‘Is this a castle?’
‘It was buried in a landslide two hundred years ago. Even then, it was already derelict; afterwards, people forgot it completely. But credit to the builders, they built to last.’
Ellie nodded, though she wasn’t looking at the architecture, or the fragments of plaster murals still clinging to the walls. She was staring at the far end of the room. A black spear hung in mid air, floating weightless above a stone table.
‘Is that … the lance?’ Her voice trailed off. She felt giddy, as if she were suspended in space. The world seemed to have been pulled inside out, a mirror-realm of strange enchantments.
An unreadable look crossed Leon’s face. ‘Chrétien used poetic licence. The blood that flows from the tip — I don’t know where he got that from.’
Captivated, Ellie reached to touch the lance. Leon’s sharp voice drew her back.
‘Don’t touch!’
Ellie stepped away and gazed around the empty hall. ‘I thought there’d be more of you.’
‘We haven’t used this place in years. It was only after we heard about what happened at Mirabeau that we guessed you might make your way here. We’ve been scouring half of Europe for you.
‘I’m glad you found me,’ she said. She wasn’t sure she meant it. Leon’s manner unnerved her, so breezy and offhand. He didn’t seem to have any idea what she’d been through. And there were too many things that didn’t make sense. She felt like the victim of some monstrous hoax, that if she shone a bright light on this castle she might find it was all made of cardboard. She looked at the floating lance again. Now that her eyes were used to the gloom, she thought she could make out thin wires holding it in the darkness.
‘What about the poem? The pattern in the chapel?’
‘The poem’s a feint — a ploy. When Chrétien published Le Conte du Graal, we needed something to distract Saint-Lazare’s people while we worked out what it all meant. It was only a stopgap — we never imagined that it would obsess him so long. Or, eight centuries later, that you’d be using it to try and find us.’
He offered her an admiring look. ‘You’re the first person ever to solve that particular riddle.’
I didn’t do it alone. She wished Doug was there. She could feel his absence, a pain in her chest.
He’s safer out of this.
Leon looked at her backpack. ‘What about the other thing? Did you bring it?’
Ever since she’d crawled out of the Monsalvat vault with the box in her hands she’d been desperate to get rid of it. Every minute since, she’d felt the burden of it dragging her down. Yet now, she was surprised to feel a pang of loss as she unzipped the bag and handed over the ebony-black box. The red symbols glowed into life as Leon’s hand touched the surface.
‘Can you open it?’ she asked. Suddenly she was bursting to know what was inside.
Leon shrugged. ‘We’ve been waiting almost nine centuries to get it back. We can afford to be patient.’
She tried not to let her disappointment show. ‘What’s inside — is it …?’ Even now, she struggled to say it out loud. ‘… the Holy Grail?’
‘It isn’t holy — not in the Christian sense — and it isn’t a grail. But it’s what Chrétien was writing about.’
‘Was Chrétien de Troyes part of your brotherhood?’
A dark look, impossible to read. ‘He was like you. He was never one of us, but he got … mixed up. I don’t know if he ever saw the Grail, or just glimpsed it, but it obsessed him for the rest of his life.’
A flash of insight. ‘That’s why the poems don’t finish. That’s why his symbols have driven readers crazy for centuries. He didn’t know himself what the Grail was.’
‘He invented it,’ said Leon. ‘And ever since, it’s been like a game of Chinese whispers down the generations. From a serving dish to a cup, a cup to a stone — tarot cards, esoteric wisdom, everlasting life …’
He carried the box to the head of the room. Ellie expected him to put it on the stone table, but instead he stepped around and laid the box in the fireplace. The hovering spear swayed as he went past.
Ellie shifted on her feet. She was freezing.
‘So is that just a legend too? Everlasting life and all that?’
Give me something, she thought. Anything. A reason for what I’ve done for you.
His face twitched. ‘It has certain powers.’
‘What powers? What does it do?’
‘More than you can comprehend.’ Standing behind the stone table, the spear hovering in front of his eyes, he looked like a priest at an altar. ‘There are two principles in this world: life and death, creation and destruction, whatever you want to call them. There are certain objects which govern them, like a magnet moving iron filings on the table. There aren’t instructions, no buttons to push or triggers to pull — but by God they’re real.’
Creation and destruction. ‘So the lance destroys …?’
‘Think of it like an atom bomb. A chain reaction ripping through the fabric of the world.’
‘… and the Grail …?’
‘It heals. It’s like a wave breaking over a beach. However rutted and chewed up the sand gets, the water smooths it whole again. Monsalvat want the lance because they thrive on chaos and disorder. We want the Grail so we can try to do some good in the world. For eight hundred years we’ve been stalemated. We had the lance; they had the grail. Now, thanks to you, we’ve got both back together.’
His intensity frightened her. ‘Is it magic?’
‘Have you ever seen a baby playing with a remote control? They think that’s magic — and they’re right. Magic’s just the name we give to powers we can’t understand.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Ellie murmured.
‘That’s the point. Do you know what rational means? It means you can divide things up, one into another, ratio to ratio. For three hundred years we’ve been obsessed with mechanics: taking things apart into smaller and smaller pieces to see how they work. But life isn’t a thing. If you dissect it, rationalise it, it’s gone. That’s what Chrétien got right. If you pursue the Holy Grail as a quest, as something to be owned and possessed, you’re doomed to failure like Gawain and Perceval and all those other inadequate knights. That’s why it drives us crazy — because we can’t have it.’
In his red parka, the head-torch still strapped to his forehead and his eyes glowing with righteous fervour, he looked terrifying. Suddenly, Ellie was desperate to get out.
‘Where do we go now? Harry said you could take me somewhere safe.’
‘Soon. We just —’
He stopped. From down the tunnel, they heard a rattle like a stone or a pebble being kicked along the ground.
‘Is anyone else coming?’
‘No one who likes us.’
Terror seized her. ‘No one followed me, I swear.’
‘Did Blanchard give you anything?’
She shook her head. But even as she did, a horrible thought began to gnaw at her. Her hand strayed to her jeans pocket and felt a lump, a small bulge digging into her thigh.
Her mind flashed back to the vault at Monsalvat. Blanchard, sliding the cold ring on to her finger. ‘A ring of power.’