Historical novel elevates local curiosity

The image of the sword carved into the stone is clear enough - “Can anyone deny the pommel, hilt, and blade punch-marked into the bedrock?’’ Brody asks - and has long been a local curiosity, but nothing was known of its origin. The carving was made on a glacial boulder along Depot Road, north of Westford Center, and is surrounded by a small fence.

The author of three legal thrillers, Brody began researching the mystery of the Westford Knight Sword, connecting what he discovered with what is known about other pre-Columbus sites. The result was his novel “Cabal of the Westford Knight,’’ a fictional, but fact-based account of a 14th-century Scottish knight who led a party to America - and left some traces of his adventures behind.

The book has sold well, and Brody was a featured author on a History Channel documentary. Reviewers praised the novel as a literate and engrossing historical thriller.

This Sunday the author will visit the Duxbury Free Library to speak on the historical artifacts in New England that support the theory that Templar Knights fleeing persecution in Europe arrived in America long before Columbus. He will show pictures of some of the stonework relics and engravings that provide a foundation for the theory and are available on his blog, westfordknight.blogspot.com.

A former real estate lawyer, Brody said he was planning another legal thriller when his fascination with the evidence of a pre-Columbian European presence in North America took over the project. He learned that the mortar used in an impressive stone tower in Providence has recently been carbon-dated to the 1400s. Medieval inscriptions in a Runic language developed by the Norse people have been found in Maine, Rhode Island, and other sites. Back in Wesford, the Boat Stone carving depicts a “knorr,’’ a 14th-century ship.

Brody’s research in Europe stirred the pot further, connecting the Westford Knight Sword to the historical material behind the “DaVinci Code,’’ the gold standard for historical fiction blockbusters. Dan Brown’s mega-bestseller begins with the 14th-century destruction of the Knights Templar and ends with the revelation that Christ’s genetic inheritance is carried by a family named Sinclair. The Westford Knight, Brody believes, was Prince Henry Sinclair, who left Scotland with a party of Templar survivors and early Masons in the late 1300s to escape the reach of an oppressive Catholic Church.

“We know that the Vikings came across the North Atlantic,’’ Brody said. “You can island-hop without ever being far out to sea.’’ The Norse sailing history would have been known to Henry Sinclair, whose mother was Norwegian. From the Canadian coast visited by the Vikings, Sinclair’s party would have traveled south to New England and then inland on the Merrimac River to Westford. Because of his parentage he would have known Runic, the language of the inscriptions.

“This is fascinating stuff,’’ Brody said. “It’s very fertile ground right now.’’

Duxbury librarian Carol Jankowski agrees. “What interested me mostly is the ‘DaVinci Code’ history connection.’’

As often happens, the book was recommended to her by a member of the Friends of the Duxbury Library, for the library’s ongoing “Sunday Salon’’ author series, she said.

Brody, who grew up in New Hampshire, went to college at Tufts and then to Georgetown University’s law school. After graduation he found himself with a legal career, a family, and a lifelong desire to write novels. Since his wife, Kimberly Scott, also wanted to write, they reinforced each other’s ambitions.

The plan worked, and within a couple years both turned out books. Brody’s first book, “Unlawful Deeds,’’ was about the real estate bust of the early 1990s. The material of the “Cabal of the Westford Knight’’ may be less contemporary but - for history lovers - just as explosive.

Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox2@gmail.com.