by James Becker
Mallory shook his head. “I don’t know that there was a lot they could have done. Although the Templar order was an extremely powerful military force, it was also quite well dispersed, with troops in Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and Cyprus. But even if Jacques de Molay had recalled all of his knights, it’s still unlikely that they could have resisted the French army for very long. Don’t forget that they were essentially guests in France, surrounded by enemy territory, and there was no way that any of the Templar fortifications could have resisted a siege, because the French would just have starved them out. In the circumstances, unless Jacques de Molay could somehow have ordered all the Templars to leave the country—and that’s something that certainly couldn’t have been achieved without King Philip noticing and doing his best to stop the exodus—they would just have had to stay and face the music.”
“But according to this, de Molay did actually do something to at least minimize the damage the mass seizures and arrests would cause to the order.”
She read out the next section of the translated text, which described how secret orders had been sent out by the grand master to his most senior knights during the late summer and early autumn of 1307. Those orders, according to the document they were studying, had given the most explicit instructions for the removal of the vast bulk of the coins, precious metals, and jewels that were held by the Knights Templar as security for their international banking activities.
The same instructions also specified what action should be taken to ensure the safety of the Templar archives, the vast collection of deeds and titles to properties located throughout Europe, which were ultimately far more valuable than the more conventional forms of treasure that the order held. Finally the document added, many of the more senior Knights Templar had been ordered to remove themselves from the various fortifications in France and do their best to avoid all contact with French troops. They were to leave the commanderies and preceptories as anonymously as possible, and certainly not while wearing any of the regalia by which the Templars were so easily recognized, but were also to ensure that they retained possession of their arms and armor and were to hold themselves in readiness for any summons that might be issued by the grand master. None of these instructions were to be questioned by the recipients, but were simply to be acknowledged verbally to the courier who had delivered them.
“It sounds like de Molay did as much as he could in the circumstances,” Mallory said. “There have been suspicions for a long time that the Templars did know about the impending raids at least a few weeks before they took place, but this is the first piece of contemporary documentary evidence I’ve heard of that actually confirms it. Whatever else we find when we’ve finished all the decoding, this piece of parchment is going to be a valuable addition to the information we have about the demise of the Templar order.”
“The other thing I’ve noticed about the way this text is written is that it’s describing events that took place sometime in the past,” Robin said. “I don’t believe that this parchment was prepared as early as 1307, but probably several months or maybe even years afterward. Obviously I can’t be sure about that, because the text itself is undated, but I get the feeling that the author was providing this as background information before going on to talk about something else. And I’m not even sure that it was written by a member of the Knights Templar.”
“You could be right about that. Not all of the most senior members of the order were literate—they were fighting men, not scribes—and in all probability what we’re looking at could well have been penned by a monk, possibly even by a member of the Cistercian order, acting on the verbal instructions of one of the senior Templars who had managed to escape. But I do think from what we’ve seen already that this information did come from the higher levels of the organization, from somebody who knew exactly what had gone on in the lead-up to October 1307.”
The next section provided an immediate confirmation of Robin’s deduction, because it described in harrowing detail what happened seven years later. Jacques de Molay and Geoffroi de Charney, the Templar preceptor of Normandy, had both confessed to whatever the Dominican monks who acted as the pope’s inquisitors had wanted them to say, and had been forced to do so by the most appalling and inhuman tortures. They had then been ordered to publicly renounce their heresy in Paris. In return for this very public and humiliating admission of guilt, Philip the Fair had agreed that they would spend the rest of their lives in prison, as a kind of “mercy” that would, in reality, be simply a lingering and singularly unpleasant death.
But on the day both de Molay and de Charney refused to obey their captors. On a scaffold that had been erected in front of Notre Dame, they instead proclaimed to the assembled multitude that both they personally and the order of the Knights Templar wholly and collectively were entirely innocent of any and all of the charges that had been leveled against them and to which they had confessed simply to relieve their agony in the torture chambers of the French king.
“They obviously both knew what was going to happen to them,” Robin said, after she’d read out the last translated sentence of the decrypted text. The calm and almost matter-of-fact way in which the events of 1314 had been described had sobered them both.
“Renouncing a confession meant that the two men were considered, in the eyes of both the Church and the law, to be relapsed heretics,” Mallory said quietly, “and they were immediately handed over by their Dominican jailers to the secular authorities for punishment. According to what I’ve read elsewhere, when the news was delivered to Philip the Fair he was incandescent with rage, and ordered the matter to be resolved without delay. For any relapsed heretic, there was only one suitable punishment, and no further trials or hearings were required.
“On the evening of that same day they were taken out to a small island in the river Seine, where a pile of wood had been hastily prepared and laid around a substantial wooden post. The two men were chained to this post and the fire lit beneath them. As a final sick refinement, the executioners had been ordered to use the driest wood they could find.”
