Michael JECKS - The Last Templar

“That must be it,” he said, pointing and staring in fascination. When Simon looked at him, he could see that the man was trembling – not in fear for himself, but in a calm horror at the thought of the sights that would lie beyond the line of trees surrounding the travellers’ camp. Even through his anger, and his desire to avenge the girl and the boy, Simon felt the youth’s trepidation.

“You have guided us well, and I thank you for it. Go home now. We will continue and send back word when we know what has happened.”

With a grateful glance, the farmer’s son nodded, wheeled his horse and made his way back home. Simon and his tracker watched him go, then started off towards the distant smoke, moving slowly and carefully and keeping a wary eye on the trees on either side.

“Bailiff,” said Black quietly after a few minutes.

“Hunh.”

“I don’t suppose you’d like to send me home too?”

Simon glanced over at the sombre man riding alongside him, and for a moment the two gazed at each other with complete understanding, then as if they had communicated perfectly with a single, penetrating look, they whipped their horses and galloped towards the smoke, like cavalry towards the battle.

As they came closer to the smoke the bailiff felt it hard to keep going. Guessing at the sights that would confront them beyond the lines of trees, he wanted to slow so that Black would be the first to see the view, as if that could reduce the shock and the pain. He found that he could hardly keep his eyes on the way ahead. It was as though they wanted to avoid the scene, and he found himself watching the trees on either side, staring at the track, looking up at the sky, anywhere, in preference to the camp itself.

Black was riding as though in a trance, hunched and unmoving in his saddle, with one hand gripping his reins and his other lying loose on the saddle in front of him. This would be Simon’s first exposure to the ferocity of a trail baston attack, he knew, but not his own. Black had travelled in his youth, before he followed his father into farming and hunting, and had gone as far north as York with merchants, helping them to move their goods from town to town in their unceasing attempt to sell their wares.

Once – God, he could still remember it as if it was yesterday! – they had come across a camp where an attack lad taken place. He had only been, what, two and twenty? And he had been exposed to sights that he would not have believed possible before. He had been so shocked that he could not speak for days afterwards, and had not slept properly for weeks. Now, as they trotted up the slight rise that led to the camp site, he felt the old anger again, the sheer rage that any man could do such things to his fellows. The last time he had been too young to catch the men responsible, too young to be able to help, and, as a stranger to the area, unwanted in the posse, but he had followed the men as they chased after the gang, purely to assuage his anger by watching the revenge of the local men.

They had not been able to find the gang. The posse had chased after the gang for days, but, at last, they had lost the trail deep in a forest and had been forced to return, the whole group dejected from their failure. That was part of the reason for his depression at losing the killers of the abbot. He, too, had been unavenged for his miserable end. This time Black was committed. They would not escape him; he would hunt them down and destroy them, not only for this attack, but for the abbot and for the poor dead men and women he had seen when he was twenty-two. He looked over at Simon. How would he cope with it, he wondered.

Simon’s anger was giving way to fear as they drew closer, fear of the sights hidden by the trees. He had been shocked and horrified to see what had happened to the abbot, but this attack seemed even worse already, after seeing the effect on the young woman and her brother, and he withdrew into himself as they rode, as if he could hide from the sights ahead.

When he glanced behind, Simon realised that he was not alone in his feelings of trepidation. The others, all sturdy men well-used to the sight of dead and injured men and animals, men ready and prepared to kill a wounded beast out of kindness to stop its misery, were riding bunched together in a group, no longer strung out along the road, as if they all felt the need for the mutual support and comfort that only their numbers could bring. They rode with the fixed expressions of men that were fearful, but who would continue with what they knew would be a deeply unpleasant task, as if they knew that only by their dedication could they prevent a repeat of the attack.

Simon turned back to face the road again and set his jaw. If the men could ride with that level of commitment, so could he. He glanced swiftly at Black, who was riding with the same fixed frown on his face, then stared at the road again with a small feeling of desperation. He felt as if he was alone in his feeling of fear, that the others were free of concern and that he alone was scared of what lay ahead.

As they came up to the trees, they slowed to a walking pace. The road led past the camp, and they had to turn off into a small lane to get to it. They meandered down the lane, all feeling their tension and apprehension growing. Simon felt that the men of the posse had a curious mood of estrangement in their unity, as if they were all grateful for the company of their friends, but were all absolutely alone with their thoughts, each standing isolated and apart from the other as he rode, as if they were retreating into themselves for the strength to carry on to the campsite.

The lane curved and wound its way to the camp, but through the occasional gaps in the trees Simon could see the dark and gloomy hills of the moors ahead, so they were heading south. He saw that Black was already trying to make sense of the mess of tracks in the trodden dirt of the lane. He seemed to feel Simon’s steady gaze on him and looked up for a minute, but there was no recognition in his eyes, only an angry glittering. He turned back to his quiet investigation.

It was the smell that Simon noticed first – not the bitter, musty tang of an old fire, but fresh smoke from a fire of cured wood, and the smell made him frown and glance at Black again. Surely they weren’t still there? The trail bastons would have left by now, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t wait and camp at the scene of their latest attack, would they?

The expression on Black’s face froze him. The hunter was staring with his face rigid, his jaw locked and clenched, and only his eyes moving. No other muscle worked. It was as if he had been bewitched, as if he was cursed by having all his limbs stilled and rendered immovable. With a feeling of horror, the bailiff realised that the man was stricken with disgust and revulsion, and he felt his own terror return as they rode into the camp.

At first all he could see was the burning wagons. They came into the camp through a small gap in the trees and were suddenly in a little clearing, bordered by a fringe of thin, young trees. Although the grass had long ago been trampled into mud, the first impression that the bailiff had was of a festive and peaceful site, with brightly coloured clothes on the people sleeping all round and the green of the trees reflecting off the little pool of water at the other side of the clearing. It was as if they had entered a small oasis of calm, and he felt that if they were to shout all of the people would wake and greet them. But then, as he looked all over the area, he saw that none in the camp would wake again. They were all dead.

Two wagons, parked close together, were smouldering, giving off thin grey smoke that rose and billowed in the clear air. Two others sat a little farther off, their contents strewn over the ground in a haphazard tapestry of colour. Slowly the sensation of unreality faded from him and he felt the tears warming his eyes as he saw that the nearest body was that of a woman, hacked to death and lying in her own gore. Then he saw that the next body, that of a man, lay with his arms outstretched as if reaching for her even in death, with a massive and bloody gash at the back of his head.