The Serpent Papers (36 page)

‘I met Ruthven when he came to visit our archives in an attempt to find a magic book proscribed by Eymerich in 1396. Your Captain Ruthven arrived armed with a map carved onto an emerald, a relic which had come into his possession in the battle for the Independence of Peru. This map led us to the discovery of a sacred palimpsest, written over by Rex Illuminatus, which I helped him to cut loose from a Book of Hours I later concealed in the walls of a chapel north-east of our monastery.’ Lloret paused dramatically before continuing: ‘This truth is known only to myself and your master.’ Lloret gripped my hand tightly. ‘And now Ruthven has asked me to share it with you.

‘Master Sitwell, Illuminatus imbedded a great wisdom in his writing, a language which can only be accessed by a savant – a holy language which allows the individual mortal spirit to communicate with God.’ Lloret’s face radiated with light. ‘A language which would have wrenched power from the Church, putting the Holy Ghost into the mouth of the individual, outside of the structures of the papal edicts. This language renders the speaker a living, breathing vessel of divine creativity. Miracles? Master Sitwell? You have heard of these things?’

I nodded in affirmation.

Lloret smiled softly to himself. ‘Before you leave this island you shall see wonders great and terrible, this I swear to you.’ The priest drummed his fingers lightly on the table. ‘You must find it peculiar, Master Sitwell, that the writings of a long dead alchemist guide your fate.’ With that he took my hand in his and I felt the warmth of him, the blood coursing through his veins. I realize now that adventure is as unpredictable as men. Indeed you can only live it, as it comes, when it comes. I thought a great many things as I listened to Lloret, but said none of them. I have struggled to capture all that passed between us, but will attempt to be as accurate as I may be – Lloret has impressed upon me an understanding of the events of the past few weeks, the more unsettling horror contained in his words which I cannot bring myself to repeat even here. Skipping over these lurid, vulgar details I shall reveal what happened in brief. Lloret’s voice lowered as he spoke: ‘Captain Ruthven told you to deliver an object for him. An object that will save his life. This is a Ruthvenian play on words. What he wishes you to deliver is gnosis, Master Sitwell. Knowledge. He has instructed you to give his knowledge to a woman, a woman who will safeguard this secret, but has no power over his fate. What you shall save is his legacy. The legacy of the object which you carry.’

I nodded. We had discussed the same in his home.

‘He has requested that I share his knowledge with you. Are you sure you wish to go down this path?’ Lloret asked me. I made such and such assurances and demonstrated my loyalty, though secretly I found it all perplexing in the extreme.

‘Brave words,’ Lloret commended me. ‘Ruthven believes that Illuminatus and the Order are connected by both circumstance and misfortune. This you must understand. In 1376, a mysterious acolyte of Eymerich under the name of “the Duke” formed a secret organization, an underground network of spies that sought out heretics and brutally abused them. A pogrom erupted against Illuminatus resulting in a Papal Bull that banned 120 of his books while censuring his teaching in the Church. A second wave of attack followed swiftly, spurred on by the Duke’s success in Rome. Flavius Clemens, a pupil at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris, orchestrated the official condemnation of the works of Illuminatus by the Theologians, prohibiting the study of the good man’s writing at the University. The results were disastrous.

‘In 1396 two factions formed,’ Lloret intoned solemnly. ‘Those that guard the secret arts of Illuminatus and those that forward the practices of Eymerich’s friend the Duke. Their followers have fought us fiercely, with Anti-Illuminatists blocking the publications of his texts, burning manuscripts where possible and creating false books to discredit Illuminatus’s name. Of the 277 recorded works of Illuminatus, at least 273 are lost to history. It is a war that continues to be waged in this century, Master Sitwell, with proponents of Illuminatus such as myself fighting to protect his writing every step of the way. To this day, his enemies are still among us, and return.’

A tear welled at the corner of Lloret’s eye. He brushed it away in the hopes I did not see it.

‘I’m sure the Captain has told you of his theories of the great Illuminatus’s immortality?’

I nodded.

