The Seal (44 page)

The fire rose
upward and began to brush the sides of the wagon and heat was coming through
the floor causing the men, crowded upon the wagon, to scramble over one another
to get away from it, but there was no escape.

A man stepped
out from the crowd and shouted at the circle of armed men, ‘There is not enough
straw!’

The smell of
burning hair sulphurous and rank and the odour of sizzling flesh mingled with the
cries and screams of terror.

‘More straw!’
the crowd called out, moving towards the wagons.

The Templars
danced to escape the flames, pleading and praying, calling for help. Peasants
began to throw under the pyre straw and faggots that lay unused upon the
ground.

The guards
themselves, comprehending that an inadequacy of flame could occasion a late
lunch, reached for more fuel, and soon guards and commoners were aiding each
other in piling what they could around the wagons. Promptly, the flames obeyed,
reaching higher. The men would not die of the smoke, however. They would
observe in horror as their flesh dissipated, melted to reveal the cavities of their
bodies gnawed by conflagration.

It seemed to
take a long time before each man in his turn fell into the flames and the field
was quiet again with only the sound of the fire crackling and spurting. From it
the Bishop of Paris averted his eyes, not wishing to see more.

When the wagons
and bones were reduced to dust and what would not burn was taken away so that
no relic could be collected of the martyrs, the crowd, a little sombre,
dispersed, anticipating its midday meal, leaving the bishop alone, his mind a
blank.

J
ulian woke early. He
dressed in his capa and repaired to the church to attend lauds. Present at that
canonical hour was Gilles Aicelin, the Archbishop of Narbonne, who had walked
out on Pierre de Bologna and his appeal before the commission.

When the service
was ended and the brothers had filed silently out of the church, Julian
approached him and drew him into the shadows.

‘Your Grace,’
Julian said, ‘grave and serious matters have come to my notice, matters of
importance to you that cannot wait.’

The man stood
with his shoulders hunched, his skin translucent, his eyes pale and vacant.
‘You are the bishop’s charge?’ He squinted. ‘A notary for the trials?’

‘Yes, your
Grace.’

The archbishop
raised a quizzical brow and, yawning, responded, ‘
You
realise that I must attend the commission today and you are keeping me from it?
Stand aside.’ He began to push him out of the way. ‘Today, we shall hear Renaud
de Provins give his testimony . . . and if he is anything like Aimery de
Villiers, whom we saw only days ago, he will tell us that he killed the Lord if
he thinks it is required of him . . .’

‘Your Grace,’
Julien said, ‘I have something of importance to tell you.’

‘What is it?’
came the annoyed reply.

‘I have occasion
to warn you that this day you shall not see Renaud de Provins . . .’

‘Why ever not?
How shall we not see him?’ The man looked on somnolently and waited with regal
impatience.

‘I have it on
the best authority that the Archbishop of Sens will once again make your
commission look like a laughing stock.’

‘Watch your
words!’ His face was losing some of its torpidity.

Julian was not
to be put off; he moved closer and continued in a harsh whisper, ‘It is his
desire to make a show of his new position by interfering once more with your
commission’s activities.’

Gilles Aicelin
scowled down the length of his red-veined nose, annoyed that again he was put
on the spot. ‘How does he have jurisdiction over the lawyer?’

Julian moved
closer. ‘Renaud de Provins is from the diocese of Sens.’

The man drew
himself upwards and back, looking askance as if attacks were coming from all
directions.

‘The papal
commission, your Grace, will not be able to determine the guilt of the entire
Order when, under its very nose, its key witnesses and their defenders are
being disposed of. The Pope himself, your Grace, has given the commission sanction
to restrain by ecclesiastical censure anyone who interferes with its proceedings.’

The man made a
sigh. ‘Oh! Very well! It seems something must be done if I am not to look
altogether like a fool.’

Julian bent his
head. ‘That was my estimation, your Grace. And I know what you are thinking.’

He raised a
brow. ‘You do?’

‘You must apply
subtle force . . . threaten to expose his excesses.’

‘His excesses?’

‘Excesses that could see the Church maligned before the world if
they were exposed to public scrutiny.
Excesses
that would excite the King’s disdain.’

‘Come, boy!’ the
archbishop said. ‘What excesses?’

Julian lowered
his voice. ‘That he embezzles Templar wealth.’

‘He does?’ The
man was put out of balance and had to grasp at Julian for support. ‘How do you
know it?’

‘I will not
stain your soul with the things that I have been privy to in my work, your
Grace.’

‘Oh!’ The man
was speechless.

‘He should be
reminded, your Grace, of the consequences should the King learn of his
indiscretion, considering also his contempt for the Church.’

‘Oh Lord!’ He
stifled his cry. ‘This is just the excuse Philip needs to take everything from
our hands!’

‘It would pain
you, your Grace, because you are an honest and pious man, but you would be
doing both the Church and the archbishop a great service by not alerting the
King. And the archbishop, your Grace, shall be so grateful to you that he will
return Renaud de Provins to your commission so that you may serve justice.’

The other man’s
face smoothed over and he put concern aside as though it were dust on his
mantle. ‘Justice? Since when is an ecclesiastical trial about justice?’ He
belched then, and left.

All day messages
flew across Paris, between the papal com-mission and the provincial council.
Towards evening, around vespers, Philippe de Marigny, the Archbishop of Sens,
relented. The outward world knew only that pressure was brought to bear by the
commission and that his own suffragans had convinced him to obey the directives
of the Pope, who had ordered that any man who came before the commission to
defend the Order could come ‘under full and safe custody’.

