The Templar Magician Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Historical Note

  Main Historical Characters

  Prologue

  PART ONE - TRIPOLI: OUTREMER AUTUMN 1152

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  PART TWO - ENGLAND AUTUMN 1153

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Also by P. C. Doherty

  Author’s Note

  Copyright Page

  In loving memory of our wonderful Mum

  Kathleen Elizabeth Kenny

  Carmel, Brigid, Siobhan, Rosaleen, Michael and

  Kathleen

  We were blessed to have you as our Mum

  May you rest in peace

  God Bless

  Historical Note

  By 1152, the great Frankish lords had occupied Outremer (Palestine) for over fifty years, since the leaders of the First Crusade had stormed the walls of Jerusalem and captured the Holy City. In that time, it had become a Frankish outpost of the West. The great lords had elected a king, Baldwin III, and were busy dividing Outremer into spheres of influence, each baron jostling for power, occupying towns, cities and ports. The Templar order, founded by Hugh de Payens within a decade of taking Jerusalem, had also expanded its influence. The Templars were now an international movement, patronised by the great and the good, hallowed by the papacy and made into the professional fighting arm of the West. They had their own headquarters in Jerusalem, and were already expanding their power, taking over or building castles and fortresses throughout Outremer. The order was also busy establishing and spreading its roots in Europe, be it France, England, Germany or Spain. The Templars represented the ideals of the Western knight, the paladin who offered his sword for the love of Christ and the defence of Holy Mother Church.

  They also acquired great wealth, and the combination of riches, power and status made them intrigue and negotiate with the best as they strove to consolidate and expand even further. Hugh de Payens allegedly visited England and saw the prospects of further advancement of his order there. By 1150, the Temple had set up its headquarters in London and owned manor houses throughout the kingdom. Nevertheless, the expansion of the order meant that successive Grand Masters were eager for recruits, and the Temple attracted not only idealists and romantics but also those who had a great deal to hide.

  Nowhere was this more true than England. The invasion of the Normans in 1066 had created a fighting elite intent on acquiring land and wealth. Norman influence stretched to the Welsh and Scottish marches, and the constant jostling of Norman warlords meant that there was a pressing need for the English king to be a strong military ruler. William the Conqueror and his two sons, William Rufus and Henry I, proved to be most adept at this. However, when Henry died without a male heir (his son William having drowned in the White Ship disaster), the English crown became the object of intense rivalry between Mathilda, Henry’s daughter, and her cousin, Stephen of Blois. England descended into civil war so bitter and violent that men said it was the age when God and his saints slept. Both sides recruited the worst mercenaries from abroad as well as rogue knights from the English shires, eager for plunder, ruthless in its pursuit. The war, which lasted between 1135 and 1154, grew even more savage and brutal when Mathilda’s son Henry Fitzempress took up the cause of his mother, determined to settle for nothing but the crown itself. The opponents manoeuvred for position even as they secretly recognised that an end to the war and the possibility of a lasting peace could only come about if one of the sides was totally destroyed …

  The quotations at the head of each chapter in Part One are from William of Tyre’s chronicle A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Seas. Those in Part Two are from the chronicle Gesta Stephani – The Deeds of Stephen. An author’s note at the end provides an accurate context for many of the events described in this novel.

  Main Historical Characters

  OUTREMER

  Baldwin III: King of Jerusalem

  Raymond: Count of Tripoli

  Melisande: Count Raymond’s wife

  THE CHURCH

  Eugenius III: Pope, Bishop of Rome

  Theodore: Archbishop of Canterbury

  Henry Murdac: Archbishop of York; fervent supporter of King Stephen

  Thomas à Becket: cleric and royal clerk; later Archbishop of Canterbury

  Bernard of Clairvaux: one of the founders of the Cistercian order; an international figure, preacher and politician; an ardent supporter of the new Templar order

  ENGLAND

  William the Norman, or the Conqueror: King of England, 1087

  William II, or Rufus: son of the Conqueror; King of England, 1087 – 1100; mysteriously killed whilst hunting in the New Forest

