The Last Templar Page 7

  “No?” Peter seemed surprised, a slight frown on his face as he peered at the hunter. “He always seemed to be, or at least he always said he was.”

  “Ah, well, yes. He was always hard up when someone wanted money or alms, or at least he always said so. People here have wondered how he always seemed to be able to buy ale, how he could afford a full team of oxen, how he managed to buy his way out of his duties as a villein when he wanted.”

  “What do you mean?” said Simon. “Are you saying he was a thief or something?”

  The hunter gave a short laugh. “Oh, no. No, I don’t think so. No, I think that the old tale’s true. I think he made a lot of money when he fought in the wars five and twenty years ago and he’s been able to live off it since then. Story goes that he had a metal box full of gold under the floor in there,” he said, jerking a finger at the wrecked house. “You’ll find it hard to keep people away until the whole of the floor’s been dug up. And even then, if nothing’s found, people’ll start to dig up all his land.”

  Baldwin frowned at him. “We’ll have none of that here if I can help it. Simon, would you like me to have a man or two placed here to guard it until we can find out whether there is any money here? We have to try to ensure that it’s saved for this man’s relatives. Do we know whether he had any relatives? I understand he was alone in the house as far as we can tell?” He looked at Peter, but the priest merely smiled and shrugged, gazing at the hunter. It seemed clear to the knight that he knew nothing about the dead man’s private life.

  “He was alone when I got here,” Black said, then drew the corners of his mouth down and stuck out his lower lip with the effort of memory. Frowning at his shoes, he said, “I do seem to remember someone saying as he had a son in Exeter. I can see if anyone else’s heard anything about a boy.”

  “Yes, do that, Black,” said Simon.

  The knight seemed to be staring at the hunter speculatively. “Were you the first man to see the fire?”

  “Yes, sir.” The hunter seemed ready to show the knight the proper level of respect, treating him as a superior where he had obviously looked upon the bailiff and the priest as equals - perhaps, Simon could not help thinking, because as a hunter he had his own rules and arcane skills. But a knight was different. A knight was no holder of secrets, no minister of hidden knowledge. A knight was the most secular creature known: what he wanted he would take. And, if asked by what authority he presumed to remove whatever he wanted, any knight, any member of the older Norman families, would draw his sword and say, “This is my right! With this sword my sires took this land. With this sword I shall take what I want. With this sword I shall keep what I desire.” Simon sighed and concentrated on the conversation.

  Baldwin was half-smiling at the hunter now, a slight puckering of his forehead showing that he was thinking about, but not doubting the truth of, Black’s tale as he related the events of the night before. As the hunter drew near to the end of his story, Baldwin seemed to withdraw into himself. He wrapped one arm around his chest, rested his chin and mouth in the palm of his other hand and watched the hunter with a raised eyebrow, as if dubious of some part of the story. Black stumbled in his account, obviously feeling the doubt emanating from the tall, dark knight, and seemed to finish on a defensive note, almost as if daring the knight to call him a liar.

  When he had finally ground to a halt, the small group stood silent for a moment, as if aware that a silent challenge had been issued, although none of them was sure who had offered it or why. It was Baldwin who broke the quiet, speaking slowly and ruminatively.

  “Very well. So the fire was first seen by you at some time after midnight, would you say?”

  “Yes,” said the hunter slowly, obviously thinking. “Yes, I think it must have been. I’d been setting traps, down over at the edge of the moors, and I’d put out twenty. I hadn’t left until dark, so it must have been after midnight before I came back.”

  The knight considered, staring at the ground by his feet. “So you came back… which direction would you have come back from?”

  Pointing up the road, away from the village, Black said, “There. From the moors, like I said.”

  “So who did you go to first of all? To raise the alarm, I mean. Who did you go to first?”

  Black jerked his chin in the same direction, towards the moors. “Roger Ulton. I came round the lane and saw the fire up here - well there seemed no point coming all the way down to the village and then getting someone to fetch him later. His house was nearest, so I went back to it and knocked him up.”

  “And what then?” The calm eyes were fixed firmly on the hunter’s face.

  “Then? I came into the village, of course. I banged on the doors and woke up all the men, got them to help me put the fire out.”

  The bailiff nodded. The men would have hurried to help, keen to smother the flames before the winds could carry the sparks over to their own houses and put their properties at risk. Baldwin seemed to agree as well, turning and looking at the building that lay, still smoking, so near, with his arms crossed over his chest. As if he had been dismissed, Black looked from one to the other before slowly strolling off, walking over to chat with a little knot of villagers.

  Baldwin sighed and kicked at a stone near his foot. “Sad, isn’t it. A man at home and very probably asleep. To die like that! God! I hope he didn’t suffer too much.” He sighed, feeling strangely sorry at the death of this man, someone he had never met. Shrugging, he thought it must be because it was such an apparently senseless death. There was no honour or glory to be gained from such an end, and it was a mean and horrible finish. Thinking back, he considered the other black burned corpses he had seen and sighed again, recollecting the twisted and tortured figures, the way that they always seemed to have been fighting death, struggling to live. It was not the way he wanted to die.

