The old man thought a moment. ‘Renaud de Provins is one, the other, the best of the two, was in Paris from Rome when we were arrested. His name is Pierre de Bologna.’
‘I will seek them out.’
The Grand Master’s eyes were veiled with tears, and the slightest smile, like breeze-blown clouds, crossed the landscape of his face. ‘You are a man of honour, monsieur. Whatever I may have once thought of you, this day I renounce it.’
Then Guillaume announced out loud for all to hear that he had loved and still loved the Grand Master, joined as they were by the common bond of knighthood, and that he should take care neither to blame himself nor to waste himself without good reason.
38
THE KING AND HIS
COUNSELLOR
Behold, I come as a thief
Revelation 16:15
Guillaume de Plaisians entered the vestibule that led to the King’s private chambers with hurried step. Outside, the afternoon remained bleak, clouds scudded over the landscape and darkness in the horizon announced a storm.
He came to the doors and the guards moved in recognition. He passed two more doors before reaching the inner chamber where he was announced.
Nogaret should have much to fear, he thought, and strode into the room confidently, already feeling himself an intimate of the court.
This of all the King’s rooms was the most frugal. Lacking a fire, fineries and tapestries, it was cold, hard and ascetic. Long pale windows lessened the darkness, but even so, it appeared as though particles of gloom lay suspended in the air, musty, damp and uninviting.
The King did not look up. Dressed in the investitures of authority he sat upon his throne with his legs casually placed so that his pups could lay their heads upon his velvet lap. He cupped his chin with one hand while stroking the head of a hound with the other, listening, it seemed, to Enguerrand de Marigny, who was involved in a heated discussion of some importance.
But the King stared out into a sepulchral sky that echoed his long mantle of deep blue and whose colour complemented his eyes. They moved torpidly to de Plaisians, hovered over his form a moment and then neglected him altogether.
‘What do they mean, Marigny?’ he said with a sudden temper, ‘when they say Templar apostasy rendered them no longer Catholic, but with reservations? Reservations, reservations!’ The animals were disturbed at this sudden betrayal of calm and whined like children; he ignored them. ‘Should Templars not confessed retain status? Yes . . . but with reservations! If I understand them properly, it is that if they wish to say anything at all, it is with reservations! And there . . .’ He pointed to a parchment in the hands of his minister. ‘They call themselves my humble clients, my humble and devoted chaplains, who offer their complete submission to render whole and devoted service to their Royal Majesty! Five of the fourteen masters of theology were clerics, Marigny! Five! One Franciscan, two Dominicans, and two Augustinians! I am surrounded by the Church, Marigny! They conspire against me! In the end they state that the Templar confessions are perhaps enough to condemn the Order, but they do not encourage it. They do not encourage it! What does this mean?’
The man waited patiently for his sovereign to finish and then began with a calm voice. ‘Last year, sire, you asked the university masters for their lawyerly opinions on the legitimacy of the arrests, and when their prevarications were received, you seemed not so upset.’
‘Not so upset?’ he thundered, getting up and moving towards the windows. ‘How could it not upset me? Perhaps I was outwardly serene because I had not expected the unexpected . . . then.’ The King cast a look of shared knowledge. ‘But your Royal Majesty finds himself not so peaceful now that he must look for loopholes!’
‘No, sire.’
‘Of course not . . . it is to be expected. Look at how things are going, Marigny! After these replies, which did nothing to support me, I was put from my balance once again when our gathering in the city of Tours came to nothing! What support was there from the communities of France for their king? I wanted a large attendance, Marigny! Grand! I wished to put fear into that swine of a pope’s profane heart, to make him see that the nobles, that the French Church and its people, support my actions! Then he would have seen he had no other recourse but to comply with my demands. God knows we needed it, Marigny! But what did I get? Gilles Aicelin sends his suffragans to Poitiers, not Tours, by mistake? How many pleaded illness? How many said that it was short notice? Cowards! I was left with crumbs! Then at Poitiers that old, near-dead corpse imposes conditions on me! The King of France! Has he forgotten our preconditions, Marigny? Has he forgotten who warms his pontifical seat?’