The Templar's Penance: (Knights Templar 15) Page 17

  ‘I am a pilgrim,’ Don Ruy said steadily. ‘I do not need to explain myself to you or to anyone.’

  ‘No, but it might be easier if you were to do so. Perhaps I could see your pass? You have authorisation from your master to undertake the pilgrimage?’

  ‘I see no need to show you or anyone else my credentials!’

  ‘Very well. I shall mention this conversation to the Pesquisidor and leave the matter there.’

  ‘I am not scared by your threats.’

  ‘It is not a threat,’ Baldwin said, bored with his prevarication. ‘It is merely that I seek to assist the officer of the law in this city. If there is something he should know, I will tell him – it is my duty. You admit that it is suspicious that a woman of the cloth appears to believe you were blackmailing her; that her maid went, so she thought, to see you, and was murdered; and that all her money is gone. And you admit that you followed after the woman, but can’t tell us much about what you were doing. Can you really be surprised that I think you would do well to explain yourself?’

  ‘I am innocent of this crime!’ Don Ruy declared, but then appeared to reconsider. Reluctantly he slipped a hand into the bulky purse that dangled on his belt. ‘I am unfairly accused – an innocent man, but you seem determined to expose my shame. Here, read this.’

  He passed a parchment to Baldwin, who took it up. He turned to Simon. ‘This says that he was found guilty of raping a woman in Ghent in Flanders.’

  Simon stirred and eyed the man intimidatingly. ‘He’s a rapist? And the dead maid was raped, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Baldwin agreed, reading. ‘And he was sent on this pilgrimage to make amends for his crime.’

  Don Ruy understood some of their words and now he burst into an angry denunciation of his conviction, but Baldwin had to hold up his hands to slow the torrent. ‘Don Ruy, please speak more slowly. Let me translate for my friend here.’

  ‘The woman I was accused of raping was in fact my wife,’ Don Ruy said heatedly when Baldwin motioned to him to continue, and pulled a second page from his purse. While Baldwin studied it, Don Ruy continued, ‘The accusation was a false one, designed to embarrass me and prove that my marriage was null. I was accused of abducting her and raping her, but she was a willing lover for me, and it was her father, who sought to ruin my reputation, who deliberately brought me to this farce.’

  After relaying his words to Simon, Baldwin said, ‘This second sheet confirms your marriage to the woman. So you deny the rape?’

  ‘Of course! But the court chose to ignore my statement. The Bishop himself told me to leave and undertake the pilgrimage.’

  ‘Why the Bishop?’

  ‘I was in his service. The matter was an embarrassment to him.’

  Baldwin sipped at his wine. ‘I fear that the officers of this city would be keen to know all this. Yet you cannot tell me exactly what you were doing yesterday, so that I can clear you of the murder.’

  ‘I was alone. What else do you want me to say? I didn’t try to blackmail anyone, I haven’t raped anyone, and I certainly didn’t murder that girl or steal any money. It’s ridiculous to suggest any such a thing!’

  ‘Ridiculous or not, it is what Doña Stefanía has claimed. Word of her accusation may well reach the ears of the Pesquisidor, and if it does, he may decide that you should be held here for trial. The word of a noble Prioress in a religious city like this could be enough to see you hanged.’

  Don Ruy said nothing, but stood and inclined his head very slightly. He was about to walk away when Simon, who had caught the gist of Baldwin’s words, interrupted quickly.

  ‘Don’t let him go yet! Wait, Don Ruy! Let’s say this girl was with her lover. She’s dead now. Did he see someone else there, apart from Frey Ramón?’

  Don Ruy listened to Baldwin’s translation. ‘No, I saw no one else. But I wasn’t looking.’

  ‘So either Ramón killed her himself, or someone else was hiding there.’

  ‘Like the felon I saw leaving the city,’ Don Ruy muttered.

  ‘Why did you not try to have him arrested for attacking your band of pilgrims earlier?’ Baldwin wanted to know.

