Knights Templar - Temple And The Crown Part 22

A Ssssecret, Ma.s.sster!

What secret? Is it the Breastplate?

Ialdabaeoth doesss not know. ooooh, do not punish Ialdabaeoth, Ma.s.sster!

Indeed, the little demon had tried to get a closer look at the man, as he closed and secured the door of the empty vault and then headed off in the direction the others had gone; but the power radiating from whatever the man carried, bound to his person, was too potent for Ialdabaeoth to endure.

But not too potent for Nogaret. Closing his hand more tightly around the ring where the demon lived, the king's chancellor let himself breathe out in a sigh, his thumb caressing the stone with malicious pleasure as he opened his eyes-for he knew what the man carried, even if Ialdabaeoth did not. It was, indeed, the long-sought Breastplate of the High Priests of Israel.

"Ialdabaeoth?" he said softly.

Yesss, Ma.s.sster?

"That last Templar-you have the scent of what he took from this place, bound close to his body,"

Nogaret said. "Follow it, and direct me where the trail leads."

Yesss, Ma.s.sster!

He was turning to go, threading the ring back onto the heavy chain around his neck, when the tramp of heavy footsteps announced the return of Count Rodolphe, along with Peret Auvernais and Valentin de Vesey.

"Magister, the men are in the process of forcing the doors on the rest of the treasure chambers,"

Rodolphe reported "but so far, they're all empty."

"Of course they're empty! I told you they were taking the treasures!"

"No, they're empty," Rodolphe repeated, his face impa.s.sive. "There's no gold. No jewels or furs or anything else of worth. Not even a silver penny."

"What?"

When Rodolphe merely gazed at him, not ?inching from his stare, Nogaret stormed past him to ?ing open door after door, where his men had been. Every treasure vault had, indeed, been stripped.

"They knew," Nogaret whispered. "They knew!"

"Perhaps it's only happened here, in Paris," Peret said uncomfortably.

"Yes, and perhaps ?sh can ?y!" Nogaret snapped.

"In that case," Rodolphe said, "I suggest that we dispatch riders immediately to warn the of?cers at all the major ports. That may stop some of the ?sh from slipping through the net."

"Aye, and some of the treasure, too," Valentin de Vesey chimed in. "They can't have moved the entire treasury out of here without attracting local notice. We know what riches were here, only a few months ago."

Nogaret only nodded vaguely, his head c.o.c.king brie?y in a listening att.i.tude. Then, with a glance at Rodolphe, he said, "See to it. I have a mission of my own. Peret and Valentin, you're with me. We are going hunting for a pigeon that has ?own."

"And what am I to do?" Rodolphe said sharply.

"I leave you in charge," Nogaret said over his shoulder. "You will secure this place, and all its prisoners.

Follow up all clear leads. When I return, we'll carry out more subtle investigations. They may have emptied the vaults, but there will still be clues to signify what they have taken with them. If you like, you may begin on that, as well."

With the two younger members of the Decuria d.o.g.g.i.ng his heels, Nogaret made his way briskly back to the yard, where the rest of his personal escort stood waiting.

"One of the particular men I want has ?own-but only with a modest start on us," he told them, as they all mounted up. "With luck, however, we will have him in our hands before the ending of the day."

He returned his attention to Ialdabaeoth as they rode out the gate. The little demon was snuf?ng the air and gabbling discontentedly to itself.

"Which way?" Nogaret demanded under his breath, addressing the ring where the demon dwelt.

North. came the response. He followsss the water.

With Ialdabaeoth directing, they set out in pursuit, tracking their quarry westward across Paris and into the countryside, traveling with the dawn.

"He'll be making for the coast," Valentin said, as they careened into a turn at a fork in the road. "If he reaches a port-"

"He'll never get that far," Nogaret said ?atly. "He is already a dead man."

They rode on at speed for another hour, pa.s.sing through a succession of sleepy villages and across rolling farmlands. They had just crested a rise when, just ahead, Nogaret's gimlet eyes spotted a well-mounted horseman bending to exchange words with a woman at a crossroad ahead. In the same instant, there came a shrill squeal from Ialdabaeoth.

There he isss, Ma.s.sster! The keeper of the Trea.s.ssure!

