Templar's Quest

50

The Languedoc

1130 hours

Grunting, Cædmon finagled his way between the two rough-hewn embankments that formed a narrow V, the gneiss stone brightly glittering with embedded crystals.

The undiscovered country …

‘From whose bourn I intend to bloody well return. Grail in hand,’ he puckishly added, still riding euphoria’s high crest.

A few moments later he emerged from the rocky slit and entered a boulder-strewn ravine. Coming to a standstill, he beheld the wildflowers that bloomed in haphazard profusion, the vegetation a welcome sight in the otherwise barren landscape. Winded by his two-hour mountain trek, he gracelessly plunked down on a flat-topped boulder. Studying a topographical map, he could see that Mont de la Lune was located at the other end of the ravine. The next port of call, Moon Mountain, was where the hunt would begin in earnest.

Returning the map to his rucksack, he retrieved a water bottle. The tepid liquid did little to satisfy his true thirst, Cædmon entertaining a fantasy that involved big chunks of ice floating in gin with a splash of tonic and a squirt of lemon.

Of late, he frequently viewed the world through green- tinted glasses, green being the colour of a Tanqueray gin bottle.

Muscles tight, he slowly rolled his neck. First one direction. Then the other. Groaning from the ensuing pain, he found his decrepitude both lamentable and laughable.

Must remember to pull the dumb-bells out of the closet. Or take up jogging. Cycling, perhaps.

Unenthused by the thought of an exercise regime, Cædmon glanced around the ravine. For some inexplicable reason, the abundant stores of rock put him in mind of a cemetery laden with marble headstones.

That, in turn, conjured memories of the annual pilgrimage to his mother’s grave site. Where, white lilies in hand, he and his father would stand, heads respectfully bowed, Cædmon afraid to be caught looking anywhere but at that speckled grey stone.

• Helena May Aisquith •

• 3 May 1938 – 2 February 1967 •

• ‘The maid is not dead, but sleepeth.’ •

The fact that his mother died in childbirth meant that his birthday was always a glum affair. Rather than cake and presents, he was made to suffer his father’s piteous glare, wet February winds and thinly veiled accusations of matricide.

‘Did you know, boy, that she was named for Helen of Troy? Flamered hair and eyes of blue. Stole my heart, she did … and then she was stolen from me.’ As if Cædmon had plotted her murder from the womb. Mercifully, his deportation to Eton put an end to the yearly visit.

Disgusted that he’d let himself fall prey to those grim memories, he took another swig from the water bottle. You, Sir Prancelot, are a sorry excuse for a Grail knight.

But was any man truly up to the challenge?

Wolfram von Eschenbach, the author of the definitive Grail romance Parzival, set the bar for would-be knights exceedingly high. In von Eschenbach’s perfect medieval world, only those of chaste body and pure heart could seek the Grail. Inebriates and ne’er-do-wells need not apply.

Unwilling to dwell on his appalling lack of knightly credentials, Cædmon instead wondered how much validity there was to the epic tale. According to von Eschenbach, the Knights Templar had become the Grail Guardians. If that was true, it meant that the Templars had deciphered the Montségur Medallion and collected the prize. And, presumably, like the Cathars before them, they straightaway hid the damned thing to keep it from falling into the Inquisitors’ covetous hands.

Hopefully, that part of von Eschenbach’s account was pure fiction.

Slinging the rucksack over his shoulder, Cædmon rose to his feet and continued on his way. Since the ‘twelfth hour’ was significant, he didn’t want to be late to the tea party.

Twenty minutes into his trek, he caught his first glimpse of Mont de la Lune, a gleaming spire of granite punctuated with green scrub brush. Seen from below, the rugged peak soared heavenward, the pointed summit disappearing into the hazy clutches of a passing cloud. A starkly beautiful and remote juggernaut.

Anticipation mounting, Cædmon hurriedly removed a pair of binoculars from his rucksack.

‘ Reddis lapis exillis cellis.’

‘The Stone of Exile has been returned to the niche.’

While no location had been given in the inscription, he assumed that the ‘niche’ in question was located on Mont de la Lune. More than likely on the northern façade of Moon Mountain, since that was the side of the mountain visible from Montségur.

Beginning his search through the binoculars at the base, he slowly, methodically, worked his way up the rocky face. Examining each nook, each cranny. To his surprise, the northern façade was riddled with small cave openings. At least a dozen of them. Three-quarters of the way up, he discovered a small fissure shaped like a crescent moon, brilliantly illuminated by the noonday sun.

‘In the glare of the twelfth hour, the moon shines true.’

‘Bloody hell … I think I’ve found it,’ he gasped in wonderment.

Lowering the binoculars, he studied the granite cliff. There appeared to be enough protruding rock ledges that he could ascend in a zigzag fashion, making for an arduous but not impossible climb. Since he’d done a bit of rock climbing in his younger days, he was fairly confident that he could reach the crescent-shaped niche.

As he shoved the binoculars into his rucksack, it occurred to him that in many of the medieval Grail poems, it wasn’t the treasure discovered in the mist that mattered, but the spiritual journey that led there.

‘Sod that.’

Let some other bloke be saved. He was determined to find the Grail.