Michael Jecks: The Templar

Perhaps he should think of her as ‘his last woman’. She was surely the last. He couldn’t possibly find another. He was too old, and even with his money, he obviously wasn’t the most attractive of men. No, in future all he could count on were whores.

He poured and drank steadily.

The woman was right; she had gone back to her church. She could do good there, whereas with him, what sort of future would she have? There was the possibility of finding a new life, he supposed, but more likely the Church would send people to recapture her. The Church did not easily give up its nuns and monks. They were sworn to God, and that oath would last for ever.

What sort of life could he offer a woman? He could go home to Ypres, live again in his house, pretend his wife didn’t exist, but all the time he’d be looking over his shoulder, expecting to hear the steps that heralded the assassin, the man hired by Hellin van Coye’s family to avenge his death. For surely that man would come. Parceval’s danger would start from the moment he arrived home again. He would never be able to relax. Even if he had the good fortune to find another woman, he couldn’t live normally. It was impossible.

He stared at the cup in his hand. It was empty. So was the jug. The third jug. He felt overwhelmed with the thought that he could never know peace. There was nothing here for him. Nothing. Nothing here, nothing at Ypres. Where could he go? Where could he live?

Standing, he stumbled, and had to lean on the table. What was the point of struggling when all was stacked against him? Better to take away the success from his enemies. He would steal their thunder.

Steal their thunder, he thought, slipping and toppling against a wall. That was it. He would take his own life. Prevent the bloody bastards from killing him. Yes! He’d stop their fun. He’d hang himself. Here. Tonight!

He belched. No one could stop him. It was his life. He was nearly at his chamber. Leaning against the wall, he tried to focus on the door handle, but it was terribly hard. His hand refused to coordinate with his eyes, and it was some time before he could lift the latch. As soon as he did so, the door flew wide open, crashing against the wall. He staggered inside, and his hand went to his belt. Pulling it free, he heard his knife fall and make a cracking noise as the bone handle struck the packed earth of the floor. His purse rattled loudly as the coins struck. For a moment he stared down at them, but his misery made him shrug. There was no point in picking them up. Better that he should …

‘Senor?’

Blearily, he turned his gaze onto the woman who owned this place. She stood anxiously, a small figure in her fifties, with sagging, greying flesh. He thought she looked little better than a corpse.

But then his interest quickened, for behind her was another woman. She was slim, elegant, fair-haired, and younger. Parceval gaped foolishly, and then ridiculously tried to stand a little more straight, to look a little less inebriated. ‘My lady, I am going to kill myself.’

‘Oh! Not here, senor!’

The other smiled. She had been looking at the floor, at the heavy purse, but now she turned her eyes upon him. ‘Is there really no other way? Perhaps the senor would reconsider. There is always something to make life worthwhile.’

And Parceval, drinking in the sight of her, reflected that perhaps she was right.

The wind blew like a demon, howling in the rigging, whipping into shreds the sail above their heads, and Baldwin stood staring out to sea with the feeling that the whole of his pilgrimage had been a disaster.

He had gone to Compostela in order to pay for his murder, but the journey had been a failure from the first. Surely he could have gone on a simple journey to Our Lady of Norfolk, or Canterbury. It would have been easier, and safer — although he wondered whether he would have felt that same sensation of release and forgiveness. There had been an unmistakable feeling of love and warmth as he stood in that Cathedral. Perhaps the journey was worth that. As was the chance of seeing Tomar.

But the pleasures were offset by the sadness of Matthew’s death, and by the grim reality of his descent into poverty and dishonour. It was terrible to hear how a man had sunk so low that he was finally killed for his attempts at blackmail.

As if that were not bad enough, Baldwin had the guilt of what he had put his friend Simon through. The Bailiff had willingly joined him here, but when Baldwin left him, he had almost died of his fever. True, the careful nursing of Munio’s wife had protected him from death, but it had been close, and there was always the possibility that the next few days would put an end to all of them.

He glanced up as a wild cry came from the master, and suddenly he heard an awful snapping noise, as the mainsail over his head tore from top to bottom. He was almost shoved from the ship by crew members as they ran up the ratlines and battled with the sails against the wind, desperately trying to rescue what they could.

Baldwin pulled himself hand over hand to the little cabin at the rear of the deck, and hoisted himself into the reeking interior. Vomit puddled all over the floor, and the three men inside were a uniform green colour, Simon lying on the floor near the stern, Sir Charles and Paul looking faintly better because they were at least vertical, both sitting with their backs to the curved wall.

‘Has the devil come to claim his own yet?’ Sir Charles asked pathetically.

‘He would not have to cast his net far, would he?’ Baldwin said, and would have essayed a chuckle, but then as the boat lurched, Simon spewed, and Baldwin fled for the open deck again.

And while Baldwin and Simon prayed for salvation amidst the howling horror of an angry sea, while Parceval sat in a tavern with a new lady, and while Dona Stefania sat at the side of her altar and watched with greedy pleasure as the first of the queue of pilgrims entered her little church and walked to the relic to give thanks and pray to Saint Peter, hundreds of miles away to the north and east, in the great church of Orthez, the priest sighed as he picked up the casket containing the relic.

It was cool here, down in the undercroft, a good place to preserve things. He knew that perfectly well, for after all, it was where the hams and sausages were hung until they were wanted, deep in this cool, dry interior. Perfect.

The box was beautiful. He held it reverently in both hands, then walked with it to a slanting shaft of light. In it, the box gleamed. There was a fingerprint on the cross, and he wiped it with care on his sleeve, and breathed on it to polish it. Then he made his way up the stairs to the main body of the church itself. There, he bowed to the altar, and moved along the choir to where his Bishop stood. The Bishop held out his hand.

‘You have it?’

‘Yes, my Lord Bishop.’

He passed it over and bowed again while the Bishop tentatively opened it a crack and peered inside. ‘Wonderful to think that so little can be so marvellously efficacious.’

‘It was a Saint.’

‘Yes.’

The Bishop picked up the box which Dona Stefania had returned to them. ‘You can burn this,’ he said as he reverently laid down the other casket in its place. ‘As if we’d have let that poisonous mare have the real relic! She must have tried to thieve it at the outset.’

‘She has told the Bishop of Compostela that she has the relic, and she is already winning many pilgrims.’

‘I know,’ said the Bishop with a chuckle. ‘She says that she swapped over the bones because the Saint wanted to remain at her church.’

‘When will you tell her that we only sent her a bit of the tailbone of a hog?’

‘Later,’ the Bishop said with satisfaction, kneeling before the casket. ‘There’s no hurry. Later.’