by G. L. Baron
DANTE’S KEY
G.L. Baron
Start Reading
About this Book
About the Author
Table of Contents
www.aria-fiction.com
About Dante’s Key
The year is 1217. A group of eighty Knights Templar cross the icy waters of the Baltic, escorting a chest to an isolated spot in Iceland. Eight hundred years later, someone is about to decipher the clues to its location, which seem to be hidden in the paintings of great artists such as Botticelli, Leonardo and Raphael, and even in some lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
What is so important about the contents of the chest? Many people want to find out, and will stop at nothing to do so. The first to pay the price is Monsignor Claude de Beaumont, who commits suicide on Christmas Eve. The Investigation into his strange death is carried out by Inspector Sforza of Interpol, who is soon faced with the deaths of other distinguished figures.
Following the evidence, Sforza travels to Paris to question Manuel Cassini, a professor of literature who suffers from a rare form of selective amnesia. And yet he, of all people, seems to be key to unravelling more than one mystery...
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
About Dante’s Key
Epigraph
Historical Note
Scientific Note
Dante’s Key
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Epilogue
Part 1
Part 2
Author’s Note
For Further Research
Bibliography
About G.L. Baron
Become an Aria Addict
Copyright
Conspiracy theories abound in every historical period. [...] Some of these secret cabals are based on historical events; others are the result of imagination; but many more are the result of a Gordian knot of both, an inextricable web where the boundary between fact and fantasy turns into a tangled net of history and fiction.
And this is particularly true for the infamous Knights Templar.
JAMES ROLLINS
Historical Note
An ancient Icelandic legend, narrated in the famous Nordic sagas, tells of a mysterious expedition of “knights from the south”, which took place in the year 1217.
The documents of the time show that at the Althing summer hearing – the first Icelandic parliament (and perhaps the first in history) – Snorri Sturluson, the most famous poet, historian, and politician of the island, arrived with a strange escort. It is said that the man had come to Thingvellir accompanied by eighty knights, wearing identical armour and identical heraldic insignia.
One historical fact is certain: those soldiers could not be local, because the formation of the regular army with conventional uniforms was only created a few centuries later, during the seventeenth century.
If they were not Icelandic, then who were those knights, and for what reason had they gone so far north?
Scientific Note
Brain Control devices – software and hardware that use neural sensors able to map human thoughts – really do exist.
This technology is based on the principle that, when neurons interact in our brain, the chemical reaction generates the emission of an electrical pulse that can be measured.
The most fascinating development of such devices was announced in October 2010, when the magazine Nature1 published the first results of a survey conducted by the California Institute of Technology. The team from Pasadena demonstrated that through the correct interpretation of nerve signals, each type of activity recorded by the brain cells can be converted into digital images.
It is possible, in theory, not only to capture thoughts but also to relive memories, experiences and even dreams recorded during REM, providing the possibility of monitoring all the neurons (or most of them).
However, there is a limit which today seems impossible to overcome. The human brain has a number of nerve cells that varies between ten and one hundred billion; a complete map of thoughts would require a very large number of nano-sensors and a processing capacity still beyond our reach.
Some multinational companies that are working on developing projects related to Brain Control, assure that this technology will be available in only a few decades.
They lie. The technology already exists.
* * *
1 Moran Cerf, Nikhil Thiruvengadam (and others), On-line, voluntary control of human temporal lobe neurons, in "Nature", vol. 467, pp. 1104-1108, October 28, 2010.
Dante’s Key
Sandro Botticelli, Primavera (1481-82).
Raffaello Sanzio, The School of Athens, detail (1509-10).
Prologue
Thingvellir, Iceland. Summer 1217.
The horse reared up on its hind legs and then plunged its hooves deep into the muddy path.
The jet of water, dazzling and as high as the spires of a cathedral, quickly dissolved in a cloud of steam. The animal snorted, restless; he had never seen anything like this.
Snorri Sturluson nimbly dismounted from his horse and gestured with gloved hands. Behind him, the riders pulled on their reins and the convoy stopped in a roar of neighs and clinking of swords.
‘We’re here. It’s over there!’ he exclaimed in French. He was a robust man in his prime. His
face was covered with a thick beard that emphasized his blue eyes, and he had long blonde hair that cascaded over his cloak.
