The Church was on fire.
The beautiful, worn flagstones were blackened with the rage of the inferno, hungrily lapping at anything and everything that it could hold and destroy. The flames leapt in a hellish dance across the floor. Every icon of our Mother, every rug and snowy white altar cloth was being melted by the sweltering heat. Smoke and flame rioted, clogging my nose and wrapping around my lungs. 
Never before have I felt such heat, such mad rage and senseless violence against a house of God. Everywhere I turned it seemed the devil had touched, burning and raging. The building that had become a sanctuary of life was now a temple of death. I stood, mute with horror, watching in dumb shock as it all fell apart.
My life began and ended with the Knights Templar. 
That same day many years previous, I had no knowledge. Knowledge in the sense that I knew nothing beyond the rolling hills and sweet grass of the countryside, the friendly flick of a cow's long tail, and the sunlight that turned my hair a sandy brown. I had no knowledge of wealth, of religion, of glory, no knowledge of the vast lands in the east and the "holy" war fought there. I was simply Gabriel, the farmhand.
My life changed the day I saw the red cross on a field of white. The flag billowed in the breeze, carried by one of four soldiers. I heard the other farmers murmuring and muttering, "The Knights Templar". In my mind this was nothing more than a bother, a small disturbance in my daily tasks. That is, until one of the knights pierced me with his gaze. He had the clearest eyes that I had ever seen, more blue than a robin's egg. Laugh lines surrounded them, and his face held a strange sense of serenity. It piqued my curiosity.
Later I learned that the knight was called Christophe, and that he was the provincial master. That day as he looked at me, I could see a curiosity in him too. He held the gaze of a small, dirty farm boy and saw something in me that made him pause. "Boy," said he. "What is your name?"
I shuffled my feet, suddenly nervous. "Gabriel... Sir." I squinted. Was he a knight?
"Gabriel." He seemed to settle an internal conflict as his weathered face showed the hint of a smile. "The messenger of Maria, our Mother."
"My mother's name wasn't Maria." I wrinkled my nose. The thought of having to share my mother was distasteful, even when I had little memory of her. 
"I see. And where is your mother?"
"She's dead." I felt a sudden sense of shame, as if I had caused her death. "My father too."
He let out a deep, drawn out "Hmmm". The knights around them winced, as if they had heard that time and time again. "And do you go to church, Gabriel?"
My eyes rounded. "Of course."
"And why?"
The villagers and remaining knights watching were suddenly uncomfortable. It wasn't a question of 'why.' It was a given fact, a part of everyday life to sit in the cold, suffocating church with the rest of the town while the holy priests preached and droned in a foreign tongue.
"Because if I don't I'll go to hell." I said simply.
The villagers nodded in assent, whispering, "He's right you know."
Christophe beamed. "Gabriel, would you like to join the knights?"
My world rocked and spun backwards at a tilt. A simple dirt poor boy did not suddenly join an order of wealthy religious monks. The man standing before me was clearly respected, and that was something that I could never hope to attain. Who would respect a farm boy? But I gazed upon the knights and felt a strange sense of rightness about them. "Of course." The words spilled out as if poured by a divine hand, not of my will.
My young mind recognized a great loss and a gain all at once. I would be isolated from villagers, and perhaps even hated by some. I would never have a family or children. But I could travel, see new lands. I may obtain new knowledge and friends.
And somehow I knew that a great mystery had come about, and that this was my destiny.
I found out later that Christophe was not a normal member of the religious order. He did not give stern looks or beatings, nor did he lecture me on sin. Most importantly I learned that my answer about why I go to church did not satisfy him. "Gabriel," he said, "Faith is a mystery. A man cannot teach another to be faithful. It is like guiding a baby on how to walk. Ultimately the child is the only one that can teach himself." I learned that Christophe would not teach me to love God, and I treasured the freedom that he gave me to explore Him myself.
