The Awful Secret (16 page)

Nesta slipped out the other side and dressed quickly in the gloom. ‘And I’d better attend to my business or that old fool Edwin and those daft serving maids will have driven all my patrons away with their stupidity.’ She opened the rough door and let in a dim light from a horn lantern left burning for the guests to find their way to their pallets. ‘Come down for a last mug of ale before you go – my last brew was better than ever, though I say it myself.’ As well as being a pretty woman and an enthusiastic lover, Nesta was an excellent cook and a talented ale-maker. De Wolfe often bemoaned the fact that both social barriers and his marriage prevented him from living with this jewel of a woman.

He hauled himself from the bed and pulled on his undershirt and long grey tunic, slit back and front for riding a horse. The long black woollen hose came up to his thighs and his pointed shoes and a heavy belt completed his garb. He had left his hooded cloak of grey wolfskin downstairs.

When he climbed down the wooden steps into the ale-room, lit by the flickering flames of a large fire and a number of tallow dips on the tables, he made out a familiar shape sitting near the door. As he reached the floor, Nesta bustled past, intent on chasing one of her harassed serving maids. ‘Thomas has been waiting patiently for you these past ten minutes – he has some message for you, he says.’

She sailed away and he went over to the little clerk, who hopped to his feet and peered bird-like up into de Wolfe’s face, his sharp eyes glistening in the candlelight. ‘I’ve found out who the priest is – the one from France,’ he squeaked excitedly. Eternally grateful to the coroner for giving him employment, which had saved him from penury and perhaps starvation, Thomas was always desperately anxious to prove his worth. Although de Wolfe and Gwyn usually treated him with scornful contempt, he had been inordinately useful to them on many occasions.

‘So who is he?’ demanded his master.

‘An abbot from Paris, called Cosimo of Modena.’

‘Modena? That’s not in France.’

‘No, he’s from the north of Italy. I gather he is a Vatican priest, posted to Paris some time ago as a special nuncio. No one knows what his special duties might be,’ sniggered Thomas.

‘How did you discover this? And where is he now?’ demanded the coroner.

‘I was talking to one of the Benedictines from St James’s Priory, who came up to a service for St Jerome today. He said that Abbot Cosimo has installed himself at the priory, much to the discomfort of the prior.’

‘Why should he complain?’

‘First, because Cosimo is a Cistercian – in their strictness they look down on these Cluniac Benedictines, even though their Orders have the same origins. Also it seems he arrogantly demanded accommodation and sustenance for himself and his two men on the authority of Pope Celestine, producing some letter from Rome that virtually overrides any reluctance, even by bishops.’ Thomas crossed himself spasmodically as he spoke.

De Wolfe considered this, leaning against the inside of the inn door. ‘And no one knows on what errand this Italian is engaged?’

The little clerk looked crestfallen. ‘I couldn’t discover this, Crowner. No one seems to know. The abbot is a very secretive person, it appears.’

John thoughtfully rubbed the dark stubble on his long chin. ‘We got on well with the jolly prior at St James’s, did we not?’

Thomas, delighted to be asked his opinion, bobbed his head eagerly. ‘Prior Peter was very amiable when we were there for the catching of that fish a few months ago,’ he agreed.

Just before de Wolfe’s disaster, when his old horse both broke his leg and saved his life, they had visited the priory when the coroner had had to attend the landing of a sturgeon. The prior, a rubicund fellow with a taste for good wine, had made them welcome on that occasion.

‘Be ready at dawn, Thomas, with whatever you need for a few days’ absence from that flea-pit you stay in near the cathedral. I have a task for you that you may well enjoy.’

And with that the former priest had to be satisfied.

The coroner thought that at forty he must already be getting old as he jogged on Odin through the early-morning mists alongside the river Exe. As an active soldier, he had woken as fresh as a daisy at whatever hour the trumpet sounded, but now he felt bleary-eyed and his brain remained sluggish until he could shake off the effects of sleep.

Behind him rode Gwyn on his big brown mare, and Thomas, sitting side-saddle on his moorland pony. Alongside him was Gilbert de Ridefort, sitting as tall and erect as a fence-post on his grey gelding. He looked every inch a Templar knight, even if the famous white cloak with the large cross was missing.

