The Assassin King

London to Caversham was ever a gruelling ride for a man of almost three score and ten, but it was more than usually so for St Maur today, what with the roads made quagmires by the endless spring rains and his favourite horse lame from an infected hoof. Yet this particular summons had been impossible to deny or even put off until the morrow, so he was mighty glad to see at last the familiar landmarks of his friend’s estate, and then the Manor itself emerging from the darkness.

A pair of household knights came out to challenge them. St Maur was too weary even to answer their insolence, so he and his small escort simply clopped on by, knowing that they wouldn’t dare do more than bark. A fire was blazing in a corner of the courtyard. The smell of roasting venison made his mouth water. He dismounted and threw his reins to a stable boy then strode over to the front door with such dignity as the stiffness of his joints and the chaffing of his thighs allowed.

An old crone with a livid boil on her throat answered his knock, her face and forearms reddened from standing too close to a fire. He recognised her from last time. A cousin of some kind, given her position here out of charity, yet pretending to grander status. ‘You were expected hours ago,’ she said.

‘My men need food and drink and warmth,’ he told her, handing her his wet cloak.

The great man’s son came down the staircase to greet him. ‘About time!’ he said.

‘You sent your messenger to the wrong place,’ St Maur replied wearily. ‘Am I too late?’

‘Not yet.’ The son looked strikingly like how his father had done when St Maur had first met him, out in the holy land all those many years before. He lacked his charisma, of course, not to mention his sheer size and force of personality. But that was a ludicrous standard to hold any man to. His father, quite simply, had been the giant of their age. ‘Not quite.’

‘Then take me to him.’

A dozen or so people were milling around upstairs, wringing their hands and whispering like conspirators. The son strode through them with deliberate rudeness, seeking to scatter them like carrion around a dying stag. They entered the bedchamber. It was grand, as befitted such a man, yet modestly furnished, as if in acknowledgement of the vows of poverty and chastity he’d avoided for all these decades, that he might enjoy his wealth and sire a family instead. It was pleasantly warm too, thanks to the fire smouldering in the grate and the small crowd gathered by the bed, surrounding the dying man not only with their grief but with their anxiety too. For he hadn’t merely been head of this family, he’d been its shield and sword arm too – just as he’d been shield and sword arm to this whole land these past few years. With him gone, the chaos and bloodshed would surely return. For who’d be there to stop it?

They all heard St Maur arrive, yet pretended not to, lest politeness compel them to surrender their spot. He pushed between them anyway. A shock to see his old friend beneath the heavy bedclothes, how diminished he was from even a few weeks ago. Until that very moment, he now realised, he hadn’t fully believed it. Yet those gaunt cheeks, drooping eyelids and wasting forearms were impossible to deny. England’s champion had taken his felling blow at last.

His old friend saw him arrive. He brightened and even sat up a little. ‘Out,’ he murmured to the others. ‘All of you, out.’ His voice was little more than a whisper, yet somehow it retained its old authority. They left with ill grace even so, perhaps fearing he’d slip away before they made it back in, depriving them of the legacies and benefactions they’d come for.

His wife Isabel was in no mood for their dithering, however. The Lionheart himself had given her to him as a reward for services done. She’d been a mere girl at the time, and he a hardened warrior well over twice her age, yet their marriage had proved fruitful, durable and loving. She looked heartbroken by her coming loss. She nodded at St Maur to thank him for coming then shooed everyone out ahead of her, leaving the two of them alone. Or not entirely alone, for the son remained by the fire with his head bowed, intent on listening to their conversation, perhaps even on stepping forwards should his father offer too many of his estates in exchange for his immortal soul. But the great man wasn’t yet so far gone not to notice. He fixed him with his eye. ‘You too,’ he said.

‘But father I think it best—’

He waited until he was gone and the door was closed behind him, then gestured for St Maur to sit on the embroidered stool by his pillow. There were perfumed candles all around the bed, to mask the smell of his illness and decay. Their fluttery yellow light glittered off the saliva that kept gathering at the corners of his mouth, irritating his sores and threatening to spill down his cheeks. St Maur dabbed them gently dry for him with a linen cloth, knowing how his friend hated the indignities of age almost as much as he hated asking for help.

‘It’s good to see you,’ St Maur told him.

‘I had them bring me my shroud. The cloth looks as fresh as ever.’

‘Did I not tell you?’

‘Do you remember that day? The day I pledged?’

‘How could I forget?’

‘I think about it all the time. To fight for what one knows is right and holy. Why can’t all life be a crusade?’

‘All your life was a crusade.’

‘If only.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Did you bring everything we need?’

‘Of course. You’ll be a Templar within the hour.’ He hesitated, from fear of sounding too morbid, but then added: ‘I’ve set aside that place in our church for you too.’

‘I am glad. I find myself strangely fearful.’

‘Whatever for? A man like you, they’ll welcome you with trumpets.’

He nodded, but in a distracted way, as if he’d heard what he’d expected rather than needed to hear. His eyes grew glazed and distant, a lookout on the high seas seeking first glimpse of some new land. ‘But we have done such things,’ he murmured.

‘Terrible things.’

‘Necessary things,’ said St Maur, with extra emphasis, wanting to convince himself as much as anyone, for he too would be setting off on this last dread journey soon enough, and had been suffering these same qualms. ‘We saved our land. Look at it now. It heals. It prospers. That was us.’

‘Was it?’ His old friend was growing visibly tired, his breathing so laboured that he could only manage a few words at a time. ‘I have done so much. Far more than even you know. I sought to make things well. But mostly I made them ill.’