The Seal(28)
‘If he displeases me, lord, he will not know he is dead,’ Delgado said, a restless smile at his mouth.
Jourdain emerged from the cave and Etienne went to him. ‘Keep an eye on the Grand Master, see to his every need, watch those three . . . I will return. If I do not . . . go on to Poitiers without me.’
Jourdain nodded and waited for his master to move.
But he did not move. Instead he stood upon the rim of the cave thinking on the peculiarity of circumstances that would have him leave the Grand Master in the safekeeping of such a company, so that he might die at the end of a sword of his own Order.
He caught Jourdain observing him and he waited for what the boy would say.
‘You must be like Odysseus, Etienne.’
Etienne sighed. ‘You will tell me who is this Odysseus?’
‘A Greek adventurer . . . when he was in despair he struck at his breast and reproached it to endure, for much worse it had endured.’
Etienne looked at this strange thing, and finding no answer forthcoming threw all his difficulties into one pot and took himself away from Jourdain and the cave and to his horse.
9
THE YOUNG MASTER
Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
Amos 3:3
When Etienne came down from the hills he followed the river until he was in a valley rimmed with small oaks. It was full night and the frost lay on the valley floor, with a humped moon like a slice of day over the black horizon of mountains. The air bit at his lips and ears, and the ground, clotted with smooth stones, was covered in a white shroud that rolled downward to a cold river, brisk and fast running. He crossed it at a shallow spot, avoiding the township, following instead a track that made a loop through harvested lands and bare vines until he came to a high-walled house whereupon he beat with his fist on a heavy gate.
‘Who comes there?’ came the sleep-laden question.
‘I am a brother.’
‘Have you anything to communicate?’
‘I have a word.’
‘What is this word?’
‘I will give only part of it.’
‘What is the part?’
‘Joa,’ Etienne said.
The other added, ‘Chim.’
‘Joachim.’ Etienne finished it.
‘What is Joachim?’
‘A pillar in the Temple.’
‘What is this pillar?’
‘Each Templar is a pillar of the sanctuary that is indwelt by Christ.’
‘Make the sign of faithfulness.’
Etienne crossed his right arm over his left and it was seen through a slit in the door.
‘Where have you come from, brother?’
‘From the darkness.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Towards the light.’
‘May the brotherhood dwell in you,’ said the voice.
‘And in you.’
Immediately the bolts were pulled back and the gates opened.
The master of the house, Brother Sebastien, was young.
Dressed in a fine laundered mantle he sat upon a chair like a throne in the draughty hall lit by many candles. Looking directly at Etienne when he entered, he did not stand but smiled slightly at the worn, stained attire, at the long unkempt hair and beardless face, and said to him, ‘Where have you been, brother, and what has brought you to this house without mantle, without beard and in this fashion?’ He raised his chin and put one finger underneath it, smiling at the corners of his mouth, but only slightly, as if to say, ‘There is some interest to this day after all!’
Etienne regarded the man and chose his words with care. ‘I will answer you, but first you must convince me of your fealty to the Grand Master of the Temple of Solomon.’
The brother frowned and smiled at the same time, then frowned more deeply still. ‘What mean you by this strange request?’
‘I wish only to know if you owe allegiance to the Grand Master of the most Sovereign Order of the Temple? That is my question,’ Etienne repeated.
Sebastien looked Etienne up and down and the smile waned. He rose to his feet, noted the sergeants flanking Etienne and proceeded towards the intruder with his hands behind his back. He walked around the Templar once then twice until he was before him with a face fashioned into a puzzled expression. ‘The Grand Master of the Temple of Solomon, our most sovereign leader, Jacques de Molay?’ He paused then and waited with his hand resting upon the short sword at his belt. Then it seemed to Etienne as if he was struck by a sudden thought that having at first half impressed itself on his bored soul now having sunk in showed him to be animated. ‘Have you come from the wars? Do you have news of our lord?’
Etienne sighed, feeling himself an oddity, a distraction from daily boredom. He confronted the young master, therefore, with suspicion. It was now plain to him that in Europe the Order had become overfull and underwarred if it chose to give command of such a house to a master so young and fine and well disposed to comfort. Etienne felt that between them lay stretched time and blood, and that all the sacrifices made and unmade in the east for the sake of this man’s peaceful existence made a mockery of Etienne’s life and of the dead whose bones were buried in Jerusalem and at Acre, Sidon and other places. How could two divergent minds such as theirs meet in the middle? The mind of a man ancient with longing for a past glory that was now, to all intents and purposes, slipped away, and the mind of a man whose concerns lay on a future in which Christ’s lost kingdom was all but forgotten.