The Templar Archive (The Lost Treasure of the Templars)

by James Becker

  That morning, they’d continued driving northeast toward the center of Switzerland. They didn’t know if they were in precisely the right area in Lucerne, but they did know that the canton of Schwyz lay on the eastern side of Lake Lucerne. And if, as they both now believed, the peasants of that region had been helped by members of the Knights Templar order in the fourteenth century, it was at least possible that the Templar Archive—assuming it still existed—might well have been concealed somewhere in that canton. In any case, it was arguably the best place to start looking, to try to follow the sparse and cryptic clues they’d managed to decode.

  “In fact,” Mallory added, “just remind me exactly what the translation said about the location we need to find.”

  Robin pulled a sheet of paper out of her laptop bag and unfolded it.

  “As you said,” she began, “what it tells us is a long way from being specific, and it will only make sense, in my opinion, once we’ve identified the correct location. Finding the right valley isn’t going to be easy, and identifying the actual hiding place will probably be a whole lot more difficult. Right, these are the clues, such as they are. The first sentence says ‘seek where the serpent roars, his mouth agape.’ Then the second sentence states ‘beyond the moving wall, the door awaits,’ and the last phrase is much shorter. That just translates as ‘the guardian beckons.’”

  “That’s all as clear as mud,” Mallory said. “They certainly haven’t made it easy, have they? I know I asked you before, but are you happy with the translations? There aren’t any ambiguities or alternative meanings for the Latin words?”

  “Not really, no. I’ve got no doubt that the man who wrote this was being deliberately obtuse, just so he could provide an extra layer of protection for the archive. Deciphering the encrypted text was obviously just the first stage. He was then expecting whoever did that to have to use their brains to work out what those three clues meant. But the reference to the confederate of Schwyz earlier in the text is clear enough, so we do have some kind of starting point. Well, perhaps less a starting point than a starting area, because the present canton is quite big.”

  “I agree,” Mallory said. “That name wouldn’t have been mentioned unless it was a direct reference. And you still think that if we can find the right approximate area, we can make some kind of sense out of those clues?”

  Robin nodded. “I certainly hope so, but I think so, yes. I’ve got a couple of ideas about the first one, anyway, and I also think that we shouldn’t necessarily try to follow them in the order they appeared in the text. It seems to me as if the last clue, the one about the guardian, is more than likely telling us where we should start looking, the general area, I mean, rather than anything else. Though I might be wrong, obviously.”

  “So, where exactly do we start?”

  Robin didn’t reply for a moment, just opened the side pocket of her computer bag once again and took out a map of Switzerland. While Mallory moved the coffee cups and plates to one side to clear a space, she unfolded the map, laid it flat, and then pointed at the western end of Lake Lucerne.

  “We’re here,” she said, “pretty much on the western shore of the lake. Schwyz is over here, at the eastern end of the same body of water. Looking at the detail on the map, it’s obvious that the area we’re interested in is very mountainous. The contour lines are very close together over most of the canton, which means steep slopes, high peaks, and deep valleys. There are lots of these straight lines marked on the map, and each one of those is a ski lift of some sort, running up the mountains from the lower areas and base stations to the top of the ski runs. And a lot of the roads just zigzag up the hills and then sort of stop, presumably in the car parks used by skiers in the winter and walkers in the summer. We’re lucky that it’s summer at the moment, because I think this search would be impossible in the winter, with the whole area covered in snow.

  “So I think we should just drive around the lake, get ourselves into the Schwyz canton, and find a hotel for a couple of nights. Once we’re settled, we should try to find a better map than this one, a proper topographical chart covering the whole area that we’re interested in, and see if we can identify any of the features that those obtuse clues seem to me to be suggesting. If we manage that, then we can get out there and start checking on the valleys that seem most likely.”

  “You definitely think it will be hidden in a valley, then?” Mallory asked.

  “In my opinion. That’s probably the most likely. In a valley there are likely to be caves and gullies carved out by the waterfalls. I haven’t looked at the geology of this part of the world, the way you did with the mountains of Cyprus, but I have a strong suspicion that the most likely location for the archive is hidden in a cave somewhere. Where it won’t be is in the strong room of some castle or building, because that would have been too obvious a hiding place, and over the seven hundred years or so since the archive was hidden, someone would almost certainly have stumbled across it.

  “The chests we found on Cyprus had been hidden in a cave, and that location worked well enough for the Knights Templar there. So I think they probably did the same thing all over again here in the mountains: they found a natural hiding place underground somewhere, probably modified it so it was big enough to hold everything they needed to conceal, and then made pretty certain that nobody would ever find it by accident. Just like on Cyprus, even when we find the right specific location—assuming that we manage to do that—it won’t be a matter of just walking into a cave and picking up a few wooden boxes. They’ll be far from obvious, and we might well have to dig them out of the ground or pull down a rock wall to get access to them.”