  Don Ruy stared at him. ‘You seriously ask that? This man was a felon, on my honour! Yet it would be my word against his. If I were to draw my sword against a man who looked like a local Galician, I should expect to be captured and hanged for starting an affray in a cathedral city and for insulting Saint James. Look – the man was leaving the city. What purpose would my confronting him have served?’

  ‘It might have saved the woman’s life,’ Baldwin said coldly. ‘If you are right, and this man killed her.’

  Don Ruy flushed. ‘My inclination was to avoid any involvement with women,’ he said, pointedly thrusting the parchments back into his purse.

  ‘You say the Prioress is mad to accuse Frey Ramón. Yet some men have been tempted by less money.’

  ‘By that, you mean that Joana did intend to rob her mistress? But Frey Ramón is a monk. He has renounced money.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said, unconvinced. It was possible for any man to grow to desire money – and just as possible for a woman to steal from her mistress to give to her lover. Still, he told himself that there were other possibilities – for example this lopsided-headed felon of whom Don Ruy spoke. If such a creature were to come across a maid carrying a fair sum of money, it would be easy to imagine his stealing it, and getting rid of her afterwards in a brutal way … yet Baldwin still disliked the fact that Ramón had lied to them.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said at last, ‘if you overheard Joana giggling about her mistress, could another man have heard her, too?’

  Don Ruy frowned and looked away. Eventually he found his voice again.

  ‘You think someone learned of my seeing the Prioress in flagrante, then made up the story of my blackmailing her so that they could take the money when it was paid? It is a convoluted theory.’

  ‘Not if you spoke of it to another,’ Baldwin said. ‘Perhaps the blackmail was real enough, and only the name of the felon was concealed. Someone knew of the Prioress’s affair with this peasant, and that someone was surely with your band when you came here. He made up the blackmail story in order to rob the Prioress more easily.’

  ‘I told no one,’ Don Ruy insisted.

  ‘Very well. But of course the Prioress’s lover knew you had been there.’

  ‘And blamed me while he sought to rob her,’ Don Ruy muttered.

  Baldwin nodded slowly. ‘Yes, Don Ruy. If you are as innocent as you say, then the killer, or the blackmailer, could be one of those who travelled here with you. He had to kill Joana, because she saw him and could denounce him. Were there many in your party?’

  The knight had stood to leave. Now he dropped back into his seat again. In the sunshine, Simon thought he looked like a man who had been up too late the night before. He also had the air of a man who had been living rather too well. Simon wondered whether he had been with another woman the night before. There were such wenches even in a cathedral city, he guessed. Then again, he realised, a man might feel guilt after committing a murder. That was emotionally draining.

  ‘I believe the Prioress and Joana had been to Orthez, and they travelled on to Compostela with a large group. I joined their band at Burgos. She and her maid left us some four days ago to travel on ahead, I don’t know why. I and the others continued and we arrived yesterday.’

  ‘Not the day before?’

  Don Ruy said irritably, ‘She was on horseback; I was on foot! We made good time, but no, she is wrong.’

  ‘And she left after you saw her caught in the act with her peasant lover?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s something I still don’t quite understand: you walked into the shed without knocking, knowing full well that it was her chamber?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t know! I had been praying in a shrine not far from there. When I returned, it was dark, and I entered the place thinking
that it would make a rude shelter for me for the night. As soon as I understood what was happening in there, I left. Next morning I rose and heard the maid Joana talking about it to a companion, and realised who I had walked in upon. The next day my companions and I moved on. Her lover came with us. He is not an honourable man,’ he added disdainfully.

  Baldwin frowned. ‘Yet she arrived here before you?’

  ‘As I said, my companions and I were on foot. She and many of her group were on horseback,’ Don Ruy pointed out again. ‘She must have overtaken us.’

  ‘Or she spoke the truth and left before you?’

  ‘Possibly. Who knows?’ He looked bored with the subject.

  ‘All your group are here in the city now?’ Baldwin asked, prompted by Simon.

