——————— ◆ ———————
Quai Henri IV
4
e
arrondissement
Paris
The Republic of France
Oliver De Molay shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked out over the glistening water of the river Seine.
To his right, he could see the hulking gothic mass of the great cathedral of Notre-Dame—its massive flying buttresses straddling the Île de la Cité like some gigantic medieval stone insect.
He wondered how long it would be until it was taken down, and a shrine to the next great religion was put up in its place—just as it had itself been jubilantly built on the ruins of an earlier pagan temple.
He leant on the low river wall in the shadow of the ubiquitous plane trees and turned to Saxby, who was standing beside him. “So, Edmund, tell me the news.”
Saxby’s expression was grim. “Grand Master, I’m afraid to report it has disappeared again.”
De Molay’s expression fell. “I thought I had been clear?” His tone was troubled. “I was explicit: we should pay whatever it takes.”
Saxby shook his head. “Our representative was at the auction. We had prepared everything. She had the invitation and instructions to bid freely. But before the auction took place, before even the preview, a paramilitary team murdered the seller and seized it.” He paused. “I’m afraid we just don’t know where it is. It’s disappeared.”
De Molay scowled. “This is not acceptable, Edmund.”
“Grand Master, rest assured, I’m taking personal responsibility. Our partner is an expert. The very best.” Saxby went over the details of Ava’s experience, his discussions with her, what had happened in Dubai, and her desire to keep working on the project.
De Molay lapsed into silence, looking thoughtful, before he spoke again. “You know, Edmund, this spot where we are standing is very sacred to my family. And it has a particular resonance in the current situation.”
Saxby looked about. He had wondered why De Molay had wished to meet him here, rather than in one of the city’s more comfortable venues. The bohemian Marais district was just behind them. And across the water was the lively
Quartier Latin
, with its students and quintessentially Parisian atmosphere. Both had many comfortable cafés and bistros in which to sit and chat.
De Molay was speaking softly. “In 1314, my ancestor, the last official Grand Master of the Templars, was burned at the stake on this very spot.”
Saxby looked confused. “Surely it was in the Square du Vert Galant on the Île de la Cité, over there.” He pointed west. “In the shadow of Notre-Dame, where there’s even a plaque to mark the spot?”
De Molay sighed. “Even these simple things elude people. And the authorities don’t remember or care where they executed him.” He bent down and picked up some earth, letting it run slowly through his fingers. “It was here that his hot old blood spilled into the ground—right where we are standing.”
He pointed to the river. “In his day, there were four islands in the Seine. Now you only see two.”
Saxby nodded. “The Île de la Cité over there, with the cathedral of Notre-Dame on it. And the Île Saint-Louis next to it.”
De Molay continued. “The Île de la Cité has always been there, home to the great cathedral and the medieval royal palace. But the sleepy and exclusive Île Saint-Louis used to be two islands—the Île Notre-Dame and the Île aux Vaches. What wrong-foots historians and tourists alike is that there used to be a fourth island, called the Île aux Javiaux, which belonged to the monks of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It was little more than a garden. But it is where the pyre was lit, and where he and his deputy died in the flames.” De Molay turned to Saxby. “And, my dear Edmund, we are standing on it.”
“But this isn’t an island, “Saxby objected.
De Molay stared out at the water. “Rivers are always moving, my friend. And sometimes we move them, too. A hundred and fifty years ago, Louis-Philippe, the last king of France, filled in the river channel to the north of here, permanently annexing the Île aux Javiaux to the mainland and, in a way, wiping the island off the map.” He paused. “Where we are standing was not on the mainland in Jacques’ day. It was the Île aux Javiaux.” He pointed behind them at the Marais district. “Ironically, if you looked that way on the day Jacques was executed, as he may have done from his pyre, you would have seen the great towers and fluttering banners of the Paris Temple, his stronghold. But they have dismantled that, too—and few now know where it stood.”
“So the plaque to your ancestor on the Pont Neuf, at the tip of the Île de la Cité … ?” Saxby’s voice trailed off.
“For tourists,” De Molay shook his head. “It’s in a pretty square, in a dramatic position. It makes a nice photograph. But nothing more.”
