This stark truth left an uncomfortable silence, which was broken a moment later by a hammering on the door. ‘Open up,’ a rough voice called.
‘No,’ Balthesar replied loudly. ‘State your identity and business first.’
‘I hope they don’t try to burn the place,’ Arnau murmured. ‘I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.’
The figure outside the door paused, and then spoke once more. ‘We are under orders to make sure that the sisters of Rourell are kept in isolation. The preceptrix is under investigation for a number of criminal offences. The four brothers in there are hereby commanded to quit the building and return to their own house.’
‘You are under whose orders?’ Ramon demanded. This was met only with silence.
‘The archbishop’s men?’ Arnau hazarded.
Balthesar nodded. ‘Possibly. Or maybe some other third party. I still sense another steering hand behind this, and the mercenaries who attacked us on the road were unlikely to be from the archbishop. I would say only that they are not here from the Order, as Ramon surmised.’
‘I’m less sure,’ Arnau grumbled, remembering the look on Brother Jaume’s face.
The preceptrix cleared her throat. ‘Do you still accept my authority?’
‘Of course, Mother Superior,’ Balthesar said, bowing his head.
‘Then you will all leave. I do not believe that you can succeed in countering the machinations of the archbishop, the nobles of the region and the masters of Barbera. With all the resources of dozens of noble houses, an important preceptory and the cathedral of Tarragona, the chances of half a dozen brothers standing against them successfully are so small as to be barely existent. The longer you persist, the more likelihood there is that you will become part of this tragedy rather than avoiding it. Whatever they decide for my punishment, I shall go to meet my maker with my conscience clear, knowing that I will sit by his hand while those men who work to ruin me will suffer for eternity for their efforts. I am at peace.’
Arnau took a deep breath to argue, horribly aware from the strain visible in the preceptrix’s face that her last comment was a lie, at least, but Balthesar beat him to the riposte.
‘I am afraid that on that matter I cannot accept your command, preceptrix.’ As the commander shook her head and stepped forward ready to repeat her order, Balthesar held up a hand. ‘Whether we can save you or not, Mother Superior, there is a principle at work here. Wicked men are doing the devil’s work, and what are we if we do not do everything in our power to counter them? If I walk away to save my own hide, I am no brother of the Temple and no knight of God. I am nothing. Less than nothing. No, you can order me away as often as you desire, but until this matter is resolved or I lie in the dust as food for the scavengers, I will do what I can.’
Ramon was suddenly beside him. ‘Quite right. Whether we be men of the Temple or merely men with a stout heart and a true fear of the Lord, we must stand for what is right. “Hold ye hospitality together without grudging, each man as he hath received grace ministering it unto each other as good dispensers of the manifold grace of God.” One, Peter, Four.’
Arnau found himself moving to join them, and saw that his squire was doing the same. ‘“’hear thou the Lord, and keep his behests: it is the duty of every man. God shall bring all things that be done into judgement, for each private thing, whether it be good or evil.”’
‘You will bring an equal doom upon you all if you follow me down my lonely road,’ the preceptrix sighed.
Sister Titborga scurried over to stand by her. ‘Rourell saved us – saved me,’ she added. ‘Now it is time to repay the debt. You know your people, Sister. They will abandon neither you nor the house, no matter who demands it.’
Ermengarda sagged. ‘I have thought this through many times since this began, brothers and sisters, and I can simply see no way to win. The conspiracy of mine enemies is simply too widespread and too powerful, with roots in both Church and State as well as our own Order.’
Ramon gestured to Arnau. ‘In the morning, our young friend here is going to ride for Barbera with his squire. The mother house has records that might help us fight this, for I suspect de Mont of omitting important information from his documents in order to speed your guilty verdict. Even the masters of the Order cannot stand by and watch the mother house and its brothers being brought into such disrepute if we can prove this.’
‘Are you not coming?’ Arnau frowned at Ramon.
‘I shall stay here with Balthesar. I have the feeling that the threat against the preceptrix is slowly shifting from the legal to the physical.’
‘I am capable of defending myself,’ Ermengarda said quietly, and stepped aside to gesture to her husband’s sword, which now hung on the wall of the mill.
‘We stay,’ Balthesar said flatly. ‘Arnau can investigate the records without my help. He knows the names of the nobles involved, and all he has to do is secure those records and return with them so that we can look them through and hopefully locate the discrepancies. But every step we have taken since we returned has brought our enemies more out into the open and made them act more directly. There is no telling what might happen here if we appear to achieve any sort of success. I would hate to return from Barbera to find that the men out there have decided that the time has come to finish this.’
He turned to Arnau. ‘Take Tristán and go back to the preceptory. At first light you ride for Barbera. Do not stop. Understand? And do not let de Mont order you otherwise. He has less authority here than he thinks he does.’
‘What if that lot out there don’t let us leave the mill?’ Tristán asked.
‘You heard them. They want us gone. I do not think they will try to stop you. On the contrary, I think they would like us to join you.’
Arnau straightened. ‘Very well. Stay safe here and protect the sisters. We will be back as soon as we can. In the morning I will send your squires to you.’
