'I will not tolerate dissension.'
A sad but tranquil smile came to the chaplain's lips. 'You sound just like the man you so opposed. What's changed? Has the seneschal so affected you?'
'He's not seneschal any longer.'
'Unfortunately, that's the only name I know him by. You apparently know far more.'
But he wondered if the cagey Venetian sitting across from him was being truthful. He'd heard talk, too, his spies reporting that the chaplain was quite interested in what the master was doing. Far more than any spiritual adviser needed to be. He wondered if this man, who professed to be his friend, was positioning himself for more. After all, he'd done the same thing years ago himself.
He actually wanted to talk about his dilemma, explain what happened, what he knew, seek some guidance, but sharing that with anyone would be foolhardy. Claridon was bad enough, but at least he was not of the Order. This man was altogether different. He had the potential to become an enemy. So he voiced the obvious. 'I'm searching for our Great Devise, and I'm close to locating it.'
'But at the price of two dead.'
'Many have died for what we believe,' he said, voice rising. In the first two centuries of our existence, twenty thousand brothers gave their lives. Two more dying now is insignificant.'
'Human life has a much greater value now than then.' He noticed the chaplain's voice had lowered into a whisper.
'No, the value is the same. What's changed is our lack of dedication.'
'This not a war. There are no infidels holding the Holy Land. We're talking about finding something that most likely doesn't exist.'
'You speak blasphemy.'
'I speak the truth. And you know it. You think finding our Great Devise will change everything. It will change nothing. You must still garner the respect of all who serve you.'
'Doing what I promised will generate that respect.'
'Have you thought this quest through? It's not as simple as you think. The issues here are far greater than they were in the Beginning. The world is no longer illiterate and ignorant. You have much more to contend with than the brothers did then. Unfortunately for you, there exists not one mention of Jesus Christ in any secular Greek, Roman, or Jewish historical account. Not one reference in any piece of surviving literature. Just the New Testament. That's the whole sum of His existence. And why is that? You know the answer. If Jesus lived at all, He preached His message in the obscurity of Judea. No one paid Him any mind. The Romans couldn't have cared less, provided He wasn't inciting rebellion. And the Jews did little more than argue among themselves, which suited the Romans. Jesus came and went. He was inconsequential. Yet He now commands the attention of billions. Christianity is the world's largest religion. And He is, in every sense, their Messiah. The risen Lord. And nothing you find will change that.'
'What if His bones are there?'
'How would you know they're His bones?'
'How did those nine original knights know? And look at what they accomplished. Kings and queens bowed to their will. How else can that be explained except through what they knew.'
'And you think they shared that knowledge? What did they do-show the bones of Christ to each king, each monetary donor, each one of the faithful?'
'I have no idea what they did. But whatever their method it proved effective. Men flocked to the Order, wanting to be a part of it. Secular authorities courted its favor. Why can't that be again?'
'It can. Only not in the manner you think.'
'It galls me. For all we did for the Church. Twenty thousand brothers, six masters, all died defending Jesus Christ. The Knights Hospitallers' sacrifice cannot compare. Yet there is not one Templar saint, and there are many canonized Hospitallers. I want to right that injustice.'
'How is that possible?' The chaplain did not wait for him to answer. 'What is will not change.'
He thought again of the note. THE ANSWER HAS BEEN FOUND. And the phone resting in his pocket. I WILL CALL BEFORE THE SUN SETS WITH INFORMATION. His fingers lightly caressed the bulge of the cell phone in his trouser pocket. The chaplain was still talking, murmuring more about 'the quest for nothing.' Royce Claridon was still in the archives, searching.
But only one thought raced through his mind.
Why won't the phone ring?
'HENRIK,' MALONE SCREAMED. 'I CAN'T TAKE MUCH MORE OF this.'
He'd just listened to Mark's explanation that the ruins of the nearby abbey belonged to Thorvaldsen. They stood in the trees, half a mile from St. Agulous, where they'd parked and waited.
'Cotton, I had no idea that I own that property.'
'We're supposed to believe that?' Stephanie said.
'I don't give a damn whether you believe me or not. I knew nothing of this till a moment ago.'
'How do you explain it then?' Malone asked.
'I can't. I can only say that Lars borrowed a hundred and forty thousand dollars from me three months before he died. He never said what the money was for and I didn't ask.'
'You just gave him that much money with no questions?' Stephanie asked.
'He needed it, so I gave it to him. I trusted him.'
'The abbe in town said the buyer bought the property from the regional government. They were divesting themselves of the ruins and had few takers, as it's up in the mountains and in poor condition. It was sold at auction here in St. Augulous.' Mark faced Thorvaldsen. 'Yours was the high bid. The priest knew Dad and said he wasn't the one who actually bid.'
'Then Lars engaged someone to do it on his behalf, because it was not me. He then placed the title in my name to give him cover. Lars was quite paranoid. If I owned that property and knew it, I would have said something last night.'
'Not necessarily,' Stephanie murmured.
'Look, Stephanie. I'm not afraid of you or any one of you. I don't have to explain myself. But I consider you all my friends, and if I owned the property and knew it, I'd tell you.'
'Why don't we assume Henrik is telling the truth,' Cassiopeia said. She'd stayed uncharacteristically quiet during the debate. 'And get on up there. Darkness comes quick in the mountains. I for one want to see what's there.'
Malone agreed. 'She's right. Let's go. We can fight about this later.'
The drive up into the higher elevations took fifteen minutes and required strong nerves and good brakes. They followed the abbe's directions and eventually caught sight of the crumbling priory, resting on an eagle's aerie, its shattered square tower flanked by a merciless precipice. The road ended about half a mile from the ruins and the hike up, along a trail of emaciated rock flowered with thyme, beneath a canopy of great pines, took another ten minutes.
They entered the site.
Signs of neglect lay everywhere. The thick walls were bare and Malone allowed his fingers to slip along the gray-green granite schist, each stone surely quarried from the mountains and worked with faithful patience by ancient hands. A once grand gallery opened to the sky with columns and capitals that centuries of weather and light had tarnished beyond recognition. Moss, orange lichens, and gray wiry grass littered the ground, the stone floor long ago returned to sand. Grasshoppers sang a loud castanet.
The rooms were hard to delineate, as the roof and most of the walls lay collapsed, but the monk cells were evident, as was a large hall and another spacious room that might have been a library or scriptorium. Malone knew that life here would have been frugal, thrifty, and austere.
'Quite a place you own,' he said to Henrik.
'I was just admiring what a hundred and forty thousand dollars could buy twelve years ago.'
Cassiopeia seemed enthralled. 'You can imagine the monks harvesting a meager crop from the little bit of fertile soil. Summers here were brief, the days short. You can almost hear them chanting.'
'This place would have been sufficiently forlorn,' Thorvaldsen said. 'An oblivion only for themselves.'
