The Templar’s Bowl
by
Peter “Lou” D’Alessio
Copyright © 2011
Chapter 9: Mathew 26:23
“A Meager means to a great end. A beggar’s bowl, Richard, no more or less.” I found myself far away from the confusing swirl surrounding my bed, trying to make sense of the Friar’s words. McCorvy stood before me, patting his forehead with his sleeve in the hot sun. I looked about. It was that same nameless place my first trip through time had ended almost a year of my natural life ago.
“You see, Richard, the greatest mystery of life is life itself, and life is usually always preferable to death. You cannot understand...” He looked away. And again, as if a great weight had been placed on his back, he seemed to collapse into a sitting position in front of me. He undid his battered robe and lifted what was left of the hood that sat upon his back over his head to offer some shade.
“Sit! Please! Come; sit until the heat breaks a little.” Old Hamet drew his clay bowl as if he were going to give out a Communion, but reached for his goatskin instead and poured what little water he had left into it. “Well,” he murmured half to himself, “we’ll be in the court of Halamin before long.” Hamet was now in that far away place he went to when he held his bowl. I had made the association that the great melancholy and the ugly little clay bowl were somehow related, but my impatience to get to our destination was overwhelming. “Why do you fall into your own bowl? What is it that you cling to when you hold it as if it was life itself?”
McCorvy never looked up. He fingered the bowl as if it were a gem of great value. “Think, boy. Mathew, 26:23.”
I blinked at him and then ran the words he had spoken through my mind. It was from the Gospel of Mathew, the story of the Last Supper and the betraying of Christ. “And He answered, he who dipped his hand with Me in the bowl is the one who will betray Me?” My implied question was met with a silence that was louder than a shout. Hamet finally lifted his eyes to mine. “Have you forgotten your vows so soon? Have you forgotten the things you have seen?”
I looked down at the Friar, imagining I had some understanding of what we were doing. It must have shown on my face that I was a bit confused. McCorvy looked gently at me again and urged me to sit. “Only mad dogs and Saxons go out in the midday sun!” He smiled almost devilishly at me and waived me down. “Richard, do you think we would take you from a peaceful deathbed to wander for little or no purpose through a wasteland?” The smiled disappeared from his lips. “No, boy. There must be a purpose. Or at least logic would dictate.”
I studied the face of my mentor and nodded that this must be so, but I did not sit. I fancied standing. Although walking had become as natural as sitting in my chair, I still found standing an experience to savor.
The old man looked at me in a very thoughtful manner. “Yes. I sometimes forget how wonderful it must seem to you to be standing. Very well, Master Thomson, stand if you must.” The old friar patted down his forehead again. “It is so hard for me to remember that you are both child and man, Richard. You have never questioned what we have brought to you and have learned our ways well, but it has merely been the way of the earthly world. Now, another door to pass through, a bridge between child and man. It is time to bring you to the greater scheme of human existence.”
I suddenly felt very heavy, in the same way I had felt as Lewis carried me to bed. I began to sway, and Hamet jumped up to catch me by the shoulder. “Steady, lad, this is the devil’s work!” The old cleric steadied me and splashed some of the water in his bowl into my face. “We’d best be moving on now. It may not be safe here.”
As with so much of what had been occurring, I did not question my instructions but moved along, becoming more and more steady as we went. Somewhere, in one of those eddies of my consciousness where there were no specific memories, I had accepted and learned the Templar disciplines and responded to the command of my superior without question.
We walked a few more miles, a quick pace being called for until we saw the spires of Halamin’s palace sparkling like a gem on beige valor at the edge of the horizon. The site of this magnificent structure with its rounded domes thrown onto the barrenness of this seemingly arid place was startling. The nearer we came the more the great domes seemed to rise from the sands and fill the horizon with a glistening shower of golden light. I felt myself stepping up my pace to decrease the distance between the wondrous apparition, half imagination and half vision, and myself.
We drew within our last mile and intercepted a well-worn path over the firming sand that shortly became a road leading to the city gate. I found myself growing uneasy, having in my mind memories of numerous armed clashes with the local citizenry. Much to my surprise, you would have thought the Prophet Mohammed had descended upon the city. At the first call that visitors approached, many came and clamored about McCorvy as if he were some long lost cousin. It was an odd feeling for a Templar Knight to find himself warmly welcomed into an enemy camp!
