In the silence of the dungeon (where was Sara?), the sad moans of the dying man resounded like the shattered cries of a tortured man. He was suffering, and there is nothing more absurd than physical pain when death is imminent. That pain was no more than pain — absurd and cruel —, and I had the remedy in my bag.
“Sara,” I called.
“Yes …?” She was right behind me.
“Go forth, knights, let’s defend Jerusalem!” the old Templar shouted at that moment at the top of his lungs; he was delirious. “Jesus protects us, the Virgin Mary watches us from above, the Holy City awaits us, our Temple awaits us! Ahh, I’m dying …! A Saracen scimitar has severed my arms and is ripping out my insides!”
“Sara, prepare some water for the opium.”
“Remove the books from the cellar! Leave nothing in the Temple! Put the chests in the esplanade and we’ll meet at the door of the Al-Asqa at nightfall!”
“It’s the delirium of death,” said the Jew, passing me the bowl of water. Her hands were trembling.
“It’s the delirium of the plague. Why haven’t you caught it?”
Her voice was sharp as she replied:
“It’s not the black plague, sire, it’s only the bubonic plague. Do you think that I am so ignorant that I would fall into that trap? Even a Jew like me knows that buboes must not be touched and you must wash thoroughly so as not to fall ill.
“The Baphomet! … Hide the Baphomet!” shouted Evrard, as taught as a bowstring. “They mustn’t find anything, anything! The Ark of the Covenant! The books! The gold!”
“The Ark of the Covenant!” I exclaimed, impressed. So it was true, they had the Ark of the Covenant.
“Oh, come on, Hospitaller frey of St. John, are you going to believe those fairy tales as well?” Sara reproached, emphasizing my recently discovered St. John identity. It was obvious that she had been paying close attention to my conversation with Evrard.
Shortly after, Evrard’s cries had ceased and his breathing had improved. Every now and then he let out a whine, as if he were a child, or a moan, but his dementia worked with the potion to gradually remove him from the suffering and, unfortunately, from life.
“He won’t make it through the night; at best until tomorrow but no longer.”
“I know,” she replied, moving forward and sitting down on one of the corners of the rock covered in dirty straw that served as a bed for Evrard.
We stayed there until dawn, watching that sick man in silence. My mission had ended. As soon as the old Templar had died, I would go back to Avignon, inform His Holiness that I couldn’t find the evidence needed to confirm his suspicions and, shortly after, would return to Rhodes, to continue with my work at the hospital. As far as Jonas, I would help him get back to Ponç de Riba, if he so wished, and leave the secret about his life in the hands of fate. If his mother had given him up forever, why couldn’t I, his father, do the same? At the end of the day, what importance could another bastard have in this life? In any case, it pained me to leave my son. I suppose that the total lack of feelings inside me for so many years had left me feeling vulnerable to the idea of losing him.
The witch and I left when the first lights of the new day shone through a small window situated at ceiling height, leaving the dying man in a deep sleep. If he survived, he had a long day of lonesome agony ahead of him.
When I got back to the inn, Jonas was waiting up for me.
“I want to know why you didn’t let me go with you.”
“I had several reasons,” I explained, yawning and falling onto the bed, exhausted. “But the main reason, if you must know, was your safety. If they had caught us, you wouldn’t have had any more future than that poor old man who is rotting in the dungeon. Is that what you wanted?”
“No, but you were also in danger.”
“True,” I murmured, half asleep. “But I have already lived my life, boy, while you still have many years ahead of you.”
“I’ve decided to stay on with you,” he said humbly.
“I’m glad, I’m very glad.” And I fell asleep.