Lloret sighed. ‘Rex Illuminatus as you call him drank an elixir of philosophical longevity, not a physical one – this is where Ruthven and I have differed. I believe that his ideas are immortal, and thus his soul survives, and not his corporeal form. He was a doctor of the soul, Master Sitwell, not an alchemist of metals. Do not believe that business about the elixir of life. Illuminatus lives in us, we carry him here.’ He pointed dramatically to his heart.

‘What was it about Illuminatus that called you to him?’ the priest enquired. I told him that I had begun reading his work in my studies at Cambridge and that the mystic had appeared in my dreams. I did not mention that I was dabbling in Romantic Hellenism at the time as it did not seem fitting. We spoke at great length about the significance of these dreams, which I have shared with you and will not repeat. I felt very comfortable with the man, whose face inspired the most intense of honesties and whose passion for his God seems most genuine. We drank together, discussing his history in the Church and his vision for the future of Majorca. He was a most hospitable fellow, hungry for the world though he has never left this island. An hour later I asked where he had learnt his English, and he replied entirely from books, which explains his peculiar accent. When the sun set, the rain stopped. Lloret suggested taking a walk through the countryside.

‘You are quite safe with me,’ Padre Lloret said, the bell tower glittering before us. Padre Lloret put out his hand and touched a stone cross, encouraging me to do the same. ‘It is likely Illuminatus walked here, in contemplation,’ he said. ‘Life may be an ugly thing if you do not steer it well. There are many of us with regrets, and violence is an end to avoid, if God gives you a choice.’ Then he paused, catching a glimpse of my ill-humour. ‘Come.’ He beckoned with his hand, and we wandered down into the forest, retracing our path down to the edge of the town. The storm had passed, and I felt the first wave of relief that I had arrived in this refuge.

‘Tomorrow,’ Lloret said, as he left me at the doors of the Charterhouse, ‘I will fetch de la Font and her
Vitae Coetana
.’ I retired to my rooms and began to write of this to you, with my single foul-smelling candle. I miss you horribly, though this place does offer a certain kind of peace. What have I done, to deserve this purgatory? Though I wished it on myself, I regret the day I left you. Do not cease to write, as I am ever in need of your strength, and your counsel.

Your beloved and ever closer, Sitwell

6 December 1851, Valldemossa, Majorca

Katherine, I have as yet received no response from you – but I assume this is due to troubles in the post, rather than troubles in your heart. But I will regale you with stories! Today I awoke with the sun. As the glowing mass gathered up his skirts to the East, I emerged from my quarters in my slippers and went to sit in our private gardens. The experience was one of rapture. The sky lightened and the birds danced in the bare branches of a silver birch. I felt the weight of the evening’s anxieties fall from my shoulders and elected to go for a walk immediately. I took only a few coins, then made my way towards the donkey path to Deià, stopping to buy a lump of sweet potato bread and a hunk of ewe’s cheese. For all that I have read Illuminatus’s work – all the time spent in libraries and offices and cloisters studying his treatises on Love and God and Man – I have never understood his import until now, when I look out over the sea and the sky, and stop to break bread on the roots of an olive tree – O! Olea europaea! I would sing its praises to you! The bark knotted and streaked with damp, tight winter fruit green and purple, dusted with a fine white powder – the earth about their roots a marvellous blood red clay. I stumbled into a field of such aged olives, their regal branches sheathed in silvery leaves, their bearing scattered, the rock walls about them crumbling . . . And – I swear to God! – the olives I have found are as old as the works of Illuminatus if not older. I have walked back through a portal and am here without clocks or edifice or order – free to simply breathe the air. I am stripped away – all ill-thoughts, all trepidations left on the path to this wild church of the World! No wonder works of truth occur to the hermit in his cave, overlooking such majesty! There can be no doubt in his mind that he is in communion with some nebulous maker of things! And though I struggle daily with my own ease of persuasion, my confusion as to the true reasons for my being on this island, I must admit, dear Katherine, I am lifted up and strengthened by my undying faith in the world and my deepest ardour for the keeper of my heart.

