The Expected One (13 page)

“What is that?” Peter exclaimed. As Tammy was explaining the light situation, Peter had turned to see the statue of a hideous demon crouched at the entrance of the church.

“Oh, that’s Rex. Hi, Rex.” Tammy patted the statue playfully on the head. “He’s like the official mascot of Rennes-le-Château. As with everything else here, there are tons of theories about him. Some say that he is the demon Asmodeus, the guardian of secrets and hidden treasures. Others say that he is the Rex Mundi of Cathar tradition, which is my personal belief.”

“Rex Mundi. The King of the World?” Peter was translating.

Tammy nodded and explained to Maureen. “The Cathars dominated this area in the Middle Ages. Remember, there’s been a church here since 1059, when Catharism was at its peak. They believed that a lesser being was guardian of the earth plane, a demon they called Rex Mundi — the King of the World. Our souls are in a constant struggle to defeat Rex and achieve the kingdom of God, the realm of the spirit. Rex represents all earthly and physical temptations.”

“But what is he doing in a consecrated Catholic church?” Peter asked.

“Being vanquished by angels, of course. Look above him.” Statuary of four angels making the sign of the cross stood on top of the demon’s back, perched on a holy-water font shaped like a giant scallop shell.

Peter read the inscription aloud, then translated it into English. “Par ce signe tu le vaincrais. By this sign I conquer him.”

“Good defeats evil. Spirit conquers matter. Angels over demons. Unorthodox, yes, but très Saunière.” Tammy ran her hand across the demon’s neck. “See this? A few years ago someone broke into the church and cut off Rex’s head. This is a replacement. No one knows if it was a souvenir hunter or an angry Catholic who objected to such a dualist symbol on consecrated ground. To my knowledge, he is the only demon statue in a Catholic church. Is that right, Padre?”

Peter nodded. “I would have to say that I don’t know of anything like this in a Roman Catholic church. It’s essentially blasphemous.”

“The Cathars were dualists. They believed in two opposing divine forces, one that worked for good and was concerned with purifying the essence of the spirit, and one that worked for evil and was shackled to the corrupted material world,” Tammy explained. “Look at the floor here.”

She directed their attention to the tiles that made up the church floor. They were ebony and stark white, laid out like a checkerboard. “Another of Saunière’s concessions to duality — black and white, good and evil. More eccentric design touches. But I think Saunière was crazy like a fox. He was born just a few miles from here and understood the local mentality. He knew his congregation was descended from Cathar blood and they had good reason to mistrust Rome, even centuries later. No offense, Padre.”

“None taken,” Peter answered. He was getting used to Tammy’s ribbing. It seemed good-natured overall, and he really didn’t mind. Tammy’s quirkiness was actually beginning to grow on him. “The Church dealt with the Cathar heresy in a harsh manner. I can understand why it would still be offensive to the local people.”

Tammy turned to Maureen. “The only official Crusade in history where Christians killed other Christians. The Pope’s army massacred the Cathars, and no one here has ever forgotten it. So by adding overtly Cathar and Gnostic elements to his church, Saunière created an environment where his flock would feel comfortable and therefore increased church attendance and loyalty. It worked. The local people loved him to the point of worship.”

Peter walked through the church, taking it all in. Every element of the décor was bizarre. It was garish, overblown, and certainly unconventional. There were painted plaster statues of unlikely saints, like the obscure Saint Roche raising his tunic to reveal a wounded leg or Saint Germaine, depicted in plaster as a young shepherdess carrying a lamb. In every piece of artwork in the church, something was irregular or unusual. Most notably, an almost life-size sculpture of the baptism of Jesus showed John towering over him — dressed incongruously in a full Roman tunic and cape.

“Why would anyone put John the Baptist in the clothes of a Roman?” Peter asked.

A shadow crossed Tammy’s face for the briefest instant, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she continued her commentary as she led them toward the altar.

“Local legend said Saunière painted some of the sculptures himself. We are pretty sure he was responsible for at least a part of the altarpiece. He was obsessed with your Mary.” Maureen followed Tammy to where a bas-relief of Mary Magdalene constituted the focal point at the altar. Her usual icons surrounded her — the skull at her feet, the book beside her. She stared intently at a cross that appeared to be made from a living tree.

Peter was fixated on the relief plaques depicting the Stations of the Cross. Like the statues, every piece of art contained a strange detail or idiosyncrasy that was contrary to Church tradition.

They examined the bizarre elements within the church, each a new building block of the growing mystery around them.

Without warning, a sharp click shook the church and they were plunged into pitch blackness.

Maureen panicked in the absolute darkness. The shadows that had followed her even in the sunlight were suffocating in here.

She screamed for Peter.

“I’m right here,” he yelled back. “Where are you?” The acoustics in the church caused the sound to bounce through the building, making it impossible to track anyone.

“I’m by the altar,” Maureen yelled.

“It’s okay,” Tammy yelled. “Don’t panic. Our meter has just run out.”

Tammy hurried to the door and let the daylight in, allowing Peter and Maureen to find each other. She grabbed him and ran out the front door of the church, deliberately looking to the left to avoid seeing the statue of the demon again.

“I know it was a matter of mechanics, but that was creepy. The whole church is just so…weird.” Maureen was shivering in spite of the Languedoc sun that was rising toward midday. This other-worldly village that time had forgotten was utterly disturbing, completely out of her realm of experience. There was a sense of chaos under the surface here. While the village itself was nearly deserted, there was a deafening quality to the silence of this place. Maureen glanced down at her wrist and was reminded that her watch had been completely immobilized since she arrived here, a fact that reinforced her unease.

