The Tenth Chamber (32 page)

From time to time the monks of Ruac had need to do commerce with outsiders or perchance they would meet a Ruac villager out on a ramble. It was during these encounters that the realisation eventually dawned. Time was claiming the outsiders but was not visiting itself upon the monks.

Outside the monastery, people were growing older
.

They were not
.

It was the tea, there was no doubt.

It became something to be jealously guarded. Nothing good could come from exposing their practice to outsiders. These were uneasy times and charges of heresy flew easily. Yes, there were rumours. There were always rumours about the secretive doings inside an abbey’s walls. The whispered speculation from villagers who lived near an abbey usually turned to debauchery, drunkenness and the like, even black arts from time to time. And yes, there were rumours in Ruac about monks who never seemed to die, but they stayed as just that – rumours.

So they hid themselves away, and when that became untenable, as when some of them were obligated to travel to the Priory of St Marcel on the occasion of Pierre Abélard’s death vigil, they hid their faces as much as possible. At his deathbed, Barthomieu was forced by dint of his devotion and respect to his brother Bernard, to reveal his secret, only to him.

Bernard once again was furious and in private, railed against the tea and its inherent affront to the laws of nature. But, for the sake of his sole-surviving brothers, he swore an oath to take the secret with him to the grave, as long as Barthomieu and Nivard agreed never to see him again.

And painfully, that bargain was struck. That was the last time Barthomieu saw Bernard in life.

Nivard, the youngest of the six brothers from Fontaines, came to Ruac to join Barthomieu in a circuitous fashion. There were two traditional family paths that he might follow: the priesthood or the sword. At first, he chose neither.

Two brothers, Gérard and Guy had fought for the king. The others, Bernard, Barthomieu and André had donned the habit. André died a young man, struck down by the pox during the first harsh winter at Clairvaux Abbey. Gérard and Guy left the King’s arms and came to Clairvaux when it was established. They took the cloth but soldiering never left their spirit. So it was a matter of course that following the Council of Troyes in 1128, they would become Knights of the Church. And when the Second Crusade began, they slipped on their white mantles with red crosses and joined their fellow Templars in the ill-fated raid on Damascus. There they fell under the deadly swarm of Nur ad-Din’s archers and were lost in a melee of blood.

As a young man Nivard was pious and hoped to follow his famous brother Bernard to Clairvaux but that was before he laid eyes on a young woman from Fontaines. Anne was a commoner and the daughter of a butcher. His father was livid, but Nivard was so smitten by the shapely, cheerful girl that when he was not with her he could not eat, sleep nor pray in earnest. Finally, he forsook the noble traditions of his family and married her. Cut off from the munificence of his father, he became a lowly tradesman and apprenticed himself to his father-in-law in a offal-filled butcher’s stall near the market place.

Three years of happiness was wiped away when the plague came to Fontaines and Nivard lost both his wife and infant child. He became a despondent rover, a drinker and an itinerant butcher and found himself in a godless haze in Rouen where, in 1120, in a stinking tavern smelling of piss, he heard of a position as a butcher on a new sailing ship. It was called the White Ship, the greatest vessel ever built in France. It was deemed so reliable and mighty that on a calm November night, it set out from Barfleur carrying the most precious of cargoes. On board was William Adelin, the only legitimate son of King Henry I of England, and with him a large entourage of British royals.

Navigation errors were made – or was it sabotage? It was never known. Near the harbour, the ship was steered into a submerged rock which tore through the hull. It quickly sank. Nivard was deep in the holds, fortified for his maiden voyage by wine, clad in butcher’s ramskins. He heard the cracking timbers, the screams of the crew, the whoosh of the incoming water and the next thing he knew the ship was gone and he was all alone in the dark sea, bobbing in his buoyant ramskins. The next morning a fishing boat plucked him from the channel, the only survivor. A hundred were lost. The heir to the throne of England was gone.

Why was
he
saved?

