The Last Templar

by Michael Jecks

  He turned and looked at Black, who shot him the faintest of grins before whirling and cantering back to the rest of the men.

  “We’ve got them! They’re just ahead now, maybe a mile or two away. They just went over the top of the next hill.”

  There was a sensation of suppressed excitement, a flush to the faces of all of the men in the posse as his words sank in, then a confused muttering.

  “Shut up‘ said Tanner, and waited for silence. ”John? What do you want us to do?“

  “We’ll keep tracking them for now. They don’t seem to be taking any care. I’ll go on ahead with another tracker and we’ll keep as close as we can. You all come on behind.” He looked up at the sky with a slight wrinkling of his brow, then looked at the sun over to the west. Simon saw that it was low in the sky and looked swollen and red; Damn! It would soon be dark! Black seemed to consider for a moment, then glanced at Simon and Tanner. “It’s getting late. They’ll be bound to camp soon. I think we’d better follow them until they do, then attack them when they’ve relaxed and started to eat, as soon as—‘

  Tanner held up his hand. “It’d be better if we held off until dawn. Have you ever tried to attack a group of armed men at night? I have. It’s too easy to have everything go wrong, it’ll be better to get our sleep and attack when we’re all fresh.”

  “What if they leave in the night? We could lose them and…‘ said Simon, dismayed at the thought of leaving them to their own devices.

  “They’ll not move overnight, not after leaving these tracks all over the moors. They’re obviously not worried about being followed. No, we’ll be better off if we get some sleep tonight and attack them with the dawn tomorrow.”

  Simon looked at Black, perplexed. The hunter’s eyes dropped for a moment while he considered, but when they came up again, he nodded. “Yes, he’s right. You all follow on slowly, me and Fasten’ll go after them now, and when they’ve bedded down for the night we’ll come back and find you. Fasten? Oh, there you are. Come on, let’s find them, then.” He jerked his horse’s head around and rode off, Fasten behind. As the rest watched, the two men split up, Black riding to the left of the trail, Fasten to the right, and cantered easily down from the copse, then up the other side.

  Sighing, Simon said, “Come on, then. Let’s get on.”

  It was long after dark when they found a place to rest, a slight bowl in the top of a hill, just out of the wind and away from the direction the trail bastons were taking. There was no wood, not even twigs, to burn this high up, and the men had to huddle in the rough shelter and shiver in the chill of the evening.

  Tanner came over as soon as Simon and Hugh had settled after seeing to their horses, and joined them as they crouched under bushes. They shared some meat and bread and drank a little water, all remaining silent in their tension, the action of the following morning lying heavy on their minds.

  “Urn, Stephen,” said Simon after they had all finished their meal. “You’ve been involved in fights before, how, er… how do you think it’ll go tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know,” said Tanner reflectively. “I’ve been in some fights where we’ve won easily when we shouldn’t‘ve, and others where we lost when we should’ve won. It depends on them, really. The posse is big enough, we should have two men to each one of theirs. But if they’re trained in war, they can still win. I don’t know.”

  Simon glanced at the men all around, peering at them as he tried to remember which of them had been in a battle before. To his knowledge at least eight had seen action. Only eight? Out of all the men they only had eight who had seen a battle before? He bit his lip in sudden nervousness. “Did you see how many were there in the band?”

  “I didn’t really see, no. I counted seven, but there may have been others already over the brow of the hill,” said Tanner, as if thinking out loud, but when he caught the expression on Simon’s face, he grinned and slapped the bailiff’s leg. “Don’t worry, bailiff! These men may be used to lulling farmers like Brewer, or monks, but I’ll wager we’ll be a surprise to them! Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough when Black comes back.”

  As he said that, there came the sound of a horse neighing from nearby, and as they scrambled to their feet, drawing their swords, they heard the imperturbable voice of the hunter.

  “Fine thing, isn’t it, to go and do a job and then be spitted by your own friends when you get back home again! Where’s Tanner?”

