Read No Law in the Land: (Knights Templar 27) for Free Online Page B

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     was no profit to be had from the bodies down here. All had been killed and their property taken from them with their lives.
     From the number of men here, there must have been some seven or eight carts just to cope with their goods, or a number of
     packhorses. So many travelling together for safety, thinking that there would be strength in their numbers. He would have
     thought that most were moderately wealthy people, but one group in particular was different. The man near the horse, he looked
     like a fighter. And not only him. Roger would guess from their build that some six or eight of the men here were warriors.
     They didn’t look like peasants, that was certain. The clothing, the boots and shoes, all pointed to people who were better
     off than the normal vill churl.
    Roger had squatted near a man’s body. The fellow had six arrows in him, and there was a wound in his eye like a stab wound,
     as though someone was going about the place and making sure of all the injured.
    He had the appearance of a fighter: he was fairly strong in the arm, with some scars to prove that he’d been in more than
     the average number of fights. There was no mail or armour, but when Roger looked at his wrists and neck, there were signs
     of chafing. He had worn some simple armour, which had been stripped from him, if Roger had to guess. No man-at-arms would
     be unaware of the value of mail, and it would be taken from the fallen, either to be altered for the new owner, or for sale.
    Others, when he looked, had similar marks. One was just the same, with the proof of armour and helm. When he added them up,
     he reckoned these two were men-at-arms, and eight others looked like bowmen. They each had the characteristically powerful
     muscles on their backs that were the inevitable result of regular practice as archers. From the look of them, these could
     well have been a force together, perhaps protecting something, he thought. And then he came across another figure.
    This was no warrior. He had the belly of an abbot, and the jowls to match. A tonsure in need of renewal, and the ink on his
     fingers, pointed to a clerk of some form. And yet he had been utterly despoiled. His feet were bare, but the flesh was soft
     and unmarked. Not a man used to walking barefoot, then. He had a chemise, but no cloak or surcoat, which looked out of place,
     and no jewellery. However, his fingers held the marks of rings. When Roger ran his own fingers over the first joints, he could
     feel where the skin was raised slightly in calluses about the outer edge of the rings the man had habitually worn. To his
     surprise there was no wooden cross about his neck. However, it was his face that jolted Roger more than anything else he had
     seen there that day, more than the proofs of theft. Because this fellow had been mutilated. Although he was blond, Roger couldn’t
     tell what colour his eyes were, because both had been taken out before he had had his throat cut. His death hadn’t been good.
    When he studied all the figures, there were nine who were clustered not too far from the monk, and these had two things in
     common: they all looked as though they were fighters of some sort, and they all had multiple arrow wounds. Only one was different
     – a fellow who had been stabbed five times in the back, and who was lying further away from the others, nearer to the perimeter.
     Surely he was killed first. Perhaps he had been the sentry?
    Yes, this was the sort of picture he had grown used to in Guyenne, but not here, not in England. Still, where men lived, others
     would die. It was a rule of life. And while it made him sad to see children killed, it was also natural. Children followed
     the armies into battle, children worked, and some died. But while he was ready for that, it was the sight of the other little
     figures that had caused him to pause and stare with shock.
    A puppy. A small black and white puppy, and its mother, she slashed and stabbed, the