Michael Jecks - The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

West of Paris

The old cart rumbled slowly, and yet Blanche had to hurry to keep up. Her hands were fettered, a long chain leading from herwrists to the rear of it, and were she to fall, she would be dragged some way before being able to get to her feet.

Her eyes were tormented by the light still. It was so hard to see where she was going, and while the dust from the wheelsplagued her, worse was the sheer pain of the brightness lancing into her eyes and making her head ache for every moment ofthe journey. She was so unused to the light.

Still, the anguish was worth it for the unadulterated delight of the sensation of being in the open once more. Dear Christin heaven! To hear the birds again, to see trees and the little shoots that showed spring might not be so very far away, wasso overwhelming, she spent much of the journey wondering whether she should laugh aloud, or jump and dance with pure joy.It was like being reborn.

Perhaps, given a little time, she might grow to feel that she had indeed become renewed. It would take much, though, to achieve that. To feel truly alive again she must be able to forget her past. To forget her husband the king of France, toforget their children — to forget the gaoler at Château Gaillard … No. She could not think of such things. Better by farto remain in the present and live for the future. That was sensible. Much more sensible.

Live for now, and pray to God.

Château Gaillard

Le Vieux groped for consciousness like a diver deep in a pool desperately striving for the surface.

He had been here sitting by the fire with a mug of beer in his hand, talking with the others. Jean had walked out earlier,said he needed a piss. All the others started telling stories. There was little else to do now that their most important prisonerwas gone. Without Queen Blanche, there was little to do.

Of course! Le Vieux had been telling them about her, about her appalling conduct — adultery when married to the heir to thethrone. Such depravity, such dedication to her own pleasures, had led to her arrest. She was condemned to come here, and hereshe should rot.

Astonishing that her husband had become king in so short a space of time. A good man. Pious, honourable, committed to hisrealm. Le Vieux had known him for many years, and had met him once, in Paris. His commander had introduced him. That was inthe days when Charles’s father had still been alive, of course. Dear Philip the Fair of blessed memory. There was a man!

There was a smell. Unpleasant. It reminded him of battlefields long ago.

He had told them all about the bitch, yes. And then he had told them about her spreading her legs in the gaol, how she’d givenbirth later. Yes, and how she’d wept when the child was taken away. Well, any mother would. But the adulterous wife of a prince of France could not keep an illegitimate child.

Arnaud had loved her, so he said. She was his best, his favourite. All the others here knew that. They’d looked away whenthe conversation moved in that direction. No one wanted to think about such things.

And then it was that Arnaud’s impatient slapping and prodding started to wake him. ‘What? Eh?’

‘Vieux! Vieux! Wake up! He escaped. Look around you!’

Les Andelys, Normandy

Jean reached the town an hour before dark, and hurried up the narrow streets, heart pounding, feeling sick and faint fromthe horror of the castle.

‘Where is the bayle ?’ he called when he saw a man. The fellow stopped dead at the sight of him, staring, and then jerked his chin towards thetop of the town. Jean thanked him, and lurched off again, going cautiously on the cobbles.

It was strangely silent in the town today. Usually this would be a bustling little place, with hordes thronging the streets.Now, though, it seemed almost deserted. It was … wrong . Jean felt his legs begin to slow, and instead of rushing headlong, he began to walk more hesitantly.

There were shouts from up towards the town’s square, and he bent his steps that way, wondering what was happening.

‘The entire garrison has been slain,’ a man was shouting. ‘All dead.’

Jean stopped. He was about to breathe a sigh of relief when a cold, unpleasant certainty struck him. There was no way anyonecould have got here before him. Surely Arnaud was still chasing Berengar, and even if he wasn’t, he couldn’t have reachedhere yet, could he? He was busy carving holes in Berengar’s body, surely. But all the other members of the garrison were dead.Who could have come here?

Filled with trepidation, he went to the wall and sidled up towards the marketplace, keeping to the shadows and looking about himwith anxiety. This made no sense.

In the market he saw the bailiff standing on a cart, haranguing the crowds who ringed him.

‘I need some men to come with me to see what’s happened and help to clear up. We’ll need to clean the bodies and move them.Who’s coming with me?’

‘Not just that, Bayle. Someone’ll have to read the last rites and prepare them for a vigil in the church,’ a man shouted.

‘We are fortunate that this man came, then,’ the bailiff said. ‘The castle’s vicar came to tell us all about the madmen upthere. He can officiate at the services.’

He beckoned a chubby father down at the wheel, and the smiling, benign fellow climbed on to the cart with him. ‘This is PèrePierre Clergue of Pamiers. He will help us. Any more questions?’

Only one, Jean said under his breath. Who was this ‘castle’s vicar’? He’d never seen him before in his life. And he was supposedto have come from Pamiers, the place where Jean had witnessed that awful atrocity, and been arrested before being releasedto come here.

And then another, sickening thought struck him. It was too soon for anyone from the castle to have arrived, no matter whothis man was. Yet the town had been told of the killings. That meant this man had to have been aware that the garrison was going to be killed.

‘Christ in chains!’ he groaned. He had to get away. Run! Go somewhere far away.

No. He would go to Paris and tell the King’s men there what had happened. That would be best.

As soon as the menfolk of the town had made their way out and across the river to the castle, Jean himself hurried out, andtook the road east and south, praying and sobbing as he went.

Château Gaillard

The castle smelled like a charnel house, Père Pierre thought as he wandered about the great court.

Once it would have been a magnificent place. The walls were all limestone, white and gleaming, but at some time in the pastit had been sacked and many of the walls were in poor repair. Still, it was a place of happiness to him. It would hopefullymark the end of a long journey.

‘In here, Père!’

The sergent had the brains of a goat, but he was reliable enough. Père Pierre climbed up and crossed the bridge from the outer fortressinto the upper, main section, to where the sergent stood waiting. ‘It’s not a pretty sight, Père. Are you sure you are ready for this?’

‘Oh, I think so,’ the little man said with a deprecating smile. His amiable blue eyes were sad as he took in the place.

He was used to the sight of bodies. From that first journey down to the south with the madman Arnaud and the scruffy man-at-arms,the man all knew simply as le Vieux, he had been in close communion with the dead. So many over the years. He had helped dearBishop Fournier with the Inquisition, writing down the testimony in his careful, small but neat hand, and then going withso many to hear their last words and praying with them.