Free Satan's Fire (A Medieval Mystery Featuring Hugh Corbett) by Paul Doherty Page B

wound between the trees. Now and again Corbett could hear the bracken on either side of him crackle, and the barking of a dog nearby. Ranulf pushed his horse alongside.
    ‘What’s happening?’ he whispered. ‘The gates are fortified. Templar soldiers with war dogs are in the trees.’
    ‘Is anything wrong?’ Corbett called out.
    One of the soldiers stopped and came back. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ the Templar asked. ‘Sir Guido, the keeper of the manor, was killed early this morning. He died at the centre of the maze, consumed by fire.’
    ‘Fire?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘Aye. Whether from heaven or hell we don’t know. The grand master and all the commanders are now in council.’
    He led Corbett on, they turned a corner and entered the great, grassy area which stretched in front of Framlingham Manor. This was a large, four-storeyed building, as huge as any merchant’s, greatly extended, with two wings coming out on either side. It was shaped in the form of a horseshoe: a rich, palatial residence. The bottom storey was built of stone, the upper storeys consisted of black beams, the plaster between painted a dull gold. The roof was tiled with red slate. The windows were filled with glass gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. Nevertheless, the silence and sense of oppression made itself felt. The serjeant took them round the manor into the stableyard: the grooms and ostlers looked frightened. They scurried forward as if desperate for something to do to break the tension. Corbett told Ranulf and Maltote to guard the sumpter pony and followed the serjeant in through a back door along wainscoted passages.
     
    The knight whom Sheikh Al-Jebal had called the ‘Unknown’ slipped from the saddle of his horse outside the Lazar hospital near the church of St Peter-Le-Willows just inside Walmer Gate Bar. For a while the Unknown rested against his horse, one hand on the high saddle-horn, the other on the hilt of his great two-handed sword which hung from it.
    ‘I am dying,’ the Unknown whispered.
    The terrible sickness raging within him had manifested itself in more great open sores. He had tried to hide these behind the cowled cloak which shrouded him from head to toe, the gauntlets on his hand and the black band of cloth which covered the lower half of his face. The old war horse which he’d bought at Southampton snickered and whinnied, its head drooping in exhaustion.
    ‘We are both finished,’ the Unknown murmured. ‘God be my witness, I can go no further.’
    He had spent days journeying around York, then out through Botham bar towards Framlingham Manor. He had seen the Templar commanders and their seigneur, Jacques de Molay, as he’d sat hidden in the shadow of the trees. The sight of their surcoats, flapping banners and pennants had tugged at his heart and brought tears to his fading eyes. Since his release, the Unknown had found his thirst for vengeance had faded. Before he died, he wanted to make peace with his brothers and with God. Death was very close. For years, in the dungeons of the Old Man of the Mountain, the Unknown had evaded death, but now, out in God’s sunlight, back in a country where church bells tolled across lush green meadows, what was the use of vengeance? God had already intervened. . .
    ‘Can I help?’
    The Unknown turned, his hand dropping to the dagger thrust in his belt. The kindly face of the aged friar didn’t flinch as the Unknown dragged down the black, silk mask over his face.
    ‘You are a leper,’ the brother whispered. ‘You want help?’
    The Unknown nodded and stared into those gentle, rheumy eyes. He opened his scarred mouth to speak, his horse jerked and the Unknown grew dizzy; the friar was hazy, the walls of the lazar hospital behind him seemed to recede. He closed his eyes, sighed, then crumpled into a heap at the friar’s feet.

Chapter 4
    At Framlingham, the Templar serjeant led Corbett up the dark mahogany staircase and along a bare, hollow-sounding gallery. Crosses