The Tale of the English Templar

Umberto di Sante massaged his temples with his fingers, trying to alleviate the headache that plagued him. The pain which seemed to cleave his skull in two left half of his brain numb and made it almost impossible to concentrate on the documents before him. The neat script of the scribe seemed to blur before his eyes, and the letters ran together so that the calligraphy transmitted no sense at all. But what was the point of reading yet another confession? Umberto had read hundreds, and the script was always the same as if they had all been written by the same hand. He had stopped believing any of them. Irritably, he shoved the documents aside and pushed back the stool.

The headaches were getting worse and part of him knew that they were not entirely attributable to excessive quantities of the Bishop’s wine. The headaches came even when he had not joined the Bishop in his ‘private circle’, and it was this which frightened him. A mere hangover was easy to banish with fresh air and a raw egg. These headaches, however, defied all easy remedies because they came from a guilty conscience. Umberto had lost not so much his ambition as his enthusiasm. He still dreamed of power and prestige, but he was tired of the treadmill he had been put on to get there..

He left the carved writing desk and went to the window to look out on to the Seine. The episcopal palace faced Notre Dame from the left bank of the river, and the windows of the scriptorium offered di Sante a splendid view of the cathedral. To the left, the spire of Saint Chapel pointed to heaven, and beyond the Isle de la Cite, he could see all the way to the massive tower of the Temple. That was where the bulk of the Templar prisoners were now being held, in their own former headquarters — if in a slightly different style from that to which they had once been accustomed.

No one had been prepared for such a large number of Templars to volunteer to defend their Order. No one had expected that after two full years in the dungeons of the King so many of the wretches — men who had sworn to every conceivable heresy and sin their interrogators had suggested to them — would suddenly retract their confessions and declare the Order innocent of all charges. It had been a serious setback for King Philip, and he had made sure that the Bishops of Albi and Narbonne felt his displeasure. The Bishop of Albi, particularly, had been subjected to the most vicious verbal abuse at the hands of his kinsman Nogaret, and he had not yet fully recovered — either in terms of his standing at court or his own equilibrium.

It was telling that Umberto secretly rejoiced at Albi’s discomfiture. Despite profiting from his appointment to the Bishop’s staff, he was not happy here. He increasingly wondered whether he should find a new patron — someone more intellectual, more spiritual, more godly, but equally rich and powerful, of course. Umberto was still ambitious, but he was weary of ceaselessly flogging a dead horse. The Knights Templar as an institution were dead. What was the point of torturing and abusing the already broken individual remnants of the once powerful organisation? Why couldn’t the Order just be dissolved and its members sent to live in other religious houses? Why this public trial? What could it possibly serve?

It was all a sham anyway. The Inquisition had even selected in advance who the Templars should ‘elect’ as their spokesmen. These men had agreed to betray their brothers in exchange for pitiable and worthless ‘guarantees’ of ‘better treatment.’ It was all nauseating, and Umberto was reminded that he had vomited at his first interrogation. That had been humiliating and nearly ruined his career, but at the heart of it, his instincts had been correct.

If only he could get away from Albi and find a more uplifting position — diplomatic work, perhaps, or accrediting sacred relics or raising donations. Something that would attract positive attention without this sordid, smelly and distasteful work in dungeons.