Saint and the Templar Treasure (2 page)

It was late September and the vines were bending under the weight of their dark purple fruit. To the layman’s eye they all looked the same, but up to fourteen varieties might be blended to create such a beverage as the Saint had enjoyed at lunch. The harvest would begin any day, and the now deserted landscape would be alive with workers gathering the grapes and carting it back to the presses for the start of the time-honoured process of making the wine.

Simon was musing idly on the years it could take to produce a great wine compared to the minutes it takes to drink one, when he spotted the two hikers. Even from a distance they seemed an oddly mismatched pair. One was tall and blond with broad shoulders that made light of the heavy haversack he carried. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt, faded khaki shorts, and tough walking boots, and strode steadily along at an even pace. A step behind and struggling to keep up limped his companion. He was smaller and fatter and his clothes seemed more suitable for city shopping than for hiking. His back was bowed beneath a small pack and a blue jacket was slung over one shoulder that matched the serge of his tight-fitting trousers and complemented his equally tight-fitting shoes. As he heard the Hirondel approaching he turned, and the pleading look on his face was more eloquent than his raised thumb.

The Saint normally had little sympathy for hitch-hikers, holding that the hyphenation was itself a contradiction in terms, and feeling no obligation to provide free transport for those who were too lazy to walk or too imprudent to provide themselves with even a bicycle. But that afternoon caught him in a relaxed and mellow mood.

He brought the Hirondel to a gliding halt, and said in fluent French: “You seem ready to melt. Where are you going?”

Simon Templar was at ease in all the major languages of Europe and could make himself understood in most of the remainder. He spoke French as well as any native of that country and possibly better than many. Unlike so many English speakers he did not suffer from the arrogance which expects that everyone else should know the language which once ruled an empire and believes that if they don’t the way to make them understand it is to shout.

The blond youth—both of them looked to be in their late teens or earliest twenties—answered: “To Carpentras, then towards Beaumes-de-Venise.”

“And where the devil would that be?” Simon inquired cautiously.

“Not very far. I can show you the way.” The Saint shrugged. Having made the stop, he might as well take the consequences.

“Well, that may be useful. Hop in.”

They heaved their packs into the narrow back seat where the smaller hitch-hiker also wedged himself, while his blond companion settled more comfortably in the front. Simon released the handbrake and as the car moved forward asked: “Where are you from?”

“The University of Grenoble. We are students. My name is Pascal, and he is Jules.”

In his driving mirror the Saint had a picture of Jules dabbing at his sweating face with a handkerchief and flapping the open front of his shirt to allow the breeze to circulate.

“Your friend doesn’t seem in training for a route march,” he observed dryly. Pascal smiled.

“He is from Paris,” he explained in a condescending tone. “He thinks a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne is exhausting.” “And you’re a country boy, is that it?” “I was born at Chateauneuf and my family lived here until four years ago when we moved to Lyons. Since then I have come back every year to help with the harvest and to see my old friends. Jules thought he would come along this year to earn some money.”

“From what I know of work in the vineyards he is likely to lose more kilos than he gains francs,” said the Saint.

Pascal laughed but the object of their conversation either had not heard or was too tired to object.

They drove in silence for a few minutes before Simon asked: “Where exactly will you be working?”

“At Chateau Ingare. It is only a small vineyard and they do not pay as well as some of the larger ones, but all my friends will be there.”

The name had produced a creeping sensation across the Saint’s scalp that he could not explain, as if some sixth sense was trying to warn him. But of what? There was nothing really surprising in the fact that he should drink a bottle of local wine and then meet two people on their way to the vineyard that produced it. Just a minor coincidence of course but he could never accept coincidences entirely at their face value, just as years of living on a knife’s edge had taught him never to dismiss the instincts that such an existence had developed.

“Tell me about Chateau Ingare, Pascal,” he said thoughtfully, and the youth seemed happy to oblige.

