The Temple and the Stone by Katherine Kurtz & Deborah Turner Harris

Author:Katherine Kurtz & Deborah Turner Harris [KURTZ, KATHERINE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC009000
ISBN: 9780759522862
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2001-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

I’D GIVE A LOT TO KNOW WHOSE THOSE MEN WERE,” TORQUIL remarked later that night, as he and Arnault sat huddled over a tiny campfire in a secluded fir-wood. “They were certainly a wild and hairy lot—probably from far to the north—but nothing I’ve ever seen. And what about those symbols painted on their foreheads?”

“Some kind of clan totem?” Arnault guessed. “Or maybe a cult symbol? It looked like an animal head—a bull, I think. In magical terms, such a symbol might be used much as we might use the picture of a saint, as a common focus, except that it was—well, I won’t say ‘pre-Christian,’ because what helped us repel the attack is also pre-Christian.”

“Something from a different spiritual lineage, then,” Torquil ventured. “Not Judeo-Christian, but—Celtic, perhaps?”

Arnault shook his head, gazing into the meager flame of their campfire. “If it was Celtic, it certainly wasn’t Celtic in the sense that Brother Ninian and his Columban brethren would understand it. It wasn’t even Druid, I don’t think. Ninian told us that when Saint Patrick first brought Christianity to these islands, and used the shamrock to illustrate the Trinity, some of the Druids he encountered were already prepared for the coming of that way of looking at God. They regarded it as a fulfillment rather than a supplanting.”

Torquil snorted softly. “Somehow, I don’t think those men today saw it as a fulfillment.”

“Nor do I,” Arnault agreed. “Incidentally, did it seem odd to you that your relatively unsophisticated countrymen would attack an obviously better armed and armored band of mounted knights who were already spoiling for a fight? And forgive me if this seems proud, but I find it hard to believe that such a large band of Templars would not be recognized for what they are. Taking on such a force because you must is one thing. Deliberately attacking is quite another. The attack definitely didn’t have the feel of them just stumbling upon us.”

“No, I agree. More like a deliberate ambush.”

The pair had ridden as far as they could before darkness finally forced them to halt for the night. They could only hope that they had left their fellow Templars far behind. Torquil picked up a stick and poked moodily at the fire between them, trying to forget how hungry he was. The saddlebags on the horses they had appropriated had produced little of culinary significance: a dry rusk of bread and a bit of moldy cheese in one, and nothing edible in the other. They had shared what there was of it, because they had nothing else and dared not call attention to their presence in the area, but they had concluded that de Sautre and his men must have been living off the land, probably demanding lodgings and food as they traveled.

“When de Sautre has a chance to think things over,” Torquil said quietly, “I hope he appreciates that we stayed long enough to save his skin before giving him the slip.” He paused to toss a few more sticks on the fire.

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