Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (22 page)

“You don’t even know if Ede is still there,” said Will sharply. “There’s been no word from her.”

“Stop it!” Margaret yelled, leaping to her feet. “Stop it, both of you! I cannot bear this!”

Ysenda rounded on Will. “You made me take my children away from their home! From their
father
!” As her voice cracked and broke on that last word, Margaret dashed off into the trees.

“
No!
” shouted Alice, who had risen and was standing with her back pressed against the tree, staring terrified at her wild-faced mother.

“Let her go,” said David suddenly, “there’ll be more food for the rest of us.”

Ysenda stormed over to him. David shouted and tried to fend her off as she slapped him. The sound of her open palm striking his face ricocheted. The lymer’s barking rose to a frantic pitch and it thrashed against its leash. David grabbed hold of his mother’s wrists. They were both yelling.

As Will went to pull them apart, he was halted by a scream echoing through the woods a short distance away.

Ysenda froze. Her eyes flicked to Will, but he was already running for his sword, lying on his blanket in its scabbard.

Unsheathing it, he set off through the trees in the direction of the scream.

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As he fought his way through the undergrowth, twigs and branches scratching at his face and clothes, he wasn’t certain he was going the right way, then the scream came again, this time closer. Up ahead rose a steep bank, carpeted with pinecones and spiny needles. Will saw a figure at the top, arms outstretched, silhouetted in a shaft of sun.

“Margaret!”

She whipped around with a cry of relief. At that moment, her foot slipped and she fell backward with a scream that cut off as she hit the ground and tumbled head over heels, sending up a storm of twigs and pine needles. Dropping his sword, Will charged up the bank. Throwing his arm around the trunk of a tree, he grabbed at her. His hand caught hold of the back of her dress. He was yanked downward with her momentum, his arm locking around the trunk with painful force. There was a ripping sound as her dress tore, but she was brought to a lurching stop. Letting go of the tree, balancing precariously on his knees, Will grasped Margaret’s hand and pulled her upright. He glanced down the slope to where the trees drew in tight. The speed she was going she would have been knocked senseless had she hit them. Broken bones. No physician. He shook away the thoughts. Margaret’s hair was full of pine needles and her cheek had a graze on it, but other than this and the tear in her gown she looked unhurt. “Dear God, girl, it’s a good thing you weigh next to nothing or I might be holding your dress without you in it.”

Margaret wasn’t listening. Her eyes were fixed on a point up the bank behind him.

Even as he turned, Will heard shouts for them to stand. The reason for Margaret’s screams now became clear as three men scrabbled down the bank, wielding clubs. Four others remained at the top, bows in their hands, the arrows fixed on him and Margaret. Another two were moving quickly through the trees to his right. One was heading for his falchion.

the royal palace, paris, july 20, 1297 ad

“This is excellent news, my lord. A triumph.”

Philippe smiled, his pale blue eyes shining in the light coming through the window of his solar. “It is,” he agreed, placing the parchment on his desk and sitting back, his gaze on Guillaume de Nogaret. His smile faded. “Of course, it should have been done years ago. But, still, late is better than never.” He the fall of the templars

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looked at the parchment again, the pope’s seal, attached to the skin, a mark of his victory. He had an urge to hang it in the porch of Notre Dame, where all the citizens of Paris could view it. In it they would see the power of their king, and word of his great achievement would spread. The people of France may have called his grandfather a saint, but it was through his deeds,
his
, Philippe’s, that he had finally been canonized. Now, when they lit candles for St. Louis in churches across the kingdom they would think of their king and praise him too. He imagined their prayers like tiny winged birds, all spiraling up into the choirs of churches, up, up into the face of God. Philippe’s thoughts were pulled back into the room as the door opened and Pierre Flote entered.

“My lord,” the chancellor said in greeting. He was out of breath.

Philippe picked up the parchment. “Have you heard, Flote?” he said, rising. “Pope Boniface has given in to my demands. My grandfather is to be canonized.”

“My lord, I—”

“See here.” Philippe cut across him, striding to the chancellor and showing him the document. “Nogaret was right, we needed only to hold our nerve in the face of his proclamations and he would yield.” The king sobered, glancing at Nogaret. “It was a good idea, forbidding the export of gold and silver from France.” His tone stiffened at the praise, as if he couldn’t bring himself to commit fully to the minister’s achievement. “Faced with the inability to collect the revenues from French churches, the pope had no choice but to back down.”

