The Seal (40 page)

‘The Egyptian is
a counterfeit . . .’ Etienne said.

Marcus smiled
and chuckled and then it was gone again and in his throat came a growl low in
his chest. ‘I am mad but I am not a fool!’ he shouted. ‘It sits there upon your
finger as proud as a maid in May!’

‘This is my
seal, Marcus, the second seal not the first.’

‘Well, all you
have to do is to hand it to me and we shall see, then perhaps I shall be of the
mind to let you live . . . Yes indeed,

perhaps
I shall let you live because I half remember you and our life
together. Then again, perhaps I wish to forget that life by killing you. Name
your will.’ He made a mock bow, sweeping the sword behind him.

‘My will is not
my own,’ Etienne answered.

‘Ahh!’ Marcus
cried jubilantly. He straightened and raised the blade over his head as if it
were a festival and he an object of observation. ‘I was hoping you would say
that, since I have always wondered how I should fare in a battle with you . . .
Also my poor men are hoping for blood since the Jews were hardly enough to
quench their war lust!’ He said this and he smiled a little, while his tongue
came to his teeth in anticipation, as he viewed the reaction of his foe, of
further smiles.

Etienne was
gripped by a desire to listen and inclined his head therefore in the other
man’s direction and gave an ear to him – perhaps he had not heard
correctly?

Marcus nodded,
having read his mind.

Etienne raised
his sword. To kill was one thing – Etienne had killed scores and scores
and in a moment he would seek to kill again – but to kill with such a
love for it sheltering in the heart? To kill with zeal what was unarmed and
innocent was to kill spring and doom the world to a winter of the soul! All
this passed over his mind in an instant.

His breath came
fast. ‘The woman is dead, then?’

There was a nod.

‘And . . . the
child . . .?’

‘My wolf has not
had meat for three days.’

There was heard
in Etienne’s ear what he had waited to hear. What came then was the sound of
many waters; it set him off balance and after that there was only a blank space
into which he found himself desirous to fall from the pain that moved like a
river of hot ice over his chest. He took in a breath and gazed out of eyes over
which a mist was descending. He would rip out the man’s throat . . . just one
more word . . .

‘It was quick,’
Marcus obliged him, ‘across the throat . . . only the woman took longer . . .
Strange creature, did not call for help . . . perhaps she was sparing you . . .
ahh!’ There was a sudden realisation. ‘How difficult it is to find a noble
woman! Unfortunately my men were not interested in her nobility, she was,
rather, a vessel for their cravings . . . these animals of mine . . . and she
was a difficult work!’ He shrugged as if the thought of it made a chill over
him. ‘For my part I don’t take to Jew flesh . . .’

The air
quickened, the animals moved in their cribs and Etienne added this new madness
to all the rest, and let the wave of hate take him. He allowed himself to
linger there on the lip of it and felt it surge through him, feeling the
enormity of its power galloping out from his limbs towards the figure of
Marcus. He did not see the smile upon the other man’s face, nor did he hear the
cries of his men. He only heard his own shout, ‘Beauseant! ’

After that both
sides struggled and the sound of it together with the sounds of the animals
fretting and kicking at their fetters journeyed outside where a squall swung
them around the stables and brought them to the house, where, upon the threshold
there lay the bodies of the three – the woman, the child, the old man
– and the dog that fed upon their carcasses.

T
he
battle was long and hard. The animals kicked and neighed and bleated and whined
in their cribs and the wind howled and threatened to tear off the roof. The
world was moving in a heartbeat, this way and that. A blur of sword thrust and
sunlight, married to grunts and the sound of steel coming together.

Etienne fought
with his newly mended body tight and obstinate and his mind shut up inside it
as if it were a prison, since he must not let it fall out of itself into rage .
. . not yet. Marcus, on the other hand, was all fluid movement and strength of
will; a butcher in the eyes, with a fondness for hatred that made him seem like
two men. Moving nimbly from one foot to the other, swinging his blade this way
and that, he called out to Etienne with a mock-full laugh: ‘You are God-filled
and old, my friend, while the Devil makes youth grow in my veins!’

Etienne forced
his mind to come together; these were Marcus’s methods – the taunts, the
pretty dances were a prelude to his slaughtering. All the while he would be
watching Etienne’s eyes, seeking to anticipate their observation so that when
Etienne was set to make his move, Marcus would be ready with an elegant
sidestep while his other hand would run Etienne through with the knife at his
belt. Marcus too had a knowing of Etienne’s fighting ways and would be looking
for them; this he would use to his advantage. He held steady his foe’s gaze,
and was not wasteful in his movements, letting the man opposite prance his
prances. In the meantime, beneath Etienne’s thoughts, his legs shook with
fatigue, his side made its complaints, his bones were white and heavy and
creaked in his skin.

Around them the
others grunted and clashed and thrust out in the birthing light. Etienne saw it
from the corner of one eye, with the other locked on Marcus, smiling again,
since there was something in that eye – the man was growing impatient. If
Etienne wished to surprise him, he would have to make his
move
...

... Now!

No sooner had he
thought it, than his head was thrust back and his arm made as if to lunge.
Marcus was quick, his smile pulled higher, and he made his parry to Etienne’s
right while the other hand, having made a swift grab at the knife in the belt,
was coming up in an arc. But Etienne was not where he should have been, since he
had not followed through but instead had swerved to the left, curving his body
around his foe so that by the time Marcus realised it, Etienne was behind him
with the skull dagger pointed to his shoulders. Time stood still and an image
of the old man, the woman, the child, came into his mind, and with it a
resolve.

