Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (67 page)

Laurent was frowning at Will, a stranger to him, but with a bemused shake of his head, he addressed Robert. “The visitor, the grand master, all the offi -

cials are in Poitiers with the pope, attending to these very charges. I don’t understand why the king is moving against us when an investigation has already begun.”

“A distraction,” said Will, before Robert could answer. “They want to separate the offi cials from the rest of the knights. The dawn assaults will minimize the effectiveness of any resistance and without commanders to lead them the men will be cut off, disorganized.”

“Then is the pope part of this?” questioned Robert.

“I do not believe so. I think they are using Clement to keep the Temple officials occupied. I do not think it matters what the outcome of that assembly is, or whether the pope feels the grand master has answered the charges satisfactorily. The king plans to move against the order whatever, and such a bold action will not be easily undone. Once the Templars are in his custody it will be very difficult for them to muster any effective defense. I think, if it comes to that point, a full public trial will be inevitable.”

They fell silent.

“We’ve got four weeks before they come for us,” murmured Simon. “What do we do?”

“There isn’t time to warn everyone,” said Laurent. “Not in every preceptory, but maybe if we gathered the knights who are here in Paris, perhaps fl ed to . . . ?” He trailed off. “But we cannot. Not without the consent of the marshal or the visitor. I remember a story about a garrison of knights in the Holy Land who fled their preceptory when the Saracens came for them, leaving it 398 robyn

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undefended. They were stripped of their mantles. We cannot run.” His brow furrowed. “I
will
not.”

“We need to warn the pope,” answered Will. “I planned to go to Poitiers anyway.” He glanced at Robert. “Once there I can speak to Jacques de Molay.

The grand master must be the one to decide the best course of action. Your brother here is right: it will be chaos unless the chain of command is observed.”

Will frowned, thinking quickly. “There is one thing we can do now. We know the king’s charges are based on Esquin de Floyran’s testimony, but if they fi nd no evidence to support that, no judge could possibly pass sentence against the order on one man’s accusations alone. We know Hugues conducted the initiations here, so we need to destroy anything in this preceptory that might implicate the order. We can make Philippe’s task as hard as possible.” Will paused, a grim smile spreading across his face. “And we can make his potential reward as uninviting as we can. I realize we cannot safeguard the assets contained in all Templar strongholds.” He spread his hands to take in the shadowy courtyard and the buildings around them. “But we are standing in the richest preceptory in the world.”

“What are you saying?” questioned Laurent. “Brother Robert, who is this man?”

Robert, however, wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at Will, that grim smile mirrored in his own face. “We take the treasury.”

“We’ll need a ship and enough men to crew it,” said Will, ignoring Laurent’s protests. He nodded to Simon. “I want you on it. And you, Rose,” he added, looking down at his daughter.

“There are men in this preceptory I can rely on for that task,” replied Robert. “Men outside Hugues’s influence.” He turned to Laurent. “Will you aid us?”

Laurent was staring at him in disbelief, but after a long moment he hefted his shoulders. “We could perhaps have a ship ready by this evening, but—”

“Do it. I’ll speak to the others before I leave for Poitiers.”

“I want you on that ship too, Robert,” said Will.

“What? No.”

“There is no one I trust more, and someone who understands all that is happening here needs to make it out before the king’s men begin the arrests. It doesn’t require two of us to speak to the grand master and the pope.”

Robert was silent. “Where do we go?” he said fi nally.

“Scotland. It is remote enough for you to remain hidden for as long as this the fall of the templars

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lasts, and now Edward is dead there should be little in the way of interference from England.” Will removed himself gently from his daughter’s embrace.

“Go with Simon, Rose, and he’ll get you some dry clothes. Stay with him and when it is time he’ll take you to the ship.” He looked at Simon. “When you reach Scotland, I want you to take her to my sisters in Elgin.”

“I’ll make sure it’s done.” Simon smiled faintly, as Will grasped his shoulder.

Rose hung back, staring at Will when Simon took her by the arm.

“Father . . . ?”

“There will be time, Rose. But not today.” Will watched as she moved off, looking over her shoulder. He turned to Robert. “Come. We don’t have long.”

“You’ll need to check the dungeons,” Robert told Laurent. “We had to put a couple of men down, but I expect they’ll come around soon. Tell them . . .”

