THE CASTLE GUARDING THE NARROW VALLEY WAS NO longer known by any name. Stark and forbidding, it squatted above the valley’s mouth like a basilisk guarding its lair. Especially in winter, the surrounding foothills of the Rouerge represented one of the most forbidding regions of southern France. Farther into the valley, the unsightly refuse of an abandoned stone quarry littered the snow-covered ground like the picked bones of a carcass.
The castle’s outward appearance of neglect, however, was mere camouflage, instigated by Nogaret. Having acquired the shell of an ancestral ruin, he had since transformed it into a secret citadel of power. Inside, every room in the castle had been scoured and refurbished, from the deepest cellars to the topmost chamber of the highest tower.
The resident garrison was small, its numbers limited to those who could readily be housed within the castle’s outer baillie. The handful of servants who maintained the place had been carefully chosen for reasons that had nothing to do with providing hospitality. Visitors, apart from Nogaret himself, were unheard of. When he summoned three other members of the Decuria there for a secret meeting, the occasion was virtually without precedent.
Baudoin de Champiere edged his chair closer toward the fire and rubbed his cold hands briskly to warm them.
“Sensible of what an honor it is for me to be here,” he observed sourly, “I can hardly deem the experience a pleasure. You would think these loutish servants would know enough at least to bring us refreshments. I’m perishing for a cup of wine!”
He helped himself to a sugared rose leaf from the jeweled comfit box he habitually carried in one of his silken sleeve pockets.
“Magister Nogaret’s servants take their tone from their master,” Peret Auvergnais said with an offhand shrug. “If they didn’t have their uses, he wouldn’t keep them.”
“Our peerless leader has the appetites of an anchorite,” Baudoin said with a snort. “He is incapable of enjoying the finer things life has to offer—though he does have that demon in his ring. . . .”
“Guard your tongue,” Peret advised. “Nogaret’s churls may lack manners, but I daresay they have ears.”
Hitherto silent, Valentin de Vesey turned restlessly away from the window, where he had been contemplating an ice-rimed view of a long-dead orchard.
“This is as joyless a retreat as I can imagine,” he said. “Is it true that this castle was once a Cathar stronghold?”
“So I understand,” Baudoin said around another sugared petal, though without any great interest. “It’s said that his parents were Cathars, you know: condemned as heretics and burned at the stake, when he was but a lad.”
“I’d heard that,” Valentin replied. “And that the Church took great pains to educate him, in hopes that it might keep him from following in their footsteps.”
“Well, he didn’t follow in the footsteps of his parents or the Church fathers, did he?” Baudoin said slyly, sucking the stickiness from his fingers. “You don’t suppose this is where his parents were burned, do you?”
Both his companions gave him warning looks, which Baudoin shrugged off as he leaned forward to pitch another chunk of wood on the fire.
The appearance of a servant at the door brought all three visitors to their feet.
“Magister Nogaret is ready to receive you now,” the man informed them. “You will come with me.”
He led them to the topmost room in the east tower. As they approached the door, Valentin detected a lurking tingle of power in the air. It was not sufficient to prepare him for the scene that met his eyes when they entered the room beyond.
The chamber itself was circular, its stone walls perforated by four deep lancet windows. But the windows had been blocked and then covered over with screens of silk, embroidered with traceries of Hebrew writing. In the absence of daylight, the room was illuminated by four bronze lamps placed at the four cardinal points of the compass, whose amber glow picked out an assortment of chests and bookshelves ranged about the chamber’s perimeter.
Dominating the center of the room, upon a raised dais paved with alternating squares of black and white, was an altar draped with a rich cloth of creamy silk, beneath a silken canopy. A seven-branched candelabrum guarded one end of the altar; at the other, a bronze lectern supported a large leather-bound volume of Hebrew arcana, held shut by a pair of jeweled clasps. It was, Valentin realized, quite a passable imitation of a Jewish sanctuary.
More astonishing still was the sight of Guillaume de Nogaret standing in the shadows behind the altar, arrayed in a purple tunic embroidered with scarlet and gold and wearing the priestly ephod upon his breast. Draped over his shoulders was a rich mantle, also of violet silk, and on his head he wore a turban secured with a jeweled brooch—the complete raiment of a Jewish High Priest, save for the Breastplate.
Peret and Baudoin both were gaping. Belatedly Valentin discovered he was doing likewise. Nogaret smiled thinly at their astonishment.
“What you see should come as no surprise,” he said mildly. “Perhaps this will speak more eloquently than mere words concerning my motives and intentions.”
From the folds of his mantle he produced what he had taken from the body of Gaspar des Macquelines some months before. It was the shape and the size of a small book, and swathed in muffling layers of crisp white linen. Power emanated from it in palpable waves, like the fluctuations of the tide. At the very sight of it, an expression of greedy concupiscence transfigured Baudoin’s large features. Valentin’s expression was more one of concern.
“It wasn’t damaged by its immersion, was it?”
“No, it was sealed in wrappings of waxed cloth.”
“Then, it is the High Priest’s Breastplate!” Baudoin breathed. “I was beginning to wonder whether you would ever allow the rest of us to catch a glimpse of the prize.”
Nogaret whisked the packet out of sight again.
“This is not some vulgar piece of strumpet’s finery,” he warned sharply. “This is a sacred standard, a weapon, a key to powers that brought the very cosmos to birth! Its natural affinities are entirely inimical to our own. Anyone attempting to unlock its secrets must armor himself in appropriate ritual, or else court annihilation.”
“Hence these gaudy affectations of a primitive Judaic priesthood,” Baudoin said scornfully, waving a hand around the room.
“You may live to be grateful for the thoroughness of my preparations,” Nogaret said tightly. “Tonight we are going to awaken the powers of the Breastplate—and bend them to our will.”
Glances of varying degrees of alarm flew among his three subordinates.
“Ah, Magister . . .” Valentin ventured, “would it not be wiser if all the members of the Decuria were present for a ceremony of such importance?”
“By no means,” Nogaret replied. “There are some upon whose confidence I cannot rely as I can on yours.”
“Eventually, they will learn what we have done,” Baudoin pointed out. “They’ll demand to know why they were excluded.”
“And I shall tell them it was for their own protection,” Nogaret said icily. “Or do some of you wish to be excluded?”
Smiling sardonically, Peret said, “I believe I speak for all of us when I declare that ten thousand devils could not drive me from this room.”
“I trust,” Nogaret said coldly, “that you will not have occasion to try the accuracy of that statement.” He gestured toward three stacks of folded garments atop a trunk to one side of the room. “Pray, vest yourselves appropriately, from the skin out.”
Somewhat sobered, the three newcomers traded their travel attire for ceremonial vestments similar to Nogaret’s. Nogaret himself undertook to cleanse and ward the room, setting candles and incense alight to the accompaniment of a complex sequence of cabalistic signs and prayers and a keening Hebraic chant. By the time he had finished, the other three were ready to join him at the altar.
“Now,” Nogaret said, carefully positioning the linen-wrapped packet at the base of the lectern. His habitually pallid face was flushed with excitement as he folded back several layers of linen and then silk, beneath which lay the long-awaited prize.
A collective sigh breathed from the lips of his three colleagues at the sight of it, the twelve large jewels set in three rows of four and stitched to a backing of stiffened linen, each stone engraved with a sigil of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The stones were held in bezels of polished gold—topaz and sapphire, emerald, diamond, and other gems—glinting in the slanting light, each stone remarkable in its size and purity. Nogaret’s pale, protuberant eyes glowed with excitement, reflecting the jewels as a tiny pair of multicolored constellations.
“Behold the Breastplate of Aaron, perhaps the greatest treasure of Solomon’s Temple,” he murmured. “Each jewel is a storehouse of mystical energy. Their arrangement forms a matrix for containing the harmonization of those energies. But the source of the power itself resides here, in these two stones secreted at the back of the Breastplate.”
He turned it over to show them two slightly bulging pockets stitched to the back of the linen, carefully opening the mouths of both so that they could see what lay within: two more stones of similar size to those stitched to the front of the Breastplate, one black and one white.
“Behold, the legendary Urim and Thummin—the Lights and Perfections,” he said, as they bent to peer into the pockets. “They have divinatory properties on their own, but harnessed to the jewels of the Breastplate, they can generate such force as has not been seen on the earth since the destruction of Gomorrah.”
“Strange, that they should appear as dark and lusterless as river stones,” Baudoin remarked, starting to prod at one of the pockets with a forefinger.
“Do not touch them!” Nogaret warned, slapping Baudoin’s hand away. “They can kill if mishandled!” He let out a deep breath. “If we succeed in attuning them to the Breastplate, the power at our command will enable us to reshape the material world.”
With due respect, if not reverence, Peret and Valentin helped Nogaret fix the Breastplate to the priestly ephod, fastening the golden chains to the shoulders and waist. Thereafter, now meticulously obedient to their superior’s directions, the three acolytes dispersed to the eastern, western, and southern quarters of the chamber and assumed attitudes of abject supplication, even Baudoin at last sobered by the seriousness of the work about to commence.
Himself standing before the altar, Nogaret opened the book to a page covered in Hebrew writing and raised his hands to begin chanting. The words were familiar at first, but quickly shifted into language that was beyond the knowledge of the others to interpret. After the first few phrases, they recognized only an occasional mystical term as he lightly touched each of the gems in turn, some with the right hand and some with the left. When all had been thus invoked, he placed a finger to his brow and another over his heart, eyes closed in rapt concentration.
A deep hush settled in their midst, centered on Nogaret. His lips twitched and trembled, mouthing soundless syllables of supplication. His acolytes watched anxiously for some glimmer of life from the gems adorning the Breastplate, or from the Lights and Perfections. But the only lights visible were reflected glimmers from the neighboring candles.
Peret stirred restlessly. After a time, Nogaret abandoned his silent pleading in favor of more imperious cadences of bidding and then command. Beads of sweat broke out on his taut brow, beginning to run into his eyes, but the Breastplate remained unresponsive.
After what seemed an eternity, Nogaret suddenly wrenched himself from his concentration with an explosive curse and half turned away, causing his three companions to start back.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Baudoin demanded.
Nogaret indicated the Breastplate with a savage stab of his hand. “See for yourselves!”
Peret raised an eyebrow. “There’s nothing to see.”
“Precisely! Because nothing has happened!”
Nogaret struck the altar a frustrated blow with his fist. “I performed the ritual in perfect accordance with the ancient injunctions! Every detail is correct—and yet the Breastplate remains inert.”
Spurning assistance, he stripped off the Breastplate and the ephod and flung them down on the altar. Flipping the Breastplate over, he fumbled with the fastenings securing the pockets at the back of it. Before any of his subordinates could restrain him, he reached inside and pulled out the Urim and Thummin.
Valentin recoiled with a gasp, then realized Nogaret was perfectly unharmed. The two stones, one dark and one light, were as inert as the river pebbles Baudoin had earlier compared them to. Nogaret glared venomously at the stones, one clasped in each hand.
“The fault lies here!” he growled.
“Could the Templars have performed some kind of substitution?” Peret asked.
