10: The Branch of the Whitethorn
Lanquan li jorn son lonc en may
M'es belhs dous chans d'auzelhs de lonh,
E quan mi suy partitz de lay,
Remembra'm d'un' amor de lonh.
Vau de talan embroncx e clis
Si que chans ni flors d'albespis
No.m platz plus que l'yverns gelatz.
When the days are long in May,
Fair to me are birds' sweet distant songs,
And when I go away from there,
I call to mind a distant love.
From longing I go oppressed, bowed down,
So that neither songs nor whitethorn blooms
Please me more than winter's ice.
Jaufre Rudel de Blaia (died c. 1148), Lanquan li jorn son lonc en may
Raoul took a walk in the hotel gardens after breakfast. Ismini had gone back to her room to finish getting ready: women generally took a long time over such things.
Beyond the formal lawns and flowerbeds was a wild garden, a small woodland, through which flowed a stream with a small bridge. The hawthorns were blooming in a creamy and pink froth of blossom.
Flors d'albespin.
It called to mind the courtly songs he had learned as a youth – songs by men over a century dead, even then. Guilhem of Aquitaine (though he had his coarse moods); the Castellan of Blaia who wentoutra mar for love of the Countess of Tripoli, whom he had never seen, and died; Cabestanh, whose heart, they said, was cut out and roasted and served up to his lady by her husband (and she threw herself from the window when she knew what she had eaten); Arnaut, "the better maker", as Dante had called him, "who swims against the stream"; En Bertran of Autafort, from his own country, with his songs of bright war-banners and din of axe on shield, and women with lithe bodies white as whitethorn flowers…
Always whitethorn flowers and the song of the nightingale. But there were no nightingales here. And the trobadors never mentioned that whitethorn has the scent of mortality, the sweetness of decaying flesh.
Every living creature dies once, and decays; any exception is, by definition, unnatural, a monster. Was it not the worst selfishness to tempt another – especially one whom he loved – to share such monstrousness, so as not to be alone?
He thought of Agnès, her fragile beauty rotted into bone and dust all those years ago: six-hundred-and-eighty years, seven months, three weeks, and… He could reckon it to the very hour. The last he had seen of her was on a brief visit to Cyprus three years ago: a fragment of incised tomb-slab in the Archæological Museum in Limassol, labelled Unidentified Lady of the Lusignan Era, c. 1300.1 A generic outline of a head, which had never resembled her; he had said so even at the time.
The envelope containing her necklace was still in his inside pocket. It had been a generous gesture of Anne's to return it, he thought. Poor girl. Had she wished truly to hurt him, she could have taken it to an auction-house and profited considerably from the proceeds. God knew how old it was. Agnès had been given it by her mother, whose family had had it for over a century. They said it had been brought from Constantinople by Ansaldo Bonvicino, when he came with that Marquis, of whom Bertran had sung…2
He heard a woman's footsteps, and turned, for a moment uncertain whom he would see.
It was Ismini, in her russet outdoor wrap. "You seem troubled; I think I know why."
"Do you?" he asked, a little sharply, but then continued more gently: "Ah, I'm sure that you do. I have had less cause to hide my thoughts from you of late."
"Nor would I wish you to hide them. – It's still about Agnès, isn't it? And Anne?"
He did not reply, but she knew the answer.
"The past, in other words?"
"You must admit, I have rather more past, and a more complicated one, than most men."
"– And more future, if you'll look towards it." She held out her hand to him; he took it, and so they began to walk slowly back towards the hotel. "You know what happened to Orpheos, through looking back?" she warned. "He lost what he desired most. I won't let you do that."
"So what have you been conspiring?" he asked; not that he did not already have a very good idea…
"I telephoned the university, to speak to Edith Hepburn. I said I was a friend of David's; that I knew she was interested in Hagios Theodoros; and that there was someone she really ought to meet – namely, you. She sounded quite thrilled."
"So you have arranged it all, without asking me first?"
"I knew you'd agree! Besides, today's Wednesday, so she isn't teaching this afternoon, which makes everything easier. She suggests we meet at three, at a tea-room called McArthur's:3 it's near her department. South Street, I think. If that suits you, of course."
"Of course." He smiled. "You have initiative, that I grant you. If you insist on organising my life so efficiently, I may have to replace the Colonel!"
