The Templar’S Wife

By Charles J Santorini

There is nothing in common between the king of Frances brutal suppression of the Knights Templar Order in 1307 and a small, backward, closely knit community of serfs living in the rural island of Malta who are dominated by religion and superstition. Until Jacques, a Templar knight who manages to escape the wrath of the French king, sails away from France to seek refuge in Sicily but got lost in a storm and lands his battered boat on the shore near the serfs hamlet.

For centuries, the serfs sexual deprivations and close association with their farm animals has driven them to practice unnatural sexual intercourse with their animals and with members of their families, and even with the local priest, perversions of bestiality and incest which, however, they manage to keep as a close secret within the confines of their community.

This ancient way of life suddenly faces the unthinkable hazard of exposure when Jacques becomes fascinated with Maria, a young, beautiful, and unblemished goatherd, and inevitably they both fall in passionate love with each other. This attracts the envy of the rest of the hypocrite inhabitants, especially the females, who fail to recognise the chasm that exists between their sexual perversions and the normal sensual attraction between a man and a woman in love. Maria and Jacques are persecuted and forced to flee, and they sail to the safety of Palermo, in nearby Sicily where they marry. While Maria vows to return someday to avenge herself on her compatriots, would she, a simple goatherd, succeed in coping with the vastly different town life in cosmopolitan and fashionable Palermo?

A compelling novel about love, hate, war, sex, and revenge in a medieval society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468581560

Charles J Santorini

Charles J. Santorini is a student of medieval history and the Crusades and is particularly fascinated by the often underrated influence that Arabs left on southern Europe, more particularly on islands like Sicily and Malta, including their peopleÊs customs, language, architecture, and genetic features, some of which lasted for centuries

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1

Arles, Provence,

Friday 13th day of October, 1307

Jacques looked lazily at the town from behind Eugenie’s small bedroom window, which had been newly glazed at great expense. The light-coloured town dwellings were washed with the last warm rays of the autumn sunset gleaming on his right, from the west, where the sky was a kaleidoscopic backdrop of yellow, orange, red and mauve. High up in the rapidly darkening blue sky on his left there was already a pale full moon, which would have to await dusk to start throwing its mantle of soft light over the rooftops, but until then it was still a delicate, almost translucent white disc floating insignificantly in the sky. The Order’s community house where he lived was just down the street along the River Rhône, within sight, and he could see his Templar colleagues entering the large main door or leaving, but mostly returning home by sunset. A small group of them lingered outside the main door talking, laughing and gesticulating. Further on in the middle distance he could make out the terracotta-coloured arches of the ancient Roman arena with its familiar three towers, while still further afar were the final bends of the Rhône as it wound its glistening way out of the town to empty into the marshes of the Carmargue, whose stagnant waters ridden with floating weeds were feebly reflecting the yellowing sunrays. Otherwise, all was calm and quiet and, thought Jacques, Arles was a good town to be living in.

Eugenie, lying on her bed across the room, feeling cold in that mid-October evening and pulling the woollen bed sheet over her pale bare body, asked, ‘What’s the matter, dear?’ She watched him as he stood so white and naked near the windowsill. She delighted her eyes on his broad shoulders and muscled and hairy chest, his slim hips and buttocks, and strong arms and legs looking so masculine with their healthy growth of body hair. She liked the thick waves of his dark hair and the classic features of his clean-shaven face, and she often likened him, especially now as he stood as nature had created him, to one of the ancient marble statues which proudly adorned the Roman amphitheatre. But to Eugenie, Jacques was far from being made of cold lifeless marble. He had hot throbbing blood running in his veins, he satisfied her needs, and he was hers, almost her property. She had become used to his Sunday visits, and was always looking forward to the weekly trysts with the thrill of anticipation of a young girl. Indeed, she felt she could not live without him, at least as far as the bed was concerned.

He replied, ‘Oh, nothing is the matter, I’m just staring outside. It’s so quiet at this time of the day.’

‘Come over here, Jacques dear. Come to me again.’

