January 20, 2010. 5:45 p.m. Paris time. 11:45 EST. Ten miles south of Toulouse .
Almost two hours into the bus trip, the bus hit a pot hole and John Morse woke up, startled. He quickly looked around the bus in panic, and then out the back window. Everything seemed safe.
“What kind of cancer does your son have?” A good looking man in his late thirties with a tan face, blue eyes, and a strong chin poked his head out towards Morse. He spoke in English. He was seated one row up and across the aisle from Morse and his children. He was had a friendly, almost mischievous grin, and a large gap between his teeth. He was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Your son, he has lost his hair. I just assumed maybe he had cancer.”
Morse caught on. “Oh, I see, no, he does not have cancer. He just recently shaved his head.”
The man looked puzzled. “And you shaved your head, too? Is that for some religious purpose?”
A handsome, broad-shouldered 6 foot, 3 inch blonde man with sunglasses and a gray shirt reading “Brown Hockey” nudged his friend in the Harvard sweatshirt.
“Doug, stop bothering them!” He leaned across his friend’s lap and spoke to Morse in a deep voice. “I am sorry, sir. My partner here really enjoys butting into other people’s business.”
“No, it’s quite all right,” said Morse. “Umm, we just uh, well…” Morse stammered, unable to quickly think up a lie to explain their shaven heads.
“Look,” said the man known as Doug. “I am sorry to intrude. We are not judging you or anything. I just thought you might be in trouble. I saw you three come on the bus in priest’s outfits and then your daughter did that little Houdini number under the robe. I have been sitting here like the Curious Cat for an hour now trying to get up the nerve to ask you what this is all about. If you and your family are in trouble, we would be happy to help.”
The bigger man rolled his eyes. “Doug, I am sure they don’t need our help. We are really sorry to bother you.” The big man gave his partner another withering glance.
Morse thought for a moment. At this point, they probably could use all the help they could get.
“Actually, we are in a spot of trouble. My name is John Morse.”
“Doug Bushnell,” he said warmly, shaking Morse’s hand, his eyes lighting up, knowing that whatever the story was he was going to get it.
“I’m Ray Lardiggio,” said the bigger man. Morse felt every bone in his hand turn to dust in the big man’s vice-like handshake.
Morse addressed the couple. “I am a Professor at UCLA. I came here with my family on a scholarly trip to find certain ancient artifacts. Along the way, for some reason I do not yet know, we have incurred the wrath of some sinister forces, who have tried to kill us. They trailed us to Agen, and before we could get to the airport, they pinned us down in the Agen Cathedral. The only way to escape was to change our appearance, dress like priests and get on this bus. Our plan is to get to the airport in Carcassonne as soon as possible and get home to safety. ”
The big man’s protective instincts kicked in. “Who is chasing you? What do they look like?”
“I don’t know,” said Morse. “I saw one man in a gray suit and another in a t-shirt and jeans. They were kind of non-descript and I was looking through a window quite some distance away.”
“You’re coming with us,” said Ray. “We will keep you safe.”
Doug looked miffed at his partner. “Excuse me a sec,” he said to Morse and then had a private conversation with Ray in a very quiet voice. “Umm, ix-nay on the otection-pray, Batman. I don’t mind being friendly, but you just signed us up to protect them for the rest of our trip. I have buildings to photograph, you know, and we only have one more day.”
Ray looked at his partner in disappointment. “I do not care what our vacation plans are. These people are in trouble. We are going to give them our help.”
“You are always doing this, making plans without me. We’ve paid a lot of money for this trip. Your Hockey Gene is coming out again. You see a potential to bang someone’s head, and your Testosterone Meter shoots to the moon.”
“Doug, it is not about banging heads. They have little kids there.”
Doug looked disgusted. “I hate it when you go into super-hero mode. OK, fine, but let’s save mankind quickly, OK, Ray, because I still haven’t eaten an escargot yet.”
Ray moved across his partner, crushing his shoulder as he leaned. “Professor Morse, we are going to do everything we can to help you.”
“That is so nice of you,” said Morse. “I will definitely take you up on that. Do you know the best way to get to the Carcassonne Airport?”
“As I understand it,” said Doug. “It is on the west side of the city. When we get off the bus, we will walk you to a cab so you can get to the airport.”
“We will go with you in the cab to make sure you’re safe,” corrected Ray.
“Right. That’s what I meant,” said Doug, frowning.
“What brings the two of you to Carcassonne?” asked Morse.
“Sight-seeing,” said Doug. “I teach architecture at Harvard. I convinced Ray to go with me to photograph a lot of the ancient castles in France. The architecture is really quite amazing. Ray is a high school hockey and football coach, so castles are not really up his alley, but he is so crazy about me he will follow me anywhere.”
Ray thought Doug was trying to slight his intelligence with the crack about the castles. “I am also the coach of the Science Olympiad Team, Mr. Architectural Genius. I may not have spent two thousand hours in the library researching castle moat irrigation or drawbridge gears, like some people we know, but I do like the stories about the battles in these old castles. Those are cool. Like the siege of the Foix Castle or the story about the pig flying over the Walls of Carcassonne. And by the way, it is he who follows me everywhere.”
