Warlord(82)

I was moved by his speech: Robin was wrong – these men were not ‘blood-thirsty God-struck maniacs’ but good men trying to serve Christ and find a reasonable solution.

‘It would make my heart glad to become a Brother of the Order,’ I said quite truthfully. ‘I am deeply touched by your offer, and I thank you for it. But I must contemplate quietly on it and pray for guidance first.’

And there we left it.

The servants brought more wine, rich puddings and tarts, and fruit – golden oranges from the southern lands, sweet as nectar. And I asked Sir Aymeric the question that had been in the back of my mind for most of that fine meal.

‘Sir Aymeric, what do you know of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Our Lady and the Temple of Solomon? Their badge is a blue cross on a white field with a black border.’

‘The Knights of Our Lady? Ah, Sir Alan, now you are taking me back to my days as a novice. I have not seen that badge or heard that name for many, many years.’

‘But you do know of them?’ I persisted.

‘Oh yes, they were part of the Order once – and famous, too, for their deep faith and prowess in battle. It was our new Grand Master himself who formed the Knights of Our Lady, oh, a good thirty years ago in Spain. Sir Gilbert was a fiery young man back then, and very devoted to Mary, the Mother of God. He formed a company of knights – a hundred or so young, devout Templars, men of exceptional skill and dedication – who vowed that they would fight in the name of the Queen of Heaven to the last drop of their blood to clear the Moors from Spain. They compared themselves to the fabled knights of King Arthur – fearless warriors for Jesus Christ and his Blessed Mother Mary. Sir Gilbert was their first Master, of course, and he designed their badge, using his own family emblem, the blue cross on white – argent, a cross azure, as the heralds would have it. For ten years or so they had a powerful influence on the war against the Moors, pushing them back in several notably bloody engagements, if I recall rightly, and doing great deeds of valour. Sir Gilbert was a very different man then – full of passion and rage, with a burning desire to rid the world of all non-believers. He’s quite different now, of course, older and wiser – but I shall remind him of those days when I see him next. It will make him smile.’

‘Where are these knights now?’ I asked. ‘Who commands them today? Who is their present Master?’ I found I was holding my breath as I awaited the answer.

‘Oh, the Knights of Our Lady are no more. They were disbanded long ago – perhaps fifteen years ago, I think. The Grand Master of the time – Odo de St Amand – completely suppressed them; he felt, I believe, that there should only be one Order of Templars, that these chapters within the Brotherhood, dedicated to this saint or that, were bad for morale, caused unnecessary rivalry and diluted our sense of purpose – and he was quite right, of course. By the time they were suppressed, many of the Knights of Our Lady had perished in the Spanish wars, some were then absorbed back into the ordinary ranks of the Brotherhood, others left to join other Orders – the Hospitallers, mainly. Some retired to the cloister and became monks. It happens to all men; we lose the zeal that we had as youngsters, and become shamefully fat and lazy.’ Sir Aymeric smiled and slapped at his belly, which had only the tiniest suggestion of a paunch; hardly shameful for a man in his late thirties.

‘So if I were to tell you that I saw a conroi of these knights outside Vendôme two months ago, and another knight bearing a shield with a blue cross two weeks ago in Paris, that would surprise you?’

‘I would be astonished!’

I stared hard at him. He did not look as if he were lying.

‘You do not believe me? I will swear it for you, by my faith, if you wish me to,’ said Sir Aymeric. He seemed hurt that I should doubt his word.

I waved away the suggestion: as far as I could tell, Sir Aymeric de St Maur was telling me the truth. The Knights of Our Lady, as this open-faced Templar had known them, were in their graves, or scattered to the winds; it would appear that the original fellowship that had fought the Moor so bravely in Spain had been dissolved fifteen years ago.





Chapter Sixteen



Three days after my dinner with Sir Aymeric, in the late afternoon, I was invited to Master Fulk’s home on the Petit-Pont. It was Luke who brought the invitation after his lessons had ended, and who offered to act as my guide to the narrow house on the bridge, where I was greeted with great affection by his huge, hairy and malodorous teacher. When Luke had departed, Fulk offered wine and sweet cakes and we sat in his cramped downstairs room, with the shutters flung wide on that warm September afternoon – for which I was grateful, given that it appeared that he had neither bathed nor changed his robe in the weeks since I first met him – and we watched the boat traffic gliding down the brown Seine, our conversation occasionally interrupted by the coarse oaths of the boatmen passing through the arches of the bridge beneath us.