Temple Sword

Chapter 87 Fire and Mud

The door of Charles Anjou's chief knight slammed shut.Antal turned the key from the room, cursed fiercely, and threw off his black winter coat.

He sat down in an armchair by the table in his room, poured a glass of strong red wine from the copper jug ​​he had prepared, and drank it in one gulp.It wasn't until the third cup that he managed to calm down.

What saddened him the most was not what Laszlo said. What the attendant said was not wrong, or there were not many things wrong.He says that Antal should forgive his wife, but this is not true because the knight is not angry with Agnes.

But Laszlo's words awakened in him a dark, indelible fear that the death of their unborn child was partly Agnes' fault.If this was true, he thought, then his wife was as guilty as he was.

Antar feared that even after their marriage Agnes feared the wrath of God because her husband had broken his oath to the Lord and left the Knights Templar.He fears that his one and only love awaits the birth of their child with unspoken fear and anxiety, and that constant tension kills the fetus.

But he had another fear: that the wrath of God had indeed come upon them on that cursed winter night.

It had been almost a year since he left the Chalokoz house, and not because he didn't want to see his wife.Instead, he longed to see Agnes again, to feel her, to hold her in his arms, to look her in the eyes, to smell her hair and skin, to kiss her all over.

But he realized that he couldn't get close to her, he couldn't talk to her, which made him extremely painful, and he was afraid that he, as a knight who broke the oath, would hurt her and let the suffering happen to them again.

Whichever idea was closer to the truth, Antar attributed the cause of these disasters to his love and affection for Agnes.Umberto had warned him that summer ten years ago that he could not love.He should have listened to the singer, he thought.

"My child!" A voice from a dark corner of the room startled Antal, who clumsily knocked over the empty glass and half-full jug on the table.

"Who are you?" He instinctively drew his sword, staring into the darkness, panting. "come out!"

A tall figure in a brown robe stepped out of the corner.

"You needn't be afraid, Antal," he said, "it's me..."

The man pulled his hood down, revealing a scarred and wrinkled face in the sparse candlelight.His gray beard and shoulder-length hair fell like a waterfall of snow, but were still thick.

"William!" Antal gasped, and in shock forgot to put the sword back in its sheath. "Is that you?"

"It's me." The old man smiled sadly, "I'm here to bring you back to life."

—

A new flagon was placed on the table, and more candles lit the room.Fruit, bread, and meat grilled over coals by servants add to the warmth of the abode.The food was gone in no time, there was not much wine left, and William temporarily dropped his rules and drank more than usual.

Two experienced knights sat face to face, talking in a low voice.They have a lot to say and they haven't seen each other for five years.Their story was not finished until midnight, when William, with a painful sigh, finally revealed why he had left the Dubica estate more than a month ago.

"I want you to know," William's voice was softer than before, "you are innocent."

Antar frowned, "I thought you despised me for leaving the Knights."

"That's not what I meant," the old man leaned forward, and put his hand on the back of his adoptive son's hand on the table. "Of course, I didn't despise you for anything."

"So……"

"It's not a sin to give your heart completely to someone," William said. "It was never a sin. I'm really sorry you had to keep believing that."

Antal swallowed hard, staring at his uncle silently, he didn't know what to say.

"I know very well how long you have known your wife," admitted the old knight, "Umberto told me everything. And I... I am sorry," he apologized again, "for the purest emotion in the world , you have to cheat, conceal and lie."

"Uncle," Antar muttered, "you've completely confused me, what are you talking about?"

"What I'm saying is that you've been living a lie, just as the whole world has been living a lie for centuries. Love was never a sin, and Christ never said that women were born sinful, or that they were more sinful than men. More sinful. If anyone, whether he be a sworn Templar, or the Pope of Rome himself, if he loves someone, feels that he is made for them, and is able to sacrifice his whole existence for them, it is never Probably a sin. Jesus Christ himself knew it, and I..." At this point William stopped short.

"And you?" Antal asked curiously.

"And I know exactly what that feels like, my dear boy," said the old knight, uttering the secret he dreaded most, the one he had never told anyone in his life. "I know what it's like to have love that's not limited to physical desire, I know what it's like to feel the suffocating pain of not being around a loved one, and I know what it's like to lose an unborn child..."

"You know?" The young knight leaned back in his seat. He felt himself being thrown into the icy water. "How do you know, brother?"

"I wish I didn't know," William's voice trembled, "I know more than I want to, and I know I'd be happier if I didn't."

Antal was still not sure if he fully understood what his uncle was trying to tell him.

