The Seal (51 page)

In this state he
lay, torpid, aware of the courtiers, servants, secretaries, priests and
cardinals only as spectres in a confusion of noise, light and dark. Well
distinguishable, however, was the pain that no longer came in waves but hurtled
at his body with relentlessness: the pain of the body and the pain of
conscience
;
but worse than that, the face of Boniface.

He struggled to
free himself from the stinking rotted face of the ghost, but Boniface reached
down into Clement’s abdomen with infinite patience, directing his hands,
pulling, opening him up and plucking with long nervous fingers as if Clement
were an instrument to be worked hard. In his ears the words: ‘And then it was
commonly said that by the use of torture they had made their confessions, those
of the Order.’

He saw then his
engraved pearly bowels coiled, serpent-like, personified, and they turned to
Clement in his stupor and smiled grotesquely. In those features there was
something primeval, something familiar. The serpent curled its body wet with
blood and mucus around him, tightening till he was suffocating. It opened its
jaws wide, wider than the earth, encompassing all the stars, the planets and
the universe. Within those jaws, like a mirror, he observed his tedious,
useless life pass before the figure of Judas who gazed at it and laughed,
holding out the secrets of the Temple on a parchment, which he tore to shreds.
‘Nota bene! Betrayal has its price! I’ll see you at the gates of hell!’ and his
face became the face of Jacques de Molay. ‘Judas or Peter?’ the apparition
asked him, melting into a fire that consumed Clement also, burning his hair,
his skin, his hands, liquefying his face and popping out his eyes and, finally,
dissolving him into the formless ocean into which Pilate dived down with his
hands, to wash them in the blood that was coming from Clement’s anus.

But Clement was
plunging into a great visceral womb, a dark hell pit, sulphurous-hot, wherein
he came across the Devil who was chained to a grate with his gnarled hands
grasping for his throat; but Clement was running, he ran a long way until he
came to a void, a darkness so terrible, so vacuous that in it he became
nothing, a nonbeing, a speck of dust, and he saw Judas once again, sitting upon
an island where every day was Good Friday. He smiled, waving to him. ‘Welcome
to hell, brother!’ Now Clement was yelling with all his might, his hands
grasping at nothing since he was sliding down the length of a dark vulva that
strained and convulsed with spasms propelling him, the grotesque child, the
malignant, disfigured, deformed child, outward, where waited a great red
dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon its heads, its
mouths open at the great, vulval gate. One head belonged to Philip, the other
to the inquisitor, another was the likeness of de Nogaret, and another a
picture of Nogaret’s assistant de Plaisians. There was the appearance of the
Archbishop of Narbonne and the Archbishop of Sens, but the last evaded him; the
neck moved this way and that, escaping scrutiny. When finally it turned in his
direction, it was a most vile expression that met him. Clement vomited.

The face was
his own
.

At last Clement
knew his fate, his lungs expelled all their air and he groaned two great groans
. . .

. .
. and he was devoured.

I
terius waited for his
master at a distance from the avenue of chestnut trees. Here he was cast in
shades of silver as the stars crept out from behind the clouds.

He peered about,
gathering to him the dirty purple cloak edged with fur and holding tightly to
the bag that squirmed beneath it. Poisonous snakes . . . his insurance. After
all, he was what he was now, remembering what he had been then, before the loss
of his king’s regard. It was not his fault that he must resort to other
loyalties and to foul means.

And so it had
been favourable that Philip had summoned him to this place at this hour, for
although he might be fair sport standing alone among the chestnut trees, he
felt safe in the knowledge that his dream had predicted he would die by falling
from a great height.

Alas . . . alas
. . . he consoled himself, looking up to the hiding stars. Perhaps the King
called him here because he still needed him? After all, he could still make the
draught that caused the images to pass before Philip’s mind. In that case
Guillaume de Plaisians might enjoy a visit from his lizards.

He saw a shadow
manifest from other shadows near the pale little chapel. He tightened his grip
around the bag.
We will see
. . . he
told himself and out loud. ‘Sire? Is that you?’

‘It is I,’ came
Philip’s response, health-full and exuberant, followed by the sound of his
steps on the moist ground.

The shadow came
closer and became a form recognisable. Even in the dark Iterius could sense
something changed about that shadow.

Warily the
Egyptian moved toward it. ‘Sire?’ he said, some paces from him. ‘How come you
here unprotected?’

The King
gestured for Iterius to follow him along the flagged path that was white with a
thin layer of snow. ‘I go nowhere alone, Iterius!’ He glanced upward to the stars
and their light revealed nothing of his eyes. Iterius knew only the murderous
violence, full with pride and
disdain, that
was hid
thinly behind the friendly tone of that voice.

‘First snow of
the season,’ he said.

The astrologer
kept up with the King’s long, powerful strides. Tense and held in, suspicious
of the King’s calm, he wondered what followed in the train of the bright tone
of his voice – a smile? He would worry about a smile.

‘I see visions
now without the aid of your draught.’ Philip half turned to him but did not
slow down his pace as they walked in the direction of the abbey. ‘At every
moment there tears into my soul vast panoramas, futures and pasts! I am
tethered to such insights and nightmares! Mighty and colossal mysteries of
darkness sweep over me and thrust me into the workings of their being. The
power to rule the world exists on my soul’s tongue, Astrologer, ready to be
voiced, and what a voice it shall be! To bring this unusual gift to its
fulfilment!’

A moment of
illumination rendered Iterius speechless – he was no longer needed.

‘Come along . .
. pick up the pace.’

Iterius gazed
upward to a westering sky toward chaos and eternity, and began to feel cold and
dangerous. ‘Where are we going, sire?’ he asked.

‘Patience,’ the
King said. A moment later he said, ‘Have you given some thought to what I shall
do with you?’

