The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1

by Andrea Japp

  ‘You are weak from exhaustion, brother.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he lied. ‘Might your generosity extend to granting me one last favour? I would like to spend a few moments alone before thanking you one last time and continuing my journey.’

  The Templar walked out into the afternoon sunlight shrugging his shoulders and said:

  ‘I shall go and see to it that your mount is ready. Meet me in front of the stables.’

  A sea. A warm, tranquil sea. A cradle of light, welcoming, calming. He had waited so long to run his hand over those vast black and brown stones that he was almost afraid to touch them now. He would not begin searching or lose himself in pointless speculation. Not today. The time had not yet arrived. He was tempted by a sudden feeling of sluggishness to lie down on the broad, dark flagstones and sleep. Today he would allow himself to be bathed, lulled. Today he would reflect upon how privileged he was to be there in the presence of the key. Like Eustache de Rioux before him, Leone was unsure of its exact nature. Could it, as he had sometimes imagined, be a doorway to a labyrinth traced in the stones, visible only from a precise angle? Or was it a manuscript pillaged from some library and brought there by a monk or soldier? Was it the papyrus in Aramaic purchased from a Bedouin in the souks of Jerusalem, as described by the Knight Templar in the tunnels below Acre? Was it a cross or a statue covered with secret symbols? Was it a simple object?

  Not today. Archambaud d’Arville would come back to look for him if he tarried. And yet Leone had found what he had been searching for: the certainty that his quest would begin again in that place.

  Tomorrow he would think of a way to return and remain there.

  As he walked out to join the commander, the light from the sun made him wince. He had an unpleasant hollow feeling in his chest and imagined that the unbearable separation from his quest was once again weakening him.

  Archambaud d’Arville was waiting for him in front of the stables. A young lay brother held his mare’s reins. Leone sensed from the commander’s sudden restlessness that the man was in a hurry to see him leave. He thanked him once again and climbed into the saddle.

  Vicinity of the Templar commandery at Arville, Mondoubleau Forest, October 1304

  Francesco de Leone was not unduly disturbed by his encounter with the commander, the prospect of which he had found daunting from the outset. Admittedly, the man’s strange behaviour had puzzled him, and he had not been taken in for a moment by his garrulous sociability. But then Leone had not expected any generous cooperation from the Templar order and, besides, Archambaud d’Arville could not possibly be aware of the presence of any key – under whatever guise – or he would never have allowed Leone to remain in the Temple of Our Lady alone.

  Leone needed to think up a way of gaining free and unlimited access to the commandery in order to achieve his aim of unearthing the secret.

  He patted the neck of the hired nag that was carrying him. The animal, unused to such gestures of affection, whinnied and jerked its head nervously.

  ‘Steady, old girl. We are not in any hurry now.’

  Could the pretence he’d been obliged to keep up have wearied him to such an extent? He was finding it increasingly difficult to remain upright in the saddle. The horse responded to the slight pressure of his leg and lengthened its stride.

  Francesco de Leone was under the impression that he had only just left the commandery enclosure and yet the forest and the night were already beginning to close in on him. He was dripping with sweat and shivering. An unpleasant dryness made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth and occasional giddy spells caused him to sway in his saddle. Above his head the sky and the treetops turned in circles. He tried to summon up his strength, clutching the reins, and as his body slipped from the saddle he realised that he had been drugged: the fraternal bowl of cider. He wondered whether the drug would kill him or merely render him unconscious and smiled at the thought before collapsing onto the blanket of dead leaves covering the forest floor.

