The Templar Magician
Page 25
‘You have proof of this?’ Parmenio spluttered.
‘Proof, my friend? Your face is proof enough! Go,’ he lifted his sword, ‘report back to your masters on how successful you have been. How you used the Templar to hunt down the sorcerers but not before they did exactly what your masters prayed for. I wonder how much the others knew of the truth: Tremelai, Montebard, Henry Fitzempress? Four people definitely do – you, me, Hastang and your master in Rome.’
‘I didn’t know at the beginning …’
‘Oh no, of course you didn’t, but what did it matter if it was Walkyn or Berrington? Let such people have their hour of mischief. My friend, by sheer logic and the passage of time you reached my conclusions a little earlier than I did. You were always suspicious of Mayele. Did you have your agents in Outremer and elsewhere search for the truth about Berrington and Isabella? About Walkyn? About what really happened in Jerusalem? Did they bring you such information in the murky corners of London taverns? And then you would tell them, your masters abroad, about how Stephen and all his house were finished. How Henry Fitzempress would come into his own and be grateful for the support of Holy Mother Church. How you would use this Templar, who could at last be trusted, to execute vengeance on a coven of murderous warlocks. You arrived in England to find no Walkyn, yet those hideous poisonings still took place. You probably began to suspect the truth after our stay at St Edmund’s; it was just a matter of time and logic. Ah well! Let it ride.’ De Payens sheathed his sword. ‘Now it’s time you were gone. Tomorrow, soon after dawn, your masters will be waiting.’
Coroner Hastang waited at the Tomb of Abraham, a spacious tavern out on the old Roman road that cut through the wild countryside to Lincoln. He manacled his prisoners in outhouses and feasted his comitatus, rewarding them with some of the plunder seized from Bruer manor. The mysterious Genoese, Parmenio, went his own way, leaving the tavern early, disappearing into the mist, gone like a thief in the night. Hastang entertained himself by listening to the macabre tales about the area, though the taverner became tight-lipped at any mention of Bruer. The coroner waited. He realised that the enigmatic Templar, the man with the far-seeing eyes, as he now thought of him, was maintaining a death watch at that desolate house. Hastang’s retainers took turns to camp out at the mouth of the valley, watching what might happen. Mid-morning on the sixth day, two guards came galloping back to the tavern to report how the manor was burning like a farmyard bonfire. By the time Hastang reached the mouth of the valley, he could see the flames roaring like the fires of hell, great flickering sheets, accompanied by gusts of black and grey smoke. A short while later, Edmund de Payens, dressed in his chain mail, helmet on, his great white Templar cloak with its emblazoned cross swirling about him, cantered along the trackway snaking down from the manor, a grim figure against the searing flames. He had apparently prepared for a long ride: the sumpter pony trailing behind him was stacked high with panniers and bundles. The Templar reined in, turning his destrier, and peered up at the greying clouds.
‘Not yet full spring,’ he murmured. ‘Summer will be most welcome when it comes.’
‘What happened?’ Hastang asked.
‘It’s over, they are dead. The fire will consume the rest.’ De Payens slouched on his horse, eyes smiling at Hastang. He stretched out a gauntleted hand, which Hastang clasped. ‘Farewell, old friend.’ De Payens squeezed the coroner’s hand.
‘You’ll not come back to London? Your brothers at the Temple?’
‘My brothers are not there, Hastang. I’ll go back to the Abbey of St Edmund and seek my brothers amongst the forest folk.’ He winked and let go of Hastang’s hand. ‘That’s the only place I have ever really laughed out loud.’
‘Your vows?’
‘I’ll keep my vows.’ De Payens gestured back at the flames. ‘Go now, it is finished. I will stay until this is over.’
Hastang made his final farewells and turned his horse, gesturing at his companions to follow. He rode off, not looking back until he heard his name called. De Payens, sword drawn, had moved his great war horse, making it rear up, iron-shod hooves ploughing the air. The Templar, cloak floating about him, raised his sword. ‘Deus Vult, old friend!’ he cried. ‘Deus Vult!’
‘Aye,’ whispered Hastang, tears brimming in his eyes. ‘God wills it, my friend, and may God have mercy on you.’
Epilogue
Melrose Abbey, Scotland
Autumn 1314
Brother Benedict watched as Domina de Payens put down the manuscript, then turned as if to stroke the vellum parchments strewn over the writing table beside him.
‘Is that how it ended?’ the young monk asked.
‘Perhaps,’ the old woman whispered. ‘You’ve read the letters, the memoranda, the chronicle of the monks at the Abbey of St Edmund? Some say that was written by de Payens himself.’ She smiled. ‘The good brothers certainly loved the stories, as did the forest folk.’ She blinked quickly. ‘Stories about a strange knight dressed in white who defended them against outlaws or any who tried to hurt them. Of the same knight appearing at tournaments to defend their rights or win purses of silver to better their lot.’
