The Templar Thief: Peter Sparke book 4

by Scott Chapman

  “The Reformation?” said Tilly.

  “Yes. Statues and images were removed. Many religious wall paintings were covered over. Almost certainly here too.”

  Sparke and Tilly scanned the walls and floors. They saw nothing but plain surfaces.

  “The statues?” said Tilly. “What would have happened to them?”

  “I have no idea,” said the pastor. “Wooden ones were normally burned, stone ones used for road-building rubble. The time of Calvin was a period of revolution. This was the heart of the Protestant Reformation.”

  Tilly walked over to the walls and ran her fingers over the surface. In most places it was covered in plaster. “What is this?” she said, pointing to a horizontal line of bare stone in the wall, about ten feet above ground level.

  “I do not know. Perhaps some decoration?”

  Tilly walked the length of the church, her eyes following the thin border. “Has this wall ever had any work done to it?”

  “Work? No, not that I know of. Why do you ask?”

  “It was common for churches of this period to have carvings on areas like this. It is called a frieze.”

  The pastor shrugged. “It is possible, but I am afraid that we cannot remove the plaster.”

  "Oh no, of course not. We have a tool, like a small x-ray machine, that can see through surfaces. It will not harm the plaster. Would it be possible to try it?"

  The pastor thought for a moment. “Why not? It could be interesting. You will need a ladder?”

  Sparke left Tilly and walked back down the hill to where the Range Rover was parked and hefted the gauge and Tilly’s camera onto his shoulders, wincing at the sudden pain in his ribs. By the time he was back, Tilly and the pastor were deep in conversation, positioning the ladder near the left-hand side of the wall.

  Tilly took the gauge from Sparke and mounted the ladder as Sparke stood on the bottom rung to give it stability.

  “This will only take a few minutes,” she said. “We will take the readings then give you a copy of anything we find.”

  Tilly ran the gauge over the surface, placing a sticky tab on the spot where she finished each scan, then came down the ladder and moved along the full length of the wall. It took less than ten minutes.

  “It’s possible that there is nothing here at all,” she said, “but we will know very quickly.”

  The pastor looked at his watch, then smiled. “There is always a great deal of interest in buildings like this. Perhaps there might be something.”

  Less than an hour after reaching the church, Sparke and Tilly were driving back to their hotel.

  “Was there anything?” said Sparke.

  “No idea, the machine is much faster if you switch off the active viewing screen.”

  “You’re quite the expert on that thing now.”

  “That’s why you should always read the instruction manual,” said Tilly, smiling.

  Tilly’s room at the hotel was bigger, but Sparke’s had a large bare wall that could serve as a projection screen. He set Tilly’s computer up to link to both the gauge and the projector.

  At first, the screen was blank, then, as Tilly began to adjust the controls on the gauge, a series of dark blobs appeared. To Sparke it looked a little like an image of the moon’s surface.

  A long straight line suddenly appeared, running from the top to the bottom of the screen.

  “Gotcha,” said Tilly.

  “Got what?” said Sparke.

  “The depth. Now, I am set to scan the hard surfaces underneath the plaster. She tapped on her computer for a few moments, and then looked up. “OK, show time.”

  She clicked a control on the keyboard and stood beside Sparke as the image of the line gradually scrolled to the left.

  They stood, silently watching the series of lines and curves unfold in silence for almost five minutes.

  “Bloody hell,” said Tilly, her eyes fixed on the image.

  Home

  The room smelled of new-cut stone and fresh timber and a cold breeze came in through the unfinished shutters making the room feel more outdoors than the inside of a building. The Mason stirred the small fire that warmed them and handed Salvatore a cup of hot wine.

  “This is what you must know, “he said. “It is information more precious than any treasure we possess. Moses himself was given the literal word of God, the covenant between himself and the Hebrews that laid out his commandments. When Moses brought those words, burned into stone, down from Mount Sinai, he found the Hebrews had set up a new god of their own, a golden calf, and renounced the true God. In his anger, Moses smashed the stone tablets to the ground. Those tablets were gathered up and travelled with the Hebrews throughout their history until they were brought to Jerusalem by King David. They were hidden in a place of great safety in the Temple Mount. There they came into our hands.”

  “And that is the box that I carried?”

  “That is the box. The Grand Master knows this, I know this and now, you know it too.”

  “Why have you told me?”

  “Some men must know this. It is too great a secret to be written down, and too precious to be held only by two men. Both the Grand Master and I are only men, we can die as easily as any other and if we die without others knowing, the object will be lost forever.”

  “This object has a name. I know the name.”

  “In my whole life I have never said the name to another living man, but I will say it now to you. What you took from Tripoli and delivered to a place of greater safety in Scotland is called by men ‘The Ark of the Covenant’, any ruler in the world would give you your own weight in gold for what you know.”

  “I have no taste for gold of any weight,” said Salvatore “and now that I have this knowledge, what do I do with it?”

