Lions of the Grail

by Tim Hodkinson

  ‘There’s only a few of us brothers of the Temple left now,’ the sergeant said. ‘Our orders are that once your troop is back inside the castle, we’re to bar the gates, drop the portcullis then make for the harbour. If I were you, I’d do the same before all the ships are gone. I wouldn’t like to be left behind here when the Saracens break in.’

  ‘This can’t be right,’ Savage said, shaking his head.

  He kicked his heels and rode on into the outer courtyard of the castle. It was deserted. He looked up at the keep of the castle and saw that all three flagpoles now stood bare. Even the war flag of the Templars was gone.

  Behind him he heard the raised voices of the rest of his men as they ran into the gate tower. Then came the boom of the gate closing followed by a rattling of chains and the crash as the heavy portcullis – which had been repaired to working order by Templar artificers – dropped into place to seal the entrance. The sergeants then all poured out of the gate tower and peeled left, hurrying in the direction of the harbour which lay within the protective arms of the castle walls.

  Savage rode in the opposite direction, through a gate in the second curtain wall into an inner courtyard. The clacking of his horse’s hooves on the flagstones below echoed ominously around the deserted towers. The castle stables sat on one side of the courtyard, up against the keep. The rest of the knights’ horses were gone, but the mound of still warm horse dung showed they had not left long ago.

  A whinny made Savage turn and he saw a groom, a young lad of perhaps fourteen winters, leading what must have been the last remaining horse from a stable at the end. Savage rode over to him and swung himself out of the saddle.

  ‘Where are the rest of the horses?’ he said.

  ‘They’re either already left or waiting on the ships,’ the groom said. ‘This is the only one left.’

  Savage felt bewilderment mixed with a sense of growing dread. His confusion was evident on his face as he glared at the ground, trying to make sense of what was happening.

  ‘Shall I take your horse to the ship, Lord?’ the groom said. ‘Only I’m anxious to get away myself and you won’t want him left behind either, will you?’

  Still in a daze, Savage nodded. He handed over the reins to the boy who began leading both horses off in the direction of the harbour.

  ‘Wait,’ Savage said, breaking out of his astonishment just as the groom reached the gate in the courtyard. ‘Where is the Knight Marshal? Surely he has not run away?’

  The boy gave a wan smile and shook his head.

  ‘Lord Barthélemy?’ he said. ‘He’ll be the last to leave. You know that, sire. He was in the chapel last I saw of him.’

  The boy left. Savage, his dusty mail jingling, jogged around the squat, square walls of the castle keep. On the other side he passed through another gate and came to a round building with a flat roof. It was not a defensive tower but the chapel of the castle. Like most Templar chapels it had been built in a circle to imitate the Holy Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The door stood ajar and Savage saw smoke drifting out from inside.

  He pulled the door fully open. Despite the heat outside and the impending disaster, Savage felt a sense of peace descend on him as he stepped inside into the cool, quiet gloom of the holy place. This was immediately dispersed, however, by the sight before him.

  The alter, the sacred stone table where he had witnessed the Mass sung two days before when they had retaken the castle, had been prised out of the floor and moved aside. Several flagstones had been lifted. The crowbars used to do it still lay on the mound of dirt and rocks that had been dug out from under them. A long rectangular void about the size and shape of a grave lay uncovered beneath. It was empty.

  Not far away a pile of parchment rolls was on fire on the floor. This was where the smoke was coming from. Walking towards the blaze, more parchments bundled in his arms, was a man armed in mail like Savage and wearing the white mantle emblazoned with the equal-armed red cross of the Templars. As Savage watched, he dumped the parchments onto the fire, kicking one that rolled away back in with his leather boot.

  ‘Sire: What’s going on?’ Savage said. ‘Why are we leaving?’