‘But King Stephen, Tremelai, the Assassins, Count Raymond?’
‘All true,’ the old woman half whispered.
‘And de Payens never returned to his order?’
‘Oh, I think he did. He kept his vows, the paladin, the Poor Knight of Christ! He observed his oath to protect the weak and defend the holy. He fought the good fight. He kept faith, and at the end of our lives, how many of us will be able to say that?’
Also by P. C. Doherty
The Rose Demon
The Soul Slayer
The Haunting
Domina
The Plague Lord
The Templar
The Templar Magician
Mathilde of Westminster
mysteries
The Cup of Ghosts
The Poison Maiden
The Darkening Glass
Ancient Roman mysteries
Murder Imperial
The Song of the Gladiator
The Queen of the Night
Murder’s Immortal Mask
Ancient Egyptian mysteries
The Mask of Ra
The Horus Killings
The Anubis Slayings
The Slayers of Seth
The Assassins of Isis
The Poisoner of Ptah
The Spies of Sobeck
Hugh Corbett medieval
mysteries
Satan in St Mary’s
Crown in Darkness
Spy in Chancery
The Angel of Death
The Prince of Darkness
Murder Wears a Cowl
The Assassin in the Greenwood
The Song of a Dark Angel
Satan’s Fire
The Devil’s Hunt
The Demon Archer
The Treason of the Ghosts
Corpse Candle
The Magician’s Death
The Waxman Murders
Nightshade
The Mysterium
The Sorrowful Mysteries of
Brother Athelstan
The Nightingale Gallery
The House of the Red Slayer
Murder Most Holy
The Anger of God
By Murder’s Bright Light
The House of Crows
The Assassin’s Riddle
The Devil’s Domain
The Field of Blood
The House of Shadows
Egyptian Pharaoh trilogy
An Evil Spirit Out of the West
The Season of the Hyaena
The Year of the Cobra
The Canterbury Tales of murder
and mystery
An Ancient Evil
A Tapestry of Murders
A Tournament of Murders
Ghostly Murders
The Hangman’s Hymn
A Haunt of Murder
Author�
��s Note
Black magic, the pursuit of secret power, has been an obsession of human society in all cultures and at all times. Scholars realised the limitations to their knowledge and strove to pierce the veil in pursuit of fresh revelations. In the Middle Ages, black magic and political power often became intertwined. Allegations of witchcraft, for example, were levelled at a number of queens: Isabella of France (1327), Joanna of Navarre (1416) and of course Anne Boleyn. Kings of England have also been depicted as practitioners, the most famous being William Rufus, whose death by an arrow in the New Forest was, according to the anthropologist Margaret Murray, part of a sacrifice in an ancient rite. Great noble families did not escape the taint. In 1326 Hugh de Spenser, Edward II’s chief minister and favourite, was the object of a black magic plot organised allegedly by the Prior of Coventry. De Spenser complained bitterly to the papacy, who wrote back tartly that he should say his prayers, reform his ways and put his trust in God. The great nobles of England tried Joan of Arc and burned her as a witch. Indeed, the English aristocracy were most adept at depicting their opponents as dabblers in the black arts; even Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, uncle to Henry VI, was brought down by such an indictment.
Accordingly, it’s hardly surprising that the Templars, when their day of judgement arrived, were also accused of practising witchcraft, an allegation that haunted the order throughout its two-hundred-year history. In 1307, when Philip IV launched his persecution of the Templars, sorcery and black magic figured prominently in the accusations levelled against them.
Nevertheless, even free of these allegations, the Templars were always regarded as suspicious. In Outremer they provoked both jealousy and apprehension for being quite prepared to negotiate and seek a rapprochement with the Muslim world. Such attitudes, coupled with secrecy and an innate talent for acquiring wealth, brought them into disrepute, and they were often accused of ‘forming a kingdom within a kingdom’.
By 1152, the original concept of the ‘Poor Knights’ founded to help pilgrims and protect travellers to Jerusalem had been quickly subsumed into a magnificent fighting order with a warlike reputation second to none. The Templars made it very clear that they would never surrender. In fact they were as harsh to themselves as to any enemy. The chronicler William of Tyre recounts an anecdote about Templars who surrendered a castle being later hanged on a charge of cowardice.
Other sects and groups also flourished in the Middle East; none were so feared as the Assassins. They were as described in this novel, though it must be conceded that their victims were in the main not Franks, or even crusaders, but Islamic leaders who dared to oppose or cross them. William of Tyre, in his History of Deeds, describes how the Templars and the Assassins could be mortal enemies and stoop to murder in their feuds, but if circumstances changed were comfortable enough in doing business with each other.
