The Tale of the English Templar

“Mademoiselle de Preuthune was arrested for her apparent complicity in the rescue of the Templar priests, Holy Father. Such an association suggests she may be tainted with heresy. It is entirely within my jurisdiction to question her. However, instead of immediately interrogating her, I left her to contemplate her sins. Fasting helps us to focus on our soul rather than our body.”

Clement did not agree; he found that he was more focused on his body when he was hungry than when he was not. Furthermore, he did not like to be reminded of the Templar priests who had been rescued right out from under his nose. Indignantly, he told Father Elion, “I can’t imagine that this poor girl had anything to do with the Templars!” To his servant he ordered, “Fetch water, wine and some light refreshment for Mademoiselle.” Turning back to Felice, he again urged her to sit in the chair provided for her.

Felice rolled back on her heels and stood somewhat unsteadily. She stepped backwards towards the chair and slowly sank down upon it, her eyes fixed on the Pope. Her heart was racing from the strain of knowing how much depended on her skills of persuasion. She clearly had Clement’s sympathy, but now she had to convert his sympathy for her into compassion for Percy.

“Now, my daughter, tell me what brought you to Avignon.”

Felice had had two full days to prepare for this interview and she had anticipated this question. “Word was brought to my grandfather that you were holding two Templar priests, the priests who had been elected to represent the Templar Defenders before your Commission, Holy Father.”

Father Elion put his hand to his face and feigned a cough to disguise his chortle of delight at the horrified look on Clement’s face. The Pope had been so certain that the girl was innocent, and then she walked straight into the noose. It was priceless!

“Your grandfather? Who is your grandfather and what does he care about the Templars?”

“Lord Geoffrey de Preuthune of Najac, Holy Father. He was knighted by Saint Louis at Mansourah.”

“Ahhh.” Clement remembered that uncomfortable encounter with the old man two years earlier. He glanced towards Father Elion and saw his smug expression. Annoyed, Clement turned back to Felice and demanded, “What does your grandfather have to do with the Templars?”

“He believes with all his heart that they are innocent of any wrongdoing and is determined to help them in any way he can. That is why he gave shelter to Sir Percy, nursed him back to health and supports him still.”

“Sir Percy?”

“Sir Percival de Lacy, Your Holiness. He is an English Templar who was arrested on his journey to Cyprus by the Bishop of Albi. He escaped from Albi’s soldiers when being transported from Albi to Poitiers some six months after his arrest.”

Father Elion could hardly believe his ears. The stupid girl was confessing everything — and they hadn’t even had to threaten her with torture. Women were such idiots!

“You know that assisting the Templars is a crime against the Crown and Holy Church,” Clement lectured her sternly. “Your grandfather committed a crime and a deadly sin when he defied his Sovereign and myself. Did he think that being knighted by a saint entitled him to question the wisdom of Christ’s vicar on earth?” Clement expected the girl to be duly intimidated. He was baffled to realise she seemed less frightened now than when she had first been brought to his chamber.

She gazed at him with wide yet calm eyes. All trace of trembling was gone, and the pallor of her face was strangely luminous. “Your Holiness, it was I who found Sir Percy on the roadside — his legs broken intentionally by the Inquisition, his body wasted with neglect, and more naked than covered despite the snows of winter.”

“You could not know he was a Templar in that state,” the Pope hastened to find an excuse for her.

“Did it matter?” Felice asked back. Switching easily to Latin, Felice quoted from the gospel of Saint Matthew. “’For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in. Naked, and you covered me; sick and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me.’“

Clement started violently, and Father Elion hissed furiously at this serpent of Satan, “How dare you blaspheme!”

“Blaspheme, Father?” Felice turned her steady gaze upon Father Elion. “Is it blasphemy,” she asked in a voice so sure of itself that it no longer sounded female, “to quote His Holy Word?”

“It is blasphemy, because you twist the meaning!” Father Elion retorted hotly; his inability to cope with this woman made him doubly angry. He wanted her silenced at once. “Your tongue should be ripped out so that—”

“Hold your tongue, Father!” Clement cut the Dominican off, provoking an unseen smile from Sir Guichard. Focusing on Felice intently, the pontiff asked, “What are you trying to say, child?”

“Holy Father, I am only trying to explain why I did not hesitate to help Sir Percy when I saw him sick, starving, injured and all but naked. I am trying to explain why neither King Philip nor you, Your Holiness, can convince me that I did wrong.”

“But I have just told you that you committed a deadly sin! You can be excommunicated for aiding a heretic — and the Templars are condemned heretics!” Clement sounded more petulant than confident.

“Condemned, Your Holiness? But the Commission has not even completed its investigation.”

“They are condemned out of their own mouths!” Father Elion spoke up passionately. It was obvious that Clement was too bamboozled by this female devil to respond sensibly and forcefully.

Felice turned her eyes on Father Elion and declared in a slow, steady voice laden with hate, “Why, Father, it would please me to hear what you would confess to if your legs were being relentlessly twisted until the ankles and then the shinbone broke, or would the touch of red-hot iron—”

“How dare you!” Father Elion took a step nearer and raised his hand to strike her in his outrage. Clement stopped him with a single gesture, and Sir Guichard’s spur scraped on the tiled floor as he stepped up behind Father Elion, ready to physically intervene.

Felice boldly took advantage of the Pope’s intervention, and told Father Elion, “If you can withstand your own torture without denying Christ, Father, then — and only then — can we discuss whether human weakness is heresy.”

She turned back to Clement and drew him into her eyes. Her voice was low, melodic, intimate yet devoid of any sexuality. It seemed both sexless and disembodied, as she narrated, “Holy Father, I found Sir Percy — a stranger — hungry, thirsty, sick and a prisoner. I took him in, I gave him to eat and drink. I tended his wounds, and I set him free. Why? So that on the Day of Judgement He could not say onto me: ‘Depart from me accursed into everlasting fire... for I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked and you covered me not.’“

Clement started trembling. He knew the scripture she was quoting. It continued: “Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these my least brethren, neither did you do it to me.”

He could not take his eyes off the girl. Oblivious to the outraged protests of Father Elion, his nightmare returned to him. The knight with the cross of blood was Christ — an angry Christ. Clement felt a chill run down his spine.