C. Palov - Templar's Quest

Musée de la Vie Romantique, Paris

Ivo Uhlemann slowly ascended the stone steps, his circumspect gait that of a white-haired septuagenarian. Physical debility a character flaw in a man of any age, he refused to use a cane. And he would rather put a bullet through his own skull than be pushed about in a wheelchair, his infirmities on public display.

Pausing at the top of the stone steps, he savoured the delicate scent of the pink roses that clung to the wrought-iron railing. The Museum of the Romantic Life boasted a magnificent garden and charming courtyard. Housed in the former residence of Ary Scheffer, a nineteenth-century artist, the mansion in its heyday had hosted the likes of Chopin, Dickens and Delacroix. He was there on that warm August morning to view the museum’s new exhibition of drawings and watercolours from ‘The Golden Age of the German Romantic Artists’.

No sooner did Ivo step through the museum’s entryway than a pixie of a man rushed forward.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur le Docteur!’ Grasping Ivo by the shoulder, the museum curator warmly greeted him with the salutary cheek kiss. ‘Such a pleasure! As always!’

Ivo suffered the faire le bise with a tight-lipped smile. It’d taken years of practice to train himself not to flinch at the overly familiar French greeting.

Taking a backward step, politely distancing himself from the other man, he said, ‘I am greatly looking forward to viewing the new exhibition.’

‘The French poet Nerval rightly claimed that Germany’s Romantic artists were “a mother to us all”,’ the curator effused. With an ingratiating smile, he proffered a slim pamphlet. ‘For your edification, I have prepared a pamphlet that contains the pertinent details for each work. It is my sincere hope that you enjoy the exhibition, Monsieur le Docteur.’

Ivo took the flyer. A generous donor, he’d earned the privilege of privately viewing the exhibition before the museum opened later that morning to the general public. Eager to see the show, he entered the adjacent hall.

Approaching the first framed piece of artwork, enthusiasm fizzled into disappointment at seeing a pen-and-ink drawing of a Gothic cathedral.

Bah! Religion. The great destroyer of all that is good and heroic.

Indeed, he’d often contended that one of the Führer’s mistakes was not outlawing the Christian churches in Germany. A global pestilence, Christianity appealed only to those who were too craven to forge their own destiny. Although, to be fair, Christianity was no less abhorrent than the occultism that infected the Reich’s high command, the two being the flipside of the same tarnished coin.

His father, in his letters, had bitterly complained about the farcical ‘rituals’ that took place at Wewelsburg Castle, the official headquarters of the SS. According to his father’s firsthand accounts, incense was burned, Tarot cards were read, Sufi Muslim rites were enacted and astrological charts were carefully scrutinized. A travesty, all of it. One that deeply disturbed the original members of the Seven. Scholars and scientists, they secretly eschewed the patently absurd beliefs of the German high command.

To a man, the original Seven contended that occultism and Christianity were the twin cancers that destroyed the Reich from within.

Searching for a specific piece of art, Ivo impatiently made his way into the next room.

Ah, there it was. The Schneegruben Massif Seen From the Hainbergshöh .

A watercolour by Caspar David Friedrich, the most famous of the German Romantic artists, it was a stunning landscape that depicted a flat plain rimmed with plush clumps of shrub and bordered by towering mountains in the distance. Rendered with a poetic sensitivity, the work didn’t rely on the false promise of Christian iconography.

‘Such a sublime pleasure,’ he whispered, the watercolour an unabashed celebration of the Fatherland.

Not surprisingly, it put Ivo in mind of the countryside in the Weserbergland where he spent the autumn of 1944 with boys from the Hitler-Jugend harvesting sugar beets. As part of the Blood and Soil programme, each year millions of children were sent to Germany’s rural hinterlands to toil on large farms. Since the vast majority of the country’s able-bodied adult males were away fighting, the Hitler Youth’s labour was essential to the war effort.

The Blood and Soil programme not only cultivated the virtues of rural living, but sought to preserve Germany’s farming communities from the deadening onslaught of industrialization. Unlike factory work, there was meaning and purpose to working the land. It engendered a sense of self-sufficiency that enabled one to resist the empty lure of materialism. More importantly, the programme recognized that the Germanic spirit was created by the pure blood that they collectively shared as a nation. And as a People. Blood is what nurtured love of the Fatherland. What better way to express that love than tending to the land?

Lost in the memories of that long-ago autumn, Ivo recalled how, in the evenings, after the boys had eaten their thick peasant sandwiches smeared with zuckerrüben sirup , they practised their military drills while they recited proverbs from the Hávámal , the famous poem in the Old Norse Edda . To this day, he could still recite the stanzas that recounted how Wotan, the great Proto-Germanic god, sacrificed himself by thrusting a spear into his own side as he ‘hung on a windy tree nine long nights’. Unlike the effeminate Christian saviour, Wotan was a heroic god who refused to wait passively for his enemies to nail him to a cross. Instead, Wotan decided for himself the hour of his death.

Suddenly hearing a heavy footfall, Ivo peered over his shoulder, annoyed that his driver, Dolf Reinhardt, had entered the salon. The tailored black suit with its matching chauffeur’s cap did little to disguise the man’s massive build and brutish features. In the crook of his right arm, Dolf awkwardly clutched a miniature Schnauzer.

‘Herr Doktor, forgive me for interrupting,’ he said with a diffident nod. ‘But there’s been a new development.’

Ivo listened intently to the update.

Delighted to hear that McGuire was in Paris, one side of his mouth curved in a half-smile. ‘Just as we thought … David has come to slay Goliath.’

Little did the commando know that this Philistine warrior was insuperable.

Two days ago, to the Seven’s astonished relief, they had learned that Finnegan McGuire had stolen Fabius Jutier’s laptop computer from the French Embassy. An ill-considered stratagem as the embedded GPS microchip had enabled them to track the American’s every move.

If they could get their hands on the Montségur Medallion in the next few hours, they would still have three days to decipher the map and find the Lapis Exillis. It could be done.

It had to be done.

‘I require the services of the Dark Angel.’ Still smiling, Ivo smoothed a withered hand over the Schnauzer’s salt-and-pepper beard. ‘Wolfgang seems anxious. A walk in the Tuileries will do us both good.’

22

Shirt buttoned, shoes donned and red hair pulled into a ponytail, Aisquith entered the book nook carrying a silver tray.

Finn assumed the make-over was for Kate’s benefit, not his.

‘The alchemist Paracelsus claimed that lemon balm tea was the elixir of life. Although given that he only lived to the age of forty-eight, I wouldn’t put much stock in the great alchemist’s lofty claim,’ the Brit said as he deposited the tray on an ornately carved Chinese tea table. Like everything else in the joint, it was covered in a dusty veneer.

Making herself at home, Kate tucked a leg under her hip. ‘I once read that Paracelsus was the first to discover that goiters were caused by toxic levels of lead in the drinking water. A remarkable discovery for the early sixteenth century,’ she added, clearly enthralled by the obscure topic.