"Progress?" said Massimo, dropping his book immediately. "Where is he going?"
"I have no idea, sir," said the servant, now standing at the door. "But he is in progress and will be in the hall in a moment. The three brothers stood, scattering whatever had been in their laps and walked out of the chamber and down the steps towards the hall. By a lifetime of habit, they walked in order of precedence; Rosso, Massimo then Salvatore.
As they entered the hall, a flock of servants ran ahead, scrambling to clear the mess from the previous evening's meal. The hall was rarely visited by any of the family before noon, and having their father there was unheard of.
The brothers reached the far end of the hall just as the heavy door to the staircase that led to the family´s private chambers opened and Podesta stepped through, bowing as Lord Radda entered. The brothers bowed, facing the wall where the old shield was hung, so that their father would walk with the wall on his left, his three sons on his right. Lord Radda made no sign of having seen anyone.
Followed by Podesta, the Lord crossed the hall, walked over the courtyard and climbed the stairs to the low battlement over the gate. Salvatore watched him as he shielded his eyes against the early sun and looked towards the tower in the distance. After a few seconds, he turned to Podesta, spoke a few words then descended to the courtyard and made for the hall again.
As he re-entered, Rosso pulled the Gaiole banner which he had taken and pressed it into the hands of a shocked Salvatore, then resumed his position, facing the wall, waiting for his father to pass.
Unable to hide the pennant, Salvatore clutched it in his hands and bowed as his father approached. Salvatore felt his father slow, then stop as he reached the line of his sons. He heard his father murmur something to Podesta, who touched Salvatore on the shoulder. Salvatore straightened up and a few seconds later Massimo and Rosso followed suit.
Podesta reached out and took the banner from the hands of Salvatore, then stepped back. The Lord glanced at it briefly, then looked at the faces of his three sons.
His father's open handed blow was strong enough to make Rosso reel back, almost knocking him off his feet. Salvatore watched as Rosso began to raise his hand to his face, then stopped and stepped back to his position, bowing towards the wall. His father walked back towards his chambers without a word or look.
The World is an Oyster
The first person to eat an oyster must have been very brave or very, very hungry, thought Sparke. He found it hard to imagine anything that looked less like food. It was cold, grey, and until only a few seconds ago, it had still been alive. Now Sparke was planning to eat it. He looked at the oyster, then at the smiling stallholder who had just opened it for him, then back at the oyster.
His phone rang.
"Peter, it's Tilly. What're you up to?" she said, in her soft, singsong Scottish accent.
"I've just bought an oyster. Six of them, in fact. And now I am about to eat one."
"Oysters are awesome."
"Really? They look like one of my internal organs."
"You've never had an oyster?"
"Nope, not once."
"I wish I was you. I wish I had never eaten an oyster, just so that I could have my first oyster again. Go on, eat it. I'll hang on."
"You want me to eat an oyster and give you a live broadcast of the event from Switzerland?"
"Don't be a chicken. Get eating."
Sparke put his phone down on the high table that stood in the middle of the market and picked up the first oyster. He lifted it and tipped the shell so that the meat and juice flowed into his mouth. The shock of the salty water flooded his taste buds and the smell saturated his nose. It felt like plunging his head into the North Sea. For a moment he held the oyster in his mouth, then chewed. It was like nothing he had ever eaten before. As he swallowed, he felt a slow judder running through his body. He paused for a moment, then picked up his phone.
"Still alive?" said Tilly.
"I think that's the best thing I have ever eaten in my life," said Sparke.
"Uh huh. Hard to beat an oyster. Better than the cheese sandwich I'm looking at. What brought on this sudden desire to experiment with shellfish?"
"I'm trying to be more spontaneous, try new things."
"Good for you. So you just wandered past a shop selling oysters and gave it a go?"
Sparke picked up a second oyster and tipped it into his mouth, relishing the slow explosion of taste. "No, not really," he said. "I made a list of twenty things I had never done, but could do around here, and I am scoring them off."
"Sounds just a little bit preplanned to be spontaneous, don't you think?"
"Nope, it must be spontaneous. I am using a random number calculator to decide which thing I'll do next."
"You're using a spreadsheet aren't you?" said Tilly. "You've written a list of things to do and now you have a computer telling you which ones to do next."
"Just because I'm being spontaneous, doesn't mean I can't be organized, you know," said Sparke. "Anyway, are you calling just to insult me, or is there something else?"
"I'm calling because I'm bored. I've been working flat out on this display for the new visitor center and we've just sent to whole thing off to the design people. It's called 'The Templar Vault Experience'. Not very original, but my bit is done."
"Congratulations," said Sparke. "You happy with how everything is going?"
"It's looking great. You should be involved. After all, the whole visitor center is built around your discovery. They still want to have a display about you in the front entrance."
"Thanks, but no thanks. Much better to have your smiling face welcoming people than mine. I'm happy with a nice quiet life in a sleepy Swiss town."
"Settling in there all right?"
"Absolutely," said Sparke. "All the new furniture finally arrives tomorrow, so I can stop camping out in the flat on an Ikea sofa and a single bed. Just going round to the furniture store now to make sure everything is good to go."
