The Last Templar aktm-1

by Michael Jecks

  “It is Hubert, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, bailiff, I’m Hubert. I work for Peter Clifford and he sent me to fetch you as soon as he heard about it…”

  “What is it, then? Tell me your message.”

  “Oh, sir, it’s horrible! A man came to us in the early morning – Black, the hunter – he lives over that way himself, and it seems there was a fire there last night, well into the early hours, over at Harold Brewer’s house. His place is out on the edge of Blackway, down south of Crediton. Black said that the men tried to put out the fire, but they couldn’t even get close for some time because it was too hot.”

  “Well? Why should I be told?”

  “Because Brewer – the man that lives there – his body was seen inside.”

  Chapter Three

  It was well past noon when he arrived at the small village of Blackway, some seven miles to the south and West of Crediton. There had seemed little need to hurry on the way, there were bound to be many people all around – not just the priest but all the villagers and, no doubt, quite a few others. Whenever there was a disaster, Simon was amazed by the speed demonstrated by the people who came to gawp and stare at another man’s personal misfortune, whether it was caused by an accident or by the maliciousness of a neighbour.

  The signs were obvious from a long way distant. As he came up to the old Weatherby Cross, where the road from Crediton was cut by the Moretonhampstead track that led down to Exeter, it became clear he was not the first person to pass there that day. At the best of times the track was rutted and worn, being a popular route for travellers heading down to the ports on the coast. Now, in the early afternoon, it was even worse than normal.

  Usually the trodden dirt, with the deep ruts caused by the wheels of the carts, was solid enough, but now, after so many months of rain, it was a morass. The mud clutched at his horse’s hoofs, sucking and belching as the animal pulled his legs free of the red-brown earth, trying to carry on. Only the passage of a large number of people could have so quickly destroyed the fragile surface. Cursing under his breath, Simon steered his horse over to the verge, where the grass promised solidity and an opportunity to continue less encumbered. In this way, stepping carefully, they made their slow and painful progress to the hamlet.

  Blackway was a tiny village that lay straddling the road south as if it had fallen there, dropped like a disregarded plaything by one of the ancient race of giants that was supposed to have inhabited the area before man arrived. It was a cluster of houses lying on either side of the road, not modern longhouses like Simon’s with their timber reinforcement, but old cob, or clunch, hovels. The bailiff could remember the place distinctly – he had been there only recently while on his way to the coast to visit a merchant on his lord’s business – and he tried, as he rode, to recall the house of Harold Brewer.

  The village had some seven or eight properties, one inn and a tiny church, which relied on a chaplain appointed by Peter Clifford, who was nominally the rector. As Simon turned his thoughts back to the last time he had ridden through, he could clearly bring to mind the general layout. The hunter, John Black, had the first cottage on the right, a simple house with one large room like all the others, except that it was smaller than most. Black lived as a hunter, catching and killing his own food and receiving pay for destroying the wolves and other pests in the area. He was known for his ability to track animals for miles over the barren waste of the moors, and when the de Courtenays were in the area they would often call upon his services to help them find their quarry. With this life style he had little or no need for a large house, just a place big enough for his wife and their two children.

  Beyond his house was the inn, the first of the large houses. Simon did not know who lived there, but he believed that it had been owned by Brewer in the past.

  Then there were the main houses of the village, with Brewer’s place out at the southernmost edge, only one house lying farther, as he recalled. All of the houses surrounded the small area of common land, the road curving sharply round it like a meandering river – possibly because it followed the stream, the Blackwater, that gurgled down on its way to Dartmoor.

  At the northernmost tip of the vill, where Black’s house stood, the ground was thickly wooded. To the south the land opened to give views all the way to Dartmoor, and in the hamlet itself there was a cheerful balance between trees and open land. Most of the houses were to the west of the stream and the strips of fields lay to the east; an ancient clapper bridge led from one side to the other and also crossed the new sewer that led into the stream. It gave the vill a pleasant, rural aspect as Simon rode in from the north, although he was struck by the sight of the great trees that crowded in from the forest behind the houses. It appeared to him that they were almost threatening in the way that they towered over the human habitation.

  From a half mile away Simon could see the tall pillar of smoke that hung over the surrounding landscape, and he also became aware of the smell of burning, the stench increasing as he came closer to the village.

  It seemed outrageous that such a quiet and peaceful little hamlet should have been so violated by fire, but it was, as Simon knew only too well, a very common occurrence. The old houses did not have chimneys to direct smoke and sparks away from the thatch of the roofs, they relied on the height of the roof itself as protection. If they all had chimneys the number of cottage fires would reduce dramatically, because the sparks would alight on the external and damp thatch. As it was, the glittering motes that rose from the flames were carried up into the eaves, where they often lodged. Every once in a while they would make the dry interior thatch catch fire. And, when that happened, all the people inside could do was get out quickly and hope that water thrown at the roof would save the main part of the house.

  Riding up through the centre of the village, Simon could see that it had been too late for this place at least. To arrive at the house he had to ride past the inn, then follow the road round to the left as it lazily swung down towards the moors. As he followed the road through the village and turned to face south, the house became visible and he paused, motionless, as he took in the sight that met his shocked gaze.

