The Seal

by Adriana Koulias

  Etienne was in agreement. ‘I am glad Jacques de Molay is moved to safety since the same had struck me.’

  The other man let out a breath of air rendered inaudible by the cry of a gull. He sucked another in and said all in a rush, ‘Then again, perhaps Ayme is right to make friends upon the island, Etienne . . . what do you think of it? Perhaps Ayme believes the Grand Master is losing a wit? Since his appointment and even before that at Acre the old man has been staring into distant places, places that I do not see with these eyes!’ He made a spasm of movements. ‘More and more he makes himself mysterious, and it is no wonder the men begin to think him unravelling. I confess I do not know where he is taking us! Deceiving the world and ourselves and at the same time reveal¬ing our plans to Ayme d’Oselier, a man he suspects to be a traitor!’ Marcus persuaded Etienne forward. ‘And now this business with Roger de Flor, whom I do not trust. After all, this is the Order’s entire treasure I am taking with me, Etienne. You know as well as I, it is all that is left in the east since Ruad. At the loss of it, what would be left of the glory of the Temple? What would be left to us?’

  ‘I do not know,’ Etienne said, plain and short.

  Marcus nodded his head, vindicated, and pressed on. ‘You see? Not you. Not you, nor I, and that is why such a duty is likely to send me to the edge of madness! Therefore I do not trust even myself!’ He was circling Etienne. ‘I do not trust my own thoughts! That is what it has come to!’

  Etienne stared into the dark disc of that face and a concern rose to his throat.

  This man will put the entire business of the voyage and the task of hiding the gold at risk.

  In the end, however, he was the Grand Master’s choice, and a man such as Jacques de Molay could readily see into a man’s soul and so Etienne made his voice sound serene and confident. ‘I would have no argument with you, if you were wretched and feeble, Marcus, madness is their luxury, but it is not ours, not yours and not mine.’

  There was a long pause. Gulls made more cries out in the water. Marcus gave a short stiff laugh. ‘Yes, there is no provision in the rule for madness and none for luxury!’

  ‘Things go to pieces.’ Etienne was looking at the dark around them. ‘I wish it were different.’

  ‘You wish it were different? Well, so do I, so do I.’ There was a sigh and his voice sounded lighter. ‘No, perhaps I shall not go mad . . . You see? There . . . how the Bear shines this night in that black sky! Perhaps it is a good omen?’

  There was a sharp whisper. ‘They are here!’ It was Andrew.

  There was the movement and shadows of a barge loaded with men and slaves. It pulled into shore and let down a ramp into the soft sand.

  A figure came off the barge and began to walk towards the Templars. Etienne guessed it to be Roger de Flor. When he heard a voice giving instructions to the slave master he recognised it.

  ‘Grand Commander,’ his voice sounded fulsome and active.

  ‘It is I.’

  ‘I will need your men to help the slaves with the shipment. The sun will come over that rise in a short time and it befits our going before we are seen. Well!’ A boot hit the side of a barrel. ‘You seem to have enough here to buy a kingdom!’

  Marcus answered with stiffness, in no dilemma, his voice indicated, as to which of them stood in the more favourable position before God. ‘Cyprus was at one time bought and sold by the Temple.’

  ‘And now, Commander, the Temple flees from the island once more like ducks seeking shelter for the winter.’

  ‘I am glad to leave this place since it suits me ill to live among spies and thieves!’ Then he was gone, headed for the beach and the barge.

  Roger de Flor made a laugh, hearty and loud, and searched the night. ‘What passion!’ he said. ‘Where is Etienne? Is that you in this darkness?’

  ‘They said you died at Adrianople.’

  ‘I?’ Roger gave another laugh. ‘I am immortal! Andronicus should have known as much. Now he will have to keep not only Turks but his own son from cutting out his tongue and gouging out his eyes. That is his payment for contriving to have me killed. In any case, I was sick to death of those treacherous Greeks – they would kill their own bed-ridden grandmother if it were to their advantage. For my part I paid highly to keep them in their fine illusion that I am in God’s heaven, and I must say, Etienne, being dead to the world brings a new sweetness to life! Tell me, truly!’ He pulled the Templar away from the goings-on at the shore towards the scraggly trees bent by years of wind. ‘Your friend seems not changed since last I saved his life,’ he said. ‘He continues reserved and gloomy and I suspect he leans his heart against the pinions of his pride – not a health-some activity these days.’