  “For as long as either the Grand Master or I live, nothing. If either of us dies, the other will pass this knowledge onto another trusted member of our Order. If we both die, then it will be for you to decide who to share it with.”

  “You put too much weight on my shoulders.”

  “Are there any other shoulders that could bear more weight?”

  Salvatore looked into the flames and thought about the other brothers in his Order. They were brave men, disciplined warriors and devout monks. They were always first on the battlefield and last to leave, but for most of them, their world was one of strength and courage, not one of great intellect.

  “If I am to be trusted so much, then will you tell me why we are building this fort, and why the brother Ulli sits on a barren island far to the west of all civilization?”

  “Did you ask Ulli why he was there?”

  “He said that they were there because it was your command and the will of the Order. Does he really have no other understanding of his mission?”

  “Did you ask me what was in the box that I asked you to steal away from the cathedral in Tripoli, or why it must go to the ends of the earth? He is like you. He knows that things must be done and that they need not always have the reason why.”

  “Is there anything special about that island?”

  “Only its location. It lies between the southern world and the outer darkness. There is no traffic there, people do not visit and there is nothing there that will make any king try and seize it. A dozen knights will be able to defend it against any threat.”

  “But,” said Salvatore, “our Order has many castles that are a thousand times stronger and safer.”

  “You confuse strength with safety. I have seen castles and cities much stronger than anything we hold being crushed into the ground. Even our strongest fortifications can be taken if there is an enemy strong enough to tackle it.”

  “We have strong places far from our enemies, in France, or even England. There are no enemies there.”

  The Mason stood and warmed his hands on the fire for a moment, preparing himself. “You should know that your brother seeks you,” he said. “He is sure that you were in Tripoli, but does not know why. He wi
ll find you eventually and when he does he will do whatever he can to uncover what you know.”

  “Now we are talking about my brother?”

  “You asked about our enemies. When I count those who present the greatest danger to our Order, your brother is amongst the highest on the list. He is a power in the Inquisition and he doubts the loyalty of the Templars.”

  “He cannot threaten our Order, surely?”

  “There is nothing sure on this earth. Tell me what you saw of Tripoli. How long will it stay in Christian hands?”

  Salvatore described how the city and the county of Tripoli were riven by factions and competing powers, how the Commune and the supposed ruler were at daggers drawn, how the Genoans kept their own armed forces and held their own fortified quarter of the city. He explained how many sides believed the others were working with the Saracens and how many of them probably were.

  “Will Tripoli hold against the Saracens?” asked the Mason.

  “No.”

  “How long do you believe even Acre can hold then, once it is the only city left in our hands?”

  “Acre?” said Salvatore.

  “Acre will fall and we will be driven into the sea. If we can retake any of our possessions in the Holy Land, it will not be in our lifetime.”

  “And what will that mean?”

  The Mason looked directly at Salvatore. “It means the certain destruction of our Order.”

  Images

  As Sparke and Tilly watched the end of the scan on the projected screen, both knew what they were looking at.

  “Are they the same as the saints carved on the Radda arch?”

  “More than that,” said Tilly. “I bet you twenty quid they were done by the same person. I’ll get them analyzed back in Scotland, but whoever carved these was not a professional stonemason. They are just too rough and the faces look almost identical.” Tilly bent down over her computer and the screen split to show an image from Radda next to those from the St. Prex scan. The image of Fra Muratore in particular was striking in its similarity.

  “The same man in an obscure Templar post in Tuscany carved the images we found today in a church in Switzerland?” said Sparke.

  “Looks like the same man and the same images.”

  The phone rang and Sparke picked it up.

  “Who was that?” asked Tilly.

  “Just reception, they’re going to test the fire alarms tomorrow and they don’t want us to panic.”

  “Nice of them. What are you looking at?”

  Sparke was staring at the door of the room. In the middle of the door was a sign showing the nearest fire escape and a map indicating the assembly point in case of evacuation.

  “Do you have that map with the thirteen locations we found? The ones that seem to be in all the wrong places?”

  Tilly worked on the keyboard for a moment and the map of Europe appeared with the positions shown by large dots.

  “This isn’t a wild guess,” said Sparke. “It’s a logical scenario based on the evidence we have.”

  “What is?”

  “What we’re looking at here is a disaster management network for the Knights Templar. Look, most of them are in France, Spain or Italy where the bulk of the Order was based, but all in out-of-the-way places. The others are in far outlying places, the Baltic, Scotland and here in the Alps. This is exactly how I would prepare an organization for a catastrophic failure. Assembly points and safe refuges. Look.” He walked over to the door of the room and pointed to a sign showing fire exits and the assembly point for evacuation. “Exactly like this. How to get out and where to go when you made it out.”

  “No, there’s no evidence at all that the Templars were prepared for the disaster that overtook them when they were suppressed.”

