The Temple Deliverance

by D C Macey

  ‘And what exactly do we want?’ said Helen. ‘I saw that look on your face in the chapel - you worked something out. Come on, spill the beans.’

  Instinctively, Sam lowered his voice. ‘I was stumped at first by all the archways with their pairs of cusps. So many, and I couldn’t think why. When Oliver showed me the archway featuring our cusp, I was still puzzled. Again, why so many cusps?’

  ‘It’s a decorative style, surely,’ said Francis.

  ‘Well, that seems logical, and I can’t argue with that, but I do think there’s an altogether more Templar explanation.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Francis.

  ‘Yes. A great way to hide a secret is to place it in plain sight so nobody even imagines it is a secret. The Templars have got form in that department. Remember, we’ve seen it before - last year, when we managed to solve the puzzle of the church window? The message contained in the stained glass was there for all to see but only made sense to the initiated.’

  ‘That is so. It is the way, I know it,’ said Xavier. He was pale, and in spite of the heating, his hands shook even while clasping his coffee mug.

  Grace reached her arm around Xavier’s shoulder, pulling him in close to her. ‘Xavier, you’re shivering,’ she said.

  ‘Xavier, we’d better get you home; it’s far too cold for you out here,’ said Helen.

  ‘No, no, no. I am fine. Let us hear Sam’s thoughts. Then we go, yes?’

  ‘Okay then, if you are sure. But let’s hurry it up a little, Sam.’

  ‘Fine. So, I grant you the rash of cusps sprouting from beneath every arch is attractive, but I think it’s actually been created to hide one set of cusps in particular. Ones that carry the same imagery as the tiles at Leptis Magna. Hidden in plain sight.’

  ‘But Sam, why here? It’s not a Templar chapel. And anyway, it was built a hundred years and more after the Templars were disbanded; we know that. It can’t be a Templar church, so it can’t be a Templar secret,’ said Helen.

  ‘That’s a little problem, I grant you. But thanks to the cusp you found in the trench up in your Templar woods, we do know there was a stone reproduction of the Leptis imagery there. And that was Templar land. There, in the underground chamber, probably a little chapel, they placed the imagery that is the code to safely open the boxes.’

  ‘But they’re not in the trench, they’re in Rosslyn Chapel,’ said Francis, a pained look on his face.

  ‘Yes, they are. And I’m sorry, Francis, but there’s a leap of faith required here.’

  ‘Well, we’re used to those, aren’t we?’ said Helen, gently joggling her shoulder against Francis’.

  ‘Oh yes, we can do leaps of faith,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, Sam, put us out of our misery,’ said Helen.

  ‘Two simple steps. First, we’ve seen before that the Templars always left a workaround in case their first clue was lost. Like an insurance policy. I think the underground chamber would have been built to hide the code as a series of decorative cusps. Davy and the others could find no moveable artefacts in the trench or any signs of an alternative use.

  ‘Second, Helen is right that Rosslyn Chapel was built years after the Templar Order was dissolved. There is no clear and direct link between the two. But we do know from Helen’s link with the St Bernard’s church tradition and through Xavier that the Order still continued along a secret strand even after it was dissolved. At some point, a surviving Templar, perhaps, no, quite certainly, one of Helen’s predecessors, decided a backup code was needed.’

  ‘Francis told us about the Sinclair connection—’

  ‘And the Sinclairs own the land and built the chapel. I would imagine if there really were a link between the Sinclairs and the Templars, it would be a simple step for any surviving influential Templar to have the chapel’s design incorporate the required elements. Especially, if he were footing the bill,’ said Sam.

  ‘With all the other ornate stonework simply a means of hiding the one set of information that they really needed to be certain would survive,’ said Helen.

  ‘Exactly. I’m guessing that information will be the cusps.’

  ‘So, back to the beginning, how will you use them to open the box?’ said Helen with a sideways glance towards Francis. She could tell he was pleased she had asked the question.