  Mallory nodded.

  “Right. Well, we’re certainly not going to achieve anything by sitting here looking at the view,” he said, “so let’s saddle up and get out of here.”

  There was obviously no direct route over to the east, because the lake was in the way, and although it probably wasn’t the fastest way to reach their destination, Mallory and Robin decided to follow the road that ran along the northern shore of the lake, at least for the first part of the journey. They drove over the bridge by the railway station, then swung right onto Haldenstrasse, paralleling the Nationalquai and the lakeshore as they headed east. Mallory stayed on the same road, which changed its name to the Seeburgstrasse when it turned southeast. In the vicinity of Meggen, the road continued northeast, again following the shore of the Luzernersee, but rather than stay beside the water, at Küssnacht Mallory continued straight on to pick up the faster A4 at Immensee. This road took them along the southern shore of the Zugersee, another large lake, past Oberath and Goldau, and then on to Schwyz itself.

  They found a hotel that suited their purposes fairly near the center of the small town, booked a room, and then set out to explore their surroundings and, more important, to find a map. That took rather longer than either of them had expected, because almost every bookshop they went into only had a stock of modern tourist maps, colorful folded pages that listed restaurants, bars, hotels, car parks, ski lifts, and local attractions, the kind of information that would be invaluable to a tourist but completely useless and irrelevant as far as they were concerned. But they did eventually track down a topographical chart that covered the entire canton, as well as sections of the neighboring divisions.

  “It’s not quite as good as a British ordnance survey map,” Mallory said as they stepped out of the shop, “but hopefully it’ll have enough detail on it for what we need.”

  They walked a few paces down the road, and then he suddenly stopped.

  “What is it?” Robin asked.

  “Something I noticed in the window,” Mallory said, and retraced his steps.

  They stood outside the shop, looking at the books on display, and after a moment he pointed at a slim volume on one side of the window.

  “I don’t speak German,” he said, “but that looks intere
sting. The one with the picture of a mounted knight on the cover. I wonder if that’s just a novel or something about the Templars, or something else.”

  “It’s not a novel, and it’s not about the Templars, or not specifically about them,” Robin said firmly. “The title is ‘The Legend of the White Knights’ and according to the subtitle it tells the true story of the Battle of Morgarten. It’s written by some German author named Fritz Gruber that I’ve never heard of. He’s probably a local and that book’s most likely the result of his hobby and personal research, because it has that unmistakable look of a self-published volume.”

  “You speak German?” Mallory sounded astonished.

  “Not exactly. As a part of my spent—as opposed to misspent—youth, I studied French, Spanish, and German, but I frankly can’t really pretend to be able to speak any of them well enough to be understood unless it’s just a matter of booking a room or ordering a meal in a hotel or restaurant. But I remember enough of the vocabulary of all three languages to be able to read a bit in each one of them.”

  “I’ll buy the book, then,” Mallory said.

  “Do you really think you’ll find a clue to the location of the Templar Archive in a cheap book some local amateur historian has knocked up?” Robin sounded scornful. “You’ll probably find all that’s in it is just a slightly modified rehash of the entry for the battle in Wikipedia.”

  “You could be right, but I still think it’s worth getting. I’ve done a lot of genealogical research, as I told you, and I’ve found local histories of particular districts, usually written by somebody who’s lived in the place their entire life, really helpful. They know the area far better than any stranger coming in can hope to match, and often they’ve got a passionate interest in what they’re talking about. And books like that always end up being privately printed because the only people who buy them are tourists or locals with a bit of an interest in the subject matter. No commercial publisher would ever contemplate releasing a book like that because it would have such a limited potential market.”

  A couple of minutes later, Mallory walked out of the bookshop, tucking his new purchase into the bag that already held the map.

  “You won’t even have to flex your German reading muscles,” he said. “There were three versions of the book in the shop. The original was written in German, but the author has also produced versions in French and English. How good the translation is, I’ve got no idea, but it’ll be easier to read even a bad translation than to try understanding the original German text.”

  “I hear what you say,” Robin said, “but I’m still not sure it’ll be too much help. After all, we already know when and where the battle took place and what happened when the opposing sides met. What we’re really interested in is what probably took place a few years later, once the Knights Templar—assuming that the story is true and that the local peasants were helped by a handful of White Knights—had established themselves in the area. Anyway, all information is valuable, so let’s hope the author discusses more in the book than just the battle itself.”

  On their way back to the hotel they passed a street sign pointing toward the Kantonsbibliothek Schwyz, and again Mallory paused.

  “That must be the local library,” he said. “Before we get too deeply involved in anything else, it might be a good idea to see if they have any ancient records there that might help us.”

  Fortunately the librarian spoke reasonable English, but when Mallory explained that they were looking for any information that might be relevant to events that took place in the canton in the first couple of decades of the fourteenth century, and particularly to the Battle of Morgarten, she shook her head emphatically.

