"Thank you for the offer, but I have already been summoned to the employment of your good neighbor, Gaiole, so I cannot help you."
Salvatore stared at Falco. Of all of the things he had expected to hear, this was not one.
"You have contracted with Gaiole?"
"We are summoned by the Lord of Gaiole, we have no contract yet."
"You will make a mistake if you take the promises of Gaiole over the gold of Radda," said Salvatore, making Falco laugh aloud.
"A mistake, is this a threat?"
"It's good business sense. It's obvious," said Salvatore. "We will win."
"And why will you win?"
"One of my brothers is now with the Bishop of Siena to get his blessing and support for new taxes on the bridge which we now possess. Our steward has contracted a loan with the banking house. We have the bishop, we have the taxes and we have the cash. Isn't that how wars are won?"
Falco nodded.
"Yes, yes indeed, that’s how wars are won. That and a little bloodshed."
Food for Thought
The idea of Sparke having a stalker kept Tilly in a state of high excitement as they circled around the apartment building and entered through the back door. It was only when Sparke opened the door to his new apartment and dropped Tilly’s bag on the floor that she stopped talking. For a moment she simply starred.
“This is the most beautiful room I have ever seen,” she said. “I mean, Versailles is nice and all, but this? It’s like the set for a movie.” She walked into the room, running her fingers over the dark-chocolate leather of an armchair. “One company came in and did this whole thing in a single day?” she asked Sparke.
“Took them two months to get the stuff together, but when they delivered, they turned up at eight in the morning, worked through till six at night and left it as you see it now.”
“Must be great being rich.”
“Having someone else furnish the place for me is great,” he said. “And living anywhere I want is great too.”
Tilly smiled and walked through the lounge towards the windows. Lake Geneva was lit by a full moon, outlining the Alps across the water and leaving a trail over the small waves. Just to her right was the little marina. Between the apartment building and the side of the lake was a well-tended promenade and a quiet street. Tilly looked down at the dark sidewalk below.
“Looks like your stalker has moved on,” she said. “Does she know where you actually live?”
“Not sure, but in a town as small as this it won’t take long to find me. That’s if she sticks around and doesn’t bugger off back to wherever she’s from.”
“How did she find you?”
“Ah,” said Sparke, “my fault. You see I changed my LinkedIn profile a month or so ago. It still showed that I was working for the old company. Like a dummy, I put my new location in the system. But how was I to know somebody would want to track me down? Anyway, enough about her, what’s this present you told me you had?”
“Oh yes. You’ll like this,” she said rummaging inside her bag and pulling out a file.
“I’m heading off to Paris for a symposium on Non-Feudal Land Holding Structures In The High Middle Ages.”
“Sounds fantastic," said Sparke.
“Invitation only, I’m afraid.”
“It would need to be. A hot ticket like that will be a sell-out.”
“Enough of your sarcasm,” said Tilly. “One of the speakers is a big hitter, Dr. Gael Annecy from Lyon University. He’s presenting a paper on the land holdings of the church and, in particular, the military monastic orders. He wrote the standard textbook on the Teutonic Knight conquest of Prussia.”
“The Teutonic Knights had their own country?” said Sparke.
“Absolutely. You didn’t know that? You really need to read more, you know. The Teutonic Knights in the north and the Hospitaller in the Mediterranean both had exclusive lands where they were not answerable to anyone. Dr. Annecy will present his paper showing that the other Orders, including your old pals, the Templars, tried to do the same thing.”
“He has evidence of this?”
“Circumstantial on the whole, but he has documents showing that several people were trying hard to stop them achieving their goal, so that does indicate that it was a real possibility.”
“Does he know where they were trying to set up their own country?”
Tilly smiled the smile she always used when withholding information from Sparke.
“As it happens, he does. Pope Boniface was willing to grant them lands on Cyprus, but, most interestingly, Dr. Annecy has found a letter to the King of France and to the Pope by the Duke of Savoy asking for their help in stopping the Templars in their plans to take lands from him in his eastern domains.”
“Eastern Savoy?” said Sparke, lost.
“There is no eastern Savoy. You see, the Duke of Savoy was the big cheese in the part of France that is now just over the border from Switzerland. He claimed sovereignty over what we now call French-speaking Switzerland, but constantly struggled to actually seize it.”
Sparke looked out over the shimmering surface of Lake Geneva. His interest in the Templars had begun some years ago when a tour guide in Scotland had told him that Loch Lomond had been a highway between the settled lowlands and the ungovernable Highlands and that there were many local stories of Templar remains in the area. Now he was looking at the same model. His lifetime’s experience of looking for patterns and models told him that he was seeing the same set of behaviors being played out again.
"I know what you’re thinking,” said Tilly.
“It certainly fits.”
“It might fit, but there is still no hard evidence that the Templars were trying to establish a homeland here.”
“No,” said Sparke. “No evidence. But isn’t that where the fun is?”
Tilly smiled. “I’m starving. Can we get some pizza or something?”
“Pizza? No, but I have booked a table at a posh restaurant, just a few hundred yards from here. A place called Le Petit Manoire. Very swanky little hotel with a great restaurant I understand. I was waiting for you to get here before I tried it. Let me dump your stuff in your room. We need to be there in an hour.”
