The Templar legacy

NON NOBIS DOMINE

"What does it say?" she asked.

"'Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give the glory. Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.' It's the Templar motto."

"So it's true. This is it."

Mark said nothing.

"May God forgive me," she whispered.

"God has little to do with this. Man created this mess and it's up to man to clean it up." He motioned farther down the passage with his light. "Look there."

She stared into the halo and saw a metal grille-a gate-that opened into another passage.

"Is that where everything is stored?" she asked.

Not waiting for an answer, she moved around him and had taken only a few steps when she heard Mark cry out, "No."

Then the ground slipped away.

MALONE STARED AT THE SIGHT ILLUMINATED BY THEIR COMBINED lights. A skeleton. Lying prostrate on the cavern floor, the shoulders, neck, and skull propped up against the wall.

"Let's get closer," he said.

They inched ahead and he noticed a slight depression in the floor. He grasped Cassiopeia's shoulder.

"I see it," she said, stopping. "It's a long one. Stretches a couple of yards."

"Those damn pits would have been invisible in their time, but the wood beneath has weakened enough to show them." They moved around the depression, staying on solid ground, and approached the skeleton.

"There's nothing left but bones," she said.

"Look at the chest. The ribs. And the face. Shattered in places. He fell into that trap. Those gashes are from spikes."

"Who is he?"

Something caught his eye.

He bent down and found a blackened silver chain among the bones. He lifted it out. A medallion dangled from the loop. He focused the light. "The Templar seal. Two men on a single horse. It represented individual poverty. I saw a drawing of this in a book a few nights ago. My bet is this is the marshal who wrote the report we've been using. He disappeared from the abbey once he learned the solution to the cryptogram from the priest Gelis. He came, figured out the solution, but wasn't careful. Sauniere probably found the body and just left him here."

"But how would Sauniere have figured anything out? How did he solve the cryptogram? Mark let me read that report. According to Gelis, Sauniere had not solved the puzzle he found in his church and Gelis was suspicious of him, so he told Sauniere nothing."

"That's assuming what the marshal wrote was true. Either Sauniere or the marshal killed Gelis to keep the priest from telling anyone what he'd deciphered. If it was the marshal, which seems likely, then he filed the report simply as a way to cover his tracks. A way for no one to think he left the abbey to come here and find the Order's Great Devise for himself. What did it matter that he recorded the cryptogram? There's no way to solve the thing without the mathematical sequence."

He turned his attention away from the dead man and shone his light farther down the passage. "Look at that."

Cassiopeia stood and together they saw a cross with four equal arms, wide at the ends, carved into the rock.

"The cross patee," she said. "Allowed to be worn only by the Templars thanks to a papal decree."

He recalled more of what he'd read in the Templar book. "The crosses were red on a white mantle and symbolized a willingness to suffer martyrdom in fighting infidels." With his flashlight, he traced the lettering above the cross.