by C. M. Palov
When the pricey fertility treatments at the Swedish clinic failed to bring about the desired result, the barren couple returned to their native England. Whereupon they opted for the next best thing—adopting a blond-haired, blue-eyed four-year-old orphan named Marnie. A ready-made daughter. Old enough that Lynda didn’t have to bother with soiled nappies but young enough to still mold in their own image.
Or so they thought.
Imagine their surprise, and keen disappointment, when little Marnie turned out to be an introverted child, afraid of the dark, prone to screaming fits, and only able to speak in monosyllabic, barely intelligible phrases. Hardly the sort of child to make one beam. Well, Lynda, darling, what did you expect? The child was named after a character in a Hitchcock film. Fortunately for the Pritchards, they proved the fertility doctors wrong, Lynda giving birth to a scrunch-faced baby girl two years after the lamentable adoption. Soon thereafter the Pritchards began referring to Marnie as their adopted daughter, presumably to distinguish her from their biological pride and joy, the aptly named Felicity.
Relegated to second best, Marnie withdrew even more. Until she met her next-door neighbor Rubin Woolf. Five years older, he had funny hair that stuck straight up from his scalp at odd angles and wore thick Coke-bottle glasses that magnified his brown eyes, making him appear as though he were in a perpetual state of wide-eyed wonder. Like her, Rubin had a less-than-perfect family life. Without the buffers of adulthood to contend with, they immediately recognized each other for what they were, kindred spirits. Rubin, who had a precocious love of books, taught her to read. Soon they were performing Shakespeare plays in the back garden, complete with costumes and painted scenery. Her parents were delighted that “the little Jew boy” had managed the impossible. Although it didn’t escape Marnie’s notice that Mummy and Daddy still referred to her as their adopted daughter.
For the next five years, with her playmate Rubin at her side, Marnie continued to blossom. Until her parents realized that the little Jew boy had become a teenager who, they feared, had an unnatural attraction to eleven-year-old Marnie. In short order, calls were made, bags were packed, and before Marnie realized what was happening, she was shipped off to Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Where she spent the next seven years imprisoned at one of England’s finest boarding schools.
By the time she was paroled from college, she’d acquired a haughty manner and a biting sense of humor. The best armor a girl could have. Particularly a girl making her way in London. Five feet ten inches tall, and blessed with a fashionably thin frame, Marnie soon found work as a fitting model for the avant-garde designer Vivienne Westwood. The uninhibited excess of ’80s London—couture, clubbing, and cocaine—nurtured her inner wild child; Marnie running with a very fast crowd. But as the bright lights around her began to extinguish—an anorexic model friend dying from a sudden heart attack, a flatmate tragically discovering what happens to bad boys who share needles—Marnie became disenchanted with the glam life.
And just like that, she packed it all in.
Steering a new course, she finagled a position with a charity-events planner. It was at a fund-raiser for the St. Stephens AIDS Trust that she ran into her long-lost friend Rubin Woolf. The rapport was immediate. And strong. As though the decade just passed had come and gone in the proverbial blink. Except Rubin’s hair was now spiky all over and he’d traded the Coke bottles for an ultra-hip pair of I. M. Pei-style glasses. He mentioned that having inherited the family house in Stanmore, he’d promptly sold it, using the proceeds to open an antiquarian bookshop in Cecil Court. Would she like to work for him? He needed an educated assistant with a bit of flash to chat up the male clientele. Some of the more valuable volumes could fetch upward of thirty thousand pounds.
If he’d asked her to set sail on HMS Bounty, she would have readily agreed.
Rubin’s estranged lover, Regina, had always been a tad bit jealous of their relationship, mistakenly thinking it was a sexual attraction. Simply put, it wasn’t an attraction. It was a bond. Different kettle altogether. And the reason why they’d never once slept together.
Over the years she and Rubin had weathered many a summer storm—his prostate cancer, her decade-long affair with a married man. Weight gains. Lost friends. Shaky finances. Lost faith. He held her hand when she’d had the abortion. She was at his side for the annual PET scan. They cried for the one and celebrated the other.
