Res Publica Christiana - 11. The Black Knight of Navarre Part 2

It was not the only time that I intervened in the affairs of Navarre or disrupted the affairs of the Habsburg Empire and their lapdog priests from New Rome. The quotas that I obtained from the Bishop caused only a slight stir, the priest and his guards went missing on the road without witnesses except for the basque boy and the elderly tanner, who did not know my true identity or purpose. Sadly, Habsburg and church agents did enter the area and sought out locals and the appearance of the boy living with the elderly tanner was enough to cause suspicion to be brought upon them.

I found out several months later, on a return journey, that both the boy and the elderly tanner were publicly quartered by the agents sent to investigate the missing bishop and his escorts. The locals were still whispering about the horrific scene of their public execution as it was not something that ordinarily happened to their people, but their conversations were hushed in the lyrical Basque language, which few people understood to hide their contempt for the Spaniards and French interlopers.

According to the story, they were deemed as heretics and blasphemers, but I knew their only crime was knowing the sinister truth behind the men of authority. I was distraught over the events to the point that I wrote a coded missive to Lord Eli, seeking some divine forgiveness for my actions leading to innocent deaths. As Lord Eli and Robert both possessed extraordinary abilities that defy human conventions, they were the closest individuals to divinity that existed. Still, the line of communication to Bristol involved merchants and sailors carrying limited pieces of messages, so it was supposed to be used only for my official intelligence duties, it was a failure on my part to use it for something so trivial. The response from Lord Eli took nearly a year as Queen Mary incarcerated my Lord for suspicion of murdering her unborn child. I had no idea that the charges were true or that my lord had developed new abilities to match Lord Robert at that time, but I welcomed the fact that Queen Mary did not have an heir.

Still with my lord’s imprisonment, I wanted to depart for England and rescue Lord Eli, but I knew Lord Robert would never allow anything to happen to our lover. I used my ability to keep a close eye on the affairs of the English court as Queen Mary began her purges. I periodically checked the memorized names of servants and nobles within Queen Mary’s inner circle, discovering some of their deaths and accumulating information with my ability to gather their experience and knowledge. Through that, I found solace that Lord Eli was still alive in the Tower; though, I was disturbed by what happened to my old friend, Puck. Knowing of Queen Mary and King consort Cardinal Reginald Pole’s brutality, I vowed to avenge the abuses against everyone who suffered under such evil. I planned to take revenge against Mary’s allies.

My first target was the parish priest, who identified the tanner and his new ward as suspicious to the agents. A local priest is supposed to give relief to his parishioners without any form of reward, not prepare them for slaughter for a bag full of gold coins. The priest was a lapsed believer according to the residents, he had a wife and mistress living with him in a manor home on the outskirts of the village. He deserved to die.

In the evening with my black clothing and facial covering, I snuck into his home, which was significantly more ornate than those of the local villagers, indicating some wealth and prestige. As the Pyrenees regions were mountainous, they had few knights or nobles, so a local parish priest with the right backers could be the closest thing to a local lord. My hatred for this man was growing by the second as I lurked around his ornate home decorated with gaudy gold appearances. In one of the bedrooms, I witnessed an ugly scene in the shadows, a naked woman was bound to a pillar and being tortured by another woman. The torturer had cut off several fingers and made small cuts over the bound woman. There were several men in the room, including a man who fit the description of the priest. They spoke in fluent Spanish, and I easily understood the situation in front of me.

The woman fastened to the pillar was the priest’s mistress, who was being tortured due to the discovery of a pregnancy that did not coincide with the priest’s normal visits due to being recalled to Rome recently to receive an award for his work. As the mistress was considered his property, he felt betrayed by her, and his wife, who had harbored resentment towards the woman for seducing her husband, wanted to be the one to interrogate her. The mistress pleads with her master for a quick death. It was a macabre scene without signs of forgiveness or acceptance as men like the priest would often preach.

As none of these men were prepared for me, I struck out with flying daggers and used my Wakizashi sword to cut down everyone in the room, except the two women, who screamed in shock as I decapitated the priest.

“Vile demon, how dare you murder a man of God?” the priest’s wife yelled in Spanish, while covered in the blood of her husband’s mistress. Surely, Lord Eli would call her words ironic if nothing else.

I paid her no heed and released the bloody mistress from her restraints, but instead of receiving words of gratitude or devotion, the woman removed one of my daggers from a dead man in the room and began to attack me.

She was screaming in madness, “He was my master, I was going to be welcomed in heaven after this moment. Now, I am going to hell due to you!”

Of course, her insane stabs were nothing more than distractions for me and my steel sword quickly severed her arms and her head as I was taught through the experiences acquired from Momochi Seiemon. Unlike the women of the Continent or Britannia, where beheading was considered a noble privilege for a quick and merciful death, the land of Momochi Seiemon held that beheading was a severe punishment against individuals like adulterers. In the death of the priest’s mistress, I considered it to be a mercy that I ended her inner turmoil as soon as possible. Her misguided belief in salvation through her deadly torture was a tragic and abhorrent reflection of her background with the priest, but I could not be her keeper. In contrast, the priest’s wife was going to be left alive to bear witness and send word to the Catholic and Habsburg agents as I erected poles in front of the manor home with the heads of the household. My goal was to lure the agents to return to this small village, and then leave when troops were dispatched. In a short time, thirty heavily armed agents descended into the village in groups of five or six. They had firearms like the revolver pistol that Lord Eli and Robert created, but they did not have swords or blades. According to Lord Eli, these “sidearms” would not be accurate against fast-moving targets such as light cavalry in an open field and they had weak penetrative ability against mesh materials, which formed a type of body armor. As I result, I ambushed these agents on the road near the farms at the foothills, wearing my body armor and making erratic maneuvers to affect their weapon’s fire. Then, I used my sword to cut down each group of agents mercilessly and hung their heads on poles.

