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It only took a few hours to reload everything onto the ship and set sail. By nightfall, we were in the harbor of the town Tristan wished to dock at.
Standing beside him at the window in the Captain’s Quarters, we watched the shoreline, lit up with fires on the beach and the lights from the settlement. It looked exactly how I’d imagined a pirate hangout, with silhouettes of people acting merrily and drunkenly stretching across the water. The buildings were connected together at odd angles, the doors of the brothel and bar thrown wide open so as to entice passersby. It felt like a scene from a movie, the classic architecture unaware that it would become an icon over time.
“Will we go ashore tonight?” I asked him softly, moving behind him as I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head on his back.
“No, we’ll wait until morning. My shoulder hurts, truth be told.” He shifted his weight, stretching his neck gingerly. “I’d like to have ye to myself at least once more before the crew claims ye, as well.”
“What do you mean?”
Sighing, covering my hands with his free one, he continued to stare out, silent for a moment. “I’m happy ye are a part of the crew,” he finally breathed. “It’s good, for ye and the men. I’ve watched ye among them before and have no issue with ye on the ship. But—” Pausing, he gripped my hands tighter, letting a whoosh of air pass through him. “When I found ye on board the ship we’d taken, covered in blood, yer arm flayed open, I thought ye dead. There were bodies all around ye, blood in yer hair, and ye were so still and white. My heart all but stopped at the sight. It’s not a scene I wish to see again, savvy?”
“Is that why you voted no when they asked you if I should join the crew?” I already knew that was his reason for voting the way he did, but it I knew this was something he needed to say to me.
“Aye.” Tristan’s answer was quiet, but very apologetic. “I did not want to see ye, lying in a puddle of yer own blood ever again.”
Breathing deeply, I strengthened my hold on him, hugging him. “You know I feel the same way about you, right? That it terrifies me every time I see you facing down death?”
“I do,” he acknowledged. “But it’s different for me. I must fight, to protect the items and people in my care. It’s not a choice I get to make. But, ye could have chosen to stay away from it, to be safe. All I’ve been able to think of since ye were voted in is that day, washin’ the grime and gore off ye while the padre stitched ye up, and wondering why God hadn’t let it be me instead.”
His voice sounded strange and choked, leading me to believe he was still holding back a massive amount of emotion over the ordeal. There was something I could say to help, surely, but I remained silent, letting the inspiration come to me before speaking.
“There’s a quote I’ve heard,” I started, resting against him. “It talks about the creation of this world and why God chose Adam’s rib to make Eve from, and not any other part of him. Have you heard it?”
He shook his head and his shoulder twitched, causing me to raise a hand to it, steadying him.
“It says that she was made from his rib because she was to be his equal, not anything more or less. I wanted to join the crew because of my desire to be right there with you, to protect and support you in your times of need.
“In this century, a woman belongs to a man. She stays home and cooks, cleans, and raises children. She is cherished, no doubt, and highly appreciated by the man who loves her, but she can never do what he can. Where I’m from, a woman can do whatever she wants. Any job a man can do, she can as well. Military, finance, legal, nothing is out of her reach. She protects those she loves. On top of that, she isn’t even expected or required to have a family if she doesn’t want one. Marriage is a choice, not a necessity. Society tells her to do what will make her the happiest and ignore anyone who tells her different.
“I tell you all of this, so you will understand when I say that there is nothing I would rather do than be with you. But I don’t want to be treated like some fragile being, a female who needs to be constantly watched for fear of getting hurt. If you’re worried about me, then teach me how to take care of myself! I went to school for several years, I know how to learn. I was allowed to vote before, let me vote on things here, with the crew. If I’m going to be your wife, I need to know that I’m not going to be handled like a prize that has to be locked away from everyone, but that you’ll consider me as an equal, because that’s what I feel I am.”
Sliding away from my touch, he looked at me with a happiness that shone from his eyes, reaching out and cradling my face. “Ye’ve always been my equal, Samantha. I would never dream of treating ye any different. Ye’ve proved yerself to me—and the men—several times. My heart just has to accept the fact that ye don’t need my protection any longer.”
