The Templar Inheritance

by Mario Reading

  ‘Bar giving yourself up in exchange for the Amir? None.’

  ‘Giving myself up?’

  Heilsburg rocked his head back and forth. ‘If you knew how the margrave longs for your head, you would not seem so astonished, my friend. He would free the Amir, as you call him, in two shakes of a rat’s tail if you were to offer yourself in his stead. Don’t you think he knows what a hornet’s nest he has stirred up with his massacre of Saracens during a time of peace? Even the margrave is not immune to this one. If he can save face by freeing the Amir – under certain conditions, that is – he will do so. The margrave may be a monster. But he is not mad. But what am I saying? Why would a man deliver himself up to another man who has promised to castrate him, torture him, hang, draw and quarter him, and then leave the residue to the fire ants?’

  ‘Will you act as my intermediary?’

  ‘You are not serious?’

  ‘If you agree, I will leave the camp again, and wait for a pre-arranged signal from you that all covenants are in place.’

  ‘Hartelius, this is mad.’

  ‘I owe the Amir my life, Heilsburg. He is a captive and his men are dead because they tried to guard me and the princess. The princess is waiting at a pre-arranged place for the Amir to come and offer her his protection. If my sacrifice can ensure his freedom, then the princess will also be safe, and my child with her.’

  ‘Your child?’

  ‘Yes. The princess and I are married.’

  ‘Holy Mother of God. You cannot be serious.’

  ‘I am deadly serious.’

  Heilsburg looked long and hard at his friend. Then he shook his head. ‘This is too great a sacrifice you are making. Think of it, man. Think of what von Drachenhertz will do to you.’

  ‘I am thinking of it. All the time I am thinking of it. But I don’t know what else to do. I can hardly charge the Amir’s tent and free him that way.’

  ‘Then ride to the place he comes from. Tell his people what has happened.’

  ‘They would spit my head onto a pole and roast it over a griddle.’

  Heilsburg sniffed. ‘You may have a point there. They would certainly not be well disposed towards you.’

  ‘So you see? I have nowhere else to turn. You can say that an arrow was fired into the Templar camp carrying a parchment with my conditions on it. That you picked up the arrow. Together we can write something out that will make sense to von Drachenhertz. From what you say, he is so consumed with hatred of me that he will agree to almost anything to have me in his hands.’

  ‘There is that.’ Heilsburg looked up at his friend. His features were thrown into deep contrast by the oil lamp separating him from Hartelius. ‘But you know, if I were you, I would leave the camp as you say. Then I would ride. As far and as hard as my horse could take me. And I would not stop till I reached the ends of the earth.’

  ‘But I am not you, Heilsburg. Unfortunately, I am me.’

  FIFTY-THREE

  The moment Hartelius left Heilsburg’s tent it was clear that something was amiss in the camp. Men were running to and fro, calling to each other. Fires were being added to. Hartelius knew that he had only a certain amount of time left before the atmosphere inside the camp would come to resemble day.

  He began to run too, as running seemed the only sensible thing to do. For he could hardly remain in place when all about him was in flux. And neither could he remain in the tent. Fournival was no Heilsburg. Fournival would give him in as soon as look at him, in the hope of some advancement for himself. The man was a gambler. What more needed to be said?

  Hartelius had almost made it to the outer periphery of the camp, near to the point where he had entered it, when he saw Gadwa, his stallion, and Ishan, his gelding, being led in by a squire. Both had their muzzles off. Someone was shouting that they had found the Holy Lance in the stallion’s saddlebags, and others were responding that this meant that Hartelius and his Saracen allies were already in the camp. Hartelius now understood what had initially triggered the alarm.

  Each man now began looking around himself. Everyone became a potential Saracen. The camp went from being sloppy to alert in the twinkling of an eye.

  Hartelius forged on towards the outskirts of the encampment. For what else could he do? One of the horses must have slipped its muzzle and begun calling. Hartelius guessed it was Gadwa, who had probably caught the scent of a mare as the wind changed. He ought to have thought of this eventuality. Gadwa lived through his loins, as all stallions did. Why expect him to be any different? And now he was lost. Hartelius felt as if his heart had been torn in two inside his chest.

