The Last Templar

Chapter Twenty-five

Simon sat gazing at the knight with a mixture of consternation and disbelief. It seemed incredible that the tall man’s story could be true, but every word spoke of his conviction. Baldwin sat relaxed, his eyes roving slowly from Simon to Hugh, and moving on to the fire, occasionally resting on Edgar. He seemed to have passed beyond worry, as if he knew his tale would not be believed, as if he knew he was to die and cared little for the fact. He seemed to have given up, as if he had dreamed of rest and peace down here in the quiet of Devon, but had found only a new struggle to cope with.

His eyes were half-lidded now, making him look tired, as if weary from the strain of recollection, but Simon could still see the glitter in them. At first he had thought it was the gleam of anger at being discovered, but now he felt sure it was directed not at him but at Oliver de Penne, the man he had killed, as if killing him had not been enough to wipe away the depth of the crime he had committed against Baldwin and his friends.

Hugh shifted uneasily in his seat as the knight continued.

“It was obvious we could not stay in France. The French king and the pope seemed to be dedicated to the destruction of the Temple, and to the death or removal of all Knights Templar. The punishments were varied, but any man who had confessed under torture and then retracted his admission was to be burned at the stake.

“The Order was fortunate in having one man who could defend it, Peter de Bologna, a man who had been Preceptor of the Temple in Rome, and a man of great learning as well as a man who understood the Church. With his knowledge he could fight the case using the Church’s laws. When he examined the witnesses against the Order, it soon became clear that there was no concrete proof of anything. The witnesses referred to hearsay, or were proved to be liars, and de Bologna took full advantage of our enemies’ confusion.

“Now, at about this time, the old archbishop of Sens died, and a new man had to be found. The new archbishop was a friend of the French king, Philip de Marigny. As soon as he took office he moved quickly. He confirmed sentences on the individual Templars in prison – even while their trials were continuing. In one morning he had fifty-four Knights taken out to the stakes and burned.”

Baldwin’s head dropped, as if in prayer, and Simon felt a chilly stab of pain as he saw the tears falling down the knight’s face. Baldwin put a hand up to his brow, holding his head for a minute in silence. The only sound in the room was the fizz and crackle of the burning logs on the fire, and Simon’s eyes were drawn to them as he thought about the deaths of those men.

The knight sat up, wiping his face. “My apologies, but I had friends among that group,” he said, his eyes on the floor. “Peter de Bologna was taken by this same archbishop and sentenced to life in prison. He was not allowed to continue his defence of the Order. But Peter was a shrewd and resourceful man. He managed to escape from his bonds in his gaol, and made off, living rough in the countryside until he managed to make his way to Spain. I met him there.

“Peter was ever a stalwart figure, as I remembered him.

“When I found him in Spain he was soldiering again, but not with one of the Orders. I had gone there because I had the idea of joining the Knights Hospitaller. The Spanish were never convinced of the guilt of the Templars, as, indeed, our own king, Edward, was not. The Spanish had always fought alongside the Templars in their struggle to keep the Moorish hordes at bay, and they knew that the Templars were an honourable Order, so it seemed a good place for me to go to. I thought I could join another Order and find peace.

“But Peter de Bologna wanted none of that. You see, during his trial, he had been able to see some papers while he was trying to defend our Order. He could not join another Order afterwards – he was too bitter. He remained as a soldier of fortune, fighting for what he believed, fighting to protect Christendom.

“I should explain, for you probably don’t know how the Templars were organised, but as the Pope is Christ’s vicar on earth, and therefore has power over all men, even kings, so the Knights Templar were answerable only to the Pope, because they were the most holy of all Orders, being created to protect pilgrims. What Peter saw during his defence of the Order was a paper that gave the names of all of the men who had given false witness against us. One of the commissioners was helpful and allowed Peter to see more when he asked, I think because he wanted to see the Order have a fair trial, and some of them showed that there was a conspiracy against us.

“At first, Peter could not believe what he saw, because it seemed too awful. The papers showed that the French king and the pope were in league to destroy the Order, but not because of the crimes alleged. No. For one reason only – they wanted our money! That was all!” He was sitting forward now, his despair at the futility of the destruction of his Order plain on his face as he stared unblinking at Simon, as if trying to transfer his feelings of betrayal and anguish in that single, penetrating and concentrated gaze.

Simon found his own feelings stirring in sympathy and he had to struggle to control his own composure. Now, at last, he could understand the dreadful scars of pain and loss he had noticed when he had first met this man.

