Free Requiem: The Fall of the Templars by Robyn Young Page B

spent only two summers at New Temple, although the fact that this was the last place he had seen his father held a certain nostalgic pain. It felt as though he were retracing his steps: Paris to London. Thoughts of Scotland, his birth-place, were stronger here. He still had the letter from his sister, Ysenda, folded in his sack. Both she and his elder sister Ede were, as far as he knew, still alive.
    Three Templar sergeants headed across the lawn, black tunics loose on their lean frames, young muscles not yet toughened from labor or combat. He had been like them once, green with youth, in awe of the knights who towered above him like fierce angels in their sinless mantles. He recalled days spent helping Simon in the stables, winter mornings loping around the training field, Garin running at his side. It seemed like another life.

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    As the preceptory bell began to clang, the sergeants picked up their pace and disappeared under the arches. Will went back to the pallet. Crouching, he pulled his sack from under the bed. He paused, his hand hovering above it.
    It’s over, Will. Don’t you see? It’s over for both of us. We’ve lost everything. All we can do is die!
    As Garin’s voice echoed back to him, he reached into the sack, his fi ngers closing over the folds of his spare undershirt that was wrapped around something hard. He withdrew it, peeling back the shirt until the knife lay naked on his palm. He had taken it from the preceptory kitchen yesterday evening when most of the men were at Vespers. No one commented on his tardiness when he slipped into the chapel to join them. The master of England and his offi -
    cials were preoccupied with welcoming the grand master and if any of the knights had noticed they hadn’t questioned him. After all, he was a commander. The blade was long and thin, embedded in a stout wooden handle. It was easy to conceal. No one would see him draw it.
    Garin had been a pawn, a fatal one at that, but still, just a pawn. Edward was the player, the one pushing the pieces across the board, winning with every move, from Owein’s murder at Honfleur and his own degradation in a Paris brothel, a death in its own way, to the ambush outside Mecca and the fi re in Andreas’s house. He may not have dirtied his hands in the process, but Edward had been the driving force behind all Garin’s actions. That was as clear to Will as if the king had ground his own seal into each and every cruel moment that had been spun around his intentions. He had killed, connived and lied his way to gaining the things he wanted, throughout it all wearing a veneer of honor that had fooled even Everard. It was because of Edward that Will had lost almost everything that was precious to him in life. He couldn’t live with that injustice any longer.
    He had sworn revenge on the deck of the Phoenix as they had sailed out, leaving Acre in ruins behind them. His fury then had been pure, a raging fi re, but in the years since it had turned to ashes inside him, gray and stagnant, polluting his thoughts. With his return to the West that fire had been rekindled and now, so near to the king’s seat of power, so close to the man himself, it blazed hotter than ever, that arrogant face a beacon in his mind.
    Will’s fingers reached out, ready to wrap around the handle of the knife.
    But he stopped short of touching the blade. He exhaled sharply, aware that he had been holding his breath. Growling a curse, he stuffed the shirt around the blade and bundled it back into the sack. He would return it to the kitchen later, before anyone missed it.

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    The door opened and Robert entered. “What are you doing in here?”
    Will kicked the sack under his pallet. “Nothing.”
    “Didn’t you hear the bell?”
    Will realized the monotonous clanging was continuing outside.
    “He’s here,” said Robert grimly. “You should come.”
    Will crossed to the door. He glanced back at the pallet, then headed