"You have everything arriving at the same time? How did you organize that?"
"I didn't. The store people did. This is Switzerland, so everything's organized. I asked them to hold off on delivery until everything was ready, then bring the lot in one go and make the place look presentable."
"Must be great being rich," said Tilly.
"I'm getting used to it. The publicity around finding that Vault was horrible, but fourteen million pounds in finder’s fee from the Scottish Government has its advantages."
"Like buying a luxury apartment overlooking Lake Geneva and having some posh furniture store kit the whole place out for you."
"Exactly. Why should I pretend to have any taste when I can get experts to do all the creative stuff?"
"Quite right too," said Tilly. "So apart from living a life of luxury, how is your research going?"
"Research is what professionals do. I'm just poking around. My plan is to wander around and get a feel for this part of the world. I found the vault in the Highlands partly because I knew the countryside. If I get to understand this part of Switzerland, then I might be able to see the place as they did. There's no doubt that there was Templar activity here right up until their suppression, but no one seems to have written much about why they were here. I'm following your example and just wandering around to see what I bump into."
"Sounds like more fun than eating cheese sandwiches in Edinburgh."
"It is," said Sparke. "I've eaten cheese sandwiches in Edinburgh and I have now tried oysters in the market here in Morges. This is more fun."
Sparke paused for a second as he noticed the stallholder gesturing towards him with a wine glass. Sparke nodded and the man passed a glass of white wine to him. In the cold early spring air, the glass immediately beaded with condensation and its sharp taste seemed, to Sparke, as though it had been designed to be drunk with oysters.
"Tilly, why don't you come across for a few days? My new flat will be all furnished by the weekend. It would be
nice to have a guest before I mess it up."
"Are you spontaneously inviting me to come to Switzerland?"
"Yes," he said. "I suppose I am."
"Good for you. I suppose it would be rude of me not to support your spontaneity project. Let me check on flight costs."
"Cool. You do that, and I'll plan some spontaneous activities."
"Any ideas?" said Tilly.
"Actually, yes. I've been thinking about visiting a salt mine under the Alps."
"Salt mine? You're sure that's a fun, spontaneous thing to do?"
"Have you ever been invited to a salt mine?"
"Nope."
"Okay, so that would be a first for you, right?"
"Why not? Bring on the wild and crazy salt mine trip," said Tilly.
Sparke ended the call and finished the oysters. He ate them slowly, enjoying the still novel experience, wondering how many other things there might be out there for him to try that he had just never thought about. He smiled his thanks to the stallholder, paid and turned to walk the short distance to the furniture store.
"Peter, Peter Sparke. It is you, yes?"
Sparke found himself looking into a smiling face he knew he recognized, but was completely unable to identify. He felt a familiar feeling of dread that washed over him whenever this happened. It happened frequently enough that he had become adept at covering up his confusion and embarrassment with a diplomatic smile.
"How are you?" said Peter, stretching his hand out, utterly failing to identify the man and fully aware that he had only a few moments of grace before the man realized that Sparke had no idea who he was.
Homecoming
"He's not moving." Mellissa stood in the corner of the kitchen looking at the body of her brother on the table. "Is he dead?"
None of the men who had carried him in spoke as they moved around the inert figure. She looked at the faces of the men who had brought the body. All looked exhausted and two had blood on their faces from their own wounds.
"What happened?" she asked again.
"Hush now, Miss," said the cook. "There is nothing for you to do here. Perhaps you could ask your mother to come down?"
The cook turned away quickly as the kitchen servants brought in large buckets of water from the courtyard. The cook bent down and peered closely at the wound on the young man's head. Mellissa saw her grimace at what she saw.
"Run down to the village and fetch the barber," said the cook to the kitchen boy who was struggling with a heavy bucket. "And the blacksmith."
Now that the body was laid down, the exhausted men collapsed onto the floor and the bench against the wall. One took a jug of water and drained it in one long draught. Another held his head in his hands. Mellissa thought he was weeping. A sound from the doorway brought the men struggling to their feet. Mellissa’s father stood looking at the scene, his house robe thrown over his shoulders. He looked at one of the men.
"Tell me," he said, softly.
"They came in the middle of the night, sir," said the man. "At least a score of them. Probably more. We fought, but there was nothing we could do against them."
"The tower?" asked her father.
"Lost, sir," said the man. "We were lucky to escape with our lives. We pulled the door off a farmhouse to carry the young lord back. He has been out cold the whole time, but he is alive, I think."
Mellissa’s father said nothing, but walked over to the body of his son and looked at the wound on his head and the black mess around the injury on his right leg.
"Radda," he said.
"Yes, sir," replied the man. "They must have brought out all of the men from the Five Villages. There were hordes of them. We had eight on the night watch, but they had us four to one. Probably two score of them, now that I think on it."
"Did we lose any men?"
"No sign of Danilo," answered the man. "He was leading the watch when it happened."
"Find him," said her father.
