The Awful Secret

Chapter Seven In which Crowner John hears much about Templars

On his return to Exeter in the early evening, John rode straight up to Rougemont to see his brother-in-law. Gwyn came into the city with him, instead of going to his dwelling in St Sidwell’s, just outside the East Gate, as his wife and family were staying with her sister in Milk Street.

De Wolfe found Richard de Revelle in his official chamber in the keep, in discussion with the castle constable, Ralph Morin. A flask of wine was open on the table and the sheriff motioned John to fill himself a pewter goblet. It was a good red vintage from Aquitaine and the coroner relished taking something expensive from his notoriously mean brother-in-law. ‘Our trip to the north produced nothing useful,’ he began. ‘The village of Appledore could barely raise a couple of rowing boats.’

De Revelle nodded languidly, as if already bored by the coroner’s presence. ‘I’ve already heard that from Ralph here, whose sergeant reported to him. I tell you, it’s Lundy we should be looking at. They’ve harboured pirates for centuries.’

De Wolfe looked across at the constable, who stood solidly in the centre of the chamber, his feet apart and his arms crossed as if he had grown out of the floor. His grizzled grey hair and matching forked beard, together with his chain-mail hauberk and massive sword, suggested that he had just stepped off a Norse longboat. ‘Dressed for battle, Ralph?’ he asked.

Morin grinned, his rough, weather-beaten cheeks wrinkling. ‘No, John, there was no attack on the city today. I’ve been down at Bull Mead putting the garrison through some exercises. All these years of peace are turning them soft. We need a good war to sharpen them up.’

‘We nearly had one a few months ago,’ muttered de Wolfe, and there was an awkward silence in the room as the constable and the coroner avoided looking at the sheriff.

‘Gabriel told me about the ride to the north coast,’ said Morin, to cover the hiatus. ‘He says there were no signs at all of any looted goods or ships that might have been involved in piracy.’

John nodded in agreement. ‘That’s right, though they might have concealed goods in any of a hundred barns around the countryside. But galleys with a bank of oars, as that young Breton described, can’t easily be hidden out of sight.’

‘There are scores of small coves and bays up there where a ship or two could be hidden off the beaten track,’ objected Richard.

Morin grunted again. ‘I’m no sailor, but that exposed coast gives no shelter except at known harbours.’

De Wolfe poured himself another brimming goblet of wine, ignoring a scowl from de Revelle. ‘They may be from far away, of course,’ he said, ‘from Ireland, Brittany or Galicia in Spain. There have even been attacks from Turks and Moors in the past. For centuries our Viking ancestors used to come from Scandinavia to terrorise the Severn Sea.’

‘What about the Scilly Isles? The whole population down there seem to be robbers,’ suggested Morin.

De Revelle poured himself some wine, taking the opportunity to move the flask as far as possible from his brother-in-law. ‘Wherever they come from, they must have a base within striking distance – they can’t stay at sea indefinitely. And they need somewhere to store their booty, so I still say Lundy is the place. Since the de Mariscos came there, there’s been nothing but trouble – look at this business with the Templars.’

De Wolfe pricked up his ears at the mention of the Knights of the Cross. ‘Is anything new happening over that matter?’

The sheriff shook his head. ‘Not that I know of. But it’s high time that that nest of vipers on the island was wiped out. If the king spent more time looking after his affairs at home, maybe something would be done about it.’

This time, the coroner suffered no awkward silence, but met the sheriff head on. ‘Richard, forget any ideas about a new king doing a better job. Remember your own position in this – the king we have is the king we keep!’

Faced with this blunt warning, de Revelle reddened but left the sensitive subject of an absentee monarch and reverted to the problem of Lundy, which was within his jurisdiction of Devon. ‘I will do something about it, never fear! Last year, my predecessor fined William de Marisco three hundred marks for failing to deliver up to the Templars – and I’ll impose the same amercement this year!’