Nogaret was already spurring forward, his men aclatter behind him, but Valentin de Vesey soon took the lead, bent low over his horse's neck. The thunder of their approach drew the alarmed glance of the rider ahead, who immediately clapped heels to his horse's ?anks and took ?ight.

"Get him!" Nogaret shouted.

Valentin de Vesey continued to lead the pursuit, through another village and past a tiny churchyard at reckless speed. A ?ock of grazing geese scattered before their quarry in a storm of white wings, but he stayed with his startled mount, pus.h.i.+ng the beast, making far better time than the animal's appearance would have suggested. Ahead, as the road veered northward, Nogaret spied the arrow-straight line of an ancient Roman bridge spanning a river far below. Beyond lay the densely wooded slope of a forest that stretched for miles.

"Don't let him reach the bridge!" Nogaret shouted. "If he crosses it, you'll lose him in the trees!"

Their quarry, however, was already approaching the bridgehead, though his horse checked as the road met the bridge, reluctant to gallop h.e.l.l-bent along the high, narrow span. Through much desperate spurring and urging with hands and legs, the rider managed to keep moving onto the bridge, but his pursuers were closing fast. As the ?rst of them reached the bridgehead, Nogaret gave a shrill whistle and a hand signal, causing several men to rein short and pull crossbows from behind their saddles.

The Templar had nearly reached the midpoint of the bridge when a whispering ?ight of crossbow bolts overtook him from behind-though only one came close to hitting him, fouled harmlessly in his mantle. His horse, however, fared far less well, stumbling with a shrill whinny as two quarrels smacked into its hindquarters with meaty thunks. As it recovered its footing and bravely continued forward, another bolt caught it behind one shoulder, causing the beast to rear up in pain, twisting as it pawed the sky and fell, spilling its rider heavily to the ground.

The Templar rolled clear and scrambled to his feet, one leg clearly injured, dragging his sword from its scabbard as he peered back dazedly at his pursuers. He had lost his cap in the fall, and his hair gleamed silver in the early-morning light. Dismounting in a more leisurely fas.h.i.+on, half a dozen of Nogaret's men began venturing onto the bridge, drawing their swords, while the crossbowmen nocked new bolts to their weapons.

"Surrender, Templar, and I may allow you to live," Nogaret called from horseback, walking his mount just behind them.

For answer, the fugitive shook his gray head and began backing off, deftly avoiding the ?ailing hooves of his mount. The animal could not get up, and clearly had been crippled by the fall, so he gave it the coup de grce before taking wary cover behind its body, continuing to back away. Watching him, Nogaret was able to put a name to the n.o.ble, silver-bearded face: Gaspar des Macquelines, one of the deputy treasurers of the Paris Temple.

Ma.s.sster, he ha.s.ss a Trea.s.ssure, came Ialdabaeoth's seductive whisper.

Nogaret only smiled, his gloved hand on the ring around his neck, caressing its stone with a thumb as his men advanced.

The bridge being narrow, they could not attack him save one or two at a time, by climbing over the dying horse. Valentin de Vesey closed ?rst, cautiously-and with good reason, for the Templar parried the younger man's attack with a fury worthy of a man half his age. The clangor of their exchange echoed from the high bridge span as he yielded ground-and retreated farther along the bridge, toward possible escape.

Valentin fell back, to be replaced by Peret Auvernais. With him the Templar exchanged another intense ?urry of sword blows, but neither did the other harm, even when the latter was joined by another swordsman, and then another, in rapid succession. Two of the crossbowmen came beside Nogaret, weapons c.o.c.ked and ready, but he shook his head; he did not want damaged what the Templar carried next to his body.

The Templar fought with a strength and speed born of desperation, but he was one aging man against an almost endless series of younger, fresher men than he, and his endurance could not last forever. When he ?nally began showing de?nite signs of fatigue, Valentin de Vesey reentered the fray and, when the Templar's blade brie?y faltered, darted his blade past the other man's guard and up under the rib cage, taking him through a lung.

The Templar uttered not a sound, but clearly, his wound was mortal. Yet, with blood starting to bubble from his lips, Gaspar des Macquelines somehow managed to resume a formidable defense, the ?ash of his blade belatedly taking up its deadly pattern, nearly wounding Valentin, all the while glancing around him like a man with all the time in the world.

