Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (76 page)

There were no cheers from the watching throng, no taunts. Some people turned away as the flames rose higher, consuming the wood under the men’s feet. On the riverbank, Philippe, his face pale, watched them burn.

Away on the left bank, opposite the island, two men in hooded cloaks looked grimly on as Jacques’s words rang out. They were both tall and well built despite their age, although one was leaning heavily on the stick he wielded, his gray hair pulled back from his face, sharpening the hard lines of his cheeks and jaw.

“It is as if he knows.”

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Will glanced around at Robert’s murmur. He had to turn his head fully to face his old friend, as a leather patch covered the scarred hollow where his right eye used to be. “In a way, he does. He is innocent. God will be the last judge in this.”

Robert didn’t take his gaze off the grand master and de Charney, now writhing in agony as the flames billowed around them. “And us? Are we not somehow to blame here?”

Will looked back at the pyre. The blaze was refl ected in the water between the bank and the island, turning the Seine to molten gold. “No.”

Robert looked at him searchingly. “That is the first time I’ve heard you sound so certain.”

“It was a long journey. I had a lot of time to think.” Will realized his comrade was waiting for more. “All great empires fall, Robert. Nothing can stay the same forever. The world changes and those who refuse to change with it are destroyed by its convulsions.” He paused, frowning. “That was something I do not think Everard understood. His beliefs were strong, stronger than mine have ever been, but ultimately constrained by the rigidity with which he held them. He couldn’t see beyond the borders of his own ambitions, couldn’t see that the world was moving in different directions, rendering some of his plans impossible. He always said the Anima Templi could only survive if the Temple did, that it needed the order’s money and resources if it was to continue its aims. I do not believe that. A dream isn’t something that exists in bricks or organizations, laws or gold. Neither is hope. These things exist within us, waiting to be made manifest through our words and our deeds. We are our dreams, Robert, and they are us. It would be more true to say that the Soul of the Temple cannot exist without us.”

“Then you think we can continue?”

“We already are.”

Robert gave a sober laugh. “I suppose you are right.”

Turning from the pyre, Will threaded through the crowd, using his stick to steady himself. Some of the wounds he had sustained in the king’s prison had never properly healed and he was suffering from the voyage from Scotland.

Robert followed, people moving back into the space they left. Once away from the main throng, Will handed over a pack he had been carrying.

When Robert took it the bag flopped open to reveal a snatch of white cloth, before he slung it over his shoulder. “One last time,” he said quietly.

Will looked away. “It doesn’t seem right, you doing this alone. I should be with you.”

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“I’m not alone,” responded Robert, nodding to two men waiting at the end of a street a short distance away, both dressed in the same woolen cloaks as he and Will. “And no offense,” he added, cocking his head at Will’s eye patch,

“but you’re a hazard with a bow these days.” His grin faded. “This has to be done. You made the right decision. We cannot risk another Crusade.”

“I know. But it feels more like vengeance today.”

“You know the price for peace, Will. It is always high.”

Will paused, thinking of Everard’s belief that, sometimes, peace could only be bought with blood. For a long time he hadn’t truly agreed, but after all they had been through these past few years it seemed the old man might have been right. He gripped Robert’s outstretched hand. Will waited until his old comrade and the two men had disappeared from view, then moved off alone. Behind him, the pyre burned like a sun, the two men at the center consumed by its light.

dominican priory, near carpentras, the kingdom of

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“I am afraid the journey from Paris weakened him beyond my skills to heal, Your Grace. Perhaps if he had remained at rest while the present bout passed . . . ?”

“He wanted to return to plan for the Crusade.” The cardinal’s brow creased.

“Is there nothing we can do?”

“I would suggest,” said the physician quietly, “that you pray for him.”

The cardinal nodded after a pause. “I understand. Thank you.” Before entering the chamber, he waited until the physician had been escorted away down the passage by two black-robed Dominicans. Three other cardinals of the Sacred College were there, lingering around a large bed. They all looked around as he closed the door, their faces expectant. He shook his head.

