The Seal (33 page)

There was silence.
The King moved around Iterius now, like an animal circling its prey. ‘I do not
see what you promised me on your arrival at the gates. I am not rich, I have no
advantage and I am yet to see the destruction of those accursed heretics
– those heinous, cowardly heretics, those bestial knights of the Temple
who have deprived me of my material possessions! I am beginning to think you a
creature of grand promises and little talent! I have no use for debased
currency.’ He hooked a finger under the Egyptian’s cap and sent it flying from
his head.

The astrologer
stood perfectly still. On his face was made plain the knowledge that this was
not a good day. ‘If I may, sire,’ he pleaded, ‘I know something that shall calm
your nerves . . .’

From a crucible
he secured a handful of gold dust that he allowed
to escape
through his fingers into the atmosphere of the dark room. The gold danced in
the pale green light and this observation seemed to calm the King.

Philip moved
closer and a little quiver of excitement ran through him like a ripple in a
pond. He placed his hand in the way of the falling specks, letting them run
through his fingers, and this filled him with a memory, a dark memory full of
blood and death. He knew this peak of bliss was destined to vanish and die, and
leave him nothing but his unholy and abysmal spirit for comfort, and so he
grabbed the Egyptian by the wrist. The man let go the crucible to the ground,
causing gold dust to gloss the stone tiles. ‘Do not hex me!’ he cried in a low
voice, his grip tightening until there was an imprint of blood where a sharply
manicured nail had dug into the brown flesh.

‘It usually wins
your esteem, sire,’ Iterius gave back, his face flushed.

‘This day it
inflames me with an aversion!’ He let go of the hand and found a low chair on
which to drop his long and angular body.

The Egyptian
wiped the blood from his wrist and reached across the various articles on the
table to bring forth a blue vial, which he took to the King. The King looked at
him full of boredom and irritation. ‘What do you have now?’

Iterius fell to
the ground once again before Philip; he did not look up but held the vial out
above his head. ‘My King . . .

your
loyal servant has something for you . . .’

The King looked
at it. ‘What is it?’

‘It is a
draught. But not like the others . . . something special . . . something . . .
potent . . . I have been labouring on your
behalf,
see
how I have been labouring? One swallow is all you need, sire.’

Philip took the
vial and sniffed beneath its lid. ‘What is in it?’

‘It is a
concoction whose ingredients are the powdered tongue of a hanged man, snake oil
and mushrooms.’

‘Powdered
tongue! Mushrooms? Snakes?’ The King eyed him with suspicion. ‘Stand up! I have
taken much that you have made . . . but . . . this? Why should I drink such a
brew? Perhaps you are trying to poison me?’

‘Sire!’ Iterius
took his time to stand. ‘I have no other purpose left to me but to serve you.’

The King thought
on it and could not help a laugh. ‘That is true.’

‘Ours has been a
great association, my King,’ the Egyptian soothed, ‘since many lives before
this life. Remember your dream, sire, which foretold my arrival? How it told of
our brotherly bond made sure and fast through the blood of men? Such a dream is
powerful and cannot be denied. You knew I would come and I did not disappoint
you. Now you will trust the dream again, because without me . . . you will not
learn . . . the secrets.’

‘What does it
do, then, this concoction?’

‘It is an
ancient
brew,
the mushrooms are magical and are known
to induce visions. The ancient Jews used such mushrooms to bring about ecstasies
and images of other worlds.’

The King made a
twist of the nose. ‘And this tongue of the hanged . . . what is it for?’

‘It connects
you, sire, with the world of the dead from which something shall speak to you.’

He thought of
all the hunted creatures, the trophies of his soul. ‘The dead shall speak to
me?’

‘Something more
potent than the dead, sire, shall speak to you, and I shall decipher the
meaning of its words. You may not be able to interrogate the Templars, but you
shall know all that you desire to know.’

The King
narrowed one eye. ‘How is this astonishing deed accomplished then?’

‘The draught
shall open your soul to a higher spirit! A terrifying, cruel and ingenious
spirit!’ Iterius said. ‘A spirit known to you of old, and from whom you have
learnt much. This spirit shall illuminate for you the secrets of the Templars.’

‘Get to the
point!’ he thundered. ‘From whence comes this spirit?’

‘From other times, long ago, when human beings knew more concerning
magic.
This spirit shall tell you, sire, what
has made the Templars so powerful . . . how to command the power over living .
. . and . . . and . . . dying things.’

The King was
astonished. ‘They know this?’

‘Yes, sire, of
course! How else could they become so powerful in so short a time? It is
magic!’

‘Sorcery?’

‘As surely as
Paris is the centre of the world, sire.’

‘I hit it on the
nose then?’ Philip marvelled. ‘And I did not even know it!’ He grew sceptical.
‘But if they know magic, why did they not use it to save themselves?’

‘Because, sire,
they have forgotten the secret.’

The King paused,
thinking this contradiction through. ‘And this draught will tell me how it is
to be found, this secret?’

‘You must drink,
sire, begin to commune. Soon there shall be a coincidence of the nodal lines of
Venus and Uranus, a con-junction in the descending nodes, which shall bring about
the forces that are tied to the aphelion of the earth. When these great
conjunctions and oppositions, one near the descending node of Saturn, and
another between the descending node of Neptune and the Perihelion of Mars, are
seen in the night’s sky, it shall be a most efficacious time. All things shall
be made apparent.’