“And a holy fool he made of himself in the process,” said Nogaret, smiling, contemptuous. “Proclaiming
Clericis laicos
far and wide with all the pomp he could muster, only to retract this order meekly when he realized we could do him far more damage. He knows his place now though, my lord. We have Boniface exactly where we want him.”

“My lord!”

Philippe turned back to the chancellor with a frown. “Do not shout at me, Flote.”

“I beg your pardon, but I have just received word from England that King Edward has set sail for Flanders.”

“Flanders?” questioned Nogaret, the triumph falling from his face.

Flote didn’t look at the minister. “It is said that he seeks to build upon the Nuremburg alliance with the marriage of his son to the daughter of Guy de Dampierre.”

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Philippe’s hand dropped to his side, the parchment crumpling in his fi st.

He looked down at it, then tossed it onto his desk and went to the window, where he stood in silence, his back to them.

“Damn him,” murmured Nogaret.

“These tidings are not without hope,” said Flote, addressing the king’s tall silhouette, framed in the sunlit window. “Edward’s barons are rebelling against his war in Gascony, refusing to fight in his service, forcing him to seek military support elsewhere. This move to join with the count of Flanders is perhaps more desperate than it appears.”

“No,” said Philippe, turning. “My cousin plays my game. He intends for me to fight a war on two fronts, dividing my troops between Guienne and Flanders. It was just such a predicament I intended for him when I signed the treaty with Scotland.”

“But in Edward’s case he does not have a secondary force to place in the field,” said Nogaret, frowning pensively. “He too must divide his army. He weakens himself with this action.”

Philippe wasn’t listening. “Meanwhile, the delays on my fleet continue and money still dribbles daily from my coffers.” He sat behind his desk, glowering at the parchment with Boniface’s seal on it, which now seemed to mock him.

His conflict with the pope had ultimately been just another protracted venture that had kept him occupied this past year. He felt like a piece of meat being fought over by his enemies. They all had their teeth in him, dragging him this way and that, leaving him divided, unable to focus on any one of them at once.

He thought he had dealt with the alliance at Nuremburg, formed between Edward and the rulers of the Low Countries three years ago. After learning of it, he immediately persuaded the count of Holland, with monetary entice-ments, to withdraw his support, undermining the entire coalition. Philippe had known he still faced fierce opposition from Guy de Dampierre, who had been resisting his attempts to bring Flanders fully under French control, supported by the powerful textile guilds whose workers made up a large percentage of the Flemish population. But he had thought he would be able to deal with the count once the English in Guienne had been defeated. That his two enemies would join forces against him now was an unexpected blow. “I should have seen it coming.” He looked up, his eyes narrowing on his advisors. “You should have seen it coming.”

“My lord, how could we?” asked Nogaret.

“I agree,” said Flote, silencing the minister, “we should have, even without the fall of the templars

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the warning of the Nuremburg alliance.” He turned his gaze on Nogaret.

“Flanders’s predominant industry is weaving and England’s greatest export is wool. The two have been natural allies for many years, far longer than the counts of Flanders have been vassals of French kings. Their relationship has been cemented by royal marriages before. That Edward would attempt to strengthen his country’s friendship with his closest ally by such means was, I would say, inevitable.” He looked at Philippe. “The question now becomes what can be done to stop this?”

“Perhaps if we—” began Nogaret.

“If I put a new force in the field,” Philippe asked Flote, “for how long could they be adequately supplied?”

Flote pursed his lips. “I would need to speak to the treasurer, but I would think, with the monies we extracted from the Church taxes, a good few months.”

Philippe perched on the edge of his desk, all his attention on the chancellor. “If we take decisive action now, before this Anglo-Flemish union has time to solidify, we might kill several birds with one stone. A victory would mean I could take control of Flanders, firmly establishing our wealthy neighbor as a French domain. But it would also mean the destruction of part of Edward’s army.” Philippe smiled, clasping his palms together and setting his fi ngertips to his lips. “And with it the rest of his waning reputation.”

“And if you abandon the building of the fleet for the time being, my lord,”

added Flote, “you could equip an army in the northeast for the rest of this year if needs be.”