“No!” Nogaret snapped. “These stones bear the sacred mark of the shamir. And yet they are dead! As dead as the man who—”
His voice broke off. All at once he snatched up the book and began riffling through its crackling pages, urgently searching for a dimly remembered passage. The others kept silent, baffled by his actions, but afraid to ask.
When he found the part he was looking for, Nogaret quickly scanned the page, silently mouthing the words as he read. Then he slammed the book vehemently shut, as though to imprison the unpalatable truth he had found there.
“That accursed Templar!” he spat. “He knew this would happen!”
“Knew what would happen?” Valentin asked.
Nogaret rounded on him furiously, as though he were personally responsible for this disaster.
“The authority to wield the Urim and Thummin can only be passed on by the priest, by the man who is guardian of the Breastplate. If he dies while in charge of it, his death robs the stones of their potency. Only one who has already been granted the same priestly authority can reempower them.”
“So the Breastplate is useless,” Baudoin said flatly.
“Do you accuse me of failure, fool?” Nogaret demanded, thrusting his face at his subordinate.
Baudoin fell back a pace. Seeing him silent, Nogaret gave a snort.
“I should have expected no better from one whose comprehension of the sorcerous arts is so limited by his meagerness of intellect,” he said caustically. He took a deep breath to steady his passion before continuing.
“Without the Urim and Thummin,” he stated tightly, “we must empower the jewels individually, one by one, by alchemical means.”
“Is that possible?” Valentin asked cautiously.
“It must be possible!” Nogaret insisted through gritted teeth. “Return to your castles, search your libraries, delve deep into every volume of occult lore in your possession. Then report everything you find to me.”
“But who knows how long all this will take?” Peret objected.
“It will take as long as it must,” Nogaret replied. “But time is on our side. Most of the Templars are already in custody, so they represent no threat. I will see to it that King Philip does not relent in his pursuit of them. Let them rot in prison or die at the hands of their torturers!”
His eyes were gleaming again, his anger transmuted into a fiery determination. “While they die, we shall grow in power and influence. This treasure and everything else they possess shall come to us and serve our ends. And then nothing shall stand in our way!”
HAVING MANAGED TO STEER CLEAR OF THE ROYAL AGENTS rounding up Templars all over France, Arnault de Saint Clair made his slow way toward Scotland. It took him several weeks to reach the French border, and then only by doubling back northward to seek refuge in the Low Countries. By mid-November he had secured passage on a ship headed north—a Flemish merchantman bound for Aberdeen by way of Norway—not his first choice of route, but he dared not wait for another boat.
The sea voyage gave him time at last to consider his longer-term plans. It also gave him time to ponder the message of the mysterious Iskander—a name that had been mentioned, he finally remembered, in Jauffre’s report of the Ethiopian embassage seeking a Western alliance. He had no idea whether the two Iskanders were one and the same, but the message of the one at Chartres had seemed to hint at an additional dimension in the task set for those guarding the Inner Temple—though Arnault had no idea how this new information fit into the more immediate plans to erect the Fifth Temple in Scotland. But at a very gut level, he had no doubt that it did fit.
Which made his first priority to consult with Luc and whatever other members of le Cercle he could find, to see what they might make of the message. And then he must find Bruce and assess the more practical aspects of the Scottish struggle for independence—for only in a stable and independent land would it be possible to erect the Fifth Temple at all.
He had hoped, since his escape took him by way of Norway, that he might obtain more recent news of Bruce from the Norwegian court, where Bruce’s sister Isabella was queen. But the ship’s brief stop in Oslo did not allow for more than token inquiries, and no contact with Isabella Bruce herself, so Arnault sailed for Aberdeen little wiser than when he had arrived. He did learn that Bruce—or so it was rumored—was wintering somewhere in Argyll. As for the Templars, he gathered that the Norwegians knew only vaguely that there had been some kind of trouble in Paris.
He arrived in Aberdeen just before Christmas, procuring a mount and heading south by way of Montrose, Arbroath, and Dundee, avoiding the worst of the winter snow by staying close to the coast. After crossing the Firth of Forth at Queensferry, he headed for Balantrodoch by the most direct route, riding into the preceptory’s icy yard on the evening of Epiphany. His reception was cordial, for his arrival meant fresh news from France, and he soon was seated between Luc and Balantrodoch’s master, Frère Walter de Clifton, being barraged with questions while he tried to consume a hot meal. After he had related some but not all of his adventures in fleeing France, and heard what little news was to be had locally, he retired with Luc for a more private debriefing. Luc’s more detailed accounts of the past three months did not provide reassuring listening.
“In general, I can’t add a great deal to what you heard at supper,” Luc told him, as they settled before a modest fire in Luc’s office with cups and a pot of hot mulled wine. “I can tell you, however, that the most recent news from France is not good. Apparently the sweep in October was extremely efficient, despite the fact that the officers of the Paris Temple knew or at least suspected that this was coming.”
“They knew,” Arnault agreed. “Gerard de Villiers took measures on his own initiative—which, as Preceptor of Paris, he was in a position to do. So did a few others. I don’t know how much the Grand Master knew.”
“De Molay can be pig-stubborn, when he wants to be,” Luc said, shaking his head.
“I’ll not argue that,” Arnault replied. “I attended him the day before the arrests. All he was concerned about was the prestige of being in the royal funeral. He simply refused to accept what was coming.”
“Well, it came,” Luc replied. “We hear that thousands were taken into custody, all over France: knights, serjeants, lay brothers, clerics. It’s being said that scores of our brothers have confessed to all manner of crimes, and we hear of tortures and threats of tortures. It’s even said that de Molay signed some sort of confession.”
Arnault dipped out another cup of mulled wine, more to warm his hands than out of any desire for the taste. “I’d heard much the same thing—I forget where. Have any of the other members of le Cercle checked in?”
“Christoph arrived in mid-November,” Luc said, dropping his gaze. “He—thinks Jauffre may have been captured. But he isn’t sure.”
“Jauffre? Dear God. . . .”
“I’m afraid so. We’ve had no further news on that. Father Bertrand arrived at the beginning of December. After due consideration, we agreed that he and Christoph should go on to Dunkeld, to put them in close proximity to the Stone. I suppose you knew that Abbot Henry was taken by the English last summer—sent to imprisonment down in Wiltshire—but Bishop Crambeth is taking a direct hand in the protection of the Stone. He’s given sanctuary to Christoph and Bertrand. They’re posing as monks there at Dunkeld.”
Arnault nodded distractedly, in total agreement with the strategy, though the news of Jauffre had taken him aback.
“And the relics they carried?” he asked.
“Safe, so far as we know,” Luc replied. “There was a refuge already arranged for what Christoph carried, as you know; it lies there now. Father Bertrand brought Solomon’s Sceptre. For the present, I’ve locked it in one of the vaults below. Were you to bring something?”
“Yes, I have Solomon’s Seal,” Arnault replied. “You’ll want to lock it up as well.” He sighed. “And you’ve heard nothing from any of the others?”
Luc shook his head. “No word yet. But it’s early days. You’ve only just arrived, and you were meant to be the first. From what you’ve told me of conditions in France, they could come straggling in for months.”
“If they weren’t captured,” Arnault muttered. “What about here? And in England? Will it spread outside France?”
“Hmmm, I take it that you’ve not yet heard about the Holy Father’s latest pronouncement,” Luc said sourly. “It seems there’s a papal bull called Pastoralis Praeeminentiae. It calls for the arrest of Templars everywhere, not just in France, and orders an investigation of the allegations. Which means, it appears, that he’s throwing us to the wolves—or to the king and Nogaret, which is much the same thing.”
Arnault was slowly shaking his head, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.
“When did this happen?”
“Late in November, we’re told, though we’ve yet to have sight of the actual decree. But word reached the London Temple about a fortnight ago, just ahead of the official notification to the English chancery. William de la More sent word immediately, to as many of our establishments as he could, but nothing has happened yet in England—and probably won’t, at least for a month or two. The English king is traveling to France this month, to be married to a daughter of King Philip—but that probably means that pressure will be brought to bear, even if he were disposed to ignore the Holy Father’s edict.”
“That is England,” Arnault pointed out stiffly. “This is Scotland.”
“The distinction is a valid one,” Luc agreed, “and not just because Bruce is kindly disposed toward the Order. With him still under excommunication, and Scotland subsequently under interdict, I doubt any Scottish bishop can be induced to enforce the order—at least not for a while. But it may be only a matter of time.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Arnault propped his elbows on the table, bowing his temples against the heels of his hands. “Dear God, this can’t be happening. . . .”
Luc said nothing, only clasping a hand to Arnault’s shoulder, helpless to give any other reassurance. After a few minutes, Arnault slowly raised his head.
“We must gather what remains of le Cercle,” he said. “Send word to Christoph, and tell him that. In fact, go there yourself, when you’ve done what you can here.”
“What will you do?” Luc asked, nodding his agreement.
“I must find Torquil,” Arnault replied. “And Bruce. More than ever, I sense that much now hinges on him.”
Briefly he told Luc about the mysterious message given him by the stranger called Iskander, at Chartres.
“The Law will destroy you . . . the Law will set you free . . .” Luc murmured, repeating what Iskander had told Arnault. “You said that was in your dream, at the Paris Temple—but how could he have known of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what Temple was he talking about?” Luc went on. “The actual Temple of Jerusalem, the Order . . . or the Fifth Temple? Before the Temple, there was the Ark of the Covenant. . . . And before the Ark, the Covenant itself. . . . The Covenant, the Tablets of the Law, the Word of God. . . .” He looked up at Arnault. “Is he equating the Law with the Word? With the Tablets, maybe?”
“I don’t know,” Arnault repeated. “I’m hoping that one of le Cercle will be able to help us discover what it means—because I’ve been thinking on it for weeks, and I haven’t. Clearly, the implications are far wider than what the Temple is currently facing.”
Luc nodded, thoughtful. “Perhaps it does refer to the Fifth Temple, then.”
“Perhaps it does,” Arnault agreed, “because the original Temple long ago ceased to exist—and it may be that the Order, as we know it, cannot survive this. But the Fifth Temple can and must survive—here, in Scotland.
“And it will be an Invisible Temple, one not made with human hands—for I fear the time is coming, all too soon, when no Templar will be free to ride openly in any land, if the pope truly has abandoned us. But if our public face must vanish, there is still much we can do from behind a hidden face.”
“I pray that you are right,” Luc whispered, though his tone had taken on some of Arnault’s earlier despondence. He sighed. “Have you any idea where to begin? For I confess that I do not.”
Arnault nodded. “Only a beginning of an idea, but at least it is that. We have a little time, here in Scotland. We begin by presenting this to what remains of le Cercle.”
“That will take time—to gather them together,” Luc pointed out. “God knows, some of them may be beyond gathering, at least in this life.”
“We must pray that your fears will prove unfounded,” Arnault said determinedly. “And in the meantime, we will do what we can to preserve or at least prolong the existence of the external Temple. If I can induce some of the brethren here to come away with me, I will take them with me to Bruce—and leave them with him, while I take Torquil with me to Dunkeld to meet with Christoph and the others.”
“I concur,” Luc said. “What would you have me do?”
