The Seal(124)
Next to his counsellor stood his brother the Archbishop of Sens, full of contentment, and beside him William of Paris, Inquisitor General of France. The Bishop of Paris was a little aloof from the group and with good cause. Had Philip known about the bishop’s charge, the boy would now be on his way to the pyre to burn alongside his saviours, adding another fine note to the exquisite tragedy.
There was a noise to his left. His sons were making a jest. Philip looked askance at the pitiful issue of his loins. Louis was weak-willed and stupid, Charles was sour and full of rancour, Philippe was detached and empty-headed. In truth Philip had managed only one kingly child, Isabella, whom he had joined to the English sodomite Edward.
Pity.
He took a glance at Guillaume de Plaisians standing nearby – why couldn’t his sons have been more like him?
De Plaisians met his glance, his youthful face was smooth, a look of grave intelligence sprang from those eyes and was mixed with cunning at the corners of the mouth. De Plaisians tilted his head respectfully and Philip made a gesture of returned affection. The lawyer was ruthless and dispossessed of morals – he would make a fine Keeper of the Seals.
His attention was taken then by his brother Charles, who, having seen this exchange, was all smiles of ingratiation beside Guillaume.
The King ignored him.
He turned his eye instead to the population of Paris, seen from the balustrade of the loggia. The light from a hundred torches bathed the multitude in a warm glow. These, his people, were excited. He took a moment to listen to his own heart – it was racing – and why not? After so many years of waiting, after endless infuriating frustrations, his bitterness would now be reconciled! Jacques de Molay could not escape him. In a moment, those long-awaited secrets would be laid bare as promised. After all the conjunctions were in place, the draughts had done their task. He did not need the absconding astrologer to know that the great spirit he had spoken of was even now swelling within him, marking his path into the depths of the Templar’s death-ridden eyes, where all would be laid bare. There was no taboo, no crime, however terrible, from which Philip would shrink, to see this revelation.
The pyres awaited their consummation but the weather looked bad, clouds trembled above and a chilly breeze picked up, blowing the fire from the torches in a frenzied manner. The gathering hummed with expectation; no doubt afraid that it might rain. Suddenly a hush descended on the island. The two disgraced Templars were ushered through crowds towards the clearing by a monk carrying a large cross and surrounded on all sides by men-at-arms.
Someone shouted out, ‘Save your souls!’
Jacques de Molay, looking all of his seventy years and more, raised his pale face in the direction of the voice. ‘I have only ever fought for your salvation.’
Another cried, ‘Why must you die without consolation?’
‘Because of a wicked king and an antipope,’ Geoffrey de Charney told them.
A shiver ran through the crowd, and all looked in the direction of the palace.
Those tongues will soon lie silent, the King said to himself. I am a patient man.
At the foot of the pyres Jacques de Molay cast off his shirt and asked that his hands be left free so that he could pray. He asked also if he could be tied facing the Notre Dame, towards the Virgin, ‘in whom our Lord Christ was born’.
The crowd roared. The provost Philippe de Voet hesitated and then made a nod for Jacques de Molay to ascend the pyre.
When the two men had been sufficiently tied, the monk carrying the large cross, held it up to them, making one last exhortation. ‘Confess your faults and repent or face the flames of everlasting hell!’
The crowd listened.
Jacques de Molay, a ghostly figure, already detached it seemed from life, looked down on the monk and shook his head. His colleague did the same.
‘Let it be known,’ the monk said, ‘that both men have not repented and refuse to confess,’ then he fell to his knees and began his prayers.
All eyes turned to the loggia. But the King’s eyes were locked on his adversary. Standing at the balustrade their glances interlocked.
This, their first, was a silent conversation.
Even the crowd sensed something implicitly significant, something meaningful between them. A moment longer and the King tore his eyes away from the other man; his hands trembled slightly, he felt a deep nausea rise up to his throat. Images of death danced before his eyes, his head felt light, then heavy. He raised his arm and the executioner, seeing his sovereign’s command, placed the lighted brand under the faggots.
The Grand Master cried out, ‘Let evil swiftly befall those
who have wrongly condemned us. God will avenge our death! I summon all those who have betrayed us to the tribunal of heaven before the year is out, to answer for their crimes!’