The Grail Murders (23 page)

The fellow grasped the unresisting Rachel and pushed her out of the hall. Mandeville glared back at Santerre.

'I will now search this house,' he barked, 'beginning with your daughter's chamber!' And swept out of the room.

'Roger,' Benjamin whispered, 'come with me.'

He hurried out of the hall. The soldiers were already putting manacles around Rachel's wrists. Her face was marble-white, Even then I knew she was determined not to become the plaything of the London mob.

'Mistress Rachel,' Benjamin asked, ignoring Mandeville's protests, 'is there anything we can do?'

She forced a smile and shook her head. Mandeville pushed her further down the gallery.

'Sir,' Benjamin intervened, 'the woman is your prisoner, there is no need for such rudeness.'

Rachel shrugged off Mandeville's hand and looked once more at Benjamin.

'Ever the gentleman, Master Daunbey. I am sorry about last night. I was ordered not to touch you.' And without explaining that enigmatic remark further, she allowed the soldiers to lead her away.

Benjamin and I walked back into the hall. Lady Beatrice was sobbing hysterically. Sir John Santerre looked an old, beaten man.

'Master Daunbey,' he pleaded, 'what shall we do?' Benjamin climbed on to the dais and leaned over the table.

'You have interests abroad, Sir John?' Santerre nodded.

'And gold with the Antwerp bankers?' Again the nod.

Benjamin looked at Lady Beatrice. 'You knew, didn't you?'

The woman's thin face was a mask of terror. 'I couldn't stop her,' she whispered hoarsely. 'When I married my husband, I knew the legends, the stories, the whispers.' She glanced round the deserted hall and glared at Santerre. 'I hate this place!' She spat out the words. 'I asked Sir John to burn it to the ground but Rachel played him like a piece of string around her finger. She could always do that! Templars, ghosts, curses - and now we shall answer for it with our lives!'

'Sir John,' Benjamin replied briskly, 'there are secret entrances and passageways out of Templecombe, are there not?'

Sir John nodded. 'Yes, yes,' he said absentmindedly.

'Then, sir,' Benjamin declared, 'I would collect up all that is valuable, leave immediately, get to the coast and put as much distance as you can between yourself and the King's fury. It's your only chance,' he persisted. 'Otherwise the King's lawyers will spin their web and have you hanged at Tyburn. You'd best go now.'

Benjamin straightened up as if he was listening carefully. 'Your servants are wise, Sir John. They have already gone. I suggest you do likewise.'

Chapter 14

We left the hall and I became aware of how true Benjamin's words were. We wandered into the scullery. The fires had been doused and only a half-witted spit boy sat smiling amongst the ashes. Outside in the cobbled yard the story was the same; ostlers, grooms, stable boys, all had fled. (Looking back there was nothing singular in that. I had been to enough great houses where the lord had fallen from royal favour and it's eerie how quickly the word spread. The effect was always the same: desertion and flight.) The only sounds were the soldiers hurrying along the corridors.

Sir John and Lady Beatrice left the hall and slipped like shadows up the stairs. Benjamin was right. For the moment Mandeville was concerned only with Rachel but, once more soldiers arrived, Sir John and Lady Beatrice would be arrested. Old Henry would have little compassion for them.

'Come,' Benjamin muttered, 'let us ride out the storm in your chamber.'

We walked up the stairs. The soldiers were already breaking into rooms, intent on full-scale pillaging. The chamber servants had also disappeared and I marvelled how quickly this stately mansion was collapsing in chaos. I was all agog with curiosity but Benjamin refused to say anything until I locked my chamber door behind us.

'Did you always know it was Rachel?' I asked.

'No, I had a nu
mber of suspects. They included
Mandeville and Southgate and Sir John Santerre and his wife. But I suppose murder has its own logic and everything pointed towards Rachel.' He ticked the points off on his fingers. 'The scarlet cords, the easy access to gunpowder in Templecombe's cellars, the litheness and suppleness of the assassin in the Templar church, as well as the young woman's movements both on the night Cosmas died and when we discovered Damien's body in the chapel.'

'But how did you make her confess?'

'Ah!' Benjamin lay down on the bed and stared up at the rafters. 'That, my dear Roger, will have to wait until our return to London. But for the moment, let us be patient and wait a while.'

He closed his eyes and I was left to twiddle my thumbs whilst all around us I could hear the sound of breaking doors and the running steps of soldiers. Mandeville came up to render grateful thanks, though he had the look of a vindictive hunter.

