Tales of the Knights Templar (27 page)

“His books,” Xavier said, waving at the box. “He got books, old books. And the shirt with the cross, under his bed—”

“We can’t go in,” Father Patrick said. “He’s not here; it’s not right. I’ll come back.”

“He won’t mind.” Xavier had pushed the door all the way open and now posed in the middle of the room graceful as a dancer, a bullfighter.

Across the yard, the yellow dog lifted its head and ran out a long red tongue.

“Eh!” It was an old man’s voice, but one with power in it nonetheless. Father Patrick turned and watched him come in the gate.

The old man wore
huaraches
and white cotton pants and shirt, just like the poorest Mexican peon. He had gray hair straggling around his ears, and a short gray beard, but he did not manage to look Mexican at all. The priest had met Mexicans of European descent, even Northern European descent. He knew about the Irish mercenary who had married into the famous Garcia family; he knew about the elegant blonde women who shopped in Paris and Milan and laughed at the stupid gringos across the river in Texas who couldn’t even speak Spanish. But the old man here did not fool him an instant. Those flame-blue eyes, those cheekbones, that set of jaw—that had come from very far away a long time ago.

“Pah-dray,” the old man said, politely enough, but with no softness in his voice where the Spanish word rolled over from a
d
to an
r.
A voice like iron, cold iron with a little rust on it. The priest saw the rust like a cross on the man’s body, and shivered in spite of himself.

“I’m Father Patrick Dougherty,” the priest said. He was conscious of slowing his voice, making allowances for someone who might not understand English that well.

“Ah. Father Patrick. The local priest?”

What was that accent? Not German, not French, and certainly not British. But better English than Xavier’s, for all that. He knew immediately that this man had some education, that he would know and understand things Xavier never could.

“Yes, I am,” Father Patrick said. Then, on an impulse,
“Dominus vobiscum.”

The old man smiled at him and answered in Latin less accented than his English.
“Et cum spiritu tuo.”
He continued then in rapid Latin that strained Father Patrick’s understanding. “I greet you with relief, good priest. We must talk, seriously and privately. I have important tidings for you. Can you tell me where we are?”

Perhaps the old man had a touch of sun. Father Patrick answered the question simply, almost gently, but in English. “Roma, my son. In Texas, near Mexico. You have come far?”

“Very far.” The old man grimaced and shook his head as if to clear his ears. He, too, returned to English, but haltingly. “It is not like the old Roma, this place. I thought— But that matters not. You have not enough Latin for conversation?”

“No,” Father Patrick said. “I know the liturgy, of course, and read it fair enough, but not to speak, to chat in. You, sir, must have had a Catholic education.”

“Yes.” When the old man did not go on, Father Patrick asked directly.

“Where?”

“Cracow.”

Cracow? Poland? That could almost make sense. Since the war, all sorts of refugees had ended up along the border. His fellow priests in South Texas had found before now people for whom the only common language was the Latin liturgy. They heard in confession stories which no one had yet mentioned in the press. Remote as it was, this region shivered to the stamp of arms across half the world.

“You are Polish, then?” Father Patrick asked. He had known a few Poles in seminary; he struggled to remember any words of Polish he might have heard and came up empty.

“Not Polish,” the old man said with a grin. “Latvian.”

Odder and odder, but still understandable. At least the man was a Christian, not a Communist or something. And Catholic—that was good, although Father Patrick thought he remembered that Latvians were Protestants. Perhaps he had chosen this remote village just because of its name.

“Come to Mass,” Father Patrick said. “And confession,” he added. He told himself that he cared only about the old man’s soul and the children’s welfare, but he was uneasily conscious that he felt a certain relief in the presence of another set of blue eyes.

“Buggery? Of course there was buggery. Always is, when you have men priding themselves on not being attracted by women.”

The old man gulped at the beer Father Patrick had brought, and set the dark bottle down with a solid clunk. He had been to Mass; he had not appeared to notice the careful space around him in the church. Now, in the hot afternoon, they sat talking at the table in the Widow Rosales’ backyard, and the old man had begun with the sort of stories he told Xavier. Stories of knights, of Crusaders in the Holy Land and in Spain, of El Cid and Saladin. Of quarrels and treasures, of secrets and conspiracies, and finally of Philip the Fair, the grandson of the sainted Louis, of whom the old man had no great opinion. Father Patrick had let him ramble on. It was the best way with strangers, to let them fill the silence with more than they knew.

