The Awful Secret (27 page)

De Wolfe sank on to a front bench and turned up his hands in exasperated supplication. ‘It is not of my doing. Another ex-Templar has appeared, this time intent on delivering some religious truth. I have no control over him, so what do you expect me to do?’

De Alençon slumped on to the wooden seat alongside the coroner. ‘I wish the bishop was here. This should be the responsibility of someone with a higher authority. I have been visited by Cosimo and the Templar knights, who told me of their concern that serious heresy is afoot.’

The outer door banged and in marched Richard de Revelle, green cloak flowing in the wind and an expression of outrage on his narrow face. ‘You’re treading on thin ice, John,’ he began, without any preamble. ‘I have heard that some foolishness is to be to be perpetrated here tomorrow and it seems that you are linked to it in some way.’

De Wolfe jumped to his feet. ‘For God’s sake, it’s none of my doing! Some religious fanatic appears in the city and immediately everyone thinks he is my protégé.’

‘This cannot be allowed to continue!’ shouted the sheriff. ‘I’ll have three senior Templars on my back like a ton of quarrystone. When they hear of this, they will demand that he be arrested.’

‘Do you know who we are talking about?’ grated de Wolfe. ‘You want him arrested and yet you don’t even know his name.’

‘So who is he?’ demanded de Revelle.

‘He’s another Templar – or perhaps former Templar would be more accurate. No doubt he has already been ejected from the Order,’ observed de Wolfe.

The archdeacon, who disliked the sheriff as much as de Wolfe did, could not resist putting a brake on his autocratic manner. ‘Forgive me, de Revelle, but I have to point out that not only do you have no jurisdiction in the cathedral precinct, except upon the roads, but that I fail to see how you can arrest anyone for threatening to give a religious address, sacrilegious or otherwise. Both those matters are strictly within the authority of the Church and its Consistory Courts.’

Richard de Revelle tried to bluster his way around this. ‘Possibly true, Archdeacon, but if the outrage at heretical preachingleads to a public disturbance or even a riot, which could spread beyond the Close, then it most certainly is a breach of the king’s peace and falls within my remit.’

The two Johns couldn’t resist exchanging cynical smiles at this, coming from a recognised supporter of the prince’s treason.

‘I am very glad to hear you upholding your sovereign Richard’s peace, Sheriff, and I will bear it in mind,’ said the priest sweetly.

‘Are you going to do nothing to prevent this obscenity, then?’ fumed de Revelle.

‘There is no way that we can allow anyone to preach publicly from our own cathedral steps,’ said the Archdeacon decisively, ‘especially when it is rumoured that he is fostering some heresy, presumably that of the Cathars, as he is said to come from that part of France.’

Once again the Chapter House door creaked open and this time a whole crowd of men jostled inside. The three Knights Templar ushered in Cosimo of Modena and their five retainers came in after them to stand ranged around the back of the room.

‘Gossip travels fast in this city,’ observed John de Alençon mildly, looking at the group of damp souls who stood dripping water on to the flagged floor, for the rain had begun again in earnest outside.

The small Italian priest moved to the centre of the floor, in front of the much taller archdeacon. He began speaking in a high pitched whine. ‘It has come to my notice that we have yet more sacrilege amongst us! It is my duty to know of such dangerous men, especially from France, and I tell you, this Bernardus de Blanchefort may present a serious threat to our Mother Church. He must be taken and sent home to be taught the error of his ways.’

‘What are these errors, Brother Abbot?’ asked the archdeacon gravely.

Cosimo looked evasively from him to the coroner and back again. ‘It is the usual foul nonsense, the perverted beliefs of those in the Albi region of the Languedoc. They are so evilly fanciful that, though they make no impression on educated men such as we, if preached openly to the public some of the weaker-minded may be influenced.’

‘He must not be allowed to open his mouth,’ roared Brian de Falaise, from a few feet away. His bull neck and rugged cheeks were almost purple with anger and de Wolfe suspected that if he hadn’t left his broadsword at home to visit a church the blade would be whistling through the air at this point.

‘Where is this accursed fellow, anyway?’ demanded Richard de Revelle. ‘Has anyone seen him? How did we hear that he was in Exeter and intended on this madness tomorrow?’ He glared at his brother-in-law, as if suspecting that he was behind this new problem.