  ‘No. The party was so glad to see the city ahead of us that many started running off down the plain towards it, and as they did so, they were attacked by the outlaws.’ He gave a slight shrug. It was a common enough occurrence. ‘The murderous devils tore down the slope at my companions, hacking them to pieces. It was a miracle, but the rest of us were saved by three men who weighed in and slaughtered the attackers.’

  ‘A random attack against such a party?’ Baldwin asked. ‘It scarcely seems the behaviour of a rational gang. Was there anyone among you who could have deserved such a treatment?’

  Don Ruy stared into the distance meditatively. ‘They were mostly a gaggle of peasants. Even the man with …’

  ‘With Doña Stefanía, you were going to say?’ Baldwin guessed.

  ‘Even he was a scruffy little devil,’ Ruy said equably. ‘I was the only knight, and there was one cleric, a well-built fellow who could have been a fighting man of years ago, before he took up the cloth. But apart from those two, no. The rest were all churls of one form or another. It gave me no pleasure to endure their company for so long, I assure you.’

  ‘So of the men of your party, how many survived?’

  ‘Seven were killed, another five were wounded badly and remain in the Cathedral’s hospital. None of them could have harmed the girl.’

  ‘The two, the cleric and the peasant – do you know their names?’

  ‘How should I?’ Don Ruy said dismissively. ‘I did not care for them.’

  ‘Don Ruy, I think you should consider very carefully,’ Baldwin said. ‘I do not think you appreciate your position! You have been accused of rape, blackmail and murder by a convincing witness, a Prioress. And you are here because of an abduction and a rape …’ he held up a hand to stem the sudden outburst. ‘It is what your papers say, Don Ruy! If you wish to be declared innocent, I suggest you begin by aiding us rather than putting blocks in our way.’

  ‘I am here because of an injustice,’ the other man spat. Then he admitted grudgingly, ‘The priestly-looking man was called Gregory. I didn’t speak to him. The other was called Parceval. A Fleming.’

  Baldwin had been roughly translating for Simon every so often, to keep him in the picture. Now Simon said, ‘This Parceval who slept with her might easily have seen that she had money and concocted this story.’

  Don Ruy was dubious. ‘He could have stolen it there and then.’

  ‘If he had, she would have known who had robbed her. It would have been easy to see to his capture,’ Simon pointed out.

  ‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. ‘She might have been unwilling to accuse him after a night of passion, but he couldn’t bank on that. Also Joana could herself have been the cause of her own death. She told others about her mistress’s affair – you yourself say you learned the woman’s identity because you overheard Joana mention it to someone. To whom was she talking, incidentally?’

  ‘I do not know. The two were in a chamber and I was outside. I heard the comment and a guffaw of laughter, but then I left. I do not like acting the spy on private conversations.’

  ‘A shame,’ Baldwin said unrepentantly, continuing in English for Simon’s benefit. ‘Perhaps someone else was told by this Parceval and saw a chance of making money; he threatened to blackmail Doña Stefanía about her peccadillo.’

  ‘I am troubled by Joana’s part though,’ Simon said thoughtfully.

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘Someone presumably spoke to her to warn of the blackmail, but who? And why should she assume it was Don Ruy, unless he went to her himself? If he had a servant, I should suspect him, but Don Ruy travelled here alone.’

  ‘Unless Joana did intend to rob her own mistress and invented Don Ruy’s blackmail attempt,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘Then there is the nature of her death,’ Simon continued. ‘This was a strange attack. It might have been committed by a berserker.’ He looked over the crowds of people. He saw Matthew, and was about to wave, but it would have been an incongruous action. In any case, Matthew was joining with other beggars for once. He was sitting next to a large woman, María de Venialbo.

  ‘Or someone like the Fleming,’ Baldwin nodded, speaking for him, ‘who was unused to killing. They wanted to stop her blabbing about the blackmail, but they panicked at the sight of blood and went into a frenzy.’

  ‘Aye. Unless it was just someone who hated the girl and sought to murder her.’

  Baldwin looked up suddenly. ‘No. The Doña said that she had been intending to go, but her maid advised against it, and went in her place. If the motive was hatred, the culprit was someone who detested Doña Stefanía herself, not Joana, and sought to kill her.’

