The Rose Conspiracy (36 page)

“All about money,” Lamb said. “That's what you think the Langley copy of the Booth diary text is all about?”

“In the end, yes,” Cutsworth replied.

“You don't see any metaphysical or religious aspect to any of this?” Lamb asked.

“None whatsoever.”

“You would agree, though,” Lamb said, “that the Knights of the Golden Circle were populated with Freemasons?”

“That may have been true, though the evidence is scant. But the Masons were a popular social group.”

“Booth was a Freemason?”

“Again, he was rumored to have been—whether his name was removed from the member rolls after his notorious murder of Lincoln is open to debate. It is very much an open question.”

“And your interpretation of ‘gospel's Mary' is intriguing,” Lamb said, “but I think very flawed, if I may say.”

“Oh? Exactly how?” Cutsworth said a little indignantly.

“Your interpretation ignores the clear syntax of the phrase. You would be correct if it read ‘gospel Mary' perhaps, where ‘gospel' would be an adjective describing ‘Mary.' But it isn't. It reads, ‘gospel's Mary.' The word ‘gospel's' is possessive. It would be better interpreted as ‘Mary of the gospel.' Or perhaps, ‘the gospel of Mary.' That's the only way the sentence is meant to be read.”

Cutsworth was laughing on the speakerphone.

“You are assuming, Reverend Lamb,” Cutsworth said, “that John Wilkes Booth, on the run, being hunted down as a notorious murderer, was calmly sitting down in his study, penning some kind of religious treatise. Ridiculous! He didn't care about syntax, I'm sure. I think your
training as a clergyman, Reverend, if I may say so, is showing through. You are reading religion into the Langley extract from the Booth diary…historical artifact that has
nothing
to do with religion, or metaphysics, or any such thing.”

Reverend Lamb turned to Blackstone and smiled.

Then the Anglican scholar simply said, “Thank you. Those are all my questions.”

CHAPTER 47

B
lackstone turned to Reverend Lamb.

“Uncle, it's your turn to give it a shot.”

Lamb nodded his head. Then he pushed his pile of books and notes aside and folded his hands in front of him on the table.

He paused for a few moments with his hands folded. But he said nothing. After almost a half a minute of silence, Blackstone was about to interrupt him. Then he realized what was going on.

He's praying,
Blackstone thought to himself.
That's what he's doing.

Then Reverend Lamb cleared his throat and looked up.

“Let's begin,” he started out, “at the same place where Dr. Cutsworth started. Here is the text we are to decipher:

To AP and KGC

Rose of 6 is Sir al ik's golden tree

In gospel's Mary first revealed

At Ashli plot reveals the key

“Now,” Lamb continued, “I agree with Dr. Cutsworth that the ‘KGC' in the first line refers to the Knights of the Golden Circle. On that we are agreed. But as to everything else in his conclusions, I take issue with all of it. My conclusions are distinctly different. And I believe I am right. Furthermore, I am prepared to tell you why.”

Lamb was now speaking from memory. Nothing in front of him. His eyes were open wide, and his fingers were now dancing a little on the table in front of him.

“Let's take the ‘gospel's Mary' reference in the third line,” Lamb continued. “What does that refer to? Even back in the 1860s it would have been known, at least among the students of esoteric religion and followers of the Gnostic tradition, that there had been a reputed ‘gospel of Mary' attributed to the Gnostic writers in the centuries following the life of Christ. The so-called ‘gospel of Mary' purported to describe the interactions between Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth. It was totally inauthentic, of course. There is no historical proof that whoever wrote this piece of fiction hundreds of years after Christ used any reliable sources of information to concoct this story. Which is why the early church fathers rejected it, along with numerous other ‘Gnostic gospels' written mostly in the third and fourth centuries.

“Remember, now, that the Christian gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, contained in our New Testament today had been written shortly after the earthly life of Christ, all in the first century—between AD 60 and 85—why, even the liberal scholars concede that point. But, here is this ‘Gospel of Mary' which the ancient church fathers knew about and which was finally unearthed in an Egyptian desert near Nag Hammadi in the 1940s, with the Coptic text dating around the end of the fourth century. One page of the text, which is suspicious because it doesn't seem to fit, may be from as early as the third century. But, let's be liberal and say that the Mary writing is indeed from the third century. That still means that it was created two hundred years after the original Gospels! So—which versions do you think would be a more accurate record of the life of Christ? Well, in any event, here is this heretical, bogus ‘gospel' of Mary which says that Mary Magdalene was the recipient of special, ‘secret' knowledge from Jesus. The text of that false gospel doesn't say what that ‘secret' knowledge was.”

“Excuse me, Reverend,” Cutsworth said through the speakerphone. “But what in the world does this have to do with John Wilkes Booth or his diary?”

“I'm getting to that,” Lamb said. “So, as I was saying, we have this heretical reference to Mary Magdalene in this so-called ‘gospel' and her supposedly ‘secret' knowledge. That is the meaning of the reference in the Booth diary to ‘gospel's Mary.' Notice the next line—‘first revealed.' In
other words, whatever the core of this coded message is, it was supposedly ‘first revealed' in this ‘Mary' of the Gnostic gospel.”

“And what would that core message be?” Julia asked.

