The Seal

by Adriana Koulias

  Presently he put her out of his mind as he came upon the door to the room behind the episcopal hall. A guard stood barring the way.

  De Plaisians smiled at the man.

  ‘In the name of the King I order you to allow me passage. I am assistant lawyer to Nogaret, Royal Keeper of the Seals of France.’

  The man hesitated and looked straight ahead. ‘I have orders from the Archbishop of Narbonne to allow no one . . .’

  ‘And . . .’ He raised one brow. ‘Pray tell me, good man, are you a royal guard?’

  The guard looked around him as though he were waking from a deep sleep. He nodded that he was.

  ‘Whose orders, then, do you follow?’

  The man was suddenly confounded.

  ‘What do you say, guard?’

  ‘The . . . King’s, monsieur . . .’

  ‘And you know who it was that built this church?’

  ‘The King, monsieur.’

  ‘Of course, and is this not an inquiry conducted on royal grounds, instigated by royal command? Your charge in this regard is clear then. If not, I shall be forced to call upon the King’s own private guard to remind you of your duty to his Highness.’ He leant forward confidentially and whispered, ‘Tell me, my friend, what do you fear more: the possibility of eternal fire or the promise of an earthly one?’ He spread his lips over perfect teeth.

  The man deliberated a moment, and moved directly to one side.

  Thus de Plaisians made his obtrusive entrance and, after finding a suitable position, sat down among the notaries, junior priests, assistants and servants of the inquiry, who were situated on wooden benches that flanked both sides of the room.

  De Plaisians scrutinised the bishops in their opulent cloaks, in particular the Bishop of Paris, whom he disliked intensely, for he considered the man’s intelligence to be as blunt as a pig’s snout. He was seated on a throne, whose width barely accommodated him, beside the presiding Archbishop of Narbonne.

  The Archbishop of Narbonne, Gilles Aicelin, saw him and nodded his head very slightly. He was the godfather of Charles, the King’s son, and nephew of the last all-powerful Keeper of the Seals, Pierre Flote. De Plaisian remembered how Gilles had endorsed his words before Pope Clement at Poitiers, comparing the Templars to the perverted Midianites, when only months before he had given up the royal seals because he could not sanction the arrests. Many had thought the archbishop a vacillating fool, but de Plaisians had understood the man’s dilemma: how could a man who secretly coveted the papacy apply quill to paper before knowing the temper of the cardinals whose support he nurtured? And again, how could he risk losing the benefices that were hinged upon his Majesty’s goodwill? Gilles Aicelin’s frail and capricious life had allowed him only one alternative: to bow out gracefully, an act which signalled displeasure at Philip’s impatience and lack of consultation with the Pope, but did nothing whatever to impede Philip – no doubt he had hoped that his past acquiescence in the kidnapping of Boniface and the poisoning of Benedict would be remembered.

  The Templars might imagine Gilles Aicelin to be their champion, a man whose thoughts fall upon their cares, but if the archbishop ever has a thought in that vacuous space between his ears, it is only for himself – he is his own darling.

  This made a smile rise to de Plaisian’s lips.

  He looked around, the other members he knew less well. There was Durant, the short, terse, Bishop of Mende; Bonnet Bishop of Bayeux, whom he had met only once or twice but whose foul, decaying breath had engraved itself on his memory. There was de la Porte, Bishop of Limoges, whose wet eyes and full pouting mouth gave him the look of a startled fish. The good-looking apostolic notary Matthew of Naples, renowned for his malodorous feet. The obese and foul-tempered Archdeacon of Maguelonne, as well as the Archdeacon of Trent, whose gaunt face promised the tortures of hell. Nogaret was present, and beside him the Inquisitor General, William of Paris.

  The hall was cold. An icy draught chilled the bones despite cloaks and stockings. Before the commissioners sat Jacques de Molay shivering, tired, weak, pathetic.

