The Mason and Salvatore froze simultaneously as they heard a low whistle coming from the direction of the lookout post above the road. It was the sign only used when unexpected visitors were approaching. As their tower was on an isolated spur of rock, there was no reason why there should ever be a chance visitor. Occasional hunters or herdsmen searching for lost livestock were turned away by the Templar guards. Whoever was approaching was someone who could not be easily stopped.
The two men walked over to a point where they could look along the narrow pathway. On seeing him, the lookout raised his arm towards the Mason and chopped downwards three times, then placed his hand over his sword hilt and drew a horizontal line across his chest.
It took several minutes for the small party to appear. First in line was a man on foot wearing the fine, colorful clothes of the servant of a high ranking man. Next came someone dressed in the plain tunic of a priest, leading a mule. On the mule was seated a slender figure, also wearing a priest´s habit, but one that was obviously cut from finer cloth. Across his shoulders was a heavy, fur-lined cape.
"He knows I am here," said Salvatore flatly, as he looked at the figure he immediately recognized as his brother, Massimo.
"Now there is a man with a taste for politics," said the Mason. "Even in the countryside news travels fast. He will be happy to see you. He was very unhappy to have missed you in Acre."
"If my brother was unhappy it was not because he missed the chance to talk about old times."
The two men watched as the party walked slowly towards the main gate of the tower and halted a few yards from where they stood. The servant walked to the left hand side of the mule, bent and removed the mounted man´s foot from the stirrup, then walked to the other side and did the same on the right. He then stood by the mule and waited until the man placed his hand on his shoulder and eased himself from the saddle. For a moment the servant fussed over the man, arranging the cape on his shoulders, then stepped back. Only now did the man look directly at the Mason and Salvatore.
"My dear, dear brother," said Massimo. "As soon as I heard that you were here I came at once. Had you told me you were back home in Radda, I would have rushed here all the sooner."
"Massimo," said Salvatore, "I am home, but not in Radda. This is Templar land."
Massimo smiled. "We need not fuss over trifles. We are both in our homeland and it gives me great pleasure to see you at last. We seem to miss each other so often in our travels."
The brothers made no move to embrace.
"Have you come only to bring me your good wishes?" said Salvatore.
Massimo looked at Salvatore with a well-practiced expression of hurt. "Why else would I hurry here from Rome? Our family priest sent me a message that you were here. It was only by a miracle that his note reached me, and a greater miracle still that I could read his handwriting. You remember how poor his hand was? It has never improved."
Salvatore said nothing.
"I´m afraid we are not able to offer you any hospitality," said the Mason. "This is still a building site."
Massimo looked up at the tower. There was scaffolding around the entrance archway and new stone works could be seen at an extension being completed to one side.
"What a curious place to find the Templars. I could wonder why such busy people take time to rebuild such a valueless old tower?"
"It is a place of contemplation and retreat," said the Mason.
"Contemplation," said Massimo. "I often find myself wondering what your order is contemplating. You are so very full of little secrets and stratagems."
"Is there some way we can help you?" said the Mason.
"There are many, many ways in which you could help the Church, but you do not always seem happy to do so." Massimo´s lips formed a joking smile that did not reach the rest of his face. "You seem so determined to avoid following our guidance."
A chill breeze swept up from the valley floor and enveloped the three men. A long silence sat between them like a living thing.
At last Massimo shivered theatrically. "Have you a fireside where I can warm myself?"
"You know our Order," said the Mason. "We pay so little attention to normal comforts. We have no fire lit."
Again the three men looked at each other in the cold silence. This time it was the Mason who spoke first.
"You say that you are here on family matters, Father Massimo, not Church business," he said. "I will leave you with your brother." With that he turned and walked back into the tower.
"And so, my brother," said Massimo, arranging his face back into a semblance of a smile again.
"So, brother," said Salvatore. "We have no family business to discuss, have we? Do you want to tell me why you are here or are your merely snooping into our matters?"
He examined his brother for a moment, and hearing nothing from Massimo, he turned his back and followed the Mason.
The Second Stranger
"Allow me to introduce myself," said the man. He was below average height, slightly built and every part of him seemed to have been tailored, buffed and groomed to perfection. "My name is Dr. Istfan Laszlo. I am talking to Mr. Peter Sparke, is that correct?"
Sparke looked at the man. "I don´t think we know each other," he said.
"My card," said Dr. Laszlo.
Sparke took the card and left it, unread, on the tabletop. "We´re in the middle of lunch. Perhaps I can call you sometime," he said.
Dr. Laszlo´s top lip twitched slightly as he fixed Sparke with a determined glare. "Do you mind if I ask what your objective is in your discussions with Mrs. Louise Nagel?"
"I have no idea who Mrs. Nagel is and I have no idea who you are or why we should be talking," said Sparke.
Dr. Laszlo made a loud tutting noise and looked up at the ceiling. "I am not a child, Mr. Sparke. I know very well why you are here. We both do."
Sparke thought for a moment. "Dr. Laszlo, please go away and leave us alone. I don´t know you and don´t think I want to."
