The Templar's Penance: (Knights Templar 15) Page 15

  ‘You said nothing to me!’ Don Ruy protested.

  ‘How could I speak? He was … I was … in a difficult position!’ she declared with an embarrassed vehemence.

  ‘Why should that make him decide to harm you?’ Baldwin asked, bemused, but trying to save her from further shame. ‘Had you refused Don Ruy’s advances?’

  ‘I made no such advance!’ Don Ruy stated with a pained voice.

  Doña Stefanía cast a cautious look about them. No one was near enough to give her cause for concern. ‘No. He made no improper advances of that nature, Sir Baldwin. Instead, he offered to ruin me!’

  Don Ruy was staring at her with eyes filled with astonishment as though disbelieving his own ears, but Baldwin felt that although the lady’s story was far from the unvarnished truth, there was some element of veracity there – else why should she have recoiled so obviously from the man?

  ‘Sir Baldwin, he sought to improve himself at my expense. The very next day, he approached my maid and demanded money. He threatened to tell the Cathedral authorities that I had willingly submitted to the coarse and indelicate attack of the other pilgrim, and that I was therefore indecent. Unless I paid him a large sum of money, he would tell all about me. There! What else could I have done? And now I throw myself on your pity and honour!’

  ‘You agreed to pay him?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘But this is madness!’ Don Ruy burst out. ‘I never spoke to you, I never mentioned the contents of your purse, nor did I threaten anything!’

  ‘You deny this?’ Baldwin said.

  ‘Yes. Entirely!’

  ‘He is telling the truth,’ Doña Stefanía sneered. ‘He is so courageous, he avoided me, but gave me the message through my maid. She told me so that night, and to escape his clutches, we fled before dawn the next morning. I never dreamed that he would follow so close upon our heels, but the day before yesterday he arrived here and met my maid, proposing a rendezvous so that I could go and pay him.’

  ‘I only arrived here yesterday!’ Don Ruy cried.

  ‘You told Joana the day before!’ she declared.

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘He told her to make me meet him at a point on the river, and to bring plenty of gold, for he had need of money for lodging. He dared to jest with me about the expense of staying in a city. I can only feel contempt for a man who could be so callous to a poor nun. And then, because some man had taken my mount, and I couldn’t go myself, my maid went in my place, and … and we all know what happened to my poor Joana!’

  As she gave herself up to her grief once more, Baldwin watched the knight closely, but saw nothing other than confusion and rising anger. There was nothing to suggest that he was guilty. And yet the maid had died in carrying the money, presumably, to the man she thought was blackmailing Doña Stefanía: this knight. ‘What do you say, Don Ruy?’

  ‘That this is all invention. Why should I demand money? I have sufficient. I saw this lady with her paramour, but thought little of it. I didn’t even realise it was her, it was so dark. It was only the next morning when I heard her maid talking and laughing about her mistress, that I realised who it must have been lying beneath Parceval. We all know that women are tainted with original sin, and that they can use their wiles to snare men, but I didn’t even consider it. I was the loudest voice among my companions of the road arguing that we should have no women among our party, for they only sow dissension. My God! We all know that well enough! This woman has spun a tale to trap me – for what reason, I cannot imagine.’

  ‘Where were you last afternoon?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘I was here in the city.’

  ‘Is there anyone who could vouch for you?’

  Don Ruy looked at Baldwin with loathing. ‘I was alone in my chamber.’

  ‘You see, we have heard from another witness that you left the city, on a horse. You were seen following a young woman, this lady’s maid, who was murdered a short while later.’

  ‘I know nothing of this!’ Don Ruy spat.

  ‘I knew it!’ Doña Stefanía shrieked, and pointed with a shaking finger. ‘You took my money, and you killed my messenger! You’d have murdered me as well, if I’d been there, wouldn’t you? Murderer!’

  Chapter Eleven

  As he waited, Sir Charles stood in the shade of a great vine that had been trained over some beams. He had plenty of time, but he did wish other men would be a little more punctual.

