The Seal

by Adriana Koulias

  ‘Put him on his horse. We have to keep him alive,’ Etienne said.

  With all of them saddled they made a gallop over that dry, parched road with the sky droning a hot sun over every living and dying thing.

  Etienne took a look behind, to the blood and flesh cooking in the heat. The smell would soon bring a natural order to everything – the flies and ants at first, then hawks and wild dogs would come to feed upon the fresh-killed meat. This was the natural order of things. As commonplace as death was to Etienne, such a thing among brothers in Christ did not seem to him natural, it made no sense to his mind.

  He put spurs to his horse and turned his thoughts to the moment, riding away from such a logic and onwards to the hopes of saving his Grand Master’s life.

  7

  SALAMIS

  Launch your vessel, and crowd your canvas and ’ere it vanishes over the margin, after it, follow it, follow The Gleam.

  Tennyson, ‘Merlin and the Gleam’

  At the end of a long fertile plain between two mountains lay the ancient city of Salamis. To the eye there was no memory of the Roman city except that on the landward side two banks, one to the north and another to the south, marked the line where the walls had once stood. From the southward bank, which grew one with the mudflats at the mouth of the river, the reach of sand and grass and weed stretched to a main harbour bordered by a great breakwater of stone that ran from north to south parallel to the shore. The northern part of it extended to a long reef, which protected the seafront of the city. The northernmost part of the seawall closed onto the southern breakwater of a second harbour. It was in this second harbour that sat a galley flying a Venetian flag.

  That afternoon, upon boarding the galley with Jourdain, the mercenaries and the injured Iterius, Etienne took himself to the Grand Master and found him in his sickbed. An illness had come upon him, the doctor said. Etienne had not wished to believe the Egyptian’s story and was angrier now that he was forced to. He fetched the man with his leg wrapped in blood-soaked cloth, and brought him before the ship’s doctor. He had the sergeant by the collar and was staring into his eyes. ‘If the Grand Master dies, I will take my time in preparing you, Egyptian, as fitting food for sea serpents.’

  Iterius cowered and whimpered and promised promises, and following his indications the doctor was able to make the unction, which he gave to the Grand Master while he lay covered in sweat.

  Etienne then told the ship’s captain to send a slave to taste the food and water for poison, and in the meantime he ordered the Norman Aubert to guard the larder.

  After that he sat with Jacques de Molay.

  Despite the poison, there were no changes upon that face – the mouth, the eyes and brow retained their former dispositions. Only the flush that crept over the scarred cheeks and the yellow colour over the beaded lips that took on the hue of ash denoted the struggle for life occurring in the soul.

  Etienne pondered this countenance and saw in it that same steadfastness he remembered as a young man being received into the Order more than twenty years before. At that time Etienne had seen reflected in the lines of the face, in that thin-lipped mouth, a soul built to survive all temptation and misfortune – a soul larger than the body in which it dwelt.

  Etienne leant his head upon Jacques’ chest. Beneath the skin the heart beat strongly in its cage. The Grand Master was fighting something greater than the poison, he told himself. He hoped it was not beyond his powers to surpass it.

  Then came the groan of the ship’s movement and the sound of activity on the decks and Etienne found himself overcome with fatigue. He realised he had not eaten since the night before, nor had he taken rest in two days. Seeing that he could do noth¬ing more for Jacques he left him in the care of the doctor and Jourdain, posting the Catalan Delgado and the Norman Gideon at the door to the cell. After that he took himself like an old man to the bulwarks where he stood, staring outwards to that dimming bay and the blackened mountains, then to the sea the colour of stone beneath a rosewater sky. This was a backward glance at the unhappy island that despite all its difficulties had been the last bastion of the Order in the east. It had been, he recognised, a foothold, but one too distant to allow it a good reach to the Holy Land. And if leaving Acre had seemed to him the beginning of a devastation from which the Order would never recover, then this now was the end of that beginning.

  The galley moved off and away from land and Etienne said to himself, This was a good harbour once.