The quartet rode silently, each with his own thoughts, though every few hundred yards Gilbert would give a quick look over his shoulder, checking that no pursuing shapes were dashing after them through the morning fog.

They passed a number of peasants and traders making for Exeter, many carrying huge bundles or pushing handcarts with goods to sell in the city, others with laden donkeys or ox-carts full of produce. The road went due south from Exeter towards Topsham, the small port at the head of the estuary of the Exe. Between them was the tiny priory of St James, founded half a century before by Baldwin, the famous sheriff of the county. The small building was down on the slope, just above the floodplain of the river, and John told Gwyn to stay up on the main road with Sir Gilbert, out of sight of the priory, in case the mysterious Roman priest was abroad. He and his clerk went down to the building and, within a few minutes, de Wolfe had returned alone. ‘As I hoped, it was an easy task,’ he explained, as they set off more briskly towards Topsham. ‘Prior Peter seems to have no real love for this Italian, who he feels has battened upon him like an unwelcome leech.’

‘So what of your clerk?’ asked de Ridefort.

‘The prior is letting him stay there under the guise of a travelling brother on his way to take up a parish in Cornwall. Thomas is well suited to spinning such deceptions. He could probably make them believe he was the new archbishop!’

‘Why should the prior agree to this?’ grunted Gwyn.

‘I told him that the secular authorities wanted to know why a papal nuncio was in England without announcing himself to the authorities. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but neither does the prior. Thomas is going to snoop about to try to find out why this Italian is here.’

‘I have no doubt why that man Cosimo is here,’ commented de Rideport bitterly. ‘He was sent last year to investigate the Cathar heresy in the Albi region of France and to report back to his master in Rome. Now he has a similar mission to find me.’

De Ridefort had already confirmed that Cosimo of Modena was indeed the priest he used to see about the Commandery in Paris. He was now convinced that this abbot had been sent to deal with him, either by capture or elimination.

Presumably with the stimulus of the abbot so near, the Templar set a cracking pace and within half an hour they were in the little port of Topsham, seeking the ferry that crossed the river to the marshes on the western side. From there, they trotted to Powderham then on to Dawlish, the first village on the open coast. As they passed through, Gwyn watched his master from the corner of his eye and, as he expected, saw him look longingly at a fine stone house in the only street.

Mischievously, the ginger-haired officer couldn’t resist some comment, which was lost on de Ridefort, though his thoughts were mainly on his own predicament.

‘Quite a few vessels beached here, Crowner,’ observed Gwyn, with a false air of innocence. ‘Some of them real sea-going vessels – the Normandy fleet must be in.’

De Wolfe merely grunted – he knew what the Cornishman was hinting at. One of his favourite mistresses, the blonde Hilda, lived in Dawlish. She was wife to Thorgils the Boatman and with most of the cross-Channel shipping lying in the little creek, he was now probably at home with his young and beautiful wife.

With no chance of a visit the coroner kept his eyes on the track, and they continued along the coast for a few miles until they came to the wide valley of the Teign. At the point where it entered the sea, a sand-bar drastically narrowed the river so that at low tide horses could splash across. This morning they were in luck and could wade straight across with no delay. By noon the three riders were winding their way down a pleasant wooded valley into Stoke-in-Teignhead. The manor house was just outside the village, which consisted of a new church to St Andrew and a dozen houses and huts, of a better quality than in most other villages.

The coroner’s father, Simon de Wolfe, whose family had come from Caen in the last years of the previous century, had been killed fifteen years before in the Irish campaigns. Though, like his son, he had spent much of his life fighting, he was also a careful and considerate landowner: his two manors at Stoke and at Holcombe near the coast were kept in good condition and the villagers were well treated.

Inside the bailey around the house, servants and freemen came running to greet their popular master, for now John de Wolfe, his brother William and his sister Evelyn jointly owned the honour, with their sprightly mother Enyd enjoying a life interest in the manor.

Their Saxon steward, Alsi, came out to organise the stabling of the horses then effusively escorted de Wolfe and de Ridefort into the house. Gwyn made for the kitchen hut, where he knew from long experience that giggling maids would ply him with food and drink until he was fit to burst.