  “I think I can save you some time there, Herr Mallory,” she said. “We do have quite extensive records here, but not that many relevant to that period. But there is a shortcut. One of our local residents has always been interested in the early history of the canton, and he did a lot of research, most of it in the archives of this very building. And then he wrote a book about the battle, which you can find in almost any of the bookshops in town.”

  “Do you mean this book?” Mallory asked, reaching into his bag and pulling out the slim volume he had just purchased. “By Herr Gruber?”

  The librarian looked slightly surprised. “So you have it already?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. But you’re saying that this is quite authoritative?”

  “In my opinion, yes. It was the product of three years of hard work by Herr Gruber. It will give you a good overview of the event.”

  When Mallory and Robin had left the building, the librarian checked a record on her desk, then unlocked the top drawer and took out a folded sheet of paper. She read the text, noted the telephone number printed underneath the block of writing, took out her mobile, and dialed it.

  When her call was answered, she passed a brief message and then hung up, replaced the paper, and relocked the drawer. It would probably come to nothing, but the request made so many years earlier still carried weight, simply because of the identity of the people who had made it.

  * * *

  “As well as buying something in that last bookshop,” the watcher reported, “they’ve also just come out of the library. It looks to me as if they’re still doing research, so we’ve probably got enough time to assemble a full team here.”

  “Copied,” Mario said. “Keep your eyes on the targets and make sure Paolo and Nico know where they go next, so one of us always has them in view. I’ll be off-line, bringing Vitale up-to-date.”

  The watcher, the fourth member of the team Vitale had sent to follow Mallory and Robin, was apparently studying the menu posted outside a restaurant on the opposite side of the road from the library. The other three men were loitering in nearby streets, linked together in a conference call, and listening to his commentary on their mobiles, each using a Bluetooth hands-free earpiece.

  All four of them had been on the flight out of Orly the previous evening, and in the crowds at Geneva Airport it had been a fairly simple matter to keep their targets in view as they cleared passport control and immigration. And when Mallory had been given the keys to a Renault hire car, Mario was at the head of the queue of the adjacent booth, completing the rental documentation for an Opel sedan.

  When the targets drove away from the airport, Mario and Paolo had easily been able to follow them to Versoix, the headlights of their car just another set of lights in the darkness. Once they’d stopped, Paolo had put another tracker on the Renault and then they, too, had found a local hotel for the night. The last two members of the team, using the work names Nico and Carlo, had waited at the airport until Mallory started the hire car to ensure that they had confirmed the vehicle make, model, and registration number. Then they had also hired a car and driven to Versoix.

  The tracker had worked precisely as the Italians had hoped, and the two surveillance vehicles had been able to follow the Renault from Versoix, on to Lucerne, and then farther east to Schwyz without ever having sighted the car once it had left the motel. And following the targets on foot around the town was proving to be just as easy. Obviously the English couple had no idea that they were being observed.

  * * *

  “Three years’ hard work it might have been,” Mallory said, nearly four hours later, “but as far as I can see there’s nothing in this book that’s of any use to us.”

  They’d returned to the hotel, and while Robin had spent her time studying the topographical map and identifying places that looked interesting and that she thought they ought to search, Mallory very quickly read the English version of the book he had purchased.

  “All he does is explain what happened immediately before and just after the battle, and covers the fighting itself in some detail. But there’s almost nothing about the aftermath, about what, if anything, the White Knights did once the surviving Habsburgs ra
n away from the battlefield.”

  “I did say that to you at the time,” Robin said, “so far be it from me to say I told you so. But, actually, I did tell you so. Is there nothing at all that’s relevant?”

  “Not really, apart from a couple of maps, one showing the site of the battle, up by Lake Ägeri, which is almost certainly not what we want, and another one that just indicates where the local settlements were located at the time of the conflict. But neither of them is particularly detailed, mainly because they’re hand-drawn, so I don’t think they’re going to be any help.”

  He closed the book and tossed it on the bed. “How about you? Any luck?”

  Robin shook her head.

  “Not really,” she replied. “I’ve basically been looking for valleys that could contain caves, but the terrain around here means that there are probably dozens of them, maybe hundreds, that might fit the bill. I think what we have to do is get out there and start looking, and I’ve picked out half a dozen places where we could start. Once we’ve had a good look at the countryside, maybe that will give us a kind of feel for the sort of terrain we need to study.”

  “That works for me,” Mallory said. “How about we go down and get dinner now? Then we’ll come back and both look at the map. If we make an early start tomorrow morning, we can cover a good deal of the canton pretty quickly, with any luck.”

  * * *

  The short telephone message left by the librarian had produced immediate results. The number she had called was constantly monitored, though never answered, every message being listened to within a few minutes of its receipt. The librarian had provided two names—David Mallory and Robin Jessop—because the English couple had completed visitor forms when they visited the building.