by James Becker
‘So what were they carrying?’
‘As I said before, I don’t know. Nobody knows.’
Angela looked around the old walls of the fortress and shivered slightly.
‘You cold?’ Bronson asked.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I just had one of those moments where the age of a place gets to you. This site has been occupied for a long time. Roman currency and other stuff has been found here, so the legions probably built a fort on the mountain, and the name itself is derived from Latin. The Romans called it mons securus, meaning “the safe hill”, and that became the two words mont ségur in Occitan, and then just Montségur. No trace of what the Romans built here remains.
‘What we’re standing in is referred to as Montségur III. The first castle constructed here in recorded history was Montségur I, and all we know about it is that by the end of the twelfth century it was in ruins. It was rebuilt early in the thirteenth century by Raymond de Perella, one of the lords of Montségur, a title he shared with his cousin Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix. That was Montségur II, and by 1233 it had become the domicilium et caput – the seat and head – of the Cathar religion. And we know what happened to it, of course. At the end of the siege, the royal troops dismantled it completely, but over the next three hundred years or so, it was rebuilt into what we’re now standing in: a typical post-medieval French fortress.’
‘It is kind of creepy up here,’ Bronson said, ‘even in the bright sunlight. You could believe almost anything might happen in a place like this, and the height of the pog makes it pretty much impregnable unless you could starve out the defenders. I can see why the Cathars chose to make this place their base.’
‘Yes,’ Angela replied, ‘and it makes sense that whatever religious assets or treasures the order had accumulated would have been kept here, where they would be safe.’
Bronson looked quizzically at her. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘so we’re standing on the foundations of a Cathar castle inside the ruins of a later fortress talking about a treasure that may or may not have existed and that may or may not have been secreted here and that may or may not have been smuggled out of this place eight hundred years ago and that may or may not have been taken to an unknown destination that may or may not be in a different country and then hidden so well that nobody’s ever discovered it. If you are hoping to find it, I’d say the trail – assuming there actually is one – has probably gone quite cold.’
‘That doesn’t sound very positive,’ Angela responded, ‘except in a very negative way.’
‘Well, I assume that because of where we’re standing, what you’re looking for has something to do with the Cathars. And I know you well enough to also assume that we aren’t ambling round the Languedoc just to enjoy the occasional bowl of cassoulet and take in the impressive views. We didn’t visit this part of France and stumble on Montségur by accident. You have a reason for us being here, so why don’t you tell me what you’ve found. Let me in on the secret.’
‘It’s not really a secret,’ Angela replied, ‘more a matter of identifying the dots and then trying to join them up. So let me just ask if you know anything about some of those dots.’
Bronson looked at her expectantly as she paused for a moment. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘It’s more a kind of cluster of dots, I suppose, or rather several clusters of clusters, but let me try you with these. Do you know what links a plague of haemorrhoids, Auch Cathedral, the Knights Templar, this castle and the inheritance of Élisabeth d’Hautpoul?’
Chapter 7
Monteverde district, Rome, Italy
‘How did this happen? And more importantly, what the hell are we going to do about it?’
The other two men seated at the small circular table outside the cafe bar near the crossroads of the Viale del Quattro Venti with the Via Francesco Bolognesi didn’t respond immediately but stared at the man who had spoken, their eyes invisible behind the large-framed sunglasses they were all wearing. Strictly speaking, their eye-wear was unnecessary for their visual comfort, because the street was lined with apartment buildings and dotted with established trees that shaded them from the heat and glare of the sun. But they were wearing them because it would make their identification more difficult should anyone take an interest in them. They looked almost like clones, each having a typical Mediterranean complexion with black hair and tanned skin, and they were even dressed alike, wearing very dark and clearly expensive suits.
In the Via del Condotti or the Via dei Fori Imperiali or in a cafe in one of the numerous piazzas that characterised the centre of Rome they would have appeared quite at home, but in the grittier, more commercial and residential surroundings of Monteverde they looked out of place. The district was about a mile south of Vatican City and east of the Parco di Villa Pamphili, a crescent-shaped green space that encompassed the Lago de Belvedere, which was in truth more of a pond than a lake, despite its name.
Monteverde was not a part of Rome on any tourist itinerary, and nor was it an area that any of the men were familiar with. And that, really, was the point. This meeting, like any other meeting they would have in the future, would take place on neutral ground, in a part of Rome that none of them knew and where, more importantly, nobody would know them.
The cafe was tiny, with just two small round tables outside on the pavement, and again their choice of venue had been deliberate. If anyone had been sitting at the second table, they would have suspended their discussion and talked about mundane daily matters until that person had finished their drink and walked away. The cafe door was shut and they knew that what they said would be inaudible inside the building, and they stopped talking every time a pedestrian passed close to their table. As a final precaution, all three men were fluent in English and that was the language they were speaking, just in case anyone did manage to overhear them. Many Italians in Rome knew a few words of English, but it was not a language most of them spoke fluently.
