The Templar’s Bowl
by
Peter “Lou” D’Alessio
Copyright © 2011
Chapter 12: Horses for Brother Theo
When one says ‘go to sea’, one that has never actually been to sea imagines one simplyunties a line from the dock and off one goes. In the thirty hours or so from when Brother Theo tossed me into the clutches of de Flor, even being again no more than a boy, I have never known—and not even until now—such work as my back and hands did do before our Captain called to make sail. The Saint Anne was of the biggest cog designs of its day. Twelve lasten, aye, and more. Unlike the sleek Norse lapstrakes with their curled and pointed bows and stern, the Saint Anne was a huge, rectangular box with a bow and stern that narrowed a bit at each end. The packing of cargo had to be precise, or the first stiff wind in that high mast would blow us under. And one had to think through the order of how things went in versus the ports where you stopped and cargo went out. Your water barrels stored in the bow constituted a miserable trip as you dug your way to and from the barrels over and over again. And for God’s sake, don’t get your food stores mixed with animal fodder. Ah, now we come to my purpose for being!
The Templar Empire was beginning to crumble. We were losing all the ground we had taken from the Muslims in striking fashion, city after city falling. In 1291, our Grand Master, Guillaume de Beaujeu would prove an unworthy leader causing European defeats in several great battles because of his petty stubbornness. He would shame the Order by means of saving his neck from an Arab’s axe by ransoming himself after being captured. This was against the rule of the Order from the first! He would lose his head at Acre, six months later; God’s Will be done. As the reasons for our existence faded, so did a need for Templars. But not yet! For now there were still Templar Knights in the Holy Lands, and they needed horses!
In that day, being at sea was like being in prison with a good chance of being washed overboard and drowning. Most stops for food and water didn’t get you off the deck except to load. From Marseilles in the South of France we would follow the coastline of Italy, stopping at the ports of Genoa and Rome. We would follow the west coast of Greece, crossing from the Mediterranean to Aegean Sea, go to the Isles of Crete and Rhodes to Cyprus and at last to Tyre, Acre, and Jerusalem. At best, it was a trip of two thousand nautical miles or more, depending on the Captain’s plan. We carried sums of money for Templar Banks in Tyre and Jerusalem, Pilgrims to deposit at various ports in the Holy Land, and to our stronghold at Acre, horses! My employment on this journey would be to see that the horses that Theo had conscripted for the cavalry and Knights at Acre arrived in good shape. When the Captain had asked Theo if I was good with a horse, Theo responded, “No, a shovel!”
“Of Palfreys?”
“Eleven, sir!”
“Coursers?”
“Twenty and nine, sir!”
“Destriers?”
“But one and no more, sir!”
I looked up to where Castanzi stood writing the tally in his book. “I’ll tell the Captain. When they’ve finished loading the feed, we’ll sail. Do you know how to make the horse bread, little Saxon?”
“We have fine beans and peas that I will bake. The destrier and palfreys will eat of that mostly and by their station, that one will get the most. The coursers, but a little and more-so of grain and bran, sir.”
“And when they have finished using their feed?”
I hoisted the shovel next to me and grinned a mocking smile. Castanzi chuckled, waved and walked away. I turned back to my charges and checked their ties. I had hobbled the destrier hoping to quell his desire to wander and escape the strict confines of the cog. He was a fine warhorse, I guessed of years, three. Strong and energetic, he was a gift from Molay to the Templar in command of Acre. The palfreys would be sold to whichever Christian Knights needed more horses (this to help pay for the transport) and the coursers would be given to the Templar cavalry.
There was a sudden lurch and, after I had calmed my horses some, I scampered up the ladder and peered towards the dock and watched us away. It was a grand sight seeing a sail filling with wind and pulling at the yardarm overhead. I was on my way to all the places I had only dreamed of ever seeing. Theo had told me I would learn to be a sailor. It would be interesting to see how shoveling horse manure at the sharks for a few thousand nautical miles would bring me to that end. Once we were well away from the docks, I returned to my charges.
As a page for Beaumond, I had learned to care for fine horses, as were all pages so trained. We were neither grooms nor trainers, but we pages knew how to care for these creatures... and to protect their value in money from damage or unnecessary wear! The cost of Molay’s gift, with all its armor, was more than most common men would make in a lifetime. And on the battlefield, they were life itself to the human masters that straddle their backs. These mounts had to perform at their peak. The training that a good destrier was given for war was near as great as the Knight that rode it. This horse, in particular, would receive more of my attention on this trip than all the other horses together.
I had been grooming for a while when the floor suddenly began to shimmy and roll beneath me. I leaned against a courser to try and steady myself. I was getting seasick!
