The Seal

by Adriana Koulias

  Etienne tried to fit these words into a coherent understanding but all he could say was, ‘Where shall I take it?’

  ‘Follow the map . . .’ The Grand Master gave him a parchment from beneath the folds of his white habit. ‘The route is marked, it is long and skirts around Paris to the north, and leads far from this place. Do not go to any of our preceptories, it shall not be safe, all except one . . . It is marked . . . there . . . in the north. From that place you may provision for the longest part of the journey, travelling the pass through the Alps to a place called Hungary from whence come the Magyars. Nearby the village of Lockenhaus there is a castle of the Order. Your journey there shall be full of peril . . . that is certain.’ He lowered his voice to the barest whisper. ‘Give me your ring and place this one upon your own finger. If they come looking, they will not realise the difference. Guard it until you are sure that all is lost . . . when you hear that all is done you shall lay it to rest.’

  At that moment the entire meaning of his master’s words were made plain to him. Weary and weighed down he bowed his head. ‘My lord.’ A coldness swept over him and with it he saw pass before him the dreams of his heart – the hope for Christ’s purposes on earth and the hope for the redeeming of the Holy Land.

  Jacques de Molay looked at Etienne and placed a hand over his head in a blessing. ‘My brother, my son . . . I wish to fight beside you when the time comes but it cannot be! You have your task and I have mine . . . we shall meet them in different ways.’

  There was a noise outside the door to Etienne’s cell. The two men were wrenched from their meditations to it and the shadows. They saw nothing but darkness.

  By the time Etienne and Jourdain had weighed down their horses with harnesses full loaded with provisions, Iterius, armed with his secret, was at the monastery of the Franciscans, begging an audience with Pope Clement.

  The weather moved in, and it began to snow again.

  13

  THE MERCENARIES

  These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth’s foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead.

  A.E. Housman, ‘Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries’

  March 1307

  It was cold, Etienne hugged the lambskin over his shoulders as wisps of snow lay down over a group of miserable trees bare of leaves.

  ‘What is this?’ Gideon asked Etienne, before the fire.

  ‘From the north comes the wind,’ said Etienne, ‘it comes like this and hugs the edges of the world.’

  Three months ago the four of them had left Poitiers. Their journey had been without incident since they had travelled under the cover of darkness, moving northwards towards the slopes of the mountains, avoiding the houses, mills and granaries that here and there dotted the countryside. They kept to rough-worn tracks and rested in wooded places. Then the country had begun to rise up into the mountains and they had made their way through narrow valleys. Today the Norman and the Catalan had hunted and slaughtered a goat, and as the dark day lay brooding upon the forest they sat at meat.

  The mercenaries respected Etienne’s silence and spoke merrily amongst themselves, drinking the last of the wine and eating roasted goat and leaving him to his thoughts. They sat huddled by a great fire, looking in his direction and then upward to the clouded sky, uttering what seemed to him curses.

  Unlike the mercenaries, Etienne liked the snow. It seemed fitting to him to sit with his bones shaking and his teeth clenched from cold. To be on land and suffering privation filled him with a sense of familiarity that would have been comforting were he surrounded by brothers. But he was not surrounded by brothers, he warned himself, he was among thieves, running from the ruination of the Order.

  The mercenaries raised their voices in argument. Etienne ignored them and ran the plan over in his head. The gold would be sitting at Atouguia de Balaia some distance from Tomar. Marcus waited there for word. Etienne could not portend the consequences of Marcus’s failure and, worse still, the consequences of his success! But it seemed to him not altogether wrong, his wish that Marcus should fail and take the galley with its gold and its slaves, the archives and titles somewhere safe and return to France with what men of the Order would follow him to battle. He looked down at the sacred ring of his Order. It spoke to him in a mysterious tongue he did not understand. But this he understood: to take it to its resting place was to mark the end of the life he had always known and this filled him with an urge to disobedience. Once more this defiance was making itself felt among the fear and disillusion in his heart, as it had once before, at Acre. Now, however, he did not see the sin so plain to his eye and he prayed to St Michael, the Archangel of the Lord, that he might find the sin in such an urge and therefore the guilt, so that it might be duly punished.

  The saint was silent and reserved and did not heed him.

  He dug his face down into the cloak.

  The snow stopped and the wind-stirred trees moved above. Gideon stood, his argument with the Catalan having abated, he was now in good spirits and left to look for firewood. Etienne was, therefore, left alone with Delgado, who was crouched and playing a small woodwind instrument.

  Along their journey Etienne had observed the mercenaries and had been struck to find in himself a nascent longing to be as free they. It was a feeling both surprising and dangerous, for he knew that he must not find himself admiring men who were not party to his truth.

  He looked upward to that cloud-streaked sky and reminded himself that out in the world there was more than one truth. He reminded himself also that his shape was bent a little more each day he spent away from a cloister or house. Surely that was why he could find no sin in thoughts of disobedience? Soon, he told himself, he must become a stranger to himself. His eyes focused and he found the object of his concentration staring back at him.

