Tales of the Knights Templar (15 page)

That knowledge sent him plummeting back into his own body, his own time. He was trembling as he surfaced, his heart pounding not with fear but with awe. Seeing his apparent distress, Graham set both hands to his temples and ordered him back down into trance, bidding him center and still.

“You’re all right; you’ve just come back too quickly,” Graham said, though that was
not
what was causing his agitation. “Draw a deep breath and let it out. Take time to stabilize and recenter, to regain your perspective. And then, in your own good time, come slowly back to normal waking consciousness. Another deep breath … that’s right…”

Adam obeyed, though he found he did not want to speak when he came back this time, and lay there for several seconds with his eyes still closed.

“Adam?” Graham said softly, when his subject did not rouse. “Adam, what did you see?”

Adam opened his eyes, his gaze still half-focused other-when as he heaved a heavy sigh. Then he slowly brought his Adept ring to his lips in salute to what he had witnessed. His labored swallow seemed to shatter the silence.

“I think—it was the holy Shroud,” he said.

Graham’s face went very still.

“You mean—the Shroud that wrapped Jesus in his tomb?”

Adam nodded, the image still before his inner Sight.

“What—did it look like?” Graham asked hesitantly.

Briefly Adam began describing what he had seen, a little surprised that he could, some of the wonder returning as he spoke. When he had finished, his voice trailing into silence, Graham was sitting with his elbows resting on his knees, steepled fingertips pressed lightly to his lips in thought, his gaze fixed unfocused before him. Only when Adam eased cautiously to a sitting position, elbowing the pillows to support him, did the older man look up, a faint smile curving his lips.

“Robert de Boron wrote of ‘the great secret uttered at the great sacrament performed
over
the Grail,’’ he said softly, obviously quoting. “It’s also interesting to note that the earliest Grail romances don’t appear in the West until about the twelfth century, soon after the founding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Suddenly one has to wonder whether the early sources were talking about a cup or a chalice at all.”

“I don’t think I follow you,” Adam said.

“Bear with me. We usually think of the Grail as a cup—and maybe it is—though Wolfram von Eschenbach also described it as a stone, and pre-Christian traditions spoke of a cauldron of plenty or regeneration. I’m sure you’ve heard those theories.”

“Yes.”

“But you’ve described something different,” Graham continued. “There’s a cup or chalice in the equation, but that isn’t the true focus. The name of the other guardian was the first clue: Christoph—Christopher—‘Christ-Bearer’—how did we miss
that?
It may have been an office, not a name. You even said that the design on top of the box resembled saltire crosses set side by side. A saltire equates with the letter
Chi,
which also stands for
Christos.
That would produce the lattice or trellis effect you described, but it also describes a grille—a
greille—gradalis—grasal
—which came to mean a bowl or platter—and perhaps a grail.”

The implication struck Adam nearly speechless. “Are you suggesting that—the Templars had the Holy Grail?” he whispered.

“Not—exactly. But suppose that the Grail were a container for the Sacred Blood in a different sense than we usually suppose. Not the cup of the Last Supper—and hence the vessel for containing the wine that becomes the Christian sacrament, the Blood of Christ—but the container for the burial cloth that also bore the Sacred Blood.…”

“That which bore the Light,”
Adam murmured, recalling the Master’s words. “Then—the Grail could have been a—a reliquary for the Shroud.”

“That would tally with what you saw,” Graham agreed. “Think about that crystal-covered oval you mentioned, set into the lid of the casket. Suppose that the shroud was kept folded so that the face showed through the crystal. For that matter, there could have been paintings done of the face, like icons, and dispersed to selected commanderies, only to be displayed on special occasions. If
that
was the basis of the so-called ‘head’ that the Templars were accused of worshiping, it would explain a lot: secret, inner tradition devotions not understood by some of the brethren themselves, and misinterpreted by their inquisitors.”

Adam nodded. “That could certainly account for the proliferation of confessions about a ‘head.’ And paintings would have been easy to destroy, when the end came.”

“Except for the original,” Graham said with a smile. “That was entrusted to the ‘Christ-Bearer’ and a young knight called Jauffre de Saint Clair, who did not fail in his sacred duty.”

Adam glanced at his hands, which in the guise of other flesh had borne the Holy. The details of his vision were fading, as they always did once he fully returned from the Inner Planes, but he knew that the essence of Jauffre’s sacrifice would remain with him.