De Wolfe’s lean face creased into a sardonic smile. ‘For God’s sake, what use is that? He ignored the fine last year and will ignore any you put upon him in the future. The only penalty de Marisco will heed is force of arms.’

Richard banged his empty goblet petulantly on the table. ‘And that’s damned difficult on an island like Lundy. Half the time, you can’t get near the place because of the weather – and when it’s calm, any invader can be seen coming from ten miles, unless there’s a sea fog.’

De Wolfe became impatient with his brother-in-law. ‘Make up your mind, Richard! The other day you said Lundy was none of your business. Now you claim you want to deal with de Marisco, so who has changed your mind? Then, in the same breath, you say it’s impossible.’

The constable’s deep voice asked a question. ‘What’s the story behind this Templar claim to the island? I know nothing of its history.’

The coroner perched himself on the corner of de Revelle’s table. ‘After the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, King Henry, back in ’fifty-five, declared that all royal lands granted away in Stephen’s reign be handed back to the Crown – or so my knowledgeable clerk tells me. William de Marisco ignored this. It was rumoured that he was a bastard son of the first King Henry, so maybe he felt he had a better claim than anyone. But five years later the king granted the island to the Knights Templar as part of his contribution to their Order. Not that they needed any more possessions, they were so rich by then, but I suppose he wanted to keep in good favour with the Pope, who was partial to the Templars.’

‘So what happened?’

‘A party of Templars – knights, sergeants and servants – tried to take possession, but William prevented them from landing. They were lucky not to be drowned.’

‘They tried several more times, but the same thing happened,’ added the sheriff morosely. ‘Then, instead, the Templars were given some land in Somerset belonging to the Mariscos, but they had to pay rent for it, so they still want to get their hands on the island.’

De Wolfe finished the last of the wine in his cup and stood up. ‘But that doesn’t solve our problem. Everyone knows that the Mariscos have carried on the old tradition of piracy from Lundy, but there’s no evidence that this Bristol vessel was one of their victims.’

Richard de Revelle snorted. ‘There’s no evidence because we haven’t looked in the right place yet!’

The coroner leaned his hands on the table to look de Revelle in the face. ‘We? Since when have you rubbed your arse raw riding back and forth to Barnstaple and beyond? I’ve done it twice in the last week.’

Stung into a reaction that he later regretted, the sheriff then announced that he would lead a force there the very next week and ordered Ralph Morin to send a couple of men ahead to organise sea transport for two-score men-at-arms. ‘As I declare this to be a foray on behalf of the king, send messages to de Grenville in Bideford and Oliver de Tracey in Barnstaple, that we need half a dozen knights from each to accompany our force.’

John’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead when he heard his brother-in-law invoke the Lionheart as the reason for a somewhat rash expedition to Lundy. Knowing of de Revelle’s crafty mind and his habitual duplicity, he decided the sheriff was trying to strengthen the fragile pardon he had been given by the royalist barons a couple of months ago. ‘This I must see, Richard, so I’ll come with you – there’s sure to be deaths, so it will be fitting to have a coroner on hand!’ he exclaimed, with a grin that was almost a leer.

‘And if you’re sending most of my soldiers, then I’ll be with you as well,’ boomed the constable. ‘Let’s hope that Exeter doesn’t fall under siege while we’re away, for the garrison will be down to a man and a boy!’

By the time they had finished discussing the details of travel and supplies, John could sense that de Revelle was already regretting his impetuous decision: he was no fighting man. A frustrated politician, he was best at delegating tasks, especially when it came to anything physical or dangerous. But it was too late now, the decision had been made, and his proclaimed admiration for the Templars was the main motive for his trying to gain their inheritance on Lundy – as well as some credit for himself in London and Winchester.

The meeting broke up and de Wolfe collected Odin from the inner bailey then jogged through the town to put his horse to rest in the farrier’s stable. A quick look into his house showed that Matilda was out, and Mary appeared with the usual news that she had gone to an evening service at St Olave’s. Declining the maid’s offer to make him supper, the coroner trudged down to the Bush, feeling his leg stronger than ever, though it ached at the end of the day.

