The Sixth Key (11 page)

Matteu found himself in the city of Béziers on the eve of the
Feast of Mary Magdalene. The boy, only twelve years old, belonged to the
company of routiers, the mercenaries who were recruited from every low place
for the Crusades against the Cathars of Languedoc. His master was known as the
King of the Mercenaries, a Basque for whom all felt a repellent awe. He and his
men had already entered the town of Béziers ahead of the armies of the northern
knights, and the boy, having fallen behind, looked for him, walking the streets
in the wake of his master’s advance to observe, for the first time in his young
life, men killing any living thing that crossed their path.

Fearful, he hid behind some wine barrels near
the stables and watched the routiers drag the town’s citizens into the streets.

Children were cut from their mother’s arms; a
small babe was skewered on the end of a sword and thrown a distance towards the
walls to split open like a watermelon; an older one was struck in the back as
he ran off; another was taken up to the saddle to have her small neck broken
with a twist. Old men were run through or gutted or had their heads lopped off.
The women, if they were old or ugly, had their faces beaten in or their throats
cut from ear to ear.

The young pretty ones suffered more.

Near where Matteu hid, routiers brought forth
two girls and held them down as they kicked and screamed. Matteu looked to see
if these Cathars were the Devil’s spawn: half calf and half goat, grotesque
creatures, covered in boils, as the priests had said. After all, these were the
dreaded heretics who thought the world was created by the Devil and who did not
believe in the Holy Cross and the Resurrection. But he saw only plain girls, as
plain as could be – girls who were terrified and hunted.

Matteu could barely watch as each man took his
turn upon the girls. One was already dead from loss of blood; the other, who
had fought and kicked and bit, had a boot stomped into her face and her head
dashed onto the cobbles. Sated, the men moved on. Their festival of carnage and
rape over, they now turned their business to plunder.

Matteu’s mind was hollow – even his life
in the violent hovels and bars of Barcelona had ill prepared him for the sight
of so much blood and savagery, and he felt gall rise to his throat, which he
tried, with all his might, to stifle.

The mercenaries were hauling great chests and
barrels and trunks out of the houses to prise them open, overturning them and
spilling out their contents: bolts of green silk shimmered in the sun; bags of
grain, pepper or salt came open and overflowed onto the cobbles; parchments
were scattered about. Clothing was ripped up and thrown around; furniture was
broken to pieces; pots and pans and iron candlesticks were tossed onto the
blood-soaked bodies of the dead. The routiers trampled over the carcasses,
slipping on the blood and tripping over the dismembered parts to get at what
they wanted. They beat at one another with fists or sword butts, fighting over
the spoils. Pilgrims and camp followers, themselves looking for plunder, were
run through if they happened to get in the way. The men were like wolves, their
faces dark with war lust.

A thunder now came from the city gates: it was
the sharp-edged hoofs of the great French warhorses. Upon them were the Crusaders
who had by now bested the city garrison and were seeking their plunder with a
fury, beating pilgrim and routier alike with their swords or boots or shields.
After ordering the mercenaries to take anything of value to the French camp or
face the sword, the Crusaders galloped away towards the upper parts of the
city. The world was drowned out by the solemn ‘Te Deum’ they sang as they
headed for the churches where the people of the city had fled in their
desperation.

The routiers, angered by this insult,
proceeded to put the city to the torch. After lighting the houses, they too
moved closer to the upper city and now it seemed there was a moment of quiet,
the only sounds the groans of the dying and the burning and crackling of the
fires. Matteu came out from his hiding spot into the long, narrow street. It
reeked of faeces and was buzzing with flies. He walked among the blood and
brains, legs and arms and trunks either ripped up or stove in that lay in the
infested gutters, littering the ground as though rained down from Heaven.

He looked about him at the tide of pain and
misery and houses on fire, to the great panels of smoke that were blocking out
the sun, attacking his dust-filled nostrils and snaking into his aching lungs.