“The king wanted our money because he owed the Order for several debts, and he wanted to be able to forget them. We had loaned him money for his daughter’s dowry when he had arranged her marriage to Edward of England. We had loaned him money for his wars. We had helped him in many ways, and he wanted to be able to take all that we had and not repay the debts. He decided to destroy the Temple so that he could take everything, everything we had. The pope was in his power, because he lived in Avignon, not in Rome, and he wanted to have our money too. Not for the Church, but for himself.” He gave another short, sharp laugh. “And it worked! We never considered that the pope could betray us so badly, and we believed, in our innocence, that the French king was grateful for the help we had always given him. We never realised that because we helped him he would decide to destroy us!” He subsided and glared into the fire again, his eyes full of the hurt of the betrayal.

“When Peter saw that, he swore never again to serve king or pope. From then he chose to serve God in his own way, and he did, fighting the Moors in Spain until his death a year ago. But before he died, he told me what he knew.

“The French king had a helper called Guillaume de Nogaret. He was the devil himself, an evil man. He was bright and intelligent; he had been brought up by the Church after the death of his parents, and yet he seemed to hate it. It was he who decided that the way to destroy the Templars was to accuse us of heresy, and he went about it with vigour. He organised false confessions for money. Wherever there was a Templar who had been ejected from the Order, de Nogaret would search him out and bribe him to give false witness against the Order.

“One man helped him more than any other. He arranged for false confessions of murder, of heresy and of idolatry, and then made sure that they were published. He spread tales of the evil-doings of the Order.

“The same man arranged for confessions from among the Templars’ servants, admissions of idol worship and of new members being forced to spit on the cross…”

Simon interjected with heat. “But how can you say this? Are you telling me that all these accusations were false, all these crimes were invented? There were many, even I know that. Surely you cannot expect me to believe that they were all untrue?”

The knight looked at him with a small, sad smile. “But, my friend,” he said, “can the reverse be true? Think! All men who joined the Order were knights in their own right. All joined because they were holy, because they were committed, because they wanted to become members of an Order that demanded of them that they take the vows of a monk, that demanded them to be honourable and godly, demanded their obedience and demanded their poverty. If you were to go to join an Order like that, would you then spit on the Holy Cross on your first day? Of course not! If you had decided to dedicate your life to Christ, if you had decided to give everything you had, if you had decided to fight whenever you were told in the Holy Land, would you as a first step defile the very symbol of God’s power? Could you believe that a monk would do that? Why should you expect a Templar to? It is not possible.” His sad eyes stared at Simon for a minute or two, until Simon was forced to nod. Put like that, it did seem improbable.

“So, this man invented these things. He was not motivated by honour, he wanted money and power. And he won them. Oh yes, he won them!

“We did not know his name or anything about him, he was too well guarded. All we knew was that he had been a Templar, a knight who had been recruited but who was evil. A twisted, vicious, greedy man who should never have been able to join our ranks. But how could we find his name? How could we discover his identity? Peter never did, but I managed to.

“In thirteen hundred and fourteen, we who remained found out that there was to be a show of penitence for our Order. You must realise that even now, even knowing about this man who had betrayed us all, it seemed that something must have been wrong with the Order, for the very reason you gave just now – how could so many crimes have been invented? And why?

“In that year, only two years ago, the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, and three others were to confess their sins in front of the whole of Paris, before Notre Dame cathedral. When I and some friends heard of this, we drew straws to choose a witness. I was chosen.”

He fell silent again, his head dropping almost on to his chest in his sadness at the remembered pain, and when he continued his voice was low, as if he was recollecting the deep injustices done to him and his companions from far in his past, not events from only two years before. He had withdrawn again, seeming to sink in upon himself, as if he was not in the same room as the others and was talking to himself, like an old man recalling ancient memories and forgetting the existence of his audience.

“I went to Paris. I stood in front of the platform until they all arrived, draped in chains like common thieves. They all denied the accusations, and a little later Jacques de Molay and the others were all burned at the stake in front of the cathedral. A huge crowd went to see them die, but I did not. I could not! Jacques – dear, strong, honest Jacques! How could I go and see him destroyed by the flames? How could I?” He turned to Simon, his face full of grief, his eyes searching his face as if hunting desperately for his support. “When the soldiers went back the next morning to clear up the ashes, they could find no bones. The people of Paris had collected them all and taken them. After all that had happened they knew that the accusations were false. They believed the bones were holy relics. Even small finger bones.” His eyes stayed fixed on Simon as his hand went to his throat and pulled at a string. A small leather pouch was attached to the cord, and Baldwin looked at it for a moment, then nodded at the bailiff before dropping it back down the front of his tunic.

