Michael Jecks - The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

Château Gaillard

It was much later when Jean stopped dead on the steps from the curtain wall, appalled by the sound of anguish from the tower.

The scream was unsettling, but here in the château it was all too common to hear the demented shrieks of the imprisoned orcondemned. The sound travelled widely about the great tower, shivering on the breeze, the only part of the prisoners thatcould escape the five-metre thick walls.

There was something about this cry, though, that gave him pause. He had been strolling about the upper curtain wall, keeping aneye out every so often, but scarcely worrying too much. The land about here was pacified after a hundred years of French rule.No, his duty was to keep his eyes and ears open to the risk of an escape from within the prison.

Now, even as he looked down into the main court area about the great keep, he could see the small party making their way fromthe stairs that led to the cells. There was a pair of guards in front, leading a tattered and thoroughly dishevelled woman.That she was one of the prisoners was known to him. He had seen her plenty of times before. With her shaved head and sackclothtunic, she was the one whom the guards discussed with lowered voices. Someone had told him that she was a very important prisoner,but no one had elaborated on that snippet. For his part, he hardly cared who she might be. As far as he was concerned, ifsomeone was here, it was because they had committed an offence which merited the punishment.

There was a shriek, and Jean watched, dumbfounded, as the woman tried to drag herself free of her guards, but they grippedthe manacles at her wrists and yanked her back towards the gates. In the poor light down there, Jean was unclear what happened,but it appeared that she was trying to go towards the chapel. Not that she could hope to succeed. The two guards were soonhurrying from the place, the woman dragging her feet between them, turning to stare behind her, wailing pitifully. It quiteruined any remaining vestiges of calmness which Jean had enjoyed.

After the gate had been secured once more, the timbers dully thudding into their sockets in the frame, Jean moved away fromthe wall. It had been an unpleasant sight, that poor woman being dragged from this place of misery and incarceration. Evennow he could hear someone else weeping in despair. No doubt another prisoner was mourning the loss of his freedom. As he descended the wall ladder, he was glad toleave the noise behind. And then, as he entered the outer court, he stopped.

‘Sweet Mother of God,’ he murmured.

Before him, sprawled at the base of the wall near the chapel, Arnaud, the executioner and torturer, was sobbing uncontrollably.

Queen’s chapel, Thorney Island

Peter the Chaplain was happy that night as he polished the cross and then bent to sweep the floor.

Brought here by John Drokensford, the bishop of Bath and Wells, Peter had been given the duty of chaplain to the Queen asa means of atoning for his crimes, but now he had the feeling that his services would shortly become unnecessary. Bishop Johnhad intimated that soon his time here would be done, and perhaps a small church could be found for him not too far from Oxford,the place of his birth. That was enough of a reward for him. He would go there, grow vegetables, keep a dog, and honour andpraise God every day.

He finished his cleaning and made his way to his small chamber, where he took up a lump of cheese and slice of bread. He waschewing hungrily when a man arrived from the Queen.

‘You are wanted, Chaplain.’

He swallowed and eyed the man with a passing coolness. ‘I’m eating. Nothing’s that urgent.’

Nor was it. He had learned that if little else in the years since he’d killed his woman’s murderer.

He had run away from his church with the wife of one of his parishioners, hoping that they would be able to hide themselvessomewhere — perhaps even make their way to France and find a rural refuge there. And one morning Peter woke beside his naked woman to see her husband above them with a great sword. It swept down, and she died, but Peter wrestledthe weapon from him and stabbed him again and again, the blood flying in a fine spray at first, then in filthy gobbets.

Over the years he had grown to understand the depth of his own offence. Her death, her husband’s, both were on his hands.They were his responsibility. And fortunately Bishop John had persuaded him that he could find peace and salvation: firstby protecting another innocent woman from her husband. That was why he was here at Thorney Island — he was trying to helpBishop John look after the Queen’s interests.

‘It is most urgent, she said,’ the messenger insisted. He looked near to tears.

In the end, the chaplain took pity on him and set his bread aside for later. Walking swiftly, he went with the man to theQueen’s rooms.

Later, he returned to his own chamber and stood a moment looking all about him with an air of sadness. He felt like a travellerwho was about to launch himself on a desperately dangerous journey; one from which he might never return.

He looked finally at the lump of bread still sitting on the barrel. A corner had been taken by some rodent while he had beenout. Rats were everywhere, even here in the King’s palace. He shrugged. After all he had just heard, he had lost his appetiteanyway.

Instead of sitting and eating, he went to the long chest in the far corner of the room. Here, under his vestments, he foundhis sword. It was the one which he had taken from the husband to kill him. The sword he had defiled with its owner’s blood.

Now he drew it and hefted it in his hands thoughtfully. Soon he might be forced to use it again.

Château Gaillard

Later, when he stopped for a cup of hot wine at the brazier in the corner tower, Jean asked le Vieux about Arnaud and thatscene after the woman’s departure. Le Vieux was the oldest warrior there, and easily the most experienced, which was how hehad lost his left arm and his right eye. The empty socket appeared to gleam as he gazed up at Jean. ‘Him? Arnaud of the glowingtongs? Forget that bordello’s whelp.’

‘But he was so sad to see the woman leave.’

‘I would be too. There are few tarts in Les Andelys for a man like him. The torturer? Even the sluts would turn their nosesup at the man who could later stamp them with the fleur-de-lys for doing what he wanted.’

‘He was rutting that bitch?’

‘Hah! You shouldn’t speak of the lady like that. Not where others might hear you.’

‘She was just a rich woman, wasn’t she?’

‘Not “just a rich woman”, no. She would have been our queen, lad, and don’t forget it.’

‘Mother Mary’s … And Arnaud loved her?’

The old man shrugged emphatically. ‘When a man has sired a pup on a bitch, he will feel something for her, even if it’s notexactly love.’

‘He fathered a child on her?’ Jean said, aghast.

‘Aye. Poor thing died two weeks later, but it made him mad about the woman. Still is, I expect,’ he added thoughtfully.

‘Is that why she pulled towards the chapel?’

Le Vieux shrugged expansively. ‘Perhaps. Maybe she wanted to pray for a good journey.’

‘The baby wasn’t buried there?’

‘Buried? No, it was left out for the wild animals, I think. It was illegitimate — no priest would give it the last rites orbury it in consecrated ground.’

Chapter Four

The Temple, London

Sir John de Sapy entered the great gate that gave on to the broad court.

This was his first time here in the London Temple. Once it had been the headquarters of the most powerful and wealthy religiousorder in the country, but since the destruction of the Temple it had lain empty, confiscated by the King. Now the Pope haddemanded that all such property should be passed on to the Hospitallers, but this area had been retained by the King — untilrecently.