The Last Crusade Read online

  The Last Crusade

  Cover

  Title Page

  Prologue Moissac, Occitania, 8th September 1212

  Part One Conspiracy

  Chapter One Homecoming Rourell, 27th September 1212

  Chapter Two Castellvell Mora d’Ebre, 29th September 1212

  Chapter Three De Mont Rourell, 30th September 1212

  Chapter Four The mill Rourell, 30th September 1212

  Chapter Five The mother house Barbera, 1st October 1212

  Chapter Six Tarragona 1st October 1212

  Chapter Seven Larceny 2nd October 1212

  Chapter Eight A game undone 2nd October 1212

  Chapter Nine Conspiracy Rourell, 2nd October 1212

  Chapter Ten A desperate cause Fraga, 5th October 1212

  Chapter Eleven Hope in despair Monzón, 6th October 1212

  Rourell, 9th October 1212

  Chapter Twelve Confrontation Tarragona, 10th October 1212

  Part Two Vengeance

  Chapter Thirteen A time of troubles Castle of Queralt, Santa Coloma, 10th May 1213

  20th May 1213

  Chapter Fourteen Crusade Pujol, Occitania, 16th July 1213

  Chapter Fifteen A stone sentinel Pujol, 6th August 1213

  Chapter Sixteen Cathar clemency Pujol, 12th August 1213

  Toulouse, 16th August 1213

  Chapter Seventeen The coming of the King 11th September 1213

  12th September 1213

  Chapter Eighteen The price of vengeance 12th September 1213

  Part Three Retribution

  Chapter Nineteen The ghost 22nd February 1225

  Epilogue 9th March 1225

  Historical Note

  The Knights Templar

  About the Author

  Also by S.J.A. Turney

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  Prologue

  Moissac, Occitania, 8th September 1212

  Henri d’Orbessan sat with a small group of the baron’s knights awaiting the command to move, the late summer sun hanging low over the hills and promising another scorching day. The siege had been a slog, even if a short one, but still it would be over today, and then finally they could move on. He had to remind himself once again, as he felt that weariness, that some men here had had it worse than he, had been here from the start in mid-August, while he had then still been returning from Iberia and the conclusion of that bloody battle against the Moor.

  Pennants snapped in a momentary breeze before settling limply once more, and the sound of trebuchets being loaded and primed filled the air on the hillside. The silence of the Frankish army was palpable with tension.

  D’Orbessan reflected momentarily that a sizeable part of a lord’s duty seemed to be finding a war into which to throw his knights and men at arms with wild abandon. He knew the baron to be a careful man and a good one, perhaps too much so for his own good, yet they had limped back to their own lands in Occitania across the Pyrenees and hardly had he time to hang his cloak by his hearth before the baron had announced that their swords were needed once more.

  Another crusade, and not against the Moor or the Saracen this time. Of course, d’Orbessan had known of the ongoing war here, even while he’d spent much of the past few years away. No one who’d lived in this rich and wild region for the past three years could have been ignorant of the war sweeping back and forth across the land and carrying death and terror with it, but for d’Orbessan, fighting the enemies of God in the Holy Land and Iberia, it had been largely someone else’s problem.

  The so called Cathars, or Albigeois, had been a thorn in the side of the Church for untold years, living with a heretical twist on the true faith, denying certain tenets that made the Roman Church what it was, but for a century or more that sector of Occitanian society had remained untouched, for their manpower had lent steel to the quest against the Saracen.

  All that had changed after the disastrously failed crusade which had led to the fall of Byzantium. No one seemed willing to push the might of Christendom that way now, for the whole grand enterprise had been soured by Venetian greed. Even the Pope had turned his gaze from the recapture of the Holy City and had settled it instead upon other enemies of the Church. He had aided the troublesome Iberian kings by agreeing to call a crusade against the Moor in the south of their land, and he had finally, three years ago, decided that the time had come for another crusade against the heretical Cathars of this ancient land.

  It had come as a shock to many, for the crusade that had turned upon the Christians of Constantinople had been unpopular when real enemies of the Church had waited in the wings, and yet now Catholic fought Cathar under the sign of the cross here on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees and the valleys and hills of Occitania, and Christendom was fine with that.

  Part of it was the leadership, of course. The Pope had been unable to find a Frankish lord or an Iberian one willing to lead such a crusade, for the former had been allied neighbours of these Cathars for decades, while the latter had their own troubles in their own land, and were closely tied to the Cathars by blood anyway. And so the Pope had cast his net wider and snagged a truly big fish. The brutal lord Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, had answered the call with relish, for he was known to be a man who held nothing above the strength of the Church of Rome. With the sheer power of de Montfort leading the way many lords had swiftly fallen into line, creating a truly dangerous crusading force, backed by important clergymen.

  The days of the Cathars were numbered.

  D’Orbessan had never really cared one way or the other about the heretics living in his region; some of his own people undoubtedly fell into this category, but the baron had called him and all the knights of the household to join de Montfort, and he had done so. Over the past few weeks, though, his opinions had changed, and he had begun to see the Cathars for what they were: enemies of all things good.

