Nine Swords

Index:

1.0. Intro + Situational setting to [PAPER]An interest piqued
1.0.1 [PAPER]An interest piqued

1.0. Intro + Situational setting to [PAPER]An interest piqued

Books lying about on his desk, on the floor, some even on top of his desktop.
Sheets of paper, from all colours, empty or scribbled full with notes, completed the chaos that surrounded the young student. Next to his chair stood a big thermos filled with tea, even then, albeit for different reasons, coffee could not entice the young man and energy drinks with catchy names as Monster or Red Bull had yet to make an impact or even put on the market altogether.
No, this fellow swore by his earl grey tea, no sugar, no milk. It was the way he had learned to drink it at his grandfather’s house and his grandfather…that was his hero, so if he drank it that way, he’ll be damned if he didn’t drink it the same way.
His eyes seemed locked in a staring contest with his computer screen, physically impossible, yes, but unbeknown to him, in his future lay a lot of things that were deemed impossible.

A Walkman lay next to his keyboard, the typical headset with the orange ear cushions firmly on his head. Alongside it lay a good supply of batteries, James Hetfield singing about a Master and his puppets was all fine and dandy as long as he didn’t start to sound like Frank Sinatra in the process. Batteries were his Walkman’s lifeline and subsequently the very thing that kept him going with his project.
This was an age where blackberries were still only a kind of fruit, where computers starting up in less than 5 minutes were a technical marvel and Baywatch was considered to be a quality tv show, scratch that last, truth be told, even then it wasn’t a quality tv show. Nonetheless people that have experienced that time first hand know fully well that the symbiotic relationship between cassette tape and Walkman was key in the pioneering role the Walkman had in the world of mobile music.

It is in this kind of setting that William, our student, started to carve the mould of his own future. It was here that he started writing his first papers, his first thoughts about his prime interest…the Knight’s Templar.

He had carefully written out a lot of stuff on paper, granted they lay scattered around the room, but by writing them he had made sure they were also etched in his memory. On the computer screen he had typed his title and a small intro so far. Leaning back he didn’t take his eyes off the screen, taking a stick of gum out of his breastpocket and started to chew heavily on the vanilla/pineapple flavoured piece of candy.
A smile appeared on his face, in any old school movie or comic, an exclamation mark would have been lit up above his head for the apparent glorious idea that came into his mind.
Soon all one could hear in his dorm room was the incessant ticking of his fingers on the keyboard…and every two hours a very faint James Hetfield does Frank Sinatra impression.

1.0.1 [PAPER]An interest piqued

Truthfully, my first encounter with the Templars was playing a game…I remember it as if it was yesterday…Broken Sword: The shadows of the Templars it was called. The protagonist was called George, an American tourist in Paris who got sucked into this cascading adventure because he simply was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Without willing to give up the story to potential readers of this paper, I shall only say it did involve…the Templars (and some female Parisian journalist for whom our American friend George got the hots for).
Though I now realise the truth about these men, or at least the recorded truth, was far from the information you received from the game. Nonetheless there was an underlying feel of both tragedy and a feeling of respect for these men.
It is sadly enough a recurrent theme and feeling when one seeks more information and in depth research on these knights.
I shan’t bore the reader with historical accuracy, including dates, names and locations. After all that is not the purpose of this paper.
It is about the quintessential essence of one’s interests in life and how they got “unlocked” so to speak.
Do you remember the first time the sugary goodness of candy touched your lips? I certainly do. After that very first one, a new world opened. A world in which there were so many things to discover: other varieties, other tastes, colours, forms. If you name it, you probably wouldn’t be far of a product that exists.
That is what happened to me from the moment I fired up that game, I wanted to know all about these mysterious holy men. Not because they were deeply religious, even God knows I’m a lost cause to try and persuade me of His existence, but the tragedy and mystery that surrounded them was the spark that lit the fire.

My first careful steps into the unknown were regular trips to the library, either loaning books or simply reading them there. Although a lot about them came back in each book (the known facts such as their rise to power and their demise) there were also some finer details that interested me, their customs, rituals, lifestyle and in some cases hopes and dreams of some of these knights.
Many of the books talked of the order in France or England but never about the order in my own area, Flanders.
It intrigued me to say the least and resulted in a full scale search, some might even call it a hunt, for leads and tips to where these famous knights roamed the land.
Eventually I found some references to their existence here and in the early years persuaded my parents to make it a family trip and in later years all I needed was a backpack really.

The effect those visited locations had, and still have, on me are near unexplainable. A sense of belonging, a connection to these men I knew nothing about, yet it felt as if they were my brothers. A tingling that races through my entire body saying I’m not alone, that they are still there.
That is of course absurd and yet I cannot shake that feeling.

From Flanders fields it led me across the whole of France from Pas de Calais to the Languedoc. In Britain from the highlands in Scotland to Land’s End in Cornwall, trying to use every available minute I had to spare to find out more about the Templars..
I realise there are still a lot of stones left to be turned, roads to be travelled and sources to be validated, but the truth is quite simple: For many the Knights Templar are merely a footnote in history, for me they are as real and important as my mother and father.
Which has led me to the question: did they really disappear or are they still pretty much in existence, albeit in a slightly altered form?

As a conclusion I can only say that people speak of interests in their life but for me it has become an obsession, be it good or bad, that is up to the reader to decide.