The Templar Prophecy (2 page)

TWO

The Saleph River, Cilician Armenia, Southern Turkey

10 JUNE 1190

Johannes von Hartelius had never seen a man in full armour fall into a raging river before. Much less the Holy Roman Emperor.

Dressed only in a linen undershirt and a pair of sheepskin breeches, Hartelius sprinted to the riverbank and plunged into the icy water. He was instantly swept towards the central current, fifty feet above the spot where Frederick Barbarossa and his wounded horse were still struggling to stay afloat. The king's charger was no match for the combination of man and armour that was clinging in deadweight to the pommel of his saddle. Added to which the crossbow bolt in the stallion's neck, from which blood now jetted, was weakening him by the minute.

Hartelius, a poor swimmer at the best of times, spooned the water towards his chest, alternately lunging forwards and then throwing out his arms like a man welcoming a loved one back to his bosom. Both the king's squires, swiftly separated from their own mounts, had already succumbed to the river.
Hartelius was alone with the sixty-seven-year-old monarch, but still more than twenty feet to his rear. Behind him, he could sense the clamour of the ambush diminishing, to be replaced by the greedy roar of the river.

Riding parallel to him, and on opposite sides of the bank, were the two Turkish crossbowmen who had targeted the king. Hartelius swung onto his side as first one and then the other crossbowman let fly. The first quarrel ricocheted off the surface of the water a few feet from Hartelius's head, whilst the second quarrel sliced through the gathering twilight in a looping downward arc. Hartelius threw himself backwards in an effort to avoid the missile, but the bolt split the skin on his right cheek as cleanly as a hatchet splits wood.

Hartelius sank beneath the surface of the river. He could feel the water's icy grip numbing his wound; see the crimson spread of his blood being snatched away by the current against the sky's fading light. When he resurfaced, the king's horse was swimming alone – the king was nowhere to be seen. Hartelius arrowed downwards, but the cold and the shock from his wound were beginning to tell on him. He tried three more times to force himself towards the river bottom, but at each attempt his dive was shallower and less effective than before. He now knew himself to be well beyond the place where the king had become separated from his horse. And there was no possible way back against the current.

Hartelius let his head fall forward between his arms and allowed the river to take him. Thirty feet away he could see the bracketing crossbowmen hesitate and look backwards.
Their main target was dead – no man could withstand the actions of such a current whilst dressed in full armour. With darkness falling, was an injured and half-naked knight with no accoutrements worth their further efforts, when the real plunder lay back at the camp? The Turks reined in their horses and retraced their path along the opposing banks of the river, first at an amble, then at a canter.

Had the crossbowmen really not recognized that their victim had been the Holy Roman Emperor himself? Hartelius concluded probably not. The ambush had commenced just a little before dusk. And for a good three days now the king had no longer been accompanied by the telltale flock of ravens whose sudden absence, for many, had portended his coming death.

The ravens and the Holy Lance of Longinus had between them constituted unimpeachable proof to the faithful that the king's authority was directly vested in him by God. The sacred Lance was the very one used by the half-blind Roman centurion, Longinus, to spear Christ's side on the Cross. History had construed this as a final act of pity to prevent the symbolical breaking of Christ's bones by the followers of the Israelite High Priests, Annas and Caiaphas. Since then, the Holy Lance had served as emblem to all the great leaders of Germany and the Western Kingdoms. Now the ravens were gone and so was the king. And the Holy Lance had doubtless sunk to the bottom of the Saleph River, never to be recovered.

Hartelius had little choice but to submit to the current and allow it to carry him along. Far ahead he saw the king's stallion struggle towards the far bank and collapse onto a sand
spur. The horse's body spasmed once, its legs sweeping the air like those of a newborn foal, and then it died. He struck out towards the spur. He was beginning to die of cold himself. There was only one possible solution to his condition.

Hartelius crawled onto the spur and dragged himself towards the horse. The king's sword was still attached by its scabbard to the saddle. He levered it out and used its blade to disembowel the stallion. The hot blood and stomach contents of the horse gushed over his feet. He tore out the Turcoman's gut sack and intestines, and then, still gagging, he eased himself inside the animal's vacated belly. He could feel the heat from the Turcoman's body enveloping and cradling him as if he were a child.

In this way, through this symbolical rite of passage, was Johannes von Hartelius, celibate Knights Templar and proud wearer of the white mantel of purity,
frater et miles
, and oath-sworn servant of the German kings, reborn.

THREE

Morning came, and with it, the sun. Hartelius, noisome and fly-infested, crawled from his hiding place and looked around. In the distance he could see smoke – whether from cooking fires, or as the result of carnage, it was impossible to tell.