He realised he was standing near the corpses
of the two girls, splayed out, naked, on the cobbles. He tried to look away but
could not prevent his eyes from finding their faces. They were his age, he was
sure of it, or a little older: fifteen, maybe sixteen. Their eyes lifeless, the
soft milky parts of their young bodies stained red and blue with bruises,
violated and exposed. To see it filled him with vacant loss. The mouldy bread
he had eaten for breakfast began to turn cartwheels in his guts and the world
made its rounds over his head and the buzzing grew louder in his ears. In a
rush, a sour plug of gall rose up to his lips and he bent over, coughing and
retching until the beast in his stomach unclenched its jaws and he stopped, his
tongue a bed of fiery acid, more acid dripping from his nostrils.

He lay on the ground and waited for the world
to stop spinning and for the misery of this new understanding of war to settle
into his bones, where it might hurt less. Such was his state that he did not
notice until too late that a knight on horseback was galloping in his direction
with sword held high in one hand and a shield in the other bearing the device
of the Temple. The knight was standing over him before he could get up and he
pierced the skin on the back of Matteu’s neck with the tip of his weapon.

‘Who are you?’ the great and awesome knight
said loudly, letting the sword’s tip draw blood. ‘Well?’

Matteu trembled beneath that blade and found
to his utter terror that he was unable to speak.

The tall knight told the boy to turn over and
he put a foot to his chest. He pulled up his visor. ‘Are you Cathar or
Christian?’

Matteu’s words, dammed up, came tumbling out
like wine out of a barrel: ‘My master is the captain of the Mercenaries . . . I
came to see the war . . .’

Something flickered in the knight’s pale eyes,
a passing thought, perhaps an estimation of the boy’s worth. The Templar
sheathed his sword then and made for his horse. ‘Now you have seen it,’ he told
Matteu, pulling himself into the saddle and looking about at the slaughter-ruined
streets. As if he were speaking not to Matteu, but to some aspect of himself to
which he must answer, he said, ‘There is no glory in it.’

By now the fire in the city had taken hold of
every building. Already the roofs were alight and he could hear the rafters
letting go here and there. Matteu turned around to see that grey plumes were
reaching upwards to the vaults of Heaven and a thunder of destruction came from
every building.

‘They will come looking for blood, boy!’ the
Templar said. ‘Get on or join the carcasses in the streets!’

At that moment there was a splitting and
crackling, a spurting and bursting of wood and rafters and beams giving way and
collapsing, feeding the fire and causing the flames to rise higher, and the
heat to grow in intensity. Matteu could see almost nothing except smoke and
more smoke.

The stallion reared up
but the Templar held firm; it made a dance of its terror and then calmed down.
Matteu stood, uncertain. He caught a hold of the stirrups but began to cough
and cough from the smoke. The inferno was spewing out the acrid smell of
burning hair and incense and suddenly there were sounds of horn blasts rising
above the roars of the falling timbers and the growling, bellowing sounds of
the conflagration.

‘What does that mean?’ Matteu asked.

‘The church is gone and likely all in it!’ the
Templar told him fiercely. ‘The killing will go on for days. They believe that
God will recognise who belongs to Him in heaven, for they do not know heretic
from Catholic. If you do not hurry, it will be your fate as well, and I will
run you through to save them the trouble.’

It was true. They would take him for a Cathar.
He thought he could hear the rumble of the warhorses and the cries of the
knights and routiers. His heart, his breath, his muscles, his thoughts, all of
him grew terrified. He tried again to put a foot to the stirrup and with help
from the knight he lifted himself behind the great man, barely managing to stay
on the horse because of his fear.

The knight pulled down his visor and dug heels
into the horse’s flank. The animal left a trail of dust that mingled with the
smoke all the way through the gate.

And so it was. His master would not miss him,
there were plenty of boys to take his place. Likewise he would not miss the
temperamental, violent ways of a man who liked to box him in the ear for sport.
What this Templar wanted with him Matteu could not guess, and though this did
not sit easy on his brow, he told himself that he had always been good at
following his ‘knowing’. This alone had saved him in the hovels of Barcelona
after his mother’s death; this knowing had taken his feet to that boat in the
harbour and had showed him to hide in that French galley; and it was this
knowing that directed him now, out of the howling pit that was the city of
Béziers and into a future unknown.

