The Book of Love (8 page)

“It’s allegory,” Maureen stated. “It has to be. It’s obvious, hiding in plain sight as it is…”

As they walked around the corner to the abbey ruins, Maureen stopped in her tracks. It was all here, just as she had dreamed it. The exquisite Gothic arches, the ruined window with the six-petaled rose cut out of the stone. She had a momentary flash that the six petals were not random, that the number meant something, but she didn’t hold on to the thought. Even the light as it filtered through the tree branches was exactly the same as she had dreamed it.

“This is it. Exactly. Come on, I have to find her.” Maureen grabbed Tammy and ran through the ruins. She retraced the steps from her dream, noticing the ruined marble hunks on the ground as she passed, moving through the remains of a doorway. Ahead of her in the niche of the wall was the sweet little madonna.

“There she is.” Maureen walked slower now, approaching the statue with a type of reverence. The statue was even more beautiful—and whimsical—in person. Her face was distinct and special—wide-set eyes and a high forehead emphasized both intelligence and innocence. The stone girl was dressed simply in a robe with a veil; long braids carved in the rock fell along the sides of her head. She was clearly a child, a little girl holding a baby that was most certainly not her own. Maureen gazed in silence, until Tammy broke it with a whisper.

“What did she say to you in the dream?”

“She said, ‘I am not who you think I am.’”

“So who do you think she is?”

Maureen smiled, feeling a strange communion with the little girl depicted in the statue. It was like seeing an old friend again. “I know who she is. She’s Sarah-Tamar, and the baby is her little brother, the baby Yeshua. This whole place, we think it was built as a monument by Matilda to the bloodline family, right? And whose prophecies were held here? Sarah-Tamar’s. She would be represented here.”

Tammy was piecing it together. “Let’s go back to that allegory.”

“Okay. Think about the story.” Maureen hypothesized out loud. “A fish, which symbolizes Jesus—the ichthys—leaps from the depths of a well. Now first we start with the fact that Jesus taught in this same way, right? He taught through parables, storytelling with symbolism.”

“So you think that
Hail Ichthys
is to remind us that there are layers to the story here? That it’s a type of parable?”

“Exactly! Now, the well is an ancient symbol of secret knowledge. And our fish holds a wedding ring in his mouth. Look around you, that symbol is everywhere. Jesus, the ichthys, is emerging from the depths of secrecy to show the world his wedding ring. Every telling of the story emphasizes that the ring
is
a wedding ring. And he places it securely in Matilda’s hand, because Matilda is trustworthy and will protect it. It all just seems so obvious. And this is a vale of gold because it is here that all the knowledge of his family is kept, knowledge that is worth more than gold. The entire story is an allegory for what Matilda knew and how she preserved it.”

Tammy was nodding. “It’s how all of the bloodline legends were preserved, through codes and symbols when it was death to speak of these things openly.”

“Art will save the world,” Maureen observed. “And I think the definition of art covers a lot of territory in this case. Not just paintings, but architecture, literature, statuary…”

As they rounded the next corner, they came upon a wide well encased with ancient stone. A small sign indicated that this was the
Foun
taine Mathilde
. Matilda’s fountain. Maureen covered her right hand with her left, protecting the Jerusalem ring. She was taking no chances of losing it as she had in the dream, magical fish or no.

The well was a place of serenity, truly peaceful. A gentle spring trickled into the well, coming somewhere from deep within the Ardennes. It reminded Maureen of the holy wells in Ireland, sacred places that were devoted to goddesses for thousands of years before being converted to Christian sites of Marian devotion. To Maureen, everything about Orval felt female, filled with pure and ancient goddess energy that sprang from the earth. Maureen was falling in love with the place and its natural beauty; it felt truly sacred. It was also stirring her growing desire to know more about the mysterious Matilda who had been the force behind this structure and its community almost a thousand years ago.

Tammy leaned over to peer in the well, looking at herself in the dark water. “In your reflection, you will find what you seek.”