  Behind him, sitting at a table with a jug of wine, his man-at-arms Paul worked at honing his long-bladed knife with a stone. The edge had grown dull with fine rust during the downpours of the last couple of days and Paul, who was nothing if not meticulous with his weapons, had undertaken to give them all a good polish. His bow was already beeswaxed, the string carefully treated and packed in a waxed cloth to keep it dry; his arrows had been inspected individually, the line of each checked for curves, the fletchings stroked to see that they remained flexible. Now he was putting a fine edge on his knife again. ‘A man who looks after his weapons knows that they will look after him,’ he was proud of reciting. It was one of the lines he had been taught many years ago when he had been a squire in training, and he had the annoying habit of bringing up such homilies every so often as though they carried the weight of Gospel truth, rather than being the utterings of a rather boozy and impecunious country knight.

  Paul had been brought up in Gloucestershire, where his father had installed him in a noble household so that he might learn the arts of war, but then his old man had made a classical and unfortunate mistake. Just at the time that the lonely, widowed old King was falling for attractive young women, Paul’s father had made a joke about one. His fall from grace was rapid and he had plummeted so far, he had to leave the country.

  His son, though, had flourished. Paul was adept with all weapons and soon learned the finer skills of horsemanship. He was one of those men who have an immediate affinity with horses, and could guide his mount almost without conscious effort. Better than that, he was also a thoroughly efficient squire. In the thick of a battle, he never lost his nerve or panicked. Sir Charles was happy to fight knowing that Paul was behind him as a support. If Sir Charles lost his horse, Paul would be there with a remount; if Sir Charles lost a mace, his axe or sword, Paul would canter up with a new one. He almost seemed to know in advance when a weapon was required, and appeared at the instant he was needed, never too early, never late. He was the perfect squire.

  They had met when Sir Charles had been a knight in the service of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and had remained together even after the trials caused by Boroughbridge.

  Earl Thomas was a great lord, and uncle to the King, Edward II. It was said that he was the richest man in the kingdom after the King himself, and Sir Charles believed it. If anything, Earl Thomas was the wealthier of the two. He had none of his nephew’s spendthrift habits, like throwing money at his latest boyfriends, playing with peasants, pretending to act on stage with his pretty boys and the like. It was true that Earl Thomas’s wife had run away, but the Queen herself would have done so too, if she had had the chance. At least Earl Thomas’s woman couldn’t complain about being deserted in her own bed. Queen Isabella didn’t even have the opportunity to take a lover, since all the courtiers were of the King’s sexual persuasion, or so Charles had heard.

  It was certainly true that Earl Thomas knew how to win loyalty. He might be more careful than the King with his money, but he didn’t hoard it. He believed in the old system, in spreading his wealth and distributing largesse. Earl Thomas had thrown banquets which put the royal ones to shame, held tournaments in which the prizes were greater than any elsewhere – especially since the monarch had sought to ban them. Everything that Earl Thomas tried, he achieved, and living as part of his household meant that some of his glory was reflected upon Sir Charles. He and Paul were very content there, with plenty to eat, even during the famine, good quality weapons, women to bed, and two new tunics each per year. Few men were so well looked after.<
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  Sir Charles was not troubled by the actual sequence of events. All he knew was that one day, his master, Earl Thomas, had lost favour with the King. He neither knew, nor cared, what possible cause there could be. It didn’t matter a damn. What happened was that the two men had fallen out, and suddenly the King attacked. Earl Thomas’s life came to an end at Boroughbridge, when his men tried to flee by passing over the bridge, only to be opposed by that bastard Andrew Harclay. He and a small force of dismounted soldiers held the bridge and prevented their escape. The King caught Earl Thomas, and executed him.

  When the disaster struck, and when they heard of the defeat of the army, Sir Charles and Paul realised that there was no point in their remaining. There was not even a widow to protect; she had left six years before. Sadly, the knight and his man-at-arms joined the long lines of broken men marching away. There was no telling how a vengeful King would treat them, and Sir Charles and his squire left the country, taking a ship to France.

