Michael Jecks: The Templar

They had known each other only three days when they ran away and married. Caterina’s father had refused to acknowledge her afterwards because for him, there could be little more dishonourable than that his own daughter should marry one of ‘them’. He and his family had learned to cope with the continual raids, had learned to fight back and defend themselves, and now his daughter was marrying one of the enemy.

‘You should never have married him,’ Domingo said roughly. She knew he wasn’t a man who could show love readily, and yet he meant to be kind. They had not spoken in years, and he was finding it difficult to talk to her, she knew.

‘How is Joana?’

He grunted. ‘Your cousin is much as she always has been — loud and demanding. Seems to think she can order people around for no reason. She asked me and my boys to come east, to guard her mistress; now my Sancho is dead, she’s completely lost interest. Just wants …’ He broke off, rubbing vigorously at his eye. ‘Always wants things her own way or not at all. That Lady Prioress has turned her head. Gives Joana her old dresses, and then the silly mare thinks she’s got the position to go with it.’

‘She was once my best friend,’ Caterina said sadly. Now she’d be lucky for Joana to acknowledge her in the street.

‘You shouldn’t have married a mudejar ,’ he said harshly.

She wouldn’t have if she could have helped herself. The thought of wedding a man who had Moorish ancestry was appalling to her, and yet when she saw him, his white smile, his lazy grin wrinkling those deep brown eyes, his tanned, dark face, when she felt his solid frame and those wiry muscles beneath, Caterina had simply congealed with desire. He was perfection, and a kind and attentive husband to boot.

But Domingo could never see beyond the colour of his brother-in-law’s flesh. No matter that he had renounced the religion of his father and grandparents, that he had become a Christian; to Domingo, he was still the enemy, and Caterina was sure that on the day Domingo had heard of Juan’s death, he would have danced with joy. If she had enough cruelty in her, she would have asked about Sancho — and then she would have danced before him for the death of his own son. Except she wasn’t cruel enough — or perhaps she was too drained with exhaustion to work herself up to such an emotion.

‘He died in the famine?’ Domingo grunted.

She nodded. ‘He was in France with his lord, six years ago now.’

Six whole years. Since then, nothing to live for. Only survival. The mere thought of all those years gone was daunting, as though she had blinked and a quarter of her life had disappeared. She had been married for five years, from fourteen to nineteen, five wonderfully happy years. And since then, her life was empty.

‘Yeah. And he died there,’ Domingo said laconically. He had finished his pot of cider, and now ordered another. He didn’t offer Caterina a second drink. ‘Best thing. Saves you from being pointed out and laughed at. It’s better.’

‘I’m better off being a beggar?’

Since Juan’s death, everything had fallen apart. Her son had died, her daughter had been adopted by Juan’s sister, and Caterina had been left desolate. No money, no home: Juan’s master wanted no women about the place. There was nothing left for Caterina, so she had packed her few belongings and returned to her home a little south of Compostela. But her father rejected her, denying that he knew her.

‘I had a daughter, but she is dead to me. Be gone!’

There was nothing else for her but to come here, to the city, and make the best of things. She begged, and occasionally, when a man was interested, she sold her body for the cost of a meal, using the name Maria to protect her daughter. In her time, she had serviced many men, for as her resources dwindled and she began to feel the pangs of hunger, she learned that nothing was so precious to her as life itself. Only someone who had experienced hardship like this could understand how valuable life was, she sometimes thought.

Just then, Domingo’s head shot up. ‘There he is,’ he spat. ‘The murdering bastard!’

‘Where?’ She followed his gaze and saw a man on a tall, high-stepping horse. It might have been an Arab, from its spirit, a beautiful, glossy beast that scorned the feeble humans all about its massive hooves.

‘He’s the man who killed my boy,’ Domingo grated, and he stood up.

‘Will you get him?’ she asked with some trepidation. She had never seen Domingo in this mood before. He looked like a man on a suicide mission, who would dare an entire army for his own justice.

He made no response, but sprang over a low wall, and then pelted away across the square, darting in and out of the people standing before the Cathedral.

She cried out, but he was already out of hearing, and as she felt the intimidating presence of the cider-seller looming over her, she dug out the few coins in her purse and dropped them on the table, before quickly striding away on her long legs.

Domingo ran at full tilt, but in moments he was swallowed by the crowd. Although the fair knight was on top of a horse, Domingo was too low with his hunched back to be able to keep an eye on him. He ran on until he came to where the rider had been, and stopped to take a squint about him. Clambering onto a low wall, he saw one man riding along an alley.

Filled with eagerness, Domingo leaped lightly from his perch and hurtled along an adjacent alley until he came to an intersecting lane. Down this he went, his heart swelling, whether from the exertion or from the thrill of tracking down the man who had slaughtered his son, he didn’t know.

He felt the fury churning in his belly, begging for release. In front of his eyes, he had a picture of his son as young Sancho was slashed and stabbed, then toppled white-faced from his horse. The memory made him want to kill the fair man with his bare hands — pull out his entrails, rip out his beating heart from his breast, tear off his tarse and cods and stuff them in his mouth, before slowly slicing off his entire head, so that the man could feel every moment of his death. He wanted agony — true, all-encompassing agony — inflicted on the man who could murder his son.

At the end of the road, he stood with his back to the wall, unsheathing his knife, holding it in two hands as he tried to control his breathing, and then, as the hoofbeats approached, he licked his lips, said hoarsely, ‘For you, son,’ and stepped around the corner.

The horse reared and its rider, a red-faced Castilian with a yellow hat, let out an oath and Domingo’s rage left him. Still swearing, the man rode on, and Domingo slumped against the wall. He would kill the murderer, though. He would .

‘I swear it, my son,’ he vowed, and then sobbed drily.

Dona Stefania felt calm and soothed as she left the Cathedral, her head bowed in humility, her hands concealed in the sleeves of her habit. The little disappointments were fading from her memory, as was Domingo’s incompetence. She shouldn’t have trusted him to try and perform a simple task. A man with so many fighters behind him, and the lot of them were bested by a trio of mercenaries? Pathetic! Why did she have to put her faith in idiots? She should form her own retinue. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t afford it, she mused. She knew why she didn’t, though. It was simply that the cost of keeping a force of men would be prohibitive in the longer term, and all too often the men could become more trouble than they were worth. Especially in a convent like hers, in which there were too many attractive young women.

There must be no hint of impropriety about her place, she reminded herself, patting her purse gently. The Bishop would never allow her to remain there if he heard so much as a whisper of misbehaviour. That thought brought up the inevitable memory. It was, she thought, like a piece of dog’s excrement that she couldn’t scrape off her shoe, no matter how hard she tried. If only she hadn’t been so rash, so driven by her lusts. Then she wouldn’t have had to try to have the fool killed before he could spread tales of her salacious urges, and Domingo wouldn’t be sulking because of losing his damned son!