The world's greatest cathedral was in its 161st year of construction and still not complete, according to the original architect's grand vision. This morning, something that was not part of the architect's plan marred the promenade in front of the church: a man tied to a wooden stake surrounded by bushels of reeds soaked with flammable liquid. Before him, a crowd had gathered.

The cathedral was not the first place of worship to be built on the island in the Seine River. To make room for the massive cathedral, the ancient church of St. Etienne had been torn down in 1163, after standing there since 528 AD. Before that, there had been a Christian basilica on the spot, preceded by a Roman temple to Jupiter, when that empire from the south had held sway over the land. And before the Romans, there had been older forms of worship conducted on the spit of land in the middle of the river. It was consecrated ground, and today it was going to be blessed with blood and human ash.

Construction on Notre Dame had begun in 1163, based on the vision of Maurice De Sully, Bishop of Paris. He had dedicated it to the Virgin Mary, and instructed the architects to design the exterior to impress and the interior to retell stories of the Bible for his largely illiterate constituency via portals, paintings, and stained glass. De Sully was a wise man and knew how people's minds – and hearts – worked. Impress them, and then indoctrinate them.

The cathedral's choir was completed in 1182, after only nineteen years; though that was the life span of many at the time. The nave was completed twenty-six years later, and the imposing front towers that would dominate the skyline of Paris for centuries were finished between 1225 and 1250. Still, there was work to be done to complete the grand vision of the long-dead bishop and original architects. It was a project larger than the lives of any who worked on it, in an age when such things were considered by some to be the best way to worship and pay homage to their god.

Now, inside the church, on a platform near the top of one of the two tall towers that flanked the entrance, three men stood in the shadows, the distance each one kept from the others indicating mutual dislike and distrust. From their commanding position they looked out into the early morning gray light, eyes fixed on the man tied to the stake. The procession leading the condemned to his place of death had occurred just before dawn, and now all was ready for the final act.

The man in the center nodded.

"It is time."

The finely garbed figure to his left, his royal status indicated by the ring with an embedded crest on his finger and the small crown on his head, seemed reluctant for a moment, then stepped up to the opening in the stone wall. He glanced once to his right, past the man who had just spoken, to the third figure, who also had an ornate ring, which indicated power of another sort, in his case, that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope barely twitched his head, indicating approval, albeit not an enthusiastic one. Even though they were in a church, it was obvious from the way the three interacted that the Pope was not the one with the ultimate power here.

King Philip called out in a voice used to giving commands: "Serve the sentence."

The voice of the executioner echoed against the stone walls of the cathedral in reply, carrying over the watching crowd.

"For crimes against the state and the Church, the accused, Jacques De Molay, is sentenced, this day, the eighteenth of March, in the year our Lord 1314, to death by flame."

The succinct announcement was punctuated by the executioner putting his torch to the bundles of reeds arrayed around the condemned man. De Molay's once fine robe was now tattered and blood-spattered from both his arrest and a night of torture. He was looking toward the cathedral at the three who watched him from the shadows, in the same place he had stood with them, watching others suffer the same fate. He appeared not to notice the fire that was igniting around him.

The bundles were arranged at such a distance from the accused that he would not die quickly. Instead, heat and smoke would cause great suffering for a considerable period of time before overcoming him. The executioner knew his craft well and had assumed that since the king himself was here to see the deed, he would give his master a good show. There was an art to everything. And because there had been little notice of this event, and the condemned apparently did not generate great sympathy from those who had gathered, there were none who had brought their own reeds among the crowd. Sometimes, a prisoner with friends among the crowd would get a quick departure when they would rush the stake and throw their own combustibles against his or her body. It was the twisted mercy of a quick death.

De Molay lifted his chin and drew in a deep breath, one that was just beginning to be affected by the smoke. He was a warrior, a man who had issued orders to men in combat, sending them to their deaths. He was also the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, which until this morning had been the most powerful and richest organization in Europe.

"Upon your heads be it," De Molay cried out in a deep voice.

"Philip, puppet of the Church and pretend king. And Clement the great pretender from Rome. You will join me and be judged before the Court of God within the year. With my dying breaths I place this curse upon your heads."

In the tower, the two men he had just named glanced at each other once more. King Philip IV and Pope Clement V had orchestrated De Molay's arrest along with that of all the Knights Templar across France the previous day. The two believed in God, but they also lived in an age of superstition, and De Molay's curse shook them. There was power in De Molay's words, and the circumstances, which made them even more ominous. The words of the dying were believed to have power.

De Molay coughed from the smoke beginning to swirl about his head, then shouted out once more.

"And the one who pulls your strings. Who was also my puppet master. I name you – "

But before he could finish, a figure stepped out from the encircling crowd and heaved a small clay pot full of liquid. The Grand Master screamed as the flammable liquid splattered on his skin, caught the fire, and immediately immolated him, whatever he'd been about to reveal lost in his agonized screams.

De Molay's body arched and then contracted, almost ripping free of the ropes that bound him, as every muscle in his body spasmed, trying to avoid the pain as flame seared through his skin. But the external flame is not what killed him. It was the seering fire that poured into his mouth, down his throat, and into his lungs as he desperately tried to breathe. So great was De Molay's will, though, that he managed to live long enough to break free of his now burning ropes and stagger forward a few steps through the fire. He raised a hand toward Notre Dame, the fingers blackened and twisted, his mouth now moving wordlessly, his dead lungs unable to function anymore. Then he collapsed, body tightening into the fetal position, as those taken by the flame always did, before he finally died.

Inside the stone tower, Philip and Clement turned to the third man. He wore no rings or crown. He was dressed simply in a long black robe with a brooch on the upper right chest. It consisted of an iron cross with a silver circle laid upon it.

"You betrayed De Molay," Philip said.

"He just said he worked for you. This was never brought up."