“Then it must be something else, which does not surprise me.” Ignacio chuckled. “A strong, virile young man like you will always have something bothering him.”
Lothar frowned.
“Do not be ashamed,” Ignacio continued. “This appetite we have for those things forbidden us is very strong. But it can be mastered.”
“There is no woman in my thoughts,” Lothar snapped. Not that he considered it any of the man’s business.
“Not even one from the past who, maybe at times, makes her presence known?”
The words dredged up repressed memories of Delit. They had grown up together in the same village, and in their youth had sworn eternal love to each other. But that all changed when he turned sixteen and his parents, after contributing generously to the church, sent him to Marseilles to begin a career with the Templars.
“No, there is no one,” Lothar said. “I have taken my oaths. And I abide by my word.”
“As we all have and do. But at times we forget ourselves and do not think with our heads when our...physical desires overtake us.” Ignacio leaned forward, ready to impart a great secret; Lothar eased a step back to escape the man’s foul breath. “And when that happens, only a bucket of cold water can bring us back to our senses.”
“I have no need for such measures,” Lothar told him, annoyed with the Italian’s rambling.
Ignacio’s laugh sounded like the braying of an old mule. “I wish I could say the same. Even at my age I still need a good dunking once in awhile.”
Lothar slapped his palm down on the table top, locked eyes with the old man. “What you need is a bath. Now hold your tongue and get my sword.”
Ignacio hesitated, then did as told. He disappeared into an adjoining room and returned a short while later with Lothar’s sword. Lothar strapped the weapon around his waist, bade the man a curt good night and stepped towards the door leading to the courtyard and the town beyond.
“Where are you going?” Ignacio asked.
It is none of your affair, Lothar wanted to say. But he held his tongue, respectful of one who had lived through the fall of Acre eighteen years earlier.
“To check on my guards at the harbor and make sure everything is as it should be.”
Ignacio snickered. “Beware of the pilgrims staying along the waterfront.” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “There is a family of Germans among them, with a young woman. Very beautiful. Like a princess. I have seen her. I know.”
Lothar grinned. “Do not worry about the Germans. I have dealt with them before.” And have learned their language from my mother.
“It is not the Germans that worry me, but the others.”
“What others?” Lothar asked, his hand on the door handle.
Ignacio shuffled out from behind his desk and stood close to Lothar, so that when he talked he looked up into the warrior’s beard. “The times have changed. You have been in the Outremer for many years. So you cannot know the contempt people have for us. We have lost their respect.
“And before you go to check on your guards, let me make a suggestion. If you do not mind.”
“I do mind. You have said more than enough tonight,” Lothar snapped before turning his back on the man and taking his leave.
“Watch out for pirates. Though we are a long way from Africa, they have been known to come here.” Ignacio paused, and then laughed. “Women and pirates. For a Templar, one is as dangerous as the other.”
*
The night embraced Lothar, then whipped him with winds laced with cold, stinging drops of rain blown in from the Mediterranean. He bowed his head to the weather and followed the gravel path leading the short distance to the harbor, carefully picking each step so not to stumble. To his right, a stone wall, just a tad higher than he, lined the path down to the waterfront. To his left stood the huts and shacks of the fishermen and their families, the stubborn smells of sea and fish refusing to allow the storm to blow them hence.
Lothar walked a bit faster, anxious to escape the stench, preferring the musty scent of animals and dung common to European towns and villages. Before entering the cobblestone square separating the town from its harbor, he glanced back over his shoulder to the lights of the monastery. Ignacio, he thought fleetingly. Maybe men like him are the reason the Order requires torches to burn throughout the night. To prevent them from wandering around lost in the dark.
Around the town square, only three of the eight street lamps burned, their flames flickering back and forth, licking at the glass holding them prisoner. Lothar strode to the docks, stopped at the water, and watched an increasingly angry sea buffet the fishing boats tied along both piers.