The Templar Tower: Peter Sparke Book Five

by Scott Chapman

  The smith levered open the small stone hatch at the front of the furnace and reached into the white hot interior with a long iron poker and raked the contents out. A dark glowing mass, twice the size of a man's fist, tumbled onto the floor.

  "Let's see," said Salvatore.

  The smith plunged the mass into a bucket of water, sending a plume of steam into the sky, then placed it immediately onto his anvil. He and his first assistant now began hammering the mass with iron hammers. The test was simple. The parts of the mass that were iron would flatten and distort easily under the hammer blows. Those parts that resisted had been transformed into steel. A few moments hammering removed the dirt and soft iron and what was left, more than half the block, was steel. There was nothing new in making steel this way. What was new was the idea of making it in a predictable manner, measuring the charcoal, testing the heat.

  The smith and his assistant took the steel block and, using heat and steel-headed hammers, began to form it into a workable shape.

  "Again," said Salvatore to the workmen clustered around the four furnaces. "Find me when there is only white heat to be seen."

  The men went to the charcoal and started firing the other furnaces. Salvatore wiped the sweat from his face and hands and walked over to where Odo and some of his friends stood.

  "Steel for pole-axes and steel for armor for the men," he said.

  Odo nodded. "You need more? More men, iron, charcoal?"

  Salvatore shook his head. "No," he said, "we have enough for now. It will take two weeks or more to work through what is here. We should walk together. I need some clean air."

  Odo and Salvatore walked out into the cool morning air, the sweat chilling immediately on Salvatore’s skin. If any of the citizens of Martigny thought there was anything unusual in seeing Odo the salt miner walking with a Templar they chose not to show it. The two men walked out of the town and down to the banks of the river that flowed through the valley. At this time of year the River Rhone was less than half the depth it would be when the snow began to melt in earnest, but already it was too fast and deep for a man to cross.

  "Tell me," said Salvatore, "when the Duke's men came in the past, what happens?"

  "They have two options," said Odo. "Either they stop and occupy Lausanne, if they can, or if the city gates there are closed to them, they come up the valley. This time they will ignore Lausanne and come here directly. The Duke left fifty men here in total this winter and none were alive when Spring arrived. He will want revenge."

  "I saw what was left of one of his garrisons."

  "The same happened in each of the other strongpoints. Just after Epiphany, the last garrison tried to run for the lake. The snow was deep and they could not move fast. None made it."

  Salvatore squinted down the valley. "They follow the road and cross the river at that bridge?" he said.

  "There is no other way. To the west is the Bois Noir, the Black Woods, too thick for horses to get through. They can't do anything except cross there, but there is nothing we can do to stop them, you know that? They have crossbows, armored knights. If we stand against them in the open they shoot us down then charge over us."

  Salvatore nodded. "How is the ground on this side of the river?"

  "Between the river and the road it is bad, wet for much of the time, cow pasture. The people are trying to drain it," said Odo looking carefully at Salvatore. "You have a plan?"

  "I have a plan, but a plan is no good without weapons, so now I need to go back to the furnaces."

  It took three days for the first of the new weapons to appear from the forge, the steel brilliant in the strong winter sun. Odo held one, feeling its five-pound weight heavy in his hand. The design was a simplified version of the pole-axe Salvatore had shown the men at the meeting; a long thick spike and a heavy axe blade, the body hollow to allow it to be fixed to a wooden shaft.

  "Now we have weapons," said Odo, looking at the men working in the smelters producing a constant flow of steel blocks. The blacksmiths, now grown to eight teams as word had spread to the other villages, were producing a dozen copies per day between them.

  "Now we have weapons," said Salvatore. "Now we need an army, a small one. You have three hundred men for me?"

  Odo ran his finger along the blade of the pole-axe then looked at Salvatore. "Yes," he said. "Tomorrow, an hour after sunrise?"

