The Tolls of Death: (Knights Templar 17)

by Michael Jecks

  Not so Serlo. Hazy of intellect, all he understood was bullying, if what Richer had heard in the castle and vill was true. Serlo was harsh but cowardly, the sort who might beat his wife or children. He enjoyed power, and threatened anyone weaker than himself. He had little enough actual courage, yet stronger men would look to their safety, for Serlo would bottle up his bitterness and let it rush out in a torrent of rage when his enemy was least expecting it. He’d employ a chance ambush, taking a defenceless man by surprise and beating him – or worse. Oh yes, a weak man could often be the most dangerous, as Richer knew.

  The brothers’ only saving grace was their loyalty to each other. Alexander had always taken immense pride in his younger sibling, and although Serlo was an evil brat, he could never see any wrong in him. All throughout their boyhood, Alex would forgive Serlo’s peevishness, his avariciousness and cruelty. Whenever another lad sought to put Serlo right, Alexander would protect him; even when Serlo had stolen from another child, Alexander denied his guilt. It had started when the two boys had lost their mother – not that her death was an excuse. They were bad, both of them. What they wanted, they would take.

  He could remember the pair of them from when he was young, and the stories about them and their father – and the death of their mother.

  Their father, Almeric, had crowed over his firstborn, apparently, and had been prompted by the rector to name him after some King of ancient times; then, after many miscarriages, Serlo had been born too, their mother dying during childbirth and leaving their father broken-hearted. At once Alexander had taken responsibility for his sibling. A friend of Richer’s mother had given birth not long before and was still in pap, so she wetnursed the new baby. When Serlo cried for milk, Alexander fetched her; Alexander changed his soiled clouts and washed them. It was Alexander who fed the child when he was weaned, and Alexander who taught him to walk, to play, and later to use a sling to bring down pigeons for the pot.

  It was a lot for a youngster to cope with, but Almeric had been useless. Devastated by the death of his wife, he became jealous and resentful, as though he blamed everyone else in the world for her going. He grew into a tight-fisted, grasping soul who saw any money as his own, and only relinquished it with difficulty, as though handing it over was more painful than drawing a tooth. It was no surprise that afterwards his sons should have become so money-minded.

  In a small vill like Cardinham, a man’s behaviour towards his children was noticed and commented upon, and men often had to warn Almeric to stop chastising the boys. Richer could remember his own father going over there to restrain Almeric when he was drunk. The trouble was, Richer heard his father confide to the old blacksmith Iwan over a pot of cider, he had never forgiven Serlo for causing his wife’s death, and could scarcely look at the boy without cursing him. When Alexander defended him, Almeric took his strap to Alexander too, reinforcing the unity of the pair, until they became as one, like two pieces of steel forge-welded by a smith, crushed together by the blows of fate until no man could have separated them.

  The two lads had grown like that, bullied by their father, who relied on other men’s wives to see to his children and growing ever more bitter. No matter how diligent he was in the search for more wealth, he remained poor. His general ineffectualness with his sheep and single ox meant that he was never in a position to improve his lot. Alexander had been loyal, though. He had defended his incompetent father before all the rest of the vill, resorting to fists from an early age. Once he had thumped Richer when he laughed at Almeric’s foolish rage after one of his sheep had escaped from his fold and wandered onto the lord’s lands. It ate the lord’s corn, and was thus forfeit at a time when Almeric could least afford it. Alexander battered Richer unmercifully for that, but he wouldn’t try that again in a hurry. Not now. Richer was stronger than both of them and had the protection of the lord of the manor.

  Alexander was staring back at him now, with those curious, pale eyes of his. He had a way of staring that was unsettling; like a man who was so taken with concentrating on a single thought that normal human instincts were forgotten.

  If it weren’t for having met Athelina again, Richer could regret ever coming back to Cardinham. There was nothing for him here; the brothers ruled everything. Or had done. Perhaps now Squire Warin would make a difference.

