Sacred and Profane Read online

  Sacred and Profane

  Nina Merrill

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Sacred and Profane Copyright © 2007, 2018 Nina Merrill

  Second Edition February 2018.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher's Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover design by Grace Draven.

  ISBN 978-0-99713-913-6 (ebook)

  Created with Vellum

  For my husband, the most honorable man I know.

  Chapter 1

  “No wonder everyone thinks the Freemasons are involved in a world conspiracy. Look at this.” Jennie turned her laptop so Harrison could read the screen. “The Templars created the whole mess that’s become banking with checks and credit cards! They used letters of credit documenting funds they had on deposit in, say, London, while they were traveling for pilgrimages in the Holy Land. And—”

  Harrison sighed, pushing his papers into a neater pile on the library table before tucking them in his satchel. “What is it with you and the Templars? They’re a bunch of old men who play with swords and wear fancy hats they’ve probably killed thousands of ostriches to decorate. Come on. I’ll take you dancing.”

  Jennie scowled at her boyfriend and spun the laptop back to herself since it was clear Harrison wasn’t interested. “That’s what’s left these days, but in the Middle Ages and before that, during the Crusades, they were the closest thing Europe had to an international consortium. Except maybe the Catholic church.” She leaned back in her library chair and pushed her legs out in front of her. “Even the governments weren’t as organized as the Templars.”

  Sometimes she wondered why she was bothering with a doctorate in French literature…as time marched on, it seemed there was less and less need for skills like hers. Who, really, would find her translations of obscure illuminated manuscripts valuable? Would her life’s passion ever pay the bills? Or would she always be seeking the next grant or survey class at universities to make ends meet?

  “Jennie.”

  “What?”

  “Dancing, remember? I’ll even spring for dinner.”

  “Sorry, I can’t. Busy…”

  “With what?”

  “A new cipher.”

  Harrison rolled his eyes, just like Jennie knew he would, and she smiled as she watched him go.

  Later that evening, Jennie, too, rolled her eyes as she struggled with the cipher. She had long since finished dinner and dressed for bed in a short cotton nightie and her ankle-length blue silk robe that matched her eyes.

  She sat at her dining room table with books, computer printouts of scanned illuminated manuscripts, and pencils strewn in front of her. To one side, her journal lay opened to a drawing sketched on one of the pages, with a ruler holding it flat.

  Baphomet was variously described in Jennie’s many sources as a goat-headed woman, a demon, the devil himself, or even an alternate spelling of Mohammed. Its image contained many symbols, any or all of which could be errors introduced through the centuries, or taken from the forced confessions of the Knights Templar when King Philip the Fair of France had them arrested and tortured in October 1307.

  In the past week, Jennie had translated an ancient document that confirmed a Hebrew cipher or code, known as the Atbash cipher, could decrypt “Baphomet” into the Greek word for wisdom, “Sophia.” Jennie had been proving that to herself and experimenting with the Atbash cipher to decrypt other words found on monuments known to be of Templar origin. Thus far, nothing had proved interesting, revealing no ancient secrets about the Templars’ legendary treasure or a hint to its location.

  Tonight she planned to reverse the Atbash cipher and try some of the words again with the new letter mapping and her thick Hebrew dictionary.

  The cryptography work wasn’t strictly related to her doctoral dissertation, languishing across the table with her laptop. Her study of the Templars had begun with a few manuscripts and texts she encountered while researching old French literature. These days, it had become an avocation. The tendrils and trails that led from the Templars and the Freemasons into every aspect of Western civilization fascinated her. Their rituals and stylized language had permeated even casual slang with such expressions as “on the level” and “the third degree.”

  The devastation of the Templars in 1307 by Philip the Fair had even given rise to a popular superstition surrounding any Friday the 13th. It was an unlucky day, falling as it did on the astrologically disadvantageous thirteenth, but even unluckier for the Templars who were arrested that day, then tortured for confessions and tried for heresy. Its implications still resonated hundreds of years later.

  Jennie took a mysterious series of letters from a picture of a Masonic master’s tombstone found in Scotland and wrote them in a column in her journal. The letters had never been successfully decrypted, according to multiple sources. She reversed the Atbash cipher and wrote out the re-ordered Hebraic alphabet on the journal’s facing page. Slowly she cross-referenced each letter from the tombstone and wrote out its ciphered equivalent.

  As she filled in the last three letters, her vision swam before her. She rubbed her eyes and took a long swallow of her spearmint tea waiting to the side. A little steadier, she pulled the Hebrew dictionary close, opened it, and began to search for the nearly-impossible word she had created using her inside-out cipher.

  She wasn't surprised to find nothing like it in the Hebrew dictionary. It made no sense, but perhaps when she translated it into Greek letters using the cipher once more, it would.

