Templar's Quest

43

A gasoline-laced breeze wafted through the open French doors, carrying with it the discordant blare of honking horns, traffic heavy this time of day in the Marais district. From where he stood, Cædmon could watch the building entryway. An excellent vantage point. Even the commando had acknowledged that the St Merry Hotel was a good choice.

‘ “To be of no church is dangerous,” ’ he murmured, letting the drapery fall into place as he stepped into the room. Let us hope this one proves a safe haven.

Shoulders drooping, Kate deposited her rucksack on the Gothic-style desk across from the bed. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of “Get me to the church on time”. Normally, I’d be bowled over by the fact that we’re staying in a restored seventeenth-century presbytery which is next door to an equally old church. But after everything that’s happened today, I just can’t drum up a whole lot of enthusiasm.’ Peering in his direction, she graced him with a weary smile. ‘Although I’m greatly relieved to be here. And for that we have you to thank.’

‘Flying bullets will make any man quick on his feet.’

‘Luckily, you’re quicker than most.’

Clearly fatigued, Kate plopped into a high-backed chair. Like everything else in the room, it was fit for a feudal lord, the room’s stone-block walls enlivened with oak quatrefoils and tracery cutouts, the centrepiece being a massive bed with an intricately carved seven-foot-high headboard. Fit for the feudal lord and his lady love. Despite the fact that Kate had vehemently denied a romantic involvement with McGuire, Cædmon couldn’t help but wonder at their sleeping arrangements.

‘This wood-beamed ceiling reminds me of your room in Oxford,’ Kate remarked, tilting her head to glance upward.

‘The hearty souls were housed in the medieval wing of the college; those able to withstand winter chill, summer heat and leaky pipes. Punishment for crimes yet committed,’ he deadpanned.

‘Faulty plumbing aside, I used to think that there wasn’t anything quite as beautiful as when the setting sun tinted your centuries-old window a rich shade of tangerine.’ As she spoke, Kate girlishly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Such a lovely memory.’

Cædmon seated himself on the opposite side of the desk. Surprised that Kate harboured warm memories of their time at Oxford, he was at a loss for words. Sixteen years had come and gone since they’d last seen one another. A lifetime. And yet he could easily envision her studiously bent over an open book. Claude Lévi Strauss’s A World on the Wane. Or some other anthropology tome. Committed scholars, they used to spend hours in that medieval room, each engrossed in their separate studies. Each oblivious to the other’s presence. Until one of them would look up and catch the other’s eye. A come-hither smile later, they’d end up under the duvet. Now that was a lovely memory.

‘Do you realize that I wouldn’t know how to ride a bicycle if it wasn’t for you,’ Kate remarked, unaware that his thoughts were running along a more lurid path. ‘Since my parents were both academics, they didn’t consider riding a bike a necessary life skill.’

‘Don’t know if it’s necessary in the larger scheme of things, but certainly essential at Oxford.’ Still stuck under the duvet, he smiled fondly. ‘Indeed, you were so enamoured with your newly acquired skill that you would drag me out of bed at an ungodly hour for early morning rides in the mist.’

‘You can’t deny that there was a surreal beauty to it. As though we were trapped in a medieval dreamscape. Just the two of us peddling through a heavenly realm.’ She closed her eyes; a woman lost in reverie.

‘I also taught you how to drink sherry.’

Hearing that, her eyes popped wide open. ‘Dry, chilled, served in a hand-blown copita glass, and –’ an animated gleam in those greyish-blue eyes, Kate raised an imaginary glass – ‘accompanied by your favourite toast –’

‘Bottoms up and knickers down,’ he chimed in, chortling.

No sooner did the shared chuckle fade into silence than a furrow appeared between Kate’s brows. ‘Were you really that upset by my lettre de rupture?’

Take aback by that unexpected query, he was tempted to play the cavalier. To make light of the whole affair.

‘Utterly destroyed,’ he confessed at the last, hoping the truth would finally set him free. ‘I’d given you my heart.’

‘As I recall, you were quite obsessed with the Knights Templar. I was tired of playing second fiddle to a bunch of dead monks.’

