Knights Templar - Temple And The Crown Part 19

May, 1307 HAVING RAIDED TURNBERRY SUCCESSFULLY, IF NOT ACcording to original plan, and even having s.n.a.t.c.hed survival from the jaws of apparent disaster, Bruce and his forces melted back into the hills of Carrick to regroup, never sleeping two nights in the same place, reverting to the hit-and-run tactics that had served him so well in the weeks immediately after his enthronement.

But he had enemies all around him. Macdouall of Galloway and Robert Clifford were in the south; Pembroke himself was to the west. In the north was Macdougall of Lorn, possibly with an ally who had access to even darker allies who had sent the black bird to Turnberry. Eastward lay more English supporters in Nithsdale. But Bruce kept always one step ahead of his English pursuers, in a running succession of minor sorties and unexpected victories.

Reports of various English setbacks found their way to Berwick-on-Tweed, where a onetime advisor to Edward of England lay still abed with injuries suffered in the exchange that had begun the turn of English fortunes. When two French knights arrived at Berwick Castle late in May, asking to see the Sieur Bartholeme de Challon, the castle's governor had them taken immediately to the tower suite occupied by the French lord and his servant for the past three months. The dwarf Mercurius admitted the two Frenchmen without comment, though he closed the door on the English lord.

"Sieur Rodolphe. and Sieur Thibault," the dwarf acknowledged, with a bow that somehow conveyed as much mockery as respect. "My master will be pleased that you have ?nally come."

The pair removed gloves and caps and deposited them on a side table as they surveyed the room.

"Mercurius," the senior of the newcomers said by way of greeting, accompanying the name with a curt nod. "How fares your master?"

"Admirably well," the dwarf drawled, "considering how close he came to being impaled through the heart."

The other man, Thibault de Montreville, bridled at his tone. "You keep a civil tongue, dwarf, unless you want a thras.h.i.+ng."

"Peace!" Rodolphe interposed smoothly. "Let us not forget that we are here on a mission of goodwill."

He bent his gaze neutrally to the glowering dwarf. "Lord Bartholeme requested our presence-"

"Some weeks ago!" the dwarf interposed boldly.

"We came as quickly as we dared," Rodolphe replied, ignoring the reproach. "Will you take us to him, or must we ?nd our own way?"

With a surly grunt, Mercurius beckoned the pair to follow, preceding them up a narrow turnepike stair to the room above. The heat from a blazing log ?re on the hearth was such that the newcomers immediately shed their heavy riding mantles.

A large canopied bed, hung with curtains of purple damask, dominated the room. The curtains hung partially open toward the ?re, revealing a wasted ?gure lying supine under a pile of furs and quilts.

Swaddled in bandages from waist to neck, the ?gure looked as gaunt and pale as a tomb ef?gy.

"Visitors, my lord," Mercurius piped.

Even from across the room, the newcomers could see evidence of a narrow brush with death. Pain and fever had reduced Bartholeme's already-lean face to a mask of bones under several months' growth of dense black beard. His closed eyes were deeply sunken in their sockets. The sinewy hands lying open on the counterpane might have been those of a skeleton.

"Visitors, my lord," Mercurius prompted again, in a louder voice.

Bartholeme's bluish eyelids ?ickered open, the ghost of an ironic smile plucking at his cracked lips when his gaze lighted on the newcomers, "Rodolphe? Thibault? I am deeply grati?ed."

"And so you should be," the former replied, advancing from the threshold. "In coming here, Thibault and I are committing a serious breach of protocol."

Bartholeme's bandaged chest swelled and de?ated in a resigned sigh. "So I am given to understand. I am informed that I have fallen from grace in the eyes of the Decuria."

"You came to Scotland promising to thwart Bruce and retrieve the Stone of Destiny," Rodolphe summarized baldly. "You have failed to achieve either of these objectives. It is Magister Nogaret's a.s.sessment that you have willfully squandered the resources that were placed at your disposal. By his decree, you are to be deprived of your rank as a member of the Decuria and relegated to the lower orders of our fraternity, until such time as you prove yourself worthy of-"

"Do not speak to him that way!" Mercurius blurted. "Magister Nogaret can go to the devil! If it hadn't been for my master, the Templars already would have steered Bruce and his rebel followers to victory!"

Ordinarily, such an outburst from an underling would have merited a savage rebuke, but none followed-a point that was not lost on Bartholeme. Indeed, the pair merely exchanged bland, if troubled, glances. To Bartholeme, it seemed a hopeful sign that his visitors might be less than committed to Nogaret's way of thinking. Rodolphe's next words strengthened that impression.

"Magister Nogaret sets no store by partial achievements," he observed neutrally. "Final results are his sole concern."

