Michael Jecks: The Templar

And it was truly magnificent. He absorbed as much as he could, walking about the place after they had given their thanks for their safe arrival, drinking in the pictures and symbols all about. At the south portico he saw the Virgin Mary and he stared at her with adoration, admiring the way that the artist had depicted her with her child in Bethlehem, the three kings nearby, offering their gifts, and finally the angel warning them to leave and not return to Herod because of his evil plan.

There were other pictures, too. Simon’s judicial soul rather enjoyed the scene painted near The Temptation of Christ . It showed The Woman Caught in Adultery . In her hand she held the head of her lover, which her husband had hacked from the body, ordering her to kiss it twice a day if she loved the man so much, even though it was putrid and rotten. Of course he found the punishment repugnant, but Simon privately wondered if there weren’t some women who could benefit from such a salutary lesson in justice. He’d seen some during his lifetime who were little better than whores. With that thought came the reflection that many men deserved the same treatment.

The tomb of Saint James was magnificent, and Simon was intoxicated with the gold and rich crimsons. The altar cloth itself must have been a good nine by twenty or more hands-breadths in size — huge! Surely the patron who gave that must have been rich beyond imagination. The whole place was massive but beautifully proportioned, bright with light and constantly humming with the noise of hundreds of people talking and murmuring prayers.

This was the busiest time of the year, Simon had heard, and as he stared out over the multitude in the square, he acknowledged that he himself had never before seen so many people gathered together in one place. It was two days before the great feast day of Saint James, and it appeared to him as though the whole of Christendom had gathered here in order to honour the city’s patron saint.

Of course, many of these people were only here to provide services for pilgrims. There were money-changers, people offering lodgings, shoe-sellers, wine-sellers, men selling herbs and spices — and everywhere were the folk hawking cockleshells, real or made of lead or pewter, to celebrate arriving at Saint James’s Cathedral. Some fellows simply loitered around, Simon noticed, and he saw some of them spring up and stride over to a man leading a horse. There was a short discussion, and one lad took the horse away, over the paving slabs, up towards a beautiful well, next to which stood a large trough. Another man brought up a bucket of water and filled the trough for the horse, standing at its side as it drank its fill. This was clearly where riders left their mounts when they were in a hurry, Simon thought.

When he and Baldwin had first left the Cathedral, the sun was like a blast from an armourer’s forge after the cool stone shelter within, and Simon had felt his energy being sapped as the first rays struck his heavy woollen tunic and cloak. He was sweltering in moments. Now he was less aware of the sun’s warmth as he stood gazing out over the great square.

People were everywhere, dressed for the most part in their ordinary, day-to-day clothing: peasants in rough unmended hose and tunics that were all but rags; wealthier freemen with their pathetic bundles but more colourful jackets and shirts; merchants clad in expensive velvets or fine linens; knights with their slightly poorer quality clothing, but the swagger of the man-at-arms; clerics with their robes and slightly bowed heads. The scene was filled with reds and greens, ochres and yellows. Faces were blackened by the sun, shaded by their great broad-brimmed hats, many already wearing that symbol of Saint James, the cockleshell. Some wore real examples, the pale pink colour showing up clearly, while others had dull pewter versions which they would have purchased from the vendors along the Via Francigena or from a thousand other places all along the route here from Tours, Vezelay, Le Puy or Arles.

‘My God,’ Simon murmured.

‘Has the heat affected you?’ Baldwin asked quickly.

‘That must be the seventh time you’ve asked me that so far today,’ Simon noted.

‘It is important, Simon. You are not on Dartmoor now.’

‘Dartmoor can be hot enough in summer.’

‘Perhaps so, but here the temperature is that much warmer, and people do collapse from the heat. It affects everyone differently.’

‘I can cope with heat,’ Simon said confidently.

‘Perhaps in England, but here you should be careful. It is something that my Order taught: always take refreshment when you can, for you need more in the sun. During my first years in these warmer climes, I had to be taken from my weapon training several times because of the heat. It is a terrible malaise, Simon. You become weak and sickly, dizzy and disorientated. I was thoroughly laid low and had to be given a cool bath and plenty of water.’

Simon pulled his hat over his brow without comment. It was, to his mind, a foolish piece of headgear. The felt of the brim was swept up and folded over to form a long peak at the front, like a duck’s beak. It was designed, so he had been told, to keep the sun from his eyes, because it could weaken his vision. He was sure that this was another old wives’ tale, to be treated no more seriously than the other tales he had once heard, of fevers being passed on by foul waters, when all knew that they came from vapours in the air; or the idea that taking blood wasn’t good for a man, when all knew that letting some blood was the only way to balance a man’s humours.

‘What I need right now is some liquid inside me — and I don’t mean water,’ he said with determination.

‘I doubt you’ll find any ale here,’ Baldwin said.

‘They must have something to slake the thirst.’

‘Yes …’ Baldwin agreed doubtfully, eyeing the nearest wine-seller. Then he saw a cart with a larger barrel. ‘Ah — cider!’

Simon followed the direction of his gaze. ‘Yes, that will do perfectly. A pint or so of that will definitely help clear my head!’

Caterina led her brother away from the tumult at the Cathedral gates, and out to the square. A line of trestles stood in the shade of some chestnut trees and she took him along here.

The man selling cider and a thin beer didn’t seem to care that Caterina was a beggar. He ignored her black clothing and veil, but waited until he saw that there was some money in Domingo’s purse before serving them.

‘What happened?’ she demanded.

Domingo told her all about the attack, how he and his men had swept down only to be repulsed when the three strangers slammed into their flank, five men falling in the first few moments.

‘It was evil! The fair man, he could have been a devil. A devil with yellow hair.’

She said nothing. In her life she had already experienced enough misery — she had lost everything. It was hard not to feel sympathy for her brother, though. His bereavement was all but unbearable, she knew. It was obvious in his eyes, and she squeezed his large, horny hand.

In a moment, he had snatched his hand away. Seeing the hurt in her eyes, he gave a twisted grin. ‘I shouldn’t be with you.’

‘I was comforting you, Brother.’

‘But you are no longer known to our family. You married against our will, and when you did that, you left us for ever.’

She felt the blow like a dull stab over her heart, but the pain was brief. Soon it had dimmed, like the memory of her husband’s death.

He had been such a handsome, bold fellow. Brash, too, she could admit to herself now, from the vastness of the years. A young soldier in the service of the King of Navarre when they first met, she had been attracted by his courage and his stories of adventures near the mountains. He told them with a mock seriousness, but in each story there was a bawdy ending, or a sharp edge that showed him to be self-deprecating in attitude, a good trait in a man whose entire life was bound up with searching for honour and fame.