Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, seed nominal Too da Gloria

(Not unto us,O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory)

Thibaud de Montbard spurred his horse that was unwilling to cross the dense forest amid the total darkness and torrential rain of that autumn evening. The rider understood the prudence reasons of the animal which did not dare to jump in the frond with a visibility near zero, but the urgency of the task bringing him there justified any risks so that man and beast went into the grove without further ado.

Three hours before another messenger on horseback had come from Paris to the Templar Commandry with the terrible news that the raids and attacks against authorities and members of the Order was widespread throughout France and had even begun in Germany and Italy. Hundreds of brothers were being arrested and tortured in order to extort infamous confessions and thus give excuses to the royal and ecclesiastical authorities to confiscate the vast properties of the Order spread throughout Europe, but they had failed to capture the Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had disappeared perhaps warned by the efficient intelligence services of the Order.

While riding his horse through the woods, the gentleman pondered the tremendous injustice committed against the Order of the Temple, forgetting that for two centuries its members had shed their blood in defense of the Holy Land and the thousands of pilgrims coming from Europe to visit the holy places. The fighting against the Turk was merciless, giving no quarter and had finally ended with the disappearance of all the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land.

Created in the Holy Land in 1118 by nine knights led by Hugues de Payens, the Temple had become a religious and military order, which at its peak had in its ranks some 20,000 members, 1,500 of whom were the elite of monks-knights.

At the time of the First Crusade the Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solominici (Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple of Solomon) had received from the Crusader King of Jerusalem Baldwin I the site of a mosque, under which lay the grounds of the former Solomon's temple. At that site they had established their headquarters, which ushered in the modern era to countless myths of esoteric nature referred to the discovery in the basement of the site of priceless Christian relics, including even the Holy Grail, whatever its real nature was. From very modest beginnings, with a very few gentlemen who had even to share their mounts the Templars progressively obtained protection from powerful secular and ecclesiastical characters of the time including Pope Urban II and Bernard of Clairvaux, which granted them privileges such as autonomy from the bishops and direct dependence on the Pope. Bernard had given the general regulations that ruled the Temple, with similarities and differences to other monastic Orders of the time.

The Christian kingdoms created in the First Crusade in Palestine were mere islands, isolated or interconnected according to the tide of the times, in the midst of a hostile Muslim ocean which struggled to throw them into the sea. The Templars were involved in the two successive centuries in all the battles of the Crusades, with their triumphs and defeats against incomparably more numerous forces. They became along with sisters and rival Orders of the Hospitallers and Teutons, the backbone of the defense of the Christian territories. Their heroism and selflessness were examples for fighters of all time. Thousands fell in the line of duty, and they gained the respect of the pilgrims under their protection, the envy of allied orders and the fear of the Turks.

Simultaneously with their activities in Palestine the Templars created in the European rearguard a formidable network of facilities and activities of different stamp. They received donations and legacies of its members and of many nobles who admired their work. The Order had about 50 castles scattered throughout Western Europe and approximately 8,000 Commandries and this network resulted in the development of overland trade by allowing errant traders to spend the night in safety within their walls thus avoiding the dangers of the roads at the time, infested with bandits. They also created the rudiments of a banking system and instruments such as an accounting system, checks and letters of exchange giving pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela and Jerusalem the possibility to travel without cash, carrying instead documents issued by the Order; this allowed them to make money deposits in the place of departure and make partial withdrawals along the route. The Templar Knights also created a powerful military and commercial fleet which competed with Venice and Genoa, the maritime powers of those centuries.

The monarchs of different nations had been in debt with the Order for generations, either to finance wars or to maintain their standard of living and that of their courts. One particular debtor was the King of France Philip IV called the Fair (Henri Le Bel), due to the ransom paid by the Templars to the Turks for the liberation of his grandfather Louis IX, caught in the Seventh Crusade.

With the advent of the Sublime Door of the political and military genius of Sultan Saladin the countless factions of Islamic tribes succeeded in uniting under his command; as a consequence the overwhelming numerical majority of Muslims gradually imposed to the courage of the Christian defenders of the kingdoms in the Holy Land. In a defeat in the Battle of Hattin the chivalric orders were decimated. After several losses and conquests, Jerusalem finally passed into the hands of the Turks in 1244. The Templars and Hospitallers had to retreat to Acre, which seemed an impregnable fortress but nevertheless fell to the Ottomans in 1291.