"I trust," Bartholeme countered, "that he will bear that principle in mind with regard to his own endeavors.

I must point out that I have not heard of any particular Templar setbacks in France."

"Some might construe such words as a challenge," Thibault replied, after a beat, though his tone remained neutral.

"Make of them what you will," Bartholeme said. Twin patches of hectic color had risen to his ashen cheeks, and one almost-skeletal hand plucked distractedly at the bedclothes as his gaze wandered, slightly fevered.

"For my own part, I confess to having made two mistakes," he went on, after a moment. "On the one hand, I underestimated how much power the Templars were prepared to squander, to protect their puppet-king, Robert Bruce. And on the other," he concluded bleakly, "I failed to realize just how much Magister Nogaret feared me as a rival. until now."

Again the two visitors exchanged speaking glances. This time, when they exchanged guarded looks with him as well, Bartholeme curtly signaled Mercurius to withdraw, also motioning his visitors to be seated.

When they had done so, pulling stools closer to the bed, he asked, "Is it permitted to tell me who has been appointed to succeed me in Scotland?"

After a beat, Thibault said, "No one. Magister Nogaret has been focusing on a prospect closer to home.

He has determined a surer way to destroy the Order, as Hercules killed the legendary hydra-by lopping off all its heads at a single stroke."

"Has he, indeed?" Bartholeme murmured, a touch of scorn to his tone. "And just how does he propose to do that? Invade the council chambers of king or pope and put them all to the sword?"

"Nothing so crude," Thibault said blandly. "Nogaret is master of the Law. And he has determined that the Law will serve us better in this instance than any army of paid a.s.sa.s.sins."

Bartholeme attempted to raise himself up, only to fall back with an involuntary grunt of pain. His visitors exchanged glances, but it was a moment before he recovered enough to speak.

"Nogaret has completely misread the situation," he stated ?atly.

"Has he indeed?" Rodolphe replied, lifting an eyebrow. "Perhaps it may interest you to know that he has discovered the existence of a secret vault in the bowels of the Paris Temple. Among the treasures they keep in this vault will be the Breastplate of Aaron. Close watch is being kept on the brothers who have access to the vault. Ma.s.s arrests are being planned. When the raids begin, Nogaret intends to arrive at the Temple ahead of the royal baillies and seize the Breastplate on behalf of the Decuria."

"If it's still there," Bartholeme muttered.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"For any one of a number of reasons. A breach of secrecy, for instance. The Templars aren't fools, Rodolphe. Don't you think they have their spies, as we have ours? If they get so much as a hint of what Nogaret has in mind, they'll move Heaven and earth to put their treasures beyond his reach."

"And take them where? Not to Scotland, surely."

"What's to stop them, now that my presence here has been compromised?" Bartholeme countered.

He took a deep breath to steady himself. "I tell you, the Templars will stop at nothing to secure Scotland's independence. I have not yet learned why, but somehow, that independence is vital to their own existence. Do I not carry the proof upon my body?"

He indicated the heavy pad of bandaging at the center of his chest, going on even more ?ercely when his visitors were slow to respond.

"What must I do to persuade you?" he demanded. "If you doubt the scope of my talents-if you doubt either my intelligence or my fort.i.tude-I invite you to examine this wound. It will bear ample witness to the powers arrayed against us. Why do you think I begged for one of you to come here? I cannot do this by myself!"

Rodolphe lifted an eyebrow. "You do know what you are asking?" he said on a tentative note.

"Do you take me for some weakling child?" Bartholeme retorted. "Of course I know! And I also know that only this ordeal will enable the wound to heal. I have endured far worse to serve lesser causes. I invoke the test of blood and blade."

A facial muscle ticked at one side of Rodolphe's mouth, but then he gave a formal nod and rose.

"As you will, then."

Thibault summoned Mercurius back. At Bartholeme's command, the dwarf brought a pair of tallow candles set in iron and a shallow bra.s.s salver with the image of the Cygnus Hermetis engraved across its face. He made a second trip to fetch a ?ask of ink, an open crock of rock salt, and a ?int-bladed dagger with a zoomorphic overlay of openwork silver binding the hilt. These objects he arranged on a table adjacent to the bed, before withdrawing once again to the outer room.

Bracing himself for what he had invited, Bartholeme submitted to having his wrists and ankles secured to the bedstead. While Thibault warded the room, Rodolphe deftly cut away the bandages swathing the injured man's torso. Removal of the ?nal layer exposed an ugly cicatrix, like a burn crater, over Bartholeme's breastbone, crusted at the edges and with a softly weeping scab at the center, though of infection there was no sign. Still, Bartholeme ?inched as Rodolphe ran his ?ngers experimentally over the skin surrounding the wound, probing at its edges.