  He had known the Templar before the arrests. Then, de Molay’s heroic demeanour, his strength and firm morality had irritated him – his power he had envied fiercely. Now he did not even allow himself to feel pity, rather he felt a satisfying contempt, for if the truth were known he had never liked the man. At the funeral of Catherine of Valois he had commented to the Grand Master on the Order’s loss of Acre; the man had answered with extreme sensibility that the Order had survived Saladin, Baybars and Al-Ashraf, and that they would regain the Holy Land even if it meant that every man would spill his blood for Christ. Moreover, he had told him that only a lawyer would think otherwise, since lawyers were the darlings of courts and knew nothing of the hardships of battle.

  Fool, de Plaisians thought indifferently, you are on my territory now, we shall see if it is not equally arduous. He looked down at the man. What good is your zeal and your arrogance to you now that you are merely a broken body with vacant eyes and benumbed mind, soon to be a carcass on a pyre? Will God save the Grand Master of the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem? Will He draw you from out of the flames to show mankind the injustice of your sentence?

  Guillaume de Plaisians did not believe in God, and without Him everything was permissible. He simply obeyed the laws of his Church as an animal obeys an instinct necessary for its survival. He chose what he wanted to believe, and if he believed in anything at all, it was in the rules of efficacy. After all, he was a creature of the court, a man of the real world, and such a man knew that it was necessary to neglect virtues that might lead him to ruin, and practice vices that might bring him security and prosperity – and naturally so. Would Hannibal have amassed so many admirable achievements if not for his inhuman cruelty? Cruelty – alas! – was a necessity to a strong man. How else was one to keep one’s head above the dung heap?

  At that moment his attention turned to the Grand Master; the man was complaining that he could not argue a defence because he was a prisoner of both the Pope and the King and had no money to finance his purposes.

  ‘Not even four denarii,’ he told his judges.

  The Bishop of Paris leant forward and replied, ‘I wish you to understand, Monsieur de Molay, that in a case at law concerning heresy and the faith, we are to proceed in a fashion that is straightforward and unceremonious, without the clamour and formality of lawyers and judges.’

  The Grand Master became silent; he seemed unable to keep his head still for it moved in a series of jerks that travelled down his shoulders to his hands. He stood with difficulty since his feet were disfigured. ‘I must then, sires,’ he resumed, ‘reconcile myself and my men to a trial where we may present no defence, where only those who accuse us have lawyers at their disposal!’

  The archbishop clapped his hands decisively. ‘Strike that out!’ he told his notaries and moved his expressionless face to the Grand Master. ‘Clerk, read this man his confession to the cardinals at Chinon, out loud, so that he might hear how, with his own mouth, he has condemned his Order . . .’

  De Plaisians smiled as he heard the articles of confession and watched an astonishment surface over the Grand Master’s face comparable to the surfacing of stars from the depths of an early evening sky.

  Suddenly the Templar made the sign of the cross in front of his face, haggard and puckered by torment, and spat a wad of phlegm at the ground. ‘The Devil!’ he roared, shaking his head and jerking his arms. ‘Lies! Lies! Saracens and Tartars cut off the heads of liars and sinners and split them down the middle, and as I have risked my blood in the service of Christ by spilling the blood of the enemy, so will it be my pleasure to bring about such a fate to befall men who lie before God, before king, before all men living!’

  De Plaisians narrowed his eyes and raised one brow. The Templar was threatening to follow infidel custom, he was calling cardinals of the Church liars. It was almost too advantageous!

  Upon his throne Gilles Aicelin, Archbisho
p of Narbonne, frowned. Allowing his taciturn, bitter, irascible gaze to fall on the man from his great height he cautioned, ‘Persistent recanting heretics are given up to the secular arm, Monsieur de Molay. I suggest you calm yourself or we shall have no recourse than to cart you off at once to the pyre, for you are at each moment implicating yourself most adequately.’

  The Grand Master cast his eye around like a drowning man looking for a saving hand and his gaze fell upon de Plaisians. The lawyer sat forward, experiencing a deep sense of satisfaction that was tempered only by the tense expectation that a hunter feels on sighting his prey; will it remain, grazing on the dewy grass, or will it flee nimbly away from sight? As he watched, the Templar gave a sigh of relief that was mingled with a certain familiarity. Guillaume nodded his head at once, and raised his brows in a friendly gesture.

