The Awful Secret (26 page)

‘And what of this Italian abbot? Do you know of him?’

De Blanchefort banged his empty mug on the table and Edwin hurried to refill it from a large jug. ‘Cosimo of Modena? Yes, I know him – who in France does not? He is a creature of Rome, though based at a priory near Paris. He has a roving commission to spy out heresy, supposedly being a servant of Hugh, Bishop of Auxerre, and William of the White Hands, Archbishop of Reims, who have taken it upon themselves to root out any form of dissension against Catholic orthodoxy. But he is widely thought to answer only to Rome itself.’

De Wolfe glanced at Thomas, who leeredback smugly, to confirm that this was what he had already discovered.

‘And who is the most dangerous of all these?’ persisted the coroner, doggedly seeking the likely killer of de Ridefort.

‘Cosimo is most poisonous of them all, though I doubt that physically he is dangerous. That is why he travels with those two retainers who can protect his skin from the thousands who would like to flay it from his miserable bones – and to carry out any mischief he orders.’

‘And the Templars?’

‘Most of our Order are honourable men, unaware of the great secret that the Poor Knights of Christ have guarded for three-quarters of a century. Only recently has there been some leakage of the truth that is beginning to unsettle the consciences of a few knights such as myself.’ He paused for a drink. ‘These three are probably blind adherents to the Rule, who will carry out any mission directed by the Masters of a country or Commanders of Houses. This Roland de Ver ranks as a Commander of Knights, a step higher in the hierarchy of the Order, which again makes it ridiculous to think that he is on a mission to buy land.’

A distant bell tolled from the cathedral and de Wolfe downed the last of his ale and rose to his feet. ‘If you are set on this rash sermon of yours, you have a day to prepare, but I suggest you keep out of sight in the city, as did Gilbert de Ridefort when he was here. You could stay at this inn – it is far better than the Saracen.’

De Blanchefort looked around the big ale-room of the Bush, but shook his head. ‘I agree it is superior, but my horse is in their stable and my saddle bags in their loft. Also, I think it may be a less obvious place to find me, as I understand this is well known as the best inn in Exeter.’

Nesta beamed at this compliment, even though it meant that she lost a few pence in trade.

John murmured to her as they left, ‘Get Edwin and the maids to put it about that there will be a revelation on the cathedral steps after the morning services tomorrow – I want the news to get around.’

The Saracen tavern was only a few yards away, on Stepcote Hill leading down to the river. At the end of Idle Lane, de Wolfe waited until he saw the figure of Bernardus reach the door safely, his floppy hat pulled well down over his face.

Then he gave instructions to Gwyn, and especially Thomas, to spend the rest of the day advertising de Blanchefort’s proposed sermon, before walking back to his own house. He considered telling his friend the archdeacon of the man’s intentions, but could not bring himself to commit such obvious treachery against him, even though it might conceivably save his life.

However, when he arrived home he did tell Matilda. He found her in a subdued mood after the funeral and had no idea how she would take the news that yet another heretic had arrived in town. She listened in silence from her usual cowled chair by the hearth.

‘Sir Gilbert told us he was coming,’ she said, in a dull monotone. ‘Is he to suffer the same fate?’

When de Wolfe described how the new arrival intended to give a public declaration of the Templars’ awful secret, she roused herself from her apathy and became increasingly incensed. ‘Though I thought so highly of Gilbert de Ridefort, I have to accept now that it was God’s will that caused him to be struck down for his blasphemous thoughts – but at least he kept them to himself. Now this other man comes, full of the devil’s intentions. What is the world coming to, John? Is the anti-Christ now on earth and are we soon to witness Armageddon?’ Her voice rose stridently as her anger gathered pace. Her infatuation with Gilbert seemed to have died with him. As usual, she turned her sharp tongue in the direction of her husband. ‘You have been an instrument in this, John,’ she chided, leaning forward in her chair to bristle at him. ‘You should have sent de Ridefort packing from the county as soon as you realised that he was possessed of such heresy. The devil must have been within him, too, to make me feel warmly towards him, when all the time he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.’