"You're certain you want to go through with this?" Rodolphe asked.

Swallowing with an effort, Bartholeme nodded his head.

"We must know," was all he whispered.

"Very well."

Eyes narrowing thoughtfully, Rodolphe picked up the dagger, brie?y fondling it as though it were a live thing, then plunged it to the hilt into the crock of salt. Thibault, meanwhile, had lit a wax spill from the ?re and used this to light the two tallow candles. After relegating the spill to the ?re, he set the bra.s.s salver between the candles and ?lled it with ink.

"Darkness is the womb of all knowledge," he declared, bowing to the other two men. "I embrace the Darkness, that I might See."

Closing the dagger's hilt in his left hand, Rodolphe murmured a charm of empowerment under his breath, at the same time withdrawing the blade from the salt. After that, he sketched an occult symbol above Bartholeme's chest with the weapon, touched the ?at of the blade brie?y to his own forehead, then lowered the point to the wound.

Bartholeme's eyes closed and a cold sweat broke out on his haggard face, sheening his neck and chest, as Rodolphe then began to probe at the wound. His breath hissed from between clenched teeth, but he did not cry out as Rodolphe proceeded to explore the wounded ?esh with the dagger's crude point. His body twitched convulsively as Rodolphe continued to probe, arching and recoiling in its bonds as his tormentor suddenly made a surgical jab to the center of the wound, pressing to the bone, brie?y pinning his subject with agony that was mirrored in his own face.

The point of the dagger came away red-far redder than justi?ed by the depth of the jab. Muttering a further invocation, Rodolphe plunged the point of the dagger into the salver of ink.

Ink and blood merged with a sibilant hiss that exuded steam or mist across the dark surface, imparting a rainbow sheen that pulsed like a heartbeat. Bartholeme's eyelids ?ickered and opened, but the images he saw, mirrored on the surface of the ink for Rodolphe's perusal, were coming to him through some agency besides mortal vision.

The pictures presented themselves in reverse order of time. Watching with bated breath, Rodolphe beheld Bartholeme lying in this very bed, burning with fever. Bartholeme lying stricken before the ?re in the room below, half-delirious, bidding Mercurius prise the brooch of Lorn from his stiff and b.l.o.o.d.y ?ngers, aghast at the smoking wound dis?guring the ?esh on his chest.

Concentrating, his ?st locked tight around the hilt of the ?int-edged dagger, Rodolphe willed himself to visualize the weapon that had in?icted the wound. Before his eyes there formed the image of a handsome, silver-mounted dirk, its carved black hilt surmounted by a clear blue stone the size of a pigeon's egg.

The gemstone scintillated with power-power with a pure, crystalline savor, like the light from a polar star, so unsullied that all of them recoiled as from a live coal. That puissance was celestial in nature, divine in origin, with a resonance emanating from ancient Israel. But the intensity of that disclosure brought with it the staggering, almost stupefying realization that its ultimate source was the same as that which empowered the Stone of Destiny.

Breathing heavily, for his own ordeal was becoming hardly less than Bartholeme's, Rodolphe willed the focus of his questing to s.h.i.+ft to the wielder of the weapon. The intent required a further infusion of Bartholeme's blood, drawn by a second probing of his wound, but the image of the dirk slowly yielded to the face of a bearded man of middle years, with fading red hair and green eyes that seemed to gaze into eternity. Lean and powerfully built, he had the aspect of a seasoned warrior, but more signi?cantly, he bore about him the unmistakable aura of a Knight of the Temple, as palpable as any visible white mantle.

Bartholeme saw it, too, straining upward in his bonds, his hollowed eyes ?xed with burning intensity on the mirror of vision.

"I see him-the man who struck me down!" he gasped.

"And I will remember him! I will have my retribution! When we meet again, I will give his heart's blood to Lucifer as a victory tribute!"

He fell back panting, a white froth of pain and rage gathering at the corners of his mouth. As he did so, the images faded from the ink in the salver of bra.s.s, releasing Rodolphe to a pounding headache behind his eyes and Bartholeme to a fainting swoon.

Spying a ?agon of restorative cordial beside the bed, Thibault seized it and tipped a measure between Bartholeme's livid lips, then pa.s.sed it to Rodolphe for a like draught before himself drinking deeply of the ?agon's contents. He then set about releasing the bonds binding Bartholeme to his bed, while Rodolphe brie?y bowed his head in the vee of thumb and ?ngers to make his own recovery.