  They had arrived at Moissac with a large force in support of de Montfort’s small army, who had been conducting the siege for two weeks already, and had appeared just in time to help secure the critical hill to the north-west that overlooked the town and promised to change their fortunes.

  The crusaders had fought and taken numerous towns over the past year, many much larger and better defended than Moissac, and nobody had expected this small and largely unimportant town to hold for more than a few days. Yet here they were a month down the line struggling to secure it, and with a wake of blood and corpses a mile wide.

  The Cathars of Moissac had shown their true colours during those weeks. The Count of Toulouse, that Cathar icon, had sent a garrison of routier mercenaries to hold the place, and they had proved to be wolves, not sheep, breathing courage and defiance into the hearts of the Cathar population. The crusaders had taken the hill, but the defenders had fought back with bared teeth, crossbow bolts dipped in slurry a favoured weapon, carrying disease into the crusader camp. And then there were the bells… always the damn bells. Every time a crusader of any importance fell, his banner tumbling to the ground, the bells of the great monastery of Moissac would ring out with jubilation. That, in particular, had aggravated the abbot of that same monastery, who had fled to the arms of the crusaders before the siege began, welcoming these sons of the true Church rather than remaining in his monastery at the heart of a heretic stronghold.

  The bells were ringing out even now, for an English lord had been struck by artillery from the city walls and had died horribly within sight of all: chest broken beyond all hope, blood gouting from his mouth as he twitched and shook, the priests administering the viaticum even as he shrieked his last. And all to the sound of those pestilential bells.

  Still, that stri
cken lord had not been the worst. The actions of the Cathars had sealed their fate and labelled them enemies of Christ. They had launched brutal sallies from the city gates during the church services held by the crusading army, and they had taken with them the bodies of the crusaders they had managed to kill while on their knees before the cross. Those bodies had come back in small pieces, launched from catapults on the wall, a rain of meat and gore and body parts.

  De Montfort himself had been the victim of one such assault, finding himself surrounded by Cathars and mercenaries. He had fought like the lion he was until help arrived to save him, but he’d taken an arrow wound to the foot and had his horse killed under him in the process. In that same engagement, the nephew of the archbishop of Reims had been captured by the routiers and dragged back into the gates of Moissac screaming, even as his uncle led a rescue party, crozier in one hand, sword in the other. He’d been too late, and the young knight had been the subject of a spectacle that evening. To the endless tolling of that damned bell, the young man had been brought up onto the walls before the crusaders and tied to a rack. There he had been very slowly dismembered alive, screaming and wailing, each part cast down into the besieging army as it was removed. He had taken more than an hour to die.

  No, d’Orbessan was no longer in two minds. The Cathars were animals and they had to be converted or destroyed. The bastards were even attacking the clergy. Brother Pierre Vaux-de-Cernay had been riding to deliver last rights to a lord when he’d been attacked by routiers with crossbows, escaping with his life, but barely, as evidenced by the holes in his habit made by the bolts in their passage.

  The city had almost fallen yesterday. De Montfort, his foot bound and limping from his recent wound, had led a fresh assault with a covered siege mantle. Beneath the hides and timber of the mobile cover, the commander and his brother had led a strong force of knights against a part of the walls where the mangonels had broken a hole large enough to turn into a full breach. They had made it across the first defensive ditch, but the wily Cathars had managed to bring a palisade forward to block the way while they hacked out a second ditch. By the time the mantle had overcome the palisade and moved forward, it became lodged in the second ditch, within range of the defenders’ mangonels. Under a rain of stones, the crusaders had faltered, unable to press their advance any further, and the lords had been forced to abandon the mantle and their attack entirely as the Cathars managed to set the thing alight.

  This morning, de Montfort was determined, would be the last morning. There would be no more pushes. Every man in the army was committed today. Now, the bells that were ringing in the city were fading from earshot, for a new sound was arising to drown them out. The clergy accompanying the crusading army had gathered on a hill to the northwest. Hundreds of monks and priests, led by some of the most important churchmen in the land, were singing songs of praise and hope. The archbishop of Reims, still bitter after the butchery of his nephew, the bishops of Toul and Albi, the abbot of Moissac, the archdeacon of Paris, even de Montfort’s favoured man of God, Father Dominic of Osma, led the chant.

  The army bristled with anticipation as the clear voices rang out across the wide valley.

  The order was given. Somewhere back among the leaders, horns rang out and barons called to their men. Not d’Orbessan’s master, for the Baron de Roquefeuil had been too badly wounded at Las Navas to take part personally. D’Orbessan commanded as his deputy here and, in response to the orders from the rear, he bellowed to his men.

  ‘Onward. For God and the Earl of Leicester!’

  The knights of the baron’s household put spurs to flanks and the horsemen raced down the slope, parallel with the River Tarn, towards one of the points in the city walls that had been weakened over days by trebuchets. To left and right the infantry flooded forward, roaring. This was it. No one was held back, and every potential breach in the walls was being exploited at once in the desperate hope that one would give and the city would fall.

