The Sacred Scroll (10 page)

‘Impressive.’

‘He was more accurate than the next-best effort, which
was made by a Czech astronomer towards the end of the nineteenth century. He’s barely been improved on, even today.’

‘How did Kidinnu do it? Do we know?’

Graves looked at him. ‘We don’t. But then, we don’t know how the Egyptians illuminated the tunnels inside the pyramids, for example. There’s no sign of soot from burning torches, and yet there must have been a light source for them to work.’

‘And Kidinnu had no telescopes.’

Graves was serious. ‘Yet he managed calculations we can only match with the most powerful radio-telescopes available. The Chaldeans would have been a match for the best astrophysicists of our age. And they lived over two and a half thousand years ago.’

‘At the end of a civilization –’

‘ – which had already been growing for almost six thousand years.’

Marlow looked out of the window at the gleaming modern buildings of Istanbul. He was wondering what an expert on ancient science was doing on a dig concerned with the early Middle Ages. Then he turned back to the computer and scrolled down to the new information on the other two.

He looked at the photograph of Rick Taylor. It showed a handsome man with grey eyes and a neat beard.

‘He’s also married,’ said Graves, looking over his shoulder. ‘Scandinavian stock, a couple of years older than Adkins. Three kids, all from his second marriage.’

‘And he isn’t just an archaeologist either, is he?’

Graves consulted the notes. ‘It’s interesting, Jack.’ It
was the first time she’d used his Christian name – involuntarily – and she glanced at him to see its effect, but read nothing in his face.

She went on. ‘He
started
in archaeology and anthropology but switched, and it’s an interesting switch. He took his doctorate in astrophysics. He also studied quantum mechanics, looking into the dual particle and wave-like behaviour and interactions of energy and matter.’

‘Which tells us what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘The effect of energy on matter …’ Marlow looked thoughtful. The ghost of an idea was occurring to him. For the moment he dismissed it as too fantastic. He would come back to it later.

‘But, basically, his interests, and many of his papers, concern the physical properties of celestial bodies. He’s also done in-depth research on Copernicus and Galileo,’ Graves went on.

‘Much later than our friend Dandolo,’ Marlow pointed out. ‘Copernicus was born sometime around 1470, and Galileo a century later.’

Graves nodded. ‘But they were involved in the same kind of research and, according to one paper by Taylor there was another guy working on the same theory as theirs – that the earth and the planets orbited the sun – but this guy was one hell of a lot earlier.’

‘Go on.’

‘His name was Aristarchus of Samos. He lived around 300
BC
and he had a theory that the earth and the other planets revolved around the sun, rather than everything revolving around the earth.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘His teachings were suppressed by the Church later, just as the Church suppressed the findings of Copernicus and Galileo which pointed to the same thing.’

‘Well,’ said Marlow, ‘the Church always quashed anything that called its own authority into question or what’s written in the Bible: “The Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved … And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place.” That’s why scientific research had had such a hard time.’

‘True enough,’ Graves agreed. ‘Anyone like Galileo, under the sway of the Catholic Church, was suppressed.’

‘But ask yourself – what has all this to do with Dandolo’s tomb?’

Graves shrugged. ‘Someone out there thinks there was something pretty important hidden in it.’

‘Maybe.’

Graves looked at him. Marlow wondered if she knew he wasn’t taking her wholly into his confidence. It would be a mistake to underrate her intelligence. He would have to tread carefully.

‘Look,’ she said, picking her words. ‘Both these guys are
grounded
in archaeology. I can see that they also had very specialized knowledge which might have been applicable to this project, but –’

But Marlow was already looking at the information on Su-Lin de Montferrat.

‘What a woman,’ he said, in a voice which Graves unaccountably found irritating. ‘Why the hell isn’t there a photo of her? But listen to this: fluent Italian, Chinese, German and English. Good French and Spanish.
Working knowledge of Russian.’ He paused. ‘Private life: very little to go on. Disastrous marriage to a French academic, which ended in tears. Seems to have devoted herself to work since then.’ He paused again. ‘Finished her education at Venice, reading Chinese before switching to history. Specialized in the early-medieval period, concentrated on archive work, manuscripts and so on, but before that, and this interests me, she wrote an essay on egotism which won a prize in her first year, based on some of the teachings of Lao Tzu, and arguing from them.’

