The Sword of the Templars (19 page)

“It’s a long story,” said Holliday.

“I have time,” said the monk placidly.

So they told Brother Timothy everything they knew.

It took a little more than an hour. When Holliday and Peggy finished up their tale the white-haired man took off his glasses, cleaning them on the broad cuff of his habit, then set them back onto his nose again. He eyed them speculatively.

“How do I know anything of what you say is the truth?” Brother Timothy asked.

“Why would we lie?” Peggy said a little hotly. “Besides, we have the sword.”

“Prove it,” the monk said flatly.

“Show him,” said Peggy.

Holliday stood up and undid the buckle of the Tilley Endurables money belt and stripped it off. He’d carried the belt since his first rotation in the Gulf, and it had the worn, comfortable look of a favorite piece of clothing. He turned the belt over and unzipped the twenty-inch pouch. He carefully extracted the long piece of gold wire that had been wrapped around the hilt of the crusader sword. The wire had been turned to make three loops so that it fitted into the belt. It had been carried, hidden, ever since they’d left Fredonia. He handed the wire to Brother Timothy and explained:

“If you look closely you’ll see that the wire has been nicked at both regular and irregular intervals. The gold isn’t solid, it’s an alloy, probably electrum—gold and silver mixed. It’s much more durable than solid gold, which is why the markings on the wire have survived.

“The regular nicks are all exactly the same distance apart. I’m willing to bet that they’re exactly the page width of the text to your
De laudibus
. If you look closely you’ll see Roman numerals scratched into the wire between the smaller nicks.

“The Roman numerals will denote page numbers, and the smaller nicks will line up with appropriate individual letters in the text. It’s simple but extremely clever at the same time. The copies of the manuscript would have to have been identical for it to work. The scribe, whoever he was, must have been extremely dedicated.”

“It was a she actually,” said Brother Timothy, staring reverently down at the wire. “Sister Diemut of Wessobrunn, a Benedictine nun. Quite famous in her time. The copies are identical, one for the abbey at Clairvaux and the other for the use of Roger de Flor and the Templars at Pelerin, the two ends of the communication route between the Holy Land and home.”

“I wonder who the knight was who actually carried the sword,” Peggy mused.

“We know that, as well,” said the elderly monk. “His name was Sir Robert de Sales, an Englishman in the service of William de Rochefort, Vice-Master of the Temple at Jerusalem and Bishop of Acre. Robert de Sales took the overland route back to France while Roger de Flor voyaged by sea; that way they ensured the message would get to Clairvaux. Sir Robert died en route, somewhere just short of Naples.”

“And lost his sword,” said Peggy.

“As I said”—Brother Timothy smiled—“what goes around will come around once more.”

“So we’ve shown you ours,” said Holliday. “How about returning the favor?”

Brother Timothy handed Holliday the length of gold wire. The old monk gave Holliday a long searching look, then spoke.

“Do you believe in God, Doctor Holliday?” Brother Timothy asked.

“I’ve been trying to figure that out for most of my life,” said Holliday. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if you believe in God you’ll believe in Heaven, and if there is a Heaven, my Jesuit friends tell me there must consequently be a Hell, which is where I will damn you to if you have been lying to me.”

Holliday laughed.

“That’s just about the most long-winded, convoluted threat I’ve ever heard,” he said. “Don’t worry, everything we’ve told you is the truth, at least as far as we know it.”

“All right,” said Brother Timothy, “I’ll take you at your word.” He stood up and leaned over the table, taking one of the books down from the shelf. It was the Latin Botanical,
Nova genera et species plantarum
. He handed the leather-bound book to Holliday.

“Alexander von Humboldt, the man they named the Humboldt Current after. A little bit late, don’t you think? He was born in the mid-seventeen hundreds, as I recall.”

“More crypsis. Open it,” said Brother Timothy.

Holliday opened the book. It was no nineteenth-century botanical. Instead he saw an expensively printed color photocopy of a medieval illuminated manuscript bound into the old leather cover. He read the first few lines of Latin aloud:

“In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram terra autem erat inanis et vacua et tenebrae super faciem abyssi et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas dixitque Deus fiat lux et facta est lux.”
He paused and then easily translated the familiar verses: “‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light.’” He paused again and looked up at the white-haired monk. “It’s the Vulgate Latin translation of the first lines of Genesis, taken directly from the Hebrew, not the Greek.”