The nobleman who followed him stroked the coat of his sweaty horse and limped towards the Icelandic.
Below them lay a green expanse, set between two cliffs of lava rock. A cascade of crystal clear water gushed from the side of the mountain, and in the distance, beyond a gathering of people, livestock, small houses, and huts, towered a huge black cliff. The restless waters of a jagged river, blue as the sky of the morning hours, ran at his feet.
‘So, this is the much-acclaimed Althing?’ hissed the knight, with a sardonic grin painted on his face. His name was Guillaume de Chartres, son of the Count of Bar-sur-Seine, and he had been the Grand Master of the Order for eight years. He had led campaigns at the head of a band of Templars against the infidels in all places known from the Holy Land up to Damascus and Cilicia. And now he was here, at the edge of the world, for what almost certainly would be his most important undertaking.
‘And so… this is where you approve your laws? On this plain?’ enquired de Chartres in disbelief.
Underneath his cloak and white surcoat, he wore a hauberk of crossed leather that encircled his head, exposing only his face. Engraved on his poplar shield was the heraldic insignia of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon. ‘And all these men have come here just to listen to your words?’
Snorri just nodded, with a touch of pride. As well as being a poet and historian, he had the honour of being the Lögsögumaður (Lawspeaker), the Announcer, the most important of the island’s elected legislative body; he was responsible for reciting the customs and rules in force before the representatives of all the tribes of the island.
During the two weeks of the Althing meeting, thousands of people flocked to the plain, gathering and settling in huts made of stone and grass, listening to Snorri’s words in prose. It was also an occasion for the common people to make good deals; Thingvellir was transformed into the cultural centre of the Country where people could meet merchants, forgers, tanners, musicians and poets, just like Snorri.
‘In our kingdom, His Highness makes the decisions in person—’ insisted de Chartres, glancing at the man who had led him to Thingvellir.
The Icelander did not reply. If that knight, with his large entourage, had arrived on the island, it was for a very important reason. It was needless to explain that the Althing was an institution born three hundred years ago, and that the decisions of the people were made by the people themselves, and not by a monarch. De Chartres would not understand, judging by his manner.
‘We need to talk to Finnur Hrafnsson,’ finally murmured Snorri. ‘He’s the only one who can provide you with what you need… We will meet him this evening, after the hearing.’
The nobleman remained silent for a second. If they had to wait the entire day, it was worth getting comfortable. He bit his lips thoughtfully, and then went back over the ridge, towards his knights. ‘Brothers, in the saddle,’ he ordered. ‘We are going down!’
The men remounted on the horses they had brought from the continent aboard three tall ships, sailing from the port of Brest. They set off and came up over the top of the rise, beyond which they could see the plain. They began their orderly descent, following Snorri and their brother knight.
When the dozens of tribal representatives crowding the plain spotted them a thousand feet away, silence fell.
No shouting, no clamour, just silence.
Only the rhythmic clatter of horses’ hooves could be heard descending towards the lake. Someone made the sign of the cross, someone else prayed to the old gods. All feared that Doomsday had finally arrived; they had never witnessed a similar spectacle. No one on that island, in peace for decades, had ever seen an army. And certainly not like this one.
The eighty horsemen, all with identical uniforms and identical heraldic insignia and standards, slowly descended the slope, one behind the other, in the saddles of their powerful steeds. They wore leather tunics, iron leg shields clasped behind their calves, and snow-white cloaks. Armour, hilts of swords, and iron helmets with elaborately engraved borders, glinted in the sun.
They passed through the hushed crowd upon reaching the plain. In the western part, wooden and stone buildings had been erected, with branches of trees laid across as roofing. They were makeshift shelters where the thousands of islanders could take refuge at night.
They progressed onto the plain at a slow trot, and the animal pens began to appear. A pig, some goats, and a small flock of sheep cut across their path; a big ox complained at their passage.
They settled side-by-side at the foot of the jagged massif that surrounded Thingvellir on the northern front, wrought and carved by the rushing waves of the ocean.
It was Snorri himself who helped ease the tension caused by the unexpected arrival of those strange foreigners.
‘They are friends. They come in peace’, he shouted, so that even from the opposite side of the field, everyone could hear. ‘They will attend the gathering’.
When the sun was high, the tribal leaders came to the rock from where the Announcer would first resolve disputes, and then recite the rules in force.
