‘I arrived here from Weymouth yesterday, after a terrible passage a sennight ago from Caen,’ explained de Blanchefort, between mouthfuls. ‘I stayed last night in some fleapit tavern not far from here, whose landlord was a mean fat bastard who overcharged me.’
‘Willem the Fleming, at the Saracen!’ said Nesta indignantly, from where she stood at the end of the table. ‘He gives our inns in Exeter a bad name, the way he runs that hovel.’
Bernardus had already been told by the coroner of the demise of his Templar friend. He said that he had gone to the funeral at St Bartholomew’s not because he knew the deceased was Gilbert de Ridefort but because he was seeking John de Wolfe to make himself known. He had been told by someone at the castle gate that the coroner was at the burial ground, but when he saw the Templars there and Abbot Cosimo, he had been shocked and kept clear of de Wolfe until the others had dispersed. ‘At first, I had no idea who the dead person might have been, but the sight of those wolves from the New Temple and Paris soon made it clear that it could only have been de Ridefort who had died.’
As he spoke, de Wolfe studied him from close quarters. Whereas Gilbert had been a handsome, elegant man, this southern Frenchman was a blunt, tough fellow with a direct, almost pugnacious manner. A few years younger than John, he had a square face, dark brown hair and thick eyebrows. The upper part of his features was tanned but his chin and lips were pale where he had recently shaved off the obligatory Templar beard and moustache. De Wolfe suspected that he was far more enthusiastic about matters of faith than de Ridefort had been, perhaps even to the point of obsession.
‘They will kill us both if they can,’ he said finally, having finished his food and pushed aside the trencher to take up his pot of ale. ‘Now that Gilbert is silenced, I will be the next target. But I care not for them, this secret must be told, to dispel the myth that has plagued the world for a thousand years!’ An evangelical tone had crept into his voice, though he kept it low and accompanied his words with furtive glances about the room. There were only a few other customers in the Bush at that early hour, all locals whom de Wolfe recognised as tradesmen and merchants.
‘Are you going to tell us what this mystery is?’ he demanded. ‘De Ridefort seemed reluctant to divulge what was at issue – even though it seems to have cost him his life.’
‘I will indeed – and that very soon. But I want to do it in a way that cannot be smothered by the forces against me.’
Though John frankly had little interest in whatever theological revelations these Templars wished to make, his clerk Thomas was hanging on every word. Crouched at the end of the table, his peaky face was fixed on de Blanchefort and his mouth was hanging open with expectation. ‘Does this concern the Cathars and the Albigensian diversion from the holy teachings?’ he squeaked, clutching his small cup of cider tightly as if to hang on to some remnant of security in the face of burgeoning heresy.
‘It is not unconnected, but compared with those beliefs, it is as massive as the Alps compared with a molehill,’ proclaimed de Blanchefort ominously. This sent Thomas into a paroxysm of crossing himself, as if to ward off the devil himself.
‘So why have you come to Devon – and what are you going to do now that you are here?’ enquired the ever-practical coroner, whose priority was still the discovery of Gilbert de Ridefort’s killer.
‘Like Gilbert, I come in flight, to escape the wrath of the established Church. I have no particular desire to be a martyr as I enjoy the only life I am likely to have. But if I need to die for the truth, as de Ridefort did, then so be it. We both sought to escape to a land more tolerant of revised beliefs, such as Scotland. He suggested that we made our way there from France, which is so dangerous for anyone who diverts from the rigid dictates of Rome.’
‘So why Devon? This is a backwater in the mainstream of Europe.’
‘Gilbert suggested it as a route to Scotland, perhaps via Ireland. To reach that northern land direct from France would be very hazardous with the full length of England between, containing many Templar Preceptories and endless Roman dioceses stretching the length of the country. And he remembered you for a fair-minded man and had heard that you were from Devonshire. Like him, I trust that you can see your way to helping me.’
‘What is it you want from me?’ asked de Wolfe, rather suspiciously. His attempts to help de Ridefort had ended in disaster and he was not keen to repeat the process.
‘I came here only with the intention of procuring assistance to journey onwards. I wanted to know how best to go about getting a passage from the many ports you have along these coasts, in an area where I fondly thought the long arm of the Order and the Inquisition would be unlikely to reach. But obviously I was wrong. Somehow, they must have discovered where Gilbert was heading, possibly by torturing some poor wretch in Paris to whom he had mentioned his destination.’
De Wolfe’s great beak of a nose came closer to Bernardus’ face. ‘You put all those words in the past, as if you now have different desires?’ he rumbled.
The former Templar shrugged. ‘I still wish to save my skin if I can – mainly to stay alive and active to help my message on its way. There are others of our Order still in France, and elsewhere, who are unhappy with the status quo, but they do not yet seem ready to come out into the open as Gilbert and I have done.’
He stopped for a long sup at his ale pot, then continued. ‘But now that Gilbert de Ridefort is not with me, I am willing to risk proclaiming this secret to all who will hear it and be damned to the consequences,’ he declared harshly.
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked de Wolfe, apprehensive that this determined hothead was likely to make more trouble for the law officers of the county.
‘The time has come to stop skulking about the country with this knowledge. I intend proclaiming it as publicly as possible – and the best place to do so would be on the cathedral steps tomorrow morning!’
Even Gwyn stopped in mid-swallow at this – and Thomas looked if he was going to faint. Of all of them, apart from Bernardus, the little ex-priest knew best the gravity of what the latter was proposing, if it had any connection at all with the heresy rampant in the Languedoc of southern France. Just as Gilbert had lectured Evelyn on the day of his death, Thomas knew of the rising concern of Rome against those who held gnostic views of Christianity and was aware of the increasing wrath of the ecclesiastical establishment against the Cathars and others in the French lands.
‘A sermon on the cathedral steps!’ barked de Wolfe, incredulously. ‘The bishop will have some views on that – or he would have, if he was in the city.’ He thought that the archdeacons and the other senior canons would more than compensate for the absence of Henry Marshal when it came to the prospect of a renegade monk preaching heresy from the West Front of the cathedral.
‘Who d’you think would come to listen to you?’ grunted the agnostic Gwyn.
‘I shall wait until the end of Nones, Terce and High Mass to catch the congregation as they come out of the building,’ said Bernardus, a joyful glee in his bright brown eyes that, in spite of his earlier protestations, suggested to John a willingness for martyrdom.
‘You wouldn’t last five minutes,’ he objected. ‘The canons would soon have the proctors on you.’