The Fall of the Templars: A Novel (Brethren) Read online

  Up ahead, the knights had gathered in a group, at the head of which stood the grand master. Jacques de Molay was a bull of a man in his early fifties, with coarse gray hair that fell in thick waves around his shoulders. Like all Templar Knights, he wore a beard, but rather than keeping his clipped and neat, as Will and Robert did, he wore it long, almost to his chest. Will had once heard a knight say that before going into battle the grand master would plait it and push it down the front of his shirt. Jacques was addressing a Templar official, his French gruff and guttural. “Speak to the provost and find out where we should berth our vessel, then have the sergeants follow with our gear. Let us hope my message reached the preceptory and they are expecting us.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The official waited for a wagon to trundle past then made his way over to the Hôtel de Ville.

  Jacques saw Will and Robert approaching with the last of the knights and motioned to them. “Commander Campbell, lead the way.”

  Pausing to get his bearings, Will led the group of sixty knights toward the Church of St. Gervais, whose lofty steeple was lost in fog. Some people stared as the knights marched in a column across the busy street, but many simply hurried past, engrossed in their own business. In Paris, the site of the order’s principal base in the West, Templars were a common sight, as much a part of the community of the city as the professors and scholars of the Sorbonne on the left bank and the royal officials on the Ile de la Cité. Just before the church, Will turned into a narrow side street that wound through a warren of alleys and shallow stairways, where timber-framed buildings crowded in on either side, bowing toward one another. The top storeys of some of the structures were so close the inhabitants could reach out and shake their neighbors’ hands. Washing, strung from crisscrossing lines, dripped a steady rain on to the knights’ heads as they made their way out on to the rue du Temple. For Will, these gloomy streets were painfully familiar. Around every corner, echoes of the past came back to him, faint in faded signs and peeling shutters, clearer with the appearance of a church spire clustered with gargoyles in a gap between buildings. With familiarity came memories. They hung in the air like ghosts, visible in shop doorways and crumbling facades, in the faces of people who hurried by. Things he had kept at bay on the endless journey from Cyprus, the monotony of travel numbing his mind, now overwhelmed him.

  Two butchers lounged in a doorway, aprons brown with blood. A baker chatted animatedly with a woman as he handed her two loaves. Will stared at them, wondering if he would recognize anyone after all this time. Ahead, a young woman hurrying across the street slipped in the mud, dropping the basket she was carrying. As she bent to retrieve it, she flipped back the trailing material of her head veil, revealing copper-gold curls. Will halted. His eyes remained transfixed by her, even as she rose and he saw her face, even as he saw he didn’t know her. He started as he felt Robert’s hand on his elbow.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Will realized he had stopped. “Nothing. I forgot which way.”

  Robert glanced at the girl as she hastened on, then back at Will, but he said nothing and they continued in silence.

  The fog was thinner away from the river and soon they could see the city walls looming ahead, built from pale yellow stone and flanked with towers. Some distance away, near Temple Gate, a crowd had gathered. As they drew closer, the knights could hear someone shouting.

  “Weep, my children! Weep for the loss of God’s kingdom on earth! Weep for the fall of Jerusalem and the rise of Babylon! Weep for the men whose sins have led us into this age of darkness!”

  Will saw a man standing on the steps of a church. Arms raised, he addressed the crowd in a hoarse voice, as if he had been shouting for some time. He was young and the bald crown of his tonsured head showed pale against his dark hair. His gray robe was shabby and his bare feet were crusted with mud. He was a Franciscan: one of the followers of St. Francis of Assisi, who went out into the world as mendicants to preach the gospel, relying on others to provide for their earthly needs. Will hadn’t seen one in a long time.

  “Weep for your kings and princes, those who traded the Holy City for gold to line their pockets and clad their whores!”

  Some of the onlookers moved on uninterested, but more paused to listen as the young friar continued his passionate speech. Some even called their assent.