Several crusades attempted afterwards to recover Jerusalem but the priorities of the European reality had changed and monarchs were no longer interested in reconquering the Holy Land at all costs, so they did not provide human and material support leaving the Templars isolated. Thus ended the great human tragedy of the Crusades, with countless victims in Islamic and Christian populations.

The Knights Templar had then withdrawn into Europe, where they had for centuries accumulated wealth and possessions based as said on legacies and benefits of trade and financial intermediation.

According to secret orders previously issued by King Henry IV, on October 13, 1307 one hundred and forty knights, including most of the leaders but not the Grand Master of the Temple were arrested in Paris, while in the rest of France such orders were carried out in the rest of the Templar strongholds. The Order was beheaded and their possessions confiscated including castles and lands, being this appropriation and the extinction of his debts to the Order the true objectives of the French monarch. They expropriated property, weapons and other assets belonging to the Knights, but never found the treasure in silver and gold royal officials had expected.

In the subsequent processes King Henry backed by his puppet Pope Clement V, managed to condemn the Temple based on a series of absurd accusations of heresy, worship of false gods in the figure of an idol called Baphomet, spitting on the crucifix and acts of sodomy, all allegedly happened during initiation ceremonies.

This was the political context in which our story begins.

Thibaud de Montbard was heading for La Rochelle, stronghold of the Order, with precise instructions: the remaining assets had to be put out of danger immediately, which meant removing them from France by sea from that small town, main Templar port on the Atlantic Ocean and home to a powerful sea fleet at that time. The messenger did not know the preparations being made for that purpose, but the message he was carrying specified that the task had be done without delay. The Templars believed that their fight was spiritual and worshiped courage and honesty but they had no illusions about the nature of man so that the mandate that the rider conveyed his brothers was clear: to safeguard those assets, supposedly a treasure of gold as a prerequisite for the future revival of the Order.

Indeed, according to the few remaining documents of the time, on Thursday, October 12, 1307 there were anchored in the port of La Rochelle twelve Templar ships. At the end of the next day there was none.

His legs were already asleep by inaction. Indeed, James Campbell was standing on the cliff from noon, peering the entrance of the narrow creek with the expectation of seeing a sail appearing. In a certain moment he looked down; on a small plateau Sir Colin Stewart and a visitor called Blanchefort were animatedly talking in French, language that the young James could barely understand; James admitted that he should have listened to his father Sir Niall Campbell and have made the effort to learn it and then he might be participating in the talk and learn firsthand the events that would come upon. He made the decision to correct this deficiency in the future as it seemed to be growing ties with the Templar Knights who spoke French, and could not be expected to learn the Gaelic dialect spoken in the Scottish Highlands. His eyes closed due to fatigue despite his efforts to keep them open. He rubbed them vigorously to activate the blood in that area and returned to watch the stretch of sea penetrating into the coastline. What he saw startled him and caused a leap that brought him perilously close to the cliff edge that fell steeply to the sea. A two-masted ship had already passed the eastern tip of the bay and the sails of a second could be envisioned further back.

“ Sir Colin !, Monsieur de Blanchefort.” Shouted James with all his might. “Come quickly!”

The men looked up and saw the choppy signals that James was performing with his arms and began to climb the cliff.

“Nine ships” Said Sir Colin in English, so that everyone could understand. “ Had they not informed you about twelve? “The question was addressed to the Frenchman.

“Those are the ones that three days ago departed from La Rochelle. I do not know if something happened along the way, or if some ships took a different course. The data is poor, and the decisions of proceeding to sea were taken in the course of the day while loading the vessels, so that it would not surprise me if there have been changes. They may have diverted to Portugal, with which the Order has always had good relations. Sailing from La Rochelle to Portugal's coast by the Bay of Biscay for the most part avoids detection by ships of the French king.”

“ Well, we will have the chance to ask what happened to the ships captains. Now we go where my men are waiting so we can supervise the landing and help move crews and cargo to ground.”

Robert Bruce, who reigned as Robert I of Scotland, had been excommunicated by Pope Clement V for alleged involvement in the murder of John Comyn in the Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, and was at that moment engaged in a war against the British invaders . Therefore, the way to Scotland was cleared for the Templars, since there did not apply the papal bans. In addition, they assumed that the Scottish king would welcome in the immediate future brave and experienced warriors as the Knights Templar, who indeed would provide him the victory in 1314 on a much larger English army at the Battle of Bannockburn through an unstoppable charge, as those that before had decimated and driven away the Turks.

