There’s nothing quite so exhilarating to round out a night on the town in Zurich
as a narrow escape from a chain explosion right in front of Grossmunster Church
on a Vespa stolen from the LZ police less than an hour before. But exhilaration only goes so far. It
was time for some old-fashioned exposition. The key to this mystery was the
secret nature of the vault. The first question wasn’t the usual: who had
the technical ability to get in? It was a far more basic: who knew there was
anything to get into? Bernard hadn’t been that communicative, even though he’d
brought me in on this in the first place, so I decided a chat with Jason Blood
was in order before my next visit to DAZ.
Jason doesn’t believe in securing telephone connections.
He doesn’t trust technology any more than Bruce trusts magic, and he says even
if a line is secure, half the conversation can still be overheard. He “prefers
to be sure.” So he sent me out—I’m not kidding—he sent me out onto the
Bahnhofstrasse at nine o’clock in the morning to buy a hand-dipped taper of
purest white, six leaves of sage fresh and fragrant, ground rosemary and dried
basil. That’s not as easy as it sounds when you don’t know a city well, but the
nice boy at the front desk wasn’t holding a grudge about the fire in my room.
He pointed me to a farmers’ market at the end of the street for the spices and
a big department store for the tapers. Turns out, some people here have
chandeliers that predate electricity and still burn actual candles. I went back
to my room, arranged the spices at the base of the candle as instructed, and lit
up. Within a few minutes, the flame grew very still and this peaceful white
glow pooled out around it. The candle sprouted a second flame—or rather, there
was a second candle superimposed perfectly over mine. And there was
Jason sitting in front of it, looking as real and solid as if he was in the room
with me.
“Selina, always a pleasure,” he began with a formal nod.
“How may I be of assistance?”
“How about we play a little game of ‘everything you wanted
to know about the Knights Templar but were afraid to ask?’”
“Oh dear, so it’s come to this,” he grimaced. “With
respect to your delightful way of introducing the subject, Selina, perhaps you
will allow me to reframe the question. ‘The Knights Templar for beginners,’
perhaps? Please don’t be offended. I’m sure you know a great deal—or think
you do—but the fact is that modern man, and particularly modern academics, are
incomprehensibly stupid on this subject. I would not trust anything you have
learned in your undoubtedly complete education. This is one of those areas
where modern sources are quite hopeless. You simply… had to be there.”
“Right. At the risk of stating the obvious, Jason, that’s
why I’m talking to you instead of Barbara.”
Again he grimaced.
“Yes, well, the fact is, the Templars are not exactly a
pleasant memory for me. I was still—at the age of five hundred and eighty, by
which time far stupider men would have learned their lesson—I was still
inclined to help humanity when I thought I could. My efforts were scorned time
and again by such arrogant, willful stupidity… It simply staggers the
imagination that men so utterly lacking in wisdom or understanding can be so
blind to their folly and so confident in their supposed ‘abilities’ when those
abilities are only a manifestation of their intense ignorance!”
“Um, Jason, I’d like to point out that absolutely nobody is
arguing with you.”
“Forgive me, Selina. It makes me angry still. It is you
and Bruce who pay the price for those disappointments. They poisoned the well
of my good will for a great many who came after.”
I always thought Jason was quite helpful and a good
friend. I spent the next several minutes saying so, and finally he was ready to
get down to business.
“Very well. An overview of the
Knights Templar by Sieur Jason du Sang, who knew them well enough to lend them
money. The order began, in theory, to protect pilgrims in the holy land. They
were a poor sect in the early days, hence their symbol of two knights forced to
share a single horse. Hence also, my occasional loan of two or three gold
pieces which I never expected to see again. It took almost three hundred
hectares of land for a nobleman to support himself as a knight on crusade. I
never expected to see my money again. I simply felt for those who had been men
of consequence, reduced to such humble circumstances. And I wasn’t alone.
“In 1118, Baldwin II gave these
knights a place to live within the sacred enclosure of the temple mount. Hence
they became the ‘templar’ knights. At the time, it was universally understood
that they must be digging for treasure while they were there. That’s why
Baldwin put them there, not on a covert mission to obtain ancient secrets and
blackmail the church, as some have surmised, but merely to give them a means to
support themselves. Baldwin was born a French aristocrat just as they were.
