The Seal (18 page)

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 he? 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?’

‘Well . . . I
suspect . . . death, sire?’

‘Yes, one would
suspect death, quite naturally, but would it astonish you to know that in a
dying creature’s eyes I see the secrets of existence? Wide milky valleys and
fields of low hedges.’ He looked out of his window. ‘I see harvests, forests,
snow! The wild liveliness of being and the fragility of living things! The
nobility of battle, the last remnants of strength, the honour of exhaustion
without yield. All of it mirrored to me from the profundity of the eyes!’ Philip
searched for surprise.

The lawyer moved
his face accordingly. ‘Surely a holy communion, sire?’

‘Yes . . . but
what has it taught me, Nogaret? That is the point.’ Philip sat back, patting
his animals. ‘What has it taught me?’

The lawyer
waited for elucidation.

‘It has taught
me how to act according to the nature of beasts. I have learnt from the fox and
from the lion how to frighten off the wolves and how to recognise traps, how to
keep myself alive . . . This is a most efficacious learning for a king,
wouldn’t you agree?’

‘There is no
doubt, sire, that such a learning is most profitable.’

Philip fell into
his thoughts and his eyes took on a vague expression. ‘Now in man . . . it is
rather a different matter.’

The lawyer made
a sneeze. ‘It is, sire?’ he said after collecting himself.

‘Yes, Nogaret.
In a man there lies
something else! Have you never plunged a dagger into a heart, or a lung,
Nogaret?’ He moved his eyes over the lawyer and waited.

He paused to think.
‘Well, sire, I –’

Philip
interrupted him, ‘Mark my words, Nogaret, if you are in the right frame of mind
when it is done, that is, if you are awake to it as the life is drained away,
then something else is revealed. Deeper secrets . . . secrets that are hidden
in a man’s soul are laid bare, secrets that exist only in the blood of a man
and not in the blood of a beast. Is that not marvellous?’ He paused and stared
then at Nogaret with unblinking eyes.

The lawyer
yielded his own in acquiescence. ‘Most marvellous!’

‘Mark my words,
Nogaret, such a knowledge is a valuable thing . . . but you might ask in what
way is it valuable?’

‘Yes, sire, that
is . . . perplexing me.’

The King’s gaze
broke and he drew into himself, debating the wisdom of divulging his splendid
secret. He paused a moment and made his resolve. ‘Listen now and don’t ask me
how I have come to know it . . .’

The lawyer moved
in a little closer, careful to stay clear of the dogs, whose eyes followed him,
as if he were a hare painted in blood.

‘What do you
know of demons, Nogaret?’ the King asked with quiet concentration.

‘Demons, sire?’

‘Yes, what do
you know of them?’

The lawyer held
Philip’s eye and blinked. ‘They are the Devil’s spawn.’

Philip narrowed
his. ‘Ahh . . . but the Devil may yet serve the King and therefore God,
Nogaret, that is the point.’ He paused, calculating his lawyer’s understanding.
‘Do you find this strange?’

‘Well . . . sire
. . . I have not heard tell of it.’ Nogaret cleared his throat and fidgeted with
his parchments.

‘You have heard
tell how every man has his demon? It is true, Nogaret, there are demons inside
us . . . inside all of us. We are stuffed full of them.’

‘Full of
demons?’ Nogaret shifted and blinked and shifted again.

Philip was happy
to cause discomfort. ‘To the brim full of them! Now here is the point –
we can use this to our purposes, in the case of the Templars.’

The lawyer
appeared to be struck dumb.

Philip made his
voice pleasant. ‘Come, are you not going to ask in what way, Nogaret?’

Guillaume de
Nogaret bent his eyes in deference. ‘If I may, sire, in what way shall such a
secret be used?’

‘We must first
induce a stupor.’

‘A stupor.’

‘In the
Templars.’

‘A stupor in the
Templars, sire.’

