Read Online The Templar's Penance: (Knights Templar 15) by Michael Jecks - Free Book Online

rode on, and Domingo slumped against the wall. He would kill the murderer, though. He
would
.
    ‘I swear it, my son,’ he vowed, and then sobbed drily.

Chapter Three
     
    Doña Stefanía felt calm and soothed as she left the Cathedral, her head bowed in humility, her hands concealed in the sleeves of her habit. The little disappointments were fading from her memory, as was Domingo’s incompetence. She shouldn’t have trusted him to try and perform a simple task. A man with so many fighters behind him, and the lot of them were bested by a trio of mercenaries? Pathetic! Why did she have to put her faith in idiots? She should form her own retinue. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t afford it, she mused. She knew why she didn’t, though. It was simply that the cost of keeping a force of men would be prohibitive in the longer term, and all too often the men could become more trouble than they were worth. Especially in a convent like hers, in which there were too many attractive young women.
    There must be no hint of impropriety about her place, she reminded herself, patting her purse gently. The Bishop would never allow her to remain there if he heard so much as a whisper of misbehaviour. That thought brought up the inevitable memory. It was, she thought, like a piece of dog’s excrement that she couldn’t scrape off her shoe, no matter how hard she tried. If only she hadn’t been so rash, so driven by her lusts. Then she wouldn’t have had to try to have the fool killed before he could spread tales of her salacious urges, and Domingo wouldn’t be sulking because of losing his damned son!
    ‘My lady.’
    The voice made her heart lurch, and she was all but expecting to be told that she was to go with a guard to see the Bishop, when she realised who it was.
    ‘Señor,’ she said coldly, with a slight dip of her head in the direction of the knight in his tunic of Santiago. Frey Ramón, she groaned inwardly. So devoted – and so
dull
!
    Spanish, she knew, was the most beautiful language, but this man’s Basque accent was so strong he sounded like a peasant from the mountains. In response her dialect reflected her nobility as she spoke with a deliberately pronounced Castilian clarity that sounded like small bells of crystal. ‘You are good to have waited.’
    ‘It is my pleasure,’ he said, and cast an anxious look at Joana, who stood a little behind Doña Stefanía.
    He had the dim-witted devotion to Joana of an ape, the Prioress thought scornfully. And for some reason her maid gave every sign of reciprocating his feelings! It was a curious thing, she had often found, that women who were in every other way perfectly sensible and wise, could show in their choice of men a sad lack of commonsense. Joana was intelligent, she had beauty of a sort, and her appearance was fine, wearing as she did Doña Stefanía’s own cast-off dresses. Today she had on a magnificent blue tunic with bright yellow embroidery at neck, cuffs and hem. Most men seeing her would think her a lady in her own right, with her calm, brown eyes and olive complexion. Her mane of dark hair was decorously concealed beneath her spotless wimple, but there was just a slight hint of the long braids beneath, just as the length of the tunic showed how long were her legs, and the belt nipped in nicely to show off her hips, waist and the bulge of her bust. Yes, with her smiling oval face and full lips, any man would be pleased to have her at his side.
    There was only the one reason why she wanted him, surely: his money. Frey Ramón might not be a great lord with huge estates, but there was one thing certain about a Knight of Santiago, and that was that such a man would never be forced to beg for his food. She could wed him, comfortable in the knowledge that she would have time to herself, that she would gain not only a husband but also servants and staff and that she would never have to work again. A fair enough exchange, Doña Stefanía thought.
    It would be