The followers of the wicked shall surely desiccate and wither.
Arnau, still singing, moved back towards the window where he’d been standing earlier. The song continued and as he anticipated the lines to come, he settled his mouth near the opening, preparing to bellow out those damning words to the crowd outside.
‘Cease thou of ire, and forsake strong vengeance. Do not thou follow wickedly. For they that do shall be destroyed, while they that suffer the Lord shall inherit the land.’
He put his eye to the window once more. He was sure there were fewer men in the courtyard than there had been before. Of course, they could all be moving into the chapter house, ready for a final push. But he could see doubt in many eyes as he scanned the yard.
‘And yet a sinner shalt seek his place, and shalt not find it, but mild men shall inherit the land and shall delight in the multitude of peace.’
Arnau smiled at the sight of two rough-looking fellows, one with a patch over a ruined eye, sharing a look at the rear of the crowd and retreating quietly through the darkened archway, abandoning their fellows. Sometimes even a wretched sinner could be reminded of the straight path in the right circumstances. Outside, in the face of a church full of song and stout hearts, many a wicked man was suddenly discovering a buried conscience.
Feeling a growing sense of hope, Arnau remained at the window, singing the song of David and watching dangerous men melting away into the shadows, unwilling to be a further part of this. By the time Father Diego led them through the final strains of the psalm, Arnau was starting to wonder whether they might just survive this day.
There could not be more than thirty men remaining in the courtyard. It was still a lot, especially with both of the house’s knights out of commission, but it was so many fewer than they had seen flooding across the fields that this felt like a victory in itself.
‘But the health of just men is the Lord, and he is their defender in the time of tribulation. And the Lord shall help them, and shall make them free, and he shall deliver them from sinners, and he shall save them, for they hoped in him’
Faith, but Arnau hoped those last lines were a true reflection of the world. He felt the hairs stand proud on his neck of a sudden, and a shiver ran through him. A single figure had entered the courtyard through the west gate: a man in red and white, clean and neat and radiating arrogance.
‘Ferrer della Cadeneta,’ Arnau said, almost under his breath, so quietly that he was surprised he’d been heard when Ramon, busy wincing as Carima looked at his arm, rose to his feet and turned to address him.
‘Cadeneta? So, the serpent shows his head at last.’
Arnau watched the nobleman pass into the centre of the courtyard, his mercenaries stepping respectfully out of the way. He stopped and turned in a slow circle, taking in the gathered faces, perhaps irritated by the sheer level of uncertainty and discontent he could see.
‘Many men have fallen to reach this point,’ della Cadeneta said, loudly. ‘But that means two things to me. It means that those men left here are the strongest, the bravest and the luckiest. And it means that every man here is worth an extra half share over my offer.’
Some of the doubt vanished at the promise of extra pay, and Arnau cursed silently.
‘All you need to do now,’ the enemy lord went on, ‘is break down one door and bring to heel a bunch of women, old men, children and invalids, and you will go home wealthy men. What do you say to that?’
There was a subdued wave of gratitude outside, but Arnau’s attention was drawn instead to his compatriots, for the preceptrix had walked over to join Ramon among the injured, and she had the oddest smile. Arnau, eyes narrowed, hurried over.
‘How long has it been since dawn, do you think?’ Ermengarda asked.
Ramon pursed his lips, hissed in pain at something Carima was doing, and peered out through the north window. ‘At least two hours now, I would say. Perhaps more.’
‘And how far will a rider get in that time?’
‘Unassailed, on open ground and with a purpose?’ Ramon grinned. ‘I would say he’d make ten or twelve miles. If it’s the road to Barberà we’re talking about. It is that road, is it not?’
Arnau was with them now, or so he thought. ‘But how will we get a man past them?’
‘Dear Brother Arnau, we do not need to. My rider is long gone.
Arnau blinked, and then everything fell into place. Dawn. Guillem’s horse.
‘You sent Brother Guillem out before dawn?’
‘Of course,’ the preceptrix smiled.
‘But how? Why? It was—’
‘Faith, Vallbona,’ Ramon said with a smile. ‘Do you really think I would be foolhardy enough to risk a raid on the enemy campfire just for the purpose of instilling a little fear?’
