No Law in the Land: (Knights Templar 27)

by Michael Jecks

  ‘You won’t escape from here.’

  ‘You think so? I’ll be out in a few days. This little vill won’t want to spend time holding me here for no money or purpose. No, I’ll soon be out, and when I am, the money would be useful. What do you say?’

  ‘I will leave this crucifix. I have no more use for it, I think,’ Mark said softly. He stepped forward and very carefully placed it on the altar cloth not far from Osbert. ‘It can stay here.’

  Baldwin was bitter, but there was no point in growing angry. The law was the law, and while inside a church a man was answerable to the ecclesiastical courts, not the king’s. It would be dangerous to try to prise Osbert from the sanctuary cloth where he sat now.

  ‘I will not have him dragged away, and that is final,’ the priest was saying, wagging a finger under Sir Richard’s nose.

  The coroner appeared to swell with anger, and if Simon and Baldwin had not been there to prevent him, he might have pushed past the priest to haul Osbert out.

  Mark stood at Father James’s side. ‘The good father is quite right, Sir Richard. There is nothing to be done for some days, as you know. Unless this man commits some new crime in the church, he must be allowed to remain here, safe and well.’

  ‘What sort of crime?’ Sir Richard asked hopefully.

  ‘Stealing the cross or some plate,’ Father James said acerbically. ‘And only a fool would do such a thing.’

  Mark nodded. He was feeling shaky, but he looked at Sir Baldwin, hoping he would understand. Mark had grown to respect the knight. ‘Oh! I left Brother Anselm’s crucifix on the altar. Father, would you go and fetch it for me? I feel unwell.’

  ‘Yes, my son. Of course.’

  Baldwin was watching him closely as the priest strode off into the church again. ‘Brother? Are you well? You look quite pale.’

  ‘I am well, I think. But I hope—’

  There came a cry from inside the church. ‘Brother? Are you sure you placed it here? I can see no sign of it.’

  Baldwin’s expression hardened. ‘Simon, I think that the sanctuary-seeker may have stolen a small crucifix. Sir Richard? If he has stolen something from the Church, that means he is not eligible for the Church’s protection, does it not?’

  ‘I will fetch him out!’ Simon said, and was about to move when a hand took his arm.

  ‘No, Father, please. Don’t.’ Edith had been at the gate, and had heard much of the conversation. Now she hurried across the grass and gripped his elbow.

  ‘Edith?’ Simon put a hand out to her and smiled. ‘Are you all right now?’

  She gave a weak smile in return, but the anxiety was still in her eyes. ‘That man, I saw him, Father. He was one from the castle, wasn’t he? I remember him.’

  ‘You’ll never have to worry about him again,’ Simon rasped, and was about to return to the church, but her hand caught him and held him back.

  ‘No! Please, Father, as you love me, don’t do it!’

  ‘What? After what he and his friends were going to do to you?’

  ‘They did nothing to me, though. Not yet. But if you go in there and kill him, they’ll have changed you, Father. I couldn’t bear that. Please, don’t go in.’

  Simon was about to draw away, but Baldwin was still at his side, and the knight sighed. ‘Simon, I know that this may seem foolish, but I agree with her. There are good reasons for avenging your child, I know, and you will probably think me the worst of advisers, but the fact is, it will not help you to kill this man. Nor will it make the experience any better for your daughter.’

  ‘Father, if you kill him, it will make me feel responsible for his death, and I don’t want that. I saw you fight once before, you remember? Against Wattere. And yet if he had not tried to rescue me, I might not be here now.’

  ‘He tried to rescue you?’ Simon said.

  ‘He came to my room and gave me a knife, and then he created the fire to distract the others so that I could try to get free. It was the merest bad luck that Osbert came to find me and all but cut poor Wattere in half when he found him there.’

  ‘This is avenging others too, Edith,’ Simon said.

  ‘No, Father. It isn’t. And I wouldn’t have his blood on my conscience. Not now, of all times.’

