The Seal (25 page)

What do they see
in me – fleeting madness?

He was light in
the head and about to fall down.

If they could but
know my mind!

Bartholomew,
anxious to return to matters at hand, continued more shaken than before. ‘What
shall remain of us, Brother Marcus, when you leave this night?’

Marcus’s mouth
gave a twitch. ‘We have never been more alone, Bartholomew, and there is no
place in the soul to give rest to the heart. What remains of us? I do not
know.’

I
t began to snow as they
came upon the plateau. That afternoon, after a restless sleep, they had eaten
before riding a
track which ran amongst a thicket of trees
heavy with snow
bordered by low rock mounds. Ahead rode Gideon, at the
rear Delgado. In between, Jourdain and Etienne urged their horses, climbing
slowly until they ascended the plateau. Now and again through the trees they
saw a distant plain below and, further off, mountains that stretched to the
north-east
. The dying sun through grey cloud was made pale
and bruised, leaving no shadows over the snow.

This land was
wide and deep and hung with mystery. Wolves called over the ancient ground and
there was a feeling of melancholy that went deep into the soul.

The going had
been slow travelling the indirect route that took them to the seaward extremity
of France, steering them always northwards from the cities and villages in
their path. The days had grown to months, and more than a year had passed since
they had left Poitiers. No word had reached them of the fate of the Order since
they were removed from the world, and had no traffic with it.

Now, following
the route laid out by the Grand Master, they pressed on as a light fall of snow
began to cover the ill-used road that led to a house of the Order. What they
would find there, Etienne did not know, but the road was quiet and they had met
no challenge, and so he laid a hope on the thought that in these far-off lands
things might remain for a time as they had been. This made him more at ease and
he looked down at the seal upon his finger, noting that it was not full of
tempers,
it was quiet and did not tempt him to look upon it.

‘What direction
is this?’ Jourdain asked him.

Etienne sniffed
the air. ‘North of east,’ he said. ‘In the distance there is the village. The
house is not far from here, we will not reach it before nightfall.’

‘You know that
by sniffing the air?’ Jourdain said with a voice full of mischief

‘I shall not
tell you my secrets.’

‘Well these lands
have enough secrets for you and me, that is certain. Days ago we passed a
country south of here, known of old as the dying place of the great king,
Dagobert.’

Etienne raised
his brows. ‘Is that so? Dagobert?’

‘He was a great
Merovingian king, who was pierced with a lance while resting under a tree.’

Etienne lifted
his face to the falling snow. It felt
good
, that
coolness on his eyelids. ‘Is there nothing you do not know, Jourdain? What is
this Merovingian, then?’

Jourdain smiled
again.
‘A line of kings.
Dagobert was the last of this
line, so it is said. Godefroy de Bouillon, the defender of the Holy Sepulchre,
was a descendant of his. Some even tell that this line extends to the Holy Land
from the blood of Jesus himself.’

‘And you believe
this?’

‘I believe that
our Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed himself upon a cross and shed his blood. It
unites us, each one, though we are not born of the same mother. That is what I
believe.’

Etienne gave him
a significant look. ‘Lineage of blood, Jourdain, is something left over from
past times and will soon come to an end.’ He looked ahead. ‘Our Order considers
all men brothers who give their life to Christ’s purposes and his Holy
Sepulchre, regardless of blood.’

‘I am thankful
for that.’

‘The same as I.’
Etienne noticed, in the dimming day, an expression in the young eye. ‘What’s
wrong?’

‘When you speak
of the Holy Sepulchre, it makes a picture in my mind of the Holy Land and how
it must seem. I suspect it is beautiful to behold!’

Etienne pictured
it in his mind’s eye. ‘It is hot and cold, beautiful but not as you would
imagine beauty. It is the spirit in that land that makes it so, not wide green
valleys and lush trees and fair rivers. Once I travelled with the Commander of
Sidon upon a galley to Athlit. I could not believe the beauty of it. There are
vineyards and orchards and olive groves. Fig trees that give the biggest and
sweetest fruit you have ever tasted, and there is camphor and myrrh and
rosemary so that the scents from the land are sensed even upon a galley far off.
Such a place gives a man the desire to stay to tend the land in his old age and
see the sun dawn over the same rise one day after another.’ He paused then,
having bewildered himself since he realised that this world he imagined was
doomed, if not now, certainly tomorrow, and he was not likely to meet old age
but expected to die the seal’s watchdog in some corner of the world unknown to
him. He settled this into his heart like a steel band and made a nod to make
sure it would not unfasten. It made him snatch a breath.

‘I should like
to see this barren beauty with my own eyes!’ Jourdain gave the horse a pat and
the animal twitched its ears and continued its walk as if Jourdain were but an
irritating flea upon its back. ‘Jerusalem seems to me like a woman, like Mary –
the womb of heaven, the beloved of Solomon’s songs!’ He gave a laugh sitting
high in his saddle with the dying day’s worth of snow upon his face.

When he looked
like that, Etienne was hard-pressed to see the Jourdain who, with sword in one
hand and shield in the other, was like a device made to kill.

‘Solomon was a
wise man,’ Etienne told him. ‘He saw the great mother, Sophia, in all women . .
. his Temple was a fine thing, we are told, before it was torn down too many
times to recount. What remains in Jerusalem is no more than a heathen shrine.’

Jourdain sat
straight. ‘Tell me more about the Temple, Etienne.’