It was truly a place out of the Tales of Arabian Nights my mother had read to me, and the child inside surfaced immediately. Hamet’s sudden appearance had created an almost carnival-like atmosphere, and I marveled at the wonders I saw. Inside the protecting wall, a small city lay before the palace and it all looked “other worldly.” The buildings had been laid out by an even and neatly-thinking hand, and were possessed of an indoor plumbing as of yet unheard of in Europe. The streets were wide and well paved, and wells of clear water and trees and green things in great abundance were placed on the roadside for the free use of people. These streets were much cleaner than I remembered the streets of Austria, England, and France, although I had no recollection of when or where in time I had been through such places. Most amazing of all were the throngs of people who walked around, by, and with us. Laborers and craftsmen, beggars and nobles, women with their faces hidden holding out their children for Hamet to bless, all dropped their doings and ran to greet us. As a Templar Knight I had seen little more than battlefields in my storm through the Holy Lands. Jerusalem had been well established as a Crusader conquest some time before I’d gone there. The fall of the city had been an obscenity. Regardless of religion, that is to say, whether Muslim or Jew, all were put to the sword—that seemed to be the tradition of either army. The repopulation of the Holy City had been of invader selection rather than a natural revitalization, so few were people actually of the home terrain. As I had been afield for purpose of warfare, I had entered local towns only as part of a conquering army, which was not conducive to experiencing normal native life. Yet, McCorvy had to be reminded that the Palace-Fortress of Halamin was not quite a native town no matter what he... or I... might prefer.
We were within the walls of what would be considered by the standards of the times a fortress, but nonetheless the streets were filled with such wondrous sights of an Arabian bazaar that my European eyes had never beheld. There were vendors and shops as to grandly impress my Templar Knight and child’s mind. Silks, fruits, spices of all manners from as far away as the Chinas, meats of all fashions, sellers of carpets and rugs, and the makers of many things such as fine furniture and jewelry. Most impressive were the metal crafters who filled an entire block of this fabulous bazaar.
It was here that I realized how well-trained in combat and the art of warfare I had been. Past the carpets, past the gems, past the makers of medicines and potions, I saw only the finely drafted weapons of the Saracen armorers. There was beauty in the delicately turned steel from which they were made; steel far better than any in Europe... we used iron because of costs, except for the so very wealthy whose lives were of value and who insisted on the best. I could see freshly-made blades lining walls, quietly waiting for the skilled hands that were needed to unleash fury on Christian heads.
I must have been more obvious in my fascinations of these creations of war than I intended. I felt a sweaty arm around my shoulder suddenly and heard Hamet gently say, “A time for war and a time for peace, Richard. Now, lad, is the time for peace.”
I turned my head from the shop I’d been staring into and looked at my mentor. He was not looking at me, but was smiling into the gathering crowd that surrounded him on three sides. They were crying out something in Arabic, which I took to mean “he (or they) are here.” As the pitch grew more fevered I grew tenser, and my fingers rubbed my side where my sword should have been, but wasn’t.
“Not ‘they’, Richard, nor ‘he’. It translates as ‘it has returned to us.’ Besides, there are far too many to fight.”
I stared at the side of the Friar’s turned head, mystified. Had the old man read my thoughts? I should have known such things were so, but somehow, much to my shame, he had taken me by surprise.
“We should be better served looking at their medicine makers. They have such greater knowledge than we of the healing arts.” The old man waived at the throng, patting and blessing little children as he passed.
We followed the winding street until we reached a smaller wall. We stood before a strong wooden gate guarded by two warriors of the sand who greeted McCorvy as if he were master of the house. As I was to learn, at one time he indeed had been. In a rather violent manner, the two protectors of the gate drove the mob back and away from him. I do not mind telling you, I found it all quite unsettling. With spears raised they threatened and cajoled the small parade, and Hamet never looked back but rather stared straight ahead at the gate. I could not help but think how lucky I was that McCorvy had not been of a time a century later. The garb of our Order had not been fully formalized yet (and wouldn’t be until 1147) and I was, for the most part, still dressed as a common man. The idea of standing there with a brotherless back dressed in my white tunic with the Cross Pattée splashed across it with the likes of these two about was most chilling.
“It is as it was meant to be, Richard. If a Templar were to turn and run for fear of his foe in battle, he would be hard pressed to escape with such an emblem on his back. Better to end life than live as a Godless coward.” And in truth, I knew that to be the Templar rule. So we stood, facing the gate and waiting for the keepers of the gate to finish their task.
I had been brought backwards and forwards through almost a four century spread of—how did McCorvy put it? “God’s own time?” I knew where things would eventually go. In the flow of time now, European armies were winning, but within the space of a century, the tide of the Popes’ war would turn! Arab warriors such as these two would drive the European invaders out in a most violent and bloody manner. I could not, in my heart, truly fault them for that... but that was the American in me.
We were led through the gate, walking on a quite pleasant inner path that took us to a more than adequate garden. I marveled somewhat at the path the Templars would begin to take. Despite the many bloody years of hatred between Templar forces and Arab armies, a productive friendship would be struck. Hamet’s seeds would blossom into an intellectual garden for them all. His expressed desires to best spend time learning Arabic medicine and surgery would come to pass. I recalled that in Brother Theo’s time, Templar doctors contrived clever potions and medicines from the various molds they had seen Saracen physicians use in healing. I did not realize until many years into my own life that in their own primitive fashion they had, to a degree, a working knowledge of antibiotics. It is unfortunate that my introduction to antibiotics would be by way of personal use.
