The Lost Treasure of the Templars (31 page)

France

“So, actually, I was right in the first place,” Mallory said, pointing at the sheets of paper lying on the desk. “This really is a treasure map, of a sort, anyway. I mean, it's not actually a map, but it does state that clues were left on the ground to help somebody find these two objects. Are you sure that you're reading the Latin correctly?”

Robin nodded.

“I'm quite sure that I'm right,” she replied. “The text claims that Tibauld provided markers—I suppose that's the best translation—that could be followed if they can be interpreted. That's the obvious meaning of this phrase ‘read the signs to know the path.'”

“Don't forget that there's that one last part of the text we still haven't managed to unscramble,” Mallory said. “Maybe that would tell us exactly where to start looking.”

Robin shook her head. “Actually I think it's the other way round. The last sentence says ‘search for truth at the end of the path to begin anew.' I know that's not specific,
but I think it means we follow the trail Tibauld is supposed to have left and when we find what he concealed we'll also find a clue to allow us to read the last section of the text.”

Robin looked down at the translation she'd prepared. “I'm still puzzled about the way the writer refers to two separate things: the ‘treasure' and the ‘wealth.' Or the ‘assets,' I suppose, would be an alternative translation. But even when they're mentioned in the same sentence, he seems to be making it clear that they are two different things, not two different words being used to describe the same object. And that is peculiar. I think most people would assume that the treasure of the Templar order was also its wealth. I really don't understand why the writer is adamant that the two things are separate.”

“I suppose he could be talking about two different treasures,” Mallory suggested. “In fact, that might be it. Tibauld de Gaudin would have been in charge of the treasure of the Knights Templar in Outremer, the Holy Land. That's the lost treasure of Acre, the hoard that vanished from the historical record in the confusion surrounding the order at the end of the thirteenth century. But they wouldn't have had all their assets in one place. Their main headquarters was in France and it would make sense for the Paris preceptory to hold the bulk of their assets, because that would probably be seen as the most secure and well guarded of all their properties. In 1307, of course, it became very clear that being based in the French capital city offered them no security whatsoever when the king of France turned on them.”

“That's a good point,” Robin conceded, “and you might even be right. But that still doesn't really explain why the writer of this text consistently uses two different words:
treasure
and
wealth
. If he was referring to a cache
of Templar assets secreted away in the Holy Land, and another second group of assets located in France, then I would have expected him to call one ‘Outremer assets' and the other one ‘French assets' or something similar. But whatever these two things are, what we have to do now is to decide what we're going to do about them, bearing in mind what's happened so far with these murderous Italians. Do we really want to get involved any further in following a kind of medieval treasure trail that has already nearly cost us our lives? Twice,” she added.

Robin looked at Mallory.

“There could still be some danger,” he admitted. “We have the original parchment, but those Italians had your computer for long enough to copy the information on it, so the leader of the group could have it on a memory stick in his pocket or have even sent it to his bosses. Of course, they'll have to decipher it, just like us, and until they do they'll have no idea where to look.”

“So, should we carry on? Continue this quest, I suppose you could call it.”

Mallory nodded. “I think so, yes, just keeping our eyes open for these men in black. Apart from anything else, if there's even the slightest chance of finding any part of the Templar treasure, I'd be happy to take a few risks, because the reward could be literally incalculable. My vote, if this discussion is going to be in any way democratic, is that we forge on and see exactly where the trail leads us. What do you think?”

“Oddly enough,” Robin replied, “I agree. Selling antiquarian books is not what you might describe as a high-risk occupation. In fact, it is quite startlingly boring almost all the time, and I've tended to get my kicks not exactly on Route 66, but on the track or in the dojo. It actually makes a pleasant change to be doing something
so completely different. And, as you said, the potential reward makes taking the odd risk definitely worthwhile.”

She stood up and held out her hand.

“We're kind of partners already,” she said, “but let's make it semiofficial. I want to see this through to the end, with you. Equal risk, equal reward.”

