The Sixth Key (33 page)

A C Saunière
– Rennes-le-Château 1885

A K
Boudet – Rennes-les-Bains 1885 — AA

A A Gélis
– Coustaussa murdered 1897

A L
Rivière – Espéraza refused last sacrament 1915

‘But the walls of the
church at Rennes-le-Château are covered with that symbol?’ Eva said.

‘Isis the veiled goddess speaks!’ La Dame
cried jovially.

‘That was no doubt Bigou’s work,’ Rahn said,
ignoring him.

‘So we know of at least two groups that have a
copy of Le Serpent Rouge – Association Angelica and the penitents,’ Eva
said. ‘And now they want the key, the Cathar treasure whose secret location is
encrypted in that parchment.’

‘Yes.’ ‘I don’t understand, old boy,’ La Dame
said, ‘does Deodat’s life depend on you finding Le Serpent Rouge or the
treasure?’

‘I don’t know…perhaps both,’ he answered.

At this moment a boy came into the
boulangerie
and walked towards them
carrying a note. ‘For you, messieurs,’ he said.

Rahn opened it.

‘What does it say?’ La Dame asked.

Once more, Rahn felt the hairs stand up on the
back of his head. He turned to look out of the window. Parked outside was a
black car, a Citroën.

Eva frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘This is Deodat’s handwriting! Don’t look now,
but there’s a car parked outside. The same car, I think, that I saw at Bugarach
near Maison de Cros. Something’s been bothering me.’ He formulated his
thoughts. ‘Why did Cros fall into the pond looking for the key, when he’d
already told us the clue? We could have opened the tabernacle eventually, even
without a key. We could have picked the lock or broken into it with enough
time. What if he didn’t fall into that pond at all? What if the man outside in
that car killed him while we were at the church?’ He gave them a significant
look.

La Dame slipped his flask into his pocket and
said, ‘Perhaps the best recourse is to find the back door to this
establishment.’

‘So have you worked it out yet?’ the Writer of Letters said,
sitting back.

I smiled but he didn’t smile in return. My
earlier anxieties having been mollified by Rahn’s troubles, I found myself
turning congenial. ‘What, precisely, should I have worked out?’

‘The question of what you’re doing here, of
course. I believe that was the first question I put to you.’

I hesitated and he gestured with a hand.
‘Please,’ he said, ‘I realise that you can’t really answer that until you know
something about me and I’m afraid I haven’t been totally truthful with you.
Now, I’m prepared to “come clean”, as they say.’

He was coming clean? I
wanted to trump him, to show him that I was one step ahead of his game. ‘I do
hate to spoil your plans, but I’ve already seen through the role you’re
playing.’

‘You have?’ he said,
looking pleasantly surprised.

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘Well, you can’t spoil my plans because I
don’t have any plans. They are all yours – the plans – you see? But
I’m comforted that you’ve started to see through me. It was what I’d hoped
for.’

I held his eyes and they gleamed like pools.

‘Why would you hope for that?’

‘Because we are near the end and so by now you
must be better acquainted with the character you’ve written for me. Am I
right?’

He was playing the game again. He had no
intention of coming clean. But I would play along, because in spite of my
host’s strange spirit of contradiction and the words of the woman at the grave
earlier today, I liked the game more than I cared to admit. I looked at him
with as much equanimity as I could muster. ‘You don’t give much away, but so
far I imagine that it is an intelligent, somewhat eccentric character. I think
you came here a long time ago, so long ago in fact, you’ve forgotten what it’s
like to live in the outside world. Perhaps you were banished to this place,
perhaps you were running from something? Whatever the case, what’s important is
not why you are here, it is the fact that in the meantime you’ve had the
opportunity to indulge in your first love, books. Erudition has always been
dear to you and this library has become your labyrinth.’

The Writer of Letters nodded his appreciation.
‘Go on.’

‘However,’ I continued, ‘as time passed you
became like that man in the library of galleries, moving from one gallery to
the next, all alone, looking for meaning while surrounded by the marginalia of
death. Here, you came across Rahn’s story and because you have no story of your
own, it became yours and you wanted to tell it. You thought that you could draw
me here by promising to solve a puzzle, hoping that once I heard the story I
would not be able to leave until it was finished.’

‘And is this so?’ the Writer of Letters asked.

