The Templar Inheritance

by Mario Reading

  The bishop then reeled off a long, carefully worded peroration which placed the newly crowned King Philip in direct line of descent, via Constantine, Justinian, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, Henry the Fowler and Frederick Barbarossa, to the military guardians of Christ’s legacy on earth. The only possible explanation for this bellicose religious symbolism was that a new crusade was in the offing, and that the nobility were being prepared for their part in it.

  It came as no surprise to Hartelius, therefore, when he was called into the office of the king’s chamberlain a scant two days after the ceremony. It was a considerable shock, however, when he realized that he was once again to be in the presence of the king himself, but this time in a private capacity. Hartelius instantly assumed that now he was widowed – but with the significant advantage of already possessing the heir necessary to secure the position of Hereditary Guardian of the Holy Lance beyond his death – he would be required to retake his Templar oath and become a soldier of Christ once again, with all that entailed in terms of celibacy, constancy and penury. A new crusade needed soldiers, and he was nothing if not that. The thought that his four children were secured at Schloss Kronach with their grandmother and aunts afforded him some comfort in the circumstances, and he began to inure himself to the thought that he would have to hand over a significant proportion of their mother’s dowry to the Templars when he rejoined their ranks.

  In the event the twenty-two-year-old king had a very different task for him to perform – one that required no such financial sacrifice.

  ‘Margrave Adalfuns von Drachenhertz, military governor of Carinthia. You have heard of him, of course?’

  ‘Our war leader. Yes, sire. A mighty warrior.’ And one of the kingdom’s most troublesome barons, Hartelius might have added, endlessly fomenting nuisance and discord in a constant bid for more power.

  ‘The margrave is to lead the next crusade to free Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In my stead. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  ‘For I am needed here. To counter incursions from Sicily and suchlike.’ The last part of the king’s speech was almost mumbled.

  Hartelius knew just why the king was mumbling. It was unprecedented for a monarch not to take the lead when a new crusade was in the offing. Hartelius kept his expression neutral, however, and his stance dignified but submissive. It didn’t do to antagonize guilt-stricken monarchs if one wished to keep one’s head. It was becoming clearer to him by the minute that the king’s main intention must be for von Drachenhertz to stay on in the Holy Land – preferably below ground.

  ‘I am giving von Drachenhertz my sister, Agnes, youngest daughter of my father, Frederick Barbarossa, as his wife. And I am sending him the Holy Lance as a further sign of my accord with the aims of the crusade. These two symbols will surely be enough to convince our English and French allies of the seriousness of our intent. I am needed here.’

  ‘Of course, sire.’

  ‘You will escort my sister to the Holy Land, Hartelius. You will hand her over to von Drachenhertz, together with her dowry, which is absurdly significant. But we need to keep the man sweet, don’t we, Missingau?’

  The king looked at his chamberlain. The chamberlain looked at Hartelius. Hartelius pretended that he was not in the room.

  This king will never last, he thought to himself. This king is doomed. When I think of a giant like Frederick Barbarossa compared to this man, his son, my soul shrinks inside its capsule.

  ‘Are you clear on what we are asking of you, Hartelius?’

  ‘Yes, sire. Only . . .’ Something was eating at the outer edges of Hartelius’s consciousness. ‘May I assume that the king’s sister is a somewhat unwilling party to this undertaking?’

  The king and Missingau looked at each other. Then both men turned towards Hartelius. The king shrugged, motioned to Missingau with his chin, and departed. Missingau waited until all the king’s guards had vacated the room.

  ‘What an absurd suggestion. The king’s sister knows nothing of the king’s plan, so how can she be against it? She lives in a nunnery. She intends to take the white. But she is far too valuable politically to palm off on God. Do you understand me, Hartelius?’

  Hartelius gave no sign that he was shocked by Missingau’s derogatory tone. In certain circles, a statement such as the one that had just issued from Missingau’s mouth would be considered blasphemy, punishable by death. Hartelius suspected that Missingau felt himself safe from all attack. Certainly by a nonentity such as Hartelius.