Peter had questions for Tammy as she led them back through the garden and around the Villa Bethania. “I can’t imagine that Saunière did all of this without getting into trouble with the Church.”

“Oh, he was in trouble quite a lot,” Tammy explained. “They even tried to de-frock him once and replaced him with another priest, but it didn’t work. The local people simply wouldn’t accept anyone but Saunière, because he was one of them. He was groomed to take over this position, contrary to what you’ll read in most of the books. It’s so funny to me that so-called authorities on RLC talk about Saunière coming here as some kind of random occurrence. Believe me, nothing that happens in this region is a coincidence. There are too many powerful forces at work.”

“Do you mean powerful human forces or powerful supernatural forces?”

“Both.” Tammy gestured for them to follow her. She walked toward a stone tower at the far west of the property, perched at the very edge of a cliff.

“Come on, you have to see the pièce de résistance. The Tour Magdala.”

“Tour Magdala?” Maureen was intrigued by the name.

“The Tower of the Magdalene. This was Saunière’s private library. But it’s the view that is worth the effort.”

They followed Tammy through the interior of the turret, looking briefly at some of Saunière’s personal items entombed in glass cases before scaling the twenty-two stairs to the turret deck. The view of the Languedoc was breathtaking.

Tammy pointed to a hill in the distance. “Can you see that out there? That’s Arques. And across the valley is the legendary village of Coustaussa, where another priest, a friend of Saunière’s named Antoine Gélis, was brutally murdered in his home. His place was ransacked, and it is believed that whoever killed the old man was looking for something bigger than money. They left gold coins sitting on the table, but stole everything that looked like a document. Poor old guy — he was in his seventies and was found lying in his own blood, killed with fireplace tongs and an axe.”

“That’s horrible.” Maureen shuddered, reacting to the story as Tammy told it, but also to the setting they were in. As fascinated as she was by this place, she was also repelled by it.

“People are willing to kill over these mysteries.” Peter stated it simply.

“Well, that was a hundred years ago. I like to think we’ve become more civilized about it these days.”

“What happened to Saunière?” Maureen brought her focus back to the story of the strange priest and his mysterious millions.

“It gets weirder. He had a stroke within days of ordering his own casket. Local legend says that a priest who was a stranger to these parts was brought in to administer last rites, but refused to do so after hearing Saunière’s final confession. The poor man left Rennes-le-Château in a deep depression and was said to have never smiled again.”

“Wow. I wonder what Saunière told him?”

“No one knew exactly, except for the arguably euphemistic housekeeper, Marie Dénarnaud, to whom Saunière left all his wealth — and secrets. She died mysteriously herself some years later and was unable to speak in the last days of her life, so no one will ever know for sure.

“That’s why this village has given birth to an industry. A hundred thousand tourists a year visit this little backwater now. Some come out of curiosity; some come determined to find Saunière’s treasure.”

Tammy walked to the edge of the turret deck and looked over at the expansive valley below them. “And we don’t know for sure why he built the tower here, but you can bet he was looking for something. Don’t you think, Padre?” She winked at Peter, then turned to retreat down the stairs.

As the three of them made their way toward the car, Maureen insisted that Tammy keep her earlier promise to explain the Tower of Alchemy, the once-majestic turret of the now-crumbling Château Hautpol. Tammy paused, unsure of where to begin. There were volumes written about this area and she had done years of research, so coming up with the condensed version was always tough.

“There has been something in this region that has attracted people here for thousands of years,” she began. “It has to be indigenous, something in the land itself. How else can we account for the fact that it has a universal appeal that reaches across over two thousand years of history and such varied religious beliefs?

“Like everything else in this area, there are countless theories. It’s always fun to start with the real wackos, of course — those who swear it’s all connected to aliens and sea monsters.”

“Sea monsters?” Peter laughed with Maureen as she asked the question. “I’d almost expect aliens, but sea monsters?”

“I kid you not. Sea monsters show up in the local mysteries here all the time. Pretty funny for such a landlocked area, but not nearly as bizarre as some of the UFO stuff. I’m telling you, there is something about this area that makes people almost literally crazy.

“Then there’s the time element. Is your watch still stopped?”

Maureen knew the answer, but looked down for confirmation, to where it had been 9:33 for more than an hour. She nodded.

“It probably will be until we get off the mountain,” Tammy continued. “There is something here that affects clocks and watches as well as electronics, which may be one of the reasons that so many people here still use sundials, even in the twenty-first century. It doesn’t happen to everybody, but I can’t tell you how many weird encounters I’ve had personally.”

She began to tell them one of her many stories about the inexplicable time elements in the Rennes-le-Château area.

“I was driving up here with some friends one day and checked the clock in the car at the base of the hill. When we reached the top, the car clock indicated that it had taken almost half an hour to get up to the top. Now you just drove it — how long did it take, even driving as slowly as we did? Five minutes?”

She was asking Peter, who nodded in agreement. “Not much more than that.”

“It’s not very far, maybe two miles. So, we thought the clock was just wrong in the car, until we all looked at our watches. Half an hour had actually passed. Now, we all knew we hadn’t been on that road for half an hour, but somehow thirty full minutes had passed as we drove up here. Can I explain it? No. It was like some kind of time warp, and I’ve since talked to a number of people who have experienced the same thing. The locals don’t even bother to worry about it because they’re so used to it. Ask them and they just shrug it off like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“But people have experienced similar phenomena around the Great Pyramid and within some of the sacred sites in Britain and Ireland. So what is it? Is it a magnetic force of some kind? Or is it something less tangible and therefore impossible for our feeble human brains to grasp?”