  Henry I: Rufus’s brother; King of England, 1100 – 35

  Prince William: Henry I’s son and heir; drowned when the White Ship capsized and sank

  Mathilda: Henry’s daughter, Empress; married Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor, then Geoffrey, Count of Anjou

  Stephen of Blois: grandson of the Conqueror through the latter’s daughter Adela; King of England, 1135–54

  Eustace: Stephen’s son and heir

  William: Stephen’s second son

  Henry Fitzempress, or the Angevin: son of the Empress Mathilda, through whom he claimed the English crown; King of England, 1154 – 89, founder of the Plantagenet dynasty

  Geoffrey de Mandeville: Earl of Essex; a leading protagonist in the civil war; killed in battle. Certain chronicles have given him a very sinister reputation

  Simon de Senlis: Earl of Northampton; one of King Stephen’s most loyal supporters

  TEMPLARS

  Hugh de Payens: founder of the Templar order, 1099 – 1100

  Bertrand (de) Tremelai: Grand Master of the Templar order, 1152

  Andrew (de) Montebard: Grand Master of the Templar order, 1153

  Jacques de Molay: last Grand Master of the Templar order; executed by Philip IV of France, 1313

  Boso (de) Baiocis: possible master of the English Temple, c. 1153

  FRANCE

  Philip IV, or ‘Le Bel’: Capetian King of France, d. 1314; the architect of the destruction of the Templar order, 1307 – 13

  SCOTLAND

  Robert the Bruce: King of Scotland; drove out the English armies of Edward I and Edward II; provided a sanctuary for Templars after the dissolution of their order

  Prologue

  Melrose Abbey, Scotland

  Autumn 1314

  The monk lifted his head and listened to the peal of bells roll through the abbey buildings. A funeral was being prepared. The dirige psalms were being sung, the plainchant drifting on the evening breeze. Soon the solemn peal of bells would begin again. If it was a woman being buried, two peals; for a man, three; for a cleric, as many as the minor orders he had received.

  ‘Have you even been shown the Gates of Death? Or met the Janitors of the Shadowlands?’

  Brother Benedict turned swiftly. He stared at the old woman. She was dressed in the blackest widow’s weeds and sat on the high-backed chair close to his cot bed with its plaid-patterned drape.

  ‘Mistress.’ The young Benedictine monk smiled apologetically. ‘I was distracted. I really did not expect you until tomorrow, Lammas Eve …’

  ‘But I came today.’ The old woman gripped her walking cane by its carved handle. ‘I have studied the manuscripts.’ She sighed, and rose to her feet, eyes no longer on the Benedictine but on the
arrow-loop window behind him. The day was darkening, the weak sunlight fading. Next to the window hung a Little Mary, a wooden carving of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Child.

  ‘The Gates of Death?’ Brother Benedict whispered. ‘The Janitors of the Shadowlands?’

  ‘Magic, Brother!’ the woman whispered.

  ‘Brother Guibert, our precentor, claims he met a warlock who talked of a monastery that sank into the ground then rose like Christ on Easter Day.’

  ‘No, no.’ The old woman shook her head. She tapped the chancery coffer beside her, then walked over to where the monk sat on his scribe chair. ‘Brother Benedict.’ She grasped an arm of the chair and stared hard at the young monk. ‘You write, at my request and that of His Grace Robert de Bruce, King of Scotland, the history of our order, the Templars. Yes?’ She gazed fiercely at him, her light-blue eyes betraying the passion that burned like a firebrand within her. ‘Our order,’ she repeated, ‘the Templars, founded by our great and saintly ancestor Hugh de Payens, now destroyed by Philip, the Stone King of France. He burned Jacques de Molay on a small island in the Seine. Our Grand Master was lashed to a beam with cords and chains, beside him Geoffrey de Charnay. Both men, Brother Benedict, protested to the very end against the allegations of black magic, sorcery and witchcraft levelled by the Stone King’s lawyers. They testified to the piety, saintliness and innocence of the Templars. Ah well.’ She paused. ‘Later, secret adherents of our order, those who’d survived brutish, black betrayal, torture and gruesome imprisonment, swam the Seine and collected in their teeth the holy but charred remains of these valiant warriors. Yet,’ the old woman, who rejoiced in the family name of de Payens, grasped the ivory handle of her walking stick, ‘such innocence wasn’t always so. Here, in these islands …’ Her voice faltered.

