“But look, Marie, I haven’t brought anymore and with what I have given you, you can set yourselves up for life,” I argued.
“Well …. You’re right.”
“Maybe your information will include an important detail that deserves to be paid generously. So, here … These are my last four escudos. I came with twenty and I leave with none.”
“You can ask whatever you want,” said Marie, greedily grabbing the coins. I told myself that misery breads misery and that maybe, if that same woman had been born into a distinguished family, she could have been a generous and elegant lady, a respected mother and grandmother and, most probably, disdainful of money.
Marie said that about a month before the day of the accident, two free peasants who were wandering around looking for work had settled in the vicinity of Pont-Sainte-Maxence, and with there being nothing else, helped the woodmen cut wood, and every now and then, if anyone caught a deer, ‘although, sire, don’t mention that part, as you know that it’s a crime to kill the King’s animals’, they took care of tanning the skin and making shoes and shirts and dagger sleeves from the leather. Those two free peasants were called Auguste and Felix and were from Rouen and they were the ones who spotted the dear, ‘an enormous dear, sire, a deer as tall as a horse, with a shiny coat and enormous antlers with twelve tines’.
“Did anyone else see it, Marie?”
“See who, damn it?”
“The deer, did anyone else see it other than Auguste and Felix?”
“I don’t know what to tell you …,” the old woman made an effort to remember. She seemed smart and alert (greed awakens the most stupid of people) but her life had been tough and her mind was not exactly the most exercised part of her brain. “Yes, I think so but I’m not sure. I can’t quite remember if the son of Honare, a woodman who lives further north, also said that he had seen it, or that he thought he’d seen it … I don’t know.”
“It’s O.K., don’t worry. Please continue.”
“Auguste and Felix were obsessed with the animal. They followed it around the forest day and night but they didn’t catch it. They never hunted, and anyway, they said that an animal like that deserved to die at the hands of a king. When Philip the Fair arrived with his retinue that day, it was Pascale who told him about the deer and told him the marvelous things that the pair from Rouen had said about the animal.”
“And so the King enthusiastically went in search of the deer with the miraculous antlers.”
“Hahaha! He certainly did! And he died!”
“And where were Auguste and Felix that day?”
“They said that they didn’t want to miss the hunt and that they were going to go up that hill,” she said, pointing to her right with a fat, dirty, gnarled finger. “That one, can you see it? They wanted to watch from up high.”
“Were they armed?”
“Armed? Auguste and Felix …? Not on your life! They were never armed, I told you that they never hunted.”
“But they knew how to make sheaths for daggers.”
“And very well, too! I’m sure I have one inside the house. Do you want to see it?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.”
“Auguste and Felix didn’t go up the hill armed. That day they only carried their staffs which helped them to walk through the forest and clear a path in the undergrowth.”
“And the dogs, Marie, why weren’t they with the King when he was attacked by the deer?”
“The King was faster than the dogs.”
“Did he really go that fast?”
“He flew! The pack always goes first, showing the way the game went but the King thought he saw the deer going in a different direction, and he separated from the group.”
“And the horn, why didn’t he sound the horn when he got lost and was attacked by the deer?”
“He didn’t have it.”
“He didn’t have it?” I asked in surprise. “No hunter goes out without their horn.”
“That’s right, and the King had a very pretty one tied to his belt. I saw it. It was average size, made of pure gold and precious stones. It must have been worth a fortune!”
“And how is it possible that he didn’t have it on him later?”
“What do I know! All I know is that Pascale spent a week looking for it in the area where the deer rammed the King because he said that when they found him on the ground shouting ‘the cross, the cross …’, the horn wasn’t there and he couldn’t have had it on him when he was attacked because he didn’t call his companions. They swore on it.”
“Pascale was looking for it to return it, naturally,” I said sarcastically.
“Naturally …,” mumbled Marie.
“I just want to know one more thing, Marie. Where are Auguste and Felix now?”
“Ooh, what a question! Not even they know that!”
“Why?” Jonas asked.
“Because they left to find work somewhere else. They stayed here until Easter and then returned to Paris. Shortly after, the hunger started. People were dying like dogs, fighting over a morsel of bread. They visited us a few times over the course of a year or so, and then said that they were going to look for work in Flanders, in the fabric factories. We haven’t heard anything from them since.” Marie settled back comfortably on her wood and straw chair, ending the conversation. “Have you found what you were looking for to please the King?”
“Yes,” I replied, standing up; Jonas copied me. “I will tell him that you were of great help.”
The old woman looked at us from her seat with curious attention.
“If it wasn’t for the fact that you … I would say ….”
I quickly changed the subject. I, who was so sublime at lying, behaved like an apprentice when things were beyond my usual scope.
“On your horse, Jonas! Goodbye, Marie, I hope that you enjoy your money. It’s money that you have earned thanks to the Pope.”
Two days after Jonas delivered my letter to Beatrice of Hirson — in that discreet and moderate way —, her response finally arrived from the hand of an old servant who shook when he gave it to me, like a leaf tossed about in a gale. Watching him escape down the stairs like a young boy, I guessed that his unjustified fear must have been nothing in comparison to the fear that he would have seen on the face of his mistress when she gave him the note which I was now holding in my hands.