  Glancing about him, Richer tried to spot Athelina, but there were too many people in the church as the priest stood intoning the strange words of the language which only priests and religious understood. Richer often wondered if the words actually meant something. Monks and canons said that they did, but if a man couldn’t understand words, didn’t that prove they were meaningless?

  No, there was no sign of her through the press of bodies in the nave. It was a shame. Athelina alone made his return worthwhile. She was older, a little worn, beset by a thousand fears and regrets, but within she was still the same loving woman he had known before. Her smile could outshine the sun, and seeing him again, she had lost that hunted look. She was, for a few moments at least, his lover from fifteen years ago. He could love her again. Perhaps he could marry her … she might accept him, even after all this time.

  As Richer mused, he saw Serlo nudge his older brother again. They were scared; both of them. So they should be! If Richer could, he would put the wind up them infinitely more before many hours were past.

  There were times when Alex could cheerfully have put his hands about his brother’s neck and throttled him. The damned fool was so keen on antagonising other people.

  However, it was hard to see what Serlo could have done this time. Richer had only recently reappeared, and he seemed to have taken up where they had all left off so many years ago, hating Serlo and Alex just as much as before. He couldn’t blame them for the accident, surely. Then he saw Richer gaze about him expectantly. Perhaps that was it – Athelina! Yes, he’d loved her before he left, and maybe he hoped to pick up with her again, all these years later.

  Whatever his gripe. Alexander wouldn’t demean himself by exchanging nasty stares in the middle of the Mass. Instead he faced the altar again and relaxed. He was in God’s House.

  If only he could have taught poor Serlo to be more self-possessed. The trouble was, whenever he tried to correct him, his brother got upset – wore a confused, hurt expression as if to say, ‘Can’t I be praised even this once?’ For Serlo, there could never be enough praise.

  Perhaps it was all because he was so spoiled when he was younger. He didn’t have to work as a child – not so much as Alexander – and didn’t appreciate the efforts needed to protect himself and his family now that he was grown up.

  Still, no matter what, Alexander would continue to protect him. Alexander knew how to, and knew he must. There were always ways. And if Richer atte Brooke thought he could march back to his old vill and start throwing his weight about, he had another think coming.

  As Father Adam lifted the cup of wine high over his head and muttered his incantation, Alex promised himself that he would personally draw Richer’s guts if the man posed any threat to Serlo. He’d kill any man who threatened his little brother.

  As Father Adam broke the bread, in the cottage nearby, beyond the broad green, there was a creaking. A rat scuttled under the door and squatted, sniffing, his nose twitching at the rich odours. Soon he lowered himself again and pattered silently along the edge of the floor until he reached the palliasse. There he stopped and sniffed again, and his tongue shot out to lick at the mess on the edge of the rough mattress.

  When a gust of wind blew, the door rattled and the rat hesitated, but it wasn’t that which made him pause and then scurry from the place: it was the slow and mechanical squeak from the rafter overhead.

  The slow squeak of the hempen rope bound tightly about the woman’s neck.

  Chapter Three

  The view here, so high on the moors, was splendid, and John never tired of it. His little Mass complete, he stood in the small churchyard at Temple and gazed about him as the
tiny congregation departed homewards.

  Here, staring out over the peaceful countryside, John was filled with a sense of ease, of all being well in his world. Strange to think that even a short time ago this had been such a sad place. On the orders of the Pope himself, the King had confiscated the manor and forcibly evicted those living here, for this had been the site of a flourishing little manor owned by the Knights Templar, the Order to which it still owed its name.

  John was some eight and thirty years old now, so when the Knights were all arrested in France, he would have been twenty-one; that was back in 1307. The Knights were tortured to confess to their sins. Terrible they were, too – so foul, so heinous, as to deserve the censure of the whole world.

