Templar's Quest

65

Mont de la Lune, The Languedoc

0344 hours

Sheep bells jangled in the distance.

Normally a soothing sound, for some reason Cædmon found it jarring. In fact, he found the entire scenario unsettling. The pumpkin moon half hidden in the clouds. The night wind. The intermittent flashes of lightning that preceded the stentorian groans of thunder. And most disturbing of all, the brooding silhouette of Montségur on the northern horizon. Looming. Keeping silent vigil as it had for the last eight hundred years.

I feel like a castaway from a damned Brontë novel.

No sooner did that thought cross his mind than Cædmon tripped on a gnarled tree root that had burst free from the imprisoning terrain.

‘On second thoughts, maybe a screwball comedy,’ he muttered, managing to catch himself in mid-pratfall. Rather than hiking back to Montségur in the dead of night, he probably should have stayed in the mountaintop eyrie. But spurred by his staggering discovery, he was anxious to return to Paris post-haste.

Certain that he heard a branch snap, his ears pricked. Thinking he might not be alone, he dodged behind a pitted boulder.

Had he been followed to Mont de la Lune?

Or was he simply overreacting to the Gothic shadows?

Unnerved, Cædmon skimmed the torch beam across the ravine. Unable to detect any movement in the blotchy moonlight, he suspected the predator lurked only in his imagination and that what he’d heard had been nothing more than the wind bouncing off the granite crenellations.

He glanced at his wristwatch. Three hours until daybreak. Worried that if he continued the trek the tangled matrix of loose rock and uneven terrain might get the better of him, he scoured the vicinity. The prudent course would be to catch a few hours sleep and hike back to the village of Montségur at first light. He could then collect his hire car, drive to Marseille and catch the northbound train for Paris. No sense wandering the moors like the poor bedevilled Heathcliff.

Espying a cantilevered overhang, Cædmon trudged in that direction, sidestepping a thicket of hawthorn bushes. He tucked the torch into his jacket pocket, freeing his hands so he could climb on to the stone slab.

As good a bed as any, he decided. An alpine meadow would have been better but he didn’t relish sleeping with a mob of burly sheep. Slipping his rucksack off his shoulder, he carefully set it down, mindful of the precious cargo nestled in the bottom. Parched, he retrieved his water bottle. Down to my last quarter litre. When added to the hunk of stale bread and a wedge of warm cheese wrapped in a tea towel, it made for a meagre supper.

Cædmon raised the water bottle to his lips. As he did, he heard the crunch of dried underbrush. Before his brain could process the meaning of that telltale sound, a bullet struck the side of his skull.

He spun to the left. Hit with an excruciating burst of pain.

The next bullet slammed into his upper arm. Hurling him up and over the ledge.

He crash-landed in a hawthorn bush, the branches instantly clamping around him, like the sharp maw of a predatory beast.

A torrent of warm blood flowed across his face, blurring his vision. Cædmon could taste it. Ash in the mouth. Certain death.

‘Poor Siegfried,’ the gunman jeered, standing at the edge of the stone slab. ‘The Valkyries await you at the gates of Valhalla.’

With that, the bastard took his leave, the rucksack with the Lapis Exillis slung over his shoulder.

Horrified, Cædmon railed against the death sentence. He tried to move, but couldn’t, his body shocked into paralysis. Trapped in the void between heaven and hell, the moon and stars whirled overhead in an off-kilter precession. No sun. Only dark of night.

Lying in that thorny nest, his cheek slathered in his own blood, Cædmon could feel the life force leach from him. The branches of the hawthorn rustled violently, the wind squalling through the ravine; a requiem composed by the winged Zephyrus, accompanied by the harsh jangle of distant sheep bells.

Send not to know for whom the bell tolls …