The Seal (39 page)

But despite this
the communications continued: when she came out of the dwelling to bring scraps
to the chickens or when she took herself to wash clothes in the creek. There
occurred a pause between them so bottomless and empty that neither could fill
it before it was snatched away by Jourdain with his good humour or the Norman
with his work upon the anvil, or the Catalan whistling while he worked at
weeding the garden bed. Etienne clenched to him his stubborn will and forced
deafness to fall upon his spirit ears and still that void stretched forth from
her soul to his and made a sound in him as if he were an instrument tuned to
her silence.

He told the men
to prepare for their departure, and at the door to the woman’s hut he told
Amiel they would soon leave the farm. He told her also that she must not speak
to him again because he was not an immortal but a knight of Christ and his will
was not his own.

Now in his confession
he put to St Michael this frustration and impotence:
A sin of the heart if not the body, dear Lord, and for all of that a
greater sin.

For now there
was a burning, an ache more heated and more urgent than that physical ache he
had known which, no matter how much he drank the unction the woman had made for
him, grew stronger by the day. He knew this must be so, since Ovid had said
that such a pain could not be cured with herbs.

The woman’s
father-in-law had sought him out. Some days before he had set himself the task
of mending Etienne’s boots and these he had returned to him when Etienne was
filling the water troughs. The old man Iacob had told him, ‘Do not trust a wolf
cub, Lord, for it will always become wolf, even if it is suckled among the sons
of man,’ and left him to his thoughts.

Etienne was
paused thinking this through, and it brought a sorrow to his heart, to the very
core of his being, where his muscles moved against his bones. He tried not to
think on it but the more he pondered the more he resolved that the man had
entered his soul and had discerned a wolf there, wishing to be a faithful dog.

Now gazing at
all his transgressions he fell to the floor, hands outstretched to form a
living cross. In this way he asked St Michael to forgive the woman since she
was a Jewess who could have no real knowledge of his life and the rigours of
his vows and, in the balance, was not responsible for his weakness and his
failure in duty. And secondly, he asked that he might look upon the little
family from time to time when Etienne was gone from them and see to their
safety. This he gathered under the name of his beloved Lord Jesus Christ and
turned his attention to his own sins, the forgiveness of which he found it
improper to ask. Instead he made penance by saying thirteen Pater Nosters and
seven Hail Marys and waited for a word or a sign that he was heard.

Whether St
Michael heard him he did not know, for at that moment there was a loud,
familiar silence that tightened his chest. A scream as quiet as growing plants
over the ground, whose message, coming from the direction of the house, was
instantly recognised by him.

It was Amiel,
the woman. The sound in his mind made him gasp and the limbs of his body became
pinpricked in a provocation to terror.

It was the voice
of the woman’s soul in its dying thoughts, as they were directed towards his soul,
and the soul of her child.

SECOND
NIGHT

THIRD DAY

T
he old woman paused. ‘I
must go now,’ she said and collected her cards. Without a backward glance she
disappeared into the mouth of the little shop, leaving me once again, alone
with the portal, the lime trees and the visitors who, having parked their cars,
were making their slow way up the avenue dressed in their finest for tonight’s
concert.

I took myself to
the hotel room. The ghostly melody of Shostakovich’s fifteenth symphony found
me as I dined on cabbage strudel and Burgenland wine. I sat back and listened,
letting my tired mind rest a little before tackling the task of reconstructing
the story.

But I was tired
and fell asleep.

I woke the next
morning to the bells announcing mass in the village. My limbs were aching and I
felt a deep frustration that seemed to have no cause, or at least no cause that
I understood.

I answered my
emails, made my phone call to the children, showered and dressed. It was still
early when I walked out into the courtyard outside the bistro. The tables stood
stripped of their tablecloths and deserted. It looked strangely sad.

The old woman
was tired this day. Her eyes were sunk into shadows and she surprised me by
saying she would not open her shop but would sit one last time with me, without
disruption.

It was already
hot and bees droned in the flowerbeds and in the long grass. Above our heads
hawks made their squeaks and from the shrubs and trees there came the chatter
of birds. I observed her as she laid down her cards, always the same way. Today
she wore a floral dress but it did not cheer her countenance. She made a shiver
as the warm breeze stirred the lime trees and made them move in soft waves. She
looked up to them and I saw her face crease in age-worn concern.

It occurred to
me then that I would forever have a longing to return here, to see those lime
trees and to hear that voice: a longing full of leftover feelings and
unfinished words.

‘Shall we
start?’ she interrupted my thoughts. She was staring at me with that familiar
intense regard.

I told her I was
ready.

But she did not
start. She continued staring. ‘You may turn back now . . . if you do all will
be forgotten and you will resume your life as it was. But if you continue,
everything will be altered, and you will never put it to rights again . . . it
is your choice.’

It was an
inexplicable feeling that came over me at that moment. I was full of dread and
fear but also overcome by a desire to fall . . .
a vertigo
of the soul.

I nodded for her
to continue.

She gave a deep
sigh, looked once more to the lime trees, and continued, ‘Remember . . . the
Wolf.’

