‘Some time ago, in recognition of our Order’s service to God, and His pilgrims in the Holy Lands, the Pope granted us exclusive access to the ancient Temple of Solomon within the precincts of Jerusalem. In recent times, as the pestilence ravaged Jerusalem, our brethren discovered within its crypt —’
‘Saints save us,’ said Edmond. ‘I pray this is not yet another tale of the elusive Holy Grail and its dark magics!’
There was a subdued twitter about the table, and Hugh shot Edmond a black look.
‘It is not, my lord king,’ he said.
‘Then reach your point speedily,’ said Edmond, ‘for I have better things to do than settle about this fire and listen to Templar tales all day.’
Hugh took a deep breath, and I could see he struggled to control his temper.
‘Then if I may be blunt,’ he said. ‘What my brothers found scrabbling about in the temple’s crypt was an imp from hell.’
There were gasps and murmurs about the table, and I froze. Eventually, once my initial shock was passed, I risked a glance at my husband — his face was impassive.
‘This vile imp was searching for something,’ Hugh continued. ‘One of our brethren, braver and faster than the others, seized the imp before it had a chance to vanish, and he threatened it most menacingly with his sword and demanded of it what it sought. It hissed, and spoke many foulnesses, but eventually my brethren learned it searched for a crown of some description. Our brothers learned no more from the imp, for so soon as it spoke those words it disintegrated into a vile-smelling pile of decomposing flesh.
‘Our brethren dug, they sifted the rubble from one end of that crypt to the other, but they could find nothing. Most certainly nothing resembling a crown. In the end we thought no more of it and continued our aid to those crusaders caught in the grip of the pestilence until, God be praised, the pestilence speedily moved on.’
Hugh paused to take a sip of wine, and Edmond tapped his fingers on the table in irritation at this delay.
‘No doubt you wonder how all of this is connected, my lord,’ Hugh said to Edmond. ‘I will say so, but will make my account brief, lest I try your patience further. Our Order in Jerusalem did not connect the two concurrent horrors, imp and pestilence — both of which occurred at the same time — until someone informed Pope Innocent II. He then called to his presence our new Grand Master, Robert de Craon, and told him a most terrifying tale.’
‘Which you are doubtless about to tell us, eh?’ Edmond said.
His ill-temper was growing by the moment.
Hugh inclined his head.
‘Innocent told de Craon that, many years ago,’ Hugh said, ‘before even the time of the Viking attacks up and down the coasts and rivers of Europe, a monk vanished from among his small order of brethren in the wilds of Anatolia. Greatly disturbed in his mind, but of powerful vision, the monk made his way down to hell, from whence he stole the Devil’s favourite diadem. The monk returned to this mortal world, where he wandered for years carrying the diadem, listening to its fateful whisperings. Eventually, maddened, he hid the diadem just before his death.
‘We, both Innocent and the Templars, believe that the Devil now wants his diadem back.’
‘Is that what the imp searched for within the Temple?’ Wincestre asked.
‘Aye,’ said Hugh, ‘we believe so. We think this monk must have hidden the diadem within the Temple’s crypt, the Devil had discovered this fact, and sent his imp for it.’
‘And so who has this diadem now?’ asked my husband. ‘I imagine, that once confronted with a tale of such a powerful and rich icon, you have searched everywhere for it.’
Hugh gave a small smile. ‘Well, my lord of Pengraic, we believe that, likely only quite soon before the imp searched for the diadem, someone else found it and removed it from the Temple precinct. Where is it now? Well, we have some idea, but the Devil had none. Thus he sent the pestilence onward to sniff out its location.’
There was a loud murmur about the table.
Again I glanced at Raife. His face remained impassive.
‘My lords, hear me out,’ said Hugh. ‘We have deduced all this from a number of careful observations, and I would like to lay them out before you. My lord king, this concerns your realm, and it concerns your highest magnates, so do not toss me that impatient glance again lest you want your realm to vanish entirely!’
For one moment I thought Edmond was going to thump his fist on the table and shout at the Templar master, perhaps even have him expelled. Edmond’s fist clenched, his face tightened and flushed, but he collected himself and gave Hugh the smallest, tightest nod possible.
‘My lords,’ said Hugh, ‘let us leave the matter of the diadem momentarily and discuss this plague. It began in the land of the Ghaznavids, where it tormented the people, and then spread rapidly into the Holy Lands. From there, as you all know, through the lands of Europe and then into this realm.
‘But this plague did not travel like other pestilences. It followed a narrow path, devastating towns and hamlets in a thin corridor that led from the Holy Lands, through the Byzantine empire, the Germanic lands, northern France, Normandy and then to England. Everyone outside of this slender path has been spared. What other plague has spread this way?’
No one answered him.
‘And once it entered England,’ Hugh continued. ‘What did it do? Again, that relatively narrow path across the southern and central parts of your realm, Edmond. As if it were following a scent. It travelled in a straight path.
‘Straight to Pengraic. Where it stopped.’
‘What do you intimate?’ said Raife. ‘That I have been harbouring some devilish —’
Hugh held up a hand. ‘If you please, a moment, my lord. Now the plague has reoccurred. How is it travelling? May I ask?’
‘It is travelling from Pengraic straight toward London,’ said Richard, Edmond’s son.
Hugh smiled, staring right at Raife. ‘Ah. It is travelling in a direct line from Pengraic right toward London.’
‘It is following the earl?’ Edmond said, his voice thick with disbelief.
‘I believe not,’ said Hugh. ‘I think, as does my Brother Fulke here, that it is following the earl’s wife, the Lady Maeb.’
Raife sprang to his feet, thumping a fist on the table as he did so. ‘What new accusation is this cast at my wife? Eh? You asked her here under false pretences, monk!’
Hugh spread his hands. ‘Hear me out. None of this made sense to us, until I arrived in England recently and Brother Fulke here told me that final piece of information which did make sense of everything.
‘A few months before the pestilence and the Devil’s imp’s arrival in the Holy Lands, one of the Order’s sergeants, Godfrey Langtofte, left both the Order and the Holy Lands and returned to his native country.’
I felt cold.
Hugh gave a slight shrug. ‘Sometimes we lose people back to the sinful life. It happens. At the time we thought nothing of it, and I had continued to think nothing of it until I arrived here in London and Brother Fulke informed me of both the path of the plague here in England, and of the identity of the Earl of Pengraic’s new wife.’
He paused, and I looked at the table top, unable to look at him or anyone else about the table.
‘The Lady Maeb,’ Hugh said. ‘Godfrey’s daughter.’
I closed my eyes momentarily at the sudden buzz of murmuring.
‘What are you saying?’ Edmond hissed through the low voices.
‘We think now that someone found the Devil’s diadem within the crypt of the Temple of Solomon, and stole it, fixated by its beauty. We believe that person to be Godfrey Langtofte — he is the only member of our Order in Jerusalem at the appropriate time, who had access to the Temple, and whom we cannot account for. That he fled Jerusalem with little reason given to us is damning. As is the fact the plague trails at Langtofte’s daughter’s heels, from one side of this realm to the other, town by town as she rides through, and then back again. It does not deviate.
‘Lady Maeb’s father stole the Devil’s diadem from the crypt within the Temple at Jerusalem,’ Hugh said again, his voice as calm as if he discussed the clouds in the sky, ‘then brought it to England, where he gave it to his daughter Maeb before he died. As the pestilence follows her every move, then Lady Maeb must have the diadem.’
‘I have not!’ I said, looking to Raife for support.
He was gazing at me with an unfathomable look. Sweet Jesu! Did he believe this?