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?'
`Yes.'
`Well, it seems Miss Tennyson was convinced the cross was a modern forgery, and in the midst of a rather violent argument with Childe, she seized the cross and threw it in a lake.'
She was aware of him watching her intently. `What a strange thing to do,' she said, keeping her voice level with effort.
He frowned and came to take the seat opposite her. `Are you all right, Hero?'
`Yes, of course; just tired.'
`Perhaps, under the circumstances, you're doing too much.' He said it awkwardly; the coming babe, despite being the reason for their marriage, was something they never discussed.
She made an inelegant sound of derision. `If by the circumstances you are referring to the fact that I am with child, let me remind you that gestation is a natural occurrence, not a dread debilitating disease.'
`True. Yet I do take special care of my mares when they are with foal.'
At that, she laughed out loud. `I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted by the comparison.'
The corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement. `Oh, flattered, definitely.'
Their gazes met, and the moment stretched out and became something intimate and unexpected.
She felt her cheeks grow warm, and looked away. `How did you come to learn of Gabrielle's confrontation with Childe over the cross?'
`Lieutenant Arceneaux told me.'
`Arceneaux? Now, that's interesting.' She picked up the sheet of parchment she'd discovered and held it out to him. `I found this with Gabrielle's papers.'
`Bid me to weep, and I will weep,' he read, `while I have eyes to see.' He looked up at her. `You know the poem?'