John decided that part of the truth was better than a complete denial. ‘He accosted me in the street today, after the burial of his fellow Templar.’

‘They are no Templars!’ snarled Brian de Falaise. ‘They would have been ejected from our Order with ignominy had they been found before they fled from us.’

‘So you were searching for these men, then, and not just looking for land to purchase?’ observed de Wolfe, with a hard edge to his voice.

Roland de Ver slid smoothly into the exchange. ‘We are seeking new estates, indeed we are. But on our journeying we were also told to look out for our two wayward brothers, who were thought to be in this part of England.’ He looked reprovingly at de Falaise, who glowered back. De Ver continued, ‘My friend here is not quite correct in his harsh judgement of them. If we had come across them in our travels, we were to persuade them to return with us so that the error of their ways could be explained to them, and every effort made to bring them back into the paths of righteousness.’

At this, Godfrey Capra and Brian de Falaise looked at each other as if this was the first they had heard of it, but they wisely held their peace.

The archdeacon came back into the discussion, privately most concerned – as was his friend the coroner – about Gilbert de Ridefort’s bloody end. ‘Abbot Cosimo, I am not at all clear about your mission in Devon. Did you come because of these two Templars?’

The Italian’s strange profile slowly turned up to the taller priest. ‘I regret that I cannot discuss such matters, Archdeacon. As you know, I am a papal nuncio and as such have complete authority to conduct myself in any way that seems beneficial to the Holy See. But I can tell you that I am charged with the rooting out of heresy, wherever it may be found.’

After being told to mind his own business, John de Alençon stared stonily at de Revelle. ‘What is to be done about this, Sheriff? Though I have pointed out to you that the precinct is outwith your jurisdiction, I take your point about not wanting a riot. Already, several of my priests and some monks have protested to me about the rumours concerning tomorrow.’

Richard threw back his cloak over one shoulder in a dramatic gesture. ‘I will arrest the man the moment he shows his face. I will soon find some suitable charge.’

In spite of an icy glare from Roland de Ver, Brian de Falaise cut across de Revelle in a loud voice. ‘Let us take him! We need no legalistic excuse, he is a renegade member of our Order and as such is subject to our discipline. As our leader says, we need to remove him to the New Temple so that he can be readjusted.’

De Wolfe wondered if ‘readjustment’ included tearing de Blanchefort’s arms from their sockets on the rack, but the priest from Modena was now entering the verbal fray.

‘What matters is that this troublemaker must not be allowed to open his mouth in public,’ he hissed. ‘In five minutes before an audience of dull-witted but impressionable folk, he might begin something that could do incalculable damage to the Holy Church. I don’t care if the sheriff hangs him or the Templars drag him back to London, as long as he is not allowed to remain at liberty where at any time he might begin to spread this heresy.’ With a face that momentarily reminded de Wolfe of a snake, he threw a poisonous look at the coroner. ‘I hold you responsible in part for all this trouble. You seem very bound up with these two men – I trust you yourself have no leanings towards their perverted ideas.’

He looked over his shoulder to where his two glowering retainers stood menacingly near the door. ‘I intend to have a presence in the cathedral Close tomorrow, as a safety measure in case you others fail in your duties.’ With that, he pulled up the pointed hood of his black habit, glided towards his men and vanished with them into the night.

Now the Templars, the archdeacon and the sheriff all turned to the coroner. ‘So where is he, John?’ snapped de Revelle. ‘You seem to know most about him. In fact, we have only your word for it that he actually exists!’

‘De Blanchefort exists all right, as did de Ridefort,’ growled Brian de Falaise. ‘I saw them both in Outremer – they were strange then. De Ridefort had strangeness in the blood, for his damned uncle proved that!’

John de Alençon held his hands as if in prayer. ‘Do you know where he is now, John?’

‘I have no idea where he is,’ said the coroner, almost truthfully. ‘I presume he is still in the city, as the gates are now locked, though he may have left since this afternoon, when I last saw him.’

De Wolfe satisfied his conscience with the evasion that he did not know exactly – to a few hundred paces – where Bernardus was at that moment, for as soon as he had known that he was going to the Chapter House for an inevitable grilling about the fugitive, he had seized Gwyn in the castle guardroom and sent him down to the Saracen to get the Templar out and hide him somewhere until the morning.

