Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (57 page)

“Well, to be honest, I came to the same conclusion myself. All the trails went cold.”

“Or went to Merlan.” Simon frowned. “You told me Visitor de Pairaud launched an investigation. Why did he not know of Esquin de Floyran’s imprisonment?”

“Any number of officials in this preceptory, the master of France and the marshal to name two, could authorize the incarceration of a senior knight.

Hugues wouldn’t necessarily have heard anything of it, especially if those involved were working in secret.” Robert shook his head irritably. “Either way I cannot ask him about it. He isn’t due to return from England for some time.”

“Gérard obviously believes what this prisoner told him and I suppose it’s too close to the rumors you heard to be a coincidence,” murmured Simon, looking at the closed door. Beyond came the whinnies of horses and the laughter of a couple of grooms. “But Templars actually involved in heresy? It can’t be true.” He studied Robert’s grave face. “Can it?”

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merlan prison, the kingdom of france,

december 19, 1306 ad

Robert stared up at the gray fortress as he rode out from under the arched passage, his horse’s hooves clopping loudly off the cobbles. There was a heavy clanking as the portcullis was lowered behind him, the knights who had let him pass moving back into position in front of the iron bars. The bleakness of the place was heightened by the dreary landscape. Barren fi elds surrounded the high walls, the soil dark as the winter sky where crows wheeled and cawed, circling the prison towers.

Robert had known of Merlan since he was a boy and his fi rst impression fair matched the descriptions he had heard over the years, most of them uttered in the sergeants’ dormitories in hushed, fearful tones. As he dismounted in the windswept yard, handing his reins to a black-clad squire, he recalled midnight stories of tortures inflicted upon prisoners, all of them men of the Temple who had broken oaths or disobeyed masters. After his initiation into the Brethren, he had sometimes recalled those whispers uneasily, his mind lingering on the famous death cells: holes in the ground barely big enough for a man to crouch in, where the prisoner would be left in complete darkness, without food or water, until he died.

Slinging his pack over his shoulder, Robert climbed the steps to the entrance that yawned above him. Two knights standing sentry in the doorway looked him over in silence, hands resting on the pommels of their swords.

Robert nodded to one of them. “I’m here to see a prisoner.”

“You have to talk to the steward,” replied the Templar, pointing through the doors. “Second room on the left.”

Robert moved into a chilly passage, paused outside a door and rapped twice. Hearing an impatient voice calling for him to enter, he pushed through, having to duck low under the lintel. The room beyond was small and stuffy. A fleshy man was seated behind a table devouring a chicken leg and squinting at a skin covered in text, down which he was running a finger. His mantle was more gray than white and looked as though it hadn’t been laundered in months. He looked up with a frown as Robert entered.

“Yes?”

“Good day to you. My name is Sir Robert de Paris. I’ve come from the Paris preceptory to speak to one of your prisoners.”

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“Do you have a warrant?”

Robert reached into his pack and pulled out a rolled parchment.

Still frowning, the steward sucked his fingers noisily and took the scroll.

After unrolling it, he glanced up quickly and peered past Robert as if expecting to see someone else behind him. “Is Visitor de Pairaud here?”

“No, just myself.”

“Who is the prisoner?” When Robert answered, the steward looked instantly guarded. “Esquin de Floyran? I was given strict instructions regarding his incarceration. No one but the guards of the lower cells is allowed to see him.”

“This warrant comes direct from the visitor himself.” Robert pointed to the scroll, his finger hovering over the red seal stamped on the bottom of the order. He kept his tone forceful, but his unease was growing at the steward’s dubious reluctance. Childish voices whispered that the death cells were just beneath his feet, reminding him that breaking into Hugues’s office and using his seal was an extremely serious offense. Any minute now he would be found out, the floor would open and he would be sucked into oblivion, that darkness closing over him. He should have left this well alone. He never should have—

“Very well.” The steward rose stiffly. “I’ll take you down.”

Robert snatched up the scroll and followed the steward out of the stuffy room, aware of the sheen of sweat that had broken out across his brow.

