"You will answer to His Holiness," someone said. "His Holiness does King Philip's bidding," the bailie replied.

With this pronouncement we were roughly shoved and dragged outside, placed in ass-drawn carts and taken away from the Temple and into a night illuminated by a waning moon. The darkness that gripped my spirit was without even this poor light, for the charges made against us were so far from the realm of truth as to be the product of certain perjury. My only consolation was that many of my brothers had been forewarned that very afternoon and I had witnessed their escape.

I could but ponder if the king's men had found the document or if it was still safe in its hiding place. Mere possession of such a writing could have condemned us all.

I knew not whence we were being taken but I had little hope for what would happen once we arrived. I was well aware of the treatment accorded witches, sorcerers and heretics. The heaviest part to bear, though, was that I had just gained the hurtful knowledge in the cave that redemption was not certain. In my own heart, I was a heretic more virulent than had I been guilty as charged.

Translator's Notes

1. Over the two centuries of their existence, the Templars had been given vast estates, most of which contained serfs. Each Temple so invested thereby became a feudal landlord.

2. Though not suitable for motorized vehicles, the course of this old Roman road is quite ascertainable. The first attempt at an accurate survey of France (1733-1789, undertaken by the father and son Jacques and Cesar-François Cassini de Thury) shows it as the main access to the area.

3. Parts of Spain were occupied by the Moors, Berbers, until 1492, although at the time of Pietro's writing Andalus, not Catalonia, was the province under Moslem rule.

4. There was no standard size for the manuscripts monks copied by hand, but a good guess in comparison to the average size would be sixty centimeters by forty and perhaps thirty thick.

5. The writer uses the Latin in situ, meaning the original or natural position. Since a carved block of stone is hardly natural or original, the translator has taken a liberty in departing from the original text.

6. Medieval monastic orders frequently had rules of the order prohibiting running, hurrying or other rash conduct that was not conducive to an air of contemplation in the monastery itself. Whether this was true of the Temple is unknown. Perhaps Pietro is thinking about the former monastery.

7. The Black Death, bubonic plague, which wiped out nearly a third of Europe, was still fifty years in the future. More limited outbreaks were not unknown in Pietro's time.

8. Jacques de Molay, Master of the Order 1293-1314. De Molay had, only three years before he succeeded in having Pope Boniface VIII grant the Order exemptions from taxation in England by directive to Edward I, had been given a papal promise that the "moveable goods of the Order will never be seized by secular jurisdiction, nor will their immovables ever be wasted or destroyed."

9. The chapter house was the room where the various chapters of the rules of the Order were read to the brothers and such business matters as concerned the Order were discussed.

10. The original draft of the complete charges, eighty-seven in number, is preserved in the Tresor des Chartres and includes various forms of idolatry such as animal worship and imbuing the Grand Master with the ability to forgive sins.

Part Four

CHAPTER ONE

1

London, Piccadilly

0530 hours

Lang's internal clock woke him. For that one instant, yesterday was as ephemeral as the dream he could no longer remember. Pegasus and the Templars were some living nightmare he expected to vanish like smoke. In their home in Atlanta, Janet and Jeff were getting ready for work and school. Lang needed to check his electronic notebook for the day's appointments.

The feminine smell of the room and the sour taste of last night's greasy Chinese were more substantial. Those and his aching hand, bruised from driving it into the man's stomach the night before, were real.

Lang had dropped off without bothering to undress. That, along with a day's beard, didn't show him the image he would have preferred when he checked the mirror over the vanity. He knocked,on the door to the adjacent bath. No response. Not likely any of Nellie's girls were up at-he checked his watch-five-thirty. Once in the small bath, he latched the far door before peeling off clothes that felt as if they had become part of his skin.

He had to fiddle with the knobs and adjust the detachable shower head before he got a decent spray. The floral aroma of the soap-eau de hooker, he imagined-was a little strong, but it did get him clean even if he did smell like… well, like he had just come from exactly where he was.

As needles of hot water massaged his back, he planned how to get across London, an international border and through whatever French towns and cities might be necessary. He wasn't going to bet that British rail stations and airports weren't being watched.

He finished his shower, reluctantly using the only towel. It reeked worse than the soap. In the cabinet above the sink he found a cute little pink safety razor. Trying not to think of where it might have been used, he carefully shaved around Herr Schneller's moustache. He had become as accustomed to it as if he had grown it himself.

Dry and dressed, Lang surveyed the results: an ordinary working bloke in rumpled clothes. It would have been nice if he had dared to go shopping for new attire. Nice but too risky.

He left the room to see if anyone else was awake.

In a small kitchenette off the main salon, he found a tall black woman in a shiny emerald dress. The garment's deep neckline and high hem told him she had just come in from a night's work.

"Hullo," she said, her voice husky with a West Indian accent. "What cat dragged you in?"

"Nellie let me spend the night."

She turned to face him, her back to a gurgling Mr. Coffee. A sculpted eyebrow arched. "I hate to think what that cost you, honey."

"And I need to get to Manchester," Lang added as though it were an afterthought.

She twisted her long body to fill a mug with steaming coffee. She had to bend over so that her already short skirt rose another six inches. Lang didn't think the effect was accidental.

"Manchester?" she repeated. "You a long way from home, sweetie. Yo wife sho gonna know you gone 'fore you gits home."

"I'll pay for the ride," Lang said. "I ain' no taxi service, dahlin'. Jes' got in mysef. You gonna have to take the train like everbody else." But she seemed to be thinking it over as she sipped from the mug. "Too bad," he said, making a disappointed face. "I'll have to hire a car. I'm sure Nellie knows a service…"

Eyes the same color as the coffee contemplated him over the mug. Lang felt like a heifer being appraised at a county fair. "You some kinda special friend 0' Nellie's?"

He couldn't resist the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Seeing a cup on the counter, he held it out. "Mind?"

Her head gave a slow shake without her eyes leaving him. "Hep yo'seff."

He filled the cup with the remainder of the pot. "Known Nellie a long time."

She emptied her mug and set it on the counter, smacking her lips as though tasting something particularly good. "How much you gonna pay somebody, drive you to Manchester?"

Lang shrugged. "What's it worth, coupla hundred?"

She treated him to dazzling white teeth. "Lovey, for two hundred quid, I'll make it the most fun ride you evah, evah had."

Lang never doubted she could have, but he just wasn't in the mood. It didn't seem to bother her at all when, several hours later, untouched, she dropped him off at the British Airways terminal in Manchester. It was only after she had driven off that Lang realized he hadn't asked her name, nor she his. In fact, she had exhibited a professional lack of curiosity the whole way, saying nothing when he asked her to stop on a bridge where he could toss the Beretta into the river below.