Twist of Time, page 2
Brother Ursus knew only that the Order had chosen Brychan to keep the codes and diary. Beyond whatever else it contained, the ciphers alone were worth the killing. But Brychan’s writings in the diary, if they fell into the hands of Holy Office of the Inquisition, would mean indictment for heresy and witchcraft. That was certain burning.
At the sound of the cry, both men were startled. An animal? As they looked at each other it came again, a shriek of terror.
Ursus grabbed his weapon from the ground; Brychan stuffed the diary in his writing case and drew his sword. The wail came again from the woods on their left.
Brychan started to move, but Ursus stopped him with a gesture. Then Brychan heard it too, the sound of horses, not running but moving about.
Without a word, Brychan kicked out the fire. Ursus moved to his pack, took out a two-handed broadsword in its sheath and drew it. The two men exchanged a look indicating direction and still without speaking, moved into the forest.
About fifty paces into the thick brush, they came upon a rise in the ground. Beyond, they could hear the sound of men laughing. They moved up the slope quietly, their steps muffled by stiff, frozen weeds. Near the top they dropped down, crawling through thick ground wayz flecked with frost. They parted a growth of gray thistle and looked below.
In a clearing were four soldiers wearing the yellow livery of the King’s cavalry, one on horse and three afoot. Two were holding a young woman on the ground. One of the men had pulled her skirt up to her waist; she was naked beneath. A burly third trooper had unbuckled his sword; his britches were down to his knees. As the girl cried out, he laughed, pulling at his huge erection.
At one side was a caravan wagon hitched with two horses. It was of a distinctive style—a bow-topped roof. Its red paint bore decades of weathering and was farded with leather and metalwork. On the ground lay the hacked body of an old man, his white hair wrapped in a red cloth.
Gypsies.
Brychan and Ursus looked at each other. With the King’s price on their heads, to interfere would give them away to the soldiers. Besides, the girl was a Gypsy; this was none of their affair.
As they were about to turn away, the woman kicked the rapist hard in the ballocks. He yelped, sprawling to the ground. She twisted free and jumped to her feet, running. Two soldiers scrambled after her. One caught the back of her blouse as she frantically pulled away.
Cursing, the soldier yanked and ripped her blouse open, revealing her breasts and a crucifix on a chain.
“Jesus, help me!” she screamed.
Brychan and Ursus looked at each other astonished. Neither had seen a naked woman in years, nor ever heard of Christian Gypsies. But all Zealotes were bound by the first Templar rule: to protect all Christian travelers no matter who they were.
The woman was on the ground in a frantic struggle with three soldiers. One held her arms while a second choked her into submission; the rapist was on his knees between her legs, brutally forcing them apart.
The trooper on horseback, gleefully watching, sensed something. His hand was on his sword grip before he looked back. He turned into the powerful slash of a two-handed broad sword that almost cut him in half at the waist.
The soldier choking the girl looked up to see the mounted trooper tumble to the ground. Beside the horse was a Goliath of a man who charged with a huge broadsword. Two soldiers jumped up; swords drawn. The rapist’s weapon lay on the ground midway between him and the giant.
A second warrior suddenly appeared out of the brush to their right. He carried a sword, but no shield. The giant halted his charge—a diversion until his comrade appeared. Now, in a well-practiced move, both men edged sideways in opposite directions, forcing the two cavalrymen to face out and become more separated.
The rapist was struggling, with his britches entangled on one of his spurs. His pants were wrapped around his knees; arse bare, erection withered.
The girl frantically crawled to the side, even more terrified. These two were not rescuers, only two more mad dogs to fight over the same piece of meat.
The giant roared, “Beauseant!” Swinging the broadsword in a great arc, he closed with the first soldier. The cavalryman defended with a two-handed parry. Each ringing clash took him another step, distancing him farther from the others.
