American Heroes Series - 01 - Resurrection

RESURRECTION

By Kathryn Le Veque

Copyright 2011 by Kathryn Le Veque
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Printed by Dragonblade Publishing in the United States of America

Text copyright 2011 by Kathryn Le Veque
Cover copyright 2011 by Kathryn Le Veque

This book has a lot of dedications;

To my brother, Bill Bouse;

To my kids, Mollie and James;

And to Rob

because this book takes the characters to Rome, one of his favorite places on Earth.

FOREWORD

There have been three great Holy Roman Empires; the First Reich (the word “reich” translates into English as “Empire” or “Realm”) was the empire of Charlemagne around 800 A.D. when he was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III.   The Second Reich was the unification of Germany following the Franco-Prussian war (1870 – 1871) following the crowning of Wilhelm I as the German Emperor.

The Third Reich, as we know, was brought about by Adolph Hitler who envisioned himself as the leader of the new Holy Roman Empire in which Germany would have the leading role. However, it was also well known that the Nazis were fascinated with holy relics, hoping to use them to both support and expand their imperial power.

This novel incorporates the intent of those who never lost the goal of a new Holy Roman Empire by taking their dream to an entirely new level.  The Holy Roman Empire should, in fact, be ruled by the descendants of the Most Holy.  It also ties the Knights Templar, the Nazi Party, the Holy Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church and two lonely people into a delicate weave of a common goal.

Resurrection can take many forms for many people.

CHAPTER ONE

Year of our Lord 1307

Friday, October 13th

Castle Domme, France

The fighting was fierce, even at dawn. The castle on the mountain top had been under siege for three days; three long days of bloodshed had weakened them considerably, but still, they fought.

Clouds the color of blood feathered across the sky like the brush strokes of a macabre painting.  The knights called a sky like this
le démon vole
; demon wings. It was as if the entire sky and earth was covered with demons, all determined to bring about the feast of Armageddon.  With all of the men on the mountain, engaged in mortal combat, to some it was as if the end of times had indeed arrived.

The gate of the castle had long burned away, reduced to ashes by flaming arrows. The portcullis remained, scorched but still intact, a barrier between the inhabitants and the outside world. It would take more than flames to destroy the old iron grate.

The besiegers, however, had managed to get a foothold by extending ladders to the battlements and propelling themselves over the side.  It would only be a matter of time before someone got to the chains that still held the portcullis in place. Once the grate was lifted, the skirmish would soon end.

The rocky, circular courtyard was littered with the dead, the dying, and the remaining able-bodied. One knight was in charge, directing the combat on the walls from below. He was a big man with chiseled features and his weary brown eyes watched as man after man fell, mostly his own, men he had fought and lived with for the better part of his adult life. He knew the tides were turning against them and further knew there was no way to stop it.

Two knights abruptly appeared at his side, battle-weary, one sporting a large bloody gash across his neck.  These were his lieutenants, a pair of seasoned Teutonic knights worth their fighting weight in gold. 

“Sie haben für uns geschickt, mein Herr?”
You sent for us, my lord?

The commander cast them a long look.  They were shocked to see such defeat in his eyes, a realization that did nothing to ease their apprehension.  But he did not speak to them in their language; he spoke to them in the language of the Templars.  All Templars understood it, regardless of their country of origin.

“En effet,” he replied. “Je vous exige pour une mission, une tâche la plus importante
.” Indeed. I require you for a mission, a most important task.

The men nodded, eager to please their grand master but fearful of what would be asked of them. When the portcullis suddenly shuddered as the enemy attempted to lift it, the knight in charge stiffened with trepidation.

“The Holy of Holies,” he hissed to his men. “It is yours. Protect it with your life and take it to La Rochelle.  We will all meet there when this is over, God willing.”

The portcullis trembled again, the great iron teeth gnashing against the rocky soil of the mountain. The commander shoved one of the knights, urging him to move when the man could not seem to move on his own.  The knight and his companion fled to the keep, a squat building three stories tall and several feet thick, built entirely of stone.  Until today, it had been their sanctuary. Now they were determined that it not be their tomb.

The retractable wooden steps leading to the second floor were raised to prevent the enemy from breaching the keep. It took several painful minutes before it could be lowered. The men fled up the steps and into the keep, dark and cool and foreboding.

Once inside, there was a large room to the right, used for the chapel.  Gloomy and dirty, it had a table at the far end upon which two fat tapers sat, burning low. A red cloth was thrown over the wood with a worn holy book resting atop it. This room had been one of such comfort, but they found no comfort at the moment.

The knights stumbled forward, weak with exhaustion and fear, falling to their knees as they reached the table. What they sought was not on top of it; it was underneath it.

A heavy iron chest, approximately the length, breadth and width of a man’s arm sat huddled against the stone floor.  The knights, in the midst of their rush, paused a moment to gaze at it. At least a thousand years old, the chest had seen far more of the world of men and misery than they could ever fathom.  There was much mystery attached to it. But the sound of  the screams outside shook them from their thoughts of reverence and one of the men made a grab for the box.

“We must be gone.” There was panic in his voice.