“’Way, little paisan, c’mon up and get some air before you throw up on Molay’s money!” It was de Flor. He was kneeling on the deck and reaching a hand down for me to grab—that was a good thing, I doubt I could have operated the ladder. He lifted me as if I were a feather. “Not like a lake, is it, boy?” De Flor’s eyebrows widened as he spread my eyelids and looked into my eyes. “Eh, you’ll be fine. Here, lean against the mast a moment and breathe deep. You’ll be fine.” I, through my dizziness, leaned back. It was a cool wind that blew across my face and indeed I was regaining my legs a bit. I watched the Captain checking the rigging and rechecking that all cargo was firmly secured. The sun had hardly moved overhead when he returned to me.
“Feel better, lad?” I nodded. “Good. A day or two, you’ll have your sea legs. In the meantime, you’ll wobble like a weed in the wind.” I nodded and lifted off the mast. “Well, Theo said you had no fear of work. You worked well, Castanzi tells me your horses are happy. You hungry, little paisan?” I hadn’t thought about food and, despite my giddy stomach, I actually was very hungry. I nodded. “Eh, good. Come with me. We’ll eat, drink, and become ship mates.”
Captain’s quarters, if they be called that, were little more than a larger barrel with a board across it to serve as a table and three or four smaller barrels around it to serve as chairs. There was a large basket-like bowl filled with chunks of bread, a small, odd-looking metal saucer filled with what seemed to be olive oil that wore a handle so as to hold it over the candle and warm and rewarm the oil. There were two copper cups of no great value already filled, one with water for me and the other with a strong red wine for de Flor. The water-filled cup was very familiar to me. It reminded me of the cup that Theo had fetched from the well the night my Templar mentors had found me, and it lifted my spirits to drink from it.
The Captain pointed to a barrel for me to sit on. As soon as our bottoms had touched down, de Flor ripped into the bread with great gusto, dipping it deeply in the warm oil. He stopped his frantic activity and looked at me. “Waiting, lad, means you get less! Or are you waiting to say Grace?” I blinked at him, not knowing what to say. “Boy, here we save praying for the storms that shake the timbers of our ship, and God knows no disrespect from His sailors, Saint Nicholo guide us.” He crossed himself, looked down at our meager table, then looked back at me. “I didn’t have meat or heavy food brought out, knowing your stomach might be of an unsettled mind. Please, try this bread. It comes from a small port on the coast of southern Italy. I had it brought into me in a cask in Marseilles. It’s good!”
I took a chunk. I squeezed it in my fingers, as it had a strange texture for bread, almost spongy. I tore off a piece and sniffed at it. It smelled like a slice of Heaven. The aroma of warm sausage filled my nostrils. I dipped the piece of sausage bread into the warm, greenish fluid de Flor was holding over the candle to warm for me and slipped it into my mouth. A smile must have crossed my face because the Captain rolled a good belly laugh in my direction. “Ha! ’Way, me paisan. By the time you get off my ship, not only will you be a great sailor, but I’m also going to send you back to Theo an Italian! Eat. It’s good for you, eh?”
No one has to tell a twelve-year-old boy to eat twice. The hard physical labor had hungered me greatly. Oddly, this bread made with the renderings of sausage fat and dipped in olive oil was filling, the kind of filling you get from a good meal. The Captain, I think, was glad that an Italian delicacy delighted me so. He was teaching me the first rule of great ship’s Masters: Eat well, and see to it your crew does too. “My little paisan, this good? You Templars on land get meat three times a week, but Templar law means little out here. We carry a few chickens and fowl, and maybe a small pig or two, but they don’t go that far. You keep cheese, get bread, and if it goes stales you use warm oil, salt on it if you have it, anything to fill the bellies of your crew. You understand what I tell you?” I nodded, for in truth I did. “Good. That fat old bastard told me you were a smart lad with an important future. If it was anybody but my paisan Theo, it wouldn’t have mattered—I still wouldn’t have taken a green boy to sea. But he was right. You realize you worked twenty-four straight hours on a handful of wheat bread? If I had asked any of my crew to do that while were still tied to the doc, he’d have cut my throat! Speaking of cutting throats... you ever kill anyone?”
“That’s the quickest way I know to get yourself killed! If you want to die at sea, pull the knife back behind your ear with blade at the bottom of your palm! Push up, jab, like this! Always up!” My knife was still back behind my ear when de Flor slapped me... twice. He was so quick I had stopped thinking of him as a pot-bellied old man. This man was a warrior of the first order. “You’re dead again, little paisan. It’s a good thing the horses like you, or I’d throw you overboard as worthless weight. Enough for today, you’re actually making progress. Now tell me, where we are.”
I thought for a moment. “Zonchio, near Navarino, Cape Matapan on the tip of Greece. Food and water there, then on to Crete.”
De Flor looked at me as if he was debating whether or not to tell me something. “Maybe you and I should take a walk when we get there, give our legs a stretch.” I nodded.