  The old building was almost completely destroyed. The roof was gone; presumably it had fallen in when the flames got too hot, or so he supposed. The wall at the side was still visible, but the far end of the house, the end farthest from the road, had collapsed, and taken down a large section of the side wall with it. Even Simon, who knew little about building, could see that the damage was irreparable.

  He kicked his horse into a slow amble and continued up to the house. All around lay a covering of soot, lying surprisingly thickly underfoot. In Simon’s experience even the hottest fires produced far less than this, and he found himself pensively considering the ground as he rode forward, wondering what could have produced so heavy a layer, until he heard his voice called. Looking up, he saw his old friend Peter Clifford standing with a small group, not far from what had been the main door.

  Peter was standing and talking with some of the local men, one of whom Simon recognised immediately as the hunter, Black. The others he had not met before, he thought, and assumed they must be locals to the hamlet. Judging by the number of men walking all over the area, this made them fairly unique: the tiny hamlet could not have contained even half of the people gawping and staring at the wrecked building.

  To Simon’s disgust, there was almost a fair-time atmosphere in the little village, as if the fire had been staged as an inaugural celebration, a cheery blaze to begin festivities. There were people of all sorts standing and staring at the destroyed house, fascinated by the sight of the remaining walls standing up like the fangs of a massive beast. He could see a family he knew from Crediton, a merchant and his wife with their young son, pointing and talking while their son giggled and played, as if this was only another place designed for him to enjoy himself and not the scene of a recent death. Snorting in disgust, Simon dismounted and strode over to the
priest.

  “Afternoon, Peter. What happened, then?”

  The rector of Crediton church was a slim and ascetic man in his late forties. He was dressed informally in a light tunic that came down to his knees, with warm woollen leggings underneath. His dark eyes glittered with intelligence in his pale face, his skin soft and light from the hours spent indoors reading and writing. The hair that Simon remembered being a light red was a faded straw colour now and the face was worn, though not by troubles – the lines that creased it were caused not by pain and fear but by too much laughter and enjoyment of life. The lines at the sides of his eyes, deep cracks of crow’s feet, all came from joy. Now they wrinkled into furrows in his pleasure at seeing his friend again.

  “Simon!” He held out his hand. “It’s good to see you. Come, you know why you were asked here, I hope?”

  The bailiff nodded. “I believe there was a man inside there when it went up?”

  “Yes,” – this was John Black, the hunter – “I saw the fire when I came back from my work last night. The place was well in flames already then.”

  He stood firmly, a small and compact man, confident and self-assured. The wiry frame of his body looked as if it could chase an animal from one end of the kingdom to the other on foot, and the litheness of his movements reminded Simon of a wolf, as if in hunting the wild creatures a little of their ways had rubbed off and been absorbed by him. His face was square, flat and stolid, as uncompromising as a slab of granite, and his eyes gleamed darkly. Above thick eyebrows that formed a continuous line across his brow his hair was a deep black, almost raven, and hung in lank wings around his serious face.

  “Why did you think Brewer was inside?” Simon asked.

  “I didn’t at first. I thought he could be somewhere else. But when we started to try to put the fire out, when we could see inside, we saw the body. It’s still on his bed.”

  Involuntarily, Simon glanced over at the building, as if almost expecting to see a figure rise from it. He frowned at his superstitious fancy and concentrated again on the evidence of the hunter.

  “As soon as I saw that, I told the others to carry on with putting out the flames, and I went straight over to get the rector.”

  Simon nodded absently and looked at the priest. “Yes, John arrived just after dawn, and when I had heard his tale I sent Hubert to fetch you. I came straight here to see if I could help. By the time we arrived the flames were out. We were waiting for the building to cool before going inside to get the poor man’s body out.”

  “How long before we can go in, do you think?” said Simon, peering back at the wreckage.

  Black turned to follow his gaze. “I reckon it’ll be a little longer. One man’s dead – there’s no need to risk any more lives to get his corpse. We might as well leave it until we’re sure it’s safe.”

  Nodding again, Simon started walking towards the house to have a closer look. The soot and ashes under his feet seemed soft and yielding, not hard and crisp like the ashes in his fire at home. What could have produced such snowy-soft residue? There were several people standing and gawping nearer the walls, and Simon had to push some out of his way, glaring at them when they murmured angrily. Ignoring their complaints, he walked up to the front door and peered inside.

  The door was a charred and broken mess, hanging haphazardly from its bottom hinge. Inside, the rubble was still very hot; he could feel the glowing embers warming his face, as hot as summer sunshine. At first it was difficult to make out anything much, the inside seemed to be a mass of grey or black, with different shades all around, but with nothing to differentiate one pile from another. The timbers of the roof must have collapsed brutally, he thought. If someone was underneath, there was no chance of surviving that huge weight when it fell in. He could see the massive beam lying where it had fallen across the centre of the floor, one end still supported by the wall, the other on the ground. Suddenly, before he could avoid it, a sudden gust of wind blew air from the room into his face. Caught unawares, unprepared, so that it hardly even occurred to him to try to evade it, he inhaled the stench.

