The Templar Thief: Peter Sparke book 4

by Scott Chapman

  The helmsmen were happy to talk, and relaxed, as the Templars were a welcome cargo. Quiet and trouble free, almost indistinguishable from each other in their dark brown habits and heavy beards. No drunkenness, no dice, only frequent prayers and mumbled conversations.

  The only times, apart from prayers, that Salvatore joined his brothers was for the exercises of arms. Calmly, slowly, he practiced his positions and his movements, with sword, mace and crossbow.

  To the Commander of the group of knights Salvatore was a Templar who prayed when he should, practiced his arms with a high degree of expertise and studied diligently. Beyond that was nobody's business.

  On the final day, when the headlands south of Tripoli were visible, Salvatore took the contents of his satchel and, page by page, burned the documents he had been reading so intently. To the starboard side of the ship, the coast of the Holy Land slipped past. Between Acre and Tripoli, all the land was still in Christian hands, if only for the moment.

  He had not asked what was really behind his mission, but it did not take a genius to work out that the Mason, and by implication the Grand Master, believed that all the territories in the Holy Land would soon be in Saracen hands. So long as the Order had a military foothold on the mainland, they could be said to be fighting for the recovery of Jerusalem. If their foothold was lost the very reason for the existence of Templars would be called into question.

  The wind carried the ship well inside the outer reaches of Tripoli harbor and the rowers made short work of the journey to the quayside. Every inch of the dockside seemed to be filled with laborers, cargo, animals and apparently endless numbers of men involved in noisy disputes. Few glanced up at the troop of Templars as they filed off the ship and began unloading their equipment and baggage into the waiting ox cart. No one at all noticed one of their number taking a few steps to the side and disappearing without a word into the teeming throng.

  As soon as he was clear of the thickest of the crowds and had found a quiet corner, he dropped his burden and took off his habit. Once the garment was turned inside out, he was no longer a Templar, but looked like any one of a score of itinerant monks or holy men who wandered the streets.

  Salvatore knew what was looking for, even though he had never been to the city before. Shouldering his canvas-wrapped bundle, he pushed his way into the maze of streets that spread out from the docks like the roots of a weed. It took him an hour to find what he needed. The inn he chose was not particularly clean, but it had what he most prized; a room that he did not have to share with others. The room cost him more for one night than a dock laborer earned in a week, but it was private. He ordered food, wine, a wash basin and pitcher of water and then closed the door in the face of the innkeeper.

  For ten years, he had lived in the Templar world, rarely sleeping alone in a cell, always sharing with other Brothers, always sleeping with a candle burning in accordance with the strict rules of the Order. Unlike his fellow Templars, his unconventional life had taken him outside this tight, protective world several times, but it was still an uncomfortable experience for him to contemplate a night in an unlit room by himself.

  The room he took was narrow, windowless and bare except for a single wooden bed with a filthy blanket. Like all Templars, Salvatore had become habituated to cleanliness, and so the blanket was thrown in a corner after being used to scrub down the bed.

  When the innkeeper eventually sent up the food and water, Salvatore took a deep breath and began the painful process of shaving his beard off for the first time in his life. There was no rule demanding that Templars should grow a full beard, but every Brother wore one. Next he carefully picked the red cross from his habit so that it now resembled something like a common cloak.

  Even if he had been able to sleep, the incessant noise from the inn below would have kept him awake. Shortly before dawn, a violent quarrel broke out and Salvatore listened to furniture crashing in the rooms below.

  When at last the place fell silent, Salvatore gathered up his possessions and stepped out into the quiet, predawn streets. He was without the protection of his Brotherhood, unmarked as a Templar, and totally alone.

  Marco

  "You are English?"

  "No," said Tilly. "Scottish, from Edinburgh."

  "And your husband?"

  "This is Peter, Peter Sparke, he is working with me."

  "Is he Scottish also?"

  "Yes," said Sparke, "also Scottish."

  "Scotch whisky is very good," said the young man, smiling. "I know a place that has some very good Scotch whisky, would you like to visit?"

  "Not normally before lunchtime, but thanks anyway," said Sparke. A slightly tense silence filled the reception hall of the hotel.

  "The University speaks very highly of you, Marco," said Tilly. "I understand you have great expertise in medieval history?"

  Marco smiled. "I did my Undergraduate degree in Florence, my Masters in Medieval History at Milan University and my Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska."

  "The University of Nebraska?" said Sparke. “Really.”

  He was making an effort not to dislike Marco at first meeting, but was not succeeding. The intense heat that had forced Sparke into shapeless shorts and T-shirt seemed to have no impact on Marco who wore a sharply tailored jacket and tight jeans. Within seconds of meeting Tilly, Marco had developed a relaxed and familiar way of speaking to her. Sparke felt that this familiarly had increased noticeably once it was clear that Tilly and he were not an item.

  The smile on Marco's face stalled for a second, then he turned to Sparke. "I had several offers from international universities, but I chose Nebraska because I wanted to experience the heart of America." He turned to Tilly. "How can I be of assistance?"

