The Brotherhood Of The Holy Shroud

41

ANA WOKE UP SCREAMING, HER HEART pounding in her chest as though she were in the middle of battle. But she was in the heart of London, in a room in the Dorchester Hotel. Her temples were throbbing, and she felt the sweat running down her back.

Overwhelmed by a sense of grief and anguish, she got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. Her hair was stuck to her face and her nightgown was soaked through. She pulled it off and stepped into the shower. This was the second time she'd had a nightmare about a battle. If she believed in the transmigration of souls, she'd swear she'd been there, in the fortress of Saint-Jean d'Acre, watching the Templars die to a man. She could describe the face and behavior of Guillaume de Beaujeu and the color of Thibaut Gaudin's eyes. She had been there; she could feel it. She knew those men.

She stepped out of the shower feeling better, and pulled on a T-shirt. She didn't have another nightgown. The bed was soaked with sweat, so she decided to turn on her laptop and surf the Internet awhile.

Professor McFadden's thoughtful explanations, plus the documentation he'd provided on the history of the Templars, had affected her deeply. And he had showered her with details on the fall of Saint-Jean d'Acre- according to him, one of the most bitter days in the order's history.

That was surely why she'd dreamed so vividly of the doomed defense of the fortress, as she'd done when Sofia Galloni told her about the Byzantine troops' siege of Edessa.

Tomorrow she was scheduled to see the professor again. This time she was going to try to get something concrete out of him-something other than colorful stories about the slow fall and terrible deaths of the Templars.