Michael JECKS - The Templar's Penance

‘So, Señors, you were right to think of the mud at the water’s edge.’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said, and there was a faint smile on his face as he turned to the man. ‘I congratulate you on your English.’

‘Scarcely a surprise that I should speak English,’ responded the tall man with a sniff. ‘I studied at Oxford.’

The body was soon loaded on the door and carried to the cart. Then, while the crowd watched, the investigator spoke rapidly to the clerk, who had installed himself at the cart, and who scratched with a reed at scraps of parchment which had been bound together with a thong to make a thick bundle. When he was done, the investigator returned to Baldwin.

‘Señors, I am called Munio. I am one of the six pesquisidores of Compostela. You would call me an “enquirer” in English, I think. I must investigate this death.’ He added with a humourless smile, ‘You agree that she would not have killed herself like this? Please, your names?’

When the two had told him who they were and explained that they were pilgrims, he held out a hand for their letters of testimoniales . Glancing at them, he read for a few moments before passing them back. ‘You are welcome, but I am sorry that your pilgrimage should have ended in so sad a manner. Did you see or hear anything?’

Simon explained how he had been disturbed by the screams of the two girls and that he and Baldwin had rushed here to offer aid.

‘You appear interested in the matter,’ Munio said. ‘It is not often that a man suggests where the pesquisidores should look.’

Simon could see that the man retained some suspicion of them, and he began to simmer with annoyance at this affront, but even as he opened his mouth to complain, Baldwin put a restraining hand on his forearm.

‘Señor, in our own country we are both very experienced in looking into homicides. I am a Keeper of the King’s Peace in Devonshire and often sit as a Justice of Gaol Delivery, while my companion here is a Bailiff of the King’s Stannary in Dartmoor under Abbot Robert of Tavistock. We often work together in order to secure the punishment of murderers.’

‘I see.’ Munio drew in a breath and stared about him. ‘If you can assist me in this matter, I would be glad. These peasants do not recognise her face – I doubt she would recognise herself. But they do not know this dress either. Perhaps she was a pilgrim. Is she known to you?’

Baldwin and Simon exchanged a look. They had not seen this woman before. Both shook their heads slowly, and Munio sighed. ‘As I feared. It is hard to find a killer when the victim is not known. He could be a man desperate for a woman, could be unknown to her. Mere random death.’

Simon had listened, but now he shot a look back at the body and spoke up boldly. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a body mutilated like that before. It’s as if someone killed her in a frenzy – someone who went berserk. Perhaps a jealous lover, striking her in return for a rejection? Or someone who wanted to conceal her identity?’

Baldwin nodded but he felt there was another possible explanation. ‘In a city like this, where there are so many pilgrims, one might have decided to attack a woman to satisfy his desires. Perhaps it was another pilgrim who travelled here with the victim?’

‘You think to accuse yourselves?’ Munio said with a faint smile. ‘But perhaps you are right. Perhaps one of the many pilgrims here became overwhelmed with the urge to possess a woman, and this is the result.’

‘She rejected his advances,’ Simon pointed out. ‘Those scrapes on her hand – they look like marks made when she tried to defend herself.’

Munio nodded slowly.

‘The peasants saw no one?’ Baldwin enquired.

‘No.’

Baldwin looked at them. When he and Simon had run here, they had passed no one. There had been no peasants, nor any other travellers. ‘We dozed in the sun before we heard the girls’ screams. It is possible that another man or men passed us while we slept.’

‘Si! So the murderer could have returned to the city.’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said, but his mind was playing through the scene before him. A man had come here, molested the woman and killed her. ‘Perhaps she walked here with the murderer. You should ask at the gates whether the keepers remember a woman dressed like this, and whether she walked alone.’

‘I shall have it done.’

‘And if he killed her here,’ Baldwin said pensively, walking back to the body on the cart, ‘it must have come as a surprise to her, for there is little sign of a struggle.’

‘Only the scrapes on her hand.’

Baldwin nodded vaguely, but he was already exposing the woman’s forearms. ‘And here, on the underside of her forearm,’ he said.

‘Si. What of it?’

Baldwin stared down at the arms. ‘Perhaps nothing, but her assailant may have been unsure – nervous, perhaps – because it means that she was not killed with the first blow, but was able to hold up her hands and defend herself.’

Simon shrugged. ‘I have seen women who have been able to hold their arms over their heads even after having massive injuries. Perhaps this is one such woman. Maybe she had a strong skull and thick skin.’

Baldwin nodded.

‘In any case,’ Simon continued, ‘if you’re right and this woman was adored by a man so that he formed a desire for her so strong that he was prepared to rape her, maybe his hand was reluctant. It’s not surprising that he wouldn’t want to kill her. It’s an odd man who wants a woman so much, he’ll murder her just to possess her.’

‘It’s a stranger man still who is so determined to possess a woman that he does not mind the fact that she’s dead,’ Baldwin pointed out gruffly.

‘Maybe she wasn’t dead when he had her,’ Simon countered. ‘He could have taken her by force, and then realised that she wouldn’t forgive him, so he beat her. Maybe she taunted him, saying she’d have him arrested as soon as she got back to the city.’

‘Come, Simon! How many rape victims have you known who have not shown extreme fear and loathing afterwards? Few would dare to taunt their attacker.’

Simon gave a fleeting scowl. ‘I have known women who were not that scared of their rapist beforehand. Some had so little expectation of being attacked, they told the man that he’d best be off, before they told their father and brothers, and all too often the fellow’s run. I’ve seen it many times. Familiarity breeds contempt, and the mere fact that a man wants to get inside a woman’s skirts doesn’t mean she’s petrified of him, not if it’s a man whom she knows well. If it was a man this poor girl had come to know on the way here on pilgrimage, perhaps she didn’t fear a murderous assault until it was too late.’

‘It is possible,’ Baldwin admitted, but reluctantly. In his experience, women were all too prone to terror when they were raped – no matter how well they knew the assailant. ‘But let us investigate the land about here and see whether there are any signs which might assist Señor Munio.’

Simon was happy to leave the body in the cart and join Baldwin.

The ground was hard and dusty, dried out already by the midday sun. It was only at the water’s side that there was still moisture, but here there was only the mark of some feet walking to the water, then away.

‘Small feet,’ Baldwin noted.

‘Perhaps it was this woman,’ Munio said. ‘She came here to fetch some water, and was attacked as she walked away.’

‘Yet there is no container,’ Baldwin mused. ‘Does that mean that the killer took her water? Maybe he knew he must flee, and because of that, he took her skin or pot with him.’

Simon was less interested in the land by the water, and more in which direction the killer had gone after the murder. ‘If he killed her and was struck with remorse, I’d have thought he’d have run straight to the Cathedral to beg forgiveness, but this doesn’t look like a sudden attack that went wrong. It’s more as though the man was overwhelmed with fury, to have done so much damage. Perhaps he just ran straight away?’