Brychan attacked the second man with a flurry that forced his opponent to give ground. The trooper, a veteran sergeant, was bewildered; from its particular sound his opponent’s blade was a Toledo. It could cost almost as much as a knight’s armor, yet this magnificent weapon was wielded by one dressed rough, neither peasant nor noble.
Ursus continued his assault—a mix of quick slashes, spins, and turns. His broadsword, crafted especially for him, was almost five feet, longer than any the cavalrymen had ever seen. Brychan continued pressing his attack on the sergeant; the wily veteran began to give ground, tempting Brychan to overextend his blade.
Reading him, Brychan stopped in mid-swing, leaving the sergeant’s arm extended. A swift inside slash caught his exposed elbow, severing the arm with a scream. Brychan, with both hands swinging the sword, slammed the sergeant’s helmet with a sharp crack. As he was falling, a deep thrust took him dead center.
Ursus turned to face the rapist who had retrieved his sword. The soldier was big, but bulf and clumsy. He parried solidly against Ursus’ battering, but with each backward step his britches crept down, exposing his arse. When his opponent’s blade missed a desperate parry, Ursus slashed a scarlet gap across his lard-white belly.
The man groaned and dropped to his knees, grabbing at his spilling guts. With a merciful blow, Ursus severed his head.
Ursus looked at Brychan. “He was nae Scot. They love fighting bare-arsed.”
All the cavalrymen lay dead. The fight had lasted less than a hundred-count.
The astonished girl watched them; one hand clutched her torn dress, covering her nakedness. She held a dagger from a fallen trooper.
Brychan raised his hand in blessing. “Peace, woman. We mean you no harm.”
She snarled, raising the blade.
“We are Templars.”
“Templars?” She suspiciously eyed their rough clothing. Both were clean-shaven, unlike Templars, who were known for their full beards.
“And fugitives,” he added.
Dropping the dagger, she ran to the dead Gypsy. Falling on her knees she began wailing and throwing handfuls of dirt in the air and on herself in the Gypsy manner of grief. When she paused for breath, Brychan spoke.
“Your father?” he asked.
“Uncle.” She looked at the dead soldiers, closed her eyes, and cursed a chatter of Romany sending their souls to hell.
Ursus scanned the surrounding trees, listening. “We must go. Their troop is close by.”
Brychan turned to the girl. “Come with us.” He ignored Ursus’ angry look. “We’ll take you to the nearest village.”
Ursus shook his head. “Her wagon will slow us.”
“Then she must leave it.”
The girl indicated her uncle’s body. “No. He is an elder, he must burn in the wagon.”
Ursus, still looking at the trees, spoke in Gaelic. “Leave. Now.”
Brychan knew well to trust Brother Ursus’ instincts. His ability to sense trouble was a cause for wonder among their fellow Templars. Ursus explained that “he listened to the trees,” which was the Celtic way of divining. Many believed that he simply had hearing like a fox, while others were convinced that God had given him a special gift.
Brychan motioned to the girl. “Come.”
“He must burn in the wagon!” she insisted.
“Woman, get your belongings.” Brychan’s tone left no room for argument. He made the sign of the cross over the dead Gypsy.
While Ursus collected the cavalry mounts, Brychan unhitched the two draft horses from the Gypsy wagon. They were good stock, well-tended. He gave each a firm pat on their bruffed winter coats and offered a prayer that some lucky peasant might find them before the wolves did.
Ursus selected the largest stallion to carry his bulk and led the other horses to the Gypsy wagon.
When the girl appeared from inside the wagon, she was now wearing a long leather cloak lined with thick fleece. She carried a leather satchel and in the other hand a canvas bag of provisions: Gypsies never left food behind. Ursus took the parcels from her and hung them on the harness rig of one of the packhorses.
From the wagon seat, she nimbly climbed on a stallion, revealing a luscious flash of leg and thigh as she curled it around the pommel to ride sidesaddle. The glimpse took Brychan’s breath away. As she confidently grasped the reins, he was reminded that Gypsies were notorious horse thieves.
