The Last Templar

by Michael Jecks

  “The Templar in charge was Peter de Severy, God bless him! I owe him my life. He had some boats and ships at his disposal, and he sent some of the wounded away. I was one, Edgar another. I had managed to break my leg when I stumbled over stones while I helped in the defence, and I could help no longer. Edgar’s wound was bad too, so we left together. It was only a few days later that the Temple fell, and all inside were killed by the Saracens.

  “Edgar and I were taken to Cyprus, where we were looked after by the Templars and nursed back to health. We were lucky - many others died. I was still young, but I had no cause to fight for and no land to keep me, and Edgar was without a knight to serve. It seemed to us that we were part of a divine plan, we had been given a new reason for existence. We were able to speak to the knights and observe their ways, and we were so grateful, and so impressed with them, that we decided to join them. I had nothing to come back to England for -I had no home, not since my brother had taken the estates - so I think it was from a feeling of loyalty and a sense of God’s will that I joined the knights. They had helped me and shown me kindness, and I wanted to repay the debt.”

  “You were a Templar!” said Simon, sitting bolt upright and staring at him with horror.

  “I was honoured to become a Templar,” said Baldwin calmly. “Do not believe the stories. Do not think we were blasphemers or heretics. How could we be? My companions had fought and died for the Holy Land, to win back Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Would they have done that if they were heretics? Would they have accepted death rather than renounce Christ? Have you heard of Safed? No? When the castle at Safed was taken by the Saracens, two hundred Templars were captured and offered life if they would renounce their faith. Two hundred, and all chose to die. They were killed, one at a time, in front of the others. Not one agreed to denounce his faith, not one! Can you really believe that such men were heretics?

  “No. I was proud to become a Templar, to be accepted as a warrior for God. My only regret is’ - his voice dropped a little as he stared at Simon - ‘that I was still alive when the Order was destroyed.”

  Simon and Hugh stared at him as he spoke. Simon could remember clearly the stories about the Templars, the dreadful knights who had betrayed the whole of Christendom with their revolting crimes, and yet… It seemed that this man, for whom he had respect, revered them. How could that be, unless he was badly misled by them? Could he be guilty of the same crimes?

  Baldwin continued, a little defensively now as he read the expression on Simon’s face. “We were warrior monks, you understand? We took the same vows as monks - of poverty, chastity and obedience. We were the oldest order of knights, far older than the Teutonic Knights, and older even than the Hospitallers. We were created after the First Crusade to defend the pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land, and we were in every battle from then until the fall of Acre - that’s two hundred years.”

  “So why were you all—‘ Hugh started, sarcastically.

  “Shut up, Hugh, let him finish,” Simon snapped.

  “Well, maybe you will understand when I have finished,” the knight continued. “I joined the Order. I was sent back to France to learn how to fight and to be shown how best to serve the Order, and I lived there, in Paris, for several years.” He looked over at his servant as he spoke, and there was a softening in his eyes. “Edgar was with me. I had saved his life, and when I joined the Order he asked to join me there. He had no knightly training, no training in how to use a sword, but he could work with me, so he became my esquire.

  “It was good to feel a part of the army of Christ, to have forsworn the earthly pleasures and to be able to live a life dedicated to the honour of God and Christ. It was all I really wanted.

  “But one day - it was Wednesday the fourth of October in the year thirteen hundred and seven. I remember it so well!

  - I was sent to the coast to deliver a message to a vessel

  sailing for Crete. I do not know what was in the message,

  but it was urgent, apparently. The new Grand Master,

  Jacques de Molay, had asked that it be sent quickly and,

  because he too was English, he asked me to take it. That is

  why Edgar and I were out of Paris when it happened.

  “On Friday the thirteenth the Temple in Paris and all other temples in France were raided by men sent by the French king. God! That date will live forever as the blackest in history - only the death of Christ himself could be more deplorable!” His eyes gleamed with an almost maniacal rage as he shouted the words, but he calmed himself with an effort and fell back, tired by the burst of energy it had taken.

  “We were on our way back when we were warned about what was happening in Paris. It seemed impossible, incredible, that the Order should be arrested. But it was.” His voice was flat now, dead; as if his life had ended with the destruction of the Temple he had served for so long. He shuddered once, in a great convulsion that made him spill some of the wine in his mug, but then he smiled sadly, staring again at the flames.

  “Edgar refused to let me go and find out. He insisted that I stay outside the city while he went inside to discover what was happening. We parted in a wood outside Paris, and arranged to meet again two days later. Well, we met as we had agreed, and he confirmed what we had been told. The Temple was accused of crimes so revolting that the king himself was forced to take matters into his own hands. He did so, with great enthusiasm!

  “He ordered that all Templars should immediately be arrested, even the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. Poor Jacques! They were all taken and put in irons. There were not enough prisons for the Poor Soldiers of Christ, so most of them were chained within the Templar buildings all over France. Held in their own Temples!