Nesta soon organised food for him and before long he was contentedly ploughing through a boiled knuckle of pork lying on a thick trencher of bread, a wooden bowl alongside filled with shredded onions fried in beef lard and a pile of boiled cabbage. It would soon be Lent and this might be one of the last meat meals he would taste for weeks – not even an egg was allowed by the strict adherents to the Faith, though many a fowl or joint disappeared in the solemn period before Easter, not all of it down secular gullets.

Half-way through his second quart of ale, Nesta left chivvying her maids to sit with him for a while. Between mouthfuls, he told her of the day’s excitements, the transfer of Gilbert to his own manor, the outlaw’s ambush and the proposed expedition to Lundy. The pert Welsh woman listened round-eyed as he described the fight with the trail-bastons, as highway robbers were often called. She sat clinging to his arm as he told of the rout that Gwyn and he had inflicted on the men, tendrils of her glossy red hair escaping from under her close-fitting linen helmet.

When he had demolished the meal, Nesta signalled to one of the maids to take away the gravy-soaked trencher – it would join the others from today’s meals for Edwin to take to the beggars who clustered around the cathedral Close and Carfoix, the central junction of the main roads in the city. She brought him another pot of ale and also gave him a beaming smile, which earned her a kick on the ankle from her mistress.

‘Brazen hussy, trying to give you the eye!’ she snapped in mock jealousy, but John knew that she was fond of her girls and looked after them well, for both were orphans. As well as giving them a home, she guarded their morals until they could find husbands – unlike most town taverns, the serving wenches in the Bush were not part-time whores who paid a percentage of their earnings to the landlady.

He was giving an account of the proposition to land on Lundy next week – which caused Nesta anguish at the prospect of her man being either slain or drowned – when a huge figure came to hover over the table near the hearth. ‘Gwyn! My favourite coroner’s officer!’ Nesta patted the bench alongside her and pushed de Wolfe along so that the ginger giant could sit down. With the two large men at either side, she looked like a robin between a raven and a red kite.

Almost before Gwyn could open his mouth, a quart jar of ale was banged in front of him by Edwin, whose leer was worsened by the whitened blind eye that was a legacy of the Irish wars. Nothing loath, he took a long swallow that sank the better part of a pint and wiped the back of his hand across his soaking moustache, before delivering his news to his impatient companions. ‘There are Templars arrived in the city, crowner.’

This was about the last thing that de Wolfe had expected that evening. All along he had had a healthy scepticism about Gilbert de Ridefort’s fears, and although the arrival of Cosimo of Modena lent some credence to his story, there were many other explanations for the abbot’s mission. Was this new twist another coincidence, or was the Templar from Paris really a fugitive in danger of his freedom? He waited for his officer to enlarge on his story. He knew from long experience that it was futile to press him – Gwyn would speak when it suited him.

After some throat-clearing, another drink and a belch, he continued, ‘I was in the aleshop at the corner of Curre Street just now, talking to a tanner I know. He said that he had seen a fine procession coming up from South Gate earlier in the day, three knights on destriers, with three squires behind and two packhorses led by a groom.’

‘What was so fine about them?’ demanded Nesta. ‘There’s nothing unusual about a few knights – they were probably on their way to their term of service at some castle.’

Gwyn picked up a crust of bread that the maid had left behind and stuffed it into his mouth. When he had chewed it sufficiently to speak, he carried on with his story. ‘These men were in full chain-mail with aventails and helmets, as were their squires. They had swords but no lances nor shields, so there were no armorial emblems to identify them.’

‘And no surcoats, presumably?’ snapped the coroner. The long cloth garment worn over the mailed hauberk prevented the glint of metal signalling their approach and also kept off the sun, which might roast someone inside a hauberk padded with a gambeson. It was also a convenient place to display the wearer’s heraldic motif.

‘No surcoats, so no red crosses of the Knights of Christ,’ agreed Gwyn. ‘But it seems they all had full beards and moustaches and cropped hair.’

