The Templar Scroll: Book six in the series Read online

  The Templar Scroll

  By Scott Chapman

  This book is dedicated to all the people who take the time and effort to post reviews of my books online. I read every review and, good or bad, I would like to say thanks.

  Scott Chapman

  KINDLE edition

  Copyright 2016 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.

  Contents

  Smoke

  Screen

  Farmer

  Phones

  Traffic

  Truth

  Paranoia

  Lobby

  Meetings and greetings

  Storm

  Love and consequences

  TLC

  Killing

  Saints and signs

  Egypt

  Screen

  Storm rising

  Logic and horror

  Challenge

  Holiday

  Solutions

  Clouds

  Aunty

  Ideas

  Flying

  Encounters

  Questions

  Dawns and departures

  Front

  Altitude

  Talking and deciding

  Distractions

  Approach

  Control

  The telephone always rings

  The possible impossible

  Control

  Al Mansur

  Balance

  Swimming in smoke

  Control

  Lepers

  Waves

  Sticks and stones

  Nature

  Supervisor

  Surface

  Dust

  Landings

  Cup

  Should old acquaintance be forgot?

  Cracked

  Morning

  Screaming cross

  Back to work

  Breakthrough

  Fingerprints

  Wave

  Decision

  Bastion

  Witness

  Death

  Witnesses

  Walls

  Talking

  Company

  Darkness

  Things on shelves

  Walls

  Letter from the end

  The Fall

  Logic

  Ends

  Tact

  Last stand

  Relics

  Last Dawn

  User-friendly

  Death

  Light

  Smoke

  Smoke shrouded the city, filtering the glare from the sun and draining color from the streets. Dust thickened the air, muffling the few sounds that came from the broken city. Dogs barked and fought over the meat they found among the ruins. Smoldering timbers cracked and loose masonry fell onto the heaps of rubble that stretched in all directions. Clouds of flies filled the air with a low hum.

  The thousands of captives, those who had somehow survived the first storms of violence, had been herded together outside the walls to be counted and shared. They would be brought back in chains to bury the Muslim dead tonight; Christians and Jews would be burned or left to rot.

  Some bodies lay alone, cut down as they fled, but most were piled thick in doorways, alleys or in courtyards. The buildings that had been churches were the worst, choked with corpses.

  A file of horsemen picked their way through the chaos, walking their mounts with care over the debris. They were not strangers to the city, but they became lost several times, unable to recognize streets they had walked down a score of times.

  “They all look the same when they’re dead,” said Omar, looking at the piles of bodies.

  “Do you know where we are?” said Yusuf.

  “On a pile of stones is where we are,” said Omar. “This is where the Venetians lived I think. You used to know where you were by how they dressed, but when they’re dead…”

  “We’ll keep heading west then follow the sea.”

  As they moved away from the Accursed Gate and into the heart of the city, the damage to buildings was less severe, but the number of bodies increased.

  Sounds of digging could occasionally be heard from cellars as men dug at fresh earth which might indicate a hiding place for treasured possessions. Groups of soldiers wandered between the buildings, gathering loot into blankets or cloaks laid on the ground.

  “This is definitely where the Venetians lived,” said Omar, looking at the contents of a house being piled onto a hand cart.

  “What?” said Yusuf.

  “Venetians, look, blue glass. Venetians love blue glass.”

  “We need to head to the right,” said Yusuf. “Stay away from the harbor.”

  “The harbor will be a mess,” agreed Omar. “They’re always the worst. Remember Tripoli? What a mess.”

  They came to a street that was thick with fallen arrows. Their horses scattered the wooden shafts like clattering leaves. Heavy iron headed crossbow bolts studded the walls surrounding the building.

  “Last stand,” said Yusuf. He pointed at a building that stood alone in a square. It had few windows and high walls. Smoke drifted from the roof. Whoever had been trapped here had taken a long time to die.

  The troop of horsemen veered to the north, then turned back towards the west, reaching the Road of Saint Peter. This was the broadest thoroughfare in the city and had been crammed with people heading towards the docks when the Arab troops had hit. People had not even had time to turn when the tide of slaughter had overtaken them. A row of the city militia lay dead in perfect formation, each body bristling with arrows. Their gaudy uniform tunics had made them perfect targets for the charging Arab cavalry.

  A wagon full of new furniture stood surrounded by the bodies of half a dozen carpenters dressed in their aprons, hammers and chisels scattered on the ground.

  “They thought they could find room on a ship for their tables and chairs?” said Omar, shaking his head and looking at the corpses. Yusuf looked up and down the broad street. The line of traffic looked as though everyone had fallen asleep in the middle of a busy day.