  It seemed to Etienne an unhappy event when a mercenary could so easily discern the complex state of mind of a Grand Commander of the Order of the Temple. Such a thing left it open and defenceless and it left him without a word to say in return.

  Roger changed the subject. ‘On a different tack, tell me, did you meet with trouble?’

  ‘No trouble.’

  ‘Good. Then perhaps this fool’s game of hide and seek shall yet succeed. The Grand Master awaits you. The other galley is to the north at Salamis and I will give you three men to take with you in case of mischief. You see how I lay my thoughts upon your cares? These men are smart and their word is sure. Best of all they are disinterested in loyalties since they are paid to render good service – while the money lasts.’ There was a white smile in the darkness.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Gideon is one, the other is Aubert. They are Normans – strange, dangerous men, their blood is tainted with Viking.’

  ‘What! More than your own Teuton blood, Duke of Romania?’

  There was a laugh. ‘Yes, by God! Even more than mine! They are Christian by a hair’s-breadth and this means they hold fast to their old customs, but apart from that they are as solid as a wall and as steady – and the best part is, they do not feel pain like the rest of us.’

  Etienne thought of Jourdain’s previous words concerning pain and courage and realised that once again the boy was filling his head with thoughts he did not need.

  ‘There is also a Catalan,’ Roger de Flor continued, ‘my best man. He was with me at Adrianople and fought valiantly in the

  fortress of Gallipoli to avenge me, his dead master! His name is Delgado – he is a cunning creature who laughs while he cuts your throat from ear to ear – a more agreeable assassin you shall not encounter!’

  ‘Mercenaries . . .’ Etienne said it as if the word was poison in his mouth.

  ‘I prefer to use a different language, to me they are warriors without faith.’

  Etienne thought this through. ‘And the Grand Master has agreed?’

  ‘He agrees that you are short on loyal men and I have an abundance. Take it as a gift. You may return them to me at Tomar.’

  This concern increased the burden upon Etienne’s shoulders. Andrew was right: all things were disordered and out of temper when Knights of the Temple had no other recourse than to rely on the charity of a renegade and the protection of mercenaries.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Roger asked him.

  ‘Do?’

  ‘Upon this passage?’

  Such a question seemed strange to Etienne, he felt as if he would smile at it; instead he took a breath and the smell of rosemary and lavender mingled with the salt air in his lungs. ‘I will see to the safety of the Grand Master,’ he told him.

  ‘And you aim to march into France with him?’

  Etienne hesitated, not wishing to disclose the delicate nature of the dangers facing the Grand Master. ‘To attend to the business of the Order.’

  Roger’s voice was full of scorn. ‘They lure you with some enticement – a pretext, my friend, for other machinations, I assure you. I was there last year. I saw Philip roast Jews like chestnuts on his island. That man lives to smell burning flesh when it brings him profit.’

  Etienne fel
l sceptical. ‘You seem to know much.’

  ‘A merchant must know everything, or else he is not a merchant!’ There came understanding. ‘By my beard! You believe old man Clement will keep you safe! Well, well, there exists an abyss between us, Etienne, quite naturally, for you still have your faith, while I do not!’ Then, having observed the silent disapproval, he added, ‘The Pope is a Frenchman and to Philip he owes the keys of Peter – this is a singular convenience for a French king who has run out of money and bodies to burn. There are rumours . . . of treachery.’

  Etienne changed the subject. ‘This is fine talk coming from a deserter and a traitor.’

  ‘A deserter, certainly, but I am no traitor. I gave back all the gold I made at Acre to the Order. That is the truth of it. I admit that I wanted the Falcon, a finer ship you will not find anywhere and, besides, my father was a falconer! She is on her way to Syria to bring back silver and silk. But on that other matter, Etienne . . . I know that you must do your duty to a Grand Master whose mind is bent on his schemes and I’ll say no more on it except that you may rest easy, I am paid well to make the gold of the Order my business.’

