“Actually, it isn’t. The precept of Normandy was a Templar. If he had possessed the relic, it would have belonged to the Temple, not to him or his family. We have a great deal of documentation on that Geoffroy, because he remained faithful to de Molay and the Temple. Let’s not let our imagination run away with us.”
“But there may have been some reason he didn’t turn the shroud over to the Temple.”
“I doubt it. I’m sorry to have confused you; in my opinion it’s not a problem of spelling, it’s that the two Geoffroys belonged to different families. And even if they were related, that would not account for the family’s possession of the shroud, as I’ve just explained to you.”
“I’m going to Lirey.”
“Well, that’s fine. Anything else?”
“Professor Marchais, thank you—you may not agree, but I think you’ve just unveiled part of an enigma.”
By the time Elianne Marchais saw Ana Jiménez to the door she had once again confirmed her opinion of reporters: shallow, for the most part uneducated, and given to the most idiotic fantasies. It was no wonder there was so much rubbish printed in the newspapers.
Ana arrived in Troyes the day after her meeting with Professor Marchais. She rented a car to drive from there to Lirey and was surprised to find just a tiny village, with no more than fifty people living in it.
She wandered through what remained of the old seigneurial manor, her hands stroking the ancient stones, vaguely hoping the contact with them might inspire her. Lately she’d been letting herself be carried along partly by intuition, without planning things beforehand.
She approached a nicely dressed older woman walking her dog along the side of the road.
“Bonjour.”
The old lady looked her over from head to toe. “Bonjour.”
“This is a lovely place.”
“It is, but the young people don’t think so—they prefer the city.”
“Well, there is more work in the city.”
“Work is where one wants to find it. Here in Lirey the land is good. Where are you from?”
“I’m from Spain.”
“Ah! So I thought, from the accent. But you speak French very well.”
“Thank you.”
“And what are you doing here? Are you lost?”
“Oh, no, not at all.” Ana smiled. “I came specifically to see this place. I’m a reporter, and I’m writing a story on the Shroud of Turin, and since it appeared here, in Lirey—”
“Hmmph! That was hundreds and hundreds of years ago! Now they say the shroud is not authentic, that it is a forgery, that it was painted here.”
“And what do you think?”
“I frankly could not care less—I am an atheist, and I’ve never been interested in the stories of saints or relics.”
“No, neither have I, but I was sent out to do this story, and work is work.”
“But here you will find nothing. The fortress—what remains of it—well, you see it there.”
“And there are no archives or documents on the de Charny family?”
“In Troyes perhaps, although the descendants of the family live in Paris.”
“Live?”
“Well, there are many branches of the family.”
“How could I find them?”
“I don’t know. They don’t have much to do with the village now. Once in a while one of them will come around, but not often. Three or four years ago a young man was here. Such a handsome boy! We all came out to see him.”
“Is there anyone here who could tell me more?”
The woman gestured down the way. “Ask in that house at the end of the valley. Monsieur Didier lives there—he oversees the de Charny lands.”
Ana thanked her and began walking briskly toward the house the woman had indicated, her anticipation mounting with every step. She was certain that in this unassuming little place she would find the nexus between past and present—and concrete evidence to support her suspicions.
Monsieur Didier was a man of about sixty. Tall and strong-looking, with gray hair and a stern face, he looked at Ana mistrustfully.
“Monsieur Didier, I’m a reporter and I’m writing a story on the Holy Shroud,” Ana began. “I’ve come to Lirey because it was here that the Shroud of Turin first appeared in Europe. I know this land belonged to the de Charny family, and I’m told you work for them.”
“Your business is of no concern to me, miss,” he said, clearly annoyed. “What do I care what you’re doing? You think I’m going to talk about the de Charnys because you’re a reporter?”
“I don’t think I’m asking you to do anything wrong, sir. I know you must be proud that the shroud was discovered here in Lirey.”
“We don’t give a fig about the shroud, young lady—none of us. If you want to find out about the family, go talk to them in Paris. We’re not gossips.”
“Monsieur Didier, you’ve misunderstood me. I’m not looking for gossip at all, I just want to write a story in which this town and the de Charny family played an important part. They owned the shroud, it was displayed here, and…well, I should think you’d all feel proud of that.”
“Some of us are.” Tall and robust, the woman who had just joined Didier in the doorway looked a bit younger than he, and a good deal friendlier.
“I’m afraid you’ve awakened my husband from his nap, and that makes him grumpy,” she said to Ana with a warm smile. “Come in, come in. Would you like some tea, coffee?”
Ana stepped into the house before the invitation could be overruled by the old grump, who finally retreated to the parlor with a parting glare as his wife led the reporter to the kitchen.
There, Ana repeated the purpose of her visit while Madame Didier poured coffee for them both.
“The de Charnys have been the lords of this land for as long as anyone can remember,” Madame Didier told Ana as they sat down. “You should go to the church—that’s where you’ll find information on them, and of course in the historical archives in Troyes.”
