The Templar Vault *** NUMBER ONE BOOK ***: A Peter Sparke Book, page 11
Now, almost four years later, the Mason placed the flat of his hand against the heavy wooden walls. Wet from the near constant rain, it felt almost like touching the flank of something alive. This was the last time he would be here, in fact the last time he would ever be in a real Order house of any sort and he wanted to mark this last moment he spent with the stones and timbers of Templar life.
Turning slowly, he walked towards the apartments reserved for Ulli's troop. As far as possible, Ulli's small group had stayed apart from the main body of Templars. Once each month they had made their way back to the head of the loch and boarded the small boats which ferried them and their horses back to the southern end of the water.
Horses were re-shod and cared for, the men finally allowed to rest in warm beds and have their clothing properly cleaned and dried. Living in this wet country made them all ache, even the youngest amongst them, so their time on the island was essential if they were to be able to continue their mission.
Now the Mason stood in their apartments, speaking in low tones alone with only the other Masters in attendance. Their Order was virtually extinguished now. They had no higher authority they could rely on for guidance, no advice but their own counsel. They began talking, looking at their mission again from the beginning, confirming to each other the very reason they were in this country in a tiny wooden fortress.
They went through every option available to them again to understand if they had any other ways to proceed - a lot had changed since this plan had first been created and they needed to make sure that their path still made sense.
Finally, once all had said all they had to say and all had spent an hour in silent thought and prayer, they stood and each Master in turn embraced the Mason silently.
The Mason, without a further word, turned and walked down through the Watergate and out on to the jetty where a boatman and his own sergeant waited for him, asleep, wrapped in their cloaks. It was still hours before sun up but in this northern place there was enough light in the summer to navigate the loch with ease.
He roused the men and they set sail immediately for the northern end of the loch. As they pulled away they passed the island's guard boat on its endless circuit. No greeting passed between the boats, only a silent nod of recognition. As the Mason's boat passed he heard a faint, flat whistle from the walls as the guard boat was summoned back to the island.
The full garrison of knights was called from their beds and assembled in the hall. The few civilian servants were also roused and sent to the mainland. The guards in the boat were the last to arrive and as they walked into the hall, the Watergate was closed and locked.
The eldest Master stood before the knights. He had been born in Acre when the dream of liberating Jerusalem again had still been something of a reality. He had seen that dream snuffed out in a tide of blood when he watched from a fleeing ship as the walls of Acre were breached and a fury of Saracen attackers had swept through the city killing thousands of its inhabitants and dragging the rest into degradation and slavery.
He told the knights about the heights of power their Order had known. He told them about the seizure of their bothers across the Christian world and how they had been imprisoned for almost seven years, tortured and forced into insane false confessions. There was, he said, no Grand Master, no possibility that the Order would become restored to its previous good graces with the Pope or the kings across Europe who had fallen on the Order like wolves.
They had a haven in this small country for the moment, but even here they had been declared technically guilty of crimes and were free only on sufferance of the King. At any time they could be seized as they had been elsewhere. Before the end of summer the Order in this country would dissolve itself and all members would be welcomed into the arms of their fellow Order of the Hospitalers.
But the duties of the Order did not end, not even with its own existence.
The Master looked into the eyes of the men closest to him. "You are all aware that this island was built for a reason," he told them. "We have been here to support the work of Ulli and his men. We have all seen them come here for rest and comfort. We have all seen them leave refreshed to continue their work in the north. "
He paused to look at those whom he considered brothers and sons.
"We know that he and his men have been working on something in the north of great importance to our Order and that this island exists to support them. If we are seized and put to torture there is no doubt that everything we know would be known. Even the things you think are of no value could help destroy the things we are pledged to preserve.
"Ulli and his men are nearing the end of their mission and we will not see them again."
He gestured to the other Masters. "We cannot leave here, the risk that we could be forced to divulge what we know is too great to risk. After long and painful thought we ask you to do the same," he said allowing a long silence to reign in the room. "We cannot leave as we could be taken and forced to share every secret we know as our brothers have been in every other place. We cannot remain here waiting for the evil that has engulfed the Order to find us."
Almost thirty knights were crowded into the Small Hall. It was Alfred, the only English knight who spoke. "What must we do?"
The Master looked closely at the young man. "Tonight we must destroy this house and everything in it. And," he said, "we must destroy ourselves with it. We must die at our posts and we must do so tonight."
There was nothing to be said, discussion was not an option and disobedience was unthinkable. Besides, there was nothing beyond the Order. None of knights thought of life which did not involve being a Templar. Those who had wanted to live had long since fled.
After allowing the decision to be absorbed the elderly Master turned to his fellow leaders who then began to detail the knights off into different tasks. Oil and pitch were brought from the storeroom. Charcoal and coals brought from the small forge, straw fetched from the bedding.
Within an hour the full complement of knights assembled again in the Hall, washed and dressed in their cleanest uniforms. All around the outside walls were stacked piles of firewood soaked with oil and pitch. The Hall itself was packed with hay and bales of clothing. None of the knights had left the island, even though no attempt had been made to guard the Watergate or the Westgate.