Passing through a labyrinth of corridors and stairways, they made their way down into the lower levels of the prison. The passages grew narrower and colder the farther they went, and after twice cracking his head on the rough ceiling, Robert was forced to walk bent forward, a hand pressed to his sword to stop the tip bumping along the wall. The steward seemed to have no problems at all, sliding his thickset frame almost gracefully through the bends and twists.

At last, they came to a recess where several pallets covered in blankets and a table and bench were set. A group of men, clad in the black tunics of sergeants, were seated at the table. A couple were playing drafts, the board bathed in the ruddy flicker of torchlight. They all stood as the steward appeared.

“Open de Floyran’s cell.”

One of the sergeants took a torch from its bracket and unhooked a set of rusty keys. Moving past, he headed for a large black door, lifted the bar set across it and shouldered it open. A tunnel stretched away into darkness. Robert followed as the steward and sergeant made their way down. Doors were set at intervals in the wall to either side. The smell here was rank and every few 340 robyn

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paces his feet would squelch in something underfoot. He thought he heard a faint whimper behind one of the doors as the light of the torch swept across it, but otherwise the place was numbingly quiet. At the end of the passage, the sergeant and steward halted. A key was thrust into the lock of a door and the bolt tugged back to reveal a tiny cell.

Robert caught a glimpse of a huddled figure, hands raised over his face.

The man’s arms were as thin as twigs. Scraps of clothing hung from them and through the rags the knight could see a lattice of scars, some old and pink, others fresh. There were signs of infection in some of the wounds, yellow scabs bubbling up around mottled purple flesh. He realized that neither the steward nor the sergeant had moved. “I must speak to him alone,” he told them, his voice thick with disgust from the stench.

The steward began to shake his head. “No, that is imp—”

“I am here on the authority of Visitor de Pairaud,” said Robert harshly, holding up the scroll. “You will attend to my requirements or the visitor will look to you for an explanation as to why my business here was delayed.”

The steward’s eyes narrowed, but after a barbed pause he nodded roughly at the guard. “Leave him some light.”

Robert stepped aside to allow the sergeant to light a torch on the passage wall. As he did so, he thought of something he had forgotten in his concern that he wouldn’t be allowed to see de Floyran. “One last thing,” he said, as the steward made to head off. “You said you were given strict instructions on the prisoner’s incarceration. Who did those instructions come from?”

“I don’t know who gave the order.” The steward gestured at the parchment Robert held. “But it was stamped with the visitor’s seal.”

Robert just managed to keep his surprise from showing. As he stooped into the cramped cell, pulling the door to behind him, the prisoner shrank back against the wall. The man had lowered his hands now. In the glimmering torchlight coming through the crack in the door, he looked like a ghost. His skin, his eyes, his emaciated body: everything about him was pale and insubstantial. His gray lips were cracked and bleeding and his hair hung in knotted clumps around his face. As Robert watched, a black speck jumped on to Esquin’s cheek, then disappeared back into the tangled mass. The man was probably alive with lice. While he was wondering what to say to this living corpse of a man, Robert heard a breathless rasp and realized the prisoner was speaking.

“Am I going to die now?”

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The question sounded hopeful.

Robert moved from his bent position and crouched in front of him. “No, Esquin. I’ve come to speak to you.” He kept his voice low, barely above a whisper, aware that the steward probably hadn’t gone far. “I need to know what happened to you. The reason you were imprisoned.”

Esquin shook his head fearfully.

“I mean you no harm. You have my word.” Robert exhaled, frustrated, as Esquin began rocking to and fro. “We do not have much time.”

At this, Esquin let out a cackle of laughter.

Robert winced and glanced at the closed door. “Gérard told me your story.

But I want to hear it in your words.”

Esquin leaned forward, his chains clinking. “Gérard? He is well?” He gave a toothless smile when Robert nodded. “He is a good lad. He’ll make his father proud.” His smile faded. “But he won’t. He is dead.”

“Gérard isn’t dead, Esquin.”

“Not him, you fool!” Esquin hugged his scrawny knees to him. “Martin.”

“Martin? You mean your nephew?”

“I won’t tell,” Esquin hissed fiercely. “You won’t get him. He is safe now.

Safe in the arms of God!”

