The Assassin King

Rain started to fall in a thin mist as Anna and Oliver made their way north towards Lincoln, just heavily enough to stir the BMW’s wipers from their slumber. ‘You know where King John’s treasure is?’ frowned Oliver, pulling up at a crossroads to let a blue removals truck pass by. ‘Are you saying it’s not beneath your uncle’s fields?’

‘I am, yes,’ said Anna.

‘So those silver pennies weren’t part of it?’

‘No. They were.’

He shook his head as he pulled away again. ‘You’ve lost me completely. Talk to me like I’m four.’

‘It was those schoolkids running around Newark Castle that gave me the idea,’ she told him. ‘Because they weren’t looking for real Civil War treasure, were they? They were looking for clues that had been planted there for them to find. It set me wondering. We’ve all been assuming that Uncle Dun returned home last Sunday night to find Gregory Scott digging a hole in his field. But what if it was the other way around? What if Scott surprised my uncle? And what if he was digging that hole not to find those coins, but to bury them instead?’

‘But…’ Oliver fell silent as he thought it through. ‘You’re saying your uncle found those pennies elsewhere? Then brought them home to plant?’

‘It was all the research he’d been doing for your programme, I expect,’ nodded Anna. ‘Rereading his old books and pamphlets, talking arsenic and Brother Simon with Royston. It told him where to look. So he drove over there last Sunday. He took a bunch of photographs with his drone and spotted something that led him to those coins. Now what? It had all happened too quickly for him to get permission from the landowner. Under English law, that would have meant he got nothing. In fact, he’d have been guilty of trespass and theft. How unfair would that have seemed, after all his work? Yet there was still a way for him to profit.’

‘By taking the coins home,’ murmured Oliver. ‘By planting them in his field.’

‘Exactly. That way, when he “discovered” them again, not only would he be entitled to their full value, he’d virtually double the value of the farm – especially if he found them while you were there filming. Can you imagine the excitement that would have generated?’

‘And you know where this was?’

‘I think so, yes,’ said Anna. ‘If I’m right about the other part, at least. Because St Maur wouldn’t just have needed a small army to hijack the baggage train, he’d have needed a place to stash it too. And wouldn’t it have solved both those problems if there’d been a major Templar property nearby manned by hundreds of well-trained knights loyal to him rather than to the king?’

‘We passed the turning for a place called Temple Bruer about five minutes back. It’s where the Templars trained for the crusades. It was also by far the richest Templar property outside London – even though no one’s ever been able to work out why.’

‘And you think this is why? King John’s treasure?’

‘It would explain it, wouldn’t it?’

‘What about all those coins being from the Lynn mint?’ frowned Oliver. ‘You said that sounded like a private cache.’

‘I did, yes,’ admitted Anna. ‘But now I think I was wrong. Or, at least, that there’s a different possible explanation. Let’s say you’re the boss of Temple Bruer. There’s a brutal civil war going on, but you’re too busy training knights for the crusades to care much about that. Then one day the leader of your order sends word that a baggage train stuffed with Templar gold is about to set off across the Wash, and charging you with taking as many men as you’ll need to seize it. It all goes swimmingly. You bring your booty home. But it’s not over yet. One careless mistake and you’ll all be for it. That holds true even after John dies. His son Henry III is still young, sure, but he’s quite capable of taking revenge if you’re foolish enough to start tongues wagging by splashing inordinate numbers of Lynn pennies around. And it’s hardly an imposition. You have barrels of the damned things from other mints. So it becomes second nature, when taking out a handful to spend, to toss the Lynn ones back.’

‘I’m sure it’s our best prospect. Because there’s one other thing. Uncle Dun had various excavation reports out on his desk, including one from Temple Bruer back in the 1830s. It was led by this colourful local vicar who claimed to have found a string of underground chambers between it and the next village along, a place called Wellingore. He also claimed to have found evidence of child sacrifice and live burials, so everyone wrote him off as an anti-Templar crank, especially as nothing remotely like that has ever been found since. But what if it wasn’t all bullshit? What if he really did find some kind of underground network?’