The Seal (36 page)

Fool,
de Plaisians thought
indifferently,
you are on my territory
now, we shall see if it is not equally arduous
. He looked down at the man.
What good
is
your
zeal and your arrogance to you now that you are merely a broken body with
vacant eyes and benumbed mind, soon to be a carcass on a pyre
?
Will God save the Grand Master of the Order
of the Temple of Jerusalem? Will He draw you from out of the flames to show
mankind the injustice of your sentence?

Guillaume de
Plaisians did not believe in God, and without Him everything was permissible.
He simply obeyed the laws of his Church as an animal obeys an instinct
necessary for its survival. He chose what he wanted to believe, and if he
believed in anything at all, it was in the rules of efficacy. After all, he was
a creature of the court, a man of the real world, and such a man knew that it
was necessary to neglect virtues that might lead him to ruin, and practice
vices that might bring him security and prosperity – and naturally so.
Would Hannibal have amassed so many admirable achievements if not for his
inhuman cruelty? Cruelty – alas! –
was
a
necessity to a strong man. How else was one to keep one’s head above the dung
heap?

At that moment
his attention turned to the Grand Master; the man was complaining that he could
not argue a defence because he was a prisoner of both the Pope and the King and
had no money to finance his purposes.

‘Not even four
denarii,’ he told his judges.

The Bishop of Paris
leant forward and replied, ‘I wish you to understand, Monsieur de Molay, that
in a case at law concerning heresy and the faith, we are to proceed in a
fashion that is straightforward and unceremonious, without the clamour and formality
of lawyers and judges.’

The Grand Master
became silent; he seemed unable to keep his head still for it moved in a series
of jerks that travelled down his shoulders to his hands. He stood with
difficulty since his feet were disfigured. ‘I must then, sires,’ he resumed,
‘reconcile myself and my men to a trial where we may present no defence, where
only those who accuse us have lawyers at their disposal!’

The archbishop
clapped his hands decisively. ‘Strike that out!’ he told his notaries and moved
his expressionless face to the Grand Master. ‘Clerk, read this man his
confession to the cardinals at Chinon, out loud, so that he might hear how,
with his own mouth, he has condemned his Order . . .’

De Plaisians
smiled as he heard the articles of confession and watched an astonishment
surface over the Grand Master’s face comparable to the surfacing of stars from
the depths of an early evening sky.

Suddenly the Templar
made the sign of the cross in front of his face, haggard and puckered by
torment, and spat a wad of phlegm at the ground. ‘The Devil!’ he roared,
shaking his head and jerking his arms. ‘Lies! Lies! Saracens and Tartars cut
off the heads of liars and sinners and split them down the middle, and as I
have risked my blood in the service of Christ by spilling the blood of the
enemy, so will it be my pleasure to bring about such a fate to befall men who
lie before God, before king, before all men living!’

De Plaisians
narrowed his eyes and raised one brow. The Templar was threatening to follow
infidel
custom,
he was calling cardinals of the Church
liars. It was almost too advantageous!

Upon his throne
Gilles Aicelin, Archbishop of Narbonne, frowned. Allowing his taciturn, bitter,
irascible gaze to fall on the man from his great height he cautioned,
‘Persistent recanting heretics are given up to the secular arm, Monsieur de
Molay. I suggest you calm yourself or we shall have no recourse than to cart
you off at once to the pyre, for you are at each moment implicating yourself
most adequately.’

The Grand Master
cast his eye around like a drowning man looking for a saving hand and his gaze
fell upon de Plaisians. The lawyer sat forward, experiencing a deep sense of
satisfaction that was tempered only by the tense expectation that a hunter
feels on sighting his prey
;
will it remain, grazing on
the dewy grass, or will it flee nimbly away from sight? As he watched, the
Templar gave a sigh of relief that was mingled with a certain familiarity.
Guillaume nodded his head at once, and raised his brows in a friendly gesture.

‘I . . . I . . .
s-see a friend is here . . .’ the Grand Master said,

‘
if
it would please your honours, I might converse with
Guillaume de Plaisians, for I fear I am in need of counsel . . .’