He hugged the horse with his knees and held
tight to the Templar as they rode over the bodies of the dead but before they
reached the bridge, the Templar said to him, ‘Take one last look, boy! The God
of the church that you once knew is now dead for you!’

Matteu looked behind him: he saw nothing but a
trail of smoke. Ash fell from above, like grey snow. He knew he would never be
able to walk into a church again.

‘She wanted you to have it, Rahn,’ Deodat Roche said, puffing on
his meerschaum pipe, which was shaped like a lion’s head. ‘She cared a great
deal for you, as you know.’

Rahn sat sprawled on a wicker chair in
Deodat’s drawing room before a great fire of oak. The train had arrived that
afternoon and he had paid a local to take him to where Deodat lived – a
place as far from Berlin as the moon, or so it seemed to Rahn. For here, in
Arques, he felt like himself again.

He looked at the pleasant glow of the hearth
that fell on the worn oriental rugs, the mahogany furniture and the dozens and
dozens of books lining the walls of the sizeable library. He took in the faint
perfume wafting from the rosemary and thyme bunches that hung from the
blackened rafters, alongside sausages and ropes of garlic. Nothing had changed.

Rahn and Deodat sat together in an easy
silence, broken momentarily by the housekeeper, a large woman with a severe
face and a thick mass of greying hair that she tamed into a knot at the nape of
her neck. Yes, a formidable woman was Madame Sabine, who in her prime had been
the headmistress of an illustrious girl’s school and whose ability to command,
organise and control young and great minds alike had not faded in her waning
years. She had a tray of coffee in her hands and a look on her face that would
curdle milk. She set the tray down.

‘I’ll leave you to pour, but mind, don’t spill
it!’ she snapped. Then to Rahn, ‘Bed by ten o’clock! I’ll hold you personally
responsible if the magistrate’s arthritis suffers because you’ve kept him up.’
This was followed by a hard stare, which bespoke her expectations, whereupon
she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.

When she was quite gone, Deodat rubbed his
face and sighed. ‘There goes a demon fallen to Earth to harass me,’ he murmured
and poured the coffee, spilling a little on the tray in mischievous defiance.
‘Oh dear!’ he said merrily.

‘Why don’t you get rid of her?’ Rahn asked,
feeling warm and contented.

‘What?’ Deodat shot him a horrified stare.
‘That woman is indispensible! She’s the only one who can find things in the
infernal order she’s created. If I leave a book out, and turn around . . . pff!
It’s gone in a moment! You have no idea how many things can be irretrievably
lost in a house the size of this one! If I were to let her go it would take me
the rest of my life to find everything she’s put away, and the old hag knows it
too. She holds me by the collar like the Devil in Faust! Besides, the way she
talks, one would think me near the end of the line!’

The truth was Deodat’s age was impossible to
tell – he was one of those men who seemed perennially youthful in his
body and yet eternally old in his soul, so that what one saw on the surface
never seemed to match what one discovered within. Nevertheless, Rahn guessed he
must be somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five. His hair was not fully
grey and his face was as yet unwrinkled, and his quirks of behaviour and speech
signalled a fount of energy that far surpassed many men half his age. In fact,
Rahn had met him caving, in the circles of Antonin Gadal, that great Cathar
historian, and Rahn came to learn that Deodat was a prodigious speleologist, a
man who would drop everything to go potholing in godforsaken places. Rahn
respected his wisdom and sagacity and his deep knowledge of the Cathars, which
long ago had earned him the nickname ‘The Cathar Pope’, and a position as the
magistrate of the small town of Arques. This was a profession that suited him
well since he was rather addicted to mysteries, be they the confounding
disappearance of a neighbour’s calf, or the perplexing theft of an old woman’s
heirloom. The truth was that many years ago, Deodat had met Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle. The two men had hit it off and now Deodat told everyone that Doyle had
modelled Sherlock Holmes after him – minus the sleuth’s various
addictions to certain intoxicating substances, of course. But Rahn knew this
was impossible, for Deodat would have been no more than a child when Doyle’s
first story was published. Still, Rahn never contradicted him.

