The Seal (48 page)

He was reminded
of the brothers of this house that waited even now for him. When he had come to
this place those few left behind to hold this portion of desolate country from
the Turks had surrendered to him the safekeeping of their souls. They had clung
to Etienne, hoping to find in him an anchor since this house on the edge of
nowhere, trapped by snow and rebelling townsfolk, had become home to a plague
of dreams and visions of horror with each brother suspecting the other of an
impiety that had caused phantoms and ghosts to descend upon them in the night.
The men’s eyes had been darkened by fear and superstition.

Etienne had felt
himself a man of spent leagues and spent years who spoke to angels and devils
and carried the secrets of the Order as if they were a thick skin grown over
the eyes. How must he bring himself out of the darkness to hold these men
together in faith? To wipe from hearts the distance that had passed between
them and Christ?

He had begun
with small steps, by making the rule a support for the soul of the little
community. The maintenance of weapons and harnesses was to be a regular work;
repairs were to be made to the keep and to the fortifications. The men were to
hear matins and the entire service according to canonical law and the customs
of the regular masters of the Holy City of Jerusalem. They were to observe the
silence during meals and drink diluted wine before compline. He stopped them hunting
for food and regulated their meals in accordance with the rule.

He required that
they observe the feast days of the saints, heard each man’s confession weekly,
and on Sunday celebrated the sacred and holy mass held only for those initiated
into the great secrets that Christ had vouchsafed to his disciples during those
forty days after his crucifixion.

In this there
was also a healing for his heart. In himself he began to hear an echo of what
he once had been – a leader of men.

And the years
had passed.

He heard feet
upon the steps that led up to the ramparts.

It was Jourdain,
who was shouting now to him through cupped hands. The wind drove the snow up
and brought his words to Etienne, who leant into their promise, inclining his
head like an old man.

How long would
he strain to hear before he lost his balance and found his way to the bosom of
the mountain and to God’s grace?

Watching
Jourdain as he made his way to him, he saw the young captain turned grown man
now, with creases at the eyes and many cares hovering over the brow. Etienne
had predicted the death of Jourdain’s youth in Cyprus, and now he felt two
things: sorrow for the boy, lost now in concerns and sufferings, and joy that
he had lived to watch the spirit mature inside that man whose smile could still
tell something of spring.

Jourdain reached
him in pants and puffs entreating air, with a smile and a wrinkle of the brow.
‘The messenger has come with word from King Robert of Anjou,’ he said.

Etienne had
strained to hear these words before and had heard nothing but the snow on the
wind and the trees. He knew what it meant, the messenger’s coming, something
was near. Something he had felt but had not wanted to look at with his eyes.
‘He will not protect us, Jourdain?’

Jourdain shook
his head. ‘In his eyes we are disobedient because we do not light our own
pyres!’

Etienne nodded.
‘Well . . . we are made guilty.’

‘Without a
hearing, Etienne.’

Etienne looked
at him. ‘I had expected it.’ Then he looked at the white horizon again. The
snow turned in on itself below his feet, and he waited for it to wash over his
soul and make of him a rock, a cloud,
a
bird’s wing.

Jourdain blinked
away the falling snow and stamped his feet to entice warmth into his limbs.
‘This . . .’ he said, looking up at the falling sky with his head outstretched,
‘is the last of the snow.’

‘Yes. It is the
last of the snow.’ Etienne hugged his arms and buried his chin in the
lamb’s-wool collar.

‘The men are
hungry.’

‘We’ll send
Simon the Jew to find food tomorrow.’

‘When do you
think they shall come to besiege the castle?’ Jourdain put a hand to his collar
as if to scratch at a flea, a peculiar habit he had acquired of late when
discomforted.

Etienne thought
for a long moment and then answered, ‘When they come.’

‘Is it too late
to seek a new world, Etienne?’

Etienne took in
breath. ‘The world is old, Jourdain.’

Jourdain nodded.
‘It is dull work, this hovering over the end of things.’

‘There is no
noble work in putting away a lifetime of hope, Jourdain. A better man than I would
know the right way of it.’

Jourdain was
silent.

Etienne looked
at him with a smile in his eye. ‘Well, say what is on your mind, Jourdain.
After so many years will you now prevent yourself from amazing me?’

Jourdain smiled
back but it was soft and fleeting. ‘It is said, Etienne, that only those men
who are divine can be right in what they say and do, even in grand matters . .
.’

Etienne was
content with this. ‘I am beginning to understand your strange reflections,
Jourdain . . . You mean to tell me that to be right is only a privilege of God
and that I should be happy with however close I may come to that.’

Jourdain looked
at Etienne as much as if he were a father who was proud of his son. ‘I have
waited for you to become a philosopher. You surely have taken your time!’

‘I am a man near
death, Jourdain. Should my love for wisdom not guide me now?’ Etienne turned to
the stairs.

‘You are a born
philosopher, I have always thought so.’

‘A pity wisdom
comes when there is no true use left for it . . .’ Then: ‘I am decided that
should Simon desire it, we will succour him behind these walls . . . the
townspeople will not like it that he helps us . . .’

Jourdain
remembered something then, for he paused before Etienne. ‘Delgado will not leave.
It is his desire to stay.’

Etienne stood
astonished upon that step. He listened to the snow coming down. His ears were deceiving
him. ‘For what cause?’

‘His own cause.’

Etienne nodded
his head and his brows creased together. ‘It has been explained to him that he
is released from the bondage of his loyalty?’

