Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (19 page)

“You have no idea how I feel!” shouted Garin. As he pulled himself roughly from Will’s grasp, something fell from his hand.

Will bent to pick it up. It was Jacques’ eye patch. The leather was creased and warm from Garin’s fist.

Garin leapt forward and snatched it from him. “This is all your fault!” he shouted.

“What?” Will stared at his friend.

“All those times you were in trouble!” Garin’s voice was high, his face flushed. “All those times Owein let you off with nothing but a stern word! What did I get?”

“That isn’t my—”

“I got every punishment you should have received!”

Elwen was watching them.

“I didn’t punish you, Jacques did. He would have done it anyway, even if I hadn’t been there.”

“No! If it weren’t for you, my uncle wouldn’t have needed to punish me and I wouldn’t have needed to—!” Garin stopped, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s dead. My uncle is dead. And it’s
your fault
!”

“Why are you blaming me?” demanded Will. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“You never do anything wrong, do you?” hissed Garin, his bruised face ugly with fury. “Owein was still proud of you when you disobeyed him. And your father? He still enlisted you in the Temple even after you killed your sister!”

Will felt a rush of anger. He lashed out, catching Garin squarely on the jaw. Elwen shouted as Garin stumbled. His heel caught on the edge of Owein’s tombstone and he fell back on the slab, flattening the lilies she had placed there. Will moved forward, fists raised, then he saw the blood coming from Garin’s lip. He stepped back. “Garin. I…I didn’t…”

Will trailed off as Garin straightened and took his hand from his mouth. He stared at the blood, then at Will, then lurched away, Jacques’ eye patch in his fist.

Will started as he felt a hand on his arm.

“Why did you hit him?” Elwen murmured. “What did he mean about your sister?”

Will’s brow creased as he saw her lilies, crushed and scattered on Owein’s tomb. “I’m sorry.” Shrugging away from her touch, he ran.

W
ill sat on his pallet, his breath overloud in the empty dormitory. Red marks had already appeared on his knuckles. Garin was the only person he had ever told about his sister; even Simon didn’t know. He couldn’t believe his friend had used it against him. Garin. Will hung his head in shame as he pictured the blood pouring from the boy’s lip. With a shaking hand he reached into his sack and pulled out a folded square of parchment. He had begun the letter to his mother just before they had left for Paris. It was still unfinished. Will sat on his pallet and stared at the words written in his small, blunt hand.

Some hours later, after the bells had rung the ending of Vespers, the door opened and Robert entered.

“I was wondering where you had gotten to. It’s almost time for supper.”

Will was sitting on his bed, shreds of parchment strewn over the blanket. He wiped his face as Robert came over.

“What has happened?” said Robert, glancing at the torn skin.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Robert shrugged and sat at the foot of the pallet. “Then we won’t.”

Will lifted his head. “Why is he blaming me?”

“Who?”

“Garin. He says it’s my fault his uncle died.”

“My mother died when I was young,” said Robert. “For a time, my father blamed everyone for her death, but it was no one’s fault. It was a sickness. There was nothing he, or anyone could have done.”

“Jacques was murdered. There is someone to blame.” Will lay back, blinking at the ceiling. “Perhaps it was me.”

Robert turned on his side and rested his elbow on the bed, his head in his hand. “How could it be?”

“Sometimes, I wished Jacques would pay for hurting Garin. Perhaps, by wishing it, I made it happen.” Will ran a finger slowly across his bruised knuckles.

Robert nodded to the marks. “Does someone have bruises on their face to match those?”

“Garin.”

“Why did you fight?”

“He said something about my sister,” said Will, sitting up, “something he shouldn’t have.”

Robert waited.

“I killed my sister,” said Will suddenly. The words seemed to take tangible presence in the chamber. He waited for Robert to see their dark, twisted shapes, huddled, breathing in the corner.

Finally, Robert spoke. “How?”

Will was silent.

“How did she die?” Robert pressed gently.

Will closed his eyes. “My father called her his angel. He used to bring her ribbons from Edinburgh. He would spend hours watching her play.” Will hugged his knees to his chest. “But Mary wasn’t an angel. She was always stealing bread from the kitchen and blaming me, or letting the chickens out, or smashing the eggs, or sulking because someone asked her to do something.

