The Tolls of Death: (Knights Templar 17) (31 page)

Baldwin said, ‘Tell me about Richer and Serlo.’

‘Richer left because of the way his family were wiped out. One night late in the summer, when the harvest was in and the fellows were enjoying themselves with their women, his house caught fire. When they got there, all those inside were burned. It was Serlo gave the alarm. He tried to save them.’

‘And?’ Simon prompted. ‘You saw something, didn’t you?’

‘No need to hide it now. I wasn’t at the harvest. Before the fire I was down that way, near the house. It was dark: I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a man slip away in among the trees and I thought nothing on it. Later I heard Serlo had called on the rest of the men to come and put out the fire, but they were all drunk and stupid, and took their time.’

‘So you think he may have had a part in the deaths of the atte Brook family?’ Baldwin asked.

‘A friend of mine also thought he saw Serlo hanging round just before the fire started. There weren’t that many men here who are so broad but also so short, you see. Little while later, he saw him running up to the harvest, calling out that there’d been a fire, and everyone ran back. So, he wasn’t there with all the youngsters at the harvest, and he came up to raise the alarm. Sounds like he could have been the one set fire to the place.’

‘We have heard that he hinted at something like that to Richer last night,’ Baldwin said. ‘Perhaps he was taunting him.’

‘If so,’ Simon considered, ‘he succeeded. It looks as though Richer might have killed him.’

Baldwin frowned. ‘And yet why should he have done so in that manner?’

‘What was that, master?’ the old smith asked.

‘Serlo was killed, but then his head was deliberately crushed in the mill-wheel, just as the boy Dan’s had been.’

Iwan stared away down the gently sloping hill towards the vill. ‘So, likely it was the boy’s relation, or friend of his father or mother who killed Serlo?’

‘Or his father himself,’ Simon pointed out. ‘We don’t know who his father was, after all.’

‘Why should Serlo do that to Richer’s family?’ Roger wondered, still harking back to the fire. ‘What could drive a man to such a barbaric act?’

‘Perhaps it was retaliation for some other slight?’ Baldwin said.

Iwan nodded slowly. ‘It was only a little while after Serlo’s father Almeric lost a sheep. It strayed out from his fold and onto the lord’s land, and was forfeit because it ate his crop. That was a bit of a laugh for most of us hereabouts, but Richer, he liked it more’n most. He laughed loudest whenever Serlo was about, and that hurt Serlo. He was always irresponsible, and who knows? He himself might have left the fold open so that the beast could escape. Anyway, Serlo got thrashed, and Richer made fun of him. That could have been enough.’

‘Serlo wanted to make Richer suffer the indignity and ignominy of failure and disaster,’ Baldwin nodded. ‘It is possible.’

‘But how does that measure up with the dead boy and Serlo’s head being crushed?’ Simon demanded. ‘There are too many threads to this tapestry, and none seem to lead to the full picture.’

‘True enough,’ Baldwin said. ‘Master Smith: this woman Matefrid. Whom could we ask about her?’

‘The priest might be able to help you.’

‘Who – Adam here at the church?’ Simon demanded with surprise. ‘What could he know of this woman?’

‘Not him: the other priest. Matty came from Temple, see. Father John may know something about the apprentice, if only by rumour.
He was helped to win the place by Sir Henry – although it’s said that he was a Lancastrian.’

‘Who, the priest was?’ Roger asked.

‘Aye, so it’s said,’ Iwan nodded. ‘He’s a priest though, so it’s none of my affair.’

But it was a matter of interest to others, Simon knew. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, had died after Boroughbridge, and his leading adherents slaughtered, because the King wanted no one to survive that war who had ever held arms against him or his friends the Despensers. Even a cleric could be fearful of past loyalty coming to light.

Simon glanced at Baldwin, but he saw that his friend’s thoughts were elsewhere.