  “But weep most of all for the knights, my children, whose lust for blood is awoken only when it suits their purpose. When it doesn’t, these warriors leave mothers and infants, old men and the blind to fend off the swords of the infidel with nothing but prayer!” He flung a hand toward Temple Gate. “They made a pyre of God’s city and turned our dream to ash!”

  The calls turned into fervent cheers and there was a smatter of applause.

  “What is this?” Jacques moved up behind Will with a questioning frown.

  The friar drew a breath to continue, then halted, catching sight of the knights. His eyes lit up, but he scowled. “These are the men!” He pointed at the knights. “These are the men whose greed and impiety caused this woe!”

  The crowd looked around. Seeing the company approaching, some of the onlookers began to disperse, eyeing the knights’ white mantles, each decorated with a splayed red cross. But others stared, accusation plain in their faces.

  “These are the men who fled from the Saracens to save their own wealth, leaving women and children to rape and slaughter!”

  “Ignore him, my lord,” said one of the Templar officials, as Jacques stepped forward. “He does not know of what he speaks.”

  “Then I will correct him,” growled Jacques, pushing past.

  “With me,” said the official, gesturing worriedly to Will and Robert.

  “With respect, sir,” said Robert quickly, as the man went to unsheathe his sword, “I think that might be unnecessary.” All the knights had stopped now. Those near the back were craning their heads, trying to see what the disturbance was. “These people are unarmed,” continued Robert, as the official hesitated. “We will only cause a panic.”

  “Who are you?” demanded Jacques, striding up to the friar, the crowd parting like water before him. He was a huge figure among them, the large red cross on his back outlined in gold: a blaze of color amid their drab grays and browns. “Why do you harangue my men?”

  “I am a speaker of truth,” replied the friar defiantly, coming down the steps to confront Jacques. The crowd was stirring with excitement, expecting some drama. “Every day I come here, telling the people of this city what they need to know.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That in the final hour, you and your men abandoned the Holy Land.” The friar turned to his audience, his voice rising. “For two hundred years the mighty Temple has taken not only the money of kings and princes, but also alms from generous, good people such as yourselves, proclaiming it is protecting Christian pilgrims in the East. But these men abandoned those same pilgrims to butchery at the hands of the Saracens, concerned with saving their own lives, their own riches.” He looked back at Jacques. “Maybe once the Temple did good works, maybe once it served Christendom, but pride and greed and arrogance are your masters now. Your wealth is poured into comfortable lodgings, fine clothing, meat and wine for your tables. Your vows of poverty mean nothing, for even if men are made to give up everything they own to join your order, they enter lives of luxury.”

  Some of the knights started forward, their faces darkening with anger.

  “You are a spreader of vicious rumor,” said Jacques. “That is all. Thousands of knights from this order lost their lives in the defense of the Holy Land.”

  Will, watching the grand master address the friar, was struck by an image. He saw himself standing on a platform in a church beside another grand master, who was trying to convince a belligerent throng to agree to a peace with the Muslims. The people of Acre hadn’t listened; had called that man a traitor, then paid the price in the massacre that followed.

  “We could no more hop
e to hold back the Saracens than we could hope to stop the tide coming in,” continued Jacques, turning his forceful gaze on the crowd. “When the walls of Acre were breached we gave sanctuary to thousands of Christians, conveying as many as we could to Cyprus and safety.” His voice thickened. “Our last ship set sail shortly before the Temple fell with more than one hundred refugees, leaving many of our men to death.”

  In his mind, Will saw the Mamluk Army pouring in over Acre’s broken walls. Above the seething mass of men, the sky was black with smoke and the air thick with arrows. Around him his comrades screamed, cut down in the rubble- and corpse-strewn street, flesh and hair burning as pots of naphtha exploded. There was chaos and slaughter, and there was fire. Will closed his eyes. Terrible fire.