  Barthélemy de Quincy turned towards Savage. He was in the middle years of life though still fit; his body lean from the constant training the order demanded. His grey hair was cropped short to his skull but his beard flowed down over his chest like a white and iron-coloured waterfall. The jagged scar that snaked across his left cheek was testament to how his rank of Templar Marshal, commander of battles, was not just an honorary title.

  De Quincy squinted at Savage, as if struggling to understand what he had said. Then his face cleared with recognition.

  ‘Ah! Richard le Savage, isn’t it?’ the Marshal said with a smile. ‘The Irish knight. You speak French with a strange accent but I forget it isn’t your first language.’

  ‘I’ve spoken French since I was born,’ Savage said with a frown. ‘I speak it the way everyone else in Ireland speaks it.’

  De Quincy held up both hands in placation.

  ‘I suppose we all think the way we speak is the correct way,’ he said. ‘But why are you not on the ships? Do you want to be left behind? The Grand Master gave the order to leave this morning. Did you not get it?’

  ‘I’ve been outside guarding the road to the castle for the last two days,’ Savage said. ‘Why are we evacuating?’

  ‘Alas,’ the Marshal said, ‘It seems that the Great Khan of the Tartars will not be coming to our aid after all. The Caliph of Cairo anticipated our moves and surprised his army as they entered Syria. The tartars have now turned tail and returned to Armenia.’

  ‘But we can hold this fortress ourselves,’ Savage said, his voice cracking. ‘As a bridgehead for when more Crusaders come from the West.’

  ‘We’ve fulfilled our mission here, brother Savage,’ the Marshal said. ‘Now we must go before we lose too many men. There is too short a supply of recruits for the Temple these days to squander lives in battles we cannot win.’

  ‘What do you mean, our mission here?’ Savage said. He could feel his jaw tightening as anger flooded into his heart.

  ‘Eleven years ago, after the fall of Acre, this fortress was abandoned in haste,’ de Quincy said. ‘There was no time to remove or destroy certain records and documents of the order. There was also–’

  He hesitated for a moment, catching Savage’s gaze.

  ‘…something else,’ he went on. ‘Something very precious the order brought here from when our headquarters was in Jerusalem. It was one of the order’s most secret possessions and could not be taken away at the time, not without many people seeing it and so learning of its existence. Neither it nor the parchments could be allowed to fall into the hands of the heathens either, so they were hidden. The last two days have given the Grand Master time to retrieve the secret and get it aboard a ship under cover of darkness. It also has given me the time to destroy the documents left behind.’

  Savage looked at the hole dug in the floor and the heap of burning parchments.

  ‘This was supposed to be the start of the new Crusade,’ he said through clenched teeth, his voice little more than a growl. ‘Not a treasure hunt!’

  The Marshal took a sharp intake of breath. He thrust back his shoulders and glared at Savage, looking him up and down.

  ‘Savage,’ De Quincy said, ‘I can see by your youthful looks, your newly shorn hair and the beard that only just covers your chin that you are very young and you have not been with the order very long.’

  Savage could almost feel the Marshal’s admonishment washing over him like waves.

  ‘But you must learn this,’ De Quincy said, holding up a forefinger. ‘It is not your lot to question the motives and actions of the Masters of this order. You are a Poor Knight of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, a member of the most feared and respected military order on Earth. We are feared because we ourselves are fearless, and we are respected because of our military prowess and
our iron discipline. You swore an oath when you entered the order to obey all orders of the Masters without question. Without question, brother Savage. This expedition was led by the Grand Master. Who are you – a mere boy from the bogs of Ireland – to question his plans? We are pulling out of here to regroup on the island of Arwad.’

  Savage hung his head. Disappointment and dejection filled his heart.

  ‘Brother Gui is dead,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘He died holding off the Saracens.’

  ‘Then we should rejoice,’ De Quincy said. ‘For his soul is already in heaven. Now go. Get on one of those ships before the Mameluks break through the gate and you find yourself a gelded slave for sale in the markets of Babylon.’

