"Visions and Duties"

Renaud de la Folie slumped across his horse’s saddle as he rode into the Knights Templar commanderie outside the small French town of Villemoison in the central region of Burgundy. Renaud was tired, bone-weary sore from a decade of Crusades in the Holy Land, most of them failures, and the long road home. His ears still rang from the din of battle, the clash of weapon on shield, the screams of the wounded, the groans of the dying. These days, the smell of decaying flesh never seemed to leave his nostrils.

He had hoped returning to the modest little enclave, far from the politics of the King’s court in Paris, would rejuvenate him. But riding alone through the early October chill had left him more tired than a dozen retreats through the blazing Syrian sun.

As if the long, frozen ride wasn’t taxing enough, his arrival at the commanderie seemed to have gone wholly unnoticed. No sergeants challenged him at the open gate, no squires rushed out from the barn to take his mount, no brothers poured out from inside the fortified round tower to look after his wounds or offer him even the most modest of repasts. It was as if the once-thriving hub of Templar activity that oversaw dozens of small communities in the area had simply been abandoned.

“Godfrey? Guillaume? Hughes? Marcour?” The names of the knights he called out, brethren he’d fought beside in the past, went unanswered. The only response was a chorus of caws from a murder of crows that lifted from a nearby tree, taunting him with their ease of flight.

Wearily, Renaud steered his mount to the stable, a massive stone barn standing proud and tall against the crisp fall sky. The shadowed side of the wooden shingled roof still bore a thick coating of frost, almost as white as Renaud’s long tunic had been when he first donned it more then ten years ago. Now, his tabard was covered in mud from a thousand miles of travel, and stained with the blood of so many friends and foe that the simple red cross in its middle was barely discernable from the background.

He dismounted, dropping hard to the ground, feeling the jarring landing from his knees to his spine. He led the beast through the large open door, tied him to an interior post, fetched him some not-so-fresh hay and a bucket of water—"A true knight always looks after his mount’s needs before his own” was one of the first lessons initiate Templars were taught, if they didn’t have the sense to know it already—and headed up a short flight of stairs to the adjacent main room where many of the sergeants would usually congregate.

“They’re not here,” a soft but strong voice called to him. It was a woman’s voice, an absolute rarity in any Templar holding, as women were forbidden to interact with the knights, who were sworn to chastity.

Renaud spun around and spotted the maiden, slim and young, off to one side. She was dressed in a diaphanous light blue robe that obscured her sandaled feet but left much of her shoulders and neckline uncovered. Her forehead and the sides of her face were obscured by a brilliant cascade of soft golden hair, and her smile warmed Renaud’s heart more than the last Great Feast of Godfrey’s court in Jerusalem a lifetime ago.

As if deciding he hadn’t heard her the first time, she added. “None of them are here. They’ve all scattered. King Philip the Fair, le beau mais vraiment le plus infect,” she added, without a hint of irony, “has ordered the arrest of all Templars in France, as well as those within the reach of his paid-for Pope in Rome.” She smiled again, wider this time, and to Renaud, it was like a hundred years had faded from his weariness.

The Templar scoured the shadows of the main room, but saw no others accompanying the lady, neither handmaidens nor protectors. “Who are you to give me this warning? I have not met you before, I believe.” Though outwardly uncertain, in his heart he felt there was something in her pure young face that reminded him of a woman he’d seen before, maybe in a distant city or in some half-remembered dream.

“My name is Euphemia,” the young maiden replied with the shallowest of bows, “and though we have never met face to face, you have served me and others like me with honor and great valor.”

She took a step forward, though in truth to Renaud’s tired old eyes, she seemed more to float than to walk. “I’ve come to warn you, Renaud de la Folie, that the King’s men are coming for you, too. They watch this commanderie, as they watch all Templar holdings throughout the land. They have been alerted to your arrival, and they are at this moment surrounding this place. Your only means of escape is to cut down innocent men-at-arms, men with wives and families, whose only crime is that they follow the orders of their misguided superiors.”

As if bred into him, Renaud drew his longsword and held it in both hands at the ready, as he looked to the open door and the pair of windows. Just as the young maiden had said, he spotted movement out by the treeline, men on foot, some carrying halberds, others carrying crossbows. There were too many to fight alone, and coming from too many directions to flee past. He’d have remounted his warhorse and charged them in full Templar glory, but the poor beast was almost as fatigued as Renaud himself, and wouldn’t have made it ten strides before it would have collapsed in sheer exhaustion.