  ‘I . . . I . . . s-see a friend is here . . .’ the Grand Master said,

  ‘if it would please your honours, I might converse with Guillaume de Plaisians, for I fear I am in need of counsel . . .’

  De Plaisians stood, happy to display his influence in the presence of the commissioners and his master Nogaret. ‘If we may?’ he asked cordially.

  The commissioners looked from one man to the other. They seemed partly annoyed and partly puzzled, taken com¬pletely by surprise by the strange request. In the end, however, they acquiesced. What harm could it do? The Templar was plainly losing his mind.

  De Plaisians watched Philip de Voet, Provost of Poitiers, help the ailing man to him, after which they retired to a quiet corner where they could talk in relative privacy.

  There was a pause. Guillaume noticed that the man looked haggard, and that his face told of the survival of a thousand tortures. Something, however, had remained of the man he once knew, some intelligence in the depths of the man’s eyes, in the peculiar way he held his chin – up a little, so that he gave one the impression that he was a man of God looking down from his great height upon a world of simple creatures that he must either pity or instruct. Such things seemed to de Plaisians ludicrous but true, and it filled him, for a moment, with an abject annoyance.

  It was through a great effort of will that de Plaisians was able to construct his face into a look of sympathy. ‘Monsieur de Molay,’ he said, ‘I extend to you my love as a fellow knight, but I must counsel you to take a hold of yourself.’ Then in a lowered voice: ‘These men will take every word you say and they will twist it in order to further blame your Order.’

  Jacques de Molay nodded his head. ‘Plaisians,’ he began but was forestalled by a terrible cough. He held his side and coughed until his lips were stained with blood.

  De Plaisians looked away with disgust.

  When the coughing fit had ended, the Grand Master, with watery eyes and pale expression, continued a little weaker than before. ‘I will not tell tales of terrible . . . unnatural tortures . . . you can see that plainly on my countenance. Nor will I tell you that confessions made were a result of these endless hardships.’ He paused, observing his wounds a moment; his hands veined and disfigured, trembling. ‘You are the King’s man, monsieur.’ He looked up, de Plaisians thought, like a mangy dog asking for a scrap of meat. ‘And the King wants the devastation of the Order in which I have served all of my life, so it is not as a lawyer but as a knight of noble birth that I appeal to you, in honour of the vows we have both taken.’

  De Plaisians held his gaze. ‘What is it that you think I can do for you, Grand Master?’

  ‘I have thought long and hard these months without end, Monsieur de Plaisians, and what I have thought is this: I know that my Order sorely needs a leader who can dance these legal dances, a man of subtle tongue who can handle affairs with diplomacy, a man who can traffic in your world of words.’ The Grand Master narrowed his eyes as if he were looking directly at the hot white sun, as though beyond him he strained to see something not present but far in the distance, a memory. After a moment, he returned his gaze. ‘But I am not such a man, monsieur. I speak only what is held out steady, like a weapon, and I cut with it because that is what I know.’ He pointed to his eyes. ‘I am not able to see the clouded and undisclosed ways of your world with these, but my hope, my very faith, lies in our lawyers who now lie in prisons. They must be reached and convinced to stand up and defend the Order. That is what I am proposing that you do for me, monsieur, to get word to them. I regret that it may be difficult – how many will have remained

  loyal to a master such as torture has made of me? And yes, I know it is not possible to prevent the horror that awaits us, I wish only to prevent the good name of the Temple from being disparaged for all times . . . History shall judge us according to lies . . .’ His eyes widened then. ‘What evils shall result then, monsieur? I am unable to relate, though I have seen them . . . in my dreams.’

  Guillaume frowned a look of sympathy and commiseration, all the time his mind working like a well-greased machine. Constructing his voice to gentle the Grand Master he said, ‘As a knight, monsieur, I shall endeavour to do as you have asked, but you must remember, that as a man, as a lawyer, I am bound by my oath to the King.’

  ‘It is so,’ the Grand Master agreed, ‘and I shall not ask of you something that might lead you to break that oath. I only ask for that which cannot be taken away by any prince – the natural right of a man to defend himself.’

