The Lost Treasure of the Templars (38 page)

“They're in the hotel,” he confirmed, “and my guess is that they won't be leaving tonight. It looks to me as if they're making plans for tomorrow. They've got a guidebook open in front of them and they're studying what I think is a topographical chart, but I wasn't close enough to confirm that. So my guess is that they'll make an early start tomorrow.”

“They're working out where to start looking,” Toscanelli said.

“Exactly. Nico can do the overnight surveillance, because I need to eat something and get some sleep. I'll be back here, covering the hotel, tomorrow morning no later than six.”

Cyprus

The castle was located on the northern side of the Kyrenia Mountains, and Robin had worked out that probably the fastest way to get there was to retrace their route of the previous evening and head back toward Larnaca and the south coast of the island, then head up into the mountains when they were on the south side of the range.

Once they left the main road, their driving slowed as the narrow road wound its way up the steep side of the mountain and around hairpin bends, gaining height all the time. Mallory could see at least three cars in front of them, and about the same number behind, together with a couple of motorcycles.

“According to this guidebook,” Robin said as they drove through some kind of military area, following the signs directing them toward Saint Hilarion, “the best time to visit the castle is early in the morning—as we're doing now—and before most of the coach parties begin arriving. Apparently it's very popular with Russians, for some
reason, and they tend to arrive en masse. It's a big place, by all accounts, but it can get very crowded during the tourist season. Which I suppose is more or less right now.”

Mallory nodded. “If this level of traffic is anything to go by, this early in the morning, the guidebook is probably right. With any luck, we'll be able to take a quick look round before it gets too crowded. And once we've done that, we'll have a much better idea—I hope—about where we
should
be looking.”

“Because wherever the treasure is,” Robin finished for him, “it won't be anywhere that's visited by tourists, obviously.”

“Exactly. It's certainly a hell of a long way up,” Mallory said, swinging the car round yet another tight corner. “I think when I looked at the history of the place it was reckoned to be almost impregnable.”

“That's right,” Robin said, looking again at the guidebook. “Obviously no castle can ever withstand a siege indefinitely, but Saint Hilarion's Castle did a lot better than most. It was one of the last fortifications on the island to fall to the Knights Templar when they arrived here at the end of the twelfth century, and about forty years later it became the stronghold of the Lusignan king Henry the First in his conflict with the Holy Roman emperor Frederick the Second, and it held out for four years, though it wasn't besieged for that entire time. When there was finally an outbreak of peace in the thirteenth century, a lot of rebuilding work was done on the castle, and it became a summer residence for the rulers of the island.

“But the most destructive enemy the castle faced never actually laid siege to it. When the Venetians took control of Cyprus late in the fifteenth century, they concentrated their defenses down on the coast, at fortifications like
Kyrenia Castle, near where we stayed last night, and ignored the forts located higher up. It's possible that they actually began dismantling Hilarion and the sister castles of Kantara and Buffavento, apparently to save the cost of providing a garrison for each of them.”

Mallory nodded. “And that's another reason why it'll be a waste of time looking in the obvious places in the castle, because if the Venetians even partially dismantled it, they would certainly have found the treasure if it had been placed anywhere within the structure. That is if the hoard hadn't already been found when the place was being rebuilt and expanded.”

“And I didn't know this,” Robin said. “The castle became a stronghold again, but much more recently. In the nineteen sixties it was used as the headquarters of the Turkish Cypriots, and they put a small garrison there that managed to defend the place against attacks by EOKA. That was the Greek paramilitary force that was trying to drive out the British as well as the Turks and basically make Cyprus a part of Greece. And another decade later, it became the center of a fight for control of the pass that runs through these mountains. It's obviously seen more than its fair share of conflict over the centuries, and that must mean that the castle has been thoroughly explored by almost everybody involved.”

Robin closed the guidebook and stared through the windshield at the narrow ribbon of road unrolling in front of the car.

