Twist of Time, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by Gy Waldron
First published in 2024 by First Fruits Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Though grounded in historical documentation, it is entirely a creation of the author.
Paperback edition ISBN 979-8-8693-7816-3
E-book edition ISBN 979-8-8693-7817-0
www.Gy-Waldron.com
To Jadi, against whom all women are measured and found wanting
CHAPTER ONE
The nude woman’s body had no head.
Homicide Detective Sgt. Kate Flynn first thought it was obscured by the thick undergrowth of sumac brush where the body lay. Moving closer, she was surprised to see only the stub of neck edged with a ring of dried, black blood. The rest of the neck was presumably attached to the missing head. For the average cop of thirty-five, the unexpected might startle; no head was very unexpected. But Kate was not average—she was a third-generation Irish cop with an IQ that hovered in the 140s. When she was a teenager and decided she wanted the same career as her father, a homicide detective, he began showing her crime scene photos from his cases. For Kate’s eighteenth birthday, she watched her first forensic autopsy.
As a veteran cop, this missing head was no more than an underline in her crime scene notes.
She was keenly aware of the uniformed officer watching. His name was Lester Hicks, twice passed over for promotion. He was a dough-pudgy jerk and a gossip. Kate had been in the Santa Barbara Police Department little more than a year, having transferred from Los Angeles homicide as Detective Sgt. She was still fighting currents of male resentment and she knew that Lester was going to report back to the “boys” on her first homicide in Santa Barbara as lead detective. He was hoping like hell to say that she screwed up.
Lester cleared his throat to get her attention. “The hands are gone, too.” He seemed pleased. “And the feet.”
She moved in for a closer look. The dumbass got that part right, the hands and feet were missing. She looked for defense wounds and discovered a circular abrasion on the left wrist. From her pocket Kate produced a tape recorder and began dictating.
“Notes on Jane Doe homicide corpus: left wrist abrasion suggests possible handcuff attached to briefcase. No head—no dental. No hands and feet—no prints. Killer was very determined to prevent identification. This appears textbook, a pro.”
Hicks grinned, showing broken teeth—a parting souvenir from his ex-wife, who finally took exception to his abuse. “I think she was killed someplace else and dumped here.”
“Really? Damn, and I thought it was road rage.” From his blank look, he obviously missed her sarcasm. The man was an imbecile.
“No, you’re wrong,” he argued. “Two hikers found her. Teenagers, a dude and a girl. They’re waiting in my cruiser.”
“You question them?”
“Yeah. They’re spooked, probably the head thing. They came down off that upper trail.” He indicated the dirt road about thirty yards above. “And here she was.”
They were interrupted by the sound of a vehicle on the road. Kate expected to see the forensic van, but it was another Santa Barbara PD cruiser. The door on the passenger side opened and a man got out. The officer pointed toward Kate; he nodded thanks and began walking down the hill through the low underbrush toward her.
From habit, she sized him up as if writing a police description: height, five-eleven to six-one; weight, 185 to 195; age, thirty-eight to forty-three; even features, ruddy complexion; hair dark and close-clipped; wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and running sneakers.
Based upon the report from Homicide that morning, everything about him was wrong. He should be dressed in a monk’s robe like the others at the Saint Joseph Monastery on the mountain above Santa Barbara. He should be pale and have a weird haircut. He was too young—shouldn’t monks be older, like in the movies? And he definitely should not be attractive. Obviously, this was the wrong guy.
“Detective Sgt. Flynn? I’m Thomas Bardsey.”
It was the right guy. “Thanks for coming,” Kate said. “I thought you’d be wearing a monk’s habit.”
“I do at the monastery. Outside, we usually dress civilian. I came as . . .” He saw the body. “Oh, dear God.”
“You reported a missing person two days ago, Denise Hollander. This woman was found this morning. Since there is no . . . uh, head, we hoped you could make an ID. You might recognize her from identifying marks on the body.”
