The Seal

by Adriana Koulias

  ‘It is I,’ came Philip’s response, health-full and exuberant, followed by the sound of his steps on the moist ground.

  The shadow came closer and became a form recognisable. Even in the dark Iterius could sense something changed about that shadow.

  Warily the Egyptian moved toward it. ‘Sire?’ he said, some paces from him. ‘How come you here unprotected?’

  The King gestured for Iterius to follow him along the flagged path that was white with a thin layer of snow. ‘I go nowhere alone, Iterius!’ He glanced upward to the stars and their light revealed nothing of his eyes. Iterius knew only the murderous violence, full with pride and disdain, that was hid thinly behind the friendly tone of that voice.

  ‘First snow of the season,’ he said.

  The astrologer kept up with the King’s long, powerful strides. Tense and held in, suspicious of the King’s calm, he wondered what followed in the train of the bright tone of his voice – a smile? He would worry about a smile.

  ‘I see visions now without the aid of your draught.’ Philip half turned to him but did not slow down his pace as they walked in the direction of the abbey. ‘At every moment there tears into my soul vast panoramas, futures and pasts! I am tethered to such insights and nightmares! Mighty and colossal mysteries of darkness sweep over me and thrust me into the workings of their being. The power to rule the world exists on my soul’s tongue, Astrologer, ready to be voiced, and what a voice it shall be! To bring this unusual gift to its fulfilment!’

  A moment of illumination rendered Iterius speechless – he was no longer needed.

  ‘Come along . . . pick up the pace.’

  Iterius gazed upward to a westering sky toward chaos and eternity, and began to feel cold and dangerous. ‘Where are we going, sire?’ he asked.

  ‘Patience,’ the King said. A moment later he said, ‘Have you given some thought to what I shall do with you?’

  There was a sound behind them. The wind came and scooped up the limbs of the chestnut trees and disturbed snow. The animals pastured beyond the lane made noises and moved off.

  ‘Sire, you have achieved the end of the Order . . . you have seen the future . . . but what you have not seen will now be accomplished with my help. There is a bond that spans many lives, sire, and will continue on beyond life . . . You cannot . . . you must not discard me if you wish to know the secrets, for only now can they be made understood to you!’ He was elated. ‘Of course! I was foolish!’ he muttered to himself. ‘It is only now that the Templars are dead that what they have kept secret can be made intelligible!’

  ‘What is this nonsense, Astrologer?’ The King was paused, looking down on him.

  Iterius for his part was realising with a sense of curious wonder that evil had settled into his mind like a cat settles into a lap. ‘Sire!’ He was excited now. ‘With my help you shall control good and evil, birth and death! You will reign over all things!’ The astrologer looked out to the wintry night. ‘I will become your mirror! I need not be anything at all . . . I can be vacant . . . just a mirror! A mirror.’ He was doing a little shuffle with his feet in the snow. ‘I will mediate the Templar secrets from the world of the dead! I realise now! Men who die a violent death become channels of knowledge for men like me!’

  ‘Men like you? Oh shut up, Astrologer!’ The King dismissed him and resumed his walk. ‘Don’t confound me with your double-talk! You are a useless creature and I am immune to your garbled nonsense these days! Besides, I find myself turning suspicious since I have been made aware of a conspiracy and I suspect you to have something to do with it.’

  Iterius became watchful. Following behind his king he constructed his voice to have a ring of innocence. ‘Conspiracy . . . I?’

  ‘My brother Charles seeks the throne,’ the King said over his shoulder.

  They had come upon a covered bridge that spanned a fast-flowing watercourse and they began to cross it. The wooden floor of it was covered with wet leaves and snow turned mud. Iterius untied the leather bag and held it ready should he need quick access to its contents.

  ‘My brother is not sharp-minded and his tongue wags in the wrong ears . . . Yours perhaps?’

  ‘I, sire? I am your most loyal . . . there is a bond between us . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes . . .’ he said in a sardonic tone, ‘and by what means does my loyal, bonded servant suggest I kill my brother without suspicion?’

