Cabal of The Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower (Book #1 in the Templars in America Series)

by David S. Brody

  “We can relate to that,” Cam said.

  “I shouldn’t complain. It’s nothing like what’s been happening to you guys. We’re not getting run down by cars.”

  “Heck with the cars.” Cam rolled his shoulder. “It’s the ex-hockey players I’m afraid of.”

  Laughing, Forsberg again sipped his beer. “Well, these Vatican folks are a lot smarter than me. Assuming your monsignor friend is right, they think the evidence is out there someplace, otherwise they wouldn’t be so intent on stopping you guys. Until I heard your story we had no idea the Vatican gave a damn about any of this.” He held up the cocktail napkin, shook his head. “Heck, we were just speculating, playing ‘what if’ games, doodling on napkins. But based on the Vatican’s reaction, now I think our theory may actually be correct.”

  * * *

  Cam was having trouble accepting what Forsberg had just told them. Sure, Monsignor Marcotte had theorized that the Vatican was worried about some kind of genealogy proving Sarah’s birth, but Cam never really thought he and Amanda would actually stumble upon anything so monumental. A week ago, he was just a real estate attorney trying to help an elderly couple keep their house. Now, he was … well, still a real estate attorney but this time one on the verge of a discovery that could shake one of the pillars of Western civilization. He wanted another beer but gulped some water instead.

  “So, wait, let me get this straight. You think all these Hooked X markings are a code of some kind? A signal that the heirs of Jesus were exploring America?” Perhaps Prince Henry was part of the most secret cabal of all.

  Forsberg stared absently at the TV monitor above the bar. “You know, Cam, I really don’t know what to think. Honestly. This is all so bizarre. When I hear you describe it like that, I just shake my head and think it’s all too far-fetched. But then I look at all the evidence and I don’t know what else to think.” He swigged his beer. “It’s frigging mind-boggling.”

  He was glad to see that Forsberg shared his incredulity, that he did not totally accept even his own theory. The lawyer in him focused on the words ‘all the evidence.’ “What have you found besides the Hooked X?”

  “Good question. The other stuff doesn’t really have anything to do with religion or Jesus or Sarah. At least not that I can tell. But there’s a lot more going on here than just rock carvings. It looks to me like Prince Henry and his gang were here not just to explore but to make a permanent settlement. Probably for all the Templars who had gone underground early in the 14th century. They knew that at some point the Pope was going to come after them. They were still outlaws, still outcasts. They had to get out of Europe.”

  “You are correct,” Amanda said. “England, which was loyal to the Pope in those days, was constantly attacking, trying to retake Scotland.”

  “Right. So the Templars packed their treasures and sailed to the New World. I’m simplifying—they probably sent a small fleet over first with others planning to follow later. Which, since no big colony has been found, they probably never did, likely because of war between England and Scotland, or maybe because of another outbreak of Black Plague. Anyway, the first thing they’d likely do when they got here—after making friends with the natives, of course—would be to start mapping the New World and scouting for settlement sites. So the Rune Stones would serve multiple purposes--”

  Cam interrupted. “You said something earlier about the stones being carved by people from Gotland.”

  “Right. Gotland was full of Cistercian monks during that period. The Cistercians happened to be a sister order to the Templars—they were really the only literate people during that time.”

  “And,” Amanda added, “there was a close connection between the Cistercians and the Sinclair clan dating back to the 12th century. It would have made sense for Prince Henry to bring a Cistercian monk or two along to keep records and act as a scribe.”

  “So, anyway,” Forsberg continued, “the rune stones would have served multiple purposes. The stone itself would be a marker, like a breadcrumb in the woods. And the Hooked X would be a coded sign that the stone was carved by the Templars, the guys who believed in the Jesus bloodline.”

  “X marks the spot,” Amanda murmured.

  “What?” Forsberg asked.

