Litany

The Book of Holy Kings (XXV)

… It was Prester John, the Priest and King of Sarras.

“Come,” he said in Old Solar.

I held on to the statue of Diana and the drawing of Apollo as he led me out into the night, through a hidden door in the rock and down a crumbling stone staircase until we came to a platform, a wooden truck on rails, and the mouth of a torchlit tunnel.

With a push we sped off, and I marvelled that such things existed in Britain, even though, theoretically, I had long known of Constantine’s tunnels and have featured them already in this book. I was astonished by the clarity and vitality of the carvings on the walls. On the left, the story of Glastonbury – the voyage of Joseph of Arimathea, the building of St. Mary’s, Mordred’s theft of the Grail, and on up to the sacrilegious slaughter of Abbot Whiting. To the right, this very book – The Book of Holy Kings – was shown in pictures, from Brutus of Troy to Henry Benedict Stuart.

The tunnel brought us to a jetty where a ship with a mast but without a sail awaited us. We stepped on board and affixed the sail with Brutus’s drawing of Apollo upon it. Prester John sat in the stern and steered the ship by oar and tiller, while I stood in the prow and held aloft the statue of Diana as we sailed beneath a gaping arch and out onto the Western Sea.

The sky was clear, still and sparkling, the waves calm and obedient as the High King guided us past Cornwall and Ireland and on towards Sarras, a realm which cannot be found on maps because, as with the Grail, it is it not valued by the contemporary mind, nor is it looked for or understood. Yet it exists, more real, true and essential, by orders of magnitude, than the papier-mâché ‘real’ world we have established to keep the sacred out. It is the capital of Being.

I saw to starboard the lights and beacons of the Blessed City, but Prester John steered due south, along the coast, until we came to a shingly beach with the outlines of hills and trees discernible beyond. So up we went, into the deep, silent heartland of that country. Between a mountain and a wood, we came upon a small, weather-beaten chapel. A bell rang sonorously from inside, clear and resonant in the night. We crossed the threshold and beheld a long wooden screen running across the church from side to side. There were saints and angels – St. George and St. Michael, for instance – painted on its surface in red and gold. A light of superlative, quite shocking brilliance spilled out through the slits where the panels joined, rejuvenating the spirit and firing up the mind.

The whole space seemed so much bigger on the inside than the outside, more like a cathedral than the tiny stone oratory I thought we’d entered. A fine, domed ceiling soared and glittered above, with a jewelled mosaic of Christ in glory, arms outstretched in blessing and a host of holy men and women gathered around.

We knelt down, bowed our heads and prayed. The bell rang on and a choir – potent, refined, intense – began to intone a litany to the saints of Britain and Ireland. The chant rose, swelled, and boomed around the dome. On and on it continued, and I will record just the last few lines:

“Saint Malachy, Pray for us. Saint Melangel, Pray for us. Saint Ninian, Pray for us. Saint Non, Pray for us. Saint Petroc, Pray for us. Saint Piran, Pray for us. Saint Samson, Pray for us. Saint Tugdual, Pray for us. Saint Winifrede, Pray for us. All ye Holy Saints of God, Intercede for us.”

Then spoke a voice of authority and power:

“Grant, O Lord, an increase of Thy Grace to us who celebrate the memory of the British and Irish Saints, that as on Earth we rejoice to be one with them in faith, so in Heaven we may share with them an inheritance of bliss. And may the prayers and presence of these Blessed Ones lighten the load and brighten the path for all the righteous rulers of these lands – past, present and to come – who fight to build the City of God on this our precious soil.”

And the choir thundered out in response:

“Amen! Amen! Amen!”

Then a door in the left of the screen opened and there came a huge, expanding brightness. I saw a man in green and gold, silver-bearded yet firm and resolute in bearing and physique, flanked by men and women of awful, searing beauty – thurifers and torch-bearers – the lamps of Heaven shining in their eyes and flames flickering at their feet. The light, I realised, was shining from whatever this mighty elder was bearing, wrapped in veils of gold and white. We fell prostrate to the floor as the procession passed us to the right. Then Prester John rose and beckoned me to follow along with him at the back.

So we did, and passed through a door on the right into the Sanctum Sanctorum. Dawn broke then and our hearts rejoiced to see the Day Star again. But there are no words now to describe what happened next. ‘Words strain, crack and sometimes break,’ says T.S. Eliot, ‘Under the tension, slip, slide, perish.’ But even if I had the words, I couldn’t use them. I wouldn’t be allowed. For like St. Paul before me I was taken up to the Third Heaven where I heard unspeakable prophecies (another litany, in fact) which are unlawful for me to utter here below.

And so ends The Book of Holy Kings. Let he who finds this book add an epilogue if he sees fit, but for myself – Charles Edmund Denniston, Grail Priest and King in the Order of Prester John and Joseph of Arimathea – there is no more to be said.

Pax Christi Sit Semper Vobiscum.