He turned to look at her with a soft smile but he felt little enthusiasm to return to yet another lovemaking session. She looked so old when the slanting light of the oil lamp highlighted the wrinkles on her face and the creased skin around her throat. By and large her body was still comely, if one were not unduly bothered by the look of her belly, which was starting to show signs of sagging, or by the skin of her thighs and posterior, which were no longer smooth but becoming lumpy to the feel, disclosing that the flower of her youth was long past gone. However, and best of all, she was still good in bed, and she had taught Jacques everything a man would want to know of real lovemaking.

Still, he felt he was becoming jaded of her, and sometimes he wondered how he still had the spirit to return here every week, making love to a fifty-year old pleasure-hungry woman when he could very well have been enjoying himself with his friends in the tavern outside the town, flirting with tantalisingly younger girls with smooth buttocks and bouncy breasts. Then he thought of the emeralds and diamonds and the rubies that Eugenie had bestowed on him over the months, and his regret was somewhat assuaged.

Eugenie said again, ‘Don’t let me beg you, my dear Jacques,’ her voice becoming somewhat harder and more commanding than before. ‘Don’t you want me?’

‘Yes, I’m coming.’ Then he lied, ‘I’m recovering from the exertions of our vigorous love-making.’ By now, after six months, he was mostly feigning his passionate love scenes.

She smiled and was appeased. She turned over and awaited him. These Templar monks are all the same, she was thinking. So much for their vows of chastity!

His thoughts flew back to the first time he had come to know Eugenie. As a Knight of the Temple who had taken the vows of chastity, poverty, piety and obedience he was accommodated in the nearby Order community house, along the bank of the river which flowed right through Arles. The community house afforded refuge to some one hundred knights and brothers of the Order, while other members were scattered in other houses around the town, and indeed all over Provence and other French provinces and European countries. This migration had come about when the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land was lost to the Saracens in 1291, after which the Templars who, for one hundred and seventy years had been bravely fighting the Infidels, had first settled in Cyprus and then on Ruad Island. The Moslems, however, recognised the strategic importance of Ruad and in 1302 over-ran it and again drove them out. It was a tough time for the Order, for it found itself without a home for the first time in its existence, and its members had to disperse all over Europe, mainly in their country of origin. But the Order had remained immensely rich. Many of its members settled in the south of France, where it was speculated that the Order might obtain suzerainty over an area there and make it its permanent home. This would have become their base, free from the rule or interference from kings or popes, a proposition which was seen as unsavoury by both the King of France and the Pope. Although this situation had not yet materialised, it was thus that Jacques had found his way to Arles, just as others had settled in Salon, Orange, Lyon, Avignon and other towns and cities in the Languedoc and Provence, as indeed others had settled all over France.

It was the spring of 1307 when Count Fra Gilles, Templar Chief of the Order’s Commanderie for Arles, asked Jacques de la Roche to accompany him on an invitation to sup at Baron Yves’ mansion, just a short distance up the road from their community house. The Baron’s mansion was an ancient two-storey Roman villa converted for modern use, with its own stables and other amenities. Jacques accepted the invitation with pleasure, for he had not yet had the opportunity to mingle with the local nobility since joining the Order the previous year. Although he himself was a mere knight, the Templars, having achieved great notoriety for their exploits against the Moslem infidel in the Holy Land, had become accustomed—and they even expected it—to be regarded as the elite of the Christian military in any country, so that it had become the prevailing practice to treat even simple knights of the Temple as honoured guests by the nobility of the place in which they were stationed.

Baron Yves’ position in Arles was important. He was the local commander representing King Philip the Fourth of France, known as Philip the Fair, and to whom he was absolutely loyal. Contrary to a promising beginning as a young monarch when he inherited the crown, Philip eventually proved to be, perhaps, the worst king that had ascended the French throne when it came to management of the country’s resources. He squandered the coffers of France and found one excuse after another to balance his accounts, which slipped deeply in arrears. The previous year he instigated a crusade against the Jews in France and expelled them from the country, confiscating their property and, in the process, cancelling the huge debts which he had accumulated with them over the years. Similarly, he quarrelled with the Italian Lombard banking community, with whom he was also heavily indebted, and his harassment made the Lombards fear the same treatment. The Templars, however, did not concern themselves much with such local matters. They considered themselves a state within a state, impervious to the influence of, and invulnerable to, pressure from monarchs. The French king’s problems were not their own and they could not care less whether or not Philip balanced his exchequer at the end of the year. However, King Philip was up to his neck in debt also with the Templars.

