The Tainted Relic (31 page)

It was very late by the time Baldwin and Simon returned to their inn, and although Simon dropped off to sleep quickly, Baldwin found himself reluctant to slumber. In his mind he kept seeing de Beaujeu fall.

Guillaume de Beaujeu had been a strong and intelligent leader. Skilled in politics, he was the only voice warning of the imminence of invasion in the months before the disaster, but he never complained. He told the people of the risk to the Holy Kingdom, but they scoffed, and most of them were to pay with their lives.

The treasure of the Templars was rescued. First Thibaud took it all to Sidon, and then to Cyprus, where he died. Soon Jacques de Molay was the Grand Master, and the relics and treasure were transported to the Paris Temple for safe-keeping. All the Templars knew that. Even Baldwin had heard of the shipments of gold and valuables.

Yet this one relic was in England. Was it something to do with the parchments? De Beaujeu implied that it was his, or that there was some sort of responsibility placed upon him with this relic. There had been rumours that he had prayed on the night before his death, taking some of the relics and using them to enhance his pleas to God. Perhaps this was one such. Baldwin couldn’t tell. In Acre he had not yet joined the Order. That came later, and he never had the chance to advance very far.

He prayed that he might at least learn the secret of this relic. He felt that there was a duty on him to see to it that any debt de Beaujeu had incurred was paid back. If the Templars, or de Beaujeu himself, had cause to protect this specific relic, Baldwin would see to it that their wishes were honoured. He owed that to the Grand Master’s memory.

With that thought, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but still it evaded him, and at last he gave up. In the early hours of the morning he rose and padded across to a window, leaning on the wall and watching as the light changed outside. He felt sad, and the pity of it was, he didn’t know why.

Joseph was woken from a light doze some little while after dawn. The gates were routinely opened as soon as it was daylight, and now he heard the door open, and yawned as he peered short-sightedly at the figure entering.

‘Who is that?’ he demanded.

‘I am this man’s brother,’ the man said. ‘Is he well?’

‘If he were, he’d scarcely be in here, would he?’ Joseph said drily. He was not ready for foolish questions such a short while after being woken, and his sympathy for a soon-to-be-bereaved man was at a low ebb. He had not slept properly since the man had been brought in here and his temper was not improved by the lack.

‘I’m sorry, Brother. I didn’t know he was here, though.’

‘We couldn’t tell anyone, could we? He couldn’t tell us who he was, after all,’ Joseph said with a more tolerant tone. His good humour was returning. ‘Who are you?’

The man licked his lips. ‘I’m Rob. He’s my brother Andrew. Will he live?’

‘Oh, yes, I think so.’ Joseph walked to the bed and stood over Andrew. He took a cold cloth from the dish on the table and cleaned Andrew’s face and brow. To his delight, he saw that the face appeared to relax slightly. When he put his hand to Andrew’s forehead, there was a significant diminution in temperature. ‘My God! Yes, I think he’s fast recovering now. With God’s good grace, he will recover!’

He turned and smiled at the sight of Rob’s face. ‘It must be a terrible shock. Please, friend, sit and collect yourself. I have a little wine in my chamber. I shall fetch you some.’

‘Tha…thanks.’

Rob watched as the man bustled about the place.

This was all wrong! He had thought Andrew was safely dead. He’d stabbed hard enough, feeling the hilt of his dagger slam into his brother’s back, he’d thrust so determinedly. Damn his soul, he wanted Andrew dead and out of the way. He’d wanted that ever since he’d first realized that Annie loved him.

She had been all he had ever wanted. To him, Annie represented love, comfort, ease, a home. She was beautiful. He’d thought that on the very first day he’d seen her walking here from Tiverton. All he’d done since then, he’d done to make a new home and life for her. And in return all he hoped for was her acceptance.

But Andrew had taken it instead. It was dreadful to have a rival for her affections, but how much worse was it to know that his rival was his own brother? It tore at his heart, and yet he could see no alternative. If he was to have his woman, he would have to remove his brother.

He rose as though in a trance, his feet drawing him towards the bed even as his hand reached to his dagger, and he had already drawn the steel as the door to Joseph’s chamber opened and the little man came out with a bowl of wine.

