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nor the other, so he decided to do both. To both stay and go. He split the group.
    Taking Chancery, the chosen one, and five of his chosen knights who were still in good shape and could move fast along with six women, he split the decision and left the rest of the group on the island thus creating one of the most sacred numerical relationships from Egypt – 13:20, the harmonic bridge. Thirteen were to leave and twenty were to stay.
    His orders to the twenty who stayed via De Villiers, the one he put in charge, were to lock down, survive and thrive, build a fort against attackers and when all was good to return to Europe, but not to France, to Scotland as the Celtic Church had no ties with the Catholic Church and in Scotland they would find solace with St Clar’s brother’s knights and the King of Scotland Robert the Bruce. De Odes told De Villiers he was only to share with St Clar about the fate of his brother and the departure of the thirteen.
    With that, fifty-five years ago he had taken the other twelve and departed, never to see his homeland again and never to drink the fruits of his labour but simply to seek out a life in a new, complex and harsh land, to overcome all obstacles in front of him, to ensure Chancery bred with one of the womenfolk and to create a legacy of survival for the bloodline of Jesus Christ.
    He was never to know that De Villiers, who was only twenty-one at the time, would in seven years rebuild a ship capable of returning to Europe and with just eighteen of the original individuals (as two of the women had died in childbirth during the time) made it back to the coast of Scotland, found and connected with Robert the Bruce and St Clar’s brother, and had arrived just days before the most important battle in the history of that country in Bannockburn. It was a battle that the British had taken so casually that when they saw the red cross of the Templars, hardened and certain after all that time in exile and instead of just a dozen knights they saw hundreds of them, they panicked and were slain by Scottish farmers, women and children—securing the greatest victory for the Scottish king and ensuring for ever more Scotland’s sovereignty from England and the integration and respect of the Scottish people for the knights who then went underground and were led by a St Clar family that in modern times would become Sinclairs and the keepers of much of the knowledge of the ancient world.
    What De Odes did know, however, was what he had endured in his long life.
    He had taken his group of thirteen and first heading south, telling De Villiers that’s what he would do, he cut west and into the deepest of the storms and snow. They walked for weeks through blizzards, sub-zero temperatures and yet all the time they nurtured each other, killing bison and deer for clothing and food, and always finding shelter.
    Eventually De Odes found the shelter from the harshest of winter in something he knew was there, but stumbled on like a needle in a haystack: old mines. Lots of them. He was near the great lakes of America and he intuitively had his people make boats from the trunks of great trees, as he had seen the native people do. These natives had even occasionally taken them in and fed them. There was a deep respect between this strange group of white stragglers and the red-skinned people, but the knights learned quickly the ways to connect with the indigenous. They shared trinkets, methods of cooking and storing food and of course a smile and a solid handshake seemed to work as wellhere as anywhere they had travelled previously. What really helped was that one of his knights having spent much time in Cyprus and Greece was actually able to communicate with a group of the Indians. Some of the words were shared and they had an understanding. He could never explain that, but it helped.
    Upon reaching the mines, De Odes hunkered down for the remainder of winter, the lake nearby producing fish, and them being able to