The death of Count Raymond of Tripoli is as described in the novel. The true reason for his assassination has never been clarified, with allegations and accusations being hurled from all sides. His death did provoke a savage massacre, during which, according to William of Tyre, ‘all those who were found to differ either in language or dress from the Latins’ were ‘put to the sword’. The chronicler believes that Count Raymond’s killers were ‘the Assassins’, but the real victims of his death were the people of Tripoli.
The siege of Ascalon also happened as described here. The Templar Grand Master did lead that fatal, futile assault through the temporary breach in the walls. Tremelai and the others were cut off and annihilated; their gibbeted corpses only stiffened the resolve of Baldwin and the Frankish army. Ascalon surrendered on terms. For a while the Templar order was thrown into total disarray by the death of the Grand Master. No reason was given for Tremelai’s foolish impetuosity. William of Tyre claims that it was due to the arrogance and greed of the Templars. I suggest another reason.
The civil war in England (1135–54) was bitter and savage, fuelled by the ambitions of the great lords. Geoffrey de Mandeville was chief amongst these. Historians have now tried to balance the heinous allegations of the chroniclers levelled against Mandeville. Nevertheless, certain accounts, such as that of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, do depict him as ‘fearing neither God nor man’. Mandeville did wage war in the eastern shires, occupying and pillaging monasteries. He was killed as described in the novel, dying excommunicate, and for years his coffin hung eerily between heaven and earth in the Temple holding at Holborn. Eventually the papacy relented and allowed him honourable burial. The Templars’ reception of Mandeville’s corpse was a surprisingly religious act, and was probably part of a policy whereby the order, eager for acceptance in England, proved themselves amenable to both sides in the conflict. By 1153, the Templars did have a presence in England, under a master known as ‘Boso’. Their house was in Holborn, and only later did they exchange that property for another, thus creating ‘New Temple’.
The end to the civil war was both surprising and swift. Eustace, Stephen’s son, collapsed ‘choking’ at St Edmund’s Abbey after leading a ferocious raid throughout the surrounding countryside. Senlis of Northampton and Murdac of York, the king’s close advisers, also died around the same time, as did others. Indeed, so many of Stephen’s adherents died so swiftly and so opportunely that poison has been voiced as the cause by historians such as T. Callahan. David Crouch, however, in his scholarly work on King Stephen, dismisses this, arguing for ‘quite a potent bacterial infection’, judging by the number of prominent deaths in this one-year period. Nevertheless, the list of casualties amongst the royals during the period 1153–4 is most surprising. Stephen’s second son William was seriously injured in an accident outside Canterbury; while Stephen himself, according to the chronicler Gervase of Canterbury, was ‘seized of a bowel disorder accompanied by internal bleeding’. He died after a short illness at Dover on 25 October 1154, leaving the way free for Henry the Angevin, hale and hearty, to sweep to power.
Both Stephen and Mathilda did patronise the Templar order, which stayed neutral during the civil war. However, once Henry the Angevin became king, the order expanded rapidly. The crown and the great nobles were generous in their many grants. The Templars acquired land and status and were a powerful force until 1308, when Edward II eventually turned against them. The word ‘temple’ still figures prominently in English place-names.
Borley in Essex has always enjoyed a macabre reputation. The professional ghost-hunter Harry Price dubbed it ‘the Most Haunted House in England’. The causes of the paranormal events described there have been discussed in many books and pamphlets. The possibility of the Templars having a manor there has been listed as another reason for such phenomena. Temple Bruer in Lincolnshire also has a sinister history. W. H. St John Hope wrote a learned article on the site in Archaeologia in 1908 (Vol.61). In this he mentions a previous article by a Rev. G. Oliver (published in 1837), which claims that secret vaults were found beneath the old Templar enclosure. In these ‘lay quantities of cinders mixed with human bones’. The truth behind such a find has never been established.
Paul C Doherty
April 2009
www.paulcdoherty.com
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE TEMPLAR MAGICIAN. Copyright © 2009 by Paul Doherty. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
First published in Great Britain by HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP, an Hachette UK Company
eISBN 9781429980203
First eBook Edition : October 2011
First U.S. Edition: November 2011
Table of Contents
Title Page
Historical Note
Main Historical Characters
Prologue
PART ONE - TRIPOLI: OUTREMER AUTUMN 1152
Chapter 1
; Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
PART TWO - ENGLAND AUTUMN 1153
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Also by P. C. Doherty
Author’s Note
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Title Page
Historical Note
Main Historical Characters
Prologue
PART ONE - TRIPOLI: OUTREMER AUTUMN 1152
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
PART TWO - ENGLAND AUTUMN 1153
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Also by P. C. Doherty
Author’s Note
Copyright Page