The Lost Crown of the Knights Templar

24 Illustratio Antiquis

“Hey, old cock! Look at this amazing scenery,” Purdue grinned. “I wish you and Nina were here!”

The Skype broadcast was not the best, but he had to take Sam’s call in case the journalist had something important to tell him. Purdue had been away from his home at Wrichtishousis, and checked in daily with his personal assistant to make sure he still stayed on top of things on a business front. She had told him that Sam Cleave was looking for him and arranged for a time to make contact. He panned his tablet around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to show Sam the stunning panorama.

“Purdue, we need your help with something,” Sam told him, looking run down and serious. It was not like Sam to get straight to business, so the billionaire knew something was amiss.

“Alright. What is it, Sam?” he asked, while his eyes followed the beautiful shape of the Countess where she wandered.

“Nina is missing,” Sam said. “And it is not the I’m-taking-some-time-out missing, either. She’s been kidnapped, Purdue, and we need to locate the hive of the people who took her. They wish to trade her for a woman I inadvertently got involved with while doing an exposé in the UK.”

“Oh, yes, I know what that is like,” Purdue smiled, not bothering to look at the screen while in conversation with Sam.

“You do?” Sam asked.

“Of course. Getting involved with women that suddenly turn our worlds upside down is always a foolish but delightful endeavor,” Purdue said, still watching the dark-haired beauty use his Subgeo device to scan the grounds of the Temple for her treasure.

Sam was stunned to silence. To make things worse, it seemed that remaining mute did not at all get the attention of his friend. Purdue was completely indifferent to Sam’s plight. It was disturbing to see how apathetic Purdue was to the fact that Nina’s life was in danger.

“Purdue!” Sam shouted. Finally Purdue looked at him on the screen.

“I’m sorry, Sam. What were you saying?” he shrugged in amusement. “I am just a bit distracted. I have a bunch of laborers here to excavate a… a crown… that was said to have belonged to the ancestors of my beautiful consort, Countess Baldwin.”

“Oh, now it all makes sense,” Sam snapped. “You have a new piece of ass and now Nina means nothing.”

“Please, Sam, do not speak of the Countess with such contempt,” Purdue reprimanded him with a darkened countenance that fell over his face like a mask. Something was very wrong with Purdue, but Sam had to keep his composure to keep the good graces of the billionaire, if only to save Nina.

“Sorry,” Sam feigned apology. “What crown is this you are interested in? And where did you meet the lovely Countess?” His dark brown eyes flashed up to those of the the priest, standing in the corner of his office with a cup of tea. Father Harper could hear the conversation, and found himself as concerned about Purdue’s attitude as Sam, but he kept quiet and waited for Sam to beguile his friend into helping them.

“I met her a few nights back at the Bilderberg Conference, Sam. She is a goddess. I cannot wait to introduce you to her!” Purdue cooed. “The crown, she says, once belonged to the high order of the Knights Templar, long after their founding in the 12^th Century. It is said to have been fashioned by the wizards of Solomon to contain power over kingdoms, the likes of which the world has never seen.” Purdue recited the history as if he had known it for years. “But the Templars feared that the crown would promote deadly avarice in any sovereign wearing it. So they stole it during the Second Crusade to hide it from the European kings, Louis VII and Conrad III.”

As one of the best investigative journalists in the world, Sam knew how to seduce the unwilling, and this was the perfect time to employ this particular talent. “That sounds like the kind of relic worthy of your collection, old man,” Sam smiled.

“Oh, but it’s not for me, unfortunately. It belongs to Countess Baldwin. But at least she’s generous enough to have let me in on some global profits. Long story,” he winked suavely.

“You have to send us some pictures,” Sam invited excitedly, while inside him his heart was breaking. Purdue seemed so distant, lost from the rest of the world, just when Sam needed him most.

“I shall!” Purdue chuckled, the hot Jerusalem air whipping his hair.

A female voice called from a distance, “It’s not here, David! It’s not here! Someone must have removed it from the monstrance! Jesus Christ! I’m going to have a goddamn fit if I don’t get what I’m looking for, I promise you!”

Purdue’s eyebrows raised as he looked away from the screen. “Oh God, Sam. I’d better go, my friend. She’s furious!”

“Wait! Wait, Purdue, do you guys need help down there?” Sam asked quickly, using the opportunity wisely. Both Jan Harris and Father Harper perked up at Sam’s sudden decision, waiting with baited breath. They had no idea what Sam was playing at, but both had respectively learned to trust Sam Cleave’s instincts before.

Purdue looked flustered with mild panic, his big pale blue eyes wild as he looked at Sam. “You know, I would actually really appreciate some help, come to think of it.” He looked away at the woman out of the frame. “I’m coming, my dear! Don’t worry. I promised you we would find it.” He looked back at Sam as the woman started ranting and raving like a lunatic. “We are staying at the Citadel,” Purdue said quickly, as the woman’s voice became louder on approach. “Please, by God, hurry.”

The screen went black and the sound ceased with a loud click. Sam slowly looked up at the other two, sitting down at Father Harper’s desk. He shrugged, “I guess we’re going to Jerusalem.”

