A Templar's Apprentice (15 page)

The moon slid from its place in the clouds just as we came on a croft set near the base of a steep grade. It was so like home that for a moment I slowed.

I could well imagine that off to the side in a paddock were sheep and a goat. And in the morning a rooster would strut with great purpose across the rocky lane that led to an old stone hut.

The Templar read my mood. He said nothing of it, but nodded to me.

At the crude wooden door, he knocked a strange pattern. An old woman peered out with pale and wary eyes, seeking his features within the hood.

I was surprised when he pushed back the cowl. He had been so careful during our travels. The woman started visibly and quickly sketched the sign of the cross. Then, with a rapid-fire burst of speech in a language I didn't understand, she took both his hands in hers.

“Aye, Marta. It is truly myself.” He laughed; his smile was warm and wide. I found myself smiling as well.

We were quickly drawn inside and I was directed to a mat before a central fire. I stumbled to it, scarcely keeping my eyes open. The woman drew a bowl of stew from the heavy pot hanging from the ridgepole. The smell of the soup, and the scent of the wood burning beneath, again struck in me such a longing for home that my eyes teared. I ate quickly, swallowing over the lump in my throat, and finally lay down. The buzz of their conversation lulled me, and I gave in readily to sleep.

The Templar woke me before the sun began its ascent into the morning sky. “Our presence here will not go unnoticed. We dare not stay 'til nightfall.” It was a small phrase, but it brought me awake, though I felt I had just gone to sleep.

“I thought it was safe. They'll look here?” I mumbled.

“Aye, but perhaps not for a while.”

I rubbed my eyes, pushing aside the sleep that still tried to claim me. Sitting up slowly, I looked around, barely remembering the room.

“Here. These will give ye a start.” He set a platter of lush blue-black fruit between us.

“What are they?”

“These are grapes, Tormod. Marta has a large vineyard behind the hut. She and her family harvest the fruit an' make wines an' juice from them. They supply the priories of France an' Spain.”

“Would that not take more than a small single family?”

He smiled. “Aye. But Marta's family is not small. Her husband, God rest his soul, began a partnership with the Templars. Marta runs it now with the help o' her sons. Many o' our knights, sergeants, an' apprentices work for a time in the vineyard an' winery. Do ye recall the fields o' vines we have been passing through?”

I nodded.

“Did ye feel a shift in the life o' the land?”

I had noticed the change. We had moved from waving plains of wheat to lush and verdant fields of tangled vines.

“Aye. The life's beat is deeper. 'Tis like a different resonance strummed beneath my feet an' in the air.”

“Aye. The land is ancient. All o' this is Marta's. There are hundreds o' acres o' vines an' a small town just beyond the hills to our west. Marta lives out here in her modest hut out o' preference, with one or two o' the men looking in on her.”

“So how do ye know each other?” I asked.

“I apprenticed here for a time,” he said, stretching his feet out in front of him.

It pleased me to imagine the Templar toiling among the vines, an image even more fitting than that of him in full battle regalia. The more I knew of him and of the Templars, the more conflicted my picture of them became. Nothing was as black-and-white as I had thought. I was slowly beginning to understand the Order through him, and the more I knew about them, the more I wanted to know.

“Did ye rest at all?” I asked unable to restrain the yawn that stretched my words.

“I did,” he said.

I didn't truly believe him.

“Here, change into these.” For the first time I noticed that he was wearing the plain brown serge robe of a peasant. He had given me one as well. “We will travel out in the open with a group returning from the pilgrimage. They are staying a' the main house by the winery an' leave shortly.”

Rested by the night's respite, I shrugged into the
foreign clothes. My robe was old and a bit large, but its well-worn surface felt soft on my skin, and the drape was less heavy than my plaid. I felt silly in the old straw hat, but the Templar insisted it would be valuable both as a disguise and as a way to keep the heat off. To complete my look, he draped my neck with a beaded crucifix of wood.

“Take off yer boot an' clean the wound in the bucket outside. Then wrap this around before ye put it back on.” He handed me a bundle of soft fur, the hide of a rabbit.

Outside, the morning air was chill and damp. There was a well down behind the house, from which I drew a bucket of cold water. Sitting on the ground, I set to it.

The hide of my boot had stretched with the extra padding and it slipped off easily, but the interior of the linen was dry and stuck. My stitches had not fared well. Some had torn and bled. The skin around them was red and irritated, and it burned now that the bindings were off. Quickly, before I lost my nerve, I poured water over the injury. Pain flooded my mind with waves of heat.

The Templar came out moments later. “Here, this ought to help as well.” He had stripped the bark from a strong limb. A much sturdier stick, already dried, hardened, and more than likely used before, leaned against
the well. I stuffed my plaid into a sack of supplies and adjusted my robes to match his, keeping my sporran beneath.

He seemed fully ready to leave. “We will travel weaponless?” I asked.

“Not entirely,” he replied. “I will have knives, an' ye, yer dagger, an' o' course my sword still sits in its place.” He shifted the straw hat to reveal the hilt. The rest lay hidden beneath his robe. “Still, it would no' be easy to get to this way, so …” He pulled his staff apart and a thin wicked blade gleamed in the half-light.

“God's breath!” I was astounded. “Where can I get one o' those?”