“I’m a monk.”
“So?”
“I’ve never seen her naked.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“Besides, a head wouldn’t help. I have no idea what she looks like.”
“Didn’t you report her missing?”
“Yes. But we’ve never met. She flew in from New York two days ago. We had an appointment to meet at the monastery. When she didn’t show, I phoned her company in Baltimore and they said she arrived in Los Angeles. She had called her boss with her mobile phone while driving to Santa Barbara. I immediately notified the police.” He frowned. “Isn’t all that in my missing person report?”
“I haven’t seen it yet. Homicide woke me at home and said you would meet me here.” She looked him over. “I’ve never seen a monk out of uniform. I’m Catholic too—terminally lapsed.”
“I’m not Catholic. I’m Anglican.”
“I didn’t know they had monks.”
“Monks, nuns, the priests can marry. Also, some women priests. I like to say that we have all the problems.”
Her laugh and the spark in her eyes surprised him; she was very attractive. His gaze shifted from her eyes to the dead body. “My only contact with her was by phone and email.”
“What were you meeting about?”
“She was bringing me a manuscript. A diary, fourteenth century. Her company asked me to translate it.” He added, “Celtic studies is my field.”
Kate had no idea what that meant. “Is the diary valuable?”
He paused before answering. “Quite valuable.”
“Enough to kill for?”
He paused again. “That would depend upon what’s in the translation.”
His pauses suggested he was being evasive. Great: a reluctant witness. Opening her writing pad, she scribbled a note. “Who wrote the diary?”
“A monk. A Templar Knight named Brychan.”
“Spell it.”
He did. “Rhymes with rye-kan. The ‘ch’ sounds like a ‘k.’ A Celtic term meaning royal bloodline.”
“So, what is a Templar Knight?”
THE PEARL MOON was set in a black velvet sky in the coldest March the elders could remember. It was anno domini 1314. Sharp icy gusts stabbed spears at the two Templar riders and their packhorses. The younger, Sir Brychan, rode lead, his gray eyes reading the terrain. His huge companion, Sir Ursus, sat alert in the saddle as if awaiting an attack from the dark surrounding woods.
It was the third night since their escape through French King Philip’s lines. They had pressed on for two hard days and nights of cold, dry camps. Despite a late freeze that coated puddles with a skein of ice, they did not risk wearing their white wool mantles that marked them as Templars. Since the brutal execution in Paris of Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay, only days ago, King Philip’s bounty on fugitive Templars had been paid in gold, not sous or denier.
That night, under the shelter of a towering spruce, they risked a low fire and roasted chunks of blood sausage on spits. Black rye bread and a comb of honey provided a meager meal. They also brewed a pot of precious kahveh. The roasted dark beans were finely crushed and boiled in water—a taste Templars acquired from Turks during the Crusades. Said to be a craving among them, its heavy aroma was often found in their camps. Because kahveh was Saracen, most bishops had prohibited its use. The ban was lifted when Pope Clement himself became partial to it.
Afterward the two men curled together, double-cloaked against the freezing wind, and slept in dreamless exhaustion. An iron chest sealed with lead lay between them. On its lid was carved the single word “VERITAS.”
A few hours earlier, a lone scout from a band of outlaws heard the Templar horses moving in the woods and stealthily followed until they made camp. He waited until they bedded down, then went back for the others: eight predators who hunted these trails for anyone foolish enough to travel without escort. There had been no travelers for nearly a month, save for a caravan of merchant wagons under the protection of a troop of king’s cavalry. The bandits in hiding could only watch hungrily as the caravan rode past. This time the scout reported there were only two men, six horses, and their packs—an easy prize.
It was ten days later when the High Sherif of Auvergne, Sir Gilbert de Bage, and his men rode upon the scene. They had been tracking the Templars for days. He was able to tell what occurred that night by the circle of bodies. Now weathered carrion, they lay in a broken ring as they had fallen, a feast for ravening wolves, woods rats, and carrion crows.
