The Templar Tower: Peter Sparke Book Five

by Scott Chapman

  "You own this?" he asked the smith.

  The man nodded.

  "You can smelt iron yourself?" said Salvatore.

  The man put his tools down on the bench.

  "Of course,” he said.

  "Can you find more men to work if you need them?"

  The man shrugged. "What is your business?" he asked.

  "My business is my business," said Salvatore, beginning to enjoy the tough, direct way in which these people talked to each other. "I have a proposition for you."

  Friends and Neighbors

  "Not my fault," said Sparke out loud as he drove away from the Lausanne Palace Hotel. The sound of his own voice came as a shock to him as he had never been aware of talking to himself before. For a moment he had a flush of fear at the thought that he might do this all the time without being aware of it until the bigger anxiety came back to him. Karin had done nothing wrong, but for some reason she had come closer to making him lose his temper than he could ever remember. He would call her and apologize, perhaps tomorrow, but not right now.

  He began to replay the conversation in his head, reviewing it as he would any of the scores of incidents he had managed in his professional career, until his thoughts were broken by the ringing of his phone. He glanced at the screen on his dashboard, hoping that it was not Karin calling, but the number was unknown.

  "Peter Sparke."

  "Mr. Sparke, I am sorry to call you in the evening. General Defarge suggested I should call." The man´s voice had the tone of someone who was not in the slightest bit uncomfortable at the idea of inconveniencing strangers in the evening.

  "Really? Fine, how can I help?"

  "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gillieron from the Swiss Customs Service. I would very much like to speak with you."

  "Customs? I'm not sure how I can help, but of course. Can you tell me what it is about? Have I done something wrong?"

  "Oh, not at all. Perhaps we can talk over a coffee? You live in Morges, no?"

  "Yes, I´m just heading home now."

  "Is this evening possible for you? My office is only thirty minutes’ drive from you."

  "This evening? Now it does sound important. Sure, can we say eight o'clock?"

  "Perfect," said Gillieron. "You live very close to the Hotel du Mont Blanc, I think. Can we meet there?"

  Sparke had spent enough time around the officials of various governments not to be surprised that one of them already knew exactly where he lived.

  "Fine, I'll see you there. How will I know you?"

  "That's not a problem, Mr. Sparke. I´ll recognize you."

  The rest of the short drive home was now taken up by Sparke trying to guess why a Swiss customs official wanted to speak to him so urgently and what connection this could have to his conversations with General Defarge that day.

  He parked his car and walked to his apartment to drop off his briefcase then left almost immediately for the meeting. The Hotel du Mont Blanc was barely a block away and faced directly on to the lake. It was small, but had a good restaurant and impeccably discreet staff, which made it a favorite amongst local business people.

  Sparke found a seat by the window and looked out over the quiet street towards the lake and the Alps. His coffee had just arrived when a young man with a shock of blond hair appeared at the top of the stairs and walked straight to Sparke's table. He had a lean, athletic build and wore a suit with an open necked shirt. Sparke had seen enough plain clothes policemen in his life to recognize one when he saw one.

  "Mr. Sparke," said the young man, offering his hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am sorry again to interrupt your evening, but the General told me that you would not mind."

  "Pleased to help in any way I can," said Sparke. "If there is some way I can help the General or the customs service then tell me how."

  Gillieron smiled at Sparke for a second, then said, "The General tells me that you are someone we can speak to in absolute confidence. He tells me that he feels you are a friend to Switzerland. I understand from your background that you are used to dealing with situations that are a little outside the ordinary. So I will be direct."

  Sparke nodded, aware that his opinion was not being sought. There was obviously a reason why a General in the Swiss Army would have spoken to the Federal Customs Service almost immediately after their discussion today, and Sparke knew that if it was in their interests to tell him what that was, they would do so, but there was no value in him asking what it was. Gillieron took his phone from his jacket pocket, flicked at the screen for a moment, and then placed it on the table facing towards Sparke.

  "What can you tell me about this man?"

  Sparke looked down at the phone, then back towards Gillieron. "He introduced himself to me as Dr. Laszlo. He told me that he was an historical researcher and archivist."

  Gillieron nodded and touched the screen. "And this person?"

  "Her name is Nagel. She's American."

  "What else do you know about them?"

  "I'm pretty sure they're all mad, or close enough to it," said Sparke. "The woman came all the way from Missouri to meet me. She thinks we should work together to track down some document that she believes I am looking for. Laszlo looks like he is helping her, but I don't get the impression that they are much of a team, if you know what I mean."

  "They suggested that you should join them in their search?"

  "Yes."

  "And how did you respond?"

  "I told them to go away and not bother me and that I had no awareness of any such document until they told me about it."

  The customs officer picked up his phone and tapped it gently on the table top, thinking.

  "General Defarge is something of an expert in this area, the period of history before the creation of the Swiss Federation," he said.

  "So I understand," said Sparke.

