‘He’s obviously hiding from someone,’ opined Gwyn. ‘He was forever looking over his shoulder and keeping his face under the brim of his big hat.’
‘But who is he?’ persisted Nesta. ‘Is he an English Templar?’
‘No, he’s a French knight. I seem to remember that he was based in the Templar Commandery in Paris. The first time I met him was briefly at the castle of Gisors, in ’eighty-eight.’
‘Where’s Gisors?’
‘A town in the Vexin, where that leering bitch Lucille comes from. On the borders of Normandy, north of Paris.’
‘Ah, I remember him there, too,’ said Gwyn. ‘We were in the king’s company, though he was Prince Richard then. We were at that big meeting between his father, old King Henry, and that bastard Philip of France.’
Nesta was impatient with this diversion. ‘What’s that to do with this Templar seeking you out, John?’
De Wolfe downed the rest of his ale and stood up, his gaunt frame almost reaching to the blackened rafters. ‘I don’t know, dear woman, but I hope to find out this afternoon. Meanwhile, we’ve got to attend to two felons dangling at the the end of a rope. Gwyn, go and find our poxy clerk and fetch him down to the gallows with his pen and parchment. Their exit from this world has to be properly recorded, even if they don’t have two pennies between them for the king’s coffers.’
Witnessing the execution of two petty thieves did not blunt John’s appetite for his midday meal. Hanging and mutilation were as familiar to the population of England as bull-baiting, cock-fighting, eating and sleeping. Each Tuesday and Friday, those citizens of Exeter who had nothing better to do walked out through the South Gate and up the road to the gallows on Magdalen Street, where a pair of stout posts supported a long cross-bar which, on busy days, could dispatch three felons side by side.
The crowd came to watch the executions as a form of entertainment, a free diversion from the weary squalor of their existence. Many were old men and grandmothers, with their urchins who ran around playing tag while pedlars hawked their pies, fruit and sweetmeats to the throng.
The coroner’s task was to record the name and date of death of each victim, which Thomas de Peyne noted in his neat script on the coroner’s rolls, with details of any land or chattels that the felon may have left behind, which was then forfeit to the Crown. The two petty criminals gave up their sad lives with little protest and, his job done, de Wolfe went home, where he found Matilda already tucking into boiled fowl and cabbage. She was as uncommunicative as ever when he sat at the other end of the sombre table and waited for Mary to bring his food. However, her interest was awakened when he told her that they were to expect a visitor before long. ‘It’s a Knight of the Temple, one I knew slightly in France and Outremer,’ he explained, unsure whether she would welcome the intrusion of a stranger into the house.
‘Is this the man who has been peering at you around corners?’
‘It is indeed – Gwyn caught him at it again this morning, but it seems he was unsure of whether I would greet him with open arms or throw him into gaol.’
‘And which is it to be?’ she demanded, staring at him over a chicken thigh grasped in her fingers.
‘I can’t tell yet – but something strange is going on. The man’s shaved off his whiskers, which is forbidden by the Templars.’
‘He can’t be hanged for that,’ she observed.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure – the discipline of the Templars is as hard as flint. Yet as far as I recall, he was quite senior in the ranks of the order. When we left Palestine with the king, we sailed in a Templar warship and they mentioned that Gilbert de Ridefort was to go back to Paris to take up some important position at their Commandery there.’
Matilda put down the bone and wiped her mouth with an embroidered cloth from her sleeve. Automatically, she adjusted her hair, just visible under the white linen coverchief. ‘A senior knight, you say? That means that this Sir Gilbert is an important man, I presume?’
John suppressed a sigh, but he was glad that the interest sparked by her incorrigible snobbishness might give him an easier passage for a while. ‘He is certainly well connected, as he is the nephew of Gerard de Ridefort, a former Grand Master of the Knights Templar – though that may be a mixed blessing. Gerard is notorious as the man who lost Jerusalem to the Saracens in ’eighty-seven.’
His wife, for all her posturing as a full-blooded Norman lady, knew little of what went on in the wider world and de Wolfe tried to explain a little more about that glorious, but somewhat sinister, order of militant monks. ‘It was said to have been founded almost eighty years ago, when a French nobleman from Champagne and eight other knights offered their services to Baudouin, the king of Jerusalem, supposedly to patrol the roads of the Holy Land and protect pilgrims from the infidel.’
Matilda had stopped tearing at her food to listen to him – a novelty as far as her husband was concerned. ‘Why d’you say “supposed”?’ she asked.
‘I doubt that nine men could do anything useful in Palestine – and no one has ever heard of them protecting anyone. They spent only nine years there, then suddenly returned to France.’
‘So why are they called Templars?’ she demanded.
‘Because, strangely, for their residence Baudouin gave them part of his palace, built over the foundations of the Temple of Solomon. They were originally called the Poor Knights of Christ, resigned to poverty, obedience and chastity, though now many live in splendour and lend money to kings and emperors.’ Matilda thought about this for a moment, but her mind slipped back to more immediate concerns than history.
‘How old would this Sir Gilbert be?’
Her husband looked at her from under his bushy black brows. There was a note in her voice that he failed to recognise. ‘About our age, I suppose – or maybe he looked younger with no beard.’
‘And he’s coming here, to this house, today?’
‘I told Gwyn to fetch him – he is lodging in some house in Curre Street[2].’
Matilda sniffed disapprovingly. ‘What does a high-ranking Templar want, staying in such mean surroundings?’
‘Maybe he wishes to be inconspicuous. We can ask him very soon.’
‘Are there other Templars in Devon?’ she asked, continuing to puzzle him with her unexpected interest in his affairs.
‘Few compared to other counties. There is one of their Preceptories near Tiverton and I think they own more land elsewhere, but it is tenanted out to others. They were granted Lundy by the old king, but William de Marisco refuses even to let them land on the island.’
‘How many Templars are there?’ she asked.
‘Many thousands, no doubt. The Grand Master controls them all from Acre, since this Gilbert’s uncle lost the Holy City a few years ago, but under him there are Masters at their Commanderies in many countries, with lesser Preceptories controlling great estates. In England, they are based at the New Temple in London, where their round church was built a few years ago.’
Mary entered to clear away the debris on the table, and her master and mistress moved with their wine to sit by the fire. As she went out, the maidservant looked back at them with a quizzical expression. It was rare to see those two conversing like a normal man and wife.
‘King Richard seems quite partial to them,’ Matilda observed. ‘You say he left Palestine in one of their ships?’
‘Yes, he owes much to them, especially for their valour in battle at the Crusades. He has shown many favours to them, both in England and Normandy.’