“No, that part of Jauffre is resolved, thanks to you,” he said. “I can’t say that Adam Sinclair is entirely satisfied—even the answers only raise new questions—but there’s nothing new on that score. What an irony, though, if the most holy treasure of the Templars became their downfall, because they dared not reveal it, lest they risk it falling into profane hands.”

“Did
it fall into profane hands?” Graham asked. “What became of it? And perhaps more to the point, is what you saw the same as what now resides at Turin? Or if not Turin, there are several other places that claim to possess the True Shroud.”

Adam smiled faintly, for the Master had been quite clear that the vision granted Jauffre had told only of the hallow’s location
then,
as confirmation that Jauffre had not failed in his task. He had no idea of its present whereabouts; nor could he have spoken of it if he had.

“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully. “And if I did, I couldn’t tell you. Does it matter?”

“Probably not,” Graham conceded, “though humankind has always yearned for tangible evidence that the gods do take an active interest in us. What more poignant evidence of the Great Sacrifice than the preservation of the very cloth in which a slain god was wrapped while his spirit descended to the Underworld?”

Adam raised an eyebrow, slightly amused. “I know you aren’t a Christian, Gray. How is it that you manage to reduce Christianity to mythology without conveying the slightest disrespect?”

Smiling, Graham gave a wistful shrug of his shoulders. “Some things are universal,” he replied. “How should I not respect Divinity, however It chooses to manifest Itself? And how incredibly arrogant I should be if I tried to claim that my view of Divinity was the only valid one.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Adam said archly.

“Unfortunately, no. And if you’ll indulge me, I’ll carry our speculation one step further,” Graham went on. “If the Grail
was
a container for the holy Shroud, it would explain why women were always prominent in descriptions of Grail rituals. Orthodox tradition has it that no women were present at the Last Supper—though I’ve always doubted that—but they certainly played an important part in the burial of Jesus. What more fitting than that they should be depicted as the bearers of the Grail, even as they bore the burial cloths?”

“That would certainly follow,” Adam agreed.

“Going beyond Christian symbolism,” Graham continued, “we could liken the three Marys of the Crucifixion to aspects of the Triple Goddess, and connect them to Isis, who also gathered up the body—or the parts of it—of a slain priest-king to give it proper burial.…

“But I digress,” he said, as he noted Adam starting to go a little glassy-eyed at the transition. “And I can see I’m about to overload you, on top of everything that’s already happened tonight. Returning to the point, one has to wonder whether what you helped protect as Jauffre de Saint Clair
was
the Shroud of Jesus, bearing the image of another slain priest-king. There’s no question that it would have been a potent relic for the Knights of the Temple— well worth risking everything to save it from the avarice of the King of France—well worth dying for.”

“Yes,” Adam murmured, recalling the fire, but now able to set aside the horror of that death. “Some things
are
worth dying for—and it seems Jauffre didn’t fail after all.”

“No, he didn’t. Knowing that, can you now accept the manner of Jauffre’s passing, and let it cease to trouble you in this life?”

“Yes, I can,” Adam said with a faint smile. “In fact, dealing with Jauffre enables me to hope that now I may be able to help Henri Gerard, who apparently was Nogaret. I have to wonder whether he had any suspicion about the Shroud’s existence, or whether he was simply obsessed with attaining the power he believed the Templars to wield—what was bound up by the Seal of Solomon and the other hallows.”

“The latter, I would guess,” Graham said. “What you’ve told me suggests that Nogaret had little awareness of the power generated by that pure faith espoused by most of the Knights of the Temple. But you must be the judge of that. It was you who saw the relic of the Shroud—not I.”

“True enough,” Adam agreed. “And now that I understand my own part in that time, I think I begin to see an approach that might help Gerard resolve his unfinished business with Nogaret. That’s assuming, of course, that I can get him to resume touch with reality. I’ll have to get him assigned to my public caseload first.”

“Will that be difficult, without arousing suspicion?”

“No. There’s nothing to connect me with what happened to him. He brought his fate on himself. Still, a physician doesn’t abandon a sick patient—especially if one was witness to what drove him over the edge.”

“You saved his life,” Graham said, “and quite possibly his soul. Do you think you can restore his sanity as well?”

