Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (62 page)

“You distorted Everard’s words. Men drinking blood? Knights spitting on the cross? Those were allegories!”

“They still are. Only now they are all the more powerful because they are truly meant.”

“In a story they are innocent. Enacted they are heresy.”

“Heresy!” scoffed Hugues. “You are as stuck in the old ways as Jacques de Molay. No matter how much scorn he poured on Armand de Périgord’s 368 robyn

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obsession with the stories of the Grail, Everard knew how powerful those ideas were. But he never used that power. He didn’t have the chance. I have taken his and Armand’s work and turned it into something real, not just some fantasy for grown men to pretend at, but something that can save the order.”

“How in Christ’s name is turning young, impressionable knights into blood-drinking sinners going to save the order?”

“The blood is a potent reminder of our ties as brothers,” said Hugues, his tone intent. “That is why Everard used it in his story of Perceval. I have simply taken it one step further and, in doing so, have made it that much more compelling. These knights”—he spread a hand to take in more shadowy fi gures at the edge of Will’s vision—“are true Brethren.”

“I doubt Martin de Floyran would think much of your idea of brotherhood.”

Hugues’s face fell. “My men went too far that night. But they are fi ercely loyal to me and to one another, and Martin’s betrayal of our oaths wounded them deeply. It was my fault. He wasn’t ready for initiation. Some men aren’t.”

“And Esquin?”

“Another unfortunate sacrifice.” Hugues drew a heavy breath. “We aren’t sinners or heretics, Campbell. I believe in God as much as you do. The men I pick for initiation into the Anima Templi come to this chamber to act out the journey of Perceval with me as their guide.” He gestured to his shimmering cloak. “The Fisher King who leads them through their trials. They are asked to choose between two paths: the way of the old order, under the grand master, a way of blood and violence and war, a way that will destroy the Temple, or the path to a new order. But that new path is not an easy road. In following it they are betraying the oaths they took as knights, betraying their masters, their families even. To follow it they must trust me completely and I must trust them. They spit on the cross to prove their loyalty to me; to prove that when it comes to matters of the Brethren, I am the highest authority. Everard understood the power in these acts, or he wouldn’t have written the Book of the Grail. That is why he called Acre his Camelot. The idea of men fi ghting to save a mystical ideal is more potent than men struggling to save a dusty scrap of land, isn’t it?”

Will was shaking his head, incredulous. “You’ve been initiating men all this time? Robert told me you were doing nothing. That the Brethren didn’t even meet anymore.”

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“I once hoped Robert might join us, but I knew he was as entrenched in the old ways as you and Jacques. It is time for a new order. A new Brethren.

The Crusades are over, they were over the moment Acre fell to the Mamluks, and while the Teutonics advance into Prussia to take land and wealth, and the Hospitallers plan their conquest of Rhodes, our own leaders stumble blindly about in Cyprus, still grasping for Jerusalem and a vanished dream. This is a time for building empires, for expansion, not wasting men and resources on futile holy wars. The world changed while you were trying to hold up a crumbling idea in the East. The kings of the West are busy gathering their power, building their realms. We need to do the same if we are to survive. We must change too and to do that we need a secure base in which to consolidate our strength. In time, we will stretch out our hand into a new age, an age of dis-covery and learning, peace and prosperity.” Hugues’s eyes were shining in the candlelight. “But I knew I could only change the order slowly, from within, and so I began recruiting knights who would be loyal to me over Jacques and his Crusade.”

“So what do you intend to do? Invade a country with your personal army?”

“I do not need to. King Edward has promised to provide the Temple with an area of conquered Scotland.”

Will sat forward. His eyes narrowed with pain and anger. “If he conquers it!”

“He will,” answered Hugues calmly. “Robert Bruce and his followers have gone to ground and Edward’s army marches north as we speak. It is the greatest force since Falkirk. Scotland will fall under English steel and the Temple will have its security, away from the turbulent centers of France and England, Germany and Rome.”

“You’re a fool, Hugues,” murmured Will. “Edward has fought for eighteen years to control Scotland. Do you honestly believe he will give any part of it to you? You’ve been blinded by your own fantasies and you’ve twisted the aims of the Brethren to suit them. This isn’t what Everard, my father, Elias or Kalawun intended, what they lived and bled for. This isn’t the Soul of the Temple.”