‘Well . . . yes – but the point is, you
believe that somehow by telling me the story of Rahn you will also solve the
puzzle of your life. Perhaps you will be allowed to leave this labyrinth then,
because you have found a suitable replacement?’

‘And who will that be?’ The Writer of Letters
sat forward, expectantly.

‘Well . . . obviously me!’

‘But how would I know you are suitable?’

‘I would have to pass a test.’

‘What test?’

‘I haven’t figured that out yet.’

The Writer of Letters kept me waiting a moment
and somewhere beneath the look in his eyes there was a hint of irony. ‘Perhaps
I live only in your imagination. What do you think?’

‘Let me answer you this way,’ I said. ‘
Aulus Gellius
once asked, “When I lie
and say I’m lying, am I lying or telling the truth?”’

‘That’s an unsolvable puzzle,’ he said.

‘And so is your question.’

He laughed a little and I believe he was
amused. ‘Have you heard of metatheatre?’

‘Where there is a play within a play?’

‘Yes, during the performance the actors allow
the audience to see that they are playing roles. Shakespeare uses this device
to create an illusion of reality, to make the audience draw closer to the play,
to make them feel a part of its machinations.’ His dark eyes wrinkled slightly.
‘This collusion between audience and actor helps both to reach new heights
because it suspends disbelief. To create a sense of reality based upon an
illusion is an interesting paradox, don’t you agree?’ he asked.

‘When you put it like that, I have to say yes.
But when the audience walks out of the theatre they return to the true reality.
As I will do, when I leave here,’ I ventured to say.

‘Ah, but will you return to reality or just
the allusion, an insinuation of reality?’

I was confused. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, perhaps this has to do with the riddle:
body and tomb are the same. Have you worked it out yet?’

‘I think you’re insinuating that I’m dead,’ I
said.

He paused. ‘On the contrary! Perhaps I’m
alluding to the reality of your life.’ He grinned without humour. ‘We are very
close to unveiling the reality. In metatheatre an unveiling usually precedes
the final act of a catastrophe.’

I felt suddenly cold. Catastrophe?

‘I want to show you something. Will you follow
me once more?’

‘Into that labyrinth of galleries –
which one this time?’

‘No doubt you know of Alexandre Dumas’s work
The Man in the Iron Mask?’

‘Yes, of course.’

He paused. His face was more concentrated than
I had seen it before. ‘Well, you know, Dumas belonged to the Freemasons and in
his books he was doing what many writers, painters and poets did in those days
– he hid the truth behind allegory and colour. He wanted to show King
Louis’s duplicity, his double face; and so he depicted the man in the iron mask
as Louis’s twin brother. I will now reveal the true identity of the masked man
and the secret that he held. A secret that a king was willing to do anything to
gain.’

The bishop carried the lantern before him into the dungeons of
the old jail. The night was silent. The sound of his own steps on the stone
flags and the metallic clink of the keys that were held tightly in the jailer’s
calloused hands reverberated loudly in his ears. When the jailer came to a halt
before a heavy oak door he seemed disconcerted and uncertain. He fumbled with
those hands to find the one key among a score of identical keys that opened its
lock. When the door finally came open with a screeching of rusty hinges, the
Jesuit said to the jailer: ‘You may not be present during a prisoner’s
confession.’

The man began to argue but he was silenced
when the bishop raised a hand.

The Bishop said, ‘Go!’

Chided t
he jailer nodded,
allowing the Jesuit to enter the cell alone.

He closed the door and waited a time to hear
the dying sound of the man’s footsteps, ensuring that whatever passed between
him and the prisoner would not be overheard. He turned his attention then to
the man on the bed. He couldn’t tell if he was asleep or awake. The man lay on
his back unmoving. The Jesuit observed what he had already been told but it was
still a shock to see the mask made of riveted iron.

It was said to be padded with silk but despite
the assurances that it had been designed to fit the prisoner perfectly, the
Jesuit didn’t imagine that such a thing could be comfortable. The mask covered
the prisoner’s head rather like a helmet and was clasped at the neck with a
large lock, the key to which was kept on the governor’s key-ring. To attempt to
remove the mask would doubtless cause injury to the skull, perhaps even death
from a dislocation of the neck. There was sweat on the Jesuit’s brow; he did
not feel as calm as the man in the mask appeared to be.

