by Jack Whyte
“But on what charges?” Edward de Bergeron was coldly angry. “You yourself pointed out the lack of substance in Capet’s orders. This fellow, king or no, has dared to lay hands on an exempt Order—exempt from allegiance to him and answerable only to the Pope. That is sacrilege.”
The Baron pursed his lips beneath his mustache, and then he nodded slowly. “You are correct, Sir Edward. But he went even further. He claimed to have proceeded on this path after consulting with, and gaining the permission of, the Pope himself. And that was a lie. A lie that came quickly to the Pope’s attention.”
Will spoke up. “And what did he do? The Pope, I mean.”
“He wrote the King a letter … Here, I have a transcript of it, provided at grave personal risk by a dear friend. Let me see …” The Baron shuffled through the sheets in his hand, then held one out at arm’s length, peering down his nose as he read aloud: “ ‘You, our dear son, have, in our absence, violated every rule and laid hands on the persons and properties of the Templars. You have also imprisoned them and, what pains us even more, you have not treated them with due leniency … and have added to the discomfort of imprisonment yet another affliction. You have laid hands on persons and property that are under the direct protection of the Roman Church. Your hasty act is seen by all, and rightly so, as an act of contempt towards ourselves and the Roman Church.’ ”
“Pardon me, Baron,” the Bishop said. “Would you read that again?”
Dutoit read the letter again, and every man there sat frowning as he listened. When he had finished, the Bishop turned to him. “It is as I thought on first hearing it. The Pope deplores the King’s actions, but he is more concerned about the flouting of his own authority than he is with the outrage perpetrated upon our Order. But what is this ‘other affliction’ to which he refers?”
“Torture.”
The word dropped into the silence like a stone falling on a wooden floor. “William of Paris,” Baron Dutoit continued, “the Chief Inquisitor of France, is King Philip’s confessor, and there can be little doubt that he was privy to the King’s plans for the Temple long before any action occurred, for his Dominican Inquisitors stood shoulder to shoulder with the King’s officers and explained what had occurred at a public meeting in the King’s own gardens two days after the arrests.”
“What …” Richard de Montrichard’s voice failed him at first and he cleared his throat before trying again. “What kind of … tortures are we speaking of? What do they do, these priest Inquisitors?”
Bishop Formadieu was the first to answer him. “Nothing too severe. Torture was authorized in defense of Church doctrine fifty years ago, by Pope Innocent IV. The Inquisitors are constrained to stop short of breaking limbs or spilling blood.” He stopped, perhaps to continue, but before he could say anything more, Baron Dutoit intervened.
“That is the theory, Bishop, but the reality is far more harsh. The term is torture, not sympathy or compassion. The use of explanations such as yours entails an inclination to believe in the humane and tender mercies of the Inquisitors. But they have none. They use the rack and the strappado to obey the rules. The rack stretches a man’s limbs, painfully and slowly, to the point where the joints separate and may be torn asunder. Not broken, but ripped apart. The strappado is even more effective. You tie a man’s wrists behind his back, then hoist him into the air by a pulley fastened to the bindings on his wrists. He will talk very quickly after that, provided he is sane enough, and that you have sufficient capacity to decipher his babbling. And then of course there is a third method of loosening unwilling tongues. It has no name, but it is a simple procedure, involving neither broken bones nor bloodshed. You rub fat on a man’s feet, then hold his feet to the fire …” Every man there stared at him. He shrugged and spread his hands. “Bernard de Vado.”
“I know Bernard de Vado,” de Formadieu said. “He is a priest, one of our own. I ordained him. What know you of him?”
“He came from Albi. Is that the same man?”
“Yes, that is Bernard.”
“Well, they roasted him. Forgive me, Bishop, but they did it so badly that they cooked his feet until the bones fell out. It was witnessed by a man who reported the incident to a friend of mine in the Justiciary. In all, my friends and I have gathered reports of a number of deaths, varying from twenty-five to forty-four, resulting from torture administered by the Inquisitors, often assisted by the King’s own officers.”
“That is … inhuman. Unacceptable to God or man.” The Bishop’s voice was slack with shock and Sir Simon de Montferrat spoke out for the first time.
“It is, indeed as you say, Bishop, inhuman. But it is being done, and it is being done by churchmen in the name of an all-merciful God. And no less inhuman is the truth that all these prisoners are kept awake at all times, denied sleep, and that they are kept in irons, fed only on bread and water. And it is in that weakened state that they are then submitted to these fiendish tortures.”
“Damnation take all clerics and their hypocritical posturings!” De Montrichard’s voice was barely audible, but his anger was caustic, and Etienne Dutoit turned to look at him directly. “Why is any of this blasphemous infamy permitted to proceed, at any level, considering the Pope’s revulsion to the fact that these things have been done at all?”
The Baron’s eyes moved to meet Will’s. “Finally,” he said quietly. “The correct question.”
Will cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
The Baron thought for a moment, his eyes seemingly unfocused, and then said, “Hear me. This much we know of those early accusations of what were called ‘crimes set apart from all humanity.’ Your Order and its members stand accused of being servants of the Devil, dedicated to the worship and the service of Satan himself.” He ignored the sudden hiss of indrawn breath and forged ahead, speaking into the stunned silence that followed. “They say that each of your recruits is taught, and must acknowledge at the moment of his Initiation, that Jesus the Christus was a false prophet. He is then required to proceed through that denial to spit, trample, or urinate upon an image of Christ on the Cross, and then to kiss the Templar who received him into the Order, upon the mouth, the navel, the buttocks, the base of the spine, and sometimes on the penis. And in the aftermath, in the closing ceremonies, the new Initiate is told, in toto, that he may freely have carnal relations with his brethren and that it is, in effect, his duty so to do … that he ought to do and submit to this, for it is not sinful for the brotherhood to do this.”
The appalled silence stretched until the Baron added, “De Molay confessed.”
It took a moment for his words to register, but then the Bishop said, “Confessed? Confessed to what?”
“To everything I have mentioned. Except the matter of the homosexual kisses. Those he denied.”
Will finally found his tongue. “That is … That is not possible. Master de Molay would never—”
“In the face of unremitting tortures and torment such as we have been discussing, any man will confess to anything, merely to stop the pain and find some relief. Jacques de Molay is admirable beyond most men, but he is, in the end, a man. He was arrested on the first day of the purge, and within ten days he had confessed to most of the charges against him. He admitted having denied Jesus Christ and confessed that he had spat upon his image at the time of his Initiation—”
“Great God in Heaven! This is infamy!”
“Aye, and it is also blasphemy. But the infamy is not the Master’s, though the admission of blasphemy is. They put de Molay to the torture first, bringing all their power to bear on him alone from the moment of his imprisonment, and it is to his credit that he withstood their torments for as long as he did.”
“I cannot believe that he confessed to such things.” This was de Pairaud, his voice hushed.
“Believe it,” Dutoit said. “They broke him. They can break any man. Your Grand Master was the first to confess, but far from the last. I have reliable information that of one hundred
and thirty-eight Templars arrested in Paris in October, one hundred and thirty-four had, by January of this year, admitted to at least some of the charges brought against them.” He hesitated, then turned his eyes to where de Pairaud sat glowering disbelief at him, his outrage rendering him speechless. “Your brother Hugh, Sir Reynald, Visitor of France, confessed on November ninth, admitting, in addition to many other sins, that he had encouraged brethren troubled by the heat of nature to cool their passions by indulging their lusts with other brothers.” He ignored de Pairaud’s efforts to rise to his feet in protest and kept speaking in the same expressionless voice. “Sir Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, was another. John de la Tour, Treasurer of the Temple in Paris, who had been a financial adviser to King Philip, also went down into despair, condemned by his own voice … And with those distinguished names went many others too numerous to mention.” He paused again. “That was in January of this year. We are now in August and much has happened in the interim, not all of it bad, but unfortunately none of it is yet resolved.”
No one dared ask him what he meant by that, so deep was the disbelief that filled his listeners, but eventually Will coughed to clear his throat. “We have heard tell, through trusted friends who know such things, that the Pope sent out a letter to all the kings and princes of Christendom, requesting them to seize all the Templars in their lands and to sequester their holdings. Can you tell us aught of that?”
“Aye. The Pastoralis Praeeminentiae. That was a recent move, designed to assert Clement’s control of a situation that has long since passed beyond his grasp. But it was sent, and widely acted upon, and the Temple’s assets, beyond France at least, now lie within the jurisdiction of the Church … Which is not, in this instance, necessarily a bad thing.”
“How so? If they have been sequestered, they are lost to us.”
“Not necessarily. They are within the jurisdiction of the Church—not within its coffers. Not yet within its coffers, I should say. There is yet hope.” The Baron looked from man to man around the arc. “Look at yourselves and take note, and try to imagine for a moment that you are plain French knights, not Templars. Think you that you are the only group to feel this outrage, this disbelief that such things can happen in a time of peace? The Pope himself cannot—does not—believe it. And more important than he, nor can his cardinals. Clement is far from being an effective pontiff at this time, and his failure to challenge and stop Philip’s depredations are causing him great difficulties, most particularly with his cardinals.
“By January, as I said, de Nogaret had gathered a sufficiency of confessions that Philip could claim a moral victory, emerging as a defender of the faith and a champion of fervid Christianity. Clement could hardly disagree, faced with the existence of the admissions. But in an attempt to wrest control of the investigation from Philip, he dispatched three cardinals to review the findings of the Inquisitors, and when these three prelates, two of whom were French, had de Molay brought before them, he revoked his confession, stripped off his clothes, and showed them the wounds—the scars not yet healed—that had been inflicted upon him during his ‘questioning’ and had led to his ‘confession.’
“It seems that he was very eloquent. The cardinals believed him. And they believed others who followed him with similar retractions—among those your brother Hugh, Sir Reynald. This was still early in January. The three cardinals recommended clemency and refused to confirm the condemnations of the Order. And they convinced their peers. No fewer than ten cardinals of the Curia threatened to resign that spring, in protest against Pope Clement’s cowardice in refusing to refute the actions and the arguments of the French King, who, in their opinion, did not have a single justifiable reason for his outrageous and abusive behavior, and certainly none for his sneering disdain of the Church and its institutions, of which the Temple was one.”
De Montferrat sat straighter and cleared his throat, and Will’s eyes went to him immediately, for he knew that de Montferrat was the more outspoken of his two mentors, the one who could always be trusted to cut to the heart of a contentious issue and say what was truly on his mind, without mincing words. “You wished to add something, Sir Simon?”
The elderly aristocrat harrumphed, but rose to his feet and began to pace the floor with his hands clasped behind his back. “Not add,” he began. “Not add … clarify, if anything.” He threw a glance to indicate his traveling companion and friend of many years, who was returning to his seat, content to leave the floor to him. “Etienne here has a tendency to dwell on detail. He was about to tell you next that Pope Clement decided in favor of your Order the following month, in February. After conferring with his cardinals, he professed himself convinced that the charges were untenable and that he would rather die than condemn innocent men. So he ordered the Inquisition to suspend its proceedings against the Templars.”
“My God! So it is over?” Bishop Formadieu’s voice was filled with awe and joy, a mixture that Will himself felt stirring inside him. But before any of his listeners could say another word, the blunt-spoken de Montferrat dashed all their short-lived hopes.
“No, it is not. Believe me when I tell you it is barely begun. But the stakes have now been raised so many times that the original case against the Order has been overshadowed.”
“How, in God’s holy name? By what?”
“By the realities of politics, Bishop. This is become a war between Philip and the Pope, for dominance, and Clement is afraid of being ousted, if not from the papacy, most certainly from his supremacy in men’s minds. Nominally, morally, there should be no question of conflicting jurisdiction—Philip’s is temporal; Clement’s is spiritual. The division should be clear, and it would have been with any other ruler than Philip Capet. But this is a king unlike any other before. He is ambitious, greedy, and contemptuous of all opinions that are not his own. His malevolence and his greed know no bounds and never have. Ten years ago, he sent his hellhound, de Nogaret, riding nine hundred miles to lay hands upon another pope, at Anagni in Italy—Pope Boniface VIII—and no one doubts he brought about that old man’s death by doing so. But he has never betrayed a flicker of contrition. De Nogaret remains excommunicate for that outrage, but as France’s chief lawyer he sees no shame—and no hindrance to his arrogance—in that. Nor does his master.
“So here is a war between two men, one of whom has armies, fortified castles, ministers of state who will do his bidding without questioning its morality or justice, and a record of implacable ruthlessness, while the other, despite having the entire wealth of Holy Church at his disposal, owns nothing but a moral right and a record of dithering and procrastination. And the Capet’s strongest weapon in this fight is a powerful means of swaying people’s minds. He claims to rule by divine right, holding himself answerable to none but God. And he believes that to be true, which makes him truly frightening.”
He stopped pacing and looked from man to man. “Heed my advice on this. Take steps from this day on to safeguard yourselves here, for you will never return to France as Templars. Even at the moment when Clement was suspending the Inquisition against you, Philip was already moving to impeach the Pope, threatening to charge him with the same sins of which you stand accused, along with additional charges of heresy for aiding and abetting the Temple’s heresies, and for offering support and encouragement to Devil worshippers. And no one doubted he would proceed with that … including the Pope himself.
“Since then, matters have gone from bad to worse, and the tortures were resumed in April, when Clement submitted to the King’s pressures. Now the days are filled with charge and countercharge, plot and subterfuge, lies and malicious rumors. Campaigns are being waged throughout the land to convince the people that Philip, His Most Christian Majesty, has right on his side and that the people of France themselves are the staunchest guardians of the Christian faith. The Templars have been largely lost sight of, although some are hauled out from time to time to remind the world of how perfidious they were.
&nbs
p; “But the struggle, the real struggle, is for the Temple properties … the Order’s wealth. The Church holds it for the time being, since Philip recently bent the knee, ceremoniously at least, to acknowledge Clement’s papacy and power. But even if Clement and his cardinals hold the nominal power over the Templar prisoners, it is Philip the Fair who holds those prisoners in his dungeons. And Philip will win this war. The Temple in France will become nothing but a memory, and even that will fade and die. So look to yourselves. That is the best advice we have to offer you.”
The silence stretched long after de Montferrat had finished, the air of gloom around the gathering almost palpable. A few of the Templars looked at each other worriedly, but no one seemed inclined to speak out on anything until Bishop Formadieu muttered, “Well, here is a moral conundrum …” He said no more than that, however, and no one sought to question him about what he meant, no doubt because each one of them, in his own way, was facing the same realization. The game was over, and their side had been defeated.
It was Baron Etienne Dutoit who brought the meeting to a close, ending the long, embittered silence with a question directed to Will.
“Tell me, Sir William, have you heard aught recently from your aged aunt in Aix?” The term “aged aunt” was commonly used among brothers of the Order of Sion when outsiders were present to refer to their dealings with the Order, and Will responded without a blink.
“No, Baron, I have not, not since before I left Paris. She was well then, but like all of us, she grows daily older. It occurred to me, before we began to speak of these other things, that you might have word for me on her condition. Have you seen her recently?”
“Aye, I have, but—” The Baron hesitated. “I … the information that I have for you is somewhat personal and … delicate in nature.” He turned to eye the rest of the group, who were all listening. “Would it vex you, my friends, were I to ask your indulgence in this matter? Our business here is concluded, I believe, but I have yet some information to impart privately to Sir William, concerning his relatives in Provence. Would you mind leaving us now?”