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