Again
!

He shouted it
and sank the blade between the bones, parting muscle and tissue, causing blood
to spurt ahead of it like a herald of death.

After that he
stood a while over Marcus before putting his boot into that back and pulling
out the blade. He rolled him over and looked into the face. ‘Speak now!’ he
told him. ‘I have seen you before, Devil, at the house of the Order near where
Dagobert was killed. Speak now!’

Marcus gave a
blooded smile and said to him, ‘I shall see you . . . in the underground cave!’
And with that what had occupied Marcus’ soul departed and the face softened and
what was left looked him in the eye. He seemed to be summoning what strength he
had to say something. When it came it was like a rush of air.

‘I die!’

Afterwards his
face was more still and peaceful than Etienne had ever seen it since Acre.

When Etienne
finally looked around he saw a world in ruins. The Norman lay, run through the
middle, near the animals. The Catalan was yelling and cursing in his language
and on a rampage of hacking off the sacs of the enemies.

Etienne did not
let Delgado touch Marcus.

He went to the
house and found the wolf tearing at the bodies of the Jews. He killed it by
putting a knife to its throat. After that he thrust a boot into its jaw and
tore it apart, dragging it to the field.

They buried
Marcus, the old man, his daughter-in-law and her child next to Gideon in a
little plot behind the house. Etienne, with his heart emptied and slow-beating,
said his prayers at the graves, commending the souls of Marcus and Gideon into
God’s care, and asking Michael to intercede on behalf of the three Jews who
were good kind people and had helped him in his need.

He went to his
little room above the stables, and there he spent some hours in silence.

He sat upon his
pallet letting each hour that passed wrench from him his woes until there was
nothing left in the marrow of his soul. He was a wasted man, broken and
tearless and suffering a pain without which he would never again breathe and so
he wished to stop breathing, to cease to see, to fall into a blindness of the
heart and of the mind. Why had he not jumped from that parapet at Acre? Once
again he had failed to save the mothers of his life . . . and he would ever be
that boy, pious impious, sure-witted and unsure of everything, faithful and
faithless, trembling upon the lip of the world!

The old woman at
Puivert had been right: he was of two minds and two wills, and what was the
third thing to come? He hoped it was death.

‘Jacques de
Molay!’ he shouted to the emptiness of the room. ‘Wisdom has died in my heart and
in my mind and in my will!’

There it was . .
. the cause of all suffering, sitting upon his finger. He looked at the seal
and was suddenly filled with a temptation to seek beneath its concealment. This
in turn caused him to feel a great aversion and it was impious in his hands and
he would not have it.

‘You are an evil
thing!’ he told it and before he could think any more he threw it and it fell
to the floor, with its lid unhinged and its inner content revealed to the day.
A terrible guilt engulfed him in a wave of self-loathing. He picked up the
thing and did not look upon it but closed its lid and replaced it upon his
finger. The creature felt hot and neglected.

‘My will is not
my own!’ he said to it.

When he emerged
from the room he was a man grown old overnight. His hair was near to white and
his now thin form gave him the look of a starved animal. He told a grieving
Delgado that he would not think less of him if he should desire to go back to
his country, to which the Catalan gave him a smile that recalled his old
humour.

‘Should I not go
with you, lord . . .’ he made a whistle while his eyes rolled in his head, ‘my
Gideon would send me to a hell full of Norman whores!’

He left then to
make ready.

Later Jourdain
found Etienne harnessing the horses; he helped him at his work for a time
before speaking. ‘You are healed now?’ he asked finally.

Etienne did not
look at Jourdain, to see that youthful face so full of love and concern. ‘It is
not that kind of wound from which a man may heal himself,’ he said. ‘It is
better left to God.’

Jourdain nodded.
‘It is said that a king once suffered from a wound . . . it was his duty to
wait for someone to ask him for what reason he was ailing . . . He waited, and
suffered long.’

Etienne paused
his work of lacing the harnesses and looked at Jourdain then, with pointed
eyes. ‘I would not answer if I were asked!’

Jourdain nodded
his head. ‘Then this duty shall give you great courage.’

Etienne did not
look at this but continued his work. ‘Why should courage come from such
weakness?’

‘Courage is born
of pain, Etienne,’ he said, and left him to his work.

P
ierre de Bologna lay with
his head resting on the mould-covered wall. Dozing with his quill still held in
his hand he dreamed. A sunrise lit the rolling hills, purple and mist-laden
beneath the rose and yellow. Light struck his eyes and he shielded them, but
the light that was carried into him found no distinction between them. He had
become the sunrise and the hills and the clouds.

The quill fell
from his hand, splattering ink and breaking its point. Pierre sat up, feeling
displaced, incoherent, confused. Glancing about with dream-clouded eyes he saw
the diffused light that, coming from the little window, had landed upon his
face and only slightly illuminated his meagre surroundings, the austerity of
the cell he had occupied for three long years.

The
cell
was
five paces wide
and ten
long, with a stone bench fixed to one wall that served as a crude pallet. In
one corner, rats congregated around faecal remains; at another, a dirty bowl of
water became the grave of cockroaches. He closed his eyes and tried not to
smell the sour stench of his own body, unwashed and diseased. How many more
days and nights would he be compelled to suffer this way? Deprived of food, of
warm clothing, denied the sacraments? He blinked, a scholar from the
illustrious University of Bologna, a priest and chief procurator for the Temple
at the Roman curia, forced to exist like an animal, even worse than an animal.
He knelt, tears falling from his eyes unheeded.