The Highlander's Touch

Page 87

He told her, biting his lip to keep from smiling. He watched her hips sway gently in her emerald gown as she climbed the stairs. She’d said she loved him. That was promising.
Perhaps it was nearly time to talk to her about loving him forever.
LISA SHOOK HER HEAD AS SHE EXITED THE GARDEROBE. Very civilized. Now that she knew where it was, she couldn’t believe she’d bypassed it while she’d searched the castle for the flask, but the entrance gave the impression of a servant’s door, so she’d not given it a second thought. The garderobe was not what she had expected; it was larger than most modern bathrooms, and spotless. It was obvious that the laird of Brodie prided himself on tidy garderobes. Fresh herbs and dried petals were scattered amid the hay piled inside the chamber—medieval toilet paper.
She resolved not only to bathe Eirren the next time she saw him but to dunk him a time or two as well for all those miserable chamber-pot moments.
Slipping from the small room, she was surprised to encounter Armand Berard loitering in the corridor.
“Milady, are you enjoying the festivities?”
“Yes, I am.” Her feet were still tapping from the cheery music and she was eager to return and perfect her steps. But she hadn’t seen Armand for over a month and had rather missed the opportunity to get to know a real live Knight Templar. She frowned, eyeing his somber attire. Circenn had told her the Templars would stay in their garrison and not join the revelry. “I thought your Order did not hold with feasting such as this.”
He shrugged. “Some of my brothers are more rigid than others. A few of us have accepted that the Order is destroyed, bitter though it is to admit that you have pledged your life to something that no longer exists.”
“I’m sorry,” Lisa said, feeling awkward. Before her stood one of the legendary Knights Templars and she couldn’t think of one thing to say to make him feel better. “Are your men hunted, even here in Scotland?” she rushed on. She was intensely curious about the Templars, their legendary powers and myths.
“It depends on who encounters us. If it’s an Englishman, he might try to take us across the border. A Scot is far less inclined to do so. Most of your people care little for the edicts of France, England, or even the Pope.” He uttered a harsh laugh. “Your own king was excommunicated by the Pope for the murder of the Red Comyn in the church at Dumfries. Your land is a wild one. When a country is fighting merely for the right to survive, they are less inclined to be judgmental. Come.”
He offered his arm, and she looped hers through it. Within moments, she was so engrossed in their conversation that she paid no heed to where he was leading her.
She listened, fascinated, while he spoke of the Order, of their residence outside Paris, of their lifelong commitment to their vows. His expression grew bitter as he recounted how the papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae, issued on November 22, 1307, had ordered all monarchs of Christendom to arrest the Templars and sequester their lands in the name of the papacy. He skimmed over the persecution, the interrogations, and the torture, unwilling to give such detail to a woman, for which she was grateful. There were some limits to even her curiosity.
He explained how, in 1310, six hundred of their brothers had agreed to mount a defense against the unjust persecution, and Pope Clement had finally agreed to postpone the Council of Vienne for a year while they prepared. Then, Philippe the Fair, desperate to crush the Order and line his coffers before it was too late, circumvented the Pope, reopened his episcopal inquiry, and had fifty-four Templars burned at the stake outside Paris, silencing the remaining Templars’ protests. In 1312, the papal bull Vox in excelso was issued, forever suppressing the Order.
There were many questions she wanted to ask him, and this was a rare opportunity to explore history from a Templar’s perspective, but her first question was patently twenty-first century, brushed by a bit of romanticism.
“What is the secret of the Templars, Armand?” So many rumors abounded: that they had protected the Holy Grail, that the Grail was really the genetic bloodline of Christ, that the Templars had uncovered a personal alchemy for the transformation of the soul, that such alchemy could manipulate time and space. She didn’t really expect him to answer, but since she had her arm through the arm of a Templar, there was no harm in asking.
Armand’s smile made her shiver. “Do you mean what could we possibly possess that would make a king and a Pope fear us so greatly they would use every weapon they had to destroy us? Are you a religious woman, Lisa MacRobertson?”
“A bit,” she conceded.