  “Yes, well, I’m sure he’ll be happy where he’s gone now, anyway,” said Simon reverently. “May his soul rest in peace.”

  He was surprised to see a cynical twitch to the knight’s eyebrow as he shot a quick glance at the bailiff, as if he wanted to express doubt, and the realisation shocked the bailiff. This might be a secular man, a warrior, but that was no excuse for blasphemy! Staring back at the knight, he was astonished to see a grimace of self-deprecating embarrassment, as though he knew that his thoughts had been picked up by Simon and wanted to apologise. He seemed to give a small shrug, with a grin, as if to say, “Sorry, but I am a knight - what do you expect?”

  Peter Clifford did not seem to have noticed their silent communication. “So, then, Baldwin, I suppose you’ll want to take the best of the man’s beasts?”

  “Eh?” He turned, evidently confused.

  “The beast. Your heriot. You own this land; he was your villein. You have the choice of his best beast, just as I have the choice of the next best for the mortuary. Why? Didn’t you know about the death taxes?”

  The knight stood, staring at the priest with absolute amazement on his face. “His cattle survived?” he said at last.

  “Yes, of course they did. They’re all over at the common now - the villagers rounded them up once they had seen to the fire.”

  Turning back to the burnt remains, Baldwin said, “I will be interested to have a look around the house when it has cooled enough,” and without saying more he walked away to talk to his servant.

  Simon watched him go, and as he gazed after the knight he wondered what Baldwin meant by that comment. Then, drawing his eyes away, he could not help a sudden shudder, as if of quick, chill fear, and his face was troubled as he turned back to the smoking ruins. Why did he have the feeling that the knight was suspicious about this apparent accident?

  Chapter Four

  It was another two hours before they felt happy about entering the blackened and still warm shell. Black led the way, a small team of local men following, all with cloths tied round their mouths against the dust, and Simon, the priest and the knight waiting by the doorway
, where they could watch the men inside.

  The body was easy to find. It had not been hit by the heavy oaken beam that had fallen from the roof, but still lay on the remains of the palliasse that had been the man’s bed, over near the far wall. At first Simon could see little - the haze from the heat distorted the view, small grey clouds of smoke rose here and there from the embers, and the beam itself with its accretions of burned waste obstructed the scene with its solid mass, seemingly unaffected by the flames that had destroyed the house around it, Amongst all this mess and desolation, Black’s small group walked with confidence, along the length of the beam, to duck underneath where its end was still supported by the wall, and walk back along it until opposite the door where the simple mattress lay.

  Simon could hear the muttering as they came close to it, a curse of disgust, a call for assistance. He could not help thinking how foolish this all seemed. The walls over to his right had collapsed, were now simply a pile of rubble. The men had no need to enter by this door, by this old gap in the wall that had been constructed decades before. Why did they go in here? Was it a politeness? Was it a sign of respect for the corpse that they should only use the door that his guests would have, as if in so doing they were receiving his approval? Or was it simply force of habit that they should go in where they knew there to be an entrance, as if their minds could not quite accept the fact that the whole house had been changed?

  Beside him Baldwin stood, chewing on his moustache and frowning. When he threw him a glance, Simon was surprised to see that the knight’s eyes were not, like his own and Clifford’s, following the men inside, but were staring fixedly at the massive doorway at the other end of the house, the doorway for the oxen.

  He seemed perplexed by something, Simon thought. Noticing his look, Baldwin grinned shamefacedly. “I always seem to look for a difficulty. It must be part of my nature,” he said, and turned away to watch the party inside. But Simon could not help noticing that every now and again his eyes would drift back to that large doorway, as if dragged unwillingly.

  The men seemed to take an age to fetch the body out. They rolled it onto an old blanket, then with one man at each corner they hefted it and began to weave their circuitous way back to the entrance. They had to try to keep the blanket taut in order that the cloth did not touch the hot embers all around, and the force necessary was evidently great, making the men bend away from their load and each other as they struggled over the rubble and mess, stumbling and tripping as they went. They had difficulties when they had to bend under the beam, at last reaching some mutual arrangement whereby one man went through - was it Black? - then another, each man at his corner crouching individually and making his way under before standing and waiting for his companions. Then, at last, they were making their way back to the doorway, and the others stood back to give them room as they made their way out, dropping the blanket with its unwholesome contents with irreverent haste as they grasped at the cloths covering their mouths, tearing them off so that they could breath the sweet air again, away from the stench and dust inside. The body rolled from the covering to lie on its back a foot or two from the waiting men.

  “It’s him,” said Black before stumbling away coughing.

  At the sight of the body, Simon could not help wincing in disgust and taking a short step back. Then, as he became aware of Clifford’s muttered prayers, he felt ashamed and peered closer.

  The blackened and ruined body was clearly that of a well-proportioned man, broad in the shoulder and fairly tall. His clothes had burned away, or so it seemed, and the body was rigid and fixed, like clay that has been in the furnace. But the bailiff recoiled and he had to turn away at the sight of the face, sucking in deep breaths in an attempt to keep his bile at bay.