  Iterius held the bag in his hands; he gave a silent smile and said, ‘There is nothing so good as living poison, sire.’

  ‘Living?’

  ‘Snakes, lizards . . . Certain peculiar ones kill slowly or quickly . . .’ He grasped at the wriggling bag within his cloak.

  ‘Yes . . . in the bed . . . or the bath.’

  ‘Only I know where you might find them, sire.’

  ‘Perhaps you are still useful to me, Iterius?’

  Iterius said quickly, ‘Yes, yes, sire, I am your servant! I understand you better than any man. I am all that you have. Without me nothing you have sought for shall be accomplished.’

  Philip put a halt to his march. ‘All that I have?’

  Iterius was taken unwares by his sovereign’s sudden pause, and only managed to prevent stumbling into the back of the King by overbalancing his body. He gave a pained yell as his crippled leg bent and the rest of him slipped out from under it and he fell heavily backwards. By virtue of the fall he loosened his grasp on the bag and its contents spilt out over his belly. In a heartbeat he felt the small bodies dash in various directions over him and then three stings, one on his neck, one on his face and one on his hand. He gave out another yell.

  The King was looking down. The living creatures glinted briefly in the darkness and then disappeared into the night. Iterius lay in a state of horror, observing his folly with disbelief.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Lizards, sire.’

  ‘Poisonous ones?’

  ‘I assume so, sire.’

  The King made a sound deep in his throat and the voice that issued from it was full of violent madness. ‘You are a profane heart!’ he laughed. Then in the manner of one who queries the price of bread, ‘Are you killed then?’

  ‘I think so, sire!’ the astrologer answered, a hotness in his belly radiating outwards to his arms and legs. His throat felt as if it were on fire and his tongue was dry and large. He tried to lick his lips and realised with a sense of horror that he could not find them.

  The King sighed. ‘From your own treachery?’

  Iterius held his breath and let it out. His mind began to fidget upon the possible outcome of his stupidity. And then he remembered this was not how he was meant to die. The King, he realised, must be destined to help him. Perhaps if he could be helped to his former apartment he could come up with an antidote. Perhaps.

  A glimmer of hope shot up in the sea of his terror and then there was a noise behind them and he thought he saw the King make a gesture.

  ‘How shall you die, quickly or slowly?’

  ‘Slowly, sire.’ Iterius swallowed and terror flushed through him with a sigh. His head felt like an overcooked cabbage. ‘Quite slowly, I should think.’

  ‘You thought that I brought you here to kill you?’ the King was chastising him. ‘Is that not so?’

  Iterius sat up a little and nodded, tears streaming from his eyes as a new realisation entered into him. ‘And you did not, sire?’

  ‘Supposing that at that moment, as I paused before the little trap, I had decided to spare you?’

  The astrologer’s face looked full at Philip’s. A trap? Hidden in the bridge? A mantrap in the walk . . . leading down to the river or perhaps a pit . . . it would be a long way down to the bottom of it. He was filled with surprise turned steep horror. ‘Oh sire, yes, you were certainly going to spare me!’

  The King looked down and Iterius thought he could see a look of concern. ‘After all, I am understood by you alone...’

  ‘That’s right…’ Iterius gasped.

&nb
sp; There was the sound of satisfaction in his voice. ‘Pity we shall never know it now, Iterius,’ he said, and gave a laugh.

  Iterius closed his eyes as the surge of pain passed through him. Oh the blow fate had struck him! The one time he had a true vision, he had not interpreted it correctly and now he would die!

  He opened his eyes and saw only darkness in the place where the King had been.

  In the distance he heard a muffled command, some footsteps and then two hands were dragging him. He heard a noise, a metallic sound and then of a sudden he fell a long way.

  He landed awkwardly on rock and mud at the bottom of the pit, but he did not fall far enough for it to kill him.

  60

  THE STAG

  And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.

  Revelation 14:11

  29 November 1314

  In the forest of Pont-Sainte-Maxence the King galloped at full speed, past trees and plants covered in whiteness, among the baying of the dogs and the sound of breaking turf.

