The Armageddon Conspiracy (48 page)

Perhaps some souls had a vastly
superior ability to remember their previous existences.
Maybe they
were so attuned to their soul-lines, so capable of gaining
knowledge and insight from them, that they might seem to possess
magic powers.
Was it possible that someone like Nostradamus didn’t
so much see the future as predict how souls were likely to behave
in the future?
If a soul, such as that of the Emperor Titus, had a
lethal hatred of Jews, wouldn’t it be logical to predict that the
same soul, in the future, would persecute Jews with the same
passion, but with greater resources at its disposal?
That, then,
would be a prediction of the rise of Hitler and the creation of
death camps…but it wouldn’t be a question of seeing the future so
much as projecting the past into the future.

‘
There’s no going back
now,’ Morson said.
‘Besides, you’ve already brought us the Sword of
Destiny.’

‘
It’s just a sword,’
Lucy objected.
‘You don’t know if it’s special or not.’

‘
But I do.
Most people,
if they were faking the Sword of Destiny, would have tried to use
some medieval sword supposedly linked to King Arthur.
They wouldn’t
realise that the Sword of Destiny had no connection with Arthur.
It
was the sword used to behead John the Baptist.
It’s an ancient
sword from the time of the Roman occupation of Judea – exactly what
you brought us.
I have no doubt it’s authentic.’

‘
Which sword did Hitler
think belonged to the Grail Hallows?’

‘
I think I mentioned it
before: the Sword of St.
Maurice.
It was kept amongst the Imperial
Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire, as a partner to the Spear of
Destiny, itself sometimes called the Spear of St.
Maurice.
Maurice,
or Mauritius to give him his Roman name, was the commander of the
Theban Legion.
He and his men were Christians.
In 285 CE, the
Emperor Diocletian, who despised Christianity, ordered the legion
to be decimated unless they abandoned their beliefs.
Maurice
refused to carry out the order and so did his men.
The entire
legion was then executed.
The Church made Maurice a saint for his
supreme sacrifice.

‘
Maurice was said to
have possessed the Spear of Destiny when he led the Theban Legion,
so the theory arose that his sword might also be sacred.
As an
ancient Roman sword, it looked similar to the one you found.
That,
of course, is the problem.
It’s so difficult to separate the
genuine ones from look-alikes and fakes.
The Spear of St Maurice
was genuine, the Sword of St Maurice just an ordinary soldier’s
sword.’

Lucy was amazed by how complicated all
of this was.
Was there any realistic chance of bringing together
the true Grail Hallows?
It appeared impossible.
Maybe that was no
bad thing, but her intellectual curiosity was growing.
What would
happen if the genuine Hallows were actually assembled?
Would it be
a supreme moment of destiny?
She almost hoped it would happen.

But everything connected with the Grail
Hallows was coded.
In fact, it was probably the most elaborate code
ever created by humanity.
It had to be since the Gnostics’ enemies
were so ruthless.
The Cathars and the Templars were practically
exterminated by the Catholic Church.
Tens of thousands died.
For
secrets to survive the Inquisition, they had to be so good that
those who kept them would scarcely know what they were concealing.
The safest secret was the one no one knew was a secret.
The Grail
stories had reached that status.

Every part of the tale had pitfalls.
Many people thought that the sword that King Arthur pulled from the
stone to prove his legitimacy was Excalibur.
In fact, the sword in
the stone and Excalibur were two entirely different things.
The
Lady of the Lake gave Excalibur to Arthur.
The sword in the stone
conferred legitimacy, Excalibur mystical power.
The sword in the
stone reflected a real, physical sword while Excalibur was a
symbolic, spiritual sword.
Almost everything in the Grail Romances
was conducted at both the literal and symbolic level.

The Lady of the Lake was the symbolic
representation of Sophia, the Gnostic personification of wisdom.
The Lake was the pool of mystical knowledge – Gnosis.
Excalibur
represented the sword of Gnostic truth that cut through the lies of
the other religions and led the deserving to Gnosis.
If you died
before you attained Gnosis, you had to return the sword.
That was
why Arthur’s last act was to ask Sir Bedivere to throw Excalibur
back into the lake.
He had failed to achieve Gnosis because of his
obsession with Guinevere, and his personal failure.

Most would miss the story’s underlying
meaning.
They would take the Grail legend at face value as a
romantic story, and nothing else.
But even when you thought you’d
grasped what was really going on, you’d usually discover there was
a deeper layer still.
It was the ultimate Russian Doll.
Was there
anyone alive who knew the identity of the final doll in the
collection?

Lucy stared at Morson.
She’d missed
something, hadn’t she?

‘
You said two treasures
were removed from Montségur.
You only mentioned the Cathar Bible.
What was the other?’

Morson swept his hand over his short
hair.
‘The brotherhood found it at the end of the nineteenth
century in the French village of Rennes-le-Château.
It’s in a safe
place now.’

‘
What is
it?’