She and Rubin had now been together longer than most spouses stay married.
Admittedly there were times—usually when she saw a couple like Peter Willoughby-Jones and Edie Miller who, if not bound for happily ever after, were on track for a few good years—that she regretted the path not taken. She’d never married. She had no children. Had never even owned a dog.
From Blitz kid to woman of a certain age. Proverbial blink.
“You mustn’t brood. It’s not allowed,” she chastised.
Hearing the shop bell merrily tinkle, Marnie yanked off her reading glasses, stowing them in the desk drawer. Her movements well practiced, she stood up and smoothed a hand over her chin-length blond bob. She then checked her Jil Sander sheath for any stray pieces of lint, Rubin’s bit of flash ready to take the stage.
The customer stood at a bookcase, his back to her. She quickly sized him up. Hugo Boss jacket. Black leather messenger bag. John Varvatos calfskin boots. Not their typical customer.
“Good afternoon. Just browsing or are you looking for something specific?”
He slowly turned in her direction. “I’m looking for a volume of love poems.”
My God, he’s beautiful. Like a young Johnny Depp. And that accent. To die for.
“Perhaps you should try the public library,” she retorted. Uncharacteristically snippy, she suspected it had something to do with the fact that she was old enough to be the beautiful young man’s mother.
And that realization incited a tumult, the kind she hadn’t experienced since childhood, suddenly hit with a burst of gut-twisting insecurity. Twenty years ago she would have taken great delight in making this beautiful young man beg for her phone number. On your knees, boy. Proverbial blink.
The beautiful man took several steps in her direction. He came to a standstill less than an arm’s span from where she stood. Blatantly invading her personal space.
He winsomely smiled. “I’m too transparent, I fear.” “Absolutely see-through.” Even as she said it, Marnie wondered at his game. He’d just transmitted a sonar-strength vibe wrapped in a come-hither smile. But why?
Could it be that he was one of those men who actually preferred older women?
At that thought, she felt a small dribble of confidence.
“You do know that you’re an angel.”
“Ah, yes. ‘May she grow in Heavenly light,’ ” Marnie flippantly replied.
His smile broadened. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“I very much doubt that.” Particularly given the fact that she’d quoted the Cheltenham school motto.
“Dine with me this evening.” He stepped even closer. “Please.”
Marnie finally deigned to return the smile, her confidence fully restored.
“Perhaps.”
CHAPTER 46
“Now that I have plied you with strong spirits, perhaps you will reveal the true purpose of this delightful but unexpected visit.”
“Right.” Cocktail glass in hand, Caedmon strolled over to the window. Peering down at Cecil Court, he sighted a few late-afternoon shoppers browsing at the book carts. All quiet on the western front. “Do you happen to have a laptop computer handy?” he asked over his shoulder.
If Rubin was surprised by the request, he gave no indication, wordlessly trudging to the court cupboard in the foyer. From where he stood at the window, Caedmon could hear a cabinet door squeak on its hinge. A few moments later, Rubin returned with a computer in tow. Shoving several volumes aside, he made room for it on the bed.
“I assume you want me to boot up?”
“If
you would be so kind.” Deciding to plow right into it, Caedmon said, “In the year 1307 the Knights Templar, fleeing the auto-da-fé, sailed to the undiscovered New World where they established a colony in Arcadia, Rhode Island.”
Rubin derisively snorted. “An utterly outlandish claim.”
“Nullius in verba.” As he spoke, Caedmon tugged at the silver signet that he wore on his right ring finger.
About to take a sip of her martini, Edie, instead, lowered her cocktail glass. “Translation please. The only Latin I know is the pig variety.”
“Take no one’s word,” he obligingly translated. “Or, put another way, seeing is believing.” Caedmon walked over to where their host now held court in his outrageously carved Tudor chair. Hit with a childish impulse, he dropped the signet ring into Rubin’s cocktail glass. “That was found buried at the Templar colony in Rhode Island.”
His brows drawn together in an annoyed frown, Rubin fished the bauble out of his cocktail glass. Bringing the ring up to his face, he carefully examined it. A moment later, the frown reworked itself into an awestruck expression. “There’s an inscription that I can’t quite make out.” He peered over the top of his round tortoiseshell glasses as he brought the ring closer to his face.
