The Awful Secret

by Bernard Knight

  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.

  The archdeacon stretched his thin neck to see better and began to move forward too, but John de Wolfe stayed where he was, a faint smile on his saturnine face. The first to press up to the new arrival was Cosimo’s familiar, who seized him and swung him around. The man wore a wide-brimmed hat pulled well down over his head and a long grey cloak with a hood, which lay in concealing folds around his neck and face. He was a big man, tall and wide within the folds of his mantle.

  De Falaise was the next to reach him and, with a cry of triumph, grabbed him by the arm. Simultaneously, the sheriff and Cosimo pressed through to form a tight circle in the midst of the confused throng of clerics and townsfolk.

  ‘They seem to have got him, so pray God he cannot begin his devilish oratory!’ cried the archdeacon, but the coroner remained impassive, assured that there would be no attempt at any seditious speech. He watched as the man pulled away angrily from the grip of several who were now pawing at him, amid shouts of ‘Heretic!’ and ‘Anti-Christ!’

  A second later, his hat was pulled off and his cloak ripped open, which provoked a great roar from the man. ‘Get off me, damn you! Can’t a fellow have a Sunday morning walk without being assaulted?’ The bright red hair, wild as a hayrick in a gale, and the luxuriant moustache revealed the presumed heretic as Gwyn of Polruan, doing his best not to laugh at the chagrin of his would-be capturers.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ roared de Falaise, who had never seen the coroner’s officer before. Ralph Morin and Gabriel enlightened him, themselves suppressing grins. Although they had had no foreknowledge of Gwyn’s appearance, they knew instantly who had instigated the jest. The sheriff also knew, but he was by no means amused. ‘You great oaf! What do you think you’re doing?’ he snapped, confronting the Cornishman.

  De Wolfe felt it was time he gave his officer some support and pushed his way to his side. ‘Ah, there you are, Gwyn,’ he said loudly. ‘You’re late, as usual.’

  Abbot Cosimo and Roland de Ver demanded to know what was going on, as both realised that this was not Bernardus de Blanchefort.

  ‘This fellow has been making fools of us!’ blustered Richard de Revelle.

  The coroner fixed him with a steely eye. ‘Since when is it forbidden for a citizen to walk peacefully in the cathedral Close, Sheriff?’

  Richard de Revelle glared at his brother-in-law. ‘Don’t play the innocent with me, John. When did your lout of a man ever wear a pilgrim’s hat and a grey cloak? Tattered leather and a sack around his head is his usual attire.’

  ‘Then we should be pleased that his tastes are improving, Richard,’ countered John sarcastically.

  The crowd sensed that the fun was over and most realised that no heretic was likely to appear now. But Cosimo remained suspicious and looked around in every direction, with jerky movements of his head. ‘Can we be sure that this is not some trick, some diversion to allow de Blanchefort to slip past us?’ he hissed to Roland de Ver. He prodded his two retainers hard in their ribs to send them hurrying to each end of the West Front to stare about for any other stranger, who failed conspicuously to appear.

  ‘Come on, Gwyn, we have work to do,’ barked de Wolfe, with a wink at Ralph Morin. They walked away, leaving the three Templars glowering suspiciously after them and an exasperated sheriff protesting again to the archdeacon, who now could hardly conceal a smile of relief that no challenge to his beloved Church had been made.

  Outside his house in Martin’s Lane, de Wolfe retrieved his hat and cloak from Gwyn and asked him about Thomas de Peyne. ‘Did they get away as we arranged?’

  Gwyn nodded, still pleased with his role in the little play-acting they had devised. ‘Soon after dawn he collected the Templar from the Saracen and rode with him out of the North Gate. Even at that little dwarf’s riding pace, they should be past Crediton by now.’

  ‘Where are we to meet them on Tuesday?’

  Gwyn dragged thoughtfully at one end of his moustache.

  ‘It’s difficult if we are with all those others. I told Thomas to hide de Blanchefort away somewhere well outside Bideford, then to come and meet us at the bridge at noon. We should be there by then.’

  After Gwyn had gone about his business, de Wolfe entered his house where he had a silent meal with Matilda. She enquired shortly as to whether the heretic had appeared and he told her equally shortly that there had been no sign of Bernardus de Blanchefort. He made no mention of Gwyn’s mischievous masquerade, not wanting to give his wife another opportunity to castigate him.

  Simon tottered in with a jug of wine, which Matilda seemed to relish far more than the salted herrings, turnip and cabbage that Mary provided from the kitchen. De Wolfe watched covertly as his wife drank a mug of the red Poitou and immediately refilled it. Since the shame of her brother’s involvement in the abortive rebellion in the New Year, he had noticed that Matilda sought solace not only from her religious devotions but also from the wine flask.

  Following the miserable meal, she called for Lucille, who helped her up to the solar to lie on her bed until it was time for her next pilgrimage to St Olave’s.

