“The fire was put out, right outside Temple Church,” Dourado said. “What’s kind of unusual is that, even though the Church wasn’t damaged in the fire and even though he had thirty other churches to rebuild, the architect, Sir Christopher Wren, decided to refurbish Temple Church anyway.”
“Christopher Wren,” Pierce said. “He was also a President of the Royal Society.”
“Yes, about twenty years before Sir Isaac Newton. He was close friends with Edmund Halley, and it was a discussion they had that prompted Newton to develop his calculations to explain orbital mechanics. And like Newton, Wren is often linked to the Freemasons, though it’s hard to say if he was actually a member of the brotherhood.”
“What kind of changes did Wren make?”
“Mostly to the interior. The altar backpiece is his design.”
Pierce turned and shone his light toward the far end of the chancel, illuminating a series of carved wooden panels — the official term for it was a reredo—which displayed the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s prayer.
“Wren’s modifications were controversial,” Dourado continued, “and in 1841, most of them were undone in an attempt to make the church look more authentic. During the Blitz, a firebomb destroyed the roof and the organ, so they had to renovate again after the war. Wren’s altar was taken out of mothballs and reinstalled.”
“So, anything Wren might have done back in the seventeenth century,” Gallo said, “would have been exposed during the Victorian renovation or the restoration after the War.”
“Unless the architects were in on it.” Pierce moved back into the nave. He played his light on the stone figures arranged on the floor and positioned behind ankle-high iron rails. “Cintia, what was that you said about the crypt?”
“That there isn’t one. When they repaired the damage from the German bombing, they found no evidence of burials or a crypt under the Church. That’s how we know the stone knights in the nave are just effigies and not actual tomb markers.”
“What else do we know about these effigies?”
“There are nine effigies and what appears to be a stone casket cover in the spot where a tenth effigy would have gone. Five of them are attributed to actual people, the other four are unknown. The effigies were damaged by the bombing, but there are casts of them taken from before the war in the Victoria and Albert Museum.”
Pierce noted that all but two of the carved figures had their legs crossed, which was a common burial tradition for Crusader knights. “Which ones belonged to Templars?”
“None of them. At least, not the five that have been identified. They were supporters of the order but they never took the vows.”
Pierce examined each effigy in turn, taking note of their layout. Eight of the effigies were located within the inner circle of pillars supporting the ceiling vault, four on each side, arranged in a two-by-two formation. The heads were pointing west, feet positioned toward east, in the direction of the choir, with just enough space between each to create a cross. Further out, on either side, were the last two markers, including the one that lacked an effigy.
He returned to the center, turning slowly, looking for the pattern. “Why does this look familiar?”
Then he saw it and barked a laugh. Fiona came around to stand beside him. “What are you seeing?”
“We’re standing in a circle,” he said, raising his arms and turning around. “A circle. Keep that image in your head.”
He moved outside the inner circle, to the back of the nave and stood looking across the four effigies to the north, with one arm raised, pointing east. “Now. Imagine a straight line passing right through there.” After allowing a moment for this to sink in, he moved a few steps to the right and did the same over the effigies to the south.
A circle overlaying parallel lines.
The sigil of Hercules.
“The Herculean Society,” Gallo murmured.
“Coincidence?” Fiona asked.
George shrugged. “Could be.”
But even as she said it, a loud scraping sound filled the nave, reverberating between the ceiling arches like a sustained musical note. Pierce turned toward the source of the noise and saw the tenth marker, the one without a knight, sinking into the floor.
FIFTY
Pierce glanced at Fiona. She shook her head. Something had triggered the secret trap door, but it wasn’t anything she had done. She crept past the effigies and shone her light into the narrow opening. Only part of the casket cover was still visible. After dropping a few feet, it had slid to the side, revealing a narrow flight of stone steps, facing west as they descended into nothingness.
“Somebody knows we’re here,” Gallo said. “So, do we go down the rabbit hole?”
“The Ark is down there,” Pierce replied. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
He took a tentative step into the revealed passage, then another. When his head dipped below the level of the floor, Gallo gestured for Fiona to go next.
The opening was narrow, forcing her to turn sideways to get her shoulders through. The air rising up from below was cool and damp, and a musty smell filled her nostrils. The floor at the bottom of the steps glistened with moisture, but the passage beyond was not flooded. Pierce was already moving down the tunnel, and she hastened to catch up to him.
The passage followed a straight line for about a hundred yards before ending at a simple wooden door, slightly ajar. Soft light filtered through the opening, and a sweet smell, like pipe tobacco, cut the dank mildew of the tunnel.
Pierce paused there until Fiona and Gallo caught up, and then he pushed the door open wide.
What lay beyond bore only a slight resemblance to the round nave of Temple Church, and it did not look at all like a thirteenth century burial crypt. The area into which they stepped was round — an open semi-circle — and approximately the same width, with pillars supporting groin vaults overhead. The similarities ended there. Instead of a rustic church building with worn and damaged stone carvings and appointments, the chamber here was smooth and refined, with exquisitely worked marble and panels of polished wood. The floor was a chessboard pattern of polished white and black tiles. The walls were adorned with royal blue curtains, pulled back to reveal portraits, and relics on shelves and in display cases. The back of the door through which they had entered matched the décor, so that when closed, it would be almost indistinguishable. Beyond the door, the chamber stretched out into an enormous hall like the ballroom of a Renaissance-era palace. The far end of the hall, about fifty feet from where they stood, was draped in a dark curtain that stretched all the way across the room, though Fiona could see a narrow gap on either end. The most striking difference of all however, and the only reason she could discern any of the similarities and differences, was the fact that this room was illuminated with artificial light. Each of the elegant support columns sported an understated wall sconce of brushed brass and frosted glass.
“This is a Masonic lodge,” Pierce said. “The checkerboard floor is a Masonic symbol for the duality of nature. Opposing forces. Light and dark. Good and evil.”
“Not a big surprise,” Gallo said. “We suspected their involvement, after all.”
“They opened the door for us,” Fiona whispered, even though it wasn’t necessary to do so. “Is there a connection between the Masons and the Herculean Society?”