by Robert Low
‘You can rely on God to make sure of his tithe,’ he said, and bellowed at the others to be quick and to take only the peas and barley, the live chooks and the dead coneys.
They were good, too, careful when loading the stolen eggs and ignoring trinkets – well, in the main. Everyone took a little something, as a keepsake or a token for a woman somewhere, while a bolt of new cloth was blanket and cloak both on a bad night.
Jamie and Dog Boy rode up to the stout-walled tithe barn and Dog Boy skipped off the garron and kicked open the double doors; it was an echoing hall, bare even of mice, and Jamie’s eyebrows went up at that. At the nearby church, the door of it clearly barred from the inside, the priest stood outside, defiant chin raised.
‘The silver is buried,’ he said bitterly, ‘and you are ower late to this feast – others have beaten you.’
Jamie, leaning forward on the pommel, calm as you please, offered the man a smile and a lisping greeting in good Latin.
‘Father Peter,’ the priest replied, clearly unable to speak the tongue, which Dog Boy knew was common enough among parish priests, who understood only the rote of services and would not know Barabbas from Barnabas.
‘Your wealth is safe enough – silver-gilt chalice, is it?’ Jamie replied easily. ‘A pyx, of course – silver or ivory? A silver-gilt chrismatory, a thurible, three cruets and an osculatorium.’
Dog Boy turned to stare in wonder at Jamie, but the priest was unimpressed.
‘One cruet, for we are not rich here. And a pewter ciborium, which you forgot – but since this is the minimum furnishing for a house of God, as any learned man knows, I do not consider you to have the power of Seeing.’
‘God forbid,’ Dog Boy offered and everyone crossed themselves.
‘These others who came’, Jamie went on lightly, ‘were equally restrained, it appears, and only took fodder – unless you have also hidden the contents of your tithe barn.’
‘I wish it were so. They sought food only, as you do,’ the priest replied coldly. ‘Came out of Berwick, but were no skilled raiders, only poor folk starving in that place.’
‘Berwick …’
Dog Boy knew why Jamie was so thoughtful. Berwick was a long way off and if the residents were scourging the country from that distance, then they were starving right enough. Which was news enough for Black Sir James to smile, wish the priest well – and his women and weans, too, which brought a scowl, but no denial.
It was all friendly enough, but Dog Boy threw the first torch that fired every house in the vill, so that they rode away from it leaving flames and weeping and sullen stares in the smoke. I am filled to the brim with shrieks and embers, Dog Boy thought, and wondered if there would ever be an end.
Commanderie of St Felix in the Kingdom of Castile
Feast of the Invention of the Cross, May 1314
He was called Brother Amicus, though there was nothing friendly about him.
‘You should repent and confess your sins, Brother,’ he spat. ‘If you go unshriven, you go to Hell, to be broken on the wheel by foul demons, smashed over and over for the sin of pride. You will be thrown into freezing water until you scream for your arrogance. You will be dismembered alive by gibbering imps armed with dull knives for your impiety, thrown into a boiling pit of molten gold for your pride, forced to eat rats, toads and snakes in remembrance of your greed.’
He paused, breathing heavily and frothing at the corners of his mouth.
Widikind laughed through his burst lips, the words coming slowly because his arms were twisted up behind him and fastened by chains, which suspended his whole weight and constricted his breathing. He was naked and streaked with his own and other people’s foulness.
His voice came in spurts for he found it hard to get air into his flattened lungs – but he had breath enough for this.
‘You may dream of it, torturer. I have suffered all that and more in the service of God and the Temple, even to the eating of toads and snakes. However, I am sure you can verify your visions – I will be seeing you in Hell, certes.’
The Inquisitor scowled and turned away, leaving Widikind in his pain. The start of it had been the blow, sharp and sudden, which had whirled stars into him as he went to check the carts. Even as he went down, he knew what it was, even if he did not quite know who.
He learned that soon enough, knew it even when he could not raise his head to look – her perfume, spiced and insidious as a snake’s coils, left him in no doubt as he hung in the shadow-flickering room.