His regret real, Cædmon penitently bowed his head and stared at his hands. ‘Like most men, I didn’t realize what I had until I lost it.’

‘And when we lose that thing that we hold so dear, it never comes back.’

Hearing a husky catch in her voice, he intuited that Kate was referring to her own life. Her own painful loss.

Raising his head, he gazed intently at the sad-faced woman seated across from him. He knew from Kate’s dossier that life had flung her to the cement pavement. And from a very high rooftop. Her only child, a baby boy named Samuel, had died from SIDS. An unfathomable loss.

‘I know about Samuel.’

Eyes welling with emotion, Kate flinched. A terrified animal caught in the headlights. ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned.

He reached across the desk and cupped her cheek in his hand. Gently, he swiped the pad of his thumb under her eye socket, catching a runaway tear. ‘You probably loathe the “I’m so sorry” speech, but I understand, Kate. There’s a gaping hole in your heart. I know … I, too, lost someone,’ he confessed, words and sentiments jumbling together. ‘And when Juliana died, it devastated me.’

‘Oh, Cædmon … I … I’m so very sorry … there, I said it.’ Turning her head, Kate lightly pressed her lips to his palm. She then gazed at him, eyes clouded with concern. ‘If you need someone to talk to … or a shoulder to cry on … I can help you get through this. Maybe that’s why we’ve re-connected after all these years. Because we need each other.’ Clearly empathizing with his pain, she placed her hand over his. ‘Was Juliana your wife?’

He dolefully shook his head. ‘But I had given great thought to asking –’

‘Sorry to interrupt the canoodle fest.’

Hearing that deep-throated voice, Cædmon and Kate quickly and gracelessly pulled apart. McGuire, an old-fashioned skeleton key in one hand and two plastic shopping bags dangling from the other, stood in the doorway. ‘I bought some refreshments. Not that you two lovebirds would care.’ He stomped over to the desk, managing to look more intimidating than usual.

‘We were just reminiscing about old times at Oxford,’ Kate assured her surly companion, cheeks guiltily stained a vivid bright red. ‘Cædmon, do you remember Sidney Hartwell?’

‘Pudgy Classics major prone to drunken stupors,’ he replied, playing along with the game. ‘Liked to wave his trousers in the air while he shouted obscene profanities.’

‘In Latin and in the middle of the night, no less.’ Never good at subterfuge, Kate nervously giggled.

McGuire dragged a chair over to the desk and set it inches from Kate’s Gothic monstrosity. A man staking his claim. He then proceeded to remove a six-pack of beer from one bag and a litre bottle of water from the other. ‘Choose your poison – Kronenbourg or H2O. And just so you know, I cannot abide a country that doesn’t sell cold beer at the grocery store. Here. You look like you could use one of these.’ McGuire pulled a can free from the plastic ring and slid it across the desk in Cædmon’s direction.

‘An Irishman who would refuse a pint of warm Guinness. Well, well, wonders never cease.’

‘You’d turn your nose up, too, if you’d ever seen how my Da downed the black stuff. Surprised I’m able to enjoy a brewski.’ Shaking his head, McGuire rolled his eyes. ‘If only he’d waved his trousers in the air.’

Cædmon wondered at the startling admission. Perhaps the earlier brush with death is causing the three of us to come apart at the seams.

Seams ready to burst, he rapaciously eyed the unopened can. Like McGuire, he didn’t much care for warm beer. A G&T on ice would be better. But this might quell the pang.

He reached for the Kronenbourg.

Only to retreat at the last.

Then, not fully trusting himself, he slid the proffered can back in McGuire’s direction.

‘No, thank you.’ Jaw tight, those three simple words sounded unnaturally clipped. Probably because he’d recently come off a three-day binge. A bender, as the Yanks called them. Usually his drinking bouts lasted no more than a few days. Although the first, after the ‘incident’ in Belfast, extended to a full two weeks. The boys from Thames House found him slumped over a bar in Budapest. According to his passport, he’d been to six different countries in those two weeks. To this day, he had no recollection of that drunken fortnight, although it was his lone act of vengeance in Belfast that angered the powers that be at Thames House more than the drunken spree. In the two years since, he’d paid heavily for the transgression. Seconded to MI6, he’d been made to run a safe house in Paris. A humiliating demotion.

