The Iron King (6 page)

But then cries arose of ‘Death! Death to the heretics!’ from royal agents mingling with the crowd. And then the people, always prepared to shout on the side of power and to make a noise when it costs them nothing, began to yell in concert, ‘Death to them!’

‘Thieves!’

‘Heretics!’

‘Look at them! They’re no longer so proud today, heathens that they are! Death to them!’

Insults, gibes, threats rose along the whole length of the grim procession. But the frenzy was sporadic. A whole section of the crowd remained silent, and its silence, though prudent, was none the less significant.

For things had changed in the seven years that had elapsed. The way the case had been conducted was known. People had seen Templars at the church doors showing the public the bones fallen from their feet as the result of the tortures they had suffered. It was known that in many of the towns of France the Knights had been burned by hundreds at the stake. It was known, too, that certain Ecclesiastical Commissions had refused to condemn them, and that new bishops had had to be appointed to undertake the task, and that one of them was the brother of the First Minister, Enguerrand de Marigny. It was said that Pope Clement V himself had only yielded against his will because he was in the power of the King and feared to suffer the same fate as Pope Boniface, his predecessor. And, moreover, during these seven years, corn had become no more abundant, while the price of bread had risen still further, proof that it could no longer be the fault of the Templars.

Twenty-five archers, their bows slung, their pikes upon their shoulders, marched in front of the wagon, twenty-five on each flank, and as many more brought up the rear of the procession.

‘Oh, if we only still had a little bodily strength!’ thought the Grand Master. At twenty, he would have leapt upon an archer, seized his pike and tried to escape, or fought there to the death. And now he could hardly have climbed over the wagon’s side.

Behind him, the Brother Visitor was muttering through his broken teeth, ‘They won’t condemn us. I cannot believe that they’ll condemn us. We’re no longer dangerous.’

And the old Templar with the film across his eye had at last emerged sufficiently from his prostration to murmur, ‘It’s good to be out of doors! It’s good to breathe the fresh air again. Isn’t that so, Brother?’

‘They’re not even conscious of where we’re being taken,’ thought the Grand Master.

The Preceptor of Normandy placed a hand upon his arm.

‘Messire, my Brother,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I can see two people among the crowd weeping and others making the sign of the Cross. We are not alone upon our Calvary.’

‘Those people may be sorry for us, but they can do nothing to save us,’ replied Jacques de Molay. ‘I am looking for other faces.’

The Preceptor understood to whose faces the Grand Master referred, and to what supreme, incredible hope he clung. In spite of himself, he also began searching the crowd. For, among the Knights Templars, a certain number had escaped the net drawn about them in 1307. Some had taken refuge in monasteries, others had renounced their order and lived secretly in town or countryside; others again had reached Spain where the King of Aragon, refusing to obey the injunctions of the King of France and the Pope, had left the Templars their commanderies and founded a new Order for them. And then, still others, having appeared before more merciful tribunals, had been handed over to the guardianship of the Knights Hospitaler. All these veteran knights had kept in as close touch as they were able, forming a sort of secret society among themselves.

And Jacques de Molay told himself that perhaps …

Perhaps a plot had been made. Perhaps, from the corner of a street, from the corner of the rue des Blancs-Manteau, or the corner of the rue de la Bretonnerie, or from the cloister of Saint-Merry, would surge a group of men who, drawing their swords from beneath their cloaks, would fall upon the archers while others, posted at windows, would let fly their bolts. A cart moved into place at the gallop would block the street and complete the panic.

‘And yet, why should our late brothers do this?’ thought Molay. ‘Merely to rescue their Grand Master who has betrayed them, forsworn the Order, yielded to torture.’

Nevertheless, his eyes searched the crowd, but he saw nothing but fathers of families who had hoisted their young children upon their shoulders, that they might miss nothing of the spectacle, children who, in later years, when they heard mention of the Templars, would remember nothing but the sight of four bearded, shivering old men surrounded, like common criminals, by men-at-arms.

In the meantime, the Visitor General went on spitting through his teeth, and the hero of Acre merely kept repeating that it was nice to be out of doors this fine morning.

The Grand Master felt surging within him one of those half-crazy rages which had so often come upon him in his prison, making him shout aloud and beat the walls. He felt that he was upon the point of committing some violent and terrible act – he did not know exactly what – but he felt the impulse to do something.

He accepted death almost as a deliverance, but he could not accept an unjust death, nor dying dishonoured. Accustomed through long years to war, he felt it stir for the last time in his old veins. He longed to die fighting.

He sought the hand of Geoffroy de Charnay, his old companion in arms, the last strong man still standing at his side, and clasped it tightly.

Raising his eyes, the Preceptor saw the arteries beating upon the sunken temples of the Grand Master. They quivered like blue snakes.

The procession reached the Bridge of Notre-Dame.

3

The Royal Daughters-in-law

T
HE BASKET PERFUMED
the air about it with a delicious odour of hot flour, butter and honey.

‘Hot, hot pancakes! There won’t be enough to go round! Come on, citizens, eat up! Hot pancakes!’ cried the merchant, busy behind his open-air stove.

He seemed to be doing a great many things at the same time, rolling out his paste, removing the cooked pancakes from the fire, giving change, and keeping an eye on the street urchins to see they did not rob his stove.

‘Hot pancakes!’

He was so busy that he paid no particular attention to the customer who, extending a white hand, placed a denier on the board in payment for a small pancake. He only saw the left hand put the wafer, from which but a single bite had been taken, down again.

‘Well, he’s a fussy one,’ he said, poking his fire. ‘To hell with him; it’s pure wheaten flower and butter from Vaugirard …’

At that moment he looked up and was startled out of his wits. On seeing who the customer was, his words were stifled in his throat. He saw a very tall man with huge unblinking eyes, wearing a white hood and a half-length tunic.