  ‘That will have to wait until we get back to the manse. I have an idea and now’s the time to test it out.’

  ‘And now’s the time to get Xavier back too,’ said Grace, taking his hands in hers and gently rubbing them. Angelo nodded and stood, placing a protective hand on Xavier’s shoulder.

  • • •

  ‘I don’t understand why this chapel has suddenly become so important. Is there something I have not been told?’ said Cassiter.

  In silence, Parsol motored his chair over to the window and looked out across the city. His son had surrendered the suite as the most appropriate work base for his father. Junior’s bags had been moved along the corridor to another room, equally luxuriously appointed though lacking the extra reception room that was now doubling as his father’s control centre.

  Parsol did not enjoy the public domain, and although his interests spread far, he rarely left the security of his chateau base. He had employed Cassiter as a confidential contractor for the past several years, and he trusted him to deliver. It suddenly seemed a long time ago, but only a few months had passed since he had met with Cassiter in Princes Street Gardens, a location which now formed part of his view.

  In the months since that meeting, Cassiter’s rise within the organisation had been meteoric. He was remarkable for being absolutely unremarkable; he could fade unnoticed into the shade of any group. Parsol was not fooled; he knew that Cassiter could punch out of that greyness with the strength and speed of a great white taking its prey. He looked up at him.

  ‘For once, we are dealing with something that is beyond my knowledge. This Rosslyn Chapel has never featured in our understanding. It is something that either my ancestors were not privy to, or it must have acquired relevance after the original dispersal of the task bearers and dissolution of the Templar Order. Whatever took Cameron and the Johnson woman out to the chapel this morning must have been important,’ said Parsol.

  ‘And the Sardinian priests were there too,’ Said Cassiter.

  ‘Yes, no doubt scavengers, gathering for their scraps! I am aware of the links between the family that owns the chapel and the Templars. Indeed you investigated them for us a year or two ago.’

  ‘That’s right; I remember reporting on it to you. It all seemed more fable than fact.’

  ‘And yet, they are drawn there. Why?’

  ‘I intend to go out myself to find out exactly what the link is,’ said Cassiter.

  ‘Good. There must be something, some connection. We need to know what it is. Now, tell me, Cassiter, what of the camera? What links have your people made?’

  ‘They are searching every possible archive to get image matches, but there’s nothing, nothing at all. Have your own people come up with any historical link?’

  Parsol shook his head. Then he turned his chair back to the window. ‘Keep me informed and keep a tight watch on them all. Cameron is the one who will unwrap the final puzzle. It seems it was set apart from the earlier elements, the daggers that you helped us retrieve last year. For now, we still need him and the Johnson girl alive so they can show us the things we don’t know. But we cannot risk them stealing a march on us. We are very close now; I can feel it.’

  • • •

  Sam had printed out the photographs from Silvia’s memory stick. There was a wider angled picture taken from the altar that showed the complete archway. It featured the whole series of protruding cusps, like stone fruits hanging forever from the boughs of some ancient petrified tree. The cusps were set in facing pairs protruding from beneath either side of the arch, each successive pair closer together than its lower neighbour as the arch’s sides neared its apex. He placed this picture at the ce
ntre of the kitchen table.

  On the right side of the arch, each cusp had the same set of patterned faces, but as the mason had progressed up the arch, each successive cusp was rotated to present a different face forwards. This presentation style was repeated with the cusps on the left side of the arch.

  To the left end of the table, he laid out six pictures. They represented the front facing sides of those cusps protruding from beneath the left side of the arch, ordered just as they appeared in the wide-angled photo. To the right end of the table, he laid out six pictures. These represented the front faces found on the cusps of the right side of the arch.

  Xavier and Francis sat in silence at one side of the table, watching Sam.

  ‘Here they are,’ said Grace, delivering the two ornate boxes from their hiding place in the tunnel that linked the manse to St Bernard’s church.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Sam, taking the boxes and placing them in the middle of the table beside the photograph of the full archway. He stepped back to regard the whole display, Grace stood beside him, and a studious silence settled for a little while.