“As I said, it is one of the smaller vineyards, but also one of the oldest. It has been in the Florian family for generations—in fact since the fourteenth century. The chateau itself is one of the most beautiful in the region. It was originally a castle and stands on a hill above the vineyards. From it you can see to the horizon.

“The family settled here around the time the Popes first built their summer palace at Chateauneuf. All this area around Avignon belonged not to France but to the Papacy right up until the Revolution. It was they who planted some of the first vines.”

“Is that why they call Chateauneuf the Pope of wines?” Simon suggested.

“Perhaps; though it wasn’t the wine of Popes, apparently. It is said they preferred Burgundy.”

“I tried a bottle of Chateau Ingare for the first time today.” The Saint was impelled to keep the conversation going in that direction. “It was excellent. Why haven’t I heard about it before?”

“Yes, it is very good,” Pascal agreed enthusiastically. “But unfortunately it is rarely sold outside this area because only a small quantity is produced and the family do not have the hectares to extend their market.”

“Noble but poor?” Simon prompted. “Do you know the family?”

Pascal wagged his head noncommittally.

“I am sure there is a lot to tell, but I do not know very much of it except that the war almost bankrupted the estate. Monsieur Yves—he is the head of the family—vowed that he would never make wine for the Germans, so every year the grapes were picked and pressed, and every year something happened. One year all the bottles were mysteriously broken, another year the wine was contaminated, and so it went on. Even when the Germans took over the chateau and billeted their officers there, the accidents continued.”

“That must have been an expensive piece of resistance,” the Saint commented.

“Very expensive. But since the war ended there have been other troubles. There is a legend locally that the Florian family is cursed,” Pascal added hesitantly.

“Vineyard workers are traditionally as superstitious as sailors,” said the Saint with a smile. “And who do they think cursed the family—the Germans?”

Pascal laughed harshly and said: “I think their methods of punishment were more direct. But the curse on the Florian family is supposed to be much older. In fact, it goes back to the Templiers.”

The name, dropped quite casually, sounded in the Saint’s ears like a tocsin.

Whereas a little earlier the recall of Chateau Ingare had caused only an almost caressing frisson at the roots of his hair, this new association set off a whole jangling of physic alarm bells which no facile scepticism could silence.

For the translation of Templier is “Templar,” and les Templiers is French for what English historians call the Knights Templar—from whom, in the remote past, some ancestor of Simon’s must have taken his patronym.

“The legend is that the castle was built by the Templars, and when they fled it is said they cursed whoever should own it next.”

Although the Saint had always been aware of the historic connotation of his unusual name, he had never taken much interest in the snob sport of ancestor-tracing, and in fact had not even bothered to study the subject of the original Templars. He had a vague idea that they had protected pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land and had fought with distinction in the Crusades. He confessed as much to Pascal without revealing his own identity, and the young student seemed pleased to be given the chance to show off his own erudition.

He explained how they had banded together at the beginning of the eleventh century and had taken their title from the Temple in Jerusalem, swearing to win back the city for the Christians and rebuild the temple. Their bravery in battle and support for the Christian cause had won them the extremely rare privilege of appointing their own bishops and being answerable only to the Pope himself.

“By the end of the thirteenth century there were more than twenty thousand Knights in Europe,” Pascal continued, “and they were the single most powerful organisation on the continent. They owned vast areas of land, paid no taxes, and were often far wealthier than kings. They wore a surcoat with an eight-pointed cross on it which guaranteed them immunity wherever they went, and because they were so powerful they began to be feared.”

The Saint thought of his own emblem of a haloed matchstick figure and the near supernatural awe that it had once inspired among the ranks of the ungodly, before it had become so famous as to be virtually unusable any more.

“Jealousy bred rumours,” Pascal went on. “It was said that initiates had to spit on the Cross, that the Knights were often homosexuals, and that many of them practised black magic. As the Crusades failed, they concentrated on increasing their wealth and power and became generally corrupt.”

“A sort of medieval Mafia,” Simon murmured approvingly.