With a grieving look back at her uncle’s body, she followed the two knights.
By custom, when in the forest, Zealotes rode in silence to avoid their sound carrying. Brychan was relieved that the girl did not talk. He wondered if it was the nature of all Gypsies from their way of living apart.
As they were approaching their camp, both men sensed something was wrong. Ursus spurred his horse and broke from the tree cover with Brychan close behind.
They reined up, astonished. All their horses were gone. And the chest.
Ursus pointed to the skyline of a distant hill, which cut an arc into the setting sun. They could see the silhouette of three riders leading their stolen horses as they disappeared over the horizon.
Brychan spied his writing case on the ground half-covered by a blanket. Jumping off his horse, he ran and fell to his knees. With trembling hands, he opened it.
The diary was gone.
Jake’s was Santa Barbara’s vintage diner, where savory, greasy fries in brown gravy were a cardiac hazard, and burly coffee in thick porcelain mugs could revive a coma. It was the police hangout for heavy carbs or a caffeine kick.
Kate and Thomas had come directly from the crime scene. Thomas was enjoying a second coffee as he watched her eat.
Kate was devouring the Lumberjack special: eggs, sausage, and a mound of hash browns high as the three flapjacks. At his look, she smiled.
“I never gain weight,” she said. “I am going to donate my metabolism to medical science.”
“As a monk, you’d starve in a week.”
“Were you always a monk?”
“No. Were you always a cop?”
“Most women are curious about priests and monks. Wondering if—well, you know.”
“I’m not gay, which is what you really wanted to ask. In another life, I had it all—a wife, a mortgage, even a bulldog named Merlin.”
“You were married?”
“Yes.”
“Divorced?”
“She died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Why do we always think divorced first?”
“Maybe because you are divorced.” At her surprise, he explained. “You don’t wear a wedding ring; most married women do. You surely had offers. You must have taken one of them.”
She was startled at how easily he read her. “Both of us were LAPD,” she said. “I was homicide, he was vice. The perfect couple. Then one day he announced he didn’t want to be married anymore.” She paused. “Why do men always say that?”
“Do they?”
“Anyway, he left me for a girl barely in her twenties. A hooker he once arrested.”
“That must have been—”
“It was. I resigned from LAPD homicide and came home to Santa Barbara over a year ago. They were short-handed in homicide and I had ten years’ experience. Except for pissing off half the force who are trying to make detective, it’s been boringly routine. Now thanks to you I get a murder, a mutilation, and your weird diary.” She raised her coffee cup in a toast. “You’ve made my year.”
“I keep thinking of Miss Hollander, poor woman. Killed and butchered simply because of the diary she was delivering.”
“I wonder had it been a man whether he’d have been so horribly desecrated. Bastards. Brother Thomas, would you please take me, step by step, and explain how a monk safely cloistered in a monastery on a mountaintop in California gets involved in a homicide over a diary in this violent, evil world?”
She took out her notebook and waited.
“It all happened shortly after I came to the monastery. I’ve only been novitiate monk for a year.”
“What does that mean?”
“A probation period; I am a few months away from my final vows. I was contacted at the monastery by Winslow Fallon, the head of Med-Tek. You’ve heard of him?”
She wrote his name. “Vaguely. One of those computer moguls?”
“And very eccentric. In addition to his multibillion-dollar empire, he has a passion for collecting rare books and manuscripts. Especially anything on the Templars. Like the diary.”
“What makes the diary so special?”
“It is a legend in the rare book world. Some experts believe it is bogus, a fake or forgery. Others say it is cursed, bringing death to anyone connected with it.”
“Sounds like voodoo.”
“For seven hundred years it’s disappeared then reappeared. Every time it appears, there’s a murder—and usually more than just one. Recently it surfaced in the hands of Lazlo Reiner. He is the perfect image of the shady dealer. Despite Reiner’s bad reputation, Fallon was convinced the diary was authentic and paid him two million dollars for it.”