"Tell me what happened!" he begged. "Tell me what I should know."

"Her name is Yasmin." William confessed.

Antal suddenly realized that in order to duel with the black-robed Carlos on the banks of the Sava River that night, he went to William's room and took the sword secretly. He had heard the name at that time, but he didn't care at all at the time, and It was quickly forgotten.But now when he heard the name again, a memory emerged in a hidden corner of his mind, and the image of William begging Yasmin in his restless sleep became clear again.

William didn't pay attention to the astonished expression on Antar's face, his mind was already elsewhere.

"When I met her, I was already a knight, a young man," he told Antal. "I consider myself a devout and staunch Templar, and I never thought I'd break my vow of chastity. And I've always been able to keep my carnal desires in check, and...if sometimes...to suppress them...you know I mean, boy!"

"I know." Antal nodded, and continued to listen to the story carefully.

"The point is, I have never been to a brothel, and most of the Knights are regulars there. I firmly believe that I can resist any temptation."

"But you can only resist the temptation of the flesh," Lily Knight interjected, "but you cannot restrain your heart."

"Exactly," laughed William, "that hot summer in Damascus when I suddenly found myself, a sworn knight in white robes, staring into emerald eyes like a marble statue, my heart pounded. Jumping and jumping, forgetting to breathe. It was just a moment, I died in that moment, and I was born again in that moment. Since then, there is no one in my heart except her. I can't see her for a month. Heartbroken. But I never told anyone about our love, it was a secret between the two of us."

"Never?" Antal asked.

"Never," the old man shook his head. "We even lived together for a while. We were in love for years, and when I finally felt we had nothing to lose, I helped her escape from her wealthy merchant father and brought her back to my estate, hidden In a safe place, away from all my servants and minions.

When I was away she lived in a back room, and when I came back I gave my servants a holiday and enjoyed the time we had together.We worshiped different gods, but we always dreamed of the same heaven during our time together..."

Antal filled their glasses with wine, and William didn't object.Perhaps he didn't even notice that he was raising the glass to his lips and taking a sip of the wine.

"And then it all ended like a dream," he stammered, with bottomless bitterness in his voice. "That was less than a month before the fall of Acre, when Christians and Muslims no longer had an iota of trust in each other, and they and we were suspicious of every shadow and unfamiliar face around us with hostility.

Yasmin is pregnant and we can't hide it any longer.Twice I had to smuggle a healer to the estate for him, but as I could trust neither Christian surgeons nor Muslims, I had to get a quack who was easy to buy. "

"I guess," Antar said, "she doesn't like that."

"No, she didn't like it at all, but I didn't have a choice. I didn't know what to do at the time, and I couldn't answer her when she asked what would happen to the fate of our unborn child. That was the first time we had an argument , and the last time..."

"What happened?"

"I have been away for two weeks," said the old knight, "and I cannot get out of Acre sooner, the situation there is too tense. Because of a violent quarrel among my companions in the monastery, the Grand Master's personal Please, I stayed there for an extra day to help restore peace within the Order. Then, when I was finally allowed to go home, I was greeted with a living nightmare."

William was silent, perhaps to gather courage, he took another sip of wine, closed his eyes, and continued.

"My men greeted me at the door saying they had caught a Saracen spy. I was careful not to show my concern and silently prayed to God that my men would not take Yasmin as a spy. But when I entered the lobby, I was greeted with a more terrifying scene than I had imagined.

Before that, I thought that even if they took her as a spy, they would drag her to me in chains at most.But my servants dragged a bloodied corpse into the hall, and before my eyes lay the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and the most horrible corpse I have ever seen.Those emerald green eyes stared into lightless nothingness, and the silky skin stretched taut and bloody over lifeless flesh.

If the grand master hadn't forced me to stay in Acre, if I could go home one day earlier, Yasmin would not have died.Who knows, maybe she was discovered when she sneaked out of the secret room to get water or food, and out of fear, she took out a knife to protect herself.My men, or so they told me, thought she was going to attack them, so they killed her.But they will never be able to explain why a pregnant woman was cut open and the fetus inside her was thrown into the fire..."

Only then did William open his eyes. As Antal expected, there were no tears in his eyes, and there was no light.

"I didn't get down on my knees and start crying," admits William. "At that moment, my first thought was to kill everyone and burn the house down. I don't deny it, I wanted to die myself. But, I didn't Acting out, neither god nor man could erase the look of horror on my face, but I attribute it to seeing a murdered and abused mother lying in the hallway of my house. What did I do next? I Bury my love and pray to our two Gods for her. Then comes the time of revenge..."

