The Templar's Penance: (Knights Templar 15)

by Michael Jecks

  She gazed into his eyes to try to gain confidence from him, but then she shook her head and looked away. ‘All you want is to hear me accuse another man,’ she said sadly. ‘You don’t care about me any more than you care about a rat.’

  That was the truth. These men wanted a trophy that they could hang on a wall. They weren’t interested really, not in a beggarwoman. Why should they be? She was just a victim of her circumstances. It was not her fault that she had been widowed, it was just something that had happened. Because of it, she was without a protector, and had become a beggar, regarded by some as a whore. She had so much to give, but now she must spend her time hidden in case she was hunted down.

  With shaking hands, she pulled her cowl up and over her head again. From beneath its protection her voice appeared to gain a little strength. ‘His name is Afonso. He’s a young man in his mid-twenties, perhaps younger. A handsome fellow, so long as you don’t look in his eyes. He’s a mercenary – no loyalty to any lord. He was a Portuguese in the company of an Englishman and his squire. I saw Afonso run at Matthew with the knife in his hand. Matthew died; Afonso fled. I saw him run.’

  ‘Do you know why he did it?’

  ‘You think I should have asked him?’ she asked with slow, cold sarcasm. ‘While his hands were yet bloodied?’

  ‘The girl, Joana,’ Simon said hesitantly, glancing at Baldwin. He could sense that the knight’s mind was focused on Matthew’s death, but Simon was more interested in Joana’s. ‘She was killed in such a ferocious manner. I wonder …’

  ‘What?’

  Simon saw Baldwin throw a look over his shoulder towards the inn, as if he could stare through the walls and see the beggar sitting, still weeping, where they had left her.

  ‘I just wondered …’

  ‘It makes no sense,’ Baldwin interrupted. ‘Why should a young man want to kill him? How on earth could someone like Matthew have offended a fellow of twenty-five or so?’

  Simon sighed to himself. ‘It could have been anything. You know as well as I do that some men will take umbrage at the way another man looks at them. Remember that Knight of Santiago whom we saw on the day we got here? He was the sort of fellow who was prepared to take offence for no reason.’

  ‘The knight? Oh, yes – the man with the woman.’

  Simon gave a low whistle. ‘I hadn’t thought: it was Ramón, wasn’t it? And the woman must have been Joana. Poor girl. She had no idea she was going to die that day.’

  Baldwin shrugged. ‘Most victims have no idea of their impending end. I wonder if Matthew did?’

  The two old friends made their way down to the Cathedral. There they joined a queue to pray at a chapel, and when they were done, they wandered about the square until they saw Munio, who gave them a welcoming smile and waited for them to catch him up.

  ‘So, have you enjoyed any success?’ he enquired.

  ‘We have been considering some ideas,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘At least you have had some ideas, then,’ Munio said drily. ‘Which is more than I have done. I have arranged for Matthew to be buried, but that is all.’

  ‘There is one thing that occurred to me,’ Simon said hesitantly. He wasn’t sure how rational his thoughts were, in the cold light of day. ‘The attack was so extreme, I wondered whether it was deliberately brutal, just to conceal the identity of the girl.’

  ‘You think that is possible?’ Munio asked. ‘You think we were lucky to recognise her so swiftly?’

  ‘If we did,’ Simon said. ‘I was saying to Baldwin last night that the identification was too swift. Perhaps the lady was wrong to think it was her servant. Could someone else have been killed, and this servant girl used her body to effect her own escape from a miserable existence with her mistress? Or did someone abduct her, leaving this other woman in her place so that he wouldn’t be followed?’

  Munio’s face had grown longer as he spoke. ‘The lady did say it was her maid. The clothes …’

  ‘You say that the body is already buried?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Yes. We couldn’t leave it above ground for any longer. In this temperature …’

  Baldwin had turned to Simon with an expression of resignation, as though that settled the matter. It spurred Simon to say, ‘Of course. But we could ask the Doña whether there were any distinguishing marks on her maid’s body. Perhaps those who laid her out would have noticed something. If not, we could always have the corpse exhumed so that we can check.’

