The Templar Inheritance

by Mario Reading

  Hartelius and the princess were indulging in a sort of madness, one with the other. Only people in their position could think to be so blatant. Hartelius was the commander of the column and the Guardian of the Holy Lance. The princess was the sister of the king. As long as the column kept moving, their affair could continue with relative impunity. But they were storing up trouble for themselves and both of them knew it. Neither cared.

  Two weeks into their alpine crossing, somewhere near the Brenner Pass, the column was attacked by Italian banditti. Despite the explicitness of his indulgences, Hartelius had somehow managed to maintain the loyalty of his knights. Perhaps it was the otherworldliness of his infatuation? The near sanctity of his position as the Lance carrier? For whatever reason, his Templar knights fought nobly, despite the odds against them. The banditti were guerrilla fighters – mountain men. Used to dealing with merchants and their wagon trains. Soft targets.

  The knights drove them off for the loss of seven of their number. Fifteen camp followers were also killed, and two of the women stolen, including one of the princess’s handmaidens.

  At one point in the skirmish, Hartelius had placed himself in front of the princess’s pavilion, burning tents all around him, the dead and dying calling on God to save them, and had raised his sword high above his head, as a Viking berserker will, and had run at the approaching enemy, with no thought for his own life, but only that of the princess.

  Three banditti had marked him out – men used to fighting as a team – but they had wilted beneath Hartelius’s onslaught. They had merely been seeking booty – their souls were not involved in the fight. To Hartelius, death was a small price to pay for his annexation of another man’s intended bride. He left it up to God whether he would live or die. The lengths of the odds he faced seemed somehow apposite.

  He killed first one, then another of his assailants. Twice he was struck from behind, but his chainmail deflected the blows. A third time he was caught on the neck, near the trapezius muscle. He felt his arm go limp, and switched hands, as he had so often trained himself to do. The third bandito, sensing weakness, attacked low. Hartelius parried and dropped to one knee. He made as if to fall forwards and the bandito lunged. Hartelius feinted to one side and the man hesitated for one fatal second, uncertain what was happening. Hartelius scythed anti-clockwise with his sword arm and cut the bandito’s leg to the bone. The bandito fell and Hartelius lunged across the man’s upper body, his sword nethermost. The dead weight of him as he dropped, confident that his chainmail would protect him from his own sword edge, was enough to almost sever the man in two. Hartelius lay on top of his assailant. He could feel the blood pulsing from his neck wound onto the ground.

  He rolled away and tried to rise to one knee, but he could not. The princess ran from the safety of her pavilion, a dagger held out before her. She crouched by Hartelius and feverishly searched his body for wounds. His eyes were wild with looking for other assailants. Two of his knights, seeing their commander down and their princess out in the open and with no cover, made a shield round Hartelius, while the princess tried to staunch his wound.

  Later, when the skirmish died down, they carried Hartelius into the princess’s pavilion and laid him on her bed. The bleeding, by this time, had stopped, thanks to a pad the princess had made of part of her shift, which she had tightened in place by using her dagger as a tourniquet handle and her ornamental leather belt as a strap. The bandito’s sword cut had struck no artery, or Hartelius would have been dead. His wound was purely muscular.

  The princess, as skilled a seamstress as all young ladies at the convent were, cleaned the cut with Rhenish wine and sewed it together with Persian silk from her depository. With the aid of the two Templar knights she stripped Hartelius of his chainmail, and then later, when they were alone, she took off his cambric shirt and sheepskin breeches and climbed into bed beside him, warming his fever-ridden body against hers.

  The princess’s party remained where they were for three days, burying their dead, tending to their wounded, and regrouping. On the final day, Hartelius, still weak as a kitten, emerged from the princess’s pavilion to thank his men, and those camp followers who remained alive, for their loyalty. He handed out money to the injured, and small gifts to those who had distinguished themselves. All knew that the princess had been tending their commander personally, in her pavilion, but none dared speak openly of it. It was as if the princess’s guilt in betraying the man she was destined to marry might infect anyone who publicly acknowledged it.

