The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Malone followed Cassiopeia into a lofty chamber with a raftered ceiling and paneled walls hung with tapestries that depicted cuirasses, swords, lances, casques, and shields. A black marble fireplace dominated the long room, which was lit by a glittering chandelier. The others joined them from the dining room and he noticed serious expressions on all of their faces. A mahogany table sat beneath a set of mullioned windows, across which were spread books, papers, and photographs.

  “Time we see if there are any conclusions we can reach,” Cassiopeia said. “On the table is everything I have on this subject.”

  Malone told the others about Lars’s notebook and how some of the information contained within it was false.

  “Does that include what he said about himself?” Stephanie asked. “This young man here—” She pointed at Geoffrey. “—sent me pages from the journal—pages his master cut out. They talked about me.”

  “Only you know if what he said was true or more misdirection,” Cassiopeia said.

  “She’s right,” Thorvaldsen said. “The notebook is, by and large, not genuine. Lars created it as Templar bait.”

  “Another point you conveniently failed to mention back in Copenhagen.” Stephanie’s tone signaled she was once again annoyed.

  Thorvaldsen was undaunted. “The important thing was that de Roquefort thought the journal genuine.”

  Stephanie’s back straightened. “You son of a bitch, we could have been killed trying to get it back.”

  “But you weren’t. Cassiopeia kept an eye on you both.”

  “And that makes what you did right?”

  “Stephanie, you’ve never withheld information from one of your agents?” Thorvaldsen asked.

  She held her tongue.

  “He’s right,” Malone said.

  She whirled and faced him.

  “How many times did you tell me only part of the story? And how many times did I complain later that it could have gotten me killed? And what did you say? Get used to it. Same here, Stephanie. I don’t like it any better than you do, but I got used to it.”

  “Why don’t we stop arguing and see if we can come to some consensus as to what Saunière may have found,” Cassiopeia said.

  “And where would you suggest we start?” Mark asked.

  “I’d say Marie d’Hautpoul de Blanchefort’s gravestone would be an excellent spot, since we have Stüblein’s book that Henrik purchased at the auction.” She motioned to the table. “Opened to the drawing.”

  They all stepped close and gazed at the sketch.

  “Claridon explained about this in Avignon,” Malone said, and he told them about the wrong date of death—1681 as opposed to 1781—the Roman numerals—MDCOLXXXI—containing a zero, and the remaining set of Roman numerals—LIXLIXL—etched into the lower right corner.

  Mark grabbed a pencil off the table and wrote 1681 and 59, 59, 50 on a pad. “That’s the conversion of those numbers. I’m ignoring the zero in the 1681. Claridon’s right, no zero in Roman numerals.”

  Malone pointed at the Greek letters on the left stone. “Claridon said they were Latin words written in the Greek alphabet. He converted the lettering and came up with Et in arcadia ego. And in Arcadia I. He thought it might be an anagram, since the phrase makes little sense.”

  Mark studied the words with intensity, then asked Geoffrey for the rucksack, from which he removed a tightly folded towel. He gently unwrapped the bundle and revealed a small codex. Its leafs were folded, then sewn together and bound—vellum, if Malone wasn’t mistaken. He’d never seen one he could actually touch.

  “This came from the Templar archives. I found it a few years ago, right after I became seneschal. It was written in 1542 by one of the abbey’s scribes. It’s an excellent reproduction of a fourteenth-century manuscript and recounts how the Templars re-formed after the Purge. It also deals with the time from December 1306 until May 1307, when Jacques de Molay was in France and little is known of his whereabouts.”

  Mark gently opened the ancient volume and carefully paged through until he found what he was looking for. Malone saw the Latin script was a series of loops and fioriture, the letters joined together from the pen not being lifted from the page.

  “Listen to this.”

