The Sixth Key (12 page)

After an interminable time Deodat spoke. ‘I
understand it.’

‘What?’

‘It seems, dear Rahn, that there are two
grimoires of Honorius. The first is written by a Theban called Honorius and the
second by a pope, Pope Honorius III to be exact. It’s the latter that is known
as Le Serpent Rouge.’

‘You surprise me!’ Rahn said. ‘Two authors by
the same name who both wrote grimoires, and to top it off one of them a pope,
no less. How do you come to that conclusion?’

‘I can’t claim that it’s due to any special
sagacity, dear boy! It is all right here, in this book. Now, the first grimoire
ever written was King Solomon’s Keys, as you know, and every other grimoire
seems to have been extrapolated from it. The Theban magician Honorius wrote his
book a long time ago – no one knows exactly when. Apparently a number of
magicians put the Theban in charge of compiling a grand grimoire of magic,
containing all their keys, signs, symbols and seals, along with all the
invocations, convocations and conjurations of their art. It looks like they
were afraid that Rome was about to destroy all their books in order to keep
control over the tenets of magic.’

‘Rome?’

‘The Roman Catholics, of course! It stands to
reason, dear Rahn. Why do you think there are so many banned books in the
Vatican archives? Why were so many witches strapped to pyres, not to mention
the Templars and Cathars? The Roman caesars, starting with Augustus, took for
themselves the title of high priest of all the mysteries, Pontifex Maximus.
Later, the Catholic popes appropriated the title and that is why they are known
as pontiffs – the bridge between Heaven and Earth. Now let me see here .
. . The Theban was charged to make three books. The rules were that the books
could only be passed on to males who were Christian and whose character had
been confirmed for at least a year. These men were then sworn to keep the
contents of the book a secret, and to protect the other initiates who possessed
a copy of the book. If no person could be found worthy of the book then the
owner, before dying, had to bury it in a hidden place, or ensure that it was
placed in the coffin with him. These oaths, dear Rahn, are what led to the book
being known as the Sworn Book.’

‘So, how does this Theban’s book connect to
the pope’s book, apart from the fact that they shared the same name, which in
itself is odd?’ Rahn asked.

‘Edward Waite says here that the Grimoire of
Pope Honorius is really nothing more than a distortion of the Theban’s book. It
may be that at some stage a copy of the book fell into the hands of a pope, and
was passed down thereafter from pope to pope until hundreds of years later a
certain pope called himself Honorius III, broke the oath and mixed those
secrets of the Theban magician with Roman Catholic rituals, thereby creating a
new grimoire, which he named The Grimoire of Pope Honorius III.’

‘So he appropriated the Theban’s book?’

‘Yes, and by doing so, he has created a
grimoire for priests, which is diabolical, because it not only brings
demonology together with Christology, it also includes ritual sacrifice –
on the altar, no less.’

‘Wait a minute! Honorius III?’ Rahn said
pensively. ‘He was the pope who continued the Cathar persecution after Innocent
died.’

Deodat fell into amazement. ‘I believe you’re
right.’

‘I feel a strange synchronicity, Deodat!’

‘Let’s read on and see, shall we? The 1529
edition is entitled
Honorii Papæ,
adversus tenebrarum Principem et ejus Angelos Conjurationes ex originale Romæ
servato
, but it looks like it became known as Le Serpent Rouge, as this
Monti fellow has in his note. The note also mentions that a key is missing
– that is important.’

‘Yes, that was also my estimation. So, what do
you make of it?’

‘Monti has hit on the truth, dear Rahn. It is
well known in certain circles that all the grimoires are incomplete. Now he
quotes a page from your own book in which you must mention a skeleton key.
Let’s see what you say, shall we?’

‘Have you read my book?’

Deodat paused and raised one brow. ‘I’ve been
trying to read it ever since you gave it to me, but it is rather a muddled
affair. You see, the crux is always missing from your work because you get lost
in the peripherals. The crux needs an analytical mind. I’ve told you before it
is not enough to have knowledge, you have to have wisdom!’

