Michael JECKS - The Traitor of St Giles

‘You mean to tell me you’ll give it to that thieving bastard?’ Nicholas burst out. ‘You might as well throw it in the Exe for all the money the King will see from it.’

‘You idiotic fool! Do you think the owner will readily forget all this? You know whose money it is , don’t you?’

Nicholas faltered. Baldwin’s angry conviction made the merchant quail. ‘It’s Despenser money, but what of it? They’ve been exiled.’

‘Who is Hugh Despenser’s best friend and ally? The King! Who will receive an account of the full sum here? The King! To whom will he pass it? His friend Despenser. And before you whine, “He’ll keep it for himself ”, remember that the King’s favourites have a habit of returning when Parliament has forced him to exile them. If you steal this money, the King will know about it, and so will the Despensers. And they will come to ask what has happened to it.’

‘I’ve had enough of this!’ Nicholas said, throwing his hands into the air. ‘You mean to take the money – that’s fine, but don’t try to convince me you’ll take it to that fat fool in Tiverton. That’s trying my credulity too far.’

‘Where are you going?’ Simon demanded.

‘Back to Tiverton. If you want to see whether you can get the gold, go ahead! You’re welcome to it.’

He stamped out, slamming the door shut behind him, and instantly ran on light feet to his horse, untying the reins with a panicked urgency, his attention focused on the church. There was no doubt in his mind that the two men were going to take the hoard for themselves, and he feared that they might try to silence him. He expected them to come storming through the door at any moment.

But as he swung his leg over the saddle, hastily finding the stirrups, he saw no one rushing to catch or kill him. Breathing a sigh of relief he realised that they must have been so lured by the thought of the money that they had decided to remain and seek it out. Stupid, he considered. If he had been them, he would have ensured the silence of any witnesses before searching.

There was no point in hanging about. If he did, they might see him and kill him. He couldn’t trust a man in authority; he knew how he himself had behaved when he had last been entrusted with someone else’s gold. No, he would go back to town, and just to make sure that they couldn’t get away with their theft, he’d broadcast news of their find ahead of them.

He felt sure that this would be the very last thing they would want. That idea appealed to him and he pulled his horse’s head around and kicked her up the slope. Riding up, he passed two scruffy-looking men and eyed them with cautious curiosity as any man would who passed strangers on a quiet road, but the two appeared to be more interested in the lane ahead than him.

Andrew Carter sidled in by the rearmost gate to his stable. In there he found a stable lad and sent him to the house to fetch a loaf of bread and a wineskin. Meanwhile Carter ordered a groom to saddle and bridle a horse.

‘Husband? Why didn’t you come to the front door?’

‘Matilda – my dear,’ he said a little stiffly. She looked odd. There was something different. Her dress. It was familiar but looked out of place on her somehow; unsettling. He put it from his mind. ‘A man is asking me to prove my credit, so I have to ride to Exeter to get papers signed. I should be back before long.’

She was watching him closely. Foolish woman. He wanted to be away, couldn’t she see that? He shot a glance to the doorway behind her, thinking he heard someone approach.

‘Is something the matter, Husband?’

‘Nothing. No, not at all. I should be back in a couple of days.’ The dress did not fit her perfectly. It was the wrong style for her… and yet it was familiar somehow.

‘That is a shame, dear,’ she said and smiled. ‘But I am sure you will return as soon as possible.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he lied. I’d say anything to get rid of you, you stupid raddled old bitch, he said to himself. Then he looked at her smiling face again. A small fist of trepidation clenched in his bowels. Something was wrong. She was too calm, too composed. She hadn’t been like this for days. Not since the death of her daughter. And that dress – what was it about that dress ?

‘You like my new tunic?’ she asked, swivelling her hips to let the skirts open.

The fist in his guts became a sharp pain that almost made him gag: it was her dress; Joan’s. It was the one she had worn when he killed her. He felt the sweat break out on his forehead. She was mad! His wife had lost her head. The vapours had got to her at last. He started to move away, but her calm voice stopped him.

‘Your horse is almost ready. Would you kiss me before you go?’

‘Of course,’ he said, trying to smile. She lifted her face to his, eyes closed as always, and he thanked his stars that with luck he might never have to see her again. ‘Goodbye, my love.’

‘Good bye !’

There was a flash, and he stared in disbelief as her eyes opened vindictively, then narrowed as she thrust the blade into his chest.

He hardly recognised the scream as coming from his own mouth.

‘Where could he have shoved it?’ Simon demanded.

Baldwin pulled the key on its necklace from beneath his tunic. ‘In a box or chest. You see,’ he continued, tapping at the flags near the altar, ‘when the Order was destroyed, most of the Temple’s places near London, Winchester, York and Oxford, were quickly taken by the King’s men, but preceptories in outlying areas like this, had a little more warning sometimes. They occasionally concealed some of their wealth.’

‘In case the Knights wanted it for themselves?’ Simon asked doubtfully. ‘It sounds a bit… well, sacrilegious.’

‘Not for themselves; for the Order. Most of us couldn’t believe that the Pope or the French King could seriously believe the propaganda they were putting about. We honestly thought that after a few weeks we and our Order would be reinstated. Few of us realised that it was a coordinated attack to extract every last item of value, so we hid our wealth where we could retrieve it and use it for the honour of the Order when we were back in business.’

‘And you think there might be a cache here? Why?’

Baldwin paused and threw him an exasperated look. ‘Simon, I don’t know anything about this place – but someone else did !’

‘Sir Gilbert!’

‘Of course. He served here. If he came here to hide his money, he knew there was somewhere to put it. And a man determined to save his money for the good of God would hide it somewhere near the altar, wouldn’t he?’

Simon nodded amiably as Baldwin roved over the altar itself, then tapped at the wall behind. All the time Baldwin’s face grew longer and longer, and Simon found himself offering up a prayer that they might succeed. It would be ridiculous for the secret of Sir Gilbert’s hoard to remain hidden. He allowed his eyes to rise to the window. It still had glass, a thick, heavy-looking glass, set in the thick stone wall. There was a large window-ledge.

He blinked.

‘Um – Baldwin?’

‘Not now, I need to think.’

‘Do you think he’d have stuck the lot in a box?’

Baldwin frowned at him. ‘What the hell are you on about?’

‘In a box like that one up there?’ Simon pointed.

‘Shut up,’ Perkin snarled. ‘You want them to hear you whingeing?’

‘But this is a Templar place,’ Owen declared nervously.

‘You scared of them? They’ve all gone long ago.’

‘You shouldn’t be so sure about that. They were dreadful.’

‘Not as dreadful as me, Owen, and I’m right here.’