  Our master, the most reverend and devoted Jacques de Molay, received the pope’s envoy on 6 June 1306 with the pomp and courtesy reserved for those of high rank. The message stated that His Holiness Pope Clement V hath summoned Master de Molay to France. Our master intended to comply with that order, making all preparations, but prior to leaving the island of Cyprus, where the Order hath established its headquarters, our master learned that the leader of the Hospitallers had also been summoned, but hath refused the command, citing the need to remain with his Order in time of conflict. This aroused great suspicion in our master and he consulted with his officers. His Holiness had likewise instructed our master to travel unrecognized and with a small retinue. This raised more questions since why would His Holiness care how our master moved through the lands. Then a curious document was brought to our master titled De Recuperatione Terrae Sanctae. Concerning the Recovery of the Holy Land. The manuscript was written by one of Philip IV’s lawyers and it outlined a grand new crusade to be headed by a Warrior King designed to retake the Holy Land from the infidels. This proposal was a direct affront to the plans of our Order and caused our master to question his summons to the King’s court. Our master made it known that he greatly distrusted the French monarch, though it would be both foolish and inappropriate for him to voice that mistrust beyond the walls of our Temple. In a mood of caution, being not a careless man and remembering the treachery from long ago of Frederick II, our master laid plans that our wealth and knowledge must be safeguarded. He prayed that he might be in error but saw no reason to be unprepared. Brother Gilbert de Blanchefort was summoned and ordered to take away the treasure of the Temple in advance. Our master then told de Blanchefort, “We of the Order’s leadership could be at risk. So none of us are to know what you know and you must assure that what you know is passed to others in an appropriate manner.” Brother de Blanchefort, being a learned man, set about to accomplish his mission and quietly secreted all that the Order had acquired. Four brothers were his allies and they used four words, one for each of them, as their signal. ET IN ARCADIA EGO. But the letters are but a jumble for the true message. A rearrangement tells precisely what their task entailed. I TEGO ARCANA DEI.

  “I conceal the secrets of God,” Mark said, translating the last line. “Anagrams were common in the fourteenth century, too.”

  “So de Molay was ready?” Malone asked.

  Mark nodded. “He came to France with sixty knights, a hundred fifty thousand gold florins, and twelve pack horses hauling unminted silver. He knew there was going to be trouble. That money was to be used to buy his way out. But there’s something contained within this treatise that is little known. The commander of the Templar contingent in the Languedoc was Seigneur de Goth. Pope Clement V, the man who summoned de Molay, was named Bertrand de Goth. The pope’s mother was Ida de Blanchefort, who was related to Gilbert de Blanchefort. So de Molay possessed good inside information.”

  “Always helps,” Malone said.

  “De Molay also knew something on Clement V. Prior to his election as pope, Clement met with Philip IV. The king had the power to deliver the papacy to whomever he wanted. Before he gave it to Clement, he imposed six conditions. Most had to do with Philip getting to do whatever he wanted, but the sixth concerned the Templars. Philip wanted the Order dissolved, and Clement agreed.”

  “Interesting stuff,” Stephanie said, “but what seems more important at the moment is what the abbé Bigou knew. He’s the man who actually commissioned Marie’s gravestone. Would he have known of a connection between the de Blanchefort family secret and the Templars?”

  “Without a doubt,” Thorvaldsen said. “Bigou was told the family secret by Marie d’Hautpoul de Blanchefort herself.
Her husband was a direct descendant of Gilbert de Blanchefort. Once the Order was suppressed, and Templars started burning at the stake, Gilbert de Blanchefort would have told no one the location of the Great Devise. So that family secret has to be Templar-related. What else could it be?”

  Mark nodded. “The Chronicles speak of carts topped with hay moving through the French countryside, each headed south toward the Pyrénées, escorted by armed men disguised as peasants. All but three made the journey safely. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of their final destination. Only one clue in all the Chronicles. Where is it best to hide a pebble?”

  “In the middle of a rock pile,” Malone said.

  “That’s what the master said, too,” Mark said. “To the fourteenth-century mind, the most obvious location would be the safest.”

  Malone gazed again at the gravestone drawing. “So Bigou had this gravestone carved that, in code, says that he conceals the secrets of God, and he went to the trouble of publicly placing it. What was the point? What are we missing?”

