The Templar

She wouldn’t have if she could have helped herself. The thought of wedding a man who had Moorish ancestry was appalling to her, and yet when she saw him, his white smile, his lazy grin wrinkling those deep brown eyes, his tanned, dark face, when she felt his solid frame and those wiry muscles beneath, Caterina had simply congealed with desire. He was perfection, and a kind and attentive husband to boot.

But Domingo could never see beyond the colour of his brother-in-law’s flesh. No matter that he had renounced the religion of his father and grandparents, that he had become a Christian; to Domingo, he was still the enemy, and Caterina was sure that on the day Domingo had heard of Juan’s death, he would have danced with joy. If she had enough cruelty in her, she would have asked about Sancho — and then she would have danced before him for the death of his own son. Except she wasn’t cruel enough — or perhaps she was too drained with exhaustion to work herself up to such an emotion.

‘He died in the famine?’ Domingo grunted.

She nodded. ‘He was in France with his lord, six years ago now.’

Six whole years. Since then, nothing to live for. Only survival. The mere thought of all those years gone was daunting, as though she had blinked and a quarter of her life had disappeared. She had been married for five years, from fourteen to nineteen, five wonderfully happy years. And since then, her life was empty.

‘Yeah. And he died there,’ Domingo said laconically. He had finished his pot of cider, and now ordered another. He didn’t offer Caterina a second drink. ‘Best thing. Saves you from being pointed out and laughed at. It’s better.’

‘I’m better off being a beggar?’

Since Juan’s death, everything had fallen apart. Her son had died, her daughter had been adopted by Juan’s sister, and Caterina had been left desolate. No money, no home: Juan’s master wanted no women about the place. There was nothing left for Caterina, so she had packed her few belongings and returned to her home a little south of Compostela. But her father rejected her, denying that he knew her.

‘I had a daughter, but she is dead to me. Be gone!’

There was nothing else for her but to come here, to the city, and make the best of things. She begged, and occasionally, when a man was interested, she sold her body for the cost of a meal, using the name Maria to protect her daughter. In her time, she had serviced many men, for as her resources dwindled and she began to feel the pangs of hunger, she learned that nothing was so precious to her as life itself. Only someone who had experienced hardship like this could understand how valuable life was, she sometimes thought.

Just then, Domingo’s head shot up. ‘There he is,’ he spat. ‘The murdering bastard!’

‘Where?’ She followed his gaze and saw a man on a tall, high-stepping horse. It might have been an Arab, from its spirit, a beautiful, glossy beast that scorned the feeble humans all about its massive hooves.

‘He’s the man who killed my boy,’ Domingo grated, and he stood up.

‘Will you get him?’ she asked with some trepidation. She had never seen Domingo in this mood before. He looked like a man on a suicide mission, who would dare an entire army for his own justice.

He made no response, but sprang over a low wall, and then pelted away across the square, darting in and out of the people standing before the Cathedral.

She cried out, but he was already out of hearing, and as she felt the intimidating presence of the cider-seller looming over her, she dug out the few coins in her purse and dropped them on the table, before quickly striding away on her long legs.

Domingo ran at full tilt, but in moments he was swallowed by the crowd. Although the fair knight was on top of a horse, Domingo was too low with his hunched back to be able to keep an eye on him. He ran on until he came to where the rider had been, and stopped to take a squint about him. Clambering onto a low wall, he saw one man riding along an alley.

Filled with eagerness, Domingo leaped lightly from his perch and hurtled along an adjacent alley until he came to an intersecting lane. Down this he went, his heart swelling, whether from the exertion or from the thrill of tracking down the man who had slaughtered his son, he didn’t know.

He felt the fury churning in his belly, begging for release. In front of his eyes, he had a picture of his son as young Sancho was slashed and stabbed, then toppled white-faced from his horse. The memory made him want to kill the fair man with his bare hands — pull out his entrails, rip out his beating heart from his breast, tear off his tarse and cods and stuff them in his mouth, before slowly slicing off his entire head, so that the man could feel every moment of his death. He wanted agony — true, all-encompassing agony — inflicted on the man who could murder his son.