The Templar's Penance: (Knights Templar 15) (18 page)

It was an unwholesome prospect. There was something about illnesses of the belly that always alarmed him. He had a morbid fear of them, which was exacerbated by the distance from home, as though any such disease must be more virulent, the farther he travelled from Devon. It was not an irrational phobia, for diarrhoea could kill an adult as easily as a child, when the balance of the humours was disturbed. Some years before, Simon had witnessed the death of his own son, Peterkin, and the horror of that gradual fading away would never entirely leave him.

Here, in the middle of the night, he was struck by a sharp sadness. For perhaps the first time in his life, he actually pictured his own death. He could imagine Meg, his wife, hearing of it from Baldwin, he could see her weeping, his daughter Edith sobbing uncontrollably, his servant Hugh stoically sniffing, a fixed scowl twisting his features. He might easily die here, over the next few days, and never see any of them again. The thought was hideous. He had to put the idea away from him! He wasn’t going to die here, he would return home to see his wife and daughter, and he would be fine again.

Naked, Simon pulled a jack on against the cool night air, and then had to step carefully over the seven or eight prone figures who littered his path on the way to the rear wall. Before he was
halfway, he could see nothing. There was only a deeper blackness before him than that which lay behind.

The door to the noisome little room was a thick blanket suspended by rings hanging from a pole. Simon had to feel his way along the wall, stumbling against one of the massive racks which supported the casks, and then his finger, fumbling, felt the edge of a length of cloth. He pulled at it and walked cautiously forward, but as he moved, his foot snagged on a plank and he tripped forward, cracking his head painfully on a projecting stone.

After a few moments which were filled with an awfully pregnant silence, all the obscenities which sprang to his mind appearing woefully inadequate, Simon took a deep breath and reached forward. This time he carefully felt around the area and found where the planks lay in which the holes had been cut. Finding one, he turned, reversed into position, and sat thankfully.

From here, suddenly the room looked as though it was filled with a silver light. The open doorway was a bright rectangle, and as he felt the boards settling underneath him, he wondered fleetingly whether he would plummet to earth sitting here.

Thankfully, he and the boards survived and he made it back to his sleeping space without mishap, but even then he didn’t fall asleep immediately. He lay wrapped in his robe on a bench, hands behind his head, and stared out into the night, thinking mostly of the dead body, but also of the devastated face of Frey Ramón. He had said he last saw Joana in the square.

Could the man have been lying? Was he capable of murdering his own woman – and if so, why?

The next morning there was the sort of dawn Baldwin remembered from his service in the Templars. Small, thin clouds floated high overhead; the sky was a perfect, silken blue, impossibly beautiful. It made the limewashed buildings shine as though they had been deliberately created to make the eyes ache.

For once, Simon woke before Baldwin, and was out in the yard sluicing water over his head and shoulders when a mangy
cur entered their room, cocked a leg over Baldwin’s baggage, then went on to sniff and dribble over Baldwin’s head.

Waking, the knight always thought, was a reinvigoration. It was a process by which the body stirred itself from near-death back to life; however, being woken by a flea-bitten mutt which had just pissed over his clothing was less invigorating than he would have liked. Roaring at the little creature, which folded back its ears and streaked from the room like a dog catching a speeding arrow, Baldwin sprang from his makeshift bed and surveyed his clothing. The dog had not had a good life, and the yellow spray stood out on his linen shirt. It stank.

‘Good morning!’ Simon called.

‘And a nice joke that is, I am sure,’ Baldwin retorted grumpily.

‘What joke?’

‘Saying it’s a good morning. What’s good about it?’

But his bad humour faded when he stood at the doorway and could see the sun bursting through the branches of pale leaves, dappling the little yard with shadows that moved gently as the breeze blew. There were soft colours here, pale yellows and ochres, and flowers Baldwin had known when he used to live in the South: plants with rich purple blooms, others with bright red leaves, and olive trees with their tiny, green-white star-shaped flowers. The sight caught at his heart. He felt as though he had come back home, as though he had only been half alive in all the time that he had been living in England.

