The man lay still.
The inquisitor, unable to shake off his misgivings, instructed the notary as to the wording of the confession. After he had finished he ordered the tormentor to wrap the Grand Master in a cloth and to take him back to his cell. The man must not die since he had one more task to perform – to validate his confession before the papal courts.
‘Consummatum est,’ he said to him. ‘It is finished.’
At the same time as the inquisitor was pronouncing those words, a figure upon a horse arrived at the royal palace gates. There was an exchange and momentarily iron and wood were set in motion. Iterius looked around him from out of his cowl like a fox from behind a thicket. A moment later he had crossed the threshold.
23
CHAPTER AT TOMAR
A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity
Proverbs 17:17
Portugal, November 1307
The chapter room was dark. Brooding men, silent beneath lit lamps, waited in a circle as Marcus entered the round chamber observing and being observed by fellow monks, knights, sergeants and brothers, all that remained of the Order in Portugal.
It had been some weeks since he had read the message from Jacques de Molay, and in that time he had felt more and more like a horse that mistakes twigs for snakes: startled by shadows and thoughts that, though small and held close, provoked in him a feeling of doom.
It did not seem strange to him, therefore, that he could find no time appropriate for the execution of his duty. And so he could not pray, since to do so would mean to open his heart and all his sin of disobedience to God and he wished to remain asleep to it, poised on a moment that never passes, suspended and dispassionate, with all the passion in his heart stored up for another season.
Two days before, however, grave news from France had come to force his mind to wakefulness. Now finally what he had so long feared, what had kept God from his thoughts, was at hand, and his determined mind fell upon a judgement. He would not take the gold out to sea to drown it as he had been ordered by Jacques de Molay, instead he would take it to Scotland, where the Templar fleet was headed. He would not think on what would follow after that. He would think only of the gold kept safe, for this at least was something in his power to command, something that gave him the sense that his life was not a wasted, useless thing.
After all – the gold had whispered to him from its resting place – the Grand Master and Etienne, together with the leaders of the provinces, the commanders, knights and sergeants in France, were now languishing in the King’s prisons. The marshal and those left in Cyprus, traitors and loyal men alike, no doubt suffered the same fate. Marcus was therefore more alone than Moses in the wilderness, left to guard an Order that was falling into crumbs with no rule to support it. Who could blame him for following his own insights and inspirations? The gold had shown him how it was: a colossal act of disobedience now could be seen as a great act of bravery in future times.
Thus was he held by thoughts as he stood upon the threshold of the chapter house. His mind was dulled by what he knew was a lucid madness.
He looked about the circle of men, hearing his breathing in his ears. Unlike him, they were full of the wide-awake despair that sanity brings. Full of despair because nothing in their demeanour recalled what once had been. Nothing spoke of the army that had moved like a god through the Holy Land, a force so mighty and impregnable as to cause the sun to pale beside its power. In their eyes he saw them, a few scarred men, less than
twenty in total, diminished by the weight of their crosses that seemed to have grown from out of the heart and were drawing strength from the blood.
This made his face full of activity: a vein pulsed under his eye and the skin around the scar contorted the muscles of his cheeks into a dance of unbidden smiles.
Andrew saw it, tipped his head to him and made room for him on the step of stone.
Marcus cast the knight a look that in the passage from eye to eye told him: ‘Beware, my brother, for I am standing upon the edge of an abyss, and all that is needed is the slightest wisp of a breeze to send us both downwards.’
It made Andrew frown and settle into himself as his commander came forward and sat beside him.
A moment later Bartholomew, Commander of Tomar, entered the centre of the room. He let his eyes fall upon each man in turn until they fell upon Marcus. ‘Grand Commander,’ he bowed, ‘will you perform the ritual?’
Marcus shook his head and a spasm followed the line of his scar to his mouth. ‘This is your commandery, Brother Bartholomew, I am but a visitor in these walls.’
The man nodded, and with a face like wood that is too long dry, and a voice cracked and hoarse, he said into the night, ‘Knights, priests and sergeants, I call upon you to discharge your duties and form the Tabernacle. Knight-Priest and inner guard, as keeper of the inner porch, can you state if our Tabernacle is securely guarded from all intruders?’