After a few more exchanges, as if his hands moved of their own accord, he suddenly reversed the sword end for end and launched it in an arching throw that sang past Valentin and very nearly struck Nogaret himself, sitting on his horse. As part of the same move, as the horse s.h.i.+ed and the sword fell to the ground with a clang, Gaspar wheeled about and staggered to the guard wall to pitch himself over, his right hand perhaps moving in self-blessing as he fell toward the river far below.

His body struck the water with a heavy splash, dead or dying, limbs all akimbo. Nogaret's men rushed to look over the parapet, where his body brie?y surfaced in a spreading patch of crimson and then was dragged under in a swirling eddy, to reappear periodically as it b.u.mped along on its way toward a millrace, facedown and limbs vaguely moving. Peret started to summon the crossbowmen with orders to shoot, but Nogaret restrained them.

"Don't waste your bolts," he said scornfully, kneeing his horse close enough to the parapet to gaze down into the water. "He's already dead-or will be, by the time anyone can get to him. Some of you get down to the millrace; don't let the body slip past you. I want it."

Valentin set a closed ?st against the guard wall and cursed, rubbing at a pulled muscle in his sword arm.

"He jumped! d.a.m.n him, he jumped!"

"Indeed," Nogaret agreed thinly. "For all the good it will have done him."

He called after the soldiers starting to head downriver. "Do not search the body, when you recover it!" he ordered. "Bring it straightaway to me."

Chapter Twenty-three.

October 13, 1307 FIRST LIGHT WAS STILL AN HOUR AWAY WHEN ARNAULT DE Saint Clair presented himself at one of the south ports of the city, wrapped in a swath of faded tartan and mounted on an ugly, rough-coated dun. The animal had the plodding temperament and conformation of a plow horse, but he knew it also had speed when needed, and the stolid endurance to last, if he had to make a run for it. The gate warden emerged yawning from the guardroom, thrusting a horn lantern aloft for a better look at the pair. "You're taking to the road early," the warden remarked, idly noting the rider's disheveled appearance and the pilgrim badges of Notre Dame and Santiago de Compostella on his weather-beaten cap. "Got a jealous husband after you?"

"Not this time," Arnault said with a grin, accenting his French with the Scottish burr that had become so familiar on Torquil's lips, over the years. "I've a long day's ride ahead of me, that's all."

He opened his scrip and produced a letter of credence identifying him as a Scottish knight on pilgrimage to visit the sacred shrines of France. The seal and signature were genuine, having been issued by Bishop Crambeth of Dunkeld, a supporter of Robert Bruce and an ally of the Templar cause. The gate warden handed the letter back with another yawn, unimpressed.

"Scottish, eh? Where are you bound?"

"Vzelay," Arnault replied. "The shrine of Saint Marie Madeleine." And in fact, that was the general direction he intended to go, at least for the ?rst few miles. "If I hope to arrive in time for the feast of Saint Luke, I need to press on. This nag of mine has more strength than speed to him," he added, sourly lifting the reins of his steed.

"Aye, he'll never win a race for you," the warden agreed, and gave the dun a starting smack on the rump.

"Get on with you, then."

As soon as he was out of sight of the guard post, Arnault left the road and set off across the ?elds in a more southwesterly direction. It was still too dark to go very quickly, for fear of rabbit holes, but a thin, autumnal mist hovered low over the ground and would give him cover. A distant c.o.c.kcrow pierced the predawn hush, sounding strangely doom-laden.

The feeling stayed with him as he carried on across country into de?nite dawning. By the time he reached a dense wood, a few miles outside the city, there was just enough light to make his careful way into it; the sun was just rising clear of the horizon as he emerged on the crest of a low hill, with a muddy and rutted road below him.

A farmer was driving a small herd of milch cows along the left-hand embankment, a wiry, sharp-tongued sheep dog nipping at their heels. Arnault waited in the trees until the farmer disappeared around the bend, then descended onto the road and turned the dun's head in the opposite direction, which would take him toward the cathedral city of Chartres.

He encountered only country folk for the ?rst hour or so-herdsmen and plowmen going about their business. But as the sun rose higher, he began to overtake and meet a greater variety of fellow travelers.

Merchants in lumbering oxcarts and the occasional horse-drawn conveyance rumbled slowly along the rutted road amid a strolling array of tinkers and vendors and an accompanying cloud of dust. A goodwife with a gaggle of children and a basket of eggs made her way toward market; a farmer goaded a string of pack mules, their panniers loaded with fresh produce, and two young girls chivvied several geese.