Etienne found it
a strange thing to be instructing Jourdain, and it made him smile to himself.
‘It was built over a great rock which is revered by the Jews and also the
Saracens who know it as the centre of the earth. Here is something you might
not know; the mount upon which it stands is said to have been held in the mouth
of the serpent Tahum, and that it formed the intersection of the underworld . .
. at least that is what they tell.’

Jourdain thought
about this. ‘I have heard something of that, that Jerusalem is the centre of
the world. A place that Christian, Jew and Saracen all consider holy because of
Abraham. Where man and God come together . . . And the Ark of the Covenant,
Etienne, was it a promise or a real thing?’

‘Perhaps one and
the other . . . Perhaps the ark is a picture of the human being whose number
and measure is like the Temple – a vessel wherein are held the laws of
the universe and man’s covenant with God.’

‘A fine picture,
Etienne!’ Jourdain said, slapping his thigh with enthusiasm. ‘Man, the image of
the heavens in number and measure, and within him a promise with God to follow
the commandments!’

Etienne could
not help but give a laugh. ‘When we speak we seem to stew things down to
nothing! Is that what philosophers do?’

‘I am sure of
it!’

It was near dark
and the trees made a canopy over their heads.

Etienne had more
to say. ‘But you have almost got it right.’

‘Almost?’
Jourdain’s voice was full of amazement.

‘Almost,’ said
Etienne, happy to once again have the boy on the edge of his saddle. ‘These
commandments are laws that work upon us from without. The covenant was the
promise that men would follow these commandments and in the same spirit do we
follow our rule. But it is my feeling that it shall, some day, be time for a
new covenant, a law that comes from the heart . . .’

There was
silence for a time. Gideon ahead of them was fast becoming a shadow draped in a
fading world. All around them quiet hung like a wall.

Jourdain dug his
chin into his cloak; something was bothering him. ‘You say that a law must come
from within . . . each man will feel such a law differently . . . What I
wonder, then, is how faith can remain the same when all men follow different
rules.’

‘Faith is a
living thing, Jourdain, that moves and weaves in the soul and so is never the same
from man to man. It is not

always
held by habit and cannot be fixed by a rule.’

Jourdain pulled
a frown over his features. ‘I can see that, Etienne, that faith alters from man
to man . . . but it seems to me that if a man does not know what harbour he is
making for, no wind is the right wind. When there is no law to follow, faith
becomes disordered. Perhaps because of it God shall not continue to have faith
in us.’

Etienne could
hear an old longing that seemed to him ill placed in the tone of that youthful
voice.

How could the
boy think differently, he asked himself, when he was like a speck in the wind
that knows nothing of its destination or the reason for its movement?

‘Why should our
faith remain in the same position, Jourdain? When the ground has moved from
beneath us, and we have no rule, it is natural that our faith shall lose its
place until it finds a handhold to balance itself and return to where it once
stood. In my estimation it shall take time for that inner voice to replace the
outer one, and when it does it will lend us a footfall when the world is in
confusion and there are no rules left to us.’ Etienne gave a weary smile.
‘God’s faith in his children, on the other hand, is a thing solid and steadfast
and needs no floor upon which to rest. At least, that is what we must hope.’

Etienne saw
something then that made him pause, and his animal paused also, unsure of its
master’s desire.

There was a
whistle from Delgado behind the group, who, confronted by the sudden and
unexpected standstill, pulled the reins in time to prevent a collision

‘Hey!’ he said.

But there was
something to Etienne’s silence and strange pause that made all men look in the
direction of his gaze.

The trees moved
against the breeze-blown snow. Shadows stirred the darkness and something else
besides the tree limbs above and to the left of their track. Etienne urged his
horse past Jourdain and Gideon to a place almost disguised by trees and
dimness. He let go the reins, retrieved the knife from his boot and reached for
the sword over his shoulder. Everything was still, save the sleet falling about
the ears.

The men followed, quiet and watchful.

Etienne
stretched the long blade in the air until it touched something.

There were a
dozen that he could see, perhaps more, swinging from the trees, naked, like
limbs without leaves, or so they had at first looked to him. Wisps of snow fell
over them. In the gloom what was seen most clearly were the crosses . . .

Painted over the
pale flesh of the breasts in blood.

E
tienne
stirred a foot with his sword, dangling as though it were decoration, and
sniffed the air around it. ‘Fresh killed,’ he said. ‘Today.’
He
fidgeted his horse forward
,
Jourdain followed him
.
He motioned for Gideon and Delgado to bring up the rear. With Jourdain close
behind, Etienne surveyed the darkening thicket, the tangled, matted mass of
vines and brambles and trees and snow coming down. He listened to that
unnatural quiet, wherein he heard the snapping of twigs under the hoofs of the
horses and the straining of the jaw in the ears – listening, straining to
listen. Then it came.

From out of the trees, no more than shapes.

‘
Desperte ferre
!’ he heard from the
Catalan and there was no time to call out ‘Beauseant’, only to fend off a
shadow that, bearing down at him on one side, made him push with an out-throw
of strength that sucked the breath from his lungs. He turned around and raised
the sword as the figure came up. ‘I will fight!’ he shouted, letting it fall
through the head and to the breastbone. As the body collapsed Etienne undertook
to tug the weapon free but he was struck by a blow to the shoulder and, having
lost his balance, was forced to follow his weapon –
stuck
as it was in the body of his enemy – downward from his horse and into the
darkness. He landed on the hilt awkwardly, driving it into his side and the
blade into the ground at the other end.