She looked as if she had not heard right. “Two million?”
“Then Reiner was murdered.”
“With Hollander, that’s two homicides. Looks like the voodoo is still working.” She wrote Reiner’s name. “Anything in the diary that could be a motive for murder?”
“Millions in hidden Templar wealth, according to the legend.”
“Murder over a legend?”
“But based on fact. For seven hundred years, people have been killing for something in the diary. And just as I was about to get my hands on it, this happens. That’s all I know.” he shrugged.
“Okay.” she nodded. “So, tell me more about the Templars.”
“Forget all that stuff in popular novels. Good fiction, bad history. First, there is no proof that Templars were associated with Mary Magdalene. That’s a myth. Second, there’s no credible evidence they were connected with the Holy Grail. These Templar stories are legend and fiction written by three medieval writers, all novelists.”
“Then who were they?”
“An order of warrior monks established in the twelfth century and lasting about two hundred years. They were highly disciplined and very secretive. Each Templar took a death vow of loyalty.”
“Like the Mafia?”
“But tougher. Templars were considered by their enemies, the Saracens, to be the fiercest of the Crusaders, sort of an elite Special Forces. They answered only to the Pope, became his private army, and paid no taxes. In just a few years the Templar Order became the richest in the entire church—that’s very, very wealthy. Eventually they became the main bankers of Europe.”
“I’m a suspicious cop. What went wrong?”
“Jump to the year 1314. King Philip of France was nearly bankrupt and wanted to finance another war. He was already deeply in debt to the Templars. So, he came up with a simple solution—steal the Templar wealth. Working with the Inquisition, he created trumped-up charges of heresy. In a single day at the same hour, his troops raided every Templar site in every province, city, and town in France. It was the first mass arrest in history. But the treasure was gone.”
“Gone where?”
“That’s the mystery. Somehow, the Templars knew of the king’s plans. Just days before the raid, they secretly moved approximately one hundred wagons full of their assets—gold, jewels, and various treasures. That’s two hundred years of loot! Everything was loaded on eighteen ships. They sailed away and were never seen again. It was like robbing the Bank of England and coming up empty.”
“I bet the king was pissed.”
“He burned a hundred and fifty of their leaders at the stake. Several thousand more were tortured and imprisoned.”
“Now that’s making a statement. So, what happened to all the loot?”
“The king never found it. If the diary is authentic, it’s the key to finding at least some of the Templar wealth. Conservatively, that’s many multi-millions.”
Motive: money, she wrote. “How did Fallon hear about you?”
“From my doctoral thesis on the wizard Merlin.”
“King Arthur’s Merlin?”
“That’s him. King Arthur is probably a legend, but Merlin was real. He left writings that prove it. I discovered a document that gives a completely different picture and suggests that Merlin lived a secret double life. He wasn’t just a wizard; he was also a bishop and became a saint in the Celtic church under another name. I dumbed-down my thesis and it was published as a pop-culture history. That’s when Fallon contacted me.”
“How did you get involved with this Celtic stuff?”
“By birth. My grandfather was a Scot and taught Celtic studies at University of Edinburgh. My father, an American, went there to study and ended up marrying the professor’s daughter, my mother. Grandfather Andrew insisted that I be raised half-Scot. I spent every summer in Scotland with him. Gaelic became my second language.”
Kate looked at her notes and frowned. “Thomas, the diary is evidence in a homicide. It’s written in several languages and has a very complex history. Would you help us?”
“I need permission from my abbot.”
She held out her cell phone. “Ask him.”
•••
Father Abbot Methodius listened impatiently on the phone as Thomas explained the situation. Methodius rolled his eyes. Thomas was totally unpredictable, from his controversial past to recently persuading Fallon to pay half a million dollars to the monastery for the diary translation. Now he’s involved in a murder investigation? He is a monk, heaven’s sake!