‘That’s common enough, even though it may be against the present fashion,’ objected Nesta.

The Cornishman grinned at her, though in deference to his master he avoided a playful pinch to her bottom. ‘There was one sure way to find out, lady – ask! Though the knights and their squires ignored the common crowd in the street, one cheeky lad ran alongside the groom and asked him where they were going. He said to the priory of St Nicholas and added that they were Templars, come all the way from London in less than a week.’

Gwyn went back to his ale while de Wolfe digested this news.

‘What in hell do they want here at this time?’ he muttered. ‘Is it just coincidence that Gilbert claims he’s being hunted? And now this business of the Templar claim to Lundy.’

The thought suddenly came to him that perhaps his dear brother-in-law had been keeping something from him. His change of heart in his uncharacteristic willingness to mount a campaign to Lundy might not have been as spontaneous as it appeared. He turned to Gwyn, speaking over Nesta’s head. ‘In the morning, get yourself down to St Nicholas’s and see what you can find out about them. If they are lodged in a priory, they must have a mandate from the Church for some purpose. The closest Templar land is near Tiverton, so whatever their business may be, it has to do with Exeter.’

‘And perhaps to do with their fellow Templar, Gilbert de Ridefort,’ said the officer ominously, putting into words what John already feared.

‘Unless they are going to join our invasion of Lundy next week,’ said the coroner sarcastically. ‘But to know of that, they’d have to be necromancers, to read the thoughts of our noble sheriff a week in advance!’ He paused. ‘Unless that crafty bastard up in Rougemont knew they were coming.’

Though the next day was a Wednesday, the sixteenth day of March, de Wolfe was dragged unwillingly by Matilda to the morning mass in the nearby cathedral. ‘Every Christian should attend mass at least once a day,’ nagged Matilda, but she managed to force him to church only twice a month at most. He resented every minute they stood in the huge, draughty nave of the cathedral, listening to the distant gabbling of a junior priest, or else in the tiny church of St Olave, suffering the unctuous tones of the fat priest his wife so admired.

After the service, he walked up to the castle and waited in the clammy chamber under the keep for Gwyn to return from the priory. He spent the time practising his Latin, mouthing the phrases written for him by Thomas. He was improving all the time, able to read better than he could write but making much more progress with his little clerk than he had previously under the tutelage of the cathedral priest.

Someone darkened the low doorway and, looking up, he saw that it was Thomas himself, his cheap shoes and hose spattered with mud for it had rained during the night. He had just ridden his pony the couple of miles from St James’s Priory and was bursting to tell his news to his master. ‘I stayed in the priory as you arranged, Crowner, and tried to find what brought Abbot Cosimo to Devon.’ He crossed himself fervently as he mentioned the Italian’s rank. ‘I could discover little, except that he came from Paris some weeks ago and rode here via London, where he stayed in the New Temple near the Fleet river.’

‘How did you find that out?’ grunted de Wolfe, interrupting him.

‘The priory stable-boy was talking to one of the guards the abbot brought with him. They were not very talkative, especially to me, but the priory servants seemed to get more out of them.’

‘Are they also foreign, these guards?’

‘No, they are English Normans, and I suspect they are also from the Temple in London, though they don’t belong to the Order. They are more lowly servants.’

‘We already knew he was from Paris and visited the Templar headquarters there – so what’s your real news?’

‘Yesterday he rode off on his fine mare, with the two men behind him. They are still away, they didn’t come back last night.’ Thomas shrugged his lopsided shoulder and looked more furtive than usual. ‘After he’d left, I slipped into his cell and had a look around. They must mean to return, for some of his belongings were still there, including a writing-bag, like this.’ He pulled forward his shabby satchel, in which he carried his quills, ink and parchments.

‘And you got a good look inside it, I trust?’

The little clerk nodded vigorously. ‘You said it was important, so I risked my immortal soul by searching the pouch of a papal nuncio, God forgive me.’ Guiltily, he made the Sign of the Cross.

