No Law in the Land: (Knights Templar 27) (36 page)

‘It’s Osbert. I heard him on the path. Thought to stop him. Speak with him. Tab wouldn’t wait; went for him. I tried. Tried
to get him, but he was too quick.’

Simon saw the little dog’s twisted, bloody body and felt a wave of revulsion. This pair were no threat to anyone. There was
surely no need to kill them. As he watched, Roger walked to the dog, and to Simon’s surprise crouched at the dead animal’s
side, stroking Tab’s soft ears and the rounded head, while tears ran down his cheeks. There was no sobbing, no overt anger,
but Simon could feel the man’s emotion. It was a slow, building rage.

‘Where did he go?’ Simon said quietly.

‘To the town. Jacobstowe. He’s clad in monk’s robes. Anselm’s robes.’

‘You will be avenged, Hoppon,’ Simon swore. ‘We’ll send a man to look to you.’

‘No. I’m … dead. Catch him. All I ask. Jacobstowe.’

Simon nodded and stood, but then he was struck with a wonderful terror. Edith was in Jacobstowe. She was in danger!

He ran to the horse, leapt into the saddle, snatched up his reins, and was off.

Jacobstowe

Osbert was sweating as he shoved the cursed barrow up the road. It had been hard work to make it so far, and now the swyving
wheel was buggered, it was hard to keep the damned thing in a straight line. It wanted to waver off to the right all the time.
At the first opportunity he would have to get rid of it and find another, one that was working. Or he could get this one mended,
perhaps. It wasn’t as though he needed to worry about money, after all.

This roadway was rutted and muddy, which didn’t help. It was as though the land itself was trying to hamper his escape. At
least Hoppon had been so incompetent in the way that he’d tried to slow Osbert’s progress that his impact had been minuscule.
Hopefully no one else knew that he might come this way. With luck, he could rent a cart at Jacobstowe, for it would be impossible
to carry the box any distance. It was far too heavy, and the square sides made it a difficult object to transport on the shoulders.
Perhaps, he wondered, he could sling it from a pole, if he could find some rope. Set a pole like a yoke about his neck? No,
the damn thing was simply too heavy. He needed a cart of some sort.

Blessed relief! At last he could see the buildings of Jacobstowe. He would see if he could find some means of transport there,
and hopefully soon be on his way in more comfort. Even if there was nothing to be had, surely there would be a smith or wheelwright
who could mend the barrow.

He shoved with renewed vigour at the handles, and slowly made his way up into the vill itself, where he cast about him with
eager wariness, trying to make sure that he was safe and that no one had made any apparent gestures, pointing at him, or hurrying
away at the sight of him. There was nothing. Nothing at all. As he pushed his ungainly barrow down the road into the vill,
he felt the anxiety sloughing away like dried mud from a waxed cloak, and he began to walk more upright, like a man who was
at ease in the company of others. He even nodded to a man who made the sign of the cross at him.

This was easy. He ought to have got hold of such garb before, if this was how people looked at a monk. It was much easier
than any other form of concealment. He would have to keep this by, just in case he might have a need of it in the future.
It was good and thick, too. Be
useful in the cold weather. Not that he would have to worry about the weather. It wasn’t as if he was going to be stuck in
the misery of mud and soggy leaves again, like when he was living rough with Sir Robert.

Shame Sir Robert was dead. In his own way he had been a good man. Still, the bastard had never compensated him for the ruin
done to his face. One shilling. Twelve lousy pennies. That was all his dedication had been worth.

As he entered the main street, he reflected that it was all for the good anyway. The bastard would have been a problem before
long. As soon as people started saying that the money had definitely been there, Sir Robert would have started thinking. There’d
never been anything wrong with his brain, after all. No, and the man would have soon begun to wonder whether even his oldest
companion might be worth questioning in more detail. Osbert would have. He wouldn’t have waited so long, neither. He would
have had a man like himself stretched over a table and beaten until he admitted where the money had been hidden, and the man
would have been very fortunate if that was all that had happened to him.