One of the brown-cloaked Templar sergeants moved forward and whispered to Roland de Ver. The knight nodded and pulled thoughtfully at his right ear. ‘It is pointless trying to find this de Blanchefort tonight. I have never met him, but both my brothers here know him slightly by sight, and in the morning can patrol the streets around the cathedral to seek some sign of him.’

De Ver pulled his white mantle with the bold red cross more closely around him in preparation for leaving. ‘Whatever happens, this man must not be allowed to climb the cathedral steps, let alone open his mouth to say even as much as “Good morning”,’ he declared. Turning on his heel he stalked from the bleak chamber, followed by the sheriff, then his fellow Knights of Christ and their sergeants.

The two Johns were left alone, apart from the rather overawed Thomas lurking near the lectern. ‘You have a talent for becoming involved in desperate situations, John,’ said the archdeacon, with a twinkle in his eye even at this serious moment. ‘A few months ago it was the murder of that silversmith, then it was the business of Prince John. Now you bring international heretics into our city and cathedral! What will it be next?’

De Wolfe gave his friend one of his rare grins. ‘I’ll think of something, John, never fear!’

The services of Terce, Sext, Nones and High Mass took place in the choir of the cathedral from about the ninth hour of the morning. The first three were short devotions, mainly sung psalms. Once the main mass of the day was over, the clergy, who had already been at Prime and then the Chapter meeting since about the seventh hour, were usually more than ready for their dinner at about the eleventh.

But this Sunday morning, evenempty stomachs were not enough to keep many of the canons, vicars, secondaries and choristers away from the West Front, attracted by the rumours that had been circulating since the previous day. The prospect of a break from the tedium of the endless round of services, the same faces and the same surroundings of the episcopal city-within-a-city, drew a considerable crowd into the Close and the number of clerics was swollen by scores of citizens.

The mood was one of curiosity rather than a desire for enlightenment, though a few of the older people, both lay and clergy, were either indignant or incensed that someone might have the effrontery to try to preach heresy from the cathedral steps.

As the black-robed clerics streamed out of the door from the nave into the weak sunshine – for it had stopped raining at last – they slowed down into a sluggish pool of humanity surrounding the broad West Front of the huge building. Some, whose desire for food was greater than for dramatic diversion, walked slowly towards their lodgings, determined that if nothing exciting occurred before they reached the edge of the Close they would go home. But many others milled about the foot of the steps, gossiping and staring around, eager to get a glimpse of the renegade who had promised to reveal some awful secret.

Amongst this fluid throng were a number of solid rocks, in the shape of sentinels determined to prevent any such sabotage of the Faith. The three Templars and their sergeants were spaced out across the width of the building, within easy reach of the steps. In the centre, Abbot Cosimo stood, closely flanked by his silent henchmen who stared around them with suspicious hostility. Further back, in an arc at the edge of the open space before the West Front, stood the sheriff, with Ralph Morin, the castle constable and half a dozen men-at-arms under Sergeant Gabriel.

Near the small wicket-gate set in the closed centre door to the nave, Archdeacon John de Alençon stood with the coroner, though for once neither of de Wolfe’s assistants was with him.

Every moment or two, a ripple of anticipation ran through the crowd, as someone saw, or fancied he saw, a stranger appear in the Close. Several times, this rolling murmur came then faded, and each time there was a tensing of muscles and shifting of feet amongst the guardians of truth.

‘Did you see this man de Blanchefort last night to warn him off?’ asked the archdeacon, as another false alarm died down.

‘I’ve not set eyes on him, apart from that one meeting,’ said de Wolfe, truthfully as he had used Gwyn as an intermediary. ‘If he’s got any sense, he’ll stay well clear of this ambush, unless he wants to risk the same fate as his friend.’

Suddenly there was a stir at the furtherend of the front of the cathedral, towards the cornerfacing Canon’s Row. Heads turned, fingers pointed, and a surge in the murmur and chatter sent several of Gabriel’s men pushing forward through the crowd. But they were outpaced by one of the servants of the Italian priest and also the sergeant of Brian de Falaise, closely followed by the Templar knight himself. They converged on someone who had walked around the corner of the building from the northside, keeping close to the wall until he reached the edge of the half-dozen long steps that stretched below the three big doors. Once the movement began, it was almost alive in its self-generation and a wave of people surged forward, the sentinels pushing and thrashing to get to the front.