That question perplexed Nivard, nagged at him, caused him to foreswear strong drink and led him back to God. His embarrassment over his youthful transgressions prevented him from venturing to Bernard’s gate at Clairvaux. How could he explain his life and his choices to one so rigidly imperious? He could not. Instead, he made his way to the more forgiving climes of Ruac, where Barthomieu welcomed him with open arms.

‘You are my brother in blood and in Christ!’ he declared. ‘And besides, we can use a monk who knows how to butcher a hog well!’

The years passed. Nivard became an ardent user of the tea, a fellow cheater of time.

The monks at Ruac came to understand that while their infusion could do many things, it was certainly not a shield of invincibility. It was no protection against the scourges of the day: the white plague – just look at poor Abélard – the black plague, the pox. And bodies could still break and be crushed. Jean, the infirmarer, fell off his mule one day and broke his neck. There was a story there. Scandalously, a woman was involved.

But notwithstanding the Devil’s evil tricks, most of the brethren lived, and lived and lived.

It was high irony that one of Bernard’s most famous actions, the one that would resonate through history, would lead to Barthomieu and Nivard’s demise.

In 1118 Hugues de Payen, a lesser noble from Champagne, arrived in Jerusalem with a small band of men and presented his services at arms to the throne of Baudouin II. With Baudouin’s blessings, he spent a decade of rag-tag service protecting Christian pilgrims on their visitations to the Temple Mount. Then, in 1128, de Payen wrote to Bernard, the most influential man in the Church, the shining star of monasticism, to sponsor his fledgling effort and create an order of Holy Knights to fight for Jerusalem, for Christendom.

Bernard took to the idea readily and penned a treatise to Rome,
De Laudibus Novae Militiae
, a vigorous defense of the notion of holy warriors. At the ecclesiastical Council of Troyes, in his home territory of Champagne, he rammed through the approval, and Pope Innocent II formally accepted the formation of The Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.

The Templars were born.

Some of the earliest knights joining Hugues de Payen were blood relatives of Bernard, including André de Montbard, his maternal uncle, and his brothers Gérard and Guy. A gaggle of nobles from Champagne took the oath. And from the moment of their inception, the Templars venerated Bernard and were unwavering in their affection – up to the fateful year of 1307.

With Bernard’s powerful patronage, the Templars received gifts from the nobility to aid their holy mission: money, land, noble-born sons. They could pass through any border freely. They paid no tax. They were exempt from all authority, save that of the Pope.

Though they were not able to secure a major victory during Bernard’s lifetime, and in fact suffered ignominious defeat at Damascus during the Second Crusade, in the years that followed they flourished as a militia. Gloriously, in 1177, five hundred Templar knights helped defeat Saladin’s army of twenty thousand at the Battle of Montgisard. One of these knights was Nivard of Fontaines, monk from Ruac, and a man his comrades could count upon to butcher a goat or camel.

Their reputation was secured and over the next century their fortunes swelled. Through a cunning mix of donations and business dealings, the power of the Templars exploded. They acquired huge tracts of land in the Middle East and Europe, they imported and exported goods throughout Christendom, they built churches and castles, they owned their own fleet of ships.

And then, the inevitable: because everything that rises must at some point fall.

The Templars, still exempt from the control of countries and other rulers, in effect a state within a state, were both feared and despised by outsiders. When an animal is wounded, other predators strike. Over the years the Templars were wounded. They suffered military setbacks in the Holy Land. Jerusalem was lost. They retreated to Cyprus, their last stronghold in the Middle East. Then Cyprus was lost. Their prestige waned and lords of the land, powerful foes, closed in for the kill.

Philippe de Bel, King of France, harboured a long-simmering feud against the Order ever since as a young man his application to join them had been rejected. He had also racked up massive debts to the Order, which he had no intention of repaying. The King pounced.

The Church resented the Templar’s creed that permitted them to pray directly to God without the need for the Church to act as intermediary. The Pope pounced.

The Templars were accused by King Philippe and Pope Clement, working in concert, of all manners of heinous crimes. They were charged with denying Christ, ritual murder, even worship of an idol, a bearded head called Baphomet. Writs were drawn up, soldiers were readied.

The trap snapped shut.