‘And what did that tell you, my trusty spy?’ demanded John.

‘There was a letter there, dated about five months ago, from a Cardinal Galeazzo in Rome, giving Abbot Cosimo authority to seek out and report on any and all forms of heresy in France and neighbouring countries. And, also, there was a more recent missive, about six weeks old, from Hugh, Bishop of Auxerre, ordering him to pursue any renegades from the True Faith, wherever they may be found, even including the Isles of Britain.’

De Wolfe considered this for a moment. ‘Did these parchments name any particular heretics or renegades?’

Thomas wiped a dew-drop from his thin nose with the back of his hand and sniffed. ‘No, they were general directions to the nuncio – but this is typical of the Inquisition against the Cathars and Albigensians in the south-west parts of France.’

John knew next to nothing about heretics in France or anywhere else, but the fact that Cosimo of Modena’s mandate seemed mainly to concern religious problems in southern France, where de Ridefort’s expected fellow-fugitive came from, was yet another coincidence that was hard to swallow. ‘Did anything else emerge from your delving through his belongings?’

Thomas wagged his head from side to side. ‘No, that was all that was in his satchel, apart from a religious tract and some writing materials. But it is surely enough to prove that he is on a special mission to seek out heretics. The orders from both Rome and France come from persons of great ecclesiastical standing.’ Thomas paused for a quick tapping of his forehead, chest and shoulders, then continued. ‘Both letters had heavy seals, one with emblems of the Holy See and the other from Hugh of Auxerre, who is well known as the head of the Inquisition in France. So Abbot Cosimo is certainly not in Devon to enjoy the air and the scenery – he is on the prowl!’

De Wolfe relaxed his usual stern manner sufficiently to compliment his clerk on his efforts at espionage and Thomas glowed with the praise, which was all the more valuable because of its scarcity. His master sent him off to buy breakfast at one of the stalls in the outer ward, while he sat in his damp cubbyhole and pondered the significance of the information.

The appearance of a papal nuncio, charged with seeking out those who rebelled against the strict tenets of the Church of Rome gave credence to Gilbert de Ridefort’s fears, about which until now de Wolfe had been very dubious. He had half suspected that the man suffered from some paranoid state of mind, maybe rooted in some personal wrong-doing he was trying to blame on the Templars, but unless the arm of coincidence was very long indeed, Abbot Cosimo’s mission confirmed the story.

But what was the Italian priest intending to do? Was he here to persuade de Ridefort to see the errors of his ways and to take him back into the fold? Or was he here to denounce him to Bishop Henry Marshall – who was probably too concerned with his own affairs to worry about some foreign backslider? Or was the knight to be dragged back to the new Temple in London or even across the Channel to face the Inquisition in France? And how would that be achieved? A seasoned Templar warrior was no easy prey, even for the two strong-arm men that Cosimo had brought with him.

And what of this Bernardus de Blanchefort, who was allegedly on his way, like the Second Coming? Was the abbot here to trap him as well? Or maybe Bernardus was the prime quarry and de Ridefort was irrelevant.

And, anyway, what was this ‘awful secret’ about which de Ridefort made such oblique hints? All these questions and not a single answer made de Wolfe impatient for some action and, with a muttered curse, he stood up and promptly struck his head on the slimy stones of the low arched ceiling. His muttering turned into a bellow of profanity and, rubbing his scalp, he stepped out into the castle yard. Turning to look with loathing at the tiny cave his brother-in-law had foisted on him, de Wolfe decided that enough was enough: he would go back to his old chamber even if he had to be hauled up by a rope and tackle.

Striding across the mired bailey, dodged by passing men-at-arms, self-important clerks and porters pushing barrows, he made for the gatehouse, his grey cloak streaming out behind him in the cold wind. Within the guardroom, which lay just inside the raised portcullis, he found Gabriel yelling some admonishment at a young soldier, who scuttled away thankfully when the sergeant turned to greet the coroner. ‘Good day, Crowner. I hear we’re going back to the north again next week.’