Sir Gilbert sniffed, believing he could still smell the feff of corpus rot. There was a prickle of hairs on his neck. He had heard many Templar stories as a young squire when he served his great-uncle Bors, who had been a Templar Knight in the last Crusade. The old warrior, when “drunk as a Templar,” would tell tales hinting of the Order’s mysteries. Si
The bandits’ remains—gnawed bones, bits of leathery skin, and torn rags—were scattered in a rough circle around a space wide enough for two men fighting side by side. An odd assortment of weapons, a few swords, an axe, and a broken pruning hook marked the attackers as bandits, not soldiers. That the weapons lay rusting in the winter weeds meant no one had passed this way.
Gilbert immediately saw that this bandit attack was different. By day, they quickly overwhelmed travelers; at night, they killed their prey while they slept. Why had these been so foolish as to attack two Templars standing ready to fight?
The sherif was amused when he saw the answer. Inside the ring of bones where the Templars had stood were the charred ashes of their fire. Being fugitives, the Templars probably were not wearing their white mantles. Nor would the bandits know of the Zealotes’ manner of always sleeping with one hand clasping a drawn sword. If awakened by any unusual sound, the two would be instantly on their feet, side by side, weapons ready.
His uncle had explained that Zealotes were paired in twos and drilled for countless hours in their peculiar stance, each sensing the other’s move. When Zealotes battled in pairs, one warrior fought sinister, left-handed, so that any approach to them faced a lethal blade. The opposite hand held a dagger or mace. Zealotes had mastered fighting with a weapon in either or both hands.
Templar Knights were allowed to retreat only if the odds were more than three to one, Zealotes never: they won or died where they stood. Many of their brother Templars considered them fanatics. When a pair fought double-bladed, there was a Templar saying: “Two Zealotes, four blades, all dead.”
Looking over the ground, the sherif counted seven skulls, two of them split from crown to jawbone by a powerful slash. One skull was missing. Eight against two, but it would not have mattered had there been a dozen. They were no match against two Zealotes of the Knights Templar.
TWO DAYS LATER, the younger Templar, Brother Brychan, edged closer to the fire and opened a scribe’s case from the horse pack. It was a cherished present from his mother, Lady Gwynn, the year he entered the Templar Order. Placing it on the thick horse blanket, Brychan settled back comfortably against the high saddlebow.
The older Templar, Brother Ursus, placed the cracked kahveh urn where Brychan could reach it. He added a few dry sticks to the modest fire against the late afternoon chill. A light curl of white smoke rose from the blaze and filtered above through the spruce branches—not enough to give them away.
Brychan set out his writing tools, a crystal vial of fresh ground ink, four selected quills and a thin-bladed sharpener. From the scribe case he took out the diary given to him by Friar Luke, senior cleric in the Order. Its cover was of seasoned cypress finished in oiled leather with brass fittings, and so skillfully fashioned that if submerged in water, it would bob to the surface.
He blew on his fingers and selected a quill. Testing its point with his habitually ink-stained thumb, he dipped it, skimming the excess ink on the vial rim. “How many bandits did we fell two nights ago, Brother?”
Brother Ursus thought of it for the first time. “Six or eight. Too dark to be certain. Why are you writing about them?”
Brychan, surprised, looked up at him. “For a record. We neither buried nor prayed over them.”
“No time.”
“All the more that they be noted here.” Brychan smiled a gentle reproach.
“They attacked us.”
“But we did not wear our mantles. Had they known we were Templars they might have been afraid and therefore, spared.”
“Or fought harder to get the bounty on us.” Ursus scowled at the quill lines on the page. He had the natural mistrust of writing common among those who could not read. Less than half the Templar Knights could read or write; that was left to the brother clerics and priests of the Order. Even Grand Master de Molay was illiterate.
