Daughter of War by SJA Turney

Author:SJA Turney [Turney, SJA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911420620
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2018-04-08T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Leaving Guillem to deal with the horses and pausing only to remove their shields and helmets, the three Templars marched across the courtyard towards the chapter house. Several small milling knots of men at arms in red and white got in their way and were less than gracious in making way for the three brothers passing through.

It chilled Arnau to see them here. Not so much for what they might mean, being connected tenuously to d’Entenza and therefore even more tenuously to Titborga’s betrothed, but more because the force of white-and-red-clad soldiers looked so much like the oily della Cadeneta’s men that Arnau kept flinching and instinctively reaching down to the hilt of his sword. The baron himself was in his coach, as they could easily ascertain from the barked orders coming from within and the small knot of officers gathered around it.

Having finally pushed their way across the open space, earning angry glances from knights as they went, the three Templars clanked through the chapter house’s open doorway to find that many of the preceptory’s population had already gathered there. Preceptrix Ermengarda sat upright and impressive in her chair at the end and, while most of the others sat on the stone bench that ran around the edge of the room, Sister Titborga occupied a separate chair close to the preceptrix, as though under her personal guard. To add to that level of protection – or force, perhaps – Brother Balthesar stood behind Titborga, armed and armoured. The three new arrivals moved to the bench together, standing as close to the preceptrix and Titborga as they could manage.

A single simple wooden seat sat unoccupied in the room’s centre, facing Sister Ermengarda, and it almost made Arnau smile to realise it was the stunted one from the refectory that no one wanted to use. Having been shortened to level out uneven legs, it was now too short to sit in comfortably for more than a minute. It had been so placed that the person sitting in it would appear to be on trial, surrounded by Templars.

Barely had the three men settled than Brother Luis appeared in the doorway, the chink and shush and rattle of armoured men behind him. He paused and cleared his throat. ‘Baron Alberto de Castellvell,’ he announced, and then hurried to one side to sit on the stone bench near the door.

The man who entered sent a shiver through Arnau. Tall and impossibly thin, the baron’s face was drawn and haggard. He did not look able to lift a sword, let alone win renown as a warrior in the Reconquista. Still, Arnau reminded himself, this man was a butcher, licensed by the king.

Castellvell strode into the room, his soft calfskin boots making hardly a sound, the gentle brush of fabric from his expensive clothes almost lost in the metallic din of the four soldiers who entered behind him and took up position near the door. The baron strode forward, eyed the small chair with a

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