“Try to persuade the others here to flee into the Western Isles,” Arnault replied. “There is a place in Argyll, beyond Loch Fyne, inland from Loch Crinan. Nearby, there are monks of the foundation of Iona. Abbot Fingon told me of it. It would make a secluded staging area, for gathering together the scattering remnants of the Order, such as we can. Some from the Paris Temple will have been told to go there; others will join them, in the coming months and even years that it may take, to build ourselves a place in this land.”
“I doubt that many will go,” Luc said. “At least not yet. They will not believe that the Holy Father has abandoned us.”
“Then we must pray that God will be merciful, when they are called before the rulers of this world,” Arnault replied.
The following night, he rode out of Balantrodoch accompanied by three other knights: the only ones who were willing to put off their Templar habits and adopt the life of outlaws, for the others still were convinced that no harm could come to the Order, and that the pope would protect them.
Grigor Murray was one of those who joined Arnault, for he had witnessed the Paris riots and the growing uneasiness sparked by the visit of the king and his minister to the Paris Temple. With him came two of the younger knights, Mingo MacDonald and Douglas Lumsden. Arnault got to know them well in the next four months—for that was how long it took them to find Bruce.
* * *
During that winter, the second since Bruce’s crowning as King of Scots, the fortunes of the Scottish cause vacillated between incipient disaster and occasional small strides forward. Because the new King Edward was mostly occupied with domestic unrest regarding his favorite, Piers Gaveston, Bruce was left free to concentrate on his own domestic opponents—especially the Macdougalls, the Comyns, and Argyll.
In autumn of the previous year, having made significant inroads into Galloway in the south, the rebel king had blazed northward—on the offensive, for the first time since seizing the crown—leading his army over the mountains in a bold move that enabled him to outflank an expeditionary force under John Macdougall of Lorn. In October Bruce had seized and dismantled the Comyn-held stronghold of Inverlochy. From there, he and his followers had gone on to raze the castle of Inverness.
The town of Nairn subsequently had been burned to the ground, and Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness had been reduced to rubble. Intimidated by Bruce’s show of force, the Earl of Ross had sued for a truce, leaving the English defense of the northland resting on the shoulders of John Comyn of Buchan, Sir David of Brechin, and Sir John de Moubray.
By the spring of 1308, the king and his army had been in the field for most of a year. At the outset, his Templar guardians’ primary concern had been to safeguard him on the battlefield, but the greatest single threat against Bruce’s life had taken the form of a debilitating illness that had struck him without warning at Christmas. What had seemed at first to be nothing more serious than an attack of rheum had escalated to a raging fever that had come and gone for months, leaving the king exhausted and sometimes bringing on attacks of delirium. Encamped in the snowy wilds, with scant food and no medicine to hand, the king’s devoted friends could only watch and pray over their stricken lord. Only now was it beginning to seem that he was past serious danger.
Late May of 1308 found the king and his company bivouacked on a hillside within sight of the town of Inverurie. Torquil and Aubrey had been out on a scouting foray for several hours, and returned to the fire near Bruce’s tent as one of the camp cooks appeared with a steaming bowl, cocking his head in their direction.
“Brother Torquil, do ye think ye might persuade His Grace to eat sommat?” he asked.
“Is that soup you’ve got there?” Torquil replied. “Good! If he doesn’t eat it, I will.” He grinned. “Thank you, Andrew. I’ll take it in to him and see if he’s awake.”
The king’s tent was no larger than those of his men, but that made it easier to keep some semblance of warmth inside. While Aubrey waited nearby, Torquil quietly drew aside the tattered sheepskin that served as a door and ducked inside.
Bruce lay huddled under his mantle and several more heaps of tartan, on a crude pallet padded with bracken and several sheepskins. By the scant light of a tiny fire burning in a pot in the center of the tent, the king’s face was a gaunt mask of jutting bones. His sunken lids were closed, but when Torquil would have withdrawn, he stirred and opened his eyes.
“What is it?” he murmured.
Torquil presented the bowl with a flourish, crouching down beside the pallet.
“Andrew of Dunskellie presents his compliments, Sire, and craves your opinion of his cooking.”
“To see if it’s fit for the rest of the army?” Bruce replied, doing his best to smile as he struggled to a sitting position against the saddle he was using for a pillow. “All right, let’s have it.”
Torquil sat with him as he ate, and did his best to answer the king’s questions concerning camp morale.
“The sooner we can retake the initiative again, the better,” Bruce commented between spoonfuls of soup. “I much regret that I’ve been such a burden, these past weeks. Have you heard further regarding the trouble with your Order?”
Torquil found himself glancing away, more concerned than he dared show the king.
“Little news reaches us here, Sire,” he said noncommittally. “It—doesn’t look promising.”
“And you would prefer to be about their rescue rather than playing nursemaid to a sick king,” Bruce guessed.
Torquil shrugged and did his best to smile. “We all have our parts to play, Sire. Sometimes, those parts seem somewhat indirect. But I do know that the Temple’s fortunes are linked to those of Scotland—so serving Scotland’s king also serves the Temple. And as a Scot and as a man, I am honored and glad to serve my king.”
“You Templars are the diplomats,” Bruce said with a smile—and took another spoonful of soup. Nor did he pursue the matter.
Torquil gave him further commentary on provisioning status and the condition of men and beasts in Bruce’s army—anything to avoid admitting how anxious he felt on behalf of the Temple. But the Temple’s plight was never far from his mind.
He knew that in France, at least, the formerly respected Knights of the Order had become universal objects of persecution. The last report from Brother Luc had detailed a grim catalog of imprisonments and interrogations. Hardest of all to bear had been the news that Arnault’s young cousin Jauffre probably had been captured while assisting Christoph’s escape. In addition to Christoph, he knew that Father Bertrand likewise was safely in Scotland, but he had not yet had word regarding any of the other members of le Cercle, including Arnault himself.
The possibility that Arnault, too, had been taken did not bear thinking about; for Torquil lately had learned that King Philip, to lend credence to his claim that he was acting in accordance with the law, had invoked the services of Guillaume de Paris, the papal inquisitor of France, who had authorized the use of torture in the examination of all Templar prisoners. Under duress, many of the brethren had confessed to crimes that included heresy, blasphemy, and sexual perversion: charges carefully calculated to stir the lurid imagination of a credulous populace, now rapidly becoming convinced of the Templars’ guilt. Torquil knew that Arnault would never confess to such a pack of lies—but the consequences of not confessing were too terrible to contemplate.
Accordingly, Torquil had forced himself to concentrate on the more immediate dangers attendant on Bruce and his rebel army. While they waited for the king to recover, they had remained constantly on the move, deep in hostile territory, striving to keep their distance from the enemy. A clash at Huntly, a fortnight earlier, had ended indecisively after an exchange of arrow fire. The men were growing weary of being constantly on the defensive, and Torquil was no exception.
Bruce finished his soup and returned the bowl, lying back with a sigh.
“Please convey my compliments to Andrew of Dunskellie,” he told Torquil wryly. “Never have I tasted a finer dandelion stew.”
Before Torquil could frame a fitting response, there came an indistinct outcry from the edge of the encampment. Even as Bruce signed for Torquil to investigate, the Templar was on his feet and on the move.
Aubrey had already gone to meet two other members of the king’s entourage, approaching with a wounded sentry supported between them.
“The Earl of Buchan!” the sentry gasped. “He’s headed this way, with nigh on a thousand men!”
A babble of voices told Torquil that the news was already spreading through the camp, that men were rousing, arming, mounting up.
“Men of Carrick,” he bellowed, taking command of the immediate situation. “Fetch the king’s litter! Lindsay, get your men mounted. The infantry will march with the king while we provide the rear—”
“No!”
The unexpected voice cut incisively through the hubbub of alarm. Whirling round, Torquil was astonished to see Bruce himself standing at the entrance to his tent, supporting himself against the tent pole. Though he was thin as a wraith, the king’s gray eyes burned with determination as he addressed his army with a volume that belied his haggard appearance.
“No, we’ll not flee,” Bruce went on. “For weeks we’ve had to let ourselves be harried like foxes before the hounds. The time has come to turn and show our teeth. Forget all thought of flight. Today we have a kingdom to win!”
This declaration drew a ragged cheer from those close by, but as the cheer spread rapidly through the ranks, Torquil shouldered his way to Bruce’s side.
“Sire . . .” he began. “Robert—”
“Don’t tell me what I shouldn’t do,” the king replied. “I’ve had my fill of hiding and retreating, and caution has served me ill.” He drew a fortifying breath as he hauled himself straighter. “Forward is the only path left to me, and neither fear nor sickness will make me falter. Now, help me arm, and someone—fetch my horse! We’re going to give Buchan the fright of his life!”
A wolfish grin transfigured his gaunt features as he made this declaration, and a ragged cheer went up from some of his men. Standing close to the king, Torquil could feel the force of the royal will emanating from him like heat from a bonfire. Excitement spread through the rebel ranks like wildfire as cavalry and infantry began forming up in ranks, hefting their weapons with purposeful intent.
Bruce stood firm as Torquil and an esquire buckled him into his hauberk and set his helmet on his head, once again crowned with a royal circlet. Robert Boyd fetched the king’s sword, and offered it on bended knee. As Bruce’s fingers closed around the hilt, his blue eyes lit with a possessive ferocity.
“Where is Brother Aubrey?” he demanded. “I want him as my standard-bearer today! And Torquil—there you are! When we ride out, I want you at my other side. When we three lead the assault on our enemies, I promise you they will not stand against us! They probably think I’m dead,” he added in an aside, “or at least at death’s door.”
“Not today, I think!” Torquil said with a chuckle, as horses were brought up—for Bruce’s conviction was contagious. “Today we ride for Scotland!”
* * *
John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, cocked an ear at the sounds of a clash of arms ahead, reining back his steed as he turned to his standard-bearer.
“Excellent!” he said. “It appears our vanguard has engaged the enemy!”
A stir of anticipation raced through the front ranks of Buchan’s heavy cavalry, ranged to either side. To his rear, the spearmen, archers, and clan levies started jostling forward, craning and murmuring as they pressed up behind the ranks of their betters, eager to catch a glimpse of the action.
Just then, a knot of horsemen burst from the trees ahead, bolting down the slope at breakneck speed, with weapons trailing and plaids flapping. Buchan took a second look and reined short with a curse.
“Hell’s teeth, those are Brechin’s men!”
The first of the onrushing riders converged in a sweaty lather of panic.
“Run for it!” one of them shouted.
Buchan grabbed for the bridle of the first rider he could reach and wrenched the horse around to a standstill.
“Who the devil are you running from, ye glaikit coward?” he bellowed.
“The Bruce!” the rider cried, white-eyed, trying to rip his reins free. “He’s no nearer dying than you are! It was all a trick to lure us in. And now he’s after us, thirsting for blood!”
Buchan’s consternation caused him to release his grip. “That’s impossible!” he snapped, though he could feel the blood draining from his face.
“There he is now!” someone yelled, pointing behind them. “With a host o’ Hieland de’ils at his back!”
Even as the cry rang out, the trees disgorged a hostile line of horsemen with weapons at the ready, Bruce himself conspicuous at their center. Mounted on a shaggy Highland-bred steed, sword in hand, he was flanked by two knights as tall as himself, with the battle standards of Saint Andrew and the royal lion of the Scottish crown snapping above their heads.
