“It has been a long time,” Montrovant said at last. “You have not changed much—you must have found another more willing than I soon after we left.”
She didn’t answer at first, and Jeanne was about to break his own silence and ask his sire just what the hell was going on, when she spoke.
“He found me. That is why I am here. He has sent me, and I am to bring you a message.”
Montrovant watched her, and Jeanne saw that he frowned. Something was wrong.
“Gwendolyn,” Montrovant said softly, “what has happened to you?”
As the realization of who they faced surfaced suddenly in Jeanne’s mind, along with a thousand questions he’d have liked to ask on his own, the first spark of emotion leaped into her eyes and she rose in a sudden, liquid motion.
“You know full well, and yet you did not warn me.” Her words were cold, distant. “You would have done this to me yourself, wouldn’t you? You would have let me become—this—without thought of anything but sating your own desires and hungers.
You have a poor memory,” Montrovant answered quickly. “I offered you nothing. You asked.
I would not have Embraced you—I would have fed and left you.”
“You lie,” she said without passion. She was mouthing the words, but there seemed to be nothing behind them. All emotion, even the sudden spark of anger that had filled her so completely a moment before, was gone.
“I have no need to lie,” Montrovant replied softly. “What would I gain by it? Who has done this to you, and why does he not keep you close by his side?”
She turned away, but she continued to speak. “He has no real need of companionship from one such as I. He took me because it interested him for the moment. His one fear is boredom.”
“Boredom?” Montrovant had grown very still, and the word rang out like a clap of thunder.
She turned to him, the slightest touch of curiosity burning in the deadened depths of her eyes.
“Kli Kodesh,” Jeanne breathed. Montrovant had said nothing. He had needed no words to convey the weight of emotion, anger, hatred and desire that the ancient’s name could invoke.
Gwendolyn was looking at Jeanne now, and the tiny spark of curiosity had been fanned to a flame.
“How do you know that name?”
“‘Our greatest enemy,’” Montrovant recited from memory, “‘is boredom. We must strive to keep things…interesting.’ So, Kli Kodesh has sent you to me. Does he know of our past? Was sending you here, to this very place, an amusing side note—a moment’s diversion? Have you truly fallen to that level?”
“I came because I wanted to,” she snapped, rising quickly to stand before Montrovant fearlessly.
“He has many others he could have sent. I knew it was you, and I asked that he let the message come through me. I did not know I would find you here, but I hoped it might be so.”
“Why?” Montrovant asked coolly. “All that happened here was a near mistake—something that was never meant to be. Why would you return to drag that bit of both of our pasts to the surfaces to haunt us?”
“I was fascinated with you then. I still am—haunted by the memory of you,” she answered truthfully. “You were a handsome creature, Montrovant. You still are. I thought that perhaps, if I came back here where it almost began for me, I could recapture some of whatever it was that made me pursue you in the first place.”
Feeling bold, Jeanne spoke up quickly. “Quite the coincidence, don’t you think? It is hard to believe that we just last night found ourselves drawn to this place, and you knew you would find us here. You must have waited here a long time?”
Montrovant turned a scathing glare on le Duc, but the point had been made. It was too much of a coincidence, and now the issue required clarification.
“I called you,” she said at last. “I sent images of that time, memories to draw you closer. He knows me, Montrovant. He owns me, and he knows me in ways no other ever has. He knew you would come, and he was right. He wanted us to meet here.”
“Because it was more interesting,” Montrovant finished, gritting his teeth so tightly that the sound of bone on bone was audible throughout the ruined city. “Always because it is more interesting.”
Gwendolyn let her chin fall to her chest, not denying it. Once again, it seemed, Kli Kodesh had manipulated Montrovant’s life, and consequently le Duc’s as well. Once again he had drawn them back into a game in which they couldn’t even discern the elder’s stake.
