Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (44 page)

“Don’t say that,” Garin pleaded, “it’s not my fault. I didn’t ask him to come. I’m sorry,” he repeated, taking hold of her shoulder as she turned away. “Listen to me, Adela.” Garin had to raise his voice over a burst of boisterous laughter that filled the room as one of the merchants fell off the table. “If Rook gets what he wants, he will pay me and we can be together. I always meant what I said.”

“What about the Temple?” she said accusingly. “Will they let you marry a whore?”

“I’ll leave the Temple,” said Garin carelessly. “I’ve been promised a lordship and if all goes well tonight I should be granted it. I’ll buy an estate back in England.” He shook his head. “Or anywhere you want, if you’ll only come with me.”

“What if they won’t let you leave?”

“I told the Visitor yesterday that I would go to Cyprus, he’s expecting me to leave as soon as possible. When I don’t return he will think I’ve gone. It will be a long time before anyone misses me.”

“Why did you run? Why did you leave me with him?”

“I was angry.” Garin frowned as he tried to touch her face again and she brushed his hand aside. “But I came back for you, didn’t I?” He took her cool hands in his hot, nail-bitten fingers. “I don’t want to share you anymore, not with that bastard, not with anyone! Leave this place. I can take care of you.”

“You had better go upstairs,” said Adela quietly, gently removing her hands from his. “Rook has the Templar up there and the last thing I need tonight is a murder on my hands.”

Garin looked fearfully up the stairs. “Will’s here?” He looked back at her. “First, just say you’ll come with me. I can’t do this without knowing that.”

“I’ll think about it.”

After a pause, Garin acceded with a nod and a feeble smile, then headed for the stairs.

As he reached Adela’s room, he heard Rook’s voice on the other side, muted through the wood, followed by a muffled cry of pain. Taking a deep breath, Garin knocked. The door opened after several moments.

Rook’s eyes narrowed as he saw Garin standing there. “You ever run off like that again and I’ll unmake you,” he growled through his black mask, opening the door wider.

Garin could just make out Will. He was sitting upright on the floor, strapped to the legs of the bed by his wrists, his arms pinioned wide apart as if he were opening them to receive an embrace. His ankles were bound together with a belt. He looked like a broken crucifix. Garin saw him try to turn his head, then cough violently and spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor. He realized, with shock, that Will was wearing the white mantle of a knight.

“The whelp’s not talking. You’ll have to help me.”

“I can’t!” hissed Garin. “He knows me!”

“And you him,” snapped Rook. “You know better than me what’ll pluck his strings.”

“No,” said Garin. “I don’t want any part in this.” He nodded to Will. “He’s been knighted, for God’s sake! If we’re found out, you’ll be strung up and I’ll be sent to Merlan!”

“Help me,” came a breathless groan from Will.

“Shut your hole,” growled Rook over his shoulder. He grabbed Garin by the arm. “Stop your whining and get in here.” Garin stumbled into the room as Rook yanked him forward. “I’ve had enough of this shit!” he spat, slamming the door shut. “You make that bastard speak, or I’ll kill both of you!”

Garin went slowly around the bed. Will’s head was lolling to one side, his eyes half closed. His lip and nose were bloodied and there was a large, purple bruise showing on his forehead above his right eye. His face was deathly pale and covered in a film of sweat. “No wonder he’s not talking,” murmured Garin, looking at Rook. “What have you done to him?”

“Garin?”

Garin glanced back to see Will staring faintly at him.

“Garin?” Will repeated, more coherently now. He tried to sit up. “Has he gone? Get me out of here!”

Garin was unable to meet his gaze. “I can’t. Not until you tell him what he wants to know.”

Will shook his head slowly. “I don’t understand. What are you…?” He stopped as Rook came into view. “What is this?”

“He wants to know where the Book of the Grail is. You have to tell him.”

Will just stared blankly at the knight.

“Tell me!”
roared Rook, stepping forward and drawing back his fist.

Will twisted away, but couldn’t avoid Rook’s fist as it smashed into his face, mashing his lip against his teeth. Will rocked sideways with the blow, his mouth filling with fresh blood. Rook grabbed his hair and wrenched back his head. Will was wheezing desperately with each breath.

“Will, just tell him!” urged Garin. “Do it and he’ll let you go!”

Rook straightened, waiting for Will to catch his breath.

“Garin,” gasped Will, his eyes swiveling to the knight. “He said he has Elwen. But I didn’t believe him. Tell me it’s not true.”

Garin glanced at Rook, then back at Will. “It’s true.”

“And can you imagine what I’ll do to her if I don’t get what I want?” said Rook, crouching before Will and leaning in close. “You’ll get off light compared to your sweetheart.”