"What have you been doing about transport?"
"When I arrived in this country, I hired a car with a driver, but that arrangement lapsed while I was in hospital. So at present, no…"
"You don't drive yourself?"
He shrugged. "I have never learned; I'm not entirely convinced it is a custom that will last."
"After a hundred years?" She was surprised at this. At home, he had a stylish, pale-coloured metallic Mercedes, but then, as she recalled, she had only ever seen him in one of the rear passenger seats.
"And we've had millennia with the horse! Besides, here, the town is within walking distance."
"It doesn't over-tire you?"
"I was advised to take 'fresh air and gentle exercise'; I've already made the journey once or twice. Hence your card from Madame Firth's shop."4
However, they decided to take a taxi, to be sure of arriving on time. South Street was one of the great processional streets that led from the site of the walls (in this case, the one surviving gate) to the now-ruined cathedral. It was lined with trees, and punctuated with architectural relics: a seventeenth-century courtyard, glimpsed through an archway; a small Gothic ruin, a fragment of the Church of the Blackfriars. Raoul felt a warm glow of what Colonel von Reitz would have called schadenfreude at the Dominicans – the order which ran the Inquisition – being thus brought low.
Outside McArthur's (more or less opposite the Post Office), a small, neatly dressed woman was waiting. She was clutching a tapestry handbag, and kept glancing at her watch. At first sight, they were uncertain whether it was Dr Hepburn, as her hair was now rinsed a very delicate shade of eau-de-Nil,5 but Raoul read her superficially, to confirm her identity. Since Ismini had spoken to her on the telephone, she carried out the introductions, describing Raoul as her "good friend".
"I should have known you at once, monsieur!" the historian exclaimed cheerily.
"How so?"
"From the Blondel painting; the resemblance is striking! Was it your great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather who modelled for that?"
"The latter, I believe, madame," he lied.
"Well, it's an honour to meet you! And you too, doctor! What is it you're a doctor of?"
"I'm a psychiatrist. But don't worry, I'm not here in a professional capacity!" (At least, not for you, she thought; Raoul was a different matter.)
"Well, let's go in! I booked a table, but I wasn't sure how well you knew your way around town…"
She led the way inside. Past a well-stocked patisserie counter, it opened out into spacious tea-room. It was a quaint, old-fashioned place, more 1950s than 1980s, in which waitresses in black dresses and white aprons bustled about, and cakes appeared on trolleys and tiered stands.
"What a coincidence that you should be in Scotland! A very happy one, I must say!"
"I know David Bascombe quite well," said Ismini, ignoring a wicked look from Raoul. "I was speaking to him on the telephone, after he'd met you, and he told me how disappointed you were about not being able to visit Hagios Theodoros. So I thought I should mention it to Raoul when next I saw him."
"How very thoughtful of you!"
"I am sorry, indeed, that I was absent," he said. "I have read your work concerning my ancestor, and it would please me much to be your guide on some future occasion. Perhaps, if you return to Rhodes, you would let me know?"
"That's most kind of you, and I'd be delighted to take you up on it! Mr Bascombe told me you'd been in a serious accident: I do hope you're better!"
"Thank you, yes. But it was not so very serious: not life-threatening. A shoulder injury, that is all."
"Well, so long as you're all right now!"
A waitress came to their table to take their order: coffees and shortbread.
"You see, I did so want to visit Saint-Théodore properly," Edith Hepburn went on. "It was uninhabited – partly ruined – when I was last there, in the late '60s, and not entirely safe to explore. Some of the wartime gun-platforms were still in place, as I recall. I asked Mr Bascombe if we might arrange a visit with your staff, but he seemed to me… well, almost alarmed at the idea of going anywhere near it!"
"Ah. That is my doing, I am afraid," said Raoul.
"He did say you'd had some sort of contretemps over his research; that his findings had offended you, am I right?"
"It was somewhat more serious than that. I was obliged to remove him from my property by force."
"Oh?"