The old Baron’s supper was held in the mansion’s large hall. The usual long table seated some thirty people, with the Baron and his wife Eugenie taking the central seats facing the length of the hall. Jacques found himself seated on the bench facing the hosts, but away from the centre positions which were occupied by persons of higher rank, including Count Fra Gilles.

He became aware of Eugenie’s frequent glances soon after the first meal course. Indeed, Eugenie was constantly eying with interest the young handsome Templar down the table. She signalled to Marguerite, her chambermaid and confidante, and whispered, nodding towards Jacques ‘Find out who that young man is.’ Marguerite left inconspicuously and only some time later she returned with the information she had obtained discreetly. From then on Eugenie’s eyes had not left Jacques, so that when at last their eyes met, she smiled broadly at him as if she had known him all her life. He smiled back and bowed his head politely, but he perceived intrigue in her lingering stare, so that when Marguerite came behind him and surreptitiously handed him a folded note, he was not entirely surprised to see that it came from the Baron’s wife. The message was short and stated that, after all the men rose to depart, he was to follow Marguerite because the Baroness Eugenie wanted to talk with him, urgently and in confidence.

The supper took long to come to an end as the guests talked and laughed, ate and drank, belched and swore, and all the time Jacques was trying his best to guess what the Baron’s wife could want. He had never known the lady before. He knew she was called Eugenie, but that was all. Did she require inside information about the Order, or any of its members? But if so, why ask him? Or perhaps she wanted protection? But again, she was the wife of the King’s representative, and her husband commanded hundreds of loyal, royal troops. The possibility that she could want a good tumble in bed crossed his mind, but he soon dismissed this belief owing to the fact that she was the Baron’s wife, and that she was rather advanced in age compared to him. Besides, he did not quite like women with their faces and lips and eyes excessively and so unnaturally made up with artificial colouring.

At last the Baron, ruddy and rather unsteady with too much wine in his veins, rose, indicating the end of the function. The guests started to disperse and collect their sword belts, fastening them around their waist and departed, thanking the Baron. Jacques quietly spotted Marguerite, who stood alert near one of the hall’s secondary doors, and he walked towards her, slowly enough so as to let Baron Yves, Count Gilles and all the others leave the hall. Marguerite entered the door and left it ajar for Jacques. He collected his arms and slipped inside inconspicuously, where he found the chambermaid waiting for him at the foot of a spiral staircase, with a burning oil lamp in her hand. She took his hands and bade him follow her up, until they arrived at a low closed door. Marguerite knocked and entered and he followed her. Eugenie was there, sitting on a long oak seat with a silver cup in her hand. The room was well lighted by several oil lamps hung along the walls and others standing on furniture.

She said, beaming, ‘Come on in, Jacques’. He was not surprised she knew his name. Marguerite in the meantime closed and bolted the small door through which they had entered and then crossed the room and hurried out through the larger main door, which she locked from the outside.

The Baron’s wife may have been many years his elder, but her body still had a shapely figure. Her tight-fitting gown revealed the curves of her hips and waist, while her low-cut neckline exposed not only the cleavage but most of her abundant breasts which were restrained from further bulging out only by the long row of front lacing. It was her face that showed most that she was well over forty, in spite of the efforts to mask her wrinkles with special creams and emphasising her eyes with an overdose of kohl, a custom which showed that she obtained her products from the Levant. Even so, her facial features were such that she could not have ever been particularly pretty, even when young.

He replied as he entered, ‘Madam,’ but she stopped him in mid-speech and indicated a space on the oak seat near her.