In the bed lay Clement. The pope was breathing shallowly, his eyes hooded, the lids fluttering. He stirred as the cardinal who had entered moved to his side and took his hand. His face was deathly pale, the skin stretched taut over his bones as if there were nothing left between them; not muscle or blood. The disease he had suffered with for so many years had consumed him, eating away his organs and his strength until he was no more than an empty husk, with all his hopes and plans rattling inside him.

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Outside, a bell chimed the afternoon office and doors banged in the distance as the monks filed to prayer. Clement’s eyes flickered open. Staring past the bowed heads of the cardinals, he fi xed on a picture hanging on the wall at the end of the bed. It was an image of Jerusalem, embroidered in silk. A tear slipped from the corner of his eye as his vision focused on the white and gold domes, crowned by their eternal sky. “No,” he whispered, feeling his heart murmur uneasily. “Not yet. I must see it done.”

“Your Holiness?” said one of the cardinals, leaning closer to hear that pa-pery voice.

Clement’s head turned weakly to him. “I promised Raoul.”

“Who is Raoul?” questioned the cardinal gently. When the pope didn’t answer, the man glanced at the others, but they were shaking their heads in puzzlement.

As the Nones bell ceased its chimes, the pope’s hand slipped from the cardinal’s, his head sinking back on to the pillow.

château vincennes, the kingdom of france,

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Philippe urged his horse on faster, not waiting for the others to follow. The green wood ahead promised freedom and he was impatient for it. The white mare plunged keenly along the path that looped through the trees, her iron-shod hooves thumping up dust. The king settled into her rhythm, reins gripped in one gloved hand, the other crooked at his side, bearing a hooded falcon, the leash and jesses looped through his fingers. She was a young lightning-swift peregrine, a gift from his son-in-law, King Edward. Maiden had died the previous year and he hadn’t flown a bird since, but he missed the chase and in recent months found himself dreaming often of the woods and river flats of the royal estate. Sir Henri had trained the falcon and now they were ready, she and he, to test each other’s mettle.

For months, he had been cooped up in Paris, feeling caged and restless.

The death of Pope Clement had complicated matters, for while the pope had issued a bull decreeing the wealth of the Templars be transferred to the Hospital, no such document existed to attest to his decision that Philippe should be the new grand master of that order. The king spent sleepless weeks arguing long into the night with Guillaume de Plaisans and Pierre Dubois, desperately 454 robyn

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seeking some resolution to the problem. Finally, the canny lawyers, in preparing to hand over the Templars’ wealth and property to the Knights of St. John, had drawn up a lengthy list of expenses and legal costs incurred during the king’s seizure and collection of the assets. If the Hospitallers wanted the vast array of estates and small holdings, they would have to pay for it. In the end, Philippe got everything he wanted. Clement’s death freed him from the burden of an unwanted Crusade and the Hospitallers were slowly pouring money into his dried-up coffers.

As the king rode, he felt the sting of the hair shirt against his skin. Preoccupied of late, he hadn’t worn it in quite some time. Above him, through the breaks in the canopy, the sky was tinged rose-gold in the east. It was still early and the sun was only just starting to rise. There was a heavy promise of heat in the air and mist rose from the dew-laden grass, turning the forest into an ethereal world of silver webs and shifting shadows. Birds cast themselves from the trees as the king thundered past. Hearing the barking of dogs somewhere behind him, Philippe glanced back over his shoulder. He couldn’t see the company of courtiers who had been following him anymore. Slowing the mare with a swift pull on the reins, he turned her sharply and cantered back the way he had come. He caught shouts and the bellow of a horn up ahead. Rounding a corner, he saw the company. They were crowded around the edge of the wood, staring into its depths. The huntsmen, who had been jogging on foot some way behind the horses, were straining to keep the barking dogs in check, the beasts pulling at their leashes.

“What is it?” Philippe called, approaching.

“They must have caught a scent, my lord,” replied one, whipping the hound with his stick to silence it. “Deer, I reckon.”

“This close to the château?” questioned Philippe’s son Louis doubtfully.

Philippe steered his horse to the line of trees and peered into the green gloom.

“What say you, my lord?” asked Henri, moving in alongside him. The old falconer smiled, his weathered face wrinkling. “Shall we have our sport here or at the river?”

Philippe nodded to the huntsmen. “Let the dogs go.”