  Again, Gillieron fell into a short silence.

  "The document these people are looking for does exist and they will almost certainly be able to get their hands on it soon. This is a stolen historical artifact of considerable value and bringing it into this country without a permit is a crime. If they were to leave the country and collect it elsewhere we have no possible interest. But once it crosses into Switzerland it is very much in our jurisdiction."

  Gillieron folded his hands on the table and looked directly at Sparke.

  "Mr. Sparke, would you be willing to make contact with these people and help them in their little project?"

  Meetings and Departures

  It was near dark when Salvatore and the iron-master shook hands on an agreement.

  "Come back tomorrow and I will have a contract for us to sign."

  "A contract?" said Salvatore.

  "Of course," said the man. "Men do business without a contract where you come from?"

  "It is common enough."

  "Here we like clean agreements plainly written."

  Salvatore shrugged and agreed to return the next day, then left Martigny and began to make his way back to Sion. There was a full moon and the stark white light reflected almost blue off the snow which still covered the hillsides. He wrapped his heavy cloak tightly around himself and trotted his mount slowly along the road. The valley floor was flat and the hillsides slopped down steeply, almost vertically, to meet it. The roadway was a yard higher than the surrounding farmland and the river that ran nearby was fast. As the snows melted it would run faster still and the ground nearby would become a muddy marsh for a heavily mounted man. This was not horse country. Castles stood at every choke point in the narrow valley and rocky ledges stood above the road in several places. Driving a mounted force along here would be costly against a determined and organized defender, thought Salvatore.

  He arrived at the gates of Sion as they were being closed for the night. Before Salvatore was allowed to enter, the guard fetched a piece of grey slate, covered in chalk marks, from the guardroom.

  "Your name?" asked the guard.

&nb
sp; "Salvatore," said Salvatore wondering why he was being asked.

  The guard looked at the slate then stepped back with a nod to allow Salvatore to pass. It took a moment for Salvatore to realize that he was reading a list of names and seemed fully prepared to bar a Templar knight from entering if his was not there.

  He walked his tired horse through the streets, silent and dark now except for the tiny slivers of yellow light that escaped through the wooden shutters that covered every window. He was weary and glad to reach the barracks and see lights burning in the stable. He unsaddled his mount and gave the animal a thorough cleaning with handfuls of straw before rubbing it down with a piece of coarse sacking and leading it into a stall. He was enjoying the feeling of being at home with his brothers and allowed himself the luxury of relaxing at the thought of a warm bed.

  "You are late on the road."

  The voice cut through Salvatore, freezing him to the spot. He turned slowly to look at the figure of his brother standing in the doorway.

  "And you, Massimo, find yourself in a stable in a mountain valley a hundred leagues from anywhere. I thought you would be burning heretics in France by now. It is the season for such hunting, no?"

  "There is no season when the Inquisition sleeps Salvatore. Those of us who accept this path surrender the idea of leisure."

  Salvatore took a bucket of grain and filled the feedbag for his horse.

  "The Inquisition has nothing better to do than look for trouble in the mountains?" said Salvatore.

  "Do you think that anywhere is safe from deviance? This sort of hole is exactly where we find the most rats."

  "And the Bishop blesses your venture?"

  Massimo threw a filthy look at his brother. "The Bishop is blind, or he chooses to be," he said. "These valleys are filled with rebellion and willfulness, but he will not look beyond his nose."

  "So why are you here?" asked Salvatore.

  "To help him see the error of his views. To bring him into conformity with the wishes of the Church and allow us to root out the poison that keeps these people from obedience to the Church and their lawful lords."

  "I would wish you good fortune, but I am too tired to lie," said Salvatore. He finished tending to his horse and closed the door to the stall. "You know, Massimo, I had an interesting day. This afternoon a peasant, a blacksmith, told me that he expected me to sign a contract with him. Then, as I came back to this city, the night guard read my name from a piece of slate to see if I should be allowed entry. Do you really feel that these people, these peasants who write contracts and keep knights waiting at the gate, will welcome the Inquisition?"

  Salvatore was unable to resist the rush of satisfaction he felt at the reaction this created in his brother. The lamp shook visibly in his grip making the shadows shiver, his top lip twitched and his free hand raised in a fist.

  "Reading. Why are these people reading? What is the need, where is the glory to the Church, in these goat keepers reading and writing? If something is of value to them it is contained in the Bible and when they have need of its lessons they will receive them from the Church."

  Salvatore had seen his brother angry before, but this was the first time that he found the experience entertaining.

  "I understand," said Salvatore, "that they find that reading and writing provides them with a sense of freedom."

  "Freedom, freedom to do what and from whom? What would they do that the Church would not have them do? If it is for the glory of the Church then everything is permitted. If it is something that leads these fools astray then it is forbidden to them for their own good. Should those who toil in the filth make these decisions? Should pigs read books?"