Bruce and his mounted entourage were backed by a formidable array of infantry, all of them apparently fired by their king’s presence. To the horror of Buchan and his men, the assembled spearmen and archers formed up smartly into disciplined ranks behind their mounted captains, weapons at the ready.
“For Scotland and liberty!” Bruce roared—and gave the signal to charge.
The rebel host poured down the slope like a great wave, smashing into the ranks of Buchan’s men with the penetrating force of a battering ram. Men and horses foundered and fell, impaled on thickets of spears, their screams mingling with the sound of battle cries.
Buchan’s knights wheeled this way and that, vainly trying to defend themselves, but the rebels swarmed about them like wasps, giving no quarter. As the fighting grew heavier, a wail went up from the ranks of the defenders.
“There’s no stopping the Bruce! Even death can’t hinder him!”
Buchan’s battle began to buckle.
“Stand your ground, damn you!” the earl cried.
But panic had already taken over, as Buchan’s men began scattering, fleeing. His cavalry galloped off at full speed while his footmen were cut down from behind as they tripped and stumbled over one another in their flight. Bruce and his cavalry made ruthless pursuit, spreading carnage through the broken ranks of the enemy.
“On!” Bruce cried hoarsely. “Let’s make an end of it, here!”
He tried to urge his own horse forward, but his strength was fast fading, and he suddenly paled and drooped over the pommel of his saddle.
“That’s enough!” Torquil insisted, reaching over to yank in the reins of Bruce’s horse. “The day is won!”
Together, he and Aubrey escorted the king from the field, leaving Boyd and Lindsay and Bruce’s other lieutenants to mop up. Back amid the deserted confines of the camp, the two Templars helped Bruce from the saddle, Aubrey supporting him while Torquil removed his helmet. The king was grinning raggedly, though a feverish sweat had broken out on his brow.
“So, do you still think we should have retreated through the woods?” he asked.
Torquil answered with a slow shake of his head, but there was admiration in his voice. “You risk yourself too readily, Sire.”
“So you say.” Bruce managed a labored chuckle as Aubrey helped him sit. “I say that no medicine would so soon have cured me as this chance to show our enemies our mettle.”
He drew a deep, somewhat labored breath. “Now that we’ve put Comyn and his cronies to flight, we’ll harry this country into submission so that I may never be troubled from this quarter again. I must have the Highlands secure at my back.”
“So we must, Sire,” Torquil murmured. “I only pray you do not push yourself too far or too fast.”
ONLY WHEN HE WAS ASSURED BY HIS SCOUTS AND commanders that Buchan’s army was utterly routed and his own position secured did Bruce agree to return to his sickbed.
Even from there, however, he continued to issue orders before taking a grudging nap. By evening he was up again, shakily doing the rounds of the campfires and warmly commending his men for their bravery, offering encouragement to those who were tired and far from their families.
To those who had been wounded he gave special attention, bringing comfort and fortitude by his presence. Casualties, happily, had been few, testifying to the completeness of the rebel victory.
It was after dark when a sudden cry from one of the sentries announced the approach of several armed riders. The newcomers were quickly surrounded by bristling guards, anxious of the safety of their king even here in the midst of his camp, but the lead rider reined in submissively and slowly dismounted as Aubrey pushed his way to the fore on the king’s behalf, to investigate.
“Identify yourself,” he started to order—and broke off as the newcomer shook back his hood, merely chuckling, and a familiar pair of blue eyes gazed back at him.
“Arnault!” he blurted.
“It’s good to see you, too, Aubrey,” Arnault responded with a smile. “Is Torquil anywhere around?”
“Yes, but—” Aubrey was peering past Arnault, where more men were dismounting, men he had only seen previously with beards, and wearing Templar white. Two of them he knew well: Mingo MacDonald and Douglas Lumsden, youngsters like himself. The face of the third was vaguely familiar, but he could not recall the man’s name.
“You’ve brought reinforcements,” he noted lamely—then added, “Come, I’ll take you to Brother Torquil.”
* * *
“The last time I saw the king,” Arnault said, as Aubrey gestured toward the back of a cloaked figure sitting by a fire, “he said I’d find him wherever the fighting was.”
Torquil stiffened slightly, then turned and set aside a half-eaten bowl of porridge, grinning as he got to his feet.
“Well, it’s about time!”
The two thumped one another on the back as they briefly embraced. Both had gone grayer in the two years since their last meeting, and new lines etched both their faces.
“Arnault, it’s good to see you. How have you fared?” he asked quietly, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Arnault heaved a weary sigh, but did his best to summon up a smile.
“A good deal better than many. But before we say more about that, I must first ask you how it is with the king. Rumors in the Lowlands have put him at death’s door from a winter illness.”
“Thankfully, those rumors are weeks out-of-date,” Torquil responded with a grin. “Today he celebrated his recovery by personally leading a highly successful foray against the Earl of Buchan.”
Arnault’s expression brightened. “Ah, then that explains the stragglers we saw, coming here, and the atmosphere of high spirits about the camp. I’ve brought a few reinforcements,” he added, at Torquil’s look of inquiry at his use of we. “Only three—but as you know, three Templars are worth any thirty ordinary men.” They both grinned. “If the king’s receiving visitors, I’d better pay my respects.”
“I’d join you,” Aubrey interjected, reluctantly hanging back, “but I’m due on watch. You won’t mind repeating yourself later, will you?”
“I promise to catch you up on all the news,” Arnault replied, clapping the younger man on the shoulder. “Meanwhile, you might talk to the others. The two young ones don’t know a great deal, but Grigor was in Paris with me for a while.”
“Grigor was in Paris?” Torquil repeated, somewhat incredulously. “His French is terrible!”
“Aye, he hardly speaks it at all,” Aubrey chimed in.
“He speaks it better now than he did,” Arnault replied with a wink in Aubrey’s direction. “I made him practice. Now, get you gone, cousin. Torquil and I must speak to the king.”
Aubrey snorted and took his leave with a wave that was almost a salute. On their way to the royal tent, Torquil furnished Arnault with a concise account of their progress since Bruce’s landing at Carrick.
“Our campaign had been gaining steady momentum when he fell ill at Christmas,” Torquil concluded. “He’s been a long time recovering, but fortunately, his enemies haven’t been able to take advantage of his weakness—and now that he’s convalescent, I don’t foresee them regaining the initiative. As we saw today, the mere sight of him, sick or well, has become a weapon he can use against his foes.”
“Then perhaps there’s still hope,” Arnault murmured, too softly for Torquil to overhear.
They found Bruce sitting by his campfire, dictating a letter to one of his clerks.
“Pardon the interruption, Sire,” Torquil said as Bruce looked up, “but here’s an unexpected guest seeking an audience.”
“Brother Arnault!” The king did not rise, but his elation was patently genuine. “Praise God, you’ve returned to us in a happy hour! Only yesterday, you would have found me moping in my bed. Today you see us celebrating a triumph.”
“So Torquil has been telling me,” Arnault replied. “I understand that you sent Comyn of Buchan packing, with his men’s tails between their legs. My congratulations.”
“God grant we may have more such victories,” Bruce said. “Will you take some refreshment after your journey?”
“Perhaps later, Sire—if you don’t mind. Torquil and I have a great deal of catching up to do—and the sooner, the better.”
“So be it, then. Of the little I have here at this camp, whatever you need is at your disposal. Later, you and I will talk.”
“Yes, Sire. And thank you.”
Once the two Templars had retired to a sheltered knoll, safely out of earshot of the rest of the company, Torquil was able to stop pretending he hadn’t noticed the anxiety Arnault had been at pains to conceal since his arrival.
“So, how bad is it?” he said, trying to read the other’s expression in the moonlight. “Is it true that Jauffre was captured?”
Drooping visibly, Arnault sank down on a rock, nodding.
“Torquil, I would give my right arm to deny it, but I can’t. My one consolation is that his capture probably bought Christoph’s escape—and the safety of the Shroud.” Arnault briefly glanced away. “So far, Christoph and Bertrand are the only ones besides myself to show up at Balantrodoch.”
“Dear God. . . .” Torquil sank down blindly beside Arnault. “Do you think the rest were taken, too?”
“It’s too soon to know. If the others had the same kinds of problems I had, they might just be delayed.” He shook his head. “Anyway, we need to meet with Christoph and Bertrand and decide what to do. They’ve gone to Dunkeld, to be near the Stone. Bishop Crambeth has given them sanctuary. I think we ought to bring Aubrey as well.”
Torquil blinked. “You do recall that he isn’t yet a full member of le Cercle?”
“I think he’s going to have to become one, and rather sooner than any of us thought. We no longer have the luxury of long apprenticeships.”
“I suppose not,” Torquil murmured, stunned. “I—don’t think Bruce is going to want to let us go, though.”
“He must,” Arnault replied. “And I have brought him three other Templars to replace us. And gold. Of course, they can’t replace all that we do—but they can certainly help to keep his physical person safe. That will have to do, for now.”
Torquil let out an audible sigh. “You’re going to have to tell him at least a little of why we’re leaving.”
“I intend to tell him everything. He already knows a great deal of it,” Arnault added, at Torquil’s look of shock. “In times as benighted as these, it serves no purpose to keep one another in the dark.”
True to his word, he held nothing back when it came time to take Bruce into their confidence. Following Arnault’s terse recital, the king was silent for a long moment, head bowed in thought.
“You are free to go, of course,” he finally said, “though I would rather give up a hundred of my best men than lose either of you—or young Aubrey, for that matter. But I have seen enough in your company not to doubt what you have told me—and to take heart from the fact that what you do is for this land as well as your Order.”
“We have long known that the needs of the two are intertwined,” Arnault pointed out.
“I will accept your word for it,” Bruce said with a smile. “I don’t pretend to understand even half of what you’ve told me. But I will always be grateful for the help you have rendered in bringing me this far along the road. Accordingly, if there is anything I can do in return, you know you have only to name it.”
“Then, simply carry on as you have done,” Arnault replied. “For now, that is the best any man could ask. For our part, we will do what we must do, to prepare the way for our part in your final goal.”
Bruce gave a wan smile. “The doing will be harder than the asking, I have no doubt. But my own objectives will remain unchanged: to set Scotland free from foreign domination. Only then will we be at liberty to establish a government where justice and respect for individual liberties will be the rule of law.”
“If we succeed,” said Torquil, “Scotland will become the envy and model of other nations for generations to come.”
Bruce summoned a crooked smile. “Then, it seems we each have our own separate wars to fight, at least for a while—our edifices to build, our statutes to forge. But if—God willing—we are both victorious, the legacy we hand on to future generations will be something wondrous, indeed!”
“Amen to that!” Arnault said.
* * *
Aubrey confessed himself somewhat surprised to learn that he was being included in the foray to Dunkeld.
“I’d expected to stay behind with Grigor and the others,” he said. “Shouldn’t someone stay, who is known to the king? Besides, you don’t need a junior knight like me along.”
“Aubrey,” Torquil said mildly, “in case you hadn’t noticed—and apparently, you hadn’t—you’re no longer a junior knight.”