Maureen joined her, and they both gazed into the water. She gasped as a third reflection appeared above their own. In the water looking back at them was a face identical to that of the little madonna in the statue. But this face was not stone, it was that of a flesh-and-blood child.

Maureen and Tammy both turned quickly. Standing immediately behind them was an ethereal and beautiful little girl. Like the child in the statue, she was clothed in a very simple dress, and her hair was plaited on both sides of her face. It did not escape the notice of either woman that the girl’s braids were a lovely golden red color. Her hands were behind her back, where she was concealing something as if it were a surprise.

“Bonjour,”
Maureen ventured softly.

The child didn’t speak. Instead, she let out an excited giggle, identical to one that Maureen had heard before. She brought her arms around to reveal that she was carrying a thin canvas bag which appeared to contain something—something that looked like a large book. She held the bag out to Maureen, a sweet smile illuminating her wide-set eyes. As Maureen took the bag, the girl turned immediately and ran, with
out saying a word. She rounded a corner into the ruins and was out of sight almost immediately.

Tammy looked around to see if anyone had witnessed the exchange, but they were alone at the well with no witnesses. “What’s in the bag?”

Maureen opened it and they both peered inside, neither wanting to draw attention to the item by removing it. But it was immediately clear to both of them that what was inside was indeed a book—an ancient-looking book, covered in red leather.

The two women rushed out of the abbey, anxious to get to the privacy of Tammy’s car and get a close look at the red book.

They left the abbey grounds and made the trek to the dirt clearing that was the parking lot. Tammy had her keys in hand but stopped suddenly. Something was wrong. Her car appeared to be leaning to the left. Approaching carefully, she noticed that the front and rear tire on the driver’s side were flat. Maureen came up behind her, looking over Tammy’s shoulder as her friend knelt for a closer look.

Deep
X
s were carved into the sidewalls. The tires had been slashed.

Tammy kneeled to get a closer look, pointing out the perfectly cut
X
shapes to Maureen. She didn’t think that the carvings were random. The letter
X
had been used for centuries as a symbol for heresy by both its proponents and its opponents. The Cathar Gnostics had used it as an emblem of enlightenment.
X
s could be found carved into the stone walls of Cathar castles and the more ancient caverns that were their hiding places during the persecutions. An
X
on the wall indicated that Gnostic teachings were at work in that location and that it was subsequently a haven for those who would pursue the true teachings. Later in Renaissance art, the masters who were sympathetic to the bloodline heresies were fond of incorporating
X
shapes into their paintings.

It was the symbol of truth in issues of God.

In this case, it appeared that the Gnostic
X
was being used as a symbol of hostility by an enemy.

So engrossed were the women in examining the marks that they did not hear the steps behind them until it was too late.

“Stand up very slowly. Both of you.”

The voice was low, menacing yet soft. Maureen did as she was told, turning slightly to see a very tall man wearing a black hooded jacket and dark sunshades. Only his mouth was visible, and it was twisted in a snarl. Tammy let out an involuntary yelp as she felt his gun jammed in between her shoulder blades.

“I will only ask once,” he said to Maureen in accented English. She was struggling to identify the accent for future reference. It was a strange European polyglot, which in itself made it memorable. “Give me the bag, or I will shoot her through the heart, right here, right now. And you will be next.”

The area around them was deserted. Orval was located in the center of a forest and there was no one to hear them. Maureen did the only thing she could. She handed the bag over, praying all the while that the man wouldn’t hurt Tammy.

He snatched it from her and continued to issue orders. “Now get in the car and stay there. Do not move for thirty minutes. Look up there,” he pointed to the rise above them, where the Ardennes forest stretched out. “I have a man in those trees. If you move one second too early, he will shoot you both, and he does not miss. Understand?” There was movement in the shadowed forest above them. Their attacker was not bluffing.

Maureen and Tammy got into the car, hearts pounding. As the doors closed, the man walked quickly away from them and toward the forest, never looking back.