‘I don’t know what you mean, to my mind it’s
replete with wisdom!’ Rahn retorted, a little hurt.

Ignoring Rahn’s piqué, Deodat looked through
the monumental pile of books on the table until he found a battered French
edition. He flicked through the pages. ‘It is very erudite, don’t misunderstand
me, but it is so full of marginalia that it makes one dizzy . . . Let’s see:
The Caves of Trevrizent close to the
fountain called La Salvaesche ... so on . .. so on ... in preceding pages we
described why the Cathars built their hermitages and temples in the caves of
Sabarthes . . . so on . . . little further on we will learn that according to
Spanish ballads a skeleton key is hidden in the enchanted cave of Hercules,
which resolves the mystery of the Grail
. . . There, you see?’ He paused
and took off his glasses to fix Rahn with a meaningful stare. ‘You mention a
key that will resolve the mystery of the Grail, and if we add that to what is
in the rest of that man’s note, we see that its author has connected the
Grimoire of Pope Honorius III, otherwise known as Le Serpent Rouge, to the
treasure of the Cathars – through you! It’s an interesting idea. If
– among other things – the Cathars had possession of this missing
key, it would explain why Pope Innocent set out to persecute them so
vehemently, and why Honorius continued to do so after him. The popes may have been
after the last missing key that could not be found in any grimoire.’

‘What would it be – a sign, a word, a
seal?’ Rahn asked him.

‘It could be any one of those,’ he said. ‘But
there is something I can add to this.’

‘What?’

‘Since you’ve been away I’ve had moment to
retrace our searches those years ago and I think I know why we didn’t find the
treasure of the Cathars inside those caves at Lombrives.’

‘Really? I’m listening,’ Rahn said.

Deodat smiled. ‘I think it was moved.’

‘By whom? The caves were inaccessible until
recently.’

‘Yes, we both know that the treasure was taken
from Montsegur by four Cathars during the siege in the thirteenth century. We
both have long suspected that it was taken to the caves at Lombrives. On this,
most Cathar scholars agree, but what if the treasure was taken away from the
caves? What if some time after the siege, and before the Catholics walled up
all the exits out of those caves – condemning the last of those poor
Cathars who were trapped inside to die a miserable death
– someone
escaped with it?’

Rahn was much struck by this. ‘I see your
point. After that, superstition and fear of the church would have prevented
curious men from breaking down the seals to those caves to look for the
treasure, until we decided to go there.’

‘That’s right. And the legend that it is
buried in those caves has kept the treasure safe all these years. This is
exciting, Rahn! Here, finally, is a scent we can work with!’ He snapped the
book shut.

‘I had a sense for it, you know, and now your
words are a confirmation.’

‘Well, my boy! That Monti mentions an abbé . .
. a priest . . .’

‘Yes, he came here and saw a priest who knew
something about the grimoire.’

‘Interesting,’ Deodat said, sitting down.

‘Why?’

‘Well, tomorrow I’m due to visit a priest myself,
Abbé Cros.

He’s retired and lives at Bugarach; we played
chess once or twice a week for many years. He is a very erudite man but he’s
had a run of bad luck – a stroke left him paralysed very recently, and he
isn’t well. The point is, before he was paralysed he came to see me. From our
conversation I gathered that he had been investigating something for the
Vatican for a long time. He didn’t want to tell me anything in detail. It
sounded to me like he had found something untoward and that he seemed rather
afraid. At any rate, I have seen him once or twice since and he has never
mentioned it again. Only two days ago, his niece called saying that he has
asked to see me urgently and I said I would visit him at the earliest
opportunity, which is tomorrow. Why don’t you come with me? We could ask him if
he knows anything about this grimoire – perhaps he is the priest Monti
saw when he came here. Stranger coincidences have been known to happen.’

Rahn agreed, though at the time he couldn’t
know that he was taking another fork in the path of his destiny.