Adam shrugged. “I’ll do my best. I don’t entertain much hope for any speedy resolution—perhaps not even entirely in this lifetime—but with luck, and perhaps some eventual healing from the Grail, maybe he can at least start the next time ’round with a clean slate.”

Graham chuckled and retrieved the Templar cross from where it had fallen amid the bedclothes, laying it back into its box.

“I wonder if you realize,” he said, switching off the tape recorder, “how refreshing it is to talk to a professional like yourself who accepts all of this as a given.”

As he popped out the little cassette and handed it to Adam, Adam grinned, then pointedly rose to tuck the cassette into a pocket of his suit coat, draped across the back of a nearby chair.

“Careful where you say that,” he replied lightly, “or you might get me stricken off the medical register. There aren’t many psychiatrists who believe in reincarnation—at least not publicly.”

“Do
you?”

“Not publicly,” Adam replied with a smile, as Graham rose. “But in private, at least after sessions like tonight, I would have to give you an unqualified yes. I sometimes become less certain once the immediacy fades, but even then it seems useful to act as if it were true. And you?”

As Adam slipped back into his shoes, Graham smiled wistfully, briefly glancing away as he fingered a silver chain at the open collar of his shirt.

“Oh, yes,” he said softly, drawing up what dangled from the chain, though Adam could not see what it was. “I believe in reincarnation. Perhaps one day I’ll tell you about the man who gave me this.” His hand closed briefly around whatever was on the chain before dropping it back inside his shirt.

“But enough of this. I think we both could use some supper. Shall we see what Linton’s left us? And you must tell me how Philippa fares.”

INTERLUDE FOUR

Thanks to Jauffre de Saint Clair, we have touched on several of the specific charges alleged against the Templars. Some had made appearances in allegations of heresy and witchcraft for years, and would continue to do so for centuries to come. It may be useful, at this point, to examine the charges in slightly more detail, along with possible explanations for certain kinds of charges. Though many of the charges are contradictory, the Templars were expected to admit:

• That at their reception into the Order, postulants were required to deny God, Christ, the Apostles, and/or the Virgin Mary, by word and/or by spitting or trampling or urinating on the Cross. (This charge makes little sense, given that the knights routinely laid down their lives for the God they supposedly denied. Some who confessed to this charge qualified their answers, saying that they denied only on their lips, not in their hearts, or that they spat—or trampled, or urinated—
  beside
  the Cross. Some claimed that the denial was meant to symbolize Saint Peter’s denial of Christ, with the intention that the knight would not emulate Peter if captured by Saracens—and, in fact, many knights perished at the hands of Saracen executioners rather than deny their faith. Others justified the admission by claiming the denial was a test of the unquestioning obedience required of all Templars.)
  
• That postulants were then required to bestow the Osculum Infame, the “kiss of shame,” on their receptor, by kissing him on the mouth, navel, penis, or buttocks. (Sometimes the roles are reversed, with the postulant receiving the kisses. Such charges were common enough in allegations of devil worship, but no evidence of such behavior by the Templars was ever brought forward.)
  
• That the Order not only permitted but encouraged homosexual practices among its members. (Only two brethren confessed to availing themselves of this alleged instruction—somewhat remarkable in an all-male enclave, where such behavior might have been not unexpected.)
  
• That they worshiped idols in their secret ceremonies. (No evidence of this was ever produced.)
  
• That a cord “blessed” by contact with an idol was issued to new postulants at their reception, to be worn always next to the shirt or the flesh as a sign of chastity. (Though several men admitted to this, or said they had heard of it, no cord was ever produced. The charge harks back to one made against the Cathars, who wore a cord—unconnected with idols—as a sign of their chastity. This charge also totally ignores the fact that most Christian religious orders regarded the cincture or girdle as a symbol of chastity—including the Templars’ Dominican inquisitors.)
  
• That the Order’s priests did not consecrate the Host; and, related, that the Host was spat into a latrine; (If the Host was not consecrated, then spitting it into a latrine would not have been an offense. There is no evidence that either was done.)
  
• That the Order permitted lay absolution. (The officer presiding at a chapter meeting had the authority to absolve brethren from infractions of the rule,
  to the extent to which he was empowered,
  but absolution from actual sin was reserved to a priest.)
  
• That the business of the Order was conducted in secret. (Of course. This was common practice in all religious Orders, as regards their internal workings; and since the Templars often were concerned with security regarding their military operations, secrecy was especially appropriate in these instances.)