‘So what is to happen to Gilbert’s body? Are you going to eject it from the house of the God he served all his life?’
The archdeacon’s blue eyes were stern. ‘I am not sure that latterly the man was much concerned with serving his God. But it is late and I am conveniently going to claim that nothing can now be done until morning.’
‘And what then?’
‘There is a small burial ground behind the church of St Bartholomew. I have prevailed upon the parish priest to have this body interred there in the morning, with the minimum of ceremony. The ground is consecrated and no doubt Abbot Cosimo will not be pleased, but I am willing to endure his displeasure in order to place this Templar in hallowed ground, even if the devil had entered his soul in his last days.’
De Wolfe realised that his friend had gone out on a limb, probably as much to please him as for the repose of de Ridefort’s soul.
‘I dare not officiate, but the priest of St Bartholomew’s, William Weston, will put him in the ground with some appropriate words. I failed to tell him the whole story – indeed, I could not after the direct orders of Cosimo – so he will not be aware of the extent of the problem.’
With that, de Wolfe had to be satisfied, and late in the evening, he took himself home to meet Matilda’s red-rimmed eyes.
Chapter Eleven
In which Crowner John attends a funeral
Putting Gilbert de Ridefort to rest next morning was a quick and almost furtive exercise. Soon after dawn, two grave-diggers carried the shrouded body on a bier from the cathedral to St Bartholomew’s, a church in Bretayne, which had a burial ground against the north-west stretch of the town wall. Just after the ninth-hour bell, a few people straggled through the cold rain to stand briefly around the newly dug grave-pit.
Uncoffined, but wrapped securely in his clothing, with a linen shroud stitched over the top, the former Knight Templar was lowered into the hole by the two labourers, whilst the gaunt parish priest, himself shrouded against the rain by a long leather cape, mumbled some unintelligible version of the Mass for the Dead. The spectators – for, with the exception of Matilda, one could hardly call them mourners – stood well back from the muddy pit, as if to distance themselves from the deceased. Apart from John de Wolfe and his wife, they consisted of the three Templar knights, with their impassive squires standing in the background, Gwyn, Thomas de Peyne – and Abbot Cosimo of Modena, also with his two grim retainers lurking behind him. A couple of heads were visible over the stone wall that divided the churchyard from a narrow lane, curious at such goings-on early on a Saturday morning.
John had the strong impression that all those inside the graveyard had come solely to confirm that this dangerous and heretical renegade actually was buried in the earth and had not resurrected himself in a puff of sulphurous smoke.
There was an almost palpable air of relief when the grave-diggers began shovelling sticky mud down on to the body, and within minutes of the congregation coming into the churchyard, the grave was filled in and they began silently dispersing.
De Wolfe was surprised at the presence of the ‘opposition’, as he thought of them. All were suspects in his eyes, the only problem being that, with nine potential murderers, it was impossible to hazard a guess as to the real culprit or culprits: the way that Gilbert had died meant that either a single assailant or several might have killed him.
The coroner’s original plan had been frustrated by the denial of burial in the cathedraclass="underline" he had hoped to attempt the ‘ordeal of the bier’ while the body was lying there. He had brought it back from Stoke partly because he had hoped by some subterfuge to get the Templars and the abbot to view the corpse before it was buried to see if de Ridefort’s injuries might bleed again in the proximity of the killer. He was not sure in his own mind whether there was any truth in this mystical procedure, but it was approved by the Church and he had heard tales in the past that when suspects had been made to touch the bier, the corpse had bled. Now the three Templars ignored him, though Roland de Ver managed a moderately courteous nod in the direction of Matilda, before hurrying out of the small graveyard.
De Wolfe was more interested in Abbot Cosimo, on whom he had never laid eyes until now. As Thomas had described, he was a short, slight man of middle age, with a strange facial profile, his forehead coming down in an absolutely straight line with his prominent nose. His hair was black and his complexion sallow, with a marked Mediterranean look about it. His small black eyes and thin lips over projecting teeth, gave him a rodent-like appearance. As the outspoken but perceptive Gwyn said later, he was the sort of creature you wanted to tread on when it crossed your path.
As he passed to go to the gate, the abbot looked right through de Wolfe as if he didn’t exist, making no acknowledgement of him whatsoever. His two sour-faced acolytes closed ranks behind him, and the trio vanished rapidly into the rain, following the Templars. The abbot’s henchmen, who de Wolfe learned later were men-at-arms from the Temple in London, were heavily built men in sombre tunics and mantles, who seemed rarely to speak and certainly never smiled. He never discovered their names and they seemed to view anyone who approached Cosimo with suspicion, fingering their swords or daggers as if they expected an assassination attempt at any moment. As John came through the gate and stared after them, he saw that Cosimo had caught up with the knights and was talking animatedly to them.
Matilda curtly expressed a wish to go to St Olave’s and, in such an unsavoury neighbourhood as Bretayne, demanded her husband’s company as escort, though the church was only a few hundred yards distant. The lanes were lined with hovels of board and cob, mostly roofed with turf or thatch, much of it tattered and disintegrating. Many of the dwellings were little better than ramshackle huts, tilted and leaning against each other. The narrow alleys were barely the span of two arms and the ground ran with sewage, rubbish and mud, amongst which dogs, cats, rats, fowls and a few pigs vied for space with urchins and toddlers, all seemingly oblivious of the filth and the rain.
With Gwyn and Thomas trudging behind, de Wolfe chaperoned his wife to her favourite place of worship and then, with some relief, suggested to the others that they adjourn to the Bush for discussion and refreshment.
As they crossed Fore Street, Gwyn looked several times over his shoulder, before stopping dead and staring back. ‘Who’s this following us?’
De Wolfe swung round and experienced a momentary déjà vu sensation, harking back to de Ridefort’s early antics. A man in a wide-brimmed pilgrim’s felt hat was behind him, enveloped in a soaking cloak of nondescript dun colour. De Wolfe recognised the hat as having been on one of the heads looking over the graveyard wall a few minutes earlier. ‘What is it, fellow? Do you want me?’ he challenged.
The man, tall and powerfully built, came up close to him and Gwyn stepped forward, his hand going to his dagger. The coroner had made a few enemies and, like Cosimo’s men, the Cornishman was ever on his guard. But his caution was unnecessary, if the fellow’s first words were true.
‘Sir John, I am Bernardus de Blanchefort. I think you may have been expecting me.’
With his cloak steaming over the wattle screen near John’s favourite table, the new arrival sat before a trencher of salt bacon and onions, a quart of ale by his elbow. Whether or not the man was still a Templar, he was allowed to eat the meat of four-legged animals, unlike the usual monk: the philosophy of the warrior-monks was that a fighting man needed to keep up his strength, which was also why the Order forbade its members to fast. Certainly, this warrior was eating Nesta’s viands with a gusto that suggested he had had little food that day. The coroner and his assistants sat around the table, each with a more modest meal than the famished newcomer. Nesta and Edwin hovered nearby, the nosy old pot-man concealing his avid curiosity less successfully than his mistress as they fussed with supplies of food and drink.