*I cannot find Sir John or Lady Beatrice,' he stated.

Benjamin hardly moved.

'Do you know where they are, Master Daunbey?'

'Oh, for God's sake, Sir Edmund, you have found your quarry and the King will have Templecombe and its estates. If the Santerres have fled, let them go!'

Mandeville shifted from foot to foot. 'The King will hear of this.'

'His Grace the King will also hear of our great industry in this matter,' I taunted back. 'If it had not been for Master Daunbey, who knows where this would have ended?'

'How is Mistress Rachel?' Benjamin asked.

'Cold, distant and unrepentant.'

Benjamin rolled over on the bed, resting his head on his hand. He looked up at Mandeville. 'She is not to be harmed. No brutality or violation.' Mandeville looked away.

'Sir Edmund, I want your word on that, or I promise you this - the Lord Cardinal will get to hear of it! Sir Edmund,' Benjamin insisted, 'you owe me something.'

'You have my word,' Mandeville muttered. 'She will be given food and drink. Tomorrow morning she will be taken to London.' He moved to the door then suddenly turned back. 'Southgate will be left here with some of the soldiers until my return when I will root out this nest of traitors!' He left, slamming the door behind him.

We stayed in my chamber most of the day. A soldier brought up some badly cooked meat and a jug of wine after which I walked along the gallery. The cloths and tapestries had been wrenched from the walls whilst in the hall every precious object had been removed. The kitchens were pillaged, the soldiers were even defecating and relieving themselves in the corners of rooms, whilst some heartless bastard had shot two of the greyhounds. Templecombe now looked as if the French had landed and the manor been turned over to pillagers.

I wandered out into the chill night air, wondering if I should visit Rachel Santerre and ensure that Mandeville was keeping his word. Behind me I could hear the sound of breaking furniture, the shouts of soldiers and the stench of cooking fires. Even I, a professional thief, felt sickened at the wanton vandalism. I was half-way between Templecombe and the chapel, about to turn back, when a dark shape stepped out of the bushes.

'Master Shallot! Master Shallot! For the love of God!'

I looked round. No soldiers were present so I moved into the shadows to meet Mathilda.

'It is all over?' she asked.

'Yes. The Santerres have
fled. Mistress Rachel is Mande
ville's prisoner.'

The girl bit back a sob. I remembered the icy waters of the lake and seized her by the shoulders.

'You could have killed us!' I hissed.

She looked up fearfully. I could tell by her white face and staring eyes that she did not know what had happened.

'What do you mean?' she whispered.

'Nothing,' I replied. My hands fell away. 'Did you know that Rachel Santerre was the leader of the Templar coven?'

The girl shrugged.

'We suspected but nothing was proved. Sometimes we met on the island but the master was always hooded and cowled. Orders would be issued, instructions about what we had to do.' She licked her lips and stared fearfully over my shoulder towards the house.

'We were told you were not really our enemy, Master Shallot. I was asked to know you better.' She moved a little closer. 'What will happen to us?' she pleaded.

'By now,' I replied, 'Sir John and Lady Beatrice should be on board ship bound for foreign parts. Mistress Rachel is to be taken to London.'

'And us?'

Tell your people to flee. Put as much distance between themselves and Templecombe as possible, your father especially.'

'Where can we go?' she wailed.

I glimpsed the terror in the poor girl's face and realised she had simply been a tool. They had all been used by Rachel Santerre for her ancient order. I loosened my money belt (oh, yes, where I went, it went) and counted out ten gold coins, a veritable fortune, then slipped a small jewelled ring off my finger and pushed it all into her hands.

Take your child,' I said, 'and your father, and within a week follow Sir John and Lady Beatrice abroad. I cannot do more for you.'

I walked back to the house, feeling as brave and courageous as Hector.

'Roger!'

I turned and glimpsed Mathilda's white face in the shadows. 'You should go,' I repeated.

They said you were a rogue but you have more honour than any of them. Goodbye, Roger Shallot!'

I saw the shadows move, Mathilda disappeared and I walked back into the house. Now, naturally, with so many light-fingered bastards about, I decided that the best course of action was to recoup my losses with Mathilda. I grabbed whatever took my fancy and walked back to my chamber with a jewel-encrusted cup plucked from the fingers of a drunken soldier. After all, the labourer deserves payment and I wanted to show a little profit.

Benjamin was lying on my bed snoring like a child so I walked back along the galleries. Mandeville was frenetically trying to re-impose order whilst at the same time preparing for a quick departure to London the following morning.