‘Here we are. I hope you are feeling a little more…What are you doing there?’

Rob turned for a split second, and his momentary hesitation was long enough. ‘I…I have to…’

‘No! You mustn’t hurt him,’ Joseph shouted.

On the next bed, the outlaw had woken a few moments before. Now he turned his head to see the scruffy felon with the dagger in his hand. He recognized the man from the attack at Bishop’s Clyst, and the sight was enough to stir him. His belly hurt abominably, but he had to protect the man whose life he was sworn to defend. He reached down to the pile of his clothes by the bed. There was his sword, and he pulled it free, then swung his legs to the floor.

‘Christ!’

His legs all but collapsed when he put his weight on them. As he spoke, the felon looked at him, and appeared to recognize him too, and stepped back as though terrified by the sight.

Naked, grunting with the effort, the outlaw clenched his teeth. ‘The relic: where is it?’

Rob saw him teeter as though about to collapse, and was about to lift his dagger to strike Andrew when the knight gritted his teeth with a supreme effort and stepped forward, the sword’s point unwavering.

‘Where is it?’ he demanded.

It was like watching a corpse come to life. The scene was enough to destroy Rob’s resolve. He stepped back, one step, then another, and turned to the door to flee.

Joseph understood nothing about their actions, but he knew that this man had been about to murder his own brother. He had no compunction, and brought the heavy dish down on Rob’s head as he passed. There was a veritable fountain of red wine, and it smothered Joseph, making him blink, feeling a sudden shock.

Rob howled with the pain of the blow, but continued out, dripping with wine. He lurched, then ran across the small green to the gate.

‘Porter! Stop that man! He tried to kill a patient!’ Joseph cried. He saw the porter turn slowly.

The man gaped. As he later said, he could see Joseph covered in red, as though his throat had been cut, and Joseph’s words made him act without a second thought. He had an old bill behind his door for defending the precinct, and now, as Rob ran towards him, a hand wiping the wine from his face, he grabbed it. An old warrior, he swung it once as Rob passed, and hamstrung him.

Rob collapsed like a poleaxed heifer. He couldn’t comprehend what had happened at first, only that there had been a thud at the back of his knees, and a leg had stopped supporting him. Now he rose on his hands and one knee, but his left leg wouldn’t do as he wanted. It flopped, useless. He stared at it, realizing that it was drenched in blood, and looked up in time to see the evil, spiked pole-arm approaching him.

Joseph was about to cry out when he saw the spike hit Rob. The body twitched for a few moments, one leg beating a percussive beat on the dirt of the roadway, but then it lay still as the porter struggled to free his pole-arm from the dead body’s eye socket.

‘He is very unwell,’ Joseph said. ‘I would not have him upset any further.’

Baldwin and Simon nodded as Jonathan set out his reeds and parchment on a trestle table.

It was Baldwin who walked to the outlaw’s bed. ‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill. Who are you?’

‘I am called Sir John Mantravers, from South Witham. I was born there five-and-forty years ago, served Lord Hugh de Courtenay here in the west, and then joined the noblest Order.’ His voice was weak, but as he uttered the last words, it strengthened, and he looked at Baldwin defiantly. ‘I was a Knight Templar.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘What happened to you?’

‘After the destruction of my Order, I escaped the tortures and the flames. I returned to England at last, and went to my old preceptory at South Witham. There I met an ancient comrade, Johel. He told me that there was a secret kept there.

‘A relic, a piece of the True Cross, was stored in a small casket in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the first of the Crusades. It was in the care of an Arab named Barzac, but he was murdered by Sir Miles de Clermont during the slaughter following the fall of Jerusalem. Barzac cursed the relic and all who would hold it. A few days later it passed into the hands of Geoffrey Mappestone, who wrote a document attesting to its authenticity.

‘Eventually it was brought to our country, and it has remained here for many years. Then Guillaume de Beaujeu learned of it, and he took it with him to the Holy Land when he became Grand Master of our Order. It killed him.’

Baldwin felt the breath stop in his throat. ‘De Beaujeu was slain on the walls near the Accursed Tower in Acre.’

