by James Becker
‘It’s now just before ten in the morning,’ he said, ‘so that means in Paris it’ll be four o’clock in the morning.’
‘Wrong,’ Angela replied. ‘Luckily for us, this planet always spins in the same direction, and that means that wherever you are in the world, places to the east of you are always earlier, ahead of you in time, I mean, and places to the west are always behind you. So right now in Paris it’s four o’clock in the afternoon.’
‘Got it, I think.’
‘That’s good, because we need to get moving.’
* * *
One of the less obvious advantages of working for any part of the higher echelons of the Catholic Church, and especially for a department of the Vatican itself, was that the very mention of Rome could open doors that would otherwise remain firmly closed. So after Cardinal Caravaggio had issued his new orders to Marco Ferrara and Luca Rossi, he had also approached a middle-ranking Catholic official in Massachusetts.
Christianity is by far the biggest single religion followed by American citizens, and can be found in two different flavours. Roughly half of all Americans espouse the Protestant faith, while about a quarter of the population – just over seventy million people – are Catholics. So in fact Caravaggio had been somewhat spoilt for choice, despite the rather unusual request he was making. He needed somebody with contacts in a sector of society with which a man of the cloth would not normally be familiar. A man who would know and be able to recruit the kind of people for whom the law was more of a challenge than a code of practice. The kind of people, in short, who would undertake the task Caravaggio had in mind without asking too many awkward questions, and who would also be prepared to carry out one very specific action should the circumstances demand it.
And that was why two men sitting at a table on the far side of the hotel dining room finished their coffee almost simultaneously and stood up a few seconds after Bronson and Lewis had left the room. They had had no trouble identifying their targets, thanks to a photograph of the Lewis woman, and had known exactly where to look for her because of information culled from the bank that had issued Bronson’s credit card, information that had made its electronic way through the American banking system and then on to London, Paris and Rome before ending up on Caravaggio’s desk at the Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei in the Palace of the Holy Office just outside the walls of the Vatican. That data had then made the return journey by email across the Atlantic to the cardinal’s contact in Massachusetts.
Wherever the English couple went, Caravaggio’s thinly disguised orders would ensure that he would be informed about their movements and actions within minutes. And that meant he would be able to resolve the situation if Lewis stumbled upon the location of the Ark before Ferrara and Rossi managed to get there.
* * *
The car Bronson ended up with was a Buick Encore, described by the attractive young woman at the car hire desk in the airport – they chose the company not because of its name or reputation but simply because it had the shortest queue – as a ‘great subcompact SUV’, whatever that was supposed to mean. In fact, it was nothing like as bad as he had feared, not being a fan of American cars, and felt and handled more like a normal European saloon car than any American vehicle he’d driven before.
‘That’s probably,’ Angela pointed out after doing a brief bit of research on her smartphone, ‘because it’s not built by Americans. The badge might say Buick, but this was put together by a bunch of South Koreans, and these days they build good cars over there, even if they do put the steering wheel on the wrong side.’
Bronson had programmed the Encore’s built-in satnav to take them the fairly short distance, about fifteen miles, north-west to Westford.
‘You’ve been a bit quiet about where we’re actually going,’ he said, ‘apart from Westford, I mean. I presume that’s where we’ll be starting the search? And I suppose this is just as important, but what proof have you got – apart from the parchment, obviously – that the Templars were ever in Massachusetts or this part of America?’
Angela nodded. ‘Good question. Let me tell you about one rock-solid clue that we won’t be able to see.’
‘That sounds helpful. Or do I mean unhelpful?’
‘Just listen and then you can decide. In April 2010, Rhode Island was hit by a particularly violent storm. Once it had passed, a local resident down in Newport on the south coast was strolling along the beach at low tide not far from a place called Fort Adams when she discovered a large boulder on a pebbly beach. There’s some doubt about whether what she found was just a large rock or if was a part of the island’s bedrock. But there was no doubting the inscription that she read along one side of the stone. There are clear pictures of this on the Internet, and although the carving is a bit faded and damaged because of the action of the waves, the words are perfectly readable. It’s in Latin, which is interesting in itself. But what’s more interesting is the inscription, IN HOC SIGNO VINCIS, which takes us all the way back to the church at Rennes-le-Château and the Templars.’
‘Absolutely,’ Bronson said. ‘That’s the inscription at the very top of the portico, above the statue of Mary Magdalene. It was one of the mottos of the Knights Templar.’
‘And you told me,’ Angela reminded him, ‘that it was also the motto of Portugal.’
Bronson nodded and glanced at her before returning his gaze to the road. ‘Exactly. So who carved it? Was it the Templars, or some Portuguese explorer on a voyage that never made it into the history books?’
‘Good question. On the other side of the stone there are more markings. One of those reportedly looks like a cross pattée, but that doesn’t help because the Portuguese ships often used that symbol on their sails. But as far as we know, most of the Portuguese voyages went south and then east around Africa, heading for the East Indies, or west across the middle of the Atlantic after Columbus’s expeditions. And because of what George found in Paris, we do know that a group of Templars travelled to this part of America. My guess – and that’s really all it is, just a guess – is that this stone is part of the bedrock and that the inscription was carved by the Templars when they got here, perhaps as a kind of thanks that they had survived the voyage from Scotland.’