  Mark reached into the rucksack and extracted another volume. “This is a report by the Order’s marshal written in 1897. The man was investigating Saunière and came across another priest, the abbé Gélis, in a nearby village, who found a cryptogram in his church.”

  “As Saunière did,” Stephanie said.

  “That’s right. Gélis deciphered the cryptogram and wanted the bishop to know what he learned. The marshal posed as the bishop’s representative and copied the puzzle, but he kept the solution to himself.”

  Mark showed them the cryptogram and Malone studied the lines of letters and symbols. “Some sort of numeric key unscrambles it?”

  Mark nodded. “It’s impossible to break without the key. There are billions of possible combinations.”

  “There was one of these in your father’s journal, too,” he said.

  “I know. Dad found it in Noël Corbu’s unpublished manuscript.”

  “Claridon told us about that.”

  “Which means de Roquefort has it,” Stephanie said. “But is it part of the fiction of Lars’s journal?”

  “Anything Corbu touched has to be suspect,” Thorvaldsen made clear. “He embellished Saunière’s story to promote his damn hotel.”

  “But the manuscript he wrote,” Mark said. “Dad always believed it contained truth. Corbu was close with Saunière’s mistress up until she died in 1953. Many believed she told him things. That’s why Corbu never published the manuscript. It contradicted his fictionalized version of the story.”

  “But surely the cryptogram in the journal is false?” Thorvaldsen said. “That would have been the very thing de Roquefort would have wanted from the journal.”

  “We can only hope,” Malone said, as he noticed an image of Reading the Rules of the Caridad on the table. He lifted the letter-sized reproduction and studied the writing beneath the little man, in a monk’s robe, perched on a stool with a finger to his lips, signaling quiet.

  ACABOCE Aº

  DE 1681

  Something was wrong, and he instantly compared the image with the lithograph.

  The dates were different.

  “I spent this morning learning about that painting,” Cassiopeia said. “I found that image on the Internet. The painting was destroyed by fire in the late 1950s, but prior to that the canvas had been cleaned and readied for display. During the restoration process it was discovered that 1687 was actually 1681. But of course, the lithograph was drawn at a time when the date was obscured.”

  Stephanie shook her head. “This is a puzzle with no answer. Everything changes by the minute.”

  “You’re doing precisely what the master wanted,” Geoffrey said.

  They all looked at him.

  “He said that once you combined, all would be revealed.”

  Malone was confused. “But your master specifically warned us to Beware the engineer.”

  Geoffrey motioned to Cassiopeia. “Perhaps you should beware of her.”

  “What does that mean?” Thorvaldsen asked.

  “Her race fought the Templars for two centuries.”

  “Actually, the Muslims trounced the brothers and sent them packing from the Holy Land,” Cassiopeia declared. “And Spanish Muslims kept the Order in check here in the Languedoc when the Templars tried to expand their sphere south, beyond the Pyrénées. So your master was right. Beware the engineer.”

  “What would you do if you found the Great Devise?” Geoffrey asked her.

  “Depends on what there is to find.”

  “Why does that matter? The Devise is not yours, regardless.”

  “You’re quite forward for a mere brother of the Order.”

  “Much is at stake here, the least of which is your ambition to prove Christianity a lie.”

  “I don’t recall saying that was my ambition.”

  “The master knew.”

  Cassiopeia’s face screwed tight—the first time Malone had seen agitation in her expression. “Your master knew nothing of my motives.”

  “And by keeping them hidden,” Geoffrey said, “you do nothing but confirm his suspicion.”

  Cassiopeia faced Henrik. “This young man could be a problem.”

  “He was sent by the master,” Thorvaldsen said. “We shouldn’t question.”

  “He’s trouble,” Cassiopeia declared.

  “Maybe so,” Mark said. “But he’s part of this, so get used to him.”

  She stayed calm and unruffled. “Do you trust him?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mark said. “Henrik’s right. The master trusted him and that’s what matters. Even if the good brother can be irritating.”