When Sara and I returned to the fortress the following night, surprisingly Evrard was still alive. The opium had helped him to fight it, although it had not returned his sanity. Nevertheless, with the new dawn, the old Templar exhaled his last breath following some convulsions, and his gray head twisted to the side until it remained still with his mouth open. In honor of the deceased, I was glad that I had helped him to go in peace, even though it had prevented me from clearing up certain details that would remain hidden forever. I must admit that in some way this thought pained me. Sara gently brushed her hand over his face, performing the sad ritual of closing his eyes. She then leaned over and kissed his forehead, neatened up his clothes, removed the dirty straw from under him and, putting her hands together, invoked her God, Adonai, chanting beautiful prayers for Evrard’s soul. I also prayed; I was sad that that poor man had died without the aid of the sacraments of confession and extreme unction, although deep down I’m not sure that he would have wanted them, because amongst other things, the Templars could only be seen to by their own ratres capellani, thus ensuring the inviolability of their secrets.
We ended our prayers, and while Sara gathered our things, I took charge of removing any signs of our presence: Sooner or later they would realize that the prisoner was dead and would have to come in to take his body away and burn it. All of a sudden, in line with those thoughts, something very powerful caught my attention: Why couldn’t I see any of Evrard’s belongings anywhere? As much as I looked, I couldn’t find any sign that gave away the presence of a person having been in that cell for such a long time, other than, of course, the body of the dead Templar. There had to be something, I told myself, something like there always is in any dungeon inhabited by a prisoner: a manuscript, utensils, papers, belongings … It’s common for prisoners to treasure small, insignificant things which have huge value to them but curiously, it looked like Evrard had never even been there and that didn’t make sense.
“How long has Evrard been locked up in this cell?” I asked the witch, intrigued.
“Two years.”
“Two years and he didn’t have any belongings, however small?”
“Yes, he did,” replied Sara, nodding her head towards a corner. “His spoon and his bowl are over there.”
“Nothing else?”
The witch, with her bag hanging over her shoulder, stared at me. I could see doubt and then certainty cross her eyes. All at once I knew that all was not lost.
“A week ago, knowing that he was going to die,” she mused, “he gave me some papers that he kept in his shirt. He asked me to destroy them but I didn’t. I think that because of your compassionate services, you deserve to see them.”
My impatience had no limit. I begged her for us to return as soon as possible so as to examine those documents and I made her run through the stone galleries until we were both exhausted. The roosters were singing on the rooftops when we emerged from the well.
“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” she said as we were leaving the abandoned house. “If Evrard asked me to burn those papers I should fulfill his wishes. There may be things in them that you shouldn’t see.”
“I swear, Sara,” I replied, “that whatever I find, I will only make use of the things that will really help me to fulfill my duty and I will forget the rest forever.”
She didn’t seem very convinced but when we got to her house she pulled out a few dirty yellow sheets of paper from under her mattress and guiltily handed them to me. I hastily grabbed them and went straight to the living room table where I unfolded them with care so as not to break them. I felt slightly dizzy and my stomach was in knots and I had to sit down on one of the stools in order to continue with my task; no physical malaise resulting from a couple of sleepless nights was going to stop me now.
The first papers contained the crude drawings of an Imago Mundi (5), drawn clumsily and in a hurry. Inside
a square, which represented the universal ocean, was a circle surrounded by twelve semi-circles and the names of the winds: Africus, Boreas, Eurus, Rochus, Zephirus … Inside the Earth was divided into a T shape with the three continents that made up the world: Asia, Europe and Africa, where, one next to the other, Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago — the three axes of the world, the Axis Mundi —, were highlighted, and to the north, the Garden of Eden. That imperfect Imago Mundi also showed the celestial constellations superimposed over the Earth, probably searching for a specific cosmic order on a specific date, with the Sun and the Moon on the left-hand side.