‘We were a distraction?’
‘Quite. We deflected all their attention while good Brother Guillem passed us in the dark, black-clad on a black horse, riding with alacrity for Barberà.
A grin broke out over Arnau’s face. ‘Then—’
‘Yes. Della Cadeneta has already lost. Guillem will be close to Barberà now and he carries the original, and indeed only, documents admitting you both to the order and confirming the donation of the Santa Coloma lands. No matter what your enemy out there does now, he will not inherit the estate.’
Arnau laughed, almost hysterically.
‘How’s your sword arm?’ Ramon asked. Arnau frowned, and the knight gestured to his own ruined arm. ‘Someone will yet have to whip that dog into his place. It will not be me, nor Balthesar. But I suspect that you have as much to pay him back for as any of us. Let’s see how far our dear departed German brother improved your skills.’
The preceptrix nodded and waved to Rafael. ‘Open the church door.’
Chapter Nineteen
The courtyard was silent as the church doors swung ponderously open, Luis and Rafael drawing them back. The small Templar party revealed by the opening portal was artfully positioned for effect. At the forefront stood Preceptrix Ermengarda, tall, serene and imperturbable, battle sword slung at her side like some Valkyrie of pagan myth. At her left shoulder was the blood-soaked, white-habited figure of Brother Ramon, his useless, tightly bound sword arm hidden by the folds of the preceptrix’s own garments. To the right was Father Diego, eyes bulging, teeth bared like some savage canine. Then behind them Arnau and, once the doors were fully open, the other two black-clad sergeants fell in beside him. And to one side, in full view and yet safely behind them, stood Titborga.
Arnau could feel the intake of breath from the assembled men. Far from rushing the suddenly open church, the mercenary force of the enemy lord fell back from the doors, opening up a wide path across the courtyard to where Ferrer della Cadeneta stood, shining black hair perfectly coiffured, swarthy and confident. His garments of red and white over a fine mail hauberk were clean and neat, his sword slung at his side. The man’s eyes played across the gathering in the doorway and came to rest on Titborga for some time before returning to the woman whose will kept Rourell from him.
‘Quit your church and hand over the girl, and I will not be forced to do something regrettable,’ he said in conciliatory tones.
‘You must be aware,’ the preceptrix replied, ‘that you will control this building only over the bodies of everyone here.’
‘Save the lives of your remaining people, woman. I have won the day and you know it.’
Arnau could feel the uncertainty in the yard. Other than the lord himself, every other figure out there was unsure which confident figure had the right of it.
‘You’ve won nothing, della Cadeneta. To carry today, you must storm a house of God and murder priests and nuns. The moment you commit to that, you damn any man here who thus far has kept his hands clean of such sin. Hell awaits, Cadeneta. Eternal damnation in the next world, and excommunication and ignominy in this.’
‘Yours is a heretical monastery, Ermengarda d’Oluja, defying the rule set down by Saint Bernar
d of Clairvaux, by the Pope and by your own order. You cannot threaten us with damnation, for you are in violation of all good Christian ordinances yourself.’
‘I can,’ hissed Father Diego from her side.
‘And if you win,’ the preceptrix went on, ‘what is it that you win, della Cadeneta? A church full of bodies and a ravaged monastery. For no Templar will submit to you – neither knight, nor sergeant, nor sister nor donat. No one. You cannot take Sister Titborga alive, and if you could, she would be of no use to you now.’
‘Idle talk,’ della Cadeneta replied dismissively.
‘No, Don Ferrer, it is not. The documents pledging the Santa Coloma lands to the order are now safely lodged with the Templar house at Barberà, and so are the records of the admittance of Sister Titborga and her man, now Brother Arnau.’
‘Lies.’
‘No, della Cadeneta. Simple truths. My sergeant rode before dawn, slipping your net of wickedness thanks to the heroic efforts of my brothers. And should you decide to try and chase him down, you are too late. It has been hours. Even now Brother Guillem will be in the chapter house of Barberà. You have lost, della Cadeneta. You can achieve nothing here but sackcloth and ashes.’