  Salvatore nodded, his attention distracted by a group of horsemen approaching along the valley road. They rode with their pack horses before them, their lances high in the air and their white surcoats brilliant in the sun.

  Even at this distance and on horseback, Salvatore could recognize the man who led the troop of Templars. He would know the Mason anywhere.

  I Spy

  "I need to tell you a secret," said Sparke.

  "A secret, you have a secret?" said Tilly, her face smiling on Sparke's screen.

  "I'm not that boring, you know. For all you know I might have lots of secrets."

  "Uh huh, I know for a fact that you have a spreadsheet so you can plan when to be more spontaneous."

  "Yes, that's true."

  "And I know that when I was at your flat and I put a water glass in amongst the wine glasses you could only stop yourself putting it in the right place for about three minutes before moving it."

  "Right, I take your point. I'm possibly not the type of person who has lots of secrets. But I do have one now and you don't know what it is. If you can guess, I´ll give you twenty quid."

  "Must be a tough one. You'd only bet twenty quid if you were sure of winning. I give up."

  Sparke was rarely in a position to keep Tilly in suspense and he was in no rush to squander the moment. After what seemed like a dramatic enough pause, he said, "I am currently an undercover agent for the Swiss government."

  Tilly's laughter burst through the speaker on his computer and filled the room.

  "Great. You're a natural born spy," she said eventually. "Do you have a license to kill?"

  "No, but if the situation is extreme I am allowed to use harsh language."

  "Go on then, tell me the big scoop," she said.

  "Turns out that the loony stalker and her sidekick really are on the verge of bringing that document into Switzerland. If they do that without a permit, they're breaking Swiss law on transporting historical artifacts. The customs service wants to catch them and, you know, prosecute them. They asked me to hang out with them a bit and call them when then document is in their hands."

  "So, the Swiss government must be pretty sure that the thing is genuine?" said Tilly.

  "Guess so. Not like the Swiss to waste time and effort." Sparke paused for a moment, then said, "Mrs. Nagel also wants me to get you involved to authenticate the document, but I'll make up an excuse."

  Tilly was silent for a moment, then said, "If the Swiss customs people are happy to have me involved then I might not want you to make an excuse."

  Plans

  "You found the right man," said the Mason.

  "Henk? He seemed to be the most trustworthy and someone who has a head on his shoulders."

  "And tight lips. I met him in Moncalieri and he would not even tell me the mission you sent him on."

  "He defied you?" said Salvatore, laughing. "More than ever I dared to do. But tell me, why are you here so early? You told me to expect you at the end of summer."

  The Mason nodded and took Salvatore by the arm to walk with him along the road, well away from any other ears.

  "Things are moving more quickly than we feared. Everything depends on Acre. If it falls to the Saracens there is no hope for us in the Holy Land for a generation. If the Order has no home in Acre we have no home anywhere. The few allies we had in the region are leaving us and the Arabs are united again. We can beat any part of their armies, but not all of them combined. If they stay united we are finished, and it will happen much sooner than we thought."

  Salvatore looked at the Mason, aware that there was a world of politics that he w
as shielded from.

  "And if we lose Acre?" he asked.

  "People are already asking why the Templars have such wealth and power if we cannot use it to defend Christians in the Holy Land. Those who lead the Inquisition petition the Pope constantly to have our finances investigated."

  "Not just the Pope," said Salvatore. "My brother Massimo is here, pushing for the Bishop of Sion to allow them free rein here. So far he has had no success, but he will persevere."

  "Massimo his here? You have seen him?" said the Mason.

  "He made sure that we met. He cannot be here by accident. We saw him on the road from Radda. And he knows our movements before we make them."

  "What are you saying? Do you think we have a spy amongst us?"

  "There is no doubt," said Salvatore. "I thought it might have been Henk, but now I am sure of his loyalty. No one knew our plans. How could anyone have told Massimo?"