  ‘It was Ramón who laid her out,’ Baldwin reminded him.

  ‘Yes, with that man Gregory, he said,’ Simon recalled. ‘So often, matters seem to point to this Ramón.’

  ‘There is one other thing,’ Baldwin said, and told Munio what María had said.

  ‘Afonso?’ Munio considered. ‘I do not know the man, but I shall ask the gatemen whether they have seen him.’

  ‘Good!’ Simon said. ‘So now let’s go and see the Doña Stefanía and ask her whether there’s a reason to dig up her maid.’

  ‘A good suggestion, but where is she likely to be?’ Baldwin wondered.

  ‘The woman is supposed to be a Prioress, isn’t she?’ Simon grunted. ‘She’ll be in a church, obviously – or a tavern!’

  The three men visited the nearby churches, and were disappointed, but when they began to check the drinking-houses nearer the main square, Munio suddenly pointed, and following his finger, Simon saw Doña Stefanía sitting at a bench with a rough-looking man clad in dark clothing of a particularly shabby material.

  Baldwin and Simon trailed a few steps after Munio and stood in the background as he went up to her, smiling. ‘Doña Stefanía. Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions? There are some things we should like to clear up.’

  ‘But of course,’ she said graciously, waving her hand to indicate that he might stand beside her. Her companion looked Munio up and down in a thoroughly insolent way, but the Pesquisidor didn’t appear to notice. Simon himself felt his ire rise at the sight of his attitude, though, and he walked to join Munio even though he felt the sweat breaking out all over his body. It was unpleasant, because he actually felt rather chilly in his sweat, even though he knew the heat was terrible.

  Other than the man at her side, there were a pair of pilgrims who, from their voices, came from the lands about Bavaria; they sat fanning their faces with their great broad-brimmed hats while they spoke in a desultory manner. On the opposite side of the table were two stoic-looking men who appeared to be local traders up to sell their goods at the market. Both seemed unaware of the heat, so far as Simon could see. They slurped their wine and muttered incomprehensibly to each other, to all appearances quite comfortable. It made Simon feel irritable to see them so relaxed when he felt so crotchety and sticky.

  Perhaps it was their clothing; their shirts and hose might be made of something that made them feel cooler, Simon thought. As for him, he could better appreciate the Bavarians, with their red faces beaded with sweat, puffing and blowing. Simon reckoned he could leap into a well and drain it, it was so hot. He had never known a place to be so burned by the sun. It was as though the air itself was being exhausted from an oven’s vent, and each breath seemed liable to scorch his throat.

  Munio stared at the two locals, who were of a mind to ignore him and remain, but then Munio jerked his chin at the landlord, and suddenly the table was entirely empty but for the Prioress and her friend; the traders were whisked away like dirty platters, and the two Bavarians took one look at the way they had been ejected, and decided not to argue. It was always the way for a sensible traveller: while in a foreign land, it was better to avoid disputes.

  ‘So, lady,’ Munio said, when they were sitting, ‘we wanted to talk with you a little about the murder of your maid. Our apologies for this. It must be hard for you, having lost your sole companion.’

  Simon was sitting next to Munio, and he saw the woman shoot the Pesquisidor a sharp look, then glance somewhat shamefacedly at the man beside her. For his part, he sat as
if unconcerned. Simon waved at the innkeeper for some watered wine, listening to what Munio was saying. After her first startled reaction, Doña Stefanía appeared simply disinterested, as though she had better things to occupy her mind.

  ‘It is hard. I have lost much since I arrived here,’ she said in a broken voice. ‘At least some have made me welcome and have been keen to comfort me in my sadness.’

  Looking at him, she thought Munio appeared less than sympathetic to her. He was a typical, hard-faced man like so many of these tough Galicians. No sense and less feeling. He had no idea how much it meant to her, losing her maid. Of course he couldn’t understand how much she had then lost last night. No one could. That relic was all that kept the convent going.

  My God! she prayed. Saint Peter, please don’t let us lose it for ever! Make that devil Domingo bring it back to me. How can we survive without that relic? Without it, our whole priory must fail!