  “Over here, John. I’m with the bailiff,” called Tanner, somewhat shamefacedly as he quickly shoved his sword back in its scabbard, looking embarrassed and annoyed with himself that he could have been so easily alarmed. They all sat down again and waited while the hunter saw to his horse before ambling over to them.

  “Right, we followed them to their camp. It’s a big dip in the top of a hill, about two miles from here, and it looks like they’re settled down for the night.” He paused as Fasten came up to join them. “I was just telling them about the camp. Anyway, it’s in a big dip, and it’s almost surrounded by rocks and a rampart. They’ve lit fires and they’re all sitting round and drinking. It looks like they’ve got beer from somewhere, probably the merchants, I suppose, so I don’t think they’ll be up early tomorrow. We went around their camp, anyway, walked all round, and they don’t seem to have put guards out, so I think we shouldn’t have any problems.”

  “How many are there, John?” asked Tanner.

  “We counted nine,” said Black. He hesitated, then turned and looked steadily at Simon. “And one looks like a knight, all dressed in mail.”

  It was still as black as midnight when Simon felt the kick at his ankles, and he grunted and swore as he sat up, blearily rubbing at his eyes, trying to clear them as if the darkness was inside his head. It took him some time to wake fully, even when at home. Now, with the chill deep in his marrow from sleeping outside too often in the cold and damp, he felt miserable, as if he would never be able to get warm again. Once more, with a rueful grin, he thought of his bed at Sandford, which would still be warm and comfortable with Margaret lying in it, like a sanctuary from the wind and rain of the world. Shaking his head muzzily, he looked up with irritation as the memory of warmth and his wife fled, and looked around the camp, taking stock. Tanner and Black were walking around, kicking into life the huddled figures of still sleeping men. Those already up were seeing to their weapons, cleaning sword blades and sharpening daggers, swinging hammers and clubs in an effort to free up the muscles that had seized overnight or stayed too tense.

  It was a weird sight, almost eery, he thought to himself, all these men in the gloom and darkness, half-obscured by the deeper blackness of the rocks behind them as they swung their arms and weapons in strange patterns, the metal of the axe heads sometimes showing as a lighter grey shimmer against the background. It was as if they were in a different world. The men were quiet, hardly saying a word to each other; there was only the occasional hint of activity in the sound of a knife being rubbed against a stone, the whispy gleam of a hammer being whirled, it felt as if he was watching an army of ghosts, and with that thought he gave an involuntary shiver -how many of these men would be ghosts later in the day?

  Putting the thought out of his mind, he stood quickly and went to help with the horses. As he walked past, a few of the men looked up; some grunted, grinning, but most simply nodded at him. By the time he had found and saddled his own horse most of the men were up and moving. Black and Tanner appeared, talking quietly, coming towards him from out of the gloom, and they stopped when they came close.

  “John here thinks we can ride straight into the camp,” said Tanner. “It’s enough of a natural stockade to keep them in when we enter, and hopefully, if we re quick, we can get in and catch them before they know what’s happening.”

  “Yes, we should be able to. There only seems to be the one entrance, like a gate it is, in the south side.”

  “So we’ll have to ride round their camp?” asked Simon. “Won’t they hear us?”

/>   “No,” said Black. “The ground is soft all over there, if we go slowly we should be safe.”

  Simon looked from one to the other. “Should we ride in? Why not leave the horses outside and rush in on foot? There may not be space to ride inside their camp, they may be able to pull us off the horses. Wouldn’t it be safer to rush them on foot?”

  They looked at each other, then Tanner nodded. “Yes. Alright, but I think we ought to keep some of our men on horses outside, so that they can ride in if things go badly for us.” Simon agreed, finished tightening his saddle, and swung up onto the horse.

