Stewart Binns - Anarchy

‘ Where is he? ’

‘He’s in the White Tower… as a guest of King Henry.’

‘Thank you. Now tell your men we’re leaving. They’re to stay here, do you understand?’

He did as I demanded, and we backed away with the knight still at my mercy. After a few yards, I pushed him to the ground and we made a dash for it down to the wharves by the Thames. We lost our pursuers amidst the crowds and found a tavern to hide in on Ludgate Hill.

Eadmer was quick to make his point.

‘That went well! Now the Master knows we’re here… and he’ll send all those young fanatics to look for us.’

‘Yes, but we know where he is.’

‘So?’

‘We’re going to have a parlay with him.’

‘Do you mean “we”? Or do you mean, you will have a parlay with him?’

‘Very well, I will have a parlay with him, but you will have to help get me in.’

‘Into the White Tower?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘But it’s the most impregnable fortress in Europe!’

‘We can get in. We’ll need a few heavy arrows, some lightweight cord, a thick rope, a grappling hook, some pieces of leather and a few handfuls of raw wool.’

‘Oh, is that all?’

‘No – we’ll also need a large amount of good fortune!’

It was possible to buy anything along the wharves of London, so it did not take long to find what we needed.

We approached the White Tower at dusk. It was the middle of April, but still very cold, and I prayed that the Tower’s sentries would spend more time huddled by their braziers than patrolling the walls. The sky was heavy with thick clouds and the dark of the moon was almost upon us. By midnight, almost all London’s torches and lanterns had been extinguished; only the guards’ fires gave glimmers of light at the gates and on the walls of London’s immense fortress.

It had not taken Eadmer long to work out the plan. We first covered the teeth of the grappling hook with wool and bound leather to deaden the noise. We waited for the sentry to finish his regular walk around the battlements. Then, with the lightweight cord attached to it, Eadmer shot his heavy arrow over the corner of the battlements. We attached the grappling hook to one end of our heavy rope and tied the other end to the lighter cord. While Eadmer stayed to guide the hook, I then ran round the corner to retrieve the arrow. I pulled the ropes over the battlements until the hook caught on the top of the wall. The easy bit was done.

It was a long climb – the White Tower was at least seventy-five feet tall. I had taken care to knot the heavy rope at one-yard intervals; even so, I was at the limit of my endurance when I reached the top of the battlements. I quickly pulled up the rope and hid it and its hook before sitting down in a stairwell to rest my arms.

I guessed that Hugh de Payens would have been allocated one of the royal chambers on the top floor of the tower, so I made my way down the spiral stairs towards the royal apartments. The whole floor was in darkness, save for one door, from the bottom of which spilled a thin shaft of light. There was a guard at the end of the corridor, his face lit by a small candle in the sconce above his head, but he seemed to be asleep. As I listened at the door, I could hear Hugh’s distinctive voice in jovial conversation with at least one other. I counted the doors and decided to make my entrance through the chamber’s window.

I returned to the battlements, waited for the sentry to pass, then secured the rope in a position where it could not be readily seen and lowered myself to Hugh’s window. The wooden shutter was ajar, with only a woollen curtain across the opening. As I seated myself on the sill of the window to peer inside, laughter came from within. I could see wine goblets and the residue of a fine meal on a table in the middle of the room. There were also clothes, armour and weapons strewn across the floor. From where I was, I could not see the bed, but the voices coming from that direction were now uttering the unmistakable groans and squeals of lustful passion. At first, I thought I had caught the Grand Master of the Knights Templar with a couple of young girls. But then I realized that, although they were high-pitched, the voices were male.

I barely had time to reflect on the utter hypocrisy that allowed the Order to rail against the sin of sodomy, when its leader was himself a sodomite! As unpleasant as it might be to confront him in such circumstances, I had been presented with all I needed for my parlay with the Grand Master. I jumped down from the window as quietly as I could, kicked the weapons on the floor to one side and drew my sword.

‘Good evening, Grand Master; I think you may be looking for me. So I thought I would come to you–’

Hugh jumped to his feet like a startled rabbit. The two boys on his bed, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, grabbed some clothes from the floor and ran to the corner of the room. Hugh was breathing heavily but made no attempt to cover his still erect manhood as he looked around the room for his sword.

‘Harold of Hereford! What a strange way to renew our acquaintance.’

‘All normal courtesies were suspended as soon as one of your Templars drew a sword on me.’

‘Don’t you mean, one of our Templars?’

‘No, I don’t – I have relinquished my oath. And so should you! Wine, fine food, the luxury of the royal apartments, buggering little boys – it doesn’t seem much like the frugal life of a Templar to me.’

‘Withdrawal from our Order is not permitted.’

Hugh was still erect; he seemed to be enjoying the confrontation. I threw him his shirt and leggings.

‘Cover yourself, you charlatan!’

‘Let me explain, these boys have been led astray. I am punishing them; they will not sin again when I have finished with them.’

He leered at me.

‘They won’t be able to walk for a month, let alone engage in buggery.’

‘I should kill you where you stand, you bastard!’

I stepped forward and stuck the blade of my sword just below his Adam’s apple.

‘We are going to have a concordat – call it a treaty of peace, or whatever you like. You call off your dogs and publicly disown me as a Templar, and I will leave the way I came in. I will keep what I’ve seen tonight as our secret to guarantee your side of the agreement. You will make the announcement at All Hallows tomorrow, and it is to be posted on the church door. Oh, and these boys are to leave here two minutes after I do. I will wait outside the gates to see that they do.’

Hugh hesitated, trying to think of a way out of his dilemma. I pressed my sword harder into his neck.

‘Answer me, you pig!’

He looked incandescent with anger, but eventually relented.

‘Agreed… but watch your back, Harold of Hereford, in more ways than one. If ever we meet again, I will take great pleasure in punishing you like I’ve punished these naughty boys.’

He gave a nauseating thrust of his hips, like a rutting animal.

‘Then I will kill you.’

I so wanted to kill him. But if I did, I would be a renegade from the Order and hunted for the rest of my life.

‘Mark my words, Hugh de Payens, if I ever see you again, I will be the one doing the killing.’

I left the White Tower as I had entered it, but with a descent a lot less arduous than the ascent. We waited for the boys to scurry away from the tower gate before I turned to Eadmer.

‘Let’s find a tavern that is still open. I need a drink.’

When I explained to Eadmer what had happened, he was as appalled as I was. But he was not surprised.

‘All fanatics have dark secrets. The more fanatical they are, the darker the secrets.’

My friend was becoming quite the philosopher.