The Prophecy of Death: (Knights Templar 25) (23 page)

The Golden Cock, Mary Tavy

Late in the afternoon, they reached the inn and stopped, their horses resting and cropping the scrubby grass, while they studied
the land about here.

In happier times Simon had been here fairly often. It was a useful stopping point when he was on his way to or from Tavistock.
Not absolutely direct, it was true, and to come here he had to divert a little from his usual path, but the landlord had always
been accommodating, and the ale refreshing after a ride in the sun. Many were the evenings he had rested here after a long
day’s ride.

The old inn was a long, narrow building, with the low thatch that was so common of the older long-houses. The windows were
small, unglazed, and all but concealed by the thatch itself. A small hole in the thatch let out a thin mist of smoke from
the fire, but more seemed to be oozing from the window and door.

Baldwin and Simon rode to the front of the place, and sat there a while, peering at it before swinging from their saddles.
Wolf stood with head lowered, eyeing the place with a frown on his great head. While they waited, Baldwin’s man Edgar slipped
down from the trees beside the inn and ran noiselessly to the inn’s wall. Hugh was already at the other corner of the building.

When Baldwin had been a Templar, Edgar had been his man-at-arms. The two had trained together as a unit, fighting on horseback,
riding with lances, then practising with swords and axes on foot, but although Simon had seen Baldwin become enraged and fight
with ruthless efficiency, it was Edgar whom he viewed with the greater respect. Edgar was that little bit younger, he was
slightly faster, and he had the mind of a born killer: he could kill without compunction. Not because he enjoyed inflicting
pain, but because he was perfectly honed as a weapon. Simon was a good fighter, in an untrained way. He was quick and competent,
his skills built up over the years, but Edgar had been taught by the Knights Templar. A man who was originally competent,
he had become thoroughly professional. Simon knew that Baldwin regretted having killed men; he was not sure that Edgar ever
suffered from the same feelings.

However, he was not to kill today. Baldwin had made that perfectly clear. Today was to be bloodless. They were here to speak
with the man who was attempting to persecute Simon.

Gripping a long staff, Edgar moved along the wall of the inn with all the noise of a shadow, while Simon and Baldwin made
a meal of tying their reins to a pair of saplings. The two of them looked at each other, and then marched side-by-side to
the doorway.

Then, just as they reached the threshold, before they could enter, the door slammed wide open, and William and three men hurtled
out, coming to a halt a few paces before them. William had his sword out already, and it was pointing at Simon.

‘You thought you could jump me, Master Bailiff? I am surprised at you. Attacking a man in a tavern could be thought of as
an attempt at murder. You know what that means, don’t
you? A premeditated homicide carries the same penalty as a successful one: death. Looks like I’ll have to arrest you and take
you in. And then your nice little wife can entertain me when I go to take over the house.’

‘What is your reason for trying to steal this man’s house?’ Baldwin asked harshly.

‘He is a squatter. My master owns the land outright. And your friend there will be happy enough to agree to that when we ask
him.’

‘What does that mean?’

William Wattere smiled thinly. ‘We can put things to you in a way you understand. Perhaps we’ll string you up and rape your
women in front of you until you sign it all over to us, eh? Or we could take a hammer to your fingers, one by one. You have
made me angry, you see. I was happy to be reasonable, but when you found out you were dealing with Sir Hugh le Despenser’s
man, you should have expected someone a bit more competent than you. You aren’t bright enough to take me, Bailiff. And it’s
stupid, anyway. You try to hurt a man who is Despenser’s own, and he will always seek you out. You’ll always pay.’

‘So what do you intend now?’ Simon demanded.

‘Oh, you’re arrested, Bailiff, so keep your hands away from your sword, there, Master. And you too, Knight. You try to fight,
and we’ll be happy to kill you. It’ll save all that trouble later. We’ll just bring round the documents to your wife and have
her agree them right now, while you stay here. Women are always so much more … helpful.’

Simon was about to respond when two more men appeared in the doorway, both with swords in their hands. One had eyes only for
the men before the door, but one happened to glance to his side. He saw Edgar there.

