The Templar Heresy

Prologue

‘The Lord Antipas wishes this event to be performed with dignity, and with a minimum of suffering,’ the chamberlain said, ‘so make sure it takes only a single blow.’

The executioner nodded and walked over to the guards to give them their instructions. Then he stepped back and watched as they led the condemned man forward to the centre of the cleared area, the ground under his tattered leather sandals beaten flat by the passage of innumerable feet and stained dark brown, a silent reminder of countless previous executions performed on the same spot. The victim looked around him calmly, gazing without apparent curiosity at the circle of spectators, people who had been drawn to the palace courtyard by the spectacle of his imminent death. Some fifty or sixty men, and just a handful of women, had assembled to witness this final act at the end of the day’s judicial proceedings. A gentle susurration was clearly audible, a muttering of conversation that had grown in volume as the condemned man was led into position by two soldiers.

The courtyard was bounded on all sides by high walls, constructed from blocks of light-coloured stone. One formed a part of the fabric of the palace, pierced by a wide doorway that led to the building’s interior. A number of palace officials were standing in that opening, also watching the proceedings. Two of the other walls were solid, while the third was fitted with a pair of heavy wooden gates, their tops marked by rows of metal spikes, which stood open to allow the populace to enter freely.

Above the palace, the sky was an almost unbroken palette of solid blue, marred only by a handful of small white clouds. And beyond the courtyard, a fitful breeze drove grey-brown clouds of dust into the open space, lifting and flapping the loose garments worn by the majority of the spectators.

The two soldiers leading the man glanced towards the executioner, waiting for his signal. When he nodded, they gestured to the prisoner to get down on to his knees. In one swift movement, they each took hold of one of his arms and pulled them back so that his head and neck were thrust forward.

The executioner drew his sword from its scabbard and tested the blade against the ball of his thumb. The single-edged blade was longer, wider and heavier than a sword designed for combat, but was very efficient when used for its proper purpose.

He stepped forward, the blade hanging loosely at his side, and bent down to talk quietly to the condemned prisoner.

‘Stretch out your neck and try to look up,’ he said. ‘If you do that, I will only need to strike you once. If you don’t, this will be very unpleasant for both of us. It’s the most I can do for you.’

The prisoner spoke for the first time.

‘I understand.’

The executioner took a half pace back, checked that the guards were holding the man in the right position, then stepped forward again and moved the prisoner’s long dark hair from his neck. Bearing in mind the man’s function at the court, his action showed a surprising and unexpected degree of compassion. Then he stood beside the kneeling figure and lifted the sword above his head.

The crowd now ceased its muttering; their sense of anticipation was almost palpable, their concentration absolute. The executioner waited for a second or two, until the man had done as he’d been asked, pushing his head out and away from his body and tensing the muscles of his neck. Then he swept the blade down in a lethal, glittering arc. The crunch as it met the bones of the man’s neck was clearly audible, but the sound was instantly drowned out by a collective inhalation, a sharp intake of breath from the spectators as the head of the prophet hit the ground and rolled gently from his instantly lifeless body. And almost immediately the crowd began to disperse. The deed they had assembled to witness, for whatever reason, was done; the spectacle was over.

The chamberlain stepped forward, taking care to avoid the spreading pool of blood on the ground, then bent down, picked up the head by its long black hair, and placed it on a silver salver.

He paused briefly to instruct the guards to dispose of the body, then retreated inside the hall to show the head to his master, Herod Antipas.

‘It is done, my lord,’ he said, somewhat unnecessarily in view of the object he held aloft on the platter. ‘I have ordered that the body be disposed of in secret. They will bury it deep in the desert, where no one will ever stumble upon the remains by accident, so the man’s followers will have no relic to venerate. As you ordered, we can retain the head here, where we can keep it under our control, for the same reason.’

Antipas nodded, then stood up and left the hall, followed by his retinue. The day’s business was over.

Two of the men in the crowd outside in the courtyard had watched the execution closely. The event was what they had feared from the moment the prophet had been seized, and although there was nothing they could now do for the dead man — their friend and charismatic leader — there was at least some hope that they could keep his movement going. But only if they succeeded in the next phase of their plan — a plan that they acknowledged had been born of desperation rather than hope.

They left the palace and returned to their village, a walk of about half an hour. A small group, perhaps a little over a dozen men in all, was waiting for them.

The news they conveyed was not unexpected, but the confirmation of their leader’s demise brought sorrowful gasps from the assembled company.

‘And his death?’ one man asked.