Tilly spent the hour unpacking her few things and doing the grand tour of the apartment. Every room was perfectly furnished and exquisitely laid out.
They left the apartment and walked the short distance to the restaurant. As they arrived they were greeted by the manager and shown up to a dining room that had the restrained elegance of top restaurants everywhere. Tilly spent twenty minutes with the menu and had a lengthy discussion with the maître d’ on his recommendations. Sparke ordered the same.
Their meal passed in happy conversation ranging from medieval history, furniture and holidays to Tilly’s plans for the upcoming conference in Paris. They were lingering over coffee when a voice broke into their discussion.
“Well, Peter, what a surprise.”
Sparke stared at Tilly for a moment, then turned in his chair to see the woman he had seen earlier in the market. Now she was standing next to him, smiling broadly. For a moment he fought to stay seated, but a lifetime of good manners overcame him.
"Hello,” he said flatly, standing.
Feast of Fra Muratore
“How can I be expected to even look at those animals?" said Mellissa. "My brother is a step from death and we have to be civil to the people who attacked him?"
"Your brother will fare no better by you acting like a child," said her mother, absorbed by the sewing frame in front of her. "The Day of Fra Muratore is ordained by God and is not for you to question."
"If I set one foot inside Radda I will burn into ashes."
"Perhaps," said her mother. "But perhaps not. Our family will take the cross of Fra Muratore from Radda and lead the procession back to Gaiole just as we have a hundred times before."
"Surely Fra Muratore knows we cannot walk into that town. He will understand."
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"It is not for you to ask for his understanding," said her mother. "And now I am out of patience with you and your bragging about how much you care about your brother. Show your care by showing your respect and show your respect by demonstrating obedience."
Mellissa drew a deep breath.
"Yes mother."
Every moment and every step of the day of the feast of Fra Muratore was enshrined by ancient habit and practice. Mellissa had been part of it every year of her life, and both Radda and Gaiole counted dates as either before or after the feast. Nothing stopped the procession, not even war between Gaiole and Radda.
For the past two years, Radda had taken on a new importance in her life. Radda was the place where Salvatore lived. In her eyes he was a prince within a nest of bandits. How he could be the brother of that pig Rosso and that pompous worm Massimo was beyond her. The fact that he could thrive in such poisoned earth was all the more evidence of his goodness. Going into Radda was repellent to her, but if they could steal a moment alone, perhaps it might be bearable.
At dawn Mellissa and the rest of the household began their journey in the weak winter sun. Mellissa looked away as they passed the tower where her brother had been wounded only five days before.
Like everyone from Gaiole, Mellissa had been in Radda on countless occasions, but as she passed through the gate and into the steep, narrow streets, she saw the familiar decorations for the festival were now side by side with the preparations for war. The ground immediately outside the walls had been cleared of the normal clutter of animal pens and sheds. Men in half armor were posted around the battlements, and barricades had been erected across some of the smaller streets to allow defenders to seal off any part of the town that might be penetrated.
The Gaiole party made their way through the crowd up to the church steps, where they would be handed the remnants of the cross of Fra Muratore to take back with them. Three days after Pentecost, the ritual would be reversed.
Mellissa saw that more heads than usual turned towards the Gaiole party as they entered the town. More than once she heard people muttering, "Hide the pig feed." It was a common jibe that Radda pigs eat better than Gaiole farmers, made all the worse as there was some truth behind it. The flat, fat farmlands around Radda were in sharp contrast to the small, hardscrabble fields around her own town.
As they reached the church, there was a wave of excitement through the crowd. The cross of Fra Muratore was emerging, surrounded by a group of priests and the slow procession down the steps began, every step marked with incantations and prayer. But for the first time in any of their lives, the heads of the crowd were turning away from the procession: something in the direction of the West Gate was more interesting than the Cross of Fra Muratore.
At the fringe of the crowd, Mellissa saw a line of men on horseback appear. People gawped at the mercenaries as they trooped through the gates of the town and the soldiers preened and threw their chests out at the attention. Leading the line was Salvatore. He dismounted and pushed his way through the tight mass of people towards the church.
As the cross reached the last step, the lengthy ritual of handing it over to the priests of Gaiole began and Mellissa felt the presence of someone standing very close to her. She turned and stared directly at Salvatore.
"What happened to your face?" she said. Salvatore had forgotten about the injury he had received in the fight for the tower and the bruise that covered his skin from his collar bone to his jaw. The injury, the mercenaries, this stupid war was all the fault of his brother. He had to explain everything to Mellissa.
"Rosso," he began.
"Your thug of a brother!"
"No, you see Rosso..."
"You know he has almost killed my brother? He has not moved since our men brought him home."
"Your brother?"
"He was attacked while he slept. Stabbed in the back by your brother and almost a hundred of his men when they attacked our tower. Thanks to God that he was wearing his coat of mail."
"A hundred men?" said Salvatore.
"At least. Thank God you would not be involved in such evil. So Rosso attacked you too? Look at the wounds on your neck. Is it painful?"