‘Yes, you had better pick some men who don’t get seasick, if the sheriff is set on going to Lundy.’ De Wolfe looked at the bottom of the staircase to his chamber. ‘I fell down those damned steps last week, but my leg is much stronger now, after all the exercise. Stand behind me, Gabriel, and catch me if I collapse.’

With a somewhat apprehensive sergeant close behind, he began to climb the narrow, winding stairs. To the silent relief of both, he did far better than he expected and reached the top without so much as a stumble. As he pushed aside the sacking that did service as a door, he found Gwyn sitting in his accustomed place on a window-sill, eating bread and cheese with a pot of cider in his hand. He rose and pulled forward a rickety stool, the only furnishing in the office since the trestle had been taken below.

De Wolfe dropped heavily on to it, his back against the rough stones of the wall. The climb had taken more out of him than he expected, though his leg had held up well. ‘Give me some of that bread and ale first, man, then tell me what’s new.’

Gwyn handed him some victuals, then passed on to his master what he had learned of the three unknown knights who had arrived in the city the previous day. ‘I toured the alehouses last night, seeking gossip, but apart from many people seeing them ride through the town, no one knew anything about them. Several had heard the groom say they were Templars, but we knew that already.’

‘Nothing else?’ asked de Wolfe. He knew that Gwyn often kept the best bits until last.

‘This morning, I went into Bretayne and walked up to St Nicholas’s.’

Bretayne was the poorest quarter of Exeter, named after the Celtic Britons who had been pushed there when the Saxons took over the city centuries earlier. It was a slum of narrow lanes and miserable huts in the north-western corner of the walls, the small priory of St Nicholas lying at its edge.

‘There was a farrier in the yard, shoeing a big warhorse, one almost the size of your old Bran,’ continued Gwyn. ‘It was no monk’s nag and obviously belonged to one of the Templars. I got talking to the farrier and he said they needed the job done quickly, as they would be riding out of the city shortly. I asked him where and why, but he couldn’t tell me.’

‘Did he know the name of the horse’s owner?’

Gwyn scratched his head. ‘He did and it sounded familiar, though I can’t place it in my mind. Not to put a face to.’

John valiantly concealed his impatience. ‘The name?’

‘Brian de Falaise – I remember it, for it’s where William the Bastard came from.’

De Wolfe ignored the Conqueror’s origins and concentrated on the name. ‘There was such a Templar at Acre. A big heavy man.’

‘That applies to many men – especially Templars!’ observed Gwyn.

‘What about the other two?’ demanded the coroner.

His officer shook his head. ‘No sign of any of them, and the farrier knew no more. I called to a monk who was hoeing the garden and asked him who his visitors were, but he told me to mind my own business, the miserable sod.’ He swallowed the last of his cider. ‘If you want more information, best send that evil little gnome of ours down there. He has a way with priests, with his Signs of the Cross and his Latin speech.’

De Wolfe agreed with him, and told him what Thomas had discovered in the other priory. ‘If all else fails, I’ll go up to St Nicholas’s myself and ask these fellows why they’re here. I can play the old Crusader act, if Brian de Falaise is one of them.’

Gwyn hauled himself to his feet, half filling the chamber. ‘Well, they’ll not be here all day, according to the farrier. He was told to return at curfew, to check the shoes on the other horses after their journey from London.’

De Wolfe rose with him and moved to the stair-head. ‘I’ll try to visit them tonight or tomorrow. Meanwhile, when that miserable clerk of ours returns from his breakfast, I’ll send him to snoop around at St Nicholas’s.’ Pulling aside the sacking, he stood back to let the Cornishman through. ‘You go ahead of me, Gwyn. If I fall arse over beak, then at least I’ll land on you!’