‘Call me Eugenie, it’s more intimate.’ She rose and handed him a silver cup in which she poured red wine from a flask. ‘Let’s drink to the good fortune of our encounter, first.’ She sipped her wine, her eyes fixedly on his, while he sipped his, wondering what the good fortune was all about. She then took the cup from his hand and put it on the nearby table and, to his utmost amazement, she unexpectedly stood up, turned and sat on his lap, and hooked her arm around his neck.

It may have been her strong musky perfume, or perhaps some aphrodisiac added to the wine, but he felt himself being immediately turned on by her closeness, in spite of her age. She pressed and wriggled on his lap, which further stimulated both him and herself.

She whispered in her sensuously deep voice, ‘You’re an exceedingly handsome man, Jacques.’ She wore an expectant smile on her face. ‘I bet you’ve heard this from many a tavern wench, have you?’

She took Jacques’ hand and placed it on her big breasts, and he started fondling and kneading them over the silken gown. She calmly undid the front lacing from its loops, and the two large fleshy globes, now released from the cruel restrain of the tight bodice, rolled out invitingly, nipples dark, big and rigid. Jacques glanced back towards the main door in alarm.

‘Calm down, don’t bother about the doors.’ She sounded so reassuring. ‘Nobody will be coming, and they’re locked, anyway.’ She sat up from his lap, breasts dangling, undid some other laces at her back and the gown slipped over her shoulders and fell down at her feet, revealing her complete nakedness. She knelt down between Jacques’ legs and started fondling his manhood from above the breeches.

‘Undress.’ It was an urgent female command.

Jacques was confused. This is a dangerous situation, he reasoned to himself. What if the Baron surprises us? And to think that I’m mixing it up with a woman so much older than me! Yet the whore has aroused me, he reflected, and I think I’m already past retreat now.

Indeed, he was now truly hot and Eugenie knew how to enhance his expectation. He stood up, removed his sword belt, white tunic and shirt, and down went his breeches to reveal his nakedness. She started fondling, with a skill acquired through years of experience.

‘Come.’ Another command, and she beamed enthusiastically as she stood up, taking Jacques by the hand and, both of them naked, she led him to the bed. She laid him flat on his back on the feather mattress and she sat astride him. He entered her with ease, and when they had finished they remained lying on their backs near each other, she thankful of having probably found the ideal lover, he thinking of what the Baron would say, and do, if he were to find out.

She caressed his face. ‘That was lovely, really lovely!’

He did not reply at once, for he had had better and younger women in the past. Then he felt he had to say something. ‘It was wrong.’ He nodded at the closed door, referring not to the act but to the Baron.

‘Don’t bother about him. He was dead drunk after supper and would be fast asleep by now.’

After a while she got out of bed and walked to a heavy cupboard at the far end of the room. She opened a drawer, picked something and returned with it near the bed. Jacques sat up and was covering his nakedness with the bed sheet. She did not seem to have any inhibition running about the room in the nude. She sat at the edge of the bed and showed Jacques a small soft leather pouch tied at the top with a thong. She undid the thong and emptied the pouch on the bed. A small emerald rolled out on the sheet, glinting green in the light of the oil lamps.

She said, ‘Look, this is for you.’

‘What for?’ Jacques was surprised.

‘For coming here tonight. And favours have to be paid for, no?’

Jacques picked up the emerald and held it against the lamplight. Green star-like light sparkled through its pure transparency and glinted as he turned it around delicately between his fingertips.

‘I cannot accept this.’ He handed the stone back to her. ‘I agreed to come, I enjoyed myself as much as you did, and I don’t expect to be paid for it.’

She pulled herself nearer to him, smiling lusciously. ‘Listen.’ Her voice was deep and sensual. ‘I come from a very wealthy family—my own family, not my husband’s—and I can afford to spend my inheritance as I please.’ She caressed his face, and ruffled his hair. ‘I will need you to come to me once a week, every Sunday afternoon when my husband goes hunting with his friends. We’ll have until the late evening, for after the hunt they all go to the taverns and drink until they become blind drunk. He wouldn’t dare come to my room like that, I know him well enough. You’re still young and I promise to show you what real love-making is. Today’s was just a first demonstration, and I liked you.’