  She smiled. “I was just thinking about Treasure Island and how X marks the spot of the treasure—that was the first book to do that, to mark the treasure with an X.” She explained to Forsberg the Treasure Island story’s parallels, and possible connection, to the Sinclair treasure. “And now we have another X. And another treasure.”

  Forsberg grinned. “I like it. The Hooked X marks the spot.”

  “It fits,” she said. “With the Templars, one needs always to think in layers, to look at multiple levels. As you said, a rune stone might serve multiple purposes: the message itself conveyed information, the stone’s placement served as some kind of directional marker and the Hooked X identified its author and perhaps indicated the presence of some type of treasure.”

  “Exactly.” Forsberg sipped his beer. “Look at the Newport Tower. It probably served multiple purposes—beacon, baptistery, observation tower, astronomical device, maybe a memorial of some kind. But I also think it was meant as a major navigational marker. Maybe a prime meridian for longitudinal measurements.”

  “If you’re going to go to the trouble of building something like that,” Cam said, “you might as well incorporate as many usages as you can.”

  “Right. I haven’t had a chance to take a careful look at the sites out here in New England but I bet you find they line up in some significant way.”

  “The sword on the Westford Knight points north,” Amanda commented.

  “Same thing with the foundation in the Gendrons’ back yard,” Cam added, turning to Forsberg, “the one we believe was Prince Henry’s encampment site. Brandon noticed it right away. The sides run exactly north-south and east-west.”

  “See what I mean. That’s the stuff I’m talking about.” Forsberg pulled out his laptop from beneath his feet and powered it up. “Check this out.” He showed an aerial view of what looked like a farm. “This is the Ohman farm in Minnesota, where the Kensington Rune Stone was found.” He hit a button and a red arrow appeared. “This is where the stone itself was buried. What’s interesting is that, over the years, the Ohman family has found a number of triangular-shaped holes, about the size of a half-dollar, in the larger boulders on the farm. For years, people in the Midwest have found these holes around the countryside. You can tell they’re pretty old because they’re not perfectly round, which they would be if made with a modern drill bit. The locals call them mooring holes.” Forsberg illustrated with a straw in Cam’s soda glass. “You know, put a metal rod in the hole and tie your boat to the rod. The pressure of the boat pulling the rod wedges the rod sideways, tight against the opposite side of the hole, securing the boat. It’s simple but effective.”

  Cam and Amanda exchanged knowing glances, both thinking about the hole on the Tyngsboro Map Stone. They allowed Forsberg to continue.

  “Anyway, a colleague of ours, a woman from South Dakota named Judi Rudebusch, started looking at these a little more carefully. And she realized that some of them were nowhere near water. Well, why would you need a mooring hole where you wouldn’t have boats? So Judi started theorizing that maybe they were markers of some kind, not just mooring holes. And it turns out she may be on to something—in Iceland during medieval times they used stone holes to map the countryside.”

  “So did you examine the holes at the Ohman farm?” Amanda asked.

  “You’re damn right we did,” Forsberg smiled, changing the picture on his laptop monitor. “Check this out. Scott Wolter and I made a line through all the stone holes, like kids playing connect the dots. And look what we got.” He angled the computer toward Cam and Amanda. The display showed three red lines, each connecting a series of dots. The lines intersected at a single point.

  Amanda gasped. Cam just shook his head.
This was getting too weird. The lines intersected at the exact spot the Kensington Rune Stone was buried.

  * * *

  Still shaking his head, Cam decided to have that second beer after all. He looked at Amanda and raised an eyebrow. She understood him, nodding in agreement.

  “This is not as fancy as your laptop but you might find it interesting.” He pulled his digital camera out of his daypack and found the picture he was looking for. “Have you ever heard of the Tyngsboro Map Stone?”

  Forsberg said he hadn’t. Amanda described its location and explained its significance as Cam showed him a picture of the boulder. Next Cam showed the picture of the triangular-shaped hole they found in the broken-off piece. “Does that look like one of your stone holes?”

  It was Forsberg’s turn to be flabbergasted. “Damn, it sure does.” He shook his head. “You said this boulder is near a large river?”

