Sanctus

Chapter 102

Liv stared at the network of scars criss-crossing the old man’s dark skin. She looked into his eyes, her brows knitting into a question.

‘I lived in the Citadel for four years,’ Oscar explained. ‘I was scheduled to be ordained as a full Sancti when I was. . discovered.’

Liv shook her head, recalling the background reading she’d done on the plane. ‘But I thought no one had ever come out of the Citadel.’

‘Oh, they have. But never for very long. They are always ruthlessly hunted down and silenced. What you see before you,’ he said, a smile crinkling his face as he carefully folded his shirt in half, ‘is a dead man.’ He laid it gently in his lap and smoothed it down with his hand. ‘You know the story of the Trojan Horse?’ he asked, looking up.

Liv nodded. ‘The classic example of how to break a siege.’

‘Exactly. Just like the frustrated Greeks at the gates of Troy, our people eventually decided to use guile instead of might to try and penetrate the impenetrable and reclaim the divine mandate of the Sacrament. They devised their own Trojan Horse.’

‘You!’

‘Yes. They found me in an orphanage at the turn of the twentieth century. No parents. No siblings. No relatives of any kind; the perfect background to be considered for the brotherhood. I entered the Citadel when I was fourteen on a secret, open-ended mission to discover the identity of the Sacrament and escape the mountain with the knowledge of it.

‘It took me three years to get even close. Most of that time I spent working amongst the vast collection of books they hoard in their library, sorting through the boxes of new acquisitions. One day, a couple of years into my time there, a crate arrived full of relics from an archaeological dig in ancient Nineveh. The documentation with it referred to the contents being part of a forbidden book possibly relating to the Sacrament. Inside were hundreds of slate fragments. I stole one of the larger pieces before the head librarian noticed what the case contained and moved me on to something else. In private I examined the piece, but it was written in a language I had never seen, so I began to learn. I would assist the older monks in the library, picking up the skills and knowledge I hoped would help me decipher it while continuing to scour each new acquisition for anything that might help unlock the secret of the Sacrament. In the end fate guided me along a more direct route. My enthusiasm for learning was noticed by the senior monks and I was singled out to join the novitiate of the highest order within the Citadel — the Sanctus Custodis Deus Specialis, the Keepers of God’s Holy Secret, the only ones who know the identity of the Sacrament.’

Liv looked at his scars, the same ones her brother bore. ‘What caused those marks?’ she asked.

‘Part of the preparation is a ceremony, held every month in an ante-chamber in the restricted upper part of the mountain. Each novice is given a wooden Tau with a sacrificial dagger concealed within it. We were expected to cut deep,’ he said, his eyes looking inward, his finger drawing along the circular line at the top of his left arm as he remembered what had caused it. ‘Deep cuts. Signifying deep commitment. A regular act of faith — always rewarded by a miracle.’ His finger drifted across to the other side of his chest, continuing its slow sweep of remembrance along the lines of his former suffering. ‘For no matter how deeply we sliced our flesh,’ he said, ‘our wounds healed, almost immediately.’ He looked back up. ‘Closeness to the Sacrament was rewarded with great health and great age. I am nearly one hundred and six years old,’ he said, ‘yet I remain as fit as a man forty years my junior. Had your brother lived, he too would have enjoyed long life, for he was being groomed, as I had been groomed before him.’

He tapped the keyboard on the desk and a familiar image faded up to replace the screensaver. It was one of the photos from the post-mortem showing the raised brand on Samuel’s left arm — the sign of the Tau. ‘Your brother got further than I,’ Oscar said, pointing at the screen. ‘He bears the symbol of the Sacrament. And as you can see,’ he said, turning to reveal his own bare arm, ‘I do not. Only those who were fully ordained received that mark. He knew the secret.’

Liv’s vision started to swim as her eyes filled with tears. ‘So what happened?’ she said. ‘How come you didn’t discover it?’

‘We were not the only ones who had read our history,’ he said, pulling the cotton turtleneck back over his head. ‘The Sancti had placed someone within our organization too and they discovered my existence, though fortunately not my identity.’ He smoothed the shirt down over his arms and adjusted the collar round his neck until all the scars were hidden. ‘There was a witch hunt inside the Citadel to try and find me. Fellow monks began accusing each other, often just to settle old scores. It was unbearable. I knew my time was short so I took risks. Became careless. A fellow novice called Tiberius saw me pocket a fragment of slate. When he turned to leave the library I knew he was out to betray me, even though he was my friend. So I started a fire in the library and used the smoke and chaos to cloak my escape. I ran to the lower section of the mountain, threw a bench through one of the windows and followed it out into the night. I fell more than a hundred feet into the moat and swam for my life. The world was at war back then. It was July 1918. A false trail of my flight was laid all the way to the trenches of Belgium and my identity swapped with some poor unfortunate who’d been torn beyond all recognition by a shell. The knights of the Sacrament — the Carmina — followed the trail, found the broken man and returned, satisfied that I had succeeded only in running from the Citadel and into the arms of death. Meanwhile I was transported to Brazil. I have lived there in secret ever since.’

‘So why return now?’ Liv asked. ‘What is so significant about my brother’s death that brings you out of hiding and makes others want to kill me?’

‘Because when I escaped I carried that stolen slate fragment in my hand and the knowledge in my head to translate it. It revealed the first few lines of a prophecy foretelling a time when the Sacrament would be revealed and proper order would be restored. The cross will fall / The cross will rise / To unlock the Sacrament / And bring forth a new age.

‘It gave us hope. Then twenty years ago another piece of the prophecy was found. The man who discovered it was called John Mann.’ He looked across at Kathryn, whose bright eyes seemed to dim at the mention of his name. ‘My daughter’s husband. Gabriel’s father. It was in a collection of fragments forming part of a book. From the few pieces he found, John worked out that it described an alternative creation story to the book of Genesis. But news of his discovery reached the Citadel. They have informers everywhere. The dig site was remote. There was a brutal attack, by whom we do not know for sure, but we can guess. We never found his body, or the material he had discovered.’ Oscar blinked and looked down, his silence saying far more than any words. The room went quiet as each of them became lost in their own remembrance, the flickering screen of the forgotten TV the only thing that moved.

‘My father died seeking the truth,’ Gabriel said. ‘And not all of the fragments he found were lost. He had taken precautions. The most important one stayed safe. We put it together with the piece my grandfather had taken and found a fuller reading of the prophecy.

The one true cross will appear on earth

All will see it in a single moment — all will wonder

The cross will fall

The cross will rise

To unlock the Sacrament

And bring forth a new age

Liv listened to the words and saw the image of her brother standing on the summit of the mountain making the sign of the Tau with his body. He started to topple.

The cross will fall.

She looked down at the drawing in her notebook and her eyes lit on another fallen cross, the one on her brother’s side marking the place where she had once been joined to him. Her hand rose up to the site of her own scar.

The cross will rise.

She looked up at Oscar.

‘There’s something you should know about me and my brother,’ she said. Then she stood up, and in an echo of Oscar’s earlier gesture, started pulling up her shirt.