Jacques looked at her with half a smile, not knowing what to say. Why should he come here every Sunday, each time practically risking his life if the Baron, the King’s representative, found out? She seemed to have the answer to that, too.

‘And for being so obliging, every time you come, I’ll have another gem ready for you, like this, or a ruby from the land of Cathay, or a diamond from the depths of Africa, or a pearl from the warm seas of the Arabians. Each and every time.’

He grinned more convincingly now. So she wants me to be her male prostitute, a stud, making love to her against payment! He wondered why she would want to do this with a monk, even though chastity within the Order had come to mean only the prohibition of marriage. Then he remembered the Baron, old, fat and flabby, and could not imagine him satisfying this man-hungry woman. He considered the offer. Granted, she was old for him, but she still had a desirable body and certainly knew how to make a man enjoy it. And the gems? One every week would make a small fortune over a short period of time. He decided that with an effort he could make it, even if for just a couple of months.

‘Very well. But I don’t want to get into trouble with the Baron, for my own sake—and yours—and for the sake of the Order.’

‘We won’t get into trouble, dear Jacques. And I’m equally sure that anyone in my position would also want to guard this secret as ferociously as I do. Our means of communication will be Marguerite and her husband Justin, who is also one of my menservants. Every Saturday she’ll send Justin with a note that will say whether to come or not. If Justin doesn’t deliver any message for one reason or other, do not come. For the first time only, he will wait for you to lead you to a side door and guide you up to my room, this room. From then on Justin will leave the side door ajar and you’ll come up on your own.’

And thus the arrangement worked as planned. For a whole six months Jacques visited Eugenie every Sunday while the Baron was happily passing his time hunting deer and boar. Jacques satisfied her, even with a rapidly diminishing passion on his part, and she paid him handsomely with the promised gems.

Until that fateful Friday, 13th day of October of the year 1307, when Jacques was watching the beautiful yellowing sun setting over Arles from Eugenie’s bedroom. Earlier that day Eugenie had sent Justin with a note asking Jacques to come early that Friday evening instead of Sunday. Jacques did so, and Eugenie explained that the Baron had said he would be leaving home at noon and not returning home before late at night on some urgent and secret State business. Yves had looked very excited, Eugenie explained, and she took immediate advantage of the opportunity, and so it happened that Jacques was in her bed that evening.

It was becoming dark and Jacques decided to return to Eugenie’s bed and carry out the obligatory but reluctant second lovemaking session of that day, which meant another jewel. She was lying beneath the sheets with her back to him, waiting, and he cuddled and pressed against her in an effort to obtain a respectable erection. As he was thus working himself up, he heard the sound of several dozen hooves clattering over the hard cobbled surface of the street below the bedroom window. It was fairly common for troops of mounted men-at-arms to patrol the town and its environs at sunset, and for Jacques this was a passing occurrence that he instantly dismissed from his mind. But the clattering stopped in the near distance, and suddenly he heard violent banging on doors followed by tumultuous yelling and shouting, and the familiar ring of steel against steel of sword fighting. Jacques glanced over his shoulders and the darkened windowpane flickered with the reflection of a fire outside. He jumped out of bed, to the total surprise of Eugenie who had been enjoying his warm cuddling against her body. He ran to the window and to his horror he saw that the horsemen were the king’s men and were assaulting the Order’s community house down the road. They were apparently succeeding, for several Templar Brethren, Knights and attendants, some dressed only in their breeches and naked from the waist up, were being herded outside by spear-armed men-at-arms while others already lay dead or wounded in the middle of the street. The king’s men had thrown fire torches through the windows and started a fire in the upper storey of the building to smoke out the other members of the Order. They had achieved their goal for knights were indeed running out, away from the smoke and fire, some fully clothed but others still in their bed clothes, into the arms of the awaiting troops who immediately tied their hands behind their backs and herded them into several open horse-drawn carts that had in the meantime rumbled on the scene. The fire was raging now, and had gutted most of the upper floor. Sparks floated out of the shattered windows and fluttered down in the street below. Some of the Order’s knights, alerted to what was happening, put up a fight, but they were hopelessly outnumbered, besides finding themselves fighting against fully armoured troops, and fell bravely as they would have done had they been fighting the Saracens in the Holy Land.