  “We’re close,” he said, urging his horse forward.

  They walked on until they could see where the streets gave way to open ground. On the far side of the open space stood the high walls of a castle. There was little sign of damage here; the invading troops knew that they could do nothing against these walls without heavy assault equipment. The wave that had washed over the city had rolled back here.

  Jutting out from the wall was a lower building, heavily fortified so that it had the look of a small castle in itself. Piles of Arab dead lay strewn on the ground around it.

  Yusuf dismounted and handed his reins to Omar. He stepped forward until he was only a yard from the open ground.

  “Guard on the walls,” he shouted. There was a rattle of activity and a murmur of voices high above him, then a voice shouted back.

  “Who approaches?”

  Yusuf stepped out into the open.

  “I am Yusuf Al-Katani of Aleppo.”

 
“And what do you want Yusuf Al-Katani of Aleppo?”

  “Who am I talking to?”

  “You are talking to Cavalieri Salvatore da Radda, Knight of the Templar Order. What do you want?”

  “I am sent to ask you a question.”

  Screen

  Sparke watched the dark screen and ran his tongue across his lips. He took a long slow breath, trying to keep his heart rate down. He had lived around screens for decades, they were what kept him ahead; screens gave information, they provided warnings, they allowed him to look at situations and decipher meaning from chaos.

  In his career as a crisis manager, he had seen earthquakes, volcanos and a dozen types of man-made chaos unfold on screens. It had been his job to find the path back to safety in situations around the world, and in every case computer screens had been his best defense.

  The screen had a black glow, it was obviously powered up, but no signal was reaching the display. A few flashes of light flitted through the darkness. In the top right-hand corner, a counter appeared showing seconds, tenths of a second and hundredths of a second.

  An image filled the screen, a jumble of letters and numbers that would make sense only to a small group of experts. The timer ran towards zero. At ten seconds, Sparke pushed back a strong impulse to walk out the door. At five seconds he let out a long breath.

  “How’s your tea?” said Tilly. “Biscuit?”

  Sparke shook his head.

  “I’m just so excited,” said Tilly. She turned her head to look at him more closely. “Are you all right?”

  Sparke nodded.

  The screen filled with an image of Tilly, standing on a side of a hill in the Scottish Highlands, her hair moving in the breeze. The Tilly on the screen glanced off to one side, then nodded and turned to look directly into the camera.

  “It is now over a year since Scottish-born engineer Peter Sparke unearthed what many have called the greatest single discovery of medieval artifacts ever made. The discovery has created a wave of controversy around the world and is the source of literally dozens of research projects from Jerusalem to California. In particular, it is creating a wholesale rethinking of the final years of the mysterious organization known as the Knights Templar.”

  The image on the screen switched to a small valley with steep sides, barren except for long grass. At the base of the valley sat a small round lake.

  “We will trace the path that brought this unique discovery to light and, for the first time, we will hear directly from Peter Sparke about his experiences. What was it that brought him to this wild spot and find the hidden Vault that many claim contains the final archives and treasury of the last surviving formation of Templars.” The screen changed to show a group of scientists in white coats, working around a brightly lit lab table.

  “It’s amazing how much better the final version of this will be once the editing people do their thing,” said Tilly, reaching for another biscuit. “I mean, to you and I this probably looks not bad, but these television people really polish it up.”

  Sparke was listening to her speak as though she was in another room, her voice detached from the reality he found himself in.

  One of the white-coated scientists was speaking to the camera now. On an examination table in front of him stood a metal object which looked something like an artillery shell or a pointed helmet from a suit of armor. It was over a foot high with a seam soldered along its full length. The scientist was talking about the use of lead as a means to preserve precious objects in the medieval period. For a moment the topic was interesting enough to distract Sparke.

  “That’s Stuart Peden from Edinburgh University,” said Tilly. “Just about the best academic applied metallurgist you’ll ever meet. Spent ten years working on North Sea oil rigs and did his Master’s Degree during his shore-time. All the women in the office think up reasons to work with him. He’s called the ‘Iron Man’ in the faculty.”

  Sparke turned to look at Tilly.

  “Really? All the women? Including you?” he said.

  “He’s not my type,” she said, smiling.

  “And what is your type?”

  “Overly-intellectual, socially awkward, brilliant and thoughtful. Oh, and rich.”

  “That’s me is it?” said Sparke.

  “If the cap fits, wear it,” said Tilly, kissing Sparke lightly and nudging his arm up so that she could lean against him.

  “Here’s you!” said Tilly, grabbing Sparke’s hand. “Your television premier.”

  Sparke watched his own face on the screen being interviewed by Tilly. The dark, rainy Edinburgh night outside the window made the screen all the more prominent.