  John took the opportunity to go down to Idle Lane, where he also went to bed – in Nesta’s little room on the upper floor of the Bush. They made love energetically and repeatedly until they lay side by side in delicious exhaustion, his arm about her shoulders. As the thumping of his heartbeat subsided almost to normal, he stared up lazily at the rough roof beams, his eyes tracing the twisted hazel withies that supported the thick straw thatch above them. He told her about the scene in the cathedral Close that morning and Nesta wanted to know why he gone out of his way to help de Blanchefort.

  ‘Like de Ridefort, he was both a Crusader and a Templar, for whom I have always had admiration for their bravery and fighting prowess,’ he explained.

  ‘You old soldiers always stick together, eh?’ she said, in a gently mocking tone. He pinched her bare belly with his free hand and she squirmed under the sheepskin that covered them. ‘Not only that, but I had made a promise to Gilbert to help them both get away – and as I feel partly responsible for his death, I had to keep my word.’

  She turned her head impulsively to kiss his black-stubbled neck. ‘It was not you who killed him, John. Someone else wielded that club and spear. Do you have any idea yet who it may have been?’

  His gaze dropped to the rough boards that partitioned off this corner of the loft. Though it was a crude chamber, he had enjoyed more pleasure wi
thin its walls than anywhere else on earth. He shook away the thought and answered her question. ‘It must be either one of the Templars or their squires – though I would prefer it to be this poisonous abbot or his men. Not that I have any chance of discovering who it was now,’ he added regretfully. ‘I had hoped to use Bernardus as a tethered goat to tempt the killer to try again, but it could never have worked in the middle of Exeter. I had to smuggle him out for his own safety.’

  The landlady of the inn snuggled closer into his armpit, her copper hair flowing over his chest, wide green eyes looking up at the stern profile of his long face. ‘How do you intend getting him out of the country, then?’

  ‘Thomas has ridden on ahead with him and I will see if we can find a ship in Bideford or nearby that can take him to Wales or Ireland.’

  ‘What if he is seen by any of the others who are hunting him?’

  ‘I must try to keep them apart, but they have never seen him without the Templar profusion of whiskers, so hopefully he would not be recognised.’

  ‘Could you not have found him a passage more easily from the ports around here – Topsham or Brixham?’

  Perhaps his mind was too relaxed by the pleasant sensation of wallowing in a warm bed alongside a naked woman, but in this unguarded moment he made a serious slip. ‘I had thought of it. Maybe Thorgils the Boatman in Dawlish would have taken him off, but he only sails back to France, which is the last place that Bernardus wants to be.’

  He felt Nesta stiffen against him. Though at the time of his foolishly heroic battle on the tourney field in January, Nesta and Hilda, wife of Thorgils, had come together in common concern for his life, they still looked upon each other as rivals for his affection and his body. True, Nesta was fairly confident that she had priority in terms of being cherished by him, but she well knew that the willowy blonde could easily seduce him into a quick tumble whenever the opportunity presented, and she could not suppress the jealousy that welled up within her at the mention of Dawlish.

  De Wolfe cursed his own insensitivity and pulled her to him, as if to squeeze her back into his body, but Nesta lay inert and distant. Perversely and against his will, the image of Hilda crept into his mind. He had not spoken to her since the day he had broken his leg and had not lain with her since just after Christ Mass, but now a picture of her supple body and beautiful face flooded unbidden into his mind’s eye. He had known her since she was a child and they had been sporadic lovers since she was fifteen, but as the daughter of one of his father’s manor-reeves, she could never have been his wife.

  With a groan of frustration, he screwed up his eyes to blot out the vision, and rolled on his side and clutched Nesta in an almost violent spasm. He kissed her eyes, neck and mouth in a desperate attack and felt her suddenly melt against him, returning his kisses and pressing herself to him with an urgency that told him the present battle was won.

  They were too satiated to make love again and remained hugged together without speaking for a long time, John revelling in the feel of her body touching his from lips to breast to belly to thigh. In an effort to banish the hovering image of Hilda, he forced himself to think of Matilda, and in the way that a mind wanders in that sleepy dreamland after love-making, he recalled the early days of their marriage, sixteen years before. It had been a loveless match engineered by his father, who saw the advantages for his son of an attachment to the wealthy de Revelle family. Matilda had never relished her nuptial obligations and their night-time relations had soon wilted, especially as de Wolfe spent ten months of the year away on some fighting campaign.

  Since he had given up being a professional warrior a year or two before, their enforced cohabitation had not seen any revival of passion. His mind’s eye now saw her again at their midday meal, drinking red wine as if it was ale, and recalled with some shame that the last time they had attempted to make love had been when she was drunk many months ago. The episode was a dismal failure and ended in bitter recrimination from his wife and a resolve on his part never to repeat the fiasco.

  Now that Nesta had recovered from her dark mood, her natural curiosity revived and she asked him about the Templars’ involvement with the mission to Lundy next day.

  ‘Their excuse is that they wish to test William de Marisco’s will in keeping their Order from his island,’ explained John. ‘But I suspect that they don’t trust me over de Blanchefort and wish to keep me in their sight.’