“I remember wishing that she would disappear, not that she would die, but that somehow she would be lost. I didn’t mean it.” Will looked at Robert. “It happened in the summer before I went to New Temple. My father was away at Balantrodoch. I was going to the loch to finish the boat we had been building. We were going to use it to fish. I wanted to surprise him when he came home. Mary followed me. I said I didn’t want her to come because I knew she would get in the way, but she kept following. We got to the loch and I started work on the boat. It was hot. Mary got bored and went to collect shells. I wanted to spend the day there, to get it finished, but Mary started saying that she wanted to leave. I told her to go, but she pretended she didn’t know the way. There were woods on the other side of the loch. I went to find some branches I could use for oars and Mary came with me. She kept saying that our father would much rather have the shells she had found than some stupid boat I’d made.” Will put his head in his hands. “We were on some rocks above the water. Mary said…I can’t even remember, but she said something and threw the shells at me and I got angry.” He paused. “So I pushed her. I didn’t mean to do it so hard. She fell back off the rocks and into the water. She hit her head on the way down. We were higher than I thought. I jumped in and found her, but…”

Will shook his head hard. “I pulled her out and carried her home. It was miles and she was heavy. I kept talking to her, but she wouldn’t wake and her head was all cut up. My father was home. He was walking across the yard carrying a pail of water from the stream for his bath. He smiled and started to wave, then he saw Mary. He dropped the pail and ran to take her from me.” Will swallowed thickly, remembering his father’s anguished cries as he cradled his dead daughter and his mother dashing barefoot across the yard toward them. “Later, he took me outside and asked me how it happened and I told him she fell.” Will hung his head. “But he kept asking questions and I had to tell him the truth. It was as if he already knew. He just nodded, stood up and went back inside. He wouldn’t even look at me.

“When we buried Mary, my mother cried. For months. She had another baby, a girl called Ysenda, but she never smiled, or laughed like she used to. My father was away most of the time. He never took me to Balantrodoch like he said he would. He took me to London when he was asked to stand in for a sick clerk.” Will rose and wrapped his arms about his chest. “He took me to London to get rid of me. He spent lots of time away and in the solar working with Garin’s uncle. I hardly saw him. We could have gone home when the clerk got better, or even stayed in New Temple, but he became a knight and went to the Holy Land and left me. I’ve heard nothing from him for eighteen months.”

Robert stood before Will. “You only meant to push her, not to kill her. Your father must have known that.”

“Then why does he hate me?” said Will in a choked voice.

The door opened and Hugues came in. “What is going on?” he asked, coming to stand beside Robert. He clicked the roof of his mouth with his tongue as he saw the torn parchment. “What a mess.”

Robert gave him a warning look. “Hugues.”

Hugues frowned at his friend. “And why are you here with him when you’re supposed to be at supper? He’s off back to London tomorrow anyway.”

Before Robert could speak, Will pushed past Hugues and strode out of the chamber.

He ran from the sergeants’ quarters, his feet pounding the dust. Several groups of knights were heading for the Great Hall, their mantles making them ghostlike in the twilight. Will passed them without slowing, even when one of them shouted at him to halt. He kept running, past the knights’ quarters and beneath the long shadow of the donjon, past the officials’ buildings and the armory, not knowing where he was going, but not wanting to stop. Sweat beaded his skin and his legs began to ache as he entered the graveyard and headed down the path to the chapel.

The chapel was lit dimly by candles that were placed around the altar. There was a tendril of smoke curling from a censer where the incense had burned during Vespers. Will shut the doors behind him and moved slowly down the aisle, trailing his hand across the arms of the benches and the curves of the marble pillars. He walked up to the altar, where a small wooden crucifix stood, the eyes of the figure of Christ downcast, heavy-lidded. There were a few crumbs scattered about the surface of the altar, remnants of the host. Will’s hollow stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since morning. He dabbed up a few of the crumbs, put them to his mouth, then wandered restlessly over to the sacristy, the door of which was ajar. Inside, a single candle was burning on a table in the corner. The room was filled with a cloying smell of incense. Candles and vellum-bound books were stacked on a bench beneath the small chamber’s high window. Will paused in the entrance, his eyes drifting over the jars of wine that were placed on shelves behind the table, upon which was an oak pyx and the Communion chalice.

After a moment, he entered, crossed to the shelves and took down a half-empty jar. The wine inside glowed crimson in the candlelight. Will poured a large measure into the Communion chalice. He then opened the lid of the pyx and brought out a fistful of Communion bread. The blood and the body of Christ. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he raised the chalice to his lips. “Our Father,” he said, then laughed. After draining the wine, he stuffed the bread into his mouth and looked to the shadows of the vaulted ceiling, waiting for God to punish him,
daring
Him to. Nothing happened. When he had finished his meal, Will leaned against the table leg, his knees hugged to his chest. He felt exhausted. He would stay here until the last office, then hide in the graveyard. When the others went to bed, he could come back and sleep till morning. And tomorrow? Will curled up on the cold stone floor, resting his head on his arm. He would think about tomorrow then.