THE FIFTH CARD

E
tienne,
with the long sword in his hand, came down the steps swift as a sparrow to
where stood Gideon, Delgado and Jourdain. They must also have heard the silent
communication and were stood listening into the silence and looking to Etienne
who made a signal to quiet and to move towards the door.

Outside, a wind
had picked up and swirled the leaves upon the trees and scratched at the sides
of the wooden building. They listened. There was the wretched cry of a child
then and Etienne moved to the stable door, but at that moment it opened like a
sail with the wind behind it. Revealed in the wake of this gesture was the
figure of a man standing in the waxing light. Etienne knew his form, but he
could not see his face. A moment later four others came to stand behind him.
Etienne could smell blood.

‘Who are you?’
he said to the dark face.

‘Do you not know
me?’ the voice said.

Etienne stood as
though slapped in the face by a strong hand, and struggled to remain upright.
When he spoke it was low and guarded. ‘Yes . . . I know you.’

He did not wish
to think of the woman, he would not think of the child and of Iacob the old
man. He would leave his mind still and vacant and ready.

‘Yes, you know
me and I know you, but I am changed, Etienne de Congost. I am without loyalties,
like your mercenaries, on hire for good money, and I will kill you, so you are
best to give me what I have come to take from you.’

Etienne looked
at that form, now more comprehensible, and he recognised it better than he
recognised the eyes which, staring from out of that shock of grey hair, seemed
glassy and lifeless beneath a shadowed brow full of longing. The face jumped
then, in convulsive twitches, and the mouth moved as if drawn by this
contradiction of forces to a grin humourless and stale.

‘You look old,’
Etienne said to him.

There was a wild
laugh that made the animals nervous. ‘I am ruined! Yes, ruined! And spoilt!
Like old meat left out in the sun! Maktub! ’
he
shouted. ‘And yet I may be younger now than you!’ He paused then, relishing his
transient humour. ‘In body I am decayed and in soul I am made young, is that
not a wondrous thing?
My ruination and my youth?
It
began upon that beach at Famagusta and then at Tomar and finally when I drowned
the gold. I warned you, Etienne, that I should lose a wit.’

Etienne looked
askance to the men at his flank. Jourdain, Delgado and Gideon stood in that
grey near-dark waiting for a signal from him.

‘Who seeks us?’
Etienne said to him.

‘There
are
many hunting you . . . you are wanted for something you
have, and I have a task to find it.’

All was
stillness but for the wind outside in the trees.

Etienne stared
hard. ‘How you have come down in the world, Marcus.’

The man grinned
from ear to ear as if this were the most lavish compliment. ‘I am come down to
earth, that is certain! But I have not always been so high and mighty, Etienne
. . . not like you in your heaven! I came to know how low I had always been
upon that beach in Scotland, while I watched the Order fall into the chasm of
the sea! I came to know how much of my soul I had put away behind it – or
how much it had kept hid. When the Order was gone and, finally, when the gold
was lost, there was nothing to prevent me from seeing the vision of my worthless
soul! It was bared to my eye, Etienne, bared! I wished to die then but I was
called to a new master . . .’ He looked at Etienne. ‘He has seen my worth and
delights in talents not worthy of God.’

‘The Devil?’

The man laughed
until his voice was hoarse and he was close to tears. When he stopped his face
was a carnival of movement. ‘Let us say that we sit on different benches, you
and I. Yes, you on one side with your worthless faith, and I on the other, with
my faithless worth! It amuses me this paradox between us!’ He took in a breath
and paused, turning practical. ‘But amusement is one thing and business, my
friend, another. I have been tracking you a long time . . . and I’m beginning
to know what it is they want from you.’

‘From me?’

‘Ahh!’ Marcus
looked at his men and each made a small laugh. ‘You continue a paragon,
Etienne! But you forget that I know you! You would never desert Jacques de
Molay if not by his command . . . Come, Jacques gave you something of great
value to place in a hiding spot, something he could not have taken into the
King’s jail. The sovereign seal of the Order! It is my guess that he left it
with his faithful seneschal.’ A smile broadened on his face and once again it
was a puppet at the behest of some playful devil. ‘No doubt he wished to
prevent a new Order from arising out of the old since without the seal this is
impossible. That is one thing. As for the other, I am thinking that there may
be a more potent lure . . . some mystical worth?’

Etienne blinked.

‘Come now! I am
certain you remember that scoundrel sergeant, the Egyptian? He is the King’s
astrologer now. Is that not something? He has seen it in the stars!’ Marcus
began to laugh so heartily he had to hold on to a comrade for support. ‘In the
stars! Oh my Etienne! Think of it! The stars disclosing secrets to that useless
misshapen creature!’ Then the laughter died down and he grew serious. ‘And yet,
he has become useful to someone while we are useless . . . except that you are
carrying something that is wanted, a useful treasure that I am of the mind to
take for myself.’

Etienne held his
gaze. He knew he should have killed the Egyptian at Ayios Memnon. Outside the
day moved upwards over the windowsill, and broke into the building.