  4

  AD 1308

  Knight Templar Preceptory of Garway,

  in the shire of Hereford, England

  The Templar commander was worried. He had been so since the arrival of the mysterious travellers the night before.

  Just after midnight two riders had appeared at the gates of the order’s preceptory at Garway in the shire of Hereford. Garway was one of the smaller estates held by the Order of Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon: better known as the Knights Templar. This awkward combination of small monastery, farmstead and military barracks nestled in the remote, wild regions that comprised the border between England and Wales.

  The sergeant-at-arms on watch at the gate that night was under orders not to let anyone in, especially after dark.

  These were dangerous times. The order was under assault from all sides. Terrible news came from France about the torture and executions of Templar brethren there. All over Europe the property of the order was being seized and its members arrested. Most unbelievable of all, the Holy Father, Pope Clement, had issued a decree disbanding the order on grounds of heresy.

  Grand Master Jacques de Molay, head of the Order of Templars, insisted that these were just times of tribulation sent by God to test their faith. If they remained true to their faith, then sooner or later the truth would conquer all. They would be acquitted of all the monstrous crimes that they were being accused of and the Pope would break free of the evil influence the King of France held over him. He would reverse his decrees and the order could get back to its true purpose: recovering Jerusalem from the Saracens.

  Richard Savage was not so sure. Across the world, the tide had turned against the order. Now even here in England – where so far they had been left untouched – there were ominous signs. Agents of the Holy Inquisition had landed in the country and were demanding of the King permission to put the Templars to “the question”.

  The sergeant on the gate doggedly refused to allow the riders entry until finally one asked:

  Is there no help here for a Son of the Widow?

  The gates were opened immediately. This innocuous query was the secret code that told a member of the order that a brother member was in trouble and needed assistance. All brethren must respond without question.

  The two riders asked to see the commander. They were shown to his quarters and had remained there ever since.

  The preceptory was abuzz with speculation about who these men were. Savage had managed to determine that the riders were fugitive Templars from France and it seemed that they carried something important with them. Exactly what it was, no one knew.

  Six years had passed since the ignoble retreat from Tortosa, but Savage had still not progressed beyond the lowest rank of knights in the order. The Templars had a strict hierarchy. Knights only ever knew what their superiors decided that they needed to know, so the commander had not informed Savage about what was going on.

  Richard Savage was finding his vocation with the order increasingly frustrating. Throughout the world, the Templars possessed the reputation not just as a formidable fighting force, but also as guardians of secret knowledge. He had caught a fleeting glimpse of one of those occult mysteries himself in Tortosa and he yearned to know more. He had joined to learn mystical secrets, to discover the covert truths that lay behind holy mysteries, not just to fight the Muslims. Not that he even did much of that anymore either.

  After the evacuation of Tortosa he had spent a couple of years under the baking sun in Cyprus involved in raids on the coast of the Holy Land and Egypt. These had proved futile, like mere flies buzzing round a stallion. The promised Tartar army never arrived and the much-vaunted new Crusade never began. The order had then moved Savage to fight in the reconquest of Spain from the infidels but by the time he arrived most of the war was over. He had then been withdrawn to France to work on one of the order’s vinyards, an assignment he found most pleasant, though even as he lounged in the sun and enjoyed the wine he was aware he was losing his edge, getting soft from the lack of real combat.

  Since being transferred to England all his time had been spent on the wheat farm and mill at Garway. Savage realised to his embarrassment that he was now little more than a heavily armed farmer. He consoled himself, however, that at least that was better than the lot of many of his brethren, which was to spend their time sitting on their backsides counting the order’s considerable stacks of money.

  To Savage, with the Holy Land lost, the order had grown fat, wealthy and lazy. Amidst secrets and rituals, obscured by its unbelievable wealth, its original purpose had been forgotten. Meanwhile, their world was crumbling around them. Perhaps the tribulation was a good thing. Perhaps it was the sort of purge the order needed.

