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“But power isn’t something you can leave in a chest and take it out when you need it! God can’t store His power in the basement of a Scottish castle and—”
He shook his head. “Nay, ’tis not that. Though He could, if He wished. The Knights understood that, the fact that mortal man cannot understand God, that we must not say a thing is impossible, because all things are possible to Him, and our understanding too paltry. God is not limited by our imagination or our small minds. The Church makes rules and says they come from God, but they come only from man and his attempt to interpret God.”
Believing God was so powerful, how indeed could he not hate Him? Grace wondered. Niall had long since reached the conclusion that God had deliberately destroyed the Templars, for had He wished to save them they would still be flourishing.
“But why would He want to destroy the Order?” she whispered, and Niall’s black eyes flashed.
“To protect the Church,” he said tiredly. “Flawed as it is, still the good outweighs the bad. The Church gives the framework of civilization, lass. Rules. Limits.”
“How were the Knights a threat to the Church?”
He stood and walked away from her to the window, where he looked out over the wild and beautiful land he ruled. “We knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Everything.”
She waited, and the minutes passed. Without looking at her he said, “Did you note I never called you by name? Your name! Grace-Saint-John. I want you until I think I shall burn alive, but your name eats at me. There is no state of grace, there is only one of ignorance.”
She hadn’t noticed, but now she felt a pang, as if he had rejected her. Perhaps he had; he hadn’t touched her since her confession. “What did you know?” she whispered.
“They found it all in the Temple, in Jerusalem. The Lion Throne, that great barbaric throne on which are carved both Yahweh and Ashara, god and goddess, male and female. They were two, and they were one; the ancient Israelites worshipped them both. Then the priests deliberately destroyed all the altars built to Ashara, and tried to erase knowledge of her. Yahweh became Jehovah, the one God.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. Archaeology had uncovered all that, eliciting a storm of conjecture among the scholars of ancient Jewish history.
“There were other things,” he said. “The Cup. ’Tis a plain thing, and despite the quest for the Holy Grail it gives no powers. The Banner. The army it flies over is never defeated, its firebirds rising again and again from the ashes. It plainly depicts the same lions of the Throne, though legend has it that it isn’t that old, and that only the Knights had it.” He sighed softly. “And there is the Cloth.”
Her mouth went dry. “The Shroud?”
He made an impatient gesture. “So it would be called, but that is false.”
“Then what is it?”
“The cloth in which Jesus was wrapped when he was taken from the cross,” Niall explained.
“Then it is the Shroud. He was entombed in it.”
Niall’s eyes were blacker than she had ever seen them before, looking through her. His mouth had a bitter line. “No, not a shroud, because he lived. He was God’s son in spirit and the cross could not defeat him. The Church built itself around the preposterous tales of the resurrection even though its own writings plainly state he did not die, and afterward the truth could not be told without destroying the Church. So we remained silent to protect the Church, to serve God—and He destroyed us in return.
“His face.” The words were pulled out of him, taut with fury. “We had his face from the Cloth. We revered it, because he was proof of God’s power. Jesus lived! God reached down and saved him, because his duty was fulfilled, and then he left in an explosion of light
and heat. We found the record of it! We know how! But when our duty was fulfilled, He broke us, He destroyed us. And still… still I serve.”
Grace couldn’t speak. Her lips tingled, and she realized she had stopped breathing. The explosion of heat and light… she had felt something like that, when she had come back—
“We knew the how didn’t matter. The method He used did not matter; we trusted Him, worshipped Him. Others wouldn’t understand, though, with their small minds and rigid superstitions. They try to limit God to their own understanding, their own imaginations. They would have turned from the Church. We didn’t.”
The bitterness spewed out of him, his lips drawn back in a snarl. She swallowed her fear, and crossed to the window to stand beside him. She didn’t dare touch him, though, not when his anger was like a force field blasting from him. “But you’re doing it, Niall. Trying to fit His reasons and methods into your own understanding.” She paused, trying to work through her thoughts. She believed in basic goodness and when it came down to it she believed in God, sensed a higher power, a deeper meaning, but she was no theologian. “I think… I don’t believe God causes all things to happen. I think He gives us the freedom to be either good or bad, because if there is no choice then our actions have no worth, and no blame. I think when people do bad things it’s because they have chosen to do so, and we should blame them, not God.”
“Why did He not stop Philip? Why did He not strike Clement dead? He could have, but instead He let them act.”
“He let them choose, and they’ll be judged by their actions.”
“Then I’ll meet them in hell.”
“Oh, Niall.” She did touch him now, leaning her head against his arm. She felt overwhelmed with tenderness for him, and admiration. “You won’t go to hell. How could you? Even with all your pain and anger you’ve kept your oath, and served God. Don’t you think your service is more valuable to Him than the service of those who have never suffered, never been tested?”
He turned on her, gripping her arms so tightly he hurt her. “I would have preferred not to have served Him at all!” he ground out.