“But, the king—”
“Your recognition of the need for his safety is part of the reason you’re no longer a junior knight,” Arnault pointed out. “But he’ll be safe enough until we’ve finished at Dunkeld. After yesterday, the English won’t be back right away. In the meantime, are you going to make me invoke your vow of obedience?”
“No, of course not. It’s just that—well, I wasn’t expecting—”
“This is about the Inner Order, Aubrey,” Torquil said quietly. “We’ll talk about it more along the way.”
“Oh,” was all Aubrey said.
Arnault spent most of the next day conferring with Bruce and then briefing the three Templars who would remain with the king. He, Torquil, and Aubrey left the following morning, lightly provisioned and mounted on sturdy Highland ponies.
They expected that the journey to Dunkeld might take as long as a fortnight, but a run of good weather enabled them to shave several days off that estimate. Only at the end did the weather worsen, so that they emerged from a thickening mist as they rode at last through the gates to the abbey yard adjoining Dunkeld Cathedral. It was just dusk on the Eve of Saint John.
“We’re here to see Bishop Crambeth,” Arnault told the young novices who came to take their ponies, since he saw no immediate sign of any of their Templar colleagues.
“Yes, m’lord,” one of the novices replied, nervously eyeing the three travel-worn men in fighting harness. “What name shall I give His Grace?”
“Arnault de Saint Clair. He knows me.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
The three of them withdrew into the shelter of a roof overhang to wait as the ponies were led away and the one novice disappeared into a slype passageway. They had seen no sign of any English presence as they approached Dunkeld, so they probably were safe enough within its precincts. Because of King Edward’s withdrawal down to London, and the ineptitude of the governor he had left to oversee matters in Scotland, the English presence north of the Border had become largely confined to the areas surrounding the four Lowland castles of Berwick, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling. Many Lowland lords had taken advantage of that fact, including Dunkeld’s bishop, Matthew Crambeth.
Crambeth had been less actively militant in his support of Bruce than men like Lamberton and Wishart and Scone’s Abbot Henry, all of whom now languished in captivity in the south of England, but this more outwardly neutral stance had enabled Crambeth to retain his episcopal seat—and, in secret, to continue providing a safe hiding place for the Stone of Destiny. Here, as well, he had gathered around himself a body of like-minded clerics, quietly committed to fostering the independence of the Scottish Church.
It was to Crambeth that Arnault had told Luc to send the other surviving members of le Cercle as they checked in; and it was Crambeth himself who came out to meet them, simply dressed in the plain black habit worn by the cathedral’s regular canons. He had been present on that night they had wed Bruce to the Stone of Destiny, between the king’s two public crownings, and he had been the Stone’s faithful guardian in the two years since.
“Brother Arnault, thank God you’ve arrived,” he murmured, drawing the three newcomers to him with a shepherding motion. “And Brother Torquil.” He nodded to Aubrey as well, though he did not know him. “Come inside, all of you. You won’t attract such notice. I’ve already had the others summoned. The news bodes ill for your Order. Very ill, indeed. I’ll tell you more when we’re safely inside.”
Arnault and Torquil exchanged wary glances as they passed into the cloister yard and along the east range, but they followed the bishop without question, Aubrey trailing them wide-eyed.
“I fear that several of the particular brothers you were expecting may have been arrested in France,” Crambeth murmured as they walked. “It’s known that a Brother Oliver was taken, and your Brother Gaspar is likewise missing. I quite liked him.”
“Dear God. . . .” Torquil whispered.
But Arnault signed him to silence until Crambeth had led them on through the abbey church and into his own house, where Christoph and Luc were closeted with the two Templar priests, Bertrand and Anselmo, poring over a map. Luc was now clean-shaven like the priests, all four of them now garbed, like Crambeth, in plain black robes.
Beyond them, one more Templar sat slumped on a bench set against the wall: a white-faced Flannan Fraser, stripped down to a ragged arming tunic, having his arm tended by two white-robed Columban brothers.
“He’s fine,” said the taller one with flaxen hair, with a reassuring glance at Arnault. “It was only a dislocation.”
Relieved—for the pair were Brothers Ninian and Fionn, from Iona—Arnault turned his attention to the more urgent question of the news Crambeth had mentioned.
“Christoph, what’s happened?” he demanded, as soon as the bishop had closed the door behind them. “Are Gaspar and Oliver truly taken?”
Christoph slowly laid aside a pair of calipers.
“Oliver was, about a week after the arrests began,” he said quietly. “They’re holding him with the Grand Master and several other senior officers of the Paris Temple. We don’t yet know about Gaspar, but it doesn’t look good.”
“Could he simply have been delayed?” Arnault asked.
“The rest of us scattered from the Paris Temple, right after you’d left,” Anselmo said. “That’s the last anyone has seen of him.”
At a light rap on the door behind him, Crambeth turned to admit Armand Breville, Hugues de Curzon, and Hamish Kerr, the latter a fairly recent Scottish initiate of le Cercle. The three apparently had been here for some little while, because all were clean-shaven like the others, and robed in black.
“That’s everyone who has shown up thus far,” Christoph said, waving the three newcomers into the room. “Brother Aubrey, stay by the door, if you would, so that His Grace can join us here. Gentlemen . . .”
He gestured toward the benches and chairs around the table, taking charge, and Arnault dutifully sank down between Torquil and Brother Fionn as the others took places. At Torquil’s gesture, Aubrey pulled a three-legged stool over beside the door and hunkered down on that.
Flannan remained on the bench against the wall, with his arm now in a sling, apparently in no little discomfort, for Brother Ninian stayed seated beside him. At Arnault’s glance of question, Brother Fionn murmured, “He arrived a few hours ago. His shoulder had been dislocated for weeks. Putting it back was not easy—or pleasant. But he’ll be all right.”
Arnault grimaced in sympathy, but at least Flannan had won free. Gaspar, however . . .
He glanced at Christoph, reluctant to ask what he knew he must.
“If Gaspar has been taken,” he said, when everyone had settled, “I’m obliged to ask which of the Treasures he was carrying.”
A flicker of reluctance passed over Christoph’s handsome face.
“The High Priest’s Breastplate.”
The words rang leaden, like a funeral bell, lodging in a queasy knot in Arnault’s gut. Of all the Treasures possessed by the Temple, the Breastplate was one of the most precious, especially in their present circumstances, for it was the essential mystical counterpart to the Stone of Destiny. Without it, how could they hope to secure the foundations for the Fifth Temple?
“We don’t yet know that it’s definitely lost,” Arnault found himself saying, though without much conviction. “Who brought the news that makes you think Gaspar was captured?”
Christoph nodded toward Flannan Fraser.
“Flannan?” Arnault said, hopeful but dreading a response.
Flannan opened his eyes, but his gaze drifted to a patch of damp where the far wall met the ceiling.
“Each of us had devised a separate escape route,” he said dully. “Gaspar planned to make for La Legue, on the north coast of Brittany. We had arranged that I should meet him there with one of our galleys, but a week went by—and then two—and he didna come.”
He closed his eyes again as he went on, pain broadening his Scottish accent.
“I couldna wait forever. By late October, two French warships had started sniffin’ round, so I had to sail or risk capture myself. Through the winter, I had the crew land me at different places on the coast of Brittany, in hopes I might pick up some trace of him—but I never did. And I nearly got caught myself, the last time I tried—which is how I got my shoulder hurt.
“I did have separate inquiries made at the places where other Templars are being held,” he added, finally glancing at Arnault, “but there’s nae sign of him. Which means that he’s likely killed, rather than captured.”
“It also means,” Christoph said, when Flannan did not continue, “that the Breastplate may have fallen into the hands of our enemies.”
Silence followed this declaration. The Templars looked thunderstruck, to a man. It was Ninian who finally spoke.
“There may be a way to at least find out.”
All eyes turned toward the Columban brother as he left Flannan and came over to the table.
“The Breastplate is linked to the Stone of Destiny, yes?” Ninian said, standing with a hand on Arnault’s shoulder.
“Of course.”
“And though we do not have the Breastplate, we do have the Stone.”
All of the Templars exchanged puzzled glances as they nodded.
“It is also, true—is it not?—that a mystical bond will have been forged between the Stone and those who presided at Bruce’s enthronement upon it,” Ninian went on. “Of those present both then and now, besides myself, that would be Bishop Matthew and Brothers Arnault, Torquil, and Luc. And Brother Gaspar was present, as well.”
Those named glanced uncertainly among themselves.
“Brother Ninian,” Christoph said softly, “what are you suggesting?”
With a faint smile, Ninian swept his arm in a gesture for all of them to rise.
“I think it might be best if all of us adjourned to the premises of the Stone. I shall explain when we are there,” he added, holding up a hand to silence the questions that started to erupt. “Brother Matthew, perhaps you would go first, to make certain the way is clear. We shall follow in twos and threes.”
A quarter hour later, all of them had made their way to the narrow crypt beneath the cathedral, converging on a small chapel beneath the east end, where the Stone now resided. The air was redolent with the scent of cinnamon, sandalwood, and the beeswax of the candles some of the brethren were lighting in the trefoil sconces set along the walls. Once again, the junior Aubrey was set to keep watch at the door.
The Stone itself lay beneath an altar made of wood, set over it like an overturned box and dressed with fair linens, silver candlesticks, and a cross carved with Celtic interlace. These Ninian bade them remove before directing four of the Templars to lift away the altar shell and move it into the undercroft, exposing the Stone to their view.
Not speaking, Brother Ninian knelt beside the Stone and lightly laid his hand upon it, head bowed for several seconds, then rose and glanced around him.
“Brother Arnault, would you please sit on the Stone?”
The presumption took Arnault aback.
“I dare not. That is not my place,” he began.
“It is the place of him who serves the Stone and its king,” Ninian said calmly. “Such a man must dare, if he would work with the Stone to search for Brother Gaspar, wherever he may be, among the living or the dead. If the latter, you will need its power and protection.”
Arnault felt his pulsebeat booming in his ears, making him feel a little light-headed as he glanced among the others, but not even Bishop Crambeth appeared to doubt that the request must be honored. The Bishop of Dunkeld, though neither of le Cercle nor even of the Temple, was proving to be a man of steady nerve and no little faith.
Not speaking, Arnault unbuckled his sword and handed it to Torquil, who wrapped its belt around the scabbard before laying it aside behind them. He drew a fortifying breath and let it out before seating himself gingerly upon the Stone, where Bruce had sat. Lightning did not smite him, and the Stone did not strike him dead.
Relieved, he took another deep breath, though he could not say he was as confident as he might have been, had he known what to expect. But he trusted the Columban implicitly—which was a good thing, because Ninian seemed to be inventing this as they went along.
At Ninian’s direction, Bishop Crambeth came to stand behind him, providing a back to lean against, steadying hands set on his shoulders. Torquil and Luc came to stand to either side—for all three had been present on that night, in addition to Arnault and the missing Gaspar. Arnault could fathom the reasoning behind the arrangement, and that was reassuring. Ninian was rummaging for something in a waist pouch as the rest came to kneel around the Stone in a semicircle, expectant faces upturned.