  “Not the scale of the disaster, but for some sort of action against them. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to have some group of knights who were specialists in some things?”

  “Specialists like what?”

  “Like what? I have read all of your work on the Templars. They had specialists in law, in finance, in trade, agriculture and engineering. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So, is it really likely that a military order like the Templars would not have specialist soldiers for unconventional missions, for situations when everything, I mean everything, went wrong? Every major organization in the world has a team that does that. It’s been my job for more than ten years. Why wouldn’t the Templars have a team for that?”

  “What, Templar special forces?” said Tilly, smiling.

  “Can you think of anything more logical?”

  Tilly furrowed her brow and sat on the edge of the bed, her arms crossed. “But there is nothing in any of the archives, no mention at all.”

  “Isn’t there? Thirteen Templar posts in locations that make no commercial, military or religious sense, all funded by the Order because they didn’t even have the means to support themselves? And now we have evidence that at least two of them have a concrete connection.”

  “Having a place to run away to is all very well in an emergency, but it doesn’t mean they have any long-term safety.”

  “There is one option, but it is a bit out there.”

  “I suppose that, since you are the man who found the Templar Vault, you have the right to be a bit out there. What are you thinking?”

  Sparke pushed his hands into his pockets and looked off into the middle distance. It was a gesture Tilly was beginning to recognize when he was about to lay out his thoughts.

  “I think you’re wrong about the document you called the Concordat of Sion. I think that everybody is wrong about it. Here’s why. Switzerland was created when a small group of mountain tribes formed an alliance to fight off the local nobility who had invaded them almost endlessly. In the space of a few years they went from being victims to forming a military capability that fought off all comers. This happened at precisely the same time as we think the Templars were establishing these bases, like the one near St Prex. The main town that was the foundation for this alliance was only a few miles from here. The town was called Sion.”

  “Sion?”

  “Sion. It's just at the end of the lake. I read that Concordat document again. As you say, it makes no sense if it refers to Jerusalem, but it makes perfect sense if it is an agreement made in the city of Sion, right here in Switzerland.”

  “You think the Templars created Switzerland?” asked Tilly, incredulous.

  Sparke hesitated, suddenly as calm as he normally felt in the midst of a crisis. He could see a series of facts and logic that were laid out like a roadmap in front of him.

  “It's almost a certainty that they were involved with its creation. I believe they traded military know-how for safe refuge and that know-how was central to the foundation of Switzerland."

  Tilly looked up at the screen showing the scattered positions of the thirteen Templar posts. For long minutes she stood silently processing what Sparke had said, testing it against the lifetime of learning she had accumulated. There was no obvious flaw in Sparke’s thinking, except that it turned the received version of Templar history upside down.

  “Peter, if this is anything like real, you have no idea what you have started. This would turn everything we know about the end of the Templars on its head.”

  Salamander

  Salvatore had spent his whole adult life surrounded by the discipline and structure of the Order. He had often found it hard to accept the strictures of its rule, but he had never for a moment considered a world where the Templars did not exist.

  “Who would harm us?”

  “Who?” said the Mason. “Who would not? Every king in Europe owes debts to us. The Church constantly pushes us to be more obedient to its will. Even the other military orders seek to gain advantage by undermining us. Sometimes we feel that the only open discussions we have are with our Saracen enemies. At least they carry their swords against us openly. Your own brother, Massimo, is one of the l
eading powers in the Inquisition and he sees us as a competitor, not an ally.”

  “But none of them has the power to attack us.”

  “Not individually, but if they close ranks against us we would be powerless. If we lose the Holy Land, we lose our reason to exist and that will give our enemies the chance to challenge us.”

  “There is nothing we can do?”

  The Mason stood and threw another piece of wood onto the fire. “There is something. You are a great reader of books, Salvatore, are you not?”

  Years of experience had taught Salvatore never to answer any of the Mason’s questions too easily. The Mason was a man of few words and anything he chose to say carried a great weight of thought. Salvatore fixed his gaze on the fire. “I read books whenever I can find them,” he said, “though I would read more if I could. Why do you ask?”

  “Once, in Cordoba, I was in a great library. They called it the library of Al-Ḥakam. There were many interesting books there.”

  “Cordoba is a Saracen city, is it not?” said Salvatore. “Why were you among the Moors?”

  “Moors have a great love of books,” said the Mason, ignoring the question. “I saw there a book which describes all the strange animals of the Indies. Have you heard of the salamander?”

  “It is a lizard, I think. They say it can live in the midst of fire and that it has a diamond in the center of its skull.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “No,” said Salvatore.

  “Why not? It is a book in a great library. Do you think you know more than the people who wrote the book, or those who care for them?”

  “I think there is no purpose in an animal being able to live in a fire. There is nothing in a fire that an animal could need. A diamond is just a stone. Why would an animal have a stone in its head?”

  “They say that if you chop off one of its limbs, it will grow another. Could that be true?”