“I must go on more cruises,” he said, as he glided out the door and down the empty corridor toward his own room. “This has been my best vacation ever.”

Drew felt a rush of excitement and accomplishment.

He’d just hanged his tenth.

FEALTY by S. Andrew Swann

S. Andrew Swann in a long-time resident of Cleveland, Ohio, who has been writing professionally for the past fourteen years. He has published over sixteen novels under various pseudonyms, and this is his fourth short story publication.

THE HALL WAS long, dark, and cold. Stone vaults arched overhead, and windows high on the walls let in no light. A circle of black candles cast an unsteady light around the armored figure of Rossal de Molay. He knelt inside the circle, head down before the pommel of his sword, which he held cruciform before him. His armor creaked as he raised his head from his sword, to face the two men in front of him.

One man was dressed in the rich robes of nobility. Jewels on his doublet glinted in the candlelight, and a smile emerged from a beard that was full, greasy, and black. The other was old and hairless and wore the plain black robes of a monk.

“Exceptional,” said the noble. He took a step forward. “And, please tell, what is your name?”

De Molay paused, searching his memory for a response. Smile frozen, the man in the doublet cast a sidelong glance at the monk.

“I am Rossal de Molay, recently returned from Antioch.” A strange slowness seemed to infect his mind. Too long in the heat of the desert, too long marching through the mountains, too long without enough food and water. Better men than himself had gone mad on the journey to the Holy Land…

“And do you know who I am?” The noble’s question broke the fragile chain of memory. Again de Molay had to pause, to think.

The monk muttered something too softly for de Molay to hear. Almost in response to the utterance, recognition came. “Of course, you are Robert, Duke of Normandy, heir to the Crown of England, my lord and master.”

De Molay’s lord and master shook his head and turned toward the monk. “You have surpassed my expectations.”

The monk smiled as well and his eyes glinted like polished stones. “I am here to serve you. Lord…Robert.” He turned toward de Molay. “And now that we have called him, so is he.”

“Come forward.” The noble gestured to de Molay.

De Molay stood, and stepped out of the circle. When his foot crossed the ring of candles, he had the briefest confusion. How come I to be here? When was it I returned from the siege of Antioch?

Doubt, however, was overcome by duty when Robert, Duke of Normandy, told him of a heresy brewing in their own lands. Robert, the Pope, and God were calling de Molay to service again.

The night was dark and moonless, the air still and cold. On the path ahead of him lay the town. Home to an evil as vile and godless as the Saracens that had claimed the Holy Land, as dangerous as anything he had fought in Antioch.

The villagers, to a child, held to the Cathar heresy.

To de Molay, Catharism was a novel sin. A doctrine that denied the Trinity, denied the physical presence of Christ on earth, and not only denied the divinity of the God of Moses, but equated Him with the Devil.

The Pope himself had called a new Crusade to wipe this abomination from the earth. And it was de Molay’s duty to serve his Lord Robert, the Pope, and God.

He did not question the wisdom of sending one man against a whole village. Nor did he question his ability to do what he was called upon to do. He had seen what God’s will could move men to do. He had, with his own eyes, seen a humble monk bear the spear that had pierced the side of Christ, and lead a few dozen starved and starving knights to defeat a fresh force that outnumbered them tenfold.

He had seen that battle, the last one at Antioch.

Anything was possible to someone touched by the hand of God. And after praying with Lord Robert’s monk, de Molay knew he was carried in the palm of God, here to wipe the Cathar stain from the land.

He walked the snow-covered road, toward the village. As he walked, his boots melted the snow.

Small wisps of steam rose from his footprints.

De Molay quietly pushed in the door of the first house. Inside, a family slept, a man, a woman, a boy, an infant. He slew the infant first, to keep its cries from waking the others.

Only the woman managed to make a sound, a shocked intake of breath as de Molay’s sword pierced her chest. She never exhaled.

De Molay’s footprints smoldered as he left the small house. Where he touched the door on the way out, the bloody imprint of his gauntlet began to smoke.

He did not turn as the house erupted into flame.

De Molay could remember Antioch, the glorious awful day when the siege broke the walls, when thousands of Christian men, half-mad from months of heat and hunger, stormed through the streets of the city that had been home to the first Christian church. Knights slew men, women, children…

De Molay had slain, men, women, children…

By dawn, the walls had glistened with the blood of the slain. No one could walk except to step over corpses.

Cathars fell to de Molay’s sword, three and five at a time. Buildings burned at his touch. As he passed, livestock fell to the ground, dead. His sword arm glistened with the blood of the wicked. He was all the plagues of Pharaoh, the Wrath of God personified. The population ran from him, and he followed, unhurried.

He laughed when he saw the women and children retreat to their unholy church, as if their false god could protect them from the sword of the righteous.

He laughed…

And stopped.

Something was wrong.

The church was the only stone building in the village. It was also the only building not yet burning. De Molay faced the church, a wall of flames at his back, his bloodstained mail steaming in the heat. His shadow danced ahead of him, across the graveyard, to paint the church’s doorway with darkness.

The church was like nothing he had seen before. Peaked arches enclosed the doorways, and a circular window of colored glass glowed red above the entrance. Grotesque statues, monsters and skeletons, covered the exterior. Surely, this was a cathedral of hell itself!

But a statue of Christ and his apostles stood above the entrance.

A false Cathar Christ.

De Molay shook his head. When did someone build such a church? He was looking at decades of work. Could it take so long to suppress a heresy?

Yes. It could. The Infidel held Jerusalem for centuries before the Pope called for its liberation. The Pope was not God. The Pope could be fallible.

“No,” de Molay whispered in a puff of fog. Such doubts were a direct assault on his faith. It was faith that kept him in motion, allowed him to act God’s terrible will…

God’s will.

His memory was a fog. He had been in Antioch. How come he to be here, back in Normandy? His last memory before this evening was the miraculous charge from the gates of Antioch, led by the Holy Lance. He was there when the Saracen reinforcements were defeated. They had felt his sword.

He had felt theirs…

“How long?”

When did he return from battle?

Wrapped in the smell of smoke and blood, de Molay walked across the graveyard and knelt down at a marker. Heat from the fire had melted the snow from its surface. It was not ornate, the stone barely legible.

De Molay could read the name “Rachel” and the words “Year of our Lord 1205.”

No, it was some pagan numbering. He knew he had charged from the gates of Antioch on June 28, Year of our Lord 1098.