Templar's Code

CHAPTER 15

It’s been said that every great treasure hunt starts with a centuries-old rumor. My hunt is no different. Flashback five years ago to when I was a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University. That was the year I had an internship with the department chair, Dr. Cyrus Proctor, an expert on American Indian archaeology. A groundbreaking ceremony doesn’t take place in Rhode Island until Dr. Proctor has examined the site to determine if it has any cultural significance. God help the commercial developer if Dr. Proctor finds Native American artifacts buried in the soil. But I digress.

As fate would have it, I was sitting in Dr. Proctor’s office grading midterm exams the day that a middle-aged Indian dude walks in unannounced. The dude tells Dr. Proctor that his name is Tonto Sinclair—yeah, Tonto, I kid you not—and that he needs help tracking down Yawgoog’s treasure, Yawgoog being a mythic Narragansett folk hero. A scary-looking dude, Tonto had the word red-blooded tattooed across his knuckles. It didn’t take much to imagine him all done up in war paint with a tomahawk in one hand and a bloody scalp in the other. Anyway, Tonto produces a gold coin supposedly minted in the Middle Ages and a photograph of a large boulder carved with a medieval battle standard. He said the gold coin and the boulder were gifts from Yawgoog to the Narragansett tribe. Needless to say, Tonto had my undivided attention.

Not nearly as impressed, Dr. Proctor dismissed both items, claiming the gold ingot could be purchased on eBay, and the carved rock, which he’d seen before, was part of an eighteenth-century colonial hoax. Pronouncement made, Dr. Proctor sent Tonto packing.

For the next five years the incident haunted me. I kept thinking, What if there really was a treasure hidden in Rhode Island? Determined to answer that question, my first task was to research this Yawgoog character. To that end, I tracked down the Indian dude, Tonto Sinclair. Mistakenly thinking I was there to help the Narragansett find their lost treasure, Sinclair regaled me with the Yawgoog legends. While I’m no folklore expert, it was obvious the Narragansett Indians look upon Yawgoog as some sort of man-god. A couple of the tales in particular snared my attention. Like the one about Yawgoog, decked out in an apron, constructing a stone bridge across a river. Or Yawgoog hanging out in a cave large enough to house a small tribe. And last, but not least, Yawgoog liked to ride around on big whales.

Pleased to be taken seriously, Tonto took me out to the middle of the Arcadia Management Area, a wilderness preserve in the southwestern part of the state. First he takes me to see Yawgoog’s stone bridge. And, yeah, it’s a bridge made of stone ledges that spans a raging river. Then he shows me this big-ass freestanding boulder, which he claims had been carved by Yawgoog.

Man, imagine my surprise when I saw a cross pattée, the famed Templar cross, prominently carved on the boulder.

And that’s when it hit me—Yawgoog had been a Knights Templar.

Wearing an incredulous expression, Edie abruptly shut off the digital voice recorder.

“Can that possibly be true?”

“I believe the tale has merit,” Caedmon replied. “But where it’s headed is unclear. If the Knights Templar did make landfall in Rhode Island in 1307, they would have been technically more advanced than the native peoples. Which explains why Yawgoog had been deemed a man-god.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that. But how in the world did a Knights Templar get the strange moniker ‘Yawgoog’?” Holding the sake bottle aloft, Edie silently inquired if he wanted a refill.

Caedmon wistfully stared at the proffered bottle. A fondness for alcohol was a burden borne by many ex-intelligence officers. An expedient way to soften the violent memories. And his memories were more violent than most. Five years ago the Real Irish Republican Army detonated a bomb in a crowded London tube station. He’d lost the woman he loved in that blast. Out for revenge, he used his MI5 resources to track down the RIRA leader who masterminded the attack, gunning him down on a Belfast street corner.

That act of cold-blooded vengeance did nothing to assuage his pain. Plunged into a state of inconsolable grief, he spent months in an inebriated state. Until his taskmasters at Thames House forced him to dry out.

Although tempted, Caedmon shook his head, declining the refill. Edie knew nothing of his battles with alcohol. Easier to remain silent than make the shameful confession.

“The name Yawgoog might possibly be a butchered pronunciation of a medieval French name,” he said in answer to Edie’s question. “Curious name aside, I’m intrigued by the notion of Yawgoog donning an apron to build a stone bridge.”

“That caught my attention, too. Didn’t medieval stonemasons wear aprons?”

He nodded. “A leather apron was used to carry the tools of the trade, the mallet and chisel. And a sturdy apron protected the mason from flying chips and stone dust. But there’s also an ancient tradition of mystical adherents donning an apron. In its esoteric guise, the apron symbolizes purity.”

“Probably because it covers the lower portion of the body,” Edie correctly deduced.

“In the Old Testament, the Levite high priest wore an apron as part of his ceremonial attire. The ephod, as it was called, had to be donned before the high priest could stand before the Ark of the Covenant.”

In the process of raising a piece of sushi to her lips, Edie’s eyes opened wide as she dropped the tasty tidbit onto the plastic container. “Well that’s an interesting factoid. Certainly throws Yawgoog’s apron into a whole new light, huh?”

“While it doesn’t bring us any closer to finding that most sacred of relics, it is a curious coincidence.”

“Change of subject,” Edie said abruptly, picking up the abandoned piece of sushi. “Lovett said that Yawgoog liked to ride around on a whale. I’m thinking that might be a quaint Indian description for a Templar ship, which, size-wise, would be comparable to a humpback whale.”

“How very astute.” An unusual mix of Victorian grace and quirky modernity, Edie Miller also possessed a nimble mind. All of which engaged his heart, his brain, and various other organs. And not infrequently at the same time.

Always intrigued by an intellectual conundrum, Caedmon got up from the sofa and walked over to the CD player on the other side of the living room. Opening a clear plastic case, he removed Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies. Music helped to hone his thoughts. His belly full, his mental pencil was in need of sharpening.

His dinner companion theatrically rolled her eyes. “Any excuse to play drippy piano music. That particular CD makes me feel like a character in a French film. You know the character I’m talking about, the one who only wears black, smokes way too many cigarettes, and speaks in existentialese.”

“You forgot to mention the beret.”

He assumed the jibe had to do with the fact that he lived nearly four thousand miles away in Paris. While he was content with the arrangement, he suspected that Edie had reservations. As for their professional relationship, she ably assisted in his research from a distance via e-mail, fax, and text messaging.

“It’s kind of morbid, listening to a dead man’s voice. Lovett’s so conversational, it’s like he’s right here with us.”

“Indeed.” He glanced at the digital voice recorder, a twenty-first-century memento mori.

“So what do you think of Lovett’s theory so far?”

Caedmon took a moment to consider his reply. Then, of two minds, he said, “The man was either brilliant or out-and-out bonkers.”