“The question is, whose buggery was at issue? That fool Philip’s or the Order’s?”

“Philip?” Father Patrick had lost track of the tale; he was more interested in the teller. A real historian, or a fervent amateur? He seemed to know a lot of unsavory details; if he’d been telling all this to Xavier and the other boys, it would have to stop.

“Oh, come now, Father. You know the story, I’m sure. Probably still taught as an example of what happens when pride overrules common sense.”

“You’re … ah … talking about some … church organization?”

The blue eyes blazed. “I am talking about the Knights of the Temple of Solomon. Our Order.”

A crazy, then, who had read too deeply, too intensely, escaping into imagination. The Templars had been one of the Militant Orders; he knew that much. A picture he had seen in a history book swam before his mental eye: a great castle, brooding over a caravan route. Another: knights in white, with red crosses on breast and back, swinging swords in a battle against Islamic warriors with scimitars. The Order had been suppressed after the Crusades, but he didn’t remember the details.

“You’re a … uh … historian? I don’t know much about it.”

The look he got he remembered from catechism classes, when it was meant to intimidate and humiliate. It still worked.

“I am no historian; I am a soldier.” Another pull at the beer. “I remember … remember being told, that is.” That sounded as if he’d changed his direction in midword. He still had that much grip on reality. “Admittedly, the Order made mistakes. One is not supposed to criticize one’s elders, but everyone knows the ripest fruit begs to be plucked. We were too rich, too powerful; too many favors owed to us, and too many who could profit by our loss. The Hospitallers, for instance.”

“But … er … immorality?” The priest could not bring himself to use the coarse term. He had heard it often enough, in all its many variations, but to use it … no.

“Buggery,” the old man said firmly. “That and other abominations. Magery, repudiating Christ, spitting on the cross, all the usual things—the same list they charged witches with.” Another gulp of beer, this one emptying the bottle. “Supposedly we seduced choirboys, pages, the young men who worked on our estates, as well as spending our own time arse-kissing—well, Philip should have been an expert in
that,
so it was said. And I suppose some did. I knew a sergeant who’d been shifted from house to house to break off what his superiors called particular friendships. When he was with us, he couldn’t keep his eyes off one of the grooms.”

“And you yourself?” the priest asked.

The old man looked at him, the blue eyes suddenly cold as northern ice. “It interests you?” Father Patrick felt himself going hot, hotter than the late afternoon glare of sun—but the old man had already turned away. “No, of course not. Your care for these poor ones is all pure, eh?” Was that sarcasm in his voice?

“I am sworn to chastity,” Father Patrick said. It was all he dared to say.

“Oh, so were we. Poverty, chastity, obedience. Military obedience, not some silly girls’ school notion of it—obedience that counted when the dust rose up and the arrows flew and the Turks or the Arabs came with flashing blades—” He broke off suddenly, shaking his head.

Father Patrick made another attempt to edge him toward reality. “But that was long ago—centuries—”

“Aye, centuries.” A long, rattling sigh that might have been dragged up from his feet with a chain. “And centuries since that cold day in Paris, aye. And the night after, too, in the icy river.”

“It must be difficult, when you know so much and the past is so vivid to you, to deal with the daily life here and now,” Father Patrick said. “This little town … isolation …”

“Father, you haven’t heard me,” the old man said. He glared, his eyes as full of light as a hawk’s. “You aren’t really listening.”

“Oh, I am. I am indeed.” Father Patrick knew he was listening to more than the words. An old man, a refugee; God only knew what he had endured to come this far. More than age could shake loose reason. “You’re telling me wonderful things about the knights of God in the Crusades, to be sure. Great saints and great sinners in those days; sometimes I think now we have only the great sinners. Xavier has told me about your stories; he said—and truly—that you make them seem very real.

