The Iron King. Морис Дрюон

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      THE ARCHERS HAD FORMED a cordon to keep the crowd out of the space in front of the cathedral. Heads appeared in curiosity at every window.

      The mist had dissolved and a pale sunlight illumined the white stone of Notre-Dame of Paris. For the cathedral was only seventy years old, and work was still continuously in progress upon the decorations. It still had the brilliance of the new, and the light emphasised the curve of its ogival windows, pierced the lacework of its central rose and accentuated the teeming statues of its porches with rose-coloured shadows.

      Already, for an hour, the sellers of chickens who, every morning, did business in front of the cathedral, had been driven back against the houses.

      The crowing of a cock, stifling in its cage, split the silence, that weighty silence which had so surprised Philippe d’Aunay as he came out of the Mercers’ Hall; while feathers floated head-high in the air.

      Captain Alain de Pareilles stood stiffly to attention in front of his archers.

      At the top of the steps leading up from the open space, the four Templars stood, their backs to the crowd, face to face with the Ecclesiastical Tribunal which sat between the open doors of the great portico. Bishops, canons, and clerics sat in rows upon benches specially placed for them.

      People looked with curiosity at the three Cardinal Legates, sent especially by the Pope to signify that the sentence was without appeal and had the final approval of the Holy See. The attention of the spectators was also particularly held by Jean de Marigny, the young Archbishop of Sens, brother of the First Minister, who had conducted the whole prosecution, and by Brother Renaud, the King’s confessor and Grand Inquisitor of France.

      Some thirty monks, some in brown habits, some in white, stood behind the members of the Tribunal. The only civilian in the assembly, Jean Ployebouche, Provost of Paris, a man of some fifty years, thick-set and frowning, seemed not altogether happy in the company in which he found himself. He represented the royal power and was responsible for the maintenance of order. His eyes moved continuously from the crowd to the Captain of the Archers, from the Captain to the young Archbishop of Sens; one could imagine that he was thinking, ‘Provided everything goes off quietly.’

      The sun played upon the mitres, the crosses, the purple of the cardinalatial robes, the amaranth of the bishops, the cloaks of ermine and velvet, the gold of pectoral crosses, the steel of coats of mail and of the weapons of the guard. These brilliant, scintillating colours rendered more violent yet the contrast with the accused on whose account all this pomp was gathered together. The four ragged Templars, standing shoulder to shoulder, looked as if they had been sculptured out of cinders.

      The Cardinal-Archbishop of Albano rose to his feet and read the heads of the judgment. He did it slowly and with emphasis, savouring the sound of his own voice, pleased both with himself and with the opportunity of appearing before a foreign audience. Every now and then he pretended to be horrified at having even to mention the crimes he was enumerating, and at these moments his reading assumed an unctuous majesty of diction in order to relate some new transgression, some as yet unmentioned crime, and to announce yet further evidence, of an appalling nature.

      ‘We have heard the Brothers Géraud du Passage and Jean de Cugny, who assert with many others that they were compelled by force, upon being received into the Order, to spit upon the Cross, since, as they were told, it was only a piece of wood while the true God was in Heaven … We have heard Brother Guy Dauphin upon whom it was enjoined that, if one of his superiors were tormented by the flesh and desired to find satisfaction upon his body, he must consent to everything that was asked of him … We have heard upon this point the Sire de Molay who, under interrogation, has admitted and avowed that …’

      The crowd had to listen hard to grasp the meaning of the words which were disfigured both by the Italian accent and the emphasis of their utterance. The Legate made too much of them and went on too long. The crowd began to grow impatient.

      During this recital of accusation, false witness, and extorted confession, Jacques de Molay murmured to himself ‘Lies … lies … lies.’

      The hoarse repetition of this word uttered in an undertone, reached his companions.

      The anger the Grand Master had felt rising in him during the ride in the СКАЧАТЬ