Free The Sword of the Templars by Paul Christopher Page B

all.”
    “There’s more than one?” Peggy said.
    “Yes, actually,” said Braintree. He got up from behind his desk and began going through piles of books stacked up on the floor. Not finding what he wanted, he moved to the bookcases that lined one wall, humming to himself and occasionally pulling a book halfway out to examine it.
    “Aha!” he said at last. “Got you.”
    “Who?” Holliday asked.
    “Him,” said Braintree, handing him the thick hardcover book. Holliday read the title: The Templar Saint, Alberic of Cîteaux and the Rise of the Cistercian Order. He looked below the title. The author was somebody named Sir Derek Carr-Harris with a lot of letters after his name, including “D. Litt. Oxon” and “KCBE.” A knight commander of the British Empire, one better than Paul McCartney, and a doctorate from Oxford, to boot. Impressive. And the name was vaguely familiar, as well.
    “You think this is the Alberic inscribed on the sword?”
    “It would make sense, especially since the word ‘ fecit ’ in Latin can mean ‘made for’ as well as ‘made by.’ ”
    “Made for Alberic in Pelerin,” said Peggy.
    “It could easily be a play on words,” suggested Braintree, taking the book back from Holliday and flipping through it to the index. “The message was intended for Alberic, and the sword was manufactured in Pelerin for the express purpose of getting the message to him, probably at the monastery in Cîteaux.”
    “Where’s that?” Peggy asked.
    “France,” replied Braintree. “Just south of Dijon.” He nodded to himself, running his finger down a page in the index then stopping. “Here it is,” he said, a note of triumph in his voice. He went back to his desk and picked up one of Peggy’s photographs. He glanced at it, then handed the picture to Holliday. It was a close-up of the chops on the tang of the sword and the inscription.
    “ De laudibus novae militiae , addressed to Hugues de Payens, first Grand Master of the Templars and Prior of Jerusalem.”
    “I don’t understand,” said Holliday.
    “The initials D.L.N.M. D e L audibus N ovae M ilitiae . It was a famous letter written to Payens, the founder of the Templar Order. It’s the code key.” He paused. “And there’s one more thing, the clincher.”
    “What?” Holliday asked, feeling a surge of excitement as faint clues from the past began drifting up to the present day like whispering ghosts as the mystery was unraveled.
    “Bees,” said Braintree, pointing to the stamped design in the photograph. “In France Alberic of Cîteaux is the patron saint of bees and beekeepers.”
    Peggy picked the book up off the professor’s desk.
    “I know this name,” she said, thinking hard. Finally she got it. “The photograph in Grandpa Henry’s office. The one taken in Cairo or Alexandria in 1941. One of the men in the photograph was Derek Carr-Harris.”
    “Who went to Oxford,” said Holliday, staring at the cover of the book in her hand.
    “Who wrote down the directions to his country house in Leominster on the Old Members invitation,” finished Peggy, grinning.
    Braintree looked confused.
    “Did I miss something?”
     

9
    After spending less than twenty-four hours in Toronto, Peggy Blackstock and John Holliday took a late-night British Airways flight from Pearson International to Heathrow, arriving at nine o’clock the following morning. Calling ahead to Derek Carr-Harris’s office in Oxford informed them that the professor was on summer holidays at his country house and could not be contacted there since his office politely but categorically declined to give out either his address or his private telephone number. The phone number in Uncle Henry’s address book rang unanswered when they called, so presumably it was his home number in Oxford.
    Arriving at Heathrow, they took the Underground to Paddington station and paused in the station restaurant for a horrible breakfast that advertised itself as sausages and eggs,