The Tainted Relic (29 page)

‘You wanted the box, though, and he wouldn’t let you have it. Did you kill him?’

Adam bit his lip, turned aside for a moment, and then flew at Rob. Rob ducked aside and darted behind the rounsey. ‘Do you mean to kill me too, then?’

‘I’ve killed no one.’

‘No one except the traveller.’

‘That was Will, not me. I only hit him.’

‘He’s just as dead. That was why we got the box in the first place.’

‘The box,’ Adam repeated, and he sighed. ‘Well, that’s done now. Can’t find that. It’s gone for good.’

‘Yeah,’ Rob agreed, avoiding his eyes. He saw the blood on his knuckles and wondered where it could have come from.

Before he could ask anything, Adam said, ‘I’m going to see if I can find someone else. You coming?’

‘I’ve got to finish the horses before I do anything.’

‘What about afterwards? There’s time to find another man,’ Adam said with a cold grin on his face. His head jutted forward, and Rob thought he looked like a foul demon, something with no feelings, no sympathy. The idea made him shiver.

He was glad that he could escape this mess. Soon he and Annie would have left Exeter and Adam for ever. She’d come round. There was nothing for either of them here. Not now.

‘Your son?’ Simon breathed. ‘That explains a few things.’

‘From my first marriage,’ she continued. Her husband sat on a stool and she stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders. ‘When he came back I was pleased, and begged my husband to let him stay.’

Simon asked, ‘You have changed your mind now?’

‘Look!’ the man, Jack, said, and while Sara, his wife, averted her eyes, he lifted the front of his old smock. On his belly and breast were bruises, some violent yellow and orange, others blue and grey. ‘When I asked for help with the money, this is how he repaid our kindness.’

‘Have you told anyone?’

‘Jack didn’t tell me about it until two days ago, and by then, what could we do?’ Sara asked.

‘I couldn’t throw him to the watch. They’d order him to behave himself or they’d fine him, and then they’d leave him here with us. And he would kill us,’ Jack said forcefully. The passion of his words seemed to exhaust him and he slumped back. ‘He’s beaten her too. He treats his own mother as badly as me.’

‘Let us know when he returns,’ Baldwin said, ‘and we shall have words with him. I swear that you will be safe from him soon enough.’

‘I wouldn’t see him killed,’ Sara said sadly. There were tears in her eyes.

It made Simon wonder what would make a mother lose her love for her child. Here was a woman who had seen her son beat her husband, who had felt his anger on her own person, and who yet supported and protected him. What could the lad do that would make her lose her love for him?

‘I shall order a man to keep watch on this place in case he returns,’ Baldwin said when they were outside again. ‘He’s a violent, dangerous man, this Adam.’

The three stood at the end of the alley for a moment, savouring the air. It was foul with excrement and urine, but seemed much more wholesome than the close atmosphere inside the house.

That held only the smell of fear.

Brother Joseph sat back on his old stool, feeling the sudden weakness where the worm had eaten away the socket of a leg, and rebalanced himself, leaning against the wall. There was no cure for the woodworm. It would keep attacking the place. Beds, chairs, panels, everything was at risk. It might take time, but the things would always get through in the end.

The lad looked little better. If anything he was growing worse. The stab wound was nasty, a deep thrust in the back, and it had made the lad feverish. Poor devil! It would be a miracle if he survived.

There was a soft knocking at the door, and he grunted as he rose and went to see who was there. A red-faced novice stood waiting. ‘Brother Joseph, I didn’t know what to do. She was so insistent.’

Joseph waved him away and stood in his doorway as the girl approached. ‘Yes?’

‘May I see your patient, even for only a moment, Brother? I think he is known to me,’ Annie said.

It had been a long day for Simon and Baldwin, and the two men repaired to their inn as soon as the light began to dim.

‘There is something odd about this affair,’ Baldwin said as they waited for their ales to arrive. A maid bustled up with a tray and two jugs which she deposited on the table between them, and then winked lecherously at Baldwin. He was shocked, and looked at the bailiff, who was grinning broadly. ‘What does she think she’s doing? Is she a whore?’

‘Clearly she doesn’t care about fashion, if she’s prepared to look at a man like you,’ the bailiff said dispassionately.

Baldwin glanced over to where the maid was speaking to another client. She was small, slim, dark haired and attractive, with doe eyes, a tip-tilted nose and freckles. Even as he looked her way, she faced him and smiled straight at him. He hastily returned to face Simon. ‘Absurd!’