The house was solidly built of stone: one of Simon’s last acts before he died had been to provide his family with a substantial home built to resist attack, though thankfully there had been no fighting around here for decades. The stockade, which encircled the bailey, was still sound, but the drawbridge over the small moat had not been raised for many years, a good indicator of peaceful times.

‘Are the family at home, Alsi?’ asked de Wolfe as they climbed the outer staircase to the entrance on the first floor.

‘Your mother and sister are here, Sir John. Your brother is overseeing the cutting of new assarts in the West Wood.’

John grinned at the familiar tale. William, though he looked remarkably like himself, was no soldier. All his enthusiasms were for farming and managing the estate, which suited John well as he shared in the profits. Together with a steady income from his share in the wool-exporting business with Hugh de Relaga, he had a comfortable income without having to work for it.

In the solar, he introduced Gilbert de Ridefort to his mother and sister. Enyd de Wolfe was a still-pretty woman of sixty, with a little grey in her fair hair – de Wolfe’s colouring came from his father. Enyd was pure Celt, which explained part of Matilda’s antipathy to her. Her father was Cornish and her mother Welsh, and John’s fluency in those similar languages had been learned in childhood at Enyd’s knee.

Evelyn was a plump, cheerful woman of thirty-four, still unmarried. She had once wanted to become a nun, but her mother had rightly suspected that her daughter was too garrulous to settle under the constraints of the veil and insisted that she stay at home and help run the manor-house.

De Wolfe gave them an edited version of de Ridefort’s problem, emphasising that the knight wanted somewhere quiet to stay until his companion arrived from France. His sharp-witted mother, who knew every nuance of her son’s character, knew full well that there was more to the man’s problems than a need for peace and quiet, but she said nothing and, with Evelyn, gave him a warm welcome. Gilbert became his usual charming self and soon had them eating out of his hand. He offered, with just the right amount of reluctance, to stay at the local inn to save them the trouble of boarding him, but they would have none of it.

‘Not that the church hostel is uncomfortable,’ said Evelyn, proudly. ‘My father established it for travellers, instead of a rowdy alehouse. But you will be far better off here.’ After her intuitive reading of the situation, she could have added ‘and safer’, but she held her tongue.

After a good meal, Gilbert was shown to a small chamber off the hall, the only other room apart from the solar and the ladies’ sleeping chamber. He dropped the large satchel that held his possessions and looked with satisfaction at the thick straw mattress laid for him on the floor. As John prepared to leave for Exeter, de Ridefort begged him to keep him informed of any developments. ‘Your clerk must find out what Cosimo of Modena is really engaged in,’ he pleaded.

‘One small priest cannot be any threat to you, surely,’ said de Wolfe, reassuringly. ‘Even his two escorts could hardly abduct a fighting Templar against his will.’

‘Not personally, it’s true,’ replied de Ridefort. ‘But he is an accomplished organiser and schemer. There will be other men to do any strong-arm work, you can depend on it. That’s why I’m keen to know if any strange fighting men appear in the district. You will let me know that, John?’ he ended, with an imploring look in his eyes.

With promises to keep him up to date with any developments, and especially to tell him when Bernardus de Blanchefort arrived, the coroner took his leave, with hugs for his mother and sister.

After collecting Gwyn, he rode via the West Wood, to greet his brother William. They could do this as part of their homeward journey by going through the band of forest that bordered the river and thence up to Kingsteignton, as the tide would by now prevent them from crossing back at Teignmouth.

They found William with his tunic pulled up between his thighs and tucked into a broad belt, serge breeches inside stout boots, swinging an axe with his bailiff and half a dozen villeins from the village. They were cutting down trees to extend the arable land and oxen were dragging away the larger trunks for timber and firewood, the smaller branches being burned on a large bonfire.

‘There must be few lords of the manor who work alongside serfs,’ muttered Gwyn, slightly disapproving of this degree of egalitarianism.

‘He does it because he likes swinging an axe. So do I, but I prefer hitting a Saracen rather than a beech tree,’ replied de Wolfe, gazing benignly at his brother.