“Oh, that is where it gets good,” Lamb said with satisfaction. “According to ancient pagan tradition, Mary Magdalene was mixed up in the practice of alchemy.”

“
Alchemy,
did you say?” Cutsworth blurted out.

Blackstone rolled his eyes a little.

“Yes, that's what he said,” Blackstone answered.

“Of course, the historical record is clear she was no alchemist and certainly no pagan after her faith encounter with Christ. Just read the true Gospel accounts in the New Testament and you can see that,” Lamb said. “But, in any event, that is what the ancient heretics, the perverters of the truth who rejected orthodox Christianity, wanted people to believe.”

“Alright, so how does this alchemy theme connect everything?” Julia asked.

“Here's how,” Lamb replied. “Most people believe that alchemy has to do with precious metals.”

“Converting base metals into gold,” Julia said. “Yes, I studied that in my history of chemistry classes when I was pursuing my master's degree.”

“Exactly,” Lamb said. “But most people don't realize that the purveyors of alchemy—and now I am talking about those practitioners through the ages who were deeply involved in the occult practices and esoteric philosophies—that they were after something much more radical than just accumulating gold, or the chemical transference of metals. They were after the most astounding and egomaniacal pursuit of all.”

There was silence in the room as Lamb paused dramatically.

“Are you going to break the suspense here, Reverend?” Cutsworth said, chuckling.

“Why, yes I am,” Lamb said with a smile. “But before I do, I am going to show you what I am talking about by taking you all back to the language of the poem that was copied down by Horace Langley. Notice the second line, the last two words.”

“Golden tree?” Julia asked.

“Right,” Lamb said. “Unlike Dr. Cutsworth, I don't think this is a reference to gold, or money, or any kind of financial deposit of the Confederate rebels. No, not at all. Instead, I would refer you all to the name of a classic book that gives you the same clue—
The Golden Bough,
Sir James George Frazer's famous study on the relationship between magic and religion and the mythical symbols of the world's religions. Instead of the golden ‘bough' of a tree, the Booth message talks of a ‘golden tree.' But same idea. The writer of this note,” Lamb continued, “is talking about the most ‘magical' tree, if you will, the most famous, the most powerful tree in the history of all religion.”

Blackstone was starting to get the drift.

So was Cutsworth, the scholar.

“You don't really mean—” Cutsworth started to say in a scoffing tone.

But Lamb cut him off.

“I told you I am going to take you through the actual text of this note,” he said, “to show you the proof. Now look at the words just before the phrase ‘golden tree.' Do you see?”

“Sir al ik's
—is that what you are referring to?” Cutsworth asked.

“Precisely,” Lamb said. “The very phrase, Dr. Cutsworth, that you couldn't interpret. Because you started with the wrong presupposition. You were looking at this from a nineteenth-century historical viewpoint based on traditional Civil War and post–Civil War data. As Confucius said, a thousand-mile journey begins with the first step. But in your case, Dr. Cutsworth, despite your considerable historical brilliance regarding nineteenth-century America, in your very first step you headed off in the wrong direction.”

“And exactly what
do
you think that phrase means?” Cutsworth asked in considerable affront.

“I believe the phrase ‘Sir al ik' was meant to be read and interpreted,” Lamb said calmly, “by someone who understood the essence of alchemy, but who was also versatile and learned in other languages.”

“Languages like what?” Blackstone asked.

“Like Arabic,” Lamb explained. “Interesting thing…the ancient Arabs were very involved in alchemy. Which, of course, explains what that phrase means.”

“Which is?” Julia asked.

“It is a word puzzle,” Lamb said. “Take the first part, ‘Sir,' which seems to be a title of an English lord at first blush. Very clever, I must admit. But it isn't a title at all. It's the last part of a word. Put it at the end of the phrase, and what do you get?”

“Al ik sir,” Blackstone muttered. “The ‘al' being a common prefix in Arabic.”

“You're absolutely right,” Lamb said, his voice mounting in excitement. “Now…what does that phrase—‘Al ik sir'—really mean?”

“I think I see where you are going with this,” Blackstone said.

“
Aliksir
is the anglicized version,” Lamb explained, “of the Arabic word that became the English word
elixir.
”

“So what we are talking about,” Julia said slowly, putting the pieces together, “is an ‘elixir of the golden tree.' Is that it?”

“That is exactly it,” Lamb said.

“But
what
golden tree?” Julia asked.

“I presume he is referring to the ‘tree of life,' ” Cutsworth interjected from the speakerphone in a lofty tone.

“The tree mentioned in the Garden of Eden story in the book of Genesis,” Blackstone added, tapping his pen now on the conference table.

“The Bible story of the tree of life, in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall of man into sin,” Lamb said, “has spawned countless myths and legends about a secret elixir of life supposedly derived from that tree. The secrets of that tree allegedly being passed down through the millennia, according to pagan occultists. There are countless writings of the Gnostic alchemists talking about trying to discover this supposed magical element.”

There was a lull for a moment before Reverend Lamb spelled it out.

“This note from Booth, copied down by Langley,” Lamb said, “is telling us about the belief that someone had actually found the location of a botanical remnant, some specimen of that tree. The substance that could extend human longevity indefinitely.” He glanced around the table at his audience.