De Plaisians
stood, happy to display his influence in the presence of the commissioners and
his master Nogaret. ‘If we may?’ he asked cordially.

The
commissioners looked from one man to the other. They seemed partly annoyed and
partly puzzled, taken com¬pletely by surprise by the strange request. In the
end, however, they acquiesced. What harm could it do? The Templar was plainly
losing his mind.

De Plaisians
watched Philip de Voet, Provost of
Poitiers,
help the
ailing man to him, after which they retired to a quiet corner where they could
talk in relative privacy.

There was a
pause. Guillaume noticed that the man looked haggard, and that his face told of
the survival of a thousand tortures. Something, however, had remained of the
man he once knew, some intelligence in the depths of the man’s eyes, in the
peculiar way he held his chin – up a little, so that he gave one the
impression that he was a man of God looking down from his great height upon a
world of simple creatures that he must either pity or instruct. Such things
seemed to de Plaisians ludicrous but true, and it filled him, for a moment,
with an abject annoyance.

It was through a
great effort of will that de Plaisians was able to construct his face into a look
of sympathy. ‘Monsieur de Molay,’ he said, ‘I extend to you my love as a fellow
knight, but I must counsel you to take a hold of yourself.’ Then in a lowered
voice: ‘These men will take every word you say and they will twist it in order
to further blame your Order.’

Jacques de Molay
nodded his head. ‘Plaisians,’ he began but was forestalled by a terrible cough.
He held his side and coughed until his lips were stained with blood.

De Plaisians
looked away with disgust.

When the
coughing fit had ended, the Grand Master, with watery eyes and pale expression,
continued a little weaker than before. ‘I will not tell tales of terrible . . .
unnatural tortures . . . you can see that plainly on my countenance. Nor will I
tell you that confessions made were a result of these endless hardships.’ He
paused, observing his wounds a moment; his hands veined and disfigured,
trembling. ‘You are the King’s man, monsieur.’ He looked up, de Plaisians
thought, like a mangy dog asking for a scrap of meat. ‘And the King wants the
devastation of the Order in which I have served all of my life, so it is not as
a lawyer but as a knight of noble birth that I appeal to you, in honour of the
vows we have both taken.’

De Plaisians
held his gaze. ‘What is it that you think I can do for you, Grand Master?’

‘I have thought
long and hard these months without end, Monsieur de Plaisians, and what I have
thought is this: I know that my Order sorely needs a leader who can dance these
legal dances, a man of subtle tongue who can handle affairs with diplomacy, a
man who can traffic in your world of words.’ The Grand Master narrowed his eyes
as if he were looking directly at the hot white sun, as though beyond him he
strained to see something not present but far in the distance, a memory. After
a moment, he returned his gaze. ‘But I am not such a man, monsieur. I speak
only what is held out steady, like a weapon, and I cut with it because that is
what I know.’ He pointed to his eyes. ‘I am not able to see the clouded and
undisclosed ways of your world with these, but my hope, my very faith, lies in
our lawyers who now lie in prisons. They must be reached and convinced to stand
up and defend the Order. That is what I am proposing that you do for me,
monsieur, to get word to them. I regret that it may be difficult – how
many will have remained

loyal
to a master such as torture has made of me? And yes, I know it is
not possible to prevent the horror that awaits us, I wish only to prevent the
good name of the Temple from being disparaged for all times . . . History shall
judge us according to lies . . .’ His eyes widened then. ‘What evils shall
result then, monsieur? I am unable to relate, though I have seen them . . . in
my dreams.’

Guillaume
frowned a look of sympathy and commiseration, all the time his mind working
like a well-greased machine. Constructing his voice to gentle the Grand Master
he said, ‘As a knight, monsieur, I shall endeavour to do as you have asked, but
you must remember, that as a man, as a lawyer, I am bound by my oath to the
King.’

‘It is so,’ the
Grand Master agreed, ‘and I shall not ask of you something that might lead you
to break that oath. I only ask for that which cannot be taken away by any
prince – the natural right of a man to defend himself.’