‘You would do well to speak, Templar,’ Doña Beatriz said softly. ‘My brother needs what you know and he will not be kind.’
Widikind was more ashamed of his nakedness than concerned for future agonies, but he knew now that his soul was safe and he only laughed; he knew, by the stiffness in her body, that she was irritated, felt the grip in his beard as his head was raised. The Moor, her servant, held Widikind’s stained beard in one fist so that he could see both their faces; his was unsmiling as a stone, but hers was a blaze of fury.
‘You will speak,’ she said, her voice a razor, and smiled like a sweet sin as she waved another man into Widikind’s eyeline. This one was lean, grizzled and seemed nothing – until you looked in his eyes. There was nothing in them at all, save a bland, studied interest and Widikind knew what he was at once.
‘This is Rafiq,’ Doña Beatriz said. ‘Buscador de demonios.’
She turned away and left. For a moment, Piculph hesitated, flicking his eyes sideways to the blank-eyed Rafiq, and then he relinquished his grip, so that Widikind’s head fell forward and he lost sight of them all.
But he was aware of Piculph’s going, more aware still of the one they called ‘seeker of devils’ stepping close; Widikind heard him crooning, soft and melodious as a monk at plainchant, wondered if it was a psalm against evil, or a spell.
He would have been surprised to discover that it was a lullaby. He was not surprised to discover that Rafiq was an expert and that his skill was in pain. He hoped that he had been missed, though he expected no rescue, for the others would now have their fears confirmed.
He would have been gratified to hear them discuss his absence.
‘It seems your fears may be justified,’ Rossal admitted grudgingly to Kirkpatrick. ‘In which case, we should take some precautions.’
‘What is happening?’ demanded Sim, an eyeblink before Hal did. Rossal issued crisp orders and the other two began turning tables up on their ends.
‘I was of the opinion’, Kirkpatrick answered slowly, ‘that this Guillermo and his lady sister would make some move against us.’
‘The gold …’
‘Aye, just so.’
There was no urgency in the man, nor in Rossal now that the tables had been upended like a siege pavise, and Hal could not understand why this Guillermo and his sister should wish to attack them – and why everyone seemed acceptingly calm about it. He said so and Rossal clapped him on the shoulder.
‘In a moment, we will know whether this Guillermo is to be trusted.’
‘Look to your weapons, mark you, in case he cannot,’ Kirkpatrick added, ‘but keep behind our defences – I am sure he has used that wee minstrel gallery before this.’
Minstrel gallery, Hal thought. And pigs have wings.
‘If they mean to red-murder us and steal the gold,’ Sim blustered, confused and angry at the feeling of it, ‘then we should not be sittin’ here like a set mill.’
‘Doucelike, Sim Craw,’ Kirkpatrick said, laying a hand on the man’s big shoulder and smiling into the bristle of his beard. ‘I may have it wrangwise. We might be locked in for our own safety.’
‘Pigs have wings,’ Hal muttered.
The Seeker of Demons was Satan’s own creation, Widikind was sure of it. He caressed with blades, peeling back skin until the pain was so burning intense that the German felt the rawness like ice. He worked through the long hours, while Widikind hung and dripped sweat, blood and vomit.
At som
e point – Widikind did not know day from night – the Seeker of Demons broke off to eat bread and cheese and refresh himself with wine, and began on the hot irons.
The smell of his own flesh roasting nauseated Widikind, but he swallowed it rather than give the torturer the satisfaction of knowing it. But this time the pain was enough to make him call to God, to the Virgin, and he found himself babbling in German. But he knew what he said and it was nothing they wanted or could use.
He slipped into a grey veiled world, was aware of figures moving in it and recognized the perfume of the lady. The man with her, his voice clearly used to command, snapped at another, his voice sharp and grating with annoyance, and the man’s soothing assurances confirmed him as Brother Amicus, who called the one he spoke to ‘Don Guillermo’.
He heard Guillermo speak again, softer this time and in French, rather than the elegant Castilian of the court.
‘This de Grafton – is he to be trusted?’
‘No, darling brother, but he can be relied on to serve our interests as long as he is serving his own.’
