The Awful Secret by Bernard Knight

Author:Bernard Knight [Bernard Knight]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2013-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

In which Crowner John hears some awful news

Next morning, Thursday the seventeenth day of March, was cold and blustery. Yesterday’s promise of spring had been a mockery, typical of the western parts of the Isles of Britain.

Odin was having his hoofs checked in the farrier’s forge, so after an early bowl of hot broth with bread, de Wolfe went up to the castle on foot. A gusting west wind whipped at his worn cloak and threw occasional spots of rain at his face as he loped up to Rougemont. The covers over the street stalls rattled against their frames, the pedlars and tradesmen huddling inside their mantles and capes as they waited for their customers to brave the elements.

As he walked, he welcomed the absence of complaint from his leg, which now seemed virtually back to normal, both in strength and lack of the nagging ache that had been there for so many weeks. He ruminated on the previous evening, when he had spent a dull, but uncontroversial few hours with his wife, in front of their hearth. For once, she had no religious devotions to attend and they ate their supper in relative peace. He had no desire to go down to the Bush as he knew that Nesta was attending some meeting of Exeter inn-keepers at the Guildhall, to discuss the rising cost of barley and its effect on their ale prices. Since the poor harvest of the previous year, and the huge demand for grain made by the king to supply his army in France, the price of many staple foods was increasing. This added to the disgruntlement of the already overtaxed population, which de Wolfe feared might encourage Prince John to start plotting again against his absentee royal brother.

The rising cost of living was one of the topics of a rather stilted conversation between Matilda and himself, as they sat in front of the fire after their meal. He opened a jar of wine and, under its influence, they relaxed a little – lately, Matilda had seemed increasingly partial to a few drinks. The talk inevitably turned to Gilbert de Ridefort and John had told his wife of the discoveries of Thomas about Abbot Cosimo and the arrival of the three Templars the previous day. She appeared genuinely concerned for the knight’s safety and had admitted grudgingly that de Wolfe had been right in hiding him away down in Stoke-in-Teignhead. Not only that, but she added some information of her own, gleaned that day from the inquisitive parishioners of St Olave’s, which was within a few hundred paces of the priory of St Nicholas.

‘You say that one of the knights was Brian de Falaise,’ she said, ‘and I was told that the others are called Godfrey Capra and Roland de Ver.’

John had never heard of this last knight, but he had a slight recollection of Godfrey Capra, who had been at the big meeting in Gisors. This was the so-called ‘Splitting of the Elm’, which

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