The Awful Secret (11 page)

The coroner took a deep drink and thought quickly. This man smelt of trouble – he had an aura of doom about him. Though de Wolfe had nothing against him, their depth of friendship was not great. He had met him across a table a few times at Gisors, and again in Palestine, either during troop marches or yarning around an evening camp-fire. He was not a bosom companion for whom he would lay down his life – though, de Wolfe’s nature being what it was, he would never stand by and see injustice done. ‘Why were you so reluctant to make yourself known to me?’ he asked. ‘All that furtive peeping around corners – you’re lucky my man Gwyn didn’t throw a spear at you, as I’m not short of enemies, even in Devon.’

De Ridefort smiled. For the first time his worried face had relaxed and again John saw that here was a man who could bowl over the ladies with no effort whatsoever. ‘I’m sorry for the skulking in alleyways, John, but I was anxious to see what sort of man you had become, since being elevated to your new judicial state – whatever a coroner is. I’m not at all clear on that.’

De Wolfe gave one of his throaty grunts. ‘It’s no great honour, I can tell you. You needn’t stand in awe of my great power. Now, are you going to tell me what you want with me?’

The revelations were interrupted again as the door opened and Matilda came in. She was resplendent in her best kirtle of green silk, tied around her thick waist with several turns of a silver cord whose tassels swept the floor. Her sleeves were almost as long, the bell-shaped cuffs knotted into tippets to keep them off the ground. Her hair was now gathered into two coils above each ear, held in place by silver net crespines. She had obviously goaded Lucille into extra efforts to make her look her best for the visitor.

Gilbert de Ridefort rose to his feet as John introduced his wife. He bowed over her hand and led her courteously to his own chair before the hearth, before sitting between them on a hard stool.

‘Sir Gilbert was just about to tell me of his reason for visiting Exeter,’ grated de Wolfe, determined to manoeuvre his guest into some better explanation than he had so far offered.

‘I’m not sure your charming lady wishes to be bothered with such matters,’ said Gilbert smoothly. The coroner could not decide whether he meant this or was using it as another excuse to delay revealing his true reason for seeking him out. Then his eye strayed to Matilda and he saw that his wife was undoubtedly captivated by the errant Templar. Her eyes were fixed on his face and, though a stocky woman of forty-six can hardly simper, he saw that the expression on her face was unlike any she had ever bestowed on him. Far from being jealous, he felt annoyed that such an unattractive middle-aged woman should be so foolish as to display her instant infatuation.

It was all the more ridiculous as she knew he had taken the strictest monkish vows of chastity and, for a moment, he wondered if de Ridefort was on the run because he had committed some amorous or lecherous indiscretion. It would not be the first time that a Templar had gone astray, though the harsh regime of their Order prescribed dire punishments or ignominious expulsion for offenders who were stripped of all knightly honours.

For once, Matilda unwittingly supported her husband in his thirst for explanation. She almost cooed as she denied that de Ridefort’s story would tire her.

‘Very well. You must both know that I have been these past two years in the Commandery of our Order in Paris – the main centre of our activities outside Palestine. I was a fairly senior member of the Chapter, under our Master, who in turn was responsible only to the Grand Master in Acre.’ He stared into the fire, with an expression that suggested he saw the flames of Hell dancing between the logs. ‘I came into possession of certain information of which only a few of the highest in the Order had any knowledge. Though I was prominent in the hierarchy, even I was not supposed to be privy to the secret. It came to me by accident.’

‘What was this secret?’ asked Matilda, breathlessly.

‘I cannot divulge that, certainly not yet, but it is a matter of the greatest import in our religious faith. I have still more soul-searching before I can decide what to do about this.’

‘You make it hard for me to understand your problems, de Ridefort,’ snapped de Wolfe. ‘If you cannot give any inkling of what distresses you, how can I ever help you?’

Gilbert jerked himself to his feet and stood agitatedly before the hearth, his back to the fire, so that he could face them. ‘I am torn between the ingrained loyalty to the Knights Templar, whom I have served faithfully for fifteen years, and my anguish at deciding to reveal what I know. I cannot let this knowledge loose at the moment. There is another who shares both the secret and my torment as to what should be done.’