  A few dozen yards away, Archambaud d’Arville dismounted. He felt a mixture of disgust and terror. To kill a brother, a man of God who had willingly risked his life to defend their faith, seemed to him an unpardonable sin, and yet he had no choice. The future of the commandery, perhaps even the existence of their order in France, depended on this crime for which he would never be able to forgive himself. The ghoulish figure who had visited him two days before had been unequivocal: Leone must die and his death be made to look like the work of brigands. Arville was unaware of the reasons for this killing, but the missive containing the order to carry it out, which the apparition had handed to him, bore the seal of the halved bulla, which legitimised acts and letters in the interim preceding the election of a new pope. The Templar had already killed, but honourably, as a soldier face to face with his enemy, sometimes taking on five men single-handed. Even as his flesh had been torn and seared, his soul had remained unscathed. To have drugged this formidable swordsman in order to be sure of overpowering him was abhorrent to him, and for the first time in his life he despised himself. He had become a vile executioner, and the knowledge that he was acting on the orders of the papacy did nothing to diminish his guilt.

  He drew his dagger and approached his brother’s inert body. Horrifying memories of throngs of men, hideous images of battlegrounds transformed into mass graves came back to him. He heard for the thousandth time the screams of the dying, the ferocious cries of the victors, intoxicated by the smell of blood, crazed by the kill. So many dead. So many dead in the name of eternal love. Would their souls be enriched as a result as they had been led to believe? Was there no other way than slaughter? And yet if he began to doubt now, hell would open at his feet.

  The movement behind him was so swift and soundless that he did not notice it. An explosion of pain in his chest. He raised his hand and snagged it on the tip of a short sword. He could feel the metal sliding out of his flesh, only to be plunged in a second time.

  He slumped to his knees, vomiting blood. A youthful voice clear as a mountain spring, the voice of a young girl, spoke to him, imploring:

  ‘Forgive me, knight. Forgive me out of the goodness of your heart. It was my duty to save him. His life is so precious, so much more precious than yours or mine. I could not challenge you directly for I was unsure of being any match for you. But I promise you, knight, that I have saved your soul. Grant me forgiveness, I beg of you.’

  Archambaud d’Arville had no doubt that the girl was speaking the truth, that she had saved him from the torment of eternal guilt. She had chosen in his place, freeing him from the need to disobey the apparition and the missive from Rome, freeing him from the need to obey.

  ‘I … pardon you … sister … Thank you.’

  Esquive d’Estouville remained with the dying man until his last gasp, the tears from her amber eyes dropping onto his surcoat. She knelt down beside him in order to stretch out his body and place his hands upon his bloodstained chest, and gazed at the handsome supine figure. She did not know how long she prayed through her tears for the Templar’s soul and for her own.

  When she finally rose to her feet, the moon was full. She walked over to Leone’s sleeping body and lay down beside him. She embraced him and kissed his brow. She drew her cape over him to protect him from the damp night chill, and spoke in a whisper:

  ‘Sleep, my sweet archangel. Sleep for I am keeping watch. And then I shall vanish once more.’

  Esquive d’Estouville closed her eyes, trembling with emotion as she lay next to the big slumbering body that was oblivious to her presence. Was she sinning? Undoubtedly, and yet her sin was a reward for the long years of waiting, for the unbidden, disturbing dreams that she no longer even tried to resist now that they had permeated her waking hours. Ever since she had appeared to him in Cyprus in the guise of a grubby beggar girl capable of deciphering the runic prophecy, her only thoughts were of him. She had devoted her body and soul to their quest but her heart belonged to this man who was near to being
an angel. He was ignorant of her feelings, and it was better that way. The mere suggestion of any love that was not motherly, sisterly or born of friendship would have saddened him, for he did not want it and could not return it. But what did it matter? She loved him more than her own life, and this love that she had discovered thanks to him filled her with joy and strength.

  Dawn was breaking when Leone came round. His head was gripped by a vicelike pain and his mouth filled with an acid saliva. He managed to sit up. He felt dizzy and tried to suppress a growing sense of panic as his mind drew a complete blank. Where was he? Why was he lying in the middle of the forest in the early morning? He struggled with his hazy recollection of the previous day, forcing himself to retrace his steps. Gradually, faces and words began to emerge from the fog of his thoughts. He had gone to the Templar commandery to meet Archambaud d’Arville, whose garrulousness and false bonhomie had made his head spin. And yet behind all that fraternal cheer Leone had momentarily sensed the man’s anguish and despair. The commander had offered him a bowl of cider before he went on his way.