'Are you and Daunbey returning with us?' he snapped.

'Must we?' I asked.

He shrugged. 'That is a matter for you. It is important that I take my prisoner to London and report direct to the King.'

'May I see Mistress Rachel?' 'Why?'

'I wish to take my farewells.'

Mandeville looked at me suspiciously.

'My master has ordered me to,' I lied glibly.

(Do you know, when I was young, I looked my most innocent when I was lying through my teeth?)

'She has been moved from her own chamber,' Mandeville retorted, 'to one of the cellars beneath the hall. She is being well looked after.'

'My master is the Cardinal's nephew,' I added.

Mandeville pulled a face and shrugged. 'Come! I will take you there.'

The passageways beneath the hall were lit by torches and guarded by Bowyer's soldiers. We stopped before an iron-studded door.

'Open it!' Mandeville ordered.

Inside the cellar smelt musty though, even in that dark forbidding place, I still caught the tang of Rachel's perfume. The woman herself sat on a trestle bed: she looked composed, even serene, and smiled as I entered.

'Good evening, Master Shallot. You have come to gloat?'

Mandeville slammed the door behind me and turned the key.

'A place for a princess, eh, Shallot?'

I looked round the gaunt chamber. A cresset torch flickered high on the wall and tallow candles dripped their smelly wax on a shabby table.

'Stolen from the stables,' Rachel explained, catching my glance.

I took a stool from beneath the table and sat opposite her. Though pale and tired, she quickly assured me that she was being well looked after. She had been fed and was free from molestation. Mandeville had even withdrawn the guard from sitting in the cell with her.

They check me every so often.' She laughed. 'But there is nothing I can do. The only embarrassment is when I go to the latrines but I think the soldiers are more concerned about their plunder than they are about me. I suppose Mother and Sir John have fled?'

I nodded.

'I thought as much.'

'Why did you do it?' I asked.

She shrugged and looked over my shoulder at the candle flame.

'The Templars have always existed,' she replied. 'And Templecombe is their home. In here now, Roger, I feel their ghosts pressing around me, applauding what I did.

Mandeville and those bastards murdered Buckingham, and that fat slob in Westminster wishes to put his greedy fingers on the most precious relics in Christendom.' She shrugged. 'It was just a matter of planning.' 'But all those murders?'

'They deserved to die. Your master is most astute. Warnham and Calcraft were easy: two drunken agents full to the gills with ale as well as the evil they had committed. Cosmas and Damien?' she smiled. 'They were cleverer than you think. They were the ones who forged the letters which purportedly came from Buckingham.'

'And Mistress Hopkins?'

She looked away.

'And the old witch?'

'She served her purpose. If I could buy her, then so could Mandeville. She had to be silenced.' Rachel giggled like a young girl who had carried out some childish prank. 'I tried to warn them. I really thought Mandeville would panic and leave. He didn't so Bowyer and Southgate came next.'

'And the Grail and Excalibur?'

She shook her head. 'God knows where they are.' She looked at me under lowered eyebrows. 'Perhaps your master will find them?' She grasped my hand. 'Whatever happens, Henry Tudor must not have them! Promise me that?'

What could I do? The girl looked so pleading, I forgot she was a malicious, cold-blooded killer and gave her my word that I would do what I could.

'What will happen to Templecombe?' Rachel murmured.

'Everything ends,' I replied. 'The King will seize the manor and give it to some favourite. Who knows? Sir John may return, buy himself a pardon.'

'I don't think so,' Rachel replied. 'They will not come back here.'

She swung her legs off the bed and sat so close to me our knees touched. I stared into those strange eyes and knew that, despite her cool demeanour, her feminine wiles and cloying beauty, Rachel wasn't sane. I was soon to find out why.

'Neither Santerre nor my mother will come back here.' She caught my hand. 'I am not playing games. You see, Roger, my father was a Templar. He loved Templecombe and passed his secrets on to me. Sir John was his friend. He often visited us here and my mother, who feared Father's mysterious ways and his close relationship with me, plotted his murder.'

'How?'

'My father was killed in a riding accident. Don't you remember when Bowyer's body was brought back my mother became hysterical because my father had been killed in the same way? All I did was copy what she had done. The horses made more fiery, the spurs tinged with mercury . . . Your Master suspected that. It was one of the things he whispered to me when he led me away from the rest in the hall. He said that if I confessed, he would ensure that Lady Beatrice and Santerre paid for their crime.' She laughed and rubbed her hands together. 'Exile in foreign parts is punishment enough.'