Edgar smiled at him, raised a finger to his lips in the universal gesture of silence, and then looked thoroughly disappointed
when the man shouted, ‘Will!’

Wattere was about to turn and look when there was a sudden crack from the doorway. A cry, a shout, and Edgar swung his iron-shod
staff at the man to Wattere’s left. He fell like a stunned hog, landing partly over Wattere’s feet.

Realising he had been fooled, Wattere’s eyes widened with horror and anger, and even as the third of his men crashed to the
ground, Wattere made a quick choice and sprang over the body of his man, flying towards Simon. Simon had no time to grab his
sword. With the flat of his hand, he tried to bat the blade away, down to his left, and he grunted as he felt the scrape of
the blade on his palm, cutting deeper towards his wrist. It hurt more than his shoulder, and he bared his teeth in a snarl
as the blade slid away. He was close enough to grip the man’s wrist with his right hand, and as he did so he turned, swivelling
on both feet, hauling at the same time, using Wattere’s momentum to pull him off balance, and then he gripped Wattere’s sword
wrist in his left and slammed back savagely with his right elbow.

He had meant to hit the man’s nose, but his elbow missed slightly, and he raked over the nose and into his eye and temple.
There was a satisfying sensation of pain in his arm as he did so, and a still more pleasing feeling of heaviness in Wattere’s
body as he collapsed unconscious at Simon’s feet.

Pulling his sword free of the scabbard, Simon watched while Baldwin and Edgar pushed the last man standing back until he was
at the inn’s wall. Then he looked about him wildly, before throwing his sword down and holding his hands away from his dagger.
Edgar looked at Baldwin, who was returning his own sword to its sheath, and then hit the man
very deliberately in the middle of his belly with the iron tip of his staff. The man doubled over, retching, trying to gulp
in some air. Edgar imperturbably grasped his hands and yanked them round behind his back, and then bound them with a rawhide
thong.

‘Simon,’ Baldwin said, peering about them affably, ‘would you care for an ale?’

Beaulieu

Nicholas of Wisbech had endured a thoroughly depressing few days. He had done all he could to try to advance his case, but
no matter what he did, he could not find anyone who could help him. All the knights and lords about the King here seemed to
be those who had no knowledge of Nicholas and his difficult mission. There was no one who could speak out for him.

There was a grim expression on his face as he walked about the cloister. He had been here ages, and yet had found no means
of defending himself. Perhaps he should simply leave the place and see if he might find a berth in a little monastery somewhere.

He had tried to write to the Pope for his support, but the Pope’s response had been most discouraging. If he had to guess,
he would think that the King’s own letter had arrived before his, and the Pope was wondering now whether the King’s assertion
was true. Nicholas had heard this already: the King had told people that Nicholas of Wisbech had invented the whole matter
of the Oil of St Thomas, and the oil itself was not genuine.

Dear God, how could anybody think that, when the oil he had found had been brought to England by the Duke of Brabant especially
for King Edward II’s coronation? It was
hardly in Nicholas’s hands for him to be able to manipulate the phial and place false oil in it. But the King could be most
persuasive, and he was, after all, a king. People would
tend
to believe him – or, at least, they would say they did.

But it did leave Nicholas feeling strangely abandoned and deserted. He might have been a sailor, wandering the seas, desperate
for a return home, only to be shipwrecked. And here he was, on this unfriendly shore, wishing for a little help, only to find
that there was nothing for him. Nobody would aid him.

He was morosely kicking at a pebble when he happened to glance up and see a face he recognised immediately.

A man had ridden in, and he reined to a halt before swiftly dismounting. He had a shock of thick brown hair, brown eyes, and
a laughing face that instantly sent a shock of fire into Nicholas’s belly. The last time Nicholas had seen that face, it had
been twisted with horror and grief.

‘I know you!’ he breathed, his eyes narrowing with recollection. Where had he seen the man – not here, not recently …
and then he had a startling memory, of a face whitened with lime, eyes staring and dulled, a trickle of blood from the shattered
skull.