  "We are looking for any trace of a medieval religious figure from the region. His name was Fra Muratore. We tried the church, but there seems to be no reference there."

  "You mean the church in the square?"

  "Yes, we had hoped for a tomb, or a shrine."

  "You went to the wrong church," said Marco. “The original church here was the Chiesa di San Pieto. The one you went to is a more recent construction."

  Tilly sighed, and looked upwards in exasperation.

  "You must think we are total amateurs, sorry. Is it possible to see the church of San Pieto?"

  "It is not normally open, I think," said Marco. "But let me talk to the priest here and see what we can do. You have your permit from the Administration?"

  "I think," said Tilly, "that we are all set there. My office completed the paperwork and sent it last night. We just need to drop it off."

  Marco looked doubtful, but smiled again and said, "Excellent, allow me to talk to the church and we can meet back here for a coffee in an hour? Does that work for you?"

  "Works for me," said Tilly, walking back towards the office of the Commune di Radda.

  The small office was as quiet as on their previous visit. The sole visible occupant of the office was, again, the man at the window of the glass screen. He made no attempt to hide his displeasure when Tilly and Sparke walked in.

  "Good morning," smiled Tilly brightly. “We have the form you gave us, all completed. Hopefully we haven't made any silly mistakes."

  She handed the form over with a sheaf of papers certifying her own credentials and the letter of authority from the National Museum of Scotland. The man pursed his lips, sighed theatrically and took the file.

  Tilly and Sparke perched uncomfortably on the waiting area’s single wooden bench.

  "Wrong church, eh?" said Sparke.

  "Hmm, I suppose I took this trip a little too lightly. Still, Marco seems to know what's what."

  "He certainly gives that impression."

  Time spent in any waiting room passes slowly and the room in the office of the Commune was not built with the comfort of visitors in mind. Sparke had spent a lot of time dealing with bureaucracy and he knew the most effective tactic was patience. His patience lasted almost twenty minut
es.

  "Is there a problem with the form?" he finally asked the man behind the screen.

  The man looked up with the well-worn expression of someone used to dealing with people who do not understand the complexity of government systems. He waved his hand towards Sparke in a motion intended to instill calm and to lower expectations in those impatient for instant results.

  Sparke retreated to the wooden bench.

  Fifteen minutes later he was back at the window.

  "Is there anything missing from the documentation?" he asked.

  The man picked up the phone and shrugged slightly in Sparke's direction.

  Spark resumed his seat with an apologetic smile towards Tilly.

  For the next twenty minutes, a silence enveloped the room. Impatience had given way to an apathetic surrender. Sparke had once waited for five hours at a border crossing between Russia and the Republic of Georgia as the documentation for his rental car was reviewed by frontier guards carrying machine guns and he felt himself slipping into the same numb state as he had then.

  Marco's arrival in the office felt like someone had switched on a light in a dark room.

  "You were not at the café, so I assumed you were in difficulties," he said to Tilly.

  He walked up to the small window and began talking to the man.

  To Sparke, the sound of two Italians having a conversation resembled the sound of running water. It flowed back and forth with a fluidity that made the English language sound like dogs barking. After a few minutes of discussion, the door to the office opened and Marco joined the man inside. Sparke could hear the sound of filing cabinets being opened and closed, a keyboard being vigorously used and a number of phone calls being made by both men.

  Eventually, Sparke heard the sound that people the world over love to hear when dealing with officialdom: a printing stamp being hammered onto paper.

  Marco's face appeared at the window.

  "There is a fifty-euro permit fee."

  Tilly almost leapt from her chair, fumbling for her purse.

  Marco and the man now appeared in the waiting area. The man looked at a photocopy of Tilly's passport and stared, for what seemed to Sparke to be an unnecessarily long time to compare it to the photo, then folded a sheaf of papers into a neat bundle and passed it to her.

  Marco and the man shook hands and spent another five minutes in conversation, then all three stepped out into the narrow stone street.

  "You filled out the wrong form," said Marco.

  "But, that was the form he gave us."

  "These things happen," said Marco.

  "Coffee?" said Sparke, breathing in the warm morning air.

  "Excellent idea," said Marco, "but perhaps I can suggest somewhere? A friend of mine has a small place nearby."

  The restaurant was empty, and Marco and the owner immediately fell into a deep conversation as Sparke and Tilly took a seat and gazed out over the countryside, happy to have escaped the clutches of Italian bureaucracy.

  The owner and Marco brought coffees and a plate of pastries over to the table.

  "We need to go to Florence," said Marco. "I found your Fra Muratore."

  Sleeping City

  If Acre was bustling, Tripoli was frantic. Even in the dark, the streets were alive with traffic and Salvatore wondered what business could keep so many people from their beds at this hour. In several doorways, Salvatore saw men sleeping, wrapped in filthy cloaks. The smell of sour wine mixed with the normal odor of horse and camel droppings, and open sewers carrying human waste ran parallel to the roads. Two men with flat wooden shovels scraped the filth into the handcart they pushed.