“Testis sum agnitio,” Caedmon informed him. “In addition to the signet ring, a number of other artifacts were uncovered at the site, including several gold coins that predate the auto-da-fé.”
At hearing that, Rubin gasped aloud, nearly dropping the ring back into his cocktail glass. “And where are these gold coins and other—”
“Safely secured,” Caedmon interjected. Before leaving the States, he’d taken the precaution of renting a long-term airport locker, not about to risk losing the valuable artifacts to a London pickpocket. “The archaeological evidence strongly suggests that sometime in the early sixteenth century, a massacre took place, the colony completely destroyed by the Knights of Malta. After carefully sifting through the evidence, the two of us”—he pointedly glanced at Edie, indicating that she was very much a full and equal partner in the venture—“came to the conclusion that the Templars had constructed a hidden vault a few miles from the settlement site.”
“My God! Did the two of you actually find this vault?”
“We did. However I must inform you that the archaeologist who provided us with the necessary research was murdered.”
Rubin’s brows noticeably lifted. “Not exactly a disclosure for the weak-kneed. Fortunately, I’m made of sterner stuff. You’ve issued your warning, Peter, pray continue.”
“Very well.” Reaching into his trouser pocket, Caedmon removed a computer memory chip. He handed his full martini glass to Rubin before walking over to the laptop computer on the bed. “I should clarify at the onset that while we did find the Templar vault, it was empty,” he stated, not wanting to raise false hopes. He pulled up the first of the digital photos that Edie had taken inside the Templar sanctuary.
Both Edie and Rubin joined him at the four-poster bed.
Holding a martini glass in each hand, Rubin leaned over the mattress to view the photos. “This is stunning. Truly magnificent. The plot has indeed thickened.” Raising the martini in his right hand, he completely drained it. “These photos are absolutely—” He stopped in midstream. Long moments passed as he intently stared at the digital photo of the Enochian message written by Walter Ralegh. “ ’Tis the handwriting on the wall.’ ”
“Or, in this case, the floor,” Edie quipped. “We deciphered the message to read ‘Ralegh took the Templar relic to swine’s court.’ ”
“And while we can’t be completely certain, we believe the relic in question is some sort of sacred stone.”
Rubin raised the full glass in his left hand and quaffed it down in three swallows. A few moments passed before he muttered, “That bastard Ralegh actually found the Templar vault.”
“We did an Internet search, but couldn’t find any information pertaining to Walter Ralegh sailing to Rhode Island. Leading me to conclude that the Rhode Island voyage was covertly undertaken. Very much a hush-hush operation.”
“Ah! I can help you there,” Rubin said as he deposited his two empty cocktail glasses on the refreshment tray. “In 1584, Ralegh sailed to America to scout for locations suitable for colonization. And you are quite correct; there was an ulterior motive to the voyage. A motive hidden from history. With good reason, given that the true purpose of the expedition was to locate the seventy-seventh meridian. That’s what Walter Ralegh was doing in Rhode Island.”
“Okay, I’m sure this is really significant, but I am not following,” Edie confessed, never bashful about asking questions. “What’s the seventy-seventh meridian? And why was searching for it such a big secret?”
“The seventy-seventh meridian is a line of longitude. Longitude, as you know, is an east-west measurement taken from a known starting point referred to as the prime meridian. Mystics have long believed the seventy-seventh meridian sits on top of the world’s most powerful ley line,” Caedmon explained.
“Ley lines are power conduits that resonate with magnetic energy, right?”
Caedmon nodded. “The pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge in England, the Mayan temples in Central America, and even Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland are all built on top of ley lines.”
“Deemed sacred, the seventy-seventh meridian was referred to by the Knights of the Helmet as ‘God’s line of longitude,’ ” Rubin said, rejoining the conversation.
“And why was Sir Walter Ralegh searching for this sacred meridian?”
He tilted his head in Rubin’s direction, politely deferring to their host.