  This little manor, like so many others, had been run by the Temple’s lay Brothers. A wounded Knight might arrive every so often, to be rested and refreshed ready for another battlefield, but not many came here. Most remained nearer London, that great cesspit where all the world’s malcontents eventually drifted. There the Templars had their great Temple. That was where the King had expected to find them when he was instructed by the Pope to arrest them all. However, Edward was a friend of the Knights. They’d helped him when he was younger, and he repaid them now, raising objections and dissenting from the French King’s view that the Templars should be eradicated. Instead he gave them time to escape, and when he finally agreed to arrest those whom he could catch and was instructed to torture them all, he replied that England had no need of torture, and therefore, unlike the French, England had no trained torturers. It was illegal in the King’s realm. He refused the Pope’s offer of experts in such fields.

  So for years King Edward II had procrastinated, against the wishes of God’s own Vicar on Earth until, in the end, he submitted and confiscated the Templars’ lands. Many had gone into exile. Some, it was believed, had gone to Scotland and repaid King Edward’s support by joining his foes at Bannockburn. It was rumoured that the Beauséant, their white and black flag, had been seen there, although John was not the only man to disbelieve that. He had known many Templars, and yes, the bastards were as prickly and arrogant as only the truly rich and wellborn could be, but that didn’t make them disloyal.

  The Pope demanded that their lands should all go to the Hospitallers, but Edward had again demurred, and many, like this manor, had been held by him and parcelled out to his friends and members of his household. This one had gone to a friend of the Despensers, and because of Sir Henry of Cardinham’s loyalty during the recent wars, he had carried some authority when there was a debate about who should be installed as the priest. Luckily for John, Sir Henry had carried the day, and John won the post. That was nearly ten years ago, when he was eight and twenty, already quite an old man for his first parish, but that didn’t take away from the pride and delight he felt in possessing it.

  And to Sir Henry’s credit, he had never asked anything in return. Perhaps, John thought with a grin as he made his way out of the churchyard, the fellow was softening in his old age!

  He was determined to keep himself hidden down here in Temple. As one opposed to the King, it was wise to maintain a low profile. That was partly why he had grown so angry when that silly chit Julia had admitted her pregnancy. It drew attention to the parish, would gain it a bad reputation. He could have imposed the leyrwite, of course – the fine imposed for women who were less chaste than they should be – but thank God, it proved unnecessary as Adam had been willing to take her. After all, imposing the leyrwite was no way to thank his master for this living. No, better that the silly girl took herself off to the parish where the father lived.

  Mind, that was before John had realised his error with Adam. The other priest had turned out to be an equal embarrassment and threat to John’s own safety. He could deal with it by reporting Adam to the rural dean, and yet that seemed too cruel. No, John would keep that threat up his sleeve for now.

  For this magnanimity, John must live with the awareness of his danger at all times, for rumours could attach themselves even to the innocent.

  Especially at a time when war was brewing.

  The inhabitants of Cardinham left their church with their spirits uplifted by the priest’s assurances of the wonderful life to come, during which all men and their women would be safe from hunger or cold, from fear or from sadness. The poorest today would be rich in Heaven, while the rich and powerful would be barred from Heaven’s gates. They could wail and gnash their teeth as they were herded away, down to Hell.

  Bolstered by this cheerful prospect, the peasants of the parish mingled at the church’s yard before setting off homewards. Some, like those from Colvannick, had a walk of more than a mile back to their homes, and they were reluctant to set off immediately. Sunday was one of the few days when people could talk and enjoy themselves without fear of the lord’s men noting their laziness and reporting them.

  Serlo took a look about him and started off on his way.

  ‘Something wrong, miller?’ Richer called.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yet you seem in a hurry. Where are you going? Home to your lovely wife?’