Will looked past him to Garin. “How could you do this? How could you
let
him do this?”

“Tell me!” hissed Rook in Will’s face. “Or I’ll bring her in here and slit her throat. After I’ve had my fun with her.” He rose when Will didn’t speak. “Go and get her,” he ordered Garin. He turned when Garin didn’t move.
“Now!”

“No!”
shouted Will, as Garin moved toward the door. “Wait, I’ll tell you! Just let her go!”

“He will,” promised Garin, “if you tell him where the book is.” He went over to Will. “I swear I won’t let anything happen to her, Will. I
swear
it. If you believe nothing else, believe that.”

“Nicolas de Navarre has it,” said Will, swallowing thickly. “He took it from us and went to La Rochelle.”

“Who?” demanded Rook.

“He’s a Hospitaller. He’s taking the book to Acre for his master.”

“Why does a Hospitaller have it?”

“He wants to use it to bring down the Temple,” coughed Will weakly. He looked at Garin. “Let her go, I’ve told you all I know.”

Rook stepped back. The mask lifted at the corners as he smiled. “Well, isn’t that interesting.” He looked at Garin. “I’ll go and secure us horses. We’ll leave tonight, try to catch up with this knight on the road.” He headed for the door, then turned back. “Kill him.”

Garin stared at him open-mouthed. “What?”

Rook opened the door. “You said he’d inform on you if he saw you. The wretch won’t be able to if he’s dead now, will he?”

W
ill strained against his bonds, but they held tight and he only succeeded in exhausting himself further. Garin had left the room several minutes after the man with the dagger, but he guessed that he didn’t have much time. The only things he could think of were getting free and getting to Elwen, wherever she was. He couldn’t think yet about Garin’s treachery and the reasons behind it; that could come later. Trying to ignore the pain that was coursing through him, Will stopped struggling and craned his head awkwardly to look at the bed behind him. The pallet was large and appeared fairly sturdy, but if he could gather enough strength, he might be able to shift it enough to reach the wall or even the door. If he banged on the wall with his feet, someone in one of the other rooms might hear him. It was a desperate plan, but the only one he could think of. He had to try something. After taking a breath, he pulled his arms and upper body forward, gasping with the effort. The bed shunted a few inches and came to rest, nestled snugly against his back. Will shuffled along the floor, then pulled again, the cords biting his wrists. The bed squeaked and moved along behind him another few inches. He did this three times, managing to move the bed only a couple of feet, before the door opened.

“You have to help me,” he heard Garin say urgently, followed by two sets of footsteps and the bang of the door as it was closed.

Will barely managed to raise his head as Garin appeared in front of him, leading the woman he had thought was Elwen.

The woman pressed her hand to her mouth as she saw him. “Where’s Rook?”

“Getting horses,” Garin replied, heading to the trestle. Picking up one of the jars, he inspected it.

“Horses?” asked the woman. “Where are you going?”

“Elwen,” said Will thickly.

They both looked around.

Will struggled to focus on Garin. “Do what you want with me. But let her go.”

“We don’t have her,” Garin told him. “He was lying.”

“She’s not here?” said Will, with a small sob of relief.

“No,” said Garin quietly. He went to say something further, then turned back to the trestle and picked up another jar.

“You’re leaving?”

Garin glanced around at the woman’s accusing tone. “Not for long. I promise you, Adela,” he said, earnestly, “help me do this one last thing and I will do everything I said.”

“That’s henbane,” murmured Adela, as Garin turned the jar over in his hands. “It’s poisonous.”

“I need you to make up a potion for me.”

Adela stepped forward. “Put it down, Garin. I’m not going to help you kill him.”

Will watched them in silence, his mind growing foggier by the minute.

“Not kill,” Garin said quickly. “Not that.”

She gestured to the pot in his hands. “Then why…?”

“I want you to make me a sleeping draft. That’s right, isn’t it?” He lifted the jar. “Henbane? My mother used it.”

“A sedative? Well, certain parts of the plant. Get it wrong and it wouldn’t be something you would wake up from.”

“Can you do it? I’ll try to keep Rook away until we leave, but we need to make it look like Will’s dead, just in case.”

“And what do I do when he wakes up and charges me with abducting and drugging him?” said Adela angrily.

“He won’t do that,” said Garin, looking at Will.

“How do you know?”

“Because he’ll be too busy coming after me.”

Adela looked from Will to Garin. Finally, she took the jar from Garin’s hands and placed it on her trestle. “There’s no need for me to make up a potion,” she said quietly, crossing to her shelves and bringing down a tall, black bottle. “This will do it.” She handed it to Garin.

“How much?” Garin pulled the cork stopper from the top, sniffed inside and grimaced.

