The Brotherhood Of The Holy Shroud (40 page)

They had ridden for many days, but now, at last, they espied the valley of Bidasoa, in Navarro. Beltran de Santillana, accompanied by four knights and their squires, spurred his steed. They were anxious to enter Spain, to leave France and the agents of King Philippe behind them.

Knowing they might well be followed by assassins, they had hardly stopped to rest. Philippe had eyes everywhere, and it would not be surprising if someone had whispered to his spies that a group of men had left the fortress Villeneuve du Temple.

Jacques de Molay had asked them not to wear the Templar helmet or mail, so that they might journey unnoticed-at least until they were far from Paris. They were not to change their plain vestments until they were a few leagues past the frontier and safely in Spain. Then they would garb themselves again as what they were-knights, Templar knights, for there was no honor greater than belonging to the Temple and fulfilling its sacred mission-saving its most precious treasure.

Beltran de Santillana breathed easier as, along the road, he began to recognize the landscape of his near-forgotten homeland, and he savored the sounds of Castilian as he spoke with laborers and with the brothers in the Templar chapters in the lands they passed through.

After riding for days, they came near the town of Jerez, in Extremadura-Jerez de los Caballeros, it was often called, for it was the site of a Templar chapter house. Beltran announced to the knights and squires accompanying him that they would rest a few days there before beginning the last stage of their journey.

Now that he was in Castile, Beltran felt a yearning for his past, the days when he had not yet known what the future held for him and dreamed only of being a warrior who would free the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels and return it to Christianity.

It was his father who had encouraged him to enter the Order of Knights Templar and become a warrior for God.

It had been hard for him at first, for although he enjoyed wielding his sword and bow, his exuberant nature was not made for chastity. There were hard years of penitence and sacrifice, until he learned to tame his body, fit it to the motions of his soul, and be worthy of taking the oath of a Templar.

He was now fifty, and old age was upon him, but he felt himself young again on this journey, which had brought him from the north through the south of Castile.

In the distance, profiled against the horizon, rose the Temple's imposing castle. A fertile valley ensured the chapter's food, and generous streams and small rivers quenched its thirst. Laborers working in a field saw them approach and waved. Here, the Templars were yet respected and admired. A squire took their horses and showed them the path to the castle entrance.

Beltran recounted the recent developments in France to the somber superior and gave him a scroll bearing the seal of Jacques de Molay.

During the days they rested, Beltran de Santillana took pleasure in the conversation of another Templar born in the mountains of Cantabria, in a town very near his own. They recalled the names of friends they had had in common, servants of the palace in which they had visited, even the names of certain cows that grazed in the fields, indifferent to the shouting and running of the children.

Beltran never spoke of the mission with which he had been charged. And neither the superior of the chapter nor his Cantabrian brother asked questions of the quiet knight. But when they said their farewells, they did so with comforted hearts.

A few scattered whitewashed houses caressed by the sun made up the last village before one crossed the river into Portugal. The owner of the barge that ferried passengers and belongings back and forth across the Guadiana each day charged dearly, but the Templars did not dispute his price.

The ferryman took them to the other side of the river and pointed to the road that led to the fortress of Castro Marim, whose massive walls could be seen even from the Castilian side.

From the battlements of the Templar castle, knights could see to the far horizon and the sea. But the fortress was safe against the incursions of any enemy, sitting as it did in a bend in the Guadiana.

Jose Sa Beiro, master of the chapter house of Castro Marim, was a wise and erudite man who had studied medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, and whose mastery of Arabic had enabled him to read the classics, for the knowledge of Aristotle, Thales of Miletus, Archimedes, and many others, otherwise lost, had been preserved in translations by Arab scholars. He had fought in the Holy Land, known the dry wind of its arid landscape, and still longed for the nights lit by thousands of stars, which in the East looked as though one might clutch them in one's hand.

The superior greeted Beltran and his accompanying knights warmly and bade them rest and wash from themselves the dust of the road. He would not talk with thetn until they had eaten and drunk and he was assured they were settled in the austere cells that had been prepared for them.

Beltran met with Sa Beiro in the master's study, where a large window admitted the breeze from the river.

When the knight finished his story, he reverently unfolded the cloth before the superior. The two men were astounded at the clarity of the image of the Christ figured along its length. There were the marks of the Passion, the suffering the Savior had undergone.

Jose Sa Beiro gently caressed the cloth, knowing what a monumental privilege it was to do so. Here at his hand was the true image of Jesus, the very image the Templars had worshipped in the privacy of their chapels since Grand Master de Vichiers had sent copies to all the houses of the brotherhood.

The master bade Beltran sit as he read Jacques de Molay's letter. When he had finished, his eyes burned with the same intensity that had carried him through countless battles in the Holy Land.

"Good knight, we shall defend this cloth with our lives. The Grand Master asks that for the present we tell no one that it is in our possession here. We must wait to find out what happens in France, what effects the decision of the Council of Vienne may have on the order. Jacques de Molay bids me send a knight at once to Paris, as a spy; he must go in disguise, and he must neither go near the Temple nor try to communicate with any Templar, but only look and listen, and when he has discovered the fate that is to be the order's, he is to return immediately. Then shall be the moment to decide whether the shroud is to remain in Castro Marim or be taken to another secure place. This is what the Grand Master instructs, and this is what we shall do.

"I shall send for Joao de Tomar. He is the man for this mission."

The town of Troyes was behind him, and it was only a few leagues to the seigneury of Lirey. Geoffroy de Charney had journeyed alone, in the company only of his squire, and he had felt the gaze of Philippe's spies following him all along the road. In his shoulder bag he carried the linen cloth that had protected the shroud, as his uncle Francois de Charney had done before him.

