Son of the Morning Read online

  Kristian stood in the Siebers’ back door, waiting for her. “Hi,” he said in cheerful greeting. He was always cheerful at the prospect of getting his hands on her laptop.

  He hadn’t turned on a light. Grace entered through the dark laundry room, passing through the kitchen. Audra Sieber, Kristian’s mother, was sliding a tray of rolls into the oven. She looked up with a smile. “Hello, Grace. We’re having lamb chops tonight; would you like to join us?”

  “Thanks, but I’ve just finished eating.” She liked Audra, who was comfortably fifty, slightly overweight, and completely understanding of her son’s obsession with gigabytes and motherboards. Physically, Kristian was just like his father, Errol: tall, thin, with dark hair, myopic blue eyes, and a prominent Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Kristian couldn’t have looked more like the prototypical computer nerd if he’d had the words stenciled on his forehead.

  Remembering his appetite, Grace said, “Kris, this can wait until after you eat.”

  “I’ll fix a plate and carry it up,” he said, taking the case from her arms and cradling it lovingly in his. “That’s okay with you, isn’t it, Mom?”

  “Of course. Go on and have fun.” Audra aimed her serene smile between the two of them, and Kristian immediately loped out of the kitchen and up the stairs, carrying his prize to his electronics-laden lair.

  Grace followed him at a slower pace, thinking as she climbed the stairs that she really needed to shed the twenty extra pounds she’d gained since she and Ford had married. The problem was, her work was so sedentary; a specialist and translator of old languages, she spent a lot of her time with a magnifying glass going over photos of old documents, and very occasionally the actual papers themselves, but for the most part they were too fragile to be handled. The rest of the time she was working on the computer, using a translation program that she and Kristian had enhanced. It was difficult to burn many calories doing brain work.

  Earlier that day she had been doing just that, trying to access the university’s library to download some information, but the computer hadn’t obeyed her commands. She wasn’t certain if it was a problem with the laptop itself, or with the modem. She had caught Kristian at home for lunch, and arranged for him to take a look at it when his classes were finished for the day.

  The delay had almost driven her mad with frustration. She was fascinated by the batch of documents she’d been translating for her employer, the Amaranthine Potere Foundation, a huge archaeological and antiquities foundation. She loved her work anyway, but this was special, so special that she was almost afraid to believe her translations were correct. She felt almost… pulled, drawn into the documents in a way that had never happened before. The night before, Ford had asked her what the documents contained, and she had reluctantly told him a little about them—just the topic. Usually she talked freely with Ford about her work, but this time it was different. She felt so strongly about these strange old documents that it was difficult to put it into words, and so she had been rather casual about the whole thing, as if it wasn’t even particularly interesting.

  Instead, it was… special, in ways she didn’t fully understand yet. She had translated less than a tenth of the whole, and already the possibilities were driving her half mad with anticipation, swirling just beyond comprehension, like a jigsaw puzzle with only the border assembled. In this case, though, she had no idea what the finished product would look like, only that she couldn’t stop until she knew.

  She reached the top of the stairs and entered Kristian’s bedroom. It was a maze of electronic equipment and cords, with just enough room for his bed. He had four separate phone lines, one each to the one laptop and two desktop computers he owned, and another to a fax machine. Two printers shared the duty among the three computers. One of the desktops was on, with a chess game displayed on the monitor. Kristian glanced at it, grunted, and used the mouse to move a bishop. He studied the results for a moment, before clicking the mouse and turning back to the puzzle at hand. He pushed a stack of papers to one side and moved another onto the bed. “What’s it doing?” he asked as he opened the case and removed her laptop.

  “Nothing,” Grace said, taking another chair and watching as he swiftly unhooked the other desktop’s electrical umbilical cords from power port and modem, and plugged in hers. He turned it on and it whirred to life, the screen flickering to a pale blue. “I tried to get into the university’s library this morning, and nothing happened. I don’t know if it’s the unit or the modem.”

  “We’ll find out right now.” He knew his way around her menu as well as she did; he clicked onto the one he wanted, then double-clicked on the telephone icon. He dialed the number for the university’s electronic library, and ten seconds later was in. “Modem,” he announced. His fingers were practically quivering as they hovered over the keys. “What did you want?”

  She leaned closer. “Medieval history. The Crusades, specifically.”

  He scrolled down the list of offerings. “That one,” Grace said, and he clicked the mouse. The table of contents filled the screen.

  He scooted away. “Here, you take over while I try to find out what’s wrong with the modem.”

  She took his place in front of the computer, and he switched on a lamp on the desk, automatically pushing his glasses up on his nose before he began dismantling the modem.

  There were several references to the military religious orders of the time, the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar. It was the Templars she wanted. She clicked onto the appropriate chapter, and lines of information filled the screen.

  She read intently, looking for one certain name. It didn’t appear. The text was a chronicle and analysis of the Templars’ contribution to the Crusades, but except for a few grand masters none was mentioned by name.

  They were interrupted briefly when Audra brought a filled plate up to Kristian. He positioned it next to the disassembled modem and happily munched as he worked. Grace went back to the main list and chose another text.

  Sometime later she became aware that Kristian had evidently either repaired her modem or given up on it, for he was reading over her shoulder. It was difficult to pull herself out of medieval intrigue and danger, and back into the modern world of computers. She blinked to orient herself, aware of the strangely potent lure of that long-ago time. “Could you fix it?”

  “Sure,” he replied absently, still reading. “It was just a loose connection. Who were these Templar guys?”

  “They were a military religious order in the Middle Ages; don’t you know your history?”

  He pushed his glasses up on his nose and flashed her an unrepentant grin. “Time began in nineteen forty-six.”

  “There was life before computers.”

  “Analog life, you mean. Prehistoric.”

  “What kind of gauges are in that muscle-bound thing you call a car?”

  He looked chagrined, caught in the shameful knowledge that his beloved chariot was hopelessly old-fashioned, with analog gauges instead of digital readouts. “I’m working on it,” he mumbled, hunching his thin shoulders. “Anyway, about these Templar guys. If they were so religious, why were they burned at the stake like witches or something?”

  “Heresy,” she murmured, turning her attention back to the screen. “Fire was the punishment for a lot of crimes, not just for witchcraft.”

  “Guess people back then took their religion seriously.” Kristian wrinkled his nose at the electronic display of a crude drawing of three men bound to a center pole while flames licked around their knees. All three men were dressed in white tunics with crosses emblazoned on their chests. Their mouths were little black holes, opened in screams of agony.

  “People are still executed because of religion today,” Grace said, shuddering a little as she stared at the small drawing, imagining the sheer horror of being burned alive. “In the Middle Ages, religion was the center of people’s lives, and anyone who went against it was a threat to them. Religion gave them the rules of