The Seal

by Adriana Koulias

  Tomar, Portugal, September 1307

  Marcus returned from Atouguia de Balaia and a visit to the galley as the early afternoon sun made shadows of the trees that lined the road.

  He looked about him like a man who has been in a strange land and returns home to find all things changed: the air was cooling, the lands were harvested and the grapes picked. The smell of winter was in the air. He realised with some surprise that it was now a year since the galley had left Cyprus weighed down by the Order’s gold.

  On their arrival to a bay near Atouguia, Marcus had ordered the Byzantines removed from the galley and put in a sea cave for safety. Andrew of Scotland was left in charge so that none not loyal to Jacques de Molay knew where the gold was hid. After that Marcus took himself to Tomar, to that great castle of the Order.

  Now returning from his second excursion to the gold, he remembered his first visit to the cave, and his desire to hear from the gold itself what it had to tell him of its impiety.

  It had taken the mercenary Roger de Flor the best part of a morning to find the hiding place. From where they stood upon the sand they looked up to a vertical cliff that speared the sky and fell down to a rock shelf pounded by surf. A path over a rock floor pitted with pools and covered in shells and seagrass led to a small cave cut off from the beach by the tide. Beyond it nothing but sea and sky and the edges of the world.

  The cave was small and squat, made of gouged-out stone. It held the barrels with not much room to spare. At his behest, Roger left him alone with the gold and, sitting before it, Marcus listened with patience. He was there a long time but the spirit of the gold was as circumspect as a virgin and for all his effort Marcus heard nothing of its mysteries. He heard the pounding of the waves on the rocks and the strangled cries of gulls and nothing more.

  For his part Roger de Flor began to fidget to get back, owing to the movement of the tide, and Marcus was persuaded to leave it, thinking himself no more and no less than he had ever been: incapable of making traffic with the spirit of things.

  This second visit, however, Marcus deigned to approach the gold with a different slant of mind. After all, he told himself, what lay in that cave was nothing less than the good gold of the Order – that which had been vouchsafed to secure the Holy Land from the infidel hordes who sought to destroy the memory of his Lord! Surely this fact bespoke its virtue? Did the gold Byzantines not carry the Lord’s image stamped on their surface? Did they not recall that other brightness that smiled from heaven upon the earth and all its creatures? He had come to think of himself as the gold’s keeper and, therefore, its lord. His intention was not now to hear of its impiety, but instead he had set himself the task of putting to rights what Jacques de Molay had defamed.

  It was in this way, in expectation of a new friendship, that Marcus had entered the cave that morning and sat before the barrels that caged the gold’s brilliance, as if it were enough to bend an ear for the gold to call forth its hidden eloquence.

  Many hours passed and it was full night when, anticipating the oncoming tide, Roger de Flor took himself over the rock shelf, leaving Marcus to his contemplation. Outside the waves crawled towards the mouth of the cave as if to swallow it, but within, the silence pressed into the corners of Marcus’s soul. This did nothing to discourage his determination. He waited until the early hours. Until it seemed to him, as he sat in that state of numbness, that the world was beginning of its own accord, to die away, and that his suspicion – that the gold had a heart – was soon to be realised.

  When the gold began to share with him the anxious activity of its spiritual force, it was in little communications – small trembles that could be felt in the veins and in the head. Towards this interaction he tilted his body, attentive and polite. In response the gold shone inside the barrels with an intensity that would burn an unguarded eye, and the spirit of it worked loose and lifted up from the body of the gold Byzantines. Having found, at last, a sympathetic ear, it began to make a traffic with his soul.

  Take me into thine self . . .it said.

  Feel how I can restore the fire in thine heart! I am of the same fire that in ancient times shone down from the sky and was seen as the light of goodness. I am of the same fire that at the turning point of time expelled from its womb that living god who died upon a cross for the sins and sorrows of all men. I can teach thee the mysteries of that were taught to Tubal Cain, and thou shalt cast the brazen sea within thine soul, as Hiram has cast it before thee!

