‘It is not in the carts,’ Kirkpatrick explained, seeing Hal’s bewilderment, ‘nor is it on the ship, which Guillermo suspects and will have confirmed. Widikind—’
‘Brother Widikind has said nothing,’ Rossal interrupted sharply. ‘Else Guillermo would know the truth of matters. He is no fool, all the same, and will work to the meat of it in the end. Even without Brother Widikind.’
Hal heard the bitter sadness in his voice and realized that de Bissot already considered Widikind as dead. Worse occurred to him as he recalled the German’s halting last words.
‘The others have been taken,’ he said. ‘We have no ship, then, and if we have a treasure as you say I cannot see how it is to be got to this Ruy Vaz, nor the weapons all the way back to King Robert.’
He stopped, seeing Rossal and de Villers scramble out of their black priests’s robes, so that they stood in white undershirts, each with a small red cross on the breast. Rossal hauled out a leather pouch and handed it to Kirkpatrick.
‘The treasure,’ he declared solemnly, and leaned closer, so that his next words were low and hissed.
‘Ordo ex chao,’ he said and Kirkpatrick took the pouch, nodded and stuffed it inside his own tunic.
‘It is my task to get to Ruy Vaz,’ he said lightly, grinning at Hal and Sim. ‘It is yours to get back to the coast and find out what has happened to the Bon Accord. De Grafton is the traitor who nearly did for Somhairl.’
He broke off and shook his head in genuine sorrow.
‘He has fallen a long way from grace. He may well now have thrown in his lot with Guillermo and his sister. Whether de Grafton has shackled himself to her or not, he is an agent of the English, I am sure of it.’
‘Christ betimes, how are we to achieve any of this?’ roared Sim, scrubbing his head with confusion. ‘You have contrived to fasten us up in a prison, Kirkpatrick.’
‘Mind yer station, ye moudiewart,’ Kirkpatrick replied, his wry smile balming the sting of it. ‘I hope you are as clever at getting down a long drop as you are at scaling one, Sim Craw. I will need your belts and those black robes, for we do not have one of your cunning ladders.’
De Villers returned, grim and spade-bearded, to tell them he had muffled the bell with his own small clothes, cut the long bell rope and refastened it securely.
‘It is short,’ he replied tersely and Hal knew what they were about to do, for he had seen the commanderie, perched on the edge of a ravine: the belltower rope would lead to the base of the rock it was built on and then there would be another drop, a good ten ells, to the bottom of the brush-choked ravine. A man could break every limb in such a fall. A man could break his head.
‘The belts and cloth strips should make the difference,’ Kirkpatrick said cheerily and Hal looked at him; they were three men past their prime for hand-over-hand descents down makeshift ropes and his look said it all.
Almost all. Sim, as ever, had his own thoughts on the drop and the dark.
‘God be praised,’ he declared piously and crossed himself.
‘For ever and ever.’
Rossal came to Hal, looming sudden as a wraith.
‘Brother de Grafton’, he said, his French soft and sibilant, ‘was released into the care of Sir Henry Percy after the Order was proscribed in England and all Templars arrested. It is possible that he has renounced his vows to God in favour of King Edward, but probably works only for Percy. De Grafton was the only one of us who did not know the truth of the Templar treasure. Like this Guillermo and his sister, he believed that the wealth was boxed and in our carts.’
Hal nodded, frowning and trying hard to keep pace with it all. Guillermo, if he had any sense at all, would wonder where the boxed treasure had vanished. If not here, or on the ship, it could only have been spirited away on a rest halt and that under the eyes of the escorting knights.
Rossal nodded at this, his smile a sardonic twist in the dim.
‘De Grafton will know by now, for he is of the Order. He may even tell Guillermo the truth of it, though I am sure he will look for his own advantage first. If he does not tell, Guillermo will be left wondering. We are the Templars, after all, who worship Baphomet and have strange powers. Who is to say what spells such magi could cast on the eyes and minds of men? Or even on gold.’
‘If you have one to make us fly, now is the time to conjure it up,’ Sim Craw growled. ‘Better still, turn us invisible.’
‘God be praised,’ Rossal answered, cross-signing Sim’s blasphemy away.
‘For ever and ever,’ Hal intoned frostily, glaring at the unrepentant Sim. Then he looked at Rossal. ‘Mark you, he has a point – Guillermo is not so much of a fool that he will have forgot to have the tower surrounded.’
‘Not down in that ravine,’ Kirkpatrick answered, bustling up. ‘Mak’ haste – we have little time.’