Daughter of War

by S. J. A. Turney

  Arnau sighed. He’d hardly expected an easy time here, but the more the German explained, the more tired the young man felt just thinking about it all.

  ‘The nones service follows, after which all those who wield a sword take to the courtyard or the fields in training. There is no set training regime. Each man is expected to keep himself at the peak of fitness and skill, though it is understood that squires will train with the full brothers, and often the other sergeants will join us. During that time the non-martial denizens will be preparing the refectory and the chapel and working in the kitchens. Our training time ends with nightfall and vespers, following which we meet for the evening meal. We are then given two hours of rest to pray, read or discuss matters with the other brothers and sisters until compline, following which we will often partake of wine before retiring for the night.’

  ‘A busy routine,’ Arnau said, with feeling.

  Brother Lütolf frowned as though Arnau had said something idiotic. ‘This is a quiet routine. Sometimes there will be extra work or visits from the mother house, and then we need to fit our daily routine around new tasks. And there are periodic times of campaigning when the king calls upon us to aid him in the south. Although we lie within the demesne of the Crown of Aragon, and it is currently the Castilian monarch who locks horns with Ya‘qūb al-Manṣūr, rarely does a season pass without a call to support the king’s men in some minor clash with the Almohads. In the past three years I have looked upon the walls of Moorish Valencia five times while wearing another man’s blood as a shroud. A time of campaigning is arduous, for each day wears on the body and soul, and a man is additionally weighed down by the knowledge that upon his return to the preceptory there will be weeks of work to catch up on.’

  Arnau sighed again and realised that the German was watching him in an appraising manner. He straightened.

  ‘You, I think, are not made for this life,’ Lütolf said flatly.

  ‘Try my sword at practice, Brother, and I shall prove that to be an error of judgement.’

  Lütolf said nothing in answer, but moved on, kicking his horse’s flanks into movement once more. They spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon touring the mill and the lands, as far as the village. Arnau was relieved to be offered samples of the foods grown on the farms and even a cup of heavy wine in the winery, so the fact that they missed the midday meal did not distress him too much, and the regular small morsels mollified his grumbling stomach.

  In the mid-afternoon, they paused by a copse of trees half a mile from the preceptory and Lütolf dismounted, gesturing for Arnau to do the same.

  ‘You are skilled with one of these?’ he asked, unhooking his sheathed sword from behind the saddle and drawing it. Arnau shrugged. ‘A mace is my weapon of choice, but yes, I can wield a sword.’

  The German nodded as though he were listening to a delusion or a lie. He flicked the sword into the air and caught it by the blade just beneath the crossbar, proffering it to Arnau, hilt first.

  ‘Brother?’

  ‘Take it. Show me.’

  ‘Swinging wildly at the air is going to prove nothing,’ Arnau said.

  ‘Later you can cross swords with me, and then we will see. For now, show me your form.’

  Arnau huffed. ‘No amount of training with lunges and swipes makes a grand difference in war, Brother Lütolf. You know that. Then it is about strength, will and determination. Any man can swing a blade or stab with it. It is the willingness to put that point through a man’s gullet that separates a warrior from a dancer.’

  ‘It is much as you say,’ agreed the German, ‘but gaining that strength and a certain level of accuracy is a matter of rote drilling and perseverance. And practice brings speed and reaction too. A man becomes a master of the blade by using it as often as possible in whatever circumstances he can. Show me.’

  Feeling rather foolish, Arnau gripped the sword and began to leap about in the dry dust, thrusting and swinging, stabbing and slashing. Lütolf stood to the side, inscrutable, watching every flick of the blade and twitch of muscle.

  ‘You fight like a girl wielding a mop,’ the man said eventually in hard tones, as though stating fact rather than denigrating a brother. Arnau bridled.

  ‘If you would care to cross swords properly with me, I will give you a scar to suggest otherwise.’

  Lütolf’s eyes narrowed. ‘We are forbidden from causing deliberate injury during training. In fact, any mishap is brought to the preceptrix’s attention and she can be very… fearsome. All training should be carried out carefully. Later, you can show me that you handle a mace better than you do a blade and I will try not to be quite so disappointed.’

  Arnau felt his lip twitching as the German took back his sword and sheathed it before mounting once more. They rode back to the preceptory in uncomfortable silence. There, Lütolf announced that he had shown Arnau everything of import for a first day, and that Arnau had shown him everything he needed too. The German went off with his nose in the air and Arnau went to prepare for vespers, grumbling under his breath about miserable bastards from the north.

  After vespers, they congregated for the evening meal. Arnau had hoped to speak to Titborga, but it seemed that she was to sit with the women, and had been singled out for conversation by the preceptrix. Instead, as they sat down to their repast, Arnau found himself sitting next to Ramon’s squire, Mateu, and the previously unseen Miquel, who ran the mill. They talked of a squire’s duties, of the mill and its workings, the estate and the preceptory in general. When Arnau, perhaps unwisely, began to talk about his German knight master, grumbling about the man’s manners, the other two fell silent and turned away from the conversation.

