Free The Sword of the Templars by Paul Christopher Page A

“book” code in Ken Follett’s spy novel The Key to Rebecca .
    “The gold wire wrapping on the hilt of a sword,” Holliday said with a nod.
    Braintree smiled broadly, then clapped his hands together.
    “Exactly!” the young man said. “That was your uncle’s hypothesis. If you somehow marked the length of wire at the appropriate points to coincide with the text on a common document, the wire would take the place of the parchment wrapped around the skytale . Even if the sword fell into the wrong hands it would be useless unless you knew the key! How did you figure it out?”
    Holliday reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out the coil of gold wire that had been wrapped around the steel tang. He handed it to Braintree. The young man tipped his glasses up onto his forehead and examined the wire closely, running his thumb and forefinger down its length.
    “Bumps,” he murmured. “Like little beads.”
    “Gold solder,” agreed Holliday. “Unevenly spaced, but repeating. A total of seventy-eight beads as you call them.”
    “Not a very complex message,” said Peggy.
    “The beads aren’t the message.” Braintree smiled. “They’re like the rotors on the German Enigma machine from the Second World War. If you lay the beads on the wire along the key text it will give you the appropriate transpositions to use.”
    “I’m lost,” said Peggy, frowning.
    “I think I see it,” said Holliday. “If you repeat the spaces between the beads throughout the text, that will give you the message.”
    “That’s it,” nodded Braintree.
    “I’m still lost,” muttered Peggy.
    The professor shrugged.
    “It doesn’t really matter unless you’ve got the key.” He paused. “Where’s the sword now?” he asked. “You didn’t bring it with you by any chance, did you?”
    “Not the kind of thing you want to carry across borders these days,” said Holliday. “It’s safely tucked away.” In fact they’d taken the sword to Miss Branch, who’d tucked the weapon away in the university’s security vault.
    “Too bad,” said Braintree, “I would have loved to have seen it.”
    Peggy reached into her bag and took out a handful of digital prints she’d made of the sword. Braintree looked at each of them carefully.
    “An arming sword,” the professor said, nodding. “Early thirteenth century if the Templar seal is any indication.” He looked up at Holliday. “You’re sure it’s authentic?”
    “I might be fooled by a good reproduction,” he said, “but not Uncle Henry. Besides, who would go to all the trouble?”
    “If it’s real it would be worth an enormous amount of money. I’ve got a few rivals across the road at the Royal Ontario Museum who’d probably sell their own mothers to get a sword like that in their collection. It would be worth faking just for the financial reward let alone anything else.”
    “Grandpa wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble over a fake,” said Peggy.
    “The inscription is a little bit over the top though, don’t you think? Alberic in Pelerin? Do you know the provenance? Whose collection was it in?”
    “Adolf Hitler’s,” said Holliday flatly, enjoying the startled expression on the Canadian professor’s face.
    “You’re sure?”
    “Positive.”
    Braintree looked through the pictures again, then nodded slowly.
    “It makes sense, historically. Hitler was intrigued by all that pseudo-scientific garbage Nietzschean stuff about the Aryan race. Blood and Soil, the Ring of the Nibelungen. Valkyries. Dwarf swordsmiths, Templars, Masonic rituals. He would have loved it.” Braintree gave a short, sour laugh. “Who knows, maybe he thought it was Tirfing .”
    “What’s that?” Peggy asked.
    “The sword of Odin,” said Braintree. “If you like Wagnerian opera.”
    Peggy snorted. “Only what I heard on the soundtrack of Apocalypse Now ,” she answered.
    “Then again . . .” mused the professor. “Maybe it’s not that Alberic at