The monastery was given largely to farming, close enough to the town to see the three towers of a new castle built on heathen ruins. Like all such institutions, it was dedicated to intercession for its patrons and the souls of its benefactors and caring for the poor.
I was taught skills beyond those known to villeins of my birth: the making and reading of letters, the understanding and speaking of Latin and Frankish and the knowledge of mathematics. It was at this last skill that I, with God's help, became most proficient. By my twelfth summer, I kept the accounts for the cellarer:4 the volume of grapes and olives harvested, the number of loaves made, the poor donations from those who sought our prayers, even the quantity of plates fired in the kiln.
It was also that summer I was to end my novitiate,5 becoming a full member that fall. If only I had. not succumbed to the sin of ambition, I would be there yet· and would not be facing the cruel fate that awaits me.
It was in August when I saw him, Guillaume de Poitiers, a knight on a magnificent white horse and the most beautiful man I had ever seen. I had been outside the monastery walls, measuring the quantity of sheep dung to be put on the vegetable garden, when I looked up and there he was.
Despite the heat of the day, he wore full armour, including a hauberk,6 underneath his flowing white surcoat which was emblazoned front and back with the blood-red cross-pattee, announcing to all that he had been to and returned from the Holy Land. His garments thereby proclaimed him to be a knight of the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, the most fearsome and holy soldiers of the Church.
On his left hip was strapped a long dagger of a design foreign to me, with a curved blade wider than the hilt, which I later learned was a weapon of the heathen Saracens. On his right was a very short knife.
His esquire, mounted on an ass, led two other horses, mighty creatures far larger than the beasts I had seen. Across their backs were strapped a lance, a long, two-edged sword, and a Turkish mace, as well as a triangular body-shield which was adorned by a crimson cross also, this one squarish with perfect triangles for arms.
I followed as he rode through the open gate into the cloister, dismounted and knelt before our poor abbot as though he were paying obeisance to the pope himself. He asked for a night's shelter and food for his man and animals. He requested these for himself last, after his horses and esquire, as was proper for men of God as were we and was he.
As he knelt in supplication, I noted his hair was long and unkempt, his armour beginning to rust and his robe and cape covered with the dust of travel. Travel he had, as I was ro learn later. He had survived the fall of Acre, the last Christian city in the Holy Land, the year after my birth. With the former residents of Jaffa, Tyre, Sidon and Ascalon, he and his remaining brethren had fled in Venetian ships along with Grand Master Theobald Gaudin who brought with them such treasure and relics as the Order had.
Guillaume had waited in Cyprus for the papal pleasure of Boniface VIII, thinking that once again it would please God to send the Knights to cleanse the infidel from Jerusalem.7
When it became apparent this would not take place soon, he was ordered to return to his original monastery in Burgundy. He was on his way there when I saw him.
Risking the sin of jealousy, I managed to kneel next to him at Vespers that evening, the better to admire the accoutrements I have described. I could not but notice the sun's dark mark on his face and a star-shaped scar at his neck, a wound his esquire told me he received from a heathen arrow and survived only by God's grace.
It was then I observed the circlet of silver encompassing what I had first perceived as four triangles. It was only later he explained to me the triangles described the equal arms of the Templar cross, symbolizing the Holy Rood with the equality of all the Poor Brothers of the Temple of Solomon. It was the only adornment the Order allowed its members.
He also noticed my interest in his scar, for after the last prayer, he touched the discolored skin and said, "Only the low-born kill at a distance, young brother. Knights look into the souls of their enemies."
"Souls?" I said, curious. "The heathen, the accursed of the true God, have souls?"
At this he laughed, drawing the attention of Brother Larenzo, a devout man and prior of the abbey. "He is human. young brother. And do not forget, those figures you use in your calculations instead of Roman letters come from the infidel as do your calculations of the seasons. He is a worthy foe. And, at least for now, he holds all the Outremer,8 having ousted the best Christendom could muster."
Brother Larenzo was making no. effort to conceal that he was listening to the conversation. I was already the subject of his ire since silence and meditation after Vespers is the rule. I had had more than one beating at his hands for sacrilege, so I replied, "But surely Christ's Church will ultimately prevail."
Guillaume laughed again, to the prior's great annoyance. Laughter was as rare inside these walls as the wealth we had all foresworn. "The trouble is not with Christ's Church, it is with Christ's kings and princes. They fight among themselves instead of uniting against the nonbelievers. They are wont to worry more about the power of rival sovereigns than domination of the very home of Jesus by heathens." Here he moved his hand in a rough estimation of crossing himself. "Many such kings even fear us, the Poor Knights of the Temple."
Would that I had listened with a sharper ear to this last! Had I heeded it and all it implied, I would not now be facing the fate that awaits me, a stake surrounded by brush to be lit.
I confess again to the sin of pride when this brave knight who had so valiantly served the cause of Christ chose to accompany me, rather than the abbot, to the refectory for the evening meal. I could feel all eyes upon me as I genuflected before the crucifix behind the abbot's table to give thanks.
Once seated, our guest gave his bowl of porridge a look of disgust. "No mead" he asked, interrupting the reading from the lectern.9
The entire room went silent, so shocked were we that anyone less than a nobleman would expect to find meat, even more so in a weekday supper.
The abbot was an elderly brother, his voice little more than a wheeze across toothless gums. He coughed, making an effort to be heard from the dais where he shared a table with the elder and governing brothers.
"Good brother," he said, "Christ's last meal was only bread and wine. How much more nourishing is this? Be thankful, for there are many who have not even this simple repast."
Once again Guillaume gave that laugh as he raised his clay cup of watered wine. "You are right, good abbot. I am thankful for this meal and for the hospitality you afford a poor knight returning from the service of Christ."
Satisfied, the old abbot continued to gum the mush of cereals that was our lot more often than not.
Without lifting his eyes from his bowl and spoon, Guillaume muttered to me, "I did not expect the killing of the fatted calf but even the laziest of men can snare a hare and I have seen countless roe in the forest hereabouts."
Fascinated by words that would have earned me a beating for impertinence if not sacrilege, I asked, "And you Templars have hare or roe with weekday suppers?"
"And with the noon meal also. Or beef or pork. Mush like this does not sustain a man's body." "It does keep his soul, however," a brother on the other side whispered.
Guillaume shoved his bowl away hardly touched. It is a rich man who passes up food. Or a foolish one. "Souls do not fight the Saracen, bodies do."
After the meal, the order's rules required a retreat to the chapel for confession and then to individual cells for private prayer before Compline.10 I had been given a dispensation to work in the order's small counting room. The olives were near harvest and it was necessary I calculate how many boissel11 the order would have to press into oil for sale. I was completing my initial figures on a slate and preparing to transfer them to the permanence of sheep parchment when I became aware of Guillaume.