  ‘Sam, I see a problem here,’ said Francis.

  ‘Go on,’ said Sam.

  Francis waved his hand to the right. ‘You have six photographs over there of the faces of the right-hand cusps. But within the archway, each cusp displays only five faces, one face is missing where a cusp’s stem attaches to the stone beneath the arch. Where does the picture of the sixth face come from? And it’s the same at the left-hand side,’ Francis pointed to the left-hand end of the table.

  ‘Yes, you’re right but try thinking of a cusp being like a dice. Its sides are marked one to six. At any time, you can see the one number facing upwards and if you look around the dice’s sides, you can see four other numbers. One number you can never see, because it’s facing down.’

  Sam lifted one of the boxes from the table. He turned it in his hand before placing it carefully on the table again. ‘Now, instead of dice think of our box. The cusp is a representation of the box’s pattern. One face is always invisible whether that be the box face down on the table or the stone face attaching the cusp to the arch. And like the dice, we can predict the face we don’t see based entirely on the remaining faces we can see.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’ said Xavier.

  Sam shrugged. ‘It’s a pattern, but I’m not sure yet.’

  Xavier stood, nudging Francis as he rose. ‘Perhaps we should leave Sam alone for a little while.’

  Francis rose too, and the pair left the kitchen, heading for the living room. Grace followed them out, and Sam settled down to think through what the image sequences meant.

  He looked at the wide-angle photograph of the whole arch then focused on the cusp faces displayed to the left-hand side. Gathering the six pictures from the left side of the table he sifted through them. Nothing was obvious. Was there a pattern to be found in the order of the cusps? But if there was a pattern there, what did it mean? As he mulled the problem over, almost without thinking, he began checking the photos of single cusp faces on the desk, referring back to the image of the complete arch and ordering the photos as if re-creating exactly the two sides of the arch here on the kitchen table.

  Now he had a sequence, so what to do with it? He speculated that the pairing together of the cusp-face images meant he should be pairing the corresponding box faces. He brought the actual box faces side by side to mirror the picture arch he had created. Turning them this way and that. Nothing happened.

  Sometime later, Helen shuffled into the room. ‘What’s happening, Sam? Any progress?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘I think I have reproduced the required sequence here.’ He pointed to the photos, now laid out to describe a neat arch. ‘But when I align the faces of the actual boxes in that order nothing happens. In fact, I’ve no idea of what should happen. Even if I am aligning them correctly, if that’s what we are supposed to do, I’m wondering if there’s another component, something else I’ve overlooked. I don’t see how shuffling the boxes around will open them. I’ve tried that often enough already.’

  Helen stood beside him and looked down at the table. ‘How do you know you have the correct faces in order?’

  ‘I’ve taken it directly from the main archway photograph,’ he leant across the table and tapped the image.

  ‘Yes, but is that how you are meant to look at the cusp faces? Did the architect intend you to view the cusp pairs from the direction of the altar?’

  Sam looked back at the main photograph. ‘You know, I think you may have something, Helen. You know, I could have made a schoolboy error here.’

  ‘Really? That’s not like you.’ Helen pressed her shoulder against his. ‘Are you slipping, Mr Cameron?’

  ‘Let’s see. The main photograph has been taken from the direction of the altar, so all the cusp faces we see are captured from that angle only, and that’s the order of our cusp photographs. We identified this arch was slightly different from all the others. Remember how the top pair of cusps actually touch one another just beneath the apex of the archway? Unlike our archway, all the other archways had their top cusp pairs positioned a little lower from the apex so the top pair of cusps did not touch. They all had a sufficient gap so you could see the imagery on the facing cusps.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Helen agreed. ‘The guy at the chapel thought it had been a simple architectural mistake.’