  Her vision swam again and she shook her head to clear it. She wrote the Greek letters in a column next to the Hebrew letters. As the column grew, her heart pounded. Her Greek was minimal, but surely…

  Jennie deciphered the last letter and traced her finger over the words she had written. She must be overtired, she decided, when the table seemed to shudder beneath her hands. She put her pencil down, picked up her journal and spoke the words aloud.

  “I am the door.”

  Her dining room lurched and spun around her. The overhead lights dimmed and flickered before blinking out altogether. Jennie clutched her journal close to her breast as she fell from her chair, down and down, never reaching the floor, disoriented by a horrific rending noise as if her apartment was breaking in two.

  Chapter 2

  “It is she! It is our Lady Mary!”

  Jennie stared wildly around her at the circle of strange figures. Beyond them, what appeared to be stone walls were lit by smoky, flickering torches. She turned slowly in the dim and uncertain light, drawing her arms across her body
to conceal her state of undress.

  She stood in the center of a ring of men dressed in white tunics with red crosses over their hearts.

  “Our prayers have been answered.”

  “It is she!”

  “God be praised!”

  “The Magdalen!”

  “She will guide us.”

  Jennie turned as each new voice added words of worshipful awe. With an unpleasant jolt, she realized the voices spoke in French. Strangely-accented French, bearing little resemblance to the language she’d learned in high school and perfected in college as part of her master’s degree. The hem of her blue robe dragged on something on the floor and she felt cold, damp stone beneath her bare feet.

  Glancing down, she saw her hem had snagged on a skull and two leg bones set in the configuration of a Jolly Roger. She heard her own grunting scream as she scrambled away from the ghastly things, tangling her feet in her robe and sprawling. In her fright she flinched back with a full-fledged shriek when three of the men rushed forward.

  One of them reached her first, offering a hand to help her to her feet. She gawked with wide eyes at the man who dropped to one knee at her side, at his shoulder-length sandy brown hair falling in tangled waves, the beard and mustache surrounding the most sinful mouth she’d ever seen, concerned eyes framed in a thick sweep of lashes, and unkempt eyebrows arching above a large and Gallic nose. She gazed back, frightened and entranced at the same time.

  Who the hell is he? And where the hell am I? Where’s my dining room? My books? My laptop?

  “Touch her not. We know not what our entreaties may have summoned.”

  The booming voice came from an elderly man standing to her left. His words carried the confidence of long command. Two of the men who had leapt to her aid straightened and stepped back as if a single look from her would burn them, but the man kneeling next to her merely froze, his hand hovering inches from her upper arm. His gaze held hers and, as she stared, she became aware of the strong odor of unwashed male—stronger than any locker room she’d ever snuck into as a teen—overwhelming the scents of incense, burning tar and tallow, and bringing water to her eyes.

  The man at her side spoke to the men around them. “It is the Lady Mary. It is dishonor to allow her to remain on the floor amongst the rubbish. See how she weeps at our shameful treatment.” He gently gripped her upper arms and lifted her to her feet as he rose.

  The strength evident in his hands and arms astounded Jennie. The men she’d dated around campus—including Harrison—while fit, were not the Hercules this man was. She would have fallen again, completely confused, were it not for his support.

  Nothing was as it should be, nothing made sense. Had she fallen asleep and drifted into a dream of the Templars and their secret meetings? She looked down at her feet and saw them buried to the ankles in the rushes and straw that covered the stone floor, and felt the prickling of the sharp ends against her skin. A dream had never seemed so tangible before. She looked up at the man who held her upright. She would never conjure such a rescuer for herself. He was handsome, yes, but so in need of a comb and some soap that she shuddered.

  From her left came a shuffling sound. The sandy-haired knight—what else could she call him, dressed as he was and armed with a sword at his left hip—snapped his head toward the sound and took a firmer grip on her.

  “Do you disobey your commander, Bergère?” A second knight, whose hand hovered near the hilt of his sword, took a step forward.

  The rest of the knights in the circle stiffened. Jennie stifled a gasp. Who knew what would happen if she drew more attention to herself than she already had by sprawling in their midst.

  Bergère inclined his head. “I but seek to aid a lady, Napier.” His look swung to the elder man. “Commander de Payraud.”

  Jennie turned her head to follow his gaze. The commander had compressed his lips and looked sternly at Bergère.

  Payraud came forward into the circle, gaze fixed upon Jennie. She stared back, her heartbeat skyrocketing. Her first reaction was to cringe back against Bergère until his strong chest was against her shoulder blades and she could feel the hilt of his sword pressing against her left hip. Some jangling, innate sense of propriety prevented her from nestling closer. The knight, while seemingly unafraid and confident, might react poorly to a female intruder pressing her backside against his loins.