Such men take care of each other. It is not charity; it is merely pride and the
obligation of caste.
“Modern ‘scholars’ who say these were
pious men that would not dream of defiling holy ground are simply blinding
themselves to the reality of the crusader kingdom. These ‘pious men’ thought
nothing of slaughtering every man, woman, and child they found in the holy city,
Christian and Saracen they murdered on ‘holy ground.’ Do you imagine for one
minute they would shirk from shoveling a little dirt said to be blessed when
they’d already soaked it into mud with the blood of the men who decreed it so?”
“Again, Jason, no one’s arguing.”
He took a deep breath, and we had a
long digression about “Les Annales.” In the 1960s, Jason had the misfortune to
go to a dinner party in Paris where he was seated next to a woman from this
group of French historians who evidently suck the life’s blood out of history.
“In the name of socio-economic
analysis, they achieve the impossible: they make sex, war, and murder dull.”
“Okay, so, long story short. Templars: named for the temple, dug for treasure.”
Jason coughed; it was his version of
a bat grunt.
“Most likely. In any case, the order
did not remain impoverished for long. Whether they came away with the Ark of
Covenant, Holy Grail, or merely the reputation for having unfettered
access to the Temple of Solomon—and therefore the ability to sell any fragment
of wood, bone, or gristle as a priceless relic of a lauded saint—is ultimately
immaterial. They prospered.”
He stopped and chuckled.
“To put it mildly, they
prospered. To put it bluntly, they became an international wealth machine that
made modern equivalents like LexCorp or Wayne Enterprises look smalltime and
disorganized by comparison. Official papal sanction made the knights a favored
charity and exempted them from taxes. When new members joined, as they did in
force now that there was power and prestige to be had, they had to take
an oath of poverty. That meant signing over all their property—farms, vineyards, castles, what have you—to
the order. Additional revenue came from business dealings. The knights themselves were sworn to poverty but had the strength of a large and
trusted international infrastructure behind them. Can you imagine a more
desirable business partner?
“So it came to be that many nobles
leaving their estates for a time, whether to go on crusade or for some other
purpose, would place all of their wealth and businesses under the control of Templars, a kind of bank and power of attorney in one, safeguarding their
holdings until their return. The order’s financial power became substantial,
and the majority of the Templar infrastructure devoted itself to economic
pursuits rather than combat.
“Thus began the Knights’ transition
into the bogeymen of the day. If you think the conspiracy theorists of the
modern world are entertaining, the peasants back then imagined fantastic plots
for which the virtuous fundraising for the crusades was but a smokescreen.
Ultimately, it came down to petty local jealousies, because Templar-managed
businesses paid no taxes and were run efficiently. It was that simple, really,
but demonic influences like Etrigan’s can have a field day with such ‘simple’
jealousies. I did try to warn them, but… well, in any case…
“Templars were rich and they were
powerful. They managed their holdings very well, and became richer still. And
that’s when the innovations began. By 1150, the
original mission of guarding pilgrims had changed into a mission of guarding
their valuables through an innovative system issuing letters of credit.
It was difficult to travel with any significant amount of
money, gold is quite heavy. So they devised a system where a
pilgrim might visit a Templar house in his home country,
deposit his deeds and valuables, and receive an encrypted letter describing his
holdings. He could then take this simple, light, convenient parchment with him
to any other Templar hall anywhere in the world, and there ‘withdraw’ his
funds.”
“A twelfth century ATM,” I smiled.
“Essentially. I personally found it
a convenient solution to a sticky problem. Before the Templars came along, I
was forced to ‘die’ every few decades and manufacture documents to inherit as my
own son; it’s really the only solution when you don’t age. But that is an
isolated case, of course. Back to the ordinary men of women of medieval
Europe. Those who didn’t travel still found it prudent to deposit dormant
wealth with the Knights Templar. The order had a loophole which allowed them to
charge interest lending it out again, something no others could do under church
law. And, as armed soldiers, they had the physical means to protect the goods.”
“So they were the first modern
bankers.”
