Michael Jecks - The Templar

It would be no surprise if her mount had been stolen. Men had eyed it with interest in several towns as she passed through. The horse had cost her a small fortune. Ambleres were always hideously costly, and a popular target for thieves. Damn the lad, she wasn’t going to see it taken by a beardless boy!

Aha! Thank God. There he stood — over near the well, just where she’d told him to take her mount before she went up to the Cathedral. The thought was hardly in her mind before she was on her way over to him.

Seeing her mistress, Joana lifted her skirts to hurry over and join her.

‘Where is my horse?’ Dona Stefania demanded as she reached the lad.

‘ Your horse?’ he repeated, a faintly anxious expression rising to his face. He was a typically swarthy, unhealthy-looking serf, vacuous and incompetent — and right this minute as nervous as any felon caught filching a lord or lady’s purse.

‘Yes,’ she said tightly, ‘ my horse. I left her with you while I went into the Cathedral. Perhaps you remember now?’

‘But the man …’

‘What man?’ she snorted. His manner was shifty; why she had left her mare with him, she didn’t know. Looking at him now, it seemed obvious he was a wastrel. He’d taken her mount and probably sold it already. ‘Where is my horse, you thief?’

‘My lady, please don’t shout!’ he begged, his hands up, but it was too late. There was whispering and now a space opened about them as the crowd became willing and eager witnesses. Among the voices, Dona Stefania heard muttering as other pilgrims realised that this fellow had not just robbed any old pilgrim, he had taken a lady’s horse, and a lady of the cloth at that. There were many who would be ready to hang a man for that.

‘You have my horse? Good. Where is it?’ she said, her voice cold and relentless.

‘But you asked me to deliver the horse, and I did.’

‘What do you mean?’ she scoffed. ‘I told you to keep the horse for me and I would pay you when I had visited the Cathedral. Now you suggest I asked you to sell it and keep the money yourself, I suppose? You do know the penalties for those who rob pilgrims?’

Turning, she saw Joana behind her. She opened her mouth to command her maid to seek an official to arrest the peasant, but now the momentum of her speech was lost and the groom’s desperate voice was winning support from others in the crowd.

‘No, lady!’ he pleaded. ‘When you were going inside, your man came here and told me to give him the horse. He said he would take it to you because you felt faint and were going to ride to an inn. He paid me, too.’

‘What man, eh? I see no one! Joana? I want you …’

‘He took the horse and led it away.’

‘A likely story!’

Now a basket-seller spoke up. ‘It’s true. I was here when the man came up. The boy was reluctant to hand over the horse, but this man, he accused the boy of calling him a liar. What else could the lad do?’

‘What sort of man was this?’ asked a suspicious-looking fellow who stood with his thumbs in his broad belt.

‘Looked like a felon, but he had something about him, you know?’ the helpful basket-seller said when the boy plainly wasn’t going to reply; he was overawed and terrified that he could be accused and found guilty of theft. ‘He wasn’t tall, but hunched, and very broad about the shoulder, like one who’s used to work — but his hands weren’t dirty, so he was more like a knight than a peasant. Had a head that was sort of tilted to one side, like this, as if he had a pain in his neck.’

There was some sympathetic noise from the crowd. Clearly most felt that the lad had done his best, and any boy who was threatened had a right to protect himself.

‘That’s all very well, but how do I know you aren’t in league with this fellow yourself?’ demanded the Prioress.

‘Lady, I am only trying to help.’

‘Of course you are!’ she said sarcastically, and threw a look at Joana. The description was all too familiar — but why should Domingo take her horse? More probably, this ‘witness’ had seen Domingo with her earlier, and thought this was a good way to deflect attention from the kid. Except there was an indefinable tone of conviction in his voice.

‘The horse might be found,’ Joana said. ‘Shouldn’t we go and look? In which direction was it taken?’

Dona Stefania could have stamped her foot in frustration. This was not how she had intended spending her afternoon. Glancing over the crowds, she wondered where that oaf Frey Ramon had gone, but it was too late and he had disappeared. He wasn’t here, and neither was her mare.

‘Ballocks!’ she said viciously in English, but the folk about her merely stared uncomprehendingly.

Joana alone understood, and she was waiting when her lady joined her and spoke from the corner of her mouth. ‘It was him took my horse, was it, your damned cousin? Why should he steal my horse?’

‘If he did,’ Joana said soothingly, ‘I assume it was because he saw it held by a stranger and sought to protect your property.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ Dona Stefania snorted. ‘He’s a thief and a leader of thieves. When he saw a horse waiting with a groom, he saw a profit to be made, and that’s all.’

‘Perhaps I can find him and ask …’

‘Ask him what?’ Dona Stefania hissed with frustration. ‘There’s no time — look at the sun. No, there’s no choice: I’ll have to use your mount, Joana.’

‘Dona Stefania, let me go instead.’

‘Why?’ the Prioress demanded with some surprise, and frowned with indecision. There were advantages to sending Joana: it was the hottest part of the day and as Joana knew, Dona Stefania would always prefer to remain under shelter with a jug of chilled wine rather than gad about in the heat of the sun. And as for going and meeting this man … But it was she that he wanted, not Joana: it was her secret that he held. Besides, to stay away would be a tacit admission of fear, and Dona Stefania had a hatred of being thought a coward. She was a noblewoman, after all.

‘It would be safer for you,’ Joana replied. ‘If there is only one of us, it could prove dangerous, but I don’t mind.’

‘Safer?’ Dona Stefania stiffened and then pulled out her rosary, the cross dangling. ‘I fear no felon! I have God to protect me.’

‘I know, Dona, but think what a capture you would be to a man who had no scruples. If he was not prey to the fear of God, you would be a magnificent prize, wouldn’t you?’

The blackmailer, Joana told her, had asked for the contents of her purse, which surely meant solely the money. No one else knew what she carried, or so she hoped. Maybe Joana was right. There was no need to put herself into danger. She should at least keep her physical body from his clutches. There was little she could do to protect her good name now. Not even Saint James could save her reputation if that bastard got it into his head to ruin her, but that wasn’t the point. She had no desire to be raped, tortured or captured just to satisfy her stupid sense of duty and honour.

She nodded her agreement, spun on her heel, and found herself facing Gregory.

‘Oh, God! Not you again!’ she exclaimed dramatically, throwing both arms into the air, and then hurried past him before he could stop her.

It was one thing for her to be forced into the painful transaction of paying a man to keep a secret, but it would have been quite another, should her ex-husband hear of her misbehaviour!

They could smell the potent brew from several yards away and Baldwin eyed the cart with the barrel racked atop with a certain anxiety.

Simon saw his look. ‘I don’t care. It’s refreshing. Cider always is.’