Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (58 page)

Robert listened in silence to Esquin’s story, from Hugues de Pairaud’s blunt refusal to allow his nephew to return home, to their furtive meeting in the Church of St. Julien le Pauvre, the appearance of the men in masks and his nephew’s murder. When he had finished, Esquin sat there, the bread uneaten in his fist, looking exhausted beyond measure.

“You didn’t recognize any of the men who apprehended you?”

“I told you, brother, they wore masks.”

“But what about voices? Names? Accents?”

“I had just seen them drag my nephew’s body out of an alley. I was terrified. Grief-stricken. You ask me to remember the impossible!”

Robert raised a calming hand. “Might you recognize them if you heard them again?”

Esquin’s paper-thin brow crinkled. “Perhaps . . .” All at once, he stopped.

“But no. That would mean I would have to return.” He shook his head. “I won’t return to that preceptory! It’s crawling with heretics and blood-drinkers.

Men spitting on the cross! Devil’s sons!”

“You said you wanted justice.”

Esquin’s eyes were bright and feverish in the yellow flames. “I’ll get it some other way. I won’t return. I won’t!”

Robert sat back, troubled. Without some idea of who was involved in this 344 robyn

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he wasn’t sure what steps to take next, or what to do with Esquin for that matter. He wondered if there was a safe place where the man could be kept until he could find out more; perhaps speak to Hugues when the visitor returned from England? “Get some sleep for now,” he said eventually. “When the storm is past we’ll head on. I want to get as far from Merlan as possible. The steward had no choice, but he wasn’t happy about letting us go. I don’t want him thinking he made the wrong decision and sending men after us.”

Esquin compliantly rested his head against the beam and closed his eyes.

After banking up the fire, Robert wrapped his soggy mantle over him and leaned back, listening to the storm rolling around the hills and, between the crashes, the prisoner’s uneven breaths.

Esquin opened his eyes. The fire had died down and the air was hushed and frozen. Across from him, the knight had his chin on his chest, which was rising and falling steadily. The sky between the jagged roof timbers was a pale, pearlescent blue. The sight of it made Esquin shudder. How long since he had seen sky? He went to move, then realized that both his hands were fastened to the beam. The knight must have bound him again while he was sleeping.

Opening his cracked lips, he went to wake him, recalling the knight’s worry that the steward of Merlan might send men after them. But he stopped himself before the words came.

Why should he trust this man, any more than he trusted his tormentors in the prison or the men who put him there? They all wore the same uniform.

Esquin’s eyes fixed on the hateful red cross on the mantle, his gaze watchful and brooding. What if this knight was deceiving him? Perhaps his jailers wanted to find out how much he remembered before they finally killed him?

Faced with death back in his cell, he thought he would have welcomed it over the slow decay of years. But now, with the sky lightening outside and the icy morning creeping in around him with its promise of freedom, its promise of life, he realized he didn’t want to die. He wanted to live.

Cautiously, Esquin reached out to the fire with his bare foot and teased out a smoldering shard of wood. Scrunching his toes over it, he drew it across the floor toward him. He halted as the fire shifted and the knight grunted in his sleep. When the man didn’t wake, Esquin wiggled his hands, easing the strap down the beam, tugging it gently over knots and ridges in the wood. Finally, feeling sick with the exertion, he managed to position the belt over the smoldering shard, his head almost touching the floor. Slowly, the material began to blacken. He closed his eyes as the heat of it burned away the hairs on his wrists the fall of the templars

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and his skin tightened and reddened. The smell of charring leather was acrid in his nostrils. At last, after what seemed an eternity, the burned strap broke apart.

Freed from his bonds, Esquin slipped across the barn floor. He paused in the ruined entrance, halted by the sight of misty fields stretching into gray-green distance, then carefully untied the knight’s horse.

33

The Sainte-Chapelle, Paris

february 21, 1307 ad

My prayers are not enough.” Philippe’s voice was muffl ed, his

“

words spilling into his hands, clasped in front of his face as he knelt on the stone floor. “Not enough.”

“Every man on this earth, no matter the extent or severity of his sins, has the chance at forgiveness. If he is truly repentant.”