De Molay faced Saxby. “On the 18th of March 1314, as the canons of Notre-Dame cathedral lit the lamps and started burning incense for the evening
lucernare
ceremony, the king’s men kindled the wooden pyres here for Jacques and his deputy. The two died in the flames, just as nearly sixty other tortured Templars had done over the previous few years, taking their secrets with them to the grave rather than confessing them.”
“And we protect them still,” Saxby replied sombrely, “by the oath we all take.”
De Molay looked out over the water again. His voice was soft. “We cannot fail, Edmund. Too many of our brethren have died over the centuries for us to yield now. The sacred chain may not be broken.”
Saxby look resolute. “We have the freemasons calling in all their contacts—dealers, collectors, governments, everyone. And the Foreign Legion are tracking down the paramilitaries. We’re doing everything we can. We’ll know soon enough where it is—and who has it.”
De Molay began walking back to his car. “Thank you, Edmund. Keep your archaeologist on the case. We don’t know who we’re up against yet, and in such circumstances we should stay low. We don’t want to alert anyone to our involvement. Until we know who we’re dealing with, or until we have no choice, we must let hers be our only face.”
De Molay opened the heavy door of his sleek black vintage Citroën DS, and climbed in.
Unwinding the window as he started the engine, he looked over to Saxby. “We must stay out of sight, Edmund. But make sure Dr Curzon is given all the assistance she needs. There’s no second place in this battle.”
——————— ◆ ———————
Wiltshire
England
The United Kingdom
Ava gazed out of the car window at the lines of ancient hedgerows breaking up the rolling hills—the endless green dotted with clusters of black-faced sheep grazing contentedly in the bright morning sunshine.
After Ferguson had given her the background on Malchus, they had lapsed into silence—each lost in their own thoughts.
The motion of the car gently nosing its way down the motorway was making Ava feel dozy. It had been a punishing few days, and she had a significant amount of sleep to catch up on.
Without warning, a loud electronic ringing shook her back to the present.
She glanced at the caller-ID display on the dashboard, but it read simply ‘Number Withheld’.
Ferguson pressed a grey button with the image of a green telephone on the steering wheel. The ringing stopped immediately, and was replaced with the sound of an open phone line.
“I’m hoping there are two of you there.” The American accent boomed out from the car’s powerful speakers, filling the cabin, injecting a heavy bass register into Prince’s voice that was not normally present.
“How can we help?” Ferguson asked, his tone businesslike. Ava guessed Prince was not his favourite person to work for.
“It was actually Dr Curzon I wanted to speak to,” Prince sounded anxious.
Ava sat up in her seat, alert now, wondering what could have cropped up since Prince had got out of the cab the previous evening. She had not been expecting to hear from her for quite some while.
“Dr Curzon. A strange thing has happened, and we’re all scratching our heads over here. Seeing as you grew up in Ethiopia, I was wondering if maybe you could help.”
“Of course.” As far as Ava was concerned, anything related to Ethiopia was instantly interesting.
“Great.” Prince sounded pleased. “Late last night, an Ethiopian man walked into our embassy on the Avenue Gabriel in Paris. He claimed to represent the crown prince of the Solomonic house of Ethiopia. He said the prince was deeply troubled about the loss of his Ark, and demanded to know what we are doing about it.”
Ava felt a tingle of excitement.
News travelled fast.
Prince continued. “Dr Curzon, does any of this mean anything to you?”
It certainly did.
Ava had been wondering if something like this might happen. “It makes total sense,” she confirmed.
“Please, fill us in.” Prince sounded relieved.
Ava paused for a second, wondering where to start. “The last reigning emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie was head of the Royal House of Solomon—the oldest royal line in the world. He was deposed by a communist
junta
in ’74, and his heir is now the non-reigning crown prince. If the Aksum Ark can be said to belong to anyone, it’s to that family.”
“Hold on,” interrupted Prince. “Haile Selassie? The man worshipped by Rastafarians as the living reincarnation of Jesus Christ? You’re saying he’s linked to King Solomon?”
“More than linked,” Ava affirmed. “He’s widely believed to be Solomon’s genetic descendant.”
Ferguson glanced across at Ava incredulously. “There’s a Hebrew royal bloodline in Africa?”
Ava pushed up the sleeves of her jumper, as if settling down to work. “According to the Bible, one day King Solomon received an exotic and glamorous visitor—the fabulously wealthy Queen Makeda of Aksum, better known by her biblical title: the Queen of Sheba.”
