The Pegasus Secret

that the bushes obscured an opening in the earth much larger than that into which I had stumbled.

I was facing no mere animal burrow but a cave or shaft in the stone white as the distant snow, a hole so cleverly concealed that, had I not fallen, I would have walked past without notice. Without moving from where I stood, the marks of stonecutters were visible upon the walls. This was, then, no natural crevice or fault in the mountain but one brought about by the hand of man.

Had I but turned and sought explanation of my discovery, I would go to the fate that awaits me in peace. As it is, Satan himself fueled the curiosity that led me forward.

From the light outside, I could see I was in a chamber, a cave, perhaps, crudely enlarged. Darkness prohibited my taking its exact measure, but I could stand upright and my extended arms touched neither side nor ceiling.

In the dimness, I perceived an object in the middle of the rough floor, a block of stone of about the size of a bound manuscript.⁴ On this stone were carvings, letters I scarcely could make out which appeared to be of Hebrew characters, perhaps Aramaic, and Latin. I let my fingers explore since there was insufficient light to see clearly.

Could this be the vessel spoken of in the Gnostic heresies? The stone was of a texture like the white of the Languedoc, so it likely had been carved where I found it,⁵ a more believable occurrence than transporting such a heavy object from the Holy Land. Without reading the inscriptions, I would not know and I was filled with a lust for that knowledge no less carnal than that which drives a man to seek a harlot.

I needed light by which I could probe the mystery of what I had found. The Temple was but a quarter of an hour away and could be seen from the mouth of the cavern. The light of a single taper would assuage a hunger for knowledge more acute than any my belly had ever felt for victuals.

I ran as though hell itself were behind me, as indeed it turned out to be. I dashed through the portcullis, hardly extending a greeting to those who guarded. the entrance. I crossed the cloister at a run that drew the attention of all and did not care of the opprobrium such conduct would bring.⁶ Such was my haste that I neglected to cleave to the walls of the arcade surrounding the garth, thereby demonstrating my humility by surrendering the wider path. Instead, I dashed along the middle, caring not which of my brethren were forced to give way. Inside, I suppressed the instinct to snatch the first lighted candle I saw from its sconce. Instead, I found one in my own cell and I stopped in the chapel to light it from those that eternally burn there. In such a haste was I, I nearly neglected to genuflect upon my departure.

My return to the cave was at a more sedate pace than my departure, for, should an errant breeze or a sudden move extinguish the candle, I would have to return to the Temple to light it anew.

Inside the cavern, I knelt beside the stone. edifice and shielded my candle. The Latin inscription was of a dialect so archaic I found it difficult to decipher. The stone into which it was carved badly crumbled.

As I contemplated what was written, it was as if the cold hand of Satan squeezed my heart and I swooned into darkness. I know not how long I was oblivious to the physical world but when I awoke, I wished I had not. According to the label carved thereon, this stone contained that which even now I dare not mention. The fire to which I will shortly be consigned will not be hot enough to expurgate my soul of the perdition engraved upon that stone.

I was distraught, knowing not what to do. I must have been possessed by demons, for I first tried to lift the top from the stone. God's mercy made it far too well lodged to come free. Had I succeeded, I would surely have suffered a fate not unlike Lot's wife, for my eyes would have beheld that far more odious to God than the end of Sodom. My next thought was to share my find with those far wiser and more dedicated to God than I, who could surely explain what I had found. I now realize this was the same urge Satan fostered upon Eve to share her sin with Adam, spreading the disease of sinful knowledge like the plague.⁷

I know my mind was not my own, for I left the unused potion of the taper, an extravagance but one of the lesser sins I was to commit because of the curiosity the devil inspired in my soul.

As I gained sight of the Temple, I witnessed an outpouring of men on horseback, among them most of the knights, all clad as though for battle. Among them I recognized Guillaume de Poitiers, Tartus the German and others, being most of the Temple skilled in the arts of war. With them were asses, burdened as if for a long campaign. They were gone before I reached the walls, their memory being little but a cloud of choking dust.