‘Stop repeating
everything I say!’ the King thundered. ‘Really, Nogaret! That is becoming a
habit!’ He took a moment to wind in his fierceness. ‘I was saying? Yes, the
torture must be heavily applied and without mercy, so that the soul begins to
leave the body and this, in turn, draws those demons that lie hidden from life
and they make themselves manifest in the sweat or the heat vapour.’

‘In the sweat,
sire?’

‘Yes . . . and
they surface to the tongue which then speaks demonic words. You might ask why
this is so?’

‘Yes, sire, that
was my next question.’

‘Well . . . have
you never seen a man possessed?’

Nogaret gave a
shake of the head and a dull expression crossed his face. ‘Not recently, sire.’

‘No? Well then,
men who are possessed merely have the evil in their souls unchecked. They lose
hold of it, Nogaret, and the evil becomes master . . . It is the same in
torture, you see? When a man is in the deepest pain he loses mastery over
himself and all that works and weaves within the dark corners of the soul is
let loose and is given rein!’

Nogaret
squinted, to see it.

‘Evil, Nogaret,
can be conjured up like one conjures a spark from a flint stone and this we
must do in the case of the Templars. When their pain has caused them to lose
the battle with their wits and the evil is called up, then we must take care
that the right questions are asked of them so that we are given the correct
responses. A catechism of sorts . . . do you follow?’ He looked at his lawyer
for a sign of understanding. ‘Inquisitors know such things.’

‘Do they, sire?’
The lawyer seemed hard-pressed to put two and two together.

‘Of course,
Nogaret! Though sometimes they torture with too much enthusiasm and inevitably
lose their prize.’ He sat back. ‘So far, what do you make of it?’

‘Well, sire,
that we are to use demons to conjure up answers to inculpate the Order.’ The
lawyer put a lace cloth to his brow.

The King gave
him a half-glance, caught up in the grandeur of his plan. ‘Yes by all means!’
He ate a sugared fruit with relish. ‘Does it fascinate you?’

Nogaret cleared
his throat and gave an uncertain nod. ‘Thoroughly, your Majesty, my only
concern . . . is that . . . it may be . . . in some way . . . impious.’

‘Impious?’

‘The Church may
look upon it as . . . sorcery, sire.’

The King sat up
again, much struck by this. ‘This is a new thing, Nogaret! Since when have you
been so concerned for the opinions of the Church? Was your grandfather not a
heretic?’

There was a
moment of unease.

‘Yes, your
Majesty.’

‘Yes, yes, he
was! And you saw him burn to cinders!’

Nogaret’s face
became the colour of bone left out in the sun and his fists were clenched,
Philip noticed, twisting and crushing the parchments he held in his hands.

Philip’s
expression turned to solemn sympathy. ‘Now, now, dear Nogaret, don’t fret, I
hold your heresy in high esteem! It is a comfort to me! Think how your hate has
served me. How many men would look excommunication in the eye? How many would
dare to kidnap a pope or to dispatch another to the upper rooms of heaven? Your
manipulation of the curia in the election of Clement was a brilliant exercise
in political deceit. Mark my
words,
it shall go down
in history as a fine accomplishment! But my point is this, Nogaret, that I
begin to believe that there are moments when remorse breaks through the surface
of your contentment, like a fish breaks still water, and creates a ripple . .
.’He sat forward again, full of interest. ‘Am I right? Remorse and perhaps fear
for your immortal soul?’

The lawyer
looked his sovereign in the eye. ‘I was only thinking –’

The King shook a
finger at him. ‘Come.’ He smiled feeling a glorious chill. ‘Indulge me, your
Royal Highness is curious.’

‘My only
purpose, sire,’ Nogaret said to him, ‘is to give selfless devotion to the
state. I am its instrument and it is my duty to have no consideration for just
or unjust, for merciful or cruel, praiseworthy or disgraceful, pious or
impious, my every scruple must be set aside to secure it.’

‘Oh then . . .
not through love for me are these excellent things accomplished?’

‘I beg your
leave, sire, but you are, if I may say, the state.’