  She rested a hand on her belly as she spoke, and as he glanced at her uncomprehendingly, she gave him a weak smile.

  ‘Dear God, child! My little girl … You mean you’re …’

  ‘With child, yes.’

  Simon grinned, then gaped, and then in swift succession a frown, a slightly gormless smile, and a pale, fretful expression passed over his features. ‘You must need to sit, Edith. Please, come with me, and we’ll find a chamber that is comfortable. You must tell me all about it.’

  ‘Really, Father? I would have thought you knew enough, with two children.’

  ‘I didn’t … Dear Mother of God, this is marvellous! Wait until we see your mother,’ Simon said as he led her across the grounds towards Agnes’s house.

  Sir Richard grunted to himself. ‘So, what of this fellow, then?’

  ‘Leave him a while,’ Baldwin said. ‘There is no hurry.’

  Mark heard something, and shot a look inside the church. The priest was hurrying out. ‘Preposterous! He says you gave him the crucifix, Brother Mark. Did you say that he could have it?’

  ‘Of course not! I merely left it there.’ Mark could not add the words ‘by accident’.

  Sir Richard squared his shoulders. ‘In that case, Father James, I think he has broken the terms of his sanctuary. I have the right to bring him out immediately.’

  ‘I would beg that you leave him,’ Father James insisted. ‘I will not have blood spilled in my church. It is unnecessary.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to have the church reconsecrated?’ Sir Richard chuckled. ‘We’ll bring him outside, never you fear, Father.’

  ‘That was not my meaning, as well you must know,’ the priest said angrily. ‘In Christ’s name, I merely seek to save a soul.’

  ‘You wish to save him, you tell him to come out here and agree to abjure the realm,’ Mark said quickly. ‘There is no need to kill him. Let him abjure.’

  Reluctantly the coroner agreed to the compromise, and Osbert came out with a shuffling gait, as though appreciating that this truly was his last opportunity.

  Sir Richard stared at him. ‘I don’t suppose that this will have the slightest impact on your conduct, man, but you have agreed to exile. You will abjure the realm, taking the route I give you, carrying a cross to demonstrate your penitence, wearing only the meanest of hair shirt and simple robes, and you will go by the fastest route to the nearest port, which is …’ He hesitated and stared at Baldwin.

  It was Roger who answered. ‘Send him to Plymouth or Dartmouth, Coroner. They’ll serve.’

  ‘Right, then. Dartmouth it is. You will go there across Dartmoor, from Oakhampton, straight down to the port, and when you get there you will do all in your power to find a ship to take you away from the king’s lands. All you own and possess is forfeit to the crown for your crimes. Do you accept these terms?’

  ‘Yes. All right,’ Osbert said.

  ‘Good. Because if you fail in any particular, you will be declared outlaw and can be hunted to death by any man. If you fail to do your utmost to obey my commands, I will set the wolf’s head upon you, man, and you will die. Personally I hope you do turn outlaw, so that I can hunt you down myself. You will not be permitted to abjure a second time.’

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Second Saturday before the Feast of St Martin in Winter*

  Near Crockern Tor

  In the mistiness, Osbert winced as the rain sheeted into his face. In this weather, his thin shirt and coat appeared no more substantial than a single thickness of linen in the face of the onslaught that was being hurled at him. Without his hat, the rain was like fine gravel thrown in his face. The weight of the cross on his shoulder, the proof of his penitence and the protection of his body from
any who might choose to attack, for it signified that he was defended by the Church, was a dull and constant ache. The edge stuck into his shoulder, rubbing it raw beneath his shirt and setting up a savage anguish that would not cease. He had never seen so massive a cross for an abjurer, and he felt sure that it was evidence of the coroner’s loathing of him. Sir Richard must have ordered it to be made so. If he could, Osbert would enjoy visiting some of this on Sir Richard in return. He hated to leave a debt unpaid.