“In a way, yes. Eventually, under pressure, the Pope outlawed them and they were persecuted throughout Europe. Very many were tortured and burned. In France they were completely wiped out.”

“Was that what happened to the Templars at Chateau In-gare?”

Pascal shook his head.

“No. They were besieged for many weeks by the King’s army, but somehow most of them escaped just before the walls were breached. That is probably why there are so many legends about the place, for the Knights were never seen again and no one knows where the survivors went.”

At least one of them, the Saint figured, must have found his way to England. He decided that one day he would have to do some more research into his infamous ancestry.

A road sign told him that they were just entering the town of Carpentras, and with a trace of reluctance he inquired: “Which way do you go from here?”

“Chateau Ingare is to the north, but perhaps that is not your direction.”

Pascal turned and considered his friend, who appeared to have fallen into a light doze. He leaned over and prodded him sharply in the stomach, and the youth stirred and sat up. Pascal turned back to the Saint.

“It is only a few kilometres and I think Jules has had enough rest.”

A low moan of protest from Jules showed that he did not agree with his friend, but the Saint had already made his decision. At the next sign-posted intersection he spun the wheel to the left.

“Since I’ve come this far out of my way, a few more kilometres are not going to make much difference. And they might even let me buy a few bottles to take home with me.”

His tone was matter of fact but his eyes narrowed as he spoke. There was a strange, almost eerie, tingle of excitement beginning to bubble in the pit of his stomach, a tightening of nerves for which there was no logical explanation. He tried to shake off the feeling, but instead it grew stronger as the miles were covered.

Two coincidences involving the Chateau Ingare could be brushed off; but the third, linking it with his own name, looked too much like the weaving of fate to be fluke. Even in his most determined realism, Simon Templar had an Achilles’ heel for the sense of destiny that had made his life so different from all other lives.

After a while, following Pascal’s directions, he turned off the secondary D7 on to an even lesser road that wound up a range of rocky but still vine-clad foothills, and as they came over one of the lower rises he saw the smoke. It was curling into the sky from beyond a copse of tall cypress, halfway up the hillside about half a mile away.

“Looks like a fire,” he observed casually.

Pascal’s reaction was more dramatic.

“C’est la grange!”

“Does it belong to the chateau?” Simon asked, and already seemed to know the answer before the lad replied.

“It is where everything is stored ready for the recolte. They would not light a fire there!”

Before the final word was spoken the Saint was on his way. In a synchronized flow of movements he flicked the gear lever into third and pressed the accelerator towards the floor as the clutch bit. The big car awoke like a jungle cat, roared and catapulted itself forward.

If he had had any lingering doubt, the last trace of it had vanished. He knew now that all his premonitions had been right, and that he was irretrievably caught again in the web of Kismet.

3

Like a bolt from a crossbow the Hirondel sped towards its target. The lane snaked into a chicane of S bends, and the two students grabbed desperately at the side of the car as the Saint threw it into the corners with one hand juggling the steering wheel as the other changed gear with a smooth confidence that would have done credit to any Grand Prix professional. But then, the Saint could have qualified as one of those himself if he had not chosen a more hazardous way of life.

Just around the second curve, a horse-drawn cart suddenly appeared in front of him, barely fifteen yards ahead and taking up almost two thirds of the road. There was no time to stop and not enough room between the cart and the high sloping bank on the clearer side for the Hirondel to overtake.

A thin smile touched the Saint’s lips as he kept his foot on the accelerator and turned the wheel to the left. For an instant it seemed certain that they must plough into either the bank or the cart or both, but he had judged the angle of the slope and his own speed to perfection.

The Hirondel mounted the bank and seemed to hang poised in the air for the space of a heartbeat before the left rear wheel gripped and he could reverse the steering to bring the car parallel to the road. He caught a blurred glimpse of the drayman’s amazed expression, and then they were past and bumping back on to the solid tarmac of the lane in a shower of dust and small pebbles, safely in front of the equally startled horse.