“And you still think it's worth carrying on?” she asked. “In view of its history, are you sure that we're not just wasting our time?”

“I can't be certain of that, no, but I still think that if the treasure had been found, there would be some report about it, somewhere. And I also think that Tibauld de
Gaudin wasn't a stupid man. He would have known that the castle of Saint Hilarion, just like any other castle, would very probably be besieged at some point, and might even be taken by enemy forces, and so the last thing he would have done would be to secrete the treasure anywhere that it was likely to be found. I think he probably concealed it near enough to Hilarion so that the castle became a kind of marker, but far enough away that you would have to know exactly where to look to discover it.”

“So, how do we find out where to look?”

Mallory shrugged and grinned at her.

“I've said that I don't know so often since we began this that it's almost become my motto,” he replied. “I'm hoping that once we've had a look at the castle itself and the surrounding area, we might have an idea where to start. When we've done that, we'll take another look at the pictures I took of that piece of graffiti in Sidon and see if it makes any more sense. I suppose the one advantage we do have is that, assuming what's written on that old piece of parchment is correct, at least we know there
is
something here to find, even if we don't know exactly where to look for it. Without that single piece of information, I suppose it's at least possible that nobody has ever come up here looking for the Templar treasure. That's not much of a plan, I know, but right now it's all I've got.”

At the fork in the road, Mallory swung the car right, following the signs for the castle, though he hardly needed them: the battlements and crenelated walls that adorned the top of the mountain were clearly visible. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, a pointed peak surmounted by an ancient Disneyesque castle.

There weren't many parking spaces at the end of the
road below the sprawling outline of the castle, and although they were early Mallory didn't want to get boxed in by other visitors, so he turned the rental car around and stopped it about fifty yards down the road, pulling off onto the stony verge on the left-hand side.

Then he turned off the engine and for a few moments they both sat there staring through the side windows at the ancient ruin that stretched up to the peak above them.

“It's much bigger than I thought it was going to be,” Mallory said. “I'd kind of envisaged something a bit like the Sidon Sea Castle, a fairly compact fortification.”

“You can probably describe this place in lots of different ways,” Robin replied, “but ‘compact' certainly isn't one of the words that immediately springs to mind.”

Mallory glanced back, toward the end of the road. Drivers of other cars were maneuvering their vehicles into the marked parking places or choosing spots beside the road, as he had just done. There were a couple of buildings there, one of which obviously contained a café, and presumably a section where admission tickets could be purchased, and probably a gift shop as well, the Turks not missing an opportunity to capitalize upon a captive audience.

“According to this book,” Robin said, “the climb up to the top of the castle takes about an hour, and it's pretty steep, but apparently the views are really spectacular.”

Mallory nodded.

“If we were here on holiday,” he said, “I'd suggest we should do just that, climb all over the place taking pictures that we'd probably never look at again, exactly like tourists everywhere. But I think the one thing we can be certain about is that the treasure isn't anywhere that a person buying a ticket is going to be able to visit. So actually visiting the castle is going to be a complete waste
of time and effort, not to mention bloody hard work, from the sound of it.”

Robin smiled at him. “You're just a cheapskate, too mean to buy a ticket.”

“Not really. Just to prove it, I'll buy you a coffee and a cake or something in that café back there, and I'll find the best book about this place that the gift shop has to offer. Wandering about here is going to be pointless until we've got some idea of the layout.”

He took his computer bag out of the trunk and locked the car, and then they walked back along the road until they came to the entrance to the gift shop. There were numerous guides to the castle on the shelves, written in about a dozen different languages. Mallory flicked through them and selected a volume containing two different maps, one showing the layout and structure of the castle itself, while the other was a detailed topographical chart of that section of the mountain range. He bought the book and they walked into the café.