  De Plaisians brought the Grand Master closer, noting how the man, who had once possessed perfect teeth, had lost several; how on his strong, once bronzed skin round wounds festered; how his feet were so hideously disfigured that he could hardly walk – and still the man had wits and cunning enough to know of the language of rights given by the jurists.

  He smiled. ‘It pains the sensibilities of any honourable man, monsieur, to see such an obvious miscarriage of justice. The King himself has sent me here to oversee the trial as an impartial observer, to see to it that justice is being done, knowing the Church and its fondness for abusing the rights of his citizens. I shall do all that is in my power to help you.’ He looked about him, circumspectly thinking as he did so. ‘But first I have some advice for you, Monsieur de Molay . . . firstly you must ask the commission for some time in which to reflect, lest you hang yourself in your own noose, then when you next come before the commission you must curtail your emotional outbursts, present yourself as an illiterate, humble yourself, defend your Order by stating the obvious things, namely . . .’ He rolled his hands over and over thinking as he spoke. ‘. . . that your Order is devoted to the giving of alms; tell how men have readily shed their blood for Christ; mention the chapels and churches where the divine offices are performed with fine ornaments and relics; and lastly, ask the commissioners . . . ask them to allow you to use your private chapel in the Temple to hear mass, they will like that – and other offices if they’ll let you. Finally, ask that you be permitted the services of your personal chaplains, and meanwhile, I will make it possible that you receive communication from . . .?’

  The old man thought a moment. ‘Renaud de Provins is one, the other, the best of the two, was in Paris from Rome when we were arrested. His name is Pierre de Bologna.’

  ‘I will seek them out.’

  The Grand Master’s eyes were veiled with tears, and the slightest smile, like breeze-blown clouds, crossed the landscape of his face. ‘You are a man of honour, monsieur. Whatever I may have once thought of you, this day I renounce it.’

  Then Guillaume announced out loud for all to hear that he had loved and still loved the Grand Master, joined as they were by the common bond of knighthood, and that he should take care neither to blame himself nor to waste himself without good reason.

  38

  THE KING AND HIS

  COUNSELLOR

  Behold, I come as a thief

  Revelation 16:15

  Guillaume de Plaisians entered the vestibule that led to the King’s private chambers with hurried step. Outside, the afternoon remained bleak, clouds scudded over the landscape and darkness in the ho
rizon announced a storm.

  He came to the doors and the guards moved in recognition. He passed two more doors before reaching the inner chamber where he was announced.

  Nogaret should have much to fear, he thought, and strode into the room confidently, already feeling himself an intimate of the court.

  This of all the King’s rooms was the most frugal. Lacking a fire, fineries and tapestries, it was cold, hard and ascetic. Long pale windows lessened the darkness, but even so, it appeared as though particles of gloom lay suspended in the air, musty, damp and uninviting.

  The King did not look up. Dressed in the investitures of authority he sat upon his throne with his legs casually placed so that his pups could lay their heads upon his velvet lap. He cupped his chin with one hand while stroking the head of a hound with the other, listening, it seemed, to Enguerrand de Marigny, who was involved in a heated discussion of some importance.

  But the King stared out into a sepulchral sky that echoed his long mantle of deep blue and whose colour complemented his eyes. They moved torpidly to de Plaisians, hovered over his form a moment and then neglected him altogether.

  ‘What do they mean, Marigny?’ he said with a sudden temper, ‘when they say Templar apostasy rendered them no longer Catholic, but with reservations? Reservations, reservations!’ The animals were disturbed at this sudden betrayal of calm and whined like children; he ignored them. ‘Should Templars not confessed retain status? Yes . . . but with reservations! If I understand them properly, it is that if they wish to say anything at all, it is with reservations! And there . . .’ He pointed to a parchment in the hands of his minister. ‘They call themselves my humble clients, my humble and devoted chaplains, who offer their complete submission to render whole and devoted service to their Royal Majesty! Five of the fourteen masters of theology were clerics, Marigny! Five! One Franciscan, two Dominicans, and two Augustinians! I am surrounded by the Church, Marigny! They conspire against me! In the end they state that the Templar confessions are perhaps enough to condemn the Order, but they do not encourage it. They do not encourage it! What does this mean?’