  He was a man abandoned in a hostile universe without help and responsible for a world he hated.

  He put spurs to his horse. His mind raced with so many divergent thoughts and painful apparitions that he was not looking for game, he was pressing on, hoping that stupor and oblivion might find him, and therefore plunge him into a void of quiet nothingness.

  Since March he had taken no interest in his kingdom. He was driven mad. He had thrust his head inside an ants’ nest and now he could find no escape. Overtaken by voices and thoughts and memories of deeds confused and misshapen, he walked about his palace whispering and mumbling and clawing at the air, his soul in a state of constant uncertainty and bewilderment. He had become a creature wholly engulfed in loathing, aflood with passionate self-hatred and capable of no logical thought. He called out for his astrologer and his draught. But his astrologer had taken days to die. The nuns of the little abbey had complained that an injured animal could be heard groaning about the grounds. It was a sound full of despair, they said, an agony of the body and of the soul. Now, without the draught, the immense and visible presence which had fed his madness would not leave off but pierced him hungrily on every side.

  He whipped his horse but the animal, puffing clouds from its nostrils, was weary; the King could feel its great heaving chest between his legs. It slowed down, unable to go further, and came to a stop in a little clearing into which the rays of the sun filtered through branches over the crisp, frozen snow. Philip’s head felt heavy, in his temples a pain stabbed and gouged and burned. He raised his eyes, feeling a presence not far from him, a stag, as large as that great stag he had seen as a child of eight when he had made his first kill. The animal’s enormous horns glistened in the half-light as it turned towards Philip with brilliant eyes and a steaming snout wet with condensation.

  The King prepared to dismount, removing the crossbow from his saddle as he had done many times before. The animal did not move; it stared, complacent, knowing, defiant. Did those eyes recall those of Jacques de Molay? What madness! But there was a moment of mind stillness then, and Philip took in a deep breath and looked again. In the light that filtered through the canopy he saw not the stag, but yes, the figure of Jacques de Molay, standing upon that earth. Jacques de Molay had freedom and defiance, and God in his eyes. A pure object illuminated. Jacques de Molay sought to look into his bony mind, into his hollow soul, into his cold eye . . .

  ‘I will not let you see it! I will not let you!’ he told him.

  But the face of Jacques de Molay probed his heart until

  there was nothing that he could hide. He was himself in a state of nakedness with those eyes boring into his soul.

  The vision raised an arm and pointed in his direction. Then it was gone. Only the stag remained. Only the beautiful stag with the glistening horns raised. The King pulled on the shaft and prepared to let go into the animal. He mused that all the fury, hatred, fear, rancour and doubt that filled him lay upon the tip of that quarrel and that to release it would be to free himself.

  Something fettered his hand, however. His mind was torn from its roots and there was an explosion of tiny stars that blackened his vision. His legs no longer obeyed him and his arms became flaccid at his side and he fell into the powdery white.

  Lying with his face half in snow he observed himself from without, like Titus observing the ruins of Jerusalem. Had death fascinated him also? But death was drawing near, dark death’s weaving fashioned him in a shiver. That same reflex he had so longingly observed, the instinctive battle between life and death, light and dark, warmth and coldness, the resistance to life’s dissolution, he experienced. At this point, between an in breath and a last out breath, he saw the cause of all things pass before his eyes as in a dream.

  He could hear drums and chants and he held a dagger in his hands with a skull at its hilt. He was a priest. Beneath him a man lay on the killing stone. To look at him made the muscles of his arms tense to prepared the thrust. It came hard, down and upwards in the form of an angled snake. He held out a heart beating still in his hands.

  But the pain made his eyes open and he saw the stag had come at him and he felt the air pushed from his lungs then and his last thought was sucked from his head and into the darkness.

  Taotl!

  61

  ROUND ROOM

  How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

  Lord Alfred Tennyson, ‘Ulysses’

  Lockenhaus, May 1315

  Etienne and Jourdain climbed the winding stairs and entered the room of stone where sat the senior brothers.

