Michael Jecks - The Templar

Parceval had washed himself and felt the drunkenness fall away as he thought of her. Then, while his companions sat or sprawled in the roadway, he walked up to Hellin and stabbed him in the back of the neck, shoving the knife in and up with all his might, clinging on to his blade as the great meaty hands reached up and over to haul him away, ignoring the punches and slaps from his ‘friends’.

‘Friends’! These were the men who had raped his daughter. He had no friends.

‘Why do you want to go there?’

‘It is only right that a man should seek a murderer, surely?’

Simon eyed him doubtfully. Baldwin was suspiciously enthusiastic for someone who was talking about scouring a country for a fugitive. ‘Come on. This is not only about some dead servant girl, is it? I can understand your wanting to speak to Ramon, but you were all afire to seek out Matthew’s murderer. Why are you now so keen to leave here and go to Portugal?’

Baldwin’s smile dropped a little. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘It is,’ Simon yawned.

‘In the first place, as you say, I want to question Ramon; in the second, it seems that the man who killed Matthew was with a small band, and he’s in Portugal too. We have heard that he was seeking a path to Tomar when he left here.’

‘That makes more sense,’ Simon said. There was a terrible lethargy stealing over him again. ‘So you want to catch him too.’

‘It is not only that,’ Baldwin said and stared out through the open window. ‘It is hard to explain, Simon. When I was in the Order, I was a young man. For the first time in my life, I had a purpose. Before that, I was idling my way through life, enjoying it as I could, but always knowing that my older brother would inherit the manor. At last, when I went to Acre and witnessed a magnificent city brought down and destroyed by the Moors, I realised that I had a purpose. At that time, I thought there was no more honourable thing that a man could do, other than join an Order and defend pilgrims by fighting as many Moors as he could. And then the city fell and I was injured and saved by the Templars.

‘I suppose if I had been saved on a Hospitaller ship, I might have joined the Knights Hospitaller instead, in which case you and I would never have met, because I would still be in my Order. But I wasn’t. I was saved by the Templars, and because I owed them my life, I gave my life to the Order. My happiest memories of all are of the Order, of warm sea breezes, of the scent of orange blossom, of fresh lemons, of …’

Baldwin fell silent. In his memory there were so many different scenes. Rocky coasts, sun-baked hills, lush olive groves, vineyards, slim, dark-skinned women with black hair that gleamed in the bright light. It was more than a series of unrelated memories; it was his life.

‘You want to go and see it again?’

‘I was in Portugal for a while. It has happy memories for me, but it also has the great fort of Tomar.’

‘So what?’ Simon yawned. It felt as though his entire body had been pummelled by a gang of miners with their hammers, and he winced.

‘If this Ramon was heading for the Order of Christ, Tomar would be the first place he would go to. It is where I shall find him.’

‘And the killer of Matthew.’

Baldwin’s smile hardened. ‘His killer also seems to have headed in that direction. I think I shall find him there as well.’

‘How long would it take to get there?’

‘I am told that on horseback, a man travelling at his ease could do the journey in fifteen days without any strain, or perhaps as few as eleven if he was prepared to make his mount suffer.’

‘I’ve been here for two days. You’d have to travel swiftly to catch them.’

‘I have an easier method. We shall take a ship and sail there.’

Simon caught a yawn. ‘If you think so,’ he said unenthusiastically.

‘You’ll be fine, Simon. It’s only a short ride to the port, and then we take a ship down the coast. Travelling night and day, not worrying about a horse’s stamina, we can get there speedily.’

‘I’m sure,’ Simon said, but now the exhaustion was overtaking him again.

‘When we are there …’ Baldwin began, but before he could complete his sentence, Margarita appeared in the doorway behind him. Baldwin turned and gave her a shamefaced smile. ‘I see I am not allowed to overtire you. Rest, Simon, and I shall speak to you again later.’

Simon nodded, and although he tried to give the woman a cross look, because he would have liked to know what Baldwin had been about to say, he failed. His eyelids were too heavy, and he needed to close them, just for a few moments.

Before Margarita could silently close the door, he was already snoring.

Baldwin found it hard to contain his enthusiasm. He left the house and went out to the small garden that Munio was so proud of, and when Munio’s steward appeared, Baldwin asked for a cup of wine.

It arrived, carried not by the steward, but by Munio himself. ‘So you have had some good fortune?’ he enquired.

‘It seems so,’ Baldwin said lightly. ‘With luck we can soon take our leave of you and board a ship to Portugal. I will be reluctant, but it will be good to try to find this Ramon.’

‘And the other,’ Munio said. His usually doleful expression looked today still more mournful than usual.

‘It would be good to catch him as well,’ Baldwin agreed.

‘It would have been more satisfying if Joana’s murderer had been that felon Domingo.’

‘Yes. But his men deny anything to do with her murder and there is no money. If a common felon found himself in possession of such wealth, he would be incapable of saving it or concealing it. He would surely spend it at once,’ Baldwin said. He had seen it many times before.

‘Yet he did go out there that day. Of course, one of Domingo’s men once said that he and Joana were cousins.’

‘Which makes murder neither more nor less likely,’ Baldwin observed.

‘As you say,’ Munio said. ‘And have you given any thought to what you would do if you caught one or other of the two?’

‘Oh, Ramon I should like to question, if the Mestre allows me. As you said, he could have had something to do with the death of the girl. We think he saw her up there but lied and left the place. If he is guilty of her murder, I should wish to bring him back here.’

‘And the other?’

‘Matthew’s killer is clearly evil,’ Baldwin said shortly. ‘He was witnessed murdering a harmless old man. He deserves his fate.’

Munio turned upon him a look of such piercing intelligence that Baldwin blinked. ‘I fear you think me a fool, just because I do not speak your tongue so well as you.’

‘Not at all, you speak my language better than I speak yours, and for that I honour you,’ Baldwin protested.

‘But still you treat me as an idiot. You think me a country bumpkin, not an astute fellow like yourself. Oh, do not try to argue otherwise. It is clear enough. Now, Don Baldwin, let me tell you some things. I know you have a burning desire to go to Portugal. Why not? I hear it is a lovely country. But you want to punish the murderer of a beggar. That death offends you more than the ending of the life of a beautiful, defenceless child, when the motive for her death was either her rape or the simple theft of the money that was on her. That means to me that her murderer was either exceedingly fortunate, because he found a suitable woman to rape just at the time that she was carrying a fortune in money, or that he already knew she would be there with the cash. Which means he knew her, knew of the blackmail, and knew she had the money. That man could so easily have been Ramon. He picked up a stone and smashed that poor face into nothing, then stole all the money. If that is the case, he is a cold-blooded murderer and should be punished.’