  The arrival of the visitors caused quite a stir. At first light, riders were sent out to all surrounding Preceptories of the Templars. The message they bore was – of course – a secret. Finally, just before midday, Savage and the other two lowest-ranking knights at the Garway preceptory were ordered to come to the commander’s quarters.

  The three knights, dressed in their white mantles, emblazoned with the red equal-armed cross that was the symbol of the order, stood before their commander, Guilleme de Vere.

  De Vere was a vastly experienced knight with years of campaigning in the East behind him. He was now finishing off his service to the order in sleepy semi-retirement running a farmstead back in his home country. Usually, he was the most imperturbable of Masters. That morning however, he was agitated.

  Beside de Vere stood another Templar, a man with black hair and a goatee beard. His eyes looked out from beneath hooded lids and the smile on his lips reminded Savage of a beast called a crocodile he had once seen lurking in a river while on a raid into Egypt from Cyprus. He was aware that Commander de Vere was soon to retire, and the London Headquarters of the Temple had sent this knight, Hugo de Montmorency, to be his replacement. Montmorency had been in Garway for a week now and from what they had seen of him, none of the knights were particularly keen on the day he would take over command.

  ‘I have a task for you young men,’ de Vere said.

  The grizzled old warrior regarded each of them with a steady gaze, his grey beard contrasted sharply with the white of his cloak.

  ‘Last night two of our brethren arrived here, fleeing from the unjust persecution of our order in France,’ he continued. ‘They have brought with them a fantastic item: a treasure so fabulous I believed it to be only a legend. By God’s grace they managed to save this from the treasury of the Headquarters of our order in Paris before it could fall into the greedy hands of King Philip of France.’

  ‘What is it Sire?’ Savage said. ‘A Holy Relic? A piece of the True Cross?’

  De Vere smiled.

  ‘The impetuous curiosity of Youth!’ he said. ‘What our brothers carry is so important that we cannot risk it falling into the wrong hands. For that reason, its exact nature must be kept secret at all costs.’

  Savage sighed.

  ‘Then why tell us about it at all?’

  ‘Because I want to impress on you all just how important it is,’ de Vere said with a tut. ‘So that you will do what I ask of you with utmost diligence. This morning I sent messengers out to the commanders of our order in t
his shire, requesting that they come here without delay. I have also ordered Syr Hugo here to ride to Dinmore Manor and speak to the Master of the Order of St John, requesting that he should come as well.’

  There were sharp intakes of breath all round. The knights shuffled their feet. One coughed.

  ‘Some of you may be uncomfortable with the Master of the Knights Hospitaller coming here,’ de Vere went on, ‘but I can assure you that what we have in our possession is so important that it transcends the petty rivalries between our orders. Indeed, it holds the potential to unite all Christians behind it, to save our order from its persecutions and lead us back to Outremer to regain the Holy Places.’

  ‘All the more reason not to tell the Hospitallers: They cannot be trusted!’ Savage said. ‘It was through their treachery and cowardice that we lost Acre to the Saracens. They were first to go at Tortosa as well.’

  De Vere narrowed his eyes. He straightened his bowed shoulders and drew up to his full height of over six feet tall. For the first time the young knights caught a glimpse of their Master as the fearsome, battle-hardened warrior he was in his younger days.

  ‘Richard Savage, your impudence knows no bounds,’ the commander thundered. ‘I know you fought in Tortosa but that was a mere skirmish. You were not at the fall of Acre. I was. You have not seen the carnage, the slaughter that these eyes have seen. You have not witnessed the horrors that are let loose when men wage war against each other in the name of God. For that reason, I will forgive your foolish naivety.’

  Montmorency gave a little cough.

  ‘Commander de Vere, surely you intend to punish this man?’ he said. ‘The Rule of our order is very clear on the matter of insubordination. All Templars swear instant obedience to our superiors. You are the Master of the Order here and this man is clearly questioning your orders.’

  De Vere shot a sour glance at Montmorency, then looked back at Savage.