“We do it,” said Philippe. “We send an army as soon as it can be raised, forcing the English and Flemish to counter before they can consummate the marriage. With luck, one strike will be all that’s needed to break them.”

Nogaret stepped in. “My lord, I am concerned by the thought that we would abandon the fleet after so much time and money has already been spent on it.”

“I would say, Minister de Nogaret,” said Flote, before the king could answer, “that the fact so much time and money has been spent on it would be grounds alone for its abandonment.”

Nogaret’s dark eyes glittered, color blooming in his waxy cheeks.

In the pause, the king moved past them to the door. “Flote, arrange a meeting with my staff for tomorrow after Nones. I will set these plans in motion.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Nogaret stared after Flote, who followed the king out of the solar. A breeze 126 robyn

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drifted through the window, ruffling the parchment proclaiming the canonization of King Louis, forgotten on the desk.

Philippe remained deep in thought as he headed for his bedchamber. Even through his fury at Edward, forcing him into this corner from where he could only fight, he felt oddly jubilant. If the English king thought he could rattle his nerve by this endeavor he was wrong. Hadn’t he, Philippe, just defeated the pope? A ripple of unease passed through him at this thought, or, more precisely, at the satisfaction he felt. He must not allow himself to be like Nogaret and gloat in his victory over the Church. He must feel regret for his actions, actions he was forced to commit because of the pontiff ’s own failings.

He would be the penitent shepherd, not the crowing conqueror. He would arrange to see his confessor at once; submit to penance, cleanse himself of any stain.

Reaching his bedchamber, Philippe pushed open the doors. The fi rst thing he saw was a woman standing in front of a full-length silver mirror, dressed in one of his wife’s gowns. The second thing he saw was that she wasn’t his wife.

Rose gave a cry and whirled to face him, her arms flying up to cover her chest as if she were naked and trying to hide herself, as well she might for the laces that crisscrossed the back of the crimson gown were wide open, revealing a triangle of flesh, all the way to the cleft of her buttocks, plainly visible in the mirror behind her. In the few seconds during which Philippe took this in, Rose hopped toward the bed, where a plain white dress lay crumpled. “My lord, I. . . .” She snatched up the dress and crushed it to her chest. “I’m sorry, I thought—”

“ ‘Where is Jeanne?” Philippe demanded. His wife’s gown was far too big for the handmaiden’s thin frame. It hung off her like a red bell. “What are you doing wearing that?”

“A tear,” said Rose suddenly. “My lady thought she found a tear. I couldn’t see it. I thought—I thought if I put it on I might be able to see clearer.”

Philippe’s jaw pulsed in recognition of the lie. He felt furious, yet also fl ustered. This wasn’t his domain. He didn’t know how to punish this young woman, standing here in his wife’s clothes, brazenly lying to him. He would tell Jeanne, have her deal with this. He had a war to concern himself with.

“Leave,” he commanded, thrusting a finger toward the door that led into the room where the handmaidens slept.

Rose, her cheeks burning, fled, one hand grasping her own dress, the other the fall of the templars

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trying to hold the back of the queen’s gown closed as she passed him. Before the door banged shut, he caught another glimpse of her naked back, pale against the crimson silk.

selkirk forest, scotland, july 20, 1297 ad

“What will they do with us?”

Will glanced around at the whisper. His sister’s eyes were wide, but she walked erect at his side as if to hide her fear, from her children or the nine men surrounding them he wasn’t sure. “I do not think we are in any immediate danger,” he murmured, looking at their captors, who were an odd group all told.

Three of them had taken point, two leading the horses with their packs strapped to them and the lymer leashed to the crupper of the piebald. The third, a burly, unkempt man, barefoot and clad only in shabby leather breeches, wielded a club and looked as if he had lived in the forest most of his life, his broad chest and arms riddled with scars. The other two were slighter of build and much better dressed in short coats of mail and well-tailored surcoats. They carried bows with slender baskets attached to their belts to hold arrows. To either side of Will and his family marched another four men, one with a long spear and three who looked more like shepherds than soldiers. Bringing up the rear were two in Highlander dress: dyed woolen tunics that reached to their thighs. These last two looked very at ease with their long-handled Lochaber axes in their fists and Will and Duncan’s swords slung from their belts.