The road opened out here in the vill. There was a broad area in the midst of the houses, which had been churned into mud by
the passage of carts and horses. To the north end of the vill there was a marvellous sound, a ringing noise, like bells. A
smith, he told himself, and threw himself forward.

But as he moved, he heard the noises he had been dreading for all the last miles. A roar, a bellowed shout, and the blast
of a horn.

Jacobstowe

It was Sir Richard who saw him first. ‘There! There, in the monk’s sacking! That’s the bastard!’

Simon had been staring at the ground, wondering whether they had been led astray by some malevolent spirit who had persuaded
them to follow a will-o’-the-wisp trail rather than the murderer’s, and he glanced up with shock to hear the coroner’s bellow.
‘It’s him!’ he cried, seeing the man thrust at his barrow with more urgency, and grabbed his horn, giving the three blasts
that warned others of felons being pursued. Then he was spurring his mount to greater efforts, leaning down, willing the beast
to be first in this race. He wanted the man’s blood on his sword.

Faster and faster along the road they flew. Mud and dirt sprayed up on all sides, and Simon was liberally splashed when Baldwin’s
mount went through a broad puddle, and then they were up the last little rise and entered the vill at the canter.

There was no sign of the man at first, but Simon could see the marks in the filth of the road, turning to the right, heading
east of north. He shouted and pointed, pulling his horse round in a tight turn. The poor creature slipped, his hoofs throwing
up huge clods of mud and foulness, and Simon thought he was about to lose his seat and tumble to the ground, but then the
horse gave a convulsive push with both hind legs, and Simon felt the surge of power at his backside, then they were hurtling
dangerously along a narrow little lane. There was a turning, and this time he wasn’t so lucky. He felt the horse start to
slide, and had only just time to kick both feet from the stirrups as the world seemed to swerve around him. For a heart-stopping
moment he appeared to be suspended in mid-air, with all the time in the world to notice Osbert further down the road staring
back over his shoulder, to see Baldwin reaching out in a futile attempt to save him before Simon
could hit the ground; and then the sudden acceleration of the mud and grasses as they rushed upwards to meet him.

The landing was not so much painful as simply numbing. It was as though his entire body was jarred, with each and every bone
dislocating and resetting itself. All he could do for a moment was remain still, wondering when the pain would begin to affect
him. It was not easy to tell. There was such a sensation of shock that such a thing could have happened, that he was sure
there would be an overwhelming agony in all parts of his body at any moment.

‘Simon, are you all right, my friend?’

Gradually easing himself up, Simon took stock. ‘Yes,’ he said with some surprise. ‘I think I am.’

‘Then mount, man! We’ll lose him else!’

Simon shook his head. He felt as though he had been woolgathering for an hour or more, and when he looked about him, the others
were all with him still, each of them looking more concerned about his welfare than they were at the thought that the felon
could escape. ‘Get after him, then!’ he shouted.

His horse, God be praised, had survived the fall. There was a slight lameness in the front right leg, but nothing serious,
he thought, gently handling it. Perhaps it was a strain. If so, a ride might help it to heal.

He climbed into his saddle again and followed after the others as they trotted along the road. But soon it became obvious
that they had made an error. The track continued for some few yards and then stopped. There they found a barrow. But it was
empty, and there was no sign of Osbert.

He had thrown them! They had thought he was stupid enough to just run out into the open country, but he wasn’t so dull witted.
He wasn’t some gull ready to swallow any garbage slipped to him. He’d deliberately let the barrow run on and left it under
a hedge, before grabbing his money and clutching its massive weight to his chest.

Crouched over, his back complaining at the unnatural gait, he ran as fast as he could, through a hole in a hedge, and from
there back the way he had come.

The chest was a terrible weight. The mass of coins inside the box meant that it was all he could do to manage a restricted
hobble. It was like clutching a man’s weight concentrated into metal and wood of
only some two feet by one and one. But although a pound in money weighed less than a pound of silver, the thing was unbearably
massive. He would have to throw it aside soon, if he couldn’t …

He managed to keep on going until he reached a gate. Sobbing with the effort, he yanked it wide, and stumbled into the street.
There before him was the huge tower of the church. He threw a fearful glance all about him – in the last resort he could claim
sanctuary inside that, but he didn’t want to. Better by far to find a horse or some hiding place. Panting, his eye turned
this way and that, desperate for a decision, but he could see nothing. It was then that he heard a scream.