“Correct. By the 14th
century, they had grown a little too rich and too powerful. Every king in
Europe owed them money, particularly Philip the Fair. They had also lost the
holy land, and most European monarchs were very nervous about that kind of
well-armed, well-financed fighting force being back in Europe. So, as history
records, Philip acted to remove them. He installed a puppet of his own as
pope, and on Friday, October 13, 1307, he arrested Grand Master Jacques de Molay
and some sixty of his senior knights simultaneously, charged them with numerous
heresies, and tortured them until they confessed… What history also records, but
is quite bafflingly incapable of interpreting correctly, is that Philip failed
to lay his hands on the Templar treasure.
“Selina, Batman’s identity is one of the great secrets of
the modern age. How many people know it? Besides you and I, his own handpicked
confidants like Pennyworth and Grayson, numerous members of the Justice League,
Ra’s al Ghul, Hugo Strange… No secret is absolute. Philip wanted to arrest
every Templar in France at the same moment. You cannot keep an operation on
that scale a secret, particularly when you are conspiring against the most
notoriously wealthy men in the world. The Templars knew what was to
happen; it is that simple. Word got out, and they sacrificed the men at the top
because they had no choice. The rest escaped with the treasure. Those who find
the very word ‘treasure’ to be too sensational for their dry, bloodless view of
history would suggest it never existed… And if you choose to fixate on the Holy
Grail, the head of John the Baptist or whatever else they’re thought to have dug
up from the temple mount, I tell you frankly I don’t know about that any more
than you do. But the wealth they had beyond that? The wealth they amassed over
two centuries controlling and consolidating the greatest fortunes of the day?
That treasure is undeniable. It existed. Philip glimpsed it when
he was busy entrusting the treasury of France to the Templars’ protection. He
realized what he saw was only a portion of the whole, that the Templars had
forts and estates throughout France—over 9,000 manors at one count, just
within his borders—each containing its own deposit of treasure. He wanted
it. He didn’t get it... That is your cue, Selina, to ask me where it went.”
“But I don’t have to, because this is where our
talk began last time,” I pointed out.
“Indeed. At this precise moment in time, when the Templars
become fugitives in France, a remarkable thing happens right across the Alps.
Swiss settlements who for generations had been farmers, suddenly turn
into skilled warriors, defeat all the brigands that had plagued them for
decades, and then settle down to become bankers.”
“The Templars came to Switzerland.”
“Of course they came to Switzerland. Just look at their
flag, for God’s sake. There are even stories of ‘white knights’ appearing to turn
the tide of this battle or that one. Some remained in France, I’m sure,
disappearing into other monastic orders. Some fled to England, Scotland, other
countries not inclined to follow Philip’s lead… but the ones entrusted with the
treasure came to Switzerland. And they signaled they were a depository of some
portion of the treasure with a designation that would have been perfectly
obvious to anyone at the time who needed to know.”
“Banque privée?”
“Oui, the majority of the Templars were French. It
was so simple; those who wished to continue availing themselves of the order’s
discretion and expertise in financial matters could continue to do so. A
Templar bank was still clearly marked for anyone with eyes to see. And Swiss
banking secrecy is a natural outgrowth of Templar secrecy, and the Order’s
outlaw status after 1307.”
“Bringing us to the telepaths?”
“An era obsessed with the devil’s black magic was more
keenly aware than most that a man’s solemn oath is nothing when it comes to
keeping secrets. However sincere he might be, torture or magic may compel him
to talk, and there are those with the power to pluck the knowledge from his mind
without it ever passing his lips. That is where I came in. I gave the
custodians of the treasure, and their heirs, the means to cloak their secrets
from mind probes. I did this because I… had a debt to repay.
“When a man like Phillip the Fair is determined to destroy
you, he will find the means to do so. He found it in this case in a mysterious
‘Esquire de Floyran,’ who claimed to have been a member of the Knights Templar
and would provide the testimony for the initial charges of heresy. Floyran said
that the Templars had deceived the church for more than a hundred years. That
what began as a pious service to pilgrims had degenerated into a monstrous blood
cult that worshipped, among others, a demon called Baphomet—who happens to be
Etrigan’s cousin.”
