The Templar’s Bowl
by
Peter “Lou” D’Alessio
Copyright © 2011
Chapter 10: Dried Apples and Honey
It is a terrible thing to thing to think you are going to fall off the edge of the world at any moment. Our squared-sails knarrs, laden with booty, had looked so huge to me as they sat in the port. But in the midst of the Atlantic, we slipped through the water as mere woodchips floating in a puddle. Theobor had put the ancient charts of Bjarni Herjolfsson from three hundred years ago that an old Monk had obtained from Moorish and Phoenician sailors, and these charts of our Norse allies in my hand supposedly confirmed my destination. He ordered me to have faith in God and not to sink the Templar fortune, things being bad enough. I would have felt better had he been there to pilot this expedition, but his faith in me gave me great resolve to pass my fears and continue. I doubted that my men were as sure as I. All that held them from mutiny was their allegiance to the Templar rule of Obedience, and Zeno’s ability to guide us with parchment so old that it tore from the weight of your eyes upon it.
“Here! Take these! I’m told that they will guide you to a strange, unknown place. You’ll need it someday. Take it. A gift from an old Sultan to a dear old Christian friend.” Halamin carefully rolled out the ancient lambskin map. Hamet never looked down. He grabbed me by my collar and pushed my head down. “Look and remember!” he said. The map was as old as God himself, and I knew the coast of Europe edging the right side. Moving west and north brought me to what appeared to be a large elongated coastline, and it indicated a plethora of islands clustering and dotting a large leg of land. I knew not the writing upon it, and there were no latitude and longitude lines of any sort—not even a compass rose—but any good seaman could guess its meanings. The Templars sailing in the fleet had long reported of how our Norse compatriots had spoken of a vast land to the North, well treed, heavily gamed, and—outside of a few primitives—little else. My feeling was simple. Who believes drunken old Vikings awaiting a swordless death, and lying to anyone who’d listen about youthful adventures that never really happened?
“There is nothing to remember, Master. Sail North to Scandinavia, then take a heading West. I assume we would explore, so there is no specific place you’d wish us to find. But please, why would we want to go there?”
Hamet forlornly looked at our host, and with a shrug said, “At his age, I would have asked the same question.”
“At his age,” Halamin replied, “you would have had me hanging from a date palm tree while you asked me!”
My head turned up at Hamet and I laughed. “He knows you well!” I alleged, much to Halamin’s amusement. The great Arabian chieftain reached out a bowl of dried apples and honey. The smell was old and familiar, but I waved him off, thankfully. “Highness,” I resumed, “what types of water will I find? Do the winds blow steadily and even, or are there storms in this Atlantic Ocean?”
He shrugged. “I had just obtained the maps and was preparing to sail when word came that a European wild man and his army had driven my brother from my home and taken it as his. I had to return so I could be formally introduced to my friend, McCorvy. So truly, I’ve no idea.”
I nodded and, turning again to McCorvy, said, “I will remember, Master.”
The Potentate, who had been rolling up the maps, pressed them at me. “No! Here! Take them, for the sea no longer calls my name. My time is soon.”
McCorvy’s face sagged while Halamin’s words hung in the air. “Richard, will you excuse us, please?” The sound of his voice said to go without question. I straightened up to exit, but Halamin put his hand on my arm and held on fast. “Let him stay, Hamet. It will all pass to him one day. He should know all.”
The Friar exhaled all the air in his chest with a slow, constant gasp. “That is so,” was his response as he reached under his robe to produce his bowl.
He placed the bowl carefully in my hands. “Can you find Scotland without a map? Put this beside him.”
I looked at my brother Templar. “When have I ever failed you, Geofray? You know I know the stars above Scotland... and the seas to take me there.”
We could hear a low rumbling off to the west, the sound of many horses riding on us. Beaumond turned his right ear in the direction of the sound. “Not so far off now. Unless you want to lose your head, I suggest you ride. Now! You need to be out of site before they get here. Mustn’t let them see you leave.”
Beaumond was wavering, tilting to one side. An arrow is a warm-blooded death, letting you bleed for hours as the fluid that is the flow of life seeps out of you. The arrowhead was wedged in an area only a surgeon might extract it from. He was bleeding fairly heavily from wounds on his arm and leg where an axe had cut through the chain mail. It was only a matter of time, as they say. With Salah el Din coming down on him, I prayed it would be sooner than later. He could not ride with that arrow in him, nor run with those wounds. To stand and fight to protect this ugly red bowl was senseless—and useless.
My Master and friend put his hand on my shoulder. Beaumond had that look of death on his face that I had seen before every conflict we had engaged in. The truce with el Din had not yet begun, Richard’s army was wandering towards a place it should not have gone towards, and a Saracen army was coming to meet them. Beaumond had a promise of his own demise, and el Din was as much a man of his word as was the Lionheart.
