‘Oh, Ramon I should like to question, if the Mestre allows me. As you said, he could have had something to do with the death of the girl. We think he saw her up there but lied and left the place. If he is guilty of her murder, I should wish to bring him back here.’
‘And the other?’
‘Matthew’s killer is clearly evil,’ Baldwin said shortly. ‘He was witnessed murdering a harmless old man. He deserves his fate.’
Munio turned upon him a look of such piercing intelligence that Baldwin blinked. ‘I fear you think me a fool, just because I do not speak your tongue so well as you.’
‘Not at all, you speak my language better than I speak yours, and for that I honour you,’ Baldwin protested.
‘But still you treat me as an idiot. You think me a country bumpkin, not an astute fellow like yourself. Oh, do not try to argue otherwise. It is clear enough. Now, Don Baldwin, let me tell you some things. I know you have a burning desire to go to Portugal. Why not? I hear it is a lovely country. But you want to punish the murderer of a beggar. That death offends you more than the ending of the life of a beautiful, defenceless child, when the motive for her death was either her rape or the simple theft of the money that was on her. That means to me that her murderer was either exceedingly fortunate, because he found a suitable woman to rape just at the time that she was carrying a fortune in money, or that he already knew she would be there with the cash. Which means he knew her, knew of the blackmail, and knew she had the money. That man could so easily have been Ramon. He picked up a stone and smashed that poor face into nothing, then stole all the money. If that is the case, he is a cold-blooded murderer and should be punished.’
‘I agree, of course I do. But where is the proof? Why should he run if he had killed her?’
Munio was scathing. ‘If he didn’t, why did he run away before seeking out and killing the real murderer? Can you imagine a chivalrous man leaving his fiancee’s corpse like that? Any knight would try to seek the murderer.’
‘I have no power to arrest him in Portugal or anywhere.’
‘So you will question him,’ Munio said. ‘And he will go unpunished.’
Baldwin nodded slowly. The thought in Munio’s mind was easy to read. The Pesquisidor wanted the man killed. ‘If he is a Brother in the Order of Christ by the time I get there, there is nothing I can do to have him punished. The Brothers will protect him.’
‘And meanwhile you will go about and in his place, seek the killer of an old beggar.’
‘If I can bring the man to-’
‘Yes. You want him more than Ramon. You think he deserves his punishment and you will visit it upon him. Why is that?’
Baldwin couldn’t meet his gaze. There was a deeper understanding in Munio’s eyes than he had expected, and he felt ashamed. Yes, he had been determined to go to Tomar, both because he wanted to find the murderer of Matthew, but also because he wanted to see a Templar site once more. He had heard that Tomar was unchanged, that the Portuguese King Dinis had no wish to lose the powerful army that had helped to protect his Kingdom, and had therefore allowed the Order to continue in all but name. Striking the words ‘and the Temple of Solomon’ from their name satisfied the Pope, as did the statement that the new Brothers were all recruited from untainted men who had nothing to do with their forebears, although Baldwin suspected that many among them must have had some links to his old Order.
It was not only that, though. Munio had hit the nail on the head with that astute comment: Baldwin wanted to serve justice on the murderer of a man who had once been his companion-at-arms. This confession made Baldwin feel ashamed. He had truly sought to treat one murder as somehow more worthy of justice than the other. When all his life since the destruction of the Templars had been focused on seeking an equality of justice for all, he now saw that in this strange city he had forgotten the basic principle of his own creed: that any murder victim deserved the same benefits from the law as any other.
Munio had not ceased to gaze at him, but now his expression was less bitter, and he poured some wine into a cup for Baldwin, lifting it to him. ‘Have a little of this.’
‘Senor, my shame knows no bounds.’
‘A little humility is good,’ Munio said while he poured himself a large cup. He took a gulp and swallowed with satisfaction. ‘Ah! A good wine, that. Yes, but too much humility is self-indulgent, I always think. I knew a man a little like Matthew once, and he burned at the sight of any injustice, just as you do. He was formed from much the same mould. Once he had been a clavero in the Order of Santiago, a very important man, as you can imagine: the man who held all the keys for a great fort. One day that good man learned that some of the Order’s expensive goods had disappeared, and he sought to find the thief, but the Order’s Maestre accused him of taking it — saying that he was bound to be the one responsible since he had all the keys in his possession.’
‘And was he the guilty man?’
Munio gave him a steady stare. ‘Who can say? Only God knows a man’s heart. For me, it was enough that from that day onwards he became an indefatigable seeker of the truth. The fact that someone had dared to accuse him made him realise how thin is the covering of honour that envelopes even the highest in the land. No family is free of crimes. The French King himself has shown that. Consider his daughters.’
Baldwin knew what he meant. Some ten years before, the French Crown had been rocked by the wives of King Philip the Fair’s two sons; both young women had been found guilty of adultery. Their lovers had been castrated and burned alive, of course, and the two guilty women were incarcerated at the castle of Chateau-Gaillard. One died of cold in the first winter, but the other was still living, so Baldwin had heard, in a monastery.
‘Certainly no family is free of the stain,’ he agreed quietly.
‘Yes. So it matters not what a man was, but how he behaves now,’ Munio said with satisfaction.
Baldwin let out a breath slowly. He was sure that Munio had divined his past life in the Templars somehow — although now he thought about it, his behaviour regarding Matthew had been less than discreet. If he had shouted his interest in the old Templar from the Pesquisidor’s roof, it would scarcely have been less plain.
If Munio was to ask Baldwin about his past, the knight was not sure what his position would be.
‘There were always many Templars here,’ Munio continued thoughtfully. ‘I met them and grew to respect them in Oxford. When I returned here, I met even more of them. They came here on pilgrimage, for they were constant travellers and keen to ensure that their souls were as pure as they could make them. That was my impression of Templars: that they were honourable and devout. I could not censure such men. Even Matthew, who had suffered so much, he deserved better than to be left desolate as he was.’
‘But as you say, a religious man who has been killed at the end of a long life is less cause for vengeance than a woman whose life was ended so early,’ Baldwin ventured.
‘No, not less cause, but no more cause. I believe that justice must reflect equally on all. It is not a view which meets with universal approval,’ Munio said, and shrugged, ‘but it serves for my personal creed. Thus, if you go to Tomar, I would like you to spend the same amount of time seeking the killer of Joana as the killer of Matthew. Would you swear to do that?’
‘Yes. But I may learn that they are innocent, too. What then?’
‘The innocent go free.’
‘Yes, but if they are guilty …’ Baldwin spread his hands helplessly. ‘What would you have me do? I cannot murder them myself. That would make me no better than them.’
‘True, and if they have joined a religious Order they are safe from our justice,’ Munio agreed. Then he leaned on his elbows. ‘But tell me, how would the Mestre of a religious convent respond if it was shown to him that his latest recruit was a murderer and violator of innocent Catholic women? Or that he was the executioner of a Templar knight who was already so reduced in his position as to be forced to beg in the streets of Compostela?’