Maureen Ash: Shroud of Dishonour

The man nodded. They had known each other only a few hours, since he had come to the stewe where she worked last evening. It had been while they were in the cubicle where she entertained her customers that he had proposed the scheme, claiming he wanted to win a wager he had made with a friend. The stake hinged on a challenge that it would be impossible to smuggle a woman into the Templar enclave and he was willing to pay Elfie for her assistance in winning the bet. The convincing argument that it would also be an enjoyable caper to play on the sanctimonious warrior monks had added an extra incentive to accept. His words still echoed in her ears. “They take a vow of chastity and swear to avoid the company of women, but Christ revered the Magdalene, did he not? Why shouldn’t a harlot, or any other female, be made welcome in their place of worship?”

The words had been spoken in an educated fashion and the clothes he was wearing were of good quality. Probably the son of one of the rich merchants in the town, she thought, a lazy clodpoll that had nothing better to do than get up to mischief.

“We have to walk along the outside of the city wall until we get to the enclave,” he told her. “Once we’re at the gate, don’t say anything, even if the guard asks you a question. Just nod or shake your head if he speaks to you, lest your voice betray you are a woman. I’ll do any talking that needs to be done. Do you understand?”

With a saucy smile that carved two dimples in her cheeks, Elfie gave a solemn nod.

The man chuckled, not loudly, but distinct enough to be heard. “Good. Here is the two shillings I promised to give you before we start; the rest will be yours when we are inside the chapel.” He handed Elfie a small leather pouch. She felt inside to make certain it truly contained silver pennies and gauged the weight by hefting it. When she nodded her acceptance, he gave her further instructions.

“Now we have a brisk walk ahead of us. We must be in the preceptory before the Templars go into the chapel for the service at Matins. So step out, my girl, and lengthen your stride. You must walk like a man, not mince your steps like a female.”

Motioning for her to go ahead, they walked along the footpath. It led upwards, for the city of Lincoln was built on the side of a hill. At the top of the knoll were the castle and Minster and, on the eastern shoulder, just before the slope began its descent, was the Templar enclave. It was surrounded by a high stone wall and no one was allowed entry without permission. To their right, at the bottom of the hillside, the distant light of a torch could be seen and, on the soft spring air, came the occasional sleepy whicker of horses.

“Like I told you,” her companion breathed in Elfie’s ear, “there are so many Templars in the commandery just now they haven’t got room in the stables for all the horses, so they’ve put some of them into a makeshift pen down there.”

As Elfie nodded her understanding, additional details were given. “That’s why my ruse will work. The commander had to hire some local men to help look after the mounts. I’ll tell the guard on the gate we’re two of the men that have been taken on and were told to arrive early. He won’t suspect a thing.”

“Are you sure?” Elfie asked nervously.

The man nodded impatiently. “The monks sleep until it is time for them to attend Matins. And they will be sleeping soundly, for it is only recently that the hour of the service has been put back to comply with the earlier arrival of dawn in the summer. They will not yet be accustomed to waking betimes and will value their rest. The guard won’t dare rouse them to check if we are telling the truth.”

Elfie shivered. Suddenly her stomach began to quiver with fear. She had seen the Templar knights a couple of times, riding along the streets of Lincoln. They had been wearing chain mail covered by white surcoats with a red cross emblazoned on the chest, their faces sober and forbidding. And they were monks, too, protected by God, religious soldiers who travelled to far off lands to fight against the enemies of Christ. Would she be mocking God by going into their enclave? Would her soul be damned for what she was about to do?

The harlot’s step faltered a little as misgiving gripped her.

“Don’t worry, Elfie,” her companion said, giving her a gentle push in the small of her back. “You will suffer no recriminations. And you do want the rest of the money I promised, don’t you?”

Reluctantly the bawd nodded her head and stepped out a little more boldly. The man smiled at her naivety and fingered the leather cord he had wrapped around his wrist, concealed by the sleeve of his tunic. It would make an excellent garrotte. His promise had not been a lie. No one, not even a Templar, could punish a woman who was dead.

Two days later, Everard d’Arderon, the preceptor and senior officer in the Lincoln enclave, stood with two other Templar monks watching a troupe of knights and men-at-arms leave for Portsmouth on the southern coast of England. The bright spring sunshine glittered on their polished helms as they rode through the gate, and illuminated the black and white pennant held aloft by the standard bearer. The banner was not in the rigid rectangular shape of the Beauseant that is carried into battle, but was formed of two streamers that fluttered in the breeze, the black representing the sinfulness of the world the monks had left behind and the white the purity of their life in the Order. Once the contingent reached Portsmouth, they would board a galley and sail across the Bay of Biscay to Lisbon in Portugal, and then travel on horseback a little over eighty miles northeast to the Templar castle at Tomar.

“May the hand of God speed their ship,” said d’Arderon, a solidly built older knight of over sixty years with a broad weathered face. “Our brothers on the Iberian peninsula are hard pressed by the Moors.”

His companions added their prayers to his. Long exposure to the sun while on duty in hot climes had permanently darkened all of their visages. One of them was Emilius, a knight who held the post of draper and was second-in-command to Preceptor d’Arderon. He was a man of middle years, with sandy-coloured beard and hair, the wiry texture of both clipped extremely short. His left arm, irreparably damaged by a sword slash, was strapped to his chest in a sling.

The other monk was a younger knight named Bascot de Marins. Although barely past his mid-thirties, his dark hair and beard were threaded with grey, premature signs of aging resulting from the ordeal of having spent eight long years as a prisoner of the Saracens in the Holy Land. Over the socket of his missing right eye-a legacy of the torture he had been subjected to while in captivity-he wore a black leather patch. He also walked with a slight limp, his ankle having been badly injured during his escape from the infidels. Until recently, he had been in the retinue of the hereditary castellan of Lincoln castle, Nicolaa de la Haye, and had spent two years in her service after his return to England. A crisis of faith had made him reluctant to immediately rejoin the ranks of the Templar Order on his return but, while staying in the castle, he had recovered both his bodily strength and his devotion to Christ. Now he had finally rejoined his Templar brothers and was looking forward to taking up arms in the ongoing battle against the encroachment of the infidel.

“It will be only a few days now, Bascot, before you go on the same journey,” Emilius said, sensing his companion’s eagerness. “I wish I were going with you.”

“And so you would be, Draper, were it not for your arm,” Bascot replied. It had been just outside the walls of the Templar fortress at Tomar, during a skirmish with a band of marauding Moors, that Emilius had sustained the wound that had sliced through the muscles of his upper arm and smashed the bone beyond healing, rendering the limb useless. No longer fit for active duty, he had been sent to the Lincoln preceptory to assist d’Arderon in running the enclave. The duties of both men were diverse-along with overseeing the training and outfitting of new initiates, they also bore the responsibility of administering the many properties in the Lincolnshire area that had been donated to the Order. The fees obtained from these lands were used to provide supplies and arms for brothers on active duty in overseas commanderies, as was the revenue obtained from a small trade in commodities imported from Outremer. Although both were aware of the importance of the parts they played in support of their brethren, it did not lessen their longing to wield their swords in protection of Christians too weak to defend themselves.