Mallory paused for a moment and glanced across at Robin. She nodded for him to continue.
“In those days, death by burning included a number of refinements, some designed to be merciful and others the complete opposite. The bodies of some victims were burned, certainly, but they were actually dead before the fire was even started, because they were strangled, garroted, or stabbed by the executioner after a payment was made to him by either the victim or the condemned person’s family or friends.
“You have to remember that in most cases the executioner was not paid by the state or by whoever had authorized the death of the man or woman. Instead the victim was expected to pay the executioner’s charges. I know that sounds a bit sick, and in fact it is, but at least if the victim did hand over a bag of money, he or she could reasonably expect that death would be quick, even if it wasn’t painless. No payment, or not enough money offered, could mean that the executioner would take three or four blows to behead his victim, instead of one clean stroke with his ax or sword.”
Robin shuddered.
“I am thankful that I’m living in the present century,” she said. “This is fascinating, even if it is morbidly appalling. So some people were killed beforehand, that’s what you’re saying?”
“Yes. In other cases, a friend of the victim would stand somewhere near the fire and attempt to shoot him with a bow and arrow as soon as the fire had been started. That was dangerous for the person attempting it, because it was illegal: the victim was expected to suffer. There were also cases where a bag of gunpowder was hung around the neck of the condemned person, the idea being that it would explode when the flames reached it, but apparently this was only rarely successful. By the time the flames reached the powder, the victim would already be in agony, and there was a good chance that the gunpowder would simply flare up, possibly killing h
im quicker but making him suffer even more in the process. Tying the victim to the stake with ropes was also a kind of mercy, because when they burned through, he would probably collapse into the flames and die a little bit quicker.”
“You said for these two men that they were held in place with chains.”
“Yes. That would ensure that they would remain upright until the flames had consumed them, keeping them alive and in agony for the longest possible time. The use of dry wood was also calculated to prolong their suffering. If wet wood was used, it would produce clouds of smoke that would choke the victims possibly even before their flesh began to burn. But choosing dry wood ensured that they would literally be roasted alive, and that they would remain burning in the flames for perhaps as long as an hour.
“There was a case I read about in England during the Marian Persecutions—when Protestants were persecuted for their religious beliefs—where the condemned man suffered in the flames for some three-quarters of an hour, the gunpowder trick having failed to work, and for much of that time he was pleading with the onlookers to fan the flames of the fire so that his suffering would end all the quicker.”
When Mallory finished speaking, Robin was silent for a few moments, her eyes misty with unshed tears.
“You know,” she said finally, “I really believe that more atrocities have been perpetrated in the name of some organized religion than by every atheist and nonbeliever who has ever lived. I think you could argue that every religion is inherently evil, simply because of the way that committed believers absolutely know that they and they alone are right and therefore everybody else is wrong. It’s even happening today with militant Islam condemning everything that Christianity stands for, while equally militant Christians do precisely the same thing, condemning all Muslims.”
Mallory nodded.
“I have to confess,” he said, “that I can’t think of any recent atrocity perpetrated in the name of militant atheism. But you’re right. I can name dozens of horrendous acts of violence carried out by one group of believers against another group of people just because they didn’t happen to share those same beliefs. And that’s all they are: beliefs, not facts. It’s never about facts where religion is concerned. Anyway,” he added, “that was pretty much the end of the Knights Templar, at least as far as we know. Unless this parchment is going to tell us that somehow the order managed to survive, of course.”
“We’ll find out in a few minutes, I hope,” Robin said. “Wasn’t there some kind of curse made by Jacques de Molay on the day he died? Something about King Philip and the pope dying as well?”
Mallory shook his head. “There was a legend to that effect, yes, and it’s certainly true that Pope Clement died in April of the following year, 1315, after a long illness, and Philip the Fair died in November after falling from a horse, and those two unrelated events were probably the origin of the story. It looks as if the myth of the curse began in 1330 with an Italian writer named Feretto de Ferretis, but he stated that the curse was issued by an unidentified Knight Templar, not by de Molay. But in the mid–sixteenth century the French historian Paul Émile claimed that the words had been spoken by the last grand master himself.”
Robin was looking at Mallory with a puzzled expression on her face.
“What?” he asked.
“I asked you before,” she said, “but you never gave me an answer. How come you’re so knowledgeable about the Knights Templar? Most people probably know a bit about the order, but every time we talk about it you come up with chapter and verse. That’s more than just a casual interest.”
Mallory nodded and smiled at her, looking almost embarrassed.
“Two reasons,” he said. “In my spare time I’m writing—or I’m trying to write—a book about them, so I’ve got reams of information about the Templars on my computer that I’m trying to knock into some sort of order. And I’ve got a pretty good memory for facts.”
“That’s one reason,” Robin said. “What’s the other?”
Mallory looked uncomfortable.