  On their way to Salamis Jourdain had told him the history of the city where a great battle between the Persians and the Greeks had taken place. Later there were earthquakes and great waves engulfed and destroyed it, and now it lay covered by sand.

  Etienne smiled wearily. How the boy knew such things between heaven and earth astonished him!

  It had once been the largest port before Famagusta and it was said that St Paul had sailed there from Antioch. Etienne grunted and turned his head upwards. ‘If the Apostles had visited all such places as are believed by men, it seems to me there would be no time for anything else but sea travel!’ But the sails filled with breeze and he was not heard by any man, nor even the gulls that swooped over the galley hoping for a last meagre fare.

  His mind turned to the strange predicament in which they found themselves, he and his Grand Master, and their conflict with the Order. Overnight, it seemed, they had become enemies of some, perhaps all of the Order, and as he glanced about the decks and the men for hire whose task it was to see to the driving of the little ship he felt a weight in his heart. For he realised that even if the Grand Master were to best the poison that was ailing him, even if this was possible, they were headed for a hostile kingdom whose king was bent on their destruction, and into the succour of a brotherhood for whom the wars in the Holy Land were a far-off history and no more than a stone poking out of the sand, like the walls of that city Salamis. It was therefore only a matter of time, a matter of what day or hour, what weapon, lance or poison would find Jacques de Molay and kill the Order with him.

  Etienne had before him, then, a struggle that seemed to him more testing than what he had experienced face to face with Mahomet over the walls of Acre. That had been Satan in those fields and the Devil in his heart, and they had been plainly visible. But this was a thing new to him, this unseen foe, this enemy hidden in the hearts of brothers, and it required a new discipline. If he was to become the Grand Master’s watchdog then he must learn new tricks.

  He contemplated asking God, His Son and the Holy Spirit to help him in this task but, he asked himself, why should God turn his countenance upon him? He imagined the great seas, swift-flowing rivers and shallow streams that he knew ran inside his heart and limbs, and wondered if upon those vast expanses there was not a creature gazing upwards at him wondering if its struggles and labours were of any consequence to him.

  Etienne, mystified by such a thought, all but smiled at himself – surely Jourdain was making his thoughts run in strange channels! He saw the impiety of philosophy since it covered blasphemy with logic.

  ‘I am one with God and God is one with me. So that whatever God is, that am I!’ he called out to the sea, and the sky traded places with the waves and made him cling to the rails until he felt the workings of his muscles and sinews in their extremity.

  And Salamis was forgotten amid the great sea that stretched out to the end of the world.

  THE SECOND CARD

  STRENGTH AND COURAGE

  8

  FRANCE

  For the good man is not at home he is gone on a long journey

  Proverbs 7:19

  November 1306

  They had seen the signal from the galley. Delgado and Aubert had left some days before for Richerenches, a house of the Order in Provence. Jacques de Molay knew that his close friend and brother, Geoffrey de Charney, would be there. The mercenaries were to take themselves to him with a message and return with horses.

  When the sun went down and the grey sky f
ell to black, Gideon rowed Etienne, Jourdain, the Grand Master and Iterius to the inland sea that became a series of lagoons formed by the intrusion of desolate salt marshes and sandbanks and dunes. Above them they heard the flapping of wings and the call of ducks and other birds. To the east the faint lights of the old port of St Louis flickered and died away as they progressed to the west and into a little arm of the Rhone. They allowed the tide to push them down the narrow inlet, and when they came to a deserted seawall Jourdain attached the rope to a rusted ring in the rock and they waited.

  The river was tame at this time of year, except for the cold breeze that picked up the swell and caused the little boat to hit the wall.

  Etienne was put off by the frailty of the arrangement and said to the Norman, ‘When will they come?’ scanning as he did so the silver-coloured water and the perimeter of trees beyond the rock wall.

  ‘They will come,’ said Gideon.