“Let us begin our work,” Ninian said softly, lifting his closed right hand before and above Arnault’s eyes, perhaps a handspan away. “In the name of our blessed Columba and Cra-gheal, the Red-White One, I ask you to commend yourself to their protection and to the Grace of the Three, and to gaze upon this stone, from the shores of the Holy Island of Iona.”
He opened his hand to display a sea-polished pebble the size of a seagull egg. “And as you gaze upon it, dear brother, I ask you to focus all of your heart and soul and mind upon that one, all-encompassing task of these next few moments, where time has no meaning . . .”
Arnault gladly obeyed, fixing his gaze on the sea pebble and letting himself drift with Ninian’s voice, a part of him reconnecting with the peace and serenity of life on Iona with the gentle Columbans and their saint.
“Make yourself one with the Stone on which you sit,” Ninian went on, “wherein resides the Sovereignty of this Land, and the hallowing of its king, whom you serve . . . and who serves the Land, and the Lord of that Land and of its king, and the building of His Fifth Temple, which shall be built not with human hands but with the love and the will of those who serve God and His creation. . . .”
Ninian’s voice seemed to ebb and flow like the tides, gently submerging Arnault in the embracing warmth of a pool of sound and taking him into a detached, floating space where only the pebble and the voice remained. As the pebble slowly began moving downward, Arnault’s eyes followed without resistance, consciousness likewise descending into ever-deeper realms of receptivity and awareness.
By the time the pebble touched his open hand, his eyes had closed and he had surrendered utterly to the peacefulness in which he was enfolded. Only the faintest thread of Ninian’s voice remained outside of that centered expectation into which he had descended, gently nudging him now toward the task set before him.
“Your brother Gaspar is linked to the Stone as you are,” Ninian whispered. “Reach out for him. Call to him. See the place where he now dwells. . . .”
At that bidding, Arnault found himself standing in spirit before a heavy door set deep within a rounded arch. The door stood slightly ajar.
Slowly, hesitantly, he pushed it open and stepped through. Beyond lay a chapel, lofty and full of light. The far wall was pierced by a sun-flooded window like a jeweled flower, before which stood an alabaster statue of the Blessed Virgin, crowned with roses still kissed by the morning dew. Bright lancet windows cut the walls to either side, throwing swaths of rainbow light that intersected in midair like a pair of crossed swords.
Beneath this crossing of light, a white-cloaked figure in Templar livery knelt in an attitude of adoration, bearded face upturned toward the Virgin, amid a hush so profound that all nature seemed to hold its breath. The face in profile was faintly luminous, serenely contemplative, and suffused with gentle wonder. The hawklike features belonged to the man Arnault had come to find.
“Gaspar,” he called softly, reluctant to disturb the silence. “Gaspar, I must speak with you.”
Gaspar slowly turned his head and blinked, like a sleeper awakening, but he seemed not at all surprised at Arnault’s presence. A welcoming smile crossed his lips, almost as if he had been expecting the younger man’s coming.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been wanting to go home,” Gaspar confided. “To return to the place where I took my first vows, and where I was baptized as a babe, is to feel myself reborn. That you should come to visit me here makes my joy the more complete.”
The prismatic light from the rose window encompassed him like a halo of jewels as he stood, dappling his white mantle with rainbow glints. To Arnault it seemed almost blasphemous to disturb the peace of this place, but the urgency of his quest had left him no choice.
“It is duty that brings me here,” he said quietly. “There are things I must know, on behalf of the Order—questions only you can answer.”
A shadow flickered across Gaspar’s face, like a premonition of pain, but Arnault forced himself to continue.
“Where now is the Breastplate which le Cercle committed to your care?”
Regret lit behind Gaspar’s eyes, leaving them cold and bleak. The warm glow of the chapel collapsed into wintry chill as a harsh series of cracks shivered the windows, and broken glass fell like rain, filling the air with dissonant chiming. Even as Arnault recoiled, the chapel itself disintegrated.
Splintered images swirled around him like leaves in a whirlwind, seizing him and spinning him into darkness. When it cleared, he found himself standing not in a chapel, but on a high, stone-built bridge.
At his feet lay the reeking carcass of a horse newly dead. A few paces off, two armored figures struggled breast to breast, their locked swords slippery with blood. The older of the two was Gaspar; the beringed hand of the younger twisted and disengaged as he whirled out of Gaspar’s reach and another darted in.
Gaspar was gasping with exertion. This new opponent was but one of a succession he had fought off, only to have another, fresher foe take his place from a pack of nearly a dozen armed men clumped near the bridgehead, swords at the ready, awaiting their turns. As he fought off more of them, Gaspar glanced longingly at the chance of escape behind him, but before he could decide to run for it or resume the fight, his current adversary made a lightning lunge, driving his blade up and under the Templar’s laboring ribs.
The blade twisted as Gaspar wrenched away from it in reflex, doing more damage. He knew the wound was bad, but he kept fighting, for he had no choice. And when he knew his strength was nearing an end, and that death was edging nearer, he drew back and reversed his sword end for end to hurl it desperately at a rider sitting a tall bay at the bridgehead.
He dimly heard the clangor as it hit the cobbled pavement, but by then he was spending the last of his strength to twist around and fall hard against the edge of the bridge’s parapet. As he tumbled over, and he felt consciousness and life slipping free, his lips were moving in a plea for Heaven’s mercy, and his last conscious act was to sketch the sign of his faith in final commendation to the God he had tried to serve.
And Arnault plunged after him. As the murky water closed over his head, his groping fingers found Gaspar’s, but an icy darkness enveloped him, flooding into his lungs. United with Gaspar in watery death, he felt himself sinking under the weight of the current until his body struck bottom with a jolt.
Gaspar’s hand left his, and the river vanished. Arnault gasped for breath, and drew blessed air into his lungs. When his vision cleared, he again was standing with Gaspar in the light-drenched chapel. The older knight now wore the guise Arnault remembered from the morning of their departure from Paris, clad as a simple soldier.
“You have seen my ending in body,” he said with a trace of sadness. “I ran my course, gave my all, but I could not win free. Yet I do not regret losing my earthly life in the service of the Order. If my prayers were answered, the river carried my body to the sea—and with it, what I tried to safeguard for the Temple. But I do not know its fate after that.”
“Nor do I,” Arnault replied, though it occurred to him that he had recognized the man on the horse, at whom Gaspar had thrown his sword. If Guillaume de Nogaret had somehow retrieved the Breastplate from Gaspar’s body . . .
“I don’t know,” Arnault repeated, “but I intend to find out. Meanwhile, no one can fault you for your courage, Gaspar. You gave all you had, against terrible odds. I regret the necessity to make you relive it.”
“And I regret that this knowledge is of so little use to you,” Gaspar replied.
“Perhaps it will be of more use than you think,” Arnault said, putting all the comfort and assurance he could muster into his words. “Let others be the judge of that. Believe me when I tell you this battle is far from over!”
He clasped the other Templar’s hand and wrist in his own as knight to knight, in farewell, for he could feel the Stone calling him back to his own body.
“On behalf of your brothers of le Cercle, I give you thanks,” he said to Gaspar. “May God, in His infinite mercy, make your peace henceforth abiding. Good-bye, my brother—and my friend.”
With these words, he released his grip and the link. The instant of parting turned the world briefly askew, ending with an almost-physical jolt. When Arnault opened his eyes, he was sitting on the Stone again, gazing at a sea pebble in his hands.
ARNAULT KEPT HIMSELF A LITTLE DETACHED AS HE reported what he had experienced, sighing inwardly to see the hope in their eyes give way to grief, anger, and frustration. Before settling in to analyze his revelations, they adjourned back to Bishop Crambeth’s house. Though their subsequent business largely concerned the Order—and its secret workings, at that—Crambeth was permitted to stay, since he was the Stone’s guardian.
“If that was, indeed, Nogaret himself who caught up with Gaspar,” Christoph said, when they had gathered again around the bishop’s table, “I think we must assume that he now has the Breastplate.”
“How could he have known?” Hugues wondered aloud. “Why pursue Gaspar, in preference to any other Templar fleeing the Temple that morning?”
“Does it really matter why?” said Father Bertrand. “Though I certainly agree that I would like to know how he knew.”
“Is there any chance that Nogaret did not recover the body?” Flannan asked, his face still taut with discomfort from his injured shoulder.
“Very little, I should think,” Christoph said. “Clearly, Gaspar did his best to prevent his body from being taken—and with it, what he carried. However, he was wearing mail. I think it most unlikely that the current was strong enough to carry him away.”
“Perhaps,” said Armand Breville, speaking for the first time, “we should examine this account from another angle.”
All eyes turned in his direction.
“It is clear that Gaspar did not survive,” Breville went on, “but I wonder whether we dare to assume that he was taken by agents of the French crown.”
“Nogaret led them,” Flannan pointed out. “If he is not an agent . . .”
“Oh, he is Philip’s agent—make no mistake,” Breville replied, “but Philip may not be his only master. If Gaspar had been captured or killed in any official capacity, much would have been made of it, especially given what he carried.
“But Nogaret has taken great pains to keep the matter secret. In him, I think we are looking at an enemy far more knowledgeable and far more dangerous than either the King of France, the Inquisitor of Paris, or even the Holy Father.”
Hamish Kerr turned to him in some surprise. “You now count the Holy Father as our enemy?” he asked.
“He has allowed the arrests to go forward,” Breville pointed out. “And he has excommunicated your king, and placed your country under interdict.”
Christoph lifted a hand in a gesture indicating that the exchange had best be dropped.
“Enough, Armand. What makes you believe that Nogaret is so dangerous? I point out that he is one man.”
“And had assistance in running Gaspar to ground—men who may have been more than mere retainers.” Breville turned to Arnault. “Would you do me the favor of examining your own memories more closely?”
“Certainly. Which details do you wish me to consider?”
“You mentioned that one of the men Gaspar fought was wearing a ring on his sword hand. Were any of the other men wearing rings?”
Casting back in memory, Arnault realized that many of them were.
“Yes, several.”
“Do you think that any of these rings might have been alike? Can you describe any of those rings?”
“They were gold, with . . . black stones,” Arnault reported, eyes closing as he strained for detail. “Signet rings,” he decided. “Gaspar only got a real look at one, but . . .”
He pressed Ninian’s pebble to his forehead, trying to visualize the ring on the hand of the man who had given Gaspar his mortal wound, doing his best to maintain the balance between what he had actually seen, and what he simply wanted to have seen.
“The detail is harder to make out—it was only dawn—but it . . . looks to me like some kind of . . . bird!”
He broke off abruptly and opened his eyes, stunned.
“Armand, it was a black swan!”
“I perceive we are of one mind,” Breville observed, nodding. “It is what I feared.” Raising his voice, he addressed the rest of the company. “The signet Brother Arnault has just described is the badge of the Brotherhood of the Black Swan. For those of you who have not heard of it, they are a fraternity of black alchemists, without scruples or any moral sense, whose aim is to wreak havoc among the forces of Light.”
“Do you know Nogaret to be one of them?” Hugues asked.
“Not specifically,” came Breville’s reply. “But I have another name for us to conjure with: Bartholeme de Challon.”