  When Black and Tanner were also mounted they rode to the middle of the camp and Tanner explained what he wanted the men to do. He had brought five men with him, the remains of the original posse hunting the abbot’s killer, and Simon and Black had brought seventeen, so all told they were twenty-one now, after losing three at the scene of the travellers’ murder and another one to take back the young girl’s body.

  As they all grouped, Tanner explained his plan. He wanted sixteen men to enter the camp and the remaining five to stay with the horses - if the fight went against them, these men could come in on horseback as a reserve and work as cavalry, knocking the trail bastons to the ground so that they could be bound. They wanted to catch as many as possible, he said. No matter what the posse thought of them, they deserved a trail. His voice was stern and hard as he spoke, as if he too did not care too much for their lives, as if he wanted to be able to kill them all, but he stuck to the plan they had agreed. He allocated the men to their places while they were all mounted and led them south to the trail. Here Fasten moved up to join him and they led the way along the trail together.

  Even in the pitch darkness, Simon could see that the ground was open here. Now and then he could just make out the stunted shape of a tortured tree standing on the skyline, looking like the fossilised skeleton of an ancient creature as it stood on the wind-swept moor, but for the most part there was nothing to see, nothing but the continual sweep of the plains as they rose softly to the hills.

  The two men in the lead rode at some distance apart, with the main group following in a bunch. There was no talking now, all the men were wound taut, their nerves on edge as they listened for the slightest sound over the creaking of leather and the metallic tinkle of harness. Occasionally there was a louder noise as someone knocked a weapon against another, swiftly followed by a curse, but apart from this they made no noise as they passed.

  They moved down the side of the hill where they had made camp, then followed a brook that wound gently between the hills, the riders keeping their mounts from the water to prevent any noise, making sure their horses kept to the soft earth at the banks. It was ghostly here, with a vague grey glow just beginning to light the horizon to the east. There was no sound to distract the men, no screech of an owl or yap of a fox, just the muted gurgle of the stream and the squeak and jingle of the harnesses.

  When they had gone just beyond the curve of a hill, Black turned his horse, leaving Fasten standing still out in front, and cantered back to the main body.

  “We’re only half a mile from the camp now, it’s at the top of that hill. Leave your horses here, we’ll go ahead on foot.”

  Slowly the men dismounted and handed their reins to the men who would hold the horses, then Tanner drew his sword and showed his teeth in a snarl of animal delight. “Come on, then.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Black led them all up the hill, moving slowly and carefully in the faint luminosity of the brightening dawn, his sword a faint grey glimmer against the darker colours around.

  Simon felt lightheaded and his chest seemed tight as he toiled slowly behind the hunter. He had a kind of nervous, almost fearful, trepidation at the thought of the fight to come, but step by step he found that it was becoming smothered by his anger and disgust at what these men had done, killing and raping in his shire. He gritted his teeth and carried on. His stomach felt empty, his muscles frozen, and his nerves were all on edge at the thought of fighting, but he slowly became aware of a gleeful expectancy. After all, these men would hardly surrender without a fight, they were trail bastons; they would know that after a trial all they could expect would be the noose. They must fight to the death, expecting no quarter, if they were given the chance. The posse must make sure they had no chance.

  They slowly walked on, and then, when they were halfway up the hill, Black held out his hand stiffly in warning and the men all froze into immobility. Simon felt his bowels turn to water as he looked up the hill and saw a figure standing up, high above them, near a tree. If he saw the posse, he could give the alarm - they would lose the chance of surprising the outlaws. The figure seemed to be stationary for a while, then turned and disappeared, and Simon realised with a quick breath of relief that he must have been urinating. The hand slowly drifted away and they moved off again, their tension and excitement growing with every step.

  There was a gully here, a steep-sided cleft in the hillside, with a small trickle of water at the bottom, and Black led them up it. The sides appeared almost to be cliffs, tall and grey, looming up on either side, with a slight, lighter greyness above them where the sky hurried towards dawn. They moved slowly and cautiously, trying to avoid the rocks that lay strewn all around as if intentionally placed to catch an unwary blade and give warning, pausing every now arid then to listen before continuing.