‘And we can’t see it?’
‘No, because the action of the waves has reburied it, though its location is known. And realistically, even if we did go to the beach and dig away the sand and pebbles, we wouldn’t find out any more than I’ve told you.’
‘Okay, so scratch that. It’s interesting and it sounds fairly conclusive, because it does demonstrate that there must’ve been either a Templar or a Portuguese presence in this area in the medieval period. Assuming that it’s genuine, of course.’
‘Actually,’ Angela said, ‘there are quite a lot of ancient relics that have been found on this side of the Atlantic, everything from what look like megalithic tombs to inscribed stones covered in runic symbols, but America has a large fraternity of archaeologists whose main purpose in life appears to be debunking any piece of evidence that doesn’t fit with the accepted timeline and history of the continent. It’s funny how every megalithic tomb seems to be identified by them as a root cellar built by some unknown colonist, and every runic inscription as an obvious hoax. Basically, they’ve already decided that at some point in prehistory the Native Americans arrived and the next important thing that happened was the arrival of Columbus, which of course we know for certain never took place. Anything that doesn’t fit into that history they simply dismiss as fake without, of course, bothering to actually investigate it. Because they know they’re right they don’t have to even look at anything that contradicts their cosy version of the history of America.’
‘An attitude that’s unfortunately incredibly common among members of the scientific community everywhere,’ Bronson said. ‘Mention almost any fringe subject to most scientists – UFOs, Bigfoot, paranormal phenomena, anything like that – and they dismiss it out of hand without so much a
s a second thought or even looking at the evidence. And in fact there’s compelling evidence to support most of those subjects. I think the majority of scientists – present company excepted, of course – have their minds hermetically sealed as part of whatever course they study at university. Okay, the inscribed stone is obviously out, so what’s next?’
‘The parchment doesn’t say anything explicit, which I suppose is not surprising. It just gives hints that would have meant more to a Templar in the fourteenth century than they do to us in the twenty-first.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, one oddity is the Latin phrase quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius, which more or less translates as “as it is above so it is below”. It comes from a hermetic or alchemical text written on a thing called the Emerald Tablet, or the Tabula Smaragdina, which is supposed to date from a couple of thousand years ago, though the earliest known source for the expression is a book in Arabic that dates to between the sixth and eighth centuries.’
‘Didn’t the ancient Egyptians use an expression similar to that?’
‘They did. I think it’s to do with the afterlife of the pharaohs, how they were supposed to ascend to the Milky Way and travel along it in the same way that their boats travelled along the Nile. Something like that. I think it’s a very old expression, probably dating back to prehistoric times, when early man saw things in the heavens and tried to associate them with things happening on earth just to try to make sense of the world. But in this particular context I think it may be more specific than that because of the phrase that follows it: in insula et in monte, meaning “on the island and on the hill”. To me, that could suggest some structure or other on high ground, on a hill, that mirrors or is similar to a structure on an island. So maybe we should be looking for another vault that’s the same sort of design as the one on Oak Island.’
‘I hope you’re wrong about that,’ Bronson said, ‘because that could mean we never get into it. Look, we’re coming into Westford now. Where do you want me to go?’
‘We need to find Depot Street. Just follow the satnav.’
Depot Street turned out to be quite a busy road with no obvious places to stop apart from the driveways of one of the large and elegant houses that lined it, which Bronson didn’t think would go down terribly well. So he turned into a much quieter side street called Beaver Dam Drive and left the car on the road well clear of the junction.
‘And this,’ Angela said a few minutes later, pointing at a flat slab surrounded by concrete posts linked by a chain, ‘is the memorial to the Westford Knight. Allegedly,’ she added.
A noticeboard on the left-hand side provided information, and behind the chain and concrete posts was a vertical stone marker, somewhat like a gravestone, making a bold and unequivocal claim. Bronson read it out loud. ‘“Prince Henry First Sinclair of Orkney born in Scotland made a voyage of discovery to North America in 1398. After wintering in Nova Scotia he sailed to Massachusetts and on an inland expedition in 1399 to Prospect Hill to view the surrounding countryside, one of the party died. The punch hole armorial effigy which adorns this ledge is a memorial to this knight.”’
Within the chained-off area was a flat stone slab on which lay a bronze-coloured effigy of a medieval knight in full armour, which very clearly had been put there a lot more recently than 1399. And on the left of that was an expanse of flat black stone, apparently a part of the bedrock of the island, on which faint markings could just about be discerned. The rock was protected by a sheet of glass mounted in a metal frame.
‘Whoever had that stone carved didn’t mince their words,’ Bronson said. ‘I presume this wasn’t erected by a national museum or group of mainstream historians?’
‘To be honest, I have no idea who erected it, when or why, but it is interesting. The punch-hole markings on that flat slab are supposed to depict a medieval knight with his sword on top of his body and with the blade broken to show that he was dead. On his left side is a shield that supposedly displays the coat of arms of the Gunn family.’