After several weeks of these ambushes, I asked the residents in the Basque language to tell the incoming troops that the Black Knight would avenge the innocent blood against false prophets and their soldiers of salvation. As I had made my point and was preparing to leave, I heard a rumor of an odd band of wanderers dressed in black entering the village. They sought out the Black Knight and claimed to be his kin, calling themselves the Cathar knights. As a student of history, I knew who the Cathars were and their antithesis to the Church along with various Continental powers, who had persecuted them. As I knew the fair folk of England were founded by Merlin, who had also journeyed across to Europe to expand the network of Lord Eli’s followers and allies, these people might have been my kin descended from the fallen kingdom of Camelot. Of course, I had to be wary of a trap and did not trust them openly.

The wanderers were lodged in an inn on the outskirts of town, near several mountain routes, which would be ideal for escaping the region when troops arrived. I left a letter with the innkeeper to be given to the group with instructions for an exchange of words, where we would communicate through dropped letters at specific locations.

My first letter written in several languages including Spanish, French, English, and Latin was left at the site of the former priest’s manor home. I asked the question that all fair folk would answer without question.

“On what principle do you hold your belief?”

On the following day, I received a reply written in French, identifying the Cathar knights' roots.

“We have no souls, we have only our mental being and true selves. We believe the last will be first. Please leave a reply at the crossroads of…”

Though the first part of their message differed from what we cherished, it did connect with what Lord Eli and Robert told me about their transmigration from a possible future into the current world. The Cathars believed that souls were evil prisons created by a demiurge, the forces of evil, to imprison human beings’ mental selves in the material world. As such beliefs would run counter to established Christian theology, a crusade was launched against their group in France and Spain, killing hundreds of thousands in the purges during the 13^th and 14^th centuries. If they were descended from my kin, then it would be a tragedy that they shared too much about our reality.

I accepted the risk and waited at the crossroads instead of leaving a letter. After several hours, a single, black-cloaked man reached the designated area. It was a tense moment, but I made the first moves for a greeting.

“Je crois que les derniers seront les premiers, je ne suis pas cathare, (I believe the last will be the first, I am not a Cathar)” I stated in French.

The man nodded at me, then asked in English,” Are you part of the fair folk Coven in England?”

With that, we began open discussions, between the Cathar and fair folk. While he did not believe that Lord Eli was the prophesized Omega at first, I indicated various facts about Lord Eli’s biology and beliefs in a new world without the false promises of salvation by the corrupt church and others with technologies from the future. He began to accept the facts that I laid out to his people, at least on the surface. In exchange for my information, he informed me that his people were from Aquitaine, they had heard about my existence and believed I was one of the last remnants hiding in the Pyrenees, who did not find shelter during the Church’s purges.

While neither of us trusted each other completely, I was happy to meet his group and journey to their facility in France. I had to return to the capital of Navarre before that, but we agreed to meet again at the French town of Mont-de-Marsan at a designated location when the proper coded messages were exchanged. It was an amicable meeting between us, who had walked similar paths.

Before we departed, the black-cloaked man dropped his head covering and spoke, “My name is Alain, I serve as governor-general of Aquitaine under Queen Regent Catherine de Medici.”

Seeing he revealed his identity, which would be scandalous and a death sentence by any measure, I undid my face coverings and greeted my distant cousin, “I am Francis Walsingham, I serve as ambassador to the Continent for Duke Elias Tudor, the future ruler of England.”

Alain would become a great friend and ally to us. Aquitaine was an amazing area with beautiful vineyards and a prosperous seafaring trade due to their products. As a result, it was not difficult for a wealthy merchant family such as the one Alain descended from to climb up the ranks to regional governor. The successful winemaking was done using technologies similar to the Cadbury Hill facility for food production with fermentation and boiling to remove infectious agents. Perhaps, the connection between Aquitaine and England, which had lasted for three hundred years under the Plantagenet dynasty, had other connections. However, as far as I knew, the fair folk coven had not contacted the Cathars, at least officially. During that period, our group hid in western England and avoided embroiling ourselves in major conflicts. It was a pity that we did not work together during the height of the Cathar’s power, but we each had our paths despite our shared beliefs.

A year later, I received word that Lord Eli had been released from London, developed an ability, and had acquired several “cores”. In return, I reported back with the discovery of the Cathars in Aquitaine and the beginnings of an alliance with them. I was told to pursue this path and encourage Alain along with his group to eventually aid our cause. With connections from Alain to the French court under Catherine de Medici, I was able to increase my intelligence gathering and the troop disposition of our enemies. This information would prove vital to Lord Eli’s campaign in Calais two years later, but at the time, I was carrying on my work traveling between Navarre and Aquitaine. I also gained infamy by slaying corrupt priests and noble lords throughout northeast Spain and southwest France.