  “Edgar and I travelled around the country, and by chance we came across friends, in the woods south of Lyons. That would have been in thirteen hundred and ten. By then, of course, we had already heard about the confessions. Did you know how the men were questioned? No? Be thankful you will never have to answer to the Inquisition! And they accused us of being evil!

  “We were with the men outside Lyons when we heard about the pope’s council at Vienne in the following year.” He gave a quick laugh, like a mirthless bark. “You should have seen him! He held his great council to denounce us. Us, the Templars! We who only lived to serve him and God, he wanted to denounce us. The others there, the archbishops, the bishops and the cardinals, all wanted to hear our defence. You see, when the men in the prisons had been asked whether they would defend the Order, any who said they would were killed, burned at the stake by the archbishop of Sens, damn him! Over fifty men in a morning, just because they said they would stand up and defend the Temple. So, when the pope asked for other Templars to defend the Order, I think he thought there were none that would come forward. But the other men of God at Vienne, the bishops and archbishops, guaranteed safe passage to any that would come and defend the Order, so I and six others thought, well, why not? And we went!

  “I thought he was going to pass out when we walked up the steps to the chamber! Clement sat there on his throne, and when we walked in wearing our Templar tunics, he went bright red and, if his throne’s arms were not so high, I think he would have fallen out!

  The clergy were grateful for us, I think, because they honestly wanted to know what our evidence was, and they listened to us carefully. But when we said that there were more of us near Lyons, nearly two thousand of us, the pope seemed to have a fit of the vapours! He ran from the chamber, and we were told a little later that we were to be arrested. I think it was because his palace was close to Lyons, and he feared for his life with almost two thousand Templars so close to his home. Anyway, the other clerics all clamoured for our release because they had promised us safe passage, and we were set free in a short while. We left Vienne by night, unobserved, and returned to our friends.

  “After that it seemed clear that there was nowhere safe for us. It was obvious that the pope was willing to see the Order destroyed, so
there seemed no point in continuing. Many of us left and returned to our homelands, and many joined the other Orders. Some joined the Teutonic Knights, some went to the Hospitallers, and many joined the monks. Some of us, though, wanted to know what had happened, and we determined to find out, and if it was possible, we wanted our revenge.” He sipped from his mug. “It took two years, but at last we found out the truth.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Simon sat gazing at the knight with a mixture of consternation and disbelief. It seemed incredible that the tall man’s story could be true, but every word spoke of his conviction. Baldwin sat relaxed, his eyes roving slowly from Simon to Hugh, and moving on to the fire, occasionally resting on Edgar. He seemed to have passed beyond worry, as if he knew his tale would not be believed, as if he knew he was to die and cared little for the fact. He seemed to have given up, as if he had dreamed of rest and peace down here in the quiet of Devon, but had found only a new struggle to cope with.

  His eyes were half-lidded now, making him look tired, as if weary from the strain of recollection, but Simon could still see the glitter in them. At first he had thought it was the gleam of anger at being discovered, but now he felt sure it was directed not at him but at Oliver de Penne, the man he had killed, as if killing him had not been enough to wipe away the depth of the crime he had committed against Baldwin and his friends.

  Hugh shifted uneasily in his seat as the knight continued.

  “It was obvious we could not stay in France. The French king and the pope seemed to be dedicated to the destruction of the Temple, and to the death or removal of all Knights Templar. The punishments were varied, but any man who had confessed under torture and then retracted his admission was to be burned at the stake.

  “The Order was fortunate in having one man who could defend it, Peter de Bologna, a man who had been Preceptor of the Temple in Rome, and a man of great learning as well as a man who understood the Church. With his knowledge he could fight the case using the Church’s laws. When he examined the witnesses against the Order, it soon became clear that there was no concrete proof of anything. The witnesses referred to hearsay, or were proved to be liars, and de Bologna took full advantage of our enemies’ confusion.

  “Now, at about this time, the old archbishop of Sens died, and a new man had to be found. The new archbishop was a friend of the French king, Philip de Marigny. As soon as he took office he moved quickly. He confirmed sentences on the individual Templars in prison - even while their trials were continuing. In one morning he had fifty-four Knights taken out to the stakes and burned.”

  Baldwin’s head dropped, as if in prayer, and Simon felt a chilly stab of pain as he saw the tears falling down the knight’s face. Baldwin put a hand up to his brow, holding his head for a minute in silence. The only sound in the room was the fizz and crackle of the burning logs on the fire, and Simon’s eyes were drawn to them as he thought about the deaths of those men.

  The knight sat up, wiping his face. “My apologies, but I had friends among that group,” he said, his eyes on the floor. “Peter de Bologna was taken by this same archbishop and sentenced to life in prison. He was not allowed to continue his defence of the Order. But Peter was a shrewd and resourceful man. He managed to escape from his bonds in his gaol, and made off, living rough in the countryside until he managed to make his way to Spain. I met him there.