  For all the pain at his face and shoulders, it was his feet that hurt the most. They were shredded by stepping on rocks and furze. But there was no help for it. Abjurers were fortunate to be allowed to keep shirts and coats – but none could keep boots or hats. These essentials were taken away for the king. He must, Osbert reckoned, have an insatiable appetite for such clothing, since he took all from every abjurer.

  He was near a vast lump of rock that stood resting on three others to form a roofed shelter, in which two ponies stood. They could attempt to dispute his right to take some rest there, but if they were to do so, they would learn quickly that a man in desperate need was not to be trifled with. And he had a large baulk of timber on his shoulder that could easily act as a weapon.

  It was a good enough place, he felt, to sleep the night. There was nowhere to seek companionship on the moors here. The lands to the south where he must travel to find his way to the port would all be as open and foully rainswept as this, and another resting place would be hard to find.

  He hunkered down, chewing a little of the dry bread that the vill had provided him. It was stale and full of cinders and burned grains, much like the peasant breads he had eaten as a child, and the crunchiness and the taste of charcoal were like a reminder of his youth. It was quite good to experience them. But when he got to France – damn the souls of the men here who’d sent him away – he would only eat white bread. And there, so it was said, the weather was always summer. It would be warmer than here in the miserable wastes of Dartmoor, anyway. But anywhere would be, he told himself, glancing about the landscape with a curl to his lips.

  It was then that he saw a figure, or so he thought. It was a hunched form, that of a man who was bent under an intolerable load, it seemed, and then a wash of rain pelted across and the man was hidden from view.

  A man. Clearly a man, Osbert told himself. After all, the old tales were nothing more than that: myths invented to upset children, stories designed to petrify the recalcitrant, used deliberately to make children fear disobedience and keep them in check. They were not likely to make a man fear.

  No, the idea of the devil wandering about the moors to pick up unwary travellers, that was invention. As was Crockern, the spirit of the moors, vengeful, resentful, cruel. Just as the idea of pixies leading travellers astray into bogs and mires to leave them drowning slowly was clearly untrue. There was nothing to any of them. And yet …

  Where was he? Osbert peered closely, but there was no sign of the indistinct shape he had seen. It had disappeared into the murk before him as efficiently as a wraith dissolving in a mist. And it made him shiver suddenly, as though there was a ghost out there right now, watching him.

  No! There was nothing there. It was just the way the swirling mist was moving. He squatted again, telling his heart not to be so fearful. It was in truth nothing to worry about. And yet he found that his eyes kept returning to that place, as though he half expected to see someone appear again.

  It was unsettling. Very unsettling. He moved back into the safety of the chamber, leaning up against the rock, and tried to rest. The cold was ferocious, and he could feel his feet starting to stab with pain now. When he looked at them, he had to wince. The furze and stones he’d passed over had slashed at them, and now the soles were mingled blood and filth, and the little of the skin he could see was blue with cold.

  There was a rattle and a thud outside. His head snapped up, and his eyes moved quickly all over the landscape in front of him, his heart suddenly pounding. No one there. No one and nothing. The swirls of mist moved about and the rain fell in a constant curtain, obscuring all beyond a few feet from him, but his heart told him that there was something out there. Something that wanted his death.

  He hadn’t regrets. He had enjoyed most of his life. What was unreasonable was that for the first time in his life he had tried to make something happen for himself. All the other projects he had worked on, he had been trying to help his master. This was the first situation in which he had been attempting his own profit – and it was the first and most ruinous failure he had suffered.

  A clattering made him jerk awake. For a moment there he had started to slip into drowsiness and his head had begun to nod, but now he was fully alert and staring about him.

  There was no animal that could have made that noise. That was a stone being tossed, or he was a Scotsman. Outside was a man, and someone who meant him ill. Well, Osbert was no coward, and he would not be easy prey. He slowly eased himself upright again, clutching the heavy cross in his hands, and edged to the front of his shelter. No one would say that he hid cowering in the back of a cave while someone was pursuing him.

  There was a snick as a small stone hit the roof, but he wasn’t stupid enough to look up. The man was out there, hidden in the gloom, trying to tempt him to look around so that he could be hit from behind. He wasn’t going to fall for that, he thought.

