‘I suppose you’ve been reading some trashy novel,’ he said.
‘No, Mr Williams,’ Jane said. ‘I’ve been to Garway Church.’
Robbie sat down again, behind the history room desk.
‘Have you now?’
‘Seriously interesting place.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Robbie said. ‘Spent many a day there, fully absorbed.’
Morrell, the head, had introduced this system where sixth-formers got to call teachers by their first names, like they were your mates. It just led to awkwardness, in Jane’s view, and this was a view clearly shared by the head of history, who refused even to reveal his first name. It had always been R. Williams. So, obviously …
‘Right …’ Jane pulled up a chair. ‘So if anybody could answer my questions about Garway and the Templars …’
For you, Mr Williams, the mid-morning break is over.
‘Damn and blast,’ Robbie said mildly. ‘Dropped myself in it there, didn’t I?’
He had to be coming up to retirement. Sparse white hair, tweed jacket, comfortably overweight and, unlike most of his smoothie colleagues, so determinedly uncool that he almost was cool.
‘You see, it’s not exactly very big, that church,’ Jane said. ‘But so full of mysteries.’
She wasn’t going to tell him she hadn’t been into the actual church yet, due to them running into Mrs Morningwood and everything. Anyway, no problem, she’d been on the common-room computer, and there were two or three websites with stacks of pictures of the church’s unique features – the Templar coffin lids in the floor, the enigmatic carvings, the remains of the circular nave …
Robbie took off his brown-framed glasses, looked at the ceiling.
‘Thing is, Jane … there’s an awful lot of twaddle talked about the Knights Templar. Always has been. Supposed to be magicians and guardians of famous secrets, but in reality they were uneducated and illiterate, most of them. Weren’t even monks, in the true sense, simply a religious brotherhood who observed various disciplines and went out into the world to fight people.’
‘But they obviously knew about magic and astrological configurations and things.’
‘Not “obviously” at all, girl. Magic, in medieval times, was a high science, chronicled in Latin and Greek. Hardly for the illiterate.’
‘Yeah, maybe one kind of magic, but, like, what about all the hedge witches and the local conjurers? You’re saying they were intellectuals? I mean, there was always like an instinctive element, surely. Like, something that was passed down?’
‘An oral tradition. Perhaps. I’m merely saying that the ornate web of mythology woven around the Templars was precisely that.’
‘But you don’t know that. You don’t know that they hadn’t—’
‘They’ve became a very convenient repository for ludicrous conspiracy theories, and you need to remember that I—’
‘But you don’t know that they didn’t develop some instinctive spiritual feel for—’
‘—teach history, Jane, not New-Age theology.’
‘OK, history.’ Jane focused. ‘The Templars were linked to the Cistercians, right?’
‘That’s one theory.’
‘And the Cistercians were known for being close to the earth, in like a pagan way? Always settled in remote places where they could be self-sufficient. And they studied the stars and they were well into landscape patterns and stuff.’
‘To an extent.’
‘And that wouldn’t’ve been written down in Latin, would it? And … OK, if the Templars weren’t into magic, what about all the charges that were proved against them? Secret rituals at night?’
‘The charges were not proved, Jane. The Pope, Clement V, actually declared that they were un proven, but decided to dissolve the Templar order anyway because these accusations had brought it very much into disrepute.’
‘But if you—’
‘Ah, Jane …’ Robbie Williams sat back, arms folded, smiling almost fondly and shaking his head. ‘You really are a most unusual girl. Hard to think of anyone else in your year who displays the smallest curiosity about anything not actually involved with achieving the necessary qualifications. And I’m not being very helpful, am I? Why don’t you tell me where you’re going with this? Or hoping to go.’
For the first time, Jane felt her engine stall. Couldn’t tell him that. Stick to questions. Teachers always liked questions.
‘There’s only one pub left in Garway, right?’
‘The Moon.’ Robbie patted his comfortable stomach. ‘I do know my hostelries.’
‘Did you know there used to be another three, called The Sun, The Stars and The Globe?’
‘I didn’t know that. How interesting. Do you know how far those names go back?’
‘Well, I … haven’t had a chance to check it all out yet. But it does suggest there’s some astrological tradition in the area, doesn’t it?’
‘Astronomical, anyway. Then again, it may be simply that some chap opened a pub called The Moon, and another chap set up in opposition and called his The Sun. And so on.’
‘Yeah. I suppose.’
‘Sorry, Jane. What else have you found? The dovecote with 666 compartments? Your guess is as good as mine on that one. Could be a coincidence, could be someone’s idea of a joke or it could be rather sinister. Who knows?’
‘How about the green man?’
‘Ah,’ Robbie said.
A bell at the end of the passage signalled the end of break-time.
‘The stone face carved into the chancel arch,’ Jane said quickly. ‘And nobody knows what it really means … even though they’re fairly common in churches.’
‘Yes. Is the green man of Celtic origin or early medieval? And does this one even qualify for the title?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘A green man is, by definition, a foliate face – leaves and vines coming out of his mouth and his nose and whatnot.’
‘Yes.’
Jane had a picture of it in her head, from one of the websites. The blank eyes, the stubby horns …
‘But what’s interesting,’ Robbie said, ‘is that the specimen inside the chancel arch at Garway appears to have no foliate embellishments whatsoever. No representation of greenery emerging from its mouth – instead, what, on closer scrutiny, is quite obviously a thick, studded cord with tassels at either end. I admit that’s puzzled me, too.’
‘What could it mean?’
‘Well now …’ Robbie leaned forward in his chair; he smelled quite strongly of mints. ‘If we return to the list of charges against the Templars, they were, if you recall, accused of worshipping an idol. In the form of a bearded male head.’
‘Yeah! Of course … It was supposed to have powers?’
‘It was also said to have a cord wound around it,’ Robbie said.
‘Holy sh—’ Jane slid to the edge of her chair. ‘So that face could be—’
‘Baphomet.’ Robbie raised both arms and joined his hands behind his head. ‘It came to be known as Baphomet. A name for which there seem to be several explanations, the most common of which is that it’s a corruption of Muhammad. And the Templars, during the Crusades, would obviously have been much exposed to Islam.’
‘The Templars could’ve been secret Muslims? This could be a kind of Islamic idol?’
‘The Muslims don’t have idols, Jane. And if we pursue that theory, we also tend to stumble over the word “worship”. While the Muslims afford their prophet the very greatest respect, they only worship Allah.’