“Here we go,” I laughed.
“Quite. Philip’s inquisitors describe Baphomet as ‘a
three-headed god of assassins’ and other accounts have run the gambit from the
overtly satanic, feeding babies to demons and whatnot, to a Gnostic sect that
committed the obscenest of blasphemies: recognizing women as the spiritual equals
of men… That was the mindset of the age: misogynist, obsessed, and absurdly
overcomplicated. The truth is simplicity itself: it was the name Etrigan used
to seduce a woman he’d noticed. Basina of Auvergne was a ‘freethinking’ woman
of the time, who also happened to be an herbalist and midwife. I have mentioned
how attractive Etrigan finds your hatred of Zatanna. Let’s just say a
freethinking woman in 1304 had a great deal more to hate in the world around
her. Etrigan was a little drunk on the rampant chaos of the age, and he was
quite determined to get free of me long enough to have her.
“He resorted to a trick I would never fall for today, but
at the time, well, all I can say in my defense is there was so much talk of the
Evil One plotting against the faithful. Every dark shadow was said to cloak
evil spirits. As much as one knew it was nonsense, it was impossible to
remain completely immune from the paranoia and dread.
“I had business with the Templars in the region. As I’ve
explained, with their system of encrypted letters, I had no more difficulty
being Jason Blood from one century to the next. So I found myself in Auvergne
with a number of knights. Etrigan convinced me he recognized a gentleman of our
company, one Hugues de Poitou who I disliked intensely, as his cousin Baphomet in
mortal disguise. I admit I was too ready to believe him, too eager to set him
free to take on Baphomet demon-to-demon. In truth, I was seduced by the
thought of Etrigan ripping Hugues to pieces, even if the body was nothing but an
illusion. So I set Etrigan free.
“At a time when demonic possession was known, he did not
risk exorcism by revealing his true name. Basina, the knights, and others of
the town all came to know him as Baphomet in the month he remained free. I
cannot tell you if Esquire de Floyran was on Phillip’s payroll from the
beginning, if he was sent among the Templars deliberately to find or manufacture
heresy, or if he joined the order sincerely and only went to Phillip later to
avenge some personal grievance. But I can tell you how he came to hear
the name Baphomet, a name found in the charges and confessions by torture of
Templar knights and Templar knights alone. It’s because Etrigan got a hard on
for Basina of Auvergne, and I was too weak to stop him.”
..:: Kitten? ::..
“Hey, Handsome. I wanted to catch you when you got back
from patrol.”
..:: Then you overshot. I was about to turn out the light. ::..
“Aw damn. So you’re not in the cave?”
..:: Why, do you need something from the Batcomputer?
::..
“No, nothing like that. I just hoped you’d still be in
costume or something. I spent the whole morning swimming in Templar knights and
medieval intrigue, with a sidetrip into Jason’s personal complaints about constipated French historians. I badly
need a dose of Gotham.”
..:: I’m flattered. ::..
“Mmmm,” Selina closed her eyes, letting the deep bat gravel
flow through her. “More, please.”
..:: More? I always said greed
would be your downfall. ::..
Luxurious purring followed, and Bruce had to cover the
mouthpiece so she wouldn’t hear his chuckle.
..:: Catwoman. ::..
“Meoooooooowwwwww.”
..:: Remember, if you do find yourself in
a lost Templar vault, nothing in there belongs to you. ::..
The luxurious purring segued into an equally luxurious
hissing.
..:: No souvenirs. I’ll know. ::..
And the luxurious hissing segued back into a long, moaning
meow.
Refreshed by an invigorating dose of battitude, I began
sifting through Jason’s interesting but remote Templar lore for the pertinent
bits that applied to my case. Specifically: who could know there was a Templar vault
to get into?
Jason was certain a sacred trust like this would be a
father-to-son deal. That meant only the descendents of the founding
partners of Ducret, Augustiner & Zaehringen.
Bernard wasn’t a suspect, since he brought me in on the
case. If you’re dipping into a known vault, then okay, you might bring someone
in just to divert suspicion. But a secret vault is different. Besides, if you
did want to throw people off the scent, you’d get a bad investigator.