“I have heard that name,” Luc said, as Torquil, too, pricked up his ears. “Pray, continue.”
“Some of you will have heard parts of this story before,” Breville explained. “How a French knight by that name, displaying a signet ring emblazoned with a black swan, appeared at the English court last year and ingratiated himself with the English king. Soon after, he attended a royal banquet at which a pair of black swans were featured as heraldic relics upon which the old king and others, including the then-Prince of Wales, swore a grand oath to spare no effort until the rebels of Scotland were vanquished.
“This Bartholeme de Challon subsequently joined the English king’s household retinue, and became a close confidant of John Macdougall of Lorn. The pair traveled to Scotland with the English invasion force, where their arrival coincides with the commencement of a series of sorcerous attacks directed against Robert Bruce.”
“This is true!” Torquil murmured. “I was with Bruce!”
“At Methven,” Breville continued, “the English army was supplied with uncannily exact information that led them straight to Bruce’s encampment. Both Challon and Lorn were present on that campaign. The English army then traveled west, shortly before the battle at Dail Righ, where some of our Templar brothers first sighted a malignant entity in the form of a great black bird.
“This same demon-bird attacked the king after his landing at Turnberry Point, where Brother Torquil was hard-pressed to drive it away, but he did it serious damage. That incident marks the end of these attacks, so far as we know,” Breville concluded, “and I have since confirmed that Bartholeme de Challon later returned to France, much reduced in health, only recently returning to court—and to the service of Nogaret, quite possibly with the intention of playing an active part in the arrest of the Templars.”
This conjecture raised a murmur that quickly ceased as Hugues de Curzon spoke.
“It seems, then, that at least one of us must go back to France, to learn more about this Bartholeme de Challon and the Knights of the Black Swan,” he said. “I notice that you do not link him specifically to the men who apprehended Gaspar. Do you anticipate that he could lead us to those who did?”
“Perhaps,” Breville said. “In any case, this falls to me. I fear the fires of the Inquisition far less than I fear what will become of our brotherhood, if we fail to recover the Breastplate.”
“Could these Knights of the Black Swan actually use the Breastplate?” Father Bertrand asked thoughtfully. “Has it not become attuned to a selected few amongst us, like Arnault and Gaspar, so that others could not harness its powers without a like attunement?”
“That might protect it,” Father Anselmo conceded. “But if they could not control it, might they take steps to destroy or damage it, in order to deprive us of its benefits?”
“I doubt they would go so far—at least not immediately,” Arnault said. “Those who embark on the Dark Roads do so because they crave power. Our enemies are more likely to cherish the Breastplate as long as they think there’s a possibility of mastering its mysteries for themselves.”
Hamish Kerr was shaking his head worriedly. “Could they really do that?”
“I hope not,” Christoph said. “The Breastplate is a priestly artifact. The authority to invoke its powers comes only through sacramental transmission—by the shared fact of a religious vocation or by the laying on of hands. But I wouldn’t swear there isn’t a way to circumvent this requirement. And we can be quite sure that if such a method exists, our enemies will find it.”
“In that case,” said Breville, “the sooner I leave for France, the better.”
“And what becomes of our intention to raise the Fifth Temple?” Father Anselmo asked. “We do still have free access to the Stone of Destiny. Might it be possible, do you think, to substitute some other priestly hallow for the Breastplate, in order to set the foundation of the Fifth Temple?”
“Possibly,” Christoph conceded, when no one else spoke. “But it could take years to discover what and how. The Breastplate was fashioned in strict accordance with instructions given by God. Its powers are directly ascribable to the Urim and Thummin, the Lights and Perfections, which spring from celestial origins. No other artifact in the history of the Hebrew people has such powerful associations with the Divine Word of God, with the possible exception of the Tablets of the Law and the Ark of the Covenant.”
The mention of the Law smote Arnault like a physical blow.
The Law will destroy you; the Law will set you free. . . . He started up involuntarily, and blurted, “That’s it! That’s what Iskander was talking about!”
All eyes turned his way.
“Who is Iskander?” Breville asked, though Luc and Torquil began nodding excitedly.
Arnault recounted his encounter at Chartres, for the benefit of those who had not yet heard the tale.
“His words almost had the ring of Holy Writ—certainly the resonance of prophecy,” Arnault said. “Before the Temple, there was the Ark of the Covenant. And before the Ark, there was the Covenant itself. The voice of God spoke, and the Tablets of the Law received the sacred Word. And the power of the Word shall abide forever, though the Tablets themselves crumble into dust. . . .
“And then he said that there is hope for redemption, but only at a price—and the answer lies in Jerusalem. He said, The First Temple was raised in accordance with the Word. In the place where the Temple was raised, you will find the answers that you seek. Hope dwells for all eternity in the City of God. . . .”
No one spoke for several breathless seconds, until finally Father Bertrand said, “Arnault . . . what do you think he meant?”
“I think he meant that even without the Breastplate, we may still be able to erect the Fifth Temple,” Arnault replied immediately, with no shred of uncertainty. “But to do it, we must recover some relic of the Tablets of the Law. And to do that, someone must make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.”
The range of expressions that greeted this assertion included interest, confusion, and doubt.
“Some relic of the Tablets?” Hamish Kerr murmured. “Does such a thing exist?”
“It’s a very large gamble. . . .” Bertrand muttered under his breath.
Even Christoph sounded dubious.
“Arnault, are you really prepared to trust the future of the Order to the word of this chance-met traveler?”
“I don’t think the meeting was chance,” Arnault said. “Not when you link it with my dream, and then the words of the dying Jew, the night before the arrests: The Law will destroy you. The Law will set you free. Iskander spoke those same words to me when we met. He knew! And then, when he spoke of the Ark, and the Word, and the Law . . . What else could it mean?
“If Armand can ferret out this Bartholeme de Challon—who may or may not have access to the Breastplate—well and good. But while we wait for that perhaps to happen—if de Challon has it, and if it can be retrieved—this is another avenue for us to try. It can do no harm—and if the Breastplate cannot be retrieved, it may be our only hope.”
“I’ll go with him,” Torquil declared. “I think he’s right; and two will be safer than one. Arnault and I are able to move with relative ease in that part of the world. It is a gamble. But it’s also a second chance if the Breastplate can’t be recovered.”
When no one gainsaid him, Torquil said, “I propose that Aubrey be given charge of Bruce’s protection. Bruce knows and trusts him, after all, and knows that he acts for the Order—and he’s certainly earned my trust in the past year and more.”
He did not look at Bishop Crambeth for concurrence, but the others universally were nodding their agreement, well aware that he was speaking of a trust that could only be encompassed within the trials and vows of full membership in the Inner Order.
“It’s settled, then,” Arnault said. “We’ll make the necessary arrangements before we leave.”
“There’s one further thing,” Torquil said. He pulled from his belt the dirk given him by Abbot Fingon, sheathed with its broken blade, and glanced at Brother Ninian.
“I’d like to pass this on to Aubrey, since he’s to become Bruce’s protector for the next little while,” he said. “I’m afraid I broke its blade, fending off that demon-bird at Methven, but perhaps you can help him discover how to make it an effective weapon again. It snapped off near the hilt. Perhaps it can be reforged.”
Raising an eyebrow, Ninian leaned across the table to take the weapon from Aubrey, touched the blue hilt-jewel briefly to his forehead, eyes closed, then smiled and handed it to Aubrey.
“It can be done,” he said to the wide-eyed younger man. “And you will be a worthy successor.”
“Then, it’s settled,” Arnault said quietly. “Torquil and I are for Jerusalem, Aubrey’s for Bruce, and Armand is for France—and God help us all in our undertakings!”
THE PAIR SET OUT FOR THE HOLY LAND BY WAY OF FRANCE, traveling as far as Brest with Christoph and Father Anselmo—and ended up lingering in France until the following spring, for the worsening plight of the Order held them with a dread fascination that made them reluctant simply to abandon their brethren. In May, they learned, a congregation of some two thousand nobles, clergy, and commons had gathered in Tours to hear Nogaret harangue about the depravity of the Order—and had recorded their wholehearted assent that the Templars should be forced to confess their sins. The pair made particular efforts to discover the fates of Jauffre and Oliver, but to no avail.
They did learn that rumors of a confession by the Grand Master were true, though they also heard that only torture had produced it. Confessions had also been obtained from a number of other high-ranking officers of the Order—various senior preceptors of provinces and even Hugues de Paraud, the Visitor of France. Virtually all of these men had later revoked their confessions, for having been extracted under torture; but since retraction would have seen them burned as relapsed heretics, every one of them had soon returned to his original confession.
Meanwhile, the relentless interrogation and torture of other Templars continued, yielding an increasingly damning accumulation of confessions extracted under extreme duress. In addition, Pope Clement began insisting that arrests and interrogations proceed in other kingdoms. The threat of the stake was ever-present, and lodged itself in Arnault’s soul, even when he and Torquil at last left France and turned their sights toward Jerusalem.
It took the two men more than a year to cover a distance that previously would have taken hardly a third that time, for the disappearance of the Templar fleet had left the Mediterranean exposed to the threat of pirates and corsairs, even in the close coastal waters off France and Italy. Arnault and Torquil knew where a few of the Templar ships had gone—and what they had carried—but most had simply disappeared as the news of the arrests in France spread, for their crews had little relish for the notion of surrendering their cargoes and their persons into the less-than-benign attentions of the Holy Inquisition and its torturers.
In the absence, then, of Templar transport, the pair had been obliged to secure passage where they could. Traveling in the guise of pilgrims, and with Torquil’s bright hair drabbed with dark dye, they drew little notice, but their journey had been an arduous one, nonetheless, beset by delays, occasional near encounters with hostile galleys, and shortages of food and water—and occasional nightmares, on Arnault’s part, about Templars consigned to the flames. Their present vessel was a Genoese trader, a wallowing, broad-beamed merchantman that had taken twelve days to make the crossing from Limassol—headed, at last, for the ancient port of Alexandria. From there, it was still some weeks’ journey to the Holy City of Jerusalem.
Before dawn on the morning they hoped to make landfall at last, Arnault clawed his way out of fitful sleep and the worst nightmare yet—so vivid that it sent him blindly retching to the rail to puke up the acid contents of his mostly empty stomach. When he at last could see again, Torquil was standing beside him, offering the dipper from the water barrel kept amidships.
“Another nightmare?”
Nodding, Arnault took the dipper and tried to rinse away the sour taste from his mouth. After spitting that over the side, he drank the rest down greedily. Even lukewarm and slightly brackish, at least it eased the sour, parched sensation that lingered at the back of his throat.
“It was Jauffre, this time,” he rasped after a moment, his gaze unfocused out over the water as he handed the dipper back to Torquil. There was no wind in this predawn stillness, and the rhythmic dip of the oars made a soothing, reassuring counterpoint to the slap of wavelets against the hull. When he did not say more, Torquil took the dipper back to the water barrel, then returned to his side.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“No. But I think I must.” Arnault lowered his forehead into one hand, closing his eyes.
“I think they’ve burned him, Torquil.”
“Dear God. . . .”
Arnault raised his head to gaze out again at the rosy dawn beginning to stain the horizon, wiping his mouth with the back of a sunburnt hand.
