The Templar's Code

CHAPTER 34

“Okay, let’s tackle this Enochian inscription,” Edie said as she booted up her netbook. Since it weighed in at only two pounds, she’d gone ahead and packed it. Using her iPhone as a wireless modem enabled her to hook into the Internet anywhere there was cell phone service. On the cheap.

Sitting side by side on the sun-kissed granite slab, she and Caedmon were drying out. The ascent out of the hidden cave had been a wet one, their clothes sodden, their boots soggy. All in all, it’d been a helluva day.

Finished cleaning her various scrapes and cuts, Caedmon shoved a small first-aid kit into his knapsack.

As she waited for the computer to boot up, Edie pulled the memory chip from her digital camera. Hopefully, the chip survived the plunge in the shaft. “You said that some guy named Dr. John Dee invented the Enochian alphabet.”

“Actually, he invented an entire language. If I recall the story correctly, Dr. Dee claimed the Enochian language was transmitted to him by the heavenly host and that it was the same language spoken by Adam in the Garden of Eden.”

“The heavenly host? What are you saying, that this Dr. Dee communicated with angels?”

“It was a popular pastime in the Elizabethan period,” Caedmon replied as he removed his wet jacket. That done, he leaned back on his forearms and tipped his face to the afternoon sun. “Personally, I have my doubts as to the celestial provenance of the Enochian language. Although, mystical tendencies aside, Dr. Dee was the first to apply Euclidean geometry to navigation. A brilliant mathematician, he built navigational tools that enabled an entire generation of English seafarers to sail the high seas and explore the great beyond.”

“Quite the Renaissance guy. Must be something in the English water.” Glancing up from the computer, she winked.

“I think mercurial wizard is a more apt description, Dee the inspiration for such literary characters as Prospero and Dr. Faustus. Not to mention Ian Fleming’s 007.”

“So in addition to everything else, Dr. Dee was a spy.”

Caedmon nodded. “The Virgin Queen’s premier spy at that.”

Edie popped the memory chip into her computer. She saved the photos on her hard drive, then opened them for viewing. Despite the dim light in the cave, she’d managed to shoot clean, crisp images.

“Okay, here’s the photo of the Enochian message.”

Sitting upright, Caedmon stared at the computer screen, his gaze narrowing. Edie figured that he was zeroing in on the very same thing that caught her eye — a Templar Beauséant smack-dab in the middle of the inscription.

“While we don’t know how to translate the words written in the Enochian script, we do know that the Beauséant means ‘glorious.’ ” Edie tried to put an upbeat spin on what she feared might be an impossible task — deciphering a message written in angel code.

“Mmmm…” Caedmon lightly tapped his chin with his index finger. “If you would be kind enough to Google ‘Enochian alphabet.’”

Edie typed the two words into the Google search engine.

“That one,” Caedmon said, pointing to the image results. “The chart with the Enochian alphabet juxtaposed with its Latin counterpart. I’m thinking our charcoaled message may be a simple transliteration.”

“Meaning that whoever wrote the message substituted an Enochian letter for its Latin counterpart.”

“That’s the working theory. Dr. Lovett’s notebook is in my field kit.”

Rolling onto her side, Edie opened his knapsack and rummaged through it. When her hand made contact with an object that closely resembled a pistol, she said, “I cannot believe that you actually brought a flare gun.”

“In case we get lost on the moors.” He took the mechanical pencil and notebook from her, opening the latter to a blank page. “Right. Let’s have a go at it, shall we?”

“Well, it was a good idea,” Edie murmured a few moments later as she peered over his shoulder at the translated message. “Too bad it didn’t pan out.”

“You need to come at this particular horse from the arse end.” Caedmon’s blue eyes twinkled, the man clearly knowing more than he let on. “By that I mean you must read the message from right to left.”

“Oh, I get it, like Hebrew.” She made the necessary course correction. “Okay, I come up with ‘Ralegh Beauséant Swine Court.’ Which doesn’t tell me a whole heck of a lot.”