  The slaves moved backward and forward along the beach. The sound of their grunting and the jingle of their chains made a mark in the silence. A faint light smudged the horizon. Etienne could now see that Roger de Flor was dressed in a dark cloak in the eastern style, a shirt and doublets. As it became lighter his face came into view, horribly cut and disordered as if divided and reassembled in haste. Etienne did not look away, but stared through the mangled flesh to the eyes. He was anxious to be off and away from this man.

  ‘It is light.’ He began to walk to the shore.

  ‘When the Order passes, Etienne, will you know why you live and die?’

  The wind freshened. ‘Do you know why you live and die?’ Etienne gave back.

  ‘To expand my trade! Why else?’ The man laughed. ‘I was on my way to Scotland in any case.’

  ‘Scotland?’ Etienne paused, his mind moving over the words.

  ‘When the worst comes we can sail to Foyle from Portugal and from there to my holdings on the west – but there is the channel to think of; this is King Edward’s sea all the way to Ireland and beyond it to Scotland, and it crawls with English galleys warring with Robert Bruce. It would be best to take a wide loop around the west coast of Ireland to avoid them. It may take longer but we can do it in good time with a fair breeze at our backs.’ He paused a moment, turning his head like an intelligent dog.

  ‘You did not know?’

  Etienne walked on and let his teeth worry his lip to prevent him from losing his calm. He had been kept in a dark room that was now lit by a mercenary. It left him feeling bewildered and disquieted.

  Roger came beside him. ‘You will adjust to it, things move fast in the world.’

  He did not look at the man. ‘In your world, not mine.’

  Roger de Flor gave out a whistle. ‘This is your world now! The world of ordinary men.’ He held him by the arm. ‘You shall see you are not worth less for living in it, though you will need to recast yourself anew!’

  Etienne shrugged away his hand. ‘A light metal cannot hold the same value.’

  The mercenary followed. ‘Well then, I admire you for it, Etienne. Leaning on the rule has shaped you in God’s image.’

  Etienne did not turn around but spoke over his shoulders: ‘I am not the image of God’s because I lean on the rule, de Flor! I lean on it to stop me from falling over the rim of the world!’

  ‘Ahh!’ the mercenary said, waving it away with a hand full of rings that reflected the light they gathered. ‘Some of us must live on the rim of the world! But then we had best lean on gold, it is far more steady than a rule!’

  They heard Marcus call out to them from the beach then, where a rose sun hung over the water throwing hints of day over the barge that was loaded up and ready to go.

  5

  ETIENE AND ITERIUS

  There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.

  II Corinthians 12:7

  The morning had moved forward and the warmth was fast becoming heat on the backs and shoulders of the five men upon their horses as they travelled from the little bay towards the house at Famagusta.

  Below eyes hooded from the harsh light, Iterius observed the seneschal, riding in front on his Spanish horse. The man was tall and edge-faced with eyes the colour of sky, framed by dark brows in a head that was well placed on broad shoulders uneven in height. The arms were long and ended in hands that expressed good breeding and the clear thoughts of the man who guided them.

  The Alexandrian frowned, narrowing his eyes. It was hot. The sweat dripped along his brow under his hair and over his nose. He might not be handsome like his lord, Etienne, but he was quick-witted. Quick-witted men survived whilst handsome ones found themselves on pyres or at the end of swords.

  The seneschal must have had an instinct, for he turned around and threw Iterius a suspicious eye. Iterius for his part smiled back and followed as they picked their way through the flat track bordered by a meagre scattering of dying olive trees. The beauty of an aquamarine ocean upon which the sun bent its rays winked at him but it was lost on the Alexandrian, who dragged a hand over his brow to hide from the sun. He did not like Cyprus. It was to his mind a place hot and damned.