He shook his head. “Tell them anything.”

Together, he and Will sprinted across the courtyard to the offi cials’

quarters.

The door to Hugues’s chambers was locked, but they shouldered their way through. Will had taken a torch from the passage and the light spilled into the chamber before them. Other than Hugues’s desk, the large armoire and a few stools and chests, the place was empty.

Will began picking through the parchments on the desk as Robert opened up the chests. “Anything?” he asked, glancing up.

“Nothing. Just clothes.”

Will stared around him. “This isn’t the room I was taken to. He must conduct the initiations somewhere else.”

“The Chapter House?”

“No, it wasn’t there. Anyway, that’s too exposed. They would run the risk of being seen.” Will frowned, trying to remember. “They took me down some steps. Narrow steps.”

“The dungeons?”

“I don’t think so.” Will moved to the armoire and opened up the front.

There was a goblet on one shelf, a Bible, some skins, a pouch filled with coins.

Nothing incriminating. Frustrated, he went to turn away, then stopped. He could smell something. It was bitter and oddly familiar. He bent closer to the armoire, trying to think where he had smelled it before. It came to him suddenly. Will closed the doors and moved around the back of the armoire. The 400 robyn

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odor was stronger. His pulse raced as he felt a draft. “Help me,” he called to Robert, sliding his fingers into the gap between the armoire and the wall.

To their surprise, the cumbersome object slid back easily, as if it had been moved many times before. Indeed, as they looked down, they saw marks scratched in the flagstones. Ahead, a narrow passageway disappeared down a set of stone steps. Glancing at each other, they headed in, Robert hefting his sword, Will holding the torch aloft.

They came out in a smaller chamber, where the stone was rough-hewn and unfinished. As Will moved the torch around, the flames danced across incomplete statues bowing from pillars, perhaps figures of saints or angels. There was a set of black curtains over one wall, which he recognized. He parted them to reveal a recess beyond, where a wooden dais had been constructed and a crude throne set upon it. The place had been scrubbed, but the bloodstains covering the walls and floor were unmistakable, as was the metallic odor that was barely masked by the stale incense.

“What is this place?” murmured Robert, eyeing a statue with the cross of St. George chiseled into the shield it held. The head was blank and featureless.

“A private chapel, I think.” Will glanced at him. “Perhaps a former Master ordered it built, but ran out of funds, or left for the Holy Land leaving it forgotten? It looks old.” He crossed to the altar. There were chalices and censers, skins scrawled with Hugues’s hand. His fingers came to rest on a worn-looking tome that he recognized with a rush of sorrow. Everard’s book.

Robert had opened a chest, one of several stacked in a corner. “Jesus.”

Will stared at the misshapen monstrosity the knight held up. In the torchlight, the skull mask gleamed yellow, its long jawbone thrusting forward, huge eye sockets black and empty. As Robert turned it, the image of a young man, carved deftly out of wood, was revealed. He turned it a third time and Will saw the face of an older man, lined and stern, threads of white hair hanging from its brow. “Hugues said he was playing the part of the Fisher King in the initiations.” He crossed to Robert. “I remember Everard saying the Fisher King in the story of Perceval is the embodiment of Christ. Of God.” He pointed to each of the mask’s faces. “The trinity. Father. Son. Holy Ghost.”

“Well, I always knew Hugues was ambitious.”

Will leaned over to look in the chest. He saw the glittering folds of Hugues’s fish-scale cloak. “We’ll need to destroy everything.” He paused to light the candles on the altar with the torch, then sprinted up the steps to Hugues’s chamber. There was a stack of logs by the hearth. He tossed a few inside, along the fall of the templars

401

with some of the skins from the armoire and set the torch to them. Leaving the flames to spring around the dry wood, he returned to help Robert.

The other chests were full of clothing; white mantles, strangely plain without their scarlet crosses, masks painted red with a white stag’s head, a symbol of rebirth, Will explained. There were also scores of books, all of them romances, from the Grail story of Chrétien de Troyes, to writers and works Will had never heard of.

He and Robert emptied each chest, one by one, taking armfuls of books up to Hugues’s chamber. The flames in the hearth spat as they devoured the pages.

Parchments curled and blackened.

“We cannot burn all the clothes,” said Will, “but we can stow them in the preceptory’s wardrobe. They’ll look like unfi nished mantles.”