The courtiers murmured excitedly, moving into position, as the huntsmen unleashed the hounds. The dogs streaked into the undergrowth, barking furiously. The chase was on.

Philippe went first, hurtling down the grassy bank that slipped from the track into the woods. Turning his horse skillfully, he ducked under low trailing the fall of the templars

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branches, pulling his knees in as the mare whipped past the trees. The company followed, fanning out, each man finding his own path. Once again, Philippe left the rest behind him, none of them able, or daring, to match his wild pace. As he rode, the mist swirling in his wake, he grinned savagely, fi lled with the thrill of the hunt. He was power personified, the master of all things: his horse, the killer on his wrist, the ground upon which he rode. He was king, worshipped and feared. He had beaten his enemies and watched them fall before him. He had expanded his kingdom and fi lled his coffers. God could not fail to notice him now. There was no one more powerful, or famed in all of Christendom.

Ahead, the barking of the dogs seemed to separate. He caught movement as the pack split and the animals sped in different directions. “We have two scents!” he shouted, following the three dogs that had veered to the left. He rocked in the saddle as the horse vaulted a shallow stream. The woods behind and to his right were filled with the calls of the others as they spread out, each man wanting to be the first to catch sight of the quarry. The sounds were distorted, echoing through the maze of trees. Up ahead, the dogs’ barking was louder, more urgent. Philippe slowed his mount with a tug on the reins as he entered a clearing. He couldn’t see the dogs, but he could hear them, growling and snarling. Between two oaks the undergrowth was thrashing. Wondering if they had caught a boar, Philippe swung over the saddle and jumped down, still holding the peregrine poised on his left glove.

With his right hand, he drew his sword and went forward, cautious now. A cornered boar could be lethal. His horse circled behind him, snorting. Golden light was flickering through the trees as the sun rose. The forest was alive with horns ringing and men shouting. It sounded as if the dogs had led them around in a circle. Philippe’s brow furrowed in disappointment. Had he followed the wrong trail? He went closer to where the hounds were scrabbling.

Parting the bushes he saw a dead deer, the dogs’ faces buried in its guts. He was about to shout to the huntsmen, when he caught sight of a hole in the dead animal’s side. It looked like an arrow wound. He straightened, his frown now one of anger. Poachers? On his estate? The undergrowth behind him rustled. The king turned.

Rising up out of the green and the mist were three figures. In the fi rst rays of sun, their white mantles seemed to glow, the cross over each of their hearts as red as blood. One held a bow primed in his hands. It released, the arrow springing forth. Philippe watched its rapid trajectory, the nerves in his body firing into life, ready to send him lunging to one side. But the arrow was 456 robyn

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quicker. As its barbed tip plunged into his chest, the king hurtled back, his arms flinging wide. His sword with its golden pommel flew from his hand as he fell. The falcon shrieked, her wings beating the air and her leash pulling free. Philippe hit the ground and lay on his back, his breath shuddering between his lips, watching her soar into the blue air above him. Her small form spiraled up, moving farther and farther away, while he remained pinned to the earth, sinking farther inside himself into nothing.

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Argyll, the Kingdom of Scotland

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The calls of the children echoed sharply, catching in the wind and fi ltering back to the adults, who were wending their way slowly up the hill.

Closer, the sea whispered and sighed, unfolding itself across the sand then dragging back. Will paused on the crumbling cliff edge, the raw breeze flurrying around him, whipping the stiff grasses against his legs. The sun had set, but the western sky was still glowing, the tumbling line of islands that shaped the horizon black against the gold.

Some days, he would sit out here for hours. After so many years of uncertainty to be able to see everything before him was a comfort. Yet within those confines, change was a constant. The sea could shift from green to gray in an instant and mists would roll in unexpectedly over the bracken hills to cast a white net across the lochs, some of which were so deep they cradled mountains in their depths. The summers were glorious, the nights light and mild, but the winters were brutal. Community meant something here, unlike the anonymous sprawl of London or the twisting labyrinths of Paris. It reminded him in some ways of Acre, the same barren beauty and white sugar sands, people clinging together on a rocky strip of coast, reliant on one another for survival. Everard would have liked it here, as would Elwen.