P. Doherty - The Templar

Eleanor just stared down at her, a cold, gripping fear curdling her stomach as she recalled Imogene’s questioning of her. Imogene had begun to suspect Beltran of imposture and falseness, and of course Beltran needed Imogene, who lodged with Eleanor. Imogene might learn so much about Hugh, Godefroi and their search for precious relics.

‘Is he the Magus?’ Eleanor asked.

Imogene shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know what you mean, but I am sure he was the horseman.’ She gasped. ‘I’m sure he was responsible for Anstritha’s death, and for that of Robert the Reeve, who also suspected the truth. So hard, Eleanor,’ she whispered, ‘so callous. He wanted me dead. He had no need of me any more. In the battle today I saw Norbert being struck, I went to help him. Beltran slipped beside me, so swiftly…’ She coughed violently, her body shook, her eyes fluttered, then she lay still. Eleanor let her go, placing her gently on the ground. Cries and shouts echoed from the walls. A bundle of fire, flames streaking, was launched from a catapult. It lighted the night sky then smashed into the ground in a burst of fiery sparks. Other sights and sounds came pressing in.

‘Mistress-sister, what shall we do?’

‘We must go back,’ Eleanor declared. ‘We must warn Hugh and Godefroi; we can collect the corpses tomorrow.’ She blessed herself and stumbled back across the battlefield, trying to shut out the hideous images. She felt sick and exhausted. Slowly the two of them crept back towards the sloping ridge leading up to their watch fires. A shape moved abruptly to her right, fast like that of a loping wolf. She ignored it, but then halfway up the sandy, pebble-strewn hill, a shadow moved from behind a gorse bush to block her way. Exhausted, Eleanor sat down, peering through the darkness. Beltran, cloaked and cowled, squatted before her, grasping a Brabantine arbalest. In the juddering light of Simeon’s torch, he looked sinister despite the smile, the casual way he kept the arbalest down, as if he was more surprised than suspicious.

‘Eleanor, where have you been?’

‘I found them,’ she gasped. ‘Norbert and Imogene.’

‘Both dead?’

‘Imogene was not!’ Eleanor closed her eyes and groaned at Simeon’s impulsive remark. ‘You killed her!’ the scribe continued hotly. Eleanor caught the passion in Simeon’s voice and wondered if he too had been taken by the pretty Jewess. Beltran simply clicked his tongue.

‘ Miserere mei ,’ he replied. ‘I thought the stupid bitch was dead. I suppose you shrived her, Eleanor, heard her last confession, but who’d care for a Jewess?’

‘I do.’ Eleanor let all pretence fall. ‘I do. I did. I shall. God curse you, Beltran. She loved you, yet you murdered her because you didn’t need her any more. The same callous way you murdered Anstritha and Robert the Reeve. Anstritha died because of a mysterious horseman: you. Robert the Reeve went stumbling out into the dark drunk, and you drowned him. You’re a serpent in hell and you’ve made that hell worse. Now let me by!’

‘I would love to,’ he replied mockingly, ‘but tomorrow we might all be in hell! Heaven forfend, the wheel does turn! You see, Eleanor, I need your priggish, murderous brother. I want to be with him if, or when, he finds that treasure hoard. True, I used Imogene like an eyelet into the chamber of your affairs. I thought she’d eventually tire of me but she stuck fast like a leech. She had to go.’

‘And Count Raymond?’

‘Oh, I joined his service easily enough. Men like the count always need men like me, obsequious, knowledgeable, ready to obey their every whim. Some serpents require little cunning. It’s so easy to worm your way in.’ He sighed noisily. ‘Everything was upset by Urban’s Deus vult. ’ Beltran laughed. ‘All the Frankish west roused to march on Jerusalem! The treasures of the east would be seized. My commercial affairs would be harmed. First my stupid sister Anstritha went looking for protection, then your brother and his coven with their vision of this and that. Robert the Reeve suspected I was the horseman, that I was not what I claimed to be. He became curious about my affairs, so I killed him.’

‘You are the Magus? You pretended to be the Fedawi?’

‘I sell relics to those stupid enough to buy them, and yes, I had to protect my interests! Seize back my stupid sister’s map. I left it too late. Your brother had it.’ Beltran shrugged. ‘He’d have made copies.’

‘And a spy?’

‘I have no faith, no allegiance, no lord. I move among men. I bustle busily to earn a crust. I tell this person that, that person this. I’m just a merchant in a marketplace.’ He waved a hand. ‘Look at these fools. I am here for gold, the real possibility of making myself rich with a king’s ransom. Such business always carries risks. But the likes of your brother? Dreaming of marvels, myths and make-believe! No reward in this life, and after death? Not the light he or you hope for, just a darkness more profound, the darkness of nothingness.’

Eleanor heard a sound behind Beltran. She calmed herself. She must delay him, hold him whilst looking for any opportunity.

‘You’re a spy,’ she rasped. ‘You sell information, be it to the Byzantines or the Turks. So easy, certainly before Antioch, to ride out and meet enemy scouts, and give them information. Baldur, oh yes, you know him? He certainly knew of you! He played a game with your name. He tossed his belt on the ground and told Theodore to hang you with it. A belt for Beltran, a clever conceit but true! You will hang!’

‘I do not think so.’

‘You’re the horseman, the Magus, the Fedawi,’ Eleanor continued desperately. ‘You used the confusion of battle to slip here and there, disguised as this or that. You used your position with Count Raymond to hint that the spy was a member of my brother’s company.’ She laughed sharply. ‘For once you told the truth: there was a spy — you, though Count Raymond never suspected that!’

‘A merchant moves from one place to another…’

‘You’re a killer!’

‘ Negotium auri , Eleanor, the business of gold.’

‘And now?’

‘I heard you leave. I did wonder if Imogene was dead. I could take no chances.’ Beltran knelt, bringing up the arbalest. ‘Your stupid scribe has brought your deaths on you.’

‘Beltran?’ The whisper hissed through the darkness.

Beltran turned. The whirr of a crossbow bolt cut the air and struck him deep in the face, its barbed shaft shredding skin and bone. A blood-spattered mess, gruesome in the poor light. A shadow sped forward. A knife glinted as it drove deep into the side of Beltran’s neck. Beltran gave a loud, gargling sigh and pitched forward on to his face. Theodore stepped into the pool of light. He knelt, grasped Beltran by the hair, pulled up his head then let it fall.

‘I heard you whispering in the tent.’ Theodore went down on one knee, staring at Eleanor. ‘Then you both left.’ He gave a lopsided grin. ‘Simeon, you grumble like an old sow. I thought of accompanying you, but I was exhausted. I was making myself comfortable for sleep when he…’ Theodore gestured at the corpse sprawled in an ever-spreading pool of blood, ‘moved too quickly for a supposedly tired man. I smelled mischief.’

‘Did you always suspect him?’ Eleanor rose clumsily to her feet.

‘Yes and no,’ Theodore murmured. ‘Beltran was an enigma. He made mistakes, small ones, inconsistencies. Like the other day he seemed to know more about the Governor of Jerusalem and Ethiopian troops than he should have done. He was so eager to join the Portal of the Temple, but Hugh and Godefroi objected to his relationship with Imogene. A spy?’ The Greek shrugged. ‘Perhaps! Until the Battle of Antioch, any one of us, as we know,’ he smiled, ‘could move from one army to another. Then there was the Fedawi.’ Theodore rested the arbalest against his shoulder. ‘I found it difficult to accept that they were amongst us, so far from their castle fastness, so close to us.’ He shook his head and extended a hand. ‘Come, leave the dead to bury the dead. Tomorrow, God knows, we might join them!’