  ‘You wish me to abduct her then?’

  ‘Abduct? Abduct? Such a misused word. No. Not abduct.’ The chamberlain smiled. It was the smile of the crocodile in the presence of the stork. ‘We simply don’t expect you to take no for an answer.’

  TEN

  The Rupertsberg Convent, built on the orders of Hildegard of Bingen at the exact place the Nahe flows into the Rhine, had lost a great deal of its spiritual authority following its founder’s death twenty years before. It had become an alternative home for ladies of rank, with only the mildest emphasis on the Benedictine rite in its daily routine, derived as it was from Saint Scholastica, St Benedict’s twin sister, rather than from the troublesome saint himself.

  As the convent was directly subordinate to the Archbishop of Mainz, Hartelius found little problem entering its precincts, on the understanding that the twenty Templar knights accompanying him would house and provender themselves in the nearby town, and thus avoid disturbing the inmates. The abbess herself received him – after the mandatory delay of around an hour – flanked by two oblates.

  Hartelius handed over his laissez-passer from the king. The abbess read it, then handed it to the younger of the two oblates, who glanced at it and threw it onto the table. Hartelius deduced from the comfortable familiarity – the haughtiness, even – with which the oblate treated the abbess, that the white-veiled young woman he saw before him was indeed the king’s eighteen-year-old sister, Agnes of Hohenstaufen.

  He tried to get a proper look at her – the margrave, after all, would hardly be amused if the king sent him a pig in a poke as a wife – but, beyond the immediate circle of the face, the veil and wimple she wore was specifically designed to discourage the male gaze, and the tunic and scapular that encased the remainder of her body allowed not the faintest suggestion of what delights – or horrors – might lurk beneath.

  Hartelius focused his attention back on the abbess. ‘I come from the king, Reverend Mother. My orders stem directly from him. I am to take his youngest sister, Agnes von Hohenstaufen—’

  ‘Elfriede von Hohenstaufen,’ said the oblate. ‘I dislike the name Agnes. It makes me sound like a lamb to the slaughter. Which is what my brother wants of me, no doubt. Elfriede is my second name. It means “to be free”.’

  Hartelius was so taken aback by the oblate’s intercession that he temporarily lost command of himself. ‘Elfriede does not mean “to be free”, Princess. The name stems from the Saxon word aelf, meaning an elf or supernatural being, with the second part deriving from pryo, meaning strength. So your name means “strength in otherness”.’

  Elfriede stared at him.

  Hartelius turned back to the abbess. He would be on stronger ground with her, he suspected. She had a position to lose. ‘I am to take his youngest sister, Elfriede von Hohenstaufen, to Acre, in the Holy Land, where she will marry Margrave Adalfuns von Drachenhertz.’

  The oblate held up one of her hands, with the index and little fingers extended. ‘An old goat, probably. With horns. And whiskers. And why should I lower myself to become a Markgräfin? I am a Hohenstaufen. There is nothing higher before God. My father was the Holy Roman Emperor.’

  Hartelius saw the abbess’s eyebrows rise and then fall again. Was there a suggestion in that brief movement that she might secretly be longing to rid herself of this worrisome young oblate of hers? Hartelius pressed on, this time with more confidence. ‘I have brought the princess’s marriage chest and depository with me. Als
o the details of her dowry and her papers of mark. Other articles, too, of which we can talk during our journey. The king has allocated the princess a guard of twenty Knights Templar for her security, together with fifty followers, including two personal handmaidens, for her comfort and convenience. She may choose a personal companion from within the bounds of the nunnery, also, if she so desires.’

  The young oblate threw aside all remaining pretence. ‘So you’re what they call a Knight Templar, are you, Hartelius? Dedicated, like me, to poverty, chastity and obedience? But what am I saying? Of course you are. Those twenty knights my brother allocated to you wouldn’t follow anyone who wasn’t one of them. So Philip is entrusting me to a eunuch? Well, that’s apposite. Let’s hope my future husband does not embrace Templar-hood too before I can contrive to reach his bedside.’