One of the warriors motioned us to follow him to a second gate. Again, without so much as a grunt, he ordered us to stay where we were and await his return. “Mind what you say,” Hamet whispered very quietly through a smile and clenched teeth. “Do not deceive yourself. We are being watched... and listened to, I might add.”
“What is it we are about?” I asked of my mentor.
“Wait and you will see,” the elder warrior-priest replied calmly. “You will come to see the power of faith, the power of a small clay bowl. The man you are about to meet has the power and, in my opinion, the right to put us both to the sword if he wanted to, but he and I...” He looked away, as if remembering something that had not yet come to pass. We had taken a seat in the shade of a small tree, a shelter from the gradually fading sun, and the aging man pushed himself to a stand. He stood directly in front of me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Wait, boy. For me to try and explain it would gain you nothing.”
The palace of Tuffin Ah Halamin exceeded all possible flights of my imagination—or anyone else’s for that matter. The inner chambers were all of fine white and blue swirling marble. Splendor beyond a man’s wildest dreams lay in all directions, opulence at all points of the compass from anywhere you stood and looked.
My life as a Templar Knight had brought me to some of the most respected and wealthiest castles in Europe, but I was not prepared for this! The Templar inside me saw only the trappings and evils of the secular world; but the American child saw only a scene from Aladdin or Ali Babba and his Forty Thieves. The absolute pleasure of possession, while loathsome to the true Medieval Christian Templar mind, was nonetheless spectacular.
We were led past swirling fountains spraying an overly-lavish amount of water at least ten feet into the air, which misted the onlooker with a refreshing blast—in a land where water was scarce, it was truly flaunting one’s wealth. My feet were faster than my eyes, and I could not take in all that I saw while keeping up with my mentor. Such servants, handmaidens and slaves, in the most beautiful silken and leather garments as I had ever beheld, paraded towards us carrying silvered and golden trays and vessels, all carrying the finest fruits and foods and drink of the region.
The room we came to await our audience with the Potentate was cool and remote from the outside world. I was quite content with our host’s choice of a place for our reception. It did not seem so to Hamet. He was beginning to squirm uncomfortably. He was fixating on a curtain at the farthest end on the immense room. The curtain was of a much heavier material than the other trappings, which were of silk and silk-like materials. The curtain seemed to shimmer, and at times there was an almost unperceivable laughter from behind it. Despite the many distractions in the room, I could discern the sounds of women—hidden from our sight but very near. I realized that Hamet was reacting to the Templar sanctions against sex and women. While there were indeed bans and even tales of Knights falling into damnation from contact with female sexual beings, many Templars interpreted these sanctions to mean its applications applied only to women in their class—whomever was below an individual’s station was free for the picking. The clergy, like Hamet, frowned on these attitudes but chose not to see it.
I cannot explain simply the Templar mindset and rules of order, but women—even one’s sister and mother—were to be avoided as potential occasions for mortal sin, despite knightly vows to protect widows, orphans, Holy Mother Church...and women in general. It had not occurred to the powers that be that there might be an alternate point of view.
Man in the twentieth century has begun to accept the place of women in society. A millennium ago—except in England, where widows could inherit property, vote, and run businesses without fear of being burned at the stake for witchcraft—there was virtually no place beyond the kitchen, bedroom, or nunnery for women. It is most difficult for the modern mind to comprehend that in Hamet’s world, that of Medieval Christianity and especially the world of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, women were considered all but in league with the devil.
To this day, in light of their expressed disdain of the medieval woman, I still cannot fully comprehend the near-manic fear the male Christian mind of that period had of turning to homosexuality to answer the male carnal needs that women weren’t allowed to help them with! The stern and strict religious Templar sect to which I belonged prohibited its members from sleeping without a small lamp burning in its dormitories. It further ordered its members to sleep fully dressed, and dissuaded them from bathing, for fear of being seen naked by our fellow Knights and thereby being an occasion of sin. Such was the world Hamet McCorvy had elected for himself.
But not so of Tuffin Ah Halamin! His was a world of Saracen pleasures, sins of the flesh and undisputed authority, for truly he was the Lord and Master of all he surveyed. He was not so much the Muslim as man of the world. He had sailed the seas, commanded armies, and seen other ways of thinking—in short, led a man’s life. So it was, given the nature of this particular beast, that my Scottish mentor and I had been permitted to enter so deeply into his lair with our heads still tightly secured to our necks, and that in itself was enough to make me ill at ease. But there was something at work here that Hamet was obviously aware of and I merely sensed.
