The Prophecy of Death: (Knights Templar 25) Read Online Free PDF

that the boy was the love-child of the prior, and the prior had found
     him the best post he could while not admitting paternity. But more recently Mark was forced to consider that the lad was nothing
     of the sort. Apart from anything else, he came from a place some distance from the priory, and Mark had never heard that the
     prior had ever been up that way. Then again, the prior seemed to show no interest in the lad’s development. No, Mark was forced
     to conclude that Hal was nothing more than a boy whom the Prior had heard of, who happened to be bright enough, and who Prior
     Henry considered might be a useful additional body to have in the priory. He came from a good area – other novices had come
     from his part of Kent, like John, Simon and Gilbert. They were all from the same vill, almost.
    ‘Ah. Good. At last!’ he grunted as a tiny glow glittered in the tufts of tinder. It remained, golden, even as the flashes
     played with his eyes. Picking up the tinder in a bundle, he blew gently until a flame caught, and with his other hand he patted
     the floor looking for the candle he had placed there. At last he found it – it had rolled under his leg – and set the blackened
     wick to the flame. As soon as it caught, he carefully extinguished the tinder and replaced it in his box. Tinder took so long
     to find, to dry, and prepare, it was best not to waste it.
    The candle he set back in the sconce, and retrieved two more from the box beneath, lighting them. ‘Come on, boy!’
    Hal was more a man than a boy now, but he’d remain ‘boy’ to Mark. Maybe eighteen years, slender as a willowwand, tall, lanky
     and with the gangling clumsiness of so many youngsters, it was hard to think of him as ever growing up.
    ‘What is the matter with them?’ Hal demanded as he took the candle, shivering slightly in the middle-night chill.
    Mark went down the ladder, muttering, ‘Goddamned hounds. They’re no good to man or beast. If they were warning us of invasion
     or the end of the world, that would be one thing, but these monsters only ever bark at the moon. They were disturbed by a
     cat or something, I daresay. Blasted creatures.’
    It was a common enough occurrence. The cellarer had a cat, a promiscuous and undiscriminating little draggle-tail, who had
     just borne another litter. Several times in recent weeks the mewling things had irritated the hounds beyond restraint, and
     one kitten had fallen in among the pack. It didn’t live long. Perhaps this was another of the little brutes, sitting up on
     a ledge and taunting the pack below again. However, it could be something else. They had to check.
    The Queen’s pack had arrived unexpected and unannounced about a month ago, as she passed by on her way to the coast. The Prior
     had remained urbanely calm about it while she was there, but all knew how problematic looking after them was going to be.
     She left them no fewterer to look after them, and as for money … well, all knew that her own finances had been curtailed
     since the outset of war with her brother, the King of France, last year. Since then, it was said, the King and his main advisers
     did not trust her, and theywouldn’t let her have the income from her lands. So, in effect, she had nothing.
    That was probably why the French wench had deposited her beasts on the priory, Mark told himself grimly.
    They had been housed in the old tithe barn. It was a great building over at the farther side of the priory grounds, unused
     for some months since the new barn was completed. In time, they had planned to pull down the old building and reuse the stones
     and timbers for some new storage rooms nearer the priory itself. Now they’d have to wait for the blasted hounds to go first.
    ‘What is the matter with them?’ Hal asked.
    Mark made a snarling noise. There was nothing for them to make all this row about. It was the contrariness of hounds, that
     was all. If he had his way, the things would be loosed