Soon he was walking it up the roadway towards the fortress. The town’s streets were all narrow, but bright under the high sun. There were few clouds, and the breeze, although welcome, was still hot. Baldwin knew full well that his friend Simon would have found this atmosphere all but unbearable, judging by the way he had responded to the warmth of Compostela, but for Baldwin this was marvellous. He could feel the heat seeping into his body, and he felt as though, having absorbed this warmth for the last few days, he had stored up a resource of heat that could keep him through any number of cold, snowy, wind-swept Devonshire winters.
He looked up at the hill. From here, the castle was only visible as a massy square tower up on the right, with a wall that reached around the top of the hill, following a concave sweep. Baldwin’s mood darkened. It felt almost as though he was slowly approaching his own doom, and that on top of this hill, he would find himself accused and held as a renegade Templar, a man to be treated as a heretic, to be arrested, tortured, and burned to death. And all, perhaps, for a pointless mission.
With that thought, he stopped and dismounted, wondering why he had thought that coming here might solve anything. This castle was no longer a Templar site, it was a fortress for a new Order, and nothing to do with him. If there were people here who felt pious, it would be their duty to arrest Baldwin and hold him until the authorities could deal with him. He had travelled here remembering his old Order as though he could return to his youth, or recover some of the happiness he had known as a young man — as though mere proximity to a Templar site could ease his soul and undo some of the foul injustices of the last decade. Yet how could it? This place was nothing more than a series of blocks of stone. It had no soul, no life. All it was was a place in which men lived and worked. It was no better nor worse than the men who lived in it.
And looking up at it from the bottom of the hill, Baldwin suddenly wondered how pious and good the men of the new Order were. This castle was intimidating, a place built to protect those who lived inside, and to threaten those who lived without. Yet Baldwin had sworn to question the Portuguese. He had given his word to Munio when Munio gave him money to come here; he would not return without attempting to honour that vow. With a sigh, he led the horse up the pathway.
It was only a dirt track, and Baldwin could see through the trees as they thinned, taking in the view of the lush green lands on all sides. The ground was hilly, but not in the same way as Devon, where it was impossible to see much more than the next two hills from another. Here, it was possible to see for many miles, to far-off hills coloured blue with the distance, each plainly visible in the rolling countryside because none was of any great height. It also made the sky seem much broader, like the skies Baldwin had known as a youngster, when he had spent time in the islands of the Mediterranean. There too the sky had appeared larger, bluer, and more wonderful. In England, it was ever grey, he considered.
He could feel his heart begin to beat faster as he wound upwards, and suddenly found that on his right was a great mound of rock, on top of which was a wall, the first part of the castle’s outer defences. Each block was massive; daunting in its size. It made Baldwin wonder how men could have moved, shaped and installed such huge lumps of stone.
But pondering on such things was merely a ploy to delay his arrival. He turned his horse resolutely to the front. To reach the entrance, he must walk about the base of this wall of rock to a final flat wall, in which was a large arched gateway. With hesitant feet, he undertook this journey, and then stopped.
It was rather anticlimactic to see that the gate was wide open and that men stood laughing and lounging in the sun.
Afonso clattered along the roadway. There, downriver, was the great castle, and he burned with excitement at the thought of actually arriving there at last.
‘It is a good location for a fort,’ Sir Charles said. ‘Astonishing place. Good height. Difficult for anyone to scale that hillside. Plentiful water at the foot, which should mean that there is enough to fill a well, and the countryside here looks marvellously fertile. The peasants must be well-ruled. They don’t seem so lazy as English ones.’
There was a sniff from Paul. ‘Perhaps they are happier with their lot,’ he commented.
‘Paul is sometimes prone to such cheerful comments,’ Sir Charles said to Afonso. ‘He agrees with me, by and large.’
Afonso nodded, but he was only half-listening. For the most part, his mind was focused on the castle and his reception there. He had longed for the day when he would reach this place, having achieved his goal, and yet now there was that strange feeling of relief. Both relief and joy at success; balanced with the recognition that he had not in truth achieved all he could.
That old man, Matthew. His face kept returning to Afonso, that last expression of happiness — at his death. That curious acceptance.
No matter. Afonso had done his duty, and now that he was done, he had one last act to perform — and that must be done here at the Castle of Tomar. He wondered how Charles would react when he heard what Afonso intended.
As Afonso knew, this was the place where the Templars had managed their affairs in Portugal. It was the centre and hub of their Portuguese operations. The place where a man who had sought to harm them would go.
Baldwin waited at the gate while a cheerful-looking lay Brother was sent to ask what they should do with the stranger at the door. Before many minutes had passed, a tall man strode around the side of the gate, and stood eyeing Baldwin closely, but without rudeness. He had the manner of one who was delighted to see that he must welcome an equal, but he was also convinced and confident in his power.
It was not only the set of his shoulders and the way that his hand rested on the hilt of the large sword that hung at his hip; Baldwin thought that the power resided in the slightly hawkish set of his face and the dark and intelligent eyes, perhaps also in his white tunic with the red cross, so reminiscent of the Templars’ own uniform. It made Baldwin’s heart feel as though it had missed a beat for a moment.
When he started to speak, welcoming Baldwin, the man’s voice was deep and sonorous, and although his Latin was slightly archaic, it was nonetheless easily comprehensible, and that was a relief after the last days of trying to make himself understood to a succession of ill-educated, or not educated at all, priests between Obidos and Tomar.
‘You look like a man who has travelled far, my friend.’
‘I have travelled from Santiago de Compostela in the last week and a day,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘I am called Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, from England.’
‘You have come a long way to see us here. But I should be reluctant to interrogate you without offering you a little wine. I am called Frey Joao, the claveiro. Please come with me.’
He walked at a swift pace, taking Baldwin around the mass of the huge tower on the right, a continuation of the mound of rock which Baldwin had followed to the gate. They were in a cleared area between two gates, a perfect defensive killing ground, Baldwin noted. Then, suddenly, they were in the open. Stables, kitchens and stores were set out, leaning against the castle’s walls, while men hurried about their duties. Wagons and carts rumbled and squeaked, and smoke rose from braziers, some heating bolts of metal for smiths, while others were more prosaically being used to cook fish.
‘Welcome, Sir Baldwin, to Tomar. The castle-convent of the new Order of the Knights of Christ.’
Simon was drenched in sweat. His face was suffused and his nose bled profusely, and although Margarita washed him carefully, when her husband entered the room quietly and stood at the foot of Simon’s bed, he could smell that odd odour. ‘How is he?’
‘No better,’ she sighed, standing and stretching. She had been at Simon’s side for much of the night. ‘It is no surprise. After falling into that sewer, I can only wonder that it has taken so many days for him to succumb.’