Deodat’s most striking features were a
prominent lower jaw and a fearsome forehead that hung over deep-set blue eyes
that were so dark as to be almost black. The profundity of those eyes was
disquieting and had undone more than one criminal, simply because one could
never be certain what Deodat was really looking at – the body or the
soul. In the final analysis it was just that Deodat, like Holmes, was a clever
observer, a ‘deducer’ with a keen eye for the slightest detail, and it was
under that eye that Rahn now unwrapped the package from the Countess P.

Inside the box, beneath
several layers of newspaper, was an Empire Pendulum Clock. It had sat on the
piano on which he had played many a tune for the countess. He realised now that
he had never really studied it in detail. The clock stood no taller than two
hands and was elaborately worked in bronze ormolu. He sat back to look at it.
It was made in the image of a naked man with a lion’s head. The body of the
creature had four wings and two serpents entwined around it, and it sat on the
globe of the world, which formed the bulk of the clock with its little Roman
numerals. The creature held a key in one hand and a sceptre in the other. Upon
closer scrutiny, Rahn observed the following words inscribed into the back of
the clock:

This a tomb that has no body in it

This is a body that has no tomb round it

But body and tomb are the same

‘Ugly, isn’t it?’ Deodat said, as Rahn set the
clock down again on a small table. ‘The countess was an unusual woman and she
liked unusual things. She had a pertinacity that infuriated me, but I was
rather fond of her, as you know. Do you remember the first time we all met?’

‘It was at Montsegur on the night of the
solstice.’ Rahn smiled to think of it. ‘All four of us were there: me, you, La
Dame and the countess; all invited to observe that sunrise. We had to climb
that mountain to the fortress in the dark.’

‘And the poor countess in those shoes –
highly impractical if you ask me!’ Deodat exclaimed.

‘The fire we built was so great it lit up the
night.’

‘And we sat by it eating bread dipped in fish
ragout, my favourite dish,’ Deodat said, relishing the memory. ‘We listened to
one another reciting poems for hours.’

‘And we uncorked a battalion of bottles!’ Rahn
added.

‘The finest wines of the region.’ Deodat
puffed on his pipe, contented. ‘I recall that my first impression of you, dear
Rahn, was that you seemed to me just like a troubadour.’

‘And I thought you lived up to your nickname!’

‘What nonsense! There was never any such thing
as a Cathar pope.’ Deodat waved a hand but Rahn sensed he was secretly
delighted to hear it.

‘What about La Dame? What did you think of
him?’ Rahn asked.

Deodat gave him a look. ‘La Dame might imagine
he shares a lineage with Nostradamus, but he hasn’t a mystical bone in his
body. The countess, on the other hand, was the last of the great mystics. One
of a kind.’ Deodat sighed. ‘A fine woman, a fine woman . . .’ He cleared his
throat, obviously touched, and changed the subject. ‘At any rate, she must have
left the clock to you for some reason. I believe it is quite old . . . I would
say, early nineteenth century. That figure on it is not unusual. They were
generally decorated with mythological creatures.’

‘I must admit that I never knew what it was,’
Rahn said.

‘The Leoncetophaline?’ Deodat’s dark eyes
turned to Rahn. ‘They’re found in Mithraic initiation chambers all over Rome!

He is Arimanus, the demon king guardian of the
Underworld.’

‘And this inscription on the back of the
clock?’

‘It’s a variation of an infamous riddle
discovered in the sixteenth century on an old Roman tombstone near Bologna. I
looked it up when the countess asked me to make certain I had it inscribed on
the stone marking her grave. Apparently men have obsessed over its meaning. In
fact, a large pamphlet on it was published in Venice, and later even Jung
dedicated a full chapter to it in Mysterium Conjunctionis. But the important
point is that no solution to it has ever been found.’

They both fell into a silent reflection. The
Countess P had often talked about death. In fact, it had been her favourite
subject.

Deodat puffed on his pipe and looked at Rahn
with a peculiar mixture of vexation and affection that signalled his
displeasure. Rahn had been waiting for it. He braced himself.

‘Nearly four years, Rahn, without a word!’