“It is now. You left, Will. You haven’t been part of the order or the Brethren for years. While you’ve been picking away at King Edward, a mouse trying to bring down a lion, I’ve been leading the Temple to a golden future.”

“A golden future? Right now, a message is making its way to Cyprus that will summon Grand Master de Molay to meet the pope to answer charges of 370 robyn

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heresy within this preceptory. King Philippe and Guillaume de Nogaret have been trying to gain control of the order for years, to take its wealth for themselves. By your actions, you may have damned every man here.”

“Ridiculous. No one even knows of the Brethren.”

“Esquin de Floyran does and he is in royal custody.”

“That is impossible. Only I have the authority to free de Floyran.” Hugues stared at Will, realization dawning across his face. “Has Robert de Paris been more of a snake than I realized?”

“We can turn this around. I have the ear of the pope, but you must destroy all evidence of what you have been doing here. You must disband the Anima Templi and—”

“Disband it?” Hugues’s face filled with suspicion. “What game are you playing with me, Campbell?”

“No game, I swear—”

“Enough! I will not listen to these lies.” Hugues gestured to the men in the shadows. “Get him out of my sight.”

“Shutting me away in Merlan will not change what is happening!” shouted Will, as the masked Brethren untied his hands and pulled him roughly to his feet.

“You’re not going to Merlan. You’re going to England. It was Edward’s price for the Brethren’s new territory: you, for Scotland.”

“Don’t do this!” shouted Will. “Don’t do this, for God’s sake!”

But Hugues was turning away and a hood was coming down over Will’s face, cutting off his sight.

36

The Road to Carlisle, the Kingdom of England

july 1, 1307 ad

The wagon bounced and rocked along the road. Will sat hunched against the side, feeling every jolt in his bruised body. Through the weave of the hood he caught flashes of brightness slanting in through the open back of the wagon. Judging by the sporadic glints of light and change the fall of the templars

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in smell he supposed they must be passing through a forest. He had been trying for some moments to think where they might be, but time and distance were so distorted in his mind he simply had no way of knowing.

He had been taken from Paris on the night of his encounter with Hugues, his captors spiriting him down to the Seine, where they boarded a small vessel.

Recovering slowly from the injuries he sustained at the hands of Hugues’s men, he drifted in and out of consciousness. They kept him in isolation in the cramped, stinking hold, still blindfolded and bound, and it was only on hearing the cries of gulls over the slosh of water and creaking timbers that he knew when they reached the sea. He was dragged up on deck, gasping at the salt air, and transferred to a larger ship at Honfl eur, but before it could set sail a summer storm blew in along the coast, forcing the vessel to remain docked for several days.

Shaken beneath deck in the boiling waves that dashed the port, Will’s thoughts settled on his daughter, presumably still in the palace. The image of her waiting for him, thinking he had abandoned her yet again, drove him into a frenzy and, yelling curses and threats at his captors, he struggled and kicked within his bonds until two men came down and methodically beat him into silence. Thereafter, the crossing to England passed in a haze. Arriving in London, he was taken to a building near the docks, where he spent a week or so chained in a cellar, surviving on bread and briny-tasting water, before fi nally being dumped in the wagon.

Listening to snatches of conversation during the ponderous journey north, he discovered that the thirty or so men conveying him were part of King Edward’s royal guard, following the English Army on the march to Scotland with extra supplies. There were other carts with them on the road, but the one he was in was filled with barrels of sickly smelling wine. The parched heat of the days seeped through the cloth, leaving him panting, sweating and mad for water, which he guzzled like a crazed dog whenever the guards thrust a bowl at him.

The glints of light fl ashing through his hood soon became a constant glare and Will guessed they must have passed out of the shade of the forest. The fertile smell of trees was replaced with the musty scent of dry grass and the soldiers muttered about the clouds of insects that plagued them. An hour or so later, Will caught a whiff of campfire smoke and began to hear the distant, incoherent hum of many people. The chatter of birdsong died away and soon the hum stretched itself out into proper sounds: dogs and horses, calls, laughter. The wagon trundled over fields and lurched to a stop. Will felt a shift in 372 robyn

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weight as two men climbed in. His arms were grasped and his stiff body yanked upright. He heard voices all around him, deafening after so long in relative silence. Suddenly, the hood was pulled from over his face and sunlight blasted into his eyes.