Bernard knew enough about my deposits over the years to know exactly how good I
am at what I do. And finally, to be blunt, Bernard was a middle-aged banker
with a paunch. Getting to the final vault entrance required wedging yourself in
for a punishing vertical climb, one foot on each wall and pushing up like your
life depended on it (because it did). It required strength in the legs, balance,
and ability to stop halfway up and catch your breath. There was just no
way I could see a man Bernard’s age doing it, and that went for Carl Augustiner
and Gerald Zaehringen too.
That meant, whoever might be behind it, the actual footwork
was done by someone young and athletic, quiet possibly my friend the Eurothug from the first
day's search-and-burn at my hotel. But he had to find out about the vault somehow, and that meant one of
the partners had talked…
A father-to-son deal, Jason had said. Bernard’s son was too young; he was eleven. There was a
daughter, nineteen, not in the running for patriarchal secrets. Augustiner had
a boy that would be just about the right age, but he was killed eight months ago
in a skiing accident in Engelberg. With Jason’s schemes to conceal his
immortality fresh in
my mind, it occurred to me that death can be faked, so I got on a train, went to
the Châlet Spannortblick, and made some very indelicate inquiries.
I found out that Carl Augustiner Jr. was killed doing some damn fool ski jump out of
a helicopter, and, while they didn’t find the whole body, they had a head. In
other words, it wasn’t the kind of death you walk away from (an observation that
brought the most astonished expression from the woman at the châlet, but I was
past caring). I crossed the last name off the list on the train back to
Zurich. Zaehringen was a “confirmed bachelor” with no children. What’s more, I
found out the Zaehringens were a late addition to the DAZ letterhead. Up until
1890, the firm had been Ducret & Augustiner. It was possible that Gerard
Zaehringen didn’t know as much as I did.
I couldn’t accept another dead end, so I decided on the one
Catwoman maneuver that had never failed: hit the jewelry stores. One of those
men that knew about the vault told somebody, and a good way to find out
who men tell their secrets to is to find out who they’re trying to impress in
other ways.
The absolute best part of that plan was the proximity: the
myriad of jewelers on the Bahnhofstrasse were only a few short rooftops from my
hotel. It felt just like the old days in Gotham, with my apartment so
close to 5th Avenue jewelry stores, and I was giddy by the time I reached
Cartier.
In honor of those wonderful Gotham prowls, I had decided to hit Cartier first, even though I was certain the DAZ boys would favor a hometown
jeweler. Getting in was just the same as the Cartiers in Gotham and Paris. I would have peeked in their vault, just for fun, but I did want to finish
this particular bit of research in one night. So I bypassed the gems and
went straight for the sales records. As expected, there was nothing for Ducret,
Augustiner or Zaehringen.
I found Bernard at my next stop: Bucherer is considered
Switzerland’s leading jeweler. Twice a year, Christmas and late September,
Bernard made a small purchase, a gold chain or a small cocktail ring… about half
the September buys were sapphire or lapis, as in the September birthstones, as
in his wife’s birthday… nope.
Beyer was next, and there I found exactly what I was
looking for: Carl Augustiner had the same dull, predictable pattern of “wife
purchases” as Bernard, dating back thirty-odd years. But then, twenty-four
years ago, a second set of purchases began… only one a year, but not at
all dull and conservative. Last year’s buy was a jeweled Rolex: forty-five
square-cut emeralds, diamonds on the face, 140,000 Euros. That’s a mistress.
The next morning, I took off in search of Seefeld in Kries
8, a residential part of the city I had never been to before. I located the charming
house on a quiet street where the Rolex had been delivered. In the old days, I
had a number of approaches to get a peek inside a target’s house, just to know
the layout before returning as Catwoman. But looking around the idyllic
neighborhood—two little boys on bicycles, a woman waving at me for no reason—all my routines geared towards suspicious Gothamites seemed hopelessly out of
place. So I knocked on the door, jettisoned my French and pidgin German, and introduced myself
with a decided American twang as the companion of a U.S. industrialist
considering a second home in Zurich. I said I was checking out the different
neighborhoods and wondered if she could tell me what it was like living in Seefeld.