  “How many is this for you?” said Sparke.

  “Television programs? This must be my sixth one, I think, in terms of being a scripted thing. I’ve done another half dozen interviews on top of that, I suppose.”

  The couple sat on the sofa for the next hour watching the first cut of the program about Sparke’s discovery of the site now known around the world as “The Templar Vault”. It had changed Sparke’s life in every way, not least in that he had been awarded a finder’s fee of several million pounds by the Scottish Government who had taken possession of the horde. Equally important, his path had also brought him into contact with Professor Matilda Pink PhD, or Tilly to her friends.

  “This isn’t quite as terrible as I feared,” said Sparke as he watched the program. “But you’re making the whole thing sound quite logical on my part. It was nine parts luck and one part common sense.”

  “Nothing wrong with being lucky, chum,” said Tilly. “You’re actually quite good on the screen.”

  “I look as though I am in a dentist chair,” he said.

  “Nonsense, you look thoughtful and considered.”

  “But not a hunk like Stuart Peden, your Iron Man?”

  “He’s not my Iron Man,” said Tilly, “you are.”

  Sparke smiled and looked back at the screen.

  In the decades he had spent working in crisis management, Sparke had always gone to great lengths to avoid dealing with the press; that was a field for trained public relations experts, and he had no interest in putting himself anywhere near journalists looking for a story. He saw no reason to change that policy when he made his first archaeological discovery.

  It was only due to Tilly’s insistence that the program about his discovery would not make much sense without his participation that he had caved in and spent several hours answering her questions in a studio set up in The National Museum in Edinburgh. During the filming he had taken the advice of the producer and ignored the cameras, speaking to Tilly as though she was the only person in the room.

  The more he watched the more he relaxed, and he could feel his body lose its tension as he sipped his tea. By the time the rough credits flashed onto the screen, he was smiling.

  “Right, let’s celebrate,” said Tilly, jumping up from the sofa. “We can order pizza or head out into town for something.”

  “Let’s go out, it’s not raining hard, at least not by Edinburgh standards.”

  Tilly opened her mouth to speak but stopped when her phone rang. She picked it up.

  “Tilly Pink,” she said.

  Sparke watched as her smile faded.

  Farmer

  “This place is good for war,” said Olav, “but nothing else. If there was no profit in killing, an honest man can find no living here at all.”

  “I thought you were getting rich from pilgrims?” said the Mason.

  “Don’t talk to me about pilgrims. They drink thin wine and eat dry dates. There’s no money with them unless you’re selling relics or getting paid to give them protection.”

  Olav squinted at the Templar.

  “How is the protection business, Brother Mason? I see Templars and Hospitalers guarding every caravan.”

  The Mason looked across the table and picked up his wine cup. “We are called upon to guard the flock. Pilgrims are often generous in their grat
itude.”

  “It makes a good story for when they get home, you know,” said Olav. “All those fat little pilgrims will get back to Flanders or England and spend the whole winter telling their neighbors, ‘We were only saved from the savage Saracens by a troop of valiant Templars.’ Your Order is becoming an object of vanity.”

  The Mason laughed. “I swear I never met a more cynical man,” he said. “Nor a more honest one. If the life of a civilian does not suit you then why not come back to us? There was no sergeant in the Order held in higher regard than you. Come back and join the brotherhood.”

  Olav refilled both wine cups. They sat alone at the rough table with a single candle to light the room. Outside, the dark valley lay quiet, with only the breeze in the olive trees disturbing the silence. “I should never have left,” he said. “When I wore the cross all I saw was rich pilgrims and fat merchants, now that I am a civilian all I see are paupers.”

  “So, what holds you to this place?” said the Mason. “If you love the Holy Land so much, I’m sure I can get you in the permanent garrison in Acre.”

  “My wife might have something to say on that subject.” Olav stared into his wine cup.

  “There are Templars with wives,” said the Mason. “These things can be managed.”

  Olav drained his wine. “I know that you could manage anything you set your mind to, my friend. But I ploughed my furrow and now I will reap what I have sown. My life will be serving bad wine to pauper pilgrims and hoping that my crops grow.”

  The Mason leaned across the table and refilled Olav’s cup.

  “Apart from tight-fisted pilgrims, what else do you see?” he asked.

  Olav smiled and said, “You are never far from duty, are you? Even deep in wine with an old friend, you still ask questions like a soldier.”

  “A soldier is all I am,” said the Mason, laughing.

  “If you were only a soldier you would not be thirty miles from the nearest Templar post, alone and dressed like a civilian. Tell me what you want to know?”

  “You have been here for, what, six years, seven?” said the Mason.

  “Eight, as you know very well.”