Satisfied that the fuel is more than adequate for the task, the young abbot turns in a slow circle and studies his fellow spectators. They’re a mangy and flea-bitten lot, most of them—enemies of the faith, thinks Fournier, or unreliable friends, at best—but a few arm’s lengths to his right, he notices a cluster of other clerics. They’re Dominicans, judging by their habits: a handful of novices; two friars who appear to be about his own age, possibly younger; and an older man, seemingly the group’s leader. The older man is talking—lecturing, more like it—about heresy in general and the Inquisition in particular. That’s not terribly surprising, since the Dominicans are the pope’s chosen order for detecting and uprooting heresy. But there’s something about the man’s easy confidence that Fournier finds grating.
He edges closer, listening to the older man’s comments with keen interest, a critical ear, and rising irritation. Fournier’s no Dominican, but he’s taken a keen interest in the Inquisition since his arrival at Fontfroide. Geographically, the center of the Inquisition—Toulouse—is near Fournier’s abbey; theologically, the spirit of the Inquisition is close to Fournier’s stern and austere heart. During the past year, in fact, he’s spent weeks in Toulouse, observing and admiring the work of Bernard Gui, the devout Dominican whose masterful wielding of physical pain, theological cunning, and abject terror has broken hundreds of heretics during his seven years as Chief Inquisitor. Fournier wonders if Gui is here today, but he doubts that the Inquisitor’s busy schedule allows him time to travel from Toulouse to Paris, even for such a worthy cause.
Suddenly, from the knot of Dominicans, he hears Gui’s name spoken aloud, as if the older friar has somehow been reading his thoughts. The man is speaking in Latin so that the rabble around him cannot understand, but his words are clear to Fournier. The Dominican is criticizing Gui—and not just criticizing him, but mocking him: mocking a brother friar, and the Chief Inquisitor at that. “He has the fierceness of a bull,” the man says with a smile. “The intelligence of a bull, too.”
Fournier pushes sideways, further closing the distance between himself and the Dominican. The movement catches the eye of the friar, and when he meets Fournier’s gaze, Fournier calls to him in Latin: “Would you dare to say such things about Bernard if he were here to listen?”
The older man registers mild surprise, but not the contrition and fear that Fournier expected from him. “My words will reach his ears soon enough, I feel certain,” he says to the hulking young Cistercian. “When you relay them, be sure to tell Brother Bernard who spoke them: Johannes Eckhart, master and chair of Dominican theology here at the University of Paris.” He bows, with a slight smile and a sideways tilt to his head—is he mocking Fournier now?—and then turns his back on the indignant abbot.
“God is not pleased,” Fournier mutters beneath his breath. He considers pushing through the half-dozen people who stand between them, considers teaching the old man a lesson in respect. Suddenly a shout ripples up the shore, like a bow wave from the boat that is making its way upstream toward the Isle of the Jews, making its way toward the towering stake and the stacks of wood.
The boat, rowed by eight men, carries half a dozen of the king’s guards, as well as Jacques de Molay and Geoffroi de Charny. One of the guards raises a flaming torch high overhead, and the mob roars.
THE PYRE BURNS UNTIL MIDNIGHT. THE TWO TEMPLARS are long since incinerated, but the crowd lingers, loath to leave until every stick of wood is consumed.
When the flames finally gutter and die, the Order of the Knights Templar has been extinguished. But hanging in the air, like the lingering smoke and the scent of charred flesh, is the dying cry of Grand Master Jacques de Molay: “I summon the king and the pope to meet me before God!”
CHAPTER 1
Sevierville, Tennessee
The Present
I HEARD A CLICK IN MY HEADSET, FOLLOWED BY THE voice of the TBI pilot. “Dr. Brockton, you okay back there?”
“I’m still kinda puckered from that takeoff,” I answered, “but yeah, I’m fine.”
He laughed. “I’ll go easier on the landing.”
He circled the plume of smoke, which rose from the ruins of a house. Fifty yards away was what might have been an airstrip except for the fact that it was hemmed in by houses. I pointed at the ribbon of asphalt. “What’s up with that? Looks like they accidentally put a runway smack-dab in the middle of a neighborhood.”
“They did, but not by accident,” the pilot said. “This is Smoky Mountain Airpark. A subdivision for aviation nuts. Instead of a garage, every house has its own airplane hangar.”
A small fleet of vehicles ringed the smoldering hangar and half-burned house we landed beside. In addition to the helicopter, I counted four fire trucks—two of them still spraying water on the house—plus three Sevier County Sheriff’s Office cruisers and four unmarked cars, which I supposed were TBI vehicles.
I was only half right, I learned when four investigators met me halfway between the helicopter and the house.
“Good to see you again, Doc,” shouted Steve Morgan over the ebbing noise of the turbine and the rotor wash. Steve had majored in anthropology, but he’d been working for the TBI for about ten years now, and he was the one who’d called to ask if I could take a quick look at a death scene. “Where’s your assistant? Miranda? I thought you two were joined at the ileum.”