That morning, fifteen miles away, John’s sister was attending mass at the church in Stoke-in-Teignhead, as she had almost every day since she was a child. Although her ambition to become a nun had long since faded, she remained very devout, though this never affected her amiable and outgoing nature. Today she was accompanied by the tall, handsome guest at their manor, Gilbert de Ridefort.

It was her mother who had pressed him to go with Evelyn – Enyd herself was less conscientious in her church-going, thinking that twice a week was sufficient for her soul’s welfare. She had an ulterior motive in sending him with her daughter: both women knew that there was more to de Ridefort than John had admitted. Though not in open conspiracy, they wished to wheedle as much of his story from him as possible and a sedate walk to and from the church, a quarter of a mile away, might be a good opportunity. Strangely, de Ridefort seemed rather reluctant to attend divine service, and as Evelyn sensed he enjoyed her pleasant company well enough, she had to conclude that it was the devotions themselves that were not attractive to him. This seemed strange for a Templar or even an ex-Templar, as he would have been accustomed to spending hours each day in church.

But Enyd’s persuasive tongue vanquished his reluctance and, with a maidservant little older than a child trailing behind, they walked leisurely to the church of St Andrew, rebuilt in stone by Simon de Wolfe shortly before his death. On the way there, they talked of many things and Evelyn, listening to his tales of travel in France and the Holy Land, was captivated by his charm.

However, she had learned nothing new about his presence in Devon by the time they reached the church and she resolved to be more forthright on the way back. During the service, they stood before the chancel step, with the half-dozen villagers who were not at work placed respectfully behind the daughter of their manorial lord.

The portly and rather jolly parish priest rattled through the Office rather less quickly than usual as he sensed that Evelyn’s guest was someone special, even though he had no idea that he was a former monk of the Temple. Evelyn watched de Ridefort covertly during the short service and noticed that though he went through the motions required of him it was with an almost mechanical familiarity, devoid of any apparent spiritual enthusiasm. His face remained set in a wooden expression, and his lips were unmoving where responses were called for during the ceremony. She felt that, though he was there in body, his mind was deliberately closed to the religious content of the service. At the church door, when the priest obsequiously ushered out the lady whose family was responsible for the easy living he enjoyed, Evelyn briefly introduced her guest as Sir Gilbert de Ridefort, but took him away before any further explanations were needed.

As they began to walk back, Gilbert was subdued at first, but she soon had him talking again. ‘You seemed unimpressed by our priest’s abilities, sir?’

He gave a rather sad smile at this. ‘Your amiable cleric did all that was required of him. It is just that I have come to have so many doubts about the Faith he professes.’

John’s sister suddenly felt she had tapped a vein that might satisfy her curiosity. ‘I have heard that most men of God suffer crises of faith at some time.’

He laid a hand gently on her shoulder as they strolled down the churchyard path between the yew trees. ‘This is not a crisis of my faith, but of the Faith itself,’ he said enigmatically.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said truthfully.

‘Your brother told you that I am – or, rather, I was – a Knight of the Temple?’

She was puzzled at this oblique reply. ‘Yes, but surely they have a faith stronger than most? You are the soldiers of Christ.’

De Ridefort smiled down at her as if humouring a child’s belief in fairy-tales. ‘The Templars are a strange Order. We are certainly strong guardians of the Faith, but perhaps we exist mainly to guard it from criticism and enquiry.’

Evelyn raised her face to look into his face. ‘Are you suggesting that our faith needs such protection from doubts?’

At the gate, he turned and looked back. The few villagers from the congregation were talking to the priest at the church door and no one was within earshot. ‘Yes, it has been so protected for many years. Rome is a jealous and powerful guardian, which suffers no competition. A thousand years ago, St Paul took Christianity away from its origins and transplanted it into that city. But there were other branches of Christianity, in Palestine, Egypt and elsewhere, gnostics who would not accept the rigid doctrines of Rome.’

This was bewildering to Evelyn, who had known nothing other than conforming to the unyielding despotism of the Church and was almost unaware that any other view could exist. ‘Are you speaking of heretics?’ she asked, almost in a whisper.