Matilda was staring open-mouthed at this Norman Adonis, who had walked in and captivated her mature heart with his looks and his story of heartrending conflict of loyalties – even though she had not the faintest idea what he was talking about.

But her husband, with more worldly-wise cynicism, wanted far more disclosure than the Templar seemed willing to provide. ‘Much as you are welcome in my house, as any knight would be, I fail to see what you want with me,’ he said.

Restlessly, the visitor threw himself back on to his stool and hunched forward, his gaze returning to the fire as he spoke. ‘This other knight is an old and dear friend of mine, Bernardus de Blanchefort, who has been at a Preceptory of our Order in the southern part of France since we both returned from the Holy Land. He is from those parts, his family having estates in the Languedoc and on the slopes of the Pyrenees. We have met many times in the past two years and our concerns have grown as we realised that a great conspiracy has long been afoot, into which, as Templars, we have unwittingly been drawn.’

De Wolfe, though not an unintelligent man, was a practical, straightforward soldier and the man’s words meant little to him. They went right over Matilda’s head, but she was content to gaze at him and savour the dramatic, if incomprehensible, story he seemed bent on unfolding.John cleared his throat and waited for further enlightenment.

‘I cannot tell you more. I must wait for Bernardus to come so that we may decide on what should be done. But at the moment I am in great peril from the Order, who suspect that I am a dangerous renegade and will do anything to prevent me staying at liberty.’

At last de Wolfe saw a glimmer of light. ‘You want protection and a means of escape, is that it?’

‘Yes, John, but how that is to be attained I cannot tell. I must wait for de Blanchefort to arrive.’

‘But why choose such a remote place as Devon, when you fled from Paris?’ asked Matilda, looking wide-eyed at this hero.

‘I remembered your husband, both from Gisors and Palestine. I always felt you were a man who could be trusted, not always an easy person to find these days. You told me you came from Devon and it seemed a logical place to aim for, if I was trying to reach either Scotland or Ireland to get beyond the reach of my Templar brethren.’

The coroner gave a scornful snort. ‘You should forget Scotland if you want to avoid Templars! The place is full of them, you must know that. Ireland would be far safer – much of the country is still under the wild tribes, though you may as well be dead as have to live outside the Norman domains there.’

De Ridefort nodded dutifully. ‘Then we shall make for Ireland, when Bernardus de Blanchefort arrives. He should be only a few days behind me. He was going to take ship from Brittany, whereas I came through Harfleur.’

‘Does he know where to find you?’ asked Matilda solicitously, in a tone she never used with her husband.

‘I have told him to seek out the coroner, lady. Everyone knows Sir John here, I’m sure he will bring us together.’

De Wolfe was still unhappy with this strange story. ‘You must be in very deep trouble with your Order, de Ridefort. You have left their house, you have cast off the uniform so familiar throughout the known world – and you have shaved your face, which I know is forbidden to your fellow knights. You can never go back now, surely. Are you not beyond their forgiveness?’

De Ridefort shifted on his stool. ‘Bernardus and I have crossed our Rubicon. If we live, it will be as outcasts in some remote place, like this Ireland you recommend. Even there, I suspect the long arm of the Templars will reach us eventually.’

‘And you refrain from telling me what it is that is worth the price of this sacrifice?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘I cannot at this time. The secret is too awful to be revealed, unless de Blanchefort and I decide to take the plunge into the abyss and let the world know.’

The situation was beyond both John’s comprehension and his patience. ‘I always thought there was some strangeness about the Templars, if you will forgive my bluntness,’ he said. ‘What is it that seems to set your Order so much apart from others?’

For answer, the fugitive asked a question in return. ‘You remember our first meeting at the castle of Gisors, some years ago?’

De Wolfe nodded. ‘I was in the guard of Prince Richard, who accompanied his father King Henry. You were there with many other Templars.’

‘That event was momentous – and not only for the confrontation between Henry and Philip of France.’

‘That was momentous enough – we had a fight on our hands, over that damned tree that both Richard and Philip wanted to give them shade during the negotiations. The bloody French ended up chopping it down.’