‘
Something so wondrous
it’s beyond human imagining.’
His face became hard.
‘And it will
prove once and for all whether you are a false Messiah.’

63

L
ucy had been
given a mat to lie on.
She was exhausted but couldn’t sleep.
Every
time she closed her eyes, they opened again moments later.
Her gaze
kept drifting towards the lantern Morson had placed on the
half-demolished altar, now the only light in the chapel.
He’d
ordered everyone to get a few hours sleep before they set off at
dawn for their next destination.
He’d given no indication of where
that might be.

Lucy watched the light reflecting from
the lid of her father’s coffin.
She couldn’t decide if she was
appalled or comforted knowing her dad’s body was so near.
As for
James, she was just as undecided about his proximity.
Part of her
felt elated, while another part was freaked out.
Raking over her
old feelings was the last thing she wanted to do.
She wouldn’t know
what to say to him.
The words would dry in her mouth as she tried
to communicate how much she still cared for him, while she
struggled to avoid being sucked back into the horrors of love.

How could anyone sleep well in times
like these?
How many hours of life were left?
She kept wondering
about the second of the Cathars’ treasures.
What could it be?
Some
said it was the Holy Grail itself, but the Cathars hated all
material objects.
A Bible was OK as the first treasure because it
had nonmaterial value.
Could the second be another source of
knowledge?
An earth-shattering secret, perhaps?
Morson said it was
something that could prove whether or not she was a false Messiah.
How could she be false when she never claimed to be the Messiah in
the first place?
Morson had clearly meant it as a threat.
What did
he intend to do if she failed his test?

****

A
soldier was
looking down at Lucy, his hand pressed over her mouth to stop her
screaming.
He didn’t say anything, just gestured towards one of the
small side rooms.
She realised she must have drifted off to sleep.
Now, instantly, she was fully alert.

In the dim light, she could see
Gresnick, Sinclair and James standing in the doorway.
The other
soldiers were asleep.
What was going on?

She tiptoed to the other room.
The
soldier who’d woken her followed, carefully closing the door behind
him.

‘
I’m the only guard on
watch,’ he whispered.
‘Punch me as hard as you can,’ he said to
Gresnick, ‘then tie me up.
I’ve opened the side door.
You can slip
out that way.
You’ll probably have half an hour before they
discover you’ve gone.
Take my flashlight.’

Without hesitating, Gresnick stepped
forward and slugged the soldier in the jaw.
The soldier slumped to
the ground.
Gresnick quickly tied him up.
‘Let’s get out of
here.’

They sneaked out of the side door and
emerged into the freezing night.
Snow still covered the ground.
Lucy felt ill.
Something was out there, the same presence she’d
sensed at Tintagel.
She was certain it was something not of this
world, and the thought terrified her.
She tried to block out all
awareness of the thing.

The hearse was still there, the horses
tethered to a fence and shivering in the cold.

‘
Get into the back.’
Gresnick gestured towards the hearse with his flashlight.
‘I can
drive one of these things.’

Cardinal Sinclair climbed on top while
Gresnick untied the horses, stroking them to keep them quiet.

Awkwardly, Lucy climbed into the back
with James.
It was spooky to be in the same place where her
father’s coffin once rested.
It was even spookier to be with James.
She had no idea what to say to him, and he was just as hesitant.
He
struggled even to look at her.
It amazed her that he was in a fit
enough state to be here.
Last time she saw him, in the helicopter
wreckage at Tintagel, she was convinced he was dying.

The carriage moved off,
the sound muffled by the snow.
It was so dark it was virtually
impossible to see ahead.
One tiny bright light stood out in the
northern sky.
Lucy shuddered.
Was that Morson’s
Merica
?

James lay with his back to her,
breathing heavily.
She wondered if she should reach out to him,
maybe put her hand on his shoulder.
What would it be like to touch
him again?
But she couldn’t, not after the way she’d treated him.
Should she apologise?
Tell him it was all a mistake?
She had no
idea what to do and turned away.

The carriage shook from side to side as
they found a rough path through the woods and down Cadbury Castle’s
steep slope.

She wanted to know who had helped them
escape.
Some sort of double agent?
It must have been the same
person who released Gresnick from his handcuffs earlier that night.
Maybe the soldier had doubts about Morson’s plans.
Another thought
occurred to her.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing to have escaped.
Morson’s religious opinions were vile, but also hard to disagree
with.
It was so difficult to know what to think.
Good and evil were
merging.

‘
That soldier back
there,’ Gresnick said eventually.
‘He worked for the DIA a couple
of years back.
He said he recognised me.
He couldn’t go along with
the others any longer.
He said they were going “too far,
crazy too far
.”
He
recently met a girl back home.
It changed his outlook on
things.’

Lucy frowned.
It was
all so grimly predictable.
Love
, the axis around which everything
revolved.
She didn’t think the soldier had much of a future.
Morson
was sure to uncover him.