Jacques did as he was asked.
‘Open it.’
The Grand Master raised his brows. ‘But I cannot! No man has looked upon it since Solomon!’
‘Open it once and then never look upon it again.’
The Grand Master pressed the pointed end of the quill on a particular spot along its edge. The topmost portion of the ring snapped open, revealing something beneath.
‘You know of its existence . . . all Grand Masters do.’
Jacques de Molay looked perplexed. ‘How do you know it?’
‘It is a bane to know it and it shall now be your bane. Thankfully the knowledge of it has been lost except that it belonged to Solomon and to David before him . . . all Grand Masters are admonished never to look upon it. But I shall tell you what it means . . . because it is the end . . . and it now presents a danger.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The Temple has had many tasks, some of them secret, some of them open-faced. Some come to us from the past but one, however, lies in wait for the future . . . the seal points to this. This is the thing, Jacques, the Kingly secret. The secret of the King belongs not in our time but is of the future. David knew of it and he passed it on to his son, Solomon, who knew how the Temple had to be built though he could not build it. This task fell to those of Hiram’s line since they knew how to transform and redeem the world. You have heard tell of the legend of Cain and Abel? David and Solomon were of Abel’s line, from him have spawned the priests, the thinkers, those who know. Hiram was of the line of Cain, from him came the sons of the widow, those who have fire in their will, those who do. We brothers of the Order are children of the widow. Below her veil she conceals the secret of the divine marriage. There is good reason why much of this has been forgotten. It is a dangerous secret, since it does not discriminate between good men and bad . . . it shall have any master that claims it . . .’
Christian motioned with his gnarled hands and the Grand Master looked below the lid to the hidden seal.
Outside a cloud swept across the sky and covered the sun.
Afterwards, the Grand Master closed the hinged lid and sat paused for a long time, looking down to his hands, to the ring. His face was drained of blood.
He moved his head with a jerk and stood awkward and out of breath. He did not speak, his eyes formed a question.
Christian closed his own to dispel the images that those eyes made upon his mind. ‘The wisdom of God is inscrutable,’ he said.
After a long moment the Grand Master said, ‘I will go now and prepare the men.’
Christian nodded and tears filled his eyes. ‘St Michael protect you.’
He watched the Grand Master’s thin, square-shouldered form leave the room. Those shoulders were bent a little now, for they had grown a further burden.
4
DEPARTURE
The end of all things is at hand.
1 Peter 4:7
They came out onto the dry sand, casting no shadow and seeing little. The bay of figs was empty of bigger ships, except for the galley that lay down in the water some way off. Nearer to shore, boats and barges lit by stars mingled polite and circumspect in the pleasant night, with only the sound of a gentle ocean lapping at the edges of the sand.
The three knights gathered together under the sickle moon that, resting over a cloud, cast ghostly wisps of light over their dark apparel and the wooden barrels at their feet.
To Etienne its light reflected the sun’s body force and gave it the look of a monstrance wherein dwelled the dark image of the sun’s spirit. He let his gaze linger on it a moment, allowing the strength of such a thought to fill him, and then, squinting, moved his eyes firstly towards the line of short waves polishing the west face of a rock wall and secondly to a distant light that flickered and was gone. Etienne cupped his hand and made the sound, and another flicker of light appeared in answer.
Beneath his unyielding countenance he felt good and bad at once – loose and stretched. Happy to be beyond the gates of Famagusta, which had seemed to him more and more like a prison, and at the same time anxious that all go smoothly and without incident.
‘It is the Eagle, I see her beak,’ said the old Scot Andrew behind him. A veteran of two Crusades, he cast his two small eyes like beads over the indistinct line of the galley. ‘Aye, the slaves are shackled, by what I can see of it . . .’
‘You have good eyes, Andrew!’ said Marcus. ‘On a clear night might you not see Syria then?’
‘My eyes are all that works aright in this carcass of mine. I should throw myself against a spike if they were gone.’
A warm breeze moved over the water and the tide making small boats bump together. The men tuned their ears to sounds and their eyes to shadows.