  He had spoken again, but as her gaze moved to him and she tried to concentrate, she saw that Simon had caught the innkeeper’s attention and was demanding drink. He seemed a little slow already, she thought, and shifted in her seat, squirming away from him.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Are you aware of any distinguishing marks upon your maid’s body?’ Munio repeated steadily in English.

  ‘I don’t know … What an extraordinary question!’

  ‘Not so strange as that,’ Simon said, a little thickly. There was no air in the square, no breeze to cool the forehead, and he really did feel quite odd, as though the room would start spinning any moment. Except he wasn’t in a room.

  To ease his strangely whirling mind, he concentrated hard on the conversation. Munio was taking too long. Why didn’t the man get to the point? ‘Look, your maid, she was so badly beaten … why would someone do that to her? There must have been a reason! Did she have any enemies?’

  ‘No, but I told you that she was delivering money for me. Surely she was found on the way with my purse, and that was why she was taken. Perhaps someone saw her and took an interest in a pretty young woman like her. Oh, how should I know? And what does it matter? The fact is, she’s dead, and that’s all there is to it.’

  Baldwin glanced at Simon. He had seen the look on his old friend’s face, and he wondered: was Simon quite well?

  Doña Stefanía could see that her answer had nonplussed them. At her side, she could sense that Parceval was impressed too.

  It was Simon, though, who blurted out, ‘Go on, ask her about Ramón!’

  ‘What did he say?’ She understood English perfectly well, but Doña Stefanía cast Simon a look that would have suited a small toad, convinced that he was drunk. Just like her husband. She could never have respect for a man who was inebriated. He might rape her, just as her husband had that time.

  ‘Doña Stefanía,’ Baldwin said, ‘I am sorry that we must ask these questions, but we have to try to learn what happened to Joana – and ensure that the dead woman was indeed Joana. Ramón has apparently left the city, so we wanted to ask: could you have been mistaken about her identity?’

  ‘I don’t know what you could mean,’ she began, and then she saw his expression. ‘You mean Frey Ramón …? So at last you understand my fears?’

  ‘What fears?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘As I said before, he could have persuaded poor Joana to pretend that Don Ruy had spoken to her and demanded money. When Ramón got the money, he killed her and fled.’

  ‘That is one possibility. Another is that both fled together, with your money,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘You really think she lied to me?’ Doña Stefanía repeated dumbly, and the memory of the shattered face above the tunic sprang into her mind at the same time. ‘She lied …?’

  ‘The poor girl was so viciously beaten; no woman deserved such a fate,’ Parceval said, resting a hand on hers. ‘I think I can throw some light on the matter.’

  ‘Please speak,’ Munio said.

  ‘I saw the Knight of Santiago riding away yesterday morning. At the time I thought it was odd because he has only recently returned with us, and I thought that a knight in an Order would be told to rest and remain here for some time. It isn’t right that a monkish knight should wander about so much, surely! Yet there he was, saddling his mount and riding off.’

  Baldwin shot out, ‘Was he alone?’

  ‘Yes, so far as I could see.’

  ‘Then surely that dead maid was my Joana,’ the Prioress said brokenly. ‘You let him escape!’

  ‘In which direction did he go?’ Munio asked.

  ‘I saw him heading for the southern gate. Perhaps he turned in a different direction afterwards, I don’t know, but he didn’t look like a man who was trying to conceal his route. I think he was going to carry on that way. Surely his departure proves his guilt!’

  ‘I shall have men follow after him,’ Munio said.

  ‘There may be no need,’ Baldwin said. ‘We spoke to a groom who mentioned that Frey Ramón had gone, and from what the groom said, he was determined to seek out the Knights of Christ at Tomar.’

  ‘Why would he want to do that?’ Munio frowned. ‘He was already a member of an honourable Order here.’

  Parceval took a gulp of wine. ‘My God! Because he was appalled by what he’d done, of course! He killed Joana and then bolted. If he’d stayed here, the freiles of the Order would have condemned him and wanted to punish him, so he chose to ride away and seek fulfilment of his penance in battle. The Knights of Christ are the successors of the Templars and the Reconquista, aren’t they? Ramón must have decided to ride there and seek for war against the Moors. How else would a warrior find peace, but in fighting?’