  ‘You. Who are you with?’ The captain pointed at Hartelius with the tip of his sword.

  ‘The Templars.’

  ‘Why are you heading in the opposite direction to their encampment?’

  ‘To collect my armour from the smith.’

  ‘You should be searching for von Hartelius. Not running errands.’

  ‘I am sorry, Captain. I will begin searching immediately.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  Hartelius could feel the portcullis closing down on him. ‘Szabo.’

  ‘Szabo. I know of no Szabo. I have never heard of any Szabo amongst the Templars.’

  ‘I am new. I only got in three days ago. After the battle.’

  ‘But we have had no fresh Templar recruits from Acre.’

  ‘I came from Tortosa.’

  The captain moved towards Hartelius. Hartelius could only wait. He could feel the hand of fate grasping him by the shoulder. It was at this moment that Gadwa saw him and began nickering.

  The captain turned round. ‘Do you know this horse?’

  ‘No, Captain.’

  ‘But the horse knows you, it seems. Look at him pawing the ground trying to get to you.’

  Hartelius tried to break away, but there was not the remotest possibility of escape. He was instantly surrounded and borne to the ground, where his weapons were secured and his chainmail lifted from him.

  ‘If I have made a mistake,’ said the captain, ‘so be it. But we shall take you to the Templar encampment and confirm your identity. If you are recognized, and your story confirmed, you shall have a cup of wine on me. If you are not, you die.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  It was Himmelstreich who turned Hartelius in. It was inevitable. Himmelstreich had loathed Hartelius from the moment Hartelius had presented the Holy Lance to Frederick of Swabia, eight years before, and been exonerated from his Templar vows – illegally, as Himmelstreich saw it – and allowed to marry.

  ‘It is he. Johannes von Hartelius. The false Templar. I would know him anywhere. Look at the scar on his face where the Saracen quarrel cut him.’

  Hartelius could see Heilsburg amongst the crowd of Templars surrounding him. His friend was talking urgently to Fournival. Explaining things to him. Probably telling him what a fool Hartelius had been ever to come calling at his bitterest enemy’s camp.

  Someone held a burning brand close to Hartelius’s face. Other Templars began adding their Groschen-worth of opinion to Himmelstreich’s outpourings. Hartelius tried to shake off the arms that held him, but to no avail. He was borne bodily back towards the centre of the camp.

  Is it to be now? he said to himself. Is it all to end here? Far from my love and my child, in this benighted desert, under an alien moon?

  He came to his senses again when they stood him outside von Drachenhertz’s tent.

  The man will gut me in front of everybody. He will have my entrails out and leave me for the ants, just as Heilsburg says. And I will have deserved it for my stupidity in taking God’s mantle for my own, and challenging fate.

  Hartelius could hear the margrave’s personal guard whispering to the captain. ‘The margrave is with a new woman. I cannot disturb him. He will have my ears cut off.’

  ‘I will cut your ears off now if you do not call him. And your nose. And your tongue. Then I will start on your feet and travel upwards again until I reach
the crown of your head.’

  The guard turned pale, saluted, and slipped in under the tent flap. There was a loud shout, as indeed of someone being obnoxiously disturbed. Then a rustling and a crashing.

  The next thing Hartelius knew, von Drachenhertz was standing in front of him, half naked, his penis at half mast, his eyes alight with victory.

  ‘So. You came for your friend the Amir. I knew you would. Idiots like you sicken me. You are so predictable. For you, friendship counts over common sense.’

  Von Drachenhertz looked back over his shoulder towards the tent. His mind, it seemed, was still partially on other things. Some of the men around him exchanged knowing glances.