  An appalling, smashing explosion of pain over his ear, and Osbert was thrown sidelong into the rock beside him. His first coherent thought was to wonder why he was lying on the ground, and then he was trying to rise, but as soon as he did, there was a slam at his head again, and he was on the ground once more aware of the trickle of blood running down the line of his jaw and pooling below his Adam’s apple. Slowly he began to get up again, and this time the blow was over the back of his head, driving his face into the dirt and rock of the moor. He felt his nose crunch, he felt the water and mud in his nose, the tang of blood in his mouth as the teeth snapped, and his empty eye socket was filled with icy water. He tried to roll away to see who had attacked him, but it was impossible to even move that much.

  And then there was one last crashing blow to his head, and he knew no more.

  Crediton

  The road back home was quiet.

  Edith was aware of a faint unease in her belly as they rode, but she wasn’t going to tell her father that. There was enough on his mind already.

  Sir Richard and Simon had ridden to Tavistock to speak with Cardinal de Fargis already, and had told him all that they had learned, as well as returning to him the chest with the king’s silver. The cardinal had been glad to receive it, Simon was sure, but it was not enough to compensate him for the death of two good monks.

  ‘Pietro was an old friend. And Anselm, so sad to see a man tortured by his desires. That he should have allowed them to rule his heart in so marked a manner – that is terrible. The poor man.’

  ‘He was willing to plot to have all those travelling with him murdered,’ Simon pointed out.

  ‘Was he? Or was that a matter over which he had little or no control? I do not pretend to see into a man’s heart, Master Puttock. That is God’s task. For me it is enough that I see so much sadness. So much greed and jealousy.’

  ‘You mean the selection of the new abbot?’

  ‘Which of the two men would you choose?’

  Simon looked away. This was not something he could do. Any answer he gave must be hazardous, for whomsoever he chose would be sure to hear of it, and then the other would learn that Simon had not supported him. And either of the two monks was a bad enemy to have. Busse was known to have dabbled in magic to try to win his post, while de Courtenay was a perfect menace, and with his powerful connections could make life intolerably hard for a man like Simon. ‘I … er …’

  ‘Yes. I too have a similar problem,’ Cardinal de Fargis said with a wintry little smile.

  ‘It isn’t the kind of decision I’d be qualified to make,’ Simon said.

&nb
sp; ‘Either will prove to be a dangerous influence if the other is made abbot.’ The cardinal continued as though Simon had not spoken. ‘So perhaps it would be better if neither was to have it. And neither was to remain here.’

  He looked up suddenly, and appeared to notice Simon for the first time. A faintly bemused expression wandered over his face. ‘Ah. And you heard about the king’s messenger?’

  ‘Yes. A great pity,’ Simon said, remembering the man with whom he had travelled.

  ‘He had a great number of messages still in his pouch, my friend,’ the cardinal said thoughtfully. ‘There were several from men around here who were writing to my lord Despenser. I think you should be very careful in his presence. He is a most dangerous adversary.’

  It was those words that echoed in Simon’s mind now as he rode home, but Edith had no idea of the cause of his grim face and apparent ill humour. For her part, she was filled only with a determination to get back home to her husband as soon as possible.

  ‘You will come to see your mother?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Only for the night, Father. I have to get home and see my husband.’

  ‘Of course,’ Simon said, and there was a stilted pause.

  ‘I think I should return home,’ Baldwin said after a few moments.

  ‘I would be sad to see you leave and not come to visit, Baldwin,’ Simon said. ‘Margaret will be disappointed.’

  Edith looked from one to the other, and then back at Edgar, who wore a most untypical expression of seriousness. She was suddenly struck with a sense of how these two men, both of whom she adored, had been driven apart. There was a gulf between them, where before there had been only comradeship. She would have thought that nothing could have caused them to become so distant from each other, and the fact that it had been caused by the threat to which she had been exposed served only to make her feel guilty. Looking back at Edgar again, she felt a quick resolve.