Jacques remained glued to the window, not believing his eyes. What was this all about? Those were his colleagues, his close friends, being murdered by the king’s men, or being put in chains. What had they done wrong? Eugenie called him once, twice, but he finally waved her quiet with a rough gesture of his hand, which prompted her curiosity, and she jumped out of the bed and joined him at the window. She, too, was horrified at the scene. They stood there, speechless, for a seemingly long time, observing the proceedings but understanding nothing, when they were alerted by a knock at the door. They both turned round, and Marguerite’s ashen face appeared as the door opened ajar.

‘Madam, quick, the Baron is coming. Please, do something.’

Eugenie’s fast thinking prompted her to pick up Jacques’ clothes, boots, sword and belt from the floor, and his white mantel from over a chair, and hand them to him.

‘Quick, Jacques dear, take these and hide behind that door, quick.’ She arranged the bed sheets as best as she could and jumped into the bed.

Naked as he was, and now not inhibited at all by Marguerite’s inquisitive stares, Jacques picked up his personal effects and raced to the door indicated by Eugenie, which led to a small landing in the middle of a spiral staircase that led downstairs to the ground floor and upstairs to the roof. He raced inside the doorway and pulled the oak door behind him just in time to hear the Baron’s voice calling Eugenie.

‘My dear!’ He heard the Baron enter the room. ‘I hope I haven’t disturbed you.’

Eugenie had in the meantime jumped back under the bed sheets, feigning tiredness.

Jacques heard Eugenie reply in a distressed voice. ‘Oh! Come in, dear.’

‘Why, you’re already in bed? How come?’

She replied, ‘Oh! I feel so tired and have a headache, my dear Yves. Probably I’ve got the beginning of a fever, but don’t alarm yourself, my dear. It’ll soon pass.’ She felt her forehead with the back of her hand.

The Baron sat on the other side of the bed where only a few minutes before Jacques had been making reluctant love to his wife. Yves was brimming with fantastic tidings which he wanted to break to Eugenie. ‘You remember this morning I told you I had secret business to accomplish, my dear?’ Beaming with pride, he awaited her reply.

She nodded without interest, holding her forehead as if to lessen her feigned headache, but he continued. ‘And do you remember that last month the Seneschal had received sealed orders from the King, with strict instructions not to open until today? You don’t remember? Well, we have broken the seal this morning, and do you know what these orders were? Now I can tell you what it was all about.’

He paused deliberately, in a failed effort to raise his wife’s curiosity. Nevertheless, he continued, eyes glaring with excitement, his voice triumphant, ‘All over France the King’s soldiers have arrested the Templars. Hundreds of regional chiefs like me have received identical orders. This has been long in coming, dear Eugenie, and we have been secretly collecting their addresses in Arles and elsewhere for months. The Order had become the curse of France ever since they’ve returned form the East. They say they owe allegiance to no one but the Pope. But they’ve always refused to obey anyone, and both King and Pope couldn’t tolerate them any longer. Those heretical and fornicating knights controlled the whole country by their financial wealth and property, and arrogance. Now we’ve got them.’

Eugenie’s interest was now greatly aroused, and she raised herself on her elbows. ‘What are you talking about, Yves? Do you mean you’ve seized all the Templars around the whole country?’

He cracked his knuckles and replied with wide smile, ‘Yes, that is, of course, except some we’ve not yet found but whom we’ll soon trace. There’s . . . ehm . . . ‘, and he counted on fingers, . . . . ‘Jean Guichard, Philippe Roger, Jacques de la Roche and some others, six in all in the Arles region, and of course the Commanderie chief himself, that bastard Count Gilles. He’s nowhere to be found.’

Jacques’ heart sunk as he eavesdropped in horror from behind the door. So that’s what the tumult was all about. That son of a whore the King, he cursed silently, as he now considered his situation, which was much worse than merely that of a cuckolding intruder. Still naked, he was quivering with cold on those damp steps.