That night Rahn slept fitfully. Dreams of
screaming children woke him early, covered in sweat. He got up and padded to
the kitchen to make coffee, feeling a little unnerved. The wood-fired stove
hummed lazily and he threw two good logs in and sat at the table. He tried to
keep warm while he read Monti’s notebook. Now and again he paused to watch the
world outside the window coming to life. The sun was rising and as a child full
of night terrors he had always associated it with the return of normality. But
were nightmares the reality and normality just a dream?

In that little kitchen with only the sounds of
the fire and the pendulum clock for company, he thought things through. He
wondered what Deodat would say if he told him the whole truth: that he was
working for a madman on whose whim he had travelled to France; that in the
meantime one man was already dead because of the grimoire; and that he
suspected he was being followed by agents of a certain Serinus, whose true
identity he didn’t know. He didn’t want to contemplate what Deodat would say if
he told him about Wewelsburg. Rahn would never forget that crypt of death and
those poor wretched children. Had he placed his friend in harm’s way by coming
here? He was certain of it and he told himself the only honourable thing to do
was to keep Deodat completely out of the picture and to leave Arques as soon as
possible. After all, he knew the Pyrenees better than many French men and it
would not be hard for him to find a good hiding hole in the mountains. But as
he thought this he was also, quite paradoxically, thinking of reasons why he
should stay put because he and Deodat shared one fault: they were like hunting
dogs whose noses could not be prevented from following their prey once trained
on the scent of a fox. The lust for the chase had seized them. He sighed. What
to do, what to do?

Deodat came into the kitchen looking fresh in a
casual suit with a blue silk handkerchief in the pocket and a tie to match,
disturbing the flow of Rahn’s thoughts. He was the sort of man who always
dressed impeccably, except when potholing; at those times, one could easily
mistake him for a vagabond.

The pendulum clock in the drawing room struck
seven.

‘The Countess P still controls time, even from
beyond the grave,’ Deodat said, in a jovial mood.

Rahn smiled. It was true, the old dame did
like to have the world march to her rhythm and now he’d inherited the clock,
every hour on the hour, she would command his thoughts!

As soon as they had finished breakfast, Deodat
herded Rahn out of the house at an inelegant pace and led him out to the barn,
where in a perfunctory fashion he unveiled the Tourster. The great animal had
been slumbering beneath a grey dust sheet and was in perfect condition:
gleaming black with a beige top; tyres painted white; and chrome wheels
polished to a mirror finish. Rahn felt joy to see it but it was temporary, for
the car had been the Countess’s favourite toy and he felt sad to think she
would never sit in it again.

‘You know,’ Deodat said, touching it with a
fond air, ‘the Countess never allowed her German driver near it after you were
gone. Do you remember that unsightly golfing outfit and the half belt jacket he
always wore? Your countrymen have no taste,’ he said, looking at Rahn’s attire
with paternal fondness. ‘I see you’re still wearing that lucky fedora. The same
you risked your life to rescue from that ravine?’

‘Before you say what I know you are going to
say, please let me remind you that were it not for this lucky fedora, we may
never have got out of that cave!’ Rahn remarked, rather wounded.

‘But you’d have to admit, Rahn, it does look
rather odd teamed with those loose beige pants, and that flying jacket that
appears to have been stolen from a Pabst film set.’

But before Rahn could reply to his friend’s
audacious accusation Madame Sabine’s shrill voice sounded from the house,
telling the magistrate not to be late for dinner, since regular meals were
better for his digestion.

‘Damn that woman!’ he cursed under his breath,
before calling out in a sweet voice, ‘Yes, Madame!’ Then: ‘Quickly, Rahn, my
boy, get in that bloody automobile before she comes, or she’ll find some reason
for me to stay.’

They took the road to Couiza and not far from
Serres, Deodat told him to make a left turn.

‘I forgot to tell you, La Dame sends his best
regards,’ Rahn said.

