The Templar

Turning at bay, he felt his lips draw back from his teeth in a snarl of animal rage. He shouldn’t be in this position! He shouldn’t! Grabbing at his purse, he pulled out the relic, and muttered a prayer for protection to Saint Peter, but there was nothing; no reply. He grasped the box in his fist, shaking it furiously. The Saint could save him if he wanted, but he had no regard for Domingo, and the outlaw knew that even that last hope was gone. He uttered a curse against the Saint, his parents, and all his descendants just as the door cracked and fell, and Simon hurtled in.

It was all the Bailiff could do to duck under the swinging knife; he felt no more than a slight grabbing at his shoulder as the knife caught at his jack. Luckily the quilting saved him from being scratched. Domingo couldn’t escape, for the door was blocked with the other men from the pursuit, so he turned again to face Simon. If he couldn’t get out, he could sure as hell take the foreigner hostage, keep him at knife-point until they paid him and released him.

Simon was feeling quite faint now — and that was his excuse later. He should have been able to disarm the Galician without killing him, but at the moment, all he could think of was that knife and stopping it from hurting him. His reactions were too slow; he still felt queasy after all the running, on top of his earlier fainting fit. As Domingo charged towards him again, he lifted his sword.

Domingo felt the steel slip into his breast with a sense of disbelief. There was no pain, just a curious slithering sensation, but when he looked down, he saw that the sword was buried in his chest. He opened his mouth, tottered, and then lifted his knife to dash Simon to the floor, pushing himself onwards, using the full force of his weight and malice to try to crush Simon.

All Simon could see was the insanely grinning features of Domingo advancing. It was a scene from hell, with the mad face approaching and the wet red knife held wickedly high overhead. Simon felt himself being pushed back, until there was nothing but the timbers of the garderobe behind him and beneath him; and then he heard a great cracking and wrenching, and felt himself freefall, that smiling face above him like a devil’s, pulling him down to hell.

‘How is he?’ Baldwin demanded as soon as Munio returned.

‘Not good. I think it is the heat. It can sometimes affect a man who is not used to our weather, yes? He was very exhausted.’

‘Exhausted!’ Baldwin repeated. All he could remember was that foul stench.

They were in Munio’s house, a long, low building with a garden that was planted with more plants than Baldwin could possibly name. The whole place seemed verdant, and filled with vibrant colours — rich purples, reds, yellows and everywhere green.

The house itself was white-painted with simple shutters on each window and a small stable for Munio’s two horses, to whom Baldwin had already introduced himself. The knight always liked to investigate the horseflesh wherever he went, but it was scarcely worth the bother in Munio’s household, he saw. One plain and rather old rounsey and a skittish young mare made up the total complement. Munio was not poor, but neither was he wealthy.

When Simon had set off after the felon, Baldwin had been helping to disarm one of Domingo’s men, and had not noticed his friend’s sudden disappearance. Later, when he and Munio wondered why Simon had not come to help interrogate the members of the band, Baldwin was only just in time to hear of the accident, and then he had bolted after the messenger to go and supervise Simon’s rescue.

It had been one of the most repulsive tasks Baldwin had ever witnessed. The two men had fallen through the floor of the garderobe, toppling together some fifteen feet into the relative softness of the heaped sewage underneath. It was fortunate that the toilet did not fall straight into a stream, as so many did, for then Simon must surely have drowned. As it was, he fell backwards into the muck, Domingo on top of him, embedding Simon’s sword deep within his torso. The robber was already dead when Baldwin arrived; the knight had thought Simon was as well.

It was a terrible shock. Baldwin had known many comrades die, and he would have said, had he been asked, that he was all but inured to loss. True, he would not have felt that way about his wife, nor his daughter, but he would have thought that losing the companionship of a man was something he had been long seasoned against fearing. The idea that a man’s death could bring him up so sharply had not occurred to him. Yet here it was. His hand grasped his sword hilt as though to keep his grip on reality, but all he could see was the terrible future, of returning to England without his best friend, of telling Simon’s wife and family that he was dead. He could imagine all too easily the appalled horror in Meg’s eyes.