The Templar’s Bowl

 

by
Peter "Lou" D’Alessio
Copyright © 2011

 

Chapter 5: The Death of the Master:
‘Theobor of Hamburg’

 

“And again, by that of four!”

I looked at my tutor with straining eyes.  “800 and... and... 52?” I saw him smile and nod.

“And fifty-two!  Well done, lad.  You’ll make a fine navigator or perhaps even a builder of cathedrals or great ships some day.” Brother Theo was pleased with me, and that delighted me.  “Now, boy, a question for fun.  Listen carefully!  A drunkard drinks a barrel of beer alone in fourteen days, yes, two weeks, fourteen days.  If his wife drinks with him, for she is a drunkard also, they drink the barrel in ten days.  Now the question is: How much time would his wife take to drink the barrel by herself?”

I knew this was not going to be easy, but as I thought, I realized Theo had ’borrowed’ the question and I had heard it before.

“Master, subtract the shortest drinking period from the longest.  That is ten from fourteen and there remains four.  And that is your divisor.  Now do the following.  Four gives ten.  What gives fourteen?  Do it according to the rule of three and there are thirty-five days and it is done!”

Theo lowered his chin to his chest and cleared his throat, which usually meant there was more he wanted of me.  “Ahh,” the breath escaped me.  He had borrowed the question from a Dutch mathematician and the math was only half my problem.

“Subtraheert dat minste drincken van dat meeste, dats tien van veertien, ende daer blijft vier.  Ende dat es u divisor.  Nu segt aldus: vier gheven tien.  Wat gheven veertien?  Maket naerden reghel van drien ende compt vijfendertig daghen, ende es ghemaect?”

“Yah!” grinned my master, “es ghemaect!  Done!”

Through the summer my education progressed better than well, for I swallowed learning as a hungry man eats his meal.  Hamet and Theobor would come every other day and fill my hours with such things as they knew, and while my reading was very hard work, my ability with sums was astonishing even to me.  I account for that by my inability to hold a book in my hands without Friar Hamet’s gentle help.  I could see the numbers in my mind much more clearly than the letters.  It was the way Theo had shown me.

“Be afield,” he would tell me, “and tell your commander ’I cannot, sir!  I have no parchment or paper upon which to design your bridge!’ and see what happens!” And then he would smile and laugh.  Of all three of my schoolteachers, Theo was clearly the most learned and still, it was he who was closest to the earth.  He had taken what Beaumond had designed and built it.  He could carve marble and do the business that was needed to support it.  While his body was that of a bear, heavy and thick and fur-covered and could fight like one when called upon, his true heart was that of a lamb, gentle and warming.  Though somewhat frowned upon, he was possessed of great humor and would never speak or complain of any displeasure or difficult task set upon him.  Brother Beaumond had told me that Theo had great courage in battle and had fought with the Templars in the service of Robert the Bruce of Scotland at Bannockburn, much to the silent delight of Hamet.  Beyond all this was a quality that he owned in generous abundance.

It is a hard thing to explain, but I felt safe when Theobor drew near, as if when left to the care of those two large paws the world could crash around me and I would not perish.

 

‘Theobor of Hamburg’

 

I, Theobor of Hamburg, left my training of Architecture and became, much to my mother’s despair and my father’s delight, a Templar Knight.  And while I was little more a Knight in but name knowing how to use the weapons (and being a rough boy in my youth), as my parents were low noble by birth and wealthy merchants of whom our lord governor was deeply indebted heavily for sums of money, I was granted knighthood by his hand.  My zeal to fight God’s war and the skill of my hands as a warrior, a learned sculptor and builder, a mathematician and experienced in the trades and business of merchandising, did cause me to rise within our most sacred order.  By the year of our Lord 1304, of twenty-eight summers of life, I was favored to be of personal advisory to our most holy Grand Master Jacques de Molay, having built a chapel and altar of his usage and to God’s glory in the Holy Land.

My Master Molay did find great uses for me, accounting of the doings of our trade with our Arab friends, of Templar goods and monies given to the Kings and Princes and Popes of Europe, and such things as it was vested in our interest to retain for future ages.

I was truly happy in those days as the French Molay, despite his heavy place in the world, was of a light-heart and much disposed in private to gentle laughter, unlike the mirthless German Monks I had been taught by.  Despite Templar disdains of mirth, Molay was not alone.  As all men are not perfect, who were we to be!  Did we sit in taverns and be riotous?  No!  But I did my work without question with a joyful heart.

However my tale, young Master, is of woe.  I had traveled with Molay to conference with His Holiness Pope Clement V in 1305 Anno Domini, to marry what few remaining Templars were left after the fall of Palestine to our chief rivals, the Teutonic Hospitalers of Saint John.  Shortly thereafter, on some whim or inspiration, by order of my Lord and Master, I left to spend a year at our stronghold in the port of La Rochelle in France, accounting of a fortune too vast to comprehend in the mind and to put its sums on paper.  But it was an uneasy year, and on Friday, the 13th day of October in the year of Our Lord 1307, Phillip King of France, known also as The Fair, more for the shade of his skin than his soul, called for the arrest of all Templar Knights.  Phillip, already heavily indebted to the Templars with little chance or desire of repaying his debt, sought to obtain our great fortune and properties.  In league with the Pope, who was fearing our growing power, they contrived to discolor our honor.  Accused of the only crime by which we could be forfeited of property and condemned - heresy - many Knights were arrested and brought to torture.  Under such pain as your young mind cannot comprehend, most of these poor children of God would have agreed that they themselves had hammered the nails into the hands and feet of Christ!