Doña Beatriz’s voice was a sneer and Widikind heard her brother laugh.
‘Go to Crunia. Search the ship – the treasure must be there. Send word in a hurry.’
‘What of the crew?’
There was silence, which was answer enough.
Afterwards – it might have been a minute, an hour or a week – the Seeker of Demons took Widikind’s eye with a white-hot iron, a lancing shriek of agony that had him bucking and twisting as he dangled in chains, feeling his flesh bubble and dissolve in the heat, pouring down his cheek, sizzling like meat on a skewer.
He surfaced from the cool dark of oblivion into the agony of life.
‘Where is the Templar treasure?’
It was the first thing the Seeker of Demons had asked, the first time he had spoken and the only sound he had made other than the crooning gentleness of song.
Widikind, who wondered what he had babbled while his mind cowered elsewhere, grinned a bloody grin, for he knew by the question that he had said nothing of value. He remembered the feeling of his own flesh melting on his cheek like gold and what Brother Amicus had promised. For his pride. He was proud of resisting, yet aware that such arrogance was unfit for a Templar, proscribed or no.
Yet he could not resist it.
‘Found any demons?’ he mushed and laughed his way back to the coverlet of dark.
The sluice of cold water slashed him into the light again, into the world of pain the torturer had made with vicious beatings. He could feel his arms and realized he had been lowered a little and refastened so that his hands were now bound with rope rather than chain and the suspension on his dangling arms could be alleviated if he raised himself on the balls of his feet.
Whose toes had been broken, so that doing so seared agony through him like a knife.
He raised his wobbling head and stared with his one good eye into the face of the torturer and saw no pleasure in the other’s witnessing of his realization. Which was, he thought, worse than a leering grin; Widikind let his head loll, though he could see the man’s face through the spider-legs of his remaining lashes.
The Seeker of Demons, his face still blank, touched the white-hot iron to Widikind’s abdomen and, for the first time, showed emotion: surprise at the lack of response.
He wonders if he has gone too far, Widikind thought.
‘Where is the Templar treasure?’
Widikind heard the querulous note in his voice and knew it was time. He wanted him near, wanted him close with his hot iron. He felt fingers at his neck, checking pulse, felt the length of forearm on his chest, so he knew where the Seeker of Demons stood. He was a Knight of the Temple and had the power of God still with him …
He swept his legs up and locked them round the man’s waist, crossing his ankles until his broken feet flared howls from him; he welcomed the pain, for there was more triumph and anger in it now and the agony fuelled his strength like fire in his veins. God give me strength …
The man was strong but Widikind had trained every day for years in every facet of horsemanship; his feet were broken, but the thighs and calves on him were crippling and the Seeker of Demons arched and shrieked, unable to break free. He tried to beat Widikind with his one free hand, the one with the hot iron in it, but each time he began, Widikind crushed him further until something snapped. The man twisted and screamed.
‘That was a rib breaking,’ Widikind told him, so close that the blood from his cracking lips spotted the Seeker of Demons’s cheek. ‘There will be more if you do not do as I say. If you resist me further, I will break your back and you will never stand unaided again.’
‘Let … me…’
‘No.’
They strained, panting like dogs.
‘Raise the iron,’ Widikind hoarsed at him, panting close to the man’s ear, feeling the rank fear-sweat of him cinched tight and obscene as a lover. ‘Raise it slowly and touch it to the ropes on my wrist. If you do anything else, I will crack all feeling from your back, so that you will drag yourself around with padded rags on your hands the rest of your short and miserable life.’
The torturer was hovering at the edge of fainting, so the cooling red tip of the iron wavered back and forth, searing Widikind’s flesh as it charred through the rope. The parting brought them crashing down, but Widikind was ready for it, sprang free, grabbed the iron and smashed it on the Seeker of Demons’s head.
He did it twice more before the pain in his feet seemed to drive up into the core of him and he fell over into emptiness. When he woke, he stared up into a sweat-gleamed familiar face, whose wild eyes looked at the splintered gourd that was the head of the torturer, then into Widkind’s melted ruin of a face.