  “Are these the actions of arrogant men? Of cowards?” When no one spoke, Jacques roared at them. “Are they? ” People began to move away, unable to face the grand master’s steel gaze. Jacques turned on the friar. “If I hear your lies spoken again, I’ll have you whipped through these streets. My men have been protecting the dream of Christians for decades, fighting and dying for God and for you. You will show them the respect they deserve.”

  He began to walk away, but the friar was roused and came after him, pushing through the dispersing crowd. “If you had done more, Acre would not have fallen. While the Saracens were busy gathering an army, you were fighting among yourselves. It is well known your hostilities with the Knights of St. John divided and weakened our forces.”

  Will’s eyes opened as the friar’s abrasive voice grated in his ears. Jacques was walking away, but the Franciscan was following, not heeding the warning in the grim faces of the knights.

  “You should answer for all those dead children, those murdered women. You should be ashamed! You left them without protection when you should have laid down your lives for them. You call yourselves warriors of Christ? I say Christ will damn you!”

  In an instant, Will was rushing at the friar. All he could see was the man’s wide mouth, a dark hole opening and closing, emitting that high, rasping voice. All he could think of was silencing it. “Were you there?” he yelled, grabbing hold of the Franciscan’s robe. Behind him someone was shouting, but he was deaf to anything except the friar’s cries of protest. “Were you there? ” When there was no coherent answer, Will balled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the man’s face. The crunch and the pain in his knuckles were satisfying, as was the blood that spurted from the friar’s mouth as his head was knocked sideways, a yellowed tooth ripping loose with the impact. Will drew back for another strike, but felt himself seized. Someone was hauling him away. Someone else was prying his fingers from the friar’s tunic.

  “Enough! ”

  Jacques’s voice blasted through Will’s fury. He let go of the friar, who staggered back clutching his bloodied jaw.

  Jacques was glaring at him. “Control yourself, Commander. We do not brawl in the street like common thugs, no matter the provocation.”

  “I am sorry, my lord,” murmured Will, breathing hard. Wiping his mouth, he found his beard wet with spittle.

  “You will do penance for this.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Leaving the friar hunkered in the mud, the company continued in a tense silence to Temple Gate, where the city guards barred anyone else from entering or leaving as the knights, who had right of way, passed through in a somber white column. Will rested his bruised hand on the pommel of his falchion, ignoring Robert’s glances and feeling his knuckles begin to throb. He concentrated on the discomfort as they headed over the fosse onto a road that led past grand manors, a lazar hospital and several inns. The Paris walls had been built over a century ago, but barely decades later the city had expanded beyond its ring of stone, with abbeys, houses and vineyards springing up to become congested suburbs. Farther out, wooded hamlets and villages were surrounded by cornfields. Beyond the stately towers of the Cluniac priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs an even larger set of buildings, encircled by a lofty wall, rose out of the brown expanse of winter fields.

  The Temple enclosure greeted Will like an old friend, long-lost, but not forgotten. Since leaving Acre, he hadn’t stayed in any one town long enough to feel at home. Here in these damp fields, worlds apart from the dry plains of Palestine, he was surprised by the sense of homecoming that assailed him, filtering through less welcome memories. He thought about the other places he had lived in: London and the estate outside Edinburgh and, for the first time in years, found himself wanting to see them.

  The tallest structure within the walls was the great donjon, its turrets stark against the white sky, a piebald banner fluttering from the center spire. Crowded around it were a dozen or more buildings, the different heights and angles of rooftops making a jagged silhouette. As the knights approached the gatehouse, the sergeants on guard stood to attention. Their eyes transfixed with respectful wonder by the immense figure of Jacques de Molay, they pushed against the gates which creaked open onto a courtyard shadowed by the guardhouse tower. As a sergeant sprinted across the yard to announce the grand master’s arrival, Will entered, engulfed by memories.

