Beyond The Obvious

Wonderingly, Gabriel stood in front of the desk, looking at the empty chair, which seemed to disappear in front of the big window, darkened by the shadow of the night.

“Good evening, Sir. Even if you are surprised, may I offer a drink to celebrate you genius work and your award in Cannes?”

Gabriel finched and turned around. The deep sonorous voice came from Gabriels right side – a small, old man standing there at a bar, filling a whiskey glass slowly.

“Oh. Didn’t mean to frighten you. Want something strong? No, wait. This will fit the moment better.”

The old man turned around, taking another glass and pouring some light brown liquid in it without stopping his speech:

“Yes. Do you have any idea, what this is? I suppose not, but I will tell you: this is one of the rarest drinks in the world. Made of “la part des angles” as the French call it, “angels’ share”. There is a small manufactory in the south of Cognac, where you may hear the rumour, that the founder sold his soul to the devil, to get the “angels’ share” back. So they say that he smelled the dust of the evaporating alcohol and the devil told him how to cool the air for the liquefying alcohol back. It takes about two months to fill such a bottle and this we should enjoy for your success and our mutually satifactionary partnership!”

Gabriel took the offered glass, keeping an eye on the strange old guy. He took a careful sip and a very soft warm feeling filled his mouth. As he swallowed, the liquid felt like a never known balsam to his throat. His body shacked and inhaled the drink, the atoms seemed to dance and the molecules shivered. But there was still an open question to take:

“Who are you?”

“Didn’t I, no, I suppose I did not. I am Arsene Stricker and among other things, I do own KI-LO Inc. and I myself hired you for the great campaign, you did.”

“But why am I here?”

“Well, your work is amazing and you really did hard the last months. So I have a proposal for you: take some days off your business, get around Europe and do some research for me. As your research in medieval arts was augmentative and deep digging, you gained some expertise in old things. And there is one thing I am looking for. Please follow me, I have to show you something before we go into details.”

Stricker turned left and opened a jib door to another dark room. As Gabriel entered the room his eyes adapted to the night and he noticed the single spot in the middle of the room: a desk as it is used in museums covered with glass plates was illuminated by bright light. Stricker walked right towards the show case, voicing something, Gabriel could not understand.

Gabriel followed the man and looked down on the table: various pages of medieval manuscripts, rich decorated by miniatures in initials and highly ornamented chapter drawings. Finest art of calligraphy from the very berginning of the middle ages, he assumed. Then he spotted a rather well known illustration – one that he used in the campaign. Gabriel pointed at the vellum:

“Is this an original piece?”

Stricker clapped his hands and nodded:

“Bien sûr! And of course, you noticed this one. It was not only luck when you first saw this picture in your research. There was a hint on your blog entry in the very beginning, you remember, leading you to a source of a high resolution picture. And guess who put this pic online?”

He laughed and Gabriel looked back on the moment he founded this illustration. It was so inspiring and leading the advertising line to the multilevel message, which enriched the whole campaign.

 “But what’s that collection here? Did you want to show me that?”

“Every illustration you find on this table, shows Charlemagne or some important persons of his times. Look here, these pages are from the lost edition of the origianal “Chronica” by Frutolf of Michelsberg. Over there are some pages from “Historia Remensis ecclesiae” by Flodoard de Reims. Priceless precious of medieval papers and a treasure for those, who may read not only the words but also the hints, which are hidden in the illustrations.

But there is something else, I want to show you. Can you see that vellum in the right corner?”

His finger pointed to a small piece of vellum, not coloured or decorated in any way. Just plain text of minuscles in small letters, hard to read for an unskilled man.

“This was used as a book cover and my experts did not notice long time its secret. Accidentially someone read two or three words and suddenly this turned out as a mystery. See, the text is part of “The Song of Roland“, introducing a hero in the army of Charlemagne, who fought in the battles versus the Moors in Spain. The epos tells the story of Roland, who fights with twelve knights against the ambush attack of King Marsile, a Saracen leader, who was told that Roland will be alone with his friends at the end of Charlemages baggage.

After the first hard offense, he uses the horn Olifant to signal the tense situation. After the second hard strike, Roland is the only one to survive but a hail of arrows and spears finished him. Masiles men thought they can hear Charlemagne arriving and flee, Roland died alone on the battlefield, his face looks towards Saragossa and – so to believe the legend – angels guide his soul to heaven.

So far the story and parts of it, especially the death of Roland we found on this paper. But compared to one of the oldest sources of the 12 century, which you can find in Oxford, there is something different. There seems to be a further description of what happened with the horn, the Olifant and his sword “Durendal”. And this is what I am interested in and you should help me to find the horn. I want to hold it in my hands once and you can help me to get it!

People say, the Olifant is in the dome of Prague, but also in Santiago de Compostella. That’s bullshit. Both are not the real Olifant of Roland.

You can…, no you will find it – you are used to read messages between the lines, you are used to see the semantic meanings and hidden hints. You are perfect for this job and you may see this as paid holidays with some history adventure. You, Mr. Gabriel, you are perfect.

So, will you hunt this treasure?”