The Last Templar

Epilogue

Paris—March 1314

The sumptuously decorated wooden grandstand stood close to the edge of a field on the lie de la Cite. Brighdy colored pennants rippled in the light breeze, the thin sunshine reflected in the gaudy accoutrements of the king's courtiers and henchmen who were already assembled there.

At the back of an excited and chattering crowd of commoners, Martin of Carmaux stood, stooped and weary. He wore a shabby brown robe, the gift of a friar he had met a few weeks earlier.

Although he was only a few years past forty, Martin had aged grievously. For almost two decades, he had labored in the Tuscan quarry under a brutal sun and the merciless lashes of the overseers. He had all but abandoned hope of escape when one of many rock slides, this one worse than most, killed a dozen of the men who slaved there, as well as some of the guards. By a stroke of luck, Martin and the man to whom he was shackled had been able to use the confusion and the swirling clouds of dust to make their escape.

Undeterred by the long years spent in virtual slavery and completely cut off from any news from beyond that accursed valley, Martin had only one thing in mind. He headed straight for the waterfall and found the rock with the fissures that resembled the Templars' splayed cross, recovered Aimard's letter, and began the long journey through the mountains and into France.

The journey had taken several months, but his long-delayed return to his homeland had only brought him crushing disappointment. He had learned of the disasters that had befallen the Knights Templar and as he drew ever closer to Paris, he knew that he was too late to do anything that would alter the Order's fate.

He had searched and asked, as discreetly as he could, but had found nothing. All of his brothers were gone, either dead or in hiding. The king's flag flew over the great Paris Temple.

He was alone.

Presently, standing there and waiting among the gossiping crowd, Martin identified the gray-clad figure of Pope Clement, who was climbing the steps of the grandstand and taking his place amid the peacock-bright courtiers.

As Martin watched, the pope's attention turned toward the center of the field where two stakes had been surrounded by brushwood. Movement caught Martin's eye as the emaciated and shattered bodies of two men he knew to be Jacques de Molay, the grand master of the Order, and Geoffroi de Charnay, the preceptor of Normandy, were being dragged onto the field.

With neither of the condemned men possessing any lingering capacity for physical resistance, they were quickly bound to the stakes. A heavyset man stepped forward with a lighted brand, then looked to the king for instructions.

A sudden stillness fell over the crowd, and Martin saw the king raise a hand in a careless gesture.

The brush was lit.

Smoke began to rise and soon flames licked through, twigs popping and crackling as the heat built up. Sickened and utterly helpless to intervene, Martin wanted to turn and walk away, but he felt the need to observe, to bear witness to this depraved act. Unwilling though he was, he pushed through to the front of the crowd. It was then, to his astonishment, that he saw the grand master raise his head and look directly at the king and the pope.

Even from this distance, the sight unsettled Martin. De Molay's eyes were blazing with a fire more fierce than the one that would soon consume him.

Despite his frail and broken appearance, the grand master's voice was strong and steady. "In the name of the Order of the Knights of the Temple," he rasped, "I curse you, Philippe le Bel, and your buffoon pope, and I call on God Almighty to have you both join me before His seat within the year, to suffer His judgment, and burn forever in the furnaces of hell ..."

If de Molay said anything else, Martin didn't hear it, as the fire roared upward, obliterating any screams of the dying men. Then the breeze turned, and smoke swept over the grandstand and the crowd, carrying with it the sickening stench of burning flesh. Coughing and spluttering, the king stumbled down the steps, the pope trailing behind him, his eyes streaming from the smoke. As they passed close to where Martin stood, the old Templar watched the pope. He felt the bile of anger rising and burning in his throat, and, at that moment, he realized that his task was still not over.

Perhaps not in his lifetime. But one day, maybe, things would be different.

That night, he set off, leaving the city and heading south to the land of his forefathers, to Carmaux.

He would settle there, or elsewhere in the Languedoc, and live out his days. But before he died, he would ensure that the letter did not vanish forever. Somehow, he would find the means for it to survive.

It had to survive.

It had to fulfill its destiny.

He owed it to those who had died, to Hugh and to William of Beaujeu and above all to his friend Aimard of Villiers, to ensure that their sacrifices had not been worthless.

It was all down to him now. He thought back to Aimard's final revelation that night, deep inside the church by the willow tree. About the painstaking efforts of their predecessors, who had first concocted the deception. About the nine years of meticulous crafting. About the careful planning that had taken almost two hundred years to bear fruit.

We came close, he thought, so close. It was a noble goal. It was worth all the hard work, all the sacrifices, all the pain.

He knew what he had to do.

He had to make sure the illusion was kept alive. The illusion that it was still out there, waiting.

The illusion that it was real.

And at the right time, certainly not during his lifetime, maybe, just maybe, someone would be able to use their lost masterpiece to achieve what they had all set out to do.

And then, a bittersweet smile broke across his face as a hopeful thought drifted into his mind.

Maybe one day, he mused, it would be obsolete. Maybe the plan would no longer be necessary.

Maybe people would learn to overcome their petty differences and rise above murderous squabbles over personal faith.

He shook the thought away, chiding himself for his wistful naivete, and kept on walking.