For a good while she went on to talk about life in Lirey, bemoaning the flight of the younger generation. Her two sons lived in Troyes; one was a doctor, the other worked in a bank. She proceeded to detail the affairs of her entire family while Ana listened patiently, letting her babble on. Finally she managed to steer the conversation back on track.
“What are the de Charnys like?” she asked her hostess. “It must be exciting when they come to visit.”
“Oh, there are so many different branches now. We don’t know many of them, and they don’t come around much, but we watch after their land and their interests here. They’re a bit stuffy, you know, like all aristocrats. A few years ago a distant relative came—what a handsome young man! And so charming, so kind. Not at all like the others. He came with the superior of the church. He sees more of them than we do—the superior, I mean. We deal with an administrator who lives in Troyes, Monsieur Capell. I’ll give you his address so you can call him.”
Two hours later, Ana left the Didiers’ house with little more information than she’d come with. She decided to try her luck at the parish church, hoping the superior would see her. The birth records there might tell her what she needed to know.
The parish priest Père Salvaing turned out to be a cheery septuagenarian who seemed more than happy to have a visitor.
“The de Charnys have always been linked to this place,” he told Ana. “They have continued to own the land, although it’s been centuries since they lived here.”
“Do you know the current family?”
“Some of them. One of the branches, the one that’s most closely linked to Lirey, has some important people. They live in Paris.”
“Do they come here often?”
“No, really they don’t. It’s been years since any of them have been here.”
“Madame Didier, in Lirey, told me that three or four years ago a very handsome, nice young man was here, a member of that family.”
“O
h, the priest!”
“Priest?”
“Yes. Does it surprise you that somebody might be a priest?” He laughed.
“No, no, I didn’t mean that. It’s just that in Lirey all they told me was that he was a very handsome young man—they didn’t say anything about his being a priest.”
“They may not have known it; no reason for them to. The one time he came, he didn’t wear a collar and he was dressed like any other young fellow his age. He didn’t look like a priest, but he is, and I think he’s doing very well. I mean, he didn’t look like he’d remain very long as a parish priest. In fact, I understand he’s moving up in the Church hierarchy. But he didn’t give his name as de Charny, although apparently his ancestors had some relationship with this land. He didn’t explain it much. They called me from Paris to say that he’d be coming and asked me to help him if I could.”
Ana was hard-pressed to contain her excitement. After so many weeks chasing ephemeral wisps of information, hints and half-truths buried in a mountain of myth, she at last had the beginning of a solid string of facts almost within her grasp—and confirmation that the link she had seen so clearly in the middle of the night in a London hotel room was very real. And very much alive.
But it was not easy for Ana to persuade Père Salvaing to let her see the baptismal certificates in the collegiate archives, which were locked up like diamonds.
The priest called the canon librarian, who was scandalized when he heard what Ana wanted. “If you were a scholar, a historian, but you’re just a reporter—who knows what you’re looking for!” he grumbled.
“I’m trying to write the most complete story possible of the shroud. I want to find out whether a fourteenth-century Templar, Geoffroy de Charney, with an e, who died at the stake in 1314, owned the shroud and perhaps hid it here, in the family house, so that Geoffroy de Charny, with no e, might appear as its owner thirty-five years later.”
“That is, you want to prove that the shroud belonged to the Templars,” Père Salvaing stated more than asked.
“And if that was not the case, she’ll make the case,” put in the archivist.
“No, sir, I’m not going to invent anything—if that wasn’t the case, then it wasn’t the case. I’m just trying to explain why the shroud appeared here, and it seems likely that it was brought by someone from the Holy Land, a Crusader or a Templar knight. Who else might have brought it? If Geoffroy de Charny swore that it was the true shroud, then he must have had some reason.”
“He never proved it,” said the elderly superior.
“Maybe he couldn’t. But let me ask you—does either of you believe that the shroud now in the cathedral in Turin is authentic?”
“My dear girl,” said Salvaing after a brief silence, “the shroud is a relic loved by millions of the faithful. Its authenticity has been questioned by scientists, and yet…I must admit I was very moved when I saw it in the Turin Cathedral. There is something supernatural in the cloth, whatever the carbon-fourteen verdict may be.”
For another half hour, Ana earnestly pleaded her case with the two churchmen. Finally, they reluctantly agreed to let her proceed under the supervision of the archivist.
For the better part of the afternoon, they pored through the ancient records. At last, as the sun dipped low on the horizon, she found what she was looking for. In addition to Charny in Lirey, there had also been a family that spelled its name Charney, with an e, and the two families were related. The great Crusader, Geoffroy de Charney, had come home—Ana was sure of it.
Ana had returned to Troyes elated. But although she had established the presence of Geoffroy de Charney’s family in Lirey, she had found precious little on the knight himself. She made an appointment to see the administrator of the de Charny properties, Capell, in the morning. After that she would see what she could find in the extensive municipal archives in Troyes.
Monsieur Capell turned out to be a serious man of few words, who very politely made it clear to Ana that he had no intention of giving her any information about his clients. He did, however, confirm that there were dozens of descendants of the de Charny line in France and that his clients were one of those families. She left his office disappointed.
