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ABBEY DES FONTAINES

11:30 AM

THE SENESCHAL SAT IN HIS CHAMBERS HE’D SLEPT LITTLE LAST night as he pondered his dileuarded his door and no one was allowed inside except to bring hied--albeit, at least for now, in a comfortable prison His quarters were not the size of the master’s or the marshal’s, but they were private, with a bath and aLittle danger existed that he’d clih the , the drop beyond the sill was several hundred feet down a sheer ray rock

But his fortunes were sure to change today, as de Roquefort was not going to allow him to roam the abbey at will He’d probably be held in one of the underground rooe, the perfect spot to keep an eneuess

He’d co way since his induction

Rule was clear If any man wished to leave the mass of perdition and abandon that secular life and choose communal life, do not consent to receive him immediately, for thus said Saint Paul: Test the soul to see if it coranted, let the Rule be read to him, and if he wishes to obey the commandments of the Rule, let the brothers receive him, let him reveal his wish and desire before all of the brothers and let him make his request with a pure heart

All of that had happened and he’d been received He’d willingly taken the oath and gladly served Noas a prisoner Accused of false charges leveled by an ambitious politico Not unlike his ancient brethren, who’d fallen victiht the label odd In truth, the Fair had nothing to do with thewas a cold, secretive man anted to rule the Catholic Church Instead, it referred to his light hair and blue eyes One thing on the outside, soether different on the inside--a lot like hiht

He stood fro helped him think On the desk lay the two books he’d taken froo He realized that the next few hours es Surely, once they turned up , theft of Order property would be added to the list of charges Its punishment--banishment--would actually be welco to allow him off that easily

He reached for the codex from the fifteenth century, a treasure any es were scripted in the curvy lettering he knew as rotunda, common for the time, used in learnedlines of text filling every page froe A scribe had labored weeks producing it, holed up in the abbey’s scriptoriu each letter onto parch and droplets of wax dotted ood shape One of the Order’s great e, and he’d been lucky to stumble across this reservoir amid the thousands of volumes the library contained

You must finish the quest It is your destiny Whether you realize that or not That’s what the master had told Geoffrey But he’d also said, Those who have followed the path you are about to take have been many, and never has anyone succeeded

But did they knohat he knew? Surely not

He reached for the other volume Its text was also handwritten But not by scribes Instead, the words had been penned in November 1897 by the Order’s then marshal, a man who’d been in direct contact with Abbe Jean-Antoine-Maurice Gelis, the parish priest for the village of Coustausa, which also lay in the Aude River Valley, not far from Rennes-le-Chateau Theirs had been a fortuitous encounter, for the marshal had learned vital inforh the report

A few passages caught his attention, words he’d first read with interest three years ago He stood and stepped to the ith the book

I was distressed to learn that the abbe Gelis was murdered on All Saints’ Day He was found fully dressed, wearing his clerical hat, lying in his own blood upon his kitchen floor His watch had stopped at 12:15 AM, but the ti as the bishop’s representative, I spoke with villagers and the local constable Gelis was a nervous sort, known to keep s closed and shutters drawn, even in suers, and since there was no sign of forced intrusion, officials concluded that the abbe had known his attacker

Gelis died at age seventy-one He was beaten over the head with fire tongs then hacked with an ax Blood was copious, splatters on the floor and ceiling were found, but not one footprint lay a the various pools This baffled the constable The body was intentionally laid out on its back, arms crossed on the chest, in the coold and notes, along with another one hundred and six francs, were found in the house Robbery was clearly not the motive The only itearette papers Penned on one was "Viva Angelina" This was significant since Gelis was not a sarettes

In my opinion, the true motive for the crime was found in the priest’s bedroom There, the assailant had pried open a briefcase Papers re had been removed Drops of blood were found in and around the briefcase The constable concluded that theand I may knohat that could be

Teeks prior to his murder, I met with Abbe Gelis A month before that, Gelis had communicated with the bishop in Carcassonne I appeared at Gelis’s ho as the bishop’s representative, and we discussed at length what troubled him He eventually requested that I hear his confession Since in truth I am not a priest, and therefore not bound by any oath of the confessional, I can report as told me

Solass vial in his church The railing for the choir had required replacing and, when the as re place was found that contained a wax-sealed vial holding a single sliver of paper, upon which was the following:

This cryptogra the last century He told me that six years earlier the abbe Sauniere, froram in his church, too When compared, they were identical Sauniere believed that both vials had been left by the abbe Bigou, who served at Rennes-le-Chateau during the French Revolution In Bigou’s time, the church in Coustausa was also served by the priest froou would have been a frequent visitor to Gelis’s present parish Sauniere also thought there was a connection between the cryptograms and the tomb of Marie d’Hautpoul de Blanchefort, who died in 1781 Abbe Bigou had been her confessor and co an assortment of unique words and symbols inscribed thereon Unfortunately, Sauniere had not been able to decipher anything, but after a year of work Gelis solved the cryptogram He toldhis fellow abbe’s ue the solution he had determined

Abbe Gelis wanted the bishop to know the co that act by telling me

Unfortunately, the ht the information too important to write down, or ely, the Chronicles reported that the marshal himself disappeared a year later, in 1898 He left one day on abbey business and never returned A search yielded nothing But thank the Lord he recorded the cryptogra the brothers’ noontiather in the chapel for Psals, hymns, and prayers until one PM He decided to have his own time of meditation, but was interrupted by a soft rap at the door He turned as Geoffrey stepped inside, carrying a tray of food and drink

"I volunteered to deliver this," the younger ry" Geoffrey’s tone was strangely buoyant

The door re outside

"I brought the outside