The chest was heavy. He struggled with it all the way to the door. When the two reached the entrance, they were faced with a bailey crowded with fighting and dying men.  The portcullis was up, and the enemy was pouring through like blood through a gaping wound.

What they had feared for three days had come to pass. The screaming and sounds of battle were familiar to them, both horribly unsettling and strangely exciting. The men looked at each other, drawing courage from one another in knowing what must be done.  Theirs was perhaps the most vital mission of all.

“Get behind me,” the knight with the free hands instructed. He unsheathed his sword, the hilt emblazoned with the seal of the Knights Templar, two knights astride one overworked charger.  His brow was heavy with sweat, with apprehension, of what he must do. “No matter what the cost, one of us leaves this place with the chest. Understand?”

The knight holding the chest silently agreed. He was the most vulnerable, unable to defend himself should he have to. He stayed close to his companion as they moved into the fray.

Dust and flying metal were everywhere.  The knight with the chest labored with the weighty bundle, ducking behind the man in the lead. He could feel the blows that his companion was receiving, hard enough to unbalance him.  It took him a moment to realize that it wasn’t only French knights in the skirmish, but many English as well.

He saw at least four knights bearing the banner of the Earl of Savernake. Savernake had been on the First Crusade, allied with their leader, de Payens, when the order of the Templars had been founded. Through politics and greed, the Anglais had turned their backs on their former brothers in arms just as the French had. This battle wasn’t about accusations of Heresy; it reeked of avarice. They all wanted what the Templars had, bad enough to kill for it.

But they would not get it. There was a great deal of hate bred in time, bitterness multiplied over the decades. The day of the Templars had finally come to a bloody end. As the two knights approached the jilted portcullis, the knight carrying the load felt an overwhelming pain to his back. He stumbled, realizing he’d been gored. It took a few seconds for him to realize the wound was fatal.  He fell dead onto his face, sending the chest onto the ground.

His companion followed him in death shortly thereafter.  The English knights who had ensured their seamless passage to Heaven kicked the bodies aside, making haste for the chest.  The largest of the knights knelt down, righted the box, and threw the ancient bolt.

He and his two associates peered inside. Through the battle raged, none of the three, for the moment, noticed.  Bodies fell all around them, bloody and maimed, but they had no perception. They only saw what was in front of them.

“Is that it, de Serreau?” one asked eagerly.  “Have we found it?”

The big knight, still on his knees, nodded slowly. “It must be,” he muttered. “See how they struggled to protect it?”

“They died for it.”

The large knight didn’t give a second thought to those he had just killed.

“I have heard tale of this miracle from my father and his father before him,” he said, “but I never believed we would actually find it.” He ran his hand over the edge of the iron box reverently. “God has led us to it, of that I am sure.”

One of the two knights still standing lifted his visor. His green eyes blazed as he, too, knelt into the dust next to Captain Etienne de Serreau. It only seemed appropriate. Removing a mailed glove, he gingerly touched the fabric, so old that it had retained none of its original splendor.  It was coarse, the original color faded into an unrecognizable hue.  He drew his fingers back from it as if it burned to touch it.

“Enfin, c'est arrière où il appartient,” he whispered.

De Serreau heard the softly uttered words; he wasn’t beyond the awe the others were feeling, but he was more adept at hiding it. The chest and its contents were his, and in his possession he fully intended they should remain. 

He had what he’d come for.

CHAPTER TWO

Present Day

“La Vestaglia di Lucius?”

“That’s what they call it.”

“But what does that mean?”

“The Lucius Robe.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

With the phone trapped between her shoulder and ear, Cydney Hetherington was making a feeble attempt to work and talk to her fifteen-year-old daughter at the same time.  It was the usual call at the usual time, the very moment Olivia walked in the door after school let out.

Cydney was distracted from the conversation when someone walked into her office, which wasn’t so much a private office as it was a large desk in a cubicle situated in a corner of the old museum library.

 Being a non-profit institution, the Western Pacific Museum of Art and Antiquities was busting at the seams and tended to place personnel wherever a spot could be found - like putting the Director of Operations in the library. It could have been worse; the Controller was in a former janitor’s closet and an administrative assistant had a section of the copy room. 

At least Cydney didn’t have to live with the smell of old pine cleaner, but the caveat with setting up shop in the library was that docents, scholars, and any number of other people constantly wandered in and out. This particular person was the curator’s assistant and handed Cydney some papers, no doubt meant to increase her workload to an insane level. Cydney took the stack and tried to find a place for it on her cluttered desk.

“Look it up on the Internet,” she told her daughter. “It’s the robe that Christ is supposed to have worn during his trial before Pilate.”

Olivia’s voice was tense with excitement. “Like the Shroud?”

“Sort of; only this one was in a private collection for hundreds of years before finally being donated to the Bristol Museum of Antiquities back in the nineteen-fifties. We managed to get it on loan, swapping it for some items from our Egyptian collection.” She pitched forward in her chair, anxious to get off the phone and get on with her work. “They’re having a big Egyptian exhibit and we’re having a big opening with relics from the Holy Land.  I’ll tell you more about it when I get home.”

But Olivia wouldn’t be brushed off so easily. “I know about the opening already. I love the name of the exhibit– Resurrection. It sounds so mysterious.”