“I had to tell my friends what had happened, and then we went our own ways, to tell of the end of the Order and to keep die memory alive of Jacques de Molay and his final martyrdom. But I had to find out who had betrayed us.” His mouth twitched in a sardonic grin. “And it was the pope himself who told me who it was!”

Simon started, his eyes wide in astonishment. “ The pope told you? How…”

Laughing quietly, as if to himself, Baldwin took the jug and refilled his mug. Still smiling, he gazed at Simon. “No, he didn’t mean to! It happened this way. After the farce of the Notre Dame confessions, I decided to find out who was responsible, as I said. At first it seemed impossible, but Edgar and I travelled widely and talked to many who had been members of the Order, and gradually some threads seemed to come together to point to a few men. But each that I saw seemed to have suffered for his admissions. Each seemed to have benefited from the fall of the Temple. None was wealthy, in fact most were monks – and not senior, just unknown men who were dedicated to God and their new lives. Many, in fact, were as bitter as I about the way that the Order’s high ideals had been perverted. But with many of them, one name kept appearing. One man seemed to have spoken to many while they suffered in their dungeons. He was another prisoner, but he seemed to have been moved to any number of gaols and, wherever he went, men admitted to crimes that they denied to me.

“I kept my own counsel, but continued on my hunt. He was in Paris, he was in Normandy, he was in the south, he even appeared in Rome! Why, I wondered, would a man who was a suspected heretic be moved around so much? Wherever he had appeared he was in chains with the others, but no one ever saw him being tortured. Where he went, the other prisoners heard about the tortures being inflicted upon their brothers, they were told of the dreadful pains being suffered and made to fear their own ending. They were told what would happen if they did not confess, and this man, this Templar knight” – he spat the words out in his disgust – “This poor suffering knight told them what to say, told them how to ensure that they were saved from the fires.

“Then I heard from a man in Rome about him, about how he had told the men there that even the Grand Master had confessed, that he had admitted to the sins of the Order. It seemed odd to me at the time, but I could not see why for several months. Then I realised.

“At the time he had been in Rome, the Grand Master had not confessed to anything. It was too early. At last I began to suspect this man and to wonder whether he could have been installed in all of these prisons as an agent of the king and the pope, to persuade the Templars to confess and thus avoid their punishments. It was only later that I realised that I was right, and it took me another six months to prove it.

“It was after the death of a friend near Chartres that I saw the final proof. I went there to pray for him as soon as I heard that he had died, and was there for the burial. Another friend in the same abbey heard that I had arrived and insisted that I stay with him. His abbot had heard of my past and showed me a great deal of sympathy, listening to my story and allowing me to stay with him for some weeks. By then I was exhausted in body and spirit, deeply wounded by the trials of my search and almost ready to give up after a year of continual travelling, but the abbot showed me a papal bull which had been issued some time before which soon renewed my energy.

“It was a statement about the men whom the pope wanted to deal with personally. The pope had chosen some men for special treatment; they were to be punished by the pope himself, their treatment to be decided by no other man. There were several names there, including the Grand Master, some preceptors and others – I cannot remember them all – but one stood out for me. It was the name that I had heard all over Europe during my travels: Oliver de Penne. He was an ordinary brother in the Order, a man of no consequence, not a great leader like Jacques de Molay, just one of the warrior monks. He had been chosen with the others, the greatest men in the Templar brotherhood, for special treatment. Why could that be? A monk? Singled out for personal attention by the pope? Now I was sure I had the right man.

“Of course, I wanted to be certain, so I tried to find what had become of him. It took me weeks of travelling, weeks of speaking to the few who survived, talking to men whom I had hardly heard of before, and I suffered any number of setbacks. Some of the men would not talk to me; twice I was denounced and had to fly: once I had to fight. But at last I had my information. At last I discovered his punishment, his penance for his Templar crimes. His punishment was severe: he had been elevated to archbishop in southern France: the Pope’s punishment was promotion, and not that alone, for the king rewarded him as well, with lands and money. Now I was absolutely without doubt. All the evidence pointed to him.

“But when I tried to come close to him – this would be a little over a year ago – it became obvious that it would be impossible. He never left his palace, and the building itself was guarded so well as to make an attack on him inconceivable. Edgar and I waited for weeks, but it seemed clear that we could do nothing. And all the time I was getting more and more ill, with weakness in my body and mind from the constant searching and living out of doors. In the end I decided to come home to England and forget my revenge, mainly thanks to Edgar, who said that if we stayed any longer I must die. He was right, it was time to forget and try to find a new life, return to England and forget my past.