The lawyer
Renaud was once more returned to the bosom of the papal commission; however,
the other procurator, Pierre de Bologna, the key lawyer, was missing.

Gilles Aicelin
sent for the jailer and in his apartment questioned him on the lawyer’s
apparent disappearance.

Jean de Jamville
looked puzzled and frowned with a wine-flushed face. ‘Your Lordship . . . the
one hand does not know what the other is doing. I was commanded . . . to . . .
to dispose of him.’

‘Where is he,
you lice-infested vermin?’ Aicelin shouted, having found himself outwitted.

The jailer,
cowering, with sweat dripping over his chin and nose, answered, ‘He is food for
the birds . . .’

The Archbishop
of Narbonne then sent a curt note to the Archbishop of Sens seeking an
explanation. He awaited a reply that never came.

A month later
the Archishop of Narbonne felt the final sting of Philippe de Marigny’s
machinations. During a sitting of the provincial council, Renaud de Provins was
stripped of all his clerical privileges and deprived of the habit of the
Temple, which immediately disqualified him from defending the Order.

Days later the
archbishop sought to question Renaud de Provins personally and could not find
him – his name had been struck from the prisoners’ list.

It was no
surprise to Gilles Aicelin that afterwards no man dared to formally defend
himself or the Order.

J
acques de Molay sat upon
his pallet in the lamplit dungeons of the Paris Temple with his body all
a-tremble and his teeth and jaw clenched from cold. He could barely open his
mouth to take in the mouldy bread or drink down the thin, pale soup full of
weevils. His abused limbs would not keep still and, despite his efforts, the
soup drizzled over his long beard and found its way into the cassock of rags
over his weary old bones.

Something made
him wince with pain and he reached into his mouth. The broken tooth was jagged
and sharp and when he brought the finger to his eye to look upon it he saw that
it was red with blood from the bite to his cheek.

If he had a
knife, a short sharp one, he would dig into the flesh of his gum and cut out
the tooth that ripped his mouth open like glass and thumped with pain in the
night. But he did not have a knife, and perhaps if he did, he might make better
use of it. He might wait until the guard came to take away his bowl and he
might then find the right moment to direct the knife’s length into that space
between the shoulders or to the base of the neck and into the
brain pan
. He pictured it, the knife parting flesh and
drawing blood, the guard falling upon the dirt of the cell. Such a thought did
not bring him satisfaction. He put down the metal bowl, spilling soup and
weevils, and chastised himself. He was in a cage but he was not yet turned
animal. Not yet.

He gave a sigh;
he was weary and spent of mind, but his heart made a flutter when at times the
sun shot its rays through the aperture and he was able to feel it upon his
face. He was able also to hear the birds that came to compete for space on the
branches of a nearby tree in spring and summer. Their song fell upon his soul
and made a picture of the world, recalling wind and cloud, sun and oceans and
rivers. It conferred upon his soul the seasons, each one made known by the tone
of their song.

How many winters
and summers had he seen with his soul’s eye upon that pallet of stone? He took
his face to the markings made each night with the metal bowl upon the wall, and
let his fingers trace each one. After counting, and counting again, he came to
a surprised conclusion. Four years!
he
told himself,
rubbing the soup from his beard. Four years, dear Lord! And how many more to
come? The rise of emotion that this realisation provoked caused him to hold
tight to the pallet with bent-broken fingers until the lightness in his head
had passed.

He took a deep
breath into his wounded lungs. ‘I am Jacques de Molay!’ he whispered to the
walls and the floor and the light coming through the aperture. ‘I am Jacques de
Molay, Grand Master of the Poor Knights and the Temple of Solomon! I am not
afraid of you for I have conquered you!’ he said to the still dank air. ‘I have
not succumbed to despair, to hate, to fear!’ He took in great gulps of air,
holding on to the pallet as if to let go would mean to fall into an abyss from
which he would never recover.

At that moment
the sun entered the aperture and fell upon the half-full bowl beside him. This
was not the season, for winter had not yet surrendered to spring. And still the
light broke into the quivering soup like stars playing upon the surface of a
lake. A familiar feeling, dizzy and faint, began to steal over his skin, his
bones, his mind – a tingling ripple, and in his ears, wide-placed tones,
far-off and insistent. His soul was peeled away from being to nonbeing, and his
spirit left the flooring of the world to hover over the bowl’s profundity.

He saw a vision.
The walls of his prison were torn down brick by brick, and beyond was revealed
the centuries, time itself, rushing, wild-starred and heaving, pitching,
tumbling from sunrise to sunset, again and again until the past stormed the
present and passed ahead to the future. He saw the people of the earth
surrounded by fire and smoke and blooded steel, headed for thunders and
lightnings towards the cliffs and screes and crags that rose above a great
abyss. There were calls for Brotherhood! Freedom! Equality! And before his
sight stood the figure of a bewigged king whose bent form lost its crowned head
beneath a great blade that came thrusting down from out of the night.

‘Oh horrible
sight!’ Jacques de Molay cried, trembling, but he could not look away since the
vision held him in its grasp. It had one last thing to tell him. Amongst this
boiling multitude of death and blood, he heard his own name.

Jacques de Molay
. . . this day thou art avenged!

He blinked and
the world was returned to its original state. The sun had moved beyond the
aperture and the vision was dis¬solved into weevils and leftover soup. Jacques
de Molay sat with the breath knocked out of him, looking this way and that as
if he had misplaced something of himself inside the vision and would now have
it back. His heart moved against his thoughts and he felt a pain deep in the
marrow of his bones. A groaning and a creaking, as much as if the weight of
such a vision were settling into him and taking its time to inform him of the
added burden.