Bronson peered closely at the slab in front of him ‘I can’t make out anything on it,’ he said.
‘Nor can anybody else, and that’s one of the problems. There’s some suspicion that the markings may occasionally have been improved, shall we say, by locals trying to keep the story alive, at least before that sheet of protective glass was installed. The counter-argument is that the only way the markings can be properly seen and studied is by doing a cloth rubbing, the same way you’d do a brass rubbing in an English church, and that has been done.
‘If the device on the shield has been correctly identified as that of the Gunn family, the most likely individual this could relate to is Sir John Gunn, a kinsman of Prince Sinclair. He was born in 1320, which fits with the dates of the Sinclair expedition, and the date and place of his death are unknown, which also fits, though in a negative manner. If he died out here in Massachusetts in 1399, his family back in Scotland might never have known how, when or where he died and the family or clan records would never have been updated.’
‘Okay,’ Bronson said. ‘I presume this doesn’t get a name-check on the parchment?’
‘No, but it’s interesting and possibly relevant. Now, we’ve got one more stop to make in this area and then we can head down to Newport.’
They could almost have walked to their next destination, but Bronson wasn’t happy leaving the car on the street, so he followed Angela’s directions, turning right out of Beaver Dam Drive, down Depot Street past the Westford Knight and then right onto Main Street.
‘It’s that yellowish building on the right,’ Angela said. ‘The J. V. Fletcher Library. There should be a car park at the rear of the building.’
Inside, behind the staircase on the ground floor, they found the second probable Templar artefact.
‘This is known as the Boat Stone or Ship Stone, and you can easily see why.’
Bronson looked down at the clear carving of what was very obviously a medieval ship on the side of the stone and nodded.
‘There’s no mistake about that,’ he agreed. ‘What’s the history of it?’
‘The rock was found when some roadworks were being done in this area in 1930. It was dug out of the ground under the road, and that fact alone means that we’re not looking at a modern fake concocted by somebody trying to promote the idea of the Sinclair expedition. Nobody would go to the trouble of doing this carving, then digging up a road to bury it below the hardcore and repairing the road just on the off-chance that a bunch of workmen would dig it up again a few years later.
‘It’s also worth pointing out that the rock and the carving have been analysed using a geological weathering technique, which came up with an age of about six hundred years for the carving. So that also eliminates any possibility that it’s a fake. The carving was made using the same hammer-and-punch technique that was believed to have been used on the Westford Knight carving.’
‘What sort of a ship is it?’
‘Some people claim it’s a knorr or knarr, a Viking cargo vessel, clinker-built and powered by a square sail – you can see the sail very clearly in the carving. They were about fifty feet long, could carry around twenty-five tons and are known to have routinely crossed the Atlantic to supply Viking bases in Newfoundland and elsewhere. But bearing in mind the date of the Sinclair expedition, I think it’s more likely to be a cog. These were also clinker-built with a square sail, and by the thirteenth century they’d pretty much supplanted the knarr in northern waters because they could carry more cargo and had high sides and a flat bottom, both of which are clearly shown in this carving.’
‘What does the arrow mean?’ Bronson said, pointing at the stone. ‘And is that a number there?’
‘No one knows for sure,’ Angela replied. ‘One suggestion is that the arrow might have pointed towards whatever structure the Templars had erected to live in, and the number – it’s 184 – could have been the distance to reach it, in paces or strides or
some other unit of measurement.’
‘They’re Arabic numerals, though,’ Bronson pointed out. ‘If this stone is that old, shouldn’t they be Roman numerals?’
‘Strictly speaking, they’re Indian numerals, though they were known as Arabic because they were used by Arab traders in Europe from the tenth century. They were in common use in Britain and Europe by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, so that does fit. Once the printing press had been invented in the mid fifteenth century, Roman numerals were abandoned except for some specialised uses like clock faces, because the Arabic numerals were so much easier to read, and a lot shorter as well. It’s easier to write and read 789, for example, than DCCLXXXIX, which you need to interpret. In this case, 184 would be CLXXXIV, still a cumbersome seven characters instead of only three.’
‘Okay. So where did the arrow point?’ Bronson asked.
‘The original location of the stone was known because of the roadworks, but nobody bothered to take a note of its orientation before they moved it. But no traces of any Templar building have been found in this area, so the orientation wouldn’t have helped in any case.’
Before they left, they looked at other items in the Westford Knight display, including a photograph of the cloth rubbing of the stone, which clearly showed the sword with the broken blade, the shadowy figure of a knight, and a shield, though Bronson couldn’t make out any details of the heraldic device on it. Some of the older pictures of the stone, taken in the 1940s, showed the features of the carving in much more detail.
‘Okay, so now where do we go?’ he asked, starting the car.
‘Straight down to Newport,’ Angela said, reprogramming the satnav with a new destination, ‘because there we’ll find a building that very probably does date from the time of the Templars, no matter what American historians choose to believe.’