This made not the slightest difference to
Deodat’s mood, but Rahn did notice him grumble something under his breath. It
must have been something unflattering, even offensive, because he smiled.

‘Will you ever forgive La Dame?’

‘Never,’ was Deodat’s quick answer, his
determined cheerfulness wavering a little. ‘I told you before and I’ll tell you
again, that day in the cave, when he convinced you to chalk in those engravings
just to get a better photo . . . well, that was the end of everything as far as
I’m concerned.’

Rahn wanted to say there was no use taking
pictures if the drawings were not going to come out, but he knew Deodat would
never change his mind, so he looked out at the road and tried to think of
something besides his own troubles.

The country they were passing through was
imbued with a special sadness and Rahn knew the reason for it – it was
the soil’s memory of bloodshed. Long ago the Cathars of this area had taken
refuge in deep caverns within those wild hills, and in those densely wooded
forests and shadowed narrow valleys pierced by the snaking river Aude. They had
run away from their homes fearing the inquisitors and their terrible tortures,
tortures that either led to the stake or to the murus strictus – a form
of imprisonment so terrible it not only resulted in the loss of one’s sanity
but also one’s humanity. In this country many had died but not one had ever
revealed the whereabouts of the treasure of their people.

This now brought to his mind the promise he
had made to the Countess P one evening after he had played her favourite piece,
an improvisation of Handel’s suite, Gods Go a-Begging. She had said to him, ‘I
only ask one thing of you, my dear, I want you to promise me that you will
remember. You must remember – will you do that for me?’

He had nodded, but what he had promised to
remember he didn’t know exactly. He had always meant to ask her, only now it
was too late.

By the time they arrived at Bugarach the day
had turned windy. The priest’s residence was set deep in a short valley some
way from the township, near a brooding volcano whose hidden fires fuelled the
hot springs of Rennes-les-Bains. The Maison de Cros stood large and stately at
the end of a long dirt road and as they arrived a young woman met them.
Immediately, Rahn was struck by how much she looked like the actress Louise
Brooks who played Lulu in the Pabst film Pandora’s Box: dark hair cut short to
accentuate the cheekbones; straight fringe to accentuate the eyes; red lipstick
to bring out the mouth; somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five; long limbed
and graceful in a pantsuit that flowed as she walked, smoking a cigarette held
in one of those long filters. She introduced herself as Eva, the abbé’s niece,
and escorted them through several rooms, sparsely furnished and decorated in an
old style. Rahn didn’t like the house. It smelt of blocked drains and ashes and
reminded him of a church. He did see a painting that interested him as he
passed, a good reproduction of Poussin’s Les Bergers d’Arcardie hanging on the
wall of the study. In fact the study walls were covered with paintings and he
would have liked to have taken a moment to look at them. In the meantime, Eva
talked with Deodat and Rahn overheard that she was visiting from Paris.

‘My uncle will be so happy to see you,
magistrate, he’s been asking for you; in fact, he’s been a little anxious
awaiting your arrival. He’s in the garden. These days he’s taken to sitting
there for hours. He seems to like the fish pond.’

The garden was dilapidated and its withered
trees shivered occasioning a chorus of rustles in the late autumnal breeze. It
was saved from gloom by its southerly orientation, which meant that it was
mostly bathed in sun and it was in this sun that the old abbé sat, strapped to
a wheelchair, with his knees covered in a thick red blanket and his head
adorned with a black wool cap. Someone had placed him very near a large pond
crowded with carp and ringing with frogs, and the old man stared into it with a
vacant determination.

Rahn recognised the fountain that crowned the
pond; it was fashioned into a boy riding a dolphin. He smiled for its aptness,
considering the proximity of this house to the extinct volcano the Pic de
Bugarach.

Eva noticed his smile. ‘Do you like it? The
monks had the infant made in Carcassonne.’