‘Perhaps. Now, how will we find Adam?’

‘There is a man waiting for him to return to his house. In the meantime I want to find young Rob again. If it is true that he was with Will’s band, perhaps they too argued over this trinket, whatever it was, and fought?’ Baldwin sipped ale.

‘You were suspicious of him from the first, weren’t you?’ Simon said.

‘There was an inconsistency in his story,’ Baldwin admitted. ‘He said he found the body and was sick, but when I saw the vomit there on the ground, it was quite cold.’

‘You touched it?’ Simon winced.

‘There is no place for squeamishness when you are investigating a death,’ Baldwin stated sententiously.

‘Perhaps. But why should they kill him there? Why not out in the open that afternoon?’

Baldwin drank and winced at the flavour. ‘Perhaps it was the argument which resulted in the death. If so, better to kill him in a quiet alley than a busy tavern.’

‘Why would they gut their old companion?’ Simon wondered. ‘It sounds like more than a mere argument. Men like them would stab and kill without thinking, but to mutilate the body–that seems more than a dispute over money.’

‘Perhaps it was they who attacked the poor fellow in the hospital,’ Baldwin said. ‘I wonder whether he will recover enough to tell us who attacked him?’

‘I pray he will,’ Simon said glumly. ‘I don’t like to think that the killer could remain free, not seeing how he mutilated Will Chard’s body.’

Baldwin nodded, but as he did so he caught sight of Jonathan’s face. The clerk was reading a small parchment with an expression of horror. ‘What is it, man?’

‘Christ in Heaven…I think I know why they fought over the box!’

Annie was in her room. She had wept herself almost to sleep by the time the quiet knock came at her window, and she wiped her eyes hastily before rising and going to it. All the family were asleep, and she had to step carefully over their bodies as she made her way to the door, twitching the old blanket aside.

‘What is it?’ she hissed. ‘It’s late. You’ll wake them.’

Rob stared at her with wild eyes in a pale face. ‘We have to go. Will you marry me? We’ll get away from here, sell this box and make a new life for ourselves.’

‘I’m not going anywhere, Rob.’

‘It’s too dangerous here, though! First Andrew, then Will, and now Adam is saying he wants me to stay with him–he’ll kill me if I do!’

She walked away from the shack a few paces so that their voices wouldn’t stir the family. ‘Why should he?’

‘He more than likely killed them both, don’t you think? Adam was always jealous of Will and Andrew, and he probably did that to them both just to get them out of the way.’

‘A bit foolish, wouldn’t you think? Doing that so that he could run a gang half the size?’

‘You don’t understand him, Annie.’

‘No. And I don’t want to. Rob, I don’t love you, and I can’t marry you. I love someone else.’

It was on the tip of his tongue. Rob licked his dry lips, but he couldn’t accuse her. He’d always known that she got on with him, of course, but that was different to thinking that she’d willingly give him up for the other. Never, except in those red, ferocious dreams in the middle of the night, had he thought that she’d discard him for the other man.

‘I’m sorry, Robert,’ she said, and she tried to touch his face with her hand.

He snapped his chin away. ‘Don’t!’

‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’

‘But he’s
dead
! How could you love a man who’s dead?’

She smiled then, a lovely, transforming smile that thawed his heart even as her rejection had frozen it. ‘But he’s not. He’s alive and in the hospital. Your brother is alive!’

‘What do you mean?’ Baldwin said, snatching the parchment from the clerk.

‘Can you read it?’ Jonathan asked. ‘It says, “This is a fragment of the True Cross, stained with the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which was preserved for safe-keeping in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem”, signed by Geoffrey Mappestone, Knight.’

Simon knocked back the last of his drink and belched softly. ‘What’s it got to do with all this?’

‘I found it on the floor of the tavern with this other piece,’ Jonathan said, unwrapping the second parchment.

Simon frowned. ‘What makes you think that piece of scrawl has anything to do with the casket?’

‘They had an argument in there,’ Baldwin said. ‘We’ve heard that already. Three unlettered men finding a box–why should they want to keep papers with it? We’re lucky that they didn’t cast these into the fire. Instead they merely tossed them aside, not realizing their value.’

‘What value do pieces of parchment hold?’ Simon scoffed.

‘If they validate the history of a marvellous relic, they are priceless,’ Baldwin said, but as he spoke Jonathan held up his hand, pale and anxious.