It was the longest thirty minutes of their lives, and both Maureen and Tammy spent it praying and whispering quietly about their dilemma. For safety they gave themselves an extra few minutes before leaving the car and heading back to the abbey. When the sweet girl told them that
they were closing for the day, Tammy explained to her that their car had been vandalized. She left out the bit about the gunmen and the robbery. They were hoping the monastery would offer them lodging for the evening, as it was known to house pilgrims of both genders on a regular basis, but pilgrims pursued by hooded thugs might not be the most welcome guests.

It was a wise decision not to elaborate on their ordeal. The poor Belgian girl was so distraught by the report of vandalism in the idyllic beauty of Orval that she looked as if she would cry. One of the younger monks, Brother Marco, was called in to help in the crisis, and he set to finding rooms for the women as well as contacting a garage in Florenville to repair the car. There was an air of comfort and concern from the monks and the staff at Orval, and both women began to relax in the relative safety of the monastery. It was as if Matilda’s spirit still permeated the place, and while Maureen and Tammy were within her grounds, they were safe. Brother Marco invited the women to supper, which was taken in silence in the monastery’s dining hall. They were too exhausted and overwrought by their ordeal to accept, and he packed them some bread and cheese, as well as the Orval beer with the golden fish on the label, to take back to their room.

The room was typically monastic and spotlessly clean, containing two single beds, a nightstand, and a washbasin. Maureen was grateful for every inch of it. She needed to call Peter and sort through the events of the day. Who attacked them and stole the book? What
was
the book? She felt sick at the thought that she may have had one of the treasures of human history in her hands for a few brief minutes, and now it was lost to…to whom?

When Tammy left to take a shower in the shared bathroom down the hall, Maureen found Peter via cell phone at his home in Rome.

He became understandably agitated as she recounted the events.

“Didn’t I tell you to call me back and that it was important? I wanted to warn you that you were in potential danger.”

Maureen was tired and prickly. “You should have told me everything, even with Tammy present. I trust her. And if Tammy had been injured…”

She let the sentence drop. It was plain and implicit that Peter would have borne some responsibility if anything had happened to Maureen or her friend.

“I’m sorry. Very sorry. And I’m just grateful that you’re both all right. Maureen, I want you on a plane to Rome in the morning. There is someone here you need to meet. I think he can help us to sort through everything. We can have a car pick you up at the monastery and get you to the airport in record time. Tammy can come with you if it makes you feel better.”

“Thanks, Pete. Ah, the irony. You know, sometimes I am truly grateful for the power of the Vatican.”

If ever there was a place to dream, it was within the magical monastery of Orval.

Maureen was moving through the ancient ruined nave of the monastery. The filtered light shone through the skeletal rose window as she stepped carefully over the scattered stones. This time, she knew where she was going. She was heading toward the fountain.

Then she heard the giggle.

Maureen followed it, not surprised when the little girl with the bright copper braids was standing by the well, gesturing emphatically for her to come forward. She had yet to speak, although she looked supremely pleased with herself as she continued to laugh. The child pointed to the water, indicating that Maureen should gaze into its depths.

As Maureen peered into the well, the surface shimmered as images began to take shape, coming into a crystal clear, cinematic focus. Maureen gasped at what she saw. Their attacker was entering a room, holding her precious book in his hands. She watched as the scene took place in what appeared to be a stone chamber or a basement. The room was filled with men, dressed ominously in strange, hooded robes that covered their heads
completely and appeared to be midnight blue in color. All faces were obscured, with only narrow slits where the eyes should be. The men sat at a long, rectangular table; the central chair was larger and more ornate, indicating that its occupant was somehow the leader of this strange order.

Maureen’s attacker, still wearing his more modern clothing and sunglasses, presented the book to the central figure, who examined its cover, which was encircled with a heavy leather strap and a lock. The man seemed prepared for this, as he reached into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out a dagger. A quick slice of the blade over the strap and the book fell open.