He was on an immense, grassy plain, covered, as far as he could see, by hundreds, possibly thousands of tents. Bright banners and pennants fl uttered everywhere, a confusion of color and emblems, many of which he remembered from the campaigns he had fought with Wallace. Knights and lords stood about in groups or else rested in open-sided tents, while squires and servants hurried between them like lines of busy ants. As the guards marched Will through the encampment, he saw a huddle of men working on mail coats, painstakingly linking each metal ring, the shirts silvery and supple as fi sh scales in their quick-moving hands. There were cooks in stained aprons, laboring at fires, and a crowd of archers checking the flight feathers on arrows under the watchful eye of their captain. Hugues had said the army was as vast as the one that destroyed the Scottish force at Falkirk. As he passed through its midst, Will thought it might actually be larger.

In the distance, near several grand-looking tents, was a regal scarlet pavilion. He felt a twinge in his gut as he recognized the golden lions on the banner planted outside. Behind it, the land rose gradually, but the incline and heat haze made it impossible to see what lay beyond and he had no real way of telling where they were. He realized the two soldiers were leading him toward a small cage formed of bound wooden stakes, guarded by men in royal livery.

One opened the door and the soldiers shoved him inside. He had to bend double the prison was so low, the grass inside yellow and flattened. Four fi gures within, faces bruised and wary, stared at him as the cage door was shut.

burgh-upon-sands, the kingdom of england,

july 3, 1307 ad

Will tore ravenously at the leathery strip of meat. His mouth was full of blisters from lack of decent food and it hurt to chew, but if this was to be his last meal he was determined to savor it. It was late in the evening, the sky above the amber gleam of torches and fires a boundless blue. The sun had risen twice since he had been tossed into the cage and still the army hadn’t moved from the grassy plain. It had, however, grown.

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Over the past two days a stream of reinforcements had flowed onto the plain to swell the English forces, along with straggling supply trains. Infantry, faces burned dark by the midsummer sun, trudged wearily into the camp, bearing maces and axes, spears and shields, and nobles rode in, leading companies of knights. At night, when the rations were passed around, Will sat listening to the laughter and camp songs. These soldiers had fought the Scots for years. They knew the terrain and their enemy’s tactics, and they were confi -

dent. The rumor was that Robert Bruce was planning to fight back, but the English dismissed his chances scornfully. Despite some early successes for Scotland’s new king, Edward retained control of much of the country. Now, almost a decade after their terrible defeat at Stirling Bridge, his men had come again to make the rebel kingdom pay one last, bloody time.

Will had gleaned some of this information from his fellow captives. All four were Scottish scouts, two from Bruce’s camp, who had been sent to spy on the English advance. They had been tortured for information on the Scots’

whereabouts, but so far had managed to hold out, although Will wasn’t sure for how much longer. One of the four had been taken away that morning. He hadn’t returned. Between the creeping fear he felt, for his country and for himself, his thoughts traveled endlessly around what he had left behind. He thought of Hugues in his Fisher King’s cloak with his army of masked soldiers, waiting in the Paris preceptory for the Hammer to flatten them a piece of land. He thought of Robert, one of his oldest comrades, most likely imprisoned or dead. He thought of his daughter, trapped in the palace, and of Pope Clement’s message winging its way to Cyprus. He thought too of Esquin de Floyran, hidden in some royal tower, impatient to bring his jailers to ruin.

“Campbell.”

Will swallowed down the last of the dry meat, seeing two royal guards approaching. One gestured to him.

“Out.”

Will crawled his way to the cage door, knowing it was futile to resist, and caught a staunch nod from one of the Scottish prisoners as the guards pulled him to his feet. English soldiers stared as he was marched between their campfires. One man spat at him. Will fixed his gaze ahead, realizing his captors were leading him toward the scarlet pavilion.