The Templar

‘But she never came back. I didn’t see her again until you brought her back on that cart. Her face, her head …’ He swallowed.

‘Did you ever argue with her?’

‘You think I could have hurt her like that?’ Ramon cried out.

‘No. But it is a natural question. Others will wonder if you don’t answer.’

‘I never argued with her. I could not. It would be impossible. She was always so sweet and kind.’

‘Did she have enemies?’

‘No! You don’t know what you are suggesting! How could someone like my Joana have enemies?’

‘She was a good woman, I am sure,’ Baldwin said comfortingly.

The sudden flush which had risen in Ramon’s face seeped away. He stared down into his cup, which Simon refreshed for him.

Baldwin took a breath. ‘I have heard of another knight in the town. Perhaps you have seen him — a Don Ruy?’

‘No. I have never heard of him.’

‘Do you know of other people whom she knew, people who are here in the city?’ Baldwin enquired.

‘There was one. A man who calls himself Gregory. I think he is named Gregory of Coventry, an English name, but he speaks Galician fluently.’

‘Do you know where we might find this man?’

‘He was in the chapel with me just now, helping me to lay her out ready for burial, but I do not know where he is staying. He is a pilgrim. He said that he met my Joana because he knew Dona Stefania.’

‘Where did she and her mistress travel from?’

‘They live south of here, but they had gone to Orthez. I returned with them yesterday. Dona Stefania had been travelling with a band of men, but they left us the day before yesterday. I find it hard to understand how men could desert two women like that. For the sake of their own mothers, for the sake of Holy Mother Mary Herself, they should have protected my Joana and her lady. But at least I was there, and for that I should be grateful. Although now …’

Frey Ramon drained his cup and refused when Simon offered to refill it. ‘I must go. I shall pray for my poor Joana in my chapel. I would not go to pray for her drunk. I thank you both for your kindness.’

Standing, he bowed, turned and walked away, crossing the square. Baldwin and Simon watched, and neither spoke a word as the man disappeared from sight.

Later, when the two were rolled up in blankets, having negotiated a space for themselves in an old stable at an inn, Baldwin snoring gently, Simon staring up at the ceiling, pensively considering reasons for a woman to be killed and her features so comprehensively ruined, Frey Ramon sat before the altar in his Order’s chapel, and bent his head. He wept. At his side, the chapel’s priest sat and prayed with him, stolidly speaking the prayers of the services for the dead woman, occasionally glancing sideways at Ramon as the man’s grief overwhelmed him. Once he put a hand out to touch Ramon’s shoulder, but the knight shrugged it away.

There was no end to Ramon’s grief. Confused, shocked, seeing the whole of his future life destroyed, he was unsure what he should do after the terrible events of the day.

‘God, give me peace!’ he begged, but he knew that God couldn’t help him. The answers He must give could only lead to Ramon’s destruction.

It was almost dawn when he stood and made his obeisance to the cross. He would have to leave. There was no place in Compostela for a man like him. He had made his decision. He would go to Portugal and hide himself there.

After he had gone to his room and collected his few belongings, he returned to the priest and paid him for his vigil, then gave him a little more to arrange for the burial.

‘You must see that she is treated honourably,’ he stated. ‘Have her buried like an honourable woman. A good, kindly woman. A woman who was loved,’ he added, his voice choked.

Then he turned on his heel and walked from the place, never to see it again.

Simon woke in the middle watches of the night, groggy and chilled, with the faint sense that something was wrong. He had to pull his cloak back over himself, from where it had fallen.

Their room was an old wine storage barn, containing huge casks of wine, which was occasionally used for guests when there was a glut of visitors. Simon and Baldwin were not the only men staying; there were several other bodies lying rolled in cloaks on the floor.

The barn was a good forty feet long, and the roof was more than ten feet above their heads, giving a feeling of airiness or, as Simon reckoned at this godforsaken time of the night, of draughtiness. He could feel a rumbling in his belly. His bowels were unsettled, and he wondered if it was the rich food which he and Baldwin had tried the night before. One more piece of information which Baldwin had cheerfully shared with him was that people who travelled abroad could contract diseases from the bad air. Baldwin had seen it often in the warmer climates, so he said. Simon had no wish to go and experiment with the garderobe here in the dark, but he was uncomfortably aware that he might soon have little choice.