  This silence carried over even to the remaining Knights Templar, many of whom stood in awe of Hartelius’s insane feat of arms. For one knight, in only partial armour, to overcome and kill three of the enemy, who were attacking him simultaneously, was beyond thought. The only possible answer was that the Holy Lance had protected their leader and had made his victory possible. But what did this say about his conduct with the princess? Was God condoning it? If not, why had He allowed Hartelius to live, when any normal man, in similar circumstances, would have died?

  This uncertainty continued on the far side of the Alps and down through Padua to Venice. Part of it stemmed from the fact that no priest had been detailed to travel with the princess. It had doubtless been assumed by the king that one would have been provided at the instigation of the Abbess of Rupertsberg. But the princess had been so adamant about leaving on the very eve of Hartelius’s arrival, and the king’s orders so very fluid, that no vicar of God had been allocated. This alone had facilitated Hartelius and the princess’s affair. And the continued absence of such a figure now facilitated its prolongation.

  A Venetian merchant ship had been ordered, by advance courier, to be laid to and provisioned in expectation of the princess’s party. The ship had been ready to sail for two weeks now, its captain provided with letters of marque enabling him to engage any enemy vessel that might dare to interfere with his itinerary via Dubrovnik, Modon, Candia, and finally Famagusta, to Acre.

  Hartelius’s wound had healed well in the five weeks that spanned the banditti’s attack and their arrival in Venice. More letters now awaited him from the king. A second marriage chest, far larger than the first, awaited the princess. It was a gift from the princess’s intended husband, the Margrave Adalfuns von Drachenhertz. The marriage chest, which had arrived by sea from Outremer, was in painted leather, with various scenes etched into the front. A rider with a falcon. A rider hunting. A Crusader knight killing a Saracen enemy. A queen on horseback with a scourge in her hand.

  ‘Is that meant to be me?’ asked the princess, pointing to the queen.

  ‘I fear so,’ said Hartelius.

  ‘You fear so?’ said the princess.

  ‘I know so,’ said Hartelius.

  ‘But why am I carrying a scourge?’

  ‘It is meant to be symbolical,’ said Hartelius. ‘Your future husband is trying to tell you something. Something along the lines of “when you marry me you will enjoy unbridled power”.’ He forbore to say ‘and maybe even become Queen of Jerusalem one day’, but he knew that this was the hidden subtext of the margrave’s message. The man was renowned throughout greater Germany both for his relentless ambition and for his cold-heartedness. He would not embark on a Crusade unless he had something significant to gain from it. Such as a kingdom.

  Despite such reminders, both lovers found it next to impossible to acknowledge the true purpose of their journey. Whenever something untoward slipped out, or whenever events took over and imposed themselves on the pair, neither one nor the other would confront the reality of their situation. There was always more time. More travelling to be done. More facts to be ignored.

  Venice itself was the most perfect distraction. La Serenissima was a maelstrom of different nationalities. It was, in addition, the source of ninety per cent of all European trade. Complete unto itself.

  Hartelius took lodgings for the princess and his men, arguing that he and his party would need time to prepare for what could prove to be a leng
thy and dangerous voyage. The captain cavilled – his secondary trading mission was already running late.

  But one did well not to alienate the sister of the man who would soon be Holy Roman Emperor. Such seeming slights had the habit of catching up with a man and destroying him further down the line.

  The captain reluctantly agreed to postpone the voyage for an extra week. He immediately returned to his mistress’s arms. While the princess returned to Hartelius’s.

  FOURTEEN

  Venice was basking in unseasonable sunshine. It seemed to the two lovers as if the weather itself was conspiring to facilitate their affair.