Before even the merchant could manage a bow or stammer out an excuse, the man in the white hood had already moved away. The confectioner, with hanging arms, watched him disappear into the crowd, while his latest batch of pancakes began to burn.

The business streets of the city, according to travellers in Africa and the Orient, were at that time very similar to the
souks
of an Arab town. The same incessant din, little stalls touching one another, odours of frying-fat, spices and leather, the same slow promenading of shoppers and loungers, the same difficulty in forcing a way through the crowd. Each street, each alley, had its own special brand of goods, its own particular trade; here, in back shops, weavers’ shuttles went to and fro upon the looms; there, cobblers sat at their lasts; farther on, saddlers tugged at their awls; and beyond again, carpenters turned the legs of stools.

There was a street of birds, a street of herbs and vegetables, a street of smiths whose hammers resounded upon their anvils while their braziers glowed at the back of their workshops. The goldsmiths, working at their crucibles, were gathered along the quay that bore their name.

There were thin ribbons of sky between the houses which were built of wood or mud, their gables so close together that one could shake hands from window to window across the street. Almost everywhere the ground was covered with a stinking film of mud in which people walked, either barefoot, in wooden clogs, or in leather shoes, according to their condition.

The man with the tall shoulders and the white hood walked slowly on through the mob, his hands clasped behind his back, apparently careless of being jostled. Many, indeed, made way for him and saluted him. He responded with a curt nod. He had the appearance of an athlete; fair silky hair, almost auburn in colour and curling at the ends, fell nearly to his collar, framing regular features which were at once impassive and singularly beautiful.

Three royal sergeants-at-arms, in blue coats and carrying in the crooks of their arms the staves surmounted with lilies that were the insignia of their office,
⁷
followed the stroller at a distance, but without ever losing sight of him, stopping when he stopped, moving on again as soon as he did.

Suddenly a young man in a tight-fitting tunic, dragged along by three fine greyhounds on a leash, debouched from an alley, jostling the stroller and very nearly knocking him over. The hounds became entangled about his feet and began barking.

‘You scoundrel!’ the young man cried in a noticeably Italian accent. ‘You nearly trod on my hounds. I wouldn’t have cared a damn if they’d bitten you.’

No more than eighteen, short and good-looking, with dark eyes and finely chiselled features, the young man stood his ground in the middle of the street, raising his voice in simulated manliness. Someone took him by the arm and whispered a word in his ear. At once the young man removed his cap, bowing respectfully though without servility.

‘Those are fine hounds; whose are they?’ asked the stroller, gazing at the boy out of huge, cold eyes.

‘They belong to my uncle, Tolomei, the banker, at your service,’ replied the young man.

Without another word, the man in the white hood went on his way. As soon as he and the sergeants-at-arms who followed him were out of sight, the people standing round the young Italian guffawed. The latter stood still, apparently having some difficulty in recovering himself after his mistake; even the hounds were still.

‘Well, well! He’s not so proud now!’ they said, laughing.

‘Look at him! He nearly knocks the King down and then adds insult to injury.’

‘You can count on spending the night in prison, my boy, with thirty strokes of the whip into the bargain.’

The Italian turned upon the bystanders.

‘Damn it! I’d never seen him before; how could I be expected to recognise him? And what’s more, citizens, I come from a country where there’s no king for whom one has to make way. In my city of Sienna every citizen can be king in turn. And if anyone feels like mocking Guccio Baglioni, he need only say the word.’

He uttered his name like a challenge. The quick pride of Tuscany shone in his eyes. A carved dagger hung at his side. No one persisted; and the young man flicked his fingers to put the hounds in motion again. He went on his way with more apparent assurance than he felt, wondering whether his stupidity would have unpleasant consequences.

For it was indeed King Philip the Fair whom he had jostled. This sovereign, whom none other equalled in power, liked to stroll through his city like a simple citizen, informing himself upon prices, tasting foodstuffs, examining cloth, listening to people talking. He was taking the pulse of his people. Strangers, ignorant of who he was, asked him the way. One day a soldier had stopped him to ask for his pay. As mean with words as he was with money, it was rare that in a whole outing he said more than three sentences or spent more than three pence.

The King was passing through the meat-market when the great bell of Notre-Dame began ringing and a loud clamour arose.

‘There they are! There they are!’ people were shouting.

The clamour drew nearer; the crowd became excited, people began to run.

A fat butcher came out from behind his stall, knife in hand, and yelled, ‘Death to the heretics!’

His wife caught him by the sleeve.

‘Heretics? They’re no more heretics than you are,’ she said. ‘You’d do better to stay here and serve the shop, you idler, you.’

They began quarrelling. A crowd gathered at once.

‘They’ve confessed before the judges!’ the butcher went on.

‘The judges?’ someone replied. ‘They’ve always been the same ones. They judge as they’re told to by those who pay them, and they’re afraid of a kick up the arse.’

Then everyone began to talk at once.

‘The Templars are saintly men. They’ve always given a lot to charity.’

‘It was a good thing to take their money away, but not to torture them.’

‘It was the King who owed them most, that’s why it was.’

‘The King did the right thing.’

‘The King or the Templars,’ said an apprentice, ‘they’re one and the same thing. Let the wolves eat each other and then they won’t eat us.’

At that moment a woman happened to turn round, grew suddenly pale, and made a sign to the others to be quiet. Philip the Fair was standing behind them, gazing at them with his unwinking, icy stare. The sergeants-at-arms had drawn a little closer to him, ready to intervene. In an instant the crowd had dispersed; those who had composed it ran off shouting at the tops of their voices, ‘Long live the King! Death to the heretics!’