Paul Christopher: The Templar throne

"William Blake wrote that two hundred years ago but it's still quoted today."

"I'm not sure why that makes my question about Jean de Saint-Clair interesting," said Holliday.

"Jean de Saint-Clair, also known as John Sinclair, was born in Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, the son of a master shipWalker. He ran away to sea, became a knight, joined the Templars, carried men and supplies to the Crusades and disappeared during the dissolution of the order in 1312. He returned to France and specifically to Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in 1332 with a dispensation from Pope Gregory IX, the man who introduced the world to the Inquisition, by the way. Saint-Clair was one of a very few Templar knights to survive the dissolution. Most of the others were simply murdered or burned at the stake. He joined the monastery at the Abbaye de Tiron and spent the next twenty years in seclusion. When he died, a group of monks from the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel appeared, pickled him in a barrel of Calvados apple brandy and took him to the island abbey, where he was then interred. His tomb bears the inscription et in arcadia ego, which has a number of translations, the most popular being 'I lived in Arcadia.' Both The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail use the phrase in relation to the bloodline of Christ, which of course is utter nonsense on a par with the discovery of Piltdown Man. But that's not why your question was interesting."

"Do tell," said Holliday.

"What is truly interesting is the fact that you are the second person this week who's asked me about Jean de Saint-Clair."

"Really."

"Really," Morvan said, nodding.

"Who was he?"

"Not a he at all. A she. A nun from the Convent of St. Agnes of Prague. Her name is Sister Margaret Emily."

"Not a very Czech name."

"From her accent I'd say the American South. Mississippi or Alabama."

"Why is she interested in Jean de Saint-Clair?"

"Apparently she's writing a definitive history of the convent for a Ph.D. thesis at Notre Dame. Saint-Clair's name came up in her research."

"Apparently?"

"In my experience a great many people lie," said Morvan, trying to keep his voice neutral.

"You think she was lying?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you must have thought it or you wouldn't have mentioned it."

"Perhaps."

"A lying nun. Now that's interesting."

Mont Saint-Michel is a Walt Disney-style Fantasyland Castle, monastery and abbey on a tiny, rocky island half a mile off the Normandy Coast close to the mouth of the Couesnon River, not far from the town of Avranches. Once upon a time the narrow causeway connecting the island to the mainland was covered by the exceptionally high tides, but over the centuries the causeway has been built up so that the little island is always accessible.

The eleventh-century fortress and Benedictine refuge has been commercialized in direct proportion to its elevation. The lower levels of the island are crammed with overpriced souvenir shops, mediocre family hotels and expensive restaurants serving second-rate foods. By the time you reach the abbey and the top of the grand degre, the main staircase, you are back in the land of the pure and holy. There is one exception to this rule.

On the back of the island, away from the crowds and facing the sea, was a single-roomed chapel, nothing more than four stone walls and a slate roof. It was the Chapel of St. Aubert, named for Saint-Michel's founder and one of the oldest existing structures on the island.

The exterior walls are crusted with barnacles, the stones battered by seventeen centuries of pounding storms. It is only a few yards away from the original stone breakwater that once served as the island's port of entry. There is nothing between the chapel and the sea. Worn to near anonymity, a small granite statue of Bishop Aubert stands on the simple peaked roof, his back to the empty ocean.

The old wooden door of the chapel sagged outward, allowing a long drift of sand and dirt to creep in across the stone floor. It looked as though no one had been there for a very long time.

Holliday stepped into the chapel, his feet crunching on the sand and small shells blown in through the entrance. The new Nikon D3 he'd picked up for the trip to France hung from his shoulder. He'd been guided there from the abbey by several black-robed monks.

She stood at the far end of the bare room, contemplating the stone effigy of a knight that stood as the cap on a simple stone sarcophagus. Even in her simple gray skirt and jacket and black head covering she was striking, not quite beautiful in the classic sense but extraordinary-looking just the same, a hint of bright red hair peeking out from beneath the head scarf, a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her elegant, finely sculpted nose and a wide, full mouth. Holliday approached her and she looked up as he came nearer. Her eyes were pale-lashed and large, the irises a strange gray-green color. She looked as though she was in her late thirties, faint crow's-feet only just beginning to show.

He smiled, trying to put her at ease. She looked back at him curiously.

"May I help you?" she said. He bristled a little at the question. She made it sound as though the chapel was her private preserve.

"Just looking around," he answered. He stood beside her at the foot of the sarcophagus. The knight's effigy was a little strange; the figure was half turned, the right knee bent as though he was climbing a stair, the shield held to one side. On his surcoat was the clear design of a Templar cross, engrailed. The figure itself was covered in detailed chain mail from head to toe. At the feet was a stone plaque that read In Arcadia Est.

"There's not much here in the way of photo opportunities," said the woman, eyeing the big camera.

Just to annoy her, Holliday slipped the Nikon off his shoulder and clicked off a few shots of the knight. Then he turned quickly and took a shot of the woman herself. Her expression darkened and she frowned, her hands balling into fists at her side.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Afraid I'm going to steal your soul?" Holliday grinned.

The woman scowled. "Certainly not. You took my photograph without permission. That's an invasion of privacy."

"So this is your private chapel?"

"I'm not a tourist. I'm doing historical research."

"Who says I'm not doing the same?"

"I have a master's degree in the history of religion from Harvard," she snapped. "What's your degree in?"

"Medieval history. I have a doctorate from Georgetown University. Ph.D. trumps M.A. Beat you," Holliday said and laughed.

The woman turned beet red. "Is that true?"

"Would I lie to a nun?" Holliday answered, still laughing. "If I did, my old teacher Sister Claudille would come down from heaven and whack me across the back of the head with her special whacking- over-the-head ruler."

The gray-green eyes widened. "How did you know I was a nun?"

"Elementary, my dear Watson, you're wearing a modern 'Urbanist' Clare habit, black and gray. From the cut of the skirt I'd say it was one of the eastern European convents. Agnes of Prague, perhaps. Korektni?"

She looked totally flabbergasted.

"That's impossible!" she blustered. "You couldn't know all that!"

"And I couldn't know that this was the grave of Jean de Saint-Clair," said Holliday blandly. "Or that your name is Sister Margaret Emily."

The nun stared at him. After a moment her expression hardened.

"Brother Morvan," Sister Margaret Emily said, finally figuring it out.

"Bingo."

"Exactly who are you?" Sister Margaret Emily said frostily. "And what were you doing talking to Brother Morvan?"

"You've got quite the proprietary tone going for you there, ma'am," said Holliday. "Do you own Brother Morvan as well as the chapel?"