Edith almost fell to the floor when she recognised him. She had seen the monk hurrying through the vill, and then the clear
notes of the horn had shivered on the air and she had rushed back indoors with Ant and Agnes, hiding as the sound of hoofs
came and passed by. If there was a felon in the vill, it was no time for her or the others to be out on the street. Too many
people were knocked down by fools galloping their beasts in the middle of towns. And she had no desire to be killed by a felon
trying to escape the law.

‘It’s quiet now,’ Agnes had said after they had been hiding inside for a while. She had been quite still as they waited, as
though utterly petrified, holding the Ant close to her, his head at her throat, her hand over the fragile skull as though
to protect it against any harm. It made Edith realise just how much she would suffer were she to lose her own husband. She
couldn’t – to lose Peter would be to lose herself, she knew. It would remove the first structural plank on which her life
depended. Especially now that she had the beginnings of new life in her womb. The idea that she should – that she
could
– lose her husband before he had even seen their child was so devastating that she had felt the room to grow stuffy, hot,
unbearable. She rose and pulled a shawl over her shoulders, walking outside cautiously.

The sound of riders had faded to nothing now, but still she peered about the open area carefully before stepping out into
the cool air. It would be an irony of some poignancy, she thought, were she to be slain now in the road, when only the day
before she had been saved from death by her father and Sir Baldwin.

She was standing and smiling to herself at the singular nature of
fate when a figure appeared around a corner. It was the monk, but he must be in pain, for he was bent almost double, as though
nursing a terrible wound in his belly, and for an instant, that was her sole thought: that a felon had stabbed him, or he
had fallen prey to the horses of the hue and cry, and was soon to collapse.

That was why she began to move towards him, but then he looked up and saw her, and she recognised him instantly.

He realised who she was at the same moment, and he felt his face twist with rage. The bitch was here! There was no chance
he’d escape the bastards now. She knew him, that much was clear. Her face crumpled, and there was a blanched horror in her
eyes that he couldn’t miss. But now there was the sound of men approaching.

Shit!
Shit!
All his plans were going awry as he stood here dithering. There was a need to get away, to be miles from here as quickly
as he could, but he couldn’t just run, not with this box. And now that bitch had seen him, he was sure to be followed. They
would know exactly where he had gone. He had to kill her, if he wanted any possibility of escape.

‘No!’ she cried, and her face was contorted with fear. But he knew what he must do.

He accordingly took a pace forward, and set the chest on the ground, as though exhausted, before drawing his knife and approaching
her.

There was a scream, and a baby began to cry, and he saw that there was another slut behind her, this one with a pup at her
tit. Another one to remove. But then, when he looked back at the blonde, he saw that there was something else in her eyes:
a wildness, such as a cornered cat might show. She was scared, yes, but she’d made a decision to sell her life as dearly as
she could. Even as he stepped over the dirt and mud, she darted back, pushing the other maid before her, and then reappeared
in the doorway with a long knife. And she held it like she knew what to do with it.

‘Ach, shite,’ he muttered to himself.

Because just then he heard the hoofs returning. They had learned his little trick and were coming back. If they saw him here,
he would have no choice but to surrender. They were too close already.
Shite!
If they caught him here in the open, they’d cut him to pieces.

He turned and fled back to his chest. Hefting it, he felt his belly muscles start to tear, his shoulders begin to sing with
the agony of strain and tension. There was only one place he could go. Ahead of him was the gate, and he hurled himself towards
it, aware all the while of the sounds coming closer and closer, the hoofs, the horn blowing, the roars and bellows. With a
convulsive effort, he hefted the box on to the gate, then with a heave that made him see spots before his eyes, he hoisted
it up and over, to fall with a rattle and crash at the other side. The gate had a thong holding it. He lifted it, slipped
inside and shut the gate. Then, with the last strength he could summon, he picked up the chest again, and covered the last
twenty yards to the church door. There he shoved the door wide and made his way with faltering steps to the altar, where at
last he could drop the chest and fall to the floor, gripping the altar cloth with trembling hands. He bent down over the cloth
and kissed it.