“Well done,” said Brother Timothy. “As you know most religious documents from the Middle Ages began with a prayer or a quotation from scripture. Try using the gold wire and tell me what you find.” He reached forward and opened a narrow drawer in the front of the desk, taking out a pad of paper and a pencil. Holliday pulled his chair up to the table while Peggy watched over his shoulder. Within a few moments he was able to speak the first words of a message that had gone unheard for more than eight hundred years.

“ ‘To the reverend Father in Christ, and to all our friends in the kingdoms of France to whom this letter shall come: These are the words of the Bishop William de Rochefort, Vice-Master of the Temple. Listen and take heed.’ ”

“It works!” said Peggy. “Keep going, Doc!”

Dusk was beginning to fall by the time Holliday completed his translation and had written the full text of the secret message on the pad in front of him. It had clearly been intended to be read as verse:

In the black waters of the Pilgrim’s Fortress

A treasured silver scroll is found,

A thirst for knowledge girded round

These holy walls without a sound.

With dead Saladin’s echoing voice it calls

Us into battle once again.

“The Pilgrim’s Fortress was another name for Château Pelerin,” said Brother Timothy.

“It’s all very poetic, but what exactly does it mean?” Peggy asked.

“I think it means we’re on our way to the Holy Land,” said Holliday. “We’re going to Israel.”

“An interesting tale,” said Raffi Wanounou, Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The professor was a starkly handsome man in his late forties or early fifties with a long, squarechinned face common to many Moroccan-born Jews. His dark hair was speckled with gray and deep caliper lines extended down either side of his wide mouth. He was deeply tanned and had the slightly scorched look of someone who spends a great deal of time under the desert sun.

Peggy Blackstock and John “Doc” Holliday were sitting in Wanounou’s comfortable office at the university. They’d given the man on the other side of the desk a rough outline of their activities since leaving the United States, editing out a few dead bodies in the telling.

“Remind me again how you came to be knocking at my door in particular?” the professor asked.

“Your name came up in an e-mail from Steven Braintree at the University of Toronto to my uncle,” said Holliday.

“I know Steven quite well, of course. The Royal Ontario Museum is world-class. I only knew your uncle by reputation.”

“Professor Braintree mentioned that you knew a great deal about crusader castles,” said Peggy.

“A little.” He smiled. The smile was clearly for Peggy’s benefit alone.

Holliday bristled slightly at the Israeli professor’s obvious interest in Peggy. It was ridiculous; the man was almost old enough to be her father. “Castle Pelerin in particular,” he said, a little curtly.

“Pilgrim’s Fortress,” said Wanounou. “I wrote my thesis on it. Bigger than the Krak des Chevaliers in Syria. Never breached by siege or force of arms in two hundred years. Last bastion of the Knights Templar in the Holy Land.”

“We need to go there,” said Peggy.

“Not possible I’m afraid, Miss Blackstock.”

“Peggy,” she said, giving him a smile just like the one he’d given her.

“Peggy then,” beamed the professor.

“What’s the problem?” Holliday asked.

“You’d need special authorization. It’s a restricted military zone. Shayetet 13 uses it as a training area.”

“Shayetet 13?” Peggy asked.

“Israel’s version of Navy SEALs,” explained Holliday.

“It’s the other way around, actually,” said Wanounou. “Shayetet 13 existed long before the SEALs. They were established in 1949; the SEALs weren’t organized until the early sixties, as I recall.”

“You served with them?” Holliday asked.

“Lousy swimmer.” The Professor grinned. The grin was nothing like the smile he’d offered Peggy.

“Where
did
you do your three years?” Holliday asked.

“Three years?” Peggy said, looking baffled at the rapid-fire conversation.

“Compulsory military service,” said Holliday. Now he was getting annoyed with himself. The whole thing was turning into a pissing contest all because of a smile.

