The Chaos Code by Justin Richards Page A

the back and he guessed it opened out to form a set of library steps. Robin sat on that when she returned with Aunt Jane, who took the slightly larger chair. For Aunt Jane’s benefit, Venture introduced Atticus Harper, and they all waited expectantly for him to speak.
    Sitting in front of the desk, Harper had looked almost like an animated corpse – devoid of colour ormuch expression. But as he spoke, he seemed to come to life and Matt saw something of his own father’s enthusiasm and excitement rise to the surface. He felt that he understood the man’s passion, what drove him, and he found himself caught up in the story and the mystery and the emotion of it all.
    â€˜Forgive me if you know something of this,’ Harper said, his voice rich and deep, ‘but a story needs its background and beginning. And the start of our tale is in the Fourth Crusade, when in 1198 Pope Innocent III called for the Christians to invade Egypt … But he had a problem, because the Crusaders couldn’t afford to pay for transport. So it was agreed that the ships for the enterprise would be provided by Venice. Which was all well and good, except that the Venetians traded with Egypt. So they weren’t too keen on attacking their business partners. Given the choice, they’d far rather have attacked their biggest rivals – the Byzantine Empire.
    â€˜So, being pragmatic as well as more than a little devious, that’s what they did. Since they couldn’t pay for the ships, the Crusaders were forced to agree that instead of attacking Egypt they would take the city of Zara, and then move against the Byzantine capital – Constantinople.
    â€˜The story of the siege is long and bloody and complicated, and it needn’t concern us. But in 1204, a year after it fell to the attackers, Constantinople was ransacked. The destruction and the looting were terrible,and much of what survived that was worth anything was taken back to Venice. But not the Treasure of St John.
    â€˜There was a knight, known as Sir Robert of Lisle though he may have been Italian or French or even English given his apparent title. Accounts vary. When Constantinople first fell, in 1203, he was charged with compiling a register of all that was precious in the city. No, not the gold and silver, not the artwork and precious stones. The
literature
– the scrolls and books and parchments and tablets. The idea was to create an inventory of all the learning that survived in the ancient city. And when the massacres and the looting started on April thirteenth 1204, it is said that Sir Robert and seven of his comrades-in-arms each took a page of the register and went through the city locating and saving the items on their list.
    â€˜I imagine them, you know. Sometimes, I see them in my dreams – going from door to door, from private house to public building, palace to library. Walking tall amid the chaos, silhouetted against the blood-red sky as the city burns around them and they struggle to save its very heart. Its learning. Its wisdom. Working ruthlessly and methodically through their list, putting to the sword anyone who gets in their way. Oh the sword may not be as mighty as the pen, but there are times when the one comes to the service of the other.
    â€˜Because these men were all Knights Hospitallers – members of the Hospital, or Order, of St John ofJerusalem. Originally the order was a charitable one, set up to care for pilgrims who became sick in the Holy Land. But by the fall of Constantinople they were not just men of learning out to help others. The Hospitallers were a military as well as a religious order, and Sir Robert and his colleagues fought their way out, taking what they had recovered with them.
    â€˜Accounts vary. Some say that two of the knights were killed in Constantinople during those three days of bloodshed. Others say that three of them died. But all agree that Sir Robert and several of the others