‘No,’ Ramon shook his head. ‘They will not be allowed to join us, I fear. Better that they stay in Rourell and begin to search for de Mont’s writings.’
Arnau took a deep breath. ‘Tristán, are you ready?’
As the squire nodded, Balthesar turned back to the door. ‘Two of our number are taking you up on your offer to leave. I will open this door and they will return to the preceptory. If any man makes to stop them, he will be dealt with appropriately. Do you understand?’
There was continued silence from outside, and Balthesar looked to Arnau, who nodded. The old knight lifted the bar and swung open the door. A man in a padded gambeson stood a couple of paces away, all but blocking the door, his face set in a grimace of resolution, though his sword remained sheathed at his side, his fingers on the pommel.
‘Step back.’
‘I accept no authority from you,’ the man snapped. Balthesar stepped into the doorway and lashed out suddenly with a mailed fist, smacking the man hard in the face before stepping back inside. The man reeled, yelping, his nose flattened and streaming blood as he blinked in shock, face bruised and scraped by chain links.
‘Anyone else feel like stopping us?’ the old man snarled. Arnau looked past him to see that the rest of the men had backed out into an arc facing the door, horribly reminiscent of the night he had almost burned to death here.
He turned to the sisters, singling out Titborga. ‘If the worst comes to the worst,’ he reminded her, ‘you know a way out.’
She nodded her understanding solemnly, and Arnau turned back to the doorway and stepped through with Tristán close behind. The watchers made no move to close on him, though one of their number was still staggering about in the middle ground, clutching his nose. The two Templars took a last look back at Balthesar; he nodded to them and closed the door, plunging their world into sudden darkness. Arnau and the squire blinked a few times, until the moonlight became enough to see once more.
The figures stood there in the gloom and watched them go. As the two Templars strode off into the darkness, l
eaving the watchers behind at the mill, Arnau twitched and turned to Tristán. ‘Did you get a good look at them?’
The squire shrugged. ‘Lots of men in a variety of armours and tunics. Mercenaries again, I’d wager.’
‘I’m not so sure. When my eyes adjusted, I saw Ramon’s thirteenth man in the undergrowth. He was lurking far back in the trees, but he was wearing the livery of a local house. I saw it. The green tree on gold that belongs to the lord of Albiol and La Selva del Camp, one of the most powerful lords in the region and, notably, a former associate of the Baron de Castellvell. I think these are La Selva’s men, or if they are mercenaries, then I fear they are in his employ.’
‘Do you think this La Selva is the man behind it all?’
Arnau shrugged. ‘He’s pretty powerful, but other than his connection to Castellvell, I don’t know of any long-standing enmity with Rourell. Still, it fits in some ways. When we came back from Castellvell we went through La Selva’s lands, just after that attack in the valley. That ambush and the men watching the baroness could quite easily be his work.’
‘You know him?’
‘I know of him. The current lord I am not particularly familiar with, other than having seen his banners in Castellvell’s entourage both here and on Mayūrqa some time ago. His father was a regular visitor to Santa Coloma when I was there many years ago. In hindsight, if I’d known of his potential involvement, we could perhaps have learned a great deal more from the baroness, but now we do not have time to visit her again. I do want to check something though, before we leave Rourell.’
The two men hurried on back to the preceptory, acutely aware of the ongoing danger and the passage of time. The bell for compline would ring soon and then there would be trouble. Arnau and the squires would have to attend and many uncomfortable questions would arise over the absence of Ramon and Balthesar. Both men could claim to be of a rank to match de Mont and were quite within their rights to stay where they were without a direct order from a superior, but the men from Barbera would undoubtedly take this badly, and Arnau would probably suffer the brunt of their anger. He could only imagine how they would react when he too vanished the next morning. Perhaps they would be grateful to get these interfering knights out of the way, but he doubted it. With a quick clong of the bell at the main gate, the two waited until Domingo opened up, and then hurried inside.
‘The others?’ the sergeant asked.
‘Will not be joining us,’ Arnau replied. ‘Thank you. Do you know where Guillem is?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘He is in the chapter house, Brother.’
Arnau hurried off past the belfry to the graceful structure beside the church, and in through the open door, with Tristán hurrying on behind. He was relieved to find the clerk standing at the scriptorium lectern alone, scribbling fast to finish his work before the service, with no sign of de Mont or his henchman.
‘Guillem, do you still have that key?’
The sergeant frowned, nodded and pulled the key from his belt, passing it over to Arnau, who thanked him and then made his own hurried way out of the chapter house, across the courtyard and into the belfry, quickly turning the key into the lock and disappearing inside should de Mont suddenly appear and demand his key back. He had to hurry, for compline was coming, and then the belfry would be used to ring the call. Inside, he left Tristán to shut the door and, lighting a lamp, hurried back over to the shelves he’d perused earlier. He conjured up an image of the region’s geography, of all the towns and villages that lay within La Selva’s domain. Memorising as best he could the various names, he began to flick quickly through the files. Sure enough, throughout the first shelf he spotted many familiar names, but not one within La Selva’s territory. The same held true for the second shelf, and a quick search through the four stacks on the desk yielded the very same result.
