The Seal(118)

He was reminded of the brothers of this house that waited even now for him. When he had come to this place those few left behind to hold this portion of desolate country from the Turks had surrendered to him the safekeeping of their souls. They had clung to Etienne, hoping to find in him an anchor since this house on the edge of nowhere, trapped by snow and rebelling townsfolk, had become home to a plague of dreams and visions of horror with each brother suspecting the other of an impiety that had caused phantoms and ghosts to descend upon them in the night. The men’s eyes had been darkened by fear and superstition.

Etienne had felt himself a man of spent leagues and spent years who spoke to angels and devils and carried the secrets of the Order as if they were a thick skin grown over the eyes. How must he bring himself out of the darkness to hold these men together in faith? To wipe from hearts the distance that had passed between them and Christ?

He had begun with small steps, by making the rule a support for the soul of the little community. The maintenance of weapons and harnesses was to be a regular work; repairs were to be made to the keep and to the fortifications. The men were to hear matins and the entire service according to canonical law and the customs of the regular masters of the Holy City of Jerusalem. They were to observe the silence during meals and drink diluted wine before compline. He stopped them hunting for food and regulated their meals in accordance with the rule.

He required that they observe the feast days of the saints, heard each man’s confession weekly, and on Sunday celebrated the sacred and holy mass held only for those initiated into the great secrets that Christ had vouchsafed to his disciples during those forty days after his crucifixion.

In this there was also a healing for his heart. In himself he began to hear an echo of what he once had been – a leader of men.

And the years had passed.

He heard feet upon the steps that led up to the ramparts.

It was Jourdain, who was shouting now to him through cupped hands. The wind drove the snow up and brought his words to Etienne, who leant into their promise, inclining his head like an old man.

How long would he strain to hear before he lost his balance and found his way to the bosom of the mountain and to God’s grace?

Watching Jourdain as he made his way to him, he saw the young captain turned grown man now, with creases at the eyes and many cares hovering over the brow. Etienne had predicted the death of Jourdain’s youth in Cyprus, and now he felt two things: sorrow for the boy, lost now in concerns and sufferings, and joy that he had lived to watch the spirit mature inside that man whose smile could still tell something of spring.

Jourdain reached him in pants and puffs entreating air, with a smile and a wrinkle of the brow. ‘The messenger has come with word from King Robert of Anjou,’ he said.

Etienne had strained to hear these words before and had heard nothing but the snow on the wind and the trees. He knew what it meant, the messenger’s coming, something was near. Something he had felt but had not wanted to look at with his eyes. ‘He will not protect us, Jourdain?’

Jourdain shook his head. ‘In his eyes we are disobedient because we do not light our own pyres!’

Etienne nodded. ‘Well . . . we are made guilty.’

‘Without a hearing, Etienne.’

Etienne looked at him. ‘I had expected it.’ Then he looked at the white horizon again. The snow turned in on itself below his feet, and he waited for it to wash over his soul and make of him a rock, a cloud, a bird’s wing.

Jourdain blinked away the falling snow and stamped his feet to entice warmth into his limbs. ‘This . . .’ he said, looking up at the falling sky with his head outstretched, ‘is the last of the snow.’

‘Yes. It is the last of the snow.’ Etienne hugged his arms and buried his chin in the lamb’s-wool collar.

‘The men are hungry.’

‘We’ll send Simon the Jew to find food tomorrow.’

‘When do you think they shall come to besiege the castle?’ Jourdain put a hand to his collar as if to scratch at a flea, a peculiar habit he had acquired of late when discomforted.

Etienne thought for a long moment and then answered, ‘When they come.’

‘Is it too late to seek a new world, Etienne?’

Etienne took in breath. ‘The world is old, Jourdain.’

Jourdain nodded. ‘It is dull work, this hovering over the end of things.’

‘There is no noble work in putting away a lifetime of hope, Jourdain. A better man than I would know the right way of it.’

Jourdain was silent.

Etienne looked at him with a smile in his eye. ‘Well, say what is on your mind, Jourdain. After so many years will you now prevent yourself from amazing me?’