Those clear eyes of his watched my first years of struggle with patience. I tripped over my uncultured tongue and pored over books, straining to learn the meaning of the useless letters and words that I could not read. I saw gold, more gold than I have ever beheld, that villagers entrusted us to care for. I met monks and saw lords in a great castle hall, and served in a kitchen with a great roaring cook who was fond of cracking her spoon on the heads of the serving boys. But still there was one that I did not meet, the one Lord and Messiah that had not revealed himself to me in a great vision or dream. I did not see him wandering the halls of the keep. I did not feel his warm hand guiding me. And eventually I gave up trying to find him.
I was roughly 18 when I received a shocking message. I was to travel hundreds of miles to engage in combat in the "Crusade". The stone walls and incense that surrounded me for years were abandoning me.
  I had made friends, Christophe and other monks. He was my father in many ways, and my teacher. It was he who gave me the news on a scrap of yellowed vellum with a shaking hand. I watched as his eyes filled with unshed tears. Usually, members of my rank did not return from war. I was riding to my death.
And before I knew it, I was laboring in the hot sun of the Holy Land, which took us only a year to get to due to the harsh conditions of our superiors. Luckily I didn't lose my humanity to that brutish war. Rock and white desert stretched for miles, with a glistening river snaking between them. I was told when I arrived that these people we were fighting were savage. They worshipped false gods and they defiled the sacred ground that they walked upon. And I am ashamed to say that I believed them. The true crusades had ended years ago. Our stubborn leaders somehow believed that we would deliver the holy land into the light.
They could not have been more wrong.
A year had passed since I arrived, and I was starting to believe that I had died early on and was living out my divine punishment in hell. Days were spent tending to the wounded and the dead in a macabre ritual. My hands were stained with the blood of my brothers. I was the healer of our encampment, and I was kept awake long into the night and woken early in the day. Men that I had laughed with one day were being buried the next, and the survivors' eyes became more haunted as time wore on.
Then came the day that brought my salvation. His name was Ahmad, and he was a Muslim.
Ahmad was the only accomplishment that our faction had. He was our only prisoner of war. He arrived in my 368th day, bound by cloth and beaten within an inch of his life. I stared at this wretch brought before me, my lip curled in disgust. It was still my belief that he was a demon. As I looked closer, however, I saw something. I suppose that it was exactly what Christophe saw in me the day that he took me from my normal life. It was a shimmer of bravery and love in his dark eyes.
Most surprising, Ahmad could speak French. How or why he knew our language, I never found out. The first words he spit out of his broken mouth were, "I am Ahmad. Please save me." He was older than me by a few years, but still very young. I could see the youth in his dark face. I had never seen skin of such a color, a bronzed tan that reflected the desert stones. His eyes were deep set and framed with the longest lashes, and in them I saw the same fire that Christophe had: the passion and devotion to their faith.
At first I was stunned. How could this creature speak to me, after his kind had killed so many of my brothers? Much less ask for my pity! I had not spilled blood once in the 368 days of my hell, but in that moment I was sorely tempted. And then a looked at him again.
I beheld a defeated man. He would suffer for his faith, but he did not want to die. An image of kind blue eyes flashed before me and I set about cleaning his wounds. We were soon the only ones left in camp; the others had returned to the conflict. The setting sun made the sands blaze red, and I lay Ahmad on a makeshift cot. He had long since fallen unconscious in a restless sleep. But as the shadows grew longer, I became more worried. The knights had not returned from battle. It was inky black outside, stars scattered like precious white stones in a dark river bed, and still they did not return. I waited outside the tent until the rising sun made the sky seashell pink, and still they did not come.
I was alone.
My weary mind could not mourn. I had grieved too much over the year. I surveyed the ragged camp; I had three horses, ten bedrolls, a small supply of food, a traveling pack, various medicine bags, a sword, the helmets of the fallen, and one prisoner of war. I filled the leather water bags with water from the river that was perhaps a mile away and lugged it back. When I arrived, Ahmad was awake.
His dark eyes watched me gather supplies. "You are alone." He stated quietly. I stopped, my hands clenched on a bag.
