Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (13 page)

“What is it?”

Jacques hesitated, uncertainty plain in his face.

“Tell me, uncle,” begged Garin. “If I don’t know what you want from me, I’ll never please you.”

Jacques looked back at him. After a long pause, he spoke, his voice quiet. “It is called the Book of the Grail. It is our code and contains our initiation ceremony and details of our plans for the future, plans no one must know of until we are ready. After I have helped escort the crown jewels to Paris, I will remain in the city to aid in the search for the book.” He crossed to Garin. “I want you to stay there with me and meet the head of our group, Everard. I have always hoped that you will one day take my place in our circle, but to be a member of the Brethren requires certain attributes and to impress Everard takes a man of great strength and character. I am sorry, Garin. I have not always found teaching to be an easy task. Afraid of showing favoritism, I have perhaps treated you more harshly than the others. But induction into our organization carries with it grave responsibility, the kind of responsibility that few men can endure. That is why I push you, why I need you to be better than boys like Campbell. That’s why I do this,” he murmured, touching his nephew’s cheek. He sighed roughly and pulled Garin into his arms.

Garin stared at the floor, hearing his uncle’s heartbeat, fast and low against his ear. He closed his eyes and heard Prince Edward’s voice.
If you tell anyone about this meeting…I will make sure that you and your family spend the next life staring at the view from London Bridge.
Blood from Garin’s broken nose trickled down his chin, staining his uncle’s white mantle.

NEW TEMPLE, LONDON, OCTOBER
19, 1260
AD

Elwen paced the chamber, arms folded across her chest. She was clad in a tight-sleeved gown of pale green linen girdled with a belt of braided gold silk. The dress clung to her slender frame and the long skirt made her appear even taller. Her supper stood untouched on the table by the bed. The servant had delivered it an hour ago and a greasy skin had congealed on the surface of the thin stew. Elwen wrinkled her nose. The room, in the annex adjoining the knights’ building that held the preceptory’s wardrobe, was small and sparsely furnished. Owein had said that it was used as a storehold for the tailor’s materials. It smelled of wool and old leather. In the corner by the window was a perch, from which hung several gowns and a dark blue cloak. On the table, beside the tray of food, was a small embroidery frame and a heap of colored threads. There was a half-finished pattern in the frame: two indigo hills with a blue-thread river running through them.

Elwen went to the window. Clouds were racing across the sky. For a moment, the sun appeared from behind them and she closed her eyes at its brightness. She turned as there was a loud knock at the door.

“Elwen?”

Hearing Owein’s voice, muffled through the thick wood, Elwen drew back the bolt and opened the door. “Uncle,” she greeted him, with a smile.

Owein entered, closing the door behind him. He drew her to him and kissed the top of her head. As he stepped back, his eyes fell on the tray of food. “You haven’t touched your meal.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Owein laid a hand on her brow. “Are you feeling unwell?”

Elwen moved away. “No, uncle, I’m just…” She sighed heavily. “How long do I have to stay here? I feel as if I’m in a prison. I wasn’t even allowed to watch the tournament yesterday. I heard them calling your sergeant’s name. Did he win?”

“You must remain in your quarters,” said Owein gently, but firmly. “We cannot abuse the Master’s charity. If he hadn’t agreed to allow you to lodge here I wouldn’t have known where to send you.”

“I am grateful for his charity.” Elwen went to the table and pretended to study her embroidery. “But I’ll go mad if I have to stay locked in this room for much longer.”

“That is, in fact, why I have come, Elwen. You will be leaving soon.”

“My guardian? She’s better?”

Owein met her hopeful gaze. Taking her hand, he led her to the bed. “I’m afraid not,” he said, sitting her down. “Your guardian has died, Elwen. I received word of it this afternoon from the infirmary in the city. A sudden sickness overwhelmed her and the physician could do nothing.” Owein sat on the bed beside Elwen and put his arm around her slim shoulders. “I’m sorry, my love. I know you were happy there.”

Elwen looked down at her hands. “Yes.” She was quiet for a time. Taking a breath, she wiped her eyes. “What will happen to me? Will I stay here?”

Owein gave her shoulders a squeeze. “These lodgings are only temporary, Elwen. The Temple is no place for a woman.”

