The Templar Thief: Peter Sparke book 4 Read online

  The Templar Thief

  Scott Chapman

  This book is dedicated to Carrie Tuosto

  KINDLE edition

  Copyright 2014 Scott Chapman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this

  book, or portions, thereof in any form. No part of this text may

  be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse

  engineered or stored in any form or introduced into any information storage

  and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical

  without the express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the

  author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  PublishNation, London

  Find out more about Scott Chapman and his books at http://scottchapmanbooks.blogspot.ch/

  The Ship

  A rope snapped and a flaming remnant of sail swung toward Salvatore. He ducked and stepped across the captain’s body, its hand still outstretched in the gesture of welcome that Salvatore had betrayed with the thrust of a dagger. Behind the captain, the bodies of the night watch lay slumped on the deck like broken puppets; they were not the bodies of men who had died defending themselves. The sudden explosion of violence from Salvatore had taken them completely by surprise. Even as they saw their crewmates fall, they had not understood what was happening.

  Ignoring the growing flames, he walked the length of the ship, counting again the corpses of those he had killed. Below, the other crew members lay dead in their sleeping cribs. Dreaming of the end of a successful voyage, and the welcome they would get when they returned home, safe and well-paid, none had awakened as his blade had sliced through their throats.

  Each of the bodies still carried a leather purse filled with Templar gold. But Salvatore would carry away no connection to this ship. The coins would go to the bottom with the dead crew. He had made a pledge of absolute secrecy and would close every door behind him.

  Satisfied that all the crew was fully accounted for, he checked that the fires he had set were well caught. He paused in the center of the hold at a tangle of rope and planking. This was all that remained of the precious cargo that he had risked so much, and killed so many, to protect.

  He clambered up the short ladder from the hold to the rail of the ship, its steep sides making the hull feel like the walls of a building and the strong cross supports like roof rafters adding to the impression.

  His own ship, a small fast local Birlinn, lay low in the water below him, its crew of rowers anxious to pull away. The shore was a dark smudge on the horizon, a barren, godless, unwelcoming place. Somewhere behind that coast was a group of his Brothers, driven to hide at the ends of the earth by the greed and murderous envy of kings and cardinals. If he had a home anywhere in the world, it was with them, but there was no place for him there.

  The flames crept up the tarred rope of the rigging and the ship spewed smoke into the still night sky. He unbuckled his belt, pulled the white Templar habit with the bold red cross on the left shoulder over his head and folded it carefully. He reached under his chain-mail shirt and snapped a small medallion from its chain around his neck. He kissed the medal and threw it into the flames before leaping down to his ship.

  The hulk burned quickly and Salvatore ordered his small ship to heave to until he saw it start to sink. He heard the hull crack and snap with the heat until, groaning like a dying beast, it slipped beneath the waves under the lea of a rocky headland.

  At last he turned to the steersman.

  “South,” he said, “away from this damned cold.” Wrapping himself in his rough cloak he went forward to the prow to be alone with his thoughts.

  Rich

  "You're unemployed?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Depressed?"

  "Maybe a bit."

  "And," said Tilly, "you're rich?"

  "Looks like it," said Sparke.

  "Read the letter to me."

  "Let's go find a coffee shop first, I'm freezing." Despite the bright sunlight, the chill Edinburgh wind cut through both of them as they stood on the steps of the High Court on the city's Royal Mile.

  "Letter first," said Tilly. "Just the juicy bit."

  Sparke sighed, then pulled the single sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and scanned down the page as it flapped in the wind.

  "It says here," he began. "Having assessed the various items, artifacts and objects uncovered by the appellant to have a total fungible value..."

  "'Fungible," said Tilly. "You've got to love it when people talk all eighteenth-century."

  "Do you want me to read this?" said Sparke, trying not to shiver. "Total fungible value of forty-two million, eight hundred and fifty-seven thousand, four hundred and ninety-four pounds, the amount to be set aside by the Crown, under the provisions of the laws and practices of Treasure Trove, for the appellant will be fourteen million, six hundred and eleven thousand, five hundred and eighteen pounds."

  "Fourteen million quid," said Tilly, smiling. "Your share is fourteen million. That's a lot of money. That's more than a lot of money."

  "The judge chap said it was quite a high share since so many of the things in the Vault could not be valued in cash terms. Actually, I promised not to tell anyone the actual amount. The Crown is keen to keep that sort of thing confidential. That's why there is no press here."

  "But you just told me."

  "I know," said Sparke. "The Queen will probably chop my head off."

  "Probably, but I expect she has someone to actually do the chopping for her. I don't really see her as an axe person, personally."

  "Now can we go for coffee?"

  "Let's grab a taxi. My office is only five minutes away and I don't think you want to be sitting in Starbucks discussing the fact that you are now a multi-squillionaire."

  Without waiting for an answer, Tilly stepped off the curb and waved down a black cab which spun round in a tight U-turn, stopping inches from where she stood.