James approached the boats that arrived at the shore carrying different kinds of cargo from the ships. They were transported by crew members, by men of rival clans that Campbell and Stewart had brought for this purpose and other strange characters, dressed in simple robes of ordinary material whose general appearance made James think of monks; however they were muscular men and some of them wore on their faces and arms what appeared to be combat wounds.

Some of the packages allowed the boy to guess

their contents, they were clothing and personal effects of passengers carried by the boats; others were catering supplies, including empty casks that would surely be re-filled and returned to the ships. Behind the series of packages James spotted a row of chests made of hardwood with iron fittings, which were guarded by armed men who prevented him from approaching the chests. The prevailing discipline on the beach and the orderly way in which the download maneuver was carried out called James´ attention. He could not help but relate this fact with the rumors that had reached his ears that the ships belonged to the Knights Templar who had just reputation for order, discipline and silence.

The packages were uploaded onto the shoulders of the laborers from the beach to the top of a ravine where the men of the Scottish clans were waiting to arrange them in bullock carts. As the cars were filled, the alleged monks climbed to them, now brandishing unexpected swords, and undertook the journey to an unknown place in the hinterland. James looked engrossed the organized labor of so many men, unusual show in Scotland at that time even in military events.

Don Antonio Fonseca grasped the rope to overcome the effect of the violent pitching of the ship, which had produced him an almost continuous dizziness since they had left Porto twenty days before, only relieved by their short stay in the CaboVerde Islands. The year was 1535, and two months before he had left the monastery of Thoman near Santarem where he had spent the previous fifteen years. Don Antonio missed the orderly and peaceful life of the convent, in particular he missed Don Miguel, his superior and protector . However the mission that had been entrusted to him gave the monk great expectation and anxiety: to transfer boxes belonging to the Order of Christ from their site in Ribeira Grande to Salvador, off the coast of Brazil, a hamlet recently founded to which it had been attributed the rank of capital of the Portuguese colonies in South America.

Don Antonio, according to the Order´s customs, had not asked any questions about the contents and destination of the cargo, but legends, traditions and experience in the institution had convinced him that it was part of the treasure that the Order of Christ had inherited from the Knights Templar some centuries before when the latter disappeared from Portugal and all of Europe. He had a general idea of how the events had developed a few centuries earlier. Two of the ships that departed from La Rochelle had probably gone to Portugal, carrying only monks-warriors and their weapons to join the recently formed Order of the Knights of Christ. Years later, given the good reception that the Kingdom of Portugal had given the Templars, part of the metal treasure had been transferred to the monastery of Thoman, and another part to a fortress that another fugitive contingent had built up in the Norman Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In both cases the purpose of the transfer was to finance two groups that shared both a common origin and eternal goals.

He sensed that the purpose was safekeeping those assets - whose existence was never formally recognized-because the Commandry that the Order of Christ had in Ribeiro Grande, Cape Verde islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, was no longer safe. Indeed, the archipelago, which for decades had been just one post on the route of the slaves taken to America, was now also used by English, French and Dutch pirates and corsairs due to its strategic location precisely on the road from America to the Iberian peninsula. The fear was that during their stay they would devote to the plundering of the Portuguese establishments including the Commandry.

When Pope Clement V disbanded the Knights Templar in 1314, the various kingdoms were quick to pursue the members residing in their territories and confiscate their property except King Diniz of Portugal, who without disobeying the Papal Bull took the matter with parsimony. Indeed, the Knights Templar had played a leading role in the liberation of Portugal from the Muslims and enjoyed high prestige among the population. Eventually, the king created in 1323 the Militia Christi Frates, or Order of the Knights of Christ, which incorporated immediately en bloc the Portuguese Templars and their property, as well as fugitive Templars from all Europe, especially France. They settled first in Castro Marino and in 1357 in Thoman. The Rules of the new Order were however different from the those of the Temple, as the purpose was to replace the legal and financial autonomy that they had enjoyed -and were seen as a threat by European monarchs- by the strict subordination of the monks to the king´s secular power. Indeed, the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator was eventually appointed as Grand Master of the new Order.

With the travel and colonization enterprises conducted by Enrique in Africa, the Order acquired a new role consistent with its fundamental mission: to bring Christianity to the Islamic parts of Africa, through war and evangelization. Many Commandries were opened in the African Atlantic coast, in what would ultimately become Portuguese colonies. Among them was the aforementioned establishment of Ribeira Grande, in the Cape Verde Islands.