‘I wish to kill
you, Egyptian,’ the King said, breathless with pleasure.

‘Ahh . . .’
The
astrologer kneeled before Philip. ‘Well you may, well
you may, sire, for I am like a lover that arouses your hate but also your lust
and so you cannot do without me. It is as if you were holding a wolf by the
ears.
Aribus teneo lupum
... you dare
not let go, but you cannot hold on . . .’

His voice
entered the cavity of Philip’s head and he was lulled.

‘Drink, sire!’

Iterius removed
the stopper and brought the vial to Philip’s lips. The King drank and it was as
if a violent storm of will seized him to the very bones, as though his body
were being torn asunder by lightnings and thunderings.

He was lifted
up, and from above he saw himself lying before the figure of the astrologer. He
saw the stretch of his limbs and the quiver of his body, and the smile on the
astrologer’s face.

THE FOURTH CARD

E
tienne
felt as if he’d slept a thousand years and was now awakening into a new season.
His heart was a cup of love and dreams. His memory was released and he was
naked with joy – like a flower whose face was turned to the sun and whose
petals opened to unfurl a secret.

My heart, my
mother . . . within me! I lay between heaven and earth, between goodness and
evil. I am a child. Life is brilliant, dazzling. Only God can explain such
miracles.

His eyes opened
and his breath came in a rush. His hand went at once to the ring-seal upon his
finger and from his half-closed eyes he saw that he was in a warm firelit room.
Outside the wind whistled, and in the darkness of the hut made of stone a woman
with long hair fed him gruel and ale and a dog barked at the swirling of the
world.

The woman was
young.

He felt for the
wound in his side and was filled with a sensation of death, a terrible
certainty more certain for its painful eloquence – then nothing but sun
and darkness alternating, and the sound of a
never-tiring
wind.

‘Drink this,’
the wind said, and a cup was bent to his lips and a brew was poured into his
parched mouth. The woman kneeling beside him was a Jewess. This he knew
instantly by the darkness of her looks and the way of her dress. He had sensed,
therefore, in her the spirit of the Madonna, with a face full of life and
sorrow-filled compassion. She was, all at once, the silence and mystery of God,
the flooring of all that was, is and will be. The wise Sophia reflected in
earthly form whose home was in those stars that crowned her head and shone
bright from out of those eyes. This brightness burnt into his heart as if it
had been pierced by pieces of coal from the fire and he stretched forth his
fingers to catch the apparition, but they did not seem to reach across the gulf
between them – his fingers lingered in the air and touched nothing.

He wondered if
she were not his mother then, returned to take him to her heaven, emptying the
very blood from his heart, drawing out the mystery from his soul, to make it a vessel
for the blood of Christ.

He held these
thoughts inside his head and looked at them. Yes, he was certain he would die
now from that pain which was giving birth to another more deep, making him out
of breath. He felt himself drowning in a place where all things seemed white
and dissolving. St Michael would have to find another finger to hold the
mystery of the Order, for in a moment he would breathe out his soul to let it
depart from the body that had served him all these years.

But at that
moment inside his chest there was felt a release, like the opening of a tap
releases the wine from the barrel, and the blood flowed and warmed his body.

A breath came
then and with it life.

The fire
spluttered and roared and he gasped. Outside, the whooping air spoke to him,
and told him that his soul was profane for desiring death before he met with
the performance of his duty, and he saw the remonstration on the face of St
Michael and on the brothers of his Order that were now dust and had died for
the glory of Christ and the advancement of His Kingdom.

Looking now upon
the great expanse of those faces, he saw their disapproval and wanted to flee
from it.

I am not whole.
A part of me is with the gold of the Order somewhere in the deeps of the ocean
by now, while another part lies in France with my Grand Master. A further part
has been left in Cyprus, and before that, a part was surrendered to the Holy
Land. I am that part and this, this part and that, separated out, and all that is
left to me are small, spare bits, like crumbs left for birds. How must such a
small thing accomplish so great a task as that of killing the Order?

The woman stood
and poked the fire with a stick. The hut of stone was dark. There was the smell
of goat milk and sheepskins.

He closed his
eyes and prayed that his brothers might forgive
him, that
God might forgive him.

‘My child is
dead,’ the woman said to him, interrupting his meditation. ‘My man is dead and
now my child.’

Etienne laid
back his head and let the spit come into his mouth. How must he think upon
these earthly things when his heart was not on the earth but in the air? He
looked at the woman and her face enticed from him a question. ‘Who killed your
husband, Jewess?’ he said finally.

‘I am a baptised
Christian, my name is Amiel.’

He nodded and
looked at the fire and almost fell asleep again, thinking that it was a good
name, Amiel.

‘Those men,’
Amiel said, with a jerk of the head, ‘from the village . . . they killed my
husband and my child. They came on the eve of Passover. My husband was bloodied
from killing a lamb for the holiday. They accused him of killing Christians and
took him to the bishop. They tortured him until he confessed to murder and
named fifty others as helpers. They were all burnt in the village square. Why
is a Jew worth less than a dog?’ She shot him a look, her eyes dry and distant.
‘The child died from the heartbreak. They made the poor thing watch his father
burn. They baptised me, and this young one, the old man too, with a knife to
our throats.’