I felt tired that day and had a slightly bitter taste in some part of my soul that I was not able to identify, so I threw Jonas out into the street — who went off very happily, free as a bird and looking for adventure —, and I sat down comfortably, with my eyes half closed and my entire body in a state of meditation, trying to clear my thoughts and the feelings that had been shaking around inside me for a while and which I had been ignoring. I had completely forgotten about my studies of the Qabalah — the Sefer Yetzirah, the Book of Creation, and the Zohar, the Book of Splendor —, I had also forgotten about the development of my internal life, of my spirit, of communication with the Deity … I felt agitated and tormented by past memories, like a castle under siege by a powerful army of ghostly retinue. I needed a bit of peace. I concentrated, first on my breathing, and then on my tormented emotions. I was now at home. Be calm, Galceran, you have to regain your composure, I told myself, it’s not like you to let yourself get trapped in sadness. You can find peace as soon as you get back to Rhodes, when you climb the mountainside of Mount Ataviro, when you rest on the fine sandy beaches listening to the noise of the Dodecanese Sea. But in order to return to Rhodes you must finish this mission entrusted to you by His Holiness as soon as possible and leave Jonas in Taradell, with his grandparents. You will then recover yourself and be calm once more.
I remained inside myself for a long time, talking to myself more or less along these terms, and left there thanking the Deity for having found some calm. I retraced the path of concentration, breathed deeply with my physical body and shook out my hands and neck to loosen myself up.
“Thank goodness!” breathed Jonas with relief. “I thought you were dead. Seriously.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I said, surprised. “Didn’t I send you out to the street?”
“And I have been in the street,” he argued. “I saw a puppet show in the Bûcherie and I was watching the operarii who are working on the flying buttresses of Notre-Dame. It’s now three in the afternoon, sire. I’ve been watching you for over an hour. What kind of prayer is that you were doing? Not even your eyelids moved.”
“A letter has arrived from Beatrice of Hirson,” I said by way of response.
“I know, I’ve seen it. It’s there, on your lectorile. I haven’t read it, what does it say?”
“She wants to see us tonight, at the hour of vespers, in front of the drawbridge of the Fortress of Louvre.”
“Outside of the walls? said Jonas, surprised.
“She will collect us in her carriage. I presume that she doesn’t have anywhere to receive us that she considers to be completely safe, so I’m afraid that we will speak to her while riding around the suburbium in her carriage.”
“Terrific! The carriages of the courtiers are as comfortable as the chambers of a prince, sire!”
“And what do you know about princely chambers if you have seen nothing, Jonas, you have only just left the monastery!” I exploded unfairly.
“Your strange prayer hasn’t calmed you down.”
“My strange prayer has helped me to understand that the only thing that is important right now is completing this damn mission, informing the Pope and the Grand Commander, and getting home as soon as possible, to Rhodes.”
“And what about me?” he asked.
“You …? Do you think that I’m going to have you dragging along with me for the rest of my life?”
It was obvious that I was in a bad mood.
It was wickedly cold in the wet streets of Paris. Clouds of steam poured from our mouths as we waited in the shadows for the carriage of Beatrice of Hirson. Luckily, the fur coats that we had brought with us from Avignon were long and covered our legs. The boy was also wearing a felt cap and I had a beaver hat that protected my head from the icy wind. That afternoon, at my request, the owner of our hotel had come to our room to shave our beards and cut our hair, although Jonas had flatly refused to have his hair cut. In the streets of Paris he had seen the boys of his age with long hair — a symbol of nobility and free man —, and had decided to copy them; he had also refused to let her pass the razor over his cheeks — even though he only had a slight dark fuzz on his jawbone —, proud of his new manhood. I think that his new attitude towards his appearance was his way of telling me that he didn’t want to return to the monastery.
“I’ve been thinking, sire, about the visit we made the other day to Pont-Sainte-Maxence,” he said as he jumped up and down to conserve his body heat under his robes.
“And what did you think?” I asked with little enthusiasm.
“Do you want me to tell you my theory about the death of King Philip the Fair?”
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
He continued to jump up and down like a hare, expelling large milky puffs of breath. Behind us, the imposing square fortress of the Louvre turned out the last lights in its turrets. Although Paris would be completely dark in a few minutes, I could still see some discreet lanterns glowing in a few of the windows and terraces of the castle and, thanks to them, despite the darkness, I could make out the tall shadow of the turret against the black of the night — a black as dark as ink —, which emerged from inside the castle like an arrow pointed menacingly at the sky.
“I think that Auguste and Feliz are our old Templar friends, Ádâb Al-Aqsa and Fath Al-Yedom and that they came to Pont-Sainte-Maxence with enough time to prepare their next trap: They knew that sooner or later the King would go out hunting. A rumor started amongst the servants about a marvelous deer and when the King showed up, they climbed the hill and waited for the right moment. Luck was on their side, and the King separated from the group believing that he had seen the animal. So …,” he paused for a second to reflect, and then continued. “But that can’t be right, because if they were on the hill ….”