Dr. Laszlo was about to speak again when a waitress reappeared, smiling. "You have decided?" she said.
Tilly smiled back at the waitress. "Can I have the menu of the day please?"
The waitress scribbled in her pad and reached out to take both Tilly´s and Sparke´s menu.
"I haven´t ordered yet," said Sparke.
"Perhaps you will have a small mixed salad, the omelet then some apricot tart?"
Sparke stared at her in shock. "How on earth did you know that?"
"Monsieur, you have been coming here every Saturday for weeks and every time you come you have a small mixed salad, omelet and apricot tart."
"I do?"
"Would you like to change your normal order?"
"Seriously? I have the same thing every time?"
"Of course."
"In that case I will take the menu of the day."
The waitress made a small note on her order book and disappeared into the crowd of diners.
Tilly looked at Sparke, and then said, laughing, "Looks like you need to work on that spontaneity a bit more."
"I can see that you insist on this charade, Mr. Sparke," said Dr. Laszlo, who had been standing, ignored during this discussion, being buffeted as guests squeezed past him. "I will talk with you later," he said, then did his best to sweep out of the cafe.
"That was seriously weird," said Tilly. "I had no idea you had so many interesting friends here."
"I suppose this Louise Nagel is the strange stalker woman," said Sparke.
"I hope so, or else there is a third weirdo looking for you."
"This is a weirdo-free zone," said Sparke. "Let´s have lunch, then take our new clothes for a walk. We can walk to St. Prex in under an hour, so we can get some of that hot chocolate and catch the train back if you like?"
"I love a good plan," Tilly said.
Their lunch passed in one of those easy, pointless, casual conversations that people have when they have no need to impress each other and no interest in do
ing anything except spending time together. The horror of the tunnel fire faded rapidly and the talk turned to their shared interest in the fate of the Knights Templar.
"Do you ever wonder what you might find in your big Templar quest?" said Tilly. "I mean, do you think you´ll uncover anything to rival what you’ve already found?"
Sparke thought for a moment as he ate his apricot tart. "It´s not l like it´s an obsession or anything."
"Heaven forbid."
"It´s... well, to be honest, it feels like there is something messy, something that needs to be tidied up about the whole thing. I mean, they were an immensely powerful organization, well structured, really well connected. Effectively, they were a highly profitable business run by a bunch of insanely violent warrior monks, then, all of sudden they were gone. The only one of the military orders to disappear, and they seem to have folded without a fight."
"Not always without a fight," said Tilly.
"What do you mean?"
"Some places chose not to pack up. In Spain there was a Templar fortress that was besieged for months, full-scale battle, the whole nine yards."
"Really?"
"Uh huh, I´ll send you some material on it. You´ll like it."
"So one Templar post chose to fight and were ready for it," said Sparke. "That doesn´t seem logical to me. There is something not right. They had all kinds of experience in seeing things go wrong. Is it really possible that nobody had any kind of plan?"
"Maybe they didn´t have crisis managers as smart as you on their team."
"There is nothing new under the sun. Just because they lived eight hundred years ago doesn´t mean they were any less smart than we are now."
"And you think you can discover what their plan was?"
"Plans, plans in the plural. No one who gives any thought to the future only has one plan about what to do when things go wrong. I want to..." He struggled for words for a moment, then said, "I want to tidy it up, or at least help to tidy it up. And I think I know where to look."
"You mean your big map?"
"Sure, we know that they had locations which had no logical reason to exist, miles from anywhere, nowhere near the pilgrim routes. There was the one we found in Tuscany, the one along the coast in St. Prex and, if I recall, one in Spain. Still, I´m not a trained researcher, I am only an enthusiastic amateur, but there´s no harm in looking around. Should we go?"
"I´m good," said Tilly. "Nice lunch."
Sparke nodded then said, "You know I enjoy food more now. I used to always find food a wee bit disappointing. Now it´s more satisfying."
"You´re learning to enjoy life a little."
They stopped outside the cafe to button up their coats against the chill.
"Oh, bloody hell," said Sparke. "Right, I´ve had enough of this."
Tilly looked up to see Sparke march along the road towards the diminutive figure of Dr. Laszlo who stood perhaps twenty yards away. Rather than back off, Dr. Laszlo seemed to grow in stature as Sparke approached and, for a moment, Tilly thought that he might hit Sparke. Instead he threw his left arm out to his side, his finger quivering as he pointed to the wall. Despite the distance, Tilly could clearly hear his voice.
"There, Mr. Sparke, there. Can we now stop playing these silly games? Could it be any more clear?"
Tilly caught up with Sparke and followed his gaze as he looked at the faded plaque fixed to the wall. Neither she nor Sparke had any skills in the French language, but the legend on the sign was easy for anyone to understand.
They read it at the same time, turned to look at each other, and then stared at Dr. Laszlo who looked up at them with a look that combined fury and triumph.
Through the Archway
Salvatore squinted up at the fresh stonework, now stripped of its scaffolding.
"You´ll never be an artist," said the Mason, standing behind him, "but you might become a passable stoneworker."