  The young monk glanced up in expectation.

  ‘Madam, such hellish accusations, levelled often against the Templars, have always been lies.’

  ‘Is that so?’ the old woman whispered. ‘Listen now. Our order was founded by the great Hugh de Payens in Outremer. It was blessed by Bernard de Clairvaux, hallowed by popes, favoured by the princes of this world. Little wonder the Templars waxed fat and powerful, but in the end, monk, dreams die, visions fade. Ab initio, from the very beginning, there were those who immersed themselves in the hunt for sacred relics and the power these might bring. Worse,’ she hissed, ‘some even turned to dark imaginings, calling on the shadow host, conjuring up demons garbed in the livery of hell’s flames. They hired witches who collected the poison herbs of Thessaly. They set up a nursery of sorcery, tainted our order like the poisonous yew tree with its roots deep in the graveyard, digging down into dead men’s tombs and draining from them malignant vapours to poison the air. Oh yes.’ The old woman tapped the manuscripts stacked on top of the flat lid of an iron-bound coffer. ‘Brother, study these here. Do so carefully. Write as you did last time; base yourself on the manuscripts, weave your web and tell your tale.’ She moved across to the lancet window, staring out at the evening mist moving like a gauze veil over the Melrose countryside. ‘Conjure up the past.’ Her voice became strident. ‘Robins and nightingales do not live long in cages, nor does the truth when it’s kept captive. Read all these manuscripts, Brother, and you’ll meet the Lord Satan, as you would in a crystal or a burning sapphire, bright with the glow of hell’s fire.’

  PART ONE

  TRIPOLI: OUTREMER AUTUMN 1152

  Chapter 1

  Count Raymond was struck down by the swords of the Assassins at the entrance to the gate.

  ‘A time of turbulence, of visions, portents and warnings! Heaven glowers at us because we have lost our way! Our souls, with their open ulcers, will go to hell on crutches. Around us, nothing but hollow graves, rotten and rotting corpses. Water may soak the earth. Blood soaks the heavens and calls on God’s justice to flash out like lightning. The sins committed in close and secret chambers will be paraded along the spacious pavements and squares of hell, where the rack, the gallows and the torture wheels stand black against the eternal flames of God’s wrath. I urge you to repent! We have taken Jerusalem, but we have lost our way.’

  The preacher, garbed in filthy animal skins, lifted his staff and pointed up at the sheer blue sky, which curved above the gleaming white city of Tripoli, overlooking the Middle Sea.

  ‘Repent!’ he yelled in one last attempt to provoke his listeners. ‘Repent, before the doom gates open and disgorge the power of hell.’

  Edmund de Payens, knight of the Templar order, leaned across in a creak of leather and touched his English comrade Philip Mayele on the wrist.

  ‘Are you frightened, Philip? Fearful of what is to come?’

  The Englishman’s long, swarthy, lined face broke into a grin. He clawed at the greying hair that straggled down to the white cloak around his shoulders. He scratched his beard and moustache, his brown eyes gleaming with cynicism.

  ‘Edmund, you are a soft soul, to be driven by many a black storm before you harden. Look around you. Life is as it was, as it will be and ever shall be.’ He laughed abruptly at Edmund’s frown over such mockery of the ‘Glory Be’.

  De Payens quickly remembered his resolution, after he’d last been shriven, not to be so pompous and quick to take offence. He forced a grin and nodded, curling the reins of his horse around his mittened fingers. He and Mayele were moving slowly along the Street of Aleppo down to the city gates of Tripoli. They were escorting Count Raymond, the Frankish lord of the city, who was about to leave to be reconciled with his estranged wife, Melisande, in Jerusalem. De Payens closed his eyes against the bustle of the crowds. In truth, he wanted to be back with his brethren, his fellow warrior-monks. Yet, he opened his eyes and glanced quickly at Mayele, not all the brothers were dream-followers or visionaries. Hadn’t Mayele been excommunicated with bell, book and candle for killing a priest in Coggeshalle, a town in that mist-hung island of England on the edge of the world?