"Yes. You are free to go." My eyes burned with shame. My brothers were dead, but the ghosts of their dripping swords sang the tune of mutual destruction. We had wrought death in the Holy Land.
To my surprise, he shook his head, black hair whipping around his bruised face. "No, you need me." He stood and winced, holding his side. He bent towards the ground, knees scraping against the rocks and sand. I lunged to catch him, but he started murmuring in his language. It was a beautiful, haunting sound, the syllables tumbling over each other like stones down a hillside. He was praying, I realized, to some heathen god no doubt.
When he was finished, he rocked back on his heels, his forehead smeared with sand from pressing it against the earth. Ahmad watched me, head cocked to the side like an exotic, curious bird. "We have the same God, you know. Different names, different rituals, yes, but the same."
I stood, shocked. My breath had left me, and I gazed upon him for an eternity. I was startled to find that my cheeks were wet with tears. Here I was, clinging to my belief that this man was evil when he prayed to our God more devoutly than I.
"I am sorry," I whispered, wiping my tanned arm across my eyes. He understood.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Gabriel," I said.
His lips turned up in a smile. "Gabriel. Like the angel of Muhammad." Ahmad stilled for a moment, then said, "We can make it back to your country. If you disguise yourself, we can travel through this land without any trouble. But we must hurry. My people will scour this camp soon." Ahmad flashed a white smile and stood shakily.
In that moment, we had a mutual understanding. I understood that I needed him, and he knew that he would help me. We would depend on one another.
We packed the horses, the two dark chestnuts and a beautiful Arabian that the knights had stolen from some unlucky Muslim noble. I helped Ahmad onto one of the horses.
"Wrap this around yourself," Ahmad demonstrated, wrapping a long scarf around his head and face. "Pretend that your a woman. It's not hard, just don't speak or look at anyone." This surprised me. Women in both of our worlds seemed to be pressured into submission.
"Are women here treated badly?" I asked as we began the long, harrowing trek West.
Ahmad inclined his head. "By some. My family treated our wives very well."
I nodded. "Women are precious. They have their flaws, of course, but they have a sense of sympathy and compassion with others that most men do not have." I felt sick whenever I saw a man mistreating his wife or daughters. Did he not understand?
Ahmad broke into a wide grin and said, "I agree."
"Did you have a wife, Ahmad?" I asked.
He fell into silence for a few paces. "I almost did," he finally said. "I loved her very much. She was killed by a Christian."
I flinched. Any man who killed a woman was not a Christian. I opened my mouth to say so, but he started speaking before me.
"A man who kills a woman should not claim to belong to a peaceful religion." He glanced at me and murmured, "If Jesus saved prostitutes and murderers, how would he feel to see his child kill an innocent?"
I stopped walking and cried, "And what about this war? Are my brothers so condemned because they were forced to kill?" I was not accusing him. It was as if all the fears I had stored inside for them broke out in that moment.
"All saints were sinners once," he said, gazing at the sky. "I believe that they will be forgiven."
We walked in silence for a long time. The sun set and we made camp, and three days passed in silence. It was a healing silence for both of us. We ate and walked in compete stillness, the only sound from the wind and the sand and the horses. On the third day we began to speak. I felt the earth tingle beneath my feet when I realized that Jesus walked this very land. So did Maria, Christ's mother and mine.
And suddenly, I felt Him. I felt as if his hand were guiding me. It did not come in some great vision with a blaze of heavenly fire, but it was a very subtle shift. I knew that I believed in him. I felt it in his homeland.
On the fortieth day of our journey, we encountered another member of the Knights Templar. I jumped off my horse and ran to him, cradling his head in my hands. He was mortally wounded, and a spill of blood gave away the direction that he had come from. His fevered eyes flew wild and he swung at me, stopping when I pulled the disguise away to reveal the red cross on my chest. His haggard face relaxed. "I am dying," he rasped, drawing short and jagged breaths.
I had seen too many die. I took his helmet off, trying to provide as much comfort as I could. He was clutching a simple pine box to his chest, and he shakily tried to handed it to me. "Take it," he said. "Bring it to a safe haven."
