Michael JECKS: The Templar's Penance

The three strangers had saved their lives, and Gregory was deeply grateful, yet his attention returned to the corpse of the slender young robber. He would have liked to see this boy grow to maturity, lose his desire for blood, lose his urge to rob the poor pilgrims who passed by here. Gregory had seen too much of death and killing.

‘Are we to get on, then?’ It was Pockface again. He was riding about the field, staring at the bodies of the dead and wounded with a ferocious scowl, but Gregory felt sure that it was not an indication of anger, simply the way his face looked at rest. Where others might appear happy, or vacuous, this man would only ever look full of ire.

‘I think we should await Paul’s return, Dom Afonso,’ said his fair-haired comrade. ‘He has only been gone a little while.’

Afonso grunted, then swung himself down from the saddle and stood gazing about with his eyes narrowed. Gregory suddenly realised that the man was afflicted with poor sight.

‘Come, Afonso. It will not be long before Paul is back again. Then we can go and find an inn.’

‘Not soon enough for me.’

His accent was curious, a hard-sounding tone that held a mix of different tongues. Gregory couldn’t place it. For now, he was content to know that these men were safe.

‘Mmm. Well, while we wait …’ Afonso said, after a moment’s pause, and walked around the bodies. While Gregory watched, he rolled over the body of one pilgrim and opened his scrip. He stared at the few coins in his palm. ‘Hardly worth the effort, Charles.’

‘Every little is worth the effort,’ the fair man grinned as Afonso made his way to the next body. ‘One should never leave money and goods lying around, in case another robber may happen upon it and enrich himself. That would never do!’

The chuckle in his voice made Gregory glance at him. Although the man called Charles had a fixed smile on his face, there was something in his eyes that made Gregory shiver.

He had the eyes of a man with no soul. The eyes of a mercenary.

Never had he known such horror! Hidden, Domingo watched the men moving among the bodies, his heart pounding, the blood roaring in his ears.

He and his men had waited here for more than a day, just to attack the band of pilgrims, and this group had appeared out of nowhere and destroyed his little force. They had sprung upon him and his men like wolves upon a flock, and he had been forced to dart sideways, leaving the lad there in the melee. He’d thought his boy would escape, would follow him as he pelted off away from the fight; no one stayed near a battle like that, not when there were knights joining in.

Now, more than half of his men were dead, all because of the accursed three who had appeared so suddenly.

Domingo rolled away and sat with his head in his hands, sobbing bitterly. Among the dead was his own son, Sancho. It was all his fault; he had taken on this attack, and he had lost. If his horse had obeyed his commands, he could have ridden back and maybe saved his boy, even at the expense of his own life. It was a trade he would gladly have made, but it was not to be.

He had enough men left to charge again, but they wouldn’t. That much he could see in their eyes. As a fighting band, they were destroyed. It was no good even thinking about using them again. Now Domingo would have to go back and tell her that he had failed her.

The thought wasn’t pleasant, but it was better than sitting here, staring out over the corpse of his son.

‘I shall kill them. I swear it!’ he vowed.

On arrival in Compostela, Baldwin knew immediately that coming here on pilgrimage had been the right thing to do.

Just the weather was balm to his soul. The sky was larger here in Spain. He had noticed it before – it wasn’t as immense as Portugal’s, but definitely vaster than poor England’s. The plants looked greener here, the trees more robust, the buildings more comfortable. It was all because of the climate, which was warm and reliable. In the summer there was sun, in the winter there was cool. Rain fell in season – but it was always warm rain. In Devonshire, Baldwin knew that the rain was always chill, being blown in off the sea.

He snuffed the air like a dog. There were the scents of rosemary, thyme and other herbs from the markets; the warm fug of many people crammed together in the heat, the smell of roasting stonework and heated timbers. Good God, he said to himself, how could I have lived without all this for so long? It was good to have returned to his old clothing. Today he was clad in white again, with a fine linen material that accentuated his body underneath. After the horror of the mad monk at Gidleigh, during which episode he had been forced to kill one man in order to defend another, he felt as though he needed every little bit of assistance that he could win, because he felt dirty. There was a deep, ingrained stain on his soul, because the man he had defended was more guilty than the attacker could ever have been.

A nasty matter, that one. Bitter and devastating. He craved forgiveness, some solace for his unwitting homicide, and hoped that here in Santiago’s great Cathedral he might find it.

The massive entranceway, the Portico de la Gloria , was enough to distract him and he looked up at it in awe. It was magnificent – daunting. Over a hundred years old now, it had been carved between 1168 and 1188, and the stonework was richly decorated with figures of prophets and apostles, each of them welcoming the pilgrims. Saint James himself was placed sitting prominently above the central column as though watching over all the poor folk as they reached this, his memorial.

‘A bit ornate,’ muttered his companion.

‘Different, that is all,’ Baldwin said, refusing to argue. In his opinion there was a grandeur about this entrance that showed how well men could honour God when they put their minds to it.

Simon Puttock glanced up and his face twisted doubtfully. This experience was wholly new to him, and he wasn’t sure that he was enjoying it. He had been keen to come here at first, because it seemed a great adventure. Simon had never travelled abroad before. True, he was well travelled compared with almost everyone he knew, but this was the first time he had been somewhere where all the people spoke a different language. It made him feel very exposed, as though he stood out wherever he was. Like a pilgrim, perhaps, but as he told himself, he felt more like a blasted target, walking about on a field waiting for the archers to loose their arrows. It was as though everyone was pointing at him, gauging the distance before firing, and it made him jumpy and unsettled.

Seeing Simon jerk his head to one side, staring suspiciously at a pilgrim jostling him, Baldwin had to laugh for sheer joy. It was hard not to feel delight here, among so many people thronging the church. Their joint pleasure and relief on reaching their goal was enough to make the tiredness fall away from Baldwin like a man shedding a mantle.

Not so his friend, he knew. Simon, a tall man in his middle thirties, had the ruddy complexion of one who spent many hours a week on horseback in all weathers, but now he looked pinched with nervousness. Riding had given him his solid strength, the strong muscles in his legs and at his throat, but good food and a liking for good ale had fattened his belly and made his jowls grow over the years. The extensive travel of the last days had reduced his paunch, although it had not improved his temperament. That had grown more fiery with the weather as they had approached this southern city.

Baldwin was sure that Simon’s moodiness stemmed from his feeling out of his depth. For the first time, Simon Puttock, Bailiff of Lydford, was aware of his own impotence. Here his voice would not summon officers to do his bidding; he had no power. Instead, almost anyone who understood the local language was better off than he, and this made him fretful, as though it reflected upon his lack of education. But he had been educated by the Canons of Crediton Church in Devon; he could speak, read and write Latin, and could understand much French, but he could make nothing of the language here in Galicia in the far northwest part of the Kingdom of Castile.