  The pair initially hoped that they would find a new master very quickly. There were always petty wars going on up and down Europe, and Sir Charles started out confident that he would be able to find a post which would suit his skills very soon – but apart from a talk with a man who said he knew Roger Mortimer and had planned Mortimer’s release from the Tower of London, hinting that he would raise a host to defeat the King himself, there was no offer of a position. Even war appeared thin on the ground. Sir Charles reluctantly concluded that either the man was mad, or stupid. He would need more than a couple of disgruntled knights and their squires to be able to attack England and supplant the King. The fool was even boasting that he had the support of the French King and his daughter, Isabella, who was Queen of England – but Sir Charles couldn’t believe that. What would the Queen see in a fellow like Roger Mortimer?

  Sir Charles and Paul soon left Paris. It was not a city in which they felt comfortable, and after hearing the recruiting story of Mortimer’s man, they agreed that they should seek employment elsewhere. If there were men trying to build an army, the King of England’s spies would not be far away, and rather than have Edward believe that he was the King’s determined and sincere enemy, which would probably lead to a short life and death in a darkened alley, Sir Charles chose to ride eastwards. He had heard that there was money to be earned in Lettow. The Order of Teutonic Knights was keen for new companions, and there were rumours of vast wealth to be won.

  It was while he was on his way there that he met Dom Afonso.

  Sir Charles had been bemoaning his shortage of funds. The last of his plate had been pawned in Paris for a pittance, to buy bread and cheap cheese, and he and Paul had nothing left. Neither was prepared to starve or suffer the pangs of thirst, and so, when they saw a deserted tavern by the side of a road, they entered and drank their fill. Dom Afonso was there too, a grim-faced man with staring eyes. Sir Charles saw him and wondered what sort of a man he might be, but then some French peasants entered and Sir Charles’s fate was sealed.

  It was the rudeness of the peasants that upset him. He was unused to churls walking into a room disrespectfully and barging past. No English peasant in Lancaster would have dared do that. Astonishing behaviour. Quite extraordinary.

  The first man to do it was a swarthy, barrel-chested fellow with a cast in one eye. He saw what sort of man he had pushed, but said nothing, merely carried on, waving to the tavern-keeper. After him came a pair of men, both carrying bills in their belts. Then a scruffy little urchin.

  It was he who precipitated the fight. The young lad stumbled and fell with his full weight on Sir Charles’s foot.

  ‘You clumsy little bastard!’ he roared. His big toe felt almost as though it had been broken, and he jumped to his feet while the boy squeaked in alarm. As Sir Charles grunted angrily, the lad was grabbed from behind and pulled away, and suddenly the knight saw that before him were three men with their bills in their hands. Behind him, he knew, were more. He had no idea how many, but Paul could deal with most of them. He had faith in his squire’s ability.

  ‘Anglais?’ the swarthy man said sweetly, and than spat at Sir Charles’s foot.

  That was all it took. His rage rushed over him, and in the time it took for his face to flush, he had drawn his sword. It flashed wickedly in the enclosed room, catching in a low beam, and then he was running at them, stabbing, slashing and hacking. So fierce was his attack that one man stumbled over a stool and died where he lay; a second tried to get close, and lost his head in the attempt, leaving only the swarthy man. He appeared to shrink in size before Sir Charles’s assault, suddenly realising his mistake in spitting, but the knight knew no pity. His sword swept up, slicing open the Frenchman’s belly so that coils of purple-blue fell from him. The man had time to glance down in horror, before the blade reversed and removed his head.

  Behind him, he heard Paul’s blade ringing against another, and he spun around. Paul had two men before him still, but when he saw that his master was alive and well, he pressed his own case, and in a moment both were dead, one making a loud noise as his boots hammered on the floor in his death throes. It was irritating, so Sir Charles knocked a table over them, silencing their staccato rhythm.

