Iacobus (12 page)

“So I’m guessing that your friends were Templars and that you and your family hid in their Fortress of Marais, fleeing from royal justice and the Inquisition.”

“You’re right,” she said surprised. “These two escudos are yours!”

“Enough games, lady!” I shouted, painfully banging my fist on my knee. “Do you see this bag? It contains one hundred gold escudos and one hundred gold florins. Take it, it’s all yours! But stop playing with me because I won’t have it. I want the names of your friends and I want them now! You can be assured that they are in no danger, that I won’t report them. I am just searching for the truth. I just want to find out whether William of Nogaret died at the hands of the Templars or not.”

Sara burst out laughing.

“But I already told you! You are so furious that you haven’t noticed that I already confirmed that my friends prepared the poison and that they were indeed Templars.”

I was fed up with that damn woman. Before Jonas came whispering in my ear a stupid ‘It´s true, sire, she did already tell you’, I had to admit that she was devilishly clever and she had beaten me hands down.

“What’s more, micer Galceran, unfortunately, and I am unsure as to why you want this information, I can tell you their names right now without putting them in any danger, given that one of them is no longer in France and will never return …,” I thought I could hear a bitterness in her voice, “and the other is a prisoner in the King’s dungeons. How ironic, don’t you think? My friend is imprisoned in the dungeons of the Fortress of Marais, the fortress that used to be his home and is now his prison.”

“Arrested? Under what charge?”

“It is so grotesque!” she whispered. “He was arrested for assassinating King Philip the Fair, and although he did it, not even his accuser, King Philip the Long, thinks that he is really guilty of this crime.”

“I don’t understand a word.”

She looked at me with pity.

“When Philip IV died there was a rumor that the Templars had killed him but my friends did such a good job that they couldn’t find any evidence to prove it. I assume you know the facts?” I nodded my head. “So his eldest son, King of Navarre, Luis X, took the throne but suddenly died two years after being crowned, leaving his wife Margaret widowed and pregnant, who shortly after gave birth to a son. Everyone was satisfied, other than Matilda of Artois, naturally. They called him John, King John I, and you guessed it, he also died mysteriously shortly after being born. It was finally Philip of Pontiers’ turn, the current Philip V the Long, married to Jeanne of Burgundy, daughter of Matilda of Artois. Do you get it now?”

“I’m afraid to admit that I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

“Philip the Long, who is partially right, is convinced that his mother-in-law Matilda was behind all of the deaths I told you about: that of his father, his brother and his newborn nephew. And just like the King, the entire court and kingdom also think so. Matilda of Artois’ great dream has always been that one of her two daughters become the Queen of France which is why she married them to two of the King’s three sons, Philip and Charles, since the oldest, Louis, was already engaged to Margaret. Matilda wants to see her descendants on this country’s throne at any cost, and part of that cost was paid by poisoning Louis X and his son John I.

“But King Philip the Long,” I said, following on her argument, “is not at rest. At any time someone can throw it in his face that he is only the King because his mother-in-law cleared the way.”

“Exactly. That poor, unhappy man is only mistaken in thinking that Matilda also killed his father. That is the only crime she didn’t commit but as he doesn’t know for sure, he feels unsafe. What to do? he asks himself. So he organized a ridiculous raid to trap the few Templars left roaming Paris, those who, for whatever reason, were seen as being guilty of the ridiculous accusations of his father and of Nogaret, and were sentenced to minor punishments and freed almost immediately. The excuse for these new arrests was to charge them with the death of Philip the Fair, thus freeing Matilda of Artois of any suspicion, and with it, legitimizing and cleaning his own coronation.”

“How awful!” said Jonas, completely absorbed in the tale; young people like those kinds of stories a bit too much.

“My friend Evrard was already seriously ill and couldn’t escape in time from Paris, and now,” she said furiously, her eyes burning, “he is dying in the prison, unfairly accused of a crime that he did commit.”

“Did you say Evrard …?” I asked with the little voice I had left in my body.

“Do you know him?” she asked in surprise.

Know him …? I thought. No. The truth was that I had only met him once, many years ago, and that was not what you’d call knowing a person. Evrard … Evrard and Manrique of Mendoza.