After a moment, Rodolphe lifted his head to exchange a troubled glance with his companion. Together they examined the brooch that Mercurius reluctantly produced for their inspection, though it was now totally empty of any psychic trace that might have connected it to its former owner. When Bartholeme's breathing ?nally eased, and his eyes ?uttered open, Rodolphe addressed him in measured tones.

"Your suppositions regarding Scotland would appear to be correct," he admitted. "The Stone of Destiny represents an artifact of exceptional power. It is no wonder that the Templars are devoting all their energies toward acquiring it. But Magister Nogaret's plan, if it succeeds, will eliminate them before they can claim their coveted prize."

"And if Nogaret's plan fails?" Bartholeme rasped.

No emotion showed on the face of either of his visitors, but Rodolphe's tone, as he replied, was chillingly precise.

"If it should fail," he said, with a side glance at Thibault, "we would be justi?ed in looking for a new leader."

Chapter Twenty.

August, 1307 BARTHOLEME'S RECOVERY, WHILE NOT IMMEDIATE, WAS NO less remarkable than his injury had been, though by the time he was well enough to leave Berwick, a few weeks later, the fortunes of war in Scotland had s.h.i.+fted dramatically. For Edward of England died early in July at Burgh-by-Sands, just north of Carlisle, ?nally defeated by illness. His successor, Edward of Caernarvon, had little of the mettle of his father, and retreated to London within the month, where he soon concerned himself with his own pleasures and the advancement of his favorites. These distractions gave the rebel King of Scots a welcome reprieve, and the opportunity to take advantage of English uncertainty.

Thus it was that, late in August, Brothers Torquil Lennox and Aubrey Saint Clair found themselves riding with a small escort of Bruce's Highlanders north of the Firth of Clyde, bound for a secret rendezvous that would greatly bene?t Robert Bruce and his cause. Bruce himself was consolidating his forces farther south-safe enough, for now, from magical attack, since Torquil had severed the link with his brooch- and hoped for their return sometime later in September. For the two Templars, the mission had an aspect of welcome diversion from the previous months on the run with Bruce.

"Brother Torquil," Aubrey said good-naturedly, swatting at a cloud of midges, "kindly remind me again why our good friend Brother Flannan felt obliged to make us meet him all the way out here. If it isn't the rain and the midges, it's the heat and the midges! If there might be a less hospitable part of Scotland, I canna think where it is right now."

Riding just ahead of Aubrey, Torquil chuckled despite his own equally miserable state as he fanned absently at a midge-cloud.

"Aside from the fact that it's close to the coast-"

"And the midges!" Aubrey interjected.

"Aye, and the midges," Torquil agreed. "It's also remote enough that we aren't likely to meet up with anyone other than the folk we're meant to meet."

"Apart from maybe a few wild goats," Aubrey said with a snort.

The man riding behind Aubrey chuckled: one of six, likewise mounted on st.u.r.dy Highland ponies, each leading a pack pony, though these were unladen. To their left, the gorse and broom fell away steeply toward the steely waters of Loch Fyne. Ahead, the sun was slipping behind the rugged hills that rose from Knapdale to the west. Ponies and men were strung out along the rocky track, parts of the line sometimes disappearing brie?y as they negotiated the awkward dips and hummocks.

Aubrey glanced down at the gray wavelets lapping against the humped rocks below. With the coming dusk, and its clouds of midges, a clammy haze was creeping in off the sea, already hinting at a chill night to come. He peered ahead, half-standing in his stirrups, but the jagged contours of the coast made it impossible to see beyond the next headland.

"How much farther to this bothy of Flannan's?" he asked.

"Anytime now, I think," Torquil answered. "I've been seeing landmarks that look familiar."

"I hope you're right," Aubrey said with a grimace. "There can't be much more than an hour of daylight left."

"Aye. Thank G.o.d for long summer twilights."

They had parted company from Bruce's main force nearly a week before, near Loch Linnhe. Having harried his local enemies into submission, the king planned to push north into the Highlands, there to a.s.sault the last of the Comyn strongholds and make himself master of Scotland in more than just name.

The rendezvous for their present mission had been arranged by means of a coded letter pa.s.sed from hand to hand by a series of trusted messengers who had brought it all the way from Luc, at Balantrodoch. Before that, it had come from Paris, so the source was good. But despite his outward show of con?dence, Torquil was only too well aware of how many things might have gone wrong since the plans were set, at least a month before.

"I just hope they're there," Aubrey said, voicing Torquil's unspoken concerns. "The gold they're bringing can certainly be put to good use-because the English will ?nally recover their wits."

"Aye, they will," Torquil agreed. "But Flannan's a good man-and like us, as a Scot, he has a personal stake in this war. If it's humanly possible, he'll be there."