The Seal(121)

Jacques de Molay summoned his strength and stood as erect as his withered body would allow. I am going to my judgement, he told himself.

Three men were coming from the tower escorted by guards. He squinted to see. They were emaciated, dirty, white-haired and hunched at the shoulders. Jacques realised with surprise that one of them was the visitor general, another he saw was the Preceptor of Normandy and another the Commander of Aquitaine. He held out his arms and whispered to them,‘Defenders of the Holy Sepulchre!’

The four men embraced.

He gave his attention to his old friend the Preceptor of Normandy, Geoffrey de Charney, who had warned him those many years ago against going to Richerenches. ‘Geoffrey!’ he said, and thought sadly, This man was once a lion-warrior . . . see the scars on that face! Now he is like me, old and wasted and ruined. ‘My brother . . . let us have courage . . . courage.’ He clasped the man by the shoulders. ‘Remember the dignity of the Order. Remember how we have fought for Christ, how He lives in our hearts.’ He looked at the visitor Hugues de Pairaud, whose followers had plotted to have Jacques killed in Cyprus. Now the man made a weak kneel. Jacques shook his white head. ‘Get up, brother!’ He helped him to his feet. ‘Come . . .’ He reached for the Commander of Aquitaine, whose eyes were silent and vacant. ‘Come, brothers, may the spirit we have always sought when we have worked in His name, the spirit who has sacrificed his Godhood for us, for the good of the world, for the freedom and improvement of His children, be with us and the hard duties we are about to perform.’ And for the last time the men formed a circle of faith.

The provost waited for it to be over, then he moved closer and with his face bent over towards the men he said, ‘I shall remove your chains . . .’

Jacques de Molay closed his eyes, and shook his head. ‘But we have no money . . .’

‘I shall remove your chains,’ the man insisted.

Jacques de Molay raised his head and tried to stand tall. ‘Well then, we thank you.’

They climbed upon the cart that would take them to the commission at Notre Dame. Each man lost in contemplation of what future awaited him. Jacques did not look upon the Temple for one last time. He did not gaze like his brothers upon the ramparts and battlements, upon the spires and crenellations. He thought instead of the fifty-four men who had been taken to their deaths in such a cart, and prayed for them. In his heart he told their spirits that what had come to pass had been as inevitable as the passing on of the seasons. That all of it had been ordained but that good would triumph once again.

Geoffrey de Charney turned to him. ‘Will they condemn us?’

The Grand Master drew in a sigh. ‘Remember, he that believeth in Him is not condemned.’

‘I am abused!’ Geoffrey said. ‘And old . . . I have confessed to heinous things!’

He looked at the wasted man with deep compassion. But what to say to him? He too wished that he had remained firm but he had not. He wished that he was less tormented . . . yes, younger! Little now remained of his life, his adventures, his loves and his devotions. Little remained. All that was left to him was a longing to surrender his creations to God as a sacrifice. But what had he created? He had wandered and fought and wounded and cried in the brick dust of foreign lands. He had joined men in massacre and in victory, but what was there to show for it? Outside the Porte du Temple he observed the crowd fall upon the cart and the guards force their way through the citizens of Paris – the very people for whom he had fought and protected the Holy Land. He heard the cries as though they were very far away.

‘Death to the heretics!’

He wondered of whom they could be speaking. He looked at his men. The visitor was mumbling to himself; the Commander of Aquitaine was silent, his eyes glazed and lost; only Geoffrey de Charney seemed to have kept his wits.

‘We must be prepared to die,’ he said to him, firm of eye.

‘Yes, I understand that, Jacques.’

‘Thieves! Heretics!’

He was startled by these words.

‘But to die this way! Why do the people not see our plight?’ Geoffrey asked.

The Grand Master shook his head. ‘They do not know how we have suffered, that we have been tortured, that the commission could not condemn us and that Philip had to resort to corruption that he might burn our men. Two years have passed since our Order was abolished and we have wasted in prisons because we are the leaders and they have not known what to do with us. The people do not know these things – one day they shall. We must lay it all before the Lord now . . .’

They passed the cloister of Saint Merry, so many faces. Children were hoisted up that they might not miss the sight of four old men shivering. In the crowd of faces craftsmen, beggars, thieves, scholars, priests, merchants, all of them gathered, pressing forward to see four old men shivering. He looked up rather than watch their faces. The sky was a delicate new blue, washed clean by the night. There was his destination, he told himself, to soar like a bird, elegant and light of weight! But when he looked down to the crowd he was once again faced with what was held written upon the faces of the men and women who had come to watch his humiliation. He saw in their eyes the sum total of his worth. He knew what they were thinking. There goes the Grand Master of the illustrious Order of the Temple – a ragged old man, a heretic, or perhaps only a weak man who could not endure torture? He saw himself reflected in their eyes – but that was not all he saw. He saw them and knew that they were seeing themselves in him. Men who were unfree, who lived cowering in the shadows of Church and state, disease, death and poverty; men who lived a life of duty not to God but to their desires, fears and hopes. They only truly lived when they faced death. Only by coming close to it did they, for one moment, leap out from their numbness to feel freedom. Freedom from the fearful clutches of destiny, whose gaze had momentarily fallen upon another man.