There was a
sound behind them. The wind came and scooped up the limbs of the chestnut trees
and disturbed snow. The animals pastured beyond the lane made noises and moved
off.

‘Sire, you have
achieved the end of the Order . . . you have seen the future . . . but what you
have not seen will now be accomplished with my help. There is a bond that spans
many lives, sire, and will continue on beyond life . . . You cannot . . . you
must not discard me if you wish to know the secrets, for only now can they be
made understood to you!’ He was elated. ‘Of course! I was foolish!’ he muttered
to himself. ‘It is only now that the Templars are dead that what they have kept
secret can be made intelligible!’

‘What is this
nonsense, Astrologer?’ The King was paused, looking down on him.

Iterius for his
part was realising with a sense of curious wonder that evil had settled into
his mind like a cat settles into a lap. ‘Sire!’ He was excited now. ‘With my
help you shall control good and evil, birth and death! You will reign over all
things!’ The astrologer looked out to the wintry night. ‘I will become your
mirror! I need not be anything at all . . . I can be vacant . . . just a
mirror! A mirror.’ He was doing a little shuffle with his feet in the snow. ‘I
will mediate the Templar secrets from the world of the dead! I realise now! Men
who die a violent death become channels of knowledge for men like me!’

‘Men like you?
Oh shut up, Astrologer!’ The King dismissed him and resumed his walk. ‘Don’t
confound me with your double-talk! You are a useless creature and I am immune
to your garbled nonsense these days! Besides, I find myself turning suspicious
since I have been made aware of a conspiracy and I suspect you to have
something to do with it.’

Iterius became
watchful. Following behind his king he constructed his voice to have a ring of
innocence. ‘Conspiracy . . . I?’

‘My brother
Charles seeks the throne,’ the King said over his shoulder.

They had come
upon a covered bridge that spanned a fast-flowing watercourse and they began to
cross it. The wooden floor of it was covered with wet leaves and snow turned
mud. Iterius untied the leather bag and held it ready should he need quick
access to its contents.

‘My brother is
not sharp-minded and his tongue wags in the wrong ears . . . Yours perhaps?’

‘I, sire? I am
your most loyal . . . there is a bond between us . . .’

‘Yes, yes . . .’
he said in a sardonic tone, ‘and by what means does my loyal, bonded servant
suggest I kill my brother without suspicion?’

Iterius held the
bag in his hands; he gave a silent smile and said, ‘There is nothing so good as
living poison, sire.’

‘Living?’

‘Snakes, lizards
. . . Certain peculiar ones kill slowly or quickly . . .’ He grasped at the wriggling
bag within his cloak.

‘Yes . . . in
the bed . . . or the bath.’

‘Only I know where
you might find them, sire.’

‘Perhaps you are
still useful to me, Iterius?’

Iterius said
quickly, ‘Yes, yes, sire, I am your servant! I understand you better than any
man. I am all that you have. Without me nothing you have sought for shall be
accomplished.’

Philip put a
halt to his march. ‘All that I have?’

Iterius was
taken unwares by his sovereign’s sudden pause, and only managed to prevent stumbling
into the back of the King by overbalancing his body. He gave a pained yell as
his crippled leg bent and the rest of him slipped out from under it and he fell
heavily backwards. By virtue of the fall he loosened his grasp on the bag and
its contents spilt out over his belly. In a heartbeat he felt the small bodies
dash in various directions over him and then three stings, one on his neck, one
on his face and one on his hand. He gave out another yell.

The King was
looking down. The living creatures glinted briefly in the darkness and then
disappeared into the night. Iterius lay in a state of horror, observing his
folly with disbelief.

‘What was that?’

‘Lizards, sire.’

‘Poisonous
ones?’

‘I assume so,
sire.’

The King made a
sound deep in his throat and the voice that issued from it was full of violent
madness. ‘You are a profane heart!’ he laughed. Then in the manner of one who
queries the price of bread, ‘Are you killed then?’

‘I think so,
sire!’ the astrologer answered, a hotness in his belly radiating outwards to
his arms and legs. His throat felt as if it were on fire and his tongue was dry
and large. He tried to lick his lips and realised with a sense of horror that
he could not find them.

The King sighed.
‘From your own treachery?’

Iterius held his
breath and let it out. His mind began to fidget upon the possible outcome of
his stupidity. And then he remembered this was not how he was meant to die. The
King, he realised, must be destined to help him. Perhaps if he could be helped
to his former apartment he could come up with an antidote. Perhaps.

A glimmer of
hope shot up in the sea of his terror and then there was a noise behind them
and he thought he saw the King make a gesture.

‘How shall you
die, quickly or slowly?’

‘Slowly, sire.’
Iterius swallowed and terror flushed through him with a sigh. His head felt
like an overcooked cabbage. ‘Quite slowly, I should think.’

‘You thought
that I brought you here to kill you?’ the King was chastising him. ‘Is that not
so?’

Iterius sat up a
little and nodded, tears streaming from his eyes as a new realisation entered
into him. ‘And you did not, sire?’

‘Supposing that
at that moment, as I paused before the little trap, I had decided to spare
you?’

The astrologer’s
face looked full at Philip’s. A trap? Hidden in the bridge? A mantrap in the
walk . . . leading down to the river or perhaps a pit . . . it would be a long
way down to the bottom of it. He was filled with surprise turned steep horror.
‘Oh sire, yes, you were certainly going to spare me!’

The King looked
down and Iterius thought he could see a look of concern. ‘After all, I am understood
by you alone...’

‘That’s right…’
Iterius gasped.

There was the
sound of satisfaction in his voice. ‘Pity we shall never know it now, Iterius,’
he said, and gave a laugh.