‘Temple?’ Baldwin repeated mildly, but Simon saw how his eyes lit up at the name. There were many manors up and down the country which had been owned by the Knights Templar, and Baldwin loved to visit their churches, reminding himself of his own past serving in the Order.

‘It was where the pagan knights used to have a small manor,’ Iwan said dismissively. ‘The manor’s still there, if the heretics are gone.’

‘Thank you,’ Baldwin said, but with considerably less warmth than before.

Richer was still fuming when he left the bar of the hall, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and almost strode into Warin outside.

‘Whoa! Watch where you go so carelessly, friend Richer,’ Warin cautioned. ‘Where do you go in such a fury?’

‘Nowhere!’ Richer declared bitterly. ‘I am not permitted.’

‘By whom – Nicholas?’ Warin asked with some surprise. ‘Do you care what he says, when you know your position?’

‘Not him, no. It’s that knight and his friend the Bailiff,’ Richer
said sourly. ‘They all but accused me of murder. Have you heard about the miller?’

‘No. I have been considering other matters,’ Warin said loftily. ‘Why – what’s happened to him?’

‘Murdered, apparently, and his head thrust into the machinery of that damned mill of his. Someone took umbrage at his corruption, I daresay, and now the knight and Bailiff are trying to convince the Coroner that I was responsible.’

‘Why should they do that?’ Warin asked, but there was a certain quiet intensity to his voice, like a man not wholly convinced of his companion’s innocence.

‘Because of our past,’ Richer said. This was painful. He put a hand to his temple. There was almost a feeling of regret at the passing of another soul from his youth. And he was aware that his story must make him appear suspicious in any man’s eyes. Still, he must trust his squire. Warin was his master: if Richer couldn’t trust him, he could trust no one.

‘When we were lads, we neither of us liked each other. By the time we were old enough to fight, we would scrap at any opportunity. We’d do anything which might upset the other. Once … I can’t hide it from you. Once I released one of his father’s sheep from the fold. The beast escaped onto Sir Henry’s lands and was forfeit. That gave the vill a good laugh for months. Everyone knew how dissipated and ridiculous Serlo’s father was, and seeing that he could lose his own sheep made everyone amused.’

‘Other than Serlo and his brother, I assume,’ Warin said flatly.

‘Well, yes. They weren’t happy, obviously. Both were beaten by their father, because he thought Serlo had left the gate open, and Alexander tried to protect him.’

‘So your enmity grew because you had lost his family their wealth?’

Richer winced at Warin’s cold tone. ‘I suppose so. Until my family died and I fled.’

‘So he won,’ Warin said wonderingly. ‘I suppose that’s what people might say, that you fled, leaving him the victor, and that when you returned many years later –
now
– you were determined to take your revenge.’

‘Except you know that’s nonsense.’

‘Do I?’

‘Of course! I couldn’t have killed the man. I’ve killed before, but never like an assassin. Only ever in a fair fight.’

‘Then you should deny it,’ Warin said. ‘Else the people of Cardinham will say that you are guilty. Why should they say something like that?’

‘There is one more thing,’ Richer said slowly.

‘Aha! Isn’t there usually one more detail?’ Warin said lightly. Then his voice hardened. ‘What?’

‘Apparently the night before he died, Serlo implied that he himself set fire to my parents’ home.’

‘He suggested that he was guilty of arson and murder?’

‘It is what is being said, apparently.’

‘Apparently?
’ Warin’s face was like flint. ‘How did you hear this?’

‘The Coroner and that knight Sir Baldwin. They told me today.’

‘Did you hear Serlo say this?’

Richer looked away. ‘I was there when he spoke, but I swear on my mother’s soul that I didn’t understand. I saw him in the tavern, and left; he was grieving for his son.’

Warin smiled unpleasantly. ‘Why leave? To seek a suitable ambush?’

Richer glanced at him. ‘Warin, this is serious.’

‘I rather think so,’ the squire agreed. ‘If people believe you killed him, it would not reflect well on us here at the castle.’