It seems ridiculously simple, but it worked. She
introduced herself as Daniela Barras, she asked me in, she offered me tea. She
laid out these delicious tea cookies and told me the shop down the street that
sold them. I’d spent so much of my time in Zurich getting chased, shot at, and
dodging fireballs, I’d forgotten how genuinely nice ordinary people can
be.
Of course, counterbalancing Daniela’s helpful information
about the neighborhood was her equally helpful information about a photograph I admired. Her
son, Mark… the Eurothug who tried to set my room on fire my first day at the
Wittmer!
Small gap… tight squeeze… legs taking my weight… and
finally… yes, stable. I could rest until my breathing and heartbeat returned to
normal.
A follow-up “candle call” to Jason Blood had
told me everything I needed to know to return to the vault and finish this
nonsense.
Foothold… foothold… and… stretch…
A bastard son would not be brought into the 800-year old
banking firm and told about their secret vault, not if there was a legitimate
heir.
…lock the legs …
Carl Augustiner Jr. would be told, and he
somehow found out he had a half-brother.
…and push up…
He looks up Mark Barras. “Why should you get shut out of
the good stuff and be left with a small trust fund?” or something along
those lines. For that matter, (thought but never said aloud),
why should I have to WAIT forty years and work in the dreary bank when there’s a
treasure out of legend right under our feet?
Foothold…
Mark likes the idea but not the partner. Hence the “skiing
accident.” Auf wiedersehen, Carl.
Foothold…
A lot of people have died for this treasure, what's one
more?
…and stretch… lock… and up…
The partners were so skittish about bringing in the cops.
Foothold...
An attitude I heartily approve of in the normal
course of things.
Foothold...
But at the risk
of sounding like Bruce, we're not going to just shrug at murdering his
half-brother, are we?
…And here I finally get to use my arms, pull myself up… and
this time you won’t sneak in behind me, you sniveling eurotrash creep, because this time,
I don’t have to go around the steel spikes or the sand pit. This time, thanks
to Jason Blood (for whom I really would have to make one more stop at Beyer
before I left and get him a nice Patek Philippe), I knew that any bible trivia
made up by Templars for Templars would only bother with the Book of Nahum.
There are maybe a thousand passages dealing
with treasure: from Genesis to Chronicles to Kings, it’s everywhere.
Hezekiah showing off the silver, gold, and spices in his storehouse; shields of
gold made by Solomon; treasurers with names like Ahijah, Mithredath, and Pithom
oversee the fortunes of Cyrus, Nehemiah and Egypt. Job tunnels through
rock until his eyes see all its treasures. And, according to Proverbs,
Vanity is the treasure of wickedness—or maybe it’s the other way around.
Point is, there’s way too much to cram for if you consider the whole bible in
play—not to mention, in the holy land, these guys had access to the Gnostic
gospels rejected from the standard bible.
But Jason said it was the obscure Book of Nahum
that the Templars could really relate to.
God is introduced as a righteous, powerful, angry warrior
against whom no one can stand. The appeal there is obvious, and there is
endless mention of destroying, attacking, plundering, and destruction. There is
also one single verse that is beautifully on point:
The lion killed enough
for his cubs and strangled the prey for his mate, filling his lairs with the
kill and his dens with the prey.
—Nahum, 2:12
Now that’s an analogy for treasure our boys could relate
to. And there was the word “LEO,” Latin for “lion” among the trilingual
riddle etched above this large silver seal. I pushed on it and... rocky click… and there was
the II, for book two …rocky click… and there was the XII…
A beautifully carved seal of gold and enamel dropped into
place over the silver, and the “door”—which wasn’t even identifiable as a door until it
started to open—began this slow, creaking, swing to reveal a clear pathway to
the inner chamber.
Wow… just… wow. There were chests, and I mean CHESTS of
gems: diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires, some set in gold but most lying
loose. There were gold coins, gold vases and gold cups… a gold shield and
several swords and daggers with jeweled handles. There was…
There was something very sharp and cold pushing against the
small of my back…
“This sword has not run through any infidels in quite some
time, but I am sure it is still sharp enough.”
To be continued…
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