Philippe stared up at the man towering above him, whose black, fl oor-length robes made him appear dauntingly tall. His thin face was starkly white, framed by flint-gray hair carved into an austere tonsure, and a smell of incense came from him, imbuing him with a certain sanctified air as if he were a small piece of the Church itself, broken off and planted before Philippe to judge and punish. At this thought, the king’s eyes moved past Guillaume de Paris and fixed on the winged cherubs hovering over the lofty altar. He half expected them to climb down from their pedestals and stand before him, little gold eyes blazing with condemnation.

“Are you repentant, my lord?”

Philippe’s eyes flicked back to the Dominican at the demand. “You know that I am.”

“Does God?”

“What more can I do?” Philippe whispered, closing his eyes against his confessor’s unforgiving stare. “Every day I pray and do penance. Yet still I do not hear Him. Still He does not speak.”

“Perhaps your prayers are not sincere enough? Your penance not thorough?”

Philippe’s eyes snapped open. “Not thorough?” He rose. “I have ripped 346 robyn

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myself into shreds for Him. For His love. What more does He want from me?” The king wrenched off his robe and picked at the thongs of his hair shirt. “I have worn it ceaselessly for weeks! I have even slept in it!” His voice echoed in the silent chapel, shrouded in shadow except for a pool of candlelight which illuminated his chest with its sallow glow as he tore off the garment. “Does this not please you?” he shouted, raising his arms and sinking to his knees in front of the altar, where the cherubs looked dispassionately down at his scarred body.

“You wore it ceaselessly, my lord?” Guillaume’s voice was brittle. “Did you wear it when you were with your whore?”

Philippe stared at him.

The Dominican went to him and crouched down, his gray eyes implacable.

“You may choose to hide your sins from me and from God. But you cannot hide them from your staff. The rumors are well known. You have been bedding a servant woman, yes?” When Philippe hung his head, Guillaume stood abruptly. “How can I absolve you if you will not confess? How can God forgive you if you are not truly repentant?”

“I miss my wife. Miss her so terribly I can hardly bear to be near my children for the pain the reminder of her causes me. The servant woman is . . .”

Philippe shook his head numbly. “Solace.”

“Jeanne is with God, my lord. She is at peace. You must make your own peace, here in this realm, before you can join her. You must strive every day to uphold the Christian faith. Your people look to you to lead them.”

“My people? Everything I have done has been for them and still they hate me. When they light their candles in their churches it is always for Louis, never for me. The harvests are bad and they blame me. I raise taxes to secure their borders and they rebel against me. You know as well as I the mood in this city.” Philippe sat back, his voice thick with bitterness. “It seems every time I make a proclamation these days there is a riot in the streets. But if God does not hear me, how will I make it into heaven without the prayers of my people?

I need them to love me, Guillaume.”

“You must not rely on others for your own salvation, my lord. You must submit fully and honestly to God’s will, giving yourself up to Him to be forgiven. When your prayers and your penance are truly sincere, He will hear you. Of that there is no doubt.”

“There is time then?” murmured Philippe. “Time for me to be pardoned?

To feel God’s love no matter what I have done?”

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“Of course.” The steel edge had gone from Guillaume’s tone, but his gaze remained uncompromising. “These are troubled times, my lord. Now, more than ever, you must be an example to your people. You know my thoughts on the deeds of your lawyer, but Minister de Nogaret’s fate is not mine to decide.

For all his love of the law, he shall be judged in his turn by a higher court. But now the Church and France are no longer at war, I urge you to build upon the close relationship you have forged with Pope Clement for the sake of your subjects. Through your actions they will come to see what they too should be striving for.” The Dominican moved to the altar. “They must be shown the true path; the path of the righteous. Vulgarity and irreverence are rampant in this kingdom. My order mercifully halted the malevolent infl uence of the Cathars in the south, whose despicable sacrileges were consumed in holy fi re. But with the fall of Acre it was shown to us how fickle the faith of many is, with their conversions to the religion of the infidel. All of us must work to ensure that such monstrous heresies are not spread again.”

“They won’t be,” said Philippe flatly, sunk on his knees, weary now. “Those of the Cathars who didn’t perish during the Church’s Crusade against them were forced into hiding. There would not be enough of them left to infect anyone.” He shot the Dominican a willful look. “I am sure Minster de Nogaret would tell you that.”