‘Yes, the so-called Splitting of the Elm. But, for the Templars, the meeting at Gisors was far more significant. The Order of Sion, which had secretly been responsible for founding the Templars in Jerusalem, divorced itself from us at Gisors – and even changed its name to the Priory of Sion. Much of the trouble arose from my uncle’s misfortune in losing the Holy City to the Saracens in the previous year. His memory was vilified and, as one of his family, the shame has clung to me, like dung to a hoof.’

A little light began to penetrate John’s mind. The Grand Master of the Templars, of whom Gilbert was a nephew, had lost a disastrous battle at Hattin, and soon afterwards, was driven from Jerusalem by Saladin’s army. Perhaps a grinding resentment of the sneers against his family’s honour had turned de Ridefort to seek revenge on the rest of the Templars, who blamed their impetuous leader for the devastating loss of Jerusalem. What better revenge could there be than to disclose some dark secret that they had jealously guarded for the better part of a century?

Matilda, who had listened enraptured to these obscure matters, brought the conversation back to a more mundane level. ‘You cannot stay in that sordid Curre Street, Sir Gilbert. It is fit only for Saxon tradesmen, not the likes of you.’

‘It suffices well enough, lady. I wanted to remain inconspicuous. I have a corner of a room with several others. Dressed like a pilgrim, I wished to behave like one, to avoid attention.’

She huffed and puffed her indignation then came out with a solution that brought a scowl to her husband’s face. ‘Why not stay here, then? We can have a comfortable pallet laid before the hearth, which would be better than sharing an earth floor with half a dozen stinking pilgrims.’

De Ridefort must instantly have caught de Wolfe’s lack of support for the idea as he waved his hand in grateful but firm denial. ‘I must distance myself from a law officer as much as possible, my lady. Not only for my sake, but for John’s. It may be that powerful retribution will fall upon me and I would not wish your husband to be caught by it – especially as his sovereign lord is such a devotee of the Templars.’

De Wolfe weighed in with a counter-proposal. ‘Certainly Curre Street is not a suitable dwelling for you – but why not take a bed at an inn? I suspect that the modest cost would not be a problem for you, for the short time you hope to be in Exeter.’

Matilda glared at him, tight-lipped. She knew very well which inn he would suggest and suspected that it would form yet another excuse for him to visit his Welsh whore, as she called Nesta. Her chances of keeping such a handsome man under her roof vanished when de Ridefort took enthusiastically to the idea and, as expected, de Wolfe promised to take him down to the Bush to settle him in.

Gwyn was dispatched to Curre Street to fetch the knight’s pannier and get his pilgrim pony from a nearby livery stable, and within the hour, de Wolfe was introducing the stranger to the tavern-keeper, leaving an irate Matilda at home, fuming at the loss of her latest diversion.

Mindful of Matilda’s infatuation with the handsome Templar, John was a little concerned that Nesta might suffer the same symptoms, but although her eyebrows rose a little when he walked in with de Ridefort, she showed no signs of falling for him. After de Wolfe had explained the need for bed and board, Nesta sent the newcomer up the ladder with one of her maids, to approve his accommodation and leave his roll of belongings. The large space under the thatch of the Bush’s steep roof was divided into a number of sleeping spaces. Nesta had one corner, with the luxury of a door, while the rest of the boarded space was communal sleeping, with mattresses filled with clean straw, and a few open-ended cubicles, containing similar straw pallets.

While de Ridefort was up there, Nesta asked, ‘Who is he, John? A good-looking man, but he speaks poor English. Is he French?’

De Wolfe explained a little of the situation, but refrained from saying that he was a fugitive. ‘He is an ex-Templar, but whether he is still celibate I don’t know – so watch your step, my girl!’ His attempt at wit was half-hearted and Nesta knew him well enough to sense that there was more to this business than just a passing traveller wanting a bed for a few nights.

‘This is the man who has been stalking you! Come on, Sir Crowner, you can tell me more about him than that.’

‘I know little myself, except that he wants to remain incognito while in Exeter. He is expecting a friend soon, then they are off to Ireland. I knew him slightly in the old fighting days, and he has looked me up as he was passing through.’