  The Catalan’s green orbs flickered in the firelight and were making study of Etienne under straight, unclouded brows. The man’s head, covered with black hair tight of curl and close to the scalp, was too small for a body that was long and broad and made of lean muscle. But his face was pleasant and beneath that stare was announced a friendly disposition. ‘You did not eat?’ he said, smiling, his full mouth and chin stained with goat fat.

  Etienne considered this spectacle and said, ‘It is a rule, a Templar must not hunt, it is also a rule that he must not eat meat certain days of the week. This is one such day.’

  The man’s brows came together and he raised a flask to his lips and swallowed. After a moment of serious contemplation he asked, ‘No hunting?’

  ‘Except for the lion,’ said Etienne, ‘since a lion comes encircling and searching for what it can devour.’

  ‘And by no means meat every day, if you can come by it?’

  ‘By no means.’

  The Catalan shook his head and smiled as if such things were lunacy, then his face took on the cast of a man who may not have heard well. ‘How can you make war without meat in the blood?’

  Etienne sat forward and made sure the man was attending closely before he said, ‘Inside our hearts runs blood more red since it belongs to Christ.’

  The other man nodded at this additional strangeness, a peculiar look passing over the friendly face. ‘Your blood is Christ’s?’

  ‘Most certainly.’ Etienne was happy to have disconcerted the Catalan, and sat back contemplating the sky with a triumphant silence.

  A moment later Etienne realised the Catalan was not to be put off and wished that Jourdain, who was good with words, were beside him to answer such questions and not keeping a watchful eye upon the road.

  ‘All knights of your Order feel the same?’

  ‘They should.’

  ‘Is not my blood Christ’s then? Did he not die for all men?’

  ‘Your blood is Christ’s because he has died for you, my blood is His because I am prepared to die for Him.’

  ‘Ahh,’ he said, but looked no wiser. Then as a change of subject he as
ked, ‘It is a rich house, this house to which we travel?’

  Etienne scratched at his bare chin. It felt strange, that hairless space below his mouth. ‘I don’t know . . .’

  The other man shook his head. ‘You will not like it there.’

  ‘No,’ Etienne said.

  ‘Where you come from in the Holy Land, all is different?’

  Etienne felt a headache over his brows. ‘Here all things are altered.’

  ‘Well then, you will get used to it, since you may not go back.’ The Catalan came closer, putting the small instrument to his mouth, making a sweet sound.

  Etienne observed this without anger; he listened and glanced up to where, between snow and cloud, the sun winked now and again through the treetops.

  The Catalan silenced his playing and nodded. ‘You and I are countrymen, we understand the same language . . .’ Then he sang a song in a light lyrical voice.

  Preguatz per mil salvayre

  Quem guit a bon port,

  Em guart de la mort

  D’infer, don conort

  Negus homs nos pot trayre

  Per neguna sort!

  ‘Do you know it, lord?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I do not,’ Etienne said to him.

  ‘It is true, my family fought alongside yours during your war.’

  Etienne did not answer.

  ‘Your family was a fine one, your castle was the home of troubadours and poets.’

  ‘That castle is not mine, it is dead.’ In Etienne’s eyes there was the message that he wished no further discussion. The other man smiled and bent his knees and sat upon his ankles as Gideon returned panting with an armful of wood. The tall man set it down and began to replenish the fire. The wood was half-wet and made smoke billow up into the air.

  ‘Eh Gideon, you have family?’ said the Catalan, looking askance at Etienne with mischief in his eye.

  Gideon did not look upwards but continued working the fire.

  ‘Eh Gideon!’ he called out again. ‘You are of an old family?’ He winked an eye at Etienne. ‘An old family . . . of thieves!’ The Catalan blurted this out and immediately fell about himself in merriment.

  No sooner had he said it than the Norman was upon him. Delgado threw off his sheepskin cloak and, being slight and nimble, was able to outrun Gideon to the other side of the fire, but Gideon caught him up and stood before him with a face twisted in anger. Delgado’s own was round and merry and he was bending with laughter, jumping from side to side as his companion took swipes with his knife. With both feet splayed out, and joints as flexible as if they were sprung, Delgado dodged a swipe to his middle and came out on the other side of the Norman. Gideon turned his large body around and lunged. Delgado, overcome by his high spirits, moved barely in time to preserve his neck and erupted in laughter as the knife came inches from his stomach.

  ‘Oh!’ said he, unable to express any other sentiment than that which seemed to spill from him in waves of guffaws. ‘Oh!’ he said again.

  ‘I am no thief !’ shouted Gideon into the dim day as if he were an animal run through with a blade and in the deepest pain. He gave a growl and one last leap. The Catalan moved to escape the blade and his legs came out from under him in the snow turned mud and he almost fell into the fire. There was the smell of burning hair and Delgado said between gasps, ‘A murderer then?’

  ‘Of the highest order!’ Gideon put away his weapon. ‘You are lucky that my knife is not in the mood for blood today!’

  Delgado called out between small puffs of laughter. ‘I am lucky, for you are an animal, my Gideon!’

  The man observed this and a sense of pride stole into his face. ‘And you are the son of a sow!’ he told him, now deprived of his anger. ‘Your mother was a dirty sow!’

