The Awful Secret

by Bernard Knight

  ‘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.

  When William saw them approach, he dropped his axe, and for fifteen minutes the brothers talked animatedly, the Cornishman going discreetly to the bailiff for a chat. John explained to William the situation concerning de Ridefort, more forthright with him than with the women. ‘This threat against him seems real enough, but he sees an assassin behind every tree,’ he concluded. ‘I’ll be glad when this other Templar arrives and the pair of them can clear off to Ireland or wherever they wish to go.’

  Before they parted, his brother promised to do all he could to make his unexpected guest as welcome as possible. De Wolfe collected Gwyn, and they rode off along the narrow track into the forest that bordered the tidal part of the river. The sky was overcast, with the threat of rain, but it held off as they crossed the Teign where it narrowed suddenly four miles inland from the sea. At a steady pace, they expected to reach Exeter in the early evening, following the road from Kingsteignton through Ideford and Kenn.

  The two men rode side by side, mainly in silence. They had covered thousands of miles together over the years, in snow and sandstorm, sleet and sun. Neither was talkative and, except when reminiscing over a quart of ale in a tavern, their conversation was confined to immediate matters, such as deciding which fork of the track to take or a suspicion of a lame horse.

  Today their steeds were performing well, and de Wolfe was pleased with Odin, a worthy successor to his beloved Bran. At a steady trot, letting the stallion and the mare set their own pace, the pair could keep going for many hours. On a decent track in good weather, when the mud was dry, they could cover thirty miles a day. This particular route was not the main road between Exeter and Plymouth, that being further north, but it was well used and had many villages and patches of farmland between the stretches of forest. So it was something of a shock when the two riders came round a bend inside a mile of trees to find themselves confronted by half a dozen armed ruffians, obviously intent on highway robbery.

  With bloodcurdling yells, the footpads rushed at their intended victims, wielding a variety of weapons. One ragged outlaw swung a long stave, trying to knock Gwyn from his horse. Two others converged each side of de Wolfe, one waving a rusted sword and the other jabbing with a broken lance, the lower part of its shaft missing. The other trio circled behind, armed with an axe, a long dagger and another staff.

  If they had thought they were ambushing a pair of fat merchants, returning from Kingsteignton market, they were sadly mistaken. The coroner and his officer had been attacked a score of times in several parts of the known world and were well versed in defending themselves.

  After the first few seconds of surprise, the reflexes of these two old soldiers snapped into action. Though de Wolfe wore no hauberk or helmet, his long sword swung at his hip and a mace and chain stood in a pocket on his saddle. Gwyn wore his usual battered cuirass of thick boiled leather with metal-studded shoulder pads. In addition to his massive sword, he had a long-handled axe slipped into a loop on his saddle-bow.

  Almost as the yelling began, there was a rattling hiss as both swords were slid simultaneously from their scabbards. Gwyn, with an exultant howl that matched his almost manic grin of delight at the promise of action, hoisted his mare’s forelegs high into the air and pulled her round, then let her drop on to the villain with the staff, who screamed with pain as her metal-shod hoofs struck him in the chest. As he staggered back and fell on to the track, Gwyn kept his steed turning to face the two men who had come up behind. The one with the dagger had frozen rigid at the realisation that they had picked the wrong pair to rob, and before he could gather his wits, Gwyn had swung his sword at his neck. He fell poleaxed into the road, already dying from the fountain of blood that shot from a main artery into the leaf-mould of the track.

  Meanwhile, de Wolfe had his two bandits to contend with. The man with the lance, his face contorted into a broken-toothed snarl of rage, jabbed up at him. The coroner’s sword was not long enough to reach the attacker and he felt the tip of the lance dragging at his riding cloak, although the wolfskin was tough enough to resist the thrust. As the second man came to his other side and attempted to hack at de Wolfe’s leg with his sword, he dug both his prick-spurs into Odin’s flanks. Indignantly, the stallion leaped forward, leaving the two outlaws facing each other across an empty space. Dragging on the reins, de Wolfe pulled Odin round and repeated Gwyn’s manoeuvre, rearing the horse up to fall upon the most dangerous adversary – the man with the lance.

  He managed to dodge the flailing hoofs the first time, but fell to his knees and was trampled by the big destrier when John ruthlessly pulled Odin round a second time. An iron shoe landed squarely between the ruffian’s shoulder-blades and even above the shouting of the men and the neighing of the protesting horses, John heard the crack as the spine snapped.