  Marcus narrowed his eyes against this, but in his mind the words made a lustre that illuminated all that had been, was and would be. It was a numinous image that passed before his mind’s eye: the Order and the sacrifice of Christ sat poised on one side of a great balance whose fulcrum was made from gold. On the other side rested the world of men, sin, ruin and devastation.

  His cavalry shall only be honoured through the work of the Temple. The Temple shall only continue through the activity of gold whose lord thou hast become!

  It was made plain to him, therefore, that the salvation of his soul rested upon the safety of the gold.

  Now as he sat upon his horse he held the reins with a tight hand full of anxious tempers. He must do well by the good gold of the Order or find his soul lost to his spirit.

  When the party crossed the Roman bridge over the fast-running river and made its way up the incline to the fortress of the Temple, Marcus looked up to see its structure hanging over the little village of whitewashed houses and cobbled streets like a mountain of stone. The fortified walls made a high ring around the citadel and the keep. It made him tremble, that marvellous castle of the Order. As long as the gold was safe, all would one day return to how it had once been and the glory of untroubled days would make these last months pale into a fearful dream.

  Full of quickening urges in his limbs, sensing the pulse of his blood and the in-and-out flow of his breath, he crossed the great gates ahead of his retinue.

  It was as his horse was taken away and he stood upon his legs proving the solidity of the earth at his feet that a messenger came hastily from out of the buildings to greet him.

  The sergeant gave Marcus an urgent letter sealed with the Grand Master’s seal.

  Marcus was full of anticipation. Finally, his Grand Master was calling them home – he and the gold.

  He fumbled with the parchment. His fingers trembled and his heart rose up into the vaults of that autumnal sky. Perhaps the Pope had agreed to a new Crusade to retake the Holy Sepulchre? It would be a fine thing to wade knee-deep in the blood of His enemies once again! To live to die . . . what had Etienne called him? An avenging angel of the Lord!

  The seal tore away and he opened the letter. His eyes fell upon the words written in the familiar hand and it took a moment for his mind to reach an understanding. When it did, the blood fled from his legs, and the air escaped from his lungs, and he lurched forward while at the same time the ground began to move towards him.

  He was falling out of balance and the brother sergeant moved to help him.

  ‘No!’ Marcus yelled at him and stumbled to the octagonal church where he made his way like a blind man down the aisle to the altar. Here he fell as though struck down and before the bare-breasted image of his Lord he waited to hear something, to see a sign that would tell him what he must do.

  He told himself he must make himself patient, as patient as he had been in the cave. After all, why should God not bend His form to reach him as the gold had done?

  For three days he remained thus, without food or rest, waiting for a communication that never came.

  In the end, he had to be carried off from fatigue.

  15

  THE ‘FAIR’ KING

  Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:

  for it is the number of a man

  and his number is six hundred and threescore and six.

  Revelation 13:18

  September 1307

  The King of France, Philip Capet, entered his
apartment in a state of agitation. His long strides crossed the room whose floors were everywhere adorned with embroidered rugs and tapestries, and upon whose walls torches flickered, adding to the light that came scant and pale from the windows. He paused a moment to observe the sun rise, silent over the valleys and forests in which he often hunted. He took in a breath to quell the hardness in his head. There was little time in a king’s life for sport.

  He was in one of his dark moods. A frigid wind had swept over his mind, leaving his face etched in stone. Soon something would enter into his brooding solitude, something violent and fascinating. He waited.

  Where in the Devil was Nogaret?

  He paced with eyes darting from this to that, his teeth grinding beneath his cheeks, and his hands marking a stiff pace

  behind his back. He sensed the tautness of his muscles moving against his bones, the rush of the kingly blood in his veins. He paused, listening, standing entirely still, waiting for something to speak to him, for some smell to stimulate his nostrils, for a sound to excite his ears. He waited and when it came it filled him entirely, like smoke fills a room to the very corners. A pale glow trembled in his heart:

  He was a king with a kingdom to rule!

  But then the question pressed at his temples and made them ache.

  Where in the Devil was Nogaret?