  Baldwin grinned as he saw Simon spin away. It was natural at the sight of victims of the flames, he knew, but this was not the first time the knight had seen bodies ruined and burned, and he stared down, noting the position of the limbs with an impersonal detachment. But when he studied the face his interest suddenly quickened. Where he would have expected to see agonised pain in the twisted features, there seemed to be none.

  Puzzled, he stared at the body for a moment, then looked up towards the house. Then, like a hound on a scent, tense and eager, he strode up to the door, leaving Clifford and Simon gazing after him in their surprise.

  Marching quickly, the knight strode through the door and, holding a sleeve to his nose and mouth, moved to the middle of the ruined house, peering through slitted eyes at the beam and the rubble all around. Something was wrong, he felt sure. Other bodies he had seen after a fire had shown signs of the fight for life, of the desperate attempt for survival - Brewer’s did not.

  He stood and glowered at the door for the livestock, where the wood, at that end of the building almost untouched by the flames, still showed the scars from the horns and hoofs of the terrified oxen. Then he kicked at the ground a few times and crouched, apparently staring at some of the mess on the floor, before rising and leaving the room once more, coughing.

  As the knight left the group, his departure made Simon turn and watch, and this sign that someone else at least was relatively unaffected made him determined to shoulder his responsibility with more dignity than he had so far exhibited. Squaring his shoulders, he forced his eyes down again. To his surprise, now, after the initial shock, he found himself less horrified, and he could look at the body with a degree of equanimity. At least, he felt, the man had no apparent signs of pain. His arms, he could see, were restfully at his side, not clawed to scrabble a way to safety, the legs were straight rather than contorted in an effort to crawl away. It looked as if the man had passed away quietly in his sleep. Simon could sense a sadness, a fleeting empathy for the lonely end of this man, but little more. Then it struck him - why had the man not recognised his danger, awoken and tried to escape? Surely he could not have slept through it? His brow wrinkled at the thought.

  The huddled blackened shape seemed to have no fears for Baldwin either. He returned and stood, arms on hips, glaring at the body as if daring it to argue with him. Interested, Black wandered over to the group and glanced at the body, then at the men encircling it. He saw Baldwin catch Simon’s eye.

  “Looks very relaxed, doesn’t he,” said the knight. It was not a question, it was a flat, dry statement, requiring no response, and Black saw Simon gazing back and nodding pensively.

  Clifford looked from one to the other with a frown of mild impatience. “What do you mean? Of course he was relaxed. He died in his sleep, I suppose. The smoke got to him while he slept.”

  Baldwin kept his eyes on him as he said, “Black?”

  The hunter grunted. He too was frowning, wondering what the knight was driving at.

  “Black,” Baldwin continued, “how many of this man’s oxen died with him?”

  “None, sir. All eight got out.”

  “So what?” said Clifford, gazing from the knight to the bailiff. “So what if they did? I don’t…‘

  “What about other animals?”

  “No, they all got out.”

  “If they got out, they must have been scared by the flames,” said Baldwin deliberately. “You must have heard the noise that scared oxen make. You wouldn’t be able to sleep through it, would you?”

  Simon ventured, “Well, maybe he was overcome by the fumes, maybe he—‘

  “Oh, come now!” the knight’s teeth showed briefly in a white grin. “The beasts would have been terrified from the first sign of flames. They would not have slept until the house was almost consumed, they would have woken as soon as the fire began. If they did, the man would have been woken by them - he was sleeping with them after all.”

  The priest, frowning, stood shaking his head. “I still don’t quite…”

  “It’s obvious - or it is to me, anyway,” said Baldwin, suddenly serious. “I think he was dead before the fire was started. I think he was killed and the fire started to cover the murder.” Black could see t
hat it was Simon who seemed to take this announcement most calmly. While the others gaped, the bailiff considered, looking up at the knight, peering at the building, then scratching his head and frowning at the ground.

  “So what do you suggest we should do then, Sir Baldwin?” asked Clifford, consternation raising the pitch of his voice.

  Baldwin shot a glance at Simon. “That’s up to the bailiff, isn’t it?”

  “But I don’t see how we can show he was already dead!” said Simon irritably. “Not without someone having seen him when…‘ His voice trailed off. Could someone have seen something? God! He had only just been given his job-and now this knight already thought he had found a murder! Forcing his thoughts back to the problem in hand, he said musingly, ”We don’t even know that he has been murdered. Couldn’t it have been an accident?“

  “I don’t think so,” said Baldwin pensively. “As soon as the fire started the oxen would have panicked, I think that is clear. If he had been asleep that noise would have woken him quickly enough, so he would not have been found in his bed. We would have found him near an entrance, or at least on his way to one. I cannot see any reason why he would have gone back to his bed after realising that there was a fire - that, surely, is inconceivable. So he cannot have been woken by his oxen. And if he wasn’t, he must have been dead already. I refuse to believe that any man could be so heavy a sleeper that eight oxen stampeding nearby would not stir him.”