Paul Christopher - The Sword of the Templars

“Castles like this one weren’t built to protect pilgrims, they were built to give Europe a foothold in the Middle East. Like the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada or the U.S. Cavalry outposts in the American West. The crusaders didn’t want to free Jerusalem from the infidel, they wanted to conquer it.

“The Templars called themselves the ‘Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ,’ emphasis on the word ‘poor.’ By the time they were disbanded in 1307 they were almost as rich as the Roman Catholic Church and richer than some countries, including France, which they virtually owned outright. The Temple fortress in Paris measured seven hundred feet on a side. That’s not piety, Professor. That’s greed, avarice, and power.”

“But that doesn’t stop you from looking for their treasure.”

Holliday stopped walking. He turned to Wanounou.

“This isn’t about treasure,” he said, a little anger creeping into his voice. “It never has been. It’s about something that concerned my uncle enough to get him to tramp halfway across Europe at the age of eighty-six when he hated leaving the study in his house. It’s something that seems to concern some other people, as well; they’ve been looking for the answer to this riddle for a very long time. They’ve been willing to lie for it. Burn down buildings for it. Kill for it.”

“Then I guess we’d better find it,” said Wanounou brightly, ignoring the heat in Holliday’s words. “Right, Peggy?”

“Right,” she answered. She gripped Holliday’s elbow and squeezed. “No more lectures, Doc, okay?” She squeezed his arm again. “Now, make nice with the professor.”

“I’m not your enemy, Colonel Holliday,” added Wanounou. “I got us in here, didn’t I?” He held out his hand. “Shalu shalom yerushalayim, yes?”

Holliday took the extended hand and shook it.

“Call me ‘Doc.’ ”

They turned and continued on toward the ruins of the ancient castle church.

They reached the far end of the castle’s upper ward and stopped when they came to the long oval of stones that marked the foundations of the old chapel. Wanounou consulted his diagram once again.

“One hundred and sixty feet long by forty feet wide,” he said. “Rotundas at each end, the chancel facing north, the nave to the south. There was a cloistered walkway that connected the chapel to the main great hall over there.” He pointed toward a long, freestanding line of immense limestone blocks, even larger than the stones used to build the curtain wall. “The builders used a lot of leftovers from the Phoenician structure that was here before them,” he explained. “Everything done in eights and multiples of eight. Eight columns in the nave, two columns of eight in the chancel, eight arches in the cloistered walkway.”

“Why eight?” Peggy asked.

“Eight was the Templars’ magic number,” said Holliday. “If you look at a Templar cross the ends are bifurcated, making eight points.”

“What was the significance?”

“Mostly religious,” said Wanounou. “Seven plus one equals eight, the day of the Resurrection. God created Earth in six days, rested on the seventh, and introduced man into the Garden of Eden on the eighth. Man has twenty-four ribs, divided by eight gives you three-the number of the Holy Trinity. Noah was the eighth man off the Ark. The Ark itself was three hundred cubits by fifty cubits-three plus five is eight. Lazarus was brought back to life after he’d been dead eight days. The first cubed number is eight… The list goes on and on.”

“Which is important to us here why?” Peggy asked, looking at the foundation work at her feet.

“Because what we’re looking for will probably have something to do with the number eight or a multiple of eight,” said Holliday. He began pacing out the length of the foundation in one direction, while Wanounou went the opposite way.

“Just what are we looking for?” Peggy queried.

“ ‘In the black waters of the Pilgrim’s Fortress a treasured silver scroll is found,’ ” recited Holliday. “ ‘Black waters’ suggest that it was dark, maybe underground, like the undercroft, or crypt beneath the church,” he said.

“It’s probably some kind of cave,” called out Wanounou. “The land around here is all limestone. Groundwater percolating down from the mountain creates them. The whole area under Pelerin is probably riddled with them.”

“I’m claustrophobic,” said Peggy. “I had to do a photo shoot for National Geographic in Carlsbad, and I hated every minute. Caves are creepy.”

“We’ll protect you,” laughed Wanounou.

“I may have found something,” called Holliday.

“That didn’t take long,” said the professor, turning away from his own investigation of the stones. He joined Peggy, and they walked back toward Holliday’s position at the far end of the chancel.

“You sound skeptical,” said Peggy.

“Archaeology’s never that easy,” he answered. “Most of us never find anything.”

“I thought the guy who found Troy was an amateur,” she answered. “And wasn’t the person who found the Dead Sea Scrolls a goat herder or something?”

“Where are you getting all this?” Wanounou asked.

“Doc and I were talking about it at lunch yesterday at a cafй in the souk. He said most of the great archaeological finds were accidental.”

“I don’t think Doc likes me,” said the professor as they approached the spot where Holliday was standing.

Peggy laughed.

“It’s not just you. Doc doesn’t like anyone who likes me too much,” she said. “He’s very protective.”

“No kidding,” said the professor.

“Who’s kidding?” Holliday asked.

Wanounou ignored the question.

“What did you find?”

“A stone,” said Holliday, pointing down into the dirt.

“Oh,” said Peggy. “Gee, the very thing we’re looking for. What’s so special about this one?”

“It’s octagonal,” said Wanounou, crouching down, suddenly interested. He swept off a thin layer of dirt. The full dimensions were revealed. The paving stone was about three feet across. It looked as though there had once been a design carved into it, but the pattern had long since worn away. “Part of the church floor. In the Church of the Holy Sepulcher this would be just about where the Rock of Golgotha stands.”

“So it’s an octagonal paving stone,” said Peggy. “What’s so important about that?”

Holliday knelt down beside Wanounou and started sweeping away dirt with his hands, revealing more of the stone flooring.

“Because all of the other stones are square, fanning out from this one. Whatever this was, it was the center of something.”

Wanounou stood up and brushed off his hands. “I’m going back to the truck. We need some tools.”

“I’ll go with you,” Peggy said quickly.

Holliday almost said something but then thought better of it. Instead he tried to make his expression as blank as possible.

“Don’t be long,” he said.

“We won’t,” answered Wanounou. The couple headed off back across the inner ward of the ruins. Holliday watched them go, “accidentally” bumping into each other now and again as they followed the path back to the Land Cruiser. As they walked their heads were bent toward each other like old friends.

They disappeared over the rise of the inner defensive wall, and Holliday went back to sweeping away the dirt on the section of old floor. The area was butted against two sides of a jutting section of the foundation wall, indicating that it had once been a subsidiary side chapel, perhaps even the Altar of the Stabat Mater, a feature of almost every Templar church. From his long-ago life as an altar boy Holliday could still remember the Latin hymn with its rhythmic trochaic tetrameter: