Her name was Coralie.
And she was bait.
◆◆◆
Their plan was a simple one, but it worked to perfection.
Coralie lured Count Berton out of the tavern to a back room with the promise of pleasure. Yannick brained him with a hefty blow to the back of the skull with a cudgel, and Aymeric helped manhandle the man, none too carefully, down a long flight of hard, stone steps to the tavern’s cellar that Reynard had procured for the night.
Then all they had to do was don hoods to conceal their features and wait for the Count to awaken.
A bucketful of dirty river water to the face helped usher things along. The ruddy-faced man spluttered and cursed, and delivered all manner of exclamations, warnings and threats as he shook his head, trying to rein in his senses. Reynard, unmasked as if uncaring who might recognise him, sat on a stool opposite, and waited silently until the Count fell quiet, all bluster suddenly leaving him as he realised the true nature of his predicament.
“Now we can begin,” the old priest said softly. “I have seen your name all over town today, Berton. Tell me, what did the King promise you in return for your slanders and libels?”
“I have nothing to say to you, priest,” the Count said, although his eyes betrayed his fear.
“He bought you, I know he did.”
“That is between me and my King.”
Reynard casually removed a long needle from his robes, and, making sure the Count’s eyes were on him, tested its point against the ball of his thumb, drawing a globe of blood that he wiped away on his beard, leaving a red streak in the white. “Your God takes precedent over that croaking royal toad,” Reynard told him. “Or have you forgotten your debt to the church so quickly?”
The Count’s reply was almost a whisper.
“You are an emissary of his Holiness?”
Reynard smiled.
“I am his humble servant in all matters,” he said. “And at this moment, he desires exact knowledge of your agreement with the King. If you tell me here and now, you may be able to avoid the Inquisitor’s toys.”
“But Gui was there when I signed,” Berton bleated, then fell quiet, suddenly aware of his indiscretion.
“Gui was with the King when the decree was issued? Tell me. Your Pope demands it.”
Reynard showed the Count the needle again. Eager to please, the man nodded quickly.
“And the King’s man too, de Nogaret.”
“And what evidence did they have to prove their assertions of the Order’s guilt?”
“They had confessions.”
“But a man may confess to anything when the pokers are hot enough. The King knows that. The Church knows that,” Reynard mused. “So, Phillip needed the backing of his noblemen. Of people like you. What did he offer for your name?”
“A closure of all debts to the Crown, and the promise of lands in the west. Templar lands.”
“Which are not his to barter with. You will swear to this in front of the Pope if required?”
“Of course,” Berton said. “I hold my God before my King, always.”
“We will hold you to that. But for now, go. And remember you have made a promise here tonight. One that Mother Church will expect you to keep.”
Reynard stood, moving his stool aside, and motioned to the open doorway. Berton did not need a second telling. He rose and, not quite running but desperate to get out of there, made for the exit.
Aymeric moved to stop the man fleeing, but Yannick took his arm in a grip so tight he could do nothing but watch the Count leave.
◆◆◆
“Why let him go?” Aymeric said later, once they had made the long walk back to the church.
“To see what the King does next,” Reynard said calmly. “He is going to react, it is the how that is going to be interesting. You can be assured the Count will go straight to him. What happens next will reveal his strength of purpose. He showed his hand with his decree. Now we have shown ours. It is his move.”
Their answer came quickly.
Count Berton was discovered in the early morning, face down in the Seine. His throat slit, the muscles pared away from the bone so deeply that his head was all but parted from his body.
His corpse was completely naked, the fresh burns on his inner thighs clear for all to see.
1308
THE YAZIDI VALLEY
Throughout the spring and well into the summer months Samira spent most of her time in the dark with the breath of Allah. They were coming to understand each other now, each aware of their part of the whole, such that they moved as one, acted as one, and the spirit was as much a part of Samira’s armoury as her hands or her feet. Her training was completed in solitude now, either out on the hill under the stars, or in the depths of the cave with skins over the entrance.
Javed didn’t participate, the old man was not fit for much beyond sitting in the sun and drinking cup after cup of the potent black tea he brewed. She was long of the opinion that the medicinal brew was the only thing keeping him alive. He coughed more frequently now, the blood coming every time, but his eyes remained stubbornly full of life and his wits had never left him as he barked out orders for her to follow.
“I am good for a while longer yet, little fish,” he assured her whenever she asked, but she watched him when he didn’t know she was looking, and there was no denying how frail he had become. She did all that she could for him. The fact that he allowed her was evidence of just how ill he had become. But there was no doubting that he was still the master, and she very much his apprentice when it came to matters of the spirit.
“So very close, little fish, you grow stronger with every passing day. Soon,” Javed promised one summer evening as they sat at the cave entrance watching the dance of the heavens overhead. “There two more things required of you, and one required of me. Then our time together will be done.”
“I am not ready,” she said, though in truth she felt like she would never be readier than she was now.
“Two things, then you will be. The first, is a doing thing, and one you must face in order to become Fidai.”
“What is that, master?”
He smiled sadly, as though knowing she would not like his answer. “You must ask your spirit that same question you asked it when you first knew of its existence. You both understand the other now. The vision, if one is given, will be true, and will show you the way of your heart.”
“My heart is here, with you.”
“And mine with you, little fish. But it will not always be so, this we both know. All things pass. It is time you learned to face that and become Fidai.”
“And if I do not choose to face it?”
“Then it will come to pass anyway, and you will not be prepared, which would be nothing short of a waste of every day we have spent working together. I hope I have not wasted my last breaths?”
“No, master.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Samira bowed her head, not out of deference, but rather so that Javed would not see her tears. She didn’t speak again until they had been dried by the evening winds.
“Cover the entrance,” she said. “I go to seek my fate.”
◆◆◆
In recent months, finding her calm centre had become second nature. It was as easy as breathing. And as natural. But tonight, her mind refused to settle. She was forced to resort to the ritual for the first time in weeks, closing her senses down one by one and banishing all thoughts of Javed’s death into the darkness. It was only when she had completely divested herself of mortal concerns she felt the cold breath on her cheek, and the touch of a hand in her hair.
“How do I find Bologna?” she whispered.
As there had been the first time, there was a curious doubling sensation in her mind, a rushing sensation as she divided, her soul given flight; Samira still stood in the dark of the cave on the rocky mountainside, but she was again somewhere else, looking down on a scene that no longer seemed q
uite so strange to her.
She hovered high above a dark, stonewalled cell, with a single high-barred window and a heavy oak door. There was a single narrow slot for food and water to be pushed through. There are two men present, a small, wizened old man wearing the robes of a priest and with the longest beard she had ever seen, and another that she thought she recognised as the youth with her mother’s face. But this is an older man, with the same mop of thick black hair, although his is streaked with grey. The priest speaks, and the voices, although whispered, are ring clear and carry well enough to be heard from Samira’s position high above.
“My counsel is simple, Lucian de Bologna: you must recant your oath. You have no choice. You must turn your back on the Order.”
Samira felt a shiver run through her at the mention of the name; a name, not a place, and a father, finally found.
“I cannot,” the black-haired man replied. “And not for my own sake. My enemies will not stop until they have found and killed my son. I cannot allow that.”
“Your boy is safe with me, you have my word. And if you recant, I can make a petition to King and Church. The King does not yet have Rome or Avignon on his side. His position is still precarious, and he is still bankrupt. I have enough monies to buy your freedom, monies that will turn the King’s head. But first you must recant.”
The black-haired man was quiet for a time before speaking.
“And then what? I speak some empty words? The Order is broken.”
“Fractured, not broken,” the old man said. “And it can rise again. Free, you can go to Rome and petition the Holy Church. I can provide proof that the King has attacked your brethren out of spite, and you will be able to make your case.”
“It will not be enough.”
“But it will be a start, my friend. So, I ask you again, will you recant?”
“If you ask it of me, Reynard, I will. Tell me, will my oath-breaking free my brothers?”
The old man shook his head.
“That much is beyond me. But I can remind His Majesty that the Church is not convinced of the efficacy of his actions. That should ensure the tortures cease, at least for a time.”
“That is not enough.”
“Perhaps not, but it will have to suffice. Our first task is to get you out of here. I shall go directly to the King to make my plea… and offer up payment.”
“God’s speed, my friend, the black-haired man says, and rattles the chains with which he is attached to the dank wall. “You know where to find me.”
When the white bearded man, Reynard, left the cell, Samira travelled with him, through corridor after corridor of the immense dungeon, each cell reeking of dark misery and torment. She saw blank eyed men, cruelly beaten, burned and brutalized, staring out through the bars, begging the priest to help them. But the bearded man keeps his gaze straight ahead, walking with tears in his eyes as he abandons them to their fate.
He climbs a seemingly endless stairway of stone, a work of man that Samira can barely imagine as possible, emerging through the door to a room that, when he enters, Samira recognises, just as she recognises the slight, frog-faced man on the battered throne.
She watched and listened as the priest made his case for Lucian de Bologna’s freedom. She has no real grasp of the intricacies of the argument, but she sees the King’s greed plainly written on his face, and a release is bartered, although the tall man at the King’s side, the cadaverous, dangerous man she also recognises, is not pleased with this turn of events.
When the priest leaves, she expects to follow, but her spirit is not done here.
It lingers, while the cadaverous man speaks to the King.
“He should not be freed, my Lord,” the man says.
“You have made your feelings well known on the matter, Gui. But the priest’s money is welcome. And it is not as if de Bologna needs to be free for long, now is it? We merely gave our word to free him. Where did it say in our agreement that his liberty would last beyond this day?”
Bernard Gui smiles, and Samira follows him, not the priest, as he exits the King’s chamber, watching the Inquisitor command his men.
“You are to follow de Bologna when he leaves, but do not make yourselves known. Find where he is taken, and watch those doors closely. If I have judged the man right he gather his rogues to his side. We must be ready to strike.”
“Yes, your holiness.”
The cadaverous man’s lip curls into a sneer. “Find me his get. We will need him; I was too lenient the last time. This time, the son and the father will go to their deaths together.”
“As you wish…”
The spirit had shown her enough. Once again Samira’s second self was given wings and soared, flying like a falcon through dark canyons of stone under a slate-grey sky, the winds rushing through her, all around her, so vital and alive, as she rose, banking and rolling into clouds before diving, impossibly far, blinking, and looking out over the cave just as Javed pulled back the goatskins covering the entrance.
◆◆◆
She recounted her soul walk to the old man as they sipped steam-wreathed tea over a freshly lit fire. They huddled towards the rear of the cave to avoid a thunderstorm raging in accompaniment to her story.
“It appears you have found your father, little fish,” Javed said.
“The only father I need is here with me now,” she replied, and smiled.
“This pleases me, my child, but the truth is you have indeed found your Bologna?”
“He is not what I expected. In my mind he was a warrior and a man of influence, but my spirit showed me a broken soul living in a cell. I should hate him, but I do not. I pity him.”
“Such is the way of things,” Javed replied. “The world turns, and men change.”
“But I cannot forgive him. He abandoned my mother to her fate. He is still that man.”
“Yes, he is, but there are many other men within him now, each shaped by the choices of the life he has led. A man becomes many things over the course of a life. Would the man he is now make the choices the man he was that day? I do not know. But I am not the one you need answers from. Assuming you are still determined to find him?”
Samira nodded. “I will have my answers.”
1308
THE POOR QUARTER, PARIS
Aymeric’s father was a shadow of the man he used to be.
His incarceration and the months of long torture had diminished him. He was shrunken in stature, his muscles withered, skin slack. Aymeric realised, for the first time in his life, he looked the man straight in the eye when they stood talking.
There was grey in father’s hair and beard now too, and a haunted aspect to his eyes that spoke of twin ghosts, uncertainty and fear.
And yet, dressed in his simple white surplice, and once again carrying a sword, the proud Templar he had been still showed, like an entirely different ghost.
“I will go to Rome as soon as I am fit to ride,” Lucian said over breakfast at the long table in the church. He ate with a ravenous appetite, not worrying about the niceties of table manners. His gut had not been full for months.
“Not Avignon? Not the Pope?” Aymeric asked.
Reynard answered. “The Pope in Avignon is not to be trusted, young master. He is too close to the King, too enamoured of gold and fine silks for a man of the Church. While Rome suffers from much the same problem, at least they are capable of independent thought, and reason, and might be more easily convinced.”
Lucian turned to Reynard. “You said in the cell that you have evidence I might present?”
“I do.”
Reynard recounted the confession they had extracted from the Count in the cellar under the tavern.
Lucian shook his head. “That will not be enough. We need more than one man’s word to go against the King. We need more. The signed and witnessed confessions from the heart of the King’s retinue, at the very least.”
“Hmmm… There is Gaston LeClair,” Reynard mused. “You were boy
s together, even friends once. He might recant, should you ask it of him?”
“Gaston is a fat, weak old man drinking himself to death in his vineyards in Chinon. It is too far and besides, his is not one of the signatories.”
“Perhaps not. But he has the ear of the King.”
“Best to find someone in Paris,” Lucian argued. “This must be done quickly, if it is to be done at all.”
All of them round the table fell quiet.
This time it was Yannick who spoke first.
“I might know a man.”
“Go on,” Reynard said.
“He frequents the taverns of the north bank, and he is never short of coin.”
“Who is this wealthy soul?” Lucian asked.
“De Nogaret, the spymaster’s man. He has been privy to the tortures of the men of the Order, indeed, he claims to have carried out many inquisitions on behalf of his masters, and has been boasting of it just this past night.”
The knight leaned forward, elbows planted on the table top, the ghosts banished. In their place lurked demons. “You can take me to him?” Lucian tried to stand, but was so weakened he sank back to his seat.
Aymeric stood.
“Yannick will take me, father,” he said. “I will fetch de Nogaret’s man for you.”
“I cannot ask this of you, son. You are still just a boy,” Lucian said, but Reynard put a hand on the Templar’s arm.
“Look at him, Lucian. The boy was taken while you were a guest of the King. Take a good long look at the man who was stands in his place.”
◆◆◆
It was still an hour before noon when Aymeric and Yannick entered the tavern on the north bank. The place was busy, crowded full with patrons intending on getting ale and pies inside them as fast as could be managed. Wenches plied their wares openly at the tables, and naked children ran everywhere, stealing scraps and fighting over tossed bones like dogs in the dirt. Oil lamps in sconces on the walls tried their best to shed light on the gloom, for there were no windows, just a hole in the roof high above.
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