Mallory stood up as well and took her hand in a firm grip.

“Sounds like a plan,” he said. “Fifty-fifty. You and me against the world, and especially against any more gun-toting Italians who turn up to try to ruin our day.

“I suppose it's worth saying that I was wrong about one thing,” Mallory added, sitting down. “It looks like this trail is going to take us quite a long way away from France. In fact, I think the first place we have to go is Acre.”

But half an hour later he changed his mind.

“I'm wrong,” he said, leaning back from the desk where he had been alternating between bending over the written translation of the parchment text and staring at information he had culled from the Internet on the screen on his laptop. “I don't think tramping round Acre would help us very much.”

“But we know the treasure was there,” Robin pointed out, “because contemporary accounts show that Pierre de Sevry specifically ordered Tibauld to escape with it by sea. And we also know that he followed those orders, because the next place he turned up was at Sidon, the nearest Templar stronghold to Acre. So why wouldn't going to Acre be helpful? It's the start of the trail.”

“Just because of what happened after the ship left. Within a matter of days or even hours—there's some dispute about the timing—the Mamluk army attacked the Templar fortress, and at the same time the miners
who had tunneled under the foundations of the fort set fire to the piles of wood and other flammable materials they'd stacked in those tunnels. At the height of the battle for the fortress, the foundations gave way and most of the walls collapsed, killing both the attackers and the defenders, and when the dust had settled—literally—the Mamluks overran it and destroyed everything that was left.”

Robin nodded. “I see what you mean. So if Tibauld had left any kind of clue or message anywhere in the fortress, and the parchment suggests that he
did
leave markers to allow somebody to follow the trail, it would almost certainly have been completely obliterated by the time the Mamluk army moved on to its next target. And I suppose the other side of the coin is that it's difficult to think of any good reason why he would have left anything there anyway. He was about to escape the coming massacre in a ship full of women and children and a few chests full of coins and bullion, and when he left the jetty behind the Templar castle that night, he could have had no idea where he was going to end up or what was going to become of the Knights Templar in the Holy Land. It must have been a really depressing voyage to make in those circumstances.”

“So I suppose Sidon would have been the first place Tibauld could have left the treasure of the order or some indication where he was going to hide it,” Mallory said. “Or more accurately, at the Sidon Sea Castle, which is where the Templars had taken refuge, and where Tibauld first made landfall with his strange mixed cargo.”

Robin nodded again. “And that presumably is a castle at Sidon itself, is it? In the city, I mean.”

“Not exactly.”

Mallory opened the search box on his browser again
and typed in “Sidon Sea Castle.” A lot of results were listed, but he clicked on the first entry from Wikipedia.

“This is as good as anything else,” he said, and pointed at the images on the screen. “Sidon is in Lebanon, and it's almost certainly Phoenician in origin, and has probably been occupied since about four thousand BC. When the Templars arrived in the area and decided to use Sidon as one of their bases, they soon realized that the city was far too big to be properly defended by such a relatively small number of knights, so they decided to do a bit of lateral thinking, I suppose you could call it, and they moved their base offshore.

“A very short distance off the coast at Sidon was a small island connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway less than a hundred yards long. When the Templars arrived, all that was on the island were the ruins of a former temple to the Phoenician version of Heracles or Hercules, a mythical figure named Melkart, though it was possible that it had been of much greater importance centuries earlier, perhaps even being the location of a royal palace. The Templars were interested in its strategic value and took it over, building a fortress that covered the entire land area. That gave them a formidable castle that could easily be defended from attack by sea, though that wasn't a common method of assault in those days, while the narrow causeway prevented any large-scale assault from the mainland. It could be defended by quite a small number of determined men, and the Templars were nothing if not determined.