  He knew this place so well; every building, every outhouse. He knew the pungent smell of the stables and the overwhelming heat of the kitchens, frenetic with servants. He knew the comforting, yeasty warmth of the bakehouse, the cloying perfume of apples fermenting in the storehouses and the chill of the chapel at dawn, filled with the prayers of five hundred men. He knew the bright pain of drinking water straight from the well, how the ponds near the servants’ quarters boiled with fish at feeding time, knew the deafening hammering in the armory and the bone-jarring hardness of the frost-bitten training field during a frozen November drill. He had come here a rudderless, stubborn sergeant of thirteen, having witnessed the murder of his knight master. It was here that he had buried Owein, here that he had met Everard, here where so many things had begun. He wanted to race back through time, back through the halls and passages echoing with the sound of boys’ laughter and running feet. He wanted to find that troubled boy and tell him not to leave, not to follow Everard’s orders. Not to go to the East. Because then he wouldn’t be standing here, a man bereft, ghost-walking through his own life, a trail of death and deception behind him.

  The company spilled into the courtyard, overlooked by the grandest buildings in the enclosure: the donjon and treasury, the quarters of the officials, the Great Hall and the Chapter House. Servants stopped to stare as Jacques strode in among the men. Somewhere a bell began to clang. Some moments later, the doors of the officials’ building swung open and a host of men appeared. At their head was a short, thickset man with oily hair swept austerely back from his face, accentuating a snoutlike nose that jutted over thin lips framed by a wiry mustache and beard. Will was drawn out of his thoughts by the transformation in his old comrade. He had last seen Hugues de Pairaud in Acre over ten years ago when they were both in their late thirties. Age had since crept up on the visitor of the order, tracing lines of gray through his black hair, loosening the skin of his face, softening the muscles of his heavy frame into a paunch that strained against his surcoat.

  Hugues caught Will’s eye and gave a reserved nod, then turned his attention to the grand master. “My lord,” he said, bowing. “It is an honor.”

  Jacques nodded impatiently. “You received my message?”

  “Two months ago. We have been awaiting your presence with anticipation. I sent word of your coming to our preceptories throughout the kingdom and to England.”

  “It is good to know someone is pleased to see us at least.” When Hugues frowned, Jacques told him of the Franciscan.

  “We know of this troublemaker. We have tried to move him on before.”

  “Tried? He should have been arrested if he disobeyed your order. There was a time when it was a public offense to insult us. Have things changed so much that a man can stand on a street corner and defame us for all to hear?”

  One of the Templar offici
als beside Hugues answered. “We did not want to give his sermonizing credence by making a fuss. We believed, were we to arrest him, that it might make others think his words held some truth.”

  “I can assure you, my lord,” said Hugues, as the grand master’s eyes narrowed at the official, “this preacher will be dealt with, if that is your command.”

  “My concern is not the man himself, but the attention he seemed to be enjoying. Do the people truly blame us for the loss of the Holy Land?”

  “Only a discontented minority,” said Hugues after a considered pause. “And it is not just us; many others have been blamed: the Hospitallers, the Teutonics”—he laughed disparagingly—“even the Franciscans for not praying hard enough. When news of the fall of Acre first reached us, you have to know there was widespread panic. People thought God had abandoned us. Some even converted to Islam, fled to Granada; others looked for some reason this catastrophe had befallen Christendom and sought who was responsible. But this atmosphere of blame has receded.” Hugues looked as though he had finished, but then continued. “There have been more immediate concerns in the abdication of Pope Celestine and, of course, the war.”

  Jacques breathed sharply through his nostrils. “Indeed. You mentioned this in the last message I received on Cyprus, but it was difficult to obtain adequate information after we left for Rome. I would welcome a full report.”

  “Certainly, my lord. But shall we retire to more comfortable quarters? I will have the servants prepare your private chambers, but until they are ready we may use my solar.”

  “My officers will join us. It will save either of us from repeating ourselves. Have the rest of the men shown to lodgings.”

  Hugues nodded to two of the knights beside him, who ushered the group of weary men across the courtyard.

  Jacques gestured to the six officials gathered around him. “And you, Campbell,” he said, looking over at Will. “I’ll need a commander to relay any information necessary to the others.”