With Love and Admiration,

Sitwell

8 December 1851, Valldemossa, Majorca

I had just begun my own translation of the alchemist’s work when Father Lloret rudely disrupted me. He burst through the doors of my chambers dressed in a black greatcoat over his outer frock. ‘Thank God you are safe!’ he cried. ‘Quick now! We must away at once!’ Before I could reply, the priest produced two pistols from beneath his coat – ‘Lift your arms, Sitwell!’ he ordered, strapping a firearm to each of my hips, before thrusting me a sabre to carry across my back. ‘Can you shoot straight?’ he asked. ‘Our path prevents me from taking fire, but if needs be you must.’ I laughed nervously, replying that I might myself be mistaken for an outlaw, bristling as I was with weaponry. The priest put his hand on my shoulder, bringing his face close to mine. ‘The worm has turned, Master Sitwell.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ I stammered.

‘Gather your things.’ Lloret’s voice shook – ‘We ride tonight to meet the Nightingale. She will answer all your questions.’ I was silenced, much disturbed by his Latin display of emotion. With that we quit my quarters, swearing de la Font to secrecy. The woman’s eyes darted to the guns at my waist. Lloret bundled me onto a horse tethered to the Charterhouse before mounting a second steed. Hooves clattered across the cobbled streets. We made our way swiftly, climbing out from the Valley of Moses. The moon not yet risen, the sky black and full of a hundred thousand stars, robes draped in finery. I resolved to calm myself and watch the luminaries flicker, looking up for reassurance. Suddenly Lloret reined his horse to a halt. The hair rose on my neck, I reached for my pistol – no sound had I heard but perhaps he sensed something?

‘Look!’ Lloret breathed, and pointed. Before my very eyes the Cimmerian darkness parted in the wake of a gauzy haze, like smoke rising from the earth. The haze grew in strength, turning in strides from a shimmering dust to a radiant burst of white gold, emerging as a numinous goddess from the black ridge, harvest orb consuming the sky. The stars winked into shadow, so moved by her presence were they!

‘We are graced, Sitwell!’ Lloret cried as the moon’s celestial gleam caught on the mare’s damp eyes. Sweat greeted me from the back of the horse. My muscles burnt, for I had not ridden in many months, and despite being a healthy man, I am not used to passing so swiftly over steep terrain. However, I kept a steady path and the mare was good, taking care she did not fall for we went a way untrodden. We travelled thus for several hours, traversing higher into the sierra, before arriving in a wide clearing, set against the mountains. At the far end of a rocky plateau I discerned the dancing flame of a candle. Steam rising from the chimney of a low stone cottage. Moonlight bled into the yard where chickens slept in their coop. A cattle dog barked twice from inside a barn while a cat mewled plaintively. Lloret dismounted, swinging his boots onto the ground. I did the same and gave the reins of my mare to the priest, who tied the dripping beasts to a bolt beside a drinking trough. The horses lapped thirstily at the water while we removed their saddles, rubbing their sweat down with a blanket, pressing warmth into their soaked rippling muscle before Lloret led them to a tumbledown barn, where he stabled the horses for the night. As we strode across the yard, the cottage door swung open to a vision more beautiful than any I have seen in my travels. You must forgive me for saying so, but it is true. I beheld thick, black hair, knotted as the sea, pulled into a mass behind her ears. Broad sunken eyes with hooded lids like the effigies of saints. She wore a fragile golden thread against her throat, from which hung a little metal bird, delicate wings outstretched across her bosom. Her dress was rustic, rough cotton sleeves cuffed at her elbows and wide, muddied petticoat beneath her skirt. She was not elegant or diminutive, but earthy and strong, with a proud carriage unlike any I had seen on a woman. 

‘Welcome!’ she called into the yard. ‘Lloret! Senyor Sitwell! Welcome!’

As she stood in the door frame, illumined by the fire behind her, I felt she was a second moon rising from the mouth of this vast mountain. She was a goddess, stern and foreboding. I tumbled towards her, following Lloret’s lead, entranced by the vision, and I could not help but think, as a man, that this is why the priest lends himself to the call of Ruthven’s favour. He is in love with this woman, Kitty, as sure as I love you
 –
for what priest or man could withstand such evidence of beauty? But I banished the thought, relegating it to the realm of the intellectual, the spiteful and false, for I trust Lloret in his faith, though I do not understand it. The tenderness I saw on his brow, and the touch of his hand on her arm, made me think again that I had crossed into some different realm, where the rules of conduct were not as I had imagined.