  "Salvatore, that's not how spies work. People like Massimo live on snippets of information. They hear a hundred whispers and work out their own conclusions. Unfortunately, it looks as though Massimo is often correct."

  "I'm glad you are worrying about that," said Salvatore. "It means that I am free to worry over this little valley."

  The Mason gazed around the flat valley floor and at the steep, impassible hillsides.

  "This is as good a place to fight as any I have seen," he said. "Tell me your plans."

  "There are nearly thirty men now making steel pole-axes day and night. We will have almost four hundred in ten days’ time. With your contingent, we have seventeen Templars and there are five men of the valley who can equip themselves as knights. The leader here, the man called Odo, tells me we will meet our army tomorrow."

  "How many?"

  "I told him three hundred."

  "Not many," said the Mason. "What do you think we will face?"

  "I want three hundred we can train and lead, not a mob of farmers for the Duke's men to slaughter. From what they tell me, Savoy will probably muster up to two hundred knights and eight hundred of foot."

  "Three hundred against a thousand? You have a week to train them to fight?"

  "Fighting comes second," said Salvatore. "First we teach them to dance."

  "Dance?" said the Mason.

  The next morning, dawn broke bright and cold. Already the ground on the floor of the valley was turning soft, and as the snow melt poured down from the hills, the river Rhone started to swell.

  Salvatore and the Mason walked out to the center of the village where a mob of over five hundred men stood talking.

  "I asked for three hundred," said Salvatore.

  "People want to fight," said Odo. "I thought you would pick from the men."

  The Templars surveyed the group of farmers and townsmen. They were short men, but strong and fit. All had brought their best weapons and a surprising number of them wore pieces of good armor.

  "Gifts from the Duke's men?" said the Mason.

  "Every one of his men they kill is stripped of whatever he carries," said Salvatore. "They kill a lot of men. Let's pick our army."

  Salvatore and the Mason moved through the crowd, tapping the shoulders of the most likely looking men until three hundred stood on one side of square. Salvatore turned to Odo.

  "Tell the others there will be a chance for them to fight, but now we need to work with these men," he said.

  While Odo spoke to the rest of the volunteers, Salvatore took ten of those selected and stood them in a straight rank, shoulder to shoulder.

  "Make lines like this one, one behind the other," he shouted. The three hundred rapidly created ranks, building a solid column of men ten broad and thirty deep.

  "Look to your left foot," he shouted. There was confusion on many faces. Salvatore turned to Odo. "How do you say 'left foot´ in their dialect?"

  "Say 'ped gich', they will understand."

  "Ped gich" shouted Salvatore, tapping his own left leg. He then began a slow, strange walk; his left foot took a full step forward, then his right came up to join it so that both feet were level, then moved his left again. He circled the whole column, shouting "Ped gich" before every step. Then he pointed to the volunteers and drew a deep breath.

  "Ped gich."

  To a man the column moved forward one step with their left foot and brought up their right. Salvatore turned to look at the Mason, who nodded, smiling.

  "You are natural born soldiers," shouted Salvatore, and received a loud laugh from the men. He then turned and shouted towards the barn.

  "Troop forward."

  A dozen knights and sergeants double-timed out in a file, all fully armored, carrying shields and swords. Salvatore lined them up facing the front rank of the column, forming a wall of shields a yard from the nearest men.

  "Ped gich" shouted Salvatore. The column stepped forward as before.

  "Troop advance in rank," he shouted to the Templars, who crashed their shield wall into the village men, scattering them and breaking through the ranks until the whole column broke into chaos.

  Salvatore looked at the mob of men, many of them on the ground.

  "Reform in ranks," he said. "We will try again."

  Assembly of Fools

  "If the Swiss seize the document, they'll do what any other government would do. They'll keep it until the legal owner can be identified and something like this will take forever to resolve. If they owe me a favor..."

  "They'll let you have first look at it," finished Sparke.

  "Absolutely," said Tilly. "I fancy being the only person to have access to the first document that could link the Templars to a homeland in the Alps. Big news in my little world."

  "No point in reminding you how mad these people are, I suppose?"

  "They might be as mad as a bag of wet cats, but the Swiss government isn't."

  "No, they seem almost boringly sane. No undercover bust or surveillance or anything," said Sparke. “I'm supposed to call them and they'll wander round and arrest them."

  The pair walked through the park towards the hotel, enjoying the clear, cold day. As they waited to cross the road they saw the unmistakable figure of Dr. Laszlo hurrying towards them, wrapped in an overcoat that made him look even smaller than normal.

  "You're here," said Laszlo.

  At reception, Laszlo asked for Mrs. Nagel in flawless French. The receptionist smiled and pushed a buzzer behind her desk and a waitress in her early fifties wearing an old-fashioned hearing aid appeared, smiling. The three followed the waitress into a small private dining room where Mrs. Nagel sat looking out through the patio doors onto the perfectly sculpted garden terrace.

  "How lovely to see you both," said Mrs. Nagel. "Would you like some tea? Miss, could we order tea for my two British friends?" The waitress showed no sign of hearing. "Tea for two please, dear, tea?" said Mrs. Nagel, nodding and enunciating every word with great care.

  The waitress smiled and left the room.

  Sparke and Tilly took seats around the table without removing their coats.

  "You'd better make yourselves comfortable," said Nagel. "We could be anywhere up to an hour, I'm afraid."

  "Are we meeting someone?" said Sparke.

  "Oh no, nothing so dramatic. We're waiting for FedEx. It's coming priority shipping and I just checked the package on their website. It's left their depot so it should be any time now."

  "Tell me, what do you plan to do with the document when it arrives?" said Tilly.

  "What a sweet question," said Nagel. "Well, I already have a small collection of pieces, so once we have this one I hope that Peter and I can author a book together expounding our theory."

  "What do you mean 'our theory´?" said Sparke, startled.

  "I hope you don't mind my little presumption," said Nagel. "It seemed to be the most natural thing for us to do as a first step."

  Sparke stared out of the window. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a gentle knock at the door.

  "Ah, must be the tea,
" said Nagel.

  The receptionist appeared at the door, carrying a large, flat FedEx carton.

  "It's here," said Mrs. Nagel, clapping her hands. "Thank you, dear," she said, taking the package. "I have been waiting for this moment for such a long time." She turned to Tilly. "If you don't mind Professor, I'll allow myself the honor of opening the box, then you can take over when it comes to examining the actual artifact."

  She ripped open the FedEx box and dropped it on the floor, pulling out a large flat cardboard box with dull metal reinforcements at each corner. It was obviously old and had the remnants of a paper label on the front which had been torn off at some point. The top of the box was secured by sticky tape which she slit with her finger nails. Lifting the lid slowly, she paused and looked at the faces of the three other people in the room for a moment, then raised it up to expose the contents. Inside was a layer of cotton which Nagel pulled back, then a sheet of tissue paper. With one nail she flipped up the edge and drew it back.

  "Oh my goodness," she said, before looking to Tilly. "Over to you now, I think, professor."

  Sparke had planned to walk out of the room and call the customs officer as soon as he saw the delivery, but the thought evaporated at the sight of the document. Tilly reached into her bag and pulled out a magnifying glass fitted with small lights and leaned over the document.

  "There's no way I can testify to its authenticity," she said. "All I can do is tell you what I see."

  "Then tell me what you see, dear," said Nagel.

  "Vellum, certainly era appropriate, high quality, clean edges," she said running her eye up over a corner of the document. She lifted her gaze slightly to look at the top line of writing. "Clear, very practiced handwriting, no cracking on the ink, been well looked after, never folded, no moisture spotting. There are signs that it was once sealed with wax, but the seal has gone, date is written in an appropriate style."