  Hartelius knew just enough about women after eight years of marriage to know when the pot he was sitting in was being stirred. ‘I am no longer a Knight Templar, Princess. Your late brother, Frederick VI of Swabia, exonerated me from my vows a short time before his death at the Siege of Acre. He had inherited the leadership of the Third Crusade from your father, on the battlefield, and therefore spoke directly in his name.’

  ‘So you are the one?’

  ‘The one what, Princess?’

  ‘The one who filched the Holy Lance from my father’s saddle. The one who failed to pluck my father from the waters of the Saleph at the same time. The one who allowed his anointed king to drown like an unwanted kitten while he paddled off to safety and a blaze of glory.’

  Hartelius sighed inwardly. ‘Your father was in full armour, Princess, and I was not. The king sank to the bottom of the river before I could reach him. His horse, though injured, swam onto a sandbank. There it died. I spent the whole of a freezing night inside that horse’s belly. The next morning I realized that the Holy Lance was still attached to your father’s saddle. I took it and returned it to your brother two days later, further up the road to Acre. He made me Hereditary Guardian of the Holy Lance, publicly cancelled my Templar vows – with the full agreement of our marshal, I should add – and married me, on the spot, to Adelaïde von Kronach.’

  ‘So you are not a eunuch then?’

  ‘No, Princess. No Knight Templar is. A vow of chastity is a separate thing entirely, as you well know, being an oblate, and subject to similar vows. And the twenty Templar knights of your escort will obey me because I was one of them once, and am perceived to have brought honour to our order. That is all.’

  ‘And that scar on your face?’

  ‘Caused by a crossbow quarrel. Fired from the very same weapon that injured your father’s Turcoman and caused it to plunge into the river with your father still in the saddle.’

  ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘Four, Princess.’

  ‘And your wife? Is she happy that you are abandoning her and your children back in Bavaria to transport the king’s unwilling sister to the Holy Land?’

  ‘My wife is dead, Princess. She died three months ago in childbirth. My children are well looked after in their grandfather’s castle. I am the servant of the king. It is not for me to decide what I do and where I go.’

  The princess hesitated for a moment. Her eyes, only partially shadowed by the peak of her veil, flashed violet, like the skirts of a Portuguese man-of-war. ‘I am sorry, Hartelius. Sorry for your loss. I did not mean to be flippant when I asked you these questions. If I am to travel to the Holy Land under your guardianship I need to know with whom I am dealing.’

  ‘Of course, Princess.’

  Elfriede von Hohenstaufen glared at the abbess. ‘And my vows here?’

  The abbess bowed her head. ‘Still formally unconfirmed. You are free to follow the king, your brother’s, orders. Which, as your spiritual guide, is what I also should advise.’

  Hartelius thought, for one pregnant moment, that he had lost the princess then. That the abbess’s ill-advised recommendation would re-summon all her teenage perversity, and that she would choose to baulk at her brother’s request.

  Instead, she looked at him, her head cocked to one side, the folds of her wimple falling across her face and brow. ‘What is your full title, Hartelius?’

  ‘Johannes von Hartelius, Baron Sanct Quirinus, Princess.’

  ‘Well, Johannes von Hartelius, Baron Sanct Quirinus, I, Elfriede von Hohenstaufen, sister to King Philip of the Germans, and intended bride of. . .’ she made a face ‘. . . the Margrave Adalfuns von Drachenhertz, agree to accompany you to the Holy Land according to my brother’s request. The only thing I ask is that you don’t ignore me and put on that silent face I have detected more than once intruding on your countenance. I have been living amongst women for the past eight years. . .’ she glared at the abbess ‘. . . and I am tired of it. Tired of all the pettiness and the machinations. Tired of all the silly laws we contrive on ourselves and the mingy restrictions that are contrived on us. You are a soldier. I want you to tell me of war and of hardship and of the things men do. You are to be the guide to my new life.’

