Part 30 (2/2)
Torquil glared moodily at the floor. ”I accept that his death must be made to serve as sacrifice. But a traitor's death is a hard one. Must it be this way?”
”We like it no more than you do,” Arnault said gently, ”and I speak from a certain personal interest. But we have been shown the way to restore the power of the Stone, for the benefit of this land and for that Fifth Temple we are commanded to build. It is not for us to question that this is so. Nor are we required to be the instruments whereby the sacrifice is made. It is enough that Wallace himself has willingly accepted his role. And our charge is to ensure that his sacrifice achieves the purpose for which it is intended.”
Wordlessly Torquil nodded, dropping his eyes from Arnault's, hitching angrily at his sword belt. Flannan, the only other Scot in the room, had been taking it all in, but now he shook his head.
”Brother Arnault, may I speak freely?” he asked.
”Of course.”
”I am still disturbed by this notion of-well, human sacrifice. I am youngest here, in le Cercle, but-”
As he broke off, looking distinctly uncomfortable, Arnault signed for Luc to take his place as door warden, and gestured for Flannan to come and sit beside him.
”Flannan, you have only voiced what all of us have felt, at some time. We do not a.s.sist or condone the judicial murder that will be done to our friend William Wallace, a few days hence. It is his a.s.sent that transforms that murder into an oblation. Consider it a lesser rendition of an old, old play, beginning even before our Lord was offered in the ultimate sacrifice.”
”Treacherous ground, my friend,” Father Bertrand warned.
”Aye, blasphemy, and worse, in other company,” Arnault agreed. ”But sometimes there are no clear demarcations between old and new. That is for testaments and even religions. Our human ability to discern the direction of our spiritual evolution is more a continuum, as is the magic we of le Cercle learn to wield in service of that evolution.”
He could see Gaspar nodding slightly, at the edge of vision, and he continued.
”According to what I have learned from our Columban brethren, whose knowledge spans the s.h.i.+ft from older to newer expressions of faith in these Celtic lands, the particular magic touching on the Stone derives from sources beyond human memory. As abhorrent as we may find the notion of human sacrifice, we should recall that, in its purest sense, it was never practiced lightly. Blood has ever been the most potent of links between the human and the Divine- which makes the ritual shedding of blood awe-ful.
Why else did our Lord redeem us with His blood, and command that the wine be changed into His blood in the Eucharist?
”Wallace's death will mirror that ultimate sacrifice-as above, so below-and will release energies capable of renewing the potency of the Stone of Destiny. But unless those energies are properly harvested and contained-not in a physical sense, but on a spiritual level-they will dissipate like mist. Fortunately, the Stone is a fitting vessel to receive those energies.”
”Thus fitting it to be the cornerstone of the New Jerusalem, the Fifth Temple?” Flannan ventured, looking greatly rea.s.sured.
”That is our hope,” Arnault said. ”That was why I asked Gaspar to send the High Priest's Breastplate. In addition to affording protection during the procedure-especially if there should be sorcerous opposition-we hope the outcome may give us some further confirmation that the Temple's true destiny does, indeed, lie in this troubled land.”
Flannan slowly nodded, then glanced at Gaspar, who sighed and set aside his cup.
”That is another urgency upon our work, Arnault, for I fear that France may not harbor us much longer. If this land be not the place ordained for our next work, I begin to sense the cold edges of despair for our very survival. You should be aware of what has been developing in Paris.”
”Things have deteriorated further?” Arnault asked.
”I fear they have. A malignant star seems to have risen over Christendom. The situation within the Order grows worse with each pa.s.sing day. The brotherhood has become rife with factions, each considering itself to be the one true heir to the traditions of our predecessors-and each is prepared to accuse the other of heresy and worse crimes. When your Robert de Sautre was there, en route to Rome, he stirred up considerable disquiet.”
Arnault grimaced, thinking of Brian de Jay and John de Sautre: both ambitious, both deluded, both dead.
Bertrand and Christoph, both usually resident at the Paris Temple, nodded their agreement.
”Who would have thought to see us so divided among ourselves?” Christoph observed. ”And yet, these divisions merely reflect the chaos that is overtaking the world at large. Malice abounds everywhere; trust is a thing of the past. And nowhere is this malady of spirit more in evidence than within the French court.”
”All too true,” Gaspar continued, picking up the thread. ”Philippe le Bel is devoured with suspicions. His counselors know this-and instead of rea.s.suring him, they are playing to his fears to secure their own advancement. The worst amongst them is the lawyer Guillaume de Nogaret. By means best known to himself, he now has the king's ear, and daily he fills it with poisonous calumnies.”
