Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (42 page)

One of the two knights descended to him and held out a copy of the Rule, opened at the first page. “Read these words. If you cannot, speak, and they shall be translated for you.”

Will could barely see the Latin text in the gloom, but after staring hard at the faded ink, he managed to recite what it said. “Lord God, I come here before you and before these good brothers here present, to ask for companionship of the Order and participation in the spiritual and temporal goods herein. I wish for the duration of my life to be a serving slave in the Order of the Temple and to put aside my will for that of God’s.” Will swore to uphold the laws of the Temple; to preserve his chastity; remain in poverty; be obedient. Once he had prostrated himself before the altar to ask for the blessings of God, the Virgin and all the saints, the second knight stepped from the dais, sword drawn. The blade gleamed dully as it was held, point-down, toward Will.

“Kiss this blade and accept the burden of protection placed upon you. Against all enemies shall you defend the one true faith and, in direst need, shall you offer your life in this defense.”

Will leaned forward to touch his lips to the shaft, his breath misting the blade. And the vow he was making felt all too real. As the knight sheathed the blade and ascended the dais, Everard hobbled over to where one of the clerics was waiting with a sword and a folded white mantle. In the pause, Will realized that he didn’t understand why his father and the other men at Safed had chosen martyrdom. To him, their deaths seemed senseless. Had fulfilling this vow meant more to them than their families? How many sons and daughters had they abandoned to secure a place in Paradise? James had written to Will only twice in the past six years and although the letters hadn’t been full of blame for Mary, neither had they contained any words of love. From them, Will had learned far more about Outremer than he had about his father’s heart. He now longed to know why his father had chosen death; longed to scream up to Heaven and
demand
to know.

And that was when the anger he had been holding back since that morning finally overflowed.

He was angry at the Temple for demanding his father’s life in its service, angry at Everard for deceiving him, angry at the Saracen who had killed his father and the sultan, Baybars, who had commanded it. But most of all he was angry at his father for leaving, for lying to him, for not forgiving him, for dying. Now his father was gone and he would never know absolution and his head was pounding and Everard was coming toward him and his father’s words were ringing in his ears.

One day, William, you will be admitted as a Knight of the Temple and when you are, in God’s name, I will be at your side.

In God’s name, his father had broken one vow and fulfilled another. So, had he served God’s will, or his own? And had he died defending the Order, or the Anima Templi, or to punish a son for the death of a daughter?

“With this sword, may you defend Christendom from the enemies of God.”

Will rose to his feet, dazedly, and raised his hands as Everard held out the sword. His eyes focused on the polished length of iron, the blade of which was unmarked. He dropped his hands to his sides. Everard frowned, then seemed to understand. He snapped his fingers at a cleric who was waiting with the mantle. The cleric looked uncertainly up at the Visitor, then crossed the floor to Everard, who spoke quickly and quietly to him. Will heard a couple of curious murmurs come from the crowd at the interruption to the ceremony as the cleric hurried through a small side door. When he returned, he was carrying Will’s falchion. Everard passed him back the new sword, then took the short, scarred blade with the loose wire around the hilt and handed it to Will. Will frowned away the tears that threatened, more touched by the priest’s display of empathy than by anything else. He fastened the belt around his waist.

Everard held out the mantle. “With this cloth are you reborn.”

Will took it and opened up the folded material. The splayed cross on the back and above the heart was as red as wine and blood and Elwen’s lips. He drew the mantle around his bare shoulders, his nose filled with the astringent smell of freshly felted cloth. It was, he realized, a bit short. Usually, the tailor would measure the intended wearer before the ceremony, but, of course, there hadn’t been time. Will told himself that it didn’t matter; he would have the tailor alter it. But, even so, the mantle didn’t feel like the pair of wings he had once imagined it would. It hung heavily from his shoulders and itched.

Everard fastened it at the neck for him with a simple silver pin. “I absolve you,” murmured the priest, passing his hand in the sign of the cross, “of all your sins. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

The Visitor rose from the throne.
“Ecce quam bonum et quam jocundum habitare fratres in unum.”