The prisoner stirred. ‘Confessor, is that
you?’

‘It is I, Aramis, Bishop of Vannes, at your
service.’

‘Please, make yourself comfortable. I have
only meagre furnishings, but they will do to rest your legs.’

The bishop nodded, bowed and, placing the
lantern on a table, sat in an old leather armchair near the bed. The mask
reflected the light of the lantern in a glint of greys and yellows and oranges.

‘Firstly, I want to say that I have no
regrets,’ the muffled voice said.

‘Nothing at all?’ Aramis was surprised.

The man sat up to cough, allowing his head to
take the weight of the mask. ‘No. I regret nothing,’ he said finally. ‘You will
tell
your friend D’Artagnan?’

‘Yes.’

‘He was a gentleman in his treatment of me.’

‘Well.’ The Bishop wiped absently at nothing
on his regal lap. ‘He was not happy to arrest you.’

‘No,’ the other man said. ‘He graciously
allowed me to burn papers that would have further incriminated our order. Pity
my brother’s letter did not burn as well!’

‘Do you regret the loss of your liberty?’

There was a moment of contemplation. ‘Perhaps
in the beginning this concerned me, but I have long been free of desire and
have passed my days in peace.’

‘And the mask?’

‘A Jesuit who wears a hair shirt and who uses
the strap on his back knows what it is to master the will. A member of the
Company knows how to control the snake!’

The Jesuit nodded, and although he had never
truly been one of those men who liked to mortify the flesh – indeed
indulging in it was more to his taste – he knew the signal well. The
mention of the snake meant he must now show the sign. He rolled up his sleeve,
sat forward and took the lantern from the table to illuminate the tattoo for
the masked prisoner.

The prisoner did likewise.

‘Who knows you have come here?’ the masked man
said.

‘No one except your jailer and he has been
well paid.’

‘If you were found here, you would soon see
the glint from the king’s axe.’

Aramis smiled. ‘I should like to see them try!
But we were wise, I think, to wait until you were moved here, to Italy.’

‘There is yet a musketeer in you, I see!’

‘I never could make up my mind – monk or
knight. It has always bothered my friends.’ He paused a moment. ‘I am glad to
see you alive.’

‘The king’s judges would not condemn an
innocent man to death, so Louis made certain that I would be tortured this way
for the rest of my life and for this reason do I choose to be at peace. In this
way, you see, I wrest from him his victory over me.’

‘What will you tell me?’

The masked man gestured to the door and Aramis
got up to ensure that the hallway was empty.

When he returned the prisoner began: ‘Poussin,
the celebrated painter, has secreted something of import in his painting of the
shepherds. When Louis asked me to send my own brother to Rome to speak with
Poussin, I saw an opportunity to learn what it was that he had secreted. No
doubt you know of the letter he sent me and that I am in this prison because I
would not divulge its meaning. This is what I am to tell you, before I die.’

‘Does it concern the treasure of the Cathars,
which we have awaited?’

‘Indeed. The painting tells the history of the
treasure. In it there is a woman, Mary Magdalene, the first guardian of the
treasure. After her death it was passed from woman to woman until the fall of
Montsegur in 1244, whereupon it was passed to three known guardians: the man
who took it from Montsegur, a troubadour; Nostradamus; and the family Perillos.
These three guardians are the shepherds depicted in that painting by Poussin.
But it does not only give the history, it also gives the solution to the cipher
that was created by the family Perillos to guard its whereabouts.’

‘How did Poussin learn of it?’

‘The painting was commissioned by the family.
You see, they could not have known that Poussin was one of us. At any rate the
hidden clue is connected to a tomb in the painting on which is inscribed the
words Et In Arcadia Ego. They mean: and in the sacred box lies the ego or the
word – the master word.’

‘The master word that reveals the cipher?’
Aramis could hardly contain his excitement.

The masked man, Nicholas Fouquet, King Louis
XIV’s old minister of finance, wheezed in the darkness. ‘Come closer, Aramis,
and I shall tell you . . .’

The Bishop leant in until the iron of the mask
touched his cheek.

‘It is . . . Mo—’

But at that very moment the door burst open.
It was the jailer flanked by a number of guards.

‘Bishop!’ The Captain of the Guard came into
the room brandishing a blade. ‘You are to come with us!’