Michael JECKS: The Templar's Penance

‘It should be easier than the way here,’ Baldwin said lightly. ‘The weather looks hardly bad enough to ruffle the sea. I am sure we’ll have an easy time of it.’

‘Good,’ Simon said. He looked up again. There were storms gathering, he thought, but he relied on the knight’s greater knowledge of the sea and understanding of the weather in these parts. He had spent more time here than Simon.

Surely he must know better.

It was a few days after Baldwin and Simon had left that Munio stood with Guillem on the walls of the city near the eastern gate and watched the crowds entering the city.

‘Don’t you think she should have been executed?’ Guillem asked quietly.

Munio looked at him. ‘What useful purpose would it have served? I think that this way justice is seen to be done.’

‘She murdered the beggar Matthew.’

‘Only because he threatened her. If he had not demanded money, saying that if she didn’t pay him, he’d tell the Prioress who she was, she wouldn’t have been panicked into killing him. That is the point, I think. She was forced into killing him by his actions, that evil fool!’

‘A Templar,’ Guillem said, crossing himself. He shook his head. ‘I can understand how the Pope felt that they deserved destruction if they were all formed in the same mould.’

Munio remembered Baldwin and was silent a moment. He did not know, but he suspected Baldwin’s background. ‘No group can be entirely evil, Guillem. Even if there was one like Matthew, there were others who joined the Templars because they wanted to do good, protect pilgrims and serve God. Just think: those men, Sir Charles and Dom Afonso, both served no man, but when they saw pilgrims being attacked, they leaped in to defend them. They would be looked down upon by most people because they are lordless and landless, but they still did what they could to protect the pious.’

‘And no doubt rob them.’

‘That is not kind, Guillem.’

‘No. But realistic.’

Parceval sniffed and then tipped the rest of the pot of wine into his mouth and savoured it as he swilled it about. He had to sniff as he finished the drink. The tears were never far from his eyes now.

It was hard to lose a lover. He knew the Doña wasn’t really in love with him, but that didn’t matter because he could lie to himself. She had shared his bed for a while, she was an enthusiastic lover, and while she was with him, he could tell himself that she was there because she wanted to be with him, not because she was desperate without any money and wanted only to take his own purse.

He had loved her, he told himself again.

When his daughter died – he couldn’t bring himself to recall how – his wife had gone. She heard what had happened, and that same day she left, taking his son with her. There was no love there when the assumed rape of his own daughter became common knowledge. Perhaps that was why he was so desperate for the love of another woman. Maybe it was just that he was mad for someone to comfort him and give him the solace he craved: companionship and sympathy. Not that the Doña had given him much of that. She had been too self-obsessed. And yet even when she was completely focused on herself, there was something there: he had felt it. Perhaps it was simply the fact that both were lonely people. Their mutual despair made them companionable.

She had gone, though. And all there was for Parceval now was the long, blank road of the future.

He had wealth, it was true, but what use was his money, when his wife was gone and his son with her? All the time he lived in his house, he would be forced to confront that terrible picture in his mind. He had tried to forget it by coming here. The court at Ypres had sent him, but he had not demurred. There had been a hope in his mind that perhaps by coming here, he would be able to forget that scene, his daughter’s wide, screaming mouth.

‘My God!’ he muttered, and waved for another jug of wine. It helped him to forget, and that was all he wanted: to forget the loss of his family, and now the loss of his woman.

Perhaps he should think of her as ‘his last woman’. She was surely the last. He couldn’t possibly find another. He was too old, and even with his money, he obviously wasn’t the most attractive of men. No, in future all he could count on were whores.

He poured and drank steadily.

The woman was right; she had gone back to her church. She could do good there, whereas with him, what sort of future would she have? There was the possibility of finding a new life, he supposed, but more likely the Church would send people to recapture her. The Church did not easily give up its nuns and monks. They were sworn to God, and that oath would last for ever.

What sort of life could he offer a woman? He could go home to Ypres, live again in his house, pretend his wife didn’t exist, but all the time he’d be looking over his shoulder, expecting to hear the steps that heralded the assassin, the man hired by Hellin van Coye’s family to avenge his death. For surely that man would come. Parceval’s danger would start from the moment he arrived home again. He would never be able to relax. Even if he had the good fortune to find another woman, he couldn’t live normally. It was impossible.

He stared at the cup in his hand. It was empty. So was the jug. The third jug. He felt overwhelmed with the thought that he could never know peace. There was nothing here for him. Nothing. Nothing here, nothing at Ypres. Where could he go? Where could he live?

Standing, he stumbled, and had to lean on the table. What was the point of struggling when all was stacked against him? Better to take away the success from his enemies. He would steal their thunder.

Steal their thunder, he thought, slipping and toppling against a wall. That was it. He would take his own life. Prevent the bloody bastards from killing him. Yes! He’d stop their fun. He’d hang himself. Here. Tonight!

He belched. No one could stop him. It was his life. He was nearly at his chamber. Leaning against the wall, he tried to focus on the door handle, but it was terribly hard. His hand refused to coordinate with his eyes, and it was some time before he could lift the latch. As soon as he did so, the door flew wide open, crashing against the wall. He staggered inside, and his hand went to his belt. Pulling it free, he heard his knife fall and make a cracking noise as the bone handle struck the packed earth of the floor. His purse rattled loudly as the coins struck. For a moment he stared down at them, but his misery made him shrug. There was no point in picking them up. Better that he should …

‘Señor?’

Blearily, he turned his gaze onto the woman who owned this place. She stood anxiously, a small figure in her fifties, with sagging, greying flesh. He thought she looked little better than a corpse.

But then his interest quickened, for behind her was another woman. She was slim, elegant, fair-haired, and younger. Parceval gaped foolishly, and then ridiculously tried to stand a little more straight, to look a little less inebriated. ‘My lady, I am going to kill myself.’

‘Oh! Not here, señor!’

The other smiled. She had been looking at the floor, at the heavy purse, but now she turned her eyes upon him. ‘Is there really no other way? Perhaps the señor would reconsider. There is always something to make life worthwhile.’

And Parceval, drinking in the sight of her, reflected that perhaps she was right.

The wind blew like a demon, howling in the rigging, whipping into shreds the sail above their heads, and Baldwin stood staring out to sea with the feeling that the whole of his pilgrimage had been a disaster.

He had gone to Compostela in order to pay for his murder, but the journey had been a failure from the first. Surely he could have gone on a simple journey to Our Lady of Norfolk, or Canterbury. It would have been easier, and safer – although he wondered whether he would have felt that same sensation of release and forgiveness. There had been an unmistakable feeling of love and warmth as he stood in that Cathedral. Perhaps the journey was worth that. As was the chance of seeing Tomar.