Read The Butcher of St Peter's: (Knights Templar 19) for Free Online

suffered a fall from grace.
    Lord Hugh de Courtenay was a good lord and a fair and loyal man, but there were times when even the most reasonable master
     had to divest himself of devoted servants. That was particularly true when politics came to the fore, as they now had.
    Nobody who knew the two men well could doubt that Sir Peregrine was as devoted to Lord Hugh as a hound to his master. For
     Sir Peregrine there was no concept of loyalty higher than that of a knight to his liege-lord. He was content, as he set off
     once more, that his own record was enough to justify a certain pride.
    It was painful to accept that it must be a long while before he could return to his place at his lord’s side, but Peregrine
     knew the reason for his eviction from the castle, and he was content that his master had justification. In compensation, Lord
     Hugh had petitioned certain people and gained this new post for Sir Peregrine, so now he was the King’s Coroner to the City
     of Exeter and surrounding lands. A good position, certainly, although fraught with fresh dangers, for it meant that he was
     always under the eye of the King himself.
    Not that he was just now. In the last few months, ever since the escape of Mortimer from the Tower, the King had had other
     matters on his mind.
    It was a source of amusement and not a little delight to Peregrine that King Edward II, who had caused so much damage to the
     country, who had depended on loyal subjects to support him, who had trampled on the rights and liberties of somany, finally slaughtering hundreds of knights up and down the country, even his own relatives, in his determination to keep
     his advisers the Despensers close by his side, should now shake at the knowledge that his own best warrior-leader, the man
     whom the King had himself disloyally imprisoned, was now his greatest enemy. There was a delicious irony in that, one which
     Sir Peregrine appreciated.
    Sir Peregrine was not a natural regicide, but he would have been delighted to see this appalling king removed and destroyed.
     King Edward had proved himself to be incapable of ruling the kingdom. He chose to take his own advisers and stole lands, treasure,
     and even lives to enrich those he most loved: the Despensers. Their rapacity had led to the destruction of many, and it was
     in order to fight against these men that Sir Peregrine had counselled his lord to prepare for war. At the time, he had been
     certain that the Lords Marcher must win their battle against the King. As soon as they gave the word, men would flock to their
     side, Sir Peregrine thought.
    But it had not happened. To his private astonishment, he had discovered that the Lords Marcher were not in fact prepared to
     raise their banners against King Edward. None could deny that he was their lawfully anointed king, and so they surrendered
     rather than take the field against him. Only Earl Thomas of Lancaster, the King’s own cousin, would fight, and he only because
     the King hurried to attack him. At Boroughbridge Thomas’s host was destroyed … and then the persecution began.
    Sir Peregrine had reached the cathedral, and now he gazed about him before entering. This would, one day, be the most magnificent
     tribute to God. The two towers of St Paul and St John, with their squat spires thrusting upwards amidst the chaos of the building
     works, stood out as isolated beacons ofsanity. Apart from them, it was a mess of builders, plasterers, carpenters and masons, all hacking and chiselling together
     in a cacophony of appalling proportions.
    For his part, Sir Peregrine would take the word of the Dean and chapter that this would one day be a magnificent edifice,
     honouring God and His works; the best efforts of man would have gone into it in praise of Him. It would soar mysteriously
     over the heads of all the congregation, a fabulous, unbelievable construction that could only stand, so it would appear, by
     God’s grace. All would gaze down the length of