“A quarter will keep him sedated for about ten hours.”

“At least it will slow his pursuit.” Garin crossed to Will. “Open your mouth.”

“You’re right,” murmured Will. “I will come after you.”

Garin’s jaw tightened. “I’m saving your life, Will. Just remember that.” He took hold of Will’s chin and tilted his head back, firmly, but not roughly.

Will tried to turn his head away, but Garin kept a tight hold on him and pressed the bottle to his lips. Will felt a gritty, thick liquid fill his mouth. He tried not to swallow, but more kept coming, and now Garin was holding his nose shut and he couldn’t breathe. He swallowed, half choking on the foul-tasting sludge.

Garin stepped back when it was done and placed the bottle on the trestle. “How long?” he asked Adela.

Will coughed, dribbling black liquid down his chin and onto his mantle, staining it.

“Not long.”

Will watched Garin pace the chamber as the minutes passed. “Why did you do this? Why are you after the book?”

“I’m not,” said Garin shortly. “He is.”

“Who is he?”

Garin didn’t answer.

After a while, Will started to feel queasy. He went to speak, then a violent rush came up through his stomach and he doubled over and vomited on the floor. When he had finished, he slumped back against the bed. His tongue felt swollen and tingly. Shivers were running playfully up and down his spine. The tingling in his tongue spread to his cheeks, scalp, the back of his neck. He felt an irresistible urge to laugh. He did so. The laughter was as violent as the vomiting and his eyes watered until he was crying and laughing at once. He sagged sideways, then tried to sit up, but his limbs weren’t working. He slid lower, his euphoria fading. His arms and legs felt like they belonged to someone else; someone who had decided not to move, but to lay down. Garin was speaking, but the words made no sense and grated in his ears. He tried to push them away, but only succeeded in flapping one hand uselessly. The room was lurching. Garin’s face was distorted and the woman, Adela, had a wide, red slash for a mouth. All the colors and shapes were bleeding into one another. “Why?” he tried to say to Garin. Will heard the knight’s reply as if it was coming down a hole, elongated, echoing.

“For what it is worth, Will, I’m sorry. But you don’t know what I’ve been through.”

Will felt himself falling.

Adela walked over to Will’s prone body. Lifting one of his eyelids, she nodded. “It is done.”

“Good. I’ll go and tell Rook we poisoned him.”

“Help me get him untied first.”

“Why?”

“I’ll not take the chance of someone coming in here and seeing him tied and beaten like this. At least if he’s on the bed they’ll just think he’s drunk.”

Garin helped Adela untie Will’s bonds.

“Won’t he tell the rest of your Order that you did this to him?” asked Adela, struggling to bear Will’s weight as Garin hauled him onto the pallet. “Won’t they arrest you?”

Garin felt his already frayed nerves giving at the thought of Merlan. There was a pit there especially reserved for traitors. It was, he remembered someone saying, barely big enough for a man to crouch in. He would be left there, bent double in total darkness and solitude without food or water until he died. “I told you, I’m not going back to the Temple.” He went to the trestle where his leather bag, filled with his few belongings, including the letter from the Visitor, was lying and shrugged off his mantle. “When I come back, we’ll go somewhere where they can’t find us. I’ll come for you when I return. You can sell this place, or leave it behind. It doesn’t matter, either way we’ll be gone.” Garin paused as he put the white mantle into his sack.
So that is it?
a voice in his mind said mockingly. It sounded like his uncle’s.
You are going to give up everything, your place in the Temple, your duty as your mother’s son, as a de Lyons, for a whore?
Garin shook the voice away and stuffed the mantle into the sack.

“Is it done?” demanded Rook, as Garin stepped out into the yard at the back of the alehouse a short time later, his pack slung over his shoulder. The moon was concealed by a stipple of cloud and the area was dark. The yard filled with the squat shadows of barrels.

“Yes,” said Garin. He looked around, hearing a whinny, and saw two horses tethered outside one of the alleys that led off between the buildings which bordered the yard.

Rook crossed to the beasts and tied a sack he was carrying to the back of one of the saddles.

“Where did you get those?” Garin asked.

“Why did it take you so long?” questioned Rook, looking around, his eyes glinting in the pale light that washed out, along with the sounds of singing and laughter, from the alehouse’s back door.

“I poisoned him. I had to wait to make sure he was dead.”

Rook continued to stare at him, then picked up another pack that was sat on one of the barrels and slung it at him. “Poisoned, you say?”

“That’s right,” said Garin, catching the pack.

“A tricky business that. Sometimes it doesn’t work. I’d better check for myself.”

“There’s no need!” said Garin quickly. But Rook was already stepping through the door.