  ‘I am far too busy to torture you now. Virgins like the one I am just about to deflower do not grow on trees.’ Von Drachenhertz laughed at his own joke. ‘Shall I have you castrated straight away?’ He looked down at Hartelius’s midriff and then at his own. ‘No. You shall think about it for a night. About everything I intend to do to you. And before I destroy you, you shall write out your apologia for our king. While you still can. It shall be sealed inside the Holy Lance and sent back to Mainz, alongside your skull. When I have made enough play with it, that is. I shall drink out of your eye sockets, Hartelius, and suck jelly from your pate. Dwell on that for a few hours. For now, I am otherwise engaged.’ Von Drachenhertz turned back to his tent. He snatched open the flap and peered inside. He looked back at Hartelius. ‘I am about to do something you will never do again, Templar. Now who is the cuckold? Now who is the fool?’

  ‘Where shall we put him, Lord?’ said the captain.

  ‘Give him pen and paper and throw him in with the Amir. I want them guarded by a thousand men. They can bugger each other to their heart’s content if they so choose. Far be it from me to deprive a man of his final fling with anyone other than my intended bride. Tomorrow, at dawn. . .’ He hesitated, his eyes still on the inside of the tent. ‘Tomorrow at midday we begin the torture. Arrange a feast. We shall eat while Hartelius screams. There will be no need for other music.’

  FIFTY-FIVE

  ‘So you came.’ The Amir watched Hartelius from across the tent. His guards had chained him to a neck collar, which was, in turn, chained to a pillar.

  Hartelius was chained on the opposite side of the room. Both men’s chains measured approximately five feet from haft to lock. Even placed end to end they would not have allowed the men the possibility of anything other than a distant nod to each other.

  ‘I came. Yes,’ said Hartelius.

  ‘I knew you would.’

  ‘I, on the other hand, did not. I am a surprise to myself.’

  Both men laughed.

  ‘I had thought they would at least have disembowelled you by now. Von Drachenhertz’s threats are seldom plucked from thin air.’

  ‘He has a virgin to deflower. He wished to prove to his men that he has his priorities right. That he does not attach much importance to me.’

  ‘But he does.’

  ‘Yes. You know that and I know that. But the margrave is a man who likes to grandstand. The night is not good enough to do what he wants to do to me. It must be done in broad daylight, with a few thousand men watching. And a party alongside. That’s how von Drachenhertz does these things.’

  ‘And yet you don’t seem scared.’

  ‘Why should I be? I shall be dead long before his torturers get to me.’

  ‘How, may I ask?’

  ‘You will kill me.’

  The Amir sat back on the floor of the tent. He pointed to his chain. ‘But I can’t get to you.’

  ‘But you will. Von Drachenhertz will insist that you watch what he does to me. I have a stiletto concealed in my boot. Small, it is true. But still sharp. As we are taken outside I shall leap on you as if we are in some way enemies. I shall have the stiletto in my hand. I would appreciate your using it on me.’

  ‘Why don’t you do it yourself?’

  ‘My faith forbids it. But neither your faith nor mine forbids you killing me. Will you do it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thank you. I should not like to be made a public spectacle of by a man I despise. And now, Amir, I must write my apologia to the king.’

  ‘And you will do this thing? You will write an apologia for something you are not responsible for?’

  ‘Yes. To disguise something else.’

  The Amir smiled. ‘Ah. The Copper Scroll. My Sufi master, Ibn Arabi, translated it for you, did he not?’

  ‘You knew he would.’

  ‘I did. Yes.’

  ‘This was a great gift you gave me.’

  ‘And this is why you came back for me? To repay him?’

  ‘No. I came back for you because I love you as a friend. My love for you is beyond explanation. I could not have done otherwise.’

  Both men fell silent. After a little while, Hartelius began scratching out his apologia on the parchment he had been given.

  Ten minutes later, he looked up. ‘Amir, what is the wildest and most absurd place that one might hide something? The most likely, and yet the most unlikely?’

  The Amir sat back and stared at Hartelius as if his friend had temporarily lost his senses.

  ‘Imagine, for a moment, that I have sent my Templars to hide this thing. Within, let us say, a month’s ride from here. Somewhere that might seem logical to a man obsessed with his own greatness. And a place that would cause him the maximum amount of inconvenience to approach.’

  The Amir thought for a while. ‘The scroll tells of Solomon’s Temple, does it not?’

  ‘It does, yes. And the key to the treasure that will fund its building.’