  A moment later, as if in answer, an attendant entered the apartment and with pomp announced the lawyer.

  Guillaume de Nogaret was shown in.

  Philip noted the disproportionate nature of the man’s body – long-waisted and short of neck, with legs like tree trunks. Philip gave him his most royal smile. ‘Nogaret! I was just thinking on you.’

  Guillaume de Nogaret bowed low, making a sweep of one hand whilst holding with the other some parchments that he held out to his sovereign. ‘The arrest orders, sire.’ His voice made a dissonance in Philip’s ears.

  The King waved the gesture away, and the lawyer remained half bowed, unsure of what to do next.

  Philip turned to his dais. ‘What are the charges again?’

  He heard a moan and recognised it. Nogaret was feeling a pinch at his spine. When Philip turned, the man was giving it a rub with his free hand and Philip caught the slightest expression of narrowness from those cavernous eyes.

  The lawyer coughed and wheezed and riffled through the parchments with pale hands and pulled one out from the rest, reading out loud, ‘Bestiality . . . sire, worship of devils, defilement of the cross . . . sorcery and secrecy, necromancy and sodomy, the denial of Christ . . . etcetera . . . etcetera . . .’ He was paused awaiting a reply.

  Philip chose for the moment not to answer, instead he made a whistle and two greyhounds came bounding towards him from their velvet beds. He patted them with an absent fondness and then sat down upon a throne too small to bear his long body comfortably.

  ‘Scandalous,’ he said finally.

  ‘An appalling business, sire!’ said Nogaret.

  ‘Worshipping devils, you say?’ Then he leant forward. ‘And?’

  ‘And, sire?’

  ‘What of eating the entrails of stillborn babies? Was there not something about a ceremony during chapter? Should that not be added . . . as we discussed?’

  The lawyer stifled a yawn. ‘Sire, if I may . . . perhaps that is a little too astonishing?’

  Philip moved a chill glance over his lawyer and made it come as still as a winter lake. ‘Astonishing?’

  ‘A little . . . far-fetched, sire?’ the lawyer explained.

  The King made a slight gesture of the head, which Nogaret and the animals interpreted immediately. The dogs and the lawyer became attentive, their ears pricked up listening.

  Philip did not look up from his dogs. ‘Far-fetched?’

  The lawyer stood his ground. ‘I believe so, sire.’

  Philip, known as ‘The Fair’, was stock-still, staring at the sun as it came through the windows. He watched it fall at his feet a moment. It was pale and did not warm him. Nothing warmed him. He shooed his mood away as if it were an annoying insect and said, ‘I suppose it has been used before on the Jews . . . and, after all, we must provide original entertainment for the masses . . . Tell me the outcome, are we arresting the Order or the individuals?’

  Philip made a click of the tongue and the dogs began a low growling in their chests. He observed this with affection.

  Nogaret, for his part, edged away. ‘The Order, sire, is beyond our regard . . . it is answerable to the Pope alone, and so we must contrive to have the Church make the arrest. Once they are in our prisons the individuals are yours.’

  ‘Then our hands are tied without the collusion of the Church?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sire, for purposes of legality we shall need the Inquisitor of France.’

  ‘And . . .’ His eyes were darts. ‘Will he do it?’

  ‘He is loyal to your Majesty.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but will it appease the Pope?’ There was a rising of the brow.

  The lawyer looked at him and at the snarling dogs. ‘Pope Clement is our man, we may be certain this is only a formality. However, he shall require that we make a show of it for his Roman cardinals. He may no longer be in Rome but it seems that he has enough enemies wherever he is.’ He made a sigh and wiped his brow. Every movement caused the growls to grow louder.

  ‘Poor man, I wonder how it must feel to be universally disliked?’ the King said.

  ‘I would suggest – not pleasant, sire.’

  Philip moved a hand and the growling dogs began creeping towards Nogaret, baring their prominent incisors.

  The King permitted himself a smile.

  ‘Sire . . .’ the lawyer pleaded, his usually austere and inscrutable demeanour now animated. ‘Please!’