‘And?’

‘She discusses self-absorption as part of Borderline Personality Disorder.’ That was a condition Marlow knew about; he’d fallen victim to someone in its grip.

‘Yes?’

‘This could be important. Think about what we know of Dandolo, and imagine the kind of person whose ego is so powerful and unrestrained that it takes over everything else. The sufferer can
invent and believe in a persona for themselves
which suits his or her purposes in life at a particular time. People around them can be completely taken in by it, but if and when circumstances change, the sufferer can switch it off, ruthlessly discard anyone or anything which no longer suits them, and invent a completely new persona which suits them better, conveniently rewriting the past in their minds in such a way that they can exonerate themselves from any responsibility or blame. Like a snake shedding its skin. And it’s possible for them to go through life completely plausibly – they almost never get found out, until it’s too late.’

Marlow stiffened. He knew all about that, but he
remained silent. If they could be controlled, these would be very useful qualities in certain professions, his own included. And he felt the bit of shrapnel twist in his heart. All he said was, ‘Details?’

‘Well, there are pages of pretty much academic stuff – original and insightful, that’s what won her the prize – but then she goes off at a tangent, and I highlighted this, because I found it fascinating. Listen: Lao Tzu was referring to egoists when he described people who, without the need for ropes,
bind
themselves. That’s the drawback of the condition. It limits you, confines you to a bubble you’ve created around yourself. Such people become their own unconscious prisoners, largely because they’re incapable of experiencing, expressing or understanding normal emotions. That’s why they can be so ruthless when it comes to self-protection, self-interest. In a way, they don’t know what they’re doing.’ Laura looked over her glasses at Marlow then returned her gaze to the screen. ‘But – and this is what Su-Lin argues – self-interest motivates
all
animals, and that includes us.’

‘Meaning?’

‘We think some fierce or dangerous animals – like crocodiles – must have a good side because they’re “tender” towards their young. That’s pure sentimentality. All they’re really doing is looking after the future of the crocodile race. It’s self-interest. Only mankind, and possibly a handful of higher orders of animal, like dolphins, can show real altruism – putting other people before themselves. And even that is rare.’

Marlow shrugged. ‘Sounds about right.’

‘It explains people who have the kind of ambition
Dandolo had – utter ruthlessness in pursuit of their goal. And that could be important to us.’

‘Let’s find these people first.’ Marlow looked out of the window again. The street below was deserted except for a dark Porsche SUV which slowed up slightly as it passed the building. He watched it drive out of sight. ‘These three guys we’re looking for had qualifications additional to, but way away from the ones they needed just to investigate the tomb of someone who died in 1205,’ he said. ‘And it was a big project. Well funded. In these cash-strapped times.’

‘What are you thinking?’ asked Graves, watching his face.

Marlow shrugged. ‘What are
you
thinking?’

Graves closed the lid of her computer. ‘I’m wondering who they were
really
working for.’

Kingdom of Jerusalem, Year of Our Lord 1171

‘You’ll come with me,’ said Dandolo.

His right-hand man was a monk of the new Cistercian Order who’d been his personal assistant now for nearly ten years, since Dandolo had plucked him from his novitiate and pressed him into his service. Brother Leporo preferred life on the outside of a monastery, but he’d never let go of his ties with his religious colleagues and so had contacts among the priesthood working in the Kingdom of Jerusalem – one, in particular, who’d been doing pretty well out of the local slave trade.

‘If it is your wish,
Altissima
,’ replied the monk, smiling quietly to himself at this further mark of his master’s favour, and at the advantages he saw in it for himself.

It was from the Jerusalem contact that Leporo, some time earlier, well before leaving Venice, had got wind of something the Knights Templar were guarding.

