“I kept my own counsel, but continued on my hunt. He was in Paris, he was in Normandy, he was in the south, he even appeared in Rome! Why, I wondered, would a man who was a suspected heretic be moved around so much? Wherever he had appeared he was in chains with the others, but no one ever saw him being tortured. Where he went, the other prisoners heard about the tortures being inflicted upon their brothers, they were told of the dreadful pains being suffered and made to fear their own ending. They were told what would happen if they did not confess, and this man, this Templar knight” – he spat the words out in his disgust – ‘This poor suffering knight told them what to say, told them how to ensure that they were saved from the fires.
“Then I heard from a man in Rome about him, about how he had told the men there that even the Grand Master had confessed, that he had admitted to the sins of the Order. It seemed odd to me at the time, but I could not see why for several months. Then I realised.
“At the time he had been in Rome, the Grand Master had not confessed to anything. It was too early. At last I began to suspect this man and to wonder whether he could have been installed in all of these prisons as an agent of the king and the pope, to persuade the Templars to confess and thus avoid their punishments. It was only later that I realised that I was right, and it took me another six months to prove it.
“It was after the death of a friend near Chartres that I saw the final proof. I went there to pray for him as soon as I heard that he had died, and was there for the burial. Another friend in the same abbey heard that I had arrived and insisted that I stay with him. His abbot had heard of my past and showed me a great deal of sympathy, listening to my story and allowing me to stay with him for some weeks. By then I was exhausted in body and spirit, deeply wounded by the trials of my search and almost ready to give up after a year of continual travelling, but the abbot showed me a papal bull which had been issued some time before which soon renewed my energy.
“It was a statement about the men whom the pope wanted to deal with personally. The pope had chosen some men for special treatment; they were to be punished by the pope himself, their treatment to be decided by no other man. There were several names there, including the Grand Master, some preceptors and others -I cannot remember them all – but one stood out for me. It was the name that I had heard all over Europe during my travels,: Oliver de Penne. He was an ordinary brother in the Order, a man of no consequence, not a great leader like Jacques de Molay, just one of the warrior monks. He had been chosen with the others, the greatest men in the Templar brotherhood, for special treatment. Why could that be? A monk? Singled out for personal attention by the pope? Now I was sure I had the right man.
“Of course, I wanted to be certain, so I tried to find what had become of him. It took me weeks of travelling, weeks of speaking to the few who survived, talking to men whom I had hardly heard of before, and I suffered any number of setbacks. Some of the men would not talk to me; twice I was denounced and had to fly: once I had to fight. But at last I had my information. At last I discovered his punishment, his penance for his Templar crimes. His punishment was severe: he had been elevated to archbishop in southern France: the Pope’s punishment was promotion, and not that alone, for the king rewarded him as well, with lands and money. Now I was absolutely without doubt. All the evidence pointed to him.
“But when I tried to come close to him – this would be a little over a year ago – it became obvious that it would be impossible. He never left his palace, and the building itself was guarded so well as to make an attack on him inconceivable. Edgar and I waited for weeks, but it seemed clear that we could do nothing. And all the time I was getting more and more ill, with weakness in my body and mind from the constant searching and living out of doors. In the end I decided to come home to England and forget my revenge, mainly thanks to Edgar, who said that if we stayed any longer I must die. He was right, it was time to forget and try to find a new life, return to England and forget my past.
“It seemed as if God had forsaken me. All I had wanted was to avenge the destruction of His Order, but he had even put this villain out of my reach. I was tired from travelling, my mind was damaged from all that had befallen us on our way, and as we came home I fell into a fever that almost killed me. Edgar managed to help me back to health, but then we were told that my brother had died and that I could return here, to Furnshill, and take up the manor. We resolved to come here and forget revenge, to live quietly and in peace. And I confess that I began to wonder whether God really was interested. We decided to relinquish any opportunity of repaying de Penne for the crimes against our Order and our friends. We chose retirement to the satisfaction that our souls craved.
“But we had only been here a few days when Edgar met brother Matthew in Crediton. Matthew had been a Templar too. He never suffered the torture; he was in Spain, fighting the Moors, when the Temple was destroyed. When he learned the fate of the Order he renounced his calling and joined the monks. When Edgar saw him he invited him to visit us here.
“Matthew asked his abbot to delay their departure until he had visited me – he explained that I had been a Templar and that he would like to stay with me for a night. Matthew knew that de Penne had been a Templar and thought he would understand his wish to visit us, so he was surprised at the abbot’s response. It made the abbot furious! He ranted at Matthew, angry and peevish, but Matthew thought he was just overreacting, he thought that his abbot simply wanted to forget and was annoyed to be reminded of his past. Matthew was ever a kindly man. He knew that his abbot had fallen from grace in the Church when Pope John took the throne and I think he thought it was because the new pope had found out about his past in the Order, I think that Pope John saw how de Penne had managed to become elevated and disliked it. He chose to send de Penne as far away as he could, and Buckland is almost as far as it would be possible to send a man from Avignon.
“So my old friend Matthew came to visit, and while we spoke he mentioned who his abbot was.” The knight’s face became pensive as he recollected. “I was amazed. It could only be by divine interference that de Penne had been sent here, surely – sent here to me? I believe that, in any case. Why would God have put him in my way if I was not to be his agent of justice? Ah, I was taken with a madness of desire. I felt filled with the Holy Spirit; I was thrilled that God had selected me for his will!
“Matthew stayed with us that night, and I must have seemed excited to him. I was careful not to tell him what de Penne was, for I knew that Matthew would not want to see blood spilled. He would want to let him escape and go to Buckland. But I think I had drunk too much that night in my delight for I cannot truly remember much of the evening, and I think he was worried, for, as you know, I do not drink to excess usually. On the morrow, I sent Edgar to town with the monk, to protect him on the road, but I also told Edgar to stay in the town and watch, and to come back to tell me when the monks were about to leave.
“I could not rest. I could not sleep. My revenge was so near, so close, that it seemed to burn in my soul with a holy light.” He turned and gazed into the flames again, a small smile playing around his lips.
“But then, when Edgar came to me and told me that they were on the move, I was struck with indecision. I could not convince myself that this really was the man. How could I be sure? I tried to recall all that I had heard, to make sure in my own mind that he was the one, that he deserved death, but how could I be certain? I dithered for a day, but then I decided to take him and question him. After all, surely it was too much of a coincidence that he should come here and his presence made known to me? It had to be God’s will!