  The wind was filthy, carrying the noisome odour of death almost as a solid, physical mass but that was not all. It was not just the nasal reminder of the body inside that caught at the throat and made the eyes water, it was the burned faeces, the remains of the excreta of the livestock that had lived in the house with Brewer, the ordure of decades, that, now subjected to the fire, seemed to grasp at the lungs with invisible, poisoned tentacles of bitter virulence. Gagging, he turned and coughed, soon wretching miserably.

  He could take no more and, turning away, he stumbled, choking, back to where the others waited.

  “Foul, isn’t it?” said Black conversationally, grinning, as if passing comment on the weather.

  Still coughing, Simon gave him a baleful glare before hawking and spitting, trying to clear his throat of the viscous tang. It was while he was spitting with venom that Baldwin Furnshill arrived.

  He appeared on a huge grey horse, Edgar as usual just behind, and dressed in a white tunic with a small emblem on his breast, which even at this distance Simon could recognise as the de Courtenay badge. The knight had soft leather boots on his feet and seemed to have left his armour and weapons off for the day, although he still wore his misericord, his long, narrow-bladed knife named for its task in battle; the “mercy‘ was the blade used to finish off the wounded on the battlefield.

  Seeing the small knot of men, Baldwin kicked his horse and ambled over to them, his eyebrows raised a little as he saw a new coughing fit taking over the bailiff. The other men, he could see, were grim-faced and dour. Smiling at the priest and hunter, he nodded curtly, “Hallo, friends,” then turned a perplexed grin to the bailiff.

  “Have you come to gawp as well, Baldwin?” said Simon, squinting up at the knight bitterly. Was everyone from all around going to come and stare? It seemed depressing that even his new friend was exhibiting ghoulish tendencies.

  “No, Simon. We were out riding and wanted to make sure that the people here did not need help. This is my manor’s land.” His eyes glittered darkly, as though he was ready to take offence at Simon’s attitude, but then, as he peered at the scene and saw the people standing, pointing and chattering, he appeared to understand Simon’s feelings and gave a small dry smile. “I told you I wanted to take an interest in my villeins, didn’t I? How are the people that lived there?”

  “Only the one man, thank God! But as far as we know he’s still inside. It’s too hot to fetch him out yet,” said Peter. “A sad business, eh? Surely there’s enough misery for the poor without being burned to death in their beds?”

  “He wasn’t that poor,” said Black, a faintly ironic smile on his face, as Baldwin sprang lightly from his horse and threw his reins to Edgar.

  “No?” Peter seemed surprised, a slight frown on his face as he peered at the hunter. “He always seemed to be, or at least he always said he was.”

  “Ah, well, yes. He was always hard up when someone wanted money or alms, or at least he always said so. People here have wondered how he always seemed to be able to buy ale, how he could afford a full team of oxen, how he managed to buy his way out of his duties as a villein when he wanted.”

  “What do you mean?” said Simon. “Are you saying he was a thief or something?”

  The hunter gave a short laugh. “Oh, no. No, I don’t think so. No, I think that the old tale’s true. I think he made a lot of money when he fought in the wars five and twenty years ago and he’s been able to live off it since then. Story goes that he had a metal box full of gold under the floor in there,” he said, jerking a finger at the wrecked house. “You’ll find it hard to keep people away until the whole of the floor’s been dug up. And even then, if nothing’s found, people’ll start to dig up all his land.”

  Baldwin frowned at him. “We’ll have none of that here if I can help it. Simon, would you like me to have a man or two placed here to guard it until we can find out whether th
ere is any money here? We have to try to ensure that it’s saved for this man’s relatives. Do we know whether he had any relatives? I understand he was alone in the house as far as we can tell?” He looked at Peter, but the priest merely smiled and shrugged, gazing at the hunter. It seemed clear to the knight that he knew nothing about the dead man’s private life.

  “He was alone when I got here,” Black said, then drew the corners of his mouth down and stuck out his lower lip with the effort of memory. Frowning at his shoes, he said, “I do seem to remember someone saying as he had a son in Exeter. I can see if anyone else’s heard anything about a boy.”

  “Yes, do that, Black,” said Simon.

  The knight seemed to be staring at the hunter speculatively. “Were you the first man to see the fire?”

  “Yes, sir.” The hunter seemed ready to show the knight the proper level of respect, treating him as a superior where he had obviously looked upon the bailiff and the priest as equals – perhaps, Simon could not help thinking, because as a hunter he had his own rules and arcane skills. But a knight was different. A knight was no holder of secrets, no minister of hidden knowledge. A knight was the most secular creature known: what he wanted he would take. And, if asked by what authority he presumed to remove whatever he wanted, any knight, any member of the older Norman families, would draw his sword and say, “This is my right! With this sword my sires took this land. With this sword I shall take what I want. With this sword I shall keep what I desire.” Simon sighed and concentrated on the conversation.