  It was a miserable journey, one that Simon would never forget. They clambered over rocks and mud, trying to keep out of the water, trying to keep their weapons from knocking against the stone of the walls, walking hunched to prevent their being seen, but trying to move quickly so that they could get to the camp before dawn broke and maintain the surprise of their attack. Simon found his mind wandering as though it wanted to avoid thinking about the skirmish ahead, as though it wanted to ignore the danger they were walking into, and by ignoring it make it disappear. He found himself thinking about Lydford and his new role, thinking about his wife and daughter and how they would enjoy the life at the castle deep in the moors.

  But then, with a feeling of near relief, he saw the hand come up again and realised that they were almost at the top of the gully. Up ahead he could see the lighter grey of the sky, outlining the top of the hill itself. Simon frowned as he peered ahead. He could see no sign of the trail bastons, no smoke from a fire, no movement. There seemed to be no one near, only the posse itself, and the only sounds he could hear were the heavy breathing of the men behind him and the blood hammering in his ears.

  Black moved off softly and disappeared, a darker smudge against the horizon for an instant, then gone. Simon and the men stayed where they were and waited. It seemed like an hour before the hunter came back, but it could only have been a few minutes, and as he stood at the top of the gully he seemed to pause before waving them on.

  Simon quickly moved up to the top of the gully and stood beside Black as the others came out. When they were all out and waiting, the hunter led them swiftly up, along a track in the grass, to a mound at the top of the hill which stood slightly proud of the ground all round like a wall. He flattened himself against it and listened, then sidled along, motioning the others to do the same. At last, Simon heard a sound. It was a horse whinnying from the other side of the earthwork, and as he heard it he gripped his sword more tightly as he followed the hunter.

  Dawn was a glow in the east now, showing the clouds distinctly and lighting their way as they followed the side of the wall. Apart from the horse there was no sound, nothing apart from their soft footsteps on the grass. There was not even a breeze. His tension mounting, Simon saw the hand signal once more. This time, he was sure, would be the last. They were almost at the entrance now, a darker mark against the grey of the earthen wall. He saw Black turn quickly and glance at the men behind, then he seemed to lean forward and peer through to the camp before motioning urgently. Then he was gone.

  Simon took a deep breath, muttered a quick prayer, and darted after him.


  When he thought back on the mad scramble of the fight later, it seemed that the next few minutes were a discordant melee of disjointed and seemingly disconnected events as the men ran silently into the camp and tried to capture the trail bastons. It was as if the men were all somehow tied individually to their own brief tableaux with their enemies, each small battle with its own participants, each separate and unique, but each linked one to another to create the whole. It seemed to Simon, when he thought about it, that it was like a tapestry. A tapestry composed of a number of individual threads that combined to build the picture, and, like a tapestry, the picture could only be discerned when the whole was viewed together.

  But for Simon, as he ran full pelt into the camp, the battle was pure confusion. There seemed to be no sense or coherence in the small struggling groups of men and the only thought in his mind was that they must stop the outlaws and prevent any further attacks.

  Just as they came in through the gap in the rampart, he caught a glimpse of Black. He had almost run into a man who was about to wander outside, a young man who was yawning and stretching as he walked, only to stop, dumbfounded, at the sight of the posse rushing in. He seemed too surprised to make a sound. Without pausing in his stride, the hunter thumped him in the belly with a balled fist and he fell with a gasp of pain, his hands clutched to his stomach. Another man was crouching over the embers of the fire, his hands outstretched over the ashes to warm, and Black made for him as he stared at his attacker in stupefaction. But then he seemed to realise his danger and shouted, and all at once the camp seemed to stir. Simon was behind Black, and ran towards the farthest sleeping figure, but as he came close, the man stirred and rose, snatched up a club, and danced lightly away from Simon’s first hasty thrust.