Nogaret did not smile, but inwardly he was filled with satisfaction. All arrangements had been made under the strictest confidence. Only the royal lawyers who had drawn up the letters, the notaries who had written up the copies of the arrest orders, and the lesser royal officials had known beforehand anything of the arrests. No one else was privy to the instructions sealed with the King’s seal and dispatched to royal officials, who were to proceed in groups proportionate to the number of Templar houses to arrest all persons, seize all property and mount guard. Certainly it seemed to him that this was the law at its finest moment. A triumph that was sure to see his name go down in chronicles.
At that moment the company emerged through the portal of the Temple, moving beyond the walls of Philip Augustus, where the fields and horizons of animals and farmhouses were dissolving in a sky of pungent copper. Nogaret shielded his eyes from the rays that wounded the coolness of blue and green and pale yellow. They cast an ominous radiance upon the Temple ramparts, and he sensed the hesitation in his men; did they shake from chill, or fear?
This thought annoyed him. The Order of the Temple, and not his men, should have much to fear, since it would soon learn it did not stand upon higher ground, it was not closer to God.
As they neared the Temple gate, Nogaret observed the structure with some fascination. It was approximately the width of two men and the height of five, supported by twin flanking towers guarded by a drawbridge. He could give credit where credit was due – they might not be closer to God but they were good builders.
The drawbridge was down.
Nogaret took off his left glove and held it up as he came to the gate, a signal for the company to halt. He dismounted and proceeded with short, uncertain strides for the gatehouse door, whose dense wooden surface resounded only a little as he knocked.
‘Guillaume de Nogaret, Keeper of the Royal Seals, I have orders that demand you yield this gate in the name of Philip Capet, King of France.’ He held a paper up to the aperture.
Silence fell and the retinue waited, holding a collective breath in the way an archer does the moment before he frees his arrow. A moment later there was a dissonance: the heavy iron chain was lifting the great wooden beam that barred the gate.
Beyond the threshold the compound was gradually comprehensible beneath the cover of fog. Nogaret urged his men forward while he remained on foot, entering the enclos as the sound of hoofs and oily steps bounced from the walls. For a moment he stood inside the irregular square of the Temple in a state of concentration. Protected by enormous crenellated walls it was an extraordinary fortress – he had always thought so – with grounds large enough to hold at least two or three hundred knights together with their horses and a full retinue of squires and servants. From within they could easily defend against an army. He paced the now deserted compound as the service of lauds resounded from the great round church of stone. His guards followed him to the chapel. Nogaret noted its tower in detail and made a mental note to check it for absconders. He thought, too, of the cloisters and the refectory, the chapter room, dormitories and other communal rooms, and sent men to guard all exits in and out of the cloisters and the church. Further away, two other towers were darkened by shadows. The lesser tower was the treasury of the Temple. To the left of the church he saw the great tower of the donjon. He nodded to himself. ‘Both towers would make good prisons.’
He stood before the entrance to the church, adorned in its symbolic sculpture, and waited for his men to compose themselves. He proved his glove and measured his next move by the sounds coming from within. He had it in his mind that to effect maximum surprise his entrance must fall upon the words, ‘Deus qui est sanctorum splendor mirabilis . . .’ as the knights began their laudatory adoration, since their minds, having turned to things pious and lofty, would least expect what was to befall them. He permitted himself a smile.
A moment later he burst through the great doors and headed with marked step over the threshold down the central nave now lit by a faint sun. Ignoring the pinching at his spine, he marched to the figure of Jacques de Molay whom he recognised to be standing beside his officiating priest. All singing stopped abruptly, and men looked about them in a confusion occasioned by meditation, the mystic gloom and the sudden interruption of their praise.
Nogaret glanced around at the congregation; many of the Order’s most senior officials were present. They reached for their swords in a futile gesture since the King’s archers were poured into the place and encircled the entire group, poised with arrows at the ready. By the time Nogaret was standing before the Grand Master, the entire church was secure.