The Templar Vault *** NUMBER ONE BOOK ***: A Peter Sparke Book, page 5
Ulli spoke a word of command softly to one of his men. The man threw a heavy sack made from a coarse blanket onto the ground. The sack fell open allowing a dozen severed heads, still trailing blood to roll out on to the ground. The chief did not flinch but tilted his head to look more closely at the faces on the ground. Then he spoke to Ulli for a long time, knowing that Ulli did not understand but still knowing even more that the situation required a response.
Once the chief stopped talking Ulli reached down to his belt and took another purse of coins, offering both now to the Chief. The Chief spoke again, this time briefly, then took both purses.
Over the shoulder of the Chief Ulli could see a few younger men venturing out of the building. Ulli gestured towards the group with his head. He held up one finger then gestured towards the Chief that he wanted one to approach.
The Chief called one of the young men forward and spoke a few words to him. Ulli touched the boy's chest and motioned that he wanted him to come with him. Then he looked at the Chief and, pointing to the sun, drew a circle in the air and pointed back towards the building. The Chief frowned, and then pointed to the boy, then the building. Ulli nodded once, the boy would be back in one day.
Ulli calmly took the boy's arm and walked slowly back to his horse. The group of knights with the boy walking behind Ulli headed back the way they had come. As they did so they could hear the wailing of the women who had emerged from the buildings to look at the severed heads of their distant neighbours and kinsmen.
Reaching the valley Ulli took the boy to the high, snout end of the valley floor where the land formed a natural choke point between the two mountains that made the valley sides. He drew his sword and drove it easily into the wet ground, tapping his own chest then the hilt of the sword. Then he walked the full length of the valley with the boy in tow.
At the tail end of the valley, near the water pool they reached the small group of houses. The boy stared at the bodies and the pools of drying blood that covered the ground. Ulli walked him over to where his men were stacking the corpses to make sure that boy saw everything. Then he marched him on to the end of the valley where it pinched in to a close near a huge bolder, taller than a man. The boulder had been called the "Gate Stone" by one of his men; its defensive value was obvious as it pinched the valley floor so tightly that a mounted man could barely pass.
Here Ulli drove his sword again into the ground, held the flat of his hand against his chest. The message was clear; this valley now belonged to Ulli and his people. Ulli raised his hand and pointed to both ridges around the valley. He stared briefly at the boy to make sure he understood. The boy nodded. Ulli reached for the purse in his belt. Taking a coin from it he tossed it to the boy. As he caught it Ulli pulled the dagger from his belt and cut a shallow gash along the boy's cheek. The boy barely made a sound but clutched his hands to his face trying to staunch the blood. He dropped the coin. Ulli reached down, picked up the coin and pushed it into the hand of the boy then stared at him again.
Satisfied that the boy knew exactly the extent of the land that now belonged to his Order, and that there was pain involved in any dealings with the knights he dismissed him with a jerk of his head and walked down towards the houses. The boy turned as if to walk back home by the most direct route through the valley but instantly thought better and set of back towards his home taking a long detour.
Ulli’s men were dragging bodies away from the houses and some of them had cast off their armour and begun digging. One was already inspecting the few animals that made up the meagre livestock and another was looking closely at the small patch of cultivated land and the vegetables growing there.
The valley was cold and wet with little sunshine but they all knew that there was little chance of being disturbed. After years living in a saddle Ulli and his men at last had somewhere to settle, at least for a while.
Chapter 7
The world has a few hundred buildings which can be thought of as globally famous; the Taj Mahal, the Louvre, the White House. In the eyes of the academic world the British Library is one of the all-stars.
It is one of the few places where it is possible to have the feeling that you can touch almost all human learning, to become plugged in to the collective brain and somehow to connect with millennia of learning.
Sparke had never been inside before and walking towards the building made him feel a little like he was meeting a movie star or sporting hero. Expecting marble halls and hushed silence he was surprised to find himself in what felt like a fairly modern office building with all the normal hum and buzz of people working.
With no idea of how to go about getting into the main library he walked over to the information desk where a pleasant, smiling woman asked how she could help.
"I need to do some research and I think this is probably the place to do it," he said. "How do you go about using the library?"
The information desk was staffed on a rota system so that all of the library staff had the joy of dealing with the general public in turn.
"It is very easy," she said. "All you have to do is get a reading card, then after that we will help you find what you need. To get a reading card you need to have a short chat with our staff through there." She pointed towards what looked like a large doctor's waiting room.
"Just a quick question," said Sparke. "If I have a reading card does it mean that I can only research one area or do I have access to the whole library?"
"Well unless you request rare or particularly old books then the reader card gives you full access."
Sparke thanked her, took the form she offered and headed off to the room. There was more to the process than he expected.
