The Traitor's Blade by Kevin Sands (fiction books to read .TXT) 📕

the larger pile of books. It was a sepia-toned leather: Master Benedict’s journals. There were more books as well, on the floor and the table, where Bridget marched about, happily pecking at some seeds Isaac had scattered for her.

Sally noticed our expressions. “What’s wrong?”

“We were attacked,” I said.

“He was attacked,” Tom said—and clearly I was still rattled by what had happened, because it was only then that it really struck me what should have been obvious from the start.

The assassin couldn’t have cared less about Tom. It was me he’d wanted to kill.

And again that question: Why?

I was hoping Isaac might have an answer. When Tom told them everything that had happened, they were as shocked as we were.

“The brazenness of it,” Isaac said, troubled. “It bodes ill.”

“Did you find anything?” Sally said.

“There was another riddle on Saint Erkenwald’s tomb,” I said, distracted. I was still mulling over what I’d first thought about in the church: being in the middle of two warring factions. “Did you find that confession about the Templars?”

“It’s there.” Isaac nodded toward a paper on the desk beside Sally. She held it out to him, but he waved it away. “You went to the trouble of getting it, dear. You can read it.”

Sally shifted in her chair as Tom and I took seats at the table. “This is from… What year was it again?”

“1624,” Isaac said. “The last year of the reign of James I. The confession comes from a silk merchant, Jonathan Egerton, who was accused of plotting against the king.”

Bridget flapped up to my shoulder as Sally read the note to us, a report from spy to spymaster.

The prisoner Egerton refuses to admit sedition. Instead, he insists he was working on behalf of His Majesty’s well-being. In particular, he claims to be a member of the ancient order of the Knights Templar, despite all knowing the order was disbanded three hundred years ago. This imagining could not be dissuaded, even under considerable encouragement.

“He means torture,” Isaac said. “Go on.”

Sally continued.

I inquired with him as to the precise nature of this supposedly secret sect. In my opinion, Egerton’s claims are fanciful, an attempt to explain away his crimes as innocent, or even beneficial. But I must also account to your lordship that Egerton insisted they were the truth, even until death.

He asserts:

The Templars exist, despite their supposed demise.

Their purpose is to work behind the scenes, to shape events, to keep countries stable, and to prevent society from descending into chaos.

Their structure is hierarchical. At the top is the Templar Grand Council, a body of twelve, consisting of eleven knights and one Grand Master.

The Templars work in chapters. Each chapter is responsible for a specific region, usually a major city. The head of each chapter is the Knight Captain.

Each chapter may contain up to a dozen knights, though most are much smaller. In some places, a chapter is a single knight, operating alone.

Each chapter is totally independent. Except for the Knight Captain, the members of one chapter have no knowledge of any in other chapters.

Though generally self-reliant, the Templars occasionally call on agents outside the Brotherhood. These allies can then call upon the Templars for help, if they know how to reach them. Egerton claims their agents can be identified through their possession of a gold coin: a florin, marked by the Templar cross and the name of their original patron, King Baldwin of Jerusalem.

Messages between chapters, knights, and their agents are always enciphered. It is the responsibility of the recipient of the message to know how to decipher the code. By using a cipher, even an intercepted message will offer no information to their enemies.

I asked Egerton how a society that has been extinct for three hundred years was supposed to have enemies. He stated that all who sought to bring chaos were an enemy.

Unfortunately, at this time, Egerton expired, so no more information could be obtained.

Your faithful servant,

J.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“What do you think?” Isaac said.

“I think that man was a Templar,” I said. “He knew about the florin. And the bit about the ciphers fits, too.” All three letters I’d got were nothing but riddles and codes.

The stuff about the Grand Council and the independent chapters was new to me, but nothing there contradicted anything we’d learned in Paris. Father Bernard had even hinted at it when he’d confessed he hadn’t known for sure where the Templar treasure was. It really did seem to fit together.

Tom was frowning.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“The letter says the Templars send messages through codes.”

“Just like the letters I’ve received.”

“Yes, but so far we’ve just been running around in circles.”

“What do you mean?” Sally said.

“Well,” Tom said, “the first letter told Christopher to go to the Banqueting House, where we found a second letter. That one told him to go to Saint Paul’s, where we found a third letter. But none of the letters have actually told us anything. It’s just ‘go here, now go there.’ If it’s the Templars leaving those messages, why are they making us run around? They haven’t really been helping.”

That was a fair point. And yet… “I think that’s about to change,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m pretty sure this third message is a warning.”

CHAPTER

31

I PULLED THE CRUMPLED LETTER from beneath my doublet and spread it on the table. Everyone leaned in to read it.

Low the swan flies, ever lower,

Dancing, singing overhead,

Slow the song plays, ever slower,

Oh, too late—now they’re all dead.

“You know what this means?” Sally said.

“Part of it,” I said, and I turned to Isaac. “Do you remember that key my master left with you for me to find? The first day I came here, last spring?”

“I’m old, Christopher, not senile,” he said.

“Right. Sorry. Um… that page, with the alchemical symbols. Did my master ever write down any more of them?”

Isaac regarded me for a moment, frowning. Then he turned to Sally. “Did you find that book I asked