  ‘Leave her out of it!’ Serlo answered. People, he saw, were listening. Many would like to see him pulled down a peg or two, he knew, and he curled his lip at old Iwan the smith and Gregory, his grandson, who were taking it all in. He felt hurt that they should listen so insolently – it reminded him of when he was young, and some of the older boys picked on him, taunting him about his father’s drunkenness. In those days he was swift to burst into tears, and he was aware of a tingling at his eyes even now.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ he snapped peevishly. ‘An old fool, and a young one, both listening to things that’re none of their business. Go and join the women gossiping if you’re hard up for news!’

  ‘Anyone can listen to me,’ Richer said mildly. ‘I don’t mind. You’ve been charging people for your own benefit instead of asking for the proper tolls, haven’t you, Serlo? I think you ought to account for that missing money. We wouldn’t want a thief to profit from his stealing, would we? The castellan wants to know what you’ve been up to.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that Gervase and Nicholas are bothered! This is nothing to do with them! I own the farm of the tolls. I bought it. No, this is all because of you! And there’s only one reason a murderous hireling would be interested in my affairs.’

  ‘A …’ Richer felt his throat tighten with rage. ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘The same as any other mercenary. You’re just looking to line your own pocket!’

  The slur hurt, and Richer was about to punch the arrogance from his face, but better counsel prevailed. If he was to punish the slob, better that he should do so later, when there were fewer witnesses. ‘Miller, I am no “hireling”, as you put it, but I am loyal to my master, unlike you.’

  ‘And you want to sit there to toll all travellers yourself, I suppose? It’s no wonder you left no friends behind here when you fled the vill, Richer! You’ve none still, have you? Where’s your big companion now? He take a dislike to you, same as all others with a brain?’

  Alexander’s wife Letitia was chatting to another woman when she overheard her brother-in-law’s rising tone and sighed inwardly. It was only with an effort that she prevented herself from rolling her eyes in despair. Serlo, she was quite sure, would be the end of her husband. The fool could make an enemy of a saint.

  She sought her husband, and seeing him in deep conversation with Adam, decided to save Serlo herself from making an even greater fool of himself than usual. Crossing the yard she smiled sweetly at Serlo. ‘Brother, how are you this fine morning?’

  The miller scarcely acknowledged her. ‘You never married, did you, Richer?’ he ranted on. ‘Never had the money, I suppose. It’s hard if you can’t give a woman a stable life.’

  Richer’s smile returned, although it was a little glassy. ‘You think I should be sorrowful? I am happy enough. What, should I be like an old gossip who sits
at the gate to a vill and charges money for others to enter? I think not! And then to defraud his master …’

  ‘I have defrauded no one!’

  ‘Only a thief would steal from travellers,’ Richer said, studying his fingers nonchalantly. ‘Or from his own master.’

  ‘You’re a liar!’ Serlo bellowed. ‘I’ll have your head, you black-hearted son of a lunatic and a—’

  ‘You are in a churchyard!’ Letitia hissed, staring frantically towards her husband. Something in her eyes must have caught his attention, for he immediately started moving towards them.

  ‘It is well enough!’ Richer said. ‘Let all hear who wish to! I accuse this miller of taking gifts from people instead of the lord’s tolls.’

  ‘Still your mouth, you heap of dung!’ Alexander hissed as he drew near. ‘This language will have you fined in our lord’s court, I swear. You leave our vill and return filled with new ideas and expect us to listen? I say I piss on your words, and I piss on you too! If you keep up this kind of malicious villeiny-saying, you’ll find yourself in more trouble than you could imagine.’

  ‘You think I am causing trouble?’ Richer said mildly. ‘I do nothing compared with your brother! He acts as thief, this miller, and you do not seek to stop him.’

  ‘I am Constable here,’ Alexander said. His eyes were glittering coldly, and he glanced about him as though to measure the support he might gain from others. ‘I’ll see to this.’

  But he was too late.

  ‘I’m no thief, you liar!’ Serlo screamed, and to Letitia’s disgust, she saw the spittle fly from his lips. He lurched forward, his fingers curling as though already feeling the gristle of Richer’s neck in them.