The Seal(58)

Andrew rose to his feet and his arms and legs seemed to be speaking a language of their own. ‘May God curse you!’ he got out finally.

Peter flashed an eye upon Marcus. ‘How do we know if the gold leaves this shore that it will ever be seen again?’

‘Brother!’ Bartholomew took a step back. ‘Here stands the Grand Commander of the Order, who fought valiantly at Acre and was with Thibaud when he left Sidon. He is the reason the Grand Master lives since he saved his life there, and it is to him that our Grand Master gives this charge!’

Peter stood his ground. ‘And strangely Brother Marcus did not prevent Thibaud’s death nor his friend Jacques de Molay from being elected Grand Master!’

There was a rush of voices. Marcus felt his face pull up into a grimace a moment before a surging in his limbs drove him towards the figure of Peter of Nazare.

Bartholomew stepped between them. ‘Brothers!’ he shouted.

Marcus was all pants and gasps, his face jumping this way and that while Bartholomew came up close to the recalcitrant knight as if to pierce his head with his words. ‘This chapter excuses you, Brother Peter! And exhorts you to pray before the sacred space for a day and a night! For six months you shall eat from the floor with the dogs, and in this time you will contemplate your insolence and lack of temperance which, were it not for these strange circumstances in which we find ourselves, would have led to your release from the Order!’

The man looked around him from beneath that leaning brow and found no support.

‘Temperance,’ iterated the Commander of Tomar.

‘You speak of temperance, Brother Bartholomew,’ Peter said, ‘when all is to fall through a chasm to the end of the world? You are fools to trust these deserters with the Order! Better to be released from it than to end up food for a pyre!’

He left the chapter house. His footsteps made hollow sounds.

Marcus listened to those steps and looked at the lucent faces about him with the world moving in circles.

‘Brother Marcus,’ Bartholomew was saying, but Marcus did not hear him, he was looking around at the men and thinking this:

What do they see in me – fleeting madness?

He was light in the head and about to fall down.

If they could but know my mind!

Bartholomew, anxious to return to matters at hand, continued more shaken than before. ‘What shall remain of us, Brother Marcus, when you leave this night?’

Marcus’s mouth gave a twitch. ‘We have never been more alone, Bartholomew, and there is no place in the soul to give rest to the heart. What remains of us? I do not know.’





24


RULE OR CONSCIENCE?

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1


December 1307

It began to snow as they came upon the plateau. That afternoon, after a restless sleep, they had eaten before riding a track which ran amongst a thicket of trees heavy with snow bordered by low rock mounds. Ahead rode Gideon, at the rear Delgado. In between, Jourdain and Etienne urged their horses, climbing slowly until they ascended the plateau. Now and again through the trees they saw a distant plain below and, further off, mountains that stretched to the north-east. The dying sun through grey cloud was made pale and bruised, leaving no shadows over the snow.

This land was wide and deep and hung with mystery. Wolves called over the ancient ground and there was a feeling of melancholy that went deep into the soul.

The going had been slow travelling the indirect route that took them to the seaward extremity of France, steering them always northwards from the cities and villages in their path. The days had grown to months, and more than a year had passed since they had left Poitiers. No word had reached them of the fate of the Order since they were removed from the world, and had no traffic with it.

Now, following the route laid out by the Grand Master, they pressed on as a light fall of snow began to cover the ill-used road that led to a house of the Order. What they would find there, Etienne did not know, but the road was quiet and they had met no challenge, and so he laid a hope on the thought that in these far-off lands things might remain for a time as they had been. This made him more at ease and he looked down at the seal upon his finger, noting that it was not full of tempers, it was quiet and did not tempt him to look upon it.

‘What direction is this?’ Jourdain asked him.

Etienne sniffed the air. ‘North of east,’ he said. ‘In the distance there is the village. The house is not far from here, we will not reach it before nightfall.’

‘You know that by sniffing the air?’ Jourdain said with a voice full of mischief

‘I shall not tell you my secrets.’