“It seemed as if God had forsaken me. All I had wanted was to avenge the destruction of His Order, but he had even put this villain out of my reach. I was tired from travelling, my mind was damaged from all that had befallen us on our way, and as we came home I fell into a fever that almost killed me. Edgar managed to help me back to health, but then we were told that my brother had died and that I could return here, to Furnshill, and take up the manor. We resolved to come here and forget revenge, to live quietly and in peace. And I confess that I began to wonder whether God really was interested. We decided to relinquish any opportunity of repaying de Penne for the crimes against our Order and our friends. We chose retirement to the satisfaction that our souls craved.

“But we had only been here a few days when Edgar met brother Matthew in Crediton. Matthew had been a Templar too. He never suffered the torture; he was in Spain, fighting the Moors, when the Temple was destroyed. When he learned the fate of the Order he renounced his calling and joined the monks. When Edgar saw him he invited him to visit us here.

“Matthew asked his abbot to delay their departure until he had visited me – he explained that I had been a Templar and that he would like to stay with me for a night. Matthew knew that de Penne had been a Templar and thought he would understand his wish to visit us, so he was surprised at the abbot’s response. It made the abbot furious! He ranted at Matthew, angry and peevish, but Matthew thought he was just overreacting, he thought that his abbot simply wanted to forget and was annoyed to be reminded of his past. Matthew was ever a kindly man. He knew that his abbot had fallen from grace in the Church when Pope John took the throne and I think he thought it was because the new pope had found out about his past in the Order, I think that Pope John saw how de Penne had managed to become elevated and disliked it. He chose to send de Penne as far away as he could, and Buckland is almost as far as it would be possible to send a man from Avignon.

“So my old friend Matthew came to visit, and while we spoke he mentioned who his abbot was.” The knight’s face became pensive as he recollected. “I was amazed. It could only be by divine interference that de Penne had been sent here, surely – sent here to me? I believe that, in any case. Why would God have put him in my way if I was not to be his agent of justice? Ah, I was taken with a madness of desire. I felt filled with the Holy Spirit; I was thrilled that God had selected me for his will!

“Matthew stayed with us that night, and I must have seemed excited to him. I was careful not to tell him what de Penne was, for I knew that Matthew would not want to see blood spilled. He would want to let him escape and go to Buckland. But I think I had drunk too much that night in my delight for I cannot truly remember much of the evening, and I think he was worried, for, as you know, I do not drink to excess usually. On the morrow, I sent Edgar to town with the monk, to protect him on the road, but I also told Edgar to stay in the town and watch, and to come back to tell me when the monks were about to leave.

“I could not rest. I could not sleep. My revenge was so near, so close, that it seemed to burn in my soul with a holy light.” He turned and gazed into the flames again, a small smile playing around his lips.

“But then, when Edgar came to me and told me that they were on the move, I was struck with indecision. I could not convince myself that this really was the man. How could I be sure? I tried to recall all that I had heard, to make sure in my own mind that he was the one, that he deserved death, but how could I be certain? I dithered for a day, but then I decided to take him and question him. After all, surely it was too much of a coincidence that he should come here and his presence made known to me? It had to be God’s will!

“I rode off in the late morning. I could remember the roads to Oakhampton, and Edgar was sure that this was the way they had taken, so I followed alone. Edgar saw that I had gone and decided to follow me to try to stop me. When he saw that he could not, he came with me. I could not stop him, he had lost as many friends as me to the stakes and the flames.

“We came upon them, as you know, just outside Copplestone. We took him from the monks and led him into the trees. We had no desire to hurt the others, but we scared them enough, I think, to stop them from wanting to follow us. But Matthew recognised who we were, I think, even though I wore a tunic with no signs. I think he recognised my voice. Well, we took de Penne deep into the woods and tied him to a tree and I wondered what to do with him. It seemed wrong to just kill him. God in his wisdom chose to make me feel sorrow for him, as if taunting me with my own weakness. So many had died already, what would one more death achieve? I sat and looked at him and as I watched him I realised I could do nothing.

“But I had to be sure that he was the man. I had to know whether he truly was the agent of the destruction of the Temple.”

Baldwin wiped a hand over his brow as if trying to wipe away the memory. “I asked him about the Templars. I thought he would not admit if I asked him directly about his part, he seemed too fearful and nervous, altogether too callow to confess to any wrongdoing, so I accused him of being a Templar and therefore a heretic” He laughed. “He thought I would kill him for that! He confessed everything to show how he was without guilt: how he had conspired with de Nogaret to find evidence against the Order, how he had conspired to invent crimes that he knew were false, how he had gone to prisons and persuaded the Templars to admit their guilt. As proof, he told me that he had found favour with the pope! He had been given his archbishopric as a reward! And he expected me to free him for his crimes!