“Give me the message.” Montrovant’s voice was cold and distant, and le Duc watched him anxiously. Without a word she rose, moving closer and reaching beneath the folds of her robe. She drew forth a rolled parchment, very official looking. Montrovant took it, staring at it as if it were a serpent, poised to strike. It was obvious that he didn’t want to read it. It was equally obvious that he could not resist the urge.
With a sudden snarl he ripped free the ribbon that bound it and unrolled it before him. Le Duc watched Montrovant’s face for signs of what the message contained, but his sire’s features revealed nothing. Not the slightest hint of emotion transited his face. He scanned the contents of the scroll quickly, returned his gaze to the top and read it all again slowly. Without speaking, he rerolled the parchment and tucked it absently under his belt.
Le Duc stole a glance at Gwendolyn. She was paying no attention to Montrovant, lost in her own world of depression and disappointment. He could read nothing there. Perhaps she didn’t even know what message she carried, or care. He returned his gaze to Montrovant.
“There will be a slight change in our plans,” Montrovant said suddenly. “We will be traveling to France. It seems that old obligations beckon to us both.”
The questions must have risen to Jeanne’s eyes, because Montrovant continued immediately.
“It is from Kli Kodesh. De Molay is in trouble—the Church has declared some sort of holy war on the Templars—they’ve been outlawed.”
“Why the sudden concern for our ‘brethren’?” Jeanne asked. “We’ve traveled long years without mentioning them at all. I thought when we left de Payen and the others behind, that it would be the end of it.”
“As did I,” Montrovant agreed, turning to stare off into the shadows. “It seems that others have not been as lax in their relations with the Temple. Kli Kodesh tells me that certain treasures—artifacts once kept beneath the ruins of the Temple of Solomon—have been moved into de Molay’s Keep. They are in danger of falling into the hands of the king’s men, or worse, the Church. Once again, he has turned to me in a time when he cannot reach what he seeks.”
“Cannot,” Jeanne mused, “or finds it more amusing not to? Can you trust him?”
“I cannot afford not to trust him. We have no leads. If we must return to the Templars to complete our journey, so be it. I formed them, and I should be there at the end.”
“There are others.” Gwendolyn spoke up softly, but she grabbed their attention with her words. “You are not the only ones. The knights you left in Jerusalem are not the knights you will find in France.”
“What do you mean?” Jeanne asked quickly.
“They are dark. There are those among them who meddle with powers they have no business seeking. It is part of why they are being destroyed. They brought it on themselves.”
Montrovant frowned. He tried to imagine the tall, powerful Hugues de Payen, or the slight, angular Pierre, who had been his companion, engaged in dark rites. The image would not come, it was too preposterous.
Guessing his thoughts, Gwendolyn continued. “They are not the men you knew, Montrovant. They are generations beyond, and they have taken in teachers to aid them. The Church did not hold the answers they sought.”
“So many years,” le Duc mused. “Could it have all changed so very much?”
“Change is the only constant in the universe,” Montrovant replied. To Gwendolyn he said, “If what you speak is the truth, then there is less time than I first suspected. We must move out now. A
re you planning on traveling back with us, or are you just a messenger these days?”
Her eyes blazed. “I do as I wish. Perhaps I will travel with you for a while. I want to see what it is that I’ve been missing all these years.”
Montrovant held his silence, moving to ready his mount. Le Duc watched Gwendolyn for a moment longer. Her gaze trailed after Montrovant’s retreating form, and for just an instant, he thought he saw a deep, haunting longing in the depths of her eyes. As the moon rose to her full splendor in the sky, three shadowed forms disappeared down the side of the mountain and into the plain beyond. The darkness swallowed them slowly, and the ruined village was left to its silence and its solitude.
PART TWO
FIVE
The walls of the keep of Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, stretched up toward the mountain at its back. The towers were manned and the ramparts patrolled incessantly. No hostile force had yet made an advance on the keep, but it was only a matter of time and death: the death of their brothers.
Those on the wall had heard the tales. There were others joining their ranks daily, refugees from the cities and provinces beyond their own. The stories were grim, mumbled and cursed through trembling lips or cried angrily over too many flagons of wine.