"If he had addressed his enquiries to me courteously, I should have been happy to answer any historical questions. Instead, he chose to confront me during a party, at which he was my guest, with some fatuous accusations against Thibaut de Montrefort. Since Ismini tells me that you have read his article, I need not repeat them. I did my best to ignore them: they were nothing I had not heard before. But then I found him trespassing in my private apartments – in my office, examining papers on my desk. And so I had no choice but tothrow him out." Apart from omitting the factor of jealousy over Anne, and his use of telepathic suggestion to make David see demons and believe himself to be on fire, this approximated to the truth. "I did lose my temper, I confess," he added. "But I believe I had cause."
"Dear me! How frightful! Well, that explains a great deal!"
"I saw David afterwards, and he was extremely distressed," added Ismini, with a pointed glance at Raoul. (David had been so hysterical that she had had to cut his hand with broken glass to bring him to his senses.) "A little more tact on both sides would not have gone amiss."
"Yes, well… Sadly, these things happen! Unfortunately, I suspect it's influenced Mr Bascombe's work," Edith said. "It seems to me that he's taking out his animosity towards you on poor Brother Thibaut. It's as if he treats you as one and the same!"
"Almost certainly," Raoul replied coolly.
Ismini noticed a glint in his eyes, and shot a thought across at him: Please behave yourself…
"And while I know it's not primarily his field, his gullibilitydid surprise me. You know, when I last saw Giles Aimery, he told me one of his research students had him tearing his hair out, despite being in Greece. Now I've met him – well, I'm not surprised Giles is almost bald these days! All the usual sensational Templar myths – conspiracies, devil-worship and so on – he seemed to want to believe, and was really rather disappointed with the truth, as far as we have it!"
"I hope you are more fortunate with your own students," he said.
"On the whole, but… I'm not sure how long that will continue, since that peculiar book came out last year!6 I've already received a couple of essays that cited it as a source, and I shudder to think what may happen in the exams! Grails, Cathars, secret societies, holy bloodlines: whatever all that has to do with the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon…! 'Poor Knights', indeed, poor old things… I don't think many people these days truly comprehend their religious commitments and duties."
"I'm sure David must have been difficult to convince on that," observed Ismini.
"Yes! When we were at Lindos, he asked me about the duties of Preceptors and Masters; what Brother Thibaut would have done at Saint-Théodore… I began to explain, but he started laughing and asked me if I were joking. Of course not, I told him: it's all far too tragic."
"But why did he think you were joking?"
"I told him that, every Maundy Thursday in the years he ran the house, he would have washed the feet of thirteen paupers from the village, and had them fed and clothed. Mr Bascombe found that hard to believe, for some reason."
Ismini could see David almost exploding at the very idea; indeed, she was not entirely sure whether she believed it herself. Thibaut de Montrefort – Raoul Lavallière – sleeves rolled up, on his knees with a bucket, washing peasants' leathery feet? She gazed at him: since he was looking particularly serene and aloof at this moment, the juxtaposition of his past and present lives could not have been more bizarre…
"It is alien to Monsieur Bascombe's culture, I think," Raoul said calmly. "My ancestors believed strongly that noblesse oblige; also, it was the duty of the master of a religious house to follow his higher Master, as both shepherd and servant."
"So it's true? He did this in person?" Ismini asked.
"Of course. That is so, is it not, Dr Hepburn?"
She nodded. "One didn't get intellectuals or mystics in the Templars – and only one or two second- or third-rate trobadors that I recall" – Ismini noticed Raoul wince at this, but Edith carried on – "but they did carry out practical piety, acts of charity. Of course, the other part of their practical piety was smiting the Saracen, but Brother Thibaut never got the chance to do any of that. Limassol, when the Order was resisting arrest, must have been the only real fighting he saw."
But for Ismini, yet another mask had fallen, uncovering another facet of his personality. It fitted with his olive-wood prayer beads, with hisdevotion to the Virgin – besides some of his more disturbing earlier remarks. "A shepherd will shoot a stray dog that worries his flock: I defend those who are in my care," he had said, justifying Don Tierney's killing. But then, he had already tried dying for his previous Templar flock, as a 'Good Shepherd' ought – only to survive when they did not.
"You clearly know much about this subject, Monsieur Lavallière: have you studied it formally, or is it just an interest because of your family connection?" Edith asked.
"The latter. I have not had a great deal of formal education, it shames me to say. However, I spent some years in holy orders myself, when younger," he said. "Unfortunately, my health suffered, and I returned to the world – somewhat reluctantly at first."
