pithy sentences and promptly began his interrogation of each of them.
'How long have you served here?' 'Does the word "Templar" mean anything to you?' 'Did anyone approach the chapel yesterday afternoon?'
The servants were good but simple people, local peasants who simply shook their heads and stared wide-eyed at this powerful lord from London. Nevertheless, I admired Mandeville's skill for, as he questioned, I caught the unease of some of them. Nothing really significant: a flicker of the eyes, a slight paleness of the face. Answers given too quickly and too readily. Mathilda herself was very ill-at-ease, shifting from foot to foot. Mandeville sensed this and closed like a hawk for the kill.
'You are the linen maid?'
Mathilda nodded.
'Aren't you curious about these strangers staying in your master's house?' She shook her head.
'So you have not abused your position by searching our belongings?' Mathilda's eyes flickered quickly towards me. 'No, Master,' she murmured.
'I can vouch for that,' I exclaimed. 'The girl didn't know I was in my room when she was changing the linen. She's the complete opposite to me, Sir Edmund, honest as the day is long.'
Benjamin looked strangely at me but a ripple of laughter lessened the tension and Mathilda was dismissed. The others came up. Mandeville asked the questions, or sometimes Southgate. Occasionally, to show his power, the sheriff would try to hector, though Mandeville kept him firmly under control. At last it was finished but before the servants were dismissed, Mandeville ordered their quarters to be searched. Sir John and Lady Beatrice vehemently objected to this, so Benjamin offered to supervise the soldiers and ensure it was not used as a pretext for theft or pillage.
This search, like the questioning, proved fruitless so Mandeville brusquely dismissed the servants. I watched them leave, paying particular attention to Mathilda and how she held the arm of a grizzle-haired, thickset man who appeared to be her father. I noticed he had a slight limp; I recalled the attack on me the previous day and the wounds I had unwittingly inflicted, but decided to keep the matter to myself. After that we made a thorough search of the chapel, its walls, flagstones and altar, but there was nothing. We even looked under the ancient stalls the Templars once sat in, and I confess (as is the wont of old Shallot) I did little work but spent most of the time admiring the brilliant carvings on the misericord of each stall. The first three enthralled me: a man, miserably clutching a winding frame, being birched on the buttocks by his wife; a tapster drinking; and two peasants disembowelling a slaughtered pig. Each carving was a breath-taking picture in itself. Benjamin came over to join me.
'The Templars,' he declared, 'would come into the stalls and raise the seats. The carvings were placed on the reverse, not only for ornamentation's sake but to make the seats heavier.' He grinned and pointed to the woman birching her husband. 'The local craftsmen always enjoyed themselves, depicting scenes far from sacred.'
Mandeville, however, had finished his search which proved just as fruitless as the previous day's and told us to leave. We all moved out of the church down to the lake which glistened brightly, though the island itself was still mist-shrouded. A number of barges were hidden in the trees along the lakeside and Mandeville and Santerre ordered these to be brought together. They were cleaned of frozen mud, made ready, and we all clambered aboard, Bowyer's soldiers poling us across.
God be my witness, that island was the most mysterious I had ever visited. It was damp, cold, eerie and uncanny. The trees were too close together and the snow-covered gorse seemed to have a life of its own, blocking our passage with its thick stems. We struggled through, soaking ourselves to the skin.
'Have you noticed anything?' Benjamin breathlessly whispered. He stopped and looked up at the tangle of gaunt branches above him. 'No birds here! No rooks, no crows, nothing at all!'
I stopped and listened, straining my ears for any sound above the crashing of the soldiers or the muttered curses as men slipped on the icy ground underfoot. This raucous noise only seemed to emphasize the ominous silence of the island and reminded me of a story I had heard from a traveller who claimed to have sailed the Western Ocean and come across islands inhabited by ghosts of dead sailors. I shivered and muttered a curse. Mandeville and the others had now drawn their swords and were cutting their way through. The Agentes, in particular, seemed to be affected by the oppressive mood of the island and were taking out their fears in the hacking blows of their swords.
At last we reached a clearing and the desolate building we had glimpsed from the shore. It was of yellowing sandstone with a dark, red-tiled roof, no windows but thin, trefoil arrow slits in the walls. The iron-studded door was padlocked. Santerre apologised, he had no key, so Southgate hacked the padlock off and kicked the door open. We walked in and torches were lit. Believe me, the sombre atmosphere of that place seemed a living thing which clutched the heart and dulled the spirit. Nothing in particular, just a yawning emptiness, a cold chilling air which had little to do with the ice and snow outside.