King Philip had ordered them all to be seized. They were to be tried as heretics and devil-worshipers and tortured until they confessed. There was talk of demons and secret orders within their ranks, but to most of those not closely associated with de Molay and his advisors, the stories were insanity. They were a holy order, dedicated to Christ. They had fought and died from France to the Holy Land and back. If any were insane, the refugees muttered into their drinks, it was Philip and his men.
There were those in the Church who resented the Templars for various reasons: their wealth, their influence. The arm of the order was far-reaching and quick to react to political and economic changes. This had won them a great deal of power, but it had earned an equal part of enemies, and it would appear those enemies were more powerful than any of them had imagined.
Philip in particular had resented their power, and it was his resentment, in the end, that had become their undoing. The Church had turned on them as well. In the beginning the two entities, Templars and Church, had complemented one another perfectly. The Vatican had wanted an army of its own, one that was beholden to no particular lord or king save Christ. This was the order that Hugues de Payen had envisioned, warrior monks dedicating their lives to keeping the Holy Lands free and protecting the followers of Christ. A noble intent.
Things had changed. As the refugees continued to arrive, the stories that had driven them from their homes took on new and frightening proportions. Dark figures prowled the passageways of the keep, and there were chambers and passages in the tunnels below that were off limits to all but the Grand Master and his most trusted aides. An aura of dread, of ancient evil and corruption, rested just beneath the surface of the place. Whispered rumors fluttered among the ranks like phantom birds, never quite coming to rest in reality, but watching and hovering just out of reach.
Once-proud warriors tracked the movements of trusted comrades warily. Sullen stares replaced ready smiles. Their lives crumbled about them, and the rot that ate them away appeared strongest at the core.
Along with the refugees, the treasure of the order had piled into de Molay’s vaults. As secretly as possible, and more quickly than the nobles of the combined empires of Europe could have imagined, the exodus unfolded. Documents, gold, jewels, objects of power, everything and anything that contributed to the infrastructure of power that was the Templars had been gathered in one place, leaving only husks and questions behind for those who came to destroy and desecrate. They had been ordered to disband, but there was no way that the spirit of something so grand could be wiped easily or completely from the Earth.
They would endure. Through secret meetings and traditions they would survive, possibly to see both Church and empire in ashes. The question in many of their minds, as they assimilated the situation in the keep and searched for their own answers, was what would survive. What were the secrets being sought so desperately by their leaders, and would they ultimately improve, or corrupt? Who was to say? For the moment they were stuck with time alone as a companion and mystery for a bedfellow. Jacques de Molay could have answered their questions, and there were others who might as well, but none were speaking, and Philip drew nearer every day, death in his heart and the Church at his back. It was a time of darkness, and the word that spread was despair.
The chamber was dark, so dark that the only way that the men gathered before Santos could see to find their places in the room was by following whoever was directly in front of them, and by staring into the indistinct shadows thrown by a single candle. The candle flickered just out of sight in an alcove, its eerie dancing light reflecting dully off the rough surface of the stone. There were no missed steps, despite the close quarters and lack of light. It was a practiced ritual—a bonding of the energy of many to the will of a single man.
Santos watched them in grim silence, waiting for someone to make a mistake. He was particularly fond of torturing those who erred in the ritual. It had been some time since he’d had that pleasure. Behind him the altar stood, covered in black velvet carefully embroidered with symbols and designs only he fully understood. He’d taught secrets to a select few of his followers, but none of them had enough knowledge to make them any real danger to any but themselves. Santos had been more careful here than anywhere else he’d called home in the long years of his existence. In those previous years, he’d carried out his duties, providing the service he’d been created to provide. He’d had no reason to be bitter.