‘Listen to this!’ He read the strip of parchment with a finger running along the old and faded letters. ‘“I, Guillaume de Beaujeu, found this relic. It was originally bought with innocent blood and is utterly cursed. Any man who touches the fragment of Holy Cross will die as soon as the relic is relinquished.”’

Baldwin blanched. He grabbed the parchment and read it himself. He sat back, it seemed to him that in the far distance he heard again those dreadful massed kettledrums, the screams and shrieks, the rattle of sling-stones, the metallic ‘ting’ of arrows bouncing from walls…and saw again in his mind’s eye the bold warrior de Beaujeu, sword raised, suddenly overwhelmed. He saw all this and he felt sickened.

‘Baldwin?’ Simon asked. He had risen and stood at Baldwin’s side. ‘Jonathan, fetch some wine. Strong, red wine.’

As soon as the clerk was gone, Baldwin murmured, ‘I saw him die.’

‘Who?’

‘Guillaume de Beaujeu. He was the man whom we revered above all others in Acre. Courageous and bold, but wily, he lead the Templars in their defence of the city.’

‘But he was superstitious,’ Simon said.

Baldwin frowned. ‘I should not have thought so. No more than a bishop. He died before the fall of Acre, and his treasurer, Thibaud Gaudin, took all the relics and saved them. When the Order of the Temple was disbanded, all the relics were taken, though. I wonder how this one survived?’

‘Perhaps it was simply unregarded,’ Simon suggested.

‘Scarcely,’ Baldwin said.

Jonathan had returned, unnoticed, and he held out a mazer of wine. He looked as though he should have drunk it himself.

‘Perhaps it was left alone because it was feared?’ he said.

If there was one thing that the outlaw was good at, it was patience. He stood outside the house, listening and watching carefully. There was no sign of his prey, but another man interested the outlaw now. All evening he had waited here, hoping to catch sight of Adam, without luck, but he had begun to notice that he was not alone. There was another man watching the same doorway, a younger man with a good-quality tunic. He looked like a rich man’s servant, or maybe an official from the city?

So Adam had upset another man. This could complicate matters.

It was one thing to kill a felon like this Adam, but a different thing altogether to murder an officer in cold blood.

And then he saw the stumbling shape of Adam lurching down the lane. The outlaw quickly shifted his belt, hitching it up so that the hilt lay within easy reach. Then he pushed himself out of the doorway where he had been resting, and set off up the alley towards the door of the place where Adam lived. As he did so, he saw that the youngster had spotted Adam too. Being no fool, he was not going to confront the man. Instead, he turned down the alley towards the outlaw and passed him at a trot. Off, no doubt, to call for assistance. The outlaw smiled to himself. There would be little need for that shortly.

He reached the doorway at the same time as Adam. Nodding to the felon, the outlaw cast a look about him. There was no one. He drew his sword as Adam pushed the door wide, and brought the pommel crashing down on his head. Adam roared with pain, his neck muscles contracting, his shoulders hunching, and he spun to confront the outlaw. The outlaw had completed his blow, drawing the blade back, his right fist at his flank, elbow crooked, ready to stab, his left hand outstretched, palm flat, his weight balanced on his right leg.

Adam saw him, and the outlaw saw the blank incomprehension in his eyes. Then there was only blind rage. He darted back, slamming the door, but it bounced off the outlaw’s boot. The outlaw sprang forward into the gloomy interior, and he heard the rasp of steel as he entered. There was a flash, and he parried. A crash of metal, and his arm was jerked with the force of Adam’s fury. Then the blade came again, a heavy falchion by the look of it, wickedly curved and deadly. He shoved his fist across his body, and the blades met with a loud ringing. A second glint, and he had the man’s measure. Adam was a hacker, preferring to use blunt force to wear down his opponent rather than subtlety.

But the outlaw was a trained warrior, skilled in the craft of swordsmanship and experienced in a hundred battles. He parried once more, fell back, and then stabbed forward, once, his leg straightening, as did his arm. The falchion was swinging at his neck, but he was ready, and caught the flat of the blade with his left hand, knocking it safely up and away even as he felt the gentle resistance of Adam’s breast. He pushed on a little farther, and he saw the anger leaving Adam’s face, to be replaced by a wondering shock. There was a clatter as the falchion’s tip struck the ground and Adam started to stagger backward. His legs struck a stool and he slipped down to sit, dully gazing up at the outlaw.