"And what is your line of work these days?"
He shrugged. "Oh, consultancies, networking… From God to Mammon, yes?"
"Well, we all have to make a living! And at least you've been putting the proceeds to good use, judging by the photographs of the castle. Quite an ambitious project! And to have accomplished so much in so short a time!"
"Ruins are one of my pastimes. Before this, I had begun to restore a Templar keep in Lebanon – outside Sidon – but then, conditions there became far too dangerous. It is a pity: it's not so many years since Beirut was the Paris of the Levant."
"Yes, it was – a lovely city! I did some research there in the '60s… Heartbreaking, what's happened!" Edith sighed. "But –Saint-Théodore? As I said, quite an undertaking! And as a family member, it must have been quite an emotional one for you, too, even after so many centuries."
He was silent for a moment, pensive, stirring his coffee alternately clockwise and anti-clockwise. Ismini knew that he was composing himself, and composing his response without revealing too much. "I regard it as a moral duty; a debt of honour. As you say, there is so much nonsense written these days, I should not wish it to become… another Rennes-le-Château. The bones of innocent men still lie within those walls; the blood of the martyrs, if I may call them that. Since Brother Thibaut was unable to protect them in life, I can, at least, protect them in death. For the sake of the villagers, also: they, too, were under his protection, and paid dearly."
Sensing that they were on the verge of difficult territory, Ismini sent him reassuring thoughts, and steered the conversation back towards Edith. "So what first drew you to the case, Dr Hepburn?" she asked. "It's a fairly obscure story, and hardly the most edifying."
"I'm not sure that anyone studies history for edification! It's been many years, now. I was researching the deposition of Foulques de Villaret as Grand Master of the Hospitallers. It's an extraordinary event in the history of any of the military orders – an armed rebellion against an incumbent Grand Master. I kept finding oblique references to 'acts of oppression', 'tyranny', 'abuses of power', but little concrete evidence against him. Then I noticed a passing mention of de Montrefort. I thought this was rather odd at first, as the only man of that name I had encountered was a Templar who had been tried in Cyprus, and – I had assumed – died in Kyrenia. Gradually, I pieced together all the chronicle and charter references to him, de Belabre's confession, a few letter copies in the Papal archives… And there we are."
"We're both quite familiar with the details," Ismini said. "Raoul especially." (She was anxious to protect him from an in-depth discussion of the massacre: she knew that he would need a great deal of her professional support if he were to face that.)
"Yes," he said, "and I am grateful to you for bringing the incident to wider attention."
"Not so wide! Mediæval history journals don't have a large circulation, I'm sorry to say!"
"But it seems to me that you have a real sympathy – a compassion – for your subject. I… had not expected compassion, after so long." He looked at Ismini. "It always surprises me – pleasantly."
Edith nodded. "I daresay you'll think me frightfully old-fashioned for saying this, but I believe historiography carries certain responsibilities. Ethically. 7 We – as a society, that is – generally condemn those who would deny or justify this century's atrocities – death-camps, gulags, killing-fields – yet are indulgent towards the publication of wild theories about the Templars' alleged 'crimes'. But why? Does innocence become guilt merely because there are no survivors left to defend themselves? If so, we must fear for the future."
He gave his enigmatic, Gothic smile, like that of the carved angels at Reims or Chartres. No survivors? If she only knew…
She went on: "I mean to say, in the Middle Ages, some believed that Jews ritually sacrificed Christian children, and that lepers went around poisoning wells. Patent nonsense, but innocent people were killed as a result. Nowadays, no-one sane would believe those claims – yet otherwise rational people seem happy to convince themselves that the Templars worshipped idols, or were some sort of heretical conspiracy. They want to believe the official accusations and the confessions. But to me, that is to make oneself complicit, morally."
"Complicit in the abuse by which the confessions were obtained?" Ismini asked.
"Yes. And I think that is… abhorrent. When one is faced with the torture of innocents, does one stand with the torturer or with the victim? The answer is obvious, or, at any rate, it should be."
"That seems to me a very Christian position," Raoul observed.
She shook her head. "I consider it merely human. After all, the Inquisition was a Christian institution, was it not?"
"Point taken."
But Ismini was, first and foremost, a scientist: "What about objectivity?"