  Upon entering the nave of the Temple of Our Lady, Leone had been seized by the wild hope that he would receive a sign proving that the secret he had been pursuing all these years lay within those walls, among those flagstones and pillars. Was the sudden giddiness and the incredible calm he had felt in the temple confirmation of such a sign or simply the first effects of the drug?

  Where was his worn-out mare? He rose to his feet, staggering slightly, and looked around. The mare was staring at him a few yards away, tethered to the trunk of a silver birch, refreshed after her night’s unencumbered rest. He had collapsed, fallen to the ground. But who had tethered the mare? It was then he noticed the brownish-red patch seeping from beneath a small pile of leaves. He drew his sword from its scabbard as he approached it. He flicked the leaves aside with the blade, already knowing what he would find there. He dropped his sword and fell to his knees beside Archambaud d’Arville’s body, then swept away with his hands the flimsy remains of his leafy tomb. Leone was able to deduce what had happened from the two identical stab wounds in the commander’s chest, the bloodstains on his white mantle and the compassion and respect with which the killer had treated the corpse. The Knight Templar had trailed him with the clear intention of killing him as soon as the drug had taken effect. But why? Somebody had been there and had shown no compunction in killing a Templar commander in order to defend Leone’s life – a protector, then, rather than a rascal or evil brigand. But who and why? Had his champion then fled on the commander’s mount? Leone had a vague recollection, but the image escaped him. He tried in vain to summon it back, slowly stroking his finger across his brow.

  He was stirred by the thought of the torment this man of God, this warrior, must have endured: to poison a brother and then like an abject executioner to slay him. Who had the authority to compel a Templar commander to perpetrate such villainy?

  Assuming Arville’s orders had come from his Grand-Master or his chapter, they would still have required the Pope’s approval. But the Pope was dead, and Benoît would never have endorsed such a dishonourable act: Leone had known, respected and loved him well enough to stake his life on it.

  In the absence of a pope, who possessed sufficient authority to arrange the murder of a Knight Hospitaller? The answer was so glaringly obvious that it struck him with the full force of its monstrosity.

  Louvre Palace, Paris, October 1304

  The King’s counsellor and confidant Guillaume de Nogaret’s* initial surprise at Francesco Capella’s absence had turned to concern and then quickly to anger. What had become of this young man in whom he had begun to place his trust? The day after his new secretary’s unexplained disappearance, Nogaret had dispatched a messenger to his uncle, Giotto Capella, carrying a missive whose unequivocal content bristled with threats. Had a sudden illness confined Francesco to his bed? To Nogaret’s mind there could be no other acceptable explanation for his absence, and he would hate to have to hold Giotto Capella responsible for misleading him by extolling the virtues of a nephew whose behaviour had turned out to be so rude and unreliable.

  The letter had thrown Giotto Capella into a panic, and his first impulse had been to leave France without further ado. Then he had taken to his bed, curling up under a pile of counterpanes as he envisaged his life hanging by a thread were the King’s counsellor ever to discover his role in this deception. He had spent hours snivelling and trembling as he sweated under the heavy coverlets, justifying his actions with any excuse he could find. What else could he have done faced with Francesco de Leone’s blackmail threat? Leone and the other Knights Hospitaller knew that he was responsible for the Mamelukes breaking through the last defences of the Saint-Jean-d’Acre stronghold. What other choice did he have but to obey Leone by passing him off as his nephew and providing him with the false identity he needed in order for Seigneur de Nogaret to engage him? Naturally, the moneylender had suspected that the knight’s intention was to spy on the King’s counsellor. But what good would it have done to admit it? None at all. At least not as far as he was concerned. Weary of his own despair, Capella had decided to crawl out of bed and compose a blustering reply. In it he related his nephew’s sudden interest in a young lady and his equally unexpected departure from Paris in order to follow her to Italy. He portrayed himself as the despairing uncle, fearful of having offended Monsieur de Nogaret, and ended with a bitter diatribe against the recklessness of youth. Monsieur de Nogaret had been unconvinced, regarding his reply as no more than a feeble excuse.