  ‘Then have it hidden in Solomon’s Prison.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘Near a place called the Takht-e-Soleyman – Solomon’s Castle. It is beyond Arbil. Beyond Bukan. And near Takab, in Persia.’

  ‘This is a real place?’

  ‘This is a terrible place. A place where monsters were once imprisoned. All know of it. The Kurds who live there guard their lands very diligently. Whoever goes to find it will have their work cut out. They will likely not return.’

  ‘Good. This strikes me as the perfect hiding place. Forgive me while I urinate into my hand. I need to inscribe this into a poor, but almost invisible code. After you have killed me, I want von Drachenhertz to discover it. I want him to set off in pursuit of my Templar Knights. The imagined ones I will have sent to Solomon’s Prison, of course. It will amuse me, while I pass my time in purgatory, to know that this man is ordering his men off on a wild goose chase to the east, while my true knights head for Sicily and the west.’

  The Amir remained silent while Hartelius wrote. And then, at last, he spoke.

  ‘I am not sure I will be able to kill you.’

  ‘Yes, you will. You have killed many men. I am a man like any other.’

  ‘You are my brother. You are more than my brother.’

  ‘For that very reason you will kill me. No man can bear what von Drachenhertz has in store for me. I have lived my life according to certain principles. I do not wish to fail those principles at my death. Not in front of men I have fought with.’

  ‘Will they not try to save you?’

  ‘No. There is no chance of that.’

  A guard came in and held his hand out for the parchment and quill that Hartelius had been using. Hartelius gave them to him. The guard watched him for a moment, and then shook his head.

  Hartelius looked up at him. ‘Do I detect sadness in your gaze?’

  The guard nodded. ‘Yes, Commander. Many here are uncomfortable with what will happen to you tomorrow.’

  ‘But still. It will happen, will it not?’

  ‘Yes, Commander. There is nothing that I, or any man here, can do about it.’

  ‘Then thank you for your courtesy in telling me of your feelings.’

  The man touched his chest very lightly with his fist, as a Roman soldier might. ‘They say wine helps. If I smug
gled you in a flagon, would you drink it?’

  ‘Assuredly.’

  ‘Then I shall do so.’

  ‘Thank you again.’

  The guard left.

  ‘Was he one of yours? A Templar?’

  Hartelius shook his head. ‘No. A simple soldier. But he will know that I retrieved the Holy Lance from Frederick Barbarossa’s knapsack on the Saleph River. Frederick Barbarossa was their beloved king. The Holy Lance was Barbarossa’s symbol. A little of Barbarossa’s glory, might, in their eyes, have rubbed off on me.’

  ‘But still they will not help you.’

  ‘No. A soldier is a soldier. He does what he is paid to do. And von Drachenhertz pays them well.’

  The Amir looked at his chains. ‘Is it possible that you could open these chains with your stiletto? The locks are simple. Then I might embrace you for a final time.’

  Hartelius looked down. ‘Yes. It is possible.’ He waited for the guard to return with the wine. When the man was gone he slipped the stiletto from his boot and began manipulating the lock. In a little while it fell open. Hartelius walked across to the Amir and did the same for him. Then they embraced and waited together for the dawn.

  FIFTY-SIX

  At first light Hartelius returned to his corner of the tent. He snapped the lock back so that it appeared to be shut. He had left the stiletto with the Amir, on the understanding that, as soon as they were taken outside, the Amir would kill him.

  But it was not to be.

  At a little after ten in the morning the guards returned. Hartelius was unclipped and led outside. The Amir was left where he was.

  As Hartelius walked alongside the guards, he knew that he had left his one possible means of exit back in the tent. Could he have killed himself? Everything that he had ever been taught mitigated against it. Suicides were buried outside consecrated ground. Could he have forced himself to overcome this taboo and hasten his own death? Yes. He probably could. But now there was no option. His one comfort was to know that he had left the Amir with the means, at the very least, to defend himself.

  ‘What is to happen to me? I thought this farce was due to start at midday?’ Hartelius said to the guard who had brought him last night’s wine.