C. Palov - Templar's Quest

Ready to depart, he shut the bedroom door and headed into the flat’s cluttered sitting room. Opening the top drawer on the corner cabinet, he reluctantly deposited his holster. As he did, his gaze landed on a smudged glass with a finger’s measure of gin, in plain sight where he’d left it earlier that morning on top of the cabinet.

For several long seconds he stared, his old self tempted.

‘ “And every spirit upon earth seemed fervourless as I,” ’ he muttered, well aware that he’d become a predictable bore.

Tuning out the Siren, he purposefully hitched the satchel a bit higher on his shoulder and strode out of the room.

A few moments later, alarm set and shop door locked, he departed L’Equinoxe bookstore. The gaily painted shop sign swayed ever so slightly in the breeze, rusty hinges jangling. He’d designed the signage, which depicted the Fool, the first card in the Tarot deck, as a satirical self-portrait. The innocent young man blithely setting forth on an adventure. So consumed in his joie de vivre , it rendered him oblivious to the fact that he was about to step off a cliff and break his bloody neck.

Although, strangely enough, today the image bespoke a deeper meaning. In truth, he felt uplifted. Invigorated, even. Certainly a departure from the self-loathing he’d experienced upon rising. For what began as a day like any other had unexpectedly turned into an odyssey. A mental challenge had presented itself, wrapped in the tantalizing ribbons of a centuries-old mystery.

However, unlike the Fool, he wasn’t naive. The Seven Research Foundation sought the Grail so they could put a dark plan into play. The progeny of monsters, God only knew what they intended. The Cathars would claim, and rightly so, that the Seven owed allegiance to none save Rex Mundi , Lucifer, the god of the material realm. The evil one who lured young fools from the straight and narrow path.

As he hurriedly made his way down Rue de la Bûcherie – feeling very much like a newly released penitentiary inmate – it dawned on Cædmon that all of the cock-ups in his life had transpired after he’d veered from the straight and narrow. His father, were he still alive, would maintain that he’d taken his first misstep when he’d journeyed down the birth canal. Indeed, he held Cædmon personally liable for the fact that Helena Aisquith died while she laboured to bring their first child, a squalling baby boy, into the world.

Because of that tragic misfortune, he’d been raised in a cheerless household. When he turned thirteen, his father shunted him off to Eton College. A malicious contriv ance, Cædmon was forced to bear a whole new torment, pecking order at the hallowed public school determined by one’s lineage. Lacking the ancestral prestige of his classmates, he had to best them with the only tools in his arsenal: a sharp mind and a well-honed body. By the time he left Eton, he boasted membership in the elite Sixth Form Select and had captained the cricket team that victoriously took the field against Harrow. For five arduous years he had stayed true to the straight path until, finally liberated, he set forth for Oxford.

In no time at all, he veered on to a crooked lane.

For the first two years he ran with a fast crowd who fancied themselves latter-day libertines, ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know.’ When the late-night revels became old hat, his scholastic passions revived. However, craving academic excitement, he did the unthinkable and changed from Egyptology to medieval history, the Knights Templar far more thrilling than mummified pharaohs. Earning a reputation as a rogue scholar, the impulsive move eventually resulted in his ousting from Queen’s College. ‘The Manifesto’, as he jokingly referred to his dissertation, was summarily dismissed as a ‘harebrained hypothesis that could only have been opium-induced’. When, a few months later, MI5 came knocking at his door, it seemed a blessing in disguise.

Little did I know …

But the overlords at Thames House had not deadened his spirit. Nor had the dons at Queen’s College blunted his academic passion. The fact that he was setting off for Montségur proved that he was still curious. Still intrigued by those questions that had no answers.

In a hurry to get to the Metro, Cædmon sidestepped a group of tourists who, maps and cameras in hand, huddled on the pavement. He glanced at his wristwatch. The high-speed TGV train for Marseille was scheduled to depart Gare de Lyon in forty-five minutes. Giving him just enough time to arrive at the train station and purchase a ticket. According to the schedule, they would arrive in Marseille by mid-evening. He intended to use the three-hour train ride to devise a plan of action. Wi-Fi Internet access would enable him to begin his preliminary research.

He knew that the trip might prove a fool’s errand. Many men had sought the Grail. Many had met their death in the ill-fated quest. Be that as it may, he felt compelled to join the hunt.

Making his way across the Square René Viviani, the small park adjacent to St Julien-le-Pauvre Church, Cædmon sensed an unseen presence following in his wake. The nape of his neck prickled as he ducked into a church doorway.

Hidden in a dark alcove, cheek pressed to the fluted limestone, he surreptitiously peered around the corner. This time of day the tree-lined park brimmed with harried mothers chasing tots and pushing prams. From where he stood, he had an unobstructed view across the Seine to the much larger, and more magnificent, Notre-Dame.

Eyes narrowed, Cædmon searched for the telltale person who did not belong. The anomaly in the endless stream.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

As a precaution, he waited a few seconds more. Because all train passengers had to pass through a metal detector, he’d been forced to leave his Ruger pistol back at the flat.

He released a pent-up breath. ‘I’m seeing fiends where none exist.’

Stepping away from the portal, he continued on his way. He quickened his pace as he glanced at the western horizon and noticed a strange chartreuse cast to the sky.

A warning that a violent storm was brewing.

PART III

‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes’ – Marcel Proust

47

Montségur Castle, The Languedoc

0914 hours

Could anything be more ridiculous than a middle-aged man on a Grail quest?

‘Only the Fool about to blithely step off a steep cliff,’ Cædmon muttered under his breath.

To prevent a fatal mishap, he braced both hands on the ruined battlement as he set his gaze on the Pyrenees. Perched atop a limestone and granite outcrop that rose an impressive three thousand feet into the air, Montségur commanded a panoramic view that left one awestruck. Ragged peaks. Colossal mountains. Sheer precipices. Set against a cerulean blue sky, the ancient mountains seemed impregnable.

Although appearances could be deceiving as the doomed Cathars discovered when their ‘impregnable’ citadel was besieged by the Pope’s army.

According to legend, just before the fortress capitulated, on a frigid and moonless night, four brave Cathars scaled Montségur’s western cliff. Managing to sneak past the enemy line, they travelled under cover of night to the Templar preceptory located twelve kilometres away. To persuade the warrior monks to fight on their behalf, the four Cathars bore a gold medallion with an encrypted map that revealed the secret location of the greatest treasure of the Middle Ages, the Holy Grail. Having presented the medallion to the Knights Templar, the Cathar emissaries promised that the encryption key would be turned over as soon as the Templars took up arms. The prize too tempting to resist, the Templars saddled their war horses and set off for Montségur.