  The meal done with, Arnau was about to wander off and find someone to complain at, when Mateu located him in the courtyard with a request that he present himself before the preceptrix in the chapter house. Worried that his attempted conversations about Lütolf had been overheard and disapproved of, he swallowed nervously as he attended upon the woman who ran this place with a fist of iron. His worry increased as he stepped through the door and bowed to find the German knight also in attendance.

  ‘I am concerned,’ Preceptrix Ermengarda said by way of introduction. ‘Carles rode north to Barberà with the documents of grants and acceptance for the mother house at dawn. He has now been gone from the preceptory for sixteen hours, and Barberà is less than fifteen miles from here. While there is always the possibility that he has been given some cause for delay by the preceptor at Barberà, I consider that unlikely. Carles had told me in no uncertain terms that he would return in time for vespers, and even riding slowly and allowing for time spent at Barberà lodging the documents, he should have arrived by now.’

  Frowning, Arnau glanced across at Lütolf. There was none of the usual arrogant aloofness about the German now, just a brow furrowed in concern. Lütolf apparently thought this unlikely too.

  ‘Don your armour and gather your swords. Ride north,’ the preceptrix said. ‘I realise that it is dark, but find out what has happened to Carles and return safely.’

  The German brother bowed from the waist and gestured to Arnau, marching from the chapter house. The young man dithered for only a moment, concerned at the worried expression of Sister Ermengarda, before following.

  North. Back towards the farm where they’d fled della Cadeneta’s men. Somehow, he thought, nothing good will come of this.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘How can we trace where he went?’ Arnau said breathlessly as they turned from the dusty track that led to the preceptory and onto the wider metalled surface of the north–south route. ‘It has been dry for weeks and the road surface is hard. He’ll have left no tracks.’

  ‘We establish where he did not go,’ Lütolf replied, as though stating the obvious

  ‘What?’

  ‘If Carles remained on the road, then he will have reached Barberà, and when we get there we will either find him or discover the reason for the delay. If he
did not remain on the road, then we should be able to identify where he left it.’

  ‘I still don’t understand. This is a main road. Plenty of people could have moved off the road.’

  ‘Use that mind,’ snapped Lütolf, tapping his forehead. ‘We are looking for tracks that veer off the road from the southern direction. They need to be fresh, not more than a few hours old. They will be horse tracks, and only one animal. It will be shod. There cannot be many such tracks. I would wager that if we find them we find Carles.’

  ‘Or some farmer in his field.’

  ‘Farmers are not wealthy enough to shoe horses. The hoof prints will be different.’

  ‘It’s dark,’ Arnau pointed out with a sweep of his arm.’

  ‘The moonlight is bright. Use your eyes and trust in the Lord.’

  Arnau fell silent. In truth the moonlight was almost a silvery reflection of a summer’s day and his gaze dropped to the dusty turf beside the road. Still, he would have to be very lucky to spot hoof prints under these conditions.

  ‘This is a fool’s errand,’ he grumbled as the German brother moved to the far side of the road and walked slowly north, peering down at the ground. Arnau mirrored the action on his side and slowly, at a snail’s pace, they moved north.

  ‘The preceptrix commanded us to find Carles,’ Lütolf snarled. ‘A prime tenet of our order is obedience. Blessed Saint Bernard’s forty-first rule: “No brother should fight or rest according to his own will, but according to the orders of the master, to whom all should submit.” The preceptrix orders us. We obey without argument or question. You are too argumentative. I would rather no squire than a troublesome one.’

  ‘A situation that would suit me fine,’ barked Arnau in reply.

  They fell into a sullen silence, moving slowly north, eyes never leaving the verge, taking in every furrow and burrow as they went. Finally, the hush becoming so oppressive that Arnau could feel it seeping into him and chilling his bones, he cleared his throat.

  ‘Why are you set against me so, Brother Lütolf?’

  The German replied swiftly, without even looking up. ‘Because you committed to the order on a whim, with little or no contemplation. I do not trust that. I do not trust your motives. I fear you are running from the world and that there is no reason you are with us other than that you simply have nowhere better to be. Such a man is not made for the Poor Knights of Christ. The order demands utter commitment.’

  Arnau felt the silence fall once more. He found he could not reply, for the brother had come so close to the mark it had fired an arrow of guilt into his soul. In the ensuing quiet, he found himself wondering, not for the first time, what brought a man from the cold highlands of Germany to the parched land of Iberia. Yes, members of the order could be found moving between monasteries, but still there had to be a reason for it, and the notion dug at Arnau.

  Finally, Lütolf spoke again, this time in slightly more forgiving tones. ‘Every man has his reason for retreating from the world. Few do so purely for the love of the Church and of monastic solitude. Few do so for the joy of protecting the good from the wicked. There are tarnished souls even among the order. Some come to us seeking redemption, such as Brother Ramon. Some come to forget, such as Brother Balthesar. Neither came to Rourell the true stuff of the order, but both have put aside their past and given over their heart and soul to God and the cause. Thus I agreed in convent to accept your application, for every man deserves a chance to prove himself. But you are not filling me with confidence thus far, and until you do so I will continue to doubt your motives. Now look at the grass and find me the tracks Carles left.’

