Paul Doherty - Satan's Fire

‘I simply asked,’ Corbett replied.

‘And you have your answer.’

Corbett stared at a tapestry on the wall: a beautifully embroidered piece of cloth held in place by a thin wooden frame. The tapestry depicted the taking of Christ down from the cross by Nicodemus and St John. Mary knelt, arms outstretched, waiting to receive him. The artist had executed a brilliant scene: the gold, blue, red, green and purple colours seemed more like a picture than a tapestry.

‘It’s very costly,’ de Molay explained. ‘Done by an Italian artist. The goldwork alone is worth the profits of this manor. But come, Sir Hugh, we have more to show you.’

Corbett left the chamber. De Molay made the door secure and Branquier closed the wooden partition before leading him along the gallery and up some steps. In the stairwell at the top, two soldiers guarded a flight of stairs to what must be the garret. De Molay told them to stand aside. He unlocked the door, ushering Corbett inside. The room was long, rather musty, a small oval window at the far end just above a makeshift dais on which stood a wooden altar with candlesticks at either end.

‘Look around,’ Branquier taunted Corbett.

‘There’s no need to,’ Corbett retorted. ‘It’s as bare as a hay-loft.’

He glanced up at the slanted ceiling and, through chinks in the tiles, glimpsed the sky beyond. He walked towards the altar, noticing the two cushions on the floor before it. He picked at the wax on top of the table.

‘There’s nothing here!’ Branquier snapped, but he looked uneasy, as if frightened to be here.

‘So why is it guarded so securely?’ Corbett asked.

Branquier, startled, opened his mouth to reply. De Molay, however, was quicker.

‘Sir Hugh, you are so suspicious. We are the Templar Order. We have our own rites and rituals.’

‘You have a fair enough chapel downstairs.’

‘True. True,’ the grand master replied. ‘But go to any religious house in York: Cistercians, Carthusians, the Crutched Friars, Friars of the Sack. They all have their own private chanceries and chapels well away from the public gaze. This is what happens here.’

‘For everyone?’ Corbett asked.

‘No, no,’ de Molay replied. ‘Only Sir Richard and myself. We have reached that stage of development in our Order.’

De Molay kept in the shadows, his face turned away. Corbett intuitively knew he was hiding something, but what else could he say? He’d asked his questions and de Molay had replied.

‘Grand Master.’ He walked to the door. ‘I thank you for your courtesy. This morning my servant left the king’s gift of wine in your kitchens.’ He smiled over his shoulder. ‘A poor token compared to the trouble I have caused.’

Corbett left the garret but turned half-way down the stairs.

‘Oh, by the way, Grand Master, did anyone leave Framlingham Manor last night?’

‘Apart from the servants who fled, no. The rest of our community are under strict orders: they are not to leave Framlingham.’

Corbett thanked him and returned to his quarters. Ranulf and Maltote were deep in conversation with Claverley over the intricacies of spoilt dice and how easy it was to cheat at shuffle penny.

‘We are leaving,’ Corbett announced briskly. ‘Maltote, get our horses ready. Ranulf, collect my cloak and swordbelt, I’ll meet you down at the stables.’

‘And you, Master?’

‘I want to see Brother Odo. Oh, by the way, Claverley,’ Corbett called out as he left. ‘Whatever you do, don’t play dice with Ranulf or buy any of his potions!’

A Templar serjeant showed him to the library: a long, high-vaulted room at the back of the manor house overlooking the garden. It was pleasant and cool. Books filled the shelves along all the walls; some were chained and padlocked, others stood open on lecterns. At the far end were the study carrels each built into a small portico containing a table, chair, a tray of writing implements and a large, metal-capped beeswax candle. At first Corbett thought the library was deserted. He walked slowly down, his footsteps echoing through the cavernous room.

‘Who’s there?’

Corbett’s heart skipped a beat. Brother Odo emerged from the shadows where he had been poring over a manuscript: his one good hand was covered in ink.

‘Sir Hugh, I did not know you were a bibliophile.’

‘I wish I was, Brother.’

Corbett shook his hand and the librarian led him into one of the study carrels.

‘All these books and manuscripts belong to the Templars,’ Odo explained. ‘Well, at least to its province north of the Trent.’ He fingered his ink-stained lips and looked round wistfully. ‘We lost so many libraries in the East. We even had an original of Jerome’s commentary. . but you haven’t come to ask me about that, have you?’

He jabbed a finger at a stool next to his chair. Corbett sat down self-consciously and stared at the manuscripts littered across the desk.

‘I am writing a chronicle,’ Odo announced proudly. ‘A history of the siege of Acre and its fall.’

He pulled across a piece of vellum and Corbett stared at the drawing: Templar knights, distinctive by the crosses on their cloaks, were defending a tower; they were throwing spears and boulders down at evil-looking Turks. The drawing was not accurate, it lacked proportion — yet it possessed a vigour and vibrancy all of its own. Underneath, written in a cramped hand, was a Latin commentary.

‘I have done seventy-three pieces,’ Odo announced. ‘But I hope that the chronicle will include two hundred; a lasting testament to the valour of our Order.’

A piece of parchment fell off the table. Corbett picked it up. There was writing on this but it was strange and twisted. Corbett, fluent in Latin and the Norman French of the Royal Chancery, thought it might be Greek.

‘What language is that, Corbett?’ Odo teased.

‘Greek?’

Odo grinned and seized the parchment.

‘No. They are runes, Anglo-Saxon runes. My mother’s name was Tharlestone. She claimed descent from Leofric, Harold’s brother, who died at the Battle of Hastings. She owned lands in Norfolk. Have you ever been there, Corbett?’

The clerk recalled his recent, and most dangerous, stay outside Mortlake Manor the previous November.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘But perhaps it was not the happiest of visits.’

‘Well, I was raised there. My mother died young.’ The old librarian’s eyes misted over. ‘Gentle as a fawn she was. No other woman like her: that’s probably the reason I entered the Order. Ah well,’ he continued briskly, ‘my grandfather raised me. He would take me fishing on the marshes. I still do that now, you know: I have a little boat down near the lake. I call it The Ghost of the Tower . Anyway, whilst Grandfather and I were waiting for the fish to bite, he’d scratch out the runes on a piece of bark and make me learn them. See that letter there like our “P”? That’s “W”. The arrow is a “T” and the sign like a gate is “V”. I make my own notes.’ He plucked the parchment from Corbett’s hand. ‘So no one really knows what I am doing.’ He smiled. ‘Ah well, how can I help you?’

‘On the day Reverchien died,’ Corbett asked, ‘did you notice anything amiss, anything wrong?’

‘No. Both Sir Guido and I were pleased when the grand master and his commanders left. Framlingham went back to its usual serene ways. We went round checking stores, I spent most of the time here in the library. We met in church to sing the Divine Office. He had a good voice, Reverchien, slightly higher than mine. We thundered out the verses then supped in the refectory. The next morning, just after Matins, Sir Guido went on what he called his little Crusade.’ He shrugged. ‘The rest you know.’