  ‘Bugger!’ Simon exclaimed. ‘That means she could still be in danger.’

  ‘No, Simon, it means she is still in danger.’ Baldwin scrutinised the people crowding the square. Where yesterday he had seen only happy, satisfied pilgrims and contented hawkers, now he saw a seething mass of humanity, a mix of hatreds and motives to kill, and in there amongst them all, was a murderer. Someone who could bring themselves to slaughter a Prioress.

  Baldwin gave a long, puzzled sigh. Just then, he saw Don Ruy, who had left them and was now engaged in earnest conversation with the beggarwoman María across the square. After a short discussion, María took a coin from the knight and resignedly followed him when he strode away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Doña Stefanía bowed her head in the small lady chapel of the church and before she could frame her words, she felt her shoulders begin to shake uncontrollably.

  Her sin was appalling. Yesterday she hadn’t been able to worry herself about it, because she was too tied up in the fact of Joana’s murder, but now she realised the enormity of her act. She had given away the life of her maid to save the little box in her purse.

  How curious that she should have realised what she had done because of a stray word by that evil felon, Don Ruy. He had said it before the two Englishmen, commenting that he hadn’t tried to win the contents of her purse. An odd way of putting it, that. He hadn’t said he’d not tried to take her money, but the contents of her purse. Somehow, he had divined what she carried.

  She couldn’t pray like this. Instead, with shaking hands, she reached into her purse and pulled out the little box. Perhaps the sight of it would calm her. A prayer to him might also help.

  From the outside, the box was perfectly ordinary, a shining pewter cube, with only one piece of ornamentation to show its importance – a cross carved into the lid, its outline filled with gold. At the centre, where the cross’s arms met, there was a large ruby. The gold and the ruby together showed the value of the contents. Doña Stefanía allowed her tears to moisten the metal, and then, with fumbling fingers, she unclipped the clasp and opened it, staring inside.

  As usual, she was overcome with excitement at the sight. Inside was a small piece of bone, maybe a half-inch long, discoloured from its long burial. She took it out reverently and kissed it, then put it back. It made her entire body tingle, just like sex with Parceval. She felt slightly faint, as though she had taken a drug which enhanced the senses; it was always the same, whenever she was this close to the relic.

  ‘Saint Peter, I am so sorry,’ she whispered. �
��I had no idea. I thought all he wanted was money, nothing more. It never occurred to me that he might want this as well – your own finger.’

  She heard a step and hurriedly snapped the lid shut again, dropping the box into her purse. If someone was prepared to kill Joana, might they not come and find her as well? Perhaps it was this that they wanted, not the money which Joana had carried to her death?

  If only she hadn’t been tempted to rut with that peasant, she would not have feared the blackmail. And the blackmail itself had led to this: to Joana’s murder and Doña Stefanía’s trepidation.

  All because of the finger of Saint Peter. Her priory’s most precious – its only – relic.

  Gregory was content. He had spent much of the morning in the Cathedral’s square, and the result was, he was happier than he had been in many long years.

  There was a wonderful sense of fulfilment here in the sunlight. Pilgrims who had travelled for hundreds of miles were arriving and giving thanks for being able to see this marvellous building, giving praise to God for allowing them to achieve their goals. As he watched them, his spirit was renewed.

  The only thing that smudged the scene was the curious glimpse he’d had of that fellow Parceval. He remembered the churl from the journey here. He couldn’t very well forget the man, since Parceval had survived that terrible attack, just like him. Strange, but he’d found himself disliking the Fleming on sight, and from the way that Parceval ducked behind a tree when he spotted Gregory, he felt the same.

  Still, he wouldn’t allow one idiot to ruin his day. He was having far too much fun. Especially once he left the square and entered the Cathedral again.

  This place was magnificent. Gold gleamed everywhere, and the rich crimsons set it off perfectly. In a place like this, it was easy to imagine oneself that little bit nearer to God.