The Last Templar Read Free Page A

eyes, the fear and the self-loathing. He could remember them - he wanted to remember them - as the strong men he had respected, as warriors; he did not want to remember them as they were now.
    For they were wrecks; they stood shaking in their fear and dread as they surveyed the crush of people that had come to witness their downfall. Gone was the glory of their past. Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master, stood a little in front, looking small and insignificant somehow in the great white robe which hung from his shoulders formlessly, making him look as if he was wearing a shroud. He was over seventy years old and his age showed as he stood, ashen-faced, bent and swaying under the weight of the chains, mutely watching the people in the square, looking both nervous and frail.
    The man in the crowds stared at him, horrified by the difference. When he had last met de Molay, seven years before, he had been a strong and vibrant man, secure in his power and his authority as the leader of one of the strongest armies in Christendom, responsible to no man but the pope. He had spent months producing a report for the pope and was convinced that with another crusade it would be possible to take back the Holy Land. His report showed how it would be possible to reconquer it and then keep it permanently safe. He had been confident of his ability to persuade the pontiff to begin planning for it and was already making his soldiers prepare, organising and training them all, reinforcing the strict Rule of the Order and making them all comply with the original codes of conduct. Now he was completely broken.
    He looked like a tired old man, shrunken and withered by the pain of seeing his Order ruined, by his inability to defend it, as if he could feel the failure of all that he had tried to achieve. In thirteen hundred and seven he had been the supreme ruler of the oldest and greatest military order, able to command thousands of knights and foot soldiers and answering to no lord or king, only the pope. Now, stripped of his rank and his authority, he looked merely old and tired, as if he had seen too much and was ready for death. He had given up; there was nothing left for him to live for.
    In the crowds, the silent observer pulled the cowl of his hood over his head, blinking and frowning to stop the tears that threatened to streak the dirt on his face. Now he knew it was all over. If they could do that to Jacques de Molay, the Order was ended. He retreated into the seclusion of his cloak as the depression took him over, blocking out all sound of the announcements and hiding from the final humiliation of his Order - and his life.
    Unaware, not heeding the ritual going on at the platform, he turned slowly and started to push his way through the crowds. He had seen enough. He could bear no more. He just wanted to get away, to leave this scene of horror, as if he could leave his despair and sadness behind in this accursed square.
    It was difficult to move. The crowds were too thick, with people struggling to get in and move forward to see the men on the stage. It was like pushing against the tide, and it took an age to go only a matter of yards. Shoving desperately, he tried to move around the people to escape, barging into men and women as they tried to hold him back until, at last, he found himself in front of a broad, swarthy man who would not move aside to let him pass but stood rooted to the spot and glared at him. Then, as he tried to move around the man, he heard de Molay’s voice. With a shock he suddenly realised that it was not weak and quaking, as he had expected, but powerful and strong, as if the Grand Master had found a hidden reserve of strength. Startled, he stopped and whirled back to the platform to listen.
    “… Before God in Heaven, before Jesus his son, and all the earth, I confess that I am guilty. I am guilty of the greatest deception, and that deception has failed the honour and the trust of my knights and my Order. I have