‘The night before, I am told, he prayed for the city’s deliverance, and he took out this relic and prayed with it. The next day he died. The relic killed him, just as it kills all who touch it.’

Baldwin saw Brother Joseph crossing himself, and pressed the wounded man. ‘What then?’

‘It was saved with other relics, and taken to France, but there it was decided that this thing was too perilous: it could pollute other treasures. In preference, it was sent back to England, and it remained there safely in South Witham in obscurity, until the degenerate and avaricious King of France sought the destruction of the Temple. Then Johel and a few other men sought to defend the thing and protect others from finding it. When the preceptory was ordered to be closed, I was asked to come here to Exeter with a companion to give it to the good Bishop Walter, who was known to be an honourable man.’

‘But you were attacked?’

‘Footpads ambushed us at a river. They caught my companion and murdered him. They tried to kill me, but I escaped them, and defended myself against the man there in the bed. He fought well, and almost knocked me from my horse while his comrades fled. Then he too ran, trying to take a path through a stand of low trees where I could not follow on horseback. I left him, and went to my friend, but poor Tom was dead and his package was stolen. It was a disaster, the failure of our embassy.

‘So I continued alone. A short way beyond the little wood, I found this man. I would have killed him, but I needed to find the relic, and I thought he could tell me of its whereabouts. He agreed to tell me all he knew in return for my parole. If I protected him and brought him here, he would answer my questions.

‘This man told me that a companion of his had tried to kill him. For that he felt that he owed his erstwhile colleagues no loyalty. So he told me of the girl Annie. He loved her, and he wanted her to know he was alive. I found her and told her about the attack on her man, and she was enraged. She helped me, telling me of the whore Moll, and telling me where Adam and Will lived so that I could ambush them and find the relic. So this I tried to do.

‘The first night I went to the tavern and saw the men there. I tried to return to catch Will, but he escaped me in the dark. I remained up in Moll’s room. In the middle of the night, the brother of this man appeared, horrified. He had found Will’s body. I left then, determined to find the man and search his body.’

‘This was the middle of the night?’ Baldwin queried.

‘Yes. Moll persuaded him that it would be better to leave Will there and report the murder in the morning. Will had had his throat cut, and I went through his clothes but could find nothing on him. No relic. In a rage, I slashed at his corpse. He’d killed my friend Tom and robbed him, and now I couldn’t find Tom’s goods. I was enraged.’

‘You would have killed him.’

‘No. I wanted the relic, and I wanted to question him to learn where it was. I have no taste for murder. In the same way I tried to capture Adam. He was stronger than I expected, though, and didn’t fall when I struck him. In the fight, I had to kill him…and I think he has killed me.’

‘So we still don’t know who killed Will,’ Simon said. ‘Nor Moll, either.’

‘I killed neither,’ the injured knight said. ‘Who would kill Moll?’

Baldwin was silent for a moment. Then he bowed over the dying man. ‘You have done well, poor fellow soldier.’ He drew his sword, and showed the man the blade. There, outlined in gold, was the Templar cross. He had asked for it to be carved there when he had the sword made, and never had he been more proud.

Sir John de Mantravers peered closely, and then looked up at Baldwin. ‘Thank you, comrade.’ He kissed the cross and sank back with a grunt of pain.

‘Come on, then, Baldwin. Who would have killed Moll?’ Simon asked.

‘I have little doubt that it was Rob,’ Baldwin said. ‘I think he feared that she saw something on the day that Will was killed.’

‘So you think that Will was murdered by Rob?’ Jonathan asked.

They were near the Broad Gate, the great main entranceway to the cathedral, and Baldwin stopped here. ‘We may never know, of course, but I think that for our report we should assume that he was responsible for that as well. Clearly we may not enquire of him any longer, but who else would have had the motive? His brother had been leader of the band, and when his brother was stabbed, perhaps he thought that Will would take over. Maybe he thought the gang was his own inheritance? For whatever reason, he killed Will and then stabbed Moll in case she had seen something. Perhaps he thought she was a witness and couldn’t take the risk that she might report him?’

‘I see.’ Jonathan nodded. He gave the two men his thanks for their company, and walked in under the great gates. In a moment he was lost to sight.

Baldwin nodded to himself. ‘A pleasant enough fellow.’