With infinite care, I unfolded the second sheet on top of the first, a slightly smaller sheet full of numbers arranged in columns and accompanied by dates in Hebrew and Latin initials. The person who had made those notes — the color of the ink reflected the passing of time between the first and the last — was the same person who had drawn the letters of the Imago Mundi, so I deduced that both documents had been made by Evrard. After much thinking, I concluded that it must be a record of activities carried out over ten years, from the middle of the Jewish month of Shervat of the year 5063, i.e., from the beginning of February 1303, until the end of Adar 5073. By making assumptions, I tried to discover what kind of activities the old Templar had so carefully noted but nothing was giving it away. In any case, I thought, if it was gold smuggled out of Paris, the amount was much more than immeasurable.
Finally, the third sheet contained what I had been searching for: the manuscript copy of a letter signed by Evrard and Manrique informing an unknown person of the success of their mission, the perfect execution which they called ‘The amends of Al-Yedom’, or in other words, the Curse of Jacques de Molay.
I sat up, pleased, giving a deep sigh of satisfaction. Now, I told myself, Pope John XXII would be so scared of being assassinated that he wouldn’t think twice about giving the King of Portugal the authorization to create the new Military Order of the Knights of Christ. My work, at least the part regarding what could now be classified as the murders of Pope Clement V, the King of France Philip IV the Fair and the Keeper of the Seal William of Nogaret at the hands of the Templars, was finished. I just had to take that document to Avignon and return home.
But there was still a forth parchment, a piece of paper that was, in actual fact, no bigger than the palm of my hand. I leaned back over the table and examined it. It was a strange, meaningless text in Hebrew.
It was incomprehensible. The alphabet that had been used did not belong to any Jewish language, at least not to the Jewish language that I thought I knew very well.
“Sara,” I called, to ask for her help, “look at this. Do have any idea what it means?”
The witch peered over my shoulder.
“Sorry,” she snorted, taking a step back. “I don’t know how to read.”
What the hell did that nonsense mean? Anyway, it wasn’t the best time to start investigating; I was feeling increasingly dizzy and really needed a couple of hours of sleep. I remembered my youth with longing, when I could go for two and even three days without sleeping, without my body resenting me. Age is not forgiving, I told myself.
“You don’t look so good,” said Sara, staring at me. “I think that you should lie down on my bed and rest for a while. You look green.”
“The problem is I’m old,” I smiled. “Sorry, even though I would like to sleep for a couple of hours, I must go. Jonas is on his own at the inn.”
“So what,” she scoffed, pulling me out of my chair and leading me over to the bed. “Is he going to die of fear if you don’t show up? If he is a sensible boy, and he seems to be, he will come looking for you here.”
I was deeply grateful that someone was making decisions on my behalf at that time. The truth is that I was terribly tired, as if the idea of completing that mission had relaxed my body and the fatigue accumulated over many, many years was now resting on it. An absurd feeling but that was how I felt.
The witch’s blankets smelt of lavender.
We said goodbye to Sara and to Paris at the end of July and slowly made our way back to Avignon. The relationship between Jonas and I had lost all of the tension that had accumulated over the previous weeks and was again pleasant and stimulating. We made a bet to see who could resolve the enigma of the fourth parchment first. Sara, with great reluctance, had given it to us along with the manuscript copy of Evrard’s incriminating letter which I would soon be handing over to the Pope in Avignon, so it was every man for himself trying to decipher the mysterious message. Although I had a pretty good idea of how to solve the enigma, the truth is that I wasn’t very interested in doing it, as I didn’t want to win without giving the boy time to learn all the Hebrew he could during the trip, and such was his belligerence that he learned at dizzying speeds to try and beat me in the contest. He was definitely proud, and I enjoyed that. At the end of the day, I kept telling myself, he is still my son, and he will always be my only son as my vows prevent me from having any more offspring. Over the last few days, and after much reflection, I had reached the conclusion that I should tell him the truth about his background as soon as possible. I had to make him aware of the matter before returning to Barcelona and let him act accordingly. In the event that he wanted to go back to the monastery, I would obviously not stand in his way but if that wasn’t his wish I would leave him in the care of my family in Taradell, so as they could bring him up as a Born in the family’s ancestral home. I wanted to feel proud of my son some day. As far as the Mendozas, it was best not to think about them.