I was only slightly older than Jonas when Manrique, Isabel’s brother, returned to his father’s castle after spending many years in Cyprus where he had established the leadership of his Order following the loss of the Syrian city of Acre in 1291. Manrique was a Templar knight and arrived accompanied by his friend, Evrard. During the few weeks they spent at the castle, they told us countless stories of crusades, battles, monarchs and warriors. They told us about the great Moorish leader Salah Al-Din
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, of the Leper King, of the black stone of The Mecca, of the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ and his fanatic followers, the Assassins, the fresh water of Lake Tiberius, of the loss of the True Cross in the Battle of Hittin … Isabel, Jonas’ mother, adored her older brother, and I simply adored her. Those unforgettable nights, while Manrique and Evrard told stories next to the fire in the noble hall of the weapons room at the Mendoza castle, I looked at Isabel’s beautiful face in silence from the dark which was lit up by the flames, that face that her son was looking at me with now, day after day and week after week, as if he was the perfect picture of his mother. She knew that I watched her, and all her movements, her smiles and her words were directed at me. The names Manrique and Evrard had become linked in my mind forever with the precious memories of the years that I spent, first as a page and then as a squire, in the Mendoza fortress, built next to the River Zadorra in Alava.

“Do you know him?” repeated Sara.

“What? Ah, yes, yes! I knew him many years ago; so many in fact that I had almost forgotten about him. Tell me, your other friend, Evrard’s companion, is his name Manrique, Manrique of Mendoza?”

The witch’s face suddenly turned into a rigid mask, into a black hole where a flash of anger and sadness passed.

“You also know Manrique!” she mused.

It seemed that Sara and I shared similar feelings of loss and longing for two different members of the same family. I must admit that it was funny. I had spent my life fleeing from my ghosts to come and find them in the humble house of a witch in the Jewish quarter of Paris. I needed some time to get my thoughts together but I didn’t have any.

“Tell me, Sara, what’s wrong with Evrard?”

“He’s dying. He has terrible fevers, it’s in his bones and he barely regains consciousness.”

“Do they let you visit him then?” I asked, bewildered.

Sara chuckled.

“No, they don’t let me visit him but I don’t need anyone’s permission to see Evrard. Remember that he is locked up in the dungeons of the fortress in which I grew up.”

“Do you mean to say that you know some secret access?”

“That’s correct. You see, the underground of Paris has hundreds of tunnels and galleries that connect to the old Roman sewers. On the left of the river there are three mountains: Montparnasse, Montrouge and Montsouris. Their insides were dug out and used as quarries before the time of the Romans. They are large passages that cross under the river and the city and reach another mountain, Montmartre. Over the centuries they were forgotten about and today nobody even remembers that they exist. The Templars, however, used those tunnels to store valuable objects, to hide part of the Crown’s treasure when they were its guardians as well as to hold some of their private ceremonies.”

“And how do you know about them?”

“Because I used them to escape from the King’s guards,” she remembered with fury. “Later, when I was older, I went back to visit them with other children, although in secret, of course. Most of those tunnels are blocked. The walls crumbled, especially in the galleries that pass under the river. But our area, which connects the Jewish quarter with the fortress, is in good condition because the knights underpinned and reinforced the ceilings. However, one must know the underground well; if you don’t, you might be able to go in, although it is difficult, but you will never be able to get back out.”

“And you use these galleries to get to Evrard.” Sara smiled and said nothing.

“Take me to him,” I begged. “Take me to your friend.”

“Why?”

“For several reasons. The first is because I am a doctor and even if I can’t cure him, I can at least help him; the second is because Evrard knows me; and the third is because he is my last hope of getting the evidence I need to be able to return home. I can’t pay you anything; I have already given you all my money. But if you really cherish your friend, you will take me to him.”

The witch stared at me for quite a while, without blinking or looking away. She was a woman with a strong spirit and an ungovernable character, and I presume she weighed up the positives and the negatives that my visit could bring to her cherished and sick Evrard. In the end she went with the most prudent decision.

“I can’t promise you anything,” she stated. “But come back tomorrow at the same time and I will let you know what Evrard decides. I will ask him tonight.”

“Tell him my name, tell him that we knew each other fifteen years ago at the Mendoza castle. Tell him, please. He’ll remember me.”