“I didn’t realize she was a real person,” Ferguson interjected.
“Very real,” Ava nodded. “She was the powerful and influential queen of Ethiopia and probably Yemen, too—where the frankincense trees filled her coffers with gold. There are lots of historical records of her reign, quite independently from the Bible.”
“Anyway, according to a sacred Ethiopian text called the
Kebra Negast
, the Queen of Sheba was so impressed by Solomon that she converted to the Hebrew religion and bore him a son, Menelik, thereby uniting the royal houses of Israel and Ethiopia. Menelik’s direct descendants today still claim the same lineage—the Royal House of Solomon.”
“King Solomon had an affair?” Prince sounded incredulous.
Ava smiled. “Middle-Eastern society was a bit different back then. The Bible says quite openly that Solomon had seven hundred wives, including the Pharaoh of Egypt’s daughter, and three hundred foreign concubines. It says he loved them all and worshipped their gods and goddesses, like Astarte, Chemosh and even Moloch, infamous for his cult of child sacrifices.”
Ferguson turned to stare at Ava in disbelief. “King Solomon? The builder of the temple, known for his wisdom?”
Ava nodded.
“This is all news to me,” Prince sounded unconvinced. “So in this tale, did Solomon officially recognize his illegitimate son?”
Ava was surprised by Prince’s combative tone. She had not put her down as a religious conservative.
“According to the text,” Ava continued, “once Menelik was emperor, he visited his father in Jerusalem. Solomon asked him to stay permanently and inherit, but Menelik insisted he must return to his mother. Solomon therefore brought together the firstborn sons of Israel’s leading nobles and priests, and sent them back with Menelik to Ethiopia—to create a Hebrew client-kingdom there.”
Prince cut in again. “Is there any evidence for this?” There was a marked scepticism in her voice.
“Look,” Ava countered, “you hired me as an expert in this area. I’m just telling you what any archaeologist or historian knows. The Solomonic line is a widespread belief in Ethiopia. And yes, there is some evidence, although no consensus.”
“Go on then.” Prince’s tone was bordering on hostile.
“According to the story, as Menelik’s party was assembling to leave Jerusalem, Azariah, the son of Zadok the high priest, made a decision that was to echo down the ages. Distraught at being sent away, he banded together with a group of conspirators and broke into the Jerusalem Temple, where he stole the Ark and hid it in Menelik’s baggage train. This is the crucial bit. To disguise the crime, he left an exact replica of the Ark in its place in the Jerusalem Temple.”
“The son of the high priest stole the Ark?” Prince interjected with disbelief.
Ava continued. “Apparently Menelik did not discover what had happened until the caravan of young Hebrews had left Jerusalem with him and was halfway to Ethiopia. But when he did, he was delighted, and skipped about ‘like a young sheep’, it is said, recognizing it was all part of Yahweh’s plan.”
“A born politician,” muttered Ferguson.
“And so,” Ava concluded. “For as long as anyone in Ethiopia can remember, the Ark has been in Ethiopia—most recently in a special chapel in the church complex of Our Lady Mary of Zion at Aksum, where it is guarded by a single virgin monk, who never leaves the compound until he dies and the next guardian is appointed.”
“Stop.” There was a distinct frostiness in Prince’s voice now. “When you told us back in Qatar that King Nebuchadnezzar sacked the Jerusalem Temple centuries after King Solomon’s day and carried the Ark off to Babylon, I was assuming there was only ever one Ark, which somehow was later moved from Babylon to Aksum. But what you are now telling us is there are quite possibly two Arks, and we have no way of telling which is which.”
“That’s correct.” Ava nodded. “In fact, there’s even a hint in the Bible that Solomon may have made another Ark himself—so perhaps there were three.”
There was a tense silence, finally broken by Prince. “Dr Curzon, are you trying to be funny?” She did not sound like she was finding things remotely amusing.
“Look,” Ava replied, feeling her patience running out. “If this was straightforward, people would have unravelled it all years ago. The fact is that biblical archaeology is at times highly complex, with only a few scraps of information, frequently contradictory, from which we can try to reconstruct events that occurred many thousands of years ago. Biblical archaeology is not a hard-wired science—it’s a world of veils and mirrors. That’s just how it is.”