“Yet every day in my role as inquisitor, new offenses are brought to my attention.” Guillaume turned back to him. “Just this past week, I have been confronted by one such matter that has concerned me gravely. There is a man at our college in the city who is claiming that the Order of the Knights Templar is riddled with heresy.”

“What?”

“He arrived ten days ago, raving, half-starved and begging for sanctuary.

He spoke to one of my brothers, but when the seriousness of his charges became clear, I was informed. I have had several discussions with this man, who claims to have been imprisoned by members of the order when he uncovered their involvement in certain depraved ceremonies. Apparently, his own nephew fell foul of these men and was murdered when he refused to obey them.”

Philippe had risen, his hair shirt and robe discarded on the floor at his feet. His eyes followed the confessor, who went to pinch out a candle that was dripping.

“The man displays obvious signs of torture and is clearly vengeful due to a long incarceration, and I am always wary of revenge as a motivation for men 348 robyn

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and women to alert us to possible heresies. I fear some in the past have been burned for the wrong reasons.” Guillaume de Paris inhaled briskly. “But as the Dominican Order has declared, it is better to burn one hundred innocents than leave one heretic left standing to corrupt God’s faithful.” He turned to Philippe. “But whether he is just a malcontent, wishing to destroy his jailers, or whether there is truth in his words, his tale is both convincing and extremely disturbing, and cannot be ignored. As the Temple lies beyond my jurisdiction I had intended to take this matter before the pope, but I did want to seek further counsel before troubling His Holiness with something that may in the end prove false. Knowing your close relationship with Pope Clement, I hoped you might aid me in this, my lord?”

Philippe went swiftly to the confessor. “I want to speak to this man.”

The Dominican’s pale brow creased in surprise at the king’s forcefulness, but he nodded. “Your opinion on the validity of his claims would be most welcome, although I must warn you he is filled with rage and madness.”

“We will bring him here at once.”

Guillaume de Paris held up his hand. “No, my lord. First we will fi nish your confession.”

After a pause, Philippe returned to his knees in front of the black-robed Dominican and began to list his sins, his clasped hands hiding an intense expression.

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“Listen, I can still find him given time.” Robert went to Will, who had slumped on one of the eel pots littering the muddy riverbanks. “At least we now know something is happening in the Paris Temple that needs to be investigated. De Floyran said he couldn’t identify the men, so to be honest his testimony isn’t much use anyway and . . .” Robert stopped, seeing Will’s expression.

“What is it?”

“I know where Esquin de Floyran is.”

“What? How?”

“Just over a week ago a man was brought into the palace from the Dominican College under heavy guard. The king and Nogaret spent several days in closed meetings with him, which the king’s confessor, Guillaume de Paris, was privy to. It came to my attention because Philippe canceled a feast and a hunt the fall of the templars

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in order to spend time with this man. I wasn’t told why he was there, but I did hear his name.”

Robert’s face fell as he realized what Will was saying. “Dear God. Why would de Floyran come back to Paris? He was terrified by the idea when I suggested it.”

“You said he wanted justice. If I wanted to accuse anyone of heresy the Dominican College is the first place I would go. Where better to get everything he needs? Food, shelter, protection. Revenge.”

“Christ.” Robert pushed his hands through his hair and paced the bank. A couple of boys were sword-fighting with sticks down by the water’s edge. Their excited calls mingled with the piercing cries of the river birds swooping over the Ile des Juifs. “Can you get him out?”

“He left five days ago with Nogaret under armed escort. They were heading for Poitiers.”

“Why there?”

“Pope Clement has been traveling around the kingdom visiting the provinces. He has been in Poitiers for some months. I imagine Esquin is being taken to him.”

“This is it, isn’t it?” said Robert after a long silence, filled with the shouts of the boys. “This is what the king needs to get what he wants. As soon as the pope hears de Floyran’s testimony he will be forced to launch an inquiry into the Temple. A charge of heresy is serious when set against anyone, but against the most powerful religious order in Christendom? His Holiness will have no choice but to act.” The knight stared out across the Seine, turquoise in the dazzling spring sun. “I should never have taken de Floyran out of Merlan.”