  The fire of elm and oak blazed in the hearth and the men drank a little wine to warm them and to bring some fire into their muscles. Above the great round table the candles were lit in their brackets and Etienne could plainly see the faces wrapped in despair and dedicated to death. Their eyes, full of hunger, stretched and tore at his heart so that he had to cough before he could speak.

  ‘I have news,’ said Etienne. ‘Yesterday a dangerous expedition to the village is returned. It garnered two things: information and food. The information came by way of news that the Order has been suppressed at the Council of Vienne and therefore no longer exists for the world and that . . . that our Grand Master is . . . killed . . . burnt on the King’s pyre.’

  There was not one sound to be heard save the wind and the fire.

  ‘The bishop of these parts is spying out the means of taking the old castle from us with the help of King Robert of Anjou. Together they arouse the hatred of the people and have them believing the lying tales of sorcery and that we are rich beyond measure . . . Soon there will be no food.’

  He saw silent resignation.

  ‘I say we leave this place,’ said Robert of Bavaria.

  ‘To live a counterfeit life? Not I! I would rather die on the stake!’ said the Magyar Jozsef.

  Etienne listened, having expected this. ‘My brothers,’ he felt old and grave as he said it, ‘we have been companions upon this mountain, living life by the rule as best it can be lived . . . knowing that this end would come. To face it with honour and courage is our last deed. It is not granted to all men to live the future in advance, but such men always must be found. We have been those men and we are now called upon to safeguard what we have lived for future lives. Let us recall our Order’s words of consecration, which resound in those who can hear it in their spirit.

  ‘Each man suffers in the service of the whole because the whole is far greater and more holy than any man alone could be. It is then our duty to let our will be surpassed by a higher will for the greater good.’ He looked at them. ‘It is true we are not now what we once were in ages past, so strong as to move the world! But what we were lives in us still, though weakened by destiny and hardship. Look with your thoughts to the glory of heaven stretched out before you, feel in your breasts the love of Christ, in every beat of your heroic hearts, and move His will into your lim
bs. To seek, to love and never to yield! To die courageously and joyfully for our pledge to dedicate our lives to higher aims, Non nobis Domine, non nobis sed nomini Tuo da gloriam! In the name of our Lord Christ Jesus!’

  Each man stood then and raised his sword and cried out, ‘Not to us, our Lord, not to us but to Your name give glory!’

  Outside, the wind moved the trees and rattled the shutters. The world prepared for its summer sleep, but in the round room a winter of the soul awakened the men to their destiny.

  62

  JOURDAIN

  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

  St John 15:13

  Jourdain rang the bells for council and waited in the dead of night outside the chapel for Etienne to come. The air was cool with a breeze that promised to freshen. The moon for her part threw her silver mantle over the mountain of firs and over the castle, steadfast and true of purchase like an old hound.

  It was a good castle of the Order, built square of edge, solid and steep. He observed the great blocks of masonry that made up its walls, the fortified beams and blocks, and looked upwards to its shutters. It had withstood Turks and Mongols and it was good in a siege since the well was deep and clean and in it a secret passage had been built that led underground to a village far off. This day new soldiery had come from Vienna to fortify the few who were encamped beyond the walls. Jourdain wondered how this great castle would fare as a battleground of a different kind: Christian against Christian. He looked away from this with sorrow and anger and impotence in his heart.

  It was quiet now. Far better, he told himself, to look upwards to the thick moon that stood naked in her soft velvet bed – to look to Selene, daughter of the sun and the dawn.

  He was decided that of all the goddesses of the Greeks this one was his favourite since she cast her light upon all men without discrimination. Good man and bad, infidel and Christian; she shone as well in the gutter as she did upon the spirals of a cathedral! He smiled at that, and imagined her shining over Jerusalem, over the great dome of the Temple and the mount of the skull, upon which his Saviour was crucified. Such a thought filled him with longing. Their journey had taken them too far from holy soil.