  ‘It is true!’ Delgado was standing now, looking for wounds. ‘My mother was a fat whore from Barcelona . . . but I am no thief !’

  ‘You see!’ Gideon sighed, raising his arms to Etienne and making a look of his face that, to his mind, summed it up.

  Satisfied that he was in one piece, Delgado put on his cloak and, taking his instrument began to play again as if he had but paused a moment for breath.

  Gideon returned to his position by the fire, gentling it with a stick. Then as an afterthought: ‘That knife I took from a Turk who had no ball sacs! There is good magic in it.’

  The other man grew serious. ‘There is good magic in my flute . . . it makes Norman whores look like angels!’

  Gideon raised his brows and nodded. ‘That is good magic.’

  Etienne frowned, thinking that he would never get used to these strange tempers and unrestrained words. But there was silence and this caused Delgado to grow reflective at his instrument. A moment later he paused to ask Etienne another question, ‘So, you are a priest, a knight and a monk?’

  Etienne sighed. ‘I am priest, knight and monk.’

  ‘Oyee!’ Delgado said, flipping the instrument up in the air and letting it fall almost to the ground before catching it with a deft hand. ‘Did you hear that, my Gideon?’

  The Norman turned his face, peaceful now, and flicked his head and therefore the bands of hair fastened by ropes, beads and bones, as if to say, ‘What?’

  ‘These Templars are so rich they can afford to be three things!’

  ‘I have heard they are rich,’ he said.

  Etienne turned to the Catalan and spoke clearly and distinctly, keeping his eye upon the other man until he was finished. ‘The rule states that a brother may not keep money for himself. Any brother found with unlawful money on his person when he dies is denied a Christian burial.’ And to make sure he had been understood, Etienne raised both brows and when the man seemed about to speak he narrowed his eyes in a challenge to further comment.

  The Catalan smiled and played.

  Etienne wondered at how anything at all could amuse these people.

  Gideon bent his head backwards then, and whistled. ‘It is a serious rule, lord!’

  ‘It is even-handed,’ Etienne told him.

  Delgado next to him frowned and smiled at the same time. ‘It is strange . . . this rule would not be suitable to Amulgavars . . . your Order is wealthy but you own no money?’ He shook his head. ‘It is strange.’

  ‘How do you manage without money?’ Gideon said, interested now.

  Etienne was more and more irritated at the need for explanation of things best kept silent. ‘The Order provides us with everything we need, with horses and harness and clothes.’

  ‘Not bad!’ Delgado made a turn of the mouth. ‘There are Templars in my country, and yours, Norman? There are Templars?’

  ‘Yes, there are Templars.’ Gideon lay down, bored.

  Delgado shook his head. ‘But so many rules! I do not like these rules, eh Gideon? No hunting, no meat, no money . . . no women?’

  ‘They have many rules,’ the Norman repeated, yawning and settling down to the business of sleep. ‘In the north there is another Order, they call themselves Teutons. They have women . . . and money . . . and they are all sons of sows.’

  ‘What else does your rule tell, Lord?’ asked Delgado.

  ‘How to live, how to fight and pray,’ Etienne answered.

  ‘We Almugavars have one rule, it is to have no rules . . . What is yours, Norman?’

  ‘To kill is a good rule,’ he said. ‘The most important is not to die.’

  ‘Yes . . . we Amulgavars never die . . .’ Delgado flashed a smile. ‘Our cry in battle is Desperte Ferre.’

  Etienne looked at this with a passive curiosity.

  ‘It means…iron awaken! You see, lord, we never die because the iron is always awake!’ He held himself between the legs and burst with merriment.

  Etienne looked up to the steely sky and hoped for peace, away from these questions and this corruption. Soon he must relieve Jourdain and he found this thought comforting.

  ‘And yours, lord? What is this Beauseant that you cry in battle?’

  Etienne took his
eyes from the day. ‘It is our standard, our flag – white and black, because we are meek and mild to our friends and treacherous to our enemies,’ he said this, almost in anger.

  The Catalan merely nodded. ‘It is the same for us Amulgavars, we have two sides – bon e malament, good and bad . . . it is natural for us . . .’

  Etienne was much struck by this, and the tangle of thought this comparison provoked made him move down into the damp leaves and close his eyes.

  Delgado crouched on the tips of his toes a moment, like a panther ready to pounce, gave a laugh and surrendered his questions to sleep.

  But sleep did not come for Etienne; he thought of the mariners’ tune sung by the Catalan, a tune he had long forgotten and now remembered with uneasiness, since it was proof that Etienne had once lived a different life.

  Flors de Paradis,

  Regina de bon ayre,

  A vos mi ren clis,

  Penedens ses cor vayre,

  Forfaitz e mesquis:

  Preguatz per mil salvayre

  Quem guit a bon port,

  Em guart de la mort

  D’infer, don conort

  Negus homs nos pot trayre

  Per neguna sort.

  The Norman and the Catalan snored, and the fire consumed itself against the cold.

  14

  THE GOLD

  Yet shall that gold be thy bane,

  and the bane of every one soever who owns it.

  The Völsunga Saga, chapter XVIII