  The King whistled and the animals responded immediately, moving to his side. ‘Well done, Nogaret!’ he said. ‘You lasted longer than yesterday.’ He took one greyhound by the collar and looked into its eyes. ‘Look at him, poor creature! Anxious for blood. Perhaps we could have them torn apart by dogs? Now there’s a spectacle worthy of a Roman festival!’

  Nogaret’s face was blank. ‘Who, sire?’

  Philip hooded his eyes. ‘Were you not listening, Nogaret? The Templars! Who else?’

  ‘I’m afraid the pyre is what the people expect, sire.’

  Philip marvelled at how the man could show weakness one moment and the next turn hard as a scythe. It was, he mused, an endearing quality in a henchman. ‘Well the people, my dear Nogaret, are becoming dull!’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  At that moment an attendant entered with a silver tray of nuts and sugared fruits. The man bowed before his king and set the tray down on a small table encrusted with gemstones to one side of the throne. Another servant followed carrying a goblet filled with wine. Phillip took a sip, gave a piece of sugared fruit to each dog and returned his attention to his lawyer.

  ‘Has the Archbishop of Narbonne changed his mind yet?’

  Guillaume de Nogaret shook his head. ‘He will not seal the arrest orders, but has consented to resign his office and lay down the seals. Without the seals the arrest orders shall be weak.’

  ‘I wonder why he would defend that worthless litter?’ He popped a nut into his mouth. ‘Have they not lost the Holy Land? Have we not convinced him that they are sorcerers and demons, Nogaret? Heretics that surpass even those wretched Cathars he so detests?’ Philip stared at his lawyer then as if he were an unknown landscape. ‘Well, well . . . perhaps you were not so convincing for a reason . . . perhaps you covet the seals for yourself ?’

  The lawyer’s face was a wall. ‘Me, sire?’

  The King paused, a cold stream of suspicion moved from his head to his heart, plunging him for the moment in its mysterious communication. He narrowed his eyes. ‘Come, Nogaret,’ he said chewing, and staring, ‘your king awaits your answer.’

  The lawyer shifted. ‘The man is intractable, sire.’

  Philip considered this. ‘Is h
e? I suppose your advice is that I should give the seals to you?’

  Nogaret bowed. ‘I am astonished.’ But his tone suggested otherwise.

  Philip was annoyed. ‘Don’t be a weasel, Nogaret, you were expecting it!’ He waved a hand. ‘To whom else should I give them?’

  Nogaret made a deferential tilt of his head. ‘Your servant thanks you, sire . . .’

  The King turned his attention to the windows, suddenly bored and restless, having been despoiled of his surprise. ‘What are our plans?’

  Nogaret straightened his back and made a wince of his face.

  ‘Get that seen to, Nogaret!’ Philip told him. ‘You shall make a poor Keeper of the Seals if you are crippled.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  He sat forward. ‘Now, to our plans . . .’

  Nogaret grew attentive. ‘The Pope has the Grand Master at Poitiers, as you requested, sire, discussing the matter of a unification of Orders.’

  The King raised his brows, thoughtful. ‘The old man is good for something! And how do you propose to bring the Grand Master from Poitiers to Paris before he scurries back to his little hole in Cyprus?’ He threw his lawyer a stare.

  ‘Well, sire, he is your daughter’s godfather, and an intimate of the court. There are various lures that you might use.’

  ‘He must not suspect anything! They are like pigs with their snouts always to the ground. What does the man look like? I fail to conjure his face before my mind’s eye! Come . . . come!’

  ‘Who, sire?’

  ‘Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master! Where is your mind this day? What in the Devil does the man look like?’

  ‘An old goat, sire, with a little beard and sad eyes . . .’

  ‘Ahh . . . yes . . . the eyes!’ He made a pause and considered his lawyer. ‘Shall I tell you something?’

  ‘I am all ears, sire.’

  ‘Do you know what I see in the eyes of a dying animal, Nogaret?’

  Nogaret raised his brows, ‘In a dying animal, sire?’

  ‘In its eyes . . . what do you think I see?’