  The King’s counsellor felt a cold rage welling up inside him as he put down the page of spidery scrawl. In fact, he could not forgive himself for having allowed a fellow feeling to develop between him and this Francesco Capella, for having deemed him intelligent and possibly divulged too many secrets. He had reflected long and hard on the information he had shared with him and felt reassured when he recalled nothing of any importance. Nevertheless, he would give that weasel Giotto cause to regret recommending his relative. Nogaret would see to it personally that the scoundrel never obtained the post of Captain General of the Lombards of France that he had so long coveted.

  That morning Guillaume de Nogaret was still in a bad mood: he had lost a diligent secretary as well as an agreeable companion. He immersed himself in his accounts. His thin lips became twisted in a grimace of displeasure as he drew up the inventory of the King’s brother’s most recent expenditure of treasury money. How could he put a stop to Charles de Valois’s* extravagance without angering the monarch? Valois dreamed of war, of reconquering lost territories; in brief, of raising and commanding armies. Francesco Capella was right to have expressed concern.

  Just as he was recalling his vanished secretary, he heard a loud bark coming from the royal quarters. One of Philip’s lurchers. Nogaret swung round to face the tapestry on the wall behind him and the red stitching of the dogs’ mouths on the blue background. He rose to his feet and lifted the hanging. What if Francesco Capella had been sent to spy on him? But by whom? Certainly not by Giotto Capella. He examined the padlock on the safe built into the wall and could see nothing suspicious. Still, he was assailed by doubt. He seized the key hanging on the chain he kept around his neck at all times, and placed it in the small opening. The lock seemed stiff, though he could have been imagining it. He opened the safe and rifled through its contents. Nothing was missing. But why was the black calfskin notebook on top of the pile of letters? Surely he had written or received these since he had last consulted the notebook. Logically it should have been somewhere underneath or in the middle of the pile. Could he be sure of this? After all, the lock had not been forced. The habit of power had made him more mistrustful. Francesco’s sudden departure and his uncle’s clumsy explanation had heightened his suspicions. Since he could no longer question the nephew he would force the uncle to talk.

  Nogaret walked over to the door of his office with the intention of calling an usher, but changed his mind as
he clasped his fingers round the handle. Would it not be a mistake in these dark and troubled times to admit to a possible lapse in judgement, a mistake for which he might pay heavily? Enguerran de Marigny, who was already the King’s chamberlain, was manoeuvring himself into the monarch’s good graces with the help of the King’s beloved wife, Queen Jeanne of Navarre, to whom he was both confidante and trusted ally. Nogaret, the fearful, timid worrier, envied his rival’s self-assurance. Marigny possessed the ability to converse, argue and theorise with such poignancy or passion that his audience took his every word to be gospel. Guillaume de Nogaret knew he was incapable of matching the man’s eloquence and manner. If he admitted to the King that he had been spied upon by a man whom he himself had engaged, Marigny would be sure to use this blunder to undermine his reputation. He might feel avenged by delivering Giotto Capella into the hands of the executioners, but it would only weaken his position at court.

  After all, nothing in the safe had gone missing. No doubt he was scaring himself unnecessarily.

  And yet how on earth did that notebook come to be on top of a bundle of confidential letters he had only recently placed in the safe?

  Nogaret sat down at his desk again and studied the nib of his quill pen. No, the shadowy figure whose services he employed was not resourceful enough to be of any use to him in this matter. The King’s counsellor detested that cowled sycophant who had admittedly served him well hitherto. And yet the henchman’s palpable loathing, bitterness and thirst for revenge made his blood run cold. Hurting others appeared to relieve his tormented soul. Nogaret was no villain. If he were guilty of scheming or worse, his motivation, and perhaps his justification, was always to serve the greatness of the monarchy.