Writing was considered beneath warrior monks—the “Poor Soldiers of Christ.” Ursus took justifiable pride in being illiterate, for it marked his warrior status. Brychan, who had been schooled from childhood by Cistercian monks, was an exception, but he was different in many ways.
Ursus warned, “Your diary will get us burned if we are caught.”
“If we are captured, Brother, we will be truly blessed if burning is all they do.”
Both men were Scots nobility. When talking with each other they spoke English or Scots Gaelic. They also spoke the Norman French dialect still used in some parts of the British Isles. Beyond their common languages, the two men differed greatly in age, size, and experience.
Brother Ursus was Sir Angus MacTeal, clan MacCallan, Templar Knight and monk. Due to his great bearish bulk, he was affectionately called Ursus Scotus—Scots Bear—and his bright red hair and beard added to that presence. A fearsome warrior of forty and four years, he was a master of all arms. He had fought in the final campaigns in the Holy Land, where he also learned a considerable amount of Arabic. After ten years of hard service he was initiated into the elite ranks of the Zealotes.
Sir Brychan of Houston, clan Howistean, was twenty-seven, a rangy six feet with a duelist’s lithe body. When he turned twenty-one, he was knighted a Templar in Paris in the last group to be admitted. Seven days later King Philip the Fair of France ordered the arrest of Grand Master de Molay and all other Templars on Friday, October 13, forever known among Templars as Black Friday.
From that day, Sir Brychan was a fugitive, and there followed seven years in hiding. Then, in Paris, on March 19, on King Philip’s orders, Jacques de Molay, a worn seventy, exhausted by repeated torture and seven years in prison, was taken from his cell and burned alive by slow roasting at the stake. Hours before his execution, a message was smuggled from prison through the mythic Templar underground. It commissioned Brother Brychan a Zealote and charged him and Ursus with a secret mission to be followed to the death.
Brother Ursus slowly drew his sword, clearing its sheath with a metallic hiss. “Can you keep watch for me while you write?”
Brychan glanced around. “Yes. Attend to your prayers, Brother.”
Ursus stepped off three paces, one for each of the Holy Trinity. He laid his sword on the ground and knelt. Templars who strictly kept the Rule said twenty-four Pater Nosters and twenty-four Hail Marys daily, even when traveling. If they were Zealotes, one kept guard while the other prayed. The tradition came from scripture when Christ, on the night he was betrayed, asked his disciples to keep watch while he prayed. When outdoors, Zealotes always prayed with sword drawn and on the ground beside them.
As he kept watch, Brychan wrote in the meticulous script peculiar to the Cistercians. His diary did not record each day, but significant events were noted, like the recent outlaw attack. His writings also might include musings, jottings of verse, or an inspired moment of prayer written in Latin.
But his most private thoughts were written in Gaelic, for even in his precise Latin he did not have the words. Only Gaelic, language of the bards, could describe the visions of strange beings and glowing apparitions that came to him in their mysterious beauty.
To him they were not shadowy phantoms, but solid as earth under his feet yet light as a spring wind. They came in his sleep or at times when he thought he was asleep, only to discover that he had been in a trance and was hurled, as by war catapult, back to the present. Brother Brychan had “the sight,” as did his mother and her mother before her, which was said to be marked by their gray eyes.
The diary was unusual in other ways. At the front were blank pages on which Brychan wrote. On the back pages were symbols and numbers, ciphers impossible to read without the key. The codes gave access to the Templar financial empire, by far the wealthiest order in the Church.
Brychan understood little of the “science of numbers” and less about cyphers. When charged with keeping the diary, it was explained to him that Templars had a system of banking using letters of transmittal called cheques, from the Arabic chess term shah mat: checkmate. With these documents, money was exchanged without coin or bullion being carried. Anyone could use them: clergy, nobles, kings, even the Pope himself. Merchants had become greatly dependent upon them. The system was so trusted that even after the fall of Jerusalem to the Saracens, now seventy years past, Templar cheques were honored everywhere, including the Muslim world.
