But Enyd’s persuasive tongue vanquished his reluctance and, with a maidservant little older than a child trailing behind, they walked leisurely to the church of St Andrew, rebuilt in stone by Simon de Wolfe shortly before his death. On the way there, they talked of many things and Evelyn, listening to his tales of travel in France and the Holy Land, was captivated by his charm.
However, she had learned nothing new about his presence in Devon by the time they reached the church and she resolved to be more forthright on the way back. During the service, they stood before the chancel step, with the half-dozen villagers who were not at work placed respectfully behind the daughter of their manorial lord.
The portly and rather jolly parish priest rattled through the Office rather less quickly than usual as he sensed that Evelyn’s guest was someone special, even though he had no idea that he was a former monk of the Temple. Evelyn watched de Ridefort covertly during the short service and noticed that though he went through the motions required of him it was with an almost mechanical familiarity, devoid of any apparent spiritual enthusiasm. His face remained set in a wooden expression, and his lips were unmoving where responses were called for during the ceremony. She felt that, though he was there in body, his mind was deliberately closed to the religious content of the service. At the church door, when the priest obsequiously ushered out the lady whose family was responsible for the easy living he enjoyed, Evelyn briefly introduced her guest as Sir Gilbert de Ridefort, but took him away before any further explanations were needed.
As they began to walk back, Gilbert was subdued at first, but she soon had him talking again. ‘You seemed unimpressed by our priest’s abilities, sir?’
He gave a rather sad smile at this. ‘Your amiable cleric did all that was required of him. It is just that I have come to have so many doubts about the Faith he professes.’
John’s sister suddenly felt she had tapped a vein that might satisfy her curiosity. ‘I have heard that most men of God suffer crises of faith at some time.’
He laid a hand gently on her shoulder as they strolled down the churchyard path between the yew trees. ‘This is not a crisis of my faith, but of the Faith itself,’ he said enigmatically.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said truthfully.
‘Your brother told you that I am – or, rather, I was – a Knight of the Temple?’
She was puzzled at this oblique reply. ‘Yes, but surely they have a faith stronger than most? You are the soldiers of Christ.’
De Ridefort smiled down at her as if humouring a child’s belief in fairy-tales. ‘The Templars are a strange Order. We are certainly strong guardians of the Faith, but perhaps we exist mainly to guard it from criticism and enquiry.’
Evelyn raised her face to look into his face. ‘Are you suggesting that our faith needs such protection from doubts?’
At the gate, he turned and looked back. The few villagers from the congregation were talking to the priest at the church door and no one was within earshot. ‘Yes, it has been so protected for many years. Rome is a jealous and powerful guardian, which suffers no competition. A thousand years ago, St Paul took Christianity away from its origins and transplanted it into that city. But there were other branches of Christianity, in Palestine, Egypt and elsewhere, gnostics who would not accept the rigid doctrines of Rome.’
This was bewildering to Evelyn, who had known nothing other than conforming to the unyielding despotism of the Church and was almost unaware that any other view could exist. ‘Are you speaking of heretics?’ she asked, almost in a whisper.
Gilbert took her arm and they walked on slowly, the young girl trailing behind them, more interested in the spring flowers by the wayside, than the unintelligible conversation of her elders. ‘Heretics? That’s a wide and varied description. You had your own heresy here in these isles, centuries ago, when Pelagius claimed free will and free thinking for all men. And now, especially in southern France, there are the Cathars, the Albigensians who desire to pursue their faith in their own way – a way that I fear will soon bring down the wrath of Rome upon them, with disastrous results.’
Evelyn felt a flutter of alarm in her breast and, like Thomas de Peyne, an irrational desire to cross herself. Was this man, with his hand upon her arm, a dangerous heretic, an anti-Christ?
But she had a strong will and decided to take the bull by the horns. ‘What has that to do with the Templars – and with you coming so far away to Devon, after leaving the Order? I thought that being a Templar was for life.’
‘It should be, Evelyn. But I and few others have seen traces and fragments of a different truth that we were not supposed even to suspect. When the Order was founded early in this century, something had been discovered in Jerusalem that had to be suppressed at all costs. I am not privy to the whole story, which is known only to the Grand Master and to a few cardinals in Rome. It is not clear whether the first Templars actually found this secret or whether they were rapidly established by the Order of Sion to investigate further and then conceal something that had already been discovered.’
Evelyn was bewildered. ‘Are you saying that you are now a fugitive because you came into possession of forbidden knowledge, even within your own community?’
‘Exactly that – and they fear that I and those with me will divulge this intelligence to the world.’ A gleam came into his eye and his voice quivered a little – so she thought he might be a little crazy.
‘How did the early Templars come by this secret? And what is it, anyway?’ she asked, almost fearful that the answer would provoke a thunderbolt from the skies.
His face twisted into a grimace of pain, as mortification and indecision racked him. ‘I am torn between my vows of obedience and the right of all men to have a free mind, untrammelled by blind faith. Part of me is seized in the grip of the rigid dictates drummed into me since childhood, yet increasingly I see the merits of the gnostic way of thought – as do many other Templars in France, who are sympathetic to the Cathars. I should have the courage to tell the world the truth – and yet I am afraid.’
Evelyn began to feel that his responses to her questions took her further away from any real understanding. ‘But what did they find, these first Templars?’ she persisted.
‘They were given part of the palace built over the ruins of the Temple of Solomon, destroyed by the Romans when they dispersed the Jews. The first few spent several years excavating further in the underground passages that were said to have been Herod’s stables – and what they found there they transported back to southern France, in conditions of the greatest secrecy. Nine years after their foundation, the original nine Templars returned to France for good.’
Again he had managed to answer her without imparting any relevant information, so she tried again. ‘Southern France seems to feature greatly in all this, sir,’ she observed. ‘That is where these Cathars you speak of live – and where this Templar friend you are awaiting has his estates. I once heard from an indiscreet monk that there was even a theory that Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalen visited the area after the death of our Saviour, as it was a haven for many Jews fleeing from the Holy Land.’
De Ridefort gave a dry laugh. ‘Visited? She did more than that! She came to live there, bearing the Grail within her! The Languedoc is the new Holy Land, which makes it all the more tragic that nemesis will before long fall upon thousands of those who live there.’
She still failed to follow his leap-frogging replies, but as they neared the entrance to the manor-house bailey, Evelyn made one last effort. ‘But how could something taken from the foundations of a temple possibly rock the foundations of our Holy Church?’ she asked in trepidation.