‘The beheading was swift. And, as we thought, they will be burying his body somewhere where we’ll never find it, but the head will be staying under Herod’s control. So that at least gives us a chance. A chance to continue our leader’s great work.’

‘So we steal it?’ the same man asked.

The two men who had been at the palace shook their heads simultaneously.

‘That wouldn’t work,’ one of them said. ‘If it goes missing, they will know what’s happened and hunt us down. We must take it without them realizing that it has gone. There is only one way that can be achieved.’

He turned slightly and looked at another man in the group, a tall, thin man with long black hair and an even longer beard.

The crowd fell silent as if in response to some kind of signal, and they all looked at that one still figure.

‘I will do it,’ he said, his voice clouded with barely supressed emotion, ‘because I believe absolutely in the man who died today. When?’

‘For this to work, it must be as soon as possible.’

‘Very well. My family have been prepared for this, and I am resigned to what must happen. I will take just a little time to make my farewells.’

A short while later, the man returned to the group and they all followed the two leaders out of the village and into the undergrowth. They halted in a small clearing, where the tall man with the long hair and beard spent a few short moments with each of his companions before walking to the centre of the clearing and kneeling down. With an air of great solemnity, one of the leaders produced a short but heavy sword and stepped over to the kneeling man. He gave him a reassuring press on the shoulder and took a pace back. Then he inhaled deeply, did his best to compose himself and, with a single heavy blow, decapitated his friend. He shuddered and turned away, unable to look at what he had just done.

‘Let us hope this works,’ he said thickly, as his companion picked up the head and slid it into a heavy linen sack half-full of rags to soak up the blood. ‘If it doesn’t our brother will have given his life — and I will have become a murderer — for nothing.’

An hour later, in the fading light of early evening, the two men once again walked into the palace courtyard. Perhaps surprisingly, there were still twenty or so spectators there, wandering about under the watchful gaze of two guards. Most of them were looking at the body of a man who had been stoned to death, a killer convicted out of his own mouth earlier that day.

The moment they entered the courtyard the two men separated, one joining the largest group of civilians, while the other, the linen bag slung over his shoulder, moved over to the opposite side of the courtyard, and loitered near the doors that led into the hall.

Moments later, a scuffle broke out amongst the group of spectators, a dispute deliberately instigated by the new arrival, and which almost immediately turned violent. Raised voices and the sound of blows filled the courtyard, and within seconds both of the watching guards had stepped forward to intervene, lashing out with the wooden shafts of their spears to separate the fighting civilians.

The moment the guards had begun to move, the second man had pulled open the door to the hall just wide enough to allow him to slip through the gap, and disappeared from sight.

Inside, half a dozen flickering oil lamps provided barely enough illumination to see from one end of the hall to the other. But it was sufficient to clearly show the silver salver placed upon a table by the wall opposite the throne, on which the uneven outline of the decapitated head of the prophet was visible.

The man hurried over to the table and bowed his head in a brief prayer. Then, looking with sadness and reverence at the features that were as familiar to him as his own, he reached out to seize the hair of the decapitated head. But the gaze of the half-closed eyes seemed to accuse him even in death, and he changed his mind. The prophet deserved better from him.

Instead, he gripped the head with both hands, lifted it off the salver and placed it gently on the floor. It was heavier than he had expected and awkward to manoeuvre. He opened the linen sack, removed the second head — the head of another man he’d also been pleased to call a friend — and placed it on the silver dish. He took precious extra moments to arrange the hair and beard on the salver so that the replacement looked as much like the original as possible.

He gently transferred the head of the prophet to the linen sack, took a deep breath to steady himself and then strode back to the partially open door. Outside the guards were still trying to restore order, and the man could see another two guards approaching the mêlée from outside the courtyard. And then behind him, from inside the hall, he heard the sound of running feet. And then an angry voice rose in challenge.

The man didn’t hesitate. The guards would kill him on sight without waiting to question why he was there. He simply took to his heels, pushing open the door and running out into the courtyard, heading for the wide arched entrance. All of the guards, he knew, would be encumbered with weapons and would be unable to catch him, though obviously a well-thrown spear would bring him down.

And even as that thought crossed his mind, he felt a glancing blow on his shoulder and a spear slammed into the open wooden door a few feet to his right. He touched his shoulder. No blood. The blow must have been from the shaft of the weapon, not from the point.

He began jinking from side to side, but no other missiles came anywhere near him. Within a couple of minutes he slowed down to a walk, and before long his companion rejoined him. Together, they retraced their steps, heading back to the village with their gruesome but invaluable prize: the severed head of their leader, the teacher and prophet they had followed for the last decade.