I was surprised to find the portcullis raised and unmanned, for if the brethren had ridden forth to vanquish the invaders feared by the Holy See, they most surely would have secured their own source of supply.

Inside the walls, all was confusion. Swine and oxen were unfettered, running freely through the cloister gardens as ducks and chickens flapped and scattered underfoot. I could not find Phillipe and presumed he had gone with his master. The cellarer was in the storage area off the refectory, musing over provisions strewn across the floor – wine barrels, their staves crushed – and the litter of haste predominant.

The cellarer was an old man, his love the order in which he kept his charge. His voice quavered as though broken by sorrow.

'They are gone,' he said before I could inquire into the tumult and disorder. 'A rider from Paris, from Brother de Malay himself.⁸ All the brothers otherwise unoccupied were ordered to collect the holy relics, empty the treasury and take such provisions as they would need for seven days. For what purpose, I know not.'

This was exceeding strange. Brothers 'otherwise unoccupied' would pertain to those knights trained in the art of war, leaving those charged with the actual sustenance of this Temple. Were the departing knights sallying forth to battle, they would certainly not be ordered to subject the Temple's holy relics and treasury to the vagaries of conflict. So full of my virulent discovery was I that I held the whimsy of the Master of the Order to be of little consequence. I only pondered in whom, if at all, I should confide.

It was after Vespers that the wisdom of the Master became apparent. We were gathered in the chapter house, each seated on the stone benches that were carved into its walls, discussing what little business might be left upon the departure of so many of our number. I had in my robes ink, quill and paper, planning to return to my duties when our meeting concluded, though verily my mind had so succumbed to my discovery, I doubt I could have added two figures. I knew not to whom, if anyone, I should confide. The first chapter of the rules of the Order had been read,⁹ when the door slammed open. Therein stood the king's bailie for Serres and Rennes. With him were a host of men-at-arms.

'What say you, good brother?' asked the cellarer. As the senior brother present, he was, under the rules of the Order, acting as abbot.

'I am no brother to you,' the bailie said.

I knew not his name but seen him at the Temple before, his little swine-eyes peering from a face of corpulence as if he were a merchant about to offer a price for a bolt of cloth.

'What means this intrusion?' the cellarer asked.

The bailie motioned so that the various men-at-arms filled the room and blocked all exit therefrom, though in truth the only exit was into the store closet to which I have referred. 'In the name of Philip, by Grace of God King of the French, larder you to stand forth, for you, all of you, are under arrest and all goods herein forfeit.'

A murmur of protest ran its course before the cellarer said, 'So it cannot be, for we are of the Church, not subject to the laws of God's servant Philip.'

The bailie was undismayed. He let out a laugh like the bark of a dog, reading from a document that bore the royal seal, 'You are accused by your king of such crimes as idolatry, blasphemy and such physical atrocities as fondling each other, kissing each other upon the fundament and other private places, of burning the bodies of deceased brothers to make powder of the ashes which you then mix in the food of younger brothers, of roasting infants and anointing idols with the fat therefrom, of celebrating hidden rites and mysteries to which young and tender virgins are introduced, and a variety of abominations too absurd and horrible to be named.¹⁰ As such you are forfeit any rights to heard by ecclesiastical courts.'

'You will answer to His Holiness,' someone said. 'His Holiness does King Philip's bidding,' the bailie replied.

With this pronouncement we were roughly shoved and dragged outside, placed in ass-drawn carts and taken away from the Temple and into a night illuminated by a waning moon. The darkness that gripped my spirit was without even this poor light, for the charges made against us were so far from the realm of truth as to be the product of certain perjury. My only consolation was that many of my brothers had been forewarned that very afternoon and I had witnessed their escape.

I could but ponder if the king's men had found the document or if it was still safe in its hiding place. Mere