  He looked behind him to the biggest of the Normans, Gideon, who was singing low a song in his own vulgar language. A little ahead of the seneschal, the younger, whom they called Aubert, was sweating inside the sleeveless skin he wore for a shirt. Both men seemed of violent disposition with their twisted beards and jewellery made of bones and teeth. Iterius shuddered. He would have as little to do with them as he could. Well ahead of the group the tall dark-skinned Catalan, Delgado, rode elegantly, adjusting maggots on a wound upon his arm and riding as he did so, as if the horse were made of his own sinew and muscle. Next to him rode the beautiful Captain Jourdain, with his hair the colour of wheat and his long lashes, brown eyes and perfect mouth uttering verses from Plato or Aristotle. He felt desire rise up and he made it ebb away since he must contrive.

  It was his guess that the Catalan was more dangerous than the Normans, in the same way that snakes are more dangerous than bulls. And Jourdain, while beautiful to behold and gentle of voice, had been known to cut the face of a Mameluk in two while reciting something poetic from Virgil. He grunted. From the air descended sweet scents and the promise of swollen fruits. It filled him with romantic notions and he gave a sigh and waited until he could wait no more.

  ‘That galley,’ he said to the trees and the heat, ‘it seemed weighed down at the finish of it, something heavy in those barrels . . . something very heavy.’

  The seneschal stared ahead but his mount lagged behind until it was almost level with Iterius’s horse. ‘Did you not keep your eyes to the road then, Egyptian?’ he said to him.

  The sergeant ignored this. ‘What could be so heavy, my lord? Not lead as ballast, surely? Not lead but –’

  There was a sudden sharp movement to his right, a blur of images and Iterius felt himself upon the ground with his long face and nose smelling dust, and his limbs having fallen into a complicated tangle with a withering shrub. His head throbbed and from his right ear came the hot sensation of blood.

  Beside that ear came the sound of Etienne’s voice. ‘You do not observe the rule!’ he whispered. ‘There are ears in the bushes and in the olive trees, ears even in the wind!’

  Iterius gasped and swallowed dirt, something at his back and something else pinning down his arm. The voice came close to his ear again and made a heat in it. ‘Who sends you?’

  The Egyptian now observed the plain fact that the voice would have an answer and that even in his state of discomfort he must do so or risk certain unpleasant consequences. ‘Who?’ he prevaricated.

  ‘Yes . . . by all means!’ the voice said.

  ‘Who has sent me?’ he said, emitting little gasps.
‘Yes . . . yes . . . I will tell.’ He opened one eye and saw a snake before his nose going about its business. Snakes made good poison, he thought; if only he had such a snake in his hand, one bite could put this nuisance from his back and this voice from his ear. The snake moved like a flash into the undergrowth and was gone. ‘I will tell, but ... Ah! I ... am ... short of ... breath . . .’

  There was a sudden relief of pressure that seemed to him twofold: upon his back, what must have been a knee or an elbow was now released, and in front, upon the dry earth, where his fingers drew under his sergeant’s cloak to push up with his hands, there was a hot wetness – urine.

  But his lord Etienne stood over him with his face full of danger. ‘Are we to find menace upon the road ahead of us?’

  The sergeant pushed himself up onto his knees, attempting to gather his wits. ‘Yes.’

  Having somewhat recovered, he contrived to stand but found himself swaying before the sound of laughter that came as if from the trees. It was a sound absurd and unsuited to his circumstances and as he stood, uncertain, he tried to guess if it were coming from God or man. With one eye then, he saw that the Normans and the Catalan were off their horses and laughing like anything. Jourdain was standing next to the seneschal wearing a grin. This joviality filled him, therefore, with a slight but logical irritation that was moderated by the frowning face of his superior and the possible hurts which awaited him.

  He heard Etienne tell the Normans to get back on their animals whereupon he returned his attention to Iterius who was curving and bending and swaying. ‘Are you a king’s spy, or a spy for the Temple bankers?’

  ‘None of those.’ Iterius was shaking his head and spitting blood from his mouth.

  Etienne rubbed the sweat from his neck and Iterius realised that his superior found this game of questions peculiarly annoying.

  ‘What then?’ he said.