The Templar

Simon’s breathing was a little improved, Munio noted with a feeling of hope. It was not much, but Simon had been so close to death, from what he had seen, that any faint sign of improvement was a source of joy. Munio dreaded the thought of telling Sir Baldwin that his friend was dead.

Munio was not scared of Baldwin, even though most men would have known fear of a greater or lesser extent when harbouring the best friend of a knight. Knights were so dangerous, generally. They were prone, so Munio thought, to acquiring the same attributes as their favourite clothing: steel. In place of flexible thinking, such as a man like Munio himself might develop after wearing soft clothing all his life, the average knight was incapable of the limited pliancy even of a shirt of mail. Most knights understood only one response to any stimulus: drawing a sword. There were many indeed, Munio knew, who would, on hearing that a companion had died of a disease in another’s house, immediately rush at the poor man who had only done his best to protect a guest. True, there were some who would happily speed a man’s death just for the coins in his purse, but that was rare enough. Most Christians were kindly behaved towards their own.

In any case, Baldwin was not one of that type. Munio was sure that the knight would be more likely to berate himself, were Simon to die, rather than blame others. For Baldwin, Simon’s death would be a cause of shame, because as Munio knew, there had been no real need for him to leave Compostela at this time. He could easily have demanded that Munio send another man to question Ramon and the other fellow, the one whom Baldwin thought might have killed the beggar.

‘Come on, Simon!’ he muttered. ‘You have to get better. How else am I going to find out who killed poor Joana? I need your help.’

Simon made a slightly choking noise in his throat, and Munio shot him a nervous look, wondering whether he would need to wake his wife to look after Simon again, but the Bailiff gave a short cough, smacked his lips, and turned his face to the wall. Munio wiped his brow gently, but Simon’s forehead wrinkled, as though annoyed by the service. He twitched his face in rejection, and Munio drew the cloth away, a feeling of relief thrilling him. Putting a hand on Simon’s brow, his lips relaxed into a smile as he felt the relative coolness of the flesh.

‘Ah, my friend, you will never know what glad news this is,’ he whispered.

It was hellishly bright in the room when he slowly swam up through the warm seas of sleep to the cooler shallows of wakefulness, and Simon winced as he opened one eye a crack.

‘I am as thirsty as a blacksmith who has drunk nothing but water for a week,’ he said hoarsely.

Opening his eye a little wider, he glanced down at his body. He felt as though he’d been thrown in the path of an entire host of chivalry riding at full gallop. Terrible. And his voice was as rough as a sawn oak log. ‘What’s happened?’

‘You have been very ill,’ Margarita said gently.

‘How long for?’ Simon asked in a croak.

‘Five days. I think it was the foul air from when you fell into that pit with Domingo,’ she said. ‘But you are over the worst of it.’

‘I owe my life to you again, my lady,’ he said with a smile. ‘I should like to thank you.’

Her face was not glad, but rather remained anxious. ‘Your health is all the thanks I need, Bailiff. Now, drink this cider and try to rest.’

‘Rest? I’ve done nothing but rest for five days, if you are right.’ Simon grimaced, but he took the drink and sipped it slowly.

His recovery was slower than before. He had suffered a serious fever, and he felt as weak as a newborn puppy. Daylight itself was painful, and he found himself squinting even early in the morning, and to it was impossible for him to do more than rest in his bed when the sun was at its height.

The languor to which he had succumbed was not merely physical. His mind was scarcely able to concentrate for more than a minute at a time. He was too tired to worry himself about Joana’s murder, or any other matter, come to that, apart from the fact that he missed his wife, his own little family. The fact that Baldwin was not with him was an extra blow. Simon was not a man prone to feelings of self-pity, but on that first day after he woke from his fever, his soul was weighed down under a leaden gloom that prevented his taking pleasure in anything. The mere thought of food was enough to make his belly clench like a fist; he could drink little other than cider and a tiny quantity of white wine, and all he felt able to do was sit and doze. It was a relief to be nudged awake when the night approached, to be carried indoors to his room and sleep.