A Templar's Apprentice by Kat Black Page A

see?”
    I swore I would never again voice anything I had seen, but the Templar asked so plainly I was bound to answer. “I saw a broadsword waver, then blood on a cross.” I didn’t want to go on but felt I must. “I think I saw ye,” I whispered.
    He stopped me with an outstretched hand, his eyes commanding obedience. “’Tis not a tale to be shared.”
    â€œBut ye don’t know,” I said, frustrated. “I feel ye must take heed. What I see
happens
.” I needed him to believe me.
    He pulled away and moved off several paces. “Aye. But what ye see is not the whole an’ not always the truth o’ the future.” He didn’t make a bit of sense and my face must have shown it.
    â€œThink o’ waters running swiftly in a stream. Drop a pebble an’ ye change the path but a little. Drop a boulder an’ ye have a diversion. ’Tis the same with lives an’ futures. What ye saw may happen, but what I do between now an’ then could very well change the outcome.”
    He reached down and picked up a large black cat that had wandered in and began scratching its neck and ears. The animal purred loudly and with much contentment. “I also think ’tis a very bad thing to know yer own future,” he continued. “’Tis enough that I’ve heard what I have. I wish to speak o’ it no more.”
    â€œYou know o’ the visions?” I said. “Do ye have them as well? I’ve never known another who does.”
    â€œAye. I have the vision.” He would have said more, but just then Brother Andrus came into the room. A sharp look from the Templar warned me to heed my tongue. I did, but inside I wanted to chase the monkaway. I badly wanted to speak with the Templar. I was troubled. The visions had been coming to me for as long as I could remember. And in the whole of that time, each and every vision had come to pass just as they had been shown to me. Anxiously I moved around the central table, picking things up and putting them down again.

TEACHER
    â€œG ood morn to ye, Andrus.” The Templar allowed the cat to jump from his arms then resumed his work with the charts.
    â€œGood morn, Alexander. A strapping day. The air is clean and pure. It stimulates the soul.” As I knew our conversation of earlier was not about to continue, I turned my attention to the newcomer.
    â€œHow is it that ye’re different?” I asked the Templar. “The Brothers, as opposed to the Templars?” They seemed alike and yet not quite so.
    â€œAndrus is a Cistercian monk. Our beliefs, as Templars, an’ our religious practices are derived from theirs. The Templars are, however, a knightly versiono’ their order, the soldiers o’ Christ. Both orders are sworn to poverty, chastity, an’ obedience,” the Templar said.
    â€œChastity?” It was not a word I knew.
    â€œAye. We are not allowed to marry or keep the company o’ women.”
    All women,
I wondered? It was not something I’d given thought to. Lasses, so far as I could see, were naught but an ache to the head anyway, but what about his mam? I didn’t ask as he had continued.
    â€œThe Templar Order has a very specific set o’ rules an’ ordinances that are ours alone. But they are not to be shared with the uninitiated. Know only that we are a military order trained in all aspects o’ warfare.”
    Now he was getting to it, I thought. “So ye use swords, bows, an’ knives,” I said. “An’ train to joust an’ fight mounted?”
    â€œAye. All of those things, but ’tis no’ for tournament that we train. ’Tis to protect God’s people.”
    â€œAye. Ye defend those who choose to make the pilgrimage from the bandits on the roads.” I knew that much from my cousin. “But ye do get to fight,” I said, stabbing forward with an imaginary sword. Suddenly I