Rahn drank down his coffee. It was hot and
bitter. Yes, he had left France rather hastily, it was true, and had never
found the right moment to write Deodat a letter of apology because he had not
wanted to lie about whom he was working for and what he was doing – this
was also true. On the train he had constructed eloquent reasons for his omissions,
which now seemed to evaporate from his mind and so he looked at his friend and
mentor, therefore, without the slightest notion of what to say. Deodat, being
the man he was, saved him the trouble.

‘I know what happened!’ he thundered. ‘There
have to be some advantages to being a magistrate, we hear all sorts of things.
If you had told me, perhaps I could have helped you. But you are stubborn
– and petulant!’

‘Well, I didn’t want your help!’ Rahn said,
demonstrating his obstinacy nicely. ‘It was my scandal! Bad enough I was being
thrown out of town like some common criminal without having to advertise it. It
was all rather undignified, as you can imagine, and you can’t blame me for
trying to salvage whatever scrap of dignity I had left.’

‘Oh, let’s forget the whole tiresome thing,’
Deodat grumbled, getting up to pace before the fire, puffing away at his pipe.
He took it out to say, ‘The important point is that you’re back, my boy, and,
if I’m not mistaken, it isn’t merely to collect a parcel from the countess.
So.’ He paused now to stare at Rahn with eagerness. ‘I want straight answers,
no dissimulation! Well?’

Rahn cleared his throat, feeling unbalanced.
What should he say? He knew full well that he was a terrible liar, especially
where Deodat was concerned.

Deodat looked at him in his singular fashion.
‘You’ve come by some money by the look of you – new shoes, new coat. I
sense a purposefulness in your manner. I think that you’re ready to pick up
where you left off, am I correct?’

Rahn cleared his throat. ‘I’m not here to go
potholing, per se . . . I’m afraid,’ he let out.

‘Why, in the devil, not?’ Deodat couldn’t hide
his disappointment. He looked like a child robbed of a favoured toy by a
trusted person. His expression moved from confusion to astonishment and settled
finally into a wounded frown.

‘I’m on rather a different hunt, though it
might just turn out to be the same hunt, actually.’

The frown lifted a little. ‘What are you
hunting for?’

‘I’m on an errand from my publisher. As it
turns out he’s a collector of books and he’s heard of a very rare grimoire
called Le Serpent Rouge. Have you heard of it?’

‘Le Serpent Rouge?’ The brow wrinkled and he
puffed on the pipe vigorously. He was on the scent. ‘Where did your publisher
hear about it?’

‘From a source in Paris.’

‘Interesting . . .’

‘Have you heard of it, Deodat?’

‘Yes, but only as an alchemical substance
– red mercuric oxide, which the Egyptians called Red Serpent. I’ve never
heard of a book by that name.’

Rahn realised he would have to tell Deodat a
little more, so he fished in the pocket of his jacket for Monti’s notebook,
opened it to the page in question, and handed it to Deodat.

Deodat peered at it through his thick lenses.
‘What’s this?’ he said, looking up over their rim.

‘It belonged to a man called George Monti.’

‘George Monti?’

Rahn was surprised. ‘Do
you know him?’

‘Yes, he’s a rather shady fellow. He’s dead
now, I believe.’

‘Apparently he came to Languedoc before he
died in search of the grimoire. The notebook was found afterwards and for the
most part it’s completely dull, the usual sort of thing you’d find, until one
looks in the back.’

Deodat took it, pushed back his reading
glasses and read it out to himself picking out the important points, ‘Magic
ceremonial . . . known as Le Serpent Rouge . . . the last key still missing . .
. Otto Rahn, Crusade Against the Grail, page 93 – a skeleton key . . .
Abbé knows.’

Without another word, he got up. Rahn followed
him to his library, which was dominated by a great table covered in marginalia.
Deodat talked animatedly to himself as he perused his impressive collection.
‘Damn that woman! Her idea of order infuriates me. I know it’s here somewhere.
Ah! Joy! Here it is, a translation of Magic Ceremonial . . . let me see . . .’
He found the book and flicked its pages. ‘I think that note in your notebook is
a reference taken from a footnote in this book. Here it is, in the part
entitled The Grimoire of Pope Honorius . . .’ He lapsed into thought and
remained that way for quite some time, turning from one page to another. Rahn
took one of the chairs grouped around the vast table and sat down.