And a boy, reaching to touch his face while the burnished steel of another knight gleamed in the sunlight. And he saw again
Despenser’s face, twisted with disgust as he cuffed the boy about the head and then spat at the floor, spinning on his heel
and storming off back into the church.

Mary Tavy

William Wattere found himself confined. His breath was loud in his ears, and there was a roughness on his cheek. Then he noticed
the smell: there was a strange, cloying, musty odour
about him. His cheek was sore, and so was his left shoulder. For some reason he was lying on the floor, his legs curled up,
arms behind him. He tried to move the constriction about his face, but all he could do was swear when he felt the pain in
his wrists. His arm was only vaguely healed, he recalled … but that didn’t explain the pain in the other wrist. What was
that stuff on his cheek: rough, smelly … sacking? Yes. It was hessian or something. He tried to move his arms, and that
was when he realised he was bound hand and foot.

That
mother-swyving churl
, Puttock! He’d knocked William down, hadn’t he? William could just remember the sight of that elbow coming back and the sensation
of it hitting him, club-like, in the eye was all too fresh. Sweet Mother of Christ, the bastard had hit him hard enough to
shatter his cheek! When he was free of this, Wattere would see to it that the bailiff recognised how foolish he was to attempt
such an assault on a Despenser man. He would cut the man’s ballocks off, he’d skin his arse, he’d pull out his liver with
his bare hands …

‘Awake, are you?’

William Wattere rolled, and by pushing up with his face, managed to lift himself to a kneeling position, gazing about him
within the darkness of his sacking hood. ‘Get me out of this, Bailiff. If you don’t, I swear I’ll have your family destroyed!
I’ll burn that hovel you call a house and salt the land so that no one will live there for a hundred years! When I tell my
master what you’ve done, he’ll have your legs broken, then your arms, and leave you to crawl on your belly for all your days!
He’ll have your wife taken for the amusement of his garrison, he’ll have—’

‘When you’ve finished shouting, Wattere, would you like to know what I’ve done while you’ve been dozing?’

‘I don’t care what you’ve done, you hog-shit! When I’m finished with you, you’ll regret the day you were born!’

‘Oh. Oh, well. Just so you know, Wattere, I’ve brought you into our shed, so I can hang you up here – where the pigs are hung
for the blood to be collected. I’ll lift you by your hands until you lose all feeling, and then let you rest so all the pain
comes back to your hands. You like that? I can do that fifteen or twenty times, but I’m told that if I do it too much, you’ll
become unconscious again, and I don’t really want that. No, I’m happier knowing you’re feeling every fragment of pain I can
give you, after your threats to my wife.’

‘If you don’t cut me free right now, I’ll see your
whole
family entirely destroyed. You know what I mean? I will kill your wife, your children, your parents, all of them! And I’ll
do it in front of you, you miserable—’

‘Why did you threaten to take my house?’

‘Go and swyve a chicken!’

‘Not now, Wattere. Perhaps later. Who told you to threaten us?’

‘You know who did it. My master, Despenser.’

‘Do you mean Sir Hugh, the younger Despenser, not his father?’

‘You know who.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of what you and your friend did to my master at Iddesleigh, of course.’
²⁵

‘What do you mean, what
we
did? It was his men who tried to murder others, and … well, no matter. So that’s why you were sent? To force us from
our home, to forcibly remove us
even though you had no reason to? Because you have no case in law, do you?’

‘Why should I care? You are dead, now. Dead. My Lord takes what he wants. If you get in his way, he will kill you. And all
your family. Feel proud, do you? You’ve signed the death warrants of your whole family, little bailiff.’

‘Cut him down, Edgar. I have heard enough.’

This was a different voice, and William stopped and cocked his head. ‘Who’s that?’

His hands were released at last, and he pulled at the sacking, hauling it over his head like a linen shirt, and then he felt
a terrible sinking feeling as he took in the sight about him. This wasn’t a pig-slaughterhouse. It was the inn at Mary Tavy.
Dear Christ, they’d taken him nowhere. They’d only pulled him inside. And that man …

‘My name, my friend, is Bishop Walter of Exeter. And you, my friend, are arrested for attacking a servant of the Church and
threatening him, and his family.’