In Rome, just as in Florence or Venice, the price of a cup of coffee depends on where you are and whether you’re sitting or standing. If you’re sitting at an outside table in a cafe with a front-line view of an important attraction, the price of an espresso can reach double figures, but if you’re prepared to stand at the bar in a back-street establishment the same drink will only cost a euro or two. It all depends on whether you’re there for the drink or the view. The three men in Monteverde weren’t there for either, but as a bonus the cappuccinos served by the cafe were good and reasonably priced.
The silence that followed the two questions was somewhat strained. The man who’d posed them was the youngest of the three and in the view of his companions inclined to be somewhat blunt. On the other hand, if the operation turned to worms, he would most likely be the one directly in the firing line, and so a little bluntness wasn’t entirely inappropriate.
The man who was clearly the most senior, or at least the eldest, of the three leaned forward and rested his elbows on the metal table, the other men unconsciously following suit.
‘You’re quite right, Marco,’ he said quietly. ‘Those are both completely valid questions, and I will try to give you definitive answers. But I think,’ he went on, glancing at each of his companions, ‘knowing what we do, we would all agree that if we don’t take action of some sort, the potential consequences for the Church would be calamitous. If what we fear actually occurred, if this object were to be recovered and that fact made public, even without the disaster that would befall Jerusalem, I can see the Vatican ceasing to exist in a matter of months and the Catholic Church having no relevance anywhere in the world in less than a decade. And you don’t need me to tell you that that would be a disaster, not just for those of us holding positions in the Mother Church, but also for more than one billion Catholics around the world who rely on our guidance, support and moral and religious authority. Without the eminence of the pope, the world would be facing a religious divide that could easily degenerate into open warfare on a scale that has not been se
en since the days of the Crusades. And the biggest difference between the medieval period and now is that the death toll would be much, much higher because of the vastly superior weapons that nations possess today. By any standards it would be a catastrophe.’
The man paused, lifted his cup to his lips and took a sip of his third cappuccino. Behind his sunglasses and wearing his suit, he looked like a successful businessman, but if he had been wearing his normal working dress, the black and scarlet robes of a senior cardinal, he would have been immediately recognisable to almost anyone in the cafe or on the street. Like many people who normally wore a uniform, Cardinal Julius Caravaggio was acutely aware that it was the clothes that people saw first, identifying the rank or status of a person before they looked at the face to identify who was inside the outfit. Despite having been one of the most high-profile figures in the hierarchy of the Vatican for over a decade, Caravaggio had never been recognised while out on the streets of Rome wearing civilian clothes.
‘To answer your questions,’ he continued, ‘you already know the nature of the object we are seeking.’ Despite speaking what was to most Italians an incomprehensible foreign language and knowing they could not be overheard, none of the men would use the real name of the relic in their conversation, just in case. ‘The Church has been looking for this relic for nearly two millennia, and as far as I can see, we are no closer to finding it now than when the search started.’
‘From what I know of this matter,’ Marco Ferrara said, ‘it seems quite possible that the object may have been destroyed centuries before the Church began looking for it. In fact, before our religion even existed.’
Caravaggio nodded. ‘You may well be right, but this is too important for us to take the risk.’
‘So what changed? Why the sudden urgency?’
The cardinal glanced round as he considered his reply, and what he said wasn’t what Ferrara had been expecting.
‘Let me just say that the secrets of the confessional are not always as secret as most people would like to believe. In exceptional circumstances a Catholic priest may learn something so important and significant to the Church that he feels obliged to both record it and report it.’
Caravaggio noted the expression on Ferrara’s face. ‘Trust me, this is relevant,’ he said. ‘One such event occurred in a small French village in 1870, though it was a further two decades before the report reached the Vatican. That was because the priest decided to retain the information he had been given until the confessor had died. That was probably a mistake, certainly from our point of view, but at the same time a difficult decision to challenge. And, of course, we knew nothing about it until it was too late to question the confessor. It was not the first indication we had received, but it was an important pointer to where the search for the object could begin.’
That was news to Ferrara, and it showed.
‘So why didn’t the Church investigate it back then? Wouldn’t that have made more sense?’
‘We did try, but all we had to go on was the report from the priest, which was lacking in detail, and a suggested location of the records the man had been referring to. Those records, we understood, related to the location of the relic. And we discovered almost immediately that they were locked away and inaccessible to us. In the circumstances, the Church decided not to pursue the matter. To have done so would have created speculation about our motives, and that was the last thing we wanted.’
‘The English have an expression about sleeping dogs,’ the other man at the table said. He was calling himself Francesco, but that was not his given name.
‘Exactly,’ Caravaggio agreed.
‘So what has happened now to alarm the higher echelons of the Church?’ Ferrara asked, almost repeating his earlier question. ‘Obviously something has changed.’