“I’ve dreamed about burnings before; you know that. But this was different. It was specific. It was much, much too real.”
“Go on.”
“He was . . . in the square before some great cathedral—not Notre Dame or Chartres, I don’t know where—and he was not alone. Erected in the square was a veritable sea of stakes—scores of them, maybe fifty or sixty, sticking up like the masts of so many ships.
“Except that each stake had a human being chained to it, with resin-soaked wood and kindling piled knee high around each one.” Arnault’s voice had dropped to a whisper.
“They had been most cruelly used, Torquil. Hardly any were unmarked by the evidence of deprivation, terrible tortures. And nearby, fire baskets nursed the waiting torches, filling the air with the reek of sulfur and burning pitch.”
He had to stop to swallow before he could go on.
“There was . . . a large, unruly crowd gathered to witness the spectacle, jeering and jostling for the best vantage points . . . and prelates and priests who condoned the thing about to be done . . . and then the whiff of smoke and brimstone and ash, as the pyres were torched—and all too soon, the roar of the flames, and the stench of roasting flesh. . . .”
A sob caught in Arnault’s throat, and he buried his face in his hands, but he continued to speak.
“They uttered hardly a sound,” he managed to whisper. “A few were defiant to the end, shouting out the innocence of the Order . . . but most simply bore their pain in stoic silence.” He shook his head.
“Pain. . . . Can that simple word even begin to describe it? Yet most uttered no more than a gasp or a moan, as the flames began to lick at their flesh. I—do not think I could summon such courage, in the face of such a death. . . .”
Torquil said nothing, only clasping a hand to Arnault’s biceps as the other man’s shoulders shuddered in silent weeping. His own vision was blurry with tears, breath catching in his throat, and he tried not to imagine what it had been like—for the men in distant France as well as for Arnault.
After a little while, as the pink of dawn faded to the bright splendor of the sun-ball itself lifting above the eastern horizon, Arnault recovered himself sufficiently to raise his head. Nothing could reclaim what had happened, bring Jauffre back—and he was all too certain that he had dreamed true.
As it was, he and Torquil both knew they were working against time. At first traveling mostly on foot, and with only their own resources of wit to sustain them, they had come so far only by being constantly on their guard; for spies and informers were everywhere, and the arm of the Inquisition was long.
The strident crow of a cock in one of the poultry cages put an end to Arnault’s ruminations. A breeze was rising, and the ship’s sailing master emerged from his canopy on the forecastle and began barking orders at his sleepy-eyed crew. Torquil disappeared briefly, presently rejoining Arnault at the rail with two meager rations of hard bread.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he recommended with a grimace. “If Saint Anthony and Saint Jerome ate locusts in the desert, I don’t suppose a few weevils will hurt us. That’s all the food we have left till we reach landfall.”
“How encouraging you are,” Arnault murmured, frowning as he knocked his bread against the rail. “Fortunately, our captain is predicting we’ll sight land before midday.”
“I’ll believe that when it happens,” Torquil said with a skeptical snort, and gnawed off a corner of his own crust. He did not bother to attempt dislodging the weevils.
Both men had lost weight from months of living on the edge of poverty. The pilgrim’s robes they had assumed at the outset of their journey were now stained and tattered with use. Their weapons at present were wrapped in canvas and disguised amid the spare blanketing and tent poles and pilgrim staves stashed by the area of deck they had staked out early in the voyage—though everyone aboard knew them to be soldiers, even if on pilgrimage, and well armed. It occurred to Arnault that, ironically, they probably were safer in the Moslem lands toward which they were bound than in the Christian countries they had left behind.
Their stalwart ship continued to plow its slow way through the waves, under sail since the rise of the breeze with the dawn. Most of the passengers sought whatever shade they could find from the glare of the morning sun, some sheltering under wide-brimmed hats or the hoods of desert djellabas. Torquil had dozed off with his head resting on his forearm. Arnault was just wondering if he ought to do likewise when there came a cry from the masthead.
“Land ho!”
The cry roused everyone on board. While the members of the crew scurried to adjust the sails, the passengers hurried forward, peering narrowly at the distant horizon. Taller than anyone else aboard, the two Templars were first to spot a tiny sliver of yellow squeezed between the sea and the sky.
“Egypt!” Torquil breathed on a sigh of triumph.
With everyone else aboard, the two of them stayed glued to the rail, watching the outlines of Alexandria come into sight. Both had been there before. As the ship’s master came to watch from the rail beside the two, Arnault paid compliment to the master’s navigational skills.
“In former times, it would have been easier,” the captain responded with a shrug, nodding toward an island ahead that was linked to the city by a broad causeway.
Another of the pilgrims, a German monk from Wurzberg, turned his head in curious inquiry. “How so?”
Arnault pointed to the tower that rose tier upon tier from the closest point of the island.
“That is the great lighthouse,” he explained. “It’s sometimes called the Pharos, because that’s the name of the island on which it’s standing. In times past, its beacon shone night and day, marking the safe route in and out of the harbor.”
“It’s a lighthouse?” said a traveler from Parma.
The captain squinted at the speaker as though he were slow-witted. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of the great lighthouse of Alexandria. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancients.”
“It’s a miracle that it’s still standing,” Torquil said, gazing at the lofty structure. The lowest of its three sections was square, the middle section octagonal, and the topmost stage circular, the whole of it rising to a height of several hundred feet. The marble surfaces were stained with time, and here and there the masonry was visibly crumbling.
“So, why is there no light now?” the German monk asked.
The captain shrugged. “The Arabs didn’t understand the purpose of the reflecting mirror. They carried it off and never replaced it. Now, no one even bothers to light a fire up there by night.”
To Arnault’s searching eye, the lighthouse looked considerably more derelict than he remembered from his last visit to Alexandria.
“It looks like it’s starting to collapse,” he remarked.
“A recent earthquake shook it up badly,” the captain said, “and no repairs have been planned so far.” He sighed gustily. “It’s a sad sight for a sailor to see such a beacon sliding into ruin. The Arabs aren’t seafaring folk. They’re far more concerned with their new capital at Fustat, on the Nile.”
Beyond the island of Pharos, at the far side of the harbor, Arnault recognized a pair of huge obelisks that dominated the surrounding buildings: called the Needles of Cleopatra, brought here from a southern city in honor of the famous queen. But for Arnault, all at once they were eerily reminiscent of the twin towers of Notre Dame, reminding him yet again of the horrors that were taking place back in Europe.
The deck shifted beneath their feet as the ship tacked westward.
“Why are we turning away from the harbor?” the Italian traveler inquired.
“The great harbor is reserved for the Faithful,” the captain said with a sour grin. “We Infidels have to use the smaller harbor, up ahead—and we’ll be charged extra, even for that privilege.”
As they cleared the harbor mouth, the crew dropped sail and used the oars to guide the vessel to the dock. Galleys and merchantmen from a dozen lands jostled by the quayside, here to trade metals, grain, spices, and silk.
Beyond the warehouses and customs offices that lined the harbor, the sunlight against marble-and-plaster buildings reflected with such brilliance that it almost hurt the eye to look at them. Off to the south, the silver sheen of Lake Mareotis and the canal that connected Alexandria to the Nile flashed mirror-bright. Though it was no longer Egypt’s capital, Alexandria was still a bustling city. When Arnault and Torquil disembarked, traveling packs over their shoulders, they were almost swept away in the boisterous crowd that was milling around the harbor.
A polyglot hubbub dinned in their ears as they walked, the mixed tongues of Arabs, Berbers, Copts, Melkites, Italians, Frenchmen, and Germans. Jewish merchants and Arab traders vied with one another to offer the best price on the newly arrived goods, while officials acting on behalf of the city’s governor supervised the unloading and collected duty on the cargo.
The streets beyond the waterfront were only slightly less congested, but Arnault made his way through the city as confidently as if he were walking down the avenues of Paris, Torquil sticking close beside him. When he came to the house he was seeking, he found the door ajar to let the air flow freely on this hot day.
Arnault tapped twice and stepped inside. Torquil followed, careful to close the door securely behind him.
Inside, a shaggy-haired man was hunched over a workbench beside an open window on the far side of the room, applying a small, pointed instrument to the edges of a disk of copper. Only when Arnault was standing right over him did he look up and then leap to his feet, dropping his tools. His look of shock turned to one of joy when he recognized the face of the intruder.
“Arnault!” he cried, flinging his arms around the knight and pressing him to his breast. “My dear friend, I had not foreseen to greet you again before Heaven!” He spoke in broken Latin with a thick Coptic accent, but that did nothing to obscure the hearty affection in his voice.
He released his hold and stepped back. “I have heard of the great badness taking place, of your slain brothers. Surely God Himself has placed a protection over you, to bring you safely here.”
“I believe that truly,” Arnault said, summoning a smile at the remembrance of other times, other greetings.
“But, who is this?” said the shaggy man, tugging at his curly, gray-streaked beard as he scrutinized Torquil.
“This is Torquil Lennox, one of my confreres,” Arnault explained. “Torquil, this is the good friend I told you about: Matthias the coppersmith.”
Torquil was wary that he might be swallowed up in another of the Copt’s enveloping embraces, but to his relief Matthias merely bowed and beckoned the two men to follow him into a back room. Here he fetched figs, dates, olives, bread, and wine, pressing them not to speak further until they had eaten.
“You look as if you had fasted a year,” he complained, with a reproving shake of his head. “I cannot bear to behold you until you have filled your bellies—though you may tell me of the tedium of your voyage, if you wish.”
They eschewed tedium in favor of eating. Matthias, once he was satisfied that they were properly fed, consented to listen to their tale. Without revealing the true purpose of their journey, Arnault told him of their destination.
Matthias tugged at his unruly beard with one hand, absentmindedly juggling a date with the other.
“A long way lies ahead,” he said, “but at least now you will not fail from starvation on the first leg. Now that the Holy Country is under the rule of the Mongols, there are new things to fear. The trade routes still thrive, but there is more unruliness, more danger than before.”
Torquil knew that the Mongols had swept down through Baghdad and taken Jerusalem itself, overwhelming the Arabs just as the Arabs had swept across the Christian land centuries before. Whether that would make their mission easier or more hazardous, Torquil had no better idea than the coppersmith.
“Only when we get there will we know what is going to happen,” Arnault said, with a philosophic shrug. “We must go, regardless—and there’s no sense trying to play the prophet.”
“Ah, but what money I could make in the markets, if I could.” Matthias grinned as he tossed the date into his mouth and chewed. “Still, whoever rules where, trade goes on as rightly as the winds blow. A caravan departs for Mecca in two days’ time. For two poor pilgrims such as yourselves, even Christian ones, to place themselves under its protection for part of their journey would be no very strange thing.”
“That gives us a couple of days to gather some further intelligence,” Torquil said.
Matthias made a disgusted noise at the back of his throat. “It gives you two more days to eat,” he insisted. “In Jerusalem or in Mecca, the great God wants to be worshiped by men, not skeletons.”
In spite of all the hardship and danger that lay ahead, Torquil could not help chuckling at the Copt’s good humor, and Arnault found himself heartily joining in.