If Arnau had been in any doubt that Guillem had slipped past the mercenaries and made it to Barberà, it would have vanished in the expression that swept across Don Ferrer’s face – a look of astonished disbelief gradually melting into rage. He had not known, and if he had not known, then Guillem had succeeded.
A low groan rose from the assembled mercenaries. Likely half or more of what they had been promised had been a cut of the loot when the Lord della Cadeneta inherited the Santa Coloma estate. No inheritance meant that all he could offer was his own paltry funds, and Arnau knew well that della Cadeneta was not wealthy. That was, after all, why he had so desperately pursued Titborga in the first place.
‘Take the church,’ snarled della Cadeneta.
Silence.
‘Kill them all. I will double your pay.’
Still silence. No one moved. More than one of the gathered warriors would be wondering what the impoverished lord planned to use to double the pay they had not yet fully received anyway. Arnau almost smiled as he watched the rage crescendo in the don’s expression. Then bodies began to melt away from the periphery of the group, slipping into the shadows of the arch or through the ravaged west gate, away from this awful scene.
‘Take the fucking church, you dogs,’ snapped della Cadeneta.
More men left. The ones who remained stood still, perhaps staying in the hope of receiving some of this mythical pay, but more likely to watch this fascinating mummer’s play draw out to its conclusion.
‘I will kill the bitch myself,’ della Cadeneta roared, taking a step forward and ripping his sword from its scabbard menacingly.
Arnau glanced to his left to find Brother Ramon looking at him. He was uncertain whether it was Sister Titborga or Preceptrix Ermengarda to whom della Cadeneta referred, but either way, he would touch neither without facing the might of the Temple. The wounded knight nodded to Arnau, and the black-clad young sergeant stepped around the gathering of Templars, walking to the church step and trotting down it.
‘No you shall not, Don Ferrer.’
Della Cadeneta took another pace forward, his expression shifting once more, through surprise and disbelief and into sardonic, dark amusement.
‘Well, well. The young Lord de Vallbona. A man whose own claim to high nobility was to cling to the hem of a great lord like Berenguer de Santa Coloma.’
‘Who you, by omission of action, allowed to die on the battlefield by the Ebro.’
He could almost feel the shock and horror in Titborga back in the church at the revelation. It was time, though. Time for vengeance and truth both. ‘A timely warning I gave you, and still you sat and watched our lord trapped and slain when you could have warned him in turn or rushed to his aid. I wonder, did you already have designs on his daughter and his lands on the way into that battle? Were you looking for the opportunity to kill your own lord and relieved when the opportunity presented itself to let the Moor do it for you?’
‘Silence, whelp.’
Close to the bone there, then. That idea had not occurred to him before, but had suddenly risen now, and seemed unpleasantly likely.
‘But all your dark designs have come to nothing,’ he said loudly. ‘Here you stand, still poor, still hated, but now indebted to a mercenary army that you probably cannot pay, faced with the implacable Order of the Temple. How does it feel to have lost everything, Ferrer della Cadeneta?’
‘You, Vallbona, are little more than a pup. I remember bloodying you outside your lady’s apartments at Santa Coloma when you first thought to keep her from me. You are slow and inexperienced. You might be able to swing a mace on the battlefield, but you are no match for a true swordsman. Come and face me if you wish, for I will gut you and leave you to hang like a ham in a butcher’s.’
Arnau stepped a few paces forward, his eyes straying over the men lining the way to his enemy. It seemed extremely unlikely that any of them would consider intervening, yet there was always a nagging doubt. He had spent so much of the last week waiting for iron-headed bolts to hiss from the undergrowth and steal his life that walking openly among these men seemed foolhardy at best.
Then his gaze fell on one thing that halted him in his tracks. He could feel the tension in the Templars at the church door as he stopped in his march against the enemy. But his eyes would not leave that one splash of colour among the drab greys and browns of the mercenaries. There were four crossbowmen he’d seen among the crowd, who’d have been at the rear of the fighting and were still hale and safe. And three of them he’d disregarded instantly. Not this one, though.