‘It is his wish
to follow you to his death. That is his desire.’

Etienne lost his
balance and Jourdain reached out a hand to steady him. ‘I have dreamt with the
Grand Master, yester-eve,’ he told Jourdain. ‘Jacques de Molay is dead soon, I
feel it. In the dream he spoke to me that all is not lost, that all shall lay
buried for another time like a seed in the earth.’

Jourdain looked
at him out of eyes sharp and flecked with snow. ‘You are his last heir,
Etienne, you are our Grand Master now, and your men shall follow you to hell if
need be.’

Jourdain’s words
moved something inside
him.
They
would follow me
to hell?

Something was
seeking to find its way from his throat to his mouth, something of anguish and
sadness and frustration that made his knees tremble and his heart swell up
until he found no more room in him for breath.

He saw a vision of
death . . . for all of them.

‘It is cold . .
.’ he said with a sniff and leant low to enter the aperture. ‘We go in.’

‘W
hat is it?’ said the
voice thick with sleep. Guillaume de Nogaret sat upon the edge of the perfumed
bed in which lay Mademoiselle de Vigiers, and stared out at the moonless sky
over the rooftops.

‘Come to bed . .
.’ the creature moaned from the blankets, ‘it is cold.’

‘No, I have to
go,’ he said.

‘Where?’

‘Why do you ask
every time? I begin to believe that you are a spy.’ He laughed at this thought
and gave the form a slap, but his eyes grew into slits in his head.

There was a
movement in the blankets and a burnished copper head came out into the black
night, casting its light into the gloom.

‘But I am a spy,
rounded and comely.’ She bit his shoulder.

‘I have to go,’
he said again, pushing her away and putting on his boots. There were arms
around his neck now, and soft peaks touched his back. He sighed, but not from
passion.

‘Will you leave
me to the cold?’

‘Why not leave
you to the cold?’

The arms dropped
down over his arms and came to embrace his soft middle; the voice purred, ‘So
is it over?’

‘What?’ Nogaret
struggled with his laces.

‘Have you
finished with the Order of the Temple?’ Those hands were soft and curious.

‘It is finished
with . . . there is only one last thread to pull . . . and I am looking forward
to it with eagerness.’

‘You know, at
night you dream of them and you talk in your sleep.’

He turned his
head to her. ‘What do I say?’

He stopped her
hands.

They withdrew
and the bundle returned to its blankets.

He shook the
bundle, annoyed now. ‘What do I say?’

‘You say . . .
you say . . . oh . . . I don’t know!’ She stretched beneath the blankets. ‘It
is foreign . . . something like . . .
ak
. . . mak . .
. tub . . . I think.’

Nogaret returned
to the business of dressing. ‘Maktub ... I know this maktub.’ He was frowning
now and wishing to be gone.

‘Paris is alive
with talk of your doings!’

He gathered his
things and made to go.

‘What? You will
say nothing?’ The bundle was now naked on its bed.

He looked at her
and made an annoyed grunt. ‘Go to sleep.’

‘Will you be
working tonight?’

‘Yes.’ He
struggled with his coat. ‘You are an inquisitive one this day!’

‘If you are working
tonight then you will need your oil . . .I went to the Eustace quarter and got
it myself.’ She curved her body to reach beneath the bed and brought out the
bottle, which she gave to him.

‘Good! Alas, my
dear! You do have a brain! This day begins with an amazement!’ He gave her a
slap on the rump and left her smiling in the dark.

T
hree
days Julian lay upon the sumptuous bed in one of the many apartments at the
fortified personal residence of the Bishop of Paris, taken down with a fever.
It was not a fever of the body, the physicians told the bishop. It was a fever
of the soul.

For his part the
young man dreamt strange dreams. In the shadows he heard the sound of wails and
screams and the clatter of battle. He could smell smoke and fire and long
blades were put to his throat. Then he was following the legs of tall men
through streets that wound around as the world coiled in screams and wails.

He tossed and
twisted, covered in perspiration while the doctors around him worked in a ring
of activity trying to fathom the new and unusual disease. The bishop sat beside
him, praying, but Julian did not see him, his visions turned to burning skulls
that fell from the shoulders of bodies stripped bare by flames. To visions of
oceans vast and blue, and horses and the smell of animals at the gallop ridden
by ghostly figures dressed in white emblazoned with crosses made of blood.

On the third day
of this, he woke to the sound of the bells of the great cathedral. The fever in
his soul had broken and he sat up, feeling the room turning and his stomach
lurching. For a moment he did not know where he was, and then he saw the
snoring monk sitting beside his bed. It was the bishop’s assistant.

‘Wake up!’
Julian told him.

His eyes must
have had fierceness in them, for the monk, having woken to find
himself
looking into their depths, crossed himself.

‘What day is
it?’ he shouted at him.

‘Why ... why ...
it
is ...
’ The man was disoriented himself.

‘I hear something
. . . what do those bells call?’ He got up, swayed and fell upon the monk,
grabbing him by his scapular. ‘What happens today?’

‘Today? Today
the crowds gather outside the Notre Dame for the sentencing of the Templar
Grand Master.’

Julian felt the
cold-heat enter into his lungs; the faces of the dead swam in his head. This
day is not yet written!
he
thought.

‘Fetch my
clothes!’ he said, and fell back with the world whirling in spirals over him
and the smell of angels in his nostrils.