The British Library is open to anyone, but they want to make sure that they give their time to those people who really want to use it. Since one of their main missions in life is to keep the books they hold safe and sound they tend to be quite careful about who is getting their hands on them. Sparke read through the form and the brochure he had been given. Then his name was called and he sat down opposite an unsmiling man in late middle age who looked through the basic information Sparke had provided.
"Do you mind if I ask what type of research you plan to do?" he asked.
Sparke had no intention of telling a guardian of the British Library that he wanted to research the Knights Templar based on a casual conversation on a pleasure boat in Scotland.
"Emergency response and crisis management," said Sparke easily. "I work in this field and want to get some historical background on major incidents in history for comparison to modern techniques."
"And this is for publication?" asked the librarian.
"Hopefully," said Sparke. "I am writing a white paper for a conference next year." Sparke handed the man his business card and the librarian stapled it to the application form.
The librarian smiled briefly and told Sparke that he would be issued with a short-term reader’s card. A few minutes later Sparke stood looking at the small laminated card in his hand, a reader's card for the British Library. He had no idea how much he would have wanted something like this until he actually held it.
In the main reading room he took a seat behind one of the computer terminals. For form's sake he spent twenty minutes searching for topics around crisis management and disasters then, having gone through the motions he started on his real search.
He sought out works on the Knights Templar, medieval monastic orders, medieval Scotland and monastic burial, but he was not, at this point, looking for a book. Experience had taught him to be very cautious with any written document. People have a way of saying things that they believe their readers want to hear and their own personal perspective tends act as a very effective editor. Sparke was looking for a person not a book.
As he scanned the titles from his searches he noted down the authors of the books and papers written in the last twenty years. Several names showed up regularly, but slowly one name rose to the top. Professor M. Pink had written or co-authored almost a dozen works that seemed to focus very heavily on the Knights Templar, some with specific reference to Scotland, and one was directly the subject of burial grounds of the Knights.
He ordered copies of three of the most relevant looking titles and while waiting he did an on-line search on the author. Professor Pink worked for the government's National Heritage department, but also taught in two universities. She had appeared in several television programmes and had won a number of academic prizes.
He found a clip from one of the programmes on-line. He clicked on the link and watched while a young woman appeared on the screen to give an introduction. It was something of a shock to Sparke when a name appeared on the screen beneath her, "Professor Tilly Pink", and he realised the young woman was in fact the professor. With a name like Matilda and a record of publications like hers he has expected her to be a much older woman. Professor Pink had dark shoulder length hair and a casual, matter-of-fact way of speaking. She spoke as though she was in a conversation, rather than giving a lecture and seemed energised by the topic as she talked.
He was still watching the clip when his books arrived. The next several days were spent reading almost everything the professor had written and every day reinforced Sparke's belief that she was far from the stuffy academic he had expected.
Sparke knew that any theory had eventually to be tested and it seemed that if he was to test his thinking there was nobody in the world better qualified to shoot holes in it than Professor Tilly Pink.
Chapter 8
The Mason had been born to be a Lord. The eldest son of an old family whose lands stretched from the cold northern slopes of the Pyrenees down towards the shores of the Atlantic, he had walked, often quite literally, in the footsteps of his father from the day he could keep up. His father had been distant, but never harsh, and as the boy grew his obvious desire to follow his father in every way brought the two ever closer together. At fifteen he was already a man, taking on some of the duties that fell to his father. As his father cared deeply for hunting and little else, the boy became the person who ran the estate and its buildings. He was often found working with the men who kept the estate and its buildings in good order, supervising building and repair work, restoring roads and bridges.
It was a quiet life, built around the changes in seasons and the high days and holy days of rural life, far from court. The outside world rarely intruded. On the whole it was a time of peace and the simple pleasures of a family of minor nobility.
Then his mother died.
Nothing in her life had created the impact of her absence. Looking back, he could barely remember seeing his father and mother together on many occasions. Now, suddenly, his mother’s absence became the dominant feature of the household. The old mountain house they spent the summers in felt empty and cold. There was no heart to the house and the family.
The large Keep in the lowlands where his family wintered and where the bulk of their lands were became almost a public building. His family retainers followed his father’s lead and began to leave things lying around, cluttering up the main hall. It was not unusual for them to share their dining table with riding tackle and hunting weapons. The fire in the main hall was lit less frequently and the food became plain. Still, although it was a man’s house now, it was still home and they settled into the Spartan life of an estate family.
His father was barely forty years old but the growing presence of his young son now meant that he was often referred to as The Old Man.
One of the few intrusions into the calendar was the visit which the Old Man made twice a year to the castle of the Duke to show his fealty, to learn news of distant politics and to deliver to the Duke what was his due. The Mason now joined his father on these trips.
On the first night of the visit that coincided with the Mason's sixteenth birthday he sat at the table of the Duke with his father.