  ‘Cruciferi, à bas, à bas!’ The cry of derision was hurled in Provençal, a guttural shout by a Turk. It shook Edmund from his reverie, and he became aware of the crowd pressing around him. Ahead of them, Raymond of Tripoli’s lightly armed Turcopole mercenaries were pushing their way through the throng, their lamellar cuirasses gleaming in the strengthening sun. Edmund searched the faces on either side, but no one dared catch his eye. Anyone could have hurled such an insult. Most of the men had their heads hidden by white turbans, their faces half veiled by the end of the cloth pulled across nose and mouth against the dust-bearing wind and the swirling black horde of flies. De Payens remained uneasy. A dust haze billowed. The stench of camel and horse dung thickened the air. All around rose the cries of the various traders. Here in Tripoli, Jew and Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox, Frank and Turk rubbed shoulders uneasily in the tunnelled darkness of the alleyways, in the noisy bazaars and the sun-scorched squares. Tripoli was the meeting place of different faiths and cultures, kept calm by the mailed fist of the old count riding behind them with his escort of clerks and men-at-arms. Above their heads, Raymond’s gorgeous blue and yellow banners, displaying the silver cedars of Lebanon, floated in the late-morning breeze.

  ‘Stay calm, Templar!’ The count’s powerful voice forced de Payens to twist round in the saddle. The Templar nodded politely at Raymond even as he regretted not wearing his mail hauberk and chausses; nothing but lightweight boots, quilted jerkin and hose beneath the white Templar mantle sewn with its red cross. On his back was slung a concave shield, around his waist a simple leather sword belt with scabbards for sword and dagger. Was this enough protection if such hurled invective gave way to violence? De Payens twisted his neck against the bubbles of sweat beneath his long hair. He clutched the reins between his quilted mittens and murmured the Templar prayer: ‘Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam’ – not to us, oh Lord, not unto us, but unto yourself give glory.

  He must remember he was a Poor Knight of the Temple, dedicated to poverty, obedience and chastity. He
had sworn to follow the Templar cross in unblemished fealty to his Grand Master, which was why he and Mayele were here. For the last few months they’d been garrisoned at Chastel Blanc, a Templar fortress to the south of Tripoli. From there they’d been summoned to escort Count Raymond down into Jerusalem. Edmund was impatient. He was glad to be free of the grim routine of Chastel Blanc, eager to see Jerusalem again, but he quickly remembered how this mission was his prime duty. He was bound by oath. The Templars had been founded to patrol the highways of Outremer, Palestine, the land of Le Bon Seigneur. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, had walked, slept, eaten, talked to his friends, preached, died and risen again on this very soil. Nevertheless, de Payens felt a disquieting anxiety clawing at his heart and dulling his brain. Tripoli was noisy and frenetic, a sea of shifting colours, constant dust haze, strengthening heat and marauding flies. His body was soaked in sweat, his horse restless. The crowd on either side could house enemies as well as friends.

  ‘Stay awake.’ Mayele leaned over in a gust of sweat and ale. ‘Stay awake, Edmund, for ye know not the day nor the hour; it will come like a thief in the night!’

  De Payens blinked away the beads of perspiration and licked his sand- and salt-caked lips. The heat was closing in around him like a thick blanket. He must not, as he often did in such circumstances, dream about his grandparents’ house, its whitewashed coolness among the cypress and olive groves of northern Lebanon. He stirred restlessly in his saddle, tapped the hilt of his sword, slid his dagger in and out. The procession was now swinging its way down the main thoroughfare towards the great walled gate, above which the banners of Tripoli flapped between the gibbets ranged along the turreted walkway. Each scaffold bore a cadaver hanging by its neck, a proclamation pinned to its chest. This had become the gruesome feeding ground for kites, buzzards and vultures, their blood-splattered wings wafting away the black swarm of flies dancing against the light.