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Michael Jecks
The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover
Prologue
Sir John de Sapy looked up as the door opened, anticipation lightening a face that had been full of trouble.
The last years had been unspeakable. Christ’s blood, but a man was hard pushed to survive just now. Even friends of the mightiest in the land could be brought to destruction, the realm was so stretched with treachery and mistrust.
He had been a knight in the King’s household until seven years ago, but then, when Lancaster was in the ascendant, he had switched allegiance and joined the Earl. Except the Earl had successfully squandered all his advantages, and ended up being executed by the King his cousin after raising a rebellion.
‘The arse,’ Sapy muttered.
There were few things more surely calculated to irritate Sir John than a man who promised much and then died leaving him in trouble — and he had been in trouble ever since the damned fool had gone and got himself killed. Sir John had been declared an outlaw, had had all his livings stolen from him by the King’s men, and now he was without funds, family or prospects. The only hope he had was that his brother, Sir Robert, who was still in the King’s household, might be able to help him to return to favour.
The door opened again, and for the second time he looked up eagerly, but there were two men hooded and cloaked in the doorway, not one, and he turned bitterly back to his wine. Robert wouldn’t come. He knew it, really. He’d hoped and prayed that his brother would forgive him his foolishness in trusting that churl’s hog, Earl Thomas, but how could he? To forgive John would be to open himself to the accusation of harbouring a traitor. In the years since the battle of Boroughbridge, which saw the final destruction of Earl Thomas’s host, hundreds of knights and barons up and down the kingdom had been taken and summarily executed, many of them for minor offences committed on behalf of the Earl. For a man who supported one of the Earl’s followers, and aided him in hiding, the punishment would be worse.
No, this was pointless. He was wasting his time. His sodding brother could hang himself.
John wouldn’t sit here all night like some beggar seeking alms. If his brother wasn’t going to help him, he’d find someone who would. There were barons in France who’d welcome the strong arm and ruthlessness Sir John exhibited.He was setting his hands on the table to push himself up when a hand fell on his shoulder. ‘Brother, stay there. ’
‘Robert?’ Sir John was torn between irritation at the lateness of his brother’s arrival, and immense relief that he had come at last. It made him feel less alone. ‘Who’s this?’
‘This is someone who’s going to assist you, I think,’ Sir Robert said. ‘Meet Father Pierre Clergue. He would like your help. ’
‘My help?’
‘Yes,
3
The cell was tiny. Like a coffin. And she was sure that, were she not rescued from this hideous half-life soon, it would become her tomb. A woman of only eight or nine and twenty years, she had already lived long enough. The idea of death was not so dreadful. It would rescue her from this living horror.