Snorri Sturluson, elected two summers ago, climbed on top of the natural shelf that was used as a pulpit, and began to speak, his voice high, clear and well-defined. Naturally theatrical in his role, he would pause and then start again, repeatedly wiping away the sweat that flowed copiously down his forehead. He recited, as is customary, the rules in force, catching the eyes one by one, of the hundreds of men in front of him, until the gilded dusk fell, and the Althing gathering concluded.
The Lögsögumaður was exhausted, but he knew that before he could rest his limbs, a task was awaiting that was perhaps even more daunting: to speak with Finnur Hrafnsson – a giant, brusque and surly with age and infirmities, who would receive his guests reluctantly.
‘They tell me that you need a guide through my lands,’ the giant murmured, as soon as the small delegation appeared before him. He was the oldest of the tribal chiefs, with massive shoulders, a prominent paunch, and a face marked by time. His long curly hair was silver. He stroked his thick beard while fiddling distractedly with an extinguished brazier, listening to Snorri’s translation.
‘With your permission and your blessing, of course,’ de Chartres replied.
The big man smiled and watched the raucous band of Templars who had followed the Frenchman; if he had wanted to, he could have crushed them like flies. Behind them was a wooden cart covered with a large white cloth. He stared at it for a moment, and then went back to examining the knight.
‘It will be a difficult journey. You are not accustomed—’ he scoffed.
The noble shrugged and after a brief reflection replied, ‘That is why we came to you, sir… We are here in peace, as friends, to ask humbly for your support and help. What we deliver is too important to be entrusted to inexperienced men, or to be allowed to fall into the hands of the infidels.’
He pronounced this speech with such solemnity that even Snorri had to work hard at interpreting – at least judging by the numerous pauses between words.
‘They come in peace from the continent, and their mission is of vital importance’, said the Lögsögumaður, hoping to render de Chartres’ reasons more solid.
Hrafnsson remained in thoughtful silence, and then just smiled and walked over to the Frenchman. He gave him a vigorous pat on the back, making the armour rattle, and immediately burst into thunderous laughter. ‘If you are friends of our Lögsögumaður, you are also my friends. You’ll get what you need. And now, let’s drink.’
The next morning, the caravan left Thingvellir. The eighty knights headed north, as orderly as they had come. Some horses shook their heads, their breath steaming in the freezing air, and the barking of a dog accompanied them until the last of the Templars had disappeared behind a rocky ridge.
*
At the break of dawn on the fifth day, a caldera of
greyish rocks covered in moss opened before Guillaume de Chartres. It was a kind of natural amphitheatre, so immense that all eighty knights with their guides could easily ride into it on their steeds.
They had reached it after a gruelling journey on steep trails, with rivers that lapped just below the level of the tracks where rocks as big as galleys scoured the riverbed. They had crossed endless plains, cooled lava fields covered with pale moss, dense forests of green trees, pools of molten rock seething as they passed by. Along the horizon of lava, volcanoes close to the glaciers had never stopped vomiting sulphurous vapours and white ash.
What impressed the riders most however, were the sudden steam jets erupting from the numerous depressions in the calcareous soil: they looked like columns of smoke, tall as one of the minarets of the infidels, but made of hot water and steam.
‘They are manifestations of evil,’ the men began to grumble, fearful and fatigued. ‘The Lord has abandoned us.’
The guides employed by Finnur Hrafnsson, accompanying the eighty Templars, had explained that it was quite a natural phenomenon in those lands, and that it had nothing to do with the precious cargo they carried.
The trunk, black with gold seals on all four locks, had been placed on a cart being laboriously pulled by two roan horses, with an armed escort that never left its side.
After traveling towards the east without stopping for five days and five nights, under starry skies, sudden downpours, and sunny days, they had finally arrived.
‘You! Choose the boulders that we need… Come on, get to work,’ de Chartres instructed them, haggard with his face pale and emaciated.
By nightfall on the second day, the stonemasons who had accompanied them had finished their work; they had transformed four raw blocks of stone – carefully chosen – into as many coarse statues with vague impressions. With a few simple blows of their chisels they had created the four reference points that had been previously agreed upon.
The nobleman scanned the sky with a sextant in his hands and noted four reference points of the amphitheatre, which he pointed out to his men. Leaving a sign on one stone he then ordered his men to dig.