Hartelius glanced down at the Turcoman. The stallion had harboured him well. All night its residual warmth had protected Hartelius from the cold, as well as from being spotted by any Turkish scouts or outriders on the lookout for stragglers. Now, having long ago sacrificed his shirt to bandage his wounded face, Hartelius decided that the caked blood and gore that still coated his body might serve to protect his armour-pale skin, at least for a little while, from the rays of the morning sun. He had lived with the offal-stench all night – he was pretty near immune to it by now.

Hartelius hefted the king's sword and turned to go. But a fleeting memory caused him to pause. Some years before, as a very young knight, he had seen the king ride past him
during an investiture at Speyer Cathedral. He remembered asking his companion what was in the finely tooled leather pouch that hung from the opposite side of the king's saddle to his sword.

‘But that is the famous Lance. The Holy Lance of Longinus. The king carries it everywhere with him.'

‘That is no lance. It is less than a foot in length.'

His companion had laughed. ‘The Holy Lance is more than a thousand years old, Hartelius. The wood on its haft has long since rotted away, leaving only the blade, and a single nail from Christ's Cross, which has been bound to the bevel with gold thread.'

Both men crossed themselves at the mention of the Redeemer's name.

‘You have seen it, Heilsburg? You have seen the Holy Lance yourself?'

‘No. No one but the Holy Roman Emperor may look upon it. But whilst it is in his possession, or that of his successors, God is with us. Everything is possible.'

Sick with anticipation, Hartelius cut the leather girth and levered the saddle away from the Turcoman's carcase. Yes. The pouch was still there, hanging from the pommel straps just as he remembered it.

Hartelius reached down to unlatch the retaining buckles and reveal the Lance, but some power outside himself stayed his fingers six inches from the hasp.

‘No one but the Holy Roman Emperor may look upon it,' Heilsburg had said.

Hartelius snatched his hand back as if it had been burnt. As a Templar he had taken many vows. Foremost amongst these was his oath to the Grand Master, and, above this even, to his Liege Lord, the Holy Roman Emperor. Such oaths might not be broken, even in the exceptional circumstances of the death of a king, without the oath-breaker risking eternal damnation.

Hartelius used the girth to fashion himself a harness strap, from which he hung the king's sword and scabbard, together with the leather pouch containing the Holy Lance. When he was satisfied with his arrangements, he secreted the king's saddle inside the Turcoman's still reeking stomach, drank his fill from the river, and started in the direction of the camp. Whether it would be his companions he found there, or a triumphant enemy, was entirely in the hands of the Lord. One thing he knew, though – he would smash the Holy Lance to pieces with the pommel of the king's sword rather than let it fall into any Saracen's hands.

It took Hartelius three hours to retrace the distance it had taken the river a mere twenty minutes to sweep him. He was in bare feet. Even with the remaining parts of his undershirt wrapped around each foot, every step he took was agony. The ground was rocky and unrelenting. The sun, even this early in June, was fierce. Many times he was forced to stop and retie the Saracen-style turban he had fabricated to protect his facial wound from the flies that hovered eternally around him.

Hartelius only realized that the encampment had been abandoned when he ascended a hill a quarter of a mile short of where the original site had lain. He stared out over the mayhem
the crusader knights had left behind them and felt his heart clench inside his chest with shame. He could read the signs as if they were seared across the sand in Gothic script.

Crushed and unmanned by the unexpected death of their king, the knights had gone home. There was no other explanation. The course of their retreat was clear. Hartelius shaded his eyes and tried to discern some further narrative from the chaos left behind by the panicking army.

Yes. A smaller trail did indeed lead on in the direction of Acre. Surely this meant that the Emperor Barbarossa's son, Frederick VI of Swabia, might nonetheless be pressing onwards to Jerusalem with his remaining knights? Or was this trail the one left behind by the retreating Turkish skirmishers after they had attacked the camp and killed the king?

To retreat at this point seemed to Hartelius an impossibility. If he walked into a trap, so be it. But his duty now lay with the king's family. He needed to return both the king's sword and the Holy Lance to its rightful owners. He also needed to explain where and how the king's body might be retrieved from the river, if such a thing had not already been done.

Hartelius had acted so much on the spur of the moment in following the king into the water that he was still unsure if anyone else had seen him in the confusion caused by the first Turkish onslaught. The attack had occurred near sunset. Most of his companions had been at evening prayers. Hartelius had been excused from attending vespers through being outwearied from guard duty. Such exonerations were customary on campaign, where military realities had long since
overcome excessive dogma. Hartelius had been preparing for bed when the Turks struck.

Now, perilously close to despair, Hartelius foraged amongst the detritus left by the retreating knights for some item that he might wear over his sheepskin breeches, which were now in a lamentable condition. He found only a lady's
bliaut
, belonging, no doubt, to one of the noble handmaidens being sent from Germany to serve at the court of Sybilla, Queen of Jerusalem, and Countess of Jaffa and Ascalon.