The Duke was not known for delicate conversation. Once the meal was over he gestured towards his own daughter, recently widowed when her husband died in a riding fall.
“My daughter is not old,” said the Duke. “She needs a man and her children need a father.”
The Old Man looked at the Duke, and then looked at his daughter sitting silently, but said nothing.
“There is a match to be made here,” the Duke said.
The Old Man nodded. “The boy is young, sir,” he said.
“He is a fine boy, but I think the match would be best with you,” said the Duke quietly.
The Old Man looked at the Duke, at the young widow, still not thirty and then at his son. It was not a discussion, it was a decision that had been made and could not be unmade easily.
The woman seemed to be looking intently at the table top, staying as still as a statue. In fact there was no reason the Old Man could imagine not to marry the Duke’s daughter so he smiled and nodded towards the Duke. The match was made.
The new family; the Old Man, the Mason, the new bride and her own two young sons travelled back together. It was a good match. She had low expectations of gaining a new husband and had found no joy being back with her father after having been the mistress of her own house, so she welcomed the chance of this new life. Quietly but steadily she brought warmth back to the Old Man’s house. Rooms were cleaned, fresh air reached into the corners and the kitchens again produced food rather than rations.
Three months after the wedding, as was custom, her father visited bringing her dowry gifts to the Old Man. Pleased with the obvious comfort of his daughter, the Duke was generous and relaxed.
On the third day, after a good hunt, he walked with the Old Man in the new garden that his daughter was having built by the house. The conversation was long, longer than that which had led to the marriage, and less easy to agree to, but by the end of the walk another decision was made.
The Mason was called to the main hall by his father.
“You are for the church,” he said flatly. “You will be a priest.”
Nothing in his life had prepared the Mason for such a thing and the confusion was clear in his face although he held his tongue.
“My wife has children, and we will have more, I think,” said his father. “The Duke’s family and ours will be united in more than marriage. The next Lord here will carry the Duke’s blood.”
There was nothing to say. Father and son stood in silence for long minutes until the son bowed his head towards his father.
“There are priests and there are priests, father,” said the boy. “There are many ways to serve the Church.”
“There are, son,” answered his father. “You are fitted to do many things that could please God.”
And so the Mason found himself a novice Templar.
From the moment he was accepted he found that almost everything about the Templar life sat well with him, especially as the knights soon recognised his skills in building.
He never saw his father again but grew well and quickly within the Order, which became more than a family to him. His mother dead, his father absorbed into a new family, the lands of his family now destined to pass into the hands of others, the Mason had few ties to the world beyond. Templar service took him across Europe and the Mediterranean and he became hardened in the near constant warfare against the enemies of the Church.
His skill for building did not mean that he was spared his obligation to the military requirements of the Order and at this time there was no shortage of conflict for a young knight to prove his value.
The tide had run hard against the Christian world in their wars against Islam and much of the Order's efforts went to shoring up defences on the bloody frontier between the two empires. One such isolated point, on the edge of the Christian world, was a pilgrims' shrine three days travel north of the coast of Anatolia. In the distant past it had been a Roman town and among the ruins was a single slender column, which had miraculously withstood the ravages of time. It stood straight and alone, almost demanding a purpose, and with the hermit Jacob, it had found one.
Religious mania takes many forms and for a hundred years or so a popular focus of devotion among the religiously crazed, like Jacob, was to climb to the top of Roman and Greek pillars, which were plentiful, and withdraw into a state of public hermitage. Fed by offerings made by pilgrims passed up by basket, these column squatters could achieve international fame, drawing pilgrims from far and wide to share their devotion.
The Mason travelled to the far east of the Christian world to help guard the pilgrims who made the journey from the relative security of the coast, north to Jacob's Column. The danger came in the form of a local warlord who had carved out a personal kingdom in the mountains that surrounded the shrine. Often, he and his band would be content to take a heavy fee to allow a caravan of pilgrims through, but sometimes, through boredom, greed or lust they would fall up a group like wolves and devour them, killing, raping and enslaving dozens.
It was the task of half a dozen knights to stop this, and the Mason was sent to be one of those.
It was tedious and unrewarding work. No brigands would attack a group of pilgrims with a Templar escort. So, by default, the knights had no chance of fighting. Since they could not be everywhere there were plenty of unescorted groups to plunder and increasingly the focus of the attacks was the chain of pilgrim houses that lined the route from the coast to the shrine.
After months of fruitless effort, and having arrived too late, too often at the scene of attacks on pilgrims, the Mason went to his leader with a plan. Templars were not expected to simply do their duty, they were expected to succeed in their mission and so far they were not succeeding. After careful thought, the Mason's idea was approved.
As the brigands had shown a new preference for attacking pilgrim houses it was decided to create a target for them too good to ignore. The pilgrim house at the highest and most inaccessible point on the route was ancient and indefensible causing it to be looted repeatedly.