“They weren’t on the hill,” I helped.
“But the old woman said …!”
“Let’s go back to the beginning. How do you know that they were our Templars?
“Well, I don’t have any proof but don’t you think it’s strange that the Arab names and the French names begin with the same letters, A and F? They must be the same Templars who were at François’ inn in Roquemaure, don’t you think?”
“That’s a good deduction but there’s something that confirms it much better. The Templars are expressly forbidden from hunting by their Rule. Did you hear when the woodman’s wife said that Auguste and Felix never went hunting? A Templar knight cannot hunt with fowl, with a bow, with bullets or with dogs. They are only allowed to hunt the lion, and not the real lion but the symbolic lion, Evil. That’s why Auguste and Felix never killed deer in the forest.”
“What the …!”
“Young man,” I said ironically, “you are swearing!”
“That’s not true!”
“Yes, it is, I heard you! You will have to confess your sin,” I said slyly.
“I’ll do it first thing in the morning.”
“That’s what I like to hear. But let’s continue. You said before I interrupted that they couldn’t have killed the King because they were on top of the hill.”
“And you said no, that they weren’t there.”
“Of course not. If they had been on the hill they wouldn’t have been able to kill the King which they most certainly did.”
“So where were they?”
I huddled into my coat and hoped that Lady Hirson didn’t take too long.
“First, we must accept that there was a deer, but not the prodigious deer but rather what was probably a large deer, with long antlers and domesticated which today must be roaming free in the same forest that we visited two days ago. Auguste and Felix must have trapped it shortly after arriving there (we must consider that it was shortly after killing William of Nogaret, who died after Pope Clement and before King Philip). They domesticated it, more or less, and built false antlers with twelve tines out of the remains of the antlers from other animals. Don’t forget that they were in charge of the skin of the deer hunted by the inhabitants of the forest, which also implied taking the heads. So, they built the false antlers in such a way so as to fit them perfectly on the head of the animal. They must have also prepared some device so that in a matter of seconds those staffs, which they used to walk through the forest, turned into a perfect cross which also fit between the false antlers. Can you imagine the effect? The King sees the deer and separates from the group; every now and again the animal disappears from sight amongst the bushes but he finds it again and continues with his crazy chase that separates him more and more from his retinue. It is probable, and we are on uncertain ground here, that at some point Auguste or Felix hid the animal in a previously planned location and the King had to stop and wait for it to jump out again from somewhere. So Auguste or Felix appears and says that he can help him find the deer. He takes him all over the place, saying that he can see it over here or over there, and the King confidently lets himself be guided, as he’s dying to catch such a rare deer whose antlers will astonish the court. The animal suddenly reappears and the King, grateful, says to his friend: ‘You may ask me for whatever you wish’, and he replies ‘Your golden horn’, and the King gives it to him. Now, without realizing it, he has become isolated and is ready to fall into the trap. He races after the deer, and in the same spot where he was later found on the ground, he losses it from sight again. He stops there, attentive, motionless and alone … completely alone. And then he hears a sound, the crunching of leaves, and quickly turns around to look, and what does he see? Ahh …! This is my guess. He sees the docile and domesticated animal as motionless as h
e, and so close that he can almost hear it breathing, showing him his enormous miraculous antlers in the center of which he can see a large wooden cross, probably shining in the sun thanks to a good coat of varnish. The King becomes afraid, he backs up his horse and the curse of Molay, which he hasn’t managed to forget, comes to mind (remember that he was the last of the three to die, so he must have been deadly afraid, awaiting his time). All of a sudden he feels sick. He wants to call his hunting companions but his hand doesn’t find the horn in his belt. He had given it to the peasant. And that was the last thing that crossed his mind. A strong blow to the head throws him off his horse (don’t forget that the only sign of violence that the doctors found was on the back of his head, on the base of his skull, which confirms that the attack came from a person who was standing on the ground), he falls and begins to rave: ‘The cross, the cross ….’ Auguste and Felix quickly recover their staffs, disassemble the false antlers, and free the animal. Maybe they ran up the hill to bury the antlers so that when the King was found later on, they were seen coming from that area.”
“But they were asked if they had seen anything.”
“And I’m sure they answered very naturally that they had only seen how the King was attacked by the deer and how he fell to the ground, and that, although they shouted to warn the retinue, it was impossible for them to be heard because of the distance.”
“We should examine the scene where the King was found.”
“What for? After three years, Jonas, there won’t be anything left there. And anyway, the undergrowth will have covered any tracks, although I doubt that our friends left any.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted, not very convinced. “Look, here comes a carriage!”
Beatrice of Hirson’s phaeton quietly approached the Louvre like a sinister shadow in the night, with a small lantern swaying up front. The driver stopped the horses in front of us and I discreetly approached the window in the door which didn’t have any shield or badge to identify the owner. Without leaning in, I whispered, “My Lady Beatrice of Hirson?”
Iacobus Page 8
