The Bishop of Albi paced back and forth across his study, his purple robes fluttering about him, the gold threads of the embroidery glittering in the candlelight. He was a formidable figure in full episcopal regalia, his mitre set firmly on his head and his thick fingers laden with massive rings. But for all the jewels and silk, he strode back and forth like an angry elephant, and the calloused guard feared the strength hidden beneath the clerical robes.
The bishop was red in the face
and his eyes bulged slightly in his round, flat face. The guard had been sent
back to report the loss of one prisoner to the bishop, while the sergeant
proceeded with the rest of the detachment to Poitiers. They had lost a whole
day looking for the missing prisoner and then decided they could not risk
arriving late in Poitiers with the other seven.
The bishop had heard the man out
with mounting fury and then demanded to know why in the name of God they had
stopped to help the widow with the wine-cart stuck in the snow. “You were
already tasting the Bordeaux, weren’t you?”
“No, Your Grace. We couldn’t get
past the other wagon, Your Grace.” The guard had been instructed to lie about
this point and he had readily seen the sense of it. “We had to stop and get it
out of the way first.”
“And you couldn’t leave one moron
like yourself to watch the prisoners? How many men did it take to move one
bloody wine wagon?”
The guard cleared his throat and
flexed his hands nervously but he had no answer, and the bishop’s look of
contempt made him run a finger under his collar in embarrassment.
“Why wasn’t the man chained?” the
bishop bellowed next.
“We were instructed to bring a
wagon for sever prisoners. There was no time to make chains for the eighth,”
the guard responded defensively. “I pointed out that there were not enough
chains for the last prisoner, but Sir Novice —“ he pointed to Umberto, who was
standing as unobtrusively as possible to one side of the fireplace — “said it
didn’t matter. He said the prisoner had two broken legs and wasn’t going
anywhere.”
The bishop spun about on Umberto.
“Is that true?”
Umberto swallowed his own fear
and lifted his head. His hood was flung back upon his shoulders and his head
proudly emerged from the folds. His skin had a marble pallor and his eyes and
cheeks were sunken and shaded grey. “Yes, it is. Father Elion spent all night
interrogating this English Templar and writing up his confession just so he
could be transported. I assumed that your escort and the fact that the prisoner
could not walk was sufficient guarantee that he could not escape.”
“You are as innocent as a newborn
lamb,” the bishop observed in a low, insulting voice that made Umberto flush.
He knew he had been made to look the fool and he feared for his career.
The bishop’s gaze shifted to
Father Elion. The master interrogator looked extremely weary. His boney
shoulders were hunched and his head hung low; the lines leading from his
hawk-like nose to his mouth stood out like gorges down the side of his face. He
eyes were lost in the shadows of their sockets. “The Englishman’s confession is
pivotal. He is the first and only English Templar to confess to denying Christ
and to idol worship. I have a signed confession here.” Father Elion drew one
copy of the confession from his deep sleeves.
“A lot of good that does us now!”
the bishop snapped back. “Do you think the King gave such explicit orders about
taking care not to kill the prisoners so we could let them slip through our
fingers before they can be put on trial?”
“But he can’t have got far. Not
with two broken legs. Even if he was rescued by other Templars, they could not
take him far in his condition,” Umberto protested. He had to do or say
something to mitigate the impact of his error.
“No. Most likely the man never
got farther than the woods at the side of the road. You—“ the bishop spun on
the guard, “may choose to believe tall tales of phantom Templars still lurking
in the woods, capable of miraculous deeds. The Templars I’ve seen couldn’t save
their own asses! It is far more likely that the prisoner did no more than roll
off the wagon and die in the snow!”
No one contradicted him. After a
moment the bishop continued, “As soon as the first thaw comes, you will search
the woods on both sides of the road all the way from la Bruyere to Villegranche
until you find the corpse. If you fail to find the corpse, then you will search
every village and turn every farm and cottage upside down until you find the
man. These villagers are all still Albigensian heretics at heart. It would be
just like them to harbor a Templar precisely because they have heard the Templars have denied Christ.”
