Templar's Code

CHAPTER 41

When you have one of the first brains of Europe against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities.

“A first brain! The Englishman is vlakas, I tell you! An archimalakas! The chief of assholes!”

While Mercurius could not say whether Caedmon Aisquith merited the damning praise that Sherlock Holmes had heaped upon his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, it was obvious that the man was no idiot. Far from it.

“Do you want me to go to London?”

“And confront the powers of darkness?” he countered, injecting a touch of humor into his voice.

“You often tell me to look to the Light.”

“So I do,” he murmured.

You must always remember, little one, that you were named for the Bringer of the Light.

Do not fear the Light, Merkür. For it will lead you to your life’s purpose.

Faced with a conundrum, Mercurius said, “Let me think on this, amoretto. I will call you back in a few minutes.”

Hanging up the telephone, Mercurius wandered into the kitchen.

For sixty years, he’d been haunted by the parting remarks of his father, Osman de Léon, and his milk brother, Moshe Benaroya. And because he’d been haunted, when he was sixty-five years of age, he finally returned to the city of his birth, Thessaloniki. To confront the horror of that spring night when the Nazis loaded the two men onto a train bound for Auschwitz.

From the grungy window of the airport taxi, he’d caught his first glimpse of the city, disappointed to see that it had changed greatly in the intervening years. Where once there had been graceful cypress trees, there were now garish billboards that advertised everything from yogurt to motorcycles. And blocks of hideous postwar apartment buildings. To someone who’d grown up with the lavish architecture of the fin de siècle, it seemed relentlessly dreary.

Although once he arrived in the city, there were familiar sights and sounds. Modiano Market with tables piled high with oranges, figs, tomatoes, and fresh-cut flowers. The bouzouki music that emanated from the tavernas. The clusters of men with their newspapers and clacking worry beads.

The first two nights he stayed at a downtown hotel where he endured the constant roar of traffic outside his window. Needing his sleep, he checked out of the pricey hotel and headed for the old Turkish quarter near the Byzantine walls. There, he rented an unadorned flat in a whitewashed building. He slept blissfully that night, awaking the next morning to a breakfast of feta cheese, olives, and crusty bread. Refreshed of mind and body, he set off to find the house where he’d lived the first seven years of his life.

He found it easily enough, taken aback to see a crone mopping the marble stoop. Black shawl. Black hose. Black shoes. White hair. So much like their old housekeeper, Cybele, that he nearly called out her name. Instead, he respectfully doffed his beret—an affectation he’d adopted as a much younger man—and introduced himself, explaining that his family once owned the house.

The crone eyed him suspiciously, then said curtly, “Did you know the Jew named Moshe Benaroya?”

If she’d asked if he’d known Atatürk, he would not have been more surprised. Now his turn to be suspicious, he warily nodded his head.

“Perimenete!” she ordered, gesturing for him to wait outside while she scurried into the house. A few minutes later she appeared, carrying what looked to be a loose-leaf manuscript of several hundred pages bound with string. “We found this under the floorboards in one of the bedrooms.” She thrust the bundle at him before impatiently shooing him on his way. “Fighe!”

He took no offense at her brusque manner, too stunned to be insulted.

By all that was holy . . . she’d just handed him a treasure trove.

One week later, he went to Agía Sophía, a magnificent Orthodox church that had been constructed in the eighth century, to photograph the ceiling mosaics. He’d just finished photographing the famous ascension mosaic in the central dome. Not yet acclimated to the heat, he sat down in a wooden chair.

No more than a few moments had passed when a shadow fell over him.

He glanced up, taken aback to see a young man standing beside his chair. There was a halo of light surrounding the youth’s dark head. He blinked several times. Noticed the small details. That the young man wore tight jeans and too much cologne. But, oh, that face . . .

Suddenly, he was very much aware of being a mature man in a tailored wool suit.

Without asking permission, the young man sat in the chair next to him.

Leery, Mercurius clutched his soft-sided attaché to his chest. Afraid that a thief might make off with the incredible manuscript, he’d taken to carrying it with him. He learned his lesson years earlier at the Archaeology Museum in Amman.

Oblivious to the sanctity of the church, the young man nonchalantly said, “Would you like to fuck me up the ass? For you, I’ll give a discount.”

Mercurius didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He relaxed the tight hold on his attaché. “No, but I would like to take you to the patisserie on the other side of the square.” In truth, he feared a church priest might overhear the profane young man.

The beautiful youth accepted the invitation with a bored shrug. Together, they walked across Agía Sophía Square.

“The Christians held a thanksgiving service in this square when the Allies liberated the city from the Germans,” he remarked. The comment elicited another bored shrug.

Although it was a hot day, they sat outside at a bistro table, shaded by a colorful umbrella. Possessed of a ravenous appetite, Saviour ate not one, but two, slices of almond cake piled high with chocolate shavings. Mercurius refrained—doctor’s orders—and, instead, sipped unsweetened coffee from a demitasse. No sooner did Saviour wipe the plate clean than he suggested they leave. Intrigued by the young man, Mercurius led him to the old section of town.