“It all came forth, all of his guilt and all of his misdeeds, his perjury and his lies. I knew enough to know that what he said was true. I had spoken to the men he had betrayed, and what he told me showed his guilt. It made me mad. My sympathy and my compassion left me.

“I walked to him, taking off my helm so that he could see my face, and I spoke to him. I told him who I really was. He stared at me. He did not seem able to believe it at first, he kept shaking his head with his mouth wide open as if he could not believe his own ears. And then, then, I told him that I was going to kill him in the same way that he had caused the others to die.”

He shuddered, once, as if in a sudden pain. “He stared at me. His mouth was open, his head still moving from side to side, and then he started to plead, to beg me to have mercy. Mercy! When had he shown mercy? He had killed for money, for his own prestige and wealth. He had forgotten all of his vows, disregarded his friends and ruined a noble and honourable Order. Mercy? From me? He could not bear the thought of the same death he had brought on so many others. I only hope that even now his soul is burning for what he did to the others.

“There is little more to say. We could have left him there to starve, but he might have been saved. We could have simply stabbed him, but then there would have been no point to his death. The only way that seemed right somehow was the same death he had given to our companions – the heretic’s pyre. Then there would be a reason for his death. Edgar agreed when I suggested that it would be better to leave him as a symbol, to show that he was a man of dishonour, to show his guilt. How better? At least then there would be an indication, a sign. We collected the wood and twigs and lighted the fire while he shouted and screamed at us. I think he had lost his mind by the time we lit it; he seemed to be incapable of understanding when we spoke to him. I sat in front of him and watched as he died. As his body burned. There was no pleasure, my friend, believe me. It was like performing the last rites for a criminal – in a way I suppose it was. But the smell, the stench, was revolting, so when he was dead we left the body burning and returned here.”

“You were very careful to obscure your tracks,” Simon observed quietly.

Baldwin looked up in frank surprise. “No. No, we just rode north until we came to a road, then followed it back towards Crediton until we could turn off home. I was not thinking about my own protection, after all I may have killed him but I felt no guilt – he deserved it! And it was God’s will that he should come here, that he should be made known to me. It was God that took his life away, not I. We made no effort to cover ourselves.

“I daresay you will find this tale unbelievable – I daresay I would if our positions were reversed – but I swear on my oath that this is all the truth. I decided to kill him for what he had done to the Templars and, when I could take my revenge, I took it. It was God himself who permitted it by putting him in my path. I am sure that he was guilty and that God used me to give him the justice he deserved.”

Simon stared at him, trying to make sense of the knight’s astonishing story. Baldwin was sitting now, avoiding the bailiff’s eyes and gazing into the fire again. He did not seem embarrassed; rather he looked relaxed, almost elated, as if the confession had taken a huge weight from his back so that he could face his future with peace at last. How long, Simon wondered, how long had he kept this story to himself? How long had he been searching for this man? How long had he been trying to find out all the details so that he could find out who was responsible and why? He said that de Molay died in thirteen fourteen, so for some two years he had searched, sifting the information, finding new people to corroborate or add to the tale, until he found de Penne at last. And what then? As soon as he found the man he had to give up, return to his home, and admit to himself that he had failed.

How would I feel if I had gone through all that and then, just as I had given up all hope of revenge, found that my quarry had followed me, like a lamb walking into a wolf’s lair. Would I believe it was God’s will too?

His stare hardened and he took another sip at his drink.

“What about the monk? What about Matthew? How much did he know?”

“Matthew?” Baldwin turned, faint surprise showing on his face. “He knew nothing. Not until we took his abbot and he heard my voice – I think he realised then who we were. When he found out what we had done to de Penne he came here as soon as he could. He couldn’t come immediately, but he arrived while you were here. As soon as you had gone he demanded to know why we had done that… that thing to his abbot.”

“That was why he was so sure that the murder could not be repeated. That was why he said it was a temporary madness. He knew it must be you!,” said Simon reflectively. Looking up sharply, he said, “And you told him? You confessed?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I told him. He did not forgive me, how could he? But I think he understood.”

“He has not told anyone?”

“No, he is a good man, and I told him first that I would only tell him on his oath of silence.” He drained his cup with a determined gesture and stood. “So, my friend, I am ready. I yield to you. Do with me as you see fit.”