De Wolfe failed to follow her logic but wisely kept silent as she continued to vent her spleen on him. ‘And as for this new intruder, you should denounce him to the Church at once – and to my brother. He should be arrested and turned over to those who can close his blasphemous mouth.’

Her husband thought that Matilda would make the perfect candidate for leading the Inquisition in the west of England, but again kept his peace and instead went along with her mood. ‘That’s just what I am doing, in a way,’ he said artfully. ‘I am deliberately spreading the news of his intended revelations so that by the morning the cathedral authorities will know of his intentions. If they take him at all seriously, they will prevent him from speaking – and, no doubt, either these Templars or that abbot from the Inquisition will persuade him to leave the city. But neither your brother nor I has any jurisdiction over him. He is intending to commit no secular offence.’

Matilda was far from mollified. ‘He should be hanged, John. If anyone speaks against your precious king, you are outraged and instantly cry, “Traitor,” but you seem unconcerned with this greater treachery against our Heavenly King!’

He bit back his desire to argue with her about the different jurisdictions of the ecclesiastical and civil powers: when it came to matters of faith, Matilda’s arguments were based mainly on the loudness of her voice and her conviction of the infallibility of the priesthood and the Gospels. ‘Well, I’ve done what I can in the matter. I’m the coroner, not the bishop. It’s really none of my business – except that the killer of de Ridefort remains my concern, in spite of Richard’s warning for me not to get involved.’

Matilda became morose and uncommunicative again, which John found more unnerving than when she was ranting at him. After a while, the silence became oppressive and he left for his chamber in Rougemont, with the excuse that he must make arrangements for his journey to Barnstaple in little over a day. That fanned the smouldering embers of her bad temper into flames again, as she upbraided him for leaving her alone for so long: the expedition to Lundy would take at least five days. The only factor in his favour this time was that the foray had been suggested and organised by her own brother, which de Wolfe was at pains to point out when he retaliated to her complaints about the endless neglect he showed her.

With a sigh of relief, he stalked out of the hall, grabbing his grey cloak to ward off the thin drizzle that was again falling on the city.

John de Wolfe spent a quiet couple of hours in his small, bleak room at the top of the gatehouse. Even the damp cold of the unheated chamber was preferable to the frigid company of his wife. He used the time to practise his reading of Latin, running a finger slowly along the lines of Thomas’s perfect penmanship and forming the words silently with his lips.

The text was on the rolls that his clerk had written for current cases, pale cream parchment stitched together in long lengths, which would be presented to the king’s justices when they eventually came to Exeter for the next Eyre of Assize. They were long overdue, but rumour had it that they were in Dorchester and might perambulate as far as Devon in the next month or two to hear any civil disputes and serious cases of crime that de Wolfe had managed to wrest from the sheriff’s Shire Court.

John’s ability to read the rolls was improving weekly, and now he stumbled through a recent case of rape to refresh his memory. The woman, a young widow, claimed to have been waylaid in the backyard of her own house in Goldsmith Street. She had been allegedly beaten and ravished, and had produced a bloodstained rag, the almost obligatory evidence required to substantiate such a charge. Certainly when examined by de Wolfe, she had had bruised cheeks and arms, a black eye and a couple of loose teeth. There was no doubt about the assailant, a local carter who had been living with her for some months. The bailiff to the burgesses and one of his constables were called by the woman and her sister, who had raised the hue and cry, though in fact the man needed no chasing, as he was sitting in the house drinking ale when the bailiff arrived. On the accusation of the two women, the carter was arrested on the spot and dragged away to the gaol in the tower of the South Gate. If de Wolfe had not been notified by the bailiff, the carter would then have been hauled off to the sheriff’s fortnightly court and would most likely have been hanged, even though he loudly insisted that all he had done was give the widow a thrashing because she had stolen some money from his pouch when he was sleeping. As for the coupling, he claimed that that had been at least a daily event and had been enthusiastically received!