  A cold silence fell over the stables. Massimo´s breath had formed a mist around him and his forehead showed two deep, vertical furrows. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, his fury evaporated. His face relaxed and he smiled at Salvatore.

  "You are baiting me, brother," he said. "We both know you are playing a game. Congratulations, you stuck a little pin in me and had a funny joke. You know my devotion to our Church and made my love into a prank. I had no idea that you had developed such a strange humor in your time as a Templar."

  "I am too dull to match wit with you, Massimo," said Salvatore. "Unlike you I am a simple man, a soldier following orders as best I can."

  "You think I am not a soldier too? You do not see how my service is no different than yours? The only way we differ is that you bear a sword for the Church and I carry a cross.”

  "We differ in other ways."

  "Such as?" said Massimo.

  "The only people who fear me are infidels and the enemies of the Order. Fear follows you like a bad smell."

  Massimo stepped towards Salvatore, his rank and position forgotten. He was talking to his upstart younger brother.

  "I relish the fear of our enemies," he said, his face now only inches from Salvatore.

  "You talk like a tyrant, good brother," said Salvatore.

  For a moment the stables froze in silence. Only the steam from their breath moved. The deep furrows reappeared on Massimo`s brow and his whole face tightened.

  "Tyrant," he said in a whisper. "You talk of things you have no understanding of. In the days of the Caesars there was only one tyrant, now there is one in every valley, in every town. One tyrant has been replaced by thousands. This world is crying out, pleading, for the just tyranny that only the Church can bring."

  In the yellow lamplight, Massimo´s eyes seemed to glow. On the side of his head Salvatore could see a blood vessel pumping.

  "You think our enemies are the Saracens, but you are wrong," said Massimo, his voice still soft. He sounded like a man talking to a child. "Our real enemies are close, much closer than you know. You must understand that you walk in dangerous company. Do you think we do not know why you are here? Do you believe that we do not know all about you and the plans of that false Christian you call the Mason? You think I do not know about your childish games with the salt miner?"

  Salvatore tried, but failed, to hide the impact of Massimo´s words. The fact that every care he had taken to maintain secrecy had been wasted struck him like a blow and he could not stop himself from looking away.

  Slowly, Massimo lifted his hand up towards Salvatore´s face, delicately taking his brother's jaw between his thumb and his index finger, and pulled their faces together until Salvatore could feel his brother´s breath on his face.

  "I can save you, brother," said Massimo. "All you need do is choose the comfort of obedience."

  Conference

  Tilly loved conferences. There were so many people to disagree with. Only two types of people ever came to these things, very lazy ones and very clever ones, and both were in Paris in abundance for this event.

  They were easy to tell apart. Lazy ones moved in small herds, constantly stopping to chat and agree with each other, meeting other plodding dead-heads on the conference circuit every few yards, normally trailing a cloud of post graduate students who moved like pilot fish around their hosts.

  Clever ones were to be found either standing still, addressing an audience of stationary sloths, or more often moving with the velocity of the important from one location to another.

  Tilly had no misconceptions about her place in this ecosystem; she was a trainee clever person. She knew this by keeping count of the number of people who came up to her to start conversations compared to the people she approached. It was eight to one in her favor and she was pretty confident that she did not attract these conversations because she was one of the few women of her academic rank under forty. The participants greeting area of the European Conference of Medieval Research was not somewhere that could be confused with a pick up joint.

  Her television appearances brought her glances of recognition, but little overt respect. Telling sofa surfers about European society in the thirteenth century was not what these people considered to be activity worthy of praise. Envy perhaps.

  Her catalogue of published
academic papers on medieval society, though, was significant enough to make her a faint, but visible, star in this firmament. Her work on female inheritance rights in urban societies had become the sort of thing that professors liked to use to startle their classes and prod lazy students to think again.

  At the moment, she was avoiding conversations and waiting to pounce. She wanted some face time with one of the clever ones and that could involve a high speed interception.

  Professor Annecy was one of the main draws to this conference and Tilly was holding position on the steps leading down to the main hall; a good observation point, little chance of unplanned conversations.

  She spotted him leaving one of the break-out rooms used by speakers to escape the mob. He was moving with enough speed to show his importance, but slow enough to scatter short greetings to familiar faces.

  Tilly vectored in on his pathway and intercepted him as he slowed to make the turn into the main conference hall.

  "Professor Annecy," she said, offering her hand. "My name Professor Pink, Scottish National History. Nice to meet you."

  Annecy slowed, then stopped and offered his own hand in response, hiding any displeasure he felt at his progress being interrupted. Tilly´s smile froze as she saw the professor´s eyes briefly sweep up and down her body.

  "I´m looking forward to your talk today," she said.

  "I only hope you are not disappointed," said Annecy, smiling. "Are you doing any particular work in the field?"

  "A little," she said, retrieving her hand from the professor's grasp. "We had a major find in the Scottish Highlands related to the Knights Templar, so we are interested in anything around that."