The young man in charge of the town archives in Troyes had piercings in his nose and three studs in each ear. He introduced himself as Jean and confessed he was bored spitless by his job but that all things considered, he’d been lucky to find work at all, since his degree was in library science.
Ana explained what she was looking for and Jean offered to help her.
“So you think that this precept of the Temple in Normandy was an ancestor of our Geoffroy de Charny despite the name difference?”
“I told you—there are traces of both versions of the name in the parish church outside Lirey. Now I’m trying to find more specifics and also more information on Geoffroy de Charney himself—his immediate family and his movements before he burned at the stake with the other Templars in 1314.”
“Well, this isn’t going to be easy. I can tell you right now that we’re not going to have much, if anything, on the activities of a Templar knight. But if you’ll give me a hand we’ll see what we can find.”
First they looked in the computerized archives, then began looking through the old files that hadn’t been digitized. Ana was pleasantly surprised at Jean’s intelligence and facility with the records. Besides being a librarian he had a degree in French philosophy, so medieval France was familiar territory for him.
They worked steadily and managed to unearth all the available local civil records on the de Charny family tree, but both of them knew the information was incomplete. They still knew nothing of the actual lives of these people who so often married to forge alliances with other noble families and whose traces, and offspring’s traces, were almost impossible to follow.
“I think you ought to find a historian with more experience in genealogy,” Jean finally told her over dinner that night.
They had become comfortable, even close, in the course of their work together, and Ana decided to trust the intense young man with the whole story, or at least most of it. She’d known him only briefly, yet they had made one of those rare instant connections that had them feeling they’d been friends for years. Jean was thoughtful, intelligent, and sensible. Behind his half-Gothic facade was a solid man, a man of integrity.
She told him almost everything she knew, not mentioning the Art Crimes Department or her brother, Santiago, and waited for his opinion.
“Maybe the two Geoffroys were related, Ana,” Jean began. “I’ll grant you that. But we’re attributing possession of the shroud to the first one with no proof whatsoever. There’s just no basis for it. If the shroud had been authentic, it would have been in the hands of the Temple. Remember that the knights made a vow of poverty and had no possessions. So it would be almost unthinkable that a Templar would have such an object in his hands or bequeath it to his family.
“Your theory is interesting, but it’s a real stretch, and you know it,” he continued. “You have to be rigorous when you write about this. Otherwise, people will take it as just another fanciful story about the shroud, and you know how many of those there are.”
Ana began to protest, but he held up his hand and went on. “For a book of esotericism it wouldn’t be bad. But the truth is, Ana, all you’re talking to me about is ‘hunches’ and ‘intuitions’ and ‘feelings.’ What you’re telling me, well told, could be an interesting story for a magazine, but nothing you’ve told me is based on real proof—it’s all just obscure family connections. I’m sorry, really, but if I found a story like this in a newspaper, I wouldn’t believe it. I’d think it was yarn-spinning by one of those people who write about UFOs and see the image of the Virgin Mary in pepperoni pizzas.”
Ana couldn’t hide her disappointment, although deep inside she knew Jean was right. Nevertheless, she raised her chin and responded in a tone as serious as his own.
“I’m not going
to give up, Jean. If it turns out I don’t find solid proof, I won’t publish a word—that’s the promise I made at the beginning and I’m making again right now. That way I won’t disappoint people like you who’ve helped me. But I’m going to continue to track this story down if it kills me. I haven’t told you, but I know a modern-day de Charny right now, a gallant ‘knight’ of sorts if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Who is he?”
“A very handsome, very interesting, very mysterious man, who just so happens to have visited the old family home in the past few years. I’m going to Paris; it’ll be easier for me to get in touch with his family there, if it is his family.”
Jean put his hand over hers on the table. “I’d go with you if I could, Ana, but I know there’s not a chance they’d give me the vacation time right now. But the second best thing is, I have a friend in Paris who might be able to help. He’s originally from here, Troyes. We were at the university together. He moved to Paris and got his doctorate in history at the Sorbonne. He’s even taught there some. But he fell in love with a Scottish reporter, and in less than three years he turned around and got another degree, in journalism, and now they have a magazine: Enigmas. It’s not my kind of thing—they publish speculative stuff on history, unsolved mysteries, you know. And they have genealogists, historians, scientists who write for them. We haven’t seen each other in years, practically since he got married. His wife had some kind of accident and they haven’t been back here. But he’s a good friend of mine, and he’ll talk to you. I’ll call him.”
He blushed as Ana leaned across the table to kiss him on the cheek. “Jean, you’ve been wonderful. Thank you,” she said. “After Paris I think I’ll head back to Turin, depending on what else I find. I’ll call you and keep you posted. You know, you’re the only person I’ve been able to talk to honestly about this, and I’ll count on your good common sense to keep a rein on my wild fantasies.”
The Templar knight spurred his horse. In the near distance he could make out the Guadiana River and the battlements of Castro Marim. He had ridden without rest from Paris, where he had powerlessly watched as the Grand Master and his brothers were burned at the stake.