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“Here,” Remi said, kneeling down. “Got something.”
“Here, too,” Sam said from the opposite wall. He moved to Remi and inspected what she was shining her flashlight on. Stamped into the heavy timber molding beneath the window, nearly obliterated by layer upon layer of paint and lacquer, was a cicada symbol.
“Yours the same?” Remi asked.
Sam nodded and they moved to the opposite side. A second cicada symbol was stamped into the wood. “Why two?” he wondered aloud.
“The line—‘a trio of Quoins’ . . . they must have meant it to apply to more than just the sextant.”
It took them less than thirty seconds to find the third. The first two cicada symbols were situated near the front of the minaret, the third at the rear.
“Let’s form it up,” Sam said.
He crouched beside one of the stamps, and Remi did the same, then they extended their arms, each pointing at the ot
her as well as the third stamp.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Sam said, “but this is an isosceles triangle.”
“It is indeed. But which way is it meant to point?”
“If we extend the lines, the two at the front would point at the lake and into the mountains. The third one points inland—behind us.”
Sam lowered his arms as he sat down, back against the wall. His brows furrowed for a few seconds, then he smiled.
“What?” Remi asked.
“The last part of the line,” Sam replied. “I knew something looked familiar.” He dug into his pants pocket and came up with the Saint Bartholomae’s tour brochure. He flipped through it. “There.” He handed it to Remi. “Frigisinga.”
Remi read: “ ‘Until 1803 the hunting lodge adjacent to the chapel was the private retreat of the Prince-Provosts of Berchtesgaden, the last of whom, Joseph Conrad of Schroffenberg-Mös, had also served as the Lord Bishop of Freising.’ ”
“I knew I’d read something about that during our research,” Sam said. “I mentally misplaced it. The eighth-century name for Freising was Frigisinga.”
“Okay, so this Schroffenberg-Mös fella was here?”
“Not just here. He lived here, and we’ve already been there.”
They climbed back through the hatch and down the spiral staircase, then retraced their steps through the chapel and out the back door and started down the path toward the woods. Five minutes later they were back at the cabin in whose loft they’d first sought shelter. They stopped at the post-mounted plaque beside the front door.
Remi read: “ ‘Once served as the private hunting lodge and warming cabin for the last of Berchtesgaden’s Prince-Provosts, Joseph Conrad of Schroffenberg-Mös.’ ”
“ ‘Formerly of Frigisinga,’ ” Sam finished.
They stepped inside. While most of the cabin was made of heavy timber, both the stanchion footers and the foundation, which rose eighteen inches from ground level, were constructed of blocked stone.
“Let’s check the stonework first,” Sam said. “Timber can be easily replaced; stone, not so much.”
“Agreed. How are we on time?”
Sam checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes since our rabbit ran.”
Knowing what they were looking for, they made quick work of the search, splitting up and walking hunched over along the walls, flashlights playing over the blocks.
“Grasshopper marks the spot,” Remi called. She was kneeling beside a footer beneath the loft. Sam hurried over and crouched beside her. Stamped into the upper-left corner of the block abutting the footer was the familiar cicada stamp.
“Looks like we’re going to have to do a little defiling after all,” Remi said.
“We’ll be gentle.”