Richer stared at him open-mouthed, and then turned his gaze towards the gate to the castle as though he could look through it and see beyond it to his old home, the timber-framed house with
the wattle and daubed walls substantial enough to keep out the worst of even a cold winter. He could see it again in his mind’s eye, feel the leaden mass in his belly as he saw the flames dancing like frenzied devils all about the roof, the thick coils of smoke rising, green and faintly luminous from the damp thatch … He could hear the screams again as though it was only last night. He could hear them … Christ’s pains, but he could hear them yet!

‘If you did murder him, I suppose many could honour you,’ Warin said absently, as though it was of little significance. ‘Although some will not.’

‘Alexander.’

‘Precisely. He will want to have his revenge upon you for daring to level the score. And I don’t think we should permit that. So you would be well advised to prove that you feel you have nothing to hide.’

‘How can I do that?’

‘We shall go to the vill and demonstrate that you aren’t evading capture by hiding behind the Coroner’s hosen.’

‘If I do that, I may get killed,’ Richer said with deliberation. ‘You are gambling with my life, Squire.’

‘Better that than bringing the castle and all within it into disrepute,’ Warin snapped. ‘We cannot afford that.
I
cannot. Especially now.’

Richer nodded sourly. ‘Not with Mortimer free.’

Warin glanced about them and then muttered angrily, ‘Keep your voice
down
, fool – unless you want me to still it for you!’

This, Baldwin thought, jogging along on his horse, was the sort of manor he might have retired to, had his Order survived. Far from anywhere, deep in Cornwall’s bleak moors, with no opportunity for temptation by women, gambling, gluttony or sloth. The life here would have been harsh, but attractive for all that.

Temple church was a pleasant block in grey moorstone, and there was a small vicar’s house, a well-thatched hovel, nearby. Built on the side of the hill, the church enjoyed views over the tree- and field-studded lands south and east, and moors beyond. Here any wind from the sea would rush straight up and whistle about it.

But Baldwin was sure that he would have enjoyed life here as a
corrodiary
, a pensioned Templar Knight. For a Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, this would represent final security after the trials of a life in the centre of the world, in the deep deserts of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. A life of fighting in the brutal dry heat of the lands about Jerusalem, or the still more daunting city states near the coast. It was there that Baldwin had chosen to join his Order, when the Templars saved him after the ferocious battles for Acre, when the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the whole of the Crusader lands of
Outremer
fell to the Egyptian Mameluke hordes.

He could recall the fighting: the screams, the blood, the chunks of flesh hacked from still-living bodies like joints butchered from a carcass and left tossed to the ground for the dogs. Fighting
while the sweat ran in rivulets down his brow, down his back, down his breast. Fighting while he gradually lost all hope. Fighting while his strength ebbed, while his parched throat pleaded for a moment’s rest so he could take a slurp of anything to ease it. Fighting while his friends died around him. Fighting even when he could scarcely remember why he was there, why he had travelled all that way.

He shivered at the memory of those friends and comrades. Bodies of men he had known lying at the foot of the city’s walls. Some had become friends after the arduous journey from England, going like him to protect God’s lands from invasion. They had set off full of enthusiasm: hopeful, intrepid men, but when they arrived, the place was all but lost, and they began to die. Some sickened, losing their energy with their diarrhoea, and more fell as the arrows rained down, or as their legs were hacked from beneath them. Too many to remember. It was one thing to see an unknown dead Christian; infinitely worse when the man was a companion who had bought a drink, or spoken kindly and shown honour.

Baldwin could recall so many faces among the dead. In the desert their faces were ravaged by the heat, desiccating and mummified before they could rot, while those who fell in Acre seemed almost to melt in the humidity of the coast.

Yes, he could easily believe how calming this place would have seemed to him, had his Order survived long enough to permit him to come here as an old man. A cool place, in which sudden death and the odour of decomposing human flesh was unknown. A land in which the rain fell gently as rose petals; no parched throats here. A green and lovely land.