After the Visitor had finished intoning the psalm, Everard placed his hands on Will’s shoulders. “In the words of the blessed Bernard de Clairvaux, I tell you that a man of the Temple is a fearless knight, safe from all sides, who, as the body is covered by iron, so is the soul by the defense of the faith. Without doubt, fortified by both arms, he fears neither demon nor man. Nor indeed,” said the priest, gazing intently into Will’s eyes, “is he afraid of death. We behold you, Sir William Campbell, Knight of the Temple. May God make you a worthy man.” He stood on tiptoe to kiss Will’s mouth, then every man in the chapter house rose and, one by one, came forward to do the same.

THE ROYAL PALACE, PARIS, NOVEMBER
2, 1266
AD

“How can this have happened?” Louis IX, the King of France, sat forward in his throne, addressing the company of knights who were standing before him in the Great Hall. The chamber was empty and echoing, the trestles and decorations that had been set out for the troubadour’s performance the evening before having been hastily cleared away. The servants had missed a few dried rose petals, which were scattered at the feet of the knights. “How can Safed have fallen so swiftly?”

It was the Visitor who answered the king. “Reports say that Baybars promised unconditional amnesty to the native forces within if they surrendered, my liege. Our fortress was strong, yes, but without enough men to garrison its walls it would have been indefensible.”

Will, standing at the back of the company of six knights who had escorted the Visitor to the palace, watched Louis bow his leonine head, which was framed by a mane of dark hair, streaked white at his temples. His vermilion cloak, trimmed with ermine swathed his frame, which had been muscular in youth but had tended toward fat in his middle years. Blemishes on his face were the pockmarks of diseases he had survived in the East and his hands were thick and liver-spotted. Only sixteen years ago, this king had headed the Seventh Crusade to the Holy Land, leading thirty-five thousand men to an initial victory, then, ultimately, death in Egypt. After the Battle of Mansurah, Louis and his remaining, beleaguered forces had been rounded up and imprisoned by the Muslims. The ransom for his release had been paid by his wife, Queen Marguerite.

Will’s vision clouded as he stared at the king and he shook his head, trying to shake off the sluggish feeling that had come over him during the war council that had taken place after his inception. When the Visitor had told him in a solemn tone that he would join the company going to the palace, it had been an effort to hide his reluctance. He felt dazed, numb.

Louis raised his head after several moments, during which he appeared to be praying. “This is a black day. A black day indeed.”

“I have sent word to our principal preceptories throughout the West, informing our brothers what has happened,” said the Visitor.

The king was quiet for a time. “Baybars whittles us away as a carpenter would a block of wood. Last month, the Hospitallers told me that Arsuf had fallen to him, and before that Caesarea and Haifa. His reach has become longer than any of us could have imagined.”

“Yes, my liege,” agreed the Visitor gravely. “If we do not act soon, I fear our territories will shrink to nothing. The fortifications you made during your time in Palestine will only hold for so long without men to defend them. Safed was one of our greatest fortresses and we let Baybars take it.” The Visitor’s eyes were bright with sorrow, but his tone was uncompromising. “We, in the West, have done nothing to halt his war against us, leaving it to our brothers in the East to fight and defend our dream. We now pay the dear cost of our inaction.”

“What do you propose?”

The Visitor was silent for a pause. When he spoke, his tone was resolute. “The Temple is ready and willing to apportion funds and men for a move eastward to counter the threat posed by Baybars. But it will take many months to build ships for the journey, then more to make it. We must act now and we will need your support, and the support of every willing man, be he peasant or monarch, on this side of the sea. A new Crusade led by you to Palestine, my liege. That is what I propose.”

Louis clasped his hands under his chin. “This is not an unexpected proposition. I have recently been in contact with my brother, Charles, Count of Anjou. He has already spoken to me, extolling such an endeavor.”

The Visitor met the king’s thoughtful gaze. “Will you do this, my liege?”

