‘Remember, the Order of penitents that Saunière and Jean-Louis Verger belonged to supposedly had a copy of Le Serpent Rouge, the pope’s grimoire; this same order was involved in saying masses for the dead and the sacrament . . . the sacrament given to the dying. The pagans conducted their funerary rites near tombs or underground and I’ll bet the penitents did too. Black magicians, you see, don’t only use demons, phantoms, ghosts and elemental beings for their infernal ends. I’m beginning to think they also use the dead.’
She was silent, perhaps horror-struck.
He continued, ‘They invoke the spirits of the dead, or those who are in limbo, the living dead.’
‘Like in séances?’
‘I think so. I’m afraid this is not my line of expertise, but I’m learning fast.’ He looked about for another exit. ‘Saunière must have tried to get to this crypt through the graveyard. That would explain all the digging.’
‘But why not just come through the other crypt?’
‘Did you see all the water? That crypt must fill up when it rains. That’s what the young Abbé Lucien told us yesterday. This town is riddled with tunnels and cisterns – a catchment that supplies water to the residents.’
Eve looked into the circular depression. ‘What’s that? Is that stained with what I think it is?’
‘It’s a ceremonial pit and yes, that’s blood.’ But when he shone the candle into it he was taken aback by what he saw.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Look for yourself!’
The stone in the depression had been carved to depict a circular version of the Sator Square:
‘They’ve circled the square,’ Rahn said. ‘But that’s not all. See the floor up here? It’s been marked in the shape of a pentagram and a hexagram inside a square. Outside that a larger circle completes it.’ He showed her. The smaller circle is the soul; the square represents water, fire, earth, air; the pentagram points to the etheric forces, the forces the alchemists say are related to warmth, light, sound and life. These forces run through the hands, feet and head, just like Leonardo da Vinci drew in his Vitruvian Man, but they are also found in the Earth; and the hexagram represents the astral forces, the forces of thinking, feeling, and willing. These signs all form a protection for the one performing the ritual sacrifice.’
‘I just had a thought. That little patch in the cemetery for unbaptised children—’
‘Don’t think about that,’ he said quickly. ‘They use mostly animals: goats or kids, chickens, sheep; that sort of thing.’ But in his heart he felt a tremble. ‘Kids’ in grimoires actually meant children . . .