The Seal (17 page)

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.

T
he 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!’