He had missed this. The scents on the air, the sound of people laughing and talking unhurriedly, knowing that today would be warm again. If there was to be rain, it was no matter. The rain was needed in order to preserve the plants. And if it rained, it would be warm, not the chill mizzle they were used to, out on Dartmoor.

The last time he had been to Southern Europe was so long ago, he could hardly recall it, and yet seeing Matthew in the square had brought it all back to him. Now, with the soft breeze stirring the leaves above him, Baldwin felt oddly excited. It was in a warm climate where he had first felt the urges of lust,
chasing girls along alleys in the sunshine to snatch a kiss or rolling in the long grasses with the sun warming their naked bodies. Suddenly aware of a poignant longing for her, he wished his wife Jeanne was with him.

At the inn, the keeper’s older daughter took Baldwin’s pack and promised to launder it. The people of the town went upriver a short distance to where there was a series of rocks on which their washing could be beaten and then left to dry, she said.

‘I hope she’s careful,’ Simon commented as she departed.

Baldwin, who was feeling a little constricted in one of Simon’s cast-off shirts, grunted. ‘Why?’

‘It sounds like the place where we found Joana yesterday. I wouldn’t like to think that there could be another murder.’

Baldwin set his mouth. The death of the woman was a terrible reminder that no matter how holy the city, men still harboured motives to kill. ‘I wonder if Munio will ever learn who killed her?’

‘I doubt it.’ Simon cast a look at Baldwin. ‘I was considering it last night while you snored. The sad fact is, any number of people here could be felons, so how could you tell? A pilgrim is automatically to be assisted by all, regardless of age, sex, or whether he has
murdered
even. A murderer would be safe from the rope until he returned home to face the law. And that’s what gets to me: so many people here have set out on their journey for precisely that reason – because they are guilty of something. That’s why pilgrims come here, after all, to atone. They commit some terrible sin, and travel all this way to pay for it.’

‘True enough, I fear,’ Baldwin responded sadly; it was certainly true in his case. ‘Many towns in Europe will impose a pilgrimage on a murderer.’

The two left the place and walked through the shaded alleyway out to the square. This early in the morning, there were fewer people abroad, and Simon and Baldwin saw that the inn where they had drunk with Munio the night before was open and ready for business. They sat at a table under a large tree and were soon
happily chewing coarse bread and dried meat, washing it down with a smooth, sweet cider.

Simon gave a contented belch. ‘What if every single pilgrim here was a killer? We’d have our work cut out then!’

It was while the two friends were leaning back, feeling the soporific afterglow of a good meal, that Baldwin saw his old colleague Matthew again.

The former Templar walked slowly among the tradesmen, speaking to no one, which made him stand out from the other beggars there. Men and women clothed in black all moved with the same lethargic pace, but most offered a greeting to the traders standing there in the crowd. Not Matthew. He walked with his face averted, as though he hated to see how much the people there detested him. In his past he had been a warrior monk, someone notable for his religious dedication, his integrity and his honour. Now he had become a shrunken man.

Baldwin had long ago developed the ability to isolate his logical mind from his emotions. It had been necessary when he saw his friends dying in the hellish Battle of Acre, and had grown still more necessary while he was a renegade knight, avoiding capture as the King’s men hunted down all those Templars who had escaped their traps. Watching Matthew today, he was struck by the fact that the beggar was the most solitary man in the square. Whereas others were disabled to varying degrees or had obvious deformities, it was Matthew, albeit physically whole, who appeared the most cut off. It was curious, but Baldwin felt he understood. A man like Matthew, proud and haughty as he had been, would find it intolerable to have changed into someone who was despised or pitied. That, for him, would be worse than any form of torture.