  “Peter was ever a stalwart figure, as I remembered him.

  When I found him in Spain he was soldiering again, but not with one of the Orders. I had gone there because I had the idea of joining the Knights Hospitaller. The Spanish were never convinced of the guilt of the Templars, as, indeed, our own king, Edward, was not. The Spanish had always fought alongside the Templars in their struggle to keep the Moorish hordes at bay, and they knew that the Templars were an honourable Order, so it seemed a good place for me to go to. I thought I could join another Order and find peace.

  “But Peter de Bologna wanted none of that. You see, during his trial, he had been able to see some papers while he was trying to defend our Order. He could not join another Order afterwards - he was too bitter. He remained as a soldier of fortune, fighting for what he believed, fighting to protect Christendom.

  “I should explain, for you probably don’t know how the Templars were organised, but as the Pope is Christ’s vicar on earth, and therefore has power over all men, even kings, so the Knights Templar were answerable only to the Pope, because they were the most holy of all Orders, being created to protect pilgrims. What Peter saw during his defence of the Order was a paper that gave the names of all of the men who had given false witness against us. One of the commissioners was helpful and allowed Peter to see more when he asked, I think because he wanted to see the Order have a fair trial, and some of them showed that there was a conspiracy against us.

  “At first, Peter could not believe what he saw, because it seemed too awful. The papers showed that the French king and the pope were in league to destroy the Order, but not because of the crimes alleged. No. For one reason only-they wanted our money! That was all!” He was sitting forward now, his despair at the futility of the destruction of his Order plain on his face as he stared unblinking at Simon, as if trying to transfer his feelings of betrayal and anguish in that single, penetrating and concentrated gaze.

  Simon found his own feelings stirring in sympathy and he had to struggle to control his own composure. Now, at last, he could understand the dreadful scars of pain and loss he had noticed when he had first met this man.

  “The king wanted our money because he owed the Order for several debts, and he wanted to be able to forget them. We had loaned him money for his daughter’s dowry when he had arranged her marriage to Edward of England. We had loaned him money for his wars. We had helped him in many ways, and he wanted to be able to take all that we had and not repay the debts. He decided to destroy the Temple so that he could take everything, everything we had. The pope was in his power, because he lived in Avignon, not in Rome, and he wanted to have our money too. Not for the Church, but for himself.” He gave another short, sharp laugh. “And it worked! We never considered that the pope could betray us so badly, and we believed, in our innocence, that the French king was grateful for the help we had always given him. We never realised that because we helped him he would decide to destroy us!” He subsided and glared into the fire again, his eyes full of the hurt of the betrayal.

  “When Peter saw that, he swore never again to serve king or pope. From then he chose to serve God in his own way, and he did, fighting the Moors in Spain until his death a year ago. But before he died, he told me what he knew.

  “The French king had a helper called Guillaume de Nogaret. He was the devil himself, an evil man. He was bright and intelligent; he had been brought up by the Church after the death of his parents, and yet he seemed to hate it. It was he who decided that the way to destroy the Templars was to accuse us of heresy, and he went about it with vigour. He organised false confessions for money. Wherever there was a Templar who had been ejected from the Order, de Nogaret would search him out and bribe him to give false witness against the Order.

  “One man helped him more than any other. He arranged for false confessions of murder, of heresy and of idolatry, and then made sure that they were published. He spread tales of the evil-doings of the Order.

  “The same man arranged for confessions from among the Templars’ servants, admissions of idol worship and of new members being forced to spit on the cross—‘

  Simon interjected with heat. “But how can you say this? Are you telling me that all these accusations were false, all these crimes were invented? There were many, even I know that. Surely you cannot expect me to believe that they were ail untrue?”

  The knight looked at him with a small, sad smile. “But, my friend,” he said, “can the reverse be true? Think! All men who joined the Order were knights in their own right. All joined because they were holy, because they were committed, because they wanted to become
members of an Order that demanded of them that they take the vows of a monk, that demanded them to be honourable and godly, demanded their obedience and demanded their poverty. If you were to go to join an Order like that, would you then spit on the Holy Cross on your first day? Of course not! If you had decided to dedicate your life to Christ, if you had decided to give everything you had, if you had decided to fight whenever you were told in the Holy Land, would you as a first step defile the very symbol of God’s power? Could you believe that a monk would do that? Why should you expect a Templar to? It is not possible.” His sad eyes stared at Simon for a minute or two, until Simon was forced to nod. Put like that, it did seem improbable.

  “So, this man invented these things. He was not motivated by honour, he wanted money and power. And he won them. Oh yes, he won them!

  “We did not know his name or anything about him, he was too well guarded. All we knew was that he had been a Templar, a knight who had been recruited but who was evil. A twisted, vicious, greedy man who should never have been able to join our ranks. But how could we find his name? How could we discover his identity? Peter never did, but I managed to.