‘The child hurled by Juno into the ocean from
Mount Olympus,’ Rahn said, realising that he was trying to impress her, ‘before
he became the god Vulcan. The god of volcanoes.’

She raised one brow but did not smile. ‘That’s
right.’

‘So this was once a monastery, that explains
it,’ he murmured.

‘Explains what?’ she said.

He wanted to say,
that explains why I don’t like it
. Instead he smiled. ‘It explains
the architecture . . . thirteenth century?’

‘Yes,’ she said, but she didn’t seem suitably
impressed. ‘It was deserted during the Revolution when most of the monasteries
in the south were closed down. It was laid to waste for a time, but it has been
brought back from the dead, so to speak.’

‘Like a phoenix rising from the ashes,
Mademoiselle Cros?’ Deodat put in.

She smiled graciously at Deodat. ‘Please, call
me Eva.’ She went to her uncle and said, ‘You have visitors.’

Deodat approached the old man. The abbé’s face
was expressionless and there was dribble on his chin. Deodat shook one limp
hand vigorously. ‘You lazy old fool!’ he said with fondness. ‘I thought I’d
find you sitting about doing nothing.’

The man’s eyes focused on Deodat and were
filled with a sudden, lucid intensity. Rahn had the sense that the man had
something urgent on his mind and it would brook no delay. The abbé raised one
hand slightly, led by an index finger that seemed to be pointing to the
heavens.

Deodat didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.
He said, quite unperturbed, ‘I have brought a friend: Otto Rahn. Do you recall
that I spoke to you about him? He wrote that book I gave you on the Cathars.’

The man’s sharp gaze moved over Rahn and
returned to Deodat. He wanted to say something, but when he tried to speak,
what came out sounded like garbled whispers. Deodat sat on the lip of the pond
directly in front of him and tried to make some sense of it.

‘You wanted to see me. Is it about what we
spoke of before you fell ill?’ Deodat asked.

The man’s face moved barely a muscle but there
was something strange playing about his eyes. He opened his mouth a little and
Deodat leant in to hear.

‘He wants to write something, I think,’ Deodat
said to Eva, and immediately she disappeared into the house. Meanwhile the old
man began to make movements with his mouth again. He looked frustrated, worried
– even afraid, Rahn thought.

When Eva returned, the
abbé’s anxiety seemed to grow. She placed a fountain pen in his hand and held a
piece of writing paper over a book so that he could scribble down what he had
to say. The effort agitated him and his breathing grew laboured, but he managed
to write one word:

Sator

When he was finished his eyes, full of
meaning, returned to Deodat. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and tried
again to form words. Deodat leant in one more time. ‘I think he’s saying
something about the church. Is there something in the church you want, Eugene?’

There was the slightest nod of the head.

‘What is it?’

His eyes looked here and there, like a man
seeking a place on which to lean his words. He glanced at his niece and Rahn
saw something in the abbé’s eyes he couldn’t quite fathom. The girl bent to
comfort him but the old man began silently weeping.

‘Look,’ Deodat said, patting the old man’s
knee, ‘we can leave it for another time. We’ll come back when you’re feeling a
little better.’

The abbé didn’t look away from the pond and
their polite exit was ignored.

‘Please don’t feel bad, magistrate,’ Eva said,
seeing them out. ‘He’s been like that since he was visited by a friend, another
priest, a week or so ago. Afterwards, he was so anxious to see you . . .
Perhaps he was just overwhelmed?’

Deodat turned to her. ‘An old friend saw him?
Who was it?’

‘A priest, I think, from
Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet. But I don’t know what my uncle could possibly want
from the church, since all his possessions were brought here from the
presbytery when he fell ill. As far as I know, there’s nothing left at the
church that belongs to him.’

‘Is it possible to see the church today?’
Deodat said. ‘I wanted to show it to my friend while we were here.’

‘I suppose so. It’s Sunday but there isn’t a
priest there at the moment. Despite that the church is always open.’ She looked
thoughtful, then said, ‘Would you like me to come with you?’