Paul Doherty: The Grail Murders

Agrippa rubbed his face with his hands. 'Yes. The Grail and the Sword are being sought by others.' 'Who?' my master asked. 'The Templars,' Agrippa snapped. 'Who?' I asked.

The Templars,' he continued, 'were a military order formed in the twelfth century to defend the Holy Land. They acquired vast possessions in England and France -castles, land and manors. They also obtained secret knowledge and possessed all the great holy relics, such as the shroud in which Christ's body was wrapped, the Mandylion which cleaned his face on the way to Calvary, and, if legend is to be believed, the Grail and the Sword Excalibur.' 'So,' Benjamin asked, 'what have they to do with us?'

(Oh, my master was so innocent. I almost guessed what was coming next.)

'His Grace the King and my Lord Cardinal want you to go to Somerset, find the Grail and Excalibur, and if possible root out these Templars.' 'They still exist?' I asked.

'Oh, yes.' Agrippa rubbed the side of his face. 'I didn't finish my story. On Friday, the thirteenth of October 1307, the Templars were seized throughout Christendom, tortured and put to death on charges of idolatry, sodomy and black magic. Most of them died at the stake or on the gallows but a few escaped and organised themselves into secret conventicles. These Templars are determined that the Grail and the Sword should not fall into Henry's hands for they see him as the incarnation of evil.' (Very perceptive, I thought.) Agrippa cleared his throat. 'There is evidence that some of the Yorkists were members of this secret order. Hopkins certainly was, and Buckingham may be.' 'And our noble King believes all this?'

Agrippa made a face. 'Hopkins confessed, Wolsey informed the King, and Stafford did little to help his cause. He was arrested at London Bridge and taken to the Tower. He would neither deny nor confirm Wolsey's allegations.'

The doctor steepled his fingers together. 'Buckingham had also been stupid enough, in the privacy of his own home, to make certain treasonable remarks to his own sister, the Lady Fitzwalter.'

Benjamin smiled thinly and I realised how clever the Cardinal had been: Henry had seduced Buckingham's sister and the Duke had been furious that the King should treat her like some common trollop. Wolsey would have struck – summoning the hapless woman before the Privy Council, placing her on oath and making her confess to words which he could so easily twist. 'Then what happened?' asked Benjamin.

'Buckingham was tried at Westminster Hall before a panel of his peers, led by the Duke of Norfolk. The sentence was a foregone conclusion: he was to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution there to be hanged, cut down alive, his private parts to be hacked off and cast in the fire, his bowels burnt before his eyes, his head smitten off and his body to be quartered and divided at the King's will.' 'Surely Henry will show mercy?'

'Queen Catherine went down on her knees and begged for the Duke's life. The King took to his bed for three days suffering from a fever, but the only mercy he will show is that Buckingham must lose his head. The rest of the indignities have been cancelled. He will die in two days.'

'When you came here, you said the killing was beginning, that Henry will be The Mouldwarp?' I prompted him. Agrippa looked at me chillingly and I remembered his diagnosis, many years earlier, of how sick the King's mind had turned.

'Can't you see, Roger,' he whispered, 'if Henry can kill the greatest peer in his realm, who will be safe? Already the courts of Europe have lodged their protests. The King of France has openly derided the Cardinal, claiming the butcher's dog has pulled down the fairest buck in Christendom.'

Of course, Agrippa was right. Henry was mad as a March hare: he was obsessed with plots against him and would brook no opposition. By the time he died, he was said to be responsible for at least sixty thousand executions. I can well believe it! I was with the fat bastard as he grew old. I'll never forget those puffy white cheeks and mad, pig-like eyes. The open ulcer on his leg which smelt like a sewer and the syphilis in his brain which turned him into a devil incarnate…

Benjamin rose and refilled our cups. 'So the killing has begun?' he murmured. 'Buckingham will die and dear Uncle needs us.'

Agrippa folded his hands in his lap. Once again he underwent one of those remarkable character changes – no longer the sombre prophet but the amiable priest seeking counsel and help.

'You are right, Master Benjamin,' he said lightly, 'Buckingham will die and there's nothing we can do to prevent it. But, of course, there is also Master Nicholas Hopkins's confession. Your uncle needs you in London. He has given express orders that we are all to witness Buckingham's execution.*

(Oh, Lord, I thought, here we go again, blood and gore and poor Shallot in the middle of it!) 'And then what?' Benjamin asked sharply.

'We are to continue the interrogation of Master Hopkins and find out more about his mysterious revelations.' 'But you said the man was mad?'

'Oh, he undoubtedly is but that doesn't necessarily make his confession false.'

'Do you think Buckingham was involved in treason?' I asked.

Agrippa shook his head. 'No. But you see, Master Shallot, the problem has two sides. Buckingham is going to die and that is the end of that matter. Hopkins, however, was a bearer of messages. He must have received instructions. But from whom?'

'And Uncle is determined,' Benjamin concluded flatly, 'to seek out the truth?'

'Truth, Master Benjamin? What is the truth? Pilate asked me the same question and I could not answer him then.' Agrippa smiled as if we shared a joke and ran the edge of his cloak through his fingers.

'Enough,' he murmured. 'We must leave for London now.'

Benjamin reluctantly agreed to our leaving immediately and brushed aside my objections. I went to my chamber feeling like a school boy being forced back to his studies and angrily began to throw clothing and other necessities into saddle bags. Benjamin slipped quietly into my room and stood with his back to the closed door.

'Roger, I am sorry but we have no choice. You remember the oath we took, to be the Cardinal's men during peace and war?' He waved a hand airily. 'Everything we have comes from him.'

'If the Duke of Buckingham can lose both his life and possessions,' I shouted, 'then what about the other fleas who do not live so high on the hog?'

Benjamin shrugged. 'We can only live each day as it comes.'

'Aye, and if the Cardinal has his way we'll have few days left to us!'

We finished packing; ostlers brought round saddled horses and sumpter ponies. Benjamin left strict instructions with Barker the steward and, by late-afternoon, we were galloping south. I remember it well. The sun died that day and winter came rushing in. Who says the seasons are not harbingers of what is to come?

Agrippa was now quiet, or rather talking to himself in a strange tongue I couldn't understand, whilst his entourage, the nicest group of gallow's birds you'd chance to encounter, kept to themselves. We stopped that night at a priory. Agrippa was still bad company, wrestling with his own problems. Only once did he pause, gaze round the deserted refectory and announce: 'There's more to it, you know.' 'What do you mean?' asked Benjamin.

Agrippa shook his head. 'There's more to it,' he repeated. 'Oh, how this world is given to lying!'

(You'll find that phrase too in old Will Shakespeare's plays.)

The weather continued to worsen but, early on the morning of our second day out of Ipswich, we left Waltham Abbey and reached the Mile End Road which wound through different hamlets into East Smithfield. The crowds on the road increased. Not just the usual tinkers and pedlars with their handcarts or wandering hedge-priests looking for a quick penny and a soft bed (I love to see my chaplain twitch!), but common folk, surging down to Tower Hill to watch one of the great ones spill his blood.