“So what do you think happened?” Ferguson glanced across at her. “Is this Queen of Sheba story likely? Is there any proof of a Hebrew connection in Ethiopia?”
Ava recalled the first time she had entered an Orthodox church in Ethiopia—it had been quite an education. “Archaeologically speaking, there’s rarely smoke without fire, and there’s undoubtedly a lot of smoke here.”
“Can you substantiate that?” Prince challenged her.
“Sure.” Ava was beginning to enjoy this. “Early Ethiopian emperors observed Hebrew religious rites for centuries until they converted to Orthodox Christianity—so you have to ask yourself: where did they learn them? Second, even today, Ethiopian Orthodox Church rituals are shot through with Hebrew practices—for instance, they keep kosher, circumcise all boys, celebrate the holy day on Saturday, and have a model of the Ark, which they call the
tabot
, in every church, just like in Jewish synagogues. And finally, the State of Israel has recognized over a hundred thousand Ethiopians as genuine Jews, fully entitled to settle in Israel with identical rights to all other Jews. Needless to say, these African Jews trace their origins in Ethiopia to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.”
Prince interrupted abruptly. “So, going back to this messenger who came into our Paris embassy last night. Let me be clear. You’re saying he represents the lineal genetic African descendants of King Solomon?”
Ava could feel Prince bristling at the idea. “Correct. He’s not emperor any more, of course, but he’s still crown prince of Ethiopia, head of the Imperial House of Ethiopia, and the head of the House of Solomon. The Ark at Aksum is therefore a critical part of his family’s history.”
“I can see why he wants answers,” Ferguson noted, raising his eyebrows. “I would.”
“So that’s the story.” Ava concluded. “It looks like the Ark’s owner has now formally registered his family’s interest in what’s happening.”
Ferguson looked across at her. “Well, I’m not going to remember all those details, but at least I’ve learned that we definitely have the right person for the job.”
“I’m very far from convinced,” Prince interrupted brusquely. “There seem to be a lot of ifs and buts, Dr Curzon. And the Bible doesn’t say anything about a relationship between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Until anyone can prove it to me, I’m not going to assume these Ethiopian ex-royals have any legitimate claim on the Ark.”
“But if the Queen of Sheba story isn’t true, how do you explain the Ark’s presence in Ethiopia and all the Hebrew links?” Ferguson asked.
“I don’t have to.” Prince snapped. It was clear from her voice that her mind was made up. “It’s not a priority. From what I hear, there’s a fifty per cent chance the Ark being held by Malchus is the real Ark. Therefore, until it’s safe again and well away from the likes of Malchus or the Iranians, my only priority is to ensure its well-being. We can worry about who owns it later.”
“Of course,” Ava interrupted, “to complicate things further, much of all this depends on whether you believe many of the biblical characters ever even existed. There’s no consensus on that either.”
“Fair enough.” Ferguson concluded, pointing ahead at the large circle of exposed prehistoric standing stones appearing on the horizon.
“Okay. We’re done here.” Prince’s voice had more than a touch of ice in it. “Thank you, Dr Curzon. You’ve made your position perfectly clear.” With that, the phone went dead.
“She’s a bit touchy,” Ferguson observed, swinging off the main road and heading towards the ancient monument.
Ava shrugged. “A lot of this is quite personal. Many people find it hard to challenge beliefs they learned in childhood.”
Ferguson nodded.
“It’s difficult even for non-religious people.” Ava looked across at him. “For example, how would you react if I told you that there are at least three creation stories in the Bible, one of them involving God battling a giant sea monster called Leviathan. Or that of the three sets of Ten Commandments in the Bible, only one is actually called the Ten Commandments and is explicitly said to have been written on stone tablets. However, it doesn’t contain the famous ‘Thou shalt not kill’, but instead absolutely forbids cooking young goats in their mothers’ milk. Or that God specifically forbids tattoos, or wearing polyester—well, mixed fibres. Or that God says he will turn unbelievers into cannibals and force them to eat their children. Or that the Bible specifically says Jesus had brothers and sisters.” She looked at Ferguson. “Do you want me to continue?”
Ferguson looked across at her with incredulity. “You’re making this up, aren’t you?”
“Just don’t tell Prince,” Ava smiled enigmatically, gazing out at the intense green of the rolling plain. “I don’t think she’d like it.”