  Hartelius stared at the abbess, open-mouthed.

  The abbess stared back at him. Then she gave a single shrug of her shoulders, as if to say, She is well and truly off my hands now. She is your problem, Baron. And the very best of luck to you.

  ELEVEN

  For the first three weeks of their 550-mile journey from Rupertsberg to Venice, and despite all her protestations to the contrary in front of the abbess, the princess refused to see Hartelius. By day she travelled in her closed carriage with the shutters down, and at night she kept to her tent and to the company of her female servants. As a result, Hartelius found himself thinking more and more about her.

  He had become used to female company since his formal release from his Templar vows, and he desperately missed his wife, whose death he mourned on a daily basis. He had therefore fancied that he and the princess might be able to spend time together talking and, yes, he had to admit it, mildly flirting according to the laws of hohe Minne or courtly love, as described by the Minnesinger Friedrich von Hausen, whose poems and songs every educated German nobleman or noblewoman had read. The truth was that Hartelius had been quite won over by the princess’s extraordinary self-assurance in the presence of the abbess. Most young women of her age and class would have been cowed and submissive. The princess, instead, had dominated the proceedings. Hartelius admired courage in whatever form it showed itself. And the princess had been nothing if not courageous.

  Still, he was by and large happy with the arrangement, for it freed him to concentrate all his attention on building a working relationship with his knights. For despite all that he had said in front of the princess about the amenability of Knights Templar to being commanded by a former brother-at-arms, Hartelius knew that he would need to gain each man’s confidence and trust personally before he could expect anything but the most basic degree of loyalty from them.

  By the end of the initial three-week stage, when they were still well short of the Alps, he felt that he had, at least partially, achieved his end. The knights – whom he had immediately split into two groups of ten, each with their own colours and standard – alternated convoy duty, with the non-guarding knights detailed to scout the terrain in front of, behind and to either side of the princess’s cortege, to a distance of about a third of a league. Hartelius would accompany these knights on their expeditions and engage in war games with them, one party ambushing the other, with Hartelius sometimes contriving mock attacks on the main convoy to test the alertness of the guarding knights both by day and by night.

  He anticipated few real problems whilst they were still on German soil, but there was always the outside chance of an attack by brigands or rogue knights intent on plundering the princess’s possessions. News of such a large and well-armed party of travellers moving south would inevitably be noised abroad. Hartelius trusted that the presence of Knights Templar both in advance of the column and in its rear would obviate the likeli
hood of any such outrage, and act as a cementing measure between the men prior to the party’s considerably more challenging early-autumn Alpine crossing.

  It was on the evening of the twenty-first day after their departure from Rupertsberg that the princess finally called for him. Hartelius washed his face in cold water and put on his cleanest tunic, but he had hardly come prepared for polite society. He looked like what he was – a warrior knight fresh from the road and stinking of horses.

  He was forced to duck to enter the princess’s pavilion, for he was considerably over six feet in height, whereas the princess and her attendants averaged nearly a foot less. Not for the first time in his life, Hartelius felt like a grotesque. The environment inside the pavilion spoke of femininity and delicacy, whereas he felt more comfortable in a stable or on a battlefield.

  Neither the princess nor her handmaidens were there to greet him. Hartelius took the opportunity to look around himself, as the place was well lit by wax candles. The pavilion was divided into three sections, each one sealed off from the other. He was standing in what was clearly the living section. Towards the rear of the pavilion was what he assumed were the princess’s sleeping quarters, which were demarcated from the remainder of the living area by a large Flemish tapestry, with the main details picked out in gold thread.

  Across from that was an area reserved for storage, and most likely also for the princess’s toilet. A mobile triptych showing the Virgin standing in a field of lilies and holding the Christ child in her arms barred the way. The Virgin was flanked on her left by John the Baptist, and on her right by the prophet Zacharias. Hartelius approached for a closer look. He had never seen a rendition of the Virgin in any other than the seated position, and he found the image astonishing.