  But it was full night upon the delta by the time they heard the voice from above. By then the wind had strengthened and the boat was slapped against the crumbling stone and it was all they could do to fend it off.

  ‘Hist!’

  A dark face full of pant and sweat was bearing down upon them.

  Etienne went over the wall and held the boat steady while the Norman, Gideon and Jourdain helped Jacques de Molay to climb to the top. The boat began to strike hard and the Egyptian said, ‘I will come?’

  Etienne sent his voice full of condescension over the wall, ‘Stay!’

  Delgado, all smiles and fidgets of enthusiasm, stood before the three Templars and his comrade and told them his story. ‘I have waited until I saw you come from the galley. The horses are hid beyond the trees . . . I have a message . . .’

  ‘You saw Geoffrey de Charney at Richerenches?’ asked Jacques de Molay.

  ‘I have a message from this Geoffrey,’ Delgado said. ‘I am told to tell you: the shepherd has turned wolf and Richerenches is not yours. That is what he said. He gave me horses and food and a guide and told me to tell you to use . . . “soft feet”. What does this mean, soft feet?’

  ‘It means,’ Etienne answered with impatience, ‘that we are not to announce our arrival . . .’

  ‘And Aubert . . . ?’ asked Gideon, ‘He is with the horses?’

  Delgado shook his head. ‘No, my Gideon, your country¬man is dead. Some way from the house we were followed, we had another with us, a man called Amenieu as a guide. He recognised one of them that followed us – he said the man was a knight in the service of the visitor.’

  ‘The visitor? De Pairaud?’ Etienne broke in.

  ‘Yes, two I killed with my sword. Aubert, he took the friend of this visitor with his knife but another man came behind and put an axe through Aubert’s head like a melon! Then this man Amanieu, who was our guide, was all in a rage to kill him but his sword split on the man’s axe and he was killed. After that I made this other man wish he were dead for a while.’ Etienne thought he saw a smile spread across the face. ‘I come alone, with the horses . . . Look Gideon,’ he said, ‘I buried your friend and took the sacs from the enemies.’ He held up the shrivelling pairs tied together.

  ‘Aubert is dead?’ The Norman had something close to an emotion caught in his throat.

  The Catalan nodded gravely. ‘His head is half and half . . . Still . . .’ his voice brightened, ‘I have good horses, and I was careful.’

  The Norman nodded and took the bloodied articles from Delgado. He gave them a sniff. ‘They will cure quickly in this wind.’ He slapped the Catalan on the back. ‘I will add them to my rope. You have done well, for you are not dead and we have horses,’ and there followed some friendly banter as they walked on ahead.

  When they were alone Etienne leant in to his Grand Master. ‘These mercenaries,’ he confided, ‘I do not wish to trust them . . . and Iterius . . . I think I trust that Alexandrian less still.’

  ‘We must keep those whom we distrust closer than a wife,’ Jacques said to him. ‘Iterius, well I don’t know what use he is to us, but he saved my life; besides, he is more useless under our noses. The other two . . . well . . . time will tell . . .’

  Jourdain, on his other side, whispered, ‘It is as we thought.’

  ‘Hugues de Pairaud . . .’ Jacques was watchful. ‘The visitor of the Order in France works against us, I was afraid of it . . . The galley will be safer at Portugal, and our small number shall travel unnoticed by those who seek a Grand Master and his entourage.’

  ‘They chose you against him in the election,’ Etienne pointed out, ‘and now he seeks a reversal of his fortune. He must have spies at Richerenches to know we were coming.’

  ‘Raimbaud the Caron, the Preceptor of Cyprus,’ Jacques sighed. ‘He must be in league with Hugues and since the visitor directs the Temple bank he will be hard trying to prevent us from going to Poitiers to speak with the Pope lest we change his mind about a Crusade . . . that is certain. Well, well, we have the Pope beckoning us, and the bankers wishing to prevent our arrival. It is a pretty trouble in which we find our¬selves, a pretty trouble. We must have a change of plans . . .’ He paused a moment. ‘We cannot go by way of Richerenches, but we can go by way of Languedoc. That is your country, Etienne?’