“If you want to build a utopian society, what better place to do so than on a sacred parcel of land. And the Knights of the Helmet were keenly intent on establishing a New Atlantis far from the tyrannical grip of the English monarchy. The well-connected politician Sir Francis Bacon worked tirelessly to secure permission to colonize. The mathematical genius Dr. Dee created detailed nautical charts. And the bold adventurer Sir Walter Ralegh readied his ships. Unfortunately, time and tyranny were against them, the endeavor never getting past the planning stage.”
“In that, their goal was no different from the Knights Templar, who attempted to establish a New Jerusalem far from a brutal regime.” Caedmon turned and walked over to a floor-standing globe situated on the other side of the room. Eyes narrowing, he moved the orb slightly with his finger. “My God, the Templar colony was situated at approximately seventy-two degrees longitude. Just a few degrees off the mark. Given the fact that their only navigational tools were a crude compass and a sheepskin Portolan map, the Templars came remarkably close to finding the seventy-seventh meridian.”
“Unfortunately, the dashing Ralegh’s navigational tools were not up to the task either.” Rubin slyly smiled. “That said, I may be able to provide some insight as to what it was that Ralegh discovered in the Templar vault.”
Caedmon stared at Rubin Woolf. Had the antiquarian been playing him for a fool? “I’d say you better come clean,” he warned, losing patience. “And be quick about it.”
“Since you so obligingly showed me yours, I shall now show you mine.” Pronouncement made, Rubin strode to the foyer. When he reached the open doorway, he craned his neck in their direction. “Well, don’t just stand there gawking. I want you two to follow me to the other room. Do leave your cocktail glass. Beverages are not permitted.”
Edie obediently set her cocktail glass on the tray. Hands freed, she grabbed hold of Caedmon’s arm. Leaning in close, she whispered, “What’s this all about?”
“I have no idea,” he replied in an equally hushed voice.
They followed Rubin down the hall to a closed door. Reaching into his pocket, Rubin removed a skeleton key that he fitted into the old-fashioned lock. It took a bit of jiggling for him to get the antiquated lock open.
Chuckling, he said, “Marnie calls this my ‘man cave,’ but I prefer to think of it as my therapy room.” Steppin
g inside, he switched on the light.
“Therapy, indeed,” Caedmon murmured as he entered the windowless, climate-controlled room that was illuminated with incandescent lights fitted with UV filters. All of which was necessary to protect what appeared to be an incredible collection of rare books, oil paintings, antique maps, and various other ephemera.
“You might want to invest in a better lock,” Edie remarked as she examined an ornately framed painting of a Madonna and child.
“While I’d love to show off some of my more prized possessions, I know that you’re anxious to see the pièce de résistance.” Rubin stepped over to a large map cabinet. With his index finger he counted down five drawers. His movements slow, he opened the drawer and removed a single sheet of yellowed paper encased in a Mylar sleeve.
With reverential care, he carried the protected sheet to the work table in the middle of the room and set it down for them to view.
“My God,” Caedmon whispered, stunned. How the bloody hell did Rubin come by this?
Edie shrugged, clearly unimpressed. “Am I missing something? I’m no expert, but even I know that isn’t the Templar treasure.”
“You are correct.” Rubin inclined his head slightly. “Shall I tell her or do you want the honors?”
Caedmon gestured to the protected sheet of paper on the table. “What Rubin has in his possession is something that, by all accounts, doesn’t exist.”
CHAPTER 47
Edie was the first to break the silence.
“It’s the title page for an old book, right?”
“What do they teach in American schools? That is the frontispiece for Francis Bacon’s opus magnum, the New Atlantis,” Rubin huffed.
The instant he glanced away, Edie, exasperated, stuck out her tongue. A juvenile response. No doubt the result of being cooped up in what amounted to a claustrophobic windowless vault.
Caedmon put a staying hand on her shoulder, lessening the sting. “In a printed book, the frontispiece is the illustration opposite the title page. Taken from the Latin word frontispicium, meaning façade, it’s a word seldom used in the modern lexicon. Highly ornate engravings, these prints are artistic masterpieces in their own right.”