“It’s pronounced rawley not raleff,” he informed her, now broadly grinning. “As in Sir Walter Ralegh, the Elizabethan sea captain and famed explorer.”

“I always thought his name was spelled with an i. At least that’s how the city in North Carolina is spelled.”

“Be that as it may, Sir Walter spelled his surname without the i.”

“Wait a minute. Are you saying that this message was written by Walter Ralegh?”

“Possibly,” Caedmon hedged. For several seconds he stared at the deciphered message before saying, “It could well be that Ralegh left the charcoaled message to inform anyone who might follow in his footsteps that he discovered the Templar sanctuary and that he was homeward bound. In those days, safe passage across the Atlantic was in no way guaranteed. An armed Spanish galleon or a turbulent storm at sea could have sent Sir Walter and his wooden ship to the bottom of the ocean.”

“So you think he left the message just in case he didn’t make it back to England.”

“Precisely. But let’s put that aside for the moment.” He tapped the Templar battle standard with the pencil tip. “I suspect that the Beauséant is a pictogram that refers to the Templars’ ‘glorious’ relic.”

“Which we presume was kept in the niche inside the sanctuary.”

“That is the working assumption.” He next tapped the last line in the communiqué. “Now this business about the ‘swine’s court’… admittedly, I’m baffled.”

Edie stared at the nonsensical phrase. “Guess it has something to do with pigs.”

Caedmon suddenly slapped his palm against the granite slab. “Oh, for bollocky’s sake! Swine refers to Bacon.”

“Only after you cook it.”

“No, I mean Sir Francis Bacon, the sixteenth-century English philosopher. Elizabethan history has never been my strong suit, but as I recall, Bacon, Ralegh, and Dee all ran in the same circle, bound by their shared interest in hermetic philosophy and the occult sciences.”

“The occult sciences being something of an oxymoron, right?”

“To the learned and enlightened men of Elizabeth’s court, occult science, or alchemy, was the first of the sciences. And, curiously enough, the Knights Templar also had an interest in alchemy, having been exposed to it in the course of their dealings with the Sephardic Jews.” Evidently realizing that he was rambling, he selfdeprecatingly smiled. “But I digress.” Pencil still in hand, he underlined the last line of the translated message. “Bacon’s court can only refer to one place: Gray’s Inn.”

“Sorry, but I’m drawing a big fat blank.”

Caedmon crossed his booted feet at the ankle, once more leaning back on his elbows. “Located in London, Gray’s Inn is a professional association for barristers. There are four of these inns, the other three being the Middle Temple, the Inner Temple, and Lincoln’s Inn. During the Elizabethan period, the inns were boarding houses and social clubs all rolled into one. Sir Francis maintained lodging at Gray’s Inn.”

“So then it’s possible that Walter Ralegh took whatever it was that he found in the Templar sanctuary to Gray’s Inn, whereupon he turned it over to Francis Bacon.”

“According to the Enochian communiqué, that’s what Ralegh intended to do. We have no way of knowing if he followed through.” Reaching for a water bottle, he twisted the cap and offered the opened bottle to her.

Edie waved it off. “Perhaps at this juncture I should point out that there’s a lot we don’t know. Particularly since we have no clue as to what this ‘glorious’ relic is. Even if we did know what we’re looking for, we have no idea where to look for it. And, news flash, Sir Walter and Sir Francis died centuries ago.”

“At which time the Templars’ relic was bequeathed to someone. No doubt, someone in that same circle of men.” Seemingly unperturbed, Caedmon took a swig of water.

“Oh, yeah, a completely unknown ‘someone’ should be easy to track down.” Shaking her head, Edie rolled her eyes.

“There’s no need for sarcasm.”

“Hey, one person’s sarcasm is another person’s reality check,” she countered. “In my humble opinion, we just smashed headlong into a concrete barrier.”