The arch had been rebuilt and extended. It was now made up of thirteen stone blocks, the inside face of each carved by Salvatore on the orders of the Mason to show the image of a saint or holy man. All were obscure figures. The only one that Salvatore had known was Fra Muratore, the patron of Radda.
The tight courtyard of the tower where Salvatore and the Mason stood was full of men and horses. There were two other knights and three sergeants, all making their final preparations to depart, each with his traveling mount and two pack horses.
"You know your destination?" asked the Mason.
"I will know it when I see it," said Salvatore, smiling.
"You know your route?"
"No, but I have a good Templar head on my shoulders and tongue in my head. I hope I will not get lost."
The Mason smiled and clapped his hand on Salvatore´s shoulder. "I know you know your mission. Perhaps you might even succeed. If you manage not to die, I will find you."
"What if I fail?"
"Don´t."
"What if I die?"
"Try and avoid that."
"When will you come?" said Salvatore.
"Before winter arrives."
Salvatore looked at the Mason for a moment. His family had lived in Radda for longer than anyone could say and he had a score of cousins and other relatives in the lands around this tower, but the only person he trusted completely, and on whom he knew he could rely absolutely, was this fellow Templar.
"I will see you before the winter arrives," said Salvatore, "if I am alive."
The Templar troop threaded their way through the archway and down the hill from the tower to the small country road below. A few hours later, they joined the main pilgrim road north and effectively disappeared into the sparse but endless flow of traffic that pulsed slowly along the narrow arteries of Europe´s road network.
Alone amongst the Templars, Salvatore kept himself clean shaven, so whenever they stopped and had any dealings with locals, he was the one whom strangers approached. At every stop, Salvatore had the same conversation; who is on the road, what do travelers say about the road ahead, what advice would you give anyone heading north? He never shared his destination, but he sought every scrap of information he could find.
The small party spent most nights in monasteries or pilgrim houses as they threaded their way through Florence, then up towards Parma and Bologna. He was warned about the difficulties of traveling through Genoa, so he took the inland route direct to Turin, where the group stopped and stared at the monstrous natural fortress of the Alps, still snowcapped and unbreachable except for a few narrow passes, often closed and always dangerous. The mountains were a place unfit for human kind. Monsters lived in the high slopes where the snow never melted. Everyone knew this.
For the most part, the Templars traveled in silence. They were not a silent order, but pointless conversations of any description were frowned upon. It was one of the many tiresome rules that chaffed on Salvatore.
The two other knights were, like him, the younger sons of junior nobility. This class existed almost exclusively to produce sons and deliver them, ready for combat and adequately educated, to an adult life devoid of any purpose except to fight. When there was no enemy, they fought each other in elaborate public combats, often for cash prizes, sometimes to the death. It was the duty of those who ruled to find uses for all this martial skill and energy. The crusades in the Holy Land, Prussia, Spain and against several types of heretic had provided productive targets for these men to be hurled against. The religious orders like the Templars were another useful outlet. Failure to soak up all this potential for violence often meant that neighbor turned against neighbor and there was a constant risk of petty wars between nobility who lived within a day´s walk of each other. These wars erupted after the harvest, when the storerooms were full and the blood was hot, or in the early spring, when food was scarce and the frustration of winter´s boredom erupted.
Five leagues north of Turin, Salvatore and his troop were brought to a halt by a line of standing carts and pack horses.
; Salvatore leaned forward in his saddle and spoke to the sergeant who was riding point. "Henk, find out what is happening."
The sergeant trotted his mount forward to the spot where the road crested a low hill. Salvatore could see him talking to one of the wagon drivers before he walked his horse further on and out of sight. Ten minutes later, he reappeared and threaded his way back through the line of stalled traffic.
"Might be a couple of hours, sir," said Henk, gesturing with his thumb at the road behind him. "They´re having a bit of a battle. A local one, but it looks very neatly set."
Salvatore was weary from the boredom of travel. They had set out early and he was hungry.
"We´ll break here and eat early," he said to his men. He nudged his horse forward, off the narrow road, and headed to the ridge. Dismounting, he could see below him a broad flat plain. To his left there was a rocky hill at the mouth of a valley with a mess of red-roofed buildings encircled by a wall. Far to his right there was a larger cluster of buildings by a river, between the two was a road that cut across the route he and his troop were on. At the crossroads, there were two lines of men facing each other. Henk road up and dismounted next to Salvatore.
"As you said," said Salvatore, "well set."
"Both towns have their militia out. Most all of them have half armor, a good dozen on each side mounted. The ones from the riverside look to have the better of it. Wonder what they are fighting over?"
"Something that the fate of the world turns on, no doubt," said Salvatore, leaning against his saddle.
Both lines of men rippled as they maneuvered against each other for some slight advantage. Like a cumbersome dance, each move was met with a counter-move.
"Here´s some fun," said Henk, looking towards the town at the valley head. Salvatore turned and watched as a knot of horsemen, perhaps thirty strong trotted out of the gate and skirted the battlefield using a fold in the land to hide their approach. Their route brought them directly below the position the Templars were watching from.
These men were in full armor, well mounted with lances and crossbows.
The Templar Tower: Peter Sparke Book Five Page 11