  ‘And they’re right, you crafty man!’ she teased. ‘But have you any real hope of making progress with this lord of Lundy?’

  De Wolfe scowled at the roof. ‘Almost none, from what I hear of him. There’s no doubt that he runs a nest of pirates from his island fiefdom, but whether it was one of his ships that slew most of the crew of the vessel that was wrecked near Ilfracombe, I cannot tell.’

  ‘What made our dear sheriff agree to this expedition, then? He’s not usually one to put himself at risk.’

  ‘He has a reverence for the Templars, for some reason. I suspect he thinks that by ingratiating himself with them, he may advance his own ambitions. They are so powerful a force in this and every other land. Even King Richard is partial to them, so maybe de Revelle hopes that by showing them assistance, he can gain favour with the king after his fall from grace at the New Year.’

  She slid a hand on to his stomach and stroked small circles with her fingers. ‘Why should you be involved in this, John? It sounds a hazardous mission and not one that involves a crowner’s interest.’

  ‘It does, you know. There was a wreck, which is my business, and there was a slain corpse there, as well as a good history of the killing of the rest of the crew. That alone makes it my concern.’

  He pulled his arm from under Nesta as his fingers were becoming numb, and continued his lecture. ‘Although there’s been no time to inform the king’s justices and get a reply, any coroner can be sent a special commission from the Justiciar or the royal judges to become involved in almost any aspect of the law or administration. I’m sure that if the Curia Regis knew of a revival of piracy in the Severn Sea and that Lundy may be its nest, they would demand some action such as we propose tomorrow.’

  Nesta’s voice was sleepy. ‘What’s this Curia Regis you talk about?’

  ‘The king’s court – the nobles about him who give him advice and counsel. Now that he’s in France, in practice the Chancellor and the Chief Justiciar run the country, but the major barons and the archbishops also have a say in what goes on.’

  But Nesta had slipped into slumber, and before long, he had joined her, their heads together on the pillow.

  The next morning, John de Wolfe recaptured some of the excitement of former days when he rode up to Rougement and saw the preparations for their journey to the north of the county. He felt a surge of the anticipation of battle, when he rode Odin through the gateway to the inner ward and saw well over a score of armoured soldiers jostling with their mounts. The smell of many horses and the clatter of harness, shields and swords brought back nostalgic memories of a dozen campaigns.

  He watched as Ralph Morin and Sergeant Gabriel harried their men-at-arms into a column. They were all in battle array, with chain-mail hauberks and round basin-like helmets with long nose-guards. Each man had a rectangular iron plate slung across his breast with leather thongs, to protect his heart from a lance thrust, and each had a long oval shield slung on his saddle-bow. As they were mounted for a long ride, they did not carry lances or pikes like foot-soldiers, but every man had either a heavy sword or a battle-axe.

  Standing apart from the troops were the three Templar knights, not yet mounted but resplendent in their own armour, with long hauberks slit at front and back to sit astride their horses and polished metal-link aventails hanging from their helmet brims to protect their necks. Each had a huge sword hanging from a leather baldric, and over their armour they wore their white or black surcoats with the scarlet cross of the Order on the chest. Their sergeants waited attentively in a group behind them, holding the bri
dles of the beautiful palfreys. They were dressed in brown surcoats over similar armour, battle-axes or spiked maces hanging from their saddles.

  In front of them strutted the sheriff, a groom holding his horse whilst he inspected the line of men-at-arms, to the ill-concealed irritation of Ralph Morin. De Revelle was kitted out in immaculate chain-mail, which, unlike that worn by de Wolfe and the Templars, was free of the scratches, dents and bent links of former combat. Over it he had his own white surcoat, emblazoned with a red griffin, which was repeated on his shield in the new fashion for displaying a family crest. The coroner walked his horse to the foot of the curtain wall of the inner ward, where Gwyn stood inconspicuously, holding the reins of his own big brown mare. Dressed in his usual thick jerkin of boiled leather, he had made a token gesture to possible fighting by donning a leather helmet with battered metal plates riveted around the crown and over his ears. He stared at the sheriff with scorn, as de Revelle fussed up and down the line of men-at-arms. ‘You’d think he was preparing to storm Jerusalem! I wonder if he knows which end of the sword to hold?’ he grunted scathingly.

  The coroner, though no admirer of the sheriff, felt he should give him what little honour he deserved. ‘Come, man, he was in Ireland for a year or so at one time.’

  ‘Yes, in the company of Prince John. It would be hard to know which of them made the worst mess of it.’

  It was true that, back in ’eighty-five, King Henry had given his younger son the responsibility of subduing Ireland, with catastrophic results due to the prince’s incompetence – it had been during this time that Richard de Revelle had become one of his sympathisers.

  There was further flurry of activity in the bailey as Morin and the sheriff mounted their horses, the group of Templars following suit. Gwyn hauled his great body aboard his mare and pulled her round to come alongside his master. ‘This will be a slow journey with all the weight of armour on their horses,’ he grumbled. ‘They should have sent it ahead in carts or on sumpters.’