  The conroi of armoured horsemen raced towards those stout defences. At least here the ditch was just a single one, followed by a flat berm of grassland, rather than the double line that now surrounded almost half the walls’ circuit. The bottom of the ditch was hip deep with water, flooded from the river, which would form a solid obstacle for the infantry, though not for the knights of the various conroi now descending upon it, for the horses could jump that ditch with little difficulty.

  To left and right, d’Orbessan could see other groups of knights from various households keeping pace with his, and behind them the infantry surged forth with a roar, close on their heels. In such a charge, infantry could maintain almost half the pace of the horse, and they would gradually fall behind, yet over the short distance they had to traverse, d’Orbessan and his knights would not have to hold for long before the footmen arrived in support.

  He turned to face his goal now, cutting out all observation of the men around and behind him, his eyes gleaming out through the slits in his visor, breath clouding up inside the helmet, warm and fetid. He counted down as he saw the ditch approaching, measuring off his horse’s strides as he rose and fell with each bunching of muscles. His shield was braced, strapped to his weak left arm, his lance couched in his right. His sword hilt bobbed around with the movement, occasionally knocking uncomfortably against his right elbow. That would not be an issue for long.

  Three.

  Figures filled the ten-foot hole in the wall, the lower half of it loosely repaired with a rampart of rubble after yesterday’s fresh barrage had succeeded in smashing a hole in the stones. He could see crossbowmen atop the parapet taking aim even as the men below readied themselves, swords and spears bristling and gleaming in the morning sun.

  Two.

  In front of that breach, men had put together a rough fence during the night, formed of timbers and turf, enough to provide a temporary obstacle, slowing any advance and putting the men there at risk from crossbows, archers and artillery. That fence too seethed with men, both avid Cathar locals and dirty, wicked mercenaries.

  One.

  And between that fence and the ditch lay peasant rabble with spears, waiting with terror for the coming attack. D’Orbessan prepared himself, leaning forward over the horse’s neck and adjusting the sit of his lance, changing his centre of balance even as he snapped the command at his mount, accompanied by a sharp jab of spur to flank.

  ‘Sauter!’

  All along the line he could hear his men doing the same, the conrois of knights leaping across the ditch as though it were no obstacle and landing easily on the far side, continuing the charge. Once more out of danger of being pitched from the saddle, d’Orbessan straightened and braced with lance and shield. The rabble of peasants broke and scattered. He’d largely expected that, for few men could face a charge of knights and not panic. He did not waste the lance. They would be ridden down if they were not out of the way fast enough; they didn’t really matter and time was now of the essence. He set his slit-framed gaze upon a routier with a pike standing atop the low fence of timbers. His lance point shifted slightly towards his target as he adjusted, careful to keep his horse angled so that it would not fall to that pole-arm. Then the bowels of hell opened up all around them.

  With a chorus of thuds and clatters that temporarily drowned out the endless chiming of the bells and the songs of war from the hillside, and even threatened to overcome the laboured drumming of his own blood in his ears, missile weapons were released all along the walls and clouds of bolts, arrows and rocks hurtled at them.

  D’Orbessan was among the first victims as a black-fletched crossbow bolt thudded into his horse’s neck so hard that it became buried deep, only the flights showing to prove that it had struck. The horse did not even have time to panic or buck, simply slewing to a halt, legs breaking, ploughing down to the turf. Only instinct born of time served in such battles saved the rider. D’Orbessan registered his horse’s demise even as it happened and he let go of the reins, shield and his lance
together, slipping his feet back out of the stirrups to avoid becoming entangled with the dying beast.

  As the horse crashed to a stop, he was thrown forwards over its head, yet he was ready. Knowing how easy it was to break one’s neck in such a situation, he tucked his head down to his chest and brought his arms in, rolling in a ball and taking the dangerous momentum from his fall. He rolled and slid to a halt taking only a few bruises and pulling the odd muscle and, ignoring such temporary injuries, sprang to his feet as fast as a man in a chain hauberk could be expected to, ripping his sword from its scabbard.

  Along the line perhaps half the knights had made it to the barricade mounted and had managed to plough into the defenders, spearing men with their lances and then discarding them to draw their swords and go to the brutal work that awaited them.

  D’Orbessan ran now, sword ready, and clambered up the slope of the barricade towards the pike-wielding foe. His shield lost back with his horse, he instead threw himself to one side and instantly regretted it as he felt his leg give and he staggered, almost falling. He’d recovered well in the month since the battle at Las Navas de Tolosa, and was almost back to his old self, but there were still weaknesses there, and occasionally they made themselves known. His arm had miraculously not been broken, but there was little strength in it still. It was fine for holding a shield or reins, but little use for anything more than that, and his leg seemed fine now until he twisted on it the wrong way, when all the pain and tenderness he’d experienced on that battlefield in Iberia came flooding back.