Louis sat back in his throne, his vermilion cloak settling around him. “Yes, Master Visitor, I will launch a new Crusade. And the Saracens will pay dear themselves for the lives of the Christians they have taken. As soon as I am able, I will take the Cross.”

As the king spoke these last words, Will felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. His vision went black and he stumbled, just managing to catch the arm of the knight beside him to keep himself from falling.

“What is wrong?” murmured the knight, staring at him. “You’re as white as a lily.”

“I…I need air,” breathed Will, staggering away toward the doors at the far end of the chamber.

“Is your man sick?” Will heard the king’s voice echo behind him.

“His father was one of those butchered at Safed, my liege,” replied the Visitor as Will pushed open the doors and reeled out into the passage beyond.

Torches, freshly lit, were burning along the corridor. The light hurt his eyes. Passing two servants who looked curiously at him, Will fled to the end of the passage, where a tall, arched window looked down over the Seine. He grasped the ledge, fighting off the vertiginous sensation that engulfed him in great waves, drawing in deep drafts of briny-smelling air. Since that morning, his world had been turned upside down and he now felt that revolution in every fiber of his being. Only hours before, he had been digging up the body of a man who had been murdered by his countrymen, and, even as he had been feeling shame for such a brutal act, his own father’s body lay rotting in Palestine, slain by Muslims like Hasan. But he didn’t want Hasan to be lying in that grave; he didn’t want his father to have died alone, one man striving for peace in a land torn apart by the hatred of those on both sides; he didn’t want his friends sent to that place, swords in hands. The king and the Visitor wanted retribution, but Will could not see how killing more men would make any of this right.

Will tugged at the collar of his mantle. He could feel sweat trickling down his back, even though the air was freezing. Was this what it meant to be a knight? To fight and die for another man’s cause? Because a king willed it? Because God willed it? Will couldn’t believe that. To him those words were hollow, lifeless. His father hadn’t believed that; he would have known that even had he never been told the reason his father had gone to the Holy Land. Tall and dignified, James had been to him; noble in spirit; honorable in battle; generous in heart. But it wasn’t the mantle that had made him that way, or the vows he had taken. It was the man inside who had embodied those things. Other men had abandoned their families for the sake of war, for God and for country. His father had abandoned him, his mother and sisters for the sake of peace. The world outside blurred as Will’s eyes filled with tears. The anger he had felt toward his father was vanquished by an all-consuming feeling of love and, with it, an utterly desolate sense of loss.

“Will?” came a woman’s voice.

Will turned to see Elwen. The flames of the torches highlighted the copper tones of her hair, which was bound up with spirals of silver wire. Her wide, green eyes were luminous in the shifting flames. Her plain gown and mantle were the color of a canary’s wing and girdled with a silver chain. She looked like a queen.

Elwen’s eyes were fixed in shock on his mantle. “When did this happen?”

“Elwen,” he began, his voice hoarse. But he couldn’t find any more words and so instead he went to her, grasping her as tightly as if he were a drowning man and she the one piece of timber left after a shipwreck.

“I heard that knights from the Temple had come to see the king,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest. “But I didn’t imagine it would be you. What is happening? The queen told me that the king was called to an urgent council.”

“Safed has fallen,” Will said into her hair. “My father is dead.”

Elwen drew back and looked up at him. “Will,” she breathed, cradling his wet cheek with her hand. “My God.” Her own eyes filled with tears at the sight of his distress.

“The king will launch a new Crusade.”

Elwen touched her fingertips to the cross on Will’s mantle. “Then you will be…?” Her voice cracked. “You will be going to war?”

“No,” said Will determinedly. “I will not leave you.” He looked down into her fear-filled face and realized what a fool he had been. All this time he had been chasing a ghost. Forgiveness was no longer achievable; could never be fulfilled. He would never know his father’s love again except in memory. But Elwen was here, tangible and solid, wanting him, loving him, and he had spurned her for the sake of the mantle he now wore that meant no more to him than the soiled black tunic he had been wearing for years. He hesitated, just for a second, before he said the words. “I love you.”