Gilbert took her arm and they walked on slowly, the young girl trailing behind them, more interested in the spring flowers by the wayside, than the unintelligible conversation of her elders. ‘Heretics? That’s a wide and varied description. You had your own heresy here in these isles, centuries ago, when Pelagius claimed free will and free thinking for all men. And now, especially in southern France, there are the Cathars, the Albigensians who desire to pursue their faith in their own way – a way that I fear will soon bring down the wrath of Rome upon them, with disastrous results.’

Evelyn felt a flutter of alarm in her breast and, like Thomas de Peyne, an irrational desire to cross herself. Was this man, with his hand upon her arm, a dangerous heretic, an anti-Christ?

But she had a strong will and decided to take the bull by the horns. ‘What has that to do with the Templars – and with you coming so far away to Devon, after leaving the Order? I thought that being a Templar was for life.’

‘It should be, Evelyn. But I and few others have seen traces and fragments of a different truth that we were not supposed even to suspect. When the Order was founded early in this century, something had been discovered in Jerusalem that had to be suppressed at all costs. I am not privy to the whole story, which is known only to the Grand Master and to a few cardinals in Rome. It is not clear whether the first Templars actually found this secret or whether they were rapidly established by the Order of Sion to investigate further and then conceal something that had already been discovered.’

Evelyn was bewildered. ‘Are you saying that you are now a fugitive because you came into possession of forbidden knowledge, even within your own community?’

‘Exactly that – and they fear that I and those with me will divulge this intelligence to the world.’ A gleam came into his eye and his voice quivered a little – so she thought he might be a little crazy.

‘How did the early Templars come by this secret? And what is it, anyway?’ she asked, almost fearful that the answer would provoke a thunderbolt from the skies.

His face twisted into a grimace of pain, as mortification and indecision racked him. ‘I am torn between my vows of obedience and the right of all men to have a free mind, untrammelled by blind faith. Part of me is seized in the grip of the rigid dictates drummed into me since childhood, yet increasingly I see the merits of the gnostic way of thought – as do many other Templars in France, who are sympathetic to the Cathars. I should have the courage to tell the world the truth – and yet I am afraid.’

Evelyn began to feel that his responses to her questions took her further away from any real understanding. ‘But what did they find, these first Templars?’ she persisted.

‘They were given part of the palace built over the ruins of the Temple of Solomon, destroyed by the Romans when they dispersed the Jews. The first few spent several years excavating further in the underground passages that were said to have been Herod’s stables – and what they found there they transported back to southern France, in conditions of the greatest secrecy. Nine years after their foundation, the original nine Templars returned to France for good.’

Again he had managed to answer her without imparting any relevant information, so she tried again. ‘Southern France seems to feature greatly in all this, sir,’ she observed. ‘That is where these Cathars you speak of live – and where this Templar friend you are awaiting has his estates. I once heard from an indiscreet monk that there was even a theory that Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalen visited the area after the death of our Saviour, as it was a haven for many Jews fleeing from the Holy Land.’

De Ridefort gave a dry laugh. ‘Visited? She did more than that! She came to live there, bearing the Grail within her! The Languedoc is the new Holy Land, which makes it all the more tragic that nemesis will before long fall upon thousands of those who live there.’

She still failed to follow his leap-frogging replies, but as they neared the entrance to the manor-house bailey, Evelyn made one last effort. ‘But how could something taken from the foundations of a temple possibly rock the foundations of our Holy Church?’ she asked in trepidation.

De Ridefort took his hand from her arm to point backwards towards the little church. ‘What did we just do during the Mass?’ he asked sternly. ‘We partook of the body and blood of the resurrected Christ, the ceremony that is the core, the very heart of the Holy Roman Church. If that most sacred belief is shattered, then the thousand years since Paul made Rome the centre of the Christian universe crumbles into dust.’

They turned into the gateway and Evelyn, uneasy almost to the point of being frightened by this strange, enigmatic man, slipped away to report to her mother.