I took the box, folding my hands over it. "What is it?" I asked, more to appease his mind than anything else.
"It is the chalice of Christ. The grail." His eyes dimmed in death and silence filled the air as his soul departed.
Ahmad and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Both of us knew of the Holy Grail, ( and who did not?) but never in our wildest fantasies would we actually believe that it had survived the struggle and bloodshed after Christ had ascended. My hands were trembling as I opened the box. In that simple box lay a simple chalice on a bed of velvet. It was made of wood. As soon as we lay eyes on it, Ahmad and I knew. We knew that it was the chalice of Jesus. We could feel it, as if he had come and whispered it in our ears.
We continued on, back towards my home and Christophe. We protected the grail, keeping it in the box as if it had no value. We even pretended that it was a goblet that we drank out of, and sat it next to us at meals when travelers would pass. Ahmad continued his daily prayers, and I said new prayers of my own. Soon the day came when I no longer had to disguise myself, and the people we passed became more pale. Our Arabian horse, Ridwan, received more strange looks from passerby. Ahmad was watched by other travelers.
It only took us a year and a half to reach my home, by some miracle of God.  I was now about twenty two, and Ahmad twenty five. When we finally neared France, I noticed something. More and more people scurried away when they saw the Templar cross on my chest. Villagers would huddle and gaze at me fearfully, or even angrily.
I found out through word of mouth that the Pope and King Philip had conspired to persecute Templars.  "On what crimes?" I longed to scream, but I had heard the whispered offenses of my brothers. Those accusations were unspeakable, and I ached to block them out. I could no longer wear my cross. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of holy men had died, brought down by the wicked. Were Christophe with me, he would say, "The crimes of few do not outnumber the goodness of many." Those few Templars that had descended into greed and heresy had caused the earth to be soaked with our blood.
Ahmad and I finally reached the castle and village where I had spent my days as a Templar. I wept with relief, and Ahmad grinned. I entered through the service gate as Ahmad watched the horses. The familiar smells and sounds enveloped me like a warm hug. And suddenly I beheld the cook. She looked at me, first in bewilderment and then shock. The rest of the people in the kitchen slowed and stopped working, staring at the ghost of a young man they used to know. Slowly they walked up to me, patting me on the back, touching my face, and ruffling my long hair. Grins broke out, and then laughs. They hugged me. Some were crying, and others shaking their head in disbelief.
I was the only one who had returned.
They told me that the rest of the Templars had scattered. None were left in this village, but I was welcome to stay for a short amount of time. Of course, if I was no longer a Templar, I could stay permanently.
I could not renounce the gift that Christophe had given me. And where was he? It had been nearly four years since I had last seen his smiling face and head his kind voice. Had he died too, burned by the king's men?

I trudged back to Ahmad. My heart felt like lead. He greeted me with a strange smile. "What happened?" I asked, stopping short.
"Well," he cleared his throat and squirmed. "A man took the grail. He is walking down that path, but somehow I did not have the heart to stop him."
I swung around, shooting down the path like an arrow from a bow. My blood rushed. I could not let the grail be destroyed.
The man was before me. He turned, hearing my frantic footfalls. A pair of crystal blue eyes widened in shock, and I broke down in sobs. "Christophe!" I cried, running into his embrace. I wailed like an infant, and he clutched me as if he were the Madonna pulling her son from the cross.
  "Gabriel," he wept, stroking my head and hugging me until I feared that my ribs would crack. "I thought you to be dead." Light footfalls were heard behind us as Ahmad joined us. Introductions were made. Ahmad was moved to tears, and hugged Christophe as if he had been the prodigal son off in the crusades.
"Do you know what you hold?" I asked, gesturing to the pine box.
He shook his head. "I was compelled to protect it, and I do not question when the Holy Spirit moves me. It was the same feeling that I had the day I met you."
"Open it," I implored him.
He gingerly removed the lid and gasped. His laugh rang through the hills. "I knew you had a great destiny, Gabriel, but I never suspected that you would find the grail."