We changed our route in Lyon so that we didn’t have to go through Roquemaure. That unhappy François could be a danger to us if we came across him again, so we doubled back to Vienne and came down through the Dauphine territory to Provence, entering the Venaissin Country from the east. It was the day after leaving Vienne, at sundown, when Jonas resolved the problem of the message.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it!”
At that moment I was distracted looking at the sky — a beautiful sunset towards Orion —, and I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying.
“I’ve solved it, I’ve solved it!” he cried, outraged by my indifference, “I’ve deciphered the message!”
Just as I had thought, it was in fact a simple permutation of alphabets. I calmly began to take bread and cheese out of the saddlebags for dinner.
“Look, sire,” he began to explain. “The person who wrote this message just changed some letters for others, preserving the equivalences. What most likely threw us off for so long was the pronunciation. If we reject the way of reading the message in Hebrew and we articulate it in its Latin equivalent, what do we have?”
“Pi’he feér bai-codí …,” I pronounced difficultly, reading the parchment.
“No, no. In Latin, sire, in Latin.”
“This cannot be read in Latin!” I protested, as I swallowed a bit of bread soaked in wine.
Jonas smirked, his chest swelling with immodesty.
“Not, if like you, one knows how to speak Hebrew; in that case your own knowledge makes you blind and deaf, sire. But if you forget everything you know, if you lower yourself to the level of a student, then you will see it very clearly. See that the first letter is the feh.”
“Whose correct pronunciation,” I pointed out to annoy him, “in front of the vowel qibbuts, is, if I’m not mistaken, pi or pu.”
“I told you to forget everything you know! It may sound like pi or pu in Hebrew but in Latin in sounds like fu.
“What are you talking about?” I inquired with interest.
“Because, as you have taught me, the feh can also act like ph. So, reading like an ignorant person would, the message would say … Do you want to hear it?”
“I can’t wait.”
“Well, pay attention. Fuge per bicodulam serpentem mag-nam remissionem petens. Tuebitur te taurus usque ad Atlantea regna which means ‘Escape using the two-tailed snake looking for the great forgiveness. The bull will protec
t you until the kingdoms of Atlas’.” He looked at me intrigued. “Do have any idea what it means?”
I made him repeat the message to me a couple of times, surprised by the simplicity and at the same time by the ingenuity locked in that compelling note. Suddenly everything clicked into place; if any piece of the puzzle was still unclear after my long investigations in Paris, that had resolved it. Then, the sudden understanding of that note dragged me back into the past, through the tunnel of the years and forgotten memories, as if I had never left. I was paralyzed with shock, terrified by the power of fate: My own life mixed over and over again, inexplicably, with that story of crime, ambition and encrypted letters. I think it was then when, for the first time, I began to think about that supreme destiny spoken of in the Qabalah, a destiny that hides behind the apparent hazards of life and weaves the mysterious threads of knowledge that shape our existence. I had to make a real effort to return to the present, to break that feeling of being sucked back by a powerful force. My whole body hurt, my soul hurt.
“Can you hear me, Sir Galceran? Hey, hey!” Jonas waved his hand in front of my face in surprise.
“I can hear you, I can hear you,” I assured him with little conviction. After making him repeat the message for a third time, I told him what I thought the note quite clearly hinted at. Manrique of Mendoza — as the content made it clear that he wrote the note —, after committing the murders, had managed to escape from France, but Evrard, maybe because he was already sick at the time, had not been able to escape with him. Mendoza, from wherever he was, worried about the safety of his companion, had designed a careful escape plan for him. He told him to flee towards ‘the kingdoms of Atlas’ using the route of the ‘two-tailed serpent’, reassuring him of the possible problems that the journey could entail by guaranteeing him the ‘protection of the bull’.
“But what does all that mean?” asked Jonas. “It seems crazy.”