I was picking up the Captain’s mannerisms along with a lot more. Under de Flor’s wing, I could navigate almost as good as old man Zeno—almost, but that was still saying a lot. I could use an astrolabe to measure the angle of celestial bodies, knew to use the magnetic compass on cloudy days, the hourglass, the quadrant, and cross staff; all were second nature to me. And we had been at sea less than six months! When de Flor would ask what was the difference between old man Zeno and me, I would reply that I had more teeth than he did, and so in a storm I could hold the rudder with both hands and better grasp a safety rope between my teeth. The Captain would laugh when I’d tell him that... until, off the tip of Greece and in a wild tempest, I actually did it. Well, anyway... I steered the rudder in one hand and clung to little poppa Zeno’s shirt collar in the other to keep him from washing over the side. After that, de Flor and the crew stopped calling me ‘little paisan’ and I became just ‘paisan,’ fellow countryman. ‘Ask paisan why the horses are naying’ or ‘tell paisan to shimmy up the mast.’ I had the respect that even a boy gets at sea when a life is risked for another. I still cared for the horses, but there were common deck hands that did the shoveling now to free me to perform all the new duties I was being given. De Flor moved me from sailor to sailor, task to task, and by the time we docked at Zonchio I was a full member of the circle. The circle, as best I can explain, were the commanders. I knew how to rig a sail, navigate, steer, and load, and had been giving orders that were actually obeyed... I was of value! As we pulled towards the dock I set the hoist for loading, prepared to pitch the plank, and thought that for a pot-bellied old pirate, Roger de Flor was one hell of a sailor.
You can always tell the sailors who just walked off their boats... they were the ones that wobble while their legs got accustomed to being on a ground that doesn’t roll with the ocean’s waves. De Flor and I followed the narrow streets of Zonchio. I had not been told where we were going. When your Captain says ‘jump,’ you jump, and so I followed without question. Zonchio was nothing like Rome or Marseilles. It was a tiny rest stop, more like a toilette for the pilgrims and a watering hole for ships. I know it is not my place to judge, God having given a place for everything, but if the Great Lord every decided to give the world a physic, I believe Zonchio would be a place of great importance! For every hill of the seven of Rome, Zonchio seemed to have ten, so walking through the city was like riding out a bad storm at sea. We went up and down, up and down. In a century or so in the seas of Zonchio, Ottoman Turks would battle using cannon on ships for the first time, but at this place in time I thought the port to be the asshole of the planet.
In truth, Zonchio was a typical small sea town anywhere, full of taverns and whores, and priests offering salvation after the taverns and whores. The black plague had not yet ravished Europe, so there were plenty of people to crowd houses (two or three families to a room), mob the streets, and manage many small shops to offer all manner of goods needed or wanted by men of the sea or pilgrims wishing more than the oat or bran meal and pickled onions of a sea voyage dinner table.
As with the great towns, there were many beggars, those returned from the latest Crusade with blinded eyes or missing limbs after taking up the spear for the cross, and now unable to work the plow or loom in honest labor. As we approached a particular tavern de Flor seemed set on entering, I dropped a small gold Italian coin into the red clay bowl of a legless soul who was there begging. We entered the cool darkness and as we walked to a table half hidden behind a support column, de Flor held up two fingers to the bar maid.
We sat in silence for a moment, enjoying a stable floor, and de Flor looked at me questioningly. “You do that a lot! Why?”
I drew back. “Do what, sir?”
The captain received our drinks from the maid and continued. “Here.” He slammed the mug of blood-red wine down in front of me. “You have the virtues, now have the vices.” He pushed the wine at me. “Why do you always drop a gold coin into a legless or armless beggar’s cup? In Rome, I thought you were going to give away your whole purse.”
From our seats, I could see the back of the beggar resting against the lower edge the door frame. “There but for the grace of God go I? A small price for his price?” was all I could offer... for in truth, I knew not why.
De Flor had a faint smile on his lips. “Are you certain you’ve never been in battle? You shame me, paisan.” De Flor twisted in his seat and, placing his fingers to his lips, unleashed an ear-splitting whistle that caused the cripple, half in the street, to turn and to grab the door frame and twist to face de Flor. “This is your lucky day, friend. Here! Catch!” He said, tossing a solid gold Italian sovereign coin of great value. It flew through the air and right into the beggar’s bowl.
I looked at my friend. “You lying old bastard! You are a good man!”
De Flor laughed. “If you let this out, paisan, I will cut your throat myself!”
We were on our second mugs on wine. Not much was said, for I still didn’t know why we waited. But wait we did—and perhaps a bit nervously, judging by the way de Flor, with a great subtlety which I ’t used to, slowly scanned the room as if looking for someone. The wine was not mixed with water, was fairly firm and strong as most common local wines tended to be. It was relaxing me and I leaned back against the support column behind me.
As I did so, I felt the sharpened end of a very heavy blade slide against my throat and press inward. I froze deathly still. My master’s eyes were looking over my shoulder at my unseen assailant. I could see him reaching under his tunic to where his own blade rested.
