Sebastian said, Were you romantically involved with her?
Winthrop looked genuinely startled by the suggestion. Good God, no! I m practically old enough to have been her father.
Sebastian shrugged. It happens.
Not in this instance. There was nothing of that nature between us. We were friends; I respected her intelligence and knowledge and the strength of her will. If my own daughters had lived, I like to think they would have grown up to be like her. But that is how I thought of her as a daughter.
From what Sebastian had learned of Miss Tennyson, she was the kind of woman who tended to intimidate and alarm most men, rather than inspire them to admiration. But there were always exceptions.
He said, I m told Miss Tennyson sometimes drove herself out here in a gig. Is that true?
Sometimes, yes. She didn t do it often, though. Winthrop gave a soft smile that faded rapidly.
When her brother complained about her habit of taking the stage, she said she always threatened to take to driving herself instead.
But she did drive herself out here Saturday evening?
She did, yes.
Do you think it is possible she drove herself out here Sunday, as well?
I suppose it s possible.
The wind gusted up again, fluttering the weathered strips of cloth on the rag tree. Sebastian said, What else can you tell me about Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville?
Winthrop frowned. Mandeville? The sudden shift in topic seemed to confuse him.
I understand he s said to haunt the island.
He is, yes. Although the local legend that claims he drowned in this well is nonsense. He was killed by an arrow to the head at the siege of Burwell Castle miles from here.
Where is he buried?
At the Temple, in London.
Sebastian knew a flicker of surprise. So he was a Knight Templar.
The association is murky, I m afraid. They say that the Knights Templar came to him when he lay dying and flung their mantle over him, so that he might die with the red cross on his breast.
Why?
That is not recorded. All we know is that the Templars put de Mandeville s body in a lead casket and carried him off to London, where his coffin hung in an apple tree near the Temple for something like twenty years.
A lead coffin? In a tree?
That s the tale. He d been excommunicated, which meant the Templars couldn t bury him in their churchyard. Those were dark times, but there s no denying de Mandeville was an exceptionally nasty piece of work.
Those were the days when men said openly that Christ slept and his saints wept, said Sebastian softly, quoting the old chroniclers.
Winthrop nodded. In the end, the Pope relented. The edict of excommunication was lifted and the Knights Templar were allowed to bury him. You can still see his effigy on the floor of the Temple today, you know.
Unusual, said Sebastian, if he wasn t actually a Templar.
It is, yes.
And the belief that his treasure lay at the bottom of this well?
Winthrop was silent for a moment, his gaze on the muddy hole the well had now become. Tales of great treasure often become associated with sacred sites, he said. The memory of a place s importance can linger long after the true nature of its value has been forgotten. Then those who come later, in their ignorance and greed, imagine the place as a repository of earthly treasures.
You think that s what happened here?
Unfortunately, there s no way of knowing, is there? But the association of Camelot, the Templars, and the tales of lost treasure is definitely intriguing.
Intriguing? said Sebastian. Or deadly?
Sir Stanley looked troubled. Perhaps both.
Hero spent the rest of the morning sorting through the stacks of Gabrielle Tennyson s books and papers, looking for something anything that might explain her friend s death.
She couldn t shake the conviction that the key to Gabrielle s murder lay here, in the piles of notes and translations the woman had been working on. But Gabrielle s interests had been so wide-ranging, reaching from the little-known centuries before the Celts through the time of the Romans to the dark ages that befell Britain following the collapse of the Empire, that wading through her research was a formidable undertaking.
It was when Hero was studying Gabrielle s notes on The Lady of Shalott that a loose sheet of paper fluttered to the floor. Reaching down to pick it up, she found herself staring at a handwritten poem.
Bid me to weep, and I will weep
While I have eyes to see:
And having none, yet I will keep
A heart to weep for thee.
Bid me despair and I ll despair,
Under that cypress tree:
Or bid me die, and I will dare
E en Death, to die for thee.
Thou art my life, my love, my heart
The very eyes of me,
And hast command of every part,
To live and die for thee.
Hero leaned back in her seat, her hand tightening on the paper, the breath leaving her lungs in a rush as a new and totally unexpected possibility occurred to her.
Chapter 29
Hero was curled up with a book in an armchair beside the library s empty hearth, a volume of seventeenth-century poetry open in her lap, when Devlin came to stand in the doorway. He brought with him the scent of sunshine and fresh air and the open countryside.
What happened to your sling? she asked, looking up at him.
It was in my way.
Now, there s a good reason to stop wearing it.
He huffed a soft laugh and went to pour himself a glass of wine.
Did Gabrielle ever mention an interest in Druidism to you?
Druidism? Good heavens, no. Why on earth do you ask?
He came to stand with his back to the empty fireplace. Because it turns out that she went back out to Camlet Moat at sunset the night before she died, to watch Sir Stanley enact some pagan ritual at an ancient sacred well on the island. Drove herself there, in fact, in a gig.
You can t be serious.
I wish I wasn t. But Rory Forster saw her there, and Sir Stanley himself admits as much.
What was Forster doing at the island at sunset?
According to Rory? Retrieving a forgotten pipe and hiding in the bushes. Although I suspect it far more likely that he went there with the intent of digging for buried treasure and was perplexed to discover he wasn t going to have the island to himself that night.
Treasure?
Mmm. Buried by either Dick Turpin or a Knight Templar, depending upon which version one believes. Exactly a week before she was killed, Miss Tennyson stormed into Cockfosters and publicly accused Rory of ripping out the lining of the island s sacred well.
In search of this treasure?
Devlin nodded. According to the legend, Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville hid his ill-gotten gains beneath the bottom of the well, and his spirit is supposed to appear to frighten away anyone who attempts to remove it. But his ghost must have been asleep on the job, because I checked, and someone recently made a right sorry mess of the thing.
You say she confronted Rory a week ago Sunday?
He drained his wine. The timing is interesting, isn t it? That s the day she was out there with Arceneaux. Then, just a few days later, she drove out to Gough Hall and had a stormy argument with Bevin Childe. She was a very confrontational and contentious young woman, your friend.
Hero smoothed a hand down over her skirt. So you spoke to Bevin Childe?
I did. He claims to have discovered something called the Glastonbury Cross amongst Richard Gough s collections. I m told it s the cross that was said to have marked the graves of King Arthur and Guinevere at the abbey. Have you ever heard of it?