Odd, how a man can be trained to accept the matter of death as a fact, and how quickly his mind can recall memories with purpose but no real context. I turned to leave and he grabbed my collar and pulled me backward in the fashion he had when I was a young page in my uncle’s household. We would pilfer handfuls of dried apples, and a small saucer of honey, and at the first slightest noise, I would turn to run. Geofray would pull me backward and duck me down until it was safe to be young and nefarious again. From one instant in an evil time, I stood in the flow of good time. Then it was gone. I stood looking at a lifelong friend. He unslung the great sword he carried on his back. Woven over and around the hand guard was an old and worn Rosary from another age.
“After you’ve found Scotland, find France and my father.” Those were the last words spoken to me by a dying friend.
Beaumond was carrying up the hill the cross all Templars carried with them. He was preparing to finalize the restitution owed for the betrayal of his Christ. Life was the purse all Templars swore to pay if and when they were called upon.
As the hooves in the distance grew closer, I put the sword under the leg of my saddle and departed in great haste from a noble warrior awaiting his death, and towards our stronghold at Acre and the Templar ships bound for England and Scotland. I rode very hard for as long as the rouncy I rode could carry me, then, to spare the animal any more discomfort than needed, began to walk it. We crossed a small oasis, a place of several date palm trees and a pool of clean, fresh, and sweet water. I rested my horse and myself by a large rock in the shade of the trees. I filled the bowl with that sweet water and, with watchful eye, rested. As I sat there, trying to hold the threads of time together with an image of dried apples and honey in my mind, I wondered what was the worth of a man’s life.
“Millions, Richards. Millions upon millions upon even more millions! Millions of Saxon pounds, millions of French francs, Austrian ducats, marcs, guilders. Eighteen ships, boy. Eighteen ships laden with treasures even a miser’s mind couldn’t conceive, relics to blind a Pope’s eyes, gathered from the violent world we know. Great statues of gold, armor of silver built for the wearing of kings, silks softer than.... all smuggled past the French even as Molay burned at the stake. West and rising north, lad. The great woods and fields of New Scotland will swallow and hold this sorrow. I will follow you soon in a longship with men and more building material. Some of the older Norsemen have sworn to come with me, for they have already sailed those seas. And no... it’s not flat!”
Despite the gravity of the situation, I chuckled. The world had stopped being flat for Theo and I the moment the Norse maps were opened to us. The Norse were barely Christian, still more pagan than Christian really, but they knew the oceans and how to sail them. God love them for it, they had given us a new world to retreat to if we were men enough to go there. They had found a great land mass and followed it to the South as far as they dared to go. Because these maps had been obtained from the Sinclairs of Scotland through the efforts of an old Scottish Monk, to honor these men we called these lands New Scotland.
Theo stared at me a silent moment. “You know what to look for lad.” The mirth that often hid in Theo’s eyes was not there. For one second, I was not certain who this man was. “Brother Bya is seeing to loading three karves with tools and craftsman.”
Three karves? Good choice. Seventy foot long, the karve was sturdy enough for open seas—but with a draft of less than three feet, we could navigate the rivers that may be encountered. “I’ll man them with any Templars I can find and Cistercian Friars skilled in building. I have spoken to Lord Sinclair, and he or those of his clan will follow us in a latter year and finish what we begin. Richard, there are eighteen knarr and karves and dragonships, each laden with fifteen tons of cargo, moving to the rendezvous point off of La Roche. Some come from as far away as the Black Sea, Cyprus and Malta, Acre and Venice. They will meet you some fifty miles off the coast of France and follow you. Remember, boy, the Norse shipwrights that built those ships for our fleet crafted four of the ships that carry you to be disassembled and used for building purposes. And for God’s sake, if I don’t make it, when you return to Europe don’t land en masse and with the Cross Pattée splashed across your sail at the same port! At two days from France, separate to twos and threes and find different ports—or it’s a death sentence for sure! And for God’s sake...”
“I know, Theo. Don’t land at La Rochelle!”
“And land at night, so when you crash your ship into the docks, you empty-headed foot soldier, no one will notice.” My Master’s head sagged. “Richard, I’m sorry to make you take up this cross. Put this golden junk in a place where it will never hurt another human being. In unrighteous hands, an evil empire could make endless war; a wicked ruler could wipe whole races from the face of God’s earth. Boy, there’s more evil than good in this hoard.” Theo tilted his great head back and rolled his eyes, trying to remember what else his apprentice needed to learn. “Lad, if you’re found out, sink your ships as deeply to the ocean’s floor as you can. Unknown seas, squalls and sudden storms, strange winds... hard things to prepare for.”
I nodded. My old teacher’s warnings as I went to sea were always the same—winds, storms, waves. Ten years I as Ships’ Master of the Templar fleet, and he still worried about me as if I was a first-time oarsman! I loved him for it.
There was a rumble from the dark alley and we froze. Theo’s open palm fell immediately on the flickering candle that lit the tackle shed we conspired in. In the absolute darkness, I felt Theo’s hands rise shoulder high and his fingers spread wide, preparing to grab the first living soul to come in through the door. We held our air in until we could identify two wharf cats copulating dockside. Theo rekindled the candle.
