Requiem: The Fall of the Templars Read Online Free PDF

fighting and dying for God and for you. You will show them the respect they deserve.”
    He began to walk away, but the friar was roused and came after him, pushing through the dispersing crowd. “If you had done more, Acre would not have fallen. While the Saracens were busy gathering an army, you were fi ghting among yourselves. It is well known your hostilities with the Knights of St.
    John divided and weakened our forces.”
    Will’s eyes opened as the friar’s abrasive voice grated in his ears. Jacques was walking away, but the Franciscan was following, not heeding the warning in the grim faces of the knights.
    “You should answer for all those dead children, those murdered women.
    You should be ashamed! You left them without protection when you should have laid down your lives for them. You call yourselves warriors of Christ? I say Christ will damn you!”

    the fall of the templars
    17
    In an instant, Will was rushing at the friar. All he could see was the man’s wide mouth, a dark hole opening and closing, emitting that high, rasping voice. All he could think of was silencing it. “Were you there?” he yelled, grabbing hold of the Franciscan’s robe. Behind him someone was shouting, but he was deaf to anything except the friar’s cries of protest. “ Were you there? ” When there was no coherent answer, Will balled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the man’s face. The crunch and the pain in his knuckles were satisfying, as was the blood that spurted from the friar’s mouth as his head was knocked sideways, a yellowed tooth ripping loose with the impact. Will drew back for another strike, but felt himself seized. Someone was hauling him away. Someone else was prying his fingers from the friar’s tunic.
    “ Enough! ”
    Jacques’s voice blasted through Will’s fury. He let go of the friar, who staggered back clutching his bloodied jaw.
    Jacques was glaring at him. “Control yourself, Commander. We do not brawl in the street like common thugs, no matter the provocation.”
    “I am sorry, my lord,” murmured Will, breathing hard. Wiping his mouth, he found his beard wet with spittle.
    “You will do penance for this.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    Leaving the friar hunkered in the mud, the company continued in a tense silence to Temple Gate, where the city guards barred anyone else from entering or leaving as the knights, who had right of way, passed through in a somber white column. Will rested his bruised hand on the pommel of his falchion, ignoring Robert’s glances and feeling his knuckles begin to throb. He concentrated on the discomfort as they headed over the fosse onto a road that led past grand manors, a lazar hospital and several inns. The Paris walls had been built over a century ago, but barely decades later the city had expanded beyond its ring of stone, with abbeys, houses and vineyards springing up to become con-gested suburbs. Farther out, wooded hamlets and villages were surrounded by cornfields. Beyond the stately towers of the Cluniac priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs an even larger set of buildings, encircled by a lofty wall, rose out of the brown expanse of winter fi elds.
    The Temple enclosure greeted Will like an old friend, long-lost, but not forgotten. Since leaving Acre, he hadn’t stayed in any one town long enough to feel at home. Here in these damp fields, worlds apart from the dry plains of Palestine, he was surprised by the sense of homecoming that assailed him, fi ltering through less welcome memories. He thought about the other places he 18 robyn
    young
    had lived in: London and the estate outside Edinburgh and, for the fi rst time in years, found himself wanting to see them.
    The tallest structure within the walls was the great donjon, its turrets stark against the white sky, a piebald banner fluttering from the center spire.
    Crowded around it were a dozen or more buildings, the different heights and angles of rooftops making a jagged silhouette. As the knights