  “Yes,” Amanda answered. “It sits at the bend of the Merrimack, at its southern point.”

  “Makes sense. These holes are usually found along major rivers, or on top of high hills, or along trails. And usually on large boulders, especially ones with odd shapes or other prominent features.”

  “It’s a big continent,” Cam said. “If you’re leaving bread crumbs or whatever for the next guy coming along the trail, you’d better make them easy to find.”

  “For all we know, they may have put flags or banners in these holes, just so they’d be more visible. But there’s no way to know for sure.” Forsberg looked down again at the small screen on Cam’s digital camera. “Getting back to this Tyngsboro Map Stone, it looks to me like we clearly have a map and we clearly have a bread crumb. I bet that you’ll find other holes in the area. And I bet they’ll somehow line up with this one.

  * * *

  Salazar slid off his bar stool and strode quickly to the parking lot. Could this talk of a Jesus bloodline be true? He didn’t buy the immaculate conception story but if it was true and God did have a son, why couldn’t the son have a child as well? He thought back to the birth of Rosalita—nothing could be more holy than bringing a child into the world. He would open his mind and reflect on the matter. The spirits of his ancestors would guide him to the truth.

  Not that the truth was paramount here. What mattered was that Thorne and the girl believed the bloodline theory. More importantly, they believed it to be an important clue leading to the treasure.

  He phoned Reichmann and summarized Forsberg’s research and conclusions. Blasphemy or not, it was exactly the kind of allegation that enraged the Legions of Jesus. “Forsberg’s convinced these artifacts are evidence of the Jesus bloodline. He’s a scientist, very persuasive. But so far he only shared his theory with Thorne and the girl.” He paused and added a lie—the possibility of Forsberg publicizing his conclusions might be just what Salazar needed to buy some time. “Tomorrow he’s planning to tell the others at the conference.”

  “Then our path is clear. Forsberg is now your number one priority. Disregard Thorne and the girl for now. The scientist must be silenced.”

  * * *

  They finished their beers. Cam reached for the check with his left hand, recoiling from the stabbing pain in his shoulder. In that instant Forsberg snared the bill. “It’s the least I can do after that sneak attack of mine.”

  Cam smiled. “I can’t say I really want to wrestle you for it. Thanks.”

  They walked outside, stopping in front of Forsberg’s rental car. He shook Forsberg’s hand and Amanda surprised Forsberg with a hug and kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for your help,” she said, stepping back and slipping her arm around Cam’s waist.

  Forsberg’s face clouded. “You two be careful, okay?” He handed them each a business card while Cam scribbled his new TracFone number down on a scrap of paper, absent the last four digits which Forsberg quickly memorized. “If you guys need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call.”

  “He’s a good man,” Cam said as Forsberg drove off in his rental car. Cam had lost Pegasus and almost lost Brandon. But he had gained Amanda and now Forsberg. He liked to think of the relationships in his life as existing in a series of concentric rings, with himself at the center. The past week had been like a wild game of musical chairs around his inner circles.

  He slipped his hand into Amanda’s and pulled her close to him. The evening was beginning to chill and they had a couple of miles walk back to the Subaru.

  “Well now, what next?” she asked.

  He pulled out his TracFone. “Let’s see what Brandon’s learned. Also I want to tell him about this stone hole stuff. Maybe he knows of others around Westford.”

  Brandon reported he was feeling better, regaining some of his strength. “The nurses keep threatening to take away my laptop. So I told them I’m just looking at porn. That shut them up.”

  “I bet it did.” Cam summarized Forsberg’s Hooked X theory. “He also thinks all these sites—the Newport Tower, the Rune Stones, the Westford Knight—all are part of a mapping system of the New World. He thinks Prince Henry and the Templars, or what was left of them, were coming here to settle, to escape the Pope. So of course they needed somehow to find their way around.” He explained the stone holes. “And check this out: We found one of these holes on the Map Stone in Tyngsboro.”