  Arnau went back to examining the ground, turning over this new information in his mind. The more he thought on what the German had said the more he felt a strange surge of emotion. Partly guilt, yes, but also determination. When Arnau de Vallbona took an oath, he kept it. He had taken such an oath to look after his father when his mother had died and, though the old man slowly drank himself into the tomb, he had done so with a son trying to support him and turn him from that path all his last days. Arnau had then taken another oath, in place of his father, of fealty to Santa Coloma, and had been Lord Berenguer’s man to the end. He had taken an oath to the Lady Titborga and had clung to that oath through all the dangers of the past week, and that had in turn brought him to a new oath. An oath not just to the preceptrix and the brothers and sisters of Rourell, but an oath to God above. He had not yet been inducted in ceremony, but he was living the life now of a Templar, dressed as a Templar, riding through the night on an impossible mission for the Temple. He would honour his oath for, whatever his reason for blurting out his desire to join them, he loved and trusted the Lord, and the more he thought about it, the more it seemed that this path was the result of divine providence.

  Arnau de Vallbona was a Templar now.

  The road continued north, the wide farmland of Rourell stretching off east towards the Francoli River, the low, flat, dry fields providing a clear view in the argent moonlight. To the far side, where the German moved with head constantly bowed as though in prayer, a grove of olive trees spread out towards the line of the hills.

  Arnau shuddered at the thought of those hills. The Prades range, harbouring the village of Cadeneta.

  Just half a mile north of the Rourell preceptory road, he spotted the river coiling back towards them, the Francoli then running parallel with their route, rarely more than two or three hundred yards from the road. They ploughed on slowly, eyes locked on the verges, ever seeking a sign that reason said they would never find. Less than a mile further north, they reached the bridge that crossed the river and passed across it. Arnau was letting his eyes rest for a moment, looking up in the knowledge that there was momentarily no verge, when Lütolf let out a huff of satisfaction.

  ‘He came this far. We have missed nothing yet.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ Arnau asked, his eyes dropping again and scouring the road. At the far side of the bridge, a farmer’s track led off and the mud from his fields had been thrown across the road. Many hoof prints and wheel ruts carved a path through the muck, and it took Arnau a moment to spot them: the tracks of a single well-shod horse, quite fresh, through the midst of it. He sat back in the saddle, breathing heavily. Lütolf had been right. Perhaps it was possible.

  They returned to their task, moving slowly, ever watchful.

  Something occurred suddenly to Arnau, and his gaze came up, scouring the land just beyond the verge. His eyes fell upon a small stand of trees some distance away and confirmed his suspicion. This was where he and the ladies had joined the road yesterday, having crossed the farmland from their caravan.

  Cadeneta in the hills. The farm. A missing Templar. Arnau felt a frisson creep across him, making the hairs on his arms stand proud.

  ‘I have a feeling.’

  The German turned a frown upon him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know quite yet. Just… a feeling.’ He slowed his horse and then came to a halt. Lütolf did the same, still watching Arnau with interest.

  ‘There. That gateway. That’s where my lady de Santa Coloma and I, and Maria too, reached the road. Half a mile across those fields is the farm where we were staying with the captain and his men. This is too much of a coincidence.’

  The German nodded. ‘Cadeneta is seven miles west of here. Not far.’

  Arnau’s eyes scoured the landscape. He felt his lips moving in prayer. He hadn’t realised he was doing it, but was already beseeching the Lord to help him to the best possible outcome: that his suspicions were wrong or unfounded, though he was now filled with a leaden certainty. Carles had not gone further than the farm. Arnau knew it. And he knew why.

  There.

  It was chance. Pure chance. Or was it the working of the Lord?

  Something gleamed for just a moment amid the shadowy undergrowth and low trees at the edge of the farmland. Something metallic. A single moment of reflected moonlight between the leaves, and then lost in
the darkness once more.

  Arnau felt a shiver take him, and pointed to the trees.

  ‘There.’

  Lütolf did not indulge in questions, just followed Arnau as he left the road and walked his horse down across the verge and through the grass towards those trees. He drew his sword, heard the rasp as the German did the same.

  The evidence was a small thing in the end. It could have been anyone’s knife. A gleaming blade lying in the grass in the shadows of the trees that had for one brief moment caught a stray moonbeam and betrayed its presence to Arnau. People lost knives. And certainly there was no identifying mark on a Templar’s blade. But there was no doubt in Arnau’s mind, and he slid from the saddle, landing with a metallic shush of mail, and crept towards the knife.

  Sure enough, there were tracks in the mud here. Not hooves, shod or unshod, but tracks that told their own unpleasant tale. Two booted men, dragging something that had left twin furrows in the mud between the grass. He picked up the knife. It was clean.