“What about these?” asked Robert, holding out the three-headed mask and the glittering cloak.

Will took them and threw them in. The fragile silk of the cloak caught quickly, momentarily turning the fl ames blue.

“And this?” Robert bent to pick up Everard’s tome, which Will had placed on the fl oor.

After a moment, Will shook his head. “Not that.”

Robert nodded, understanding. “I’ll take it with the treasury.”

With the last of the skins tossed into the fi re, the two of them stood there, watching the smoke belching through the eye sockets of the skull mask and forks of fi re flicking from its mouth. As the Matins bell began to toll, they hastened from the chamber, leaving the mask to burn. Three faces vanishing in the roar of the fl ames.

39

The Temple, Paris

october 12, 1307 ad

Iwant to know everything,” demanded Jacques, sweeping along the pala-

“ tial corridor. “Do you hear me, Rainier?”

“Yes, my lord,” replied the knight, striding to keep up with the grand 402 robyn

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master, who had arrived at the Paris preceptory without warning several hours earlier, with the master of Normandy, Geoffroi de Charney, four squires and two servants.

“Who did you say was involved?”

“I am not certain of all the details, my lord, but I believe Simon Tanner, the stable master, was in league with the man who assaulted me and freed Robert de Paris. They left a month ago with twenty of our men. I have all their names recorded. Myself and several brothers tried to intervene, but they outnumbered us.”

Jacques rounded on him. “You should have laid down your lives rather than let them take it!”

“My lord,” conceded Rainier, hanging his head, still displaying a faint bruise where it had been slammed against the guardroom wall.

The grand master studied the young knight, his massive frame dominating the passage. “Who organized the ship?”

“Brother Laurent, my lord.”

“And he is still here, you say?”

When Rainier nodded, Jacques’s old eyes glittered. “Bring him to me.” As the knight hastened off, Jacques thrust open the doors of his chambers.

“This is dire news, my lord,” said de Charney, entering behind him. “What with the king’s accusations and the pope’s inquiry, the last thing we need is our own men working against us. There must be an explanation. It seems inconceiv-able to me that so many brothers would be involved in such an appalling crime.”

“We shall see, Geoffroi,” muttered Jacques, crossing to his desk, recently cleaned of the dust that had settled on it in a white blanket during his long absence. There was a jug of water and a goblet on it. Pouring himself a drink, he sat heavily on the chair behind. His hand shook as he raised the goblet and he frowned at the frailty. It happened often these days and he worried that it was the first sign of the decline of age, for he was in his sixties now. But perhaps it was simply the strain of the voyage from Cyprus.

Jacques had arrived at Poitiers in August, glad of the rest offered by his sojourn at the Franciscan priory with Pope Clement, circumstances notwith-standing, but it proved all too brief. Barely days after the arrival of Hugues de Pairaud and the Temple’s offi cials, a royal message had reached him summoning him to Paris. Telling the visitor and the pope that he would return as soon as he had seen the king, who had promised to allow him to speak to Esquin de Floyran, Jacques had left with de Charney. As it was, the pope had fallen ill and was unable to continue the inquiry into the charges, and the summons the fall of the templars

403

seemed a timely opportunity for the grand master to speak to the king personally about the astounding accusations being leveled at the order. Jacques had stopped for several days at the Orléans preceptory to celebrate the Feast of St.

Michael, but even so the journey to Paris had fatigued him further.

He drained the water. “I would like to know why Sir Robert de Paris was imprisoned. He was on the progress I made through Christendom after the fall of Acre. I knew him well, but Visitor de Pairaud has known him since childhood. I cannot imagine what he could have done to cause Hugues to arrest him.”

“Perhaps this Laurent will know, my lord.”

Jacques grunted in reply and crossed to the window. He looked out over the courtyard, watching the men of the preceptory moving in the twilight: a sergeant leading a chestnut palfrey toward the stables, two servants carrying baskets of vegetables, four knights walking in a companionable group. His leathery brow creased as he thought of the crimes he and his men were being accused of. No, not crimes.
Sins
. The very thought of them struck at the core of Jacques’s honor. That the warriors of Christ, who had toiled and bled for Christendom for almost two hundred years, could be considered heretics was beyond his comprehension.