Sanctus

Chapter 106

Liv peered at the pixellated circle of green on the monitor. The resolution was too low to make out any detail but she imagined the outline of trees and bushes in the slight variations between the blocks of colour.

‘One of the great historical mysteries of the Citadel,’ Oscar said, his voice rumbling through the silent room, ‘was how it miraculously managed to survive years of siege with no food.

‘I spent my first year apprenticed to the gardeners: clearing weeds, planting new beds, helping to bring in the fruit harvests. One of my jobs was watering the grounds. We did this from large cisterns that collected rain and waste water from inside the mountain. Sometimes it picked up mineral deposits as it flowed through the stone channels turning it red, so it seemed you were watering the earth with blood.

‘Whatever was in it made the soil incredibly fertile. Anything grew in it, even though the garden lay in a crater and was in almost permanent shadow. Once, whilst clearing away some long grass, I found an old rake part-buried in the soil. Green shoots were beginning to spring from its wooden handle.’ He looked up and reached for the computer keyboard. ‘This garden has nourished the Citadel throughout history,’ he said, opening a browser window and typing. ‘The green cassocks of the Sancti reflect this — as does the name they used to be known by — The Edenites.’ He finished typing and hit return. The satellite photo disappeared and another page started to open. ‘Some think this name refers to the age of their order, dating back to the dawn of man. Others, however, believe it has a more literal meaning, and that the Tau is not a cross at all.’

The page stopped downloading. Liv stared at it, the image now filling the screen mingling powerfully with the implication of Oscar’s words.

It was a stylized drawing of a tree, its thin trunk rising straight up to where two branches, heavy with fruit, spread out on either side, forming the familiar shape of the ‘T’. Winding its way up the trunk was a serpent, and standing either side of it, a man and a woman. She looked across at Oscar, not quite believing what he was suggesting.

‘You said the letters were scratched on seeds,’ he said. ‘Do you know what sort of seeds?’

Liv gazed into his deep black eyes and thought of all the pictures she’d seen in her life depicting Adam and Eve standing in front of the tree of knowledge, one of them always holding the heavy fruit of temptation in their hand.

‘Apple,’ she said. ‘They were scratched on apple seeds.’