“I meant in London.” Elwen turned to him, her large eyes bright and wide. “I don’t want to return to Powys, uncle.”

Owein smiled. “You won’t have to. I sent a message to a comrade of mine in Bath. Charles retired from active service in the Order with an injury several years ago and oversees the running of one of our farmsteads where the Temple’s horses are bred. He has an estate outside the city and I’m certain he will admit you into his household.”

“Bath?” Elwen’s voice cracked. “I like it here.”

Owein stroked her hair. “I’m leaving for Paris in three days. I don’t know when I’ll return and I’ll be afforded no opportunity to hunt the city for suitable lodgings for you in the meantime. You will like Bath. Charles’s estate is certainly grander than what you’ve grown accustomed to here.” He gave her a smile of encouragement. “He has three daughters, one of your age. In his care, you’ll receive the education a young lady should.”

Elwen picked up a corner of her blanket and tugged at a loose thread. “How long will I stay there?”

“A year at most, until you are of a suitable age.”

“Suitable age?” she said slowly. “Suitable for what?”

“For marriage, when I’ve found you a worthy suitor.”

“Uncle!” Elwen tried to laugh. “I don’t want to marry!”

“Not now, of course,” he said reassuringly.

“No!” said Elwen vehemently. “Not ever!”

“You will grow accustomed to the idea in time,” said Owein firmly.

“Is that my only choice?”

“You can choose either to marry, or be consigned to a sisterhood and live as a nun.”

“I do not want that either,” she said hurriedly. “At least let me stay in London, until…” She drew a breath. “Until you find me a suitor.”

Owein took his arm from her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Elwen, but you cannot remain here. The lodgings in Bath are the finest I can offer you with the most opportunities for your future. You haven’t had the benefit of a father’s guidance and I know you’ve grown accustomed to your independence, but you are past an age where you can do as you wish and go where you please. You need a firm hand to guide you and the proper instruction in the deportment suitable for a young woman. I promised your mother I would care for you as if you were my own.” Elwen opened her mouth to speak, but Owein cut her off. “I won’t be swayed.” He rose from the bed. “I expect to hear from Charles within the next few weeks. If all is well, when I return from Paris you will leave for Bath.” He went to the door and opened it. He looked back at her as if to say something, then left without a word, closing the door quietly behind him.

Alone, Elwen wrapped her arms about her and stood in the center of the tiny room. The walls crowded in around her. When her widowed mother had been forced by encroaching poverty to take permanent employment in the household of a landowner, Owein had pulled Elwen up behind him on his horse and taken her to London. When she had cried, her uncle had thought it was with sadness. But in truth her tears had been borne of relief.

In Powys, her mother would leave every dawn, pale faced and silent, for a day’s labor as a maid. Elwen would race through her own chores, cleaning the two rooms of the dank, dark hut, feeding the ill-tempered sow and the few scraggy-feathered chickens they kept. As soon as she was done, she would head out into the wide open spaces of the fields, searching for new trees to climb, or children to play with. All those cold afternoons, watching the farmers and their sons come down from the pastures, calling to one another, familiar in manner. As time had gone by, Elwen’s mother had grown more withdrawn, until she had faded into a shadowy presence that had lingered on the borders of her child’s life. A voice raised, or a burst of laughter seemed to give her pain and Elwen had learned to live in silence. When she had arrived in London, Elwen had spent the first three days at the door of her guardian’s home, just listening to the city.

The years scrubbing floors to put scraps on the table had left her impoverished mother a shell of a woman who could neither give nor receive love, having forgotten how to feel, to dream. Owein didn’t understand. He knew only the kind of death that came at the point of a sword.

“Will Campbell!”

Will, carrying buckets of water to the stables to refill the troughs, saw two sergeants from the group below his coming over.

“We watched you fight in the tournament,” said one, a small, freckled boy with a turned-up nose.

“What of it?”

“Can we see the badge?” asked the other.

Will sighed impatiently, but put the buckets down and stuck his hand in the pocket of his tunic. He drew out the brass badge, his prize from the tournament. “Here,” he said, offering it to the freckled boy.

The boy took it reverently and bent over to study it with his friend. Will saw a door opening in the building opposite him: the infirmary. A sergeant came out.

“How did you do that last move?” the freckled boy asked.