  ‘It is as I said! Ramón saw my money and took it! He is not going to Tomar; he is fleeing justice!’ Doña Stefanía cried. ‘Oh my God – all that money!’

  Joana had lied to her: she was sure of it now. Joana had intended stealing from her, then she herself was murdered and robbed. While she, Doña Stefanía, sat alone, waiting. Until Parceval finally arrived, anyway.

  Suddenly, the Doña felt a lurch in her breast, and her heart began pounding just as it had the night before in the alleyway. She shot a look at Parceval, her attention dropping from his features to his lap. There, she saw, was his heavy wallet. He had said that he was poor when he had journeyed here with her. She wondered about that again, then shot a look at his face. Could he have been Joana’s killer, the robber of the money?

  Baldwin saw the direction of her gaze and thought that she was eyeing her lover salaciously. It was a shock to him to see a Prioress acting so lewdly, and he felt physically repulsed. He was close to passing a sarcastic comment, when he saw that her face was stilled, as though there was a terrible doubt in her mind, and that was when he took in the sight of the well-filled purse.

  ‘You appear to have enjoyed some success with investments,’ he said to Parceval.

  ‘Hmm? Oh well, I have been fortunate, but this isn’t from investments.’

  ‘Then how did you come to find such wealth?’ Baldwin asked, allowing an edge of suspicion in his voice.

  ‘When I left on pilgrimage, I wanted to make sure that I could travel without being recognised,’ Parceval explained. ‘So I deliberately wore these miserable clothes. I carried no money, for a pilgrim should need none, and instead had a receipt for a sum I had deposited with a Florentine banker. Now I’m here, I have cashed it with his house – that of Musciatto.’

  ‘Most convenient,’ Baldwin said. ‘But please – tell us where you were when Joana was being killed.’

  ‘She died during the afternoon, you say? I was in church at first, and then went to meet Musciatto. After that, I went to a tavern where I met this good lady.’

  Simon, meanwhile, was beginning to feel quite sick. His breathing was abnormal: he was having to take shallower breaths, but more of them. It felt as though he was growing hotter, then a little cooler, and his throat was parched. He had ordered drinks, but the damned innkeeper was so
slow, it would be next week before he bloody arrived. Simon tried deeper breaths, and simply doing that seemed to help. Noticing Baldwin’s anxious expression, he said with scarcely a moment to think, ‘If he was so fond of her, why didn’t Ramón stay here for her funeral? He left yesterday morning, didn’t he, and that was before the poor girl was put in the ground.’

  ‘True, I did not see him there at the funeral, and I should have expected to,’ Munio said thoughtfully. ‘Yet if he was filled with gloom at losing her … why wait to view the funeral?’

  ‘I think he killed the woman, took the money, and bolted,’ Simon gasped, but he was scarcely aware of his words, he was so overcome with sickness. He had to concentrate merely on sitting upright. Otherwise he must fall.

  ‘Most men would draw the line at murdering the woman they intended to marry, but I suppose such a thing is possible when a lot of money is involved. One thing that my time as a Keeper of the King’s Peace has taught me is that nothing is impossible.’

  ‘Surely it is unlikely, though,’ Munio said, shrugging. ‘This man was her lover, poor young lady. Even if he did not stay for her funeral, that may have been the impact of his broken heart. Losing her, he lost all. He decided to travel and, who knows, to throw away his life in a gesture of faith to God, joining the Knights of Christ. No, I believe someone else had a part in this, some other man. There are so many strangers in a city like this,’ Munio said dejectedly. ‘Foreigners from all parts.’

  ‘Even my husband,’ the Prioress said. ‘I had not thought to meet him here!’

  Parceval was frowning. ‘It must have been him. Who else?’

  Munio sat back and gazed at Doña Stefanía suspiciously. ‘Your husband?’

  ‘My ex-husband, perhaps I should say. I was married to Gregory of Coventry. We were wedded in 1301, when I was fourteen, and I was lucky enough to divorce him six years later.’

  ‘How did you get dispensation for that?’ Baldwin asked, intrigued.