”Nogaret is a toad,” Arnault said disgustedly. ”It was he, I recall, who championed the king's request to join our Order.”
”Toad he may be,” Gaspar agreed, ”but he is a powerful toad. Philippe is totally in his thrall-and has become even more capricious since the death of his queen.”
”The queen is dead?” Luc interjected. ”Jeanne de Navarre is dead?”
”Aye, some four months ago.”
”But, she was only-what-thirty or so?”
”Thirty-four,” Gaspar supplied. ”The court physicians attribute her death to natural causes, but Philippe has persuaded himself otherwise. He has accused Bishop Guichard of Troyes, a member of the queen's entourage, of poisoning her-even though there is no evidence to support such a charge.”
”But-why would he say such a thing?” Arnault asked.
Gaspar shrugged. ”Who can fathom the mind of the man? Rumors persist that agents of the crown had a hand in the deaths of both Boniface and Benedict. I am loath to believe that a consecrated monarch could so forget his divine office as to sanction such crimes, but I cannot help wondering whether his recent delusions might be the result of a guilty conscience turning upon itself.”
”Or of a toad's venom,” Arnault muttered.
”That is, indeed, a possibility,” Father Bertrand allowed. ”Nogaret's influence at court is considerable, and Philippe's vision is so distorted that he cannot see anything but what Nogaret and his other ministers show him. Thanks to their lies, the king is becoming persuaded that the Templar Order is rife with heresy and sorcery.”
As Arnault and the other Scots-based Templars exchanged glances, Gaspar went on.
”I fear it may be only a matter of time before the king is incited to move against us,” he said. ”The fleet has been advised-those captains who can be trusted-and they are primed to stand ready to evacuate the Order from France, as from Acre. But we cannot risk putting the treasures on board without some guarantee that a safe haven stands ready to receive them.”
”It will be ready,” Arnault promised. ”The cornerstone of the Temple is ready to be set in place, and Wallace's sacrifice will secure the foundation.”
Gaspar nodded heavily, again rubbing at his forehead as he shook his head.
”I only wish I could believe that this will be the only sacrifice required,” he said heavily. ”But I greatly fear that others will follow-not because G.o.d Himself wills it so, but because there are evil powers loose in the world which are always hungry for blood. There are always idolators who are ready to offer holocausts to the evil that resides in their own hearts and minds-for gold, for gain, for power, for riches, for the right to pride themselves on virtue. They delude themselves into thinking they are purifying the world; in fact they are merely blackening their own souls, stoking the fires of h.e.l.l for their own reception.”
”Then we must be certain that our own efforts work to reverse this,” Luc said quietly. ”Wallace will arrive in London very shortly, and we must be ready. If we miss this opportunity, we will not have another.
Wallace will have suffered and died in vain, and the Order will be doomed.”
”He's right,” Arnault said, s.h.i.+fting his gaze to the rest of them. ”We must go tomorrow to where the Stone lies hidden; we dare not cut things too fine. I suggest we travel in two groups, lest we draw too much attention to our presence in the area. I believe our Columban brethren have made the necessary arrangements with Abbot Henry, for supplies and horses,” he added, with a glance at Father Bertrand.
The priest nodded. ”Everything is in readiness. Abbot Henry would go with us, if he could.”
”His prayers will go with us,” Arnault said. ”We could not ask for more.”
That same night, in the fastness of the fortress of Burghead, one who courted far darker forces knelt by a dark pool, again having made the sacrifice to summon his dark patron. This time, the shaman-priest Torgon had accompanied him, and stood behind him with the casket containing the relics of Briochan. As the waters churned and boiled, and she approached, John Comyn glanced over his shoulder at the pagan priest; but Torgon was standing motionless with his eyes closed, a pungent wind lifting strands of his long, stringy gray hair, the open casket held forth in offering.
”Art thou prepared to receive my priest Briochan?” came the soft, seductive whisper of her voice amid the shadows.
”I am,” Comyn said steadily.
Blood afire with the promise of new power, he rose and turned toward Torgon, boldly reaching into the ivory casket to take out two of the rune-staves, earlier identified as the appropriate ones for the work to come, remembering how his father had seized the staves before Falkirk, and the power he had called. As he lifted his eyes to those of the pagan priest, he felt himself drawn into their power, caught and held, a willing captive for what had been prepared, this ten-day past.
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