The joyous welcome we had experienced as we entered Halamin’s walled city had dissipated as we entered through the second gate. The further we got from the gate, the stronger grew the sense of disapproval at our being allowed entrance. It was obvious that the many servants that catered to our needs were working under the strictest sanctions to perform in a satisfactory fashion. There were no smiles or warm sounding greetings in a foreign tongue, merely a cold indifference to our being allowed to roam about. I could sense the hatred in the hearts of the gate guardians as we passed.
It soon became apparent to me what had been bothering the good Friar. The room we had been escorted to was the anti-chamber adjoining the great Sultan’s harem! Perhaps it was a custom of the house, or a poorly planned insult, but the room suddenly became filled with gyrating flesh and Arab pipers unleashed a myriad of wildly exotic music in the air while we sat there dumbfounded as they moved rhythmically past us. It was a fury of sound and motion, whirling and twirling faster and faster.
I was mildly amused by the confusion on McCorvy’s face. The poor cleric no longer remembered which way to turn when being attacked by the fairer sex. I thought to myself what a clever weapon this would be. I had a vision of a small army of dancing women and musicians confronting the mighty ranks of Templars.
The din was unparalleled. As either a Templar or a twelve-year-old, I was lacking in a certain experience needed to take control of the situation. I began to rise from the pillow I was resting on when a second whirlwind entered our company. It was short, even by Arabian standards, but it moved and roared as an angry lion through the ranks of women and musicians, driving them forcefully out of the room. It yelled and cajoled and shook its fists in furious fashion. I found the whole scene rather comical to observe.
“Get out! Get out!” the furious figure shouted to the half-naked women scurrying to the nearest door. “Get out! Get out, you daughters of a camel, you sisters of a scorpion! You shame the House of Halamin!”
I looked in disbelief at Friar Hamet.
“And this,” he said most matter-of-factly, “is the mighty Tuffin Ah Halamin, Sultan of this august estate, and Master of the arid regions in all directions as far as the eye can see.”
To say my jaw fell open would be to lie. I was stunned. The short, portly, energetic person dashing chaotically about the room bore little resemblances to the scourge of the desert that I had been fearing and hearing about for decades. As a young Prince of his Emirate, Halamin’s estates had been set upon by a horde of French crusaders that had driven his family from his home and forced them into the wilderness. The enemy had accomplished this by razing every square inch of what had been his fiefdom to the ground, burning every home and shop, and putting every man, women, child and animal to death in a most dramatic display of Christian generosity.
It should be noted, however, that the Sultan of a relatively small patch of desert paid back in kind, striking from the desert with such ferocity that the very pillars of Christianity in the Holy Land were shaken! No supply caravan, wandering troop of Christian soldiers, or cargo ships coming to our ports could escape his eye... or his wrath!
The affection between Halamin and McCorvy was obvious and, as I was to find out, genuine and very deep. To my Templar astonishment, they embraced as old friends would and were nearly to the point of tears.
I had experienced much over the course of the last year, but I lacked greatly in one area. There is a bond that grows in time between enemies who have outgrown their hatreds. When illuminations enter and drive the darkness asunder, such men may face each other as images in the mirror, seeing each other as an extension of themselves. Such as I have spoken was indeed the case here.
I could tell easily that beyond matters of territory, beyond religion, beyond the dictates of society that mandates warfare, a deep and caring friendship had blossomed in the desert. There was no reason for it, but nonetheless it was there. As they embraced in friendship, heartily slapping each other’s backs, the Christian in his rags and the Arab Prince in his stately robes, a strange and unique aura of completeness filled the room. For a moment, there was silence between the two as they assured themselves that each other had survived in these troubled times. McCorvy then turned and led the now-silent Sultan in my direction.
“Richard!” he exclaimed. “Did I not tell you? Much more fun than the Pope!” The ancient Friar lifted both arms over his head and shouted, “Praise God!”
The round-faced sultan smiled graciously and nodded a false disapproval. “A thousand pardons, my most honorable friend. Is it not a saying of your people that when you are in Rome, you do as the Pope does?”
The cleric paused thoughtfully and nodded to the affirmative. “Allah be praised!” he cried, and placed his arm on Halamin’s shoulder.
I should try to explain as best I can that without my realization, I had become a part of two distinct and separate worlds—the world of the 20th century with its progressive idea and its scientific and methodical warfare, and a cumulative world of centuries through the middle ages with its hacking and slashing wars and religious abuses and true beliefs. It was dividing me into two separate and distinct parts, and these two parts of my mind were beginning to war with each other. My 20th century mind was warmed by the true affection shown by two men who should have been at each other’s throat. My Medieval mind was heavily offended by the placing of Hamet’s arm around Halamin’s shoulder. I was struggling greatly to reconcile both halves. I was not doing well!
The two great warriors now turned their attentions to me. “So!” said the Sultan, half to Hamet and half to himself. “This is the young man who is to save the world!”