The elder Master stood in the Hall before a pile of parchment and paper documents, the day to day archives of the last functioning Templar house in existence, holding a burning torch.
He looked around at his assembled men and without a word dropped the torch into the paper. The flame caught immediately and at this signal knights across the small island ignited prepared fire stacks around the walls and buildings. As each knight completed his duty he turned and walked slowly to join his brothers in the Hall. The last of them reached the door as smoke started to billow along the floor. He stopped and gazed around the small courtyard, watching the flames take hold of the wooden walls, and then, satisfied that the fire had firm hold, he entered the Hall and closed the door behind him.
Some prayed silently, none moved a muscle as the burning smoke rose through their ranks. Tendrils of smoke wrapped their way up the bodies of the standing Templars and began to choke and blind them.
One at a time the knights began to fall towards the airless floor. Death followed quickly.
None broke ranks, none called out. They died with their brothers and they died being true to their Order.
Chapter 19
In his hotel that night, Sparke pored over maps of the area north of the loch. He had done this scores of times since he sat with Karin in the restaurant looking at her screen. The place he wanted to reach was clear, but the way to it required planning, as the nearest road was several miles away. He would have to deal with the very mundane problem of finding somewhere to park as the roads in the north were normally either bounded by sheep, fences or wet, boggy ground.
By 6.00 am next morning his rental car was loaded with hiking gear and he was heading north along the west bank of the loch. Within an hour he was driving into the mountains, few farms, and few houses.
Traffic was heavier than he expected, and the road by the waterside was, in places, still narrow and winding. Once clear of the loch the road opened out and became faster. Although he was not on a schedule and had no reason to hurry, he still found it frustrating to be stuck behind slow-moving delivery trucks. Another hour or so took him to the place in the road where he knew he was at the closest point to the valley, which he had begun to refer to in his own mind as Glen Karin.
As the road began to bend to the left he noticed a farm road on his right and just at the turning he saw two cars parked with a small group of people standing together. He pulled over and squeezed his car into the small amount of open space between the main highway and the farm road.
The people were obviously hikers, six of them, sorting out rucksacks and pulling on heavy boots. They nodded to him in a friendly fashion. One of them, a man probably in his sixties but fearsomely fit looking, wandered over.
"Good morning for it," he said which would have seemed strange to many as heavy clouds were scudding across the sky and rain was clearly visible to the north. "Doing the Ben?"
"Not today," answered Sparke. "I am just out for a wander and a bit of fresh air."
Sparke noticed the older man casually looking at the equipment and clothing which Sparke was pulling out of the car. In this part of the world it was accepted that experienced outdoors people would look out for those who might be under-prepared for the conditions.
"Might get a bit wet later on," said the man, "but nothing too terrible. Have a good one."
Sparke thanked the man and wished him and his friends well. Before Sparke had his boots on, the group headed off to the east along the road talking loudly amongst themselves.
Just before Sparke slammed the car door he paused and reached in and picked up the ice axe. The only snow visible was in small patches on the tops of the hills, but it was a comforting tool to carry.
The route Sparke was to follow took him initially dead north, away from the farm road and across wet, boggy ground. His heavy rucksack pulled his balance off and he found himself almost jumping from one piece of firm ground to another. An hour of walking and he had hit his stride and was moving well over firmer ground. As far as possible, he took the low ground following the path he had marked on his map. He had an electronic GPS system in his bag but he chose to stick to map and compass.
The solitude wrapped itself around him as he walked and the effort pushed out all of the normal, mundane thoughts about his everyday life.
At noon, Sparke stopped to take bearings. The landscape depicted on a map can be difficult to translate into reality, and he knew that the entrance to the valley was both narrow and quite high compared to the surrounding ground. Every few hundred metres he stopped and took bearings on the peaks around him. After the third stop he looked up the slope to his left and saw, above him, a V-shaped break in the hillside and he began to walk directly up towards it. Thirty minutes of tough walking later, he stood with his back to the low lying land below him facing into what he believed to be the valley which he and Karin had identified back in that warm and comfortable restaurant in Munich.
The route into the valley was narrow and wet with water running off the surrounding hills. Soon after entering it he saw a huge solitary block of stone which stood like a sentry post to the valley's southern end. As he passed this the rain began to fall gently.
The valley opened out and Sparke could see the full spread of the land. Directly before and below him was a small, almost circular, loch, fed by a stream that flowed down from the northern end of the valley. He checked his location again on the map and, satisfied, he walked down towards it.
Near the edge of the water was a small cluster of ruined walls, barely knee high. At one time it had been a tiny hamlet. He looked around the ruins, old and bleached grey-white with the rain and sun. The rocks were open and porous like dried bones. Beyond the ruined houses was the outline of what looked like an animal pen.
From here, Sparke should have been able to see the ruins he was searching for. He took his map and his compass and using a technique he had learned as a boy in these hills he dropped to one knee, using his other knee to create a flat, stable support for his map and compass.