Grimacing at the sun, Hartelius hacked off the ludicrously extended sleeves of the
bliaut
and abbreviated the ground-scraping hemline of the garment with the point of his sword. Then he rinsed himself clean in the river and slipped the
bliaut
over his head and into place. The discarded sleeve-cloth could serve as further head protection.

If he must die dressed as a woman, thought Hartelius, so be it. At least he would not die of sunburn.

FOUR

The four horsemen approached him at a gallop, with the sun behind them.

Hartelius freed the king's sword from its scabbard and took up the port arms position. He decided that he would attempt to bring the lead horseman down and then take cover behind the dead horse. He had been taught this technique as a young squire and had used it numerous times on the battlefield when deprived of his own mount. It felt good to Hartelius to be about to die as a martyr should, protecting the Holy Lance, and with a guaranteed place in heaven as a result. No knight could wish for a better end. At the last possible moment he would slide the Holy Lance under the dead horse, where it would hopefully rot, quickened by his own and the horse's body fluids, unseen and unrecognized by the enemy.

He was disappointed, therefore, when he recognized the first of the four approaching horsemen by the cant of his silhouette. Its rider was constrained to lean at least thirty
degrees off the upright, thanks to a congenitally foreshortened leg. Einhard von Heilsburg was unmistakeable, even in battle.

‘Heilsburg. Put up your weapon. It is I, Hartelius.'

Heilsburg pulled up his horse thirty feet from where Hartelius stood.

‘Hartelius?'

‘Yes.'

‘You are alive?'

‘So it appears.'

‘Why are you wearing a turban? Do you have toothache? Or have you decided to become a Saracen?'

‘I shared a quarrel with a Saracen crossbowman. He instigated the direction of the quarrel and I received its after-effect on my cheek. I needed to protect my wound from the sun.'

Heilsburg slapped his thigh with his gauntleted hand. ‘Why are you dressed in women's clothing, then? Did the Turk offer to marry you after your temporary misunderstanding?'

‘I am still celibate, Heilsburg. You may rest assured of that. My vows are intact.' Hartelius leant wearily on his sword. There were moments – and this was one of them – when Heilsburg's perpetual good humour became a little wearing. ‘These women's clothes were all I could find to cover me back at the camp. When I dived into the river after the king, I was wearing only my shirt and my sheepskin breeches. Later I used the shirt for bandages and the breeches for decency. I still required protection from the sun, however. The
bliaut
seemed like a good idea at the time. I realize now that you will never allow me to live this down, so I shall unfortunately
have to kill you.' Hartelius straightened up and made as if he were about to take off the
bliaut
before engaging in combat.

The three knights with Heilsburg burst out laughing, but Heilsburg's expression turned serious. ‘Are you telling me you followed our king into the river?'

‘Yes. But I could not save him from drowning. I recovered his sword, though, and the Holy Lance. The king's Turcoman fetched up on a sandbar some way downstream, and I was able to retrieve these objects from his majesty's saddle.'

‘You have the Holy Lance?'

Hartelius held up the leather pouch.

The four knights crossed themselves.

Heilsburg unhitched himself from his horse and limped towards his friend. ‘Here. You are tired. Take my mount. The king's son is encamped a mile down that track. We were sent out in posses of four to check for further marauders. It is lucky we ran into you, Hartelius. The Turks are everywhere. They can smell the scent of carrion on the wind. You would have been dead meat. After they had raped you, of course. The
bliaut
sets off your beauty very well.'

Hartelius made as if to strike his friend. Then he eased himself into Heilsburg's vacated saddle. It felt good to be on a charger again. ‘Come, Heilsburg. We can ride like Bactrian camels from Turkestan. You can be the front hump and I the rear. Surely you trust me in this rig?'

Heilsburg forced back a smile. ‘No, Hartelius. You are the bearer of the Holy Lance. I will walk below you, as is fitting. Our Seneschal was killed in the raid. We have only a Marshal
left. The Holy Lance's return will be a cause of great rejoicing to him and to all the remaining knights.'

Hartelius turned to his companions. He was grateful to them for their instant acceptance of a story that other non-knights might have found catastrophically far-fetched. ‘I saw a slug trail leaving the site of our camp. How many men did we lose?'

‘Three-quarters of our fighting force have deserted. There are less than a thousand knights remaining. And only a scant few thousand followers left to minister to our needs and those of our mounts. Many knights committed suicide when they heard of the death of the king. Their bodies are scattered in unmarked graves along the Silifke-Mut road. They will be eaten by turtles, or so the priests tell us. And then basted by demons in the eternal pot.'

‘You have not lost your sense of humour, I see, Fournival.'

‘You neither, Hartelius. But I have to tell you. You make a piss poor woman.'