The young maiden held up a delicate hand. “Or,” she offered, as if there was a better option, “you can become a beacon of hope to your brethren. You can fight a different battle, one that will inspire others to follow your example and resist the powers of deception and greed.”

Renaud let his tense muscles relax the smallest degree, though he kept his eyes on the approaching troops. “And what course of action do you suggest?”

The maiden floated another step forward. “You can surrender to these men, and allow yourself to be taken before the King’s Inquisitors, and once there, stand trial against the lies they have woven against the Order. It would take great courage and stamina, but I believe these are qualities you, Renaud de la Folie, have in abundance.”

Before he could answer, there was a commotion leading to the side door. A knot of armored men rushed up the flagstone path, breathing heavily, and crowded their way inside. Renaud backed up to one of the stone walls, allowing them to enter and form a semi-circle around him, though he did not yet lower his guard.

One fellow in a blue quilted tunic with a golden fleur de lis sewn on its breast took charge. With a grim smile and a firm grip on his own sword’s hilt, he bellowed, “Renaud de la Folie, known as Renaud the Lion and Renaud the Just, you have been charged with heresy and other crimes against God and the Church!”

Renaud snarled in defiance, “Then let God or the Church claim me, for I will answer to no other!”

The knot of men encircling him took a step back, having been warned of his combat prowess and fearing his building wrath. Those holding crossbows edged somewhat forward, though in truth less than half a dozen had squeezed into the room, and trying to hit the lone Templar in the midst of so many others was not a certainty.

“Renaud,” Euphemia cautioned, “your death here would serve no purpose.”

The sergeant in charge snarled back, “Would you rather die here like a cornered brigand on the run, or would you choose to answer these charges in front of the proper authorities?”

“The King of France has no authority over the Knights of the Temple! We are a holy order!”

“You’ll find the Pope answers to the King, just as you will, blasphemer!” The sergeant’s vitriol failed to bolster his men’s faltering courage, as a few wavered at the site of the bloody stains on the Templar’s tunic.

“Renaud,” the maiden’s voice implored, gentle yet insistent, “too many of your brethren have been cut down without a chance to refute the King’s lies. You need to fight, yes, but not here, not like this. Take your battle to the court in Paris. Let the populace hear your honest defiance. Bear witness to the truth that an honest Templar can still wield. It is your obligation, Renaud, to the Order and to the rest of France. It is your duty.”

The knight, his sword still at the ready but now aimed from one face to the next, considered his position, and the veracity of Euphemia’s words. He glanced at the sergeant, though he kept his sword’s point aimed at the closest attackers. “You give me your word that I will be brought unharmed to stand before the King?”

The sergeant sneered. “We have orders not to let any harm befall you. We wouldn’t want to take such pleasure away from the Inquisition’s finest.”

With a grunt, Renaud finally lowered his blade, and tossed it at the sergeant’s feet, where it clanged off the stone floor of the barn’s meeting room. “Then take me, and may Euphemia’s counsel guide me to a just outcome.”

Four men rushed forward to grab his arms, while two others bound his wrists with strong strips of tanned leather. The sergeant finally closed the distance, and looked up into the Templar's face with scorn. “Calling on dead saints will not help your case, blasphemer. Only a full measure of repentance will save you from the stake and a well-stoked fire.”

The four men dragged Renaud de la Folie, survivor of the Battle of Hattin, veteran of major assaults on Jerusalem, Acre, Tyre, and a dozen other Holy Land cities, out from the Templar commanderie of Villemoison. They thrust him into a caged cart whose floor was still littered with the effluviant from previous occupants. With twenty men trailing the occupied wagon, the procession headed down the long road to Paris.

“Search the barn!” the sergeant yelled. “Make sure the blasphemer had no conspirators with him!”

The handful of men still inside began to search the rest of the barn. They never spoke to the young maiden, for in truth, they never saw nor heard her. She remained, silent and still, praying for the safe deliverance of the brave knight who had just left her presence.

In quick order, the men-at-arms each returned and assured their commander that the barn was completely empty.

As if he didn’t trust them, or as if his senses betrayed some other hidden truth, the sergeant looked right through the form of St. Euphemia of Chalcedon, martyred as a maiden in a Roman arena a thousand years before. He scanned the shadows behind her, then up to the beamed rafters and dark shadows high above. With an unsatisfied grunt, he turned on his heel and left the place, not feeling safe and secure until he was miles away down that long road towards the King’s justice.