Читать книгу St Paul’s Labyrinth: The explosive new thriller perfect for fans of Dan Brown and Robert Harris! - Jeroen Windmeijer - Страница 13

Friday 20 March, 8:00pm

‘Father.’

The young man knelt with one knee on the rough stone floor and bowed his head.

The old man put his hand on the young man’s hair and let it rest there.

‘Get up now,’ he said.

The young man stood up, but kept his head bowed, his eyes fixed on the floor.

‘May I ask you something?’

‘You may.’

The young man paused. ‘Are we doing the right thing?’

‘Look at me.’ The man looked at him earnestly, like a parent trying to discern whether their child is challenging him or sincerely wants an honest answer. He sighed. ‘Listen …’ he said, considering his words carefully. ‘I cannot expect any of you to have the insight that I have, but the hour has come, the time is now. We discussed it in our meeting this morning … I explained it to all of you.’

‘But …’

‘Enough!’ he shouted.

This show of temper was so startling that the young man’s face and neck burned with shame.

‘I’m sorry, Father. I don’t doubt you … You know I’ve always been faithful to you.’

‘There now, all is well,’ the man said unctuously, as though he was calming a frightened dog. ‘This day was always going to come, sooner or later,’ he explained serenely. ‘It’s up to us now. We decide what will be revealed and when. I have chosen someone. You know that. I’m certain that if he shows himself to be worthy …’

‘I am sorry, Father, for doubting you.’

‘Doubt is not such a terrible thing. Even Thomas doubted … But blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. Have faith. You are forgiven.’

‘Thank you.’ The young man seemed to be reassured.

‘You know our history,’ the man said in a lecturing tone. ‘We’ve endured much worse than this in the past and we’re still here. We’ve survived because we live in truth. We serve something greater than ourselves, greater than we can comprehend. And our reward will also be great, an eternal reward … We are storing up treasures in heaven. Where they cannot be damaged by moths or rust, nor be stolen by thieves. And where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Our Lord, who sees what is done in secret, will reward us. Remember that well.’

He ended his sermon with a smile and a fatherly pat on the young man’s arm.

The young man bowed his head again, as a sign of respect. ‘It’s not that I doubted you, but—’

‘All is well, my son, all is well,’ the man reassured him again. ‘Have faith in me, as I have faith in him. We must be steadfast if we are to do his will and receive what he has promised. So, let us do this well, let us not give up, and soon, when the time comes we will reap the rewards.’

‘The hour has come.’

‘Indeed, the hour has come.’

The old man stood up. They left the small room and went into the sparsely furnished kitchen, where a door led directly to a garden.

The young man picked up a coat from a kitchen chair and put it on. ‘I’m going home. You know where I am if you need me,’ he said as he left.

The old man locked the door behind him, then poured himself a glass of water and drank it slowly. Afterwards, he went upstairs to a spartan study. It contained only a rough wooden table, a chair, a single bed and a shelf filled with books.

He sat at the table and let his mind drift back to a time twenty years ago, when he was forty years old. Forty was a good, symbolic age. Forty was a number for tests and trials: the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the desert; the forty days that Moses spent on Mount Sinai before he received the tablets with the Ten Commandments; the forty days and nights that Jesus fasted before he was visited by the devil.

Not long after he had arrived in Leiden as a priest, he had become the head of a group of young, Catholic men who made it their purpose to fight against superstition and idolatry in all their forms. Their enemies were not the Christians who had left the warm bosom of the mother church – to a certain extent, that battle had already been fought – but the psychics, the mediums, the diviners, the tarot readers. They saw it as their duty to fight against these false prophets who led people away from the only path to salvation: Christ. Only he was the Way the Truth and the Life. They used their chicanery to steer their customers, those poor sheep, straight onto the road that eventually led to hell.

The man and his group infiltrated all the paranormal and spiritual fairs that took place in and around Leiden. They went to every big event where the likes of Rasti Rostelli, charlatans in their eyes, came to demonstrate their skills. They sometimes even went to lectures where practices like meditation and yoga were shown in a positive light. They adhered to the Christian laws much more closely than their peers, and they were committed followers of the traditions of their ancestors.

They stood outside venues and handed out leaflets, trying to convince people not to go in. Occasionally there would be a confrontation with the organisers, or with one of the mediums who was performing. Even within his own church, there were many who did not understand why they had taken on this battle and believed that people should be left in peace to make their own choices. He preached sermons that warned that their struggle was not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. That they must therefore put on the armour of God so that they could resist and be prepared to stand firm.

They targeted the Theosophical Society too, the International Study Centre for Independent Search for Truth or ISIS – an acronym that spelled the name of an Egyptian fertility goddess – who held monthly lectures on subjects like reincarnation, homeopathy, and the cosmos. Soon, the ‘Knights of Christ’, as the group had been christened, were guaranteed to turn up at every lecture. Most people tolerated the young men’s presence but chose to ignore them. However, some attendees would engage them in discussion. The priest would clash violently with Ane, the ISIS chairman, who had once had the entire group removed by the police when these discussions became too heated. Two police vans had been needed to transport them to the police station on a charge of disorderly conduct. They had felt like modern-day martyrs in the back of the vans; they were suffering in Jesus’ name, after all. Eventually, the threat of a restraining order convinced them to set their fight against ISIS aside.

He welcomed the opportunity to take a break from their activities. He had been plagued by epileptic fits since his early youth and they could be especially intense whenever he allowed himself to become too agitated. His fellow knights had had to prevent him from swallowing his tongue on numerous occasions when he had fallen to the ground with his mouth foaming and his whole body shaking with violent convulsions. They had panicked at first but after a few episodes they knew what they had to do. His epilepsy had even become a way of measuring the importance of each event: if its theme stirred up so much anger and frustration in the priest that it brought on a fit, then it must be of great consequence.

But now he had found a new target.