“Please, Esquin, I need to know.”

“Need?” Esquin’s pale eyes became slits. “I need, brother. Need to get out of this hole.”

“That isn’t possible.”

“Then you’ll not get what you need from me. Take me out of here or you’ll get nothing.” Esquin sat back against the rock, looking exhausted but adamant.

Robert wondered about threatening him, but didn’t think he could cause the man any more pain than had already been done. “I cannot. Not yet. But if your story is true then—”

“Guard!” shouted Esquin. “Guard, I want this man to leave!”

Hearing footsteps coming down the passage, Robert cursed and glared at Esquin, who stared belligerently back. The knight got to his feet, bent double beneath the rock. In his hand was the letter with Hugues’s seal. That mark gave him the authority to do what Esquin demanded. But there would be no turning back from this. If it was just the rumors or even just Gérard’s testimony, he might have left this place now and never come back. But the order to keep Esquin isolated had come from the very office where his own 342 robyn

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investigations into possible heresy within the order had been shut down and ended. He couldn’t go back to the Temple with these questions unanswered. If he was to find out the truth behind these walls of silence, only the man in front of him could provide that.

The steward appeared with the sergeant. Robert ducked out of the door.

“Unchain the prisoner. I am taking him into my custody.”

“Come on.” Robert ushered the shivering man into the barn. Both of them were soaked through. Outside a crack of thunder rolled away to echo off some nearby hills.

Esquin started as lightning flared, turning the world stark white. He stood there, thin arms wrapped tightly around him, while the rain poured on to him through one of the gaping holes in the roof.

Robert had moved to the other end of the ruined barn, using the intermit-tent fl ashes to see by. The fl oor was covered with fallen timbers. As the knight kicked one of them, it crumbled apart, the wood rotten and desiccated. “It is more sheltered over here,” he called, turning to Esquin. When the man didn’t move, Robert crossed to him and took his arm. Esquin flinched, but let himself be led through the puddles. Robert shrugged his mantle from his shoulders and tossed it over a broken beam propped against a wall. He undid his sword belt, and pulled his surcoat over his head. As he went to pass it to Esquin, the man took a few paces back, staring at the garment as if the knight had just offered him something unpleasant or dangerous. “It’s dry,” Robert insisted. “You’ll catch your death in those rags.”

“No,” whispered Esquin.

It was the first word Robert had heard him say since they had left the cell in Merlan. Above them, thunder growled.

“I will not wear that thing.”

Robert looked at the mantle in his hands, its red cross almost black in the flickers of lightning. “Very well,” he said gruffly, tugging the surcoat back over his mail hauberk. “I’ll find you something else. We’ll want a fire.” After a slight hesitation, he picked up his belt and slid off the scabbard. “Put your arms around that beam.”

Esquin stared at him.

For a moment, Robert thought he wasn’t going to move, then, looking as pitiful as a maltreated hound, the man shuffled over to the beam and sat, lifting up his skinny arms. Feeling like a brute, Robert looped the length of leather under Esquin’s hands and fastened it around the beam. With the man the fall of the templars

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secured, he headed to the front of the barn, where he had tethered his horse, untied his pack from the saddle and drew out a blanket. After wrapping it around Esquin’s shoulders, he set about gathering what he could of the drier timbers along with some scraps of old straw and brittle grasses for tinder. As he set the fire, Esquin watched in silence, his pale eyes glittering in the darkness between lightning strikes. When the fi rst flames crackled into life, throwing light and the beginnings of warmth across them, Robert took a hunk of dry bread from his pack and tore half off for Esquin. Realizing the man couldn’t eat tied up, he loosened the belt and let Esquin pull one hand free.

“All right,” he said, as Esquin wrapped his toothless gums around the bread and sucked ravenously at it. “I got you out of Merlan and probably damned myself to a cell in the process. Now it’s your turn. I want you to tell me everything that happened before your imprisonment.”

Esquin removed the bread from his mouth. His gums were starting to bleed. “I want justice,” he said in his lisping rasp. “I want the men who murdered my nephew and did this to me to suffer for it. Will you help me achieve this?” When Robert nodded he paused, looking suspicious, then began to speak.