The Pendragon Legend (23 page)

My heart was beating wildly when, for the first time in my life, I put out to sea. At my first glimpse of the crested waves I knew how Moses felt when he put his faith in God and waited for the waters to open rather than surrender himself to their mercy. I grew more and more violently seasick and spent the entire voyage in penitence and contrition, wracked by dark forebodings as to the outcome of our adventure.

But at last the white shores of Albion rose out of the sea. At the sight of their beauty I began to trust again in Divine Providence.

We spent just a single day in London. St Germain took the occasion to visit the Grand Master of Freemasons in England, and I accompanied His Lordship round the coffee houses and taverns.

Towards evening we were strolling around the Vauxhall pleasure garden, and generally observing the ladies, when we were accosted by a man of striking and unusual appearance, dressed in the splendidly exuberant colours favoured by Italian grandees on their travels. Every finger was encrusted with
rings, gold chains swung from every conceivable part of his person, and during
the time we were together he produced no fewer than four watches and three snuff boxes. Though his face was not generally handsome, the eyes and play of features were more lively and expressive than those of any man I ever met.

He greeted His Lordship as an old acquaintance. The conversation quickly turned to the Comte St Germain, whereupon the Italian warned my companion to be wary of that gentleman. Bonaventura changed the subject with a well-timed joke, and began to question him about his various conquests.

‘I am no longer the man Your Lordship knew in Paris,’ he confided. ‘I feel as if I am starting to die. A man doesn’t die all at once. It’s a gradual process. The senses grow old and fail. And when I look back on my past life, I no longer know whether I was the greatest fool, or the wisest man alive.’

At this, Bonaventura jested that anyone as famously omniscient as he should surely know St Germain’s prescription for restoring youth. The Italian turned a bright red, observed that His Lordship was no doubt
alluding
to the story that St Germain had promised eternal youth to Mme d’Urfé, and then cried out:

‘Stay where you belong, in the clutches of that man. Those who make sport of others deserve to be made sport of themselves.’

And, without any sort of farewell, he left us.

In answer to my question as to the name of this strange gentleman, His Lordship told me he did not know whether he was more renowned for his impostures or his countless love affairs. He called himself the Chevalier de Seingalt, but his real name was Giacomo Casanova.

The next morning the three of us set off for the province of Wales, where His Lordship’s estates were situated, and on arrival were entertained in princely style in his castle, known as Pendragon. The following day was spent receiving the ladies and gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and it was not until late that night, when we were left finally to ourselves and sitting by the fire, that we again broached the topic of the occult.

In a voice quavering with excitement, His Lordship told us of an ancient castle that stood close by. Its name meant Dragon’s Head, and beneath its ruins was buried his ancestor Asaph Pendragon who in his day was none other than Rosacrux, the founder of the Brotherhood of Rosicrucians.

‘If this is so,’ St Germain exclaimed, ‘then his body will be lying
uncorrupted
in his tomb!’

‘The truth exceeds even that,’ whispered His Lordship, leaning closer towards us. ‘Rosacrux is alive, just as, even now, the wizard Merlin and
the Welsh hero Bloody-Handed Owen still live. He lies there, in his tomb, waiting for the moment to rise again.’

Family tradition, handed down from father to son, confidently claims that Rosacrux, feeling the hand of old age upon him, summoned his closest friend Robert Fludd, the physician and fellow member of the Brotherhood. It was to Fludd that he entrusted the great secret he had brought back from the Orient, the secret of preserving the life of the body. The body thus rendered immortal lies unmoving in the grave, but lives, contemplating the mysteries of Heaven and Earth.

Rosacrux then lay down in the tomb he had prepared for himself in the image of the universe, and Fludd, having carried out the relevant magical procedures, closed it and left. Then, like a man who has fulfilled his calling, he died in the same year.

St Germain and I listened to his tale in a paroxysm of horror and fear. We asked—in some alarm as to how he might reply—what he desired of us, and what he proposed doing. He answered that Rosacrux was still there, alive in his tomb: he knew more than any living person; he had known more when he was mortal, and had since spent a hundred and twenty years in mystical contemplation of the secrets of Heaven and Earth. If it were possible to rouse him and seek his advice, we could surely come closer to the Magnum Mysterium than anyone ever had. If St Germain, with his power of restoring lost youth, could employ the full force of his knowledge, we might manage to persuade the living dead to break silence.