  Only then did he realise that the innkeeper himself was nowhere to be seen. The grim-visaged man still sat at his table, chewing on a hunk of bread, but there was no sign of anyone else. Sir Charles felt a curious sense of foolishness, standing with his sword drawn and ready, surrounded by slaughter, while a few feet away from him, unaffected by the mayhem, sat this odd-looking fellow. He cleaned his blade on the shirt of one of the peasants, and sheathed it. Only then did he see a pair of bare feet sticking out near the wine barrels. Peering closer, he saw that it was the tavern-keeper, and in his back was a wicked-looking long-bladed knife.

  ‘He was going to brain you,’ Afonso said courteously, pointing to a large club, and then walking around Sir Charles and retrieving his dagger from the man’s back. He wiped it clean on the man’s shirt, then threw it up. It whirled glittering in the light, and he caught it by the tip of the point, then up it went again, and this time he caught it by the hilt, swiftly stowing it away in his sheath. He stood there gazing down at the keeper’s body for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t have a knight attacked from behind. That is not honourable.’

  Sir Charles commanded Paul to prepare their horses while he searched the place, hoping to find a stash of coins, but found only a few of low denomination. As he knew, all too often the trade in a place like this would depend upon a form of barter. There were some sausages drying in the chimney, and some bread on a table, and Sir Charles and Paul sat and ate, ignoring the stink and gore of death all around them, and both eyeing the stranger with slight suspicion.

  ‘My name is Afonso.’

  Sir Charles introduced himself and his man, and then asked what Dom Afonso was doing in this place.

  ‘I thought to ride to find fame and fortune. Now I return home. I tried the joust, but,’ he shrugged emphatically, ‘I lost. So now I return to Portugal.’

  Sir Charles nodded sympathetically. Those who lost a joust would often lose their armour and horses too, because a joust could develop into near-war; participants could get nasty and demand a ransom to release their prisoners.

  ‘The jousting can be difficult,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. But I had to leave my home to find a man.’

  ‘Ah. The gentleman has a name?’

  ‘He was called Matthew. I only knew him as Frey Matthew.’

  ‘Brother Matthew?’ Sir Charles repeated. ‘I have not met such a man.’

  ‘He was rumoured to be a great fighter with lance and spear, but,’ Afonso looked glum, ‘I failed to find him, and now I must return to my home. I have to find more money.’

  ‘We need money too,’ said Sir Charles. ‘You have far to ride?’

  ‘First I go to Galicia, to Compostela. There I shall pray to Saint James to let me find this man Matthew and kill him. He will understand why. I am avenging
a terrible wrong. Brother Matthew is a traitor to his master, to his comrades, and to God.’

  Sir Charles had never travelled so far before. To take leave for such a long period would have been troublesome to his master, but now he thought that the journey could be pleasing. The more he considered it, the more the idea had appealed to him. It would be good to join this man and visit the famous Cathedral of Santiago.

  ‘May we travel with you?’ he asked.

  The dour-faced Portuguese glanced at the bodies on the floor. There was a humming sound as blowflies sought out the blood and started to crawl over them. Then he held out his hand and nodded.

  They had packed the remaining sausages and a loaf of bread each, filled some jugs with wine, and then made their way out to their horses. Excusing himself for a moment, Paul re-entered the inn when he had loaded their prizes on the packhorse, muttering and tutting to himself, and while Afonso and Charles waited, they heard a short shriek which ended abruptly.

  ‘Nearly forgot the little sod who hurt your foot, Sir Charles,’ he said when he came out again, wiping his blade clean on a piece of rag.

  The recollection made Sir Charles smile. Paul always remembered any unfinished business. Ever efficient, he was the man who went about the dead of battlefields first, always on the lookout for better shirts or boots. ‘You can’t afford to wait until the rooks have landed,’ was his favourite phrase after a fight. Crows he admired. Like him, they went alone or in pairs; rooks were those from nearby vills, who invariably sprang up afterwards in great numbers, massing and robbing wholesale when they had done nothing to share in the profit.