  Payraud lifted a hand in a gesture of benediction. “Be at peace. I am master of this commandery, Hugh de Payraud. Will you tell us your name, lady?”

  Jennie gaped, her mind whirling. He spoke in French, they all spoke in French, his name was Hugh de Payraud and he was master here. Hugh de Payraud.

  It was a name she knew.

  Hugh de Payraud had lived in Paris, Treasurer to the Knights Templar, the man who had overseen the extraordinary funds of the order, bankrolled kings and wars. A man owing allegiance only to his fellow Templars and the pope.

  In 1300 or thereabouts.

  …A.D.

  Not that anno domini meant a thing when there was a difference of seven hundred years gaping at her from the torch-lit dimness of this windowless room.

  Jennie saw and felt blackness swarming in from all sides and slumped, aware, with her last vestige of consciousness, that strong arms lifted her as she fell.

  Chapter 3

  Jennie came to herself with hands chafing her wrist and strong odors in her nose, lying on a hard, narrow bench. When her eyes flickered open, she saw the knight Bergère kneeling at her side. It was he who chafed her wrist, her forearm half engulfed in his grip, while the roughness of his thumb rubbed over the flesh below her hand. Over Bergère’s shoulder she saw the other knight—Napier, she recalled—peering down at her. It was a different room from where she'd first arrived. A candle and a bowl lamp lit this room instead of torches. The light was less bright, but more certain.

  The smell was a mixture of unwashed male, burning tallow and cooking stew. Under it all was the odor of stone and old mortar, cold and salty like an underground tunnel.

  Napier spoke. “Master de Payraud, she returns to us.”

  Payraud moved to look down at her, his hand on the hilt of a dagger sheathed at his waist. He didn't threaten her directly, but Jennie was clear he would defend himself and his knights should she prove dangerous. “What is your name? Are you angel or demon?”

  Time to learn whether her collegiate French with its medieval tinge from all her studies was adequate to the task at hand. Jennie looked up at Bergère. Seen in the more steady light of candle and lamp, his eyes were gray. She licked her lips before speaking, and his gaze flicked to where her tongue appeared.

  “I am Jennie Pierson—neither angel nor demon, just a…a…” She fumbled for a word. How did one explain the concept of doctoral candidate to a pack of medieval Frenchmen, if she was right in her assessment of Payraud’s identity? “A student of history,” she finished. She turned her gaze back to Bergère. “I am well, sir, thank you. May I sit up?”

  “She’s still pale.” Bergère shook his head. “Perhaps it's best if—”

  “Bergère, step away. You’ve done enough for now.”

  Jennie thought of course she looked pale. She’d just—if she had it right—traveled backward seven hundred years in time to someplace in Paris. Her mind raced. If the master was indeed Hugh de Payraud, the time was before the autumn of 1307, when King Philip the Fair had every Templar in the length and breadth of France arrested for heresy, perfidy, and treason.

  Bergère rose. His eyes flicked to Payraud, but he bent his head in obedient acquiescence. Napier stepped forward aggressively as Jennie levered herself upright.

  She found she'd been settled on a bench. Swinging her feet to the floor, she pulled the blue silk of her robe closer about her body and noted that the Templars had moved her to a kitchen of sorts. The bench was next to a table, and on the other side was a monstrous hearth with kettles and pans, and the glowing eyes of coals and embers heaping what looked like a Dutch
oven. A kettle dangled over a bed of flame, and she saw steam rising from it. Perhaps that was what smelled like stew—onions, cabbage, and the scent of meat.

  Jennie looked at Bergère, who hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and though he had stepped back as his commander had ordered, he still stood between her and Napier.

  Almost as if he were guarding me. What is it about Napier that Bergère doesn’t like? Aloud, Jennie said, “My thanks, sir. You must have carried me to safety.” What made her phrase it that way she wasn't certain, but she deemed it the better part of valor to play the demure maid. With any luck, all that reading and all those movies had at least some historical accuracy to them…

  Bergère gave a stiff nod.

  Payraud had obviously been ignored too long. “How came you among us?”

  Jennie's eyes widened. “I don’t—I know not, sir. I was at home, reading, and then I was—here.” The memory of the skull and leg bones made her shudder, but it also was one more piece of the puzzle. The Templars, and later the Freemasons, had used such a symbol in some of their rituals. She was too scattered at the moment to remember just what they’d used it for.

  “Reading?” The knights looked at each other, and Jennie bit her lip. Women weren't often taught to read in the fourteenth century.

  “We brought her. Our prayers brought her.” Bergère gazed at Payraud with wide eyes, and Jennie marveled at how sincere he seemed. A knight, parfit gentil? Surely by the fourteenth century chivalry was long dead. The most recent crusade to the Holy Land had been over for decades, and King Philip was ensuring that he and his descendants would never be forced to crusade again.