“It was more like eight,” said Wanounou. “
Agaf HaModiin.
Aman.”

“Army Intelligence,” said Holliday, impressed with the man, despite himself.

The professor gave Holliday a speculative look and tilted back in his chair.

“You know a lot about the military, Mr. Holliday,” he said.

“Doctor,” answered Holliday. “And Lieutenant Colonel; I teach Military History at West Point.”

“Then you outrank me, I guess,” said the professor, grinning again. “I only made major.” He laughed. “Maybe we should compare PhDs. See who got their doctorate first.”

“Sorry,” said Holliday. “I’ve been a little tense since Germany.” He paused. “If you were with Aman maybe you could pull some strings, get us into the castle.”

“I’d love an excuse to get out of the office for a while, but what pretext would I give? A couple of American tourists on a treasure hunt?” The good-looking man grimaced. “Really, Dr. Holliday. I think not.”

“It’s not a treasure hunt,” said Peggy.

“Knights Templar, a code in a crusader’s sword, Cistercian monks and Nazis running around? An obscure piece of poetry instead of a treasure map? Who are you going to get for the leading role, Nicolas Cage or Har rison Ford?” He shook his head. “Come on, guys.”

Holliday sighed.

“It’s a little far-fetched, I know, but—”

“I’d have to call in a lot of favors to get us in there,” said Wanounou. “I’m not sure I want to do that.”

Us?
Holliday thought. He smiled to himself. He recognized the tone in the other man’s voice; the sound of curiosity getting the jump on the cat’s better instincts. The sizzle you got when you leaped from the frying pan into the fire.

“Please?” Peggy pleaded, shooting Wanounou a smile that would have lit up a dark room for at least a week. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Two days later, under a hot summer sky, they drove out of the ancient city on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway. Highway 1, as it was officially known, was a modern thruway that arrowed northwest in a bewildering series of unsigned on- and off-ramps but that cut the driving time between the two cities to only an hour.

Wanounou drove his ancient, rust-pocked Toyota Land Cruiser like a fighter pilot, doing Immelmanns and barrel rolls through the dense traffic, all the while keeping up a running travelogue, most of it directed at Peggy, who was sitting in the cramped rear seat. Holliday had put himself in the front beside Wanounou in an attempt to cool the growing heat between Peggy and the professor, but now he was regretting his decision. After a few close calls on the highway Holliday found himself thinking about Brother Timothy’s question about his belief in a higher power; whether he believed in it or not, he was praying to it. Considering his present circumstances it was a toss-up between Christ, Jehovah, and Allah to give him the best bang for his devotional buck.

Skirting Tel Aviv, the Israeli professor swept the battered old 4×4 onto the Ayalon Highway running between Tel Aviv and Haifa in the north. It was another four-lane nightmare of rushing traffic that raced up and down along the route of the ancient coastal pilgrim road that wound its way to Acre.

With the rugged slopes of Mount Carmel rising on their right and green cotton fields to their left on the plain of what had once been the land of Phoenicia, Wanounou maneuvered the clattering old vehicle on for another three quarters of an hour.

Eventually they reached Atlit Junction, another clo verleaf, and turned toward the sea. A few miles to the north the outskirts of Haifa were visible through the heat haze, climbing the slopes of Mount Carmel and spreading around the scimitar arc of Haifa Bay.

In an instant the twenty-first-century reality of congested traffic disappeared, and Holliday felt time fall away. Knights mounted on thundering coursers and even larger destriers rode along the ancient road, armor flashing in the sun. Pilgrims walked beside plodding packhorses while lords and ladies lounged in brightly painted covered wagons. Dust hung like mist in the hot, still air.

They rattled across a set of railway tracks then turned off onto a narrow, two-lane dirt road with a long, curving beach on one side and a swampy pool with a trio of pale flamingos feeding on the other.

Beyond the swampy area there was an industrial salt pool with a long elevated pipeline feeding it from beyond the sweeping bay on their left. Then the stark, bleak ruins of Castle Pelerin rose in front of them like a dark dream from the past. It made the old castle ruins on Kellerman’s estate outside Friedrichshafen look puny by comparison.