‘Something has definitely changed. The Church has identified a variety of relics, papers and the like around the world that could, in the wrong hands, cause damage, in some cases even irreparable harm, to us and the religion we serve. In most cases, these potentially dangerous relics are held in religious institutions, museums and galleries and cause us little concern. But others lie completely outside our control, and those we watch as best we can. The papers I’m referring to are one of these uncontrolled threats, for want of a better expression.
‘For well over two hundred years they had remained securely locked away in a notary’s office in a small town in southern France, out of our reach but also out of the reach of everybody else. About two weeks ago, we discovered that the notary had retired and the office had been shut down. Our informant had no idea whether the relevant documents, which would have had no obvious significance today, were still held in the office or had been disposed of.’ Caravaggio paused, his irritation clearly showing. ‘Our informant had no way of investigating the matter further,’ he went on, ‘so we decided to send in a team. You know Luca Rossi, I believe?’
Ferrara nodded. ‘I know him,’ he agreed. ‘He’s undeniably efficient. I presume he recovered what you were seeking?’
‘Not exactly, or not completely, and it was a bit messy. Because he didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, or rather exactly where he should be looking for it, Rossi decided to wait until one of the notary’s clerks was in the building. And since this mission was much too important to be compromised in any way, it was necessary for him to sanitise the scene.’
The cardinal’s circumlocution was transparent, and Ferrara made the obvious deduction.
‘You mean he killed the clerk?’
Caravaggio looked faintly shocked, but Ferrara guessed this was more likely to be because of his plain speaking than because of the act that had been carried out in the cardinal’s name by the Italian enforcer.
‘He really had no other option. Anyway, he discovered that the relevant papers hadn’t been shredded or burnt, which was good news, but instead boxed up and sent to Paris by courier. He quickly established their destination in the city, but trying to gain access to them – they had been sent to a library at the Sorbonne – took longer. When he managed to get inside the building, posing as an Italian professor’ – Ferrara had difficulty suppressing a smile at that, because he found it impossible to envisage Luca Rossi passing as an academic in any circumstances – ‘what he found wasn’t good news, and there was worse to follow. He couldn’t steal or destroy the papers because of the security systems, and in any case they had already been scanned and copied onto the library’s computer system. That was bad enough, but he also discovered that copies of the documents had been sent from Paris to London and had been given to somebody we have had dealings with in the past.’
Caravaggio looked keenly at Ferrara. ‘Tell me, have you ever had contact with a person we usually refer to as David?’
Chapter 8
Languedoc, France
‘You won’t be entirely surprised to hear,’ Bronson replied as they walked outside the walls of the castle to begin the descent back to the road, ‘that I have no idea what you’re talking about. I obviously know who the Knights Templar were. We’ve had dealings with them before, or rather with what they left behind, and we both know about their legacy and the heresy they embraced. I know exactly what a haemorrhoid is, though not, I’m pleased to say, from personal experience. But what links all that lot is a mystery to me. I’m sure you’ll be happy to enlighten me.’
Angela nodded. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, ‘but this is very much a work in progress, and there are gaps that need filling in.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘My work at the British Museum mainly involves ceramics, as you know, but I’ve got interests in other fields, so occasionally some object from a completely different discipline is sent to me.’
‘You mean somebody gave you something you couldn’t resist investigating?’ Bronson asked. ‘Is that it?’
‘More or less, yes. In this case it was a collection of old French legal documents. We work closely with the Sorbonne in Pa
ris, and in particular with what’s known as the Maison de la Recherche. That’s the part of the Sorbonne that studies history and geography and includes the Serpente Library. The library received a job lot of documents, none of which seemed particularly interesting or of historical importance, but one of my colleagues working at the Sorbonne spotted a few old French family names and a couple of locations in this part of the country – Montségur itself, and Rennes-le-Château – and sent me copies of the relevant documents. He thought I might like to see them because of our previous exploits and my interest in the Templars. And at one time the Templars were very big in this part of France.’
‘You mentioned family names. What were they?’
‘They probably won’t mean anything to you. The two he mentioned were Aniort and Blanchefort.’
‘You’re half right,’ Bronson said. ‘I’ve never heard the name Aniort before, but a man named Bertrand de Blanchefort became the Grand Master of the Templars in the middle of the twelfth century, and he spent some time in this part of France.’
‘Right. Now, the documents I was sent date from long after the time of the Templars and the Cathars. The earliest one was a kind of compendium that listed properties and assets alongside a somewhat rambling history of two local noble families, the Voisins and the Hautpouls. Neither was a name I knew, and both had links to the Aniorts, another family I’d never heard of. One obvious anomaly was a statement dated 1870 by a local notary explaining why he wouldn’t surrender the Hautpoul family deeds that his firm had held ever since the eighteenth century, when Élisabeth d’Hautpoul had delivered them, despite the fact that the man making the request for the papers was the then head of the family, Pierre d’Hautpoul.’
‘Good heavens. A lawyer not doing what his client wants him to do? How unusual is that?’ Bronson asked, a grin on his face. ‘I mean, whatever next? What was his excuse?’