Salvatore lifted his hand to his throat.
"Your brother, how bad are his injuries?" said Salvatore.
"He has a sword wound in the back of his right leg and a terrible injury from a battle axe on the back of his head. He was either asleep when he was attacked or a mob of your men attacked him from behind as he defended our tower".
As they spoke, the ritual at the bottom of the church steps had drawn to a close and the priests from Gaiole now surrounded the cross, carried by one of young men of their town for the journey back.
The crowd bowed their heads as the journey began and, in that moment, Mellissa snatched the hand of Salvatore and squeezed it briefly. As the church bells began to ring and the procession set off, she leaned towards him.
"Before the feast tonight, I will be in confession. Wait for me by the church."
Then she turned to follow her mother and the rest of her group.
"Later, after the ceremony, can meet in the orchard?" whispered Salvatore.
Mellissa blushed immediately. The orchard was the only place where they could be truly alone. It was the place where Salvatore's passion became more than words. She nodded quickly then walked away.
As soon as the party passed through the gates of Radda, Mellissa and her mother mounted their carriage for the journey back.
"Do not make a fool of yourself talking to that boy," said her mother.
"The only words he heard from me were to curse his family and his monster of a brother."
The pair sat in silence as the coach bumped along the rough road between the two towns. Tonight, once the cross was installed in Gaiole, the family and leading citizens of Radda would attend the feast of Fra Muratore. The only part of that ordeal which seemed slightly acceptable was the idea that she might steal a few moments with Salvatore after confession.
As the coach rounded the hill to the long slope down to Gaiole, Mellissa heard a commotion from the front of the procession. A moment later the curtain of their coach was pulled back and one of the family servants stood, his chest heaving from running and his face bathed in sweat. He did not have the breath to address them properly and the message was too important to wait.
"The young lord is dead."
Meeting
"And who is your charming companion?" said the woman. As soon as she spoke the words, she raised her hand to her mouth dramatically. "Oh my goodness, of course, are you Professor Pink?"
Tilly, still seated, smiled icily. "I'm afraid I don't know your name," she said.
"Of course, how foolish of me..."
Before the woman could continue, Sparke broke in. "Did you follow us here? Did you come to this restaurant because you thought I'd be here?"
"Why, no, Mr. Sparke, I'm a guest at this hotel. I've been staying here these last two weeks."
"You've been here for two weeks?" said Sparke, his voice rising so that the nearest diners turned to look.
"It's a very well-reviewed hotel; number one on Trip Advisor in town," said the woman.
"I'm not talking about your choice of hotels," said Sparke. "My concern is why you are here, and what you want from me."
"Peter, all I want, as I think I explained, is to help you in your work. I think, in fact, I know I can contribute. For example, I know why you moved here to Morges, and I have some great background on her."
Sparke was nonplussed. He had moved to Morges when he decided that there was nothing holding him in his old home of Munich, and his first visit to Morges had made him wonder if he could imagine living anywhere better. Now this woman seemed to believe that she knew of some secret reason why he had come here.
"You'll have to excuse us," said Sparke. "We were just leaving."
Without a word Tilly stood and picked up her handbag. The waiter hurried over with coats and th
e bill and a few moments later, Sparke and Tilly were back outside, heading back to his apartment.
"Now, that was what I call weird," said Tilly.
"Weird and a half," said Sparke. "I've heard of stalkers, but I never thought I'd ever have one."
"The price of fame, even for someone who tries so hard to avoid it. What was she talking about anyway? I mean she seems to think you came here for some specific reason. I wonder who she was on about. She said she has some great background on 'her'. Who is this 'her', any idea?"
"No idea at all, and I don't want to find out. My plan is to ignore her and hope she gets bored and leaves me alone."
"Not much of a plan."
"Best I've got," said Sparke.
Next morning, they both woke early, the bright sunlight streaming into the apartment and showing Tilly, for the first time, the full beauty of the view Sparke now had. They stood on the narrow balcony, cradling coffees in their hands, watching the early morning dog-walkers and joggers on the lakefront and marveling at the beauty of the Alps across the lake.
"Funny thing," said Sparke, "being able to stand in your apartment and look across the water at another country. The French border starts about that town over there, then it's Switzerland after that.
"It's the nicest view I've ever seen from a flat. I wonder how long you'll live here before you get bored looking at it?"
"Maybe a hundred years or so," said Sparke. "Want to go for a walk first or head off to this famous salt mine?"
"Why are we going to a salt mine, again?"
"It's a tourist attraction. Apparently it was used right back to the early middle ages. There's an underground lake on the lower levels. I have a new rule; whenever I go into the tourist information office, I do whatever activity they are promoting and this week, they are promoting tours of the salt mine."
"Sounds spontaneous."
"It's outsourcing spontaneity," said Sparke, smiling.
The road was quiet this early on a Saturday morning. Sparke had learned that the Swiss took the concept of work-life balance seriously and weekends were reserved strictly for visits to the local markets, drinking coffee or time with family and friends. Only high-priority work was ever done on Saturdays, things like road works when a major route needed to be disrupted.
The Templar Tower: Peter Sparke Book Five Page 5