‘What have you found?’ Tristán asked, noting the satisfied look on Arnau’s face.
‘Not found. Specifically not found. Unless I’m much mistaken, not one claim here falls within La Selva’s area of authority. Just as we thought of Castellvell but were proved wrong, it looks as though La Selva is deliberately staying clear of this matter in order to keep his hands carefully clean. I have an inkling that we may have found our guiding hand after all, though he may not be working alone.’
There came a rattling noise at the door and some light cursing, and Arnau quickly shuffled the file he was holding back into place and with a gesture to Tristán, the two crossed to the door and opened it. Outside, Domingo was busy with a ring of keys, trying and failing to unlock the door, simply because it was already unlocked. He lurched back, surprised, as the door opened, the keys falling to the ground.
‘Apologies,’ Arnau smiled. ‘We were just departing, Brother.’
Leaving a confused sergeant, they crossed the courtyard in silence. Domingo must have climbed the tower swiftly, for moments later the bells rang out calling the preceptory to compline in the church.
‘As soon as the service is over,’ Arnau said, ‘get to the stables and take our kit bags. Make sure all is ready. I want to be gone in the morning before de Mont realises what’s happening and tries to stop us. For now, let’s prepare ourselves for the inevitable tirade when the man realises that Balthesar and Ramon are staying at the mill.’
Chapter Five
The mother house
Barbera, 1st October 1212
It had not escaped Arnau’s attention that during their fifteen mile ride, they had been at great risk from the ongoing attentions of their unidentified enemy. The two men had left Rourell as the sun began to thread the sky with golden mackerel forms, while the other brothers were scurrying around preparing for Prime. He would have to apologise to the Lord for missing the service, one of the prime rules of the Order, yet he knew somehow that if he attended Prime, de Mont would get his claws in and Arnau would be trapped in Rourell with no chance of journeying north.
He and Tristán had ridden fast for a while to be far from the preceptory before the interim commander realised they were gone, and it had only been when they were on the main road, heading north near Alcover that he’d realised they were riding within the lands of the lord of La Selva, which carried whole new risks. Still, perhaps due to the fact that their journey could not have been predicted, or perhaps owing to the earliness of the hour, they had travelled unmolested as far as the pass through the Prades Mountains and down into the valley and relative safety.
Barbera de la Conca sat on a hillside amid flat, rolling brown fields, a ramshackle collection of tiled roofs reaching up the slopes, crowded together and with a church rising proud at the crest. It was only as they came around towards the northern side of the town that the mother house came into view. Separated from the urban pile by a wall punctuated with squat round towers, the preceptory of Barbera towered over the landscape, built upon the edge of a precipice. A fascinating building of golden stone, it seemed half monastery, half castle, with thick, strong walls beside delicate arcades.
As the two men rode slowly up to the edge of the town, Tristán pulled level with his master.
‘Have you given any thought about what happens when we’re here, as you’ve not mentioned anything to me?’
Arnau shook his head. ‘It’s the unknown, Tristán. Who are friends and who enemies? We may not even know that by the time we leave, let alone when we arrive. I have visited several commanderies in my time, in the east and the west, but they are all unique, and this will be different again. Oddly, though I have served one of Barbera’s lesser houses I have never been here in a dozen years behind the cross. It will be busy, but I have no idea how the place works, nor where anything is. Lord, but I don’t even know who’s in charge since we saw their master die a few short months ago at Las Navas de Tolosa.’
‘So keep our wits about us, then?’
‘Quite. And be careful what you say. And to whom.’
The two men rode up through the streets of Barbera de la Conca, watching morning l
ife flourish around them. The presence of the two Templars did not seem to faze even the smallest child, but then Templars in the town had been the norm for over a century now. The streets gradually became steeper as they climbed, and the morning acquired more and more heat as they neared the summit and the great castle of the Order that, along with the church, dominated the hill.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of sizzling streets and scratching, yapping stray dogs, they approached a forbidding stone wall with a heavy arch, sporting a thick oak door and an arrow slit above; an odd, delicate half-arch to the right and a small window near the top. Further to the right another great heavy gate led into a courtyard within the walls: that part of the house they had seen from below and was all arcades, lording it above the landscape. There was no need here to clang a bell, for as they approached, the heavy oak door ahead swung open, as did the gate to the right. A man in the black habit of a sergeant emerged from the main door, while two servants in nondescript clothing left the courtyard gate and scurried towards them. The sergeant waved at the two Templars.
‘Ho there. Whence do you hail, Brothers?’
‘We are freshly returned from crusade,’ Arnau replied, somewhat evasively, ‘and would beg entry to this house. My squire will accompany me, if your men can take the horses?’
The sergeant bowed his head and gestured to the servants, who hurried forward to grasp the reins.
‘And while they are tended to, I wish to speak to the preceptor, or commander, or master, if I may? My name is Brother Arnau de Vallbona.’
The sergeant looked troubled for a moment, then held up a hand to suggest they stay put while he dipped inside. There was a long pause as Arnau and Tristán dismounted and handed their mounts over to the servants for stabling; when the man still did not appear, Arnau crossed to the door, cocking his head and listened carefully.
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