“I’m going to keep that to myself for the moment,” he said. “It’s personal, and it’s something I’m still working on. Once I’ve resolved it, I promise I’ll tell you.”
Robin nodded. “Okay. I’ll hold you to that.”
“Anyway,” Mallory went on, “the other thing that does support what’s claimed in this parchment, about the order having been forewarned about the French plan, is that when Philip the Fair’s troops and officials gained access to the Paris preceptory of the Knights Templar to seize the treasure, they found that the cupboard was very largely bare. The same story was repeated at most of the other Templar establishments throughout France. The treasure Philip was hoping to grab simply wasn’t there, and the obvious implication is that the order knew about the impending raids and had already moved it to a place of safety.
“That’s one thing, and there’s also a problem with the numbers. In 1307, the Templars probably numbered well over fifteen thousand—some estimates have put the figure as high as fifty thousand—but only a few hundred Templars were actually arrested. The reality is that most of the order and the vast majority of its treasure and assets simply weren’t there when the seizures took place. I’ve always believed they had foreknowledge of what was going to happen, and it’s great that the text on this parchment confirms that. Of course, what we still don’t know is where the knights went, or what happened to their treasure.”
“Well, maybe that is the actual purpose of this piece of text, to explain that,” Robin suggested. “After all, what we’ve seen so far in this translation has been interesting but certainly not earth-shattering, and certainly not important enough information to have required the protection offered by that book safe. Perhaps this really is a written treasure map, and at the end of it we’ll find out exactly where to look.”
She said it with a smile, but there was just enough of a serious tone in her voice for Mallory to realize that she wasn’t joking. Or not entirely, anyway.
“Then we’d better get on with it and decode the rest,” he replied, “but I really don’t think we can do any more tonight. It’s nearly midnight, my brain hurts, and I can feel my eyes closing. And we need to decide about France. Are we going to cross the Channel and, if so, how?”
“Yes, I think we should visit the land of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. And tomorrow morning I’ll tell you how we’re going to get there.”
49
Southern England
They were up and having breakfast in the hotel’s dining room just after eight thirty the next morning, and were ready to leave by nine.
“You still think France is the best option?” Robin asked as they placed their bags in the trunk of the car a few minutes later. “I mean, if we just want to go to ground somewhere, what’s wrong with Wales, or Scotland, or even London? Sometimes the best place to hide is in a crowd.”
“Nothing,” Mallory admitted, “and we could still do that. But we now know for certain that that parchment is something to do with the Knights Templar, and that order began its life in France and was ultimately destroyed in France. We still have no idea what other secrets the text will reveal, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it involved some part of that country, and if we have to go further afield than that, it’s a whole lot easier to travel in Europe because of Schengen. There simply are no border controls anymore.”
Robin nodded.
“Right. In that case I need to make a phone call,” she said, and pulled out the cheap mobile she’d bought in the phone shop in Exeter. She checked a page in a small diary with a silver cover, tapped out the number on the keypad, and pressed the button to make the call.
She exchanged greetings with the man she’d called—Mallory gathered his name was Justin—and the conversation that followed seemed both inconsequential and pointless.
When she ended the call, she smiled
at Mallory.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“That was the man who’s going to help us get to France.”
“Your boyfriend?” Mallory felt a pang of jealousy as he asked the question.
“No. He’d like to be, but he’s a bit too much of a hooray Henry for my liking. Too much breeding, too much money, and too many teeth, but not enough brains or guts. He’s got a Porsche as well, as a matter of fact. Two of them, at the last count, plus an Aston and a selection of other high-priced automobiles. He owns most of the bits of Cornwall that Prince Charles doesn’t.”
Mallory felt unaccountably irritated that she’d called him, which didn’t make sense because he had no relationship with Robin Jessop other than having been unavoidably thrown together with her because of the book safe and the ancient manuscript.
“So, what’s he going to do?” he asked, somewhat sulkily.
“Not a lot, to be ruthlessly honest, but he will be lending us one of his assets.”
“What?”
“I’ll do better than tell you: I’ll show you. Let’s get on the road.”
Knowing how competent Robin was behind the wheel, Mallory would have been quite happy sitting in the passenger seat, but she simply shook her head when he offered her the keys.
“You drive,” she said. “I get bored if I have to stick to the speed limit.”
“Yes. I’ve noticed that,” he said. “Where to?”
Robin leaned forward and spent a minute or so programming the Citroën’s GPS.
“There you are,” she said, leaning back. “Now just do exactly what the nice lady in that box of electronic tricks tells you to do.”
“I don’t know if ‘nice lady’ is an accurate description,” Mallory replied. “All the women who live in GPSs sound horribly like one of my old schoolteachers, except that they don’t rap me over the knuckles with a ruler every time I take a wrong turn. They just tell me they’re recalculating the route, with a kind of weary resignation in their voices.”