"Of course one should present evidence objectively – without deliberate falsification, without twisting it by selection or omission. And I'm not suggesting that history become advocacy. That would be futile: it's seven centuries too late to start campaigning, 'Free the Templars'! But it seems to me that privileging myth over evidence is the real danger. 'No smoke without fire', Mr Bascombe said. I told him the only fire was in the dungeons and at the stakes. We can't afford to forget. We owe it to the dead to be as honest as we can."
"Certainly, it is easier to be honest with them than with the living," said Raoul. "And I am sure they would appreciate your efforts. If he could know of it, I believe that Brother Thibaut would be highly flattered by your concern."
"He must have been a courageous man: not a wise one, and perhaps, in the end, too stubborn, but – decent, I think. In an earlier time, or in another order, his career would have been brighter. But you ought to be proud of him."
He lowered his gaze modestly. "I believe it proper only to take pride or shame in one's own actions, not the borrowed fame of one's forebears. Besides, Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo…"
"Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give the glory? Yes, indeed. That's one reason why there are no Templar saints: all Brethren were spiritually equal. As for martyrs, well, the Church doesn't tend to count those whom it martyrs itself."
"That is true, also!" he said, smiling.
While Raoul attended to the bill – he would not hear of Edith paying – she whispered to Ismini: "You're very lucky, my dear: such an interesting young man!"
"He's older than he looks – but yes, he is quite unusual."
They walked with Edith as far as her department, across the street. "You may want to take a look at next door," she said. "The departmental library and study-rooms. They call it St John's House: the plot was Templar property before 1312, of course, but then the Hospitallers got it. Not that they lived here, but they took the rents from it. There's a carved stone head down the lane at the side, too. Again, some foolish things have been said about that and the Templars, but it's probably just a fragment from the cathedral or the Blackfriars."
"Thank you: we will!" Ismini said.
"It really has been delightful to meet you both!"
"We shall meet again on Rhodes, I am sure of it," Raoul said. "But I think it may be diplomatic not to mention our meeting toMonsieur Bascombe, should you…"
Edith Hepburn cleared her throat. "I strongly suspect I won't be having further communications with him! Frightful manners! You have my full sympathy!"
And so they parted, in good cheer.
Raoul remarked that he wished he could "correct" the modern plaque of the Hospitaller arms in the stairwell of St John's with white and red paint. He and Ismini then inspected the weathered little head wearing an imperial crown, who grimaced down upon a garden in Baker Lane, just around the corner. Perhaps once a Biblical king or Roman emperor, or even 'King Death', he was certainly no demonic Asmodeus or mythical 'Baphomet': merely one of many 'orphaned' mediæval sculptures scattered about the town.8
After they returned to his hotel suite, Raoul was very quiet for a while, retreating behind his psychic barriers once more. Ismini watched him from the couch, as he rested in the window-seat, gazing out over the gardens. He ran the olive-wood prayer beads through his fingers, perhaps less tensely than before. She intuited that, as he turned them over, so he turned Edith's words in his mind, her evaluation of the man he had been. It was surely good for him, she thought, to find that a stranger, who had learned of him only through the written record, cared for him; that he and his Brethren were viewed sympathetically.
To be continued:
Notes:
1 The Monumental Brass Society website has an illustration of a comparable slab fragment from the later 14C, from Nicosia.
2 The Bonvicini arrived in Tyre in 1187 with the Marquis Conrad of Montferrat (c. 1145-92), who saved the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and was briefly its king.
3 A St Andrews institution, which, alas, closed in 1984 or '85 (if I recall correctly). The building is now split between a pub and an Indian restaurant.
4 The shop is still there, but is no longer Helen Firth's.
5 Edith's changing hair colour is taken from one of her real-life inspirations.
6The Holy Blood & the Holy Grail, which revitalised the whole 'Templar/Cathar conspiracy theory' scene in 1982. We are still living with the consequences, Dan Brown & al.
7 Edith's dialogue is inspired by Simon Schama's words inCitizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989): "Confronted with evidence of an apocalypse, it does historians no credit to look aside in the name of scholarly objectivity".
8 The sculpted head in Baker Lane (or Baxter's Wynd): sadly, an overgrown shrub has now more or less destroyed this little fellow, apart from his crown.