  ‘We don’t. And now I think about it more, the two faces touching could be indicating our starting point. Instead of looking at the face of the arch side-on - as photographed from the altar - see?’ Sam lifted up the wide-angle photo for Helen to see more clearly. ‘In fact, it’s the cusp faces facing each other under the arch that are the paired images, just as you suggested.’

  ‘But you can’t see the top two images, because they are too close together.’

  ‘No problem. Seeing as we know where the other sides are, in relation to one another, we can work that out by a process of elimination to predict exactly what the unseen sides of the top pair are, just like with dice. Give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll have my pictures rearranged into the right order.’

  Between references to the main archway photograph and the order of the faces as they appeared on the actual boxes, Sam reordered the sequence of photographs in his pictorial arch. Then he straightened up, looked down at his new arrangement and put an arm round Helen’s shoulder. ‘Now we have a new order. Shall we see what happens?’

  Helen watched Sam in silence as he brought the boxes close together, aligning the two faces that matched those hidden by their close proximity at the apex of the arch. ‘Just like the top pair of cusps beneath the arch in the chapel, we’ll start with these two faces touching, so we can’t see those faces. Now change the positions so the next two faces are touching …’ Sam brought the box faces together as he spoke then moved the boxes around so the photographic image sequence was followed as he continued through all six positions. Nothing happened. He looked at Helen, disappointed. ‘Well, that didn’t work! I must have done something wrong.’

  Helen began to say something then hesitated.

  ‘Go on; what are you thinking?’ Sam encouraged her.

  Helen pursed her lips for a moment. ‘Well … what if the boxes must remain touching while going through the sequence?’

  ‘Worth a try,’ said Sam. He moved the boxes back to the starting position, two faces touching. Referring again to the pictures, he slid one box up and over the other to bring the second pair of cusp faces together while always keeping the boxes in contact with one another.

  Suddenly, he froze. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, his hands still.

  Helen shook her head. ‘No. What happened?’

  ‘The box just clicked.’

  ‘How? I didn’t hear it.’ She leant closer to the boxes.

  ‘I have no idea.’ Sam held his breath as he slid the top box across so its bottom face rested on top of the lower box. He felt anot
her click from the lower box.

  ‘I heard that one,’ said Helen, excited. ‘You’re on to something. Keep going.’

  Sam carefully continued the sliding sequence bringing twinned faces together as prescribed in the cusps’ photograph sequence. With each movement, there was a further click. With one more move to make, he paused and turned to look at Helen. ‘Nearly there.’

  ‘Do it.’

  Sam slid the boxes. The final move brought them, once more, to rest side by side on the table. There was a sixth click and nothing happened.

  ‘What now?’ said Helen.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sam, pulling his hands away. He looked at Helen again who was trying hard to hide her disappointment.

  ‘I thought that was it, that you’d opened them.’

  ‘I did too. There were definite clicks.’

  ‘Yes, I heard some of them.’

  They were suddenly both aware of a little group behind them. Their small exclamations - the tension in their voices - had alerted the others that something special was happening. Their friends had gravitated to the kitchen and watched with growing excitement, only to now share the disappointment.

  Amid dejected mutterings, Sam reached out for the boxes. ‘Well, it’s back to the drawing board. With those clicks, I really believed we’d done it. We must have done something wrong.’

  ‘What was making the clicks, Sam?’ said Helen.

  ‘I’m not sure; some force must have come into play. Gravity, perhaps? I’m guessing, but that would only enable things inside to move downwards when the box was tilted. From the scan, we know there is nothing loose inside to do that. Magnets maybe; there is a little gap or void between the two layers of gold, and in that space, there are some little strips or bars of metal, but I don’t know, I’m not convinced the Romans had a sufficient grip on magnetism.’

  He began to lift one box, then sensing some motion beneath his hand, he stopped, lowered the box gently back onto the table and let go. He studied it carefully. ‘Well, look at this!’

  His friends closed in behind and around him.

  ‘What is it, Sam?’ said Helen.