“Tomorrow, sire Galceran, at the same time tomorrow.”

Evrard agreed to see me but such an honor wouldn’t go without dangers and problems. The old Templar was very sick, Sara told me, and he was in a state of no-return. I mustn’t be put off by the dirt and the smell, which was unbearable, as it came from the blood in Evrard’s feces and ulcers. To reduce the inflammation of the painful buboes, Sara had made different dressings from waxes, oils, fats, gums and salts, very effective for softening certain types of abscesses but completely useless for his illness. She also gave him several opium brews to numb the pain, which was unbearable, although with the same negative results. Evrard was dying in his jail like a mangy dog and there wasn’t anything that could help him to die with respect.

She told me all this as she was preparing a bag of essentials to take down into the tunnels: torches, phosphorus, wool, a little lime and a deadly silver dagger with beautifully carved Hebrew characters on the blade which I didn’t have time to read, although I’m sure it was the stylus she used in her magic ceremonies. She had never come across anyone during those night walks, she told me but she had to be prepared, just in case she ran into the fortress guards.

As Sara lifted the bag onto her shoulder, I had to give Jonas the bad news that he would not be coming with us. At first he was completely shocked, as if he hadn’t properly understood what I had told him, and then he reacted with pure rage.

“You’re going to a Templar fortress and you’re not taking me with you! I don’t believe it. I’ve accompanied you on all of your visits and now you leave me in the house of a witch with a crazy raven as my only companion!” He began to stomp his feet on the ground. “No, no and no! I’m going as well, whatever you say!”

“I’m not changing my mind this time, Jonas. So make yourself comfortable and await our return. Take advantage of this time to go over your knowledge of Hebrew and the Qabalah, there are plenty of things here that can help you.”

“O.K., sire,” he shouted angrily, “you asked for it! But it’s better this way because I’m fed up. I’m going back to the monastery.”

“Really …?” I asked, leaving the room behind Sara, who was waiting for me at the front door. “And how do you think you’ll get there?”

“I don’t know but I’m sure that the Parisian monks from the Convent of St. Maurice would be pleased to take me in and help me get back to Ponç de Riba! I’ll go and see them tomorrow. I’m tired of traveling with you.”

His words stopped me in my tracks for a moment but with a heavy heart, I kept on walking without looking back. If he wanted to go, I wouldn’t stand in his way. I certainly wasn’t going to put him in danger letting him come with us to the King’s dungeons in the old Templar commandry. Not only was his presence unnecessary but he could end up being a burden if the guards caught us inside the prison. Fourteen years is too young to face a life sentence or even the fire which the Franks are huge fans of. I must confess, however, that it also worried me that Evrard could recognize Jonas as the son of Isabel, given the huge similarity between the boy and his mother, and I was thinking about that when Sara whispered from the dark, “I’ve been meaning to point out, sire Galceran, that your son has a remarkable resemblance to Manrique of Mendoza. The only difference I can see between them is Jonas’ great stature, identical to yours.”

My tired spirit could not find the necessary strength to carry on denying that which was so evident to the witch.

“Listen, Sara, he still doesn’t know the truth. Please don’t say anything.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured me. “But tell me if my suspicions are correct.”

I felt an infinitive weariness in my soul.

“His mother is indeed Isabel of Mendoza, your friend’s only sister.”

“But, if I remember correctly, Manrique’s only sister professed in a monastery following the death of her father.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Please.”

“Do you know what your problem is?” she said, quickly changing the subject. “That you don’t know how to express your affections.”

We walked in silence along the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter until we stopped in front of a small, abandoned house, whose walls looked like they were about to cave in and whose roofing looked like it fell down a long time ago. The rickety, hingeless door was half leaning on its primitive opening and it looked dark and dingy inside. However, despite its appearance, Sara went inside with the confidence of someone who was traveling a safe and familiar path, so I followed her without fear. At the back, in the center of an overgrown garden, a dry well proved to be the entrance to the old sewers. We groped our way down the steps of a concealed staircase and only when we were on terra firma and had gone about fifty paces down a narrow, wet gallery full of mold and cinder did the white-haired witch finally decide to light the torches.