The man bowed, and limped back out towards the courtyard. He was passed at the doorway by the blacksmith, carrying a sack of his tools. The smith bowed towards Mellissa and her father, and then walked over to the body. He ignored the wound on the leg and looked closely at the head.
"Best cut off the hood, sir," he said. "That's the problem with these old coats. When things go wrong they are hard to get off. We should be able to save the rest of the piece though."
He reached into his bag and dug out a pair of heavy shears. Mellissa watched as he cut through the chainmail at the throat of the garment, and then carefully pulled the hood off her brother's body. As he peeled it off, it stuck to the matted blood, and he slowly poured water from the bucket over the wound, the pink water running into a wooden basin the cook had place on the floor. Then, with one swift tug, he pulled it free. Her brother made no move or sound.
Mellissa saw the blacksmith and her father share a sudden glance at this.
"We should try and get the rest it off in one piece if we can," said the smith.
Her father nodded and the smith gently raised her brother's arms straight out, above his head. With the help of one of the other men, he pulled at the sleeves until the coat fell loose into their hands, its weight causing them to drop it.
Mellissa stifled a sob when she saw the long stain of blood that marked the padded jerkin her brother wore underneath.
"The barber is here, sir," said the cook.
The barber had been roused from his bed and he wore only boots and a nightshirt. He bowed quickly to Mellissa and her father, but ignored the other people standing around the table and brushed the blacksmith away without a word. Mellissa watched him as he ran his hands over the wound in her brother's head, and then began checking his body for other wounds under the bloody jerkin, before examining the wound at the back of his right leg.
"Still bleeding well," he said. "Healthy heart and good thick blood."
Mellissa watched as he pulled out a razor, almost brilliant in its polish, from a small bag he carried on his belt, and began cutting through her brother's clothing.
The woolen hose her brother wore were black with blood and stuck fast to the wooden surface of the door he was still lying on. The kitchen floor was a mess of pink, bloody water and torn clothing.
"Do we need the priest?" asked Mellissa’s father, flatly.
"It is always good to have a priest nearby, sir," the barber replied. "But there is no chill in his limbs and there is good breath in him. Perhaps..."
There was a sudden stillness in the room as everyone turned, bowing towards the door which led from the hall. Mellissa’s mother stood in the doorway. Unlike everyone else present, she was fully dressed. She looked at the scene of blood and chaos around the kitchen, barely glancing at the body of her only son, sprawled almost naked on the kitchen table.
She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible bow towards her husband, and then fixed Mellissa with a stare.
"Come," she said to Mellissa, and turned and disappeared back into the main part of the building. Mellissa looked at her father, glanced back at her brother, and followed. Rather than stopping in the main hall, her mother continued walking, mounted the staircase that led to the family's apartments and entered the tiny, unadorned chamber, called the Sewing Room, where she spent much of her time.
When Mellissa arrived behind her, she found her mother standing in the same pose as she had held in the kitchen; straight as a pikestaff, hands folded before her.
"Mother," began Mellissa, trying hard not to weep. “Did you see..."
"Do you never miss an opportunity to embarrass yourself and your family?"
The Man With The Face
Sparke was frantically running through the options of who this man might be: they were meeting in a small town in Switzerland that Sparke had only recently moved to, his English was accented, but perfect, so it was almost certainly someone from his past business life, he was being very familiar, so they must have had some significant contact in the past.
Noth
ing. Seconds were ticking past and Sparke was all too aware that he had no poker face or cheery social skills to get him through this looming disaster. At least once a year Sparke had to deal with the horror of someone realizing that he had forgotten their name and then hearing them say, "You don't know my name, do you?"
"Pascal!" The name came rushing to him with such force, and brought such relief that he almost shouted the name out, causing Swiss shoppers to turn around.
Pascal glanced from side to side, unused to having his name broadcast around a busy market. He smiled nervously.
"How are you, Peter?"
"Me? Oh, I'm fine thanks. And you, how are things at work?" Sparke was almost certain that Pascal worked for the Swiss Federal Emergency Response Team, but did not want to push his luck.
"Things are fine," said Pascal. "Nothing much changes, and everything changes."
Sparke smiled at the comment. It was what passed for a joke within the world of crisis management. Pascal's face clouded.
"I hear you have left your old company," he said.
"We separated," said Sparke, who had recently learned the phrase that people used to describe the fact that they had been fired. He had no embarrassment telling people that he had been sacked from being CEO of his firm, but he had learned that other people felt awkward at finding themselves in conversation with someone who had been kicked out of his job.
"But you are still active?" said Pascal. "I read about your experiences in the Ashoka event."
Sparke thought he saw a hint of reproof in Pascal's face. The Ashoka event had occurred in the South China Sea and led to Sparke needing to be rescued by the US Navy. In the business this was known as "Getting on the wrong side of the screen". Incident managers were meant to be the calm detached observers of chaos, not participants in it.
"Wrong place, wrong time," said Sparke. "Now I aim for a quieter life. I've moved here."
"Here? You mean here in Morges?" said Pascal.
The Templar Tower: Peter Sparke Book Five Page 2