"Does it posses powers?" I asked him.
He chuckled to himself. "Powers? No. It is as powerless as sand. Sometimes, great things are not known for their magical capabilities or value. They are powerful because of what they stand for and what they have been through. It is now, as it was when Jesus drank from it, a simple wooden cup. But it stands for so much more."
Ahmad spoke then, in an old language, familiar to me through his prayers, "This is the chalice of my blood."
We stood in awe, the three of us, with a summer breeze ruffling our hair. So much had happened since the death of the Messiah, or the prophet as Ahmad believed. His message had spread, like spring melting winter snows.
"Would you like to join me in Church? It is Sunday." Christophe asked us. I noticed that he extended the offering to Ahmad, knowing that he was Islamic.
"I would love to," Ahmad replied.
We entered the church. I inhaled deeply the smell of the wood and incense, the pure candle wax, and heard the voices of villagers. The flagstones under my feet were worn by the tread of the devoted, and suddenly it meant something to me. It was not simply a ritual. Men had lived and died for this Church. The priest began to drone in his foreign tongue, and this time I knew the words.
When the mass had ended, Christophe and I knelt on the hard ground. Ahmad excused himself and went to look after the horses and chalice. I prayed, thanking The Lord for all I had been given.
In the midst of my prayer, I heard a whispering. "Templar Knights," they hissed. My heart pounded and I leapt up, running to the door. It was locked from the outside. Christophe slowly rose, his old limbs creaking. I smelled smoke, and we looked at each other in wordless horror. The flames rose. Heat seared our flesh, and we choked on the smoke. It was the end, and we knew it.
In my panic fogged mind, I had forgotten about Ahmad. As the doors shattered, I remembered him. He descended into the flames like an angel of God, snatching us from the fire and pulling us into the light. My lungs heaved with the release from the smoke and my blurry eyes beheld our horse Ridwan, who had smashed the wood with his powerful legs.
I laughed as I hugged my friend and savior, who clapped me on the back with tears in his eyes. Those eyes widened in shock and fear as he stared at the arrow that suddenly protruded from his shoulder. The breath was stolen from me as blood poured out of him. I turned to see Christophe with another arrow, buried deep in his chest. I cried out as he collapsed slowly, pulling me to him.
His chest heaved with the effort to breathe, and blood spilled from his lips. He whispered to me, "I have always thought of you as my son. And I have never been happier than I was today." His lined face held no trace of fear.
"I have always thought of you as a father," I choked out. "I love you." Christophe smiled as the light faded from his beautiful blue eyes. I cried as I shoved Ahmad onto Ridwan and grabbed one of the chestnut horses, snatching the grail up and thundering away. We galloped long after the sun set.

Epilogue

Salt and cold spray cooled my sun-kissed face. The boat creaked and rocked beneath me, carving it's way through the dark water. I heard a laugh, and watched Ahmad hoist his daughter up on his shoulder with a smile. His wound had long since healed.
"Gabriel!" She squealed, wrapping her little arms around my neck as she caught sight of me watching her. "Up, up!" I lifted her, twirling her in the sky like a seabird and setting her gently on deck.
"How is your wife?" I asked him.
"Seasick," he replied with a wince. We both knew that the journey would be long.
I gazed over the clear water, thinking about a pair of blue eyes that had matched that color. This ship would mark the end of the Knights Templar. Ahmad and I had recovered many holy treasures over the years, including the grail. Now they would be led to safe haven, in a hidden place full of riches.
"Do you regret it?" I asked him, "Leaving home?"
His white teeth flashed in a smile. "My friend, for you I would leave behind a thousand homes. What are houses without friends?" He hugged his daughter, much to her delight. "I would not have my family were it not for you."
I smiled. My heart felt light, as if I had accomplished a great thing. We would lead the grail to safety. His family grew in happiness and love, and I watched them with peace in my heart. When we grew older, it was our hope that heaven would accept us with wide open arms, a Muslim and a Christian.