For what seemed ages, St Germain made no reply. Then, rising from his chair, he announced that he would have first to think it over, and
consult
his family oracle; and up he went to bed. I remained alone with Lord Bonaventura who, from that moment onwards, filled me with mounting terror. His extraordinary girth, which until then had seemed to me merely an amusing consequence of his unbounded Epicureanism, now lent him, in the glowing light of the fire, a perfectly diabolical aspect, as though he were Mammon himself, clothed in human form and calmly preparing to exhume his ancestors from their graves.

He asked me whether I had been fully ordained before I renounced the cloth, and was delighted when I told him I had. He remarked that, if nothing else served, the black arts would be resorted to, but they would require an ordained priest and a consecrated wafer. If St Germain’s nostrums failed, he said, it would fall to me to celebrate the Satanic Mass over the tomb, on the body of a naked woman, pronouncing the sacred words of the service in reverse order.

Such was the oppressive weight of the terror that again passed over me, I dared offer no protest against this diabolical plan.

At that moment St Germain reappeared. He had now donned the robes of a Freemason and the insignia of the Great Chosen One. His hands held a wand and a cut-glass bowl.

‘We must be quick,’ he said. ‘If we are to achieve anything, it must be done tonight. There is a new moon, and Venus lies in Capricorn. Such nights are auspicious for acts of magic.’

I fell to my knees and implored them to abandon this terrifying plan, which might jeopardise their eternal salvation. But Bonaventura replied with an evil laugh that he wouldn’t give a groat for the salvation of any of us. I begged them to allow me at least to stay behind, or to go away, because I felt something unspeakable was about to take place. At this, His Lordship drew his sword and threatened to transfix me if I left them, now that I was party to their secrets. Thus he compelled me to accompany them.

In the courtyard three horses had been prepared for us, saddled in black. His Lordship led the way as we galloped at lightning speed through the dark night. Our path led to a high mountain, on whose peak loomed the ruin of an awe-inspiring castle, the haunt of owls, ghosts and witches. We tethered our steeds to the gatepost of a dilapidated wall, His Lordship lit the torches we had brought, and we stepped into the ruin.

Lord Bonaventura performed some sort of secret action, and a
blackly-gaping
spiral staircase opened at our feet. I stumbled down it, my knees
shaking
uncontrollably. Words cannot express my horror when I suddenly felt the step I was standing on begin to sink under me. I grasped wildly at a wooden rafter, but it soared upwards with a Satanic laugh. I screamed in terror at His Lordship, but he remained where he was, describing strange circles in the air with his flaming torch, then dashed on ahead of us, like a madman.

We arrived in a vast hall, whose furthest corners seemed to disappear into the far distance. From them, it seemed to me, I could make out the dull roar of the sea, or some other sound very like it.

The hall was full of coffins, whose lids slowly rose and then descended again, like so many mouths, gaping and shutting, ready to bite, warning us to go no further.

Half-crazed with terror I stumbled into the next room, where a horror awaited us that would prove even more dreadful than anything that had gone before.

At its centre stood an altar, which His Lordship pushed to one side.
Beneath it we found the stone slab of a tomb, which, with miraculous
ingenuity
, St Germain managed to move from its position.

Inside the vault stood a catafalque, and on it lay an ancient figure of gigantic height. He was gorgeously apparelled in the robes of an earlier period, and the rings on his fingers bore jewels the like of which I had never seen. He lay with his eyes open, as do the blind; he neither saw nor did he move. Bonaventura and I hid in fear behind the altar that had been pushed aside. St Germain was deathly pale. He too would doubtless have drawn back had he not been ashamed to show his fear.

With his wand he drew a line above the figure lying in the tomb, then slowly sprinkled the contents of the vial on its forehead.

The sleeper shook himself, and turned his head towards us. The face was that of a man who sees. Very slowly, he raised his head, leant over on one arm, and uttered the most terrible cry.

At that moment the subterranean sun that lit the room began to darken, and bells, which we suddenly noticed around the sides of the room, began to toll.

Petrified with terror, we saw that the figure was slowly rising and
preparing
to leave his tomb.

At that point St Germain uttered a loud shriek and fled, with His Lordship and myself hard on his heels. Clambering up the spiral stairs was almost impossible, as he could barely move his limbs for fear and needed my
constant
support, which, given his enormous weight, was no mean imposition. By the time we had returned to the castle he was delirious with fever.

St Germain’s elixirs were of no avail. We remained constantly at his bedside. He must have suffered for about a week, then passed away, having remembered us both in his will …