The Templar laughed. “There are times when ye're much older than yer years, an' others when I am reminded o' the lad from the village.”

“Where did ye get that?” I asked, looking at my own staff to see if it had a hidden blade as well.
Nothing.

“I made it long ago, when I was here, working.” His eyes had a far-off look, as if he were remembering that other time.

Marta had laid aside some food to take with us on the journey and brought it out to us in a linen sack. I was beginning to feel the stirrings of excitement over our covert travel, a definite shift from my nerves of the night before.

I had finished washing, and my foot was packed in the soft fur. My boot slid back on snugly. When I looked up, I realized that the Templar's eyes had gone wide and unfocused. Almost immediately he snapped to.

“Tormod, come. We must leave. A band o' soldiers is traveling this way. They approach from the south and will be here within a candle mark. We cannot wait for the rest o' the pilgrims. The carving feels as if it will burn a hole in my sporran. We must be away, now.”

The Templar spoke rapid Spanish and Marta came out of the hut, looking off down the road warily. The Templar rolled his vestments into his sack, and with a wave we were off. The ground was rough and rocky, and my foot was tired from our forced travel of the night. Still, I hurried.

As we gained the slope into the woods, a nasty chill trickled along my spine and I looked down. At the very edge of the snaking road that led to Marta's, I saw the faint outline of men approaching.

“Into the trees,” the Templar said, hurrying me. “They canno' see us, but we take no chances. Do no' stop or slow to look back again.”

I hurried behind him.

We traveled many leagues. Even as the sun slid from the sky once more, we continued. I was glad of
the rest taken at Marta's, for even after we broke for food, we didn't make camp but continued our forced pace.

“How could they have found us so quickly?” I asked, hurrying after the Templar.

“I don't know.” The answer was short and didn't brook an invitation for more. It was as if he'd sunk deep into himself, as if I was not there at all.

When at last we broke for sleep, I am fairly certain that only I laid my head. The Templar sat with his back to a sturdy rock. His broad sword lay across his knees, and though he didn't kneel or close his eyes, I heard the steady drone of his prayers.

A
woman's cloak lay tattered on the ground. Frightened eyes plead for mercy. Cries rent my ears.

“Tormod. Wake up. It's just a dream.”

I was awake, but the vision would not leave me. “Get away! Stop! She knows nothing!” I shouted.

“Focus. Ground. Shield. Push it aside. Listen.” The Templar's voice was in my ears, in my mind, and yet I could do nothing to heed him.

“Leave her alone! Stop!” A blade glinted red. Her scream and mine were one.

A strange, cold thickness washed over me, enveloping my mind. I latched on to it and let it separate me from the darkness. The vision faded. But its memory lived on. Tears trickled down my cheeks.

“Shhh, leanabh. Hush ye now. Embrace the stillness. Feel the cold.” I realized I was in the clearing, beneath the trees, huddled against him. My tears would not stop. Beyond my mind, I heard his instruction again.
Reach, Tormod. Distance yourself.

I understood then and embraced the peace he was projecting. In moments I was still. My eyes dried and awkwardly I pulled away. “I'm sorry.”

He left me to deal with the embarrassment of my tears, tending the fire, then bringing me a skin of water.

“Do ye want to tell me?” he finally asked quietly.

My head hurt and my heart ached. The words were slow coming, and when they came, it felt like someone else was speaking them. “Marta is dead. They killed her after we left.”

His face paled and his body hunched in pain.

“I should not have gone there. I brought them down on her. She was an innocent,” he said. His anguish was painful to watch.

I knew not what made me speak. I had no experience in anything of this sort, save the words my da might
have uttered in the same situation to me. “Ye did what ye thought best. Ye didn't kill Marta. Those men did. It was not yer fault.”

“It is,” he insisted. “They will stop at nothing.” All of his usual light dimmed. He looked weary and sad beyond my experience. “An' then it will end.”

He moved to a nearby tree and laid his hand to the bark. “The heartbeat o' the living land will thrum no more.”

His intensity was frightening.

“The communion we share with all o' the earth an' its creatures is a gift beyond measure, an' yet 'tis something foreign an' strange to those whose touch is blind. In ignorance they will destroy us. We canno' allow the nongifted to possess the carving. I have seen it.”

My skin grew cold. “What do ye mean?”

“Ye have the vision o' what is to come, Tormod. I have a gift that shows me not only what is an' what will be, but also what might be. My vision is split. The Order has not seen another with a gift o' this kind.”

“So 'tis as ye were telling me before. Sometimes the truth o' the future can change. Ye've seen it?”

“Aye,” he replied. “One future shows the carving broken an' the land's power gone still an' silent. There are no gifted in that vision, Tormod.”

It was as if I had been struck. Only recently had I learned of this Brotherhood. To know that it might be
on the verge of elimination, to never again feel the life that ebbed and flowed through the land — the thought was devastating.

“What o' the other future?” I asked.

“The same world, rich in the power as never before, with a new breed o' Guardian an' a legacy that goes on. Generations will birth new generations o' gifted who will serve an' protect the life o' the land. The carving gave me both o' those visions. I believe that 'tis up to ye an' I to influence one outcome or the other. We are the pebbles — or boulders — that have been thrown into the stream.”