“Of course I do,” I laughed, leaning into him. “I’ll always need your protection. I just ask that you let me protect you sometimes, too.”
“Aye, I think I can agree to that,” he chuckled, sliding his hand to my neck and bending down to kiss me, jerking away when his shoulder twitched again. “Damn thing!” he growled, pulling at the tie on his sling. “Can’t I just be rid of it yet?”
“No,” I chided him, stopping his untying and fixing it again. “It needs to heal first. You only have to wear it for a few more days.”
“It itches,” he complained, frowning as he rubbed against it.
“Stop that!” Slapping his hand away, I smiled, trying not to laugh. “Itching is good, it means you’re healing.”
“I know that,” he exhaled impatiently. “I’ve been wounded before, ye know.”
“I’m sure you have, but this time you have modern medicine input. The little that I know, anyway.”
“Oh, ye mean like when ye told me to heat the needle before stitching ye up?” He was smirking wolfishly, baiting me.
“And then you didn’t listen? Yeah, I hope you didn’t give me some terrible disease. I’m surprised the human race hasn’t died out from the lack of cleanliness you all seem to support. Germs are running rampant everywhere.”
“What are germs?”
Amused, I stepped away, moving to the bed and sitting down. “How about you tell me about things I don’t know instead of us getting into a long discussion about the future and its discoveries?” I jokingly offered, feeling another series of things I wouldn’t know how to explain to him surfacing.
“What ye don’t know could fill several good sized libraries.” He chuckled, crossing the space and joining me, rubbing around where his stitches were.
“Let’s not get started on who knows more,” I said, holding my hands up in defense. “Seriously, though. Tell me about something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Chewing on my bottom lip, I tried to decide on one thing I wanted to know more about. It wasn’t very hard to make a decision. “How about the Knights Templar? All I know about them is what my dad told me and how it related to the Treasure Pit. My knowledge is pretty limited.”
“Hmmm.” Lying back, he reached out and played with the hair hanging down my back, pausing before answering. “What do ye know about them, then?”
“Well.” Stretching out next to him, curling against his side, I hummed with pleasure as he put his arm around me. “They started during the crusades, right? Warrior monks meant to protect pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land.”
“Something along those lines, aye.” He smiled as he watched me, his fingers still playing with my hair. “They were given space on the Temple Mount as their headquarters.”
“Where King Solomon’s Temple used to be. Yeah, I knew that, too.”
“Get on with the rest of what ye know then.” Tristan chuckled, an easiness to him that told me he was relaxed and happy.
“Okay.” Pausing to gather all of the information in my mind, I bit my lip, trying to get it all in order. “So, they joined the fight in the Second Crusade. They didn�
�t answer to any king, because only the pope had power over them. More men joined because it was an honor to be called a Templar. They became very rich—oh, I forgot something!”
“What was that?” he asked dreamily, his eyes closing.
“Their base on the Temple Mount. They found something there, didn’t they? People in my time discovered tunnels that led to different chambers, but there wasn’t anything there to find. The Templars took it with them when they left and set up their home office somewhere else.”
“Aye, lassie,” he said, clearly impressed. “They did indeed find something there.”
“What was it?” I asked, my toes curling in the overwhelming excitement. “Is it the treasure you’ve been hiding? The Holy Grail? The Ark of the Covenant? Jewels? Gold?”
“Calm down,” he snorted. “And yes.”
“Yes to what?” When he didn’t answer, my eyes grew wide. “Yes to all of it?” It was like my heart had stopped at the revelation. I couldn’t even imagine a treasure so large, so special to the world.
“It’s an honor to protect the things of the Lord,” he said, like that was an explanation to what I’d asked.
“The actual belongings of Christ,” I murmured. “I can’t believe it. Something like that being found would rock the earth. So many people think it’s just a myth.”
