The Seal(51)

Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man.

And immediately the cock crew.

St Matthew 26:27


William of Paris, Inquisitor General of France, entered the circular room, the secret chapel of the Order of Knights Templar in Paris, and looked about him. The first thing he saw was Nogaret, the King’s henchman, gazing about the inner Temple, made known by the spies Noffo Dei and de Floyran. A moment later his eyes moved upward and around. The sight took his breath away.

William had spent the night at the monastery of St Jacques, where many years ago he had entered the Order of the Dominicans. This morning before dawn he had been shrived and received communion   and it had left him exhilarated. Free from sin, his soul cleansed, he had never in his life felt as well. Even his indigestion had improved, but it was doomed to be short-lived. All things had returned to normal after his meeting with the Bishop of Paris.

The bishop had refused to sanction the list of questions given to inquisitors. He did not, he said, believe the accusations and would not condone the arrests. Moreover, he had accused the King of avarice and William of collusion and had gone so far as to suggest that the questions were only necessary because, in his words, ‘How else shall they confess to crimes they have not committed?’

Now he wondered what the bishop would say if he saw the spectacle before him. ‘Spawn of Satanus!’ he muttered under his breath, with a sense that his former exhilaration was returning so that it made him fall at once to one knee in a state of con¬centrated piety. ‘Protect me, oh Lord, from this depravity!’ He took the cross from around his neck and held it to his forehead, gazing over the windowless chapel.

The secret chamber was lit only by candles on high pedestals; its walls were painted with strange symbols and designs over a high vaulted space to a star-studded ceiling. On one end there was a throne, elevated on seven steps, supported by the figures of four lions and four eagles. The effigy of the moon and likeness of a sun was painted over the two pillars flanking it. On the floor he recognised the Hebrew six-pointed star and the pentacle placed within a circle around which appeared necromantic symbols.

Nogaret, languid of eye and yawning, looked at the inquisitor with passive boredom. ‘The Grand Master has proved stubborn,’ he said, wiping his brow with his sweat-soiled cloth. ‘He is outside.’

The friar looked up. His ritual interrupted, he stood and moved to the altar where he called out in a voice full of restraint, ‘Bring him in!’

Jacques de Molay was dragged into the room and thrown at the feet of the inquisitor.

The sight of the man, half-alive and half-dead, stirred an emotion that, by way of communication, spoke to him with the voice of an angel. ‘Babylon the great is fallen,’ it said, ‘and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird . . .’

The inquisitor made the sign of the cross over the man and walked around him, then leaning low said, ‘Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked.’ Then close to the man’s ear, as if blowing kisses, ‘For they have hid a snare for me!’ He bent lower to stare into the face. ‘Oh . . .’ he moaned, ‘Son of Satan . . . thou shalt not escape the wrath of God!’ He looked upwards to the heretical symbols carved onto the walls and his mind clouded over and tears flowed over his cheeks. ‘They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips!’

Jacques de Molay opened his bloodied eyes. From above, the inquisitor noticed this and he smiled.

‘Ahh . . . he is awake!’ He went down on one knee. ‘Your poor misguided soul has been taken by the evil one in a dreadful union   . . . You must listen to me now,’ he whispered in a tone reserved for errant children. ‘You have mocked our Lord, you have worshipped Satan, you have desecrated the cross! All these things are true, and in this chamber of darkness . . .’ He raised a hand in order to take in the room. ‘. . . In this pit of Mammon have you induced others to commit such foulness, heinous beyond comprehension . . . and now, this night, Grand Master, I shall be forced to wreak havoc upon the carcass that holds you to this miserable life . . . Do you understand? For I must be commanded by the power of the Holy Spirit to root out and destroy the evil that has taken up abode in your heart, and in order for this fine work to be accomplished, you must first confess.’

William of Paris, Inquisitor General, waited.

Jacques de Molay looked up to that face and his mouth, broken and raw, found these words: ‘These are they which came out of great tribulation . . . and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’