Heavy clouds scudded across the sky and the wind began to pick up as Sparke knelt in the midst of the ruined village, head bowed in the growing rain. The patchy cloud and strong wind cast beams of light like searchlights moving across the landscape.
Almost reluctantly, Sparke raised his head and looked along the compass bearing. There, in the green and brown mass of the hillside, he saw a dark, almost black, feature occasionally lit up by patches of sunlight. It was less than a third of the way up the slope in an otherwise featureless hillside and corresponded perfectly to where the map showed it would be. Whoever had done the surveying for this map had been incredibly diligent.
He was not hungry, but he took a moment to eat before climbing the short distance to the ruin.
There was no path or any sign of one between the old village and the ruin so he walked directly towards it through heavy heather and gorse. Twenty minutes after leaving the village he arrived.
It had the appearance of many fallen-down buildings. A solid wall with scattered stones all around, grass and lichen growing in a few niches of the stone work. A hundred ruins like this existed in the countryside here. The surviving wall was less than waist height when Sparke stood against it.
There was absolutely nothing of any interest to see in the ruin. No carving, no motifs or emblems, just a broken building, probably the remnants of some old guardhouse or shepherd's refuge. The wind and rain now began in earnest and Sparke hunched down against the single wall for some shelter, sure that his trip had been fruitless.
At least he had tried. He had actually come all this way to put his hand on the stones, and now he had done it, and earned himself a day in the freezing rain for his efforts.
If he headed back now he would be in his car in less than three hours and in his hotel in less than six. He dug into the side pocket of his rucksack and pulled out his camera. The least Karin would expect was a photograph. He walked about ten metres back from the ruin and began taking shots. The more he looked at the stones from different angles the more he felt a nagging discomfort grow. There was something wrong. In fact there were several things wrong.
Why would anyone build a stone building partway up a hillside when there was good flat land in the valley floor? There was no view, which a guardhouse would probably need to have, there was no defensive feature to protect the building, and there was not even a water supply nearby.
Where had the stone come from? This was not the stone used to build the village houses down below. It was dark, almost black, like the stone in the small outcrop against which it had been built, but it had not been taken from here since there was no sign of quarrying. Would someone carry this rock up here?
He looked again at the ruin in the rubble and around it. The blocks that made up the wall had clearly been cut, but they were badly shaped and unfinished. Around the wall the stones were not collapsed building blocks, but smaller misshapen rock fragments. Also the wall seemed to go nowhere. It started tight against the rock face but petered out where the ground began to slope downwards again. This building could have been only a couple metres wide at most.
Sparke knew what he was looking at, but could not recognise it. When it came to him it was such a shock and yet so obvious that he spoke out loud. "This was never a building."
Sparke now recognised that he was looking at what the mining world calls 'spoil', the waste rock every mine in the world has. It was spoil from an excavation made to look like a collapsed building.
He picked up pieces of rock at his feet at random. Every one had the sign of hammers or chisels. He held one up against the rock face and saw that it was an exact match. More than that, it was the only exposed rock like this he could see in the valley, but the rock face showed no signs of having been worked.
Rainwater now ran freely down the small exposed band of rock and Sparke ran his hand across it, walking slowly away from the ruin. The almost vertical rock stopped suddenly and merged into the surrounding slope in a steep grassy shoulder. Taking his ice axe from his rucksack, Sparke used its flat edge like a pick and pulled away the thick vegetation from the slope. Under the mat of grass and heather Sparke found what looked to him like more spoil, large loose stones made up of the same dark rock.
He levered more of this away until his axe hit solid rock. Smooth rock. Sparke was looking at clean, well worked and dressed masonry. Pulling more of the loose rock away he began to wipe the surface of the stone with his hand. Running, in a clean horizontal line, was a well finished seam. It was a join between two pieces of rock. Again he set to pulling away lose stones and vegetation until the full horizontal extent of the join was visible. It was more than a man's shoulder width across and both ends turned downwards and disappeared into the grass and stones below.
Sparke grabbed a handful of loose heather and wiped the seam clean. He inspected it closely. The rock above and below the seam looked similar but was obviously not all of one piece. There looked to be a single section, perhaps a door set into a frame cut into the surrounding rock. Rising from the middle of the top of the frame, Sparke could see a deep crack rising vertically. Sparke had a good working knowledge of how stone responded to temperature and guessed that the doorway would have expanded and contracted at a different rate than the surrounding frame causing the rock to split over time.
Without giving it much thought, he walked over to fetch his ice axe and, laying the point against the stone below the seam, he leaned all of his weight against it. The axe slipped scoring the face of the stone and making Sparke fall forward. He reset the axe more securely and heaved his body against it. The stone moved, perhaps only a few millimetres, but it had moved. Sparke peered intently at the small line of stone that had been uncovered. It was clearly a door. The only sensible thing to do now was to take some photographs and call the relevant authority, which as far as Sparke was concerned was Professor Tilly Pink. That was the sensible thing to do, but if he had been doing the sensible thing would he really be standing in the howling wind and rain in the Highlands?