Adela wrapped her arms about her as she stood in the crowded chamber. She couldn’t imagine how she had once thought herself happy here. It was as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes. Things that had only niggled at her before: the cracks in the walls, which the rot bubbled up through; the blood-and vomit-stained floor; the tears in her girls’ gowns, all looked so much worse now.

“You said to tell you when Dalmau had gone upstairs, Adela.”

Adela turned at the voice to see one of her girls, a buxom redhead called Blanche, looking expectantly at her.

“Send Jacqueline,” Adela told her, sounding sharper than she meant to. She sighed and motioned to the boisterous merchants. “I have to deal with this lot.” It was a lie: Fabien was more than capable of handling the merry crowd. But Garin hadn’t left yet and she wanted to say a last good-bye and, besides, she didn’t think she could bear to be touched by another man tonight, especially not the bull-shouldered butcher.

“Jacqueline?” said Blanche doubtfully. “I thought Dalmau liked his women experienced?”

“Dalmau will no doubt be too drunk to notice,” responded Adela curtly. “Tell him he can have this one for free. I’ll pay Jacqueline myself. Double.”

“As you say.”

Adela moved away, heading for the opening at the back of the room that led down a short passage past the kitchen to the back door. She halted in the opening as she saw a figure moving up it. “Where’s Garin?” she asked, as Rook came striding out of the shadows toward her.

Blanche stood on tiptoe to scan the crowd and saw Jacqueline sitting with a small group in a quieter corner. She went over. “You’re seeing mistress’s customer tonight.”

Jacqueline, a wide-eyed girl of fourteen with a thin, pale face and a mass of curls that tumbled in a cascade of gold down her back, looked up fearfully. “Mistress’s?”

“Don’t worry,” Blanche reassured her. “He’ll be drunk as a fiddler. Just do what I showed you. It’ll be over in no time.” She shrieked as one of the merchants grabbed her from behind and spun her around. “He’ll be in her room!” she shouted to Jacqueline, as the man whirled her away across the floor.

Taking a sharp breath, Jacqueline rose and headed over to the stairs. She ascended into darkness, leaving the shrieks and roars of laughter to fade behind her.

After trundling past the Sorbonne, the distinguished college of theology established by King Louis’ chaplain, the wagon turned down the street where the Seven Stars was.

“This is it,” Elwen heard Baudouin say from the driver’s seat.

Before the wagon had come to a stop, she was at the back, sweeping aside the cloth. She leapt lightly down and stared at the large alehouse. Torchlight shone behind the window coverings. She could hear the high-pitched tones of women between louder male voices. A few men outside the alehouse, standing near a group of hobbled horses and two wagons looked over at her. One made a lewd gesture and the others laughed. Elwen’s heart beat faster, but she ignored them and walked toward the door.

“Hey!” shouted Baudouin. He vaulted from the driver’s seat and ran after her. “I don’t know where you think you’re going,” he said, moving to block her path.

“To look for my soon-to-be husband,” replied Elwen, stepping past him.

“I’ll go in and see if he’s there,” said Baudouin, taking hold of her arm. “A woman in this area is only here for one thing. And you can tell the captain whatever you want about me and his daughter. The king himself would have me strung up if I let you go wandering off to get…Well, begging your pardon, miss, but all men have desires.” He glanced over at the drivers by the wagons. “When a man sees a pretty girl like you, there’ll be only one thing on his mind. It is the Devil in us.” He turned to Simon who was jogging over. “Wouldn’t you agree, sergeant?”

Elwen didn’t give Simon a chance to reply. She shrugged her arm from Baudouin’s grip. “Then you had better come with me.”

Simon looked vaguely impressed by Elwen’s forthrightness, but Baudouin was clearly not amused. Unwilling to stop her by force, however, he had no choice but to follow as she strode up to the alehouse door, the hems of her yellow mantle whispering across the frosty ground. Simon came after them, leaving the royal wagon sitting incongruously in the middle of the street. Up close, the music and singing was much louder. Elwen paused at the door, feeling a little intimidated by the thought of so many people on the other side, then pushed it. It didn’t open. She rapped on it cautiously.

“They’re not likely to hear that,” said Simon, moving past her to bang his fist against it.

There was no response, although Elwen thought she saw one of the downstairs window coverings move. Simon hammered on the door again and Baudouin huffed loudly to show his displeasure. Elwen bit her lip as the door remained closed.

“You poisoned the knight?” said Rook, as he approached Adela.

“Yes,” she said, trying to keep the fear from her voice. “I helped Garin do it.” She looked past him to the back door, which was closed. “Is he out there? I wanted to say good-bye.”

“You can do that when I’ve seen the knight’s dead for myself,” answered Rook. “Get out of my way.”