His words fell like a warning. Alice shivered. She suddenly realised the day had faded. Outside, the rays of the setting sun had painted the mountains red and gold and orange.
“If the knowledge was so devastating, if used for ill rather than good, then why did Alais or the other guardians not destroy the books when they had the chance?” she asked.
She felt Audric grow still. Alice realised she had hit to the heart of his experience, of the story he was telling, even though she didn’t understand how.
“If they had not been needed, then yes. Perhaps that might have been a solution.”
“Needed? Needed in what way?”
“That the Grail bestows life, the guardians have always known. You called it a gift and,” he caught his breath, “I understand that some might see it so. Others might see it with different eyes.” Audric stopped. He reached for his glass and took several mouthfuls of wine, before putting it back on the table with a heavy hand. “But it is life given for a purpose.”
What purpose?“ she said quickly, fearful he would stop.
“Many times in the past four thousand years, when the need to bear witness has been strong, the power of the Grail has been summoned. The great, long-lived patriarchs of the Christian Bible, the Talmud, the Koran are familiar to us. Adam, Jacob, Moses, Mohammad, Methuselah. Prophets whose work could not be accomplished in the usual span allotted to men. They each lived for hundreds of years.”
“But these are parables,” protested Alice. “Allegories.”
Audric shook his head. They survived for centuries precisely so that they could speak of what they had witnessed, bear testimony to the truth of their times. Harif, who persuaded Abu Bakr to conceal his work revealing the language of Ancient Egypt, lived to see the fall of Montsegur.“
“But that’s five hundred years.”
“They lived,” Audric repeated simply. “Think of the life of a butterfly, Alice. An entire existence, so brilliant, but lasting just one human day. An entire lifetime. Time has many meanings.”
Alice pushed her chair back and walked away from the table, no longer knowing what she felt, what she could believe.
She turned. “The labyrinth symbol I saw on the wall of the cave, on the ring you wear – this is the symbol of the true Grail?”
He nodded.
“And Alais? She knew this?”
“At first, like you, she was doubtful. She did not believe in the truth contained within the pages of the Trilogy, but she fought to protect them out of love for her father.”
“She believed Harif was more than five hundred years old?” she persisted, no longer trying to keep the scepticism out of her voice.
“Not at first, no,” he admitted. “But over time, she came to see the truth. And when her time came, she found she was able to speak the words, understand the words.”
Alice came back to the table and sat down. “But why France? Why were the papyri brought here at all? Why not leave them where they were?”
Audric smiled. “Harif took the papyri to the Holy City in the tenth century of the Christian era and had them hidden near the Plains of Sepal. For nearly a hundred years, they were safe, until the armies of Saladin advanced on Jerusalem. He chose one of the guardians, a young Christian chevalier called Bertrand Pelletier, to carry the papyri to France.”
Alais’ father.
Alice realised she was smiling, as if she had just heard news of an old friend.
“Harif realised two things,” Audric continued. “First, that the papyri would be safer kept within the pages of a book, less vulnerable. Second, that because rumours of the Grail were starting to circulate through the courts of Europe, how better to hide the truth than beneath a layer of myth and fable.”
“The stories of the Cathars possessing the Cup of Christ,” said Alice, suddenly understanding.
Baillard nodded. “The followers of Jesus the Nazarene did not expect him to die on the Cross, yet he did. His death and resurrection helped give birth to stories of a sacred cup or chalice, a grail that gave everlasting life. How these were interpreted at the time, I cannot say, but what is certain is that the crucifixion of the Nazarene gave birth to a wave of persecution. Many fled the Holy Land, including Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene, who sailed for France. They brought with them, it is said, knowledge of an ancient secret.”
“The Grail papyri?”
“Or treasure, jewels taken from the Temple of Solomon. Or the cup that Jesus the Nazarene had drunk from at the Last Supper in which his blood had been gathered as he hung upon the Cross. Or parchments, writings, evidence that Christ had not died crucified but yet lived, hidden in the mountains of the desert for a hundred years and more with a small elect band of believers.”
Alice stared dumbstruck at Audric, but his face was a closed book and she could read nothing in it.
“That Christ did not die on the Cross,” she repeated, hardly able to believe what she was saying.
“Or other stories,” he said slowly. “Some claimed that it was at Narbonne, rather than Marseilles, that Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea had landed. For centuries it has been common belief that something of great value was hidden somewhere in the Pyrenees.”
“So it was not the Cathars who possessed the secret of the Grail,” she said, putting the pieces together in her mind, “but Alais. They gave her sanctuary.”
A secret hidden behind a secret. Alice sat back in her chair, running back over the sequence of events in her mind.
“And now the labyrinth cave has been opened.”
“For the first time in nearly eight hundred years, the books can be brought together once more,” he said. “And although you, Alice, do not know if you should trust me or dismiss what I say as the delusional ramblings of an old man, there are others who do not doubt.”
Alais believed in the truth of the Grail.
Deep inside, beyond the limits of her conscious thought, Alice knew he spoke the truth. It was her rational self that found it hard to accept.
“Marie-Cecile,” she said heavily.
“Tonight, Madame de l’Oradore will go to the labyrinth cave and attempt to summon the Grail.”
Alice felt a wave of apprehension sweep over her.
“But she can’t,” she said quickly. “She doesn’t have the Book of Words. She doesn’t have the ring.”
“I fear she realises the Book of Words must still be within the chamber.”
“Is it?”
“I do not know for sure.”
“And the ring? She doesn’t have that either.” She dropped her eyes to his thin hands laid flat on the table.
“She knows I will come.”
“But, that’s crazy,” she exploded. “How can you even contemplate going anywhere near her?”
“Tonight she will attempt to summon the Grail,” he said in his low, level voice. “Because of that, they know I will come. I cannot let that happen.”
Alice banged her hands on the table. “What about Will? What about Shelagh? Don’t you care about them? It won’t help them if you are taken as well.”
“It is because I care about them – about you, Alice – that I will go. I believe Marie-Cecile intends to force them to participate in the ceremony. There must be five participants, the Navigataire and four others.”
“Marie-Cecile, her son, Will, Shelagh and Authie?”
“No, not Authie. Another.”
“Then who?”
He avoided the question. “I do not know where Shelagh or Will are now,” he said, as if thinking aloud, “but I believe we will find they are taken to the cave at nightfall.”