  The princess’s hair was steadily growing out. By day, travelling along the canals by barge or through the streets by palanquin, she wore a cap and a veil, as modesty dictated, but by night, when Hartelius secretly came to visit her, she would allow him to undress her and revel in her beauty. Later, after they had made love, she would change into a flowing silk robe, over-threaded with roses, her limbs uncluttered beneath it, her hair falling lightly about her face. Then they would sneak out into the maelstrom of the city and lose themselves amongst the streets and markets, in sailors’ taverns and kerbside eateries.

  They would attend street theatres and alfresco concerts, watch jugglers from the Maghreb and acrobats from the Polish marches. Once, they hired a single-masted, square-rigged cog and had its master sail them out to the island of Murano, where they persuaded a farmer and his wife to rent them a room while they waited for two glass cameos to be made, each bearing the AGLA inscription, from the Hebrew notarikon atta gibor le’olam adonai – ‘You are mighty for ever, O Lord’. These were to serve them as amulets against disease and ill health.

  That night Hartelius gave the princess a finger-ring of gold, set with Roman sard intaglio and engraved with the figure of Jupiter, which his mother had given him on his fifteenth birthday, immediately following his father’s decision that the young Hartelius must join the Knights Templar. Hartelius also told the princess that he loved her, and that he would rather die than let another man take her away from him – a man who did not love her.

  The princess wept openly for the first time. She reminded him of her position, and that her intended marriage was not of her own volition but rather that of her brother, the king. That the entire tenor of her life involved duty and honour, and that she would not and could not betray who she was and the position God had given her. It was the first time they came near to arguing.

  Later, Hartelius had taken the princess with a fervour out of all proportion to anything he had ever known. It was as if he couldn’t slake himself of her. That he had to empty himself into her – subsume her, almost, into himself – so that the two of them became one. One body, one soul. When next he asked her about duty, and honour, and obedience, she told him that she cared not a jot for any of them unless they involved him, and that she would follow her knight to hell itself if he asked her to.

  The farmer’s wife made them a breakfast the next morning of eggs and truffles and morel mushrooms with fried crostini and borage tea. They had honey and oat biscuits and a confit made of plums, lemons and peaches. After they had eaten, and while waiting for the schooner to pick them up as arranged, Hartelius and the princess sneaked off behind a nearby straw stack where he raised her shift and took her from behind, in broad daylight, while she arched away from him, furtively watching him, from time to time, across her shoulder, to monitor the expression on his face – for to the princess her greatest passion lay in the reflection of herself through Hartelius’s eyes.

  For the bitter truth was that, during the entire extent of her eighteen years of life, the princess had lived subject to rules – a manner of being that her essential nature abhorred. She was by instinct a free spirit, although, by virtue of her position, still beholden to and bound by convention. Hartelius’s gaze freed her. She could fly in his sight like the most elusive of birds. She could soar in his eyes like one of her father’s falcons on the stoop.

  On their trip back into Venice she watched him with a serene joy twinned with the most profound apprehension. She recognized this emotion as something that only a woman can feel. A total giving of oneself mirrored by a fear of just what that giving will ultimately entail. Hartelius stood near the gunwale of the cog staring at the multitude of islands surrounding them, his broad shoulders encased in a flannel cloak, his golden hair dancing in the wind. That he was aware of her gaze she had no doubt. Each seemed to infer the existence of the other with every exhalation of their breath. It was an utter need – with no sense and no possible resolution.

  For there was nowhere they could escape to. Nowhere they could hide. Hartelius would be hunted down like a criminal wherever he chose to take her. He would be castrated, allowed to live for a while in the knowledge of what he had done and what had been done to him, and then killed, in as grotesque a way as possible. The princess’s dowry would either be added to exponentially, as a sop to her future husband for agreeing to accept damaged goods, or she would be shipped back to somewhere far worse than Rupertsberg, where she would be incarcerated for the rest of her life in conditions of the most extreme sanctity imaginable.