The temperature was already starting to climb up outside, and instead of coffee they both decided that a couple of glasses of cold fresh lemonade would hit the spot rather better, accompanied by two generous slices of baklava. Once they'd finished eating, he moved the plates to one side and opened the first of the maps, the one showing details of the castle. The extensive structure seemed to be divided into three main areas. At the very top, nestling between the twin peaks that formed the summit of the mountain, was the upper ward. This contained the remains of the royal apartments and King John's tower, and was the ultimate destination of most visitors because of the spectacular views it offered over the north coast of Cyprus.

Below that was the middle ward, where there were further royal apartments and a number of other structures including Saint Hilarion's Chapel, the gatehouse, and the Belvedere, the name deriving from Italian and simply meaning a structure designed to take advantage of a particularly fine view. The lowest section of all, predictably enough called the lower ward, was delineated by the impressive wall that dominated the landscape close to the approach road, and which also contained one of the entrance gates and the barbican.

“And a barbican is what, exactly?” Mallory asked, pointing at the label on the map.

“It just means a fortified gate or entrance,” Robin replied. “They were a common feature of castles and fortified towns in the Middle Ages, and they were usually positioned just outside the main wall to act as a first line of defense for the gateway, the weakest point in the defensive wall. The barbican was normally linked to the main wall by a short corridor protected by thick walls, usually referred to as the ‘neck,' so that if the enemy forces seemed to be gaining the upper hand, the defenders could leave the barbican and get back inside the city or castle and continue the fight from there. They fell out of use during the fifteenth century because of changes in siege tactics and the kind of heavy weapons that had started to become available then.”

They continued studying the map for several more minutes, but nothing struck them as being particularly significant. The whole structure had clearly been built, rebuilt, demolished, and built up again over roughly half a millennium beginning in the tenth century, and as Mallory had believed all along, if the Templar treasure had been hidden away anywhere within the grounds of the
castle, somebody would certainly have found it during that period.

“Interesting, but not helpful,” he said, folding the map and tucking it into the sleeve inside the back cover of the book. “Let's take a look at the general area, and see if inspiration strikes us then.”

He took out the second map and spread it out on the table where they were sitting. It was much more comprehensive and detailed than the topographical chart of the island that they had bought back in Larnaca, and just showed that section of the Kyrenia range where the castle was located. Again they studied the markings and details, but without seeing anything that seemed important.

“It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, to use a cliché,” Robin said, “when you're not actually sure you're looking in the
right
haystack.”

Mallory stood up and felt in his pocket for some coins. “Would a coffee help?” he asked.

“It certainly wouldn't hurt. White, no sugar, and not too strong, if that's possible, bearing in mind we're in Turkey.”

A few minutes later Mallory carried the drinks over to the table and sat down again.

“Let's have another look at the pictures you took at the Sidon Sea Castle,” Robin suggested. “Maybe that will generate some kind of spark.”

Mallory quickly had the laptop running and they studied each of the images that he had taken of the symbol scratched on the wall of the old Templar fortification, displaying them on the screen one after the other.

“There are a few other marks on the stone,” Mallory commented. “I can see those inverted V shapes underneath it, and the V lying on its side, but I have no idea
what their significance is, or even if they're just a few random shapes scratched on it by somebody centuries later.”

“I don't know,” Robin said thoughtfully, studying the new picture on the screen. “Hang on a minute,” she continued as Mallory pressed the key to display the next image. “Go back one.”

She stared at the picture again, then nodded.

“You've seen something?” Mallory asked.

“I don't know, but I was just wondering if there might be some significance in the positioning of the letters.”

“Which letters? Oh, you mean the
SOIM
and
TBLD
?”

“Yes.” Robin pointed at the picture on the screen. “If we're right—and after all this I hope to God we are—I still think it's a bit peculiar that the abbreviated form of Tibauld should be positioned in the lower half of what you think is the
Beauseant
. After all, he had been a senior member of the Knights Templar for several years, and by the time this inscription was carved, he was the grand master, the leader of the order. So if his name was going to be put on the
Beauseant
, I would have expected it to be at the top of the flag.”