About Jewels of the Crown
Jewels of the Crown
By Robert A. Henricks
Story Synopsis
The year is 1216 and the wagon master for King John, NORMAN GERVASE, has just saved the crown jewels from disappearing forever in the swampy mud on the eastern coast of England. After learning of the death of the king, Gervase determines to protect the trove of jewels from any and all less worthy and founds an organization called the PATRICIATE which is dedicated to guarding the secret of the jewels in perpetuity.
All goes according to plan until, after eight centuries, one of the gems shows up on the auction block at Sotheby’s where it fetches an impressive 5.4 million pounds. The sale, however, is barely concluded before a gruesome murder results in the gem once more vanishing into obscurity.
A young officer, ANDREW STOKES, is assigned by Scotland Yard to track the killer who has fled to the north of France. Here, hundreds of years earlier, Norman Gervase had established his secret society the leadership of which are now panicked that the appearance of one of the hidden gems has compromised their long held secret and so the Patriciate too joins the search for the priceless stone.
Meantime, at Yale University, antiquities professor SIDNEY BLACKMON and his assistant SARAH MURPHY are following their own leads provided to them through study of a medieval map called the Martellus map and so they too make their way to France where they link up with Officer Stokes.
Once in Brittany, Professor Blackmon looks up an old colleague, a professor CHANTE DE VILLIERS who is on staff at the Universite’ Paris Diderot. De Villiers shows only a passing interest in the jewels though, unknown to Blackmon, de Villiers himself is a top member of the Patriciate and as such plans to use Blackmon to find the missing gem.
So Blackmon with Stokes and Sarah Murphy follow a trail of clues which begin in the Patriciate which they have infiltrated and which sends them variously to Limoges, Chalus, Obazine, Citeaux, Fougeres, La Trappe and finally back to England for the journey’s end.
And so, after breaching the clandestine lair of the Patriciate the trio of treasure hunters embark on a trek which leads them to follow the eight hundred year old footsteps of Norman Gervase to an obscure and long abandoned church known as Kirkstead Abbey in the south of England. Here they discover the crown jewels of King John secreted away in the dingy remnant of a dilapidated underground mausoleum.
A subsequent investigation of the security team at Sotheby’s leads to the discovery of a Patriciate member employed there who has been surreptitiously passing along information regarding ancient artifacts which will come up for auction. The death of this informant marks the end of the Patriciate and brings accolades for Professor Blackmon who returns home a hero among academia.
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