“It’s not just those things found under the Temple Mount in the treasure.” Tristan sounded amused, but reverent at the same time. The tone of his voice held a secret of sacrifice and duty, speaking to me of lifetimes spent making sure it was never told. Here he was now, telling me everything. Did he feel guilty about it? Or was he relieved to finally be able to tell someone?
“What else is there?” I could feel it, that same enthusiasm that had blossomed inside me when Dad had begun telling me about the Treasure Pit.
“We fought in the Crusades, but it wasn’t just a mission to take back the Holy Land, not for us.” Sighing comfortably, he began to weave a story for me, one that had been passed down from his family members, telling the tale of one of his grandfathers. This man had been the first of Tristan’s ancestors to join the Knights Templar’s cause. He’d left his loved ones behind, abdicating the throne and crown to his brother, while casting aside his traditional Celtic beliefs for a new religion.
“Back then, ye were put to death for not converting,” he explained to me. “So the family thought it best to do so, sending their son off to champion their new faith’s cause. It was a way for them to survive. They continued to practice things from the Old Religion, but the whole of Éire, as well as the rest of the known world, were feeling the pressure to become Christian.”
“How awful,” I mumbled. “To be forced to give up your beliefs or die.”
“Is it not that way in yer time?” he asked curiously.
“No,” I answered, appalled. “We are free to live how we choose. There are lots of different religions, some of them what you would call pagan, others Christian.”
“Interesting. The Church doesn’t handle legal issues, then?”
“No. Church and state are two separate entities.”
Tristan pondered this for a moment while absentmindedly rubbing the small of my back. “Ye come from a strange place, lassie,” he finally concluded. “But it sounds like ye’ve all lived on just fine.”
“Thanks,” I laughed, rolling my eyes at him. “Keep telling me the story!”
“Aye,” he agreed, returning to his memories. “My grandfather joined the Knights and was sent off to fight in the war. He was young and strong, living through many battles and proving himself a worthy adversary. When the Pope declared it was time to invade Spain, he was among the front lines.
“It was there, after ten years of service to the Order, that he learned their true cause in their combat. As the army rode and marched into Spain, he was dispatched to join a small group of Templars on a special mission. As the battle was going on, they stole everything of worth they could get their hands on. They were to confiscate objects of religious significance that weren’t Christian, destroy temples to heathen gods, and do their very best to wipe out anything that didn’t give praise to our Lord and Savior.”
“I thought Spain was a Christian country,” I interrupted, confused.
“Not always,” he explained gently. “There were many Celts there at one time, as well as followers of the Roman Gods.”
“So they went in and took everything that contradicted their own beliefs?”
“Aye. How do ye effectively destroy a religion? By destroying the things it holds sacred. The followers were forced to convert or die, and the artifacts could not be left to rebuild the religion.”
“A treasure cursed in blood,” I stated, remembering when he’d warned me about the fortune before.
“Aye. They did it all over the world, through all the crusades. The plunder is much more than just Christian artifacts, hidden away to keep them safe. It is the treasures of every religion, swept up to keep their powers from growing.”
“Because the Templars believe in truth in all things,” I finished for him. “Of course they would have wanted to keep pieces that other faiths found powerful. It would make them strong.”
“This is true,” he agreed. “But, eventually, there was too much of it, and many men who wanted to use it for their own gain. It was too great for any one being to control.”
“So you hid it.” Awe filled me, the way I viewed history changing. I’d always thought the crusades were a vicious bloodbath, fought because of one man’s personal views or disagreements. This was huge, though. To think that the things archeologists had been searching for, for hundreds of years, were all under Oak Isle, just waiting to transform everything. And it had all been stolen in cold blood, because one man thought his religion was greater than any other.
“What are ye thinking, lass?”
Suddenly, I realized I’d been quiet for some time, visions of knights and their gory missions running through my mind. “Nothing,” I sighed. “Just that, well, apparently the King of France was right to think he would be a very rich man when he tried to destroy the Templars.”
“Philip, ye mean?” he asked conversationally. “It would seem that yer history of the Templars was right, up until him at least.”