Things had changed. He had not laid eyes on the treasures he was created to guard in far too many years…had not held them or traced their ancient lines with his withered fingers. Despite his best efforts and the powers and tools available to him, the ancient known as Kli Kodesh had managed to evade him. He had found it necessary to take steps that would set wheels in motion, and such steps were never without danger. He’d lived for many years in a great many places, and there were those who would recognize his hand in this if he weren’t careful.
Now the men gathered before him knelt in silence. Each wore a brown robe that rose to cover his head with a copious hood. Each moved in careful, precise motions. Energy was precious. That lesson they had all learned. It was never to be wasted. Only so much energy was allotted to each of them, and the wise use of that energy was the only worthy task that lay before them. To waste it would be a sin.
It was amazing how easily these men had allowed their understanding of sin to be manipulated and warped. If asked, each would claim to be a God-fearing man. As a unit, they were the most awesome fighting force in Europe: the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, the Templars.
Santos allowed himself the briefest flicker of a smile. If Bernard, the fiery-speaking, weak-armed “saint” who’d organized them into an army could see them now, it would be a sight worth traveling for. If Montrovant, whose actions were so different from others of his kind…more enigmatic, more arrogant, even, than the elders Santos had known—so different that even his own brothers called him the Dark One, whose meddling had caused the loss of everything that Santos held dear—if that one could see them, he’d be equally shocked, though probably less displeased. It was a singular point of satisfaction to come to this place and warp what they’d created. It was poor revenge for the loss he’d suffered, but at least it was something to concentrate on.
Before him, nearly prostrate, knelt Jacques de Molay. Of them all, de Molay was most eager to learn. It was de Molay who had fought for Santos’s admission to the order as a teacher and counselor. It was de Molay who had shielded Santos’s actions, and later his own and those of his followers, from the Church. De Molay bought Santos time, and though time was not something Santos was in dire need of, the peace and quiet that accompanied it were a welcome resp
ite.
Santos had rebuilt his strength and renewed his search for what Kli Kodesh had stolen from him. He now had the resources of the Templars in his hands, given to him in return for certain teachings and small powers, insignificant, but impressive to the uninitiated. So quickly they forgot. He’d not even changed his name, though he’d dropped the “Father” in the name of good sense. As Father Santos, he’d come close to ending their order before it had truly been launched. It hadn’t been that many generations since those events, and yet it seemed that the newer members of the order knew nothing of him, and those old enough to remember had forgotten, or did not care. Montrovant had left them, and de Payen was dead. Power was something they all sought, and Santos was able to provide it, albeit at his own pace.
He shook off the weight of memory and closed his eyes, bringing his hands up before him and clasping them tightly. He let his head fall back until his long dark hair brushed the back of his robe and his eyes pointed directly to the heavens. His lips opened, and he began to chant, softly at first, but gaining in volume and intensity as each syllable rolled out over the room.
Other voices joined his almost immediately. None of them knew the entire chant, but each had his own part to resonate, echoing words and cadences. Hands clapped in subtle rhythms that integrated themselves into the whole of the sound. They were not ready yet, but soon. He only had a few more lessons to teach, and they would be able to complete the ritual. It had been many years since that portal of energy and knowledge had been open to him, and he felt the elation building within him. So much power to have been denied.
Images crowded his mind suddenly, images from his past. He saw the tunnels beneath the Temple of Solomon in quick flashes. He saw Montrovant’s burning, arrogant eyes and the steadfast, righteous countenance of Hugues de Payen. Other faces surfaced. The confrontation beneath the city with the Nosferatu, Kli Kodesh and his insolent, insane smirk. The treasures, now lost, all but one. He saw the Earth as it had been, falling away from him. He heard the true name of the buzzard as it had rung through his mind, felt the powerful wings that had borne him upward, the head clutched tightly in talons that gripped like steel clamps. He saw Montrovant, his puny shadow form fluttering helplessly behind. Too late and too slow to prevent Santos’s escape. An ending, and a beginning.
To Speak in Lifeless Tongues: Book 2 of the Grails Covenant Trilogy (The Grails Covenant Triloty) Page 5