“Wait a minute, Sam,” Father Harper said. “Has everyone suddenly forgotten about Nina?”

“No,” Jan Harris replied, “but remember that, without Mr. Purdue we’ll have no way of confronting these Templars. Am I right?”

“I’m just concerned about the time we’re wasting,” the priest explained.

Sam came to sit down with them. “I know, Father. I’m aware of the time constraints, but we have to get Purdue. I don’t give two shits about his new girlfriend or the treasure he is after. Once we’re with him, it will be easier to cock his hammer to help us. At this distance, given his obvious obsession with this… Countess… we will not be able to get through to him.”

“Alright,” Harris agreed, “I suppose we leave for Jerusalem in the morning?”

“Aye,” Sam said. “But first we need to know everything about these so-called Templars. Between Father Harper and Nina’s notes, we should be able to gather enough detail about them, right Father?”

The priest looked distraught, but he lifted his cup. “Aye, Sam.”

At once, Sam brought forth the notes Dr. Hooper had given him containing Nina’s observations. He spread out the pages on the desk of the church office, while Father Harper opened the window for some daylight illumination to compliment the lights.

“According to Nina’s notes, each of these cadavers boasted the same sigil, the sigil of the soldiers,” Sam started explaining while Jan Harris filmed him. “But instead of the Templars’ well known emblem, the sigil doesn’t state that these men are soldiers of Christ, just… soldiers.”

“That is accurate,” Father Harper affirmed. “These men are apostates.”

At the quizzical stares of the other two, he felt the need to explain his statement. The large priest leaned on the desk, pointing at the rough sketch Nina had made of the sigils tattooed on the dead bodies.

“Apostates of Christ,” Harris clarified, assuming she had understood correctly. But Father Harper shook his head. His voice was toned down, yet his words seemed to pierce their ears with the intensity of a shofar, echoing through ages of theology.

“Apostates of piety, of religion, and of duty,” he explained. “These are men who have not forgotten the stain on the name of their noble forefathers’ efforts and the barbaric way in which innocent knights had been dispatched — in the name of avarice.”

To Harris it felt as if the whole church hushed for this preacher to speak his doctrines, to tell the story of bygone heroes and their atrocious treatment. She felt her skin crawl with some kind of veneration as Father Harper paced slowly up and down in front of his lit hearth, recounting.

“The bloodlines of the Templar Knights from all across Europe became diluted as more and more branches came into being. For example, Order of Montesa, the Order of Christ, were some of the new sects founded by the kings of Spain and Portugal to protect their Templar Knights by quietly joining into the new orders, ceding Templar lands to them to evade the wrath of their persecutors. By the 16^th Century, all that remained of them, according to popular belief, were some organizations of differing loyalties. Brotherhoods and clandestine allegiances were formed and disbanded as they assimilated, leading to better known affiliates such as the Freemasons.”

“So, that is what Ayer and his men are? Masons?” Sam asked. “But why the practice of stoning that is so common to Middle Eastern faiths?”

“You must do more research, my friends. Do not assume that because a practice is demonized for belonging to an undesirable culture or a threatening race, that that is all they are about. This is precisely the misplaced assumptions that are born from the lack of information, of education, that is perpetuated by the media and popular culture. Not all Muslims are suicidal maniacs. Not all Christians,” he looked hard at Sam, “are pissy and self-righteous hypocrites. Not all hippies are stoners and not all Scots are hard drinkers…” He stopped, shrugging. “Okay, maybe the last one is a bad example.”

Sam smiled, but Jan Harris was too spellbound by the powerful voice and wisdom that came from the attractive priest. “My point is, friends, that just because a woman was to be stoned to death, it does not make her attackers decidedly Islamic, does it? Such crimes have been used during wars throughout ancient history until today, simply because rocks do the trick when men run out of bullets.”

“Jesus,” Harris said.

Both men looked at her, merely because she said something, but at that point, Harris felt guilty just for being feminine. “Sorry.”

Sam smirked, but the need for illumination prompted him to pry some more. “What happened to these bloodlines? Where does Ayer fit in?”

It was time for Father Harper to open a very well guarded book of his past. Even according to his own rule, revealing what he had done before becoming a priest was now a matter of life and death. Sam and Jan had to know what he knew, since their very lives depended on it.

“His full name is Ayer Molay, Sam. He is a distant descendent of one of the original Templar Masters who was burned for heresy in Paris,” the priest revealed. “From what I learned from his father, whom I also had the pleasure of serving with, the accusations of devil worship were a deliberate and wicked misconception brought to aggravate charges against the Templars.”

“Aye, we all heard about the goat they supposedly worshiped,” Sam acknowledged, his fingers knotted into a clumsy canopy in front of him as he took in the information.

“Baphomet,” Harris added. “The goat was called Baphomet. Many say that it is a derivative of Mahommet.”

“Esoteric scholars speculate that the name is Kabbalistic, and when read backwards means the Lord of the Temple,” Father Harper told Harris. He tore a piece of paper from his note pad next to the telephone and wrote in big black letters — ‘TEM OHP AB’.

Outside the stained glass windows, thunder clapped, starling them. Sam guffawed and looked at his companions with a sincere chill. “Speak of the Devil.”