  Cassiopeia did not push the point, but on her brow was written the shadow of mutiny. And Malone did not necessarily disagree with her impulse.

  He turned his attention back to the table and stared at the color images taken at the Church of Mary Magdalene. He noticed the garden with the statue of the Virgin and the words MISSION 1891 and PENITENCE, PENITENCE carved into the face of the upside-down Visigoth pillar. He shuffled through close-up shots of the stations of the cross, pausing for a moment on station 10, where a Roman soldier was gambling for Christ’s cloak, the numbers three, four, and five visible on the dice faces. Then he paused on station 14, which showed Christ’s body being carried under cover of darkness by two men.

  He remembered what Mark had said in the church, and he couldn’t help wondering. Was their route into the tomb or out?

  He shook his head.

  What in the world was happening?

  FORTY-NINE

  5:30 PM

  De Roquefort found the Givors archaeological site, which was clearly denoted on the Michelin map, and approached with a measure of caution. He did not want to announce his presence. Even if Malone and company were not there, Cassiopeia Vitt knew him. So on arriving, he ordered the driver to slowly cruise through a grassy meadow that served as a car park until he found the Peugeot matching the make and color he remembered, with a rental sticker on the windshield.

  “They’re here,” he said. “Park.”

  The driver did as instructed.

  “I’ll explore,” he told the other two brothers and Claridon. “Wait here, and remain out of sight.”

  He climbed out into the late afternoon, a blood ball of summer sun already fading over the surrounding walls of limestone. He sucked in a deep breath and savored cool, thin air that reminded him of the abbey. They’d clearly risen in altitude.

  A quick visual survey and he spotted a tree-shaded lane cast in long shadows and decided that direction seemed best, but he stayed off the defined path, making his way through the tall trees, a tapestry of flowers and heather carpeting the violet ground. The surrounding land had all once been a Templar domain. One of the largest commanderies in the Pyrénées had crowned a nearby promontory. It had been a factory, one of several locations where brothers labored night and day crafting the Order’s weapons. He knew that great skill had gone into
compacting wood, leather, and metal into shields that could not be easily split. But the sword had been the brother knight’s true friend. Barons often loved their swords more than their wives, and tried to retain the same one all of their lives. Brothers cradled a similar passion, which Rule encouraged. If a man was expected to lay down his life, the least that could be done was allow him the weapon of his choice. Templar swords, however, were not like those of barons. No hilts adorned with gilt or set with pearls. No end knobs capped in crystal containing relics. Brother knights required no such talismans, as their strength came from a devotion to God and obedience to Rule. Their companion had been their horse, always one with quickness and intelligence. Each knight was allocated three animals, which were fed, combed, and tricked out each day. Horses were one of the means whereby the Order flourished, and the coursers, the palfreys, and especially the destriers responded to the brother knights’ affection with an unmatched loyalty. He’d read of one brother who returned home from the Crusades and was not embraced by his father, but was instantly recognized by his faithful stallion.

  And they were always stallions.

  To ride a mare was unthinkable. What had one knight said? The woman to the woman.

  He kept walking. The musty scent of twigs and boughs stirred his imagination, and he could almost hear the heavy hooves that had once crushed the tender mosses and flowers. He tried to listen for some sound, but the clicking of grasshoppers interfered. He was mindful of electronic surveillance but had, so far, sensed none. He continued to thread a path through the tall pines, moving farther away from the lane, deeper into the woods. His skin heated, and sweat beaded on his brow. High above him, rock crannies groaned from a wind.

  Warrior monks, that’s what the brothers became.

  He liked that term.

  St. Bernard of Clairvaux himself justified the Templars’ entire existence by glorifying the killing of non-Christians. Neither dealing out death nor dying, when for Christ’s sake, contains anything criminal but rather merits glorious reward. The soldier of Christ kills safely and dies the more safely. Not without cause does he bear the sword. He is the instrument of God for the punishment of evildoers and for the defense of the just. When he kills evildoers it is not homicide, but malicide, and he is considered Christ’s legal executioner.