  Salvatore had been given a rough idea of the layout of the city from the Mason, but he needed to understand where a number of key points lay. He followed a maze of narrow streets until he found himself on a broad thoroughfare that seemed to lead to the harbor and reasoned that the other end would connect to the main, East Gate. A line of camels laden with goods was heading that way, waiting, no doubt, for the gate to open at dawn.

  He followed this road away from the harbor until he reached a long, narrow square. At the far end he could see the towering facade of the cathedral, dark and asleep. He walked around the perimeter of the building counting the doors. Apart from the main entrance, there were three, all firmly closed and each only big enough for a single man to pass through. At the rear there was a smaller building constructed in the same style with a row of small windows placed high in the bare wall, the dwelling for the cathedral's priests.

  Both buildings had been well enough made, but had obviously been built speedily. The columns surrounding the main door were plain and functional and the only decorations on the outer walls were the garishly painted Apostles set in high alcoves.

  He returned to the front of the building and dropped his bulky load for a moment in order to contemplate his task. Its simplicity did not make it any easier.

  He had to gain access to the Cathedral of Tripoli, without being seen, then work out the precise way to lift, on his own, a stone tomb-covering that had taken ten desperate men to lift, extract an object that required four men to carry and then replace the marble covering, all without attracting attention in the midst of what was probably the most public location in the city.

  Though some of the buildings overlooking the open space were brightly painted, they were universally shabby and all were shuttered against the evils of the city night.

  Returning to the main road, he walked back down to the harbor. As he had expected, the harbor had two sea gates that led out towards the surrounding countryside to the north and south. What he wanted would be found outside the city, and the South Gate seemed to be the largest and most used by harbor traffic. It was still closed and barred for the night, so Salvatore found a dark corner, crouched down and waited until the city woke.

  As the bells for matins rang from the cathedral, the City's Night Watch appeared from the high guard tower and heaved the wooden gate back to allow the first traffic of the day to enter. Salvatore waited until the initial rush had passed, then shouldered his load and walked out of the city.

  Beyond the walls he found what he had expected; a jumble of workshops and slums stretching along the coast. The shore was lined with small boatyards. The first of these housed a shipbuilder with a partly constructed galley on its slipway. Further along were smaller yards that seemed to be used mainly for the repair of fishing boats. Salvatore examined these carefully, discounting each for various reasons until he found two that seemed suitable for what he needed. One had a large, timber-built workshop, the other a smaller, ramshackle cluster of stone huts, surrounded by a stone wall. There were no boats to be seen in either yard. He found the entrance to the smaller yard and hammered on the door with his fist until a sleepy face eventually appeared.

  "What do you want?"

  "Are you the owner?"

  The man looked at Salvatore dubiously and rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin. Salvatore did not have the look of a seaman and he carried his own pack.

  "Are you the owner? If not, then fetch him. Tell him there is a man here who may have work for him."

  "What kind of boat work?" he asked.

  Salvatore ignored the question.

  "You are the owner?"

  "I am Dimitrios and this is my yard."

  "I need to see your yard."

  Dimitrios had opened the door only far enough to allow him to look into the street and did not seem eager to open it any wider. Salvatore reached down to his belt and lifted his purse, heavy with coins, up to eye level. He bounced it in his palm and the sound of the money seemed to be enough credentials for Dimitrios to open the door, allowing Salvatore to walk in.

  Despite the outward appearance of the yard, it was tidy within.

  "Business is quiet," said Salvatore, glancing at the empty space.

  "People are nervous," said Dimitrios. "Some boats are leaving for Acre."

  "Nervous of what?"

 
"They say the Saracens will come."

  "Do they? What else do they say?"

  "They say that Tripoli is not a safe place to be."

  "‘They’ seem to know a lot."

  Dimitrios nodded. "People talk."

  "And you, Dimitrios, do you talk?"

  "I have nothing to talk about. Anyway, who would listen to anything I have to say? I have such a terrible memory anyway, I could forget my own name."

  "Not talking is a rare skill. How good are you at it?"

  "When it comes to keeping my mouth shut, there is no one better. Why?"

  "I might need your yard for a month, maybe slightly longer. As you are so quiet I assume you will be willing to give me a good price."

  "My yard for a month and complete silence?" said Dimitrios. "For you, I can do that for two thousand."

  "If I give you half of that, you will be robbing me. I will give you one thousand, in gold, half now, half at the end of the month. I will sleep in there," Salvatore said, pointing towards one of the small stone buildings.

  "I will bring you a cot," said Dimitrios, making no attempt to hide his pleasure at the offer. "What else do you need?"

  "Your silence, and your bad memory."

  "For that, another five hundred."

  "For that, you get another two hundred, and the chance of a long life to spend it."

  Florence

  "Fra Muratore was sanctified at the end of the thirteenth century, but his status was revoked shortly afterwards," said Marco as he threw the car around yet another tight bend. In the back seat, Sparke tried not to feel travel sick.

  "Why?" said Sparke.