‘Shut up, bitch!’ Domingo hissed. The blade moved, she snapped her eyes shut, and felt the hideous dragging at her belly. Then he released her. Drained, her legs collapsed beneath her and she fell to the floor.
‘Christ’s Bones!’ Parceval muttered as he saw the lady slump down. A dark shape stood over her – a large, threatening figure – and as Parceval shouted and began to run towards her, he saw the evil glint of a blade. He immediately slowed his pace.
In the past he had killed, yes, but he wasn’t a very competent fighter. When he killed Hellin van Coye, he hadn’t worried about Hellin’s ability to strike back; he’d made sure of that by knifing him in the back when the man was walking away. Not the most honourable assault, perhaps, but Parceval wanted revenge, not a tribute for courage and honour.
This man looked big and Parceval didn’t want to be brought before God quite yet. There was too much to enjoy on earth before that. He shouted again, moving his arms threateningly, but not moving forward. To his relief he saw the thief bolt, and when he was sure that he was safe, Parceval went on to the body.
‘Doña Stefanía,’ he breathed.
She was weeping uncontrollably, but there was no sign of blood. In his experience a man or woman would leak alarmingly from a slight scratch, whereas a serious wound, like the one he gave Hellin, might give rise to very little bleeding. That was worrying, for she might be about to die, and if she was, he didn’t want to be near her in case he got accused of her death. As these thoughts were running through his mind, and he glanced along the alley considering escape, she looked up, her face streaked with tears.
‘Oh, Parceval! He stole it from me!’
Her voice didn’t sound like that of a woman who was gasping her last, and Parceval felt relieved.
‘My dear, dear lady! How are you?’ he said. ‘I heard the fracas, and although I ran here as fast as I could, he escaped! Who was it, did you see? If I catch him, he’ll regret his actions! I’ll cut his throat for him, acting like this to a Lady of the Church! Has he no faith?’
‘Leave him,’ Doña Stefanía said urgently. ‘Don’t pursue him, he is deadly.’
‘You know him?’
‘I …’ she hesitated, but fear made her blurt out the truth. ‘Yes. He was my maid’s cousin. He and his men were protecting me on my way to Orthez, and back again.’
‘They were not with your party when you joined us,’ Parceval pointed out.
‘I told them to keep away, but to follow at a distance. I thought that such a disreputable group might make your companions refuse to let me join you.’
Parceval nodded. Clearly she feared attack or robbery by the man and his companions – not unreasonably, from what he had just witnessed. Well now, he thought, this is better than the other day when I saw her in the square. He was about to speak again, when she submitted to another bout of sobbing. ‘My lady, please. How can I serve you?’
‘I don’t know … Take me to a tavern, somewhere I can have a little wine. I am so unsettled … I feel terrible.’
He saw her hand pat at her side, as though feeling for something, and then he saw the thongs, obviously sliced through, and realised that her purse was gone. So now she was bankrupted. With nothing but the clothes she stood up in, she would be delighted for the comfort, and perhaps companionship, of a man. Especially a man of means. He smiled and held out his hand. ‘Come, lady. Let me help you. But you shouldn’t go to a low tavern. Come with me and I shall see you well provided for.’
She accepted his hand, and when she stood, he was enormously relieved to see that opposite, a short way up a narrow little alley, there was a torch burning. He realised it had been the reflection of this which had made the attacker’s knife shine so alarmingly.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, content now that her answer would be negative.
‘No. Only my …’ She dissolved into tears, and this time he was in a better position to offer her comfort. He took her head in one hand and bent it to his shoulder, while with the other he encircled her waist. Then he stood still as she wailed and moaned quietly into his neck. ‘I trusted him! I’ve lost Joana, now him … who can I trust?’
Tonight he need not pay the exorbitant charges of the prostitutes, he reckoned. This woman was desperate, and he was sure that, from past experience with her, he could give her exactly the kind of solace she required.
He was rather glad he’d come along this alley. That figure had been very alarming, but things had turned out well. With that thought, he shot a look back in the direction the man had run off. If he appeared again, Parceval would ditch the woman and flee, he decided, but then he calmed himself. There was no sign of the fellow, and Parceval, if he played his dice aright, would have the opportunity of plenty of exercise without running!
That night, Simon woke with an intense griping sensation in his belly. ‘I’ll never get a decent night’s sleep in this blasted country,’ he grumbled as he picked his way over the slumbering bodies, tugging his blanket tighter about his naked shoulders on the way to the garderobe.
Squatting on the creaking wood, he brought his weight away from the moving timbers. It was partly to take his mind off the quality of the workmanship that he reminded himself of the investigation so far.
Baldwin, he knew, was shocked by the death of his friend Matthew the beggar. Learning that an old companion had been murdered had clearly stolen his concentration. Simon had a conviction that if either of them was to learn who had killed Joana, it would be him.
It was odd, the bond that service in the Order created between men, he thought. All the men he had met who had been in the Templars had seemed more intelligent than other knights, and Simon wondered fleetingly whether that was a sign of the recruitment policy of the Order, or a sign that they did enjoy some special training. He would probably never know. Even Matthew, who had sunk so low, still had a degree of cunning and intelligence that was higher than some knights Simon knew. Most knights, when it came down to it, would find it hard to locate their arses with both hands!
With that thought, there was a tortured squeak from the timbers and he hastily stopped chuckling.
Don Ruy had looked like an honourable knight, but he was flawed, if his Bishop was to be believed. But then, the Bishop might have been partial. If the girl’s father was politically important in Don Ruy’s town, the Bishop himself may have been influenced to punish the knight unreasonably. Politics mattered.
If Ruy was telling the truth, then it was possible that Ramón had walked with his fiancée, then killed her and stolen the money. Certainly Ramón had fled the town one day afterwards, which could be taken as an admission of guilt – although Simon himself could well understand that a man who had just buried his raped and murdered woman would want to flee the place which held such foul memories. Then again, surely a knight would want to find the culprit and kill him?
There was the other man: the felon who had been involved in the attack on the pilgrims, and who took the horse to the stable. How could that tie into Joana’s death? There were plenty of attacks on pilgrims, after all. Robberies and rapes were common enough.
Simon wondered whether the man had actually left Compostela to go and find the girl Joana. If he had, he might have come across her after Ramón had seen her; after which he killed and robbed her. Perhaps he had led an attack against the pilgrims because he wanted to kill her before, or to kill the Prioress, and he killed Joana when the Prioress didn’t appear? The two women had joined this group of pilgrims, Simon remembered, if only for a few short days. Could the man have intended to kill one or both of them, and that was why he attacked them outside Compostela? It was possible – but again, why? What motive was there for the attack?