Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

My despair stems from our loyalty to, and support of, the Pope, the Vicar of Christ and the See of Rome. We swear our sacred oath of loyalty and obedience, as an Order, to the reigning pope, and have done so ever since our founding, and for more than one hundred and fifty years, our Brotherhood has stood staunchly by that oath and formed the standing army of the Church, dedicated to enforcing and supporting the will of the pontiff.

But now I fear we have a pontiff who is more concerned with pleasing and propitiating the King of France than he is with safeguarding the welfare of the Church of Rome and its faithful adherents. Clement V was created by Philip Capet, for all intents and purposes, and may be just as quickly uncreated. All men of conscience know, within themselves, that Philip, through the machinations of his chief lawyer, William de Nogaret, has already effected the certain death of one pope who displeased him, and is suspected of having poisoned that one’s successor, clearing the way for Clement’s accession to the Throne of Peter. Clement himself requires no reminders of that truth, and so will bend to the wishes of his grasping, money-hungry master.

These words I can say to you alone, knowing from our discussions that you are of like mind. What then can we do, who are bound by oath and honor itself, to escape the malevolence, or even in this case the indifference, of our titular earthly Master, when he chooses to accept the case being argued against us in absentia ?

In that light, I must assume that the events foretold for Friday the thirteenth of October will come to pass, and that you, God willing, will read these words of mine three months thereafter, on the Feast of the Epiphany in the coming year. Within those three months, one of two things will have—must have—taken place.

The first, most reasonable, and devoutly wished of those is that the King of France will have admitted himself to be in error in suspecting our noble Order of whatever might have precipitated his actions in the first place, and will be in consultation with the senior Administrative Council of the Order to seek a resolution to the entire affair. The sole alternative, failing that, is that the Crown will have completed its machinations against the Order, and the Holy Inquisition will be in full pursuit of the adherents of the Temple at every level of French society, in every stratum of involvement, and the State, allied with the Church, will be immersed in the process of confiscating all the assets, liquid and fixed, real estate and specie, of the Order of the Temple in France.

It is a bleak and dismal prospect that lies stretched ahead of us, dear Brother, but should the former instance prove to be the case, and our Order be judicially and morally absolved of sedition and treasonous intent, then it is not unreasonable to assume that word of such amicable resolution might not yet have come to you in whatever place you happen to be. Therefore you should bestir yourself, for the good of all, to ship envoys back to France as soon as may be practicable, taking care that they bear no mark, insignia, or rank that might identify them as Temple adherents and thus endanger them. These men should go ashore, comporting themselves as simple merchants with no interest in the affairs of France, and should discover for themselves the condition of the Temple fraternity within the French state.

The second alternative is far less pleasant to contemplate and will demand great fortitude from you since, by definition, it entails the virtual extinction of the Order of the Temple in France—and I must add that this is now my personal expectation of what is about to happen. Capet, I firmly believe, is heart-set upon the destruction of the Temple. It may be because we refused him entrance to our own ranks—a slur his pride will not let him digest—but I believe that is but a contributory factor. Morally and financially bankrupt, Capet is envious of our wealth, and his treasury is permanently empty. In our hands he sees the great accumulation of lands and holdings, shipping and trading specie on earth, forever unavailable to him without indebting himself further, and the thought of it has been too overwhelming for him to contemplate without lusting to possess it.

Should that come to pass, Brother William, then the Order of which I am the twenty-third consecutive and duly consecrated Master will in all probability cease to exist within this land. And if that be the sin of Despair, then I know not how to avoid it, for I am become sufficient of a Cynic to recognize another such, and this one of overwhelming capacity, in the distant, unapproachable, and inhuman personality of our anointed King, Philip IV of France.

Despite our power and strength, Philip will win this struggle, for he has the Church at his beck and call, the Pope securely in his pocket. With that support, the compliance and even the complicity of the Pope himself, he is become invincible against us. And only such support would embolden him, powerful as he is, to mount such an obviously avaricious and covetous attack against the first and greatest and most honored of the Church’s military Orders. And Philip will do his worst. I anticipate torture and coercion, to gain our secrets, besmirch our honor, and establish our guilt—albeit for what, and to what end, remains to be seen. And therein lies the reason for my reluctance to share these thoughts with any other. Such thoughts are treasonous. But no man may reveal, under torture, things that he does not know. And for that good and sufficient reason, rather than endanger any of my clerics with the possession of such knowledge, I have seen fit to entrust the writing of these lines to a trusted scribe who will have returned to his home in Cyprus before the date of which we speak and will thus be safe from whatever might take place in France.

It is my belief that we will be fortunate to retain anything tangible at the end of the purge that lies ahead. Everything our Order holds will vanish into the coffers of Philip’s treasury and the Vatican’s vaults—not necessarily in evenly divided portions. Thereafter, if any of our brethren remain alive, they will face a return to the earliest days of the Order itself, when each knight personally and voluntarily abandoned normal life in search of spiritual satisfaction and salvation, swearing the three Great Oaths and accepting utter poverty, laying claim to possession solely of those things, such as weapons, clothing, and horseflesh, that the Order and its adherents held in common. Our days of power and influence within France, at least, are strictly numbered, but my greatest fear is that, beyond the shores of France, the other kings of Christendom will follow Philip’s example, seduced by the prospect of uncountable wealth, there for the taking and unprotected by the Church.

Such matters are beyond my control, Brother William; I merely register them here as matters of concern to me. I myself will stand or fall with our Order in France, wherein it was conceived and brought forth, and since my own vows prevent me from raising a weapon of any kind against my legal superiors, I will submit to whatever judgment or action may be prosecuted against me, irrespective of what I may perceive as its moral worth.

One thing yet lies within my control, my jurisdiction, and my grant as I write this: the delegation of authority within our Order wherever I think fit. To that end I have included with this missive a formal letter of appointment and recognition, duly witnessed by the senior members of the Governing Council and signed and sealed with my official seal as Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, naming our faithful subordinate, Brother William Sinclair, Knight of the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, as Master of the said Order within Scotland, or wheresoever said William Sinclair might find himself upon the cessation of his travels, so be it that he is still among a company of the knights and sergeants of the Order and remains dedicated to the preservation of the ancient secrets and rites of the Order duly passed down to him by his peers, brethren and companions within the Order.