It was said we worshipped the head of Basphomet, the prophet of the Muslims.  It was said (and falsely) that we had sworn to answer each other’s desires in the most unnatural carnal manner.  The most hurtful accusation of us was that we could only obtain admittance to the order by denying Christ.  And for this, good men were rack-stretched, had their feet slowly burned to cinders while they screamed in agony, and when they had cried out their confessions and the torture ceased, they would recant their confession and were burned at the stake.  Still, through all this, no formal charge was made by Holy Mother Church who, as Pilate had done, washed her hands of the matter and, as our reputation had been shattered, ordered us disbanded.  Throughout Europe, such Templars as were left in the world removed the white robe and the Cross Pattée and were welcomed into other Orders.  Many, still in the Holy Lands, sought our Muslim friends and with great disdain of the church that had abandoned them, embraced Allah as the way to Paradise.  I do not praise their choice, but I cannot condemn it.

For five years the Lord Grand Master, with 123 Knights, rotted in Phillip’s prison.  Molay suffered greatly at Phillip’s hands and, against the vows of our Order, confessed to the most heinous crimes and longings.  Each time the inflictions would end he would recant, and again he would be tortured.  It was a great shame to us to see this, we who all had sworn to accept death for the sake of truth.  T’is true.  The spirit, no matter how willing, weakens when Phillip of France burns and hacks parts off.

It was arranged at last that my Master would confess publicly and be imprisoned for as long as his life should last.  He was taken before the Pope’s men and a great multitude of simple folk with Guido Delphini and the son of the Dauphin of Auvergne, but instead of denouncing our Order, he cried out to our innocence.  So angered was the King of France that he did not even consult with the Legates of Rome, but ordered Molay burned at once.  And so it was Molay went to his death.

But our story does not end here, as Molay doth open another door!  With his dying breath, Molay called a curse upon Phillip the King and Clement the Pope.  Before the passing of a year, he would lead them both to judgment before the throne of God.  When the fires had died, many of the simple folk gathered his ashes in great reverence and held them as relics.

Clement the Pope died within the month, and Phillip the King within seven months.  With the end of the Templar Order, the way was open for the Turkish conquests in the West.  All the wisdom we had gathered from the East was lost.  The knowing of the movement of celestial bodies, medicine, numbers, all things unknown yet to Holy Mother Church that would have helped mankind, all fell as water into sand, gone forever.  But there is more to it.  My Master Molay, in his wisdom, cheated Phillip of the earthly prize he had sought.  True enough, Phillip had taken our Templar lands and all therein contained, and never paid back of owed monies.  But upon word of Molay’s arrest, as he had instructed me prior, I gathered up our stores and monies and precious goods and quietly loaded them onto our ships at La Rochelle, and from secret ports sent eighteen fully loaded treasure ships to a place not known to any save me and three of our captain.  Truly such wealth as you cannot imagine was sent to a little-known place to the West, far from Kings, far from Popes, far from where it could hurt others.

I did not travel with them.  Upon my head fell a great task.  One of our most sacred treasure, a clay bowl of antiquity, was buried in a small churchyard at Currie near Edinburgh in the land of Scots.  It was interred with the bones of an ancient Monk of our order and the rosary of a brave Templar Knight who had given up his life to protect it.  The Monk’s bones now rest amidst Templar bones of those who fought and fell for The Bruce at Bannockburn.

I dressed as a guild worker, a stonemason and a journeyman, and walked the French coast.  Upon my way I gathered such Templars as had survived Phillip’s assault.  By the darkness of night, we were gathered by one of our ships in secrecy and sailed towards Scotland.  As many as three hundred Knights and seculars of our Order had been reclaimed, and betwixt us all was not but one Cross Pattée.

Nowhere in Europe were we welcomed, save Scotland where Robert the Bruce waited with horse and sword to give us.  Condemned and excommunicated, the Bruce fought his war against Edward, who is called Long shanks, and his England.  Such as that were we welcomed, alone amidst the many thrones we had helped to create.  The Bruce asked of us no treasure, but as we made our way to our shrine, we found news of a pitched battle in a swamp called Bannockburn.  Many times Edward’s armoured riders had been driven back with Scottish spear points, but the Bruce could not drive them down.

We cut apart bed sheets and drew upon the Cross in red and, blessing Robert the Bruce’s name and Scotland’s cause, we charged the field.  Three hundred Knights, unarmored and heavily out-numbered, charged boldly the Knights of Edward.  In fear at seeing such a sight and knowing who these rag-tag warriors be, they fled the field dragging the English Lion behind them.

We met them fairly and fought them as savagely as we had fought the Turk and the Saracen, and though we had won the day our hearts sank.  Christian Knight had fought Christian Knight.  Such dreams as we had harbored of a United Christendom sank in the swamp with English armor.

I made my way to the churchyard and found the resting place of the Monk and the spot our prize was hidden.  With much sorrow, I reclaimed it for the Templars for the last time.  As I touched it, I had a vision.  I saw Phillip of France knocked from his mount by a charging boar.  As he lay there, dying, he answered my Master Molay’s curse.  “May they that hold the Grail so sacred, wander the earth forever and carry its watch till the crack of doom.”

 

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