  The future looked bleak – the present infinitely joyful and with an infinity of promise. The princess swore to herself that she would hide her sadness from Hartelius and give him everything that it was in her power to give. But that when the time came, she would drive him away from her for his own good, even though such an act would effectively break her heart.

  Until then she would relish every instant they spent together – squeeze out every last drop of their love, and return it to him a thousandfold. This would be her gift to him. Her lover. Her prince.

  FIFTEEN

  The single-masted, lateen-sailed nef the princess’s party were to travel to Acre in was constructed plank on frame, in the European style, with a steering oar rather than a rudder, and a relatively shallow draft. It was therefore prey to drifting with the wind. The captain explained to Hartelius that a course would have to be followed which never took them very far from land. This was safer, he maintained, as there were pirates everywhere, who enjoyed preying on vulnerable merchant ships.

  ‘So we shall be a long time at sea?’

  ‘Oh yes. Very long. Maybe thirty days. If the wind is against us, we may sometimes have to pass the same spot three or four times before we broach it. This is normal. The princess will have ample time to recuperate from the journey during our five stopovers en route to Acre; I can assure you of that, Commander.’

  ‘And there is no hold for my three horses and those of my thirteen knights?’

  ‘The horses can stand on deck. In a corral. They will appreciate the fresh air.’

  ‘And the princess?’

  ‘She can take my cabin at the rear of the ship.’

  ‘Where do the rest of us sleep?’

  ‘Why, on deck too. Under cerecloth. It is most comfortable, I can assure you.’

  ‘And the oarsmen?’

  ‘We have none. We are not a galley. We are a nef. We sail by the wind alone. If the wind is with us we are faster than any cog or galley.’

  ‘And if the wind is against us?’

  ‘We are doomed.’ The captain laughed. ‘But as you see, I am still here. So the odds are with us. And your knights can defend us, can they not? So we have nothing to fear.’

  Thirty days. He had thirty days left with the princess until their arrival at Acre. Hartelius decided that there was no point in even pretending to a virtue he did not possess. Each day was precious. Each night irreplaceable. All knew of his relationship with the princess. It was visible on both of their faces whenever they were together. In the movement of their bodies. In the inclination of their heads when they spoke to one another. There was such a thing as shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

  Hartelius resolved to share the princess’s cabin in flagrante. The princess’s remaining handmaiden would attend them, aided by the cook’s w
ife and a twelve-year-old boy, son of, and assistant to, the blacksmith, who now found himself temporarily deprived of a job after his father had been told that no fires, beyond those necessary for cooking, might be lit aboard the nef.

  The princess was entirely in accord with her lover over the matter of their shared accommodation. The very thought of being aboard the same vessel as Hartelius, but being unable to touch or to be held by him, was anathema to her. What would happen in Acre would happen in Acre. Meanwhile each day was a fresh journey – each night a journey’s end.

  To entertain themselves during the crossing, and to act as a necessary lacuna between their seemingly endless bouts of lovemaking, Hartelius and the princess played chess, and also a game resembling backgammon that was played using tablemen carved from walrus ivory. Each tableman represented one of the twelve labours of Hercules, one of the nine orders of angels, or one of the nine muses. The princess, who had perfected her gaming skills at Rupertsberg alongside the other bored young noblewomen immured there, invariably beat Hartelius, much to his irritation, at whatever game they chose to play that day. By the end of their first three passages, to Dubrovnik, Modon, and Candia respectively, he owed her six deniers and twelve gold bezants, and had already passed over to her a plethora of old-fashioned Fatimid dinars that he had brought back with him as souvenirs from the Third Crusade. By the time they left Famagusta he was deeper in debt than ever.

  ‘You will ruin me yet, woman.’

  ‘Not so. You married an heiress. I know this for a fact. You are rich.’

  Hartelius squinted at her. ‘But not any more. I shall never be able to go home now. My sole remaining wealth lies in the letters of credit that I hold, and which are payable at any Templar preceptory. You do realize that?’