  Etienne gave a reluctant nod.

  ‘And you have countrymen there?’

  ‘It is a life behind me,’ he said.

  Jacques de Molay nodded. ‘All the better.’

  The Egyptian was helped from the boat as his injured leg had left him with a limp, and the party, led by the Catalan, walked through the sand to the line of trees and the horses. When each man had mounted, the party headed north-west,

  away from the mouth of the Rhone in the direction of the region of the River Aude.

  For a week they rode with the sea at their shoulders and then began the slow climb towards the mountains. It was cold and the wind brought snow. They paused to rest and eat by day, travelling by night, sometimes among mists or bent before a wind blowing leaves into their faces. Their meals were scant; whatever they could find along their route, otherwise bread and porridge. They met no challenge and the going was slow.

  Etienne grew silent and reflective the more they moved about that land. To his mind it clung to life like a dog to the leg of its dead master. His memory of it was of vines and sun, the Inquisition and blood.

  On the fourteenth day they came off a steep ridge that tumbled down crags and cliffs onto dead grassland dotted with naked trees. Before them lay a large lake; above it, upon a high ridge overlooking the ruined remnants of an old vineyard, sat the tower of the castle keep, pitching and restless.

  The men were paused looking up at it from the track that coursed its way through a meadow.

  Iterius said, ‘It is a black place . . . full of memory.’

  ‘It is Puivert.’ Etienne turned a bland eye upon the Alexandrian. ‘It is the old keep of my kindred given over to northern knights.’

  ‘In your wars with the Pope?’ the Catalan asked him.

  Etienne did not answer.

  ‘And your kindred?’ Gideon squinted his eyes to look at it.

  ‘Gone to God, my father at the siege of Montsegur. My mother was burnt at the stake not far from here. I was a child.’ Etienne urged his horse onward and away from the men.

  ‘There were Normans in that war against his people,’ Gideon told Jacques de Molay.

  The Grand Master looked back with a fidget of the eye at him, then a sidelong glance at Iterius. ‘Speak no more of it.’

  A weak sun hung loose in the windy sky over the men when they passed a small house of rock and mortar leaning against the wall of the hill. A cross of carved wood with a circlet of roses stood at one side of it.

  Through the solution of silence, the ghost of Etienne’s past welcomed him with recognition. It told him that he was baked into the soil, that he was fallen about in ruin, scattered and over¬run with undergrowth. What was left of him was like this house, set like mortar between stones.
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  He shook his shoulders to dispel the thought. He had not known what would pass over his soul when he beheld with adult eyes the devastation of his inheritance. Now he found that where his heart gathered blood to itself there was a fist pounding and a burning that found the veins in his arm and shot through them like lit arrows. After a moment the feeling passed and Etienne looked around to the silence that was apparent and false. He brought himself from out of his thoughts. ‘Someone is here.’

  From inside the house, as if by command, there came a woman and in a moment she stood surrounded. Etienne nosed his horse between the bodies of the other horses and saw that she held a hoe out in front of her like a weapon and had poked a circle of space around herself. She was small, and old and a peasant, yet for all of it she stood tall, her head square on broad shoulders, the grey and voluminous hair piled high and tucked into a brown bonnet.

  ‘Who are you?’ Etienne sent his question down at her.

  ‘Who are you?’ the old woman said in Langued’oc, pitching the instrument at him by way of punctuation.

  Etienne’s horse took two steps back and Etienne quieted it with a word in the ear. ‘I am the lord of yonder castle.’

  The woman thought this through. ‘The lord is dead at Montsegur . . . o’er sixty years.’ Then she set the hoe by her side and, leaning forward, shot him a look. ‘What lives there now comes from the north and lives by the name of Bruyeres!’ She narrowed her eyes and puckered her mouth. ‘Bernard de Congost had a grandchild . . . likely dead on Crusade.’