As they approached the towering Byzantine walls, the streets became narrow, more precipitous, the old district set on a hillside that overlooked the harbor. Inexplicably animated, he pointed to a waterless fountain. “When I was a young boy, I once saw the ghost of a whirling dervish twirling in that fountain, arms spread to the heavens as water spewed between his lips.” A moment later, he gestured to a row of shops. “Before the war, that used to be an olive grove. Until the Italians mistook it for a military target and bombed it.”

“The Italians can’t hit porcelain when they piss,” the young man contemptuously sneered.

Standing in the shadow cast by the ancient walls that had once fortified the Byzantine city, he showed Saviour several places in the wall that had been repaired with marble tombstones from the desecrated Sephardi cemetery. Removed from the necropolis when the Greeks went on a wild rampage searching for Jewish treasure.

Whether it was the burst of melancholy induced by that somber reminder of the past or the fact that he’d given up jogging years ago, Mercurius came to a sudden halt. Breathless, his sixty-five-year-old heart wildly raced.

“We must rest,” his companion abruptly declared, taking hold of Mercurius’s elbow as he ushered him to a marble stoop.

They sat side by side on the steps, the air fragranced with the scent of honeysuckle and mimosa.

“Tell me, why did you leave Thessaloniki? I left once. I couldn’t wait to return.” As he spoke, Saviour bent down to pet a stray cat that had impudently rubbed against his lower leg. When the cat began to lick the same fingers that Saviour had earlier licked at the patisserie, the young man smiled, clearly enjoying the feline’s antics.

Mercurius found himself, again, breathless. This time for a wholly different reason.

Hit with a sudden impulse to make a connection with the youth, he proceeded to tell Saviour about the remarkable friendship between a Muslim Ma’min and a Jewish Kabbalist. To his surprise, the youth listened to the tale with rapt attention.

“As soon as the war ended, my family moved to America. None of us knew about the hidden manuscript.”

“Is that what’s inside your attaché?” the youth astutely inquired.

He hesitated only a brief second before unbuckling his leather attaché and removing the loose-leaf manuscript that had been given to him a few days prior. He noticed the awestruck expression on Saviour’s face when he saw the cover sheet with its exquisite illuminated gold star.

“The manuscript, titled the Luminarium, is dedicated to my father. With the tip of his index finger, Mercurius underscored the handwritten dedication: To my dear brother, Osman. The courage of a lion, the gentleness of the lamb.

“Me, I like to read Westerns. What is this Luminarium about?”

Mercurius contemplated whether to give the long answer or the abbreviated one. He decided on the latter, not wanting to bore his companion with the history of Judaic mysticism.

“It’s s a book about Creation and how the world came into being ex nihilo.” The young man’s brow wrinkled. “Out of nothing,” he clarified.

What Mercurius didn’t tell the young man, at least not then, was that when the crone had unceremoniously shoved Moshe’s manuscript into his hands, it was the Third Sign. Validation that he was the chosen one, his destiny intertwined with the stunning revelations contained within the Luminarium.

Another seven years would pass before the Fourth Sign, the final one, was revealed to him.

“Why hide it? Maybe if he’d published it, your Moshe could have made some money.”

“Moshe Benaroya had to hide the Luminarium to ensure its survival. During the war the Nazis sent the Sonderkommando Rosenberg to Thessaloniki to plunder the sacred Jewish texts. While the Nazis loathed the Jews, they were fascinated with their mystical teachings.”

“Like the Nazis who tried to find the Ark of the Covenant in the Indiana Jones movie.”

Mercurius suppressed an amused smile. “Exactly so. Afraid that the ancient teachings would be confiscated by the Germans, Moshe carefully hid the Luminarium.”

Saviour lifted a shoulder. “It doesn’t look ancient,” he said dismissively.

This time, Mercurius did smile, the young man no fool. “The Luminarium is the first written transcription of ancient teachings that had been deemed too holy to ever transcribe. For millennia, these sacred teachings were verbally passed from one Kabbalist to the next. Moshe Benaroya, fearing that no Jewish Kabbalists would survive the war, did the unthinkable: He put pen to paper and recorded the Luminarium. The manuscript contains many secrets and”—he leaned closer to the youth and lowered his voice to a soft whisper—“it describes a sacred relic that the Jews of Spain gave to the Knights Templar.”

Hearing that, Saviour’s brown eyes opened wide. “This relic, it’s made of gold and silver, ne?”

“Something far more valuable than gold and silver. Although when the Inquisition arrested the knights in the fourteenth century, the sacred relic had mysteriously disappeared.” As he spoke, Mercurius realized that the sun had nearly vanished in the western sky, leaving a pink blush in its wake. They’d been conversing for hours.

“So you are the only person in the world who knows the secret.”

“No, Saviour. Now there are two of us.”

That was seven years ago.

Mercurius feared that someone else might now be privy to the secret.

As he lifted the telephone from its cradle, Mercurius ponderously sighed. London, that great cesspool.

Or so claimed Dr. Watson.