If there was a sign announcing Rennes-les-Bains, Lang missed it. His first notice he had arrived in the tiny village was a cluster of plastered, tile-roofed buildings that crowded the highway. The place was too small for a cathedral or even a square but he did have to slow to a crawl as he came up behind a tractor. Both driver and machine had seen better days.
Despite clouds of greasy diesel smoke, Lang saw the sign to the Hostellerie de Rennes-les-Bains in time-to turn onto a dirt drive lined with flowering fruit trees. In front of him was a pink-washed building on a slight rise. According to the guidebook, it was the only hotel within miles.
He replaced the moustache before leaving the car. The entry was into a limestone-floored foyer. Dark paneling extended to the gallery of the second floor. A rustic, wagon-wheel chandelier hung directly above his head. He was facing a country French desk, its simple pine holding a brass banker's lamp, leather register and polished brass bell. From his left, daylight streamed through an arched doorway, beyond which he could see the hotel's small dining room with a single picture window overlooking the Aude Valley.
He put down his suitcase and wandered over to have a look. A woman was clearing dishes from the continental lunch advertised on the hotel's sign.
Lang startled her when she looked up and saw him.
"Oui?"
His French wasn't any better than his Italian. "Chambre?" he asked hopefully.
Lang was pleasantly surprised when he got something resembling whatever he asked for in French. At his only stay at Paris's oh-so-snobby Bristol Hotel, he had used a English-French dictionary, stumbling syntax and a heavy tongued accent to ask room service to send up a cold drink. Minutes later, he got the cold just fine, only it was a very dead fish. The incident had colored his opinion of both his linguistic ability and the French. He held neither in particular esteem.
"You are American?' the woman asked in perfect English. "German," Lang replied with appropriate Teutonic stiffness.
She wiped her hands on her apron and smiled as though indicating the difference was insignificant. "We have a room," she continued in English. "One with the view you see here." She indicated the glass behind her.
She led him back to the foyer and opened the register. He reluctantly gave her both Schneller's Visa card and passport. With just a little luck, the passport wouldn't hit the computers in Paris for several days and she wouldn't run the credit card through until he checked out. She seemed disappointed in both. She recorded the number of the passport before making an imprint of the card.
Lang was trying to remember how long it had been since he had seen that done to a credit card instead of an electronic swipe when she handed it back and reached into the key rack behind her and headed for the stairs. Lang had to trot to keep up. Along the gallery, she opened a door and silently motioned him inside. The room was unremarkable other than the promised overlook of the Aude. The travel magazines would have described the view in superlatives, something like shimmering diamonds in the midday sun as the river meandered between chalky cliffs.
As soon as the woman was gone, Lang opened his new luggage and changed into jeans and a heavy shirt. The Mephistos were even more comfortable than they had been in the store. He took out a coil of rope, ran his belt through it and secured the trenching tool to his belt.
Locking the room as he left, he stopped to pull a single hair from his head and use spit to glue it between door and jam. If a visitor came, he wanted to know it.
THE TEMPLARS:
THE END OF AN ORDER
An Account by Pietro of Sicily
Translation from the medieval Latin by Nigel Wolffe, Pb.D.
6
After six days, we reached the destination our gaolers intended. Had I more pigment and paper with which to record it, this record would be replete with the cruelties and privations inflicted upon us, but those facts are no longer important.
I know nothing of the place in which we are confined other than that it is a twin-towered castle of the king in a city upon a high hill looking down upon a river. Each Brother is in a sperate cell so that there can be no congress among us. The cell which is my lot is below the surface of the earth so that I have no window, its walls so thick I hear nothing but the scurrying of rodents in the straw which is my bedding and only furnishing. Water and dampness drip from the walls and the smell is of rot and decay.
Once a day a trencher of swill I would not have considered fit for swine is shoved beneath the door without spoon or knife so that I must defeat the rats in competition and then eat like a dog. After the third day's confinement, I learned to thank God for the little sustenance it gives me. When taken, we were allowed no possessions other than what was on our backs. Had I not kept with me the material with which I intended to labour after the evening meal, I would not be able to record the events that have transpired.
On the first morning after arriving here, I was roughly dragged into a large room and set in front of a high dais, upon which sat a man made known to me as a myrmidon of the Grand Inquisitor of Paris. He read to me allegations similar to those made by the bailie. I denied them, whereupon I was taken forth to another room from which I heard screams and moans.
I supposed this to be the place where I was to be tortured so that I might confess to the falsehoods urged against the Brethren of the Temple of Jerusalem. I know not what was worse: waiting while listening to such suffering in anticipation of my own or the torture which was inflicted upon me.
I wanted to pray God to grant me strength for what I was about to endure but, alas, the knowledge from that accursed cave deprived me of the devotion to do this, for I knew not to whom to pray.
From the room now came quiet and from it was carried the broken form of the old cellarer who had not survived. Indeed, he was one of the fortunate members of the Temple.
I was fastened in an iron frame in a sitting position so that my leges extended toward a screen, on the other side of which was a fire. My feet were greased with butter and the screen removed so that my feet were roasted like venison over a hearth. The screen was moved back and forth to regulate the heat. Each time my tormentors again read the scurrilous charges, which I again denied even though I could smell my own flesh as it sizzled in the flames. I deafened myself with screams before blessed darkness overtook me.
My tormentors would not let me be, but revived me and began anew.
The next day, two of my teeth were drawn out. The day after' I was placed in the strappado.
I know not how long I lay in the straw of my miserable cell, my burned flesh an enticement to rodents and other vermin and my tom muscles making repelling them painful, before a boy appeared before me. At first, I thought he was but a vision, one of many as the pain made me drift in and out of cognizance. Instead, he had been sent to tend to such wretches as I in much the same manner of a stable hand, to replace the straw and to replenish the water, green and stinking in its bucket.
His name is Stephan and he is the fountainhead of any news I receive. Through him, I learned that even the pontiff, Pope Clement V, has abandoned us, banding with King Philip to destroy the Order in spite of the promises of his predecessor. I also learned that His Holiness had proclaimed all the Brothers apostate, the riches of the Order forfeit and the Order abolished. A number of the Brethren, much treasure and the Order's ships have disappeared.
I also learned that brothers refusing to confess to the insinuations and impeachments against them will be burned before the Temple in Paris.
It is an enigma: Whether to perjure myself by admitting the accusations, thereby avoiding further torment but damning my soul, or alternatively to cleave to the truth, suffering further mortification of the flesh and death by fire? Would that I still believed the latter course meant thereby gaining salvation! Then there be no choice indeed. Because of what I learned on Mount Cardou, I know not if salvation exists.