In the year 1307, during the month of October, the King’s men struck a massive coordinated blow. It was Friday the thirteenth, a date that would forever resonate with portent.

In Paris the Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, and sixty of his knights were imprisoned en masse. Throughout France and Europe, thousands of Templars and their acolytes were rounded up and arrested. An orgy of torture and forced confessions followed. Where was their immense treasure hidden? Where was their fleet of ships formerly harboured at La Rochelle?

At Ruac, they struck at midday, just as the monks were filing out of the church following their observance of the Sext hours. A contingent of soldiers led by a short pugnacious captain with disgusting breath named Guyard de Charney charged through the gates and rounded up all the brothers.

‘This is a Templar house!’ he bellowed. ‘By order of the King and Pope Clement, all knights of the Order will surrender themselves to our offices, and all Templar monies and treasures are hereby forfeit.’

The abbot, a tall man with a pointy beard, declared, ‘Good sir, this is not a Templar house. We are a humble Cistercian abbey, as you well know.’

‘Bernard of Clairvaux founded this house!’ the captain bellowed. ‘By his foul hand did the Templars come into being. It is well known that over the years, it has been a haven for knights and their sympathisers.’

From the rear of the assembled monks a voice was heard. ‘Foul hand? Did you say that Bernard, our revered Saint, had a foul hand?’

Barthomieu tried to grab Nivard’s robe to prevent him from stepping forwards but it was too late.

‘Who said that?’ the captain shouted.

‘I did.’

Nivard strode to the front standing tall. Barthomieu fought his instinct to cower and followed his brother to the front of the line.

The captain saw two old monks before him. He pointed his finger at Nivard. ‘You?’

‘I order you to retract your vile statement about Saint Bernard,’ Nivard said with an unwavering voice.

‘Who are you to order me, old man?’

‘I am Nivard of Fontaines, Knight Templar, defender of Jerusalem.’

‘Knight Templar!’ the captain exclaimed. ‘You look like my deaf grandfather!’ With that, the King’s men broke into laughter.

Nivard stiffened. Barthomieu saw anger turning his face to stone. He was helpless to prevent what happened next, just as he was always helpless to prevent the stiff-necked Nivard from doing whatever he chose to do throughout his long, colourful life. Barthomieu had always been content to dwell within the cloisters of the abbey but Nivard was the restless adventurer, packing supplies of Enlightenment Tea in his chest and disappearing for long stretches of time.

Nivard slowly drew himself close enough to smell the stink of the captain’s rotten teeth. The soldier warily sneered at him, unsure of his next move.

A surprisingly sharp slap from the back of Nivard’s hand stung his mouth. He tasted blood on his lip.

A sword was drawn.

The abbot and Barthomieu rushed forward to pull Nivard back but it was too late.

There was a soft sickening sound of punctured flesh.

The captain seemed surprised at his own action. He had not set out to kill an old monk but the bloody sword was in his hand and the wretched priest was on his knees, clutching his middle, staring towards heaven and saying his last words, ‘Bernard. My brother.’

In a fury, the captain ordered the abbey to be searched and ransacked. Silver goblets and candlesticks were confiscated. Floorboards were prised up looking for Templar treasure. The monks were subjected to crude epithets and were kicked around like dogs.

In the infirmary Brother Michel shook like a frightened hare as the soldiers tossed the beds and shuffled through the shelves. He had laboured for endless decades as Jean’s assistant and when the ancient monk met his untimely death under a mule, he had finally risen to become the abbey infirmarer. A hundred and fifty years was a long time to wait to improve one’s station, he had sniffed at the time of his elevation.

Michel tried to ingratiate himself with the soldiers by pointing out the location of a good jewel-encrusted crucifix and a silver chalice that had belonged to his former master and when they had left, he sat on one of the beds breathing heavily.

When the soldiers were spent by their exertions, the captain announced that he would report back to the King’s council. The Abbot of Ruac would come with them and no amount of protestation from the monks would alter his decision. There would be an investigation, of that they could be sure. If this man, Nivard, had indeed been a Templar in his youth, then there would be a dearer price to pay than had so far been collected on this day.