“Now, before you depart! A matter of the greatest importance!” He bade me sit with one hand and dug through an old sea bag with the other. In the dim light I could see him retrieving a middle-sized ceramic pot.
“The ports of La Rochelle are shut tighter than a nun’s knees, those of Hambor closed tighter than a miser’s purse to us... but leave it to a determined woman to get something out and through!” Mixed with the shadows I saw him fussing with the lid on the pot, and as soon as he popped the seal my nostrils flared with an old, familiar odor: dried apples and honey. I leaned back. “God’s good grace!” I murmured through a smile.
“God’s got nothing to do with this, lad! Lisle, hearing from my father that I was not to ever return, and if he wished to communicate with me he scarce had a month, beat the messenger to take her package with him. The woman has her mother’s determination, and her gift with food. Had I not taken the Templar vows I should be married to the woman!” Theo fell into a pensive moment as he poured out our prize. “Though in truth,” he continued, “I can’t really see myself as the father of nine boys!”
We began devouring the fruit slowly at first, savoring its sharp but warm nature. And then it became a race, knowing that we would never again taste anything so sweet and, like two little boys stealing the evening’s meal, wanting to eat our full, we filled our cheeks. “I used to examine her treasure of spices. Twenty years I’ve been trying to learn of what spice she adds. It is a different flavor for me.”
“Cinnamon! You can taste it!”
“Cinnamon? That’s an Asian spice made from a tree bark! Wherever had you had cinnamon?”
His question gave me pause. When had I had that spice? I knew the taste well, but not from where I could recall! I shook my head and shrugged.
“Theo, how is your father?”
“For ninety-three winters, fine I suppose. But Lisle sends word his mind drifts away at times, and his body aches when the rains fall. As old I grow, I think more of him at my age. Stout, full of life, a man not of the world, but of his world. Richard, all seasons end, it is God’s way. Well, things are what they are! God’s Will be done, but watching my father slowly drifting away, t’would be most hard to observe! Odd thoughts for one who has seen such death. But! Through it all, to lift our spirits to carry on, there’ll be dried apples and honey!”
“Yes! Dried apples and honey! I do remember, uncle. We thought you’d beat the devil out of us when you caught us.” The old man forced a tired smile. “Did you know, Richard, that Geofray never cared for them? It was his ways of getting you to stretch and lift the pots to... you have become a great Templar Knight, nephew. I would have never suspected God’s Will in those days.” The elder Beaumond’s face held the sorrow in. His mind drifted from one place in time to another as he assimilated the facts of the situation. When I had arrived today, he had walked out excitedly to meet me. When I drew the sword from where it was tied ’neath my saddle leg, I saw a man grow from middle to old age before my eyes. I believe my friend had thought to save me the pain of telling his father of his death. “Try the ch ese. We’ve been, been making it since Geofray...” His voice trailed off and an uncomfortable silence fell across the table.
“Were you there at the end? How did it come? Did he meet death well?”
I was taken by surprise and had to compose my thoughts. “No, sir, I wasn’t there. But I returned with...” The old man raised his hand, regaining his own knightly dignity. It wasn’t needed, or important to know. It was a common end for a knight who took up the cross. In time, details would drift in. The great lord of the hall sat back in his chair and held out a bowl to me.
“Sir Thompson, please have some more dried apples and honey.”
Dried apples and honey would have to carry us until we found land with game. The second storm of the voyage was the fiercest I’d seen in all my years at sea. Even with the safety riggings, the towering waves crushed upon us as falling buildings, and men washed over the side into the black waters of eternity. As we tossed in the heavy seas, I blessed the Norse builders who had made our ships. The European Caravela Redondas, with their towering masts and heavy hulls, would have flipped in the high winds. Our Knarrs, with their yielding frames, even loaded with our weighty cargo, twisted and flexed as they skimmed over the waves and kept us afloat through it all. Most of our food rations were contaminated by salt water, or would soon rot or mildew from the water that had saturated our stores.
By God’s grace alone, not one ship was lost! And with the rising of the sun and clear, cloudless horizons, my crews returned to their normal grumbling selves. My ship’s navigator and helm’s man, Pietro Zeno, could read the stars and create better maps than any man in the Templar fleet. The young Italian’s whole family had served the Templar order for more than a century. Despite a young wife and several small children, he had jumped at the chance I had offered to map and explore an unknown world. That is what Zenos were born for! In truth, more than his skill, I wanted his humor and optimism on board. The crews of all our ships knew that even under unknown heavens, Pietro Zeno with his cross-staff and astrolabe could find his way home. And theirs, too. He stood behind me, watching the waters in front of us.
“Ricardo, trust God and believe your maps. Soon we will find land, the map swears to it and I can feel it!” For the men on deck who heard him, a new confidence grew and it spread from ship to ship faster than the Black Death had through Europe. The sense of doing God’s work returned to us, quelling our fears and lifting our hearts.
Late that afternoon, while Zeno and I shared dried apples and honey, a gull was seen flying in the path we were headed.
