Michael JECKS - The Templar's Penance

‘What will you do now?’

Sir Charles’s expression did not seem to change, but a certain grimness came into his eyes. ‘I am an Englishman. I am unhappy away from my own lands. I think it is time that I rediscovered my own country. Perhaps I should return home.’

Paul shot him a look. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Paul, where else can we go? We speak no other language apart from a smattering of French, and wherever we stop we appear to have enemies. At least in England we can comprehend the insults being thrown at us.’

Baldwin had not asked them in whose service they had lived. During the four-day voyage up the coast, he had not felt the need. Their dialect and accents spoke of the North Country, and from the amount of time that they had been travelling, it was clear to him which magnate they must have served.

‘There are some in the West who would be glad of two strong men-at-arms, if you can find no other service to your taste,’ he said.

‘You interest me strangely,’ Sir Charles said, glancing down at his stained and worn tunic ruefully. ‘Any man who can introduce me to a lord who possesses a good tailor would earn my undying friendship. You could name your own price.’

‘I only have one question remaining now,’ Baldwin said. They had reached the grass, and now they climbed the steep pathway up the cliffs, leading their horses. The wind whipped about them and they must grip their hats to stop them from being snatched away in a gust. ‘Who killed that woman, and why?’

‘The maid?’ Sir Charles looked blank.

‘Herself.’

‘An odd death, that. I saw her body in the square when she was brought in and thought to myself, Where is the man who could do that!’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ Baldwin asked, stopping on the path.

‘Just this. If a man had raped her, he’d stab her or throttle her to silence her, but I’ve never seen anyone smash a woman’s face about like that before. If he found her attractive, he’d never wreck her like that, would he? No. I thought at the time – still do – that it was more likely that another woman killed her. Through jealousy, perhaps.’

‘She was raped,’ Baldwin pointed out somewhat caustically.

‘So? Some women have friends and companions who may be tempted,’ Sir Charles said lightly.

Baldwin was about to comment when he stopped. Was it possible that there had been two people involved in Joana’s murder?

Simon had no idea that Baldwin was almost home when he took to his bed that night. He lay back on the mattress, feeling the finer points of straw scratching at his back like tiny needles, and sighed contentedly. There was a pleasing odour of herbs, and the bed was a good quality one, with a rope-slung mattress; he felt enormously comfortable, and his body was soon overtaken by a delicious lassitude. Closing his eyes, he was aware of a wonderful sensation of slipping away, as though he was falling through the bed and down, to be swallowed up by the earth.

No. There was something alarming about that. He opened his eyes again and stared up at the ceiling. It was made of bare poles of saplings, with the thatching looking as though it was haphazardly thrown on top and bound in place. Now, in the darkness, he reckoned it looked like a strange forest, in the same way that the idle mind can see faces in clouds on a summer’s day. Especially after a pint or two of strong cider.

In a way, this ceiling reminded Simon of a wood, and then, when he viewed it slightly askance, he thought it was much like the trees leading up to the ford where he and Baldwin had found Joana’s body. There was the same large gap through which the ford itself could be seen, the same close-set meeting of branches where the girls hung up their drying. Beyond, he thought that the contours of the grasses in the roof were much like the rocks on which the washing was beaten and scrubbed. He could even imagine that the little hillock on the left side there, was the lumpy form of the dead body. On this side of the river.

So the horses had been tied up there, and the two had crossed over the water and walked together, perhaps made love in the sunshine: Ramón and Joana. Later he had gone back to town, but she had remained there.

Domingo had turned up after Ramón had left, had killed his cousin, beating her in a frenzy, and then taken her money. And raped her at some point, of course. He must have taken the money back with him to the town – except there was no sign of it amongst his possessions. Unless he had used it to buy the relic. Relics could be expensive, after all. But no! Domingo was not that sort of man. So maybe he had stolen the relic too.

Simon swore softly to himself, rose and padded out to the hall, grabbing a long shirt to cover himself with as he went. Munio and his wife had retired to their own quiet solar, leaving all the servants snoring or grunting here in the main hall. Simon donned his shirt and went out to the buttery, drawing off a pint or so of wine. He took it with him out to the cool garden and sat listening to the night’s creatures.

Domingo had not taken the money. He couldn’t have. All Simon’s experience rejected the notion. Domingo was not the sort of thief to hide his good fortune under a bushel. If he had won a small fortune from the Doña, he would have spent it, especially on his men. But the men whom Baldwin and Munio had captured proclaimed their poverty, and there was nothing on Domingo or in his pockets. Ramón might have it, but Simon doubted it. If the man was honourable and intended joining another religious Order, he could hardly do so with money acquired by stealing from a Prioress and murdering a maid. No, that made no sense. It was possible that Baldwin’s other target, the Portuguese, could have taken it. In fact, that made more sense than any other possibility.

Then his mind began to work with a sudden clarity. The assumption so far had been that this was an accidental murder, that the crime intended was blackmail, and that the killing of the maid was merely incidental to that; the maid’s attractiveness was simply the spur to the rape and murder, neither of which had been planned. But perhaps the murder of Joana was no accident after all. She was there because Doña Stefania’s horse had been hidden by Domingo, her cousin. What if her death had been planned?

That gave Simon much to consider for the rest of the night, but it was not until the eastern sky was lightening that his face cleared suddenly and his mouth dropped open as the other possibility occurred to him.

She was already dropping with exhaustion. The work was repetitive and dull, but at least washing clothes brought in a few dinheiros and still left her time to sit in the square.

Standing again, she closed her eyes as she drew herself upwards. The pile which was the result of her efforts overnight was a pathetic sight, and when she looked at it, she was close to tears. All this misery – all this shame, sadness and poverty – and all caused by the conjunction of some terrible events that were nothing to do with her. And as a result, she must sit here every night while her fingers ached, the skin cracked, and her eyes grew sore.

Now she was done. She would go to buy a little wine, something to put the feeling back into her fingers and toes. It would cost more than half the money she had earned tonight, she knew, and that made her choke back a sob.

The woman at the bar gave her a hard look as María walked from the place, as though she felt that the beggarwoman was enjoying herself too much and the rent should be put up. If she did so, there was nothing María could do about it. For now, the most important thing for her was to gain enough energy to be able to survive the remainder of the night.