“Yeah,” said Doug. “He was like a school girl in the third Lord of the Rings movie when the giant elephant thingies attacked the castle. I fell asleep in that movie.”
“Yeah, he’s got great movie taste. His favorite movie is Julie & Julia, for crying out loud.”
“Meryl Streep is a goddess. She can do no wrong.”
“Excuse me,” said Morse. “What did you say about the pig flying over the Walls of Carcassonne?”
“You never heard that story?” asked Ray. “It’s how the city got its name. It all started…..”
“Well, not exactly,” interrupted Doug. “OK, you know the story better,” conceded Ray. “You’re the castle expert. You tell it.”
“OK,” said Doug. “Well, the City probably gets its name from a ruler in 118 B.C. named ‘Julia Carcaso.’ The fortifications for the City were built in the time of Roman Gaul, as early as the first century A.D. Later, the Roman name for the City became ‘Carcasso,’ and it eventually morphed into Carcassonne over the years. However, the locals tell a slightly different story, which is probably just a legend.
“In 795 A.D., five years before he became Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne tried to lay siege to the City. At the time, the city was ruled by a Saracen princess named Dame Carcas, who had stepped in to rule the city after her husband had passed away. After many months of battle, the villagers inside the castle had hardly any foodstuffs left. They were out of water and supplies. If they did not surrender soon, they would all starve. They were down to one pig and one bag of grain—some stories say it was a bag of corn. Dame Carcas got a clever idea. She took the last bag of grain and, as other townspeople looked on in bewilderment, fed the grain to the pig. Then she hoisted the pig to the top of the ramparts and heaved it down on the attacking army below. The pig exploded on impact, and the grain fed to the pig came pouring out.
“When Charlemagne saw the pig and its entrails, he became concerned. The townspeople apparently had enough supplies to use their food as weapons. Moreover, if even the town’s pigs had enough to eat, surely they had many more months’ worth of food inside the castle on which to survive. At this rate, Charlemagne believed he would not be able to take the castle, so he retreated. After Charlemagne’s army left, Dame Carcas went to the Bell Tower of St. Nazaire and rang the bells, signaling victory. The townspeople erupted in joyous celebration, yelling ‘Carcas sonne’ or ‘Carcas rings.’ And that is how the city got the name ‘Carcassonne.’”
“Oh my goodness,” said Morse. He reached to his feet and pulled out the scroll taken from the Organ of Agen. “This is an ancient scroll I recovered in Agen, and may have been authored by Nostradamus or one of his contemporaries.” Doug and Ray looked at the scroll.
When fat pigs fly
Kings tremble
Bells ring
And the people rejoice.
“The ‘flying pig’ is Dame Carcas’ pig. The ‘trembling king’ is Charlemagne.’ The bells ringing are the Bells of St. Nazaire. And the people rejoicing are the villagers of Carcassonne. This is obviously pointing me to go to Carcassonne! What luck!”
“Yes,” said Doug, “And you even have Charlemagne the Great’s monogram there.”
“What?”
“Yes, that drawing there is the monogram of Charlemagne. Charlemagne was known by his German name ‘Karls des Grossen, or Charles the Great. The Latin form was Carolus Magnus. When Pope Leo III made Charles the Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day in the year 800 A.D., the Pope gave him the name KAROLUS with a K. Charles thought he was hot stuff and decided to create his own official monogram for signing documents. The drawing shows a K on the left; an A in the middle—see the two lines going up with the little downward pointy thing between them, that’s the ‘A’—an R on the top; an O in the middle again, which looks kind of like a diamond; an L on the bottom; a U back in the middle again –the U kind of looks like a V, with two lines going downward—and an S on the right. KAROLUS, or Charlemagne the Great. So the drawing obviously goes with the verse about Carcassonne.”
“How did you know that?” asked Morse.
“Don’t ask,” said Ray sarcastically. “He has become a regular encyclopedia of useless medieval knowledge. Hey, I notice the chess board on the bottom. What’s that?”
“Oh,” said Morse. “That’s the rest of the clue. I don’t play chess, so I do not have the foggiest notion what it means.”
“Well you are in luck again,” said Ray. “I happen to be a chess player. I can help you out with it.”
Ray studied the chess board. “Well, I see at the top there is an arrow pointing downward. That probably means it is Black’s turn to move. The scroll is asking you to figure out what Black’s Best Next Move is.”
“Oh, I see,” said Morse. “Do you know what the best next move is?”
“Sure.” Ray wrote letters A through H along the bottom and 1 through 8 on the left side of the board, like this:
Ray pointed to the Black Bishop in the middle of the board.