Interspersed among them walked an a.s.sortment of brown-robed friars, students, and the occasional pilgrim such as Arnault purported to be.

Intent on their own affairs, none of Arnault's fellow travelers spared much more than a pa.s.sing glance for the stoop-shouldered rider in faded clothes, plodding along the roadside on his heavy-boned nag. It was a function, if not a speci?c role, to which he was well accustomed, for his work for the Order often had called for him to travel inconspicuously and incognito. In the Holy Land, he had even pa.s.sed for Muslim.

None of his fellow wayfarers was likely to suspect that the battered saddlebag at his knee contained anything more valuable than a spare s.h.i.+rt and perhaps a packet of journey rations. As long as he could sustain his humble disguise, what he carried was safe enough; and the sword at his side would discourage interference.

It was midmorning before he encountered the ?rst sign of trouble, in the form of a pair of royal messengers. Mounted on well-bred steeds, they galloped past in a thunder of ?ying hooves, scattering other travelers before them like barnyard fowl-and, fortunately, paying Arnault absolutely no regard.

"What's that all about?" a pimply young cleric wondered, peering after them from the shelter of a roadside tree.

"Maybe the king's thought of a new tax to levy," the leader of a troupe of players said with a grimace.

"Maybe war's broken out again in Brittany," another traveler said. "Or maybe there's fresh rioting in the provinces."

Arnault found himself confronted by a rubicund cloth merchant.

"You have the look of a ?ghting man," he noted in a bluff voice. "Have you heard any rumors? Is there another war on?"

Arnault shrugged-and made certain his French carried a de?nite Scottish accent. "I wouldn't know. I'm only a pilgrim. You'll have to ?nd your answers elsewhere."

Later in the afternoon, as he stopped at a village green to water his horse, he found half a dozen local men talking among themselves as they brought their herd of cattle to drink at the millpond.

"-would have thought that the king would order such a thing?" he heard one man saying to another.

"It must be true," another one replied. "Pierre heard it from Jean Paul, who heard it from Father Gaetan.

Apparently, they're being rounded up all over France."

Arnault turned his focus on the conversation, straining to hear more without appearing to eavesdrop.

"Templars!" another man growled, and spat in the dust. "I've always said they were sorcerers! It's about time somebody did something to curb their arrogance and pride."

"I wonder what will happen to them," a younger man murmured.

"From what I hear, they'll be brought to trial, made to answer for their heresies."

Sick at heart, his horse watered, Arnault hurriedly checked his girth and mounted up to set out again. The news he had been dreading apparently had spread with alacrity. At every place he pa.s.sed thereafter, the rumors grew more extravagant and ugly. Toward dusk, as weary from emotion as from physical exhaustion, he drew aside for a body of troops on the march, coming the opposite way-and stared, along with everyone else, as they pa.s.sed by.

In their midst, under close guard, a nicely matched pair of draft horses pulled a wagon piled high with household goods. Two elderly men in Templar white sat on the wagon's tail, heavily shackled and fettered and with rope halters around their necks, both with eyes downcast. Plodding behind the wagon, chained together like felons, came several brown-robed lay brothers. All of the prisoners looked dazed and exhausted, totally bewildered by their fate.

Dismayed and chilled, Arnault dared a closer look at the nearer of the knights, for he thought he recognized the man. And he did-though, thankfully, the old man did not look up. Having served with distinction in the Holy Land, when Arnault ?rst had taken his vows and gone to war, the old knight had been living in honorable retirement on a small farm belonging to the Order-and now had come to this!

Appalled, Arnault averted his face to keep from being recognized in turn. The necessity turned him sick at heart, but he had no other choice.

As he rode on, he heard the comments of some of the villagers, many of whom had turned out to witness the spectacle. Several jeered and sn.i.g.g.e.red, but many looked as bewildered as the prisoners. One man, more intrepid than his fellows, boldly accosted one of the soldiers bringing up the rear, tugging at his stirrup.

"What have they done?" he demanded. "This can't be right. These holy brothers have lived amongst us for a good few years, and I've never known any harm in them."

One of his neighbors chimed in with a snort.

"That's as may be, but what about their superiors? We don't know! Remember what they say about ?re always being where there's smoke."