Paul Christopher - The Sword of the Templars

“In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown depicted the Knights Templar as being the sacred keepers of the secret of Christ’s bloodline. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade they were portrayed as immortal guardians of the Holy Grail. In the movie National Treasure, Nicolas Cage described them as being the caretakers of a vast fortune buried under Trinity Church in downtown Manhattan. According to various religious scholars they were gatekeepers of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem after the successful conclusion of the First Crusade as well as protectors of pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land.

“Bull. The truth is the Knights Templar, this self-described Army of God, was nothing more than a gang of extortionists and thugs. As a group they were certainly the world’s first example of organized crime, complete with secret rituals and a code not unlike that of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra-the Mafia.”

Lieutenant Colonel John “Doc” Holliday, a dark-haired, middle-aged man in an Army Ranger uniform wearing a black patch over his left eye, looked out over the classroom, checking for some sort of response from his students, or failing that at least an indication of interest. What he saw were eighteen “firsties,” fourth-year students, all male, all wearing the same “as-to-class” short-sleeved blue uniform blouses with a neat triangle of snow-white T-shirt showing at the neck, all wearing the same gray trousers with a single stripe, all with the same high-and-tight haircut, all with the same sleepy, glassy-eyed expression of young men attending the last class of an academic day that had started almost ten hours before. Incredibly, this was the cream of the West Point graduating class, most of them single-minded ring thumpers who’d already branched Artillery, Infantry, or Armor, and none of whom had the slightest interest in medieval history in general or the Knights Templar in particular. Future Warriors of America. Huah!

Holliday continued.

“The big problem with the First Crusade of 1095 was the fact that the crusaders won it. By 1099 they’d captured Jerusalem and they were an army without an enemy. No more godless Saracens to slaughter. Knights of the time were professional soldiers, swords for hire bought and paid for by wealthy noblemen, most of them French, Italian, or German. They were chevaliers, literally men who could afford to ride a horse; chivalry and fair damsels in distress didn’t factor in the equation. They were killers, plain and simple.”

“Warriors, sir.” The observation came from Whitey Tarvanin, a tough-looking Finn from Nebraska whose pale skin and even paler hair had given him his nickname. He was obviously Infantry, the crossed idiot sticks on his uniform blouse proud proof of that. When he’d posted a few weeks ago he’d actually chosen Fort Polk, Alabama, the least attractive choice on the roster, just to prove how down and dirty he was.

“No, not warriors, Cadet, mercenaries. These guys were in it for the money, nothing more. No Honor, Duty, Country. Maybe a little raping and pillaging on the side; after all, according to the rules of engagement in the eleventh century non-Christians were going to Hell anyway, so they didn’t count. The nobles had promised them all sorts of plunder in the Holy Land, but as it turned out there wasn’t enough to go around and thousands of these chevaliers came back penniless and a lot of the nobles were close to bankruptcy, as well. Many of them returned home to find that their lands, castles, and everything else had been stolen by scheming relatives or simply forfeited by one king or another for taxes.”

Holliday paused.

“So what does an unemployed soldier whose only real skills involve hacking, butchering, and otherwise committing acts of extreme violence on the godless enemy do with himself once that enemy has been vanquished?”

Holliday shrugged.

“He does what men in that situation have done since the days of Alexander the Great. He turns to crime.”

“Like Robin Hood?” This was from “Zitz” Mitchell, skinny, pimples, wire-rimmed glasses, and a hairline already edging backwards into baldness. After watching Mitchell go through four years at the Point, Holliday was still amazed by his stamina. He’d expected the beanpole cadet to wash out after Beast Barracks, if not before. But he’d stuck it out. Holliday smiled. Mitchell’s pimples would go away eventually.

“Robin Hood was a romantic fantasy invented by songwriters who came along a few hundred years after the fact. The people I’m talking about, the routiers, as these vagabond highwaymen were called, were more like Tony Montana in Scarface-products of their environment; an unskilled ex-con Marielito washed up on the shores of Key West doesn’t have much choice if he wants to get ahead in his new home: he deals cocaine. A routier in medieval France joins a gang of like-minded ex-soldiers and starts plundering the countryside or offering villages and towns ‘protec tion’ for a price.

“One of these men was Hugues de Payens, a French knight in the service of the Duke of Champagne. The duke ran short of money and Sir Hugues switched allegiance, fighting with the army of Godfrey of Bouillon until Jerusalem was overthrown.

“Godfrey was installed as king of Jerusalem, and using his prior connection Sir Hugues along with half a dozen other routiers petitioned King Godfrey for the job of guarding the new pilgrim routes through the recently captured Holy Land, along with the right to establish their headquarters in the ruins of the old Temple of Solomon.

“Pilgrims were big business back then, and tolls from the pilgrims formed the basis for economy of the newly ‘liberated’ Holy Land. Godfrey agreed, and Sir Hugues took things one step further, ratifying his position by having Pope Urban II grant him the status of a holy order, thus freeing the newly formed Knights Templar from the obligations of any sort of taxation, not to mention making them answerable only to the Pope.”

“He made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.” Zitz Mitchell grinned. “Godfather style.”

“Something like that.” Holliday nodded. “Sir Hugues and his fellow routiers controlled a lot of military might. Godfrey had upset a bunch of his colleagues by accepting the title of king. At the very least Godfrey was buying protection for himself in the fragile little kingdom.”