“Wake up, I said!”

Will came slowly around, feeling something prodding his leg. He opened his eyes and sat up groggily. The wine had made his head heavy and a sour taste was in his mouth. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep, but outside the sacristy’s high window it was fully dark. The man standing over him was wearing the black mantle of a priest. It was Everard de Troyes, the old man from the graveyard. His cowl was drawn back and Will could see that the scar that began at his lip ran all the way to his forehead, a pink, sore-looking runnel. The priest’s skin was stretched thinly across his cheeks, but hung in folds beneath his eyes as if, like a well-worn garment, it no longer fitted him properly. His hands were gnarled and there were two bony stumps on one where his fingers should have been. He studied Will, his pale, red-rimmed eyes intent. Under that stare, Will felt as if his soul were being scoured.

“Who are you?” Everard’s voice was little more than a dry wheeze, yet there was a sharpness behind it that was compelling.

Will struggled to his feet and stood dizzily. He glanced at the floor beside him, the empty chalice and crumbs of bread, and he hesitated.

“Answer me!” demanded the priest, his voice hissing like wood in a fire.

“My name is William. I came here on
Opinicus
. My master, Sir Owein, was one of those who died in the attack at Honfleur.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“One of the sergeants told me to fetch a fresh candle for our dormitory,” said Will, adopting the innocent expression that had always fooled Owein.

Everard smiled humorlessly and Will felt uneasy.

The priest leaned closer to him and gave the air a keen sniff. “Have you been drinking, sergeant?”

“No, sir.”

“No?” Everard gave the air another sniff. “I’m certain I can smell cheap wine.” He looked at the chalice on the floor. “Perhaps you were sleeping off the effects of the Eucharist? The blood of Christ makes for a potent concoction. Especially,” he murmured in a dangerous tone, looking back at Will, “if it is taken as an alehouse spread, rather than a holy act performed in deepest reverence!”

Will opened his mouth to say something in his defense, but the priest put a bony hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the door.

“Where are you taking me?” said Will, trying to sound indignant and dismayed to hear the fear in his voice.

“To the Visitor,” growled Everard. “I cannot authorize an expulsion myself.”

Will tried to think of something to say to make the priest relent, but his head felt muddled and all he could manage were several stammered apologies on the way to the Visitor’s solar, all of which fell on deaf ears.

The Visitor’s rooms were set in the officials’ buildings beneath the tower of the donjon. The area was busy with knights, who had finished the evening meal and were now completing the day’s assignments and meetings before the last office. Will forced himself to hold his head high as they entered the building through a wide porch and headed down an echoing passage to a set of black double doors. Everard rapped smartly on them.

“Enter,” came a deep voice.

Everard opened the doors, propelling Will in front of him.

The chamber was spacious and more opulently decorated than any of the knights’ quarters at New Temple. Against the far wall was a polished table with four stools set before it and a throne-like seat behind, cushioned and covered with an embroidered dorsar. The large window was partially draped with a heavy cloth and rugs covered the floor. Candles stuttered in iron sconces and a fire smoked thickly in the hearth, crackling and flaring around a large log that gave off an earthy, woodsy smell.

The Visitor was sitting in the throne-like seat behind the table with a book open in front of him. “Brother Everard?” he said, looking from the priest to Will with an expectant frown. “What is the matter?”

“This miscreant has defiled the Sacrament. I went in to ready the chapel for Compline and caught him sleeping off the effects of the Eucharist.”

The Visitor’s frown deepened and Will lowered his head, unable to meet the man’s stern, disapproving gaze. “Well, that is reprehensible indeed.” The Visitor’s eyes moved to Everard. “But it is also something which, I am sure, can be dealt with in the next chapter.”

Will looked up hopefully. Everard’s expression, however, remained resolute.

“Usually, I would have waited until then, brother, but this one is from England. He leaves tomorrow and I will not have him come in here and treat our chapel like a tavern without any punishment for the violation.”

The Visitor paused for a moment, then closed his book and laced his hands together on the table in a way that reminded Will, with a painful stab, of Owein.

“What do you have to say for yourself, sergeant?”

Will opened his mouth, but couldn’t speak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I went into the chapel and fell asleep, sir. I didn’t mean to.”

The Visitor’s expression didn’t change. “Your sleeping in the chapel is obviously not the issue. What I want to know is why you defiled the Sacrament?”

Will stared at the floor.

The Visitor tapped his thumbs together. “You are one of the sergeants from New Temple, yes?”

“Yes, sir,” said Will quietly. “My master, Owein, died at Honfleur.”

“What is your name?”

“William Campbell, sir.”

“Campbell? You’re not James Campbell’s son, are you?”