Drawing a frown of confusion from the Lord della Cadeneta, he took one step towards the archer standing in the line. The man flinched at the look in Arnau’s eyes.
Would it be murder? It mattered not. The decision had been made with that first glance. If it was murder, he would do penance, but he would not turn away from it. His hand reached down to the quiver at the man’s side. The archer tried to turn, pulling the store of ammunition out of reach, but Arnau was quick. His hand closed on the red-painted flights of the bolt and whipped it from the quiver. He lifted it to eye level, holding it halfway between his face and that of the crossbowman.
‘Interesting colours. The last time I saw these bolts they were sticking out of the body of a knight of the Temple – Lütolf of Ehingen, murdered in a farmhouse a mile from here.’
The crossbowman’s eyes widened in horror and recognition. To him, probably all black-clad sergeants were the same. He would not have recognised Arnau for the man he’d missed at the La Selva farmhouse. His eyes remained wide in shock as Arnau changed his grip on the bolt in a single heartbeat and, in the next, plunged it deep into the man’s throat. The archer coughed and gagged, bubbles forming through the mess in his neck around the shaft of the projectile, blood rising to coat his gnashing teeth.
He half-expected a melee then. The mercenaries to react to this unexpected death of one of their own and to leap in against Arnau and butcher him en masse. But it did not happen. It is, after all, in the nature of mercenaries to look out for themselves above all, and there would be nothing to gain for them in such an act now.
The crossbowman, still coughing and gagging, touching gingerly the bolt jutting from his neck, dropped to his knees in agony. The other mercenaries nearby backed away, perhaps wondering who would be next. Arnau did not have to turn and look back to know that Ramon was nodding his approval.
Della Cadeneta stood still, sword point lowered, and as Arnau resumed his implacable march towards the man, the mercenaries drew further back, forming an open area between the church and the belfry.
‘Sebastian!’ barked the oily noble, watching Arnau’s approach with less certainty now. Arnau’s march slowed as the crowd parted to one side and a man stepped out between the Templar and
his quarry. The young sergeant looked the man up and down. He was not big, nor impressive in any obvious way, but his swagger and confidence suggested he was a man of some importance among the mercenaries, whether through rank or reputation. He held a sword in his hand and narrowed his eyes.
Arnau sized him up. Nothing now was going to stop him getting to della Cadeneta. Sebastian had to be good to be that confident in this company. But was he good enough? He was a mercenary, after all.
The man struck, fast, but not unexpectedly. Arnau saw the movement coming and his own blade slipped in the way, turning the attack aside. Sebastian was fast, and there were no obvious tells in evidence, but the strike had been formulaic and bland. A man who had trained with a blade under a soldier but had never learned anything beyond his basic training. Rank, then, rather than reputation. A quick glance at the other mercenaries nearby confirmed it. Sebastian was one of their captains, a man with a history as a trained soldier, who could marshal a force and keep it together and focused in a battle. But no great swordsman.
He decided to test the man. Pulling his blade back, even as Sebastian recovered from his lunge, Arnau swung wide, a heavy, powerful blow for the midriff. Sure enough, his opponent turned with the blow so that he could take the flat of Arnau’s blade with the edge of his own. A tried and tested formula. The man was predictable. He would expect Arnau now to capitalise on that, swinging back the other way, and he began to turn in order to take Arnau’s next blow, but the young Templar, having his enemy’s measure now, continued to turn in a full spin, slicing with his blade in the same direction as before. Sebastian, taken by surprise, suddenly found himself staring in horror at the approaching blade with his own sword on the wrong side to block it.
Arnau’s edge slammed into the man’s side, shearing through the meagre protection of a padded jerkin and smashing through the ribs within. Sebastian made a gagging noise, stared at his killer in shock, and fell, his side a bloody mess. The young sergeant almost lost his grip on his sword as the man collapsed, and struggled to jerk it back. Recovering, he firmed up his grip on it and straightened once more. With his gaze locked on della Cadeneta he stepped heedlessly across the shuddering body of the mercenary captain and closed on his true enemy. The pain in his side hurt more than ever after the added exertion, but determination held him steady and strong.
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