“This is a classic ‘Discovered Check,’ when one piece on a player’s board screens another one of his pieces from a check of the opponent’s king. By moving the blocking piece—the screen--out of the way, there is a ‘Discovered Check.’ Take a look at the board here. The Black Bishop is sitting on space E5. If he wasn’t there, the Black Queen on E7 would have a direct beeline to the White King on E1. Moving the Black Bishop on E5 out of the way, then, causes the Black Queen to check the White King. The rule is you always have to get out of check after the other side checks your king. So what we need to do is move the Black Bishop to a place where he will threaten another valuable White piece. While White is tied up getting out of check, the Black Bishop moves in for the kill. Black’s best move here is to play his Black Bishop on E5 toC3, and take the White Knight. That will result in a check—in fact, a double-check-- on the White King. After White wastes a turn getting his King out of check, the Black Bishop then slides over and kills the White Queen on A5. A Black Bishop Screen and a Discovered Check.”
“Very clever,” said Morse. “The Black Bishop. Doug, is there anything in the Town of Carcassonne relating to a Bishop?”
“Why, certainly there is. In the 11th century Basilica of St. Nazaire and St. Celse—that’s the one with the bell tower Dame Carcas was ringing—there are tombs of two bishops. That is where Ray and I are going. The Basilica is particularly fascinating because it represents a combination of Romance and Gothic styles. It started out as a Romance structure, but then as a result of the Cathars Wars, the city became controlled by the French. The French wanted the cathedral constructed in the new Gothic style; so much of the Basilica was demolished and replaced with a Gothic version. But they ran out of funds, and so they had to keep the old Romance nave. Therefore, they had to come up with a compromise between the Romance nave with its tight dimensions and the Gothic transept which was intended for a larger building. The result is a bizarre combination of Romance and Gothic styles. It is really interesting.”
“Doug, I don’t think he cares about your architecture styles,” said Ray. “He wants to know about the bishops.”
“Right, sorry,” said Doug. “It’s just that the architecture is so fascinating. Anyway, in the Basilica, there are two bishop’s tombs—the empty tomb of Saint Pierre de Rochefort, former Bishop of Carcassonne, and the Tomb of Bishop Radulphe. Both are absolutely beautiful.”
“If you had to categorize them, which of the bishops could you describe as a “black bishop?”
“Well, Saint Pierre is said to descend from a group of heretics living in the Black Mountains of Languedoc. Could that fit?”
“That must be it!” said Morse. “So the black bishop must mean the Tomb of St. Pierre in the Basilica of St. Nazaire. And the discovered check move must give us our last clue as to where to look by the tomb!”
“Makes sense to me,” said Doug. “Hey, this is kind of fun.”
Just then Zoey woke up. “Hey what is that thing up there?”
The bus travelers turned and looked out the window. Up ahead lay a beautiful city of castle walls and towers.
Carcassonne looked like something out of a Disney fairy tale. The city had two castle walls, an outer wall and an inner wall, complete with archer parapets. The double walls ran for two miles and surrounded a busy collection of medieval streets and museums. The city had over forty towers with light blue and red-brick colored spires.
As the bus passed across the ancient nine-arched Pont Vieux Bridge running over the River Aude into Carcassonne, Morse looked out his window in amazement. He had never seen such a beautiful city. Morse woke up his son Zach. Zach cleared his eyes and looked up at the huge medieval towers.
“Hey, this kind of looks like Disneyland,” said Zoey. “Are we in Eurodisney?”
“No, Zoey.”
“It is funny you should say that, though,” said Doug, “Walt Disney came to the City of Carcassonne and drew his inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle from the towers of this very city. So in a way, this is kind of like Disneyland.”
“Are there roller coasters?”
Zach and the men laughed. “No,” said her father. “No roller coasters.” Morse introduced Doug and Ray to his two children. Then Morse told the children how he and his new friends had solved part of the riddle from the organ while they were sleeping. Zach especially liked the part about the flying pig.
“Welcome to the Medieval City of Carcassonne,” said the bus driver.
The bus rumbled through the huge castle arch, past the first, and then the second towering stone wall of Carcassonne.
“Woa,” said Zach, looking out the window. After thinking for a minute, he turned to his father. “Hey Pops, I got a new one:
Boyz in the village said, “This Charlie Dude’s a pain,
He keeps on attackin’ he’s my boy Charlemagne
We just got a piggy and one bag ‘a grain
Maybe we should bounce off and head to Spain.”
Lady said, “Boyz, don’t you all be afraid
I gotta big plan and I think we got it made.
Feed the food to the piggy, and shoot him off the wall
Like a three-point shot of a piggy basketball.”
So they shot off the pig and the townies made a wish
Landed right on target, and it made a swish.
Charlie he was scared when the piggy made a splatter
“If the piggy is fat, then the people’s even fatter”
So he packed up his homies and he bolted outa there
And the lady rang the church bells of St. Nazaire
So her peeps were all happy that the battle she done won
And that there’s the Story of Carcassonne!”
Oonce, oonce, oonce, oonce….
The adults all laughed. “Your boy has a real talent there,” said Ray. “I like the part about the piggy basketball.”
Two rows ahead of them, a man speaking in French, wearing headphones attached to a laptop seemed to be very excited and was gesturing to some of the other passengers.
“What is he saying, Dad?” asked Zoey.
“He is saying that someone just tried to assassinate the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”
The Morse family and their two new friends, intrigued by the story, walked up and looked over the shoulder of the man on the bus with the laptop, who had unplugged the earphones so that the words on the screen played out through the laptop’s speakers.