She smiled. 'I see you know him well.'
'How long have you known him?'
'Since childhood. He knew my parents. Many years ago, he told me of Lars Nelle. What Lars was working on fascinated me. So I became Lars's guardian angel, though he thought of me as the devil. Unfortunately, I couldn't help him on the last day of his life.'
'Were you there?'
She shook her head. 'He'd traveled south to the mountains. I was here when Henrik called and told me the body had been found.'
'Did he kill himself?'
'Lars was a sad man, that was plain. He was also frustrated. All those amateurs who'd seized on his work and twisted it beyond recognition. The puzzle he tried to solve has remained a mystery a long time. So, yes, it's possible.'
'What were you protecting him from?'
'Many tried to encroach on his research. Most of them were ambitious treasure hunters, some opportunists, but eventually Raymond de Roquefort's men appeared. Luckily, I was always able to conceal my presence from them.'
'De Roquefort is now master.'
She crinkled her brow. 'Which explains his renewed search efforts. He now commands all the Templar resources.'
She apparently knew nothing about Mark Nelle and where he'd been living the past five years, so he told her, then said, 'Mark lost to de Roquefort in the selection of a new master.'
'So this is personal between them?'
'That's certainly part of it.' But not all, he thought, as he stared down and watched a horse-drawn cart work its way across the dry earth toward one of the partial walls.
'The work being done today is for the tourists,' she said, noticing his interest. 'Part of the show. We'll return to serious building tomorrow.'
'The sign out front said it'll take thirty years to finish.'
'Easily.'
She was right. She did possess many peculiarities.
'I intentionally left Lars's notebook for de Roquefort to find in Avignon.'
That revelation shocked him. 'Why?'
'Henrik wanted to talk to the Nelles privately. It's why we're here. He also said that you're a man of honor. I trust precious few people in this world, but Henrik is one I do. So I'm going to take him at his word and tell you some things no one else knows.'
MARK LISTENED AS HENRIK THORVALDSEN EXPLAINED. HIS mother appeared interested, too, but Geoffrey simply stared at the table, hardly blinking, seemingly in a trance.
'It's time you fully understand what Lars believed,' Henrik said to Stephanie. 'Contrary to what you may have thought, he was not some crackpot chasing after treasure. A serious purpose lay behind his inquiries.'
'I'll ignore your insult, since I want to hear what you have to say.'
A look of irritation crept into Thorvaldsen's eyes. 'Lars's theory was simple, though it really was not his. Ernst Scoville formulated most of it, which involved a novel look at the Gospels of the New Testament, especially with how they dealt with the resurrection. Cassiopeia hinted at some of this earlier.
'Let's start with Mark's. His was the first Gospel, written around AD 70, perhaps the only Gospel the early Christians possessed after Christ died. It contains six hundred sixty-five verses, yet only eight are devoted to the resurrection. This most remarkable of events only rated a brief mention. Why? The answer is simple. When Mark's Gospel was written, the story of the resurrection had yet to develop, and the Gospel ends without mention of the fact that the disciples believed Jesus had been raised from the dead. Instead, it tells us that the disciples fled. Only women appear in Mark's version of what happened, and they ignore a command to tell the disciples to go to Galilee so the risen Christ could meet them there. Rather, the women, too, are confused and flee, telling no one what they saw. There are no angels, only a young man dressed in white who calmly announces that He has risen. No guards, no burial clothes, and no risen Lord.'
Mark knew everything Thorvaldsen had just said was true. He'd studied that Gospel in great detail.
'Matthew's testimony came a decade later. The Romans had by then sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. Many Jews had fled into the Greek-speaking world. The Orthodox Jews who stayed in the Holy Land viewed the new Jewish Christians as a problem-as much of one as the Romans were. Hostility existed between the Orthodox Jews and the emerging Jewish Christians. Matthew's Gospel was probably written by one of those unknown Jewish Christian scribes. Mark's Gospel had left many unanswered questions, so Matthew changed the story to suit his troubled time.
'Now the messenger who announces the resurrection becomes an angel. He descends in an earthquake, with a face like lightning. Guards are struck down. The stone has been removed from the tomb, and an angel perches upon it. The women are still gripped with fear, but it is rapidly replaced with joy. Contrary to the women in Mark's account, the women here rush out to tell the disciples what's happened and actually confront the risen Christ. Here, for the first time, the risen Lord is actually described. And what did the women do?'
'They took hold of His feet and worshiped Him,' Mark softly said. 'Later, Jesus appeared to His disciples and proclaimed that 'all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.' He tells them he'll always be with them.'
'What a change,' Thorvaldsen said. 'The Jewish Messiah named Jesus has now become Christ to the world. In Matthew, everything is more vivid. Miraculous, too. Then comes Luke, sometime around AD 90. By then the Jewish Christians had moved further away from Judaism, so Luke radically modified the resurrection story to accommodate this change. The women are at the tomb again, but this time they find it empty and go tell the disciples. Peter returns and sees only the discarded burial clothes. Then Luke tells a story that appears nowhere else in the Bible. It involves Jesus traveling in disguise, encountering certain disciples, sharing a meal, then, when recognized, vanishing. There is also a later encounter with all of the disciples where they doubt His flesh, so He eats with them, then vanishes. And only in Luke do we find the story of Jesus's ascension into heaven. What's happened? A sense of rapture has now been grafted onto the risen Christ.'
Mark had read similar Scripture analyses in the Templar archives. Learned brothers had for centuries studied the Word, noting errors, evaluating contradictions, and hypothesizing on the many conflicts in names, dates, places, and events.
'Then there's John,' Thorvaldsen said. 'The Gospel written the furthest away from Jesus's life, around AD 100. There are so many changes in this Gospel, it's almost as if John talks of a totally different Christ. No Bethlehem birth-Nazareth is Jesus's birthplace here. The other three talk of a three-year ministry. John says only one. The Last Supper in John occurred on the day before the Passover-the crucifixion on the day the Passover lamb was slaughtered. This is different from the other Gospels. John also moved the cleansing of the Temple from the day after Palm Sunday to a time early in Christ's ministry.
'In John, Mary Magdalene alone goes to the tomb and finds it empty. She never even considers a resurrection, but instead thinks the body has been stolen. Only when she returns with Peter and the other disciple does she see two angels. Then the angels are transformed into Jesus Himself.
'Look how this one detail, about who was in the tomb, changed. Mark's young man dressed in white became Matthew's dazzling angel, which Luke expanded to two angels, which John modified to two angels who become Christ. And was the risen Lord seen in the garden on the first day of the week, as Christians are always told? Mark and Luke said no. Matthew, yes. John said not at first, but Mary Magdalene did see Him later. What happened is clear. Over time, the resurrection was made more and more miraculous to accommodate a changing world.'
'I assume,' Stephanie said, 'you don't adhere to the principle of biblical inerrancy?'
'There's nothing whatsoever literal within the Bible. It's a tale riddled with inconsistencies, and the only way they can be explained is through the use of faith. That may have worked a thousand years ago, or even five hundred years ago, but that explanation is no longer acceptable. The human mind today questions. Your husband questioned.'
'So what was it Lars meant to do?'