‘I claim sanctuary!’

Brother Mark was in the vestry, a small shed that would have collapsed under its own weight had the church’s walls not been
so close that it could lean like an old horse against a tree. The priest here was an accommodating fellow by the name of Father
James, and he had made the monk most welcome, especially when he heard that he was sent by the cardinal to learn all he could
about the murders at Abbeyford.

They had been chatting in a desultory fashion, as monks and priests were wont to do, neither trusting the other entirely,
for the monk thought the priest a little too worldly, and the priest thought him an arrogant fool, but they had begun to notice
some mutual interests, and after some little while their conversation had grown a great deal more amiable. By the time of
the shouting from within the church, both had drunk a goodly portion of wine, and their friendship had been sealed.

‘What on earth is that?’ the priest demanded as the clamour began.

‘My heavens, I think I recognise that voice,’ Mark declared as he heard the coroner’s bellow. No one could have missed his
shout.

The two rose hurriedly, James spilling his wine, and both hurried out into the cold air, running about the church to the door
at the north and rushing in.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Father James demanded as he saw
the men ranged about the altar,
his
altar. His rage was entirely unfeigned. He was unused to seeing people brawling in his church, and he would be answerable
before God if he was going to permit it now. ‘You, sir – yes, you! Leave hold of that fellow at once!’

Sir Richard glanced up guiltily. ‘Ah, I know that this looks bad, Father, and I apologise … Oh, that you there, Brother?
Could you explain about this fellow?’

Mark shook his head. ‘That disreputable-looking figure is actually the coroner for Lifton or somewhere. The man he has grabbed
is one of Sir Robert de Traci’s retinue, and responsible for much of the trouble about here. He was the fellow who led all
those travellers to Abbeyford and saw them slain.’

‘And what is he doing here?’ Father James asked of Osbert, ignoring Sir Richard’s expostulations at his description.

‘I claim sanctuary, Father. I demand it. If these men take me, they’ll see me dead. I must be protected.’

‘Release him,’ Father James said.

‘This man has killed, Father,’ Baldwin said. ‘He led those travellers to their doom, he oversaw the torture of a monk, brother
to your friend Mark there, and killed that man, Pietro de Torrino, and also Brother Anselm from Tavistock. We found the brother’s
body earlier, I’m afraid, Mark. He has killed another man today, a fellow called Hoppon, and he has robbed the king of a hundred
pounds. It’s in the casket beside him. Do you mean to tell me that a known, unrepentant felon like this can demand sanctuary?’

‘Yes. He has reached the safety of the altar. You will not take him from here, not for the requisite forty days. He is as
safe and inviolable as a new-born innocent babe. Let him free!’

‘Father, he is a murderer,’ Sir Richard repeated.

It was Roger who shook his head and muttered, ‘We have no rights in here, Sir Richard. Master Simon, we should leave this
place. The law as you know it has no effect once you enter the doors.’

Sir Baldwin was cool as he took Sir Richard’s arm. ‘Come, Sir Richard. There is no more for us to do in here. You are a coroner,
though, and you can enforce the laws as they apply.’

The coroner nodded. He reluctantly allowed his grip on Osbert to relax. ‘Do you have a weapon about you? Answer quickly!’

Osbert licked his lips. He had wanted to keep at least one knife
about him, but it was correct that if he wished to remain safe, he must adhere to the law. He pulled his knife from within
his robe and gave it to the coroner.

‘Right, you dishonourable and dishonest felon, you have the right to remain here for forty days and nights. After that time,
I can come in to fetch you. You will either have to leave of your own free will, which means surrendering to the full weight
of the law, or you will have to agree to abjure the realm. You understand? Either hang, or run to exile. There’s nothing else
for you.’

Osbert nodded grimly. But in forty days, even the most observant guards could fail in their duties. It was likely that he
would be able to escape in ten days or so. The coroner and his friends would not remain here all that time.