“When Tibauld de Gaudin arrived, he was the most senior Templar knight at Sidon and no doubt the other Templars looked to him to provide leadership and guidance, but as we know that didn't happen. He disembarked the passengers from his ship and very shortly afterward he
set sail to Cyprus, with the laudable intention of raising reinforcements, creating a new Templar army that would sweep back from Cyprus and once and for all rid the Holy Land of the infidels that infested it.”

“And he failed.”

“Exactly. He completely failed to raise reinforcements, probably because just about every fighting man he approached would have realized that the Mamluks were essentially invulnerable, just because of their vast numbers, and to volunteer to fight against them was simply suicidal. Not even mercenary soldiers were interested, no matter what sums of money Tibauld offered them. That, incidentally, is another reason why it's certain the treasure was taken to Cyprus, because if Tibauld de Gaudin hadn't had the funds, he couldn't have even begun approaching any mercenaries. Don't forget, all Knights Templar took a vow of poverty when they joined the order, so Tibauld would have had almost no money of his own. For him to try to recruit mercenary soldiers, he would have had to use Templar assets.”

Robin nodded in slow agreement, then shook her head. “Hang on a minute. If it's certain that Tibauld de Gaudin did take the Templar treasure to Cyprus, is there any real point in going to Sidon, to this castle? We already know there'll be nothing to find there.”

Mallory gestured at the decrypted and translated Latin text.

“You could be right, but I think it's possible that there might be,” he said. “Just look at this sentence in the text that we've just deciphered. ‘The burden conveyed from the Tower of the Flies of Ekron to rest at the fortress on the water.' Ekron was an ancient biblical city believed to be ruled by Baal-zebub, the Lord of the Flies, and for a time the Crusaders believed Acre was Ekron,
hence the name of the tower. It was an important defensive fort on a tiny island at the entrance to the protected harbor at Acre, and would have been the last point that Tibauld de Gaudin's ship would have passed as he left the harbor that night. And the fortress on the water has to mean the Sidon Sea Castle.”

“So that means whatever Tibauld was carrying on board the ship was taken to Sidon,” Robin said, “but then he sailed to Cyprus, didn't he? Why would he have left anything at Sidon?”

“We know he went on to Cyprus. That's in the historical record, but this parchment confirms it, talking about the ‘island of copper.' Nobody knows where the name ‘Cyprus' came from, but in antiquity the island was known to be such a good source of copper that in Classical Latin the metal was referred to as
aes Cyprium
, or ‘metal of Cyprus,' which was later shortened to
cuprum
, and hence
copper
. The probability is that Tibauld knew Cyprus quite well, because he'd been in the area, around the eastern Mediterranean, for some time. And I think that's important because of this reference.”

Mallory pointed at the next translated sentence.

“‘And in that place he marked that place,'” he read out.

“The Latin word is
locus
,” Robin said. “It's got several different meanings, but ‘place' is as good as any.”

“I know, and as it stands that sentence doesn't make too much sense. But pick a couple of alternative meanings and it does. ‘And in that location he marked the spot,' for example. I wonder if Tibauld knew before he set out from the Sidon Sea Castle where he was going to land on the island, and also where he'd find a safe hiding place for the treasure he had been entrusted with. So I think that sentence means he left some kind of mark or
message at Sidon, a statement of his intentions, if you like. That might just have been a precaution, a way of telling the other members of the Knights Templar where the assets were going to be deposited, so that if some accident befell him after he'd arrived on Cyprus, the treasure wouldn't be lost forever.”

“Couldn't he just have told someone what he was going to do with it?” Robin asked.

“He could have, certainly, but he would have known that the Mamluk army was probably already marching toward Sidon. And after seeing what had happened at Acre, I don't think Tibauld would have been happy to entrust his secret to any one Templar, or even to a number of them, because of the very real danger that they would be slaughtered in the battle that was going to take place at Sidon within a few days or weeks. If he was going to provide any information about his intentions, the only safe way to do so would be to create something concrete, something that would endure for centuries, like a carving. It would also have to be meaningless to the Mamluks and only make sense to a fellow Templar, which would be quite a difficult trick to pull off.