“But you told me you are preparing for death. You must realize that what we need to deal with is the state of your soul
now,
not the accusations made against these knights five hundred years ago?”

“Six hundred,” the old man said. “And you’re wrong—you need to know about them—you need to understand what I am. What I have, and what you must guard with your life—” But his voice broke in a fit of coughing, and Father Patrick held water to his lips and tried to calm him.

“Later,” he said. “Now you must rest; whatever you have to tell me about your—” he almost said hobbyhorse, and stopped himself. “About your specialty, that can come later.”

Without intending to do so, Father Patrick found himself at his next visit explaining his dilemma to the old man. Better that, he told himself, than encouraging the old man in his delusion that he was a member of an extinct militant order. Such delusions could be the reasonable result of surviving the unmentionable horrors of the recent war in Europe, but to make a final confession and die well, the old man would have to regain his sanity, his connection to the real world. And for that purpose, Father Patrick told himself, even the banal struggle between himself and the
curandera
might be a blessed intervention.

“I do not know her name,” he said. “But she terrifies these people. She sells charms, tells fortunes. I’ve explained repeatedly, exhorted them … and I still find babies with those disgusting little strings around their necks, windows with bundles of herbs—probably poisonous—over them.”

“They don’t respect you?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly. They come to Mass regularly; they are generous in their gifts, considering their poverty. Barring an occasional drunken knife fight or a little wife-beating, I could not fault their charity. They are quick to take in the widow and orphan; they love their families. But they do not trust God’s power to overcome evil. They will dodge behind His back, so to speak, and try to make their own bargain with the devil.”

“An evil woman, you say. A witch. To tell you the truth, Father, I am less eager to condemn witches after what happened to our own illustrious and courageous Master. …”

“But my problem,” said Father Patrick firmly, before the old man could start in again, “my problem is that I cannot seem to loosen her grip on them. In this day and age—with the new dam, the international dam, being built only upstream from here, a new era—it is ridiculous. You have a Catholic education; you come from Europe. You will perhaps have met ignorant peasants in your day?”

“Mmm, yes. Superstitious, greedy, sly. Easy to frighten, and difficult to calm. Once Philip convinced even the bourgeoisie, let alone the peasants—”

“So you see my problem,” Father Patrick interrupted firmly. “Perhaps you have more experience. What can I do, as a priest, to … to work around her, to displace her?”

The look he got this time was contemptuous. “You do not think like a soldier.” So the old man had been one, and more than a conscript from that tone of pride. In what war, though? And was that soldierly heritage the reason for his choice of delusions? Father Patrick shook his head and answered mildly.

“I’m not a soldier; I’m a priest.”

“I see.” A long pause, during which the old man traced a design on the tabletop with a wet finger. “Do you know that?”

Father Patrick looked, and saw nothing but the last angle and curve; the rest dried quickly in the heat. Even that much tickled his mind with a memory, but he couldn’t grasp it. A letter? And not in the Roman alphabet? But the old man had swiped his hand quickly across the rest. When he picked it up, a brown coin lay there, a Mexican piece probably. Father Patrick pushed it back. “No—the beer is my treat. It’s little enough I can do for you—”

“Just pick it up,” the old man said. “Just touch it.” Father Patrick shook his head.

“No … please. I don’t want it. I won’t take your money.”

“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said,” the old man said. He sat back and glared, and said something in a foreign tongue which Father Patrick was sure would require a penance if translated. “You don’t believe me,” the old man said, as if it were a repetition.

Father Patrick felt his own neck getting hotter than even the August sun could make it. He had listened by the hour; he had tried to help the old man come to grips with reality. “I believe in God the Father,” he began, in the Latin they both knew. “And in Jesus Christ His only Son. …” He paused, for effect. “It is not part of my duty to believe in
you,
only to pray for your soul.”

The blue eyes dimmed. “As I for yours, Father Patrick. Go in peace.”

Esperanza chose her time carefully. The Widow Resales had gone to the post office window in the store to pick up her monthly check. She would gossip awhile with the others who had come for the same purpose. And she, Esperanza, could enter the Rosales yard on the pretext of bringing a gift. And she would see the stranger up close, and then she would know what she would know.