Baldwin wondered if Matthew would, in fact, have fared better if he had suffered from some of the cruel injuries inflicted on the other Templars. It might have helped him to create a bond
with other folk. Then again, perhaps not. Some men were arrogant and, whatever the circumstances, would not see fit to mingle with those whom they considered below them. Matthew was formed in that mould. While other beggars walked together, he kept himself aloof.

They were a lively group, these beggars, Baldwin noticed. A pair of legless men over at the entrance to the square were talking loudly to a deaf fellow, who bent his head, a hand cupping his ear, while he frowned comically, trying to understand what they were saying. Meanwhile a woman who had lost an arm cackled with a young mother, whose children were scampering all over the place. There was a man with a dreadfully disfigured face, who kept it half covered so as not to upset people, yet who burst out laughing uproariously at some joke passed to him by a young servant who lounged at his side. Then there was a small gathering of women nearer the Cathedral, all holding out their hands and piteously calling upon any passers-by for alms; although if they received nothing for their efforts, their cries soon became screeches of outrage. It was a common trait for beggars to hurl imprecations at those who ignored their pleas.

The woman María was there, Baldwin saw. She was a little taller than the rest, and probably louder than all the others put together. Her harangues were more spiteful, too, and her knowledge of Galician sewer-language was, to Baldwin’s ear, impressive.

‘They won’t do well if they keep shouting at people like that,’ Simon commented drily.

‘Maybe they feel they have little to lose,’ Baldwin guessed. ‘If a man will not help them with alms, they see little need to show respect.’

‘It’s damned disgraceful.’

‘It is not honourable, no – but if you were forced to beg, how would you behave? At least this way, abusing those who refuse to help them, they feel a little satisfaction, I imagine. Revenge upon the people who shun them.’

Simon grunted without conviction, and Baldwin’s attention
returned to his old comrade. Matthew was near the Cathedral wall now, and he squatted at its foot, his hat tilted slightly back, surveying the crowds like a man who sneered at the antics of children. Catching sight of Baldwin, he half lifted a hand as though to acknowledge him, but then let it fall, as though reminding himself that he was no longer the equal of Baldwin, and could not expect recognition. Had their positions been reversed, Matthew would have refused to acknowledge him, Baldwin was sure, both because he would refuse to have any dealings with a beggar, and because he wouldn’t confess to knowing a Templar. That might be dangerous. Baldwin was sure he should feel upset by this, but somehow it served only to increase his vague feeling of comradeship with Matthew, as though it was their differences which bound them together.

The sun was high in the sky and the heat was growing when Doña Stefanía appeared from an alley behind them. She walked to a table at a corner, shaded pleasantly beneath a great tree, and sat quietly, as though entirely humbled or devastated.

Simon and Baldwin exchanged a look.

‘I should like to leave her in peace,’ the knight said slowly, ‘but what of others who might be harmed by Joana’s murderer? The killer might even now be stalking another young woman.’

‘There’s little point in our becoming involved,’ Simon countered. ‘It’s nothing to do with us. There’s no merit in upsetting a Prioress, or whatever she is, just to find out something which is of no importance to us.’

‘No importance?’ Baldwin snorted. ‘Come on, Simon – the truth is always important.’

‘You know what I mean. We have no authority or jurisdiction here. It’s sad that a girl was killed, but what of it? Girls are raped and murdered every day. We should concentrate our minds on returning home and helping our own folks there.’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said, unconvinced.

Simon stared about him sourly. ‘And anyway, no one even speaks bloody English here. I don’t think I could be any use whatever.’

Baldwin chuckled. ‘Little change from life at home in Devonshire, then.’

‘Oh, you think so do you?’ Simon demanded in mock anger, but as he did so, he caught sight of the lady. She had suddenly shot upright in her seat and was staring at a tall, dark knight. ‘Who’s that?’ he wondered aloud.

‘I wonder why the lady trembles so at the sight of him?’ Baldwin murmured.