Gregg Loomis - The Pegasus Secret

They dodged bicycles until they turned into Catte Street. Before them was the massive fourteenth-century Bodleian Library, the repository of an original draft of the Magna Carta, innumerable illuminated manuscripts and at least one copy of every book published in Great Britain.

Stockwell pointed to the adjacent round building of enthusiastic Italian Baroque architecture, featuring peaked pilasters, scrolled windows and a domed roof. "Radcliffe Camera," he said. "Reading room. Meet you there soon's I collect Wolffe's papers."

Lang entered through a heavy oak door, ducking to get under a lintel no more than five and a half feet high. Anyone who doesn't believe in evolution should try smacking their heads on a few medieval doors, he thought grimly.

The Camera served as a general reading room. Oak tables, built to modern proportions, lined two walls. In the center, some of the library's more famous contents were on display in cloth-covered glass cases. Light struggled through opaque glass windows and filtered from miserly overhead lamps. The quiet was tangible, a dusty deafness interrupted by the occasional sound of a page being turned or the beep of a laptop. A lurch in the gastrointestine made Lang wonder where the men's might be, the loo, in Britspeak. This was not the place he could pass gas and escape undetected. He had been in noisier graveyards.

Lang waited for Stockwell, lifting the light-shielding cover from one case and another. A few Latin phrases greeted him like old friends, but most of -the writing was Saxon, Norman French or some other language he had never seen.

He was concentrating on an elaborately illustrated, hand-lettered Bible in what, he was guessing, was Gaelic when the professor appeared at his elbow so suddenly he might have dropped down a chimney.

He took a sheaf of papers from under one arm and tendered them to Lang."Here you go. Drop the lot off at my office when you're done."

Lang took them,_ scanning the first page. "Thanks." Stockwell was headed for the exit. "Pleased to do it. Friend of Jacob's and all that."

Lang sat at the nearest table, concentrating on what he was reading. For the second time in a very short period, he experienced a jolt in his stomach. But this one had nothing to do with Rachel's cooking.

THE TEMPLARS:

THE END OF AN ORDER

Account by Pietro of Sicily

Translation from the medieval Latin by Nigel Wolffe, Ph.D.

4

I shed my novice status shortly after our arrival at Blanchefort, taking my vows as a Brother of the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon before the autumn harvest. I shed also my innocence and my faith, now I realize.

True to the inducements I had been offered, I supped on meat twice daily and bathed. myself twice weekly until All Hallows' Eve, when the air's chill made it impractical to do and I was subjected to the body's natural vermin once again. Even these deprivations seemed trivial, for I was allowed to change my vestments 1for clean ones weekly, thereby ridding myself of my small tormentors.

Not only did my belly grow with victuals far richer than those consumed by others in God's service, but my knowledge increased its girth as well. I know now that I should have remembered Eve's original sin in thirsting for forbidden knowledge, but like hers my mind possessed an unquenchable thirst. Uncontrolled lust for knowledge, forbidden or not, can be as deadly as carnal lust, as I was to discover all too late.

The castle had a library the likes of which I did not know existed except, perhaps, under the direct keep of the Holy Father in Rome. I had become used to one or two manuscripts illustrating both in word and picture the Holy Writ. The Brethren's collection included volumes with scribbling resembling worms with brightly coloured ornamentation, which, I was told, was the wisdom of the Ancients preserved by the heathen Saracen.

When I asked why works of pagans and heretics were allowed in consecrated quarters, I was told that writings forbidden most Christians were permitted here. It was a refrain I was to hear repeated often, that the Knights were not bound by the same dictates as the rest of Christendom.

In acting as scribe and counting house clerk, I made another discovery. The Brothers had a system by which a Christian on a pilgrimage might both protect his money while being able to use it when he wished. A traveler could deposit a certain number pieces of gold or silver with any Temple and receive therefore a piece of parchment bearing his name, the amount deposited and a secret sign known only to the Brethren. When this parchment was presented at any other Temple, be it in Britain, Iberia or the German duchies, a like amount as the pilgrim had deposited would be paid over to him, thereby preventing the common scourge of robbery upon the highways or piracy upon the seas. 2

For this service, the Temple issuing the parchment and the one rendering value for it received a fee. This seemed to me like the sin of usury, a practice forbidden Christians but allowed the Knights. Worse, the Temples were in the business of letting money out for profit, the same as any heathen Israelite. 3

More curious were the sums of money that came from Rome in regular increments. Unthinkable riches arrived to be placed in the Temple's treasure room. This wealth was not distributed as alms to the poor as Christ admonished but went to purchase lands, arms and such excess as the Brethren might desire. Even so, a substantial fraction of the Holy See's bounty was not spent but rather accumulated for purposes I only now understand.

At first I feared to corrupt my soul, for gluttony takes many forms, including the wanton dissipation of wealth. I sought out Guillaume de Poitiers and interrupted his gaming 'with other Knights. Indeed, gaming, eating and the consumption of wine occupied more of the day than did practice with the sword, pike or lance.

He invoked the name of several saints along with consigning to hell the wooden cubes which he and his fellows constantly rolled, wagering on the outcome. "Ah, Pietro, little brother," he said, his voice full of the aroma of the grape. "I see by your face you are disturbed. Do the figures in your counting house become amok?"

At this, there was much gaiety among his companions.

"No," I said solemnly. "I am overcome by such curiosity as I cannot bear in silence. The Holy Father sends us great sums as he does to all Temples. Yet it is the duty of the body of the Holy Church to remit to Rome what they can for the sustenance of that same Holy Father. I understand not."

"In the beginning of our Order," he said, "we had no choice but receive support from Rome were we to equip and maintain ourselves against the infidel."

"But now the Holy Land is lost, by God's unknowable will," I said. "The Order can no longer protect pilgrims to Jerusalem any more than it can attack Saracens from here."

He nodded and pointed to a nearby window. "See you Serres there? And on the other side is Rennes. It is the Holy Father's pleasure that we guard those towns. For that he sees fit to reward us."

"Guard from what?" I asked. "There are no hostile armies nearby and the time of the barbarians is long hence." 4

"So you might think," he said. "But it is not our place to question Rome. Only one prideful would do so."

I took his meaning and felt my face flush with shame.

He put his hand on my shoulder; "Besides, it is not always armies or barbarians we have to apprehend. This is the area of two pernicious former heresies that could have destroyed the Holy See as surely as any band of armed men: the Gnostics and the Cathars." 5

"And we must guard Cardou from their successors," spoke Tartus, a German. -"But that is but a mountain, bare and empty," I said.

Guillaume de Poitiers gave his brother Knight an abashing glare. "So it is. Brother Tartus has enjoyed God's gift of wine to excess, I fear. We guard towns, not empty hills."