  “Really? That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Forsberg thinks there are probably other ones around. Any ideas where to look?”

  “I guess it’d make sense to look near the Knight. That’s the highest hill in eastern Massachusetts.”

  “But it’s all built up. Whatever might have been there is probably gone.”

  “Well, the other big hill is Cowdry Hill, where the new Highway Department garage is. Not too far from the Gendrons’ property, come to think of it. There used to be some granite quarries up there but otherwise it hasn’t been developed.”

  “Good idea. If that was Prince Henry’s campsite on the Gendrons’ property, he would have explored that hill.”

  “Well, before you come back to Westford, I think you should take another drive up to Maine.”

  “Why?”

  Cam turned the phone so Amanda could hear. “I was reading about something called the Machias Bay petroglyphs, up past Bar Harbor.”

  She leaned in to the speaker. “Aren’t they Native American carvings?”

  “Yeah. But mixed in with the deer and the teepees and the canoes is a carving of a medieval ship. I think they call it a knorr. Looks a bit like the Boat Stone ship but it’s tough to see just from the picture. I think you need to see it in person to be sure.”

  The headlights of an oncoming car illuminated her face as she responded. “You know, that’s interesting. How would the natives know what a medieval ship looked like?”

  “They’d know if one was sitting off the coastline,” Cam answered.

  “Precisely,” she said. “And if it was carved during your Colonial times it would be a Colonial ship, not a knorr.”

  “There’s a place that does kayak tours,” said Brandon. He gave them the contact number. “That’s the best way to see the carvings. But it’s a haul to get up there—probably six hours.”

  Cam thanked him and gave him the new TracFone number. “Hey, you don’t write these numbers down, do you?” He didn’t want to insult his cousin but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that someone might come into his hospital room looking for a way to find Cam.

  “Shit, Cam, my brains weren’t in my foot. I write down the first six numbers and memorize the last four. And even the ones I write down I write on my thigh—only the nurses get to see them.”

  “Sorry to doubt you, Cuz. Keep getting better. Talk to you soon.” Cam turned to Amanda. “He sounds much better, more upbeat, less angry.”

  “He’s probably going to ebb and flow for a bit. It’s only natural. He’s got a lot to be cross about.”

  Cam checked his watch. Just after 7:00. “You up for a road trip? We can make it most of the wa
y tonight. And I’d like to keep moving if we can.”

  Her eyes sparkled in the dusk. “I suppose I could tolerate another few hours with you.”

  * * *

  Beatrice Yarborough waited until the threesome left before darting over to the bar from her table in the corner. She snatched the cocktail napkin from the bartender just as he was about to clear the empty glasses and debris. “Give me that.”

  “Whatever.” The bartender, a balding, overweight man with a droopy mustache, shrugged. “By the way, no smoking in here.”

  She exhaled smoke through her nose, staring at the Hooked X scrawled on the napkin. Damn. Things had certainly progressed—in the wrong direction—during her seven-hour flight. She removed a twenty dollar bill from her handbag and placed it in front of the bartender. “Did you hear what the folks sitting here were speaking of?”

  He glanced at the twenty and shrugged again. “Nope.”

  She removed two more twenties and waved them slowly. “Are you certain you recall nothing?”

  He edged closer, leaning in. “They were talking about religion, I think. Jesus, the Vatican, stuff like that.” He pulled the twenties from her hand.

  “Did they mention the name Sarah by chance?”

  “Yeah, the lady was all excited about it, said something about some symbol representing Sarah.”

  She turned away. The sixty dollars was money well spent, though the information it bought was itself potentially catastrophic. Originally she was concerned Amanda and her new friend would stumble onto some site or artifact and contaminate it before the professionals could establish its authenticity. But the stakes had grown much higher. They were on the verge of making a discovery that would sully the reputation of Prince Henry and Sir James forever. Babinaux was a fool for instructing her to share Consortium secrets with them. Not that she had obeyed him.