Will didn’t answer. The sergeant who had emerged from the infirmary was Garin. Will knew it was him by his hair, but Garin’s face was almost unrecognizable. “Mother of God,” he breathed, disregarding the sergeants’ gasps following the blasphemy. Snatching the badge, he ran. His friend’s right eye was swollen shut, the lid hideously red and taut. The skin around it was bruised a dark plum-purple, yellow and blotchy at the edges. His lip was also swollen, the skin cracked where it had split, and the whole right side of his face was distended as if he had a wad of cloth stuffed in his cheek. “Garin? How…?”

“Leave me alone,” Garin mumbled, his voice as distorted as his face.

Will put the badge in his tunic pocket and grabbed Garin’s shoulder. “Did Cyclops do this?”

“Don’t call him that!” Garin jerked his arm away and sprinted for the passage that led to the preceptory’s docks. Will followed.

Endurance
, the ship that would take them to Paris, was straining against her moorings and grating on the dock wall. The round galley with its two masts, high-sided hull and spindly-looking castles on the fore and aft decks was a hulk of a ship, built for carrying cargo, unlike the slender warships. Above the decks, rigging crisscrossed like spiders’ webs and the Temple’s black and white banner—their rallying point in battle—fluttered and snapped from the foremast. The crewmen on the dockside, keeping watch on the ship, looked up briefly as the two sergeants came running down to the dock wall, then went back to their game of drafts.

Garin stood rigid, fists clenched, then he slumped down on the dock wall.

Will sat down beside him. He looked out over the water. The Thames was reflecting the sun like a broken mirror, its surface scattered with a thousand shards of light. Its brilliance made his eyes water. “How could he do this? You’re his own flesh and blood.”

“I lost the tournament. He was angry.”

“When did it happen?”

“Yesterday.”

Will nodded. “I couldn’t find you at supper. I was worried.”

Garin’s face was impassive. “The injuries don’t bother me. I deserved them. I failed.”

“Deserved them?” Will shook his head. “What did the infirmarer say?”

“That I should be able to see again when the eye opens.”

“Christ.”

“Perhaps I can get an eye patch,” said Garin, looking away. He took a cloth pouch from his tunic. It was filled with a pungent-smelling, dark green matter. “Brother Michael gave me a poultice for the swelling.” Garin studied the pouch for a moment, then drew back his hand to throw it into the river.

Will caught his arm. “Don’t! It will heal you.”

Garin stared at him, then laughed.

The constricted, high-pitched sound unnerved Will and he was glad when it stopped abruptly. “I could go to Owein. He might talk to your uncle, ask him to stop this.”

“This is a family matter,” said Garin sharply. “It has nothing to do with Owein…or you. Just leave it be.”

“The bastard has gone too far this time,” Will murmured. “I wish you would stand up to him more.”

“Like you did with your father?” snapped Garin.

“That’s different,” said Will tersely. “My father never beat me.”

“You told me once you wished he would,” responded Garin. “His fists would be better than his silence, that’s what you said.”

Will gritted his teeth and looked away. “We aren’t talking about me.”

“My uncle just wants to teach me how to be a commander. He only wants what’s best for our family, as I do. He punished me because I did something wrong. He isn’t an evil man. It’s my fault I don’t do things right.”

“How can you say that? He has changed everything!
You’ve
changed. We used to have fun, didn’t we?”

“I’m almost fourteen, Will, as are you. If Owein wasn’t so easy on you, you would have been expelled months ago for all the Rules you’ve broken just because you think it fun. You need to start acting like a man.”

“If being a man means losing your good humor, I’ll stay as I am. And most of the Rules are
pointless
. They tell us how we should cut cheese at the dinner table! That’s not what being a knight is about.”

“Sometimes, I don’t think you even want to be a knight,” said Garin with a sniff.

“Stop changing the subject,” said Will shortly, annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken. “Your uncle shouldn’t have done this. It goes far beyond punishment, as you put it.”

Garin gave a humorless laugh. “Do you think he’s the first person to beat me? My mother used to hit me with a stick when I did something she didn’t like and my tutor…he was different. When I got a lesson wrong, he preferred the belt.” Garin’s eyes were stormy. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a name you have to live up to, what you have to do to make everyone happy.” He looked at Will. “You don’t understand anything, Will. You don’t
know
.”