The Merchant's Partner (Knights Templar Series #2)

The Merchant's Partner (Knights Templar Series #2)

by Michael Jecks
The Merchant's Partner (Knights Templar Series #2)

The Merchant's Partner (Knights Templar Series #2)

by Michael Jecks

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Overview

The Knights Templar

They had all joined taking three vows: poverty, chastity, and obedience…for they were monks: warrior monks, dedicated to theprotection of pilgrims in the Holy Land -- until stories spread by anavaricious king who wanted their wealth for his own destroyed the order.

There was one knight, however, who escaped the stake, vowing justiceas he watched his innocent brothers die.

A Dastardly Deed

When the mutilated body of midwife and healer Agatha Kyteler is discovered in a hedge one frozen wintry morning, it at first appears the lack of clues will render the crime unsolvable -- until a frightened local youth inexplicably flees his village and a hue and cry is raised. Sir Baldwin Furnshill, once a Knight Templar, however, has doubts about the boy’s guilt, and enlists friend and bailiff of Lydford Castle, Simon Puttock, in the hunt for a murderer. But what they seek lies somewhere on the darker side of the village of Wefford, beneath layers of jealousy, suspicion, and hatred -- and the buried truth could prove fatal to anyone who disturbs it.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061869952
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 10/13/2009
Series: Knights Templar Mystery Series , #2
Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
Format: eBook
Pages: 384
Sales rank: 417,549
File size: 425 KB

About the Author

Michael Jecks gave up a career in the computer industry when he began writing the internationally successful Templar series. There are now twenty books starring Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Bailiff Simon Puttock, with more to follow. The series has been translated into all the major European languages and sells worldwide. The Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association for the year 2004–2005, Michael is a keen supporter of new writing and has helped many new authors through the Debut Dagger Award. He is a founding member of Medieval Murderers, and regularly talks on medieval matters as well as writing.

Read an Excerpt

The Merchant's Partner

A Knights Templar Mystery
By Jecks, Michael

Avon Books

ISBN: 0060763469

Chapter One

It was not until much later, when winter had relaxed its grip and spring had touched the land with the fresh, yellowgreen shades of renewal, that the feelings of horror and revulsion began to fade.

The knight knew full well that they were not gone entirely but merely superseded for a time by the pragmatic concerns of the villagers. The beginning of a new year forced the killings out of people's minds. Everyone was too busy for contemplation, preparing the fields and making use of the increasing daylight. But the murders had been committed late in the winter, and the long, cold evenings had given time for the storytellers to reflect and embellish. With their faces lighted by the angry red glow at the fireside, the families thrilled to hear about them time and again.

He could not grudge the people their fascination with the murders—it was only natural in such a quiet, rural shire. Devon was not the same as other parts of the kingdom, where people lived in continual anxiety. On the northern marches men feared more attacks from the Scottish raiders, while at the coast people were terrified of raids by the French pirates. Here the only concern was the possibility of a third failed harvest.

No, it was not surprising that the people looked to a story like that of the murdered witch to enliven their evenings, not surprising thatevery man had his own opinion of the truth behind the killings, or that some now lived in fear of her ghost in case she sought revenge on the village where she had been killed.

Thinking back now, he was not sure when it all began. It was surely not the day when Tanner called, the Wednesday morning when he first saw the body with his friend the bailiff. It was before, maybe on the Saturday, when he was out hunting and saw the women for the first time. The morning he spent falconing with the rector of Crediton.


"It's bitter, isn't it," said Peter Clifford again.

Without looking at him, Baldwin grinned. His concentration was focused on the slender figure clutching at his gloved fist, admiring her slate-colored back and blackbarred white chest. She sat like a high-born Syrian woman, he thought. Confident, strong and elegant, not thick and heavy like a peasant, but slim and quick. Even as he gazed at her, the head under the hood turned to face him as if hearing his thoughts, the yellow, wickedly hooked beak still and controlled. It was not threatening, but she was asserting her independence, knowing she could take her freedom when she wished: she was no dog, no devoted servant—and like all falconers, he knew it.

The priest's words broke in on his meditation and, giving a wry smile, he turned back to the rector of the church at Crediton, the corners of his mouth lifting under the narrow black moustache. "Sorry, Peter. Are you cold?" he asked mildly.

"Cold?" Peter Clifford's face appeared almost blue in the chill of the early morning as he squinted at his companion. "How could I feel cold in this glorious weather? I may not be a knight, I may be used to sitting in a warm hall with a fire blazing at this time of year, I may be thin and older than you, I may be sorely in need of a pint of mulled beer, but that does not mean I feel the bitterness of this wind that cuts through my tunic like a battleaxe through butter."

Baldwin laughed and looked around at the land. They had left the forests behind and now were on open, bleak moorland. The weak winter sunshine had not yet cleared the damp mists from the ground, and their horses' hooves seemed almost to be wading in the thick dew underfoot. Bracken and heather covered the hill and shimmered under the grayness.

They had left early, almost as dawn broke, to get here. Baldwin had rescued the peregrine as a young and vicious juvenile in the previous year and Peter had not yet witnessed the bird hunting, so the knight had eagerly agreed to bring her and show off her skill. For him it was a pure delight to watch the creature climb, only to float, high and silent, almost as if she was as light as a piece of wood ash.

This was ideal land for falcons, up here on the moor, away from the woods. Shorter in the wing, hawks were better at chasing their prey and were used by their astringers to hunt among trees or other cramped areas. The falconer used his long-winged birds on open land where they could rise quickly, soaring up to their pitch and staying there, touring above their targets until they stooped down like a falling arrow, rarely missing their mark.

Shrugging himself deeper under his cloak, Peter Clifford grimaced to himself as they rode along. Last night he had thought it would be pleasant to go hunting, after their meal and with plenty of Sir Baldwin's good Bordeaux wine inside him, heated by the great fire while they chatted of the latest Scottish attacks to the north. Then he had envisioned a warm day, the sky a perfect blue, the hawk swooping on to her targets . . . He glowered. Now he felt only cold: cold, damp and miserable. There was a fine sheen of silvery moisture all over his cloak and tunic, the wind cut through to his bones, and his face felt as though he was wearing a mask of ice. It was not as he had imagined.

His feelings of chilly discomfort were emphasized by the relative calmness of the man beside him. Baldwin sat as straight and alert as the bird on his fist, swaying and rocking with the slow walk of his horse. He was a strange man, the rector thought, this quiet, educated and self-possessed knight. Very unlike the normal warriors Peter Clifford met passing through Crediton ... Continues...


Excerpted from The Merchant's Partner by Jecks, Michael Excerpted by permission.
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