The man felt no regret for the dog’s death, only a sense of triumph. The poison was more effective than he had hoped. He raised his head and looked at the delicate white clouds scudding across the blueness of the April sky then dropped his gaze to the castle battlements and the spire of the Minster, their outlines standing stark on the horizon above the houses of the town spread out below. Soon all of those who had destroyed innocent lives would pay for the sins they had committed. With a mirthless smile of bitter anticipation, he raised his booted foot and pushed the dog’s lifeless body over the edge of the ditch and into the foul depths of the Werkdyke.
One
Lincoln Spring 1201 A.D.
The castle at Lincoln sits high atop a hill that overlooks the town, and it is built on the site of the old Roman fort called Lindum, hard by the broad highway of Ermine Street. Sharing the height with the castle is the Minster, and to the east, on the shoulder of the hill, is the Lincoln preceptory of the religious military order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, commonly called the Knights Templar.
The enclave is moderate in size and encircled by a stout stone wall. Within its confines are a round chapel, refectory, dormitory, kitchen, storehouse, forge and stable, with a central open space used as a training ground. On the hillside below the compound is a stretch of grassland where the Order’s horses are exercised.
On the morning of the day the poisoner claimed his first human victim, the preceptor of the commandery, Everard d’Arderon, an older knight of some sixty years, was seated at a small table in the room that he used for his private quarters. Across from him, standing by the one window the room possessed, was Bascot de Marins, a Templar knight.