  Realising the fatal error they had made, the other four tried to make their escape. The one that Gwyn had first knocked to the ground was slowest off the mark and paid for it with his life. He made for the trees, but the big brown mare was upon him before he reached them. Gwyn had couched the bare sword under his left armpit to hold the reins with that hand, whilst he pulled his axe from its thong and slid his right hand down the shaft. As the mare came level with the fugitive, the wedge-shaped axehead whistled down to strike him on top of the head. The blade cleaved his skull almost down to the nape of the neck and the man fell twitching to the road in a welter of blood and brains. The momentum had taken the Cornishman almost into the trees, but he hoisted the mare round to see how his master was faring with his contest.

  Two of the remaining outlaws had already reached the safety of the dense woodland, but de Wolfe was pursuing the last one diagonally across the track, his sword poised for a strike as soon as he was within reach. But the man was lucky: he shot between two beech trunks only inches ahead of the weapon. The trees and the thorny scrub between them at the edge of the road were too dense to allow a horseman to follow and Odin skidded to a halt with his nose in a tangle of brambles.

  The two old Crusaders trotted back to each other and halted in the middle of the road, slamming their swords back into their sheaths. Gwyn, his wild carrotty hair poking from under his pointed leather cap, grinned with unashamed delight. ‘We haven’t done that for a long time, Crowner!’ he growled, swinging down from his mare to wipe the mess from his axehead in the long grass at the edge of the track.

  He walked over to the robber whose neck he had half severed and rolled him over with his foot. ‘Dead already – most of his blood is on the ground.’ As he checked that the other outlaw with the split head had also given up the ghost, the coroner slid from his saddle. He was suddenly aware that, contrary to his expectations, his damaged leg was still not quite restored to normal, especially when called upon to perform gymnastics upon a warhorse. He stroked Odin’s neck and whispered into his ear, as the stallion was still quivering with excitement and exertion.

  When his horse was calmer, John walked over to the body of the man he had felled with Odin’s hoofs. He was lying face down and, expecting him to be unconscious or dead, he was surprised to see the fellow move as he approached. Futilely, he was trying to pull himself towards the trees on his hands, his legs trailing uselessly behind him, paralysed by his broken back.

  After a few attempts, he sank hopelessly back to the dirt road, his face turned sideways towards de Wolfe, his hands beneath his body. As the coroner bent down to speak to him, he suddenly brought up his right hand and made a desperate attempt to stab upwards with the dagger he had drawn from his belt.

  As de Wolfe stepped back in surprise, Gwyn, who had come across the road to join him, swore and began to pull out his sword but John put out a hand to stop him. ‘Leave him be, Gwyn. He’s going to die, anyway. Not much point in carrying him back to Exeter to be h
anged.’

  ‘He’s an outlaw, Crowner, so he is as the wolf’s head. Best kill him now, then I could claim the bounty.’

  Anyone declared by the courts to be outside the law did not exist officially under the king’s peace and any citizen was entitled to kill them on sight, as if they were a wolf. If the severed head was taken to the county gaol, a payment could be claimed from the sheriff as a reward for helping to rid the forests of the bands of armed robbers that plagued the countryside.

  De Wolfe shook his head. ‘I don’t think it would be either legal or politic for a coroner or his officer to claim the wolf’s head. And I would have to hold an inquest on it, anyway.’ Gwyn, looking disappointed, indicated the two corpses. ‘What about them? Will you hold inquests there?’

  John considered for a moment. ‘I see no point – we will never know their names nor be able to get presentment of Englishry. There are no witnesses except us and no one knows or cares what happened to them. Legally, they don’t exist.’ He turned to look down at the paralysed ruffian, whose head had fallen forward to press his face into the soil, in an attitude of final despair. De Wolfe wondered briefly what it would be like to know that death was soon inevitable. He was not an imaginative man and had only vague notions of the resurrection that the priests seemed to take for granted. Would he meet this robber in Heaven – or Hell? Would all the men who had ever lived be there? All the children, all the infants, all the unborn babes? It seemed an unlikely proposition, but he shrugged off this sudden introspection and bent down to speak to the doomed outlaw. ‘What made you take to the forest, fellow? Are you a thief on the run – or an escaped sanctuary-seeker?’