The laborers in the field were gathering their tools in the fading light. The Templar felt his heart lift, seeing the fields of his youth that had long come to him in dreams, and he spurred his horse, eager to embrace his older brother.

His reunion with his family was filled with emotion. His brother, Paul, pulled him into a fierce embrace, assuring him that he had come home to his own house. His father, closer to death than life, shook with sobs as he gazed upon his younger son. He had never wavered in his admiration for the Temple and had aided the order whenever he had been asked. The renowned service of the family's sons in the Templar ranks had been a source of pride and honor to the de Charneys through the years, and it would stand with the order now.

That night, when the household had retired, Geoffroy revealed to his father and brother the sacred cloth that had been entrusted to their family. He was iron-bound by his vows and by the master's explicit orders from relating the whole of the story to them. But that did not lessen the vital importance of the task before them or the profound devotion with which they undertook this trust.

Knowing the fate that all but certainly awaited Geoffrroy, the older men begged him to remain at Lirey, with them and with the miraculous cloth, to guard it until the end of his days if he might. But he was resolved to rejoin his brothers of the Temple and would not be dissuaded. Nor would he obey his master, for he knew his presence in Lirey would only call attention to the place in which the cloth was to remain hidden. His duty and his destiny lay elsewhere, in Villeneuve du Temple at the side of Jacques de Molay.

For several days, however, Geoffroy allowed himself to bask in the warmth of his family. He played with his nephew, who bore his name and one day would inherit the family home. The brave, bright little fellow followed his uncle about wherever he went, asking him to teach him to fight.

"When I grow up I shall be a Templar," he would say.

And a lump would come to Geoffroy's throat, for he knew that the doors to the future had been closed to the Temple, probably forever.

On the day of his departure, young Geoffroy bade his uncle farewell with tears in his eyes. He had asked the knight to take him with him to fight in the Holy Land, and he was inconsolable that he could not go. In his innocence he could not know that his uncle was about to enter the worst of battles, against an enemy who knew no nobility in combat and made no claim to honor-an enemy who was no Saracen but rather Philippe of France, their king.

Jacques de Molay was praying in his chamber when a servant announced the return of de Charney. He had the knight brought to him immediately and, on seeing his face and receiving his terse report on his successful mission, wasted no time in chiding him for rejoining his brothers.

All along his journey back to the Templar fortress, de Charney had heard rumors of Philippe's latest movements against the Temple, and the Grand Master now apprised him of the most recent, fatal developments. In no more than a few days, it seemed, they would be tried en masse and burned at the stake. First, though, they would be tortured and calumnies would be heaped upon them, for the king was accusing the Templars of paganism and sodomy, and also of worshipping the devil and of prostrating themselves before an idol they called Baphumet.

And indeed there was a figure to whom the Templars prayed throughout the world in every chapter house, though His name was not Baphumet. Perhaps somewhere, some unfaithful servant had been bribed to reveal the details of life within the Temple's walls and had whispered that the knights often closed themselves up in a chapel that no one else might enter, and there they prayed. And that upon the wall of the secret chapel had been glimpsed a painting, an image of a strange figure, an idol, whom they worshipped.

The fortress Villeneuve du Temple was a sacred and impenetrable sanctuary no more. The king's soldiers had marched in with impunity and seized everything they found. There was little left to take and no sign of where the riches had gone. Months before, Jacques de Molay had divided the remaining gold and distributed it among distant chapter houses and moved the temple's treasures to Scotland, where its secret documents had also been sent. Philippe's fury was terrible. Yet there was one treasure, the greatest of all, that he felt sure must still lie within his grasp.

He sent an emissary to the fortress-the Comte de Champagne, who presented himself at the gate and demanded to see the Grand Master. Jacques de Molay received him with his characteristic tranquillity and grace.

"I come in the name of the king," the nobleman said grandly when the two men were alone.

"So I imagined. Otherwise I would not have seen you."

The Grand Master remained standing, and he did not invite the Comte de Champagne to take a seat, a snub that inflamed the count's tender sensibilities and his finely honed mastery of courtly etiquette. He was there representing the full authority of the king of France. Yet he squirmed uncomfortably beneath the knight's steady gaze.

"His Majesty wishes to make you an offer: your life in exchange for the Holy Shroud in which Jesus was buried. The king has not a doubt that the relic is in the Temple's possession-our sainted king Louis believed so too. In the royal archives there are documents concerning this matter, reports from our ambassador to Constantinople, volumes from our spies at the imperial court, confidences from Emperor Balduino himself to his uncle the king of France. We know that the shroud of Christ is in the possession of the Temple. You are hiding it."

Jacques de Molay listened to the Comte de Champagne's speech in silence, revealing in neither his face nor his posture any reaction, any emotion at all. But mentally he gave thanks to God that he had foreseen the necessity of removing the relic-which by now, he thought, must be safe in Castro Marim, under the protection of good Jose Sa Beiro.

When the count finished talking, the Grand Master answered coolly, "My dear count, I assure you that the relic to which you refer is not in my possession. You may be certain, however, that even if it were, I would never make such an exchange. The king should not confuse the values of other men with his own."

De Champagne's face reddened at the insult to his monarch. Yet he pressed on. Surely this rough knight could be made to see reason.

"De Molay, the king would show you his magnanimity. Think! You wish to die for something that in fact belongs to the Crown, to France and all of Christendom."

"Belongs?
Explain to me why it
belongs
to Philippe."

The count could hardly contain his rage. He would relish the day when this so-called "master" and his fellows pleaded for the mercy they now spurned so arrogantly.

"You know as well as I how much gold Louis, good King Louis, sent to Byzantium in exchange for holy relics. And you know that the emperor himself agreed that Louis should have the shroud of Christ-until it was stolen away!"