"How did you... avenge her?" Antal asked, he drank some wine, but his throat was still extremely dry.

"I have found out who her murderers were," William answered. "There were three of them, a servant and two guards. It was not difficult, for they believed that nothing would come of their actions, and they admitted it to themselves. But they don't know what fate awaits them...

I bribed the Saracen quack who had taken care of Yasmin before, paid him a fortune to come to my estate, and pointed out that my servant and those two guards were actually traitors who had been serving the Mamluks for months Be a spy.

Of course they denied it because it wasn't true.But I pretended to believe the man, and I shackled them and whipped them, and then I set three fires.I stood in front of them as they burned, and never took my eyes off their eyes for a moment.

I think they died knowing the truth and what that woman meant to me, but they didn't say a word.Even then, they didn't want to betray me, they were my good men until their death, it's ironic, isn't it? "

Antal couldn't answer, he felt his stomach tightening and his hands trembling slightly.

"Do you know what's the worst part of all this?" William asked, "I knew then that our love wasn't really a sin, but what I did to three of my men in the name of Christianity It is the act of pleasing Satan."

"You... what do you mean?" The young knight finally said, "How do you know that love is not a sin?"

"Do you remember the shroud I showed you on the riverbank five years ago?" The old knight's voice sounded completely different from before. "I said at the time that it was a copy of the shroud of the Savior..."

"Yes, I remember." Antal nodded repeatedly, but at this moment he was completely confused.He had no idea what that mysterious and dangerous painting had to do with all of this.

"When I and some lucky companions of mine learned the secret of the Shroud," William said, "we learned something else. Whether we were members of the Knights Templar or not, the Inquisition would These words burned us all at the stake. In fact, if you ask me, one of the unknown charges in the trial against our Order may have been because one of us knew the truth..."

"What kind of truth?" Antar was puzzled, "What did you and your friends know?"

"You must never tell anyone!" William's deep voice sounded, "Do you swear that if I tell you, you will keep silent?"

"I swear," Antal assured, even though he didn't know what secrets he was about to hear.

"The man who kept the Shroud knows many dangerous secrets," said the old knight, "and the greatest of these is that of Mary Magdalene."

"Mary Magdalene?" repeated the Knight of the Lilies. "What secret?"

"As our religious leaders say, she was never a whore," whispered William, "but she was the wife and equal partner of Jesus Christ. As Agnes is to you, or Yasmin is to me."

Antal suddenly swallowed, he coughed choked up, and then decided that it would be best to have another glass of wine.

"Don't ask about it again, and never tell anyone! Or your life could be in danger," William said, as his nephew struggled to finish his last glass of wine. "I think you have to know this to understand that your love was never a sin, any more than mine is. I'm only telling you these things now because I wanted you to make our knights The regiment has come back to life, but now," he said with a smile on his face, "it doesn't matter anyway..."

"Tell me, Uncle," said Antal annoyedly, "what should I do! Because you didn't come here on a whim to tell me all this, why did you come here, and what do you want to tell me?"

William stood up, walked around the small table, and clasped his adopted son's shoulders tightly with both hands.

"Neither you nor Agnes did anything wrong," the old knight leaned into his ear. "God loves you. I'm here to tell you that your wife is a godsend, I visited her, got to know her, and love her as much as I love you.

Your wife misses you terribly, so, tomorrow morning, you throw away that damned ugly black cloak, put on your white robes, if you didn't burn them all, and go home to Chalokoz.The death of your child is a horrible tragedy, but you are not trying to give birth to a new life, which is complete bullshit. "

As if slapped in the face, Antal turned his gaze to his uncle, and tears ran down his cheeks for the first time in that cursed year.

"I have also spoken to the king," continued William, "and I will lead your two hundred soldiers while you are away. I will also stand behind King Charles for you. At first, he was afraid that the cardinal would see I will say something when I appear at court as a Templar, but I take all responsibility for it.

Your King of Anjou also knew William Barto from the East and took my word for it, and you must know that he doesn't want to see you again until you're back to your old self.We all agree that you should stay home and recover until next spring, so don't come back until then unless war breaks out..."

"This is the second time you have saved me, do you know?" Antal asked hesitantly, "I feel like the five-year-old orphan back then, and you pulled me out of the mud again."

"Rest well, my dear boy." William kissed him on the cheek. "May you finally be able to sleep peacefully, and welcome the dawn with a sober spirit!"

(End of this chapter)