Piculph, the German thought and almost sobbed with how close he had come to escape. The Moor licked his lips, stuck out a hand and hauled Widikind to his agony of broken feet.
‘Move,’ he said in good French, ‘if you want to live.’
There was a thump and a crash which brought heads up. Then came the unmistakable sound of the bar being lifted from the far side of the door and, even as they crouched and lifted their weapons, the door flung open and a body fell in.
For a moment, no one moved – and then everyone did. De Bissot and Kirkpatrick sprang to the body, Hal and de Villers moved to the open door, beyond which lay the guard, his head cracked and leaking over the flagstones; Sim covered the gallery, just in case. But the hissed, broken, bubbling voice stopped them all.
‘Stay,’ Widikind managed. ‘Piculph says there is no way we can escape this way, so he brought me here. Listen closely – I have much to tell and no time left to tell it.’
He spoke, hoarse and swift and laid out what he knew. When his voice trailed off, de Bissot straightened and looked at Kirkpatrick.
‘You were right.’
‘Bar the door,’ Hal advised and they fell to it, moving the heavy trestles. Then they shifted the lolling Widikind, his naked, streaked body trailing fluids like a bad winesack; Kirkpatrick did not say it, but he thought the man was not long for this world. Unless they could find a way out of this place, at once prison and fortress, none of them were.
‘This Guillermo will come to talk soon,’ Kirkpatrick informed everyone with certainty. ‘He will threaten and cajole. After that will come the hard part.’
Hal was on the point of demanding to know the whole of it, annoyed at being kept so in the dark, but Kirkpatrick’s prophecy was proved true with the innocuous twitch of the hanging over the gallery entrance. Sim, watching carefully, called the warning.
‘Cover,’ he snapped and Hal, glancing backwards as he scurried behind a table, saw the figures move smoothly out on to the gallery, latchbows ready. Behind them came the tall, saturnine figure of Guillermo, a scowl on his handsome face.
‘Ach,’ Sim declared with disgust, cranking the arbalest like a madman. ‘There are times when I wish you were no’ as sharp in your thinkin’, Kirk
patrick, but I prig the blissin’ o’ the blue heaven on you for it.’
‘God be praised,’ Kirkpatrick answered piously.
‘For ever and ever.’
Guillermo stared down at them and silence fell, broken only by the harsh of breathing and the clank of Sim resting his arbalest on a steadying edge. That slight sound seemed to break the moment.
‘You would be wise not to trigger that monster,’ Guillermo warned. ‘Those tables will not stand against the quarrels from my own bows at this range.’
‘You dare not kill us,’ Rossal said quietly and stepped from behind cover. Hal moved as if to drag him back and felt Kirkpatrick’s hand on his forearm; when he looked, he was given a quiet smile and a shake of the head, which only left him more bewildered than ever.
‘You do not know which of us holds the secret of the treasure you seek,’ Rossal went on, ‘now that you have discovered the truth.’
Hal’s gaze was wide-eyed, matched only by Sim, but Kirkpatrick merely flashed them a smile and put his fingers to his lips.
‘Sand,’ Guillermo declared with disgust. ‘Boxes of sand. And some lead for the weight. Clever. Now you will tell us where you have hidden the treasure. You will do this or suffer.’
‘You should not’, Rossal flung back, ‘have left the likes of us our arms, for you cannot inflict suffering without a fight and we will neither step back nor surrender, so you will have to kill us. You cannot do that, my lord, if you want the secret you seek. So your threats are an empty mistake. And not nearly as bad as the one which led you to this betrayal. You are a serpent in Eden, my lord, whose own bite will be fatal for you.’
‘Three Poor Knights,’ Guillermo sneered, ‘one half-dead already. And three old men. A jester with a bladder on a stick could overpower you.’
‘Bigod!’ Sim bellowed. ‘I will send a bolt to rip away his liver and lights.’ He was held back only by the combined efforts of Kirkpatrick and Hal and eventually forced silent.
‘You have one hour to consider matters,’ Guillermo declared, unfolding his arms and sweeping back through the archway, the two archers filtering warily after him.
