P. Doherty - The Templar Magician

‘Edmund de Payens,’ he whispered, ‘noble member of a noble family.’ His voice was tinted with sarcasm, but de Payens did not object. Mayele was his brother-knight, a strange, bloodthirsty man with apparently no sense of fear. During the chapter meeting where they had been judged and punished, he had loudly protested his innocence, arguing hotly with Dominus Tremelai, shouting that the Grand Master would do better to find the reason for Count Raymond’s murder and demand a full investigation by the papal legate into the incident. Tremelai had shouted back before ordering them both to strip and lie prostrate before the chapter. De Payens had done so; Mayele had objected, so he’d been seized, stripped and beaten with a sharp cane. The purple welts and bruises had now faded, the fresh skin neatly growing back, but Mayele had not forgiven or forgotten either the beating or the fresh humiliation.

‘ Pax et bonum , brother.’ Mayele leaned over. He grasped de Payens’ goblet, sipped from it and handed it back. ‘This will not last long. Our brothers have intervened for us. No less a person than your great friend and patron William Trussell has pleaded on our behalf.’

De Payens nodded in agreement. Trussell was a legend, an Englishman who had joined Hugh de Payens after the cruciferi had stormed and taken Jerusalem some fifty-three years ago. A man well past his seventy-fifth year, a veteran treated as a hero, cared for and trusted by the order.

‘Ah, good day, Brother Baker, Brother Thurifer, Brother Smith, Brother Cook.’ Mayele’s sarcastic greeting rang through the hall as the lesser serjeants of the order trooped in for their main serving of the day.

His taunting refrain must have reached the Grand Master, for shortly afterwards burly serjeants appeared. The two men were dragged to their feet and pushed out along a vaulted passageway on to the pavement, then across to the house of correction beneath the old mosque. De Payens winced as his naked feet touched the hot paving stones. The light blinded him, whilst the sun was as hot as a roaring fire. Mayele tried to make light of his discomfort by dancing a jig, much to his guards’ amusement. While they tried to restrain his companion, de Payens shielded his eyes and peered across at the view that rose above the Temple walls: the towers and belfries of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Here, de Payens reflected, in the heart of Jerusalem, whilst the army of the cruciferi had rampaged like hungry wolves through the streets of the Holy City, Hugh de Payens and his companions had reached the Great Pavement and raced across to the Dome of the Rock, down into the darkness beneath, where the great Solomon had built his stables. According to legend, Hugh and his brethren, the first group of Poor Knights of the White Mantle, had found treasure greater than any gold, silver or gorgeous rubies. Relics, artefacts from the time of Christ! The crown of thorns thrust on to the sacred head; the nails that had pierced his hands and feet; the shroud in which his corpse had been wrapped, and the cloth thrown over the Saviour’s face, which allegedly still bore a miraculous imprint.

‘Sir!’ The serjeants now held Mayele fast. The scribe in charge beckoned de Payens to follow.

They went down steep steps into the cold darkness and along a vaulted passageway: it reeked of oil and pitch, the walls on either side glistening as if drenched with water. A door to a dungeon was opened, and de Payens and Mayele were pushed inside to squat down on straw-filled palliasses.

‘When,’ de Payens asked, ‘will this end?’

‘Soon.’ Mayele crawled across, took the lamp and put it between them.

‘And why?’ de Payens asked. ‘Why was Count Raymond murdered?’

‘Rumour runs like mice in a hay barn,’ Mayele murmured. ‘What was the count but another great lord snatching territory, dividing Outremer like a loaf of bread? A squabble of barons.’ Mayele laughed at his own joke. ‘Fat lords supported by their even fatter priests.’

‘So who murdered him, and why?’

‘They say the hashish-devourers, the Assassins, a secret cult of Islam under their master, the Old Man of the Mountain. They are hated by the Franks and loathed by the Turks. Rumour holds them responsible. They and their leaders live high in mountain eyries, dealing out death. Come, Edmund,’ Mayele’s voice turned soft, ‘you must have heard the legends? How when the Old Man goes out he is preceded by a herald bearing a huge Danish axe, its long haft enclosed in silver, to which braided knots are fastened. As he goes, the herald proclaims: “Turn out of the way of he who has in his hands the fate of kings”.’

Mayele’s voice thrilled through the shadows, unsettling de Payens even further.

‘But why Count Raymond? Why should the Assassins kill him?’

‘God knows.’

‘And why were we brought from Chastel Blanc to act as his escort?’

‘Only God and our Grand Master know that, Edmund. We’ve been away from Jerusalem for a year, locked up in the fastness of Lebanon.’

‘Not you,’ de Payens retorted, moving on the uncomfortable palliasse. ‘You were the Chastel messenger to Jerusalem and elsewhere.’ He paused at the sound of a braying horn, followed by the distant tolling of bells, marking a fresh hour in the horarium of the brethren.

‘Time limps,’ Mayele murmured, ‘like a thief. In the light of day, Edmund, all will be revealed. Yes, I was a Templar messenger. I collected all the gossip and chatter from the brothers, winnowing the wheat from the chaff. Did you know Walkyn, one of our brethren, an Englishman?’

De Payens shook his head.

‘Expelled from the order!’

‘On what charge?’

‘Some say witchcraft, dabbling in the black arts, conjuring up the demons of the dark angel. I don’t know the full truth. Rumour has it that he was arrested, tried secretly and found guilty. He was supposed to be sent back to England in chains. Another Englishman, Richard Berrington, was delegated to escort him. You know Berrington?’

De Payens shook his head.

‘Anyway,’ Mayele sighed, ‘Walkyn may have escaped. Berrington has certainly disappeared, so the gossips say.’

‘Perhaps the Grand Master wishes that we would do the same.’

Mayele laughed and shook his head.

‘No, brother, not that.’

‘What happened?’ De Payens returned to the question haunting him. ‘What truly happened in Tripoli? Why were we there? Why did they kill Count Raymond?’

Mayele didn’t answer. The sound of footsteps echoed in the passageway. The door was unlocked and swung open, and a serjeant beckoned to them to rise and follow.

Bertrand Tremelai was waiting for them in his octagonal chamber in the Temple manse, a ground-floor room decorated with brilliantly hued tapestries. The first described the fall of Jerusalem some fifty years earlier. The second related the story of the Templars from their founding to their patronage by St Bernard of Clairvaux. The third described the order’s adoption by the papacy and the issuing of the decree Milites Dei et Militia Dei — Soldiers of God, Army of God . The Pope was shown flanked by St Peter and St Paul, with the title of the decree, which took the Templars fully under papal authority, inscribed on a silver tongue of parchment issuing out of the Pope’s mouth.

Tremelai sat enthroned beneath these glories behind a broad desk of polished cassia. In the far corner two scribes copied documents, whilst a third poured hot wax on manuscripts before sealing them with the Temple seal displaying two poor knights sharing the same horse, suggesting both comradeship and humility. There was little of such virtue in the Grand Master’s choleric red face or his luxurious chamber with its opulent furnishings, lambswool rugs and beeswax candles. Tremelai thrust himself back in his chair and jabbed a finger at de Payens and Mayele.