Against the equally loud protestations of Richard de Revelle, John insisted that such a serious charge as rape be referred to the king’s court, so he examined the woman himself, chaperoned by the old hag who did service as the midwife in that part of the town. There seemed little evidence of actual rape, but the coroner knew that in a previously married woman that by no means excluded forceful ravishment, even though the injuries to this one’s face were more in accord with a common assault. He decided to record all the facts and leave it to the king’s judges to decide who was telling the truth. As it was a hanging offence, de Wolfe could not attach the man with a heavy bail payment and he had to stay in prison until the Eyre of Assize, much to the annoyance of the burgesses and sheriff who had to pay a ha’penny a day for his keep. It was common for the prisoner in such cases to escape, usually by bribing the gaolers, but the only future for him then was either to run for the forest and become an outlaw or to seek sanctuary in a church and then abjure the realm.

De Wolfe pushed the roll aside, having strained his eyes and his brain enough for one day. He pulled his mantle moreclosely around him as he saw the rain sheeting down outside the window slit and thought about this latest complication, Bernardus de Blanchefort. He heartily wished him a thousand leagues away for he was no concern of a coroner as long as he stayed alive. Due to Gilbert de Ridefort’s tenuous claim to friendship, both he and this Bernardus had been thrust upon him and he seemed to be burdened with their safety, which he had spectacularly failed to ensure in the case of de Ridefort. ‘To hell with him! Let him give his damned sermon!’ muttered the coroner to himself, huddled in his bare attic. ‘If he wants to commit suicide, so be it. Those Templars or the Italian rat will put paid to him if he utters more than two words in front of the cathedral tomorrow.’

His dismissal of de Blanchefort was short-lived, however. Just as he was thinking of walking down to the Bush for an early-evening drink, there was a familiar uneven tapping of feet on the stairs and Thomas appeared through the hessian curtain. He looked worried and agitated. ‘Crowner, you must come down to the cathedral at once to see the archdeacon. He has sent me to fetch you.’

‘What’s the urgency, Thomas?’

‘As you told me to, I put word about concerning this sermon tomorrow.’ He crossed himself at the thought of it. ‘I told several vicars, a few secondaries and one canon while I was walking about the Close and later having my dinner at the house where I lodge. Within the hour, there was a buzz of interest in it and several more priests and monks came to ask me about the time and place, some of them already angry. Then, not long ago, two canons appeared and almost blamed me for encouraging heresy, though I told them I was only passing on gossip I had heard.’

‘Get on with it, man! What about the archdeacon?’

‘John of Alençon sent his own vicar-choral to me just now, with a demand that he speak to you urgently about this affair. He wants to see you in the Chapter House straight away.’

‘How did he know that I was connected with this?’

‘Your involvement with the dead Templar led him to assume that you were behind this new man.’

‘I’m not behind anything!’ snapped de Wolfe irascibly. ‘I wish I’d never heard of either of the damned fellows. But I suppose I must come down with you. What about Gwyn?’

‘He has been around the alehouses with the gossip – no hardship for him, I’m sure!’ the little man added wryly. ‘And I saw him just now, talking to some of the men-at-arms downstairs in the guardroom, so he’s probably telling them as well.’

The result of Gwyn’s publicity was even more rapid than that of Thomas’s. By the time John and his clerk had reached the gateway to Rougemont, Sergeant Gabriel was hurrying towards them from the direction of the keep. ‘The sheriff wants to see you, Crowner. Something about a new Templar giving a sermon tomorrow. He seemed in a high temper about it. Wants you to go to his chamber right away.’

De Wolfe sighed a great sigh. ‘Can’t be done, Gabriel. I have to see the archdeacon urgently at the Chapter House. Tell the sheriff that if he wants to talk about it he had better join us at the cathedral without delay.’

Determined not to be at the beck and call of Richard de Revelle, de Wolfe waved the sergeant away and, with Thomas clip-clopping behind, he strode away down towards the high street and the Close.

He found John de Alençon waiting impatiently in the Chapter House. This was a square wooden structure outside the South Tower in which the daily chapter meetings of the canons and lesser clergy were held. It had bare benches around three sides and a lectern on the other, where a chapter of the gospels was read at each session, giving the assembly its name. A wooden ladder in the corner led to the cathedral library above. The archdeacon’s spare frame was pacing up and down, his cassock sweeping the floor in his agitation. Sharp grey eyes looked out worriedly from his thin face, accentuating his ascetic appearance. ‘John, what am I hearing about tomorrow? Is there no end to this?’