De Plaisians
brought the Grand Master closer, noting how the man, who had once possessed
perfect teeth, had lost several; how on his strong, once bronzed skin round
wounds festered; how his feet were so hideously disfigured that he could hardly
walk – and still the man had wits and cunning enough to know of the
language of rights given by the jurists.

He smiled. ‘It
pains the sensibilities of any honourable man, monsieur, to see such an obvious
miscarriage of justice. The King himself has sent me here to oversee the trial
as an impartial observer, to see to it that justice is being done, knowing the
Church and its fondness for abusing the rights of his citizens. I shall do all
that is in my power to help you.’ He looked about him, circumspectly thinking
as he did so. ‘But first I have some advice for you, Monsieur de Molay . . .
firstly you must ask the commission for some time in which to reflect, lest you
hang yourself in your own noose, then when you next come before the commission
you must curtail your emotional outbursts, present yourself as an illiterate,
humble yourself, defend your Order by stating the obvious things, namely . . .’
He rolled his hands over and over thinking as he spoke.
‘.
. . that your Order is devoted to the giving of alms; tell how men have readily
shed their blood for Christ; mention the chapels and churches where the divine
offices are performed with fine ornaments and relics; and lastly, ask the
commissioners . . . ask them to allow you to use your private chapel in the
Temple to hear mass, they will like that – and other offices if they’ll
let you. Finally, ask that you be permitted the services of your personal
chaplains, and meanwhile, I will make it possible that you receive
communication from . . .?’

The old man
thought a moment. ‘Renaud de Provins is one, the other, the best of the two,
was in Paris from Rome when we were arrested. His name is Pierre de Bologna.’

‘I will seek
them out.’

The Grand
Master’s eyes were veiled with tears, and the slightest smile, like
breeze-blown clouds, crossed the landscape of his face. ‘You are a man of
honour, monsieur. Whatever I may have once thought of you, this day I renounce
it.’

Then Guillaume
announced out loud for all to hear that he had loved and still loved the Grand
Master, joined as they were by the common bond of knighthood, and that he
should take care neither to blame himself nor to waste himself without good
reason.

G
uillaume de Plaisians
entered the vestibule that led to the King’s private chambers with hurried
step. Outside, the afternoon remained bleak, clouds scudded over the landscape
and darkness in the horizon announced a storm.

He came to the
doors and the guards moved in recognition. He passed two more doors before
reaching the inner chamber where he was announced.

Nogaret should
have much to fear, he thought, and strode into the room confidently, already
feeling himself an intimate of the court.

This of all the
King’s rooms was the most frugal. Lacking a fire, fineries and tapestries, it
was cold, hard and ascetic. Long pale windows lessened the darkness, but even
so, it appeared as though particles of gloom lay suspended in the air, musty,
damp and uninviting.

The King did not
look up. Dressed in the investitures of authority he sat upon his throne with
his legs casually placed so that his pups could lay their heads upon his velvet
lap. He cupped his chin with one hand while stroking the head of a hound with
the other, listening, it seemed, to Enguerrand de Marigny, who was involved in
a heated discussion of some importance.

But the King
stared out into a sepulchral sky that echoed his long mantle of deep blue and
whose colour complemented his eyes. They moved torpidly to de Plaisians,
hovered over his form a moment and then neglected him altogether.

‘What do they
mean, Marigny?’ he said with a sudden temper, ‘when they say Templar apostasy
rendered them no longer Catholic, but with reservations? Reservations,
reservations!’ The animals were disturbed at this sudden betrayal of calm and
whined like children; he ignored them. ‘Should Templars not confessed retain
status? Yes . . . but with reservations! If I understand them properly, it is
that if they wish to say anything at all, it is with reservations! And there .
. .’ He pointed to a parchment in the hands of his minister. ‘They call
themselves my humble clients, my humble and devoted chaplains, who offer their
complete submission to render whole and devoted service to their Royal Majesty!
Five of the fourteen masters of theology were clerics, Marigny! Five! One
Franciscan, two Dominicans, and two Augustinians!
I am
surrounded by the Church, Marigny
! They conspire against me! In the end
they state that the Templar confessions are perhaps enough to condemn the
Order, but they do not encourage it. They do not encourage it! What does this
mean?’