Don Antonio approached the Commandry on foot and was spotted from afar by the monks who guarded the high walls of the establishment. Within minutes a small delegation came to meet him, a sign that they were awaiting his arrival. One of the brothers approached riding a horse and insisted that made the last stretch mounted as a redress for all the hardships suffered in the hazardous journey from Portugal.

Knowing that there was no time to lose Antonio put to work immediately. Using the resources and the authority of the leaders of the local Commandry, he organized a trip of three ships, two of cargo and a small brig but bristling with cannons and escort . The chests were taken on board two days later, in the darkest part of the night in order to avoid the most prying and curious glances. They were located in the most inaccessible part of the cellars and were then covered by general cargo and supplies for the long trip. During the three extra days that took the preparation of the ships a discreet but heavily armed custody by members of the Order led by one of the most experienced men was placed on the ships and on the quayside.

One of the Portuguese merchant ships recently arrived in Cape Verde had reported the sighting of a fleet of Dutch pirate ships heading to the islands. Since the proximity of potentially hostile ships was dangerous, it was decided that the three vessels were put to sea two days earlier than originally planned, starting the adventure of crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a South-south-west direction after the footsteps of explorers, conquerors, military, some clerics and early settlers. The long trip to São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, then capital of the Portuguese possessions in the New World, known as Brazil, had begun.

Don Antonio opened his eyes with difficulty. The scorching tropical sun had covered the skin of the shipwrecked with sores, which despite being wet with seawater were infected with ease. The seven men aboard the boat were in a permanent state of lethargy, only momentarily relieved as they soaked their heads immersing them in water on the side of the boats. The worst punishment was thirst, and that the limited fresh water available was tightly rationed by the boatswain of the sunken ship.

The English ship pirate captain had treated with them with some consideration that he usually lacked when dealing with Spanish ships. After sinking by gunfire the armed brig that accompanied them the pirates had boarded the Sancti Spiritus in which Don Antonio was, while the other merchant vessel had been able to avert the attack and had taken flight, but on a course further South than the one leading to Salvador. Don Antonio knew of other Portuguese colonies in Brazil located south of Salvador.

The pirate had found with joy the chests hidden among the general cargo, and the good humor produced by the discovery had led him to clemency. The fleet consisting of the captured freighter and three English brigs had sailed to within a few hundred miles off the coast of Brazil, there the Portuguese surviving crewmembers of the merchant ship boarded some shallops, the pirates had given them some scanty provisions and water and they were abandoned. The pirates only kept the captain of the Sancti Spiritus as a hostage, because he was assumed to be member of a lofty family in Portugal and by whom they expected to obtain a big ransom. They never imagined that Don Antonio was in reality a Knight of the Order of Christ and what the reason for his stay on board was, taking him for some kind of monk.

The pirates had then set sail south, where far beyond the Portuguese possessions in Brazil and Spanish in the River Plate area, lay the vast terra incognita, known by the few who knew of its existence as Patagonia, a land of imprecise boundaries, almost totally uninhabited, and where according to the imagination of the time stood bases of pirates and privateers.

“Terra an estibordo!”

The cry of the helmsman of the shallop that was ahead woke all the castaways from their slumber. Having lost hope in the middle of the ocean immensity, its sudden revival produced a wave of enthusiasm. Prayers of praise and thanksgiving in several languages and dialects rose from the boats. Don Antonio looked to starboard and actually saw a faint, dark line that was undoubtedly a coast.

In the long drift on the boat with survivors Don Antonio had already conceived a plan that would consume every puff of his breath. If they could reach the mainland they would seek to reach Sao Salvador, as was the original purpose of the trip. In that village there was a Commandry of the Order of the Knights of Christ led by his old comrade Don Luiz. Antonio was determined to personally find the ship that had escaped from the pirates and had set sail for the coast of southern Brazil, take command of the Order members that were in it, and put in a safe place the part of the treasure that was in the ship. Moreover he would command Don Luiz to assemble an expedition in a couple of ships and follow and give chase to the English pirates, perhaps not at sea where pirates were in advantage, but rather in the dilated coasts of Terra Incognita. On land pirates would not be match for a body of well-armed Knights. Antonio had sufficient seniority to command his old friend such a risky mission but he knew in advance that his old comrade would welcome the proposed adventure.

When he heard the cry of the helmsman, a new breath filled Don Antonio´s lungs. The prospect of saving his life joined his desire to recover the treasure that had been entrusted to him.