“The Templars,” Mark said, “rose from an obscure band of nine knights, supposedly protecting pilgrims on the way to the Holy Land, to a multicontinent conglomerate composed of tens of thousands of brothers spread over nine thousand estates. Kings, queens, and popes cowed to them. No one, until Philip IV in 1307, successfully challenged them. You know why?” “Military prowess, I’d assume,” Malone said. Mark shook his head. “It wasn’t force that gave them strength, it was knowledge. They possessed information no one else was privy to.”