  Tilly's office was on the second floor of the National Museum of Scotland building. The small, brushed-metal nameplate by the door said, "Professor Matilida Pink, Ph.D., FRSS".

  "Coffee," she said, throwing her coat onto a chair, allowing the door to bang behind her.

  "Some of this money is yours, of course," said Sparke.

  "Yup, at least fifty quid's worth of food and drink when you buy me a huge dinner tonight."

  "No, I'm serious."

  "So am I. Can't take a penny. Rules."

  "Whose rules?"

  "The Queens and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer, if you really want to know. He's the judge chappy who just gave you all that money. Scots law is crystal clear. I'm an academic historian and archaeologist, so I'm flat out barred from making any money out of any historical finds. But you're still buying dinner." Tilly finished making the coffee and brought the cups over with a large tin biscuit-box. "What will you do now?" she said.

  "I have no idea. I only went looking out of curiosity, a hobby really. I had no idea that I would actually find anything. Never imagined that it would lead to money."

  "You certainly found something," said Tilly. "There is no doubt at all that what you found was a major part of the Knights Templar treasury and we'll be at it for decades to finally work out the real importance of the rest of the artifacts in that vault."

  "The box, the stone box I found, what do you think it is?"

  "Not my era. I leave that sort of conjecture to Middle East experts. But we have had battalions of profes
sors from Israel, the Vatican and America trooping up here and they all say the same thing; every piece of evidence we see indicates that the thing you found is the artifact known as the Arc of the Covenant in both Hebrew and Roman texts. There is logic, of sorts, to say that the Templars might have had possession of it, and a lot of logic that suggests that they would have wanted to hide it once they were brought down."

  "And the men who hid it chose to die with their secret," said Sparke.

  "But you're not dead. In fact you are alive, and now rich."

  "Rich and unemployed."

  "Not so good on the unemployed front. Sorry to hear that. Would you go back to your firm if you could?"

  "In a heartbeat. But they had all the right reasons for sacking me. I did borrow a lot of company equipment for my personal use without anyone's permission, and clowning around like an amateur historian did risk the company's reputation. I knew how much the Board hated publicity, so it's all my own fault."

  "Not to worry. You're getting fourteen million quid, so start your own company."

  "The top of my list right now is a long quiet holiday where nobody ever mentions work, or the Templar Vault, or the bloody media."

  "You should write a book about the whole thing," she said, smiling at the idea.

  "I would rather juggle rattlesnakes than tangle with the media. I don't know how you manage it."

  "Manage what, the media? All I do is present a few wee bits and pieces of history for the television sometimes and give the occasional press conference that no one ever pays any attention to."

  It was Sparke's turn to smile. After his discovery of the Vault in the side of a mountain in the Scottish Highlands, Tilly had been the official face of the Scottish Government team who had secured the site and carried out the archiving. When it had been suggested by a journalist that there might be legal challenges to the ownership of the artifacts and they might be taken overseas, she had become a media sensation when she said, "I understand that possession is nine tenths of the law. This was found by a Scottish citizen, on Scottish national land, it is under the care of the Scottish National Museum and the protection of the Scottish police. That makes thirty-six tenths by my calculation. It's going nowhere." She was a natural media star.

  Sparke looked around Tilly's office. It was government issue, spartan, but it had the feel of a happy place to work.

  "What about you?" he said. "Still fully occupied with the Vault?"

  "Less so now. We have a great international team looking after things who are much more specialized than me. I'm back taking care of other things. Smaller, but pretty interesting. Not in your league."

  "Really? What, for example?"

  "Well," said Tilly, cradling her coffee cup and tucking her legs under herself, "have you heard about the Carloway Cog or of Fra Muratore?"

  Trouble

  Salvatore hefted the black and white shield higher onto his left shoulder and settled himself as lightly into the saddle as he could. His lance arm held the reins loosely, but there was no need for him to guide his mount except through his heels. It had been trained to the point of instinct to race towards a fast approaching horse, and he had ridden it now for more than a year.

  The sergeant dropped his arm and both horses lurched forward. Despite the weight of Salvatore and half the weight again of arms and armor, the horse had reached a trot within a dozen paces and a dozen more took it to a galloping charge.

  Salvatore paid no attention the tip of his opponent’s lance. The tip of the weapon could be moved at a second’s notice, but the posture a man took on the charge was harder to move and easier to read. His opponent curled his body around the lance and pulled the shield tight against his shoulder, showing only half his helmet and a glimpse of his right shoulder over its protective barrier. He sat deep in his saddle. Both mounted knights charged towards each other and even in practice there was a rush of energy and excitement.