The man wasn’t specific, he couldn’t be, since the Templars played their cards very close to their chest. But the word was that it was something of inestimable value, of incredible power, something of unimaginable age that had come into the Templars’ hands by unknown means.

‘But they say it is not for everyone’s use,’ the slave-trader monk had said.

‘Meaning?’

‘There is word that one of the Templars, back at the time it fell into their hands, tried to master it.’

‘And?’

‘He was a sensible man, a cold man, a master administrator’ – the monk looked at Leporo – ‘a strong mind.’

‘What became of him?’

‘He became withdrawn, neglected his work. Obsessed with the thing. Trying to make it work for him. The Grand Master, without his knowledge, had it withdrawn from his custody and sealed away. He recognized that here was a power to be respected, if not understood.’

‘And the administrator?’

‘They found him one day on the beach, scrabbling among the pebbles. Any stone the size of a small book, flat, rounded, he put in a sack he had with him. They took him back to Jerusalem, prayed for him, but he wailed day and night in his cell, dashing himself against its walls.’ The monk paused. ‘Until one day there was silence.’

Leporo was silent for a moment before asking. ‘But didn’t the Templars try to find out what he had been searching for? In this thing?’

The slave-trader looked at him. ‘The Templars are not fools, Brother. They took it to be a Holy Relic, and treated it with the respect they felt it deserved.’

‘But they knew of its power?’

‘They knew of its value. Its market value. The Templars are good at valuation. They have abandoned God for mammon. They did that long ago … as did I. As have many of us, out here, stuck between the sun and the sand.’

And now, fifty-odd years since their foundation, the
Templars of the Holy Land were badly cash-strapped. Twenty years earlier, they’d begun to concentrate less on guarding pilgrims to the Holy Land than on looking after their property and their money in return for a fee. This venture into banking and insurance hadn’t turned out too badly, but the Knights hadn’t forgotten they were warriors too, and it was the warrior arm of the sect of soldier-monks that was costing them money. In battle, Templars never retreated. They would rather die. A bad war therefore could cost them 90 per cent of their manpower, and recruiting and training replacements was costly.

‘The Knights might be persuaded to part with this artefact,’ Leporo’s friend had told him, ‘if the price were right.’

And they had it right there, in their headquarters on the south-eastern side of the Mount of the Temple in Jerusalem. Leporo had shared this information with his master – he’d never have had the money or the clout to get it for himself, he reasoned, but once it had left the Templars’ hands, who knew …?

But, on the voyage there, they’d thought they’d never reach the Crusader port of Acre.

The sails of Barbary Coast pirates appeared about a kilometre to the south as they were passing Cyprus, and there’d been panic on board when the pirates changed course and started to make for them. The Venetians had the wind in their favour, thought they could outrun them, but it wasn’t to be.

The pirates had two sleek dhows, big ones, which cut through the smooth waters of the White Sea like knives. They came abreast with the swiftness of wolves and lay,
one alongside the port and one along the starboard side of the Venetian galley. The brightly clad Moors threw ropes with heavy grappling irons across and pulled their ships close to their large, lumbering prey.

The battle was fierce and bloody. Thirteen Venetians had fallen, including the second envoy, the Marquess of Verona, before the Italians managed to replace panic with discipline and their marines closed with the pirates. The Moors, though skilled fighters, were fewer in number and relied on surprise and fear as their greatest allies. They fell back under the heavy blows of the Venetian broadswords and scuttled away, retreating to their own ships, trying to cut their grappling ropes clear and make their escape. The captain would have let them do it, but Dandolo stayed him, ordering raking crossbow fire at close range to slaughter as many of the pirates as he could.

The rest surrendered, offering what booty they already carried from previous attacks as ransom for their lives.

Dandolo stared at them, kneeling, bloodied, beaten.

‘Kill them all,’ he ordered. ‘And sink their ships. But first …’

And to the astonishment of the captain and crew, but not to Leporo’s, he had the pirate chief brought forward and kneel on the deck of the galley. Taking a sword from one of the marines, Dandolo hacked off the man’s arms.