The Baron continued. ‘We’re throwing them in jail until tomorrow, then they’ll be transported to Paris to be tried for treason, heresy, and many other crimes. It’s all listed in the sealed orders. Then it’ll be the King’s decision what to do with them, perhaps burn them at the stake or behead them, it depends. Therefore, my dear, I have a long night ahead of me and I’ll be away until morning, I believe, for I’ll not stop until we’ve rounded them all and have them secure behind bars. It will certainly not be me, the King’s representative of Arles, who would’ve failed to round up all of them under my jurisdiction. Since I happened to be nearby, I thought I’d better hop in here and break the good tidings to you. The King will certainly reward me for my successful efforts of this night.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you to have time to think of me during such an important errand.’ Eugenie was almost trembling, and now deeply worried about Jacques. Not only for his immediate safety and for her own, but also for the fact that now his future availability had suddenly vanished. She made an effort to hide her unsteady voice. ‘No hurry, dear, and be more careful. You never know what these runaway Templars could be up to.’

By then dusk had set in and Yves lit two wall-mounted oil lamps. But the light coming from the fire at the community house flickered brighter than the oil lamps.

Eugenie asked innocently, ‘Is that a fire outside, my dear?’

‘Yes, we had to set fire to their house to smoke the rats out!’ He chuckled as he stood up and straightened his surcoat, rearranged his sword belt, gave an untroubled glance at the fire outside, kissed her on the cheek, and walked out with the quick and proud strides of a victor. Crouched in his hideaway, Jacques heard Eugenie’s main door shut with a loud click. He sighed deeply and sat up, drained of emotion but feeling sick. He still could not believe what he had just heard. It was beyond the impossible for this to happen to the Templars, so proud an Order, famous for its gallantry in the face of the enemy, and seemingly untouchable. He repeated the Baron’s words, All over France! Was it possible, therefore, that all was lost, all the Order’s heritage and traditions, its property and treasures? What about its leader, the Grandmaster in Paris? He was on a par with a king. Was he also seized? This was an outrage of great magnitude, and coming from a Christian monarch, it all seemed monstrous.

Eugenie let some time pass before she ventured to skip out of bed, walk to the door and open it silently ajar to whisper Marguerite’s name. The devoted chambermaid, who had been sitting in the dark corridor on a wooden bunk awaiting her mistress’ call, jumped up and hurried to the door.

She whispered in reply. ‘The Baron’s gone, my lady, I heard them ride away.’ Eugenie let her in and Marguerite helped her dress.

‘Now we’ve got to think how to let Jacques out of this house in secrecy, Marguerite.’ She went to the hideaway door and knocked silently. ‘Jacques, you may come out.’ A rustling sound was heard behind the door as Jacques put on his clothes and then emerged, ashen-faced.

‘My dear Jacques, you’re in grave danger. I think you’ve heard everything.’

‘Yes. This is a horrid affair which I still can’t believe.’

‘Well, you have to, my dear. It’s all so very real.’

Jacques looked out of the window and at the community house fire, now roaring uncontrollably. The soldiers had all gone but now the street was crowded with onlookers still astonished at what had actually happened. Some were carrying pails of water, which they flung ineffectively into the lower windows, but it was a hopeless effort. Suddenly, with a great roaring noise, the blazing wooden beamed roof crashed down inside the building in a mass of red and yellow inferno, and the second floor collapsed in a fiery mass as it plunged down on the storey below, hurling flying sparks and flaming splinters of wood out of the windows of the whole façade, and sending the crowds retreating back out of harm’s way as fiery ashes floated down among them.

Jacques looked on horrified. ‘If this fiendish act has been executed all over France, then it seems that all’s finished.’

Eugenie, now dressed, was behind him, following his gaze. ‘‘Yes, and I’m sorry.’ She sounded genuine. ‘But now you’ve got to think of yourself. My husband is after you, my dear Jacques, and you must run.’ She took him gently by the arms and turned