The Grail Murders

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 Mandeville had even withdrawn the guard from sitting in the cell with her.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.'
    'One other thing,' I queried. 'What else did my master say?' 'Ah!' Rachel propped herself back on the bed. 'That's for Master Daunbey to tell you.' I rose and pushed the stool away. She looked up at me. 'What will they do with me in London?' 'Do you want the truth?' I asked harshly. 'The truth.'
    'They will torture you to find out the names of the other Templars, to see if you have solved Hopkins's riddle, and above all to obtain the name of your Grand Master.' 'I don't know that. And after?' I crouched beside her and stroked her gently on the cheek. 'The King is a bully. You will be burnt at Smithfield.'
    I saw the flicker of fear in her eyes but her gaze held mine.
    'In which case I must pray,' she said. 'Please, Master Shallot, ask Sir Edmund if I may have my rosary beads? The soldiers will not have touched them. They are old and battered, a present from my father. Please, I must have them.' I