‘You know, I’ve been thinking about it –’ McGuire popped the lid on his can, misting the air with the tang of Strisselspalt hops and a light citrus aroma – ‘and no way in hell can I accept that the Holy Grail is “the stone in exile”. Sister Michael Patrick, a woman whose authority even a smart aleck like me didn’t dare question, taught us that the Grail is the chalice that was used at the Last Supper. And when Jesus was on the cross, that same chalice was used to collect his blood. That’s how it became the Holy Grail.’

Dissertation delivered, the commando raised the can to his lips and drank deeply.

Astonished that the other man had deliberated on the matter, Cædmon countered by saying, ‘Don’t know how “holy” it is. According to Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, the Lapis Exillis was the stone knocked free from Lucifer’s crown when he was cast from heaven. As you undoubtedly know, Lucifer had originally been God’s favourite until he committed the grave sin of putting himself on a par with the Almighty. A heavenly insurrection ensued, the angelic legions battling for supremacy. In the end, Lucifer was tossed on his arse.’ As he spoke, Cædmon belatedly realized that he shared a common bond with the ousted angel, having taken upon himself the power of life and death. And look where it landed me.

‘Given its ignominious provenance, I’m surprised that the Lapis Exillis would be deemed sacred,’ Kate said, twisting the lid on the water bottle. ‘And Finn raises a valid point: most people believe that the Grail is a chalice.’

Getting up from his chair, Cædmon walked over to the other side of the room and retrieved a water glass from the bedside table. ‘During the Middle Ages, there were three different Grail camps: those who believed the relic was a chalice; those who were convinced that it was a stone; and the peacekeepers who, through a convoluted twisting of both tales, declared that the Grail had been a stone that became a chalice.’ Reseating himself, he handed the glass to Kate. ‘Although what’s not in dispute is the fact that the Grail, whether it be stone or chalice, has miraculous power. And what is power if not energy?’

‘So you’re thinking that the Grail has something to do with the Axe Historique and the Vril force,’ Kate said, quick to catch his drift.

‘Depictions of the Grail often render it shrouded in a brilliant burst of light.’ Vexed, Cædmon shook his head. He had a gut feeling that the Lapis Exillis was connected to the Paris axis, but not a shred of evidence to prove it. ‘Mind you, this is mere speculation, but it could be that the Grail is some sort of transducer that can convert one type of energy into another.’

‘How do the Cathars fit into the Grail story?’ Kate poured herself a glass of water, then, holding the bottle aloft, silently enquired if he cared for some.

‘Difficult to say,’ Cædmon replied, politely shaking his head, water no substitute for alcohol. ‘The Cathars were dualists who believed that there were two gods, not one. The god whom they referred to as Rex Mundi, the king of the world, they associated with Lucifer who ruled the material realm. Conversely, the good god was the Light that illuminated the heavenly sphere. How the Cathars came to be in possession of a uniquely Christian relic is anyone’s guess.’ He paused, well aware that the conversation was about to veer off course. ‘Although it’s abundantly clear from the Latin inscription on the Montségur Medallion that the Cathars were the Grail Guardians.’

‘But I always thought that the Cathars were a Christian sect.’ Kate’s brow furrowed, having jumped to the same erroneous conclusion that most people made.

‘While the Cathars thought of themselves as upright Christians, their rituals did not include the traditional Catholic sacraments. And, of course, there was that heretical business about Jesus being a divinely inspired prophet rather than the divine Son of God.’

One side of McGuire’s mouth quirked in a wry half-grin. ‘Reason enough for Sister Michael Patrick to pull out a box of Diamond matches and light a pyre.’

‘How strange that you should make reference to the Inquisitors’ funeral pyre since I’m about to throw caution aside and leap into the fire. After due deliberation …’ Cædmon paused, on the cusp of a decision that could well change his life. ‘I’ve decided to search for the Grail.’