  Five yards from the point of impact, Salvatore curled his right arm tightly around the lance, but lifted it slightly out, away from his body. Rather than pull his shield in, he move it slightly forward, pushing his left shoulder towards the other man. He stretched his right leg out, pushing into the stirrup. He could almost see the eyes of his competitor through the slit in his helmet, but Salvatore was not competing with this man, he was competing with himself. He was teaching himself to break the habit of a decade of lance fighting by adopting the position known as the “Stork”, a forward, far more aggressive position which, once mastered would give him a killer advantage over other horsemen, especially those more lightly mounted. His opponent’s lance landed squarely in the middle of Salvatore’s shield, skidded across its surface and crashed into his shoulder, spinning him in the saddle, but not unhorsing him. His own lance bounced high off his opponent's shield, harmlessly.

  Momentum carried both horses past the end of the list, but Salvatore allowed his own mount to run itself to a calm stop, rather than reining it in.

  He trotted back to the sergeant and handed him the lance and shield. As he pulled off his helmet he was grinning like a champion. The sergeant caught his eye and nodded silently. It was mute praise from an expert who recognized what Salvatore had been trying to do.

  The low sun was still barely up over the buildings of the Commandery of Genoa, and Salvatore could see a lone figure watching the joust. He had to squint and shield his eyes, but even when the observer was standing motionless, he could recognize him.

  "You are in trouble again," said the figure.

  "I am, yes."

  "The Prior has reported that you assaulted his physician."

  "I did."

  "You believe you had some reason for this?" asked the figure.

  "The wife of one of the sergeants had a shaking sickness. The Prior's physician had her head shaved and a crucifix carved into her scalp, then had ashes rubbed into the wounds. She died."

  "Physicians are here to cure sick people."

  "I mentioned that to him."

  "And during this conversation you assaulted him?"

  "I threw him out of the building."

  "He was injured?"

  "A twisted ankle. I offered to carve something onto his scalp for him as a cure, but he declined."

  The figure looked into the distance for a moment. "You joined our Order under a cloud and its shadow has never left you. How do you find so much trouble?"

  "I never look for problems," said Salvatore.

  "Like the wife of the Chancellor of Auvain?"

  "She loaned me a book to read."

  "And her husband sent her to a convent and you lived on bread and water for a month."

  Salvatore unlaced the back of his chain mail hood and heaved it over his head.

  "There is little justice on this earth," he said. "What will happen to me over this business with the fool physician?"

  "You will apologize, obviously, then perform a suitable penance which the Prior and I will agree on. Your Commander wonders if you are really fitted for a life as a Templar."

  "And you, what do you think? Am I suited for life as a Templar?"

  "Be careful of the questions you ask, Salvatore. One day you may just ask one too many. Every Templar must make the Order greater than it would be without him as a member. Each day we should ask ourselves if we are adding or subtracting to the greater good. At the moment, you seem to be in a deficit."

  "Did they send you to expel me?" asked Salvatore.

  "No, you are not going to be expelled, but the Commander here orders that you be transferred as soon as possible."

  Salvatore struggled out of the chain mail shirt, throwing the dead weight over his shoulder like an animal's hide. Despite the cool air his padded tunic below was soaked with sweat.

  "I rarely see you unless you are helping to keep me in the Order," said Salvatore. "Why don't you let them throw me out? I have seen others disrobed for the smallest offences."

  "You are always so proud of your precocious learning, Sa
lvatore. Why don't you tell me why?"

  Salvatore unbuckled his armored leggings as he thought.

  "It can only be that you, or somebody else, feels that my presence creates value greater than the problems which people tell me I cause."

  "I suppose you are right. You must be of some value, and quite significant value, given the amount of heartbreak you cause your brothers."

  Their conversation was interrupted by a shout behind them as two other knights took their turn at the practice rail. One of them had been unhorsed and was struggling to get back on his feet under the weight of armor.

  The visitor turned, from the spectacle of the man dusting himself off, back to Salvatore. "I watched you," he said. "You are trying to learn the Stork?"

  "Trying."

  "You are close, but too hesitant with your left. You need to feel a straight line from your left shoulder down to your right foot. Don't forget all the things you have already learned, just don't let them dictate your actions. I will show you this afternoon, after I talk with the Prior."

  Salvatore looked directly at the man.

  "Did you come all this way just to give me some riding advice and remind me of my failings?"

  "Much as you need both, I am here because there is a task we may want you to perform. A special task, very difficult, even compared to the other things you have done for us," said the Mason.

  "Does it mean that I get to leave Genoa?"

  "It does, but before you say yes, you need to know the task is almost certainly impossible and will very probably be fatal to you. Do you think you will still wish to accept it?"

  "Yes."

  "Just so? You have no wish to know what the task is?"

  "If you think I can do it, then I accept."

  "Salvatore, for such an intelligent man, you show an appalling lack of concern for your own fate."

  "I understand my own fate too well. If I stay here, or in some other backwater, I will eventually be sent out of the Order. There is only one thing worse than life inside the Order and that is the idea of life outside it. Whatever needs to be done, I will do it, Brother Mason.”