Enguerrand rounded upon him with flashing eyes.
“Saint Euphemia is not sacred in their tradition.The relic has no power for her.She meant to sell it,” the Templar hissed.“It was for the coin that she wished to have it.”
“Then why would she not have stolen it in Venice or in Paris, where such a prize could be more readily sold?”Fergus argued.“There are no buyers with fat purses in Galloway in search of relics, and if there was one, he or she would not buy from a Saracen woman.”He shook his head.“There is no reason for my wife to have taken the reliquary.”
“Yet she did.She had the keys!”Enguerrand snapped his fingers.“Perhaps she intended to extort coin from us!”
“You have no coin,” Fergus pointed out.“Being sworn to poverty and chastity.”
“But the order is wealthy beyond compare,” the Templar said with fury.“This must be her scheme.Summon your infidel wife and demand her price!”
“Have you not considered that someone else might have wished to blacken Leila’s reputation by making it appear that she had taken it?”
“She is an infidel,” Enguerrand said.“What reputation has she to defend.”
It was difficult for Fergus to keep his temper.“Yet she is my wife and has some authority by dint of that.”
“Who would care?”
“I have an idea, but I would like to be sure.”Fergus arched a brow.“What of your witness?”
“I care little for treachery in your household.I care more for the relic entrusted to me.”Enguerrand pounded his fist upon a table.“Where is the prize?”
Fergus heard a tap upon the door.He opened it to find his father in the portal, his expression grim.He gestured for that man to enter, then closed the door again.
“What is missing from the treasury?”his father asked and Enguerrand started.“It is evident from Agnes’ comments in the hall that you expected some prize to be secured here, and your expression now reveals that it is missing.What was it?”
Enguerrand said naught.
“The reliquary of St.Euphemia,” Fergus told his father.“We were entrusted with it at the Temple in Jerusalem, and I was charged to bring it here for safekeeping.”
“Yet is it not safe!”Enguerrand said.
“Ah!”Calum said, taking a seat and nodding at Enguerrand and Yvan.“Now I understand your presence in the company.”
“On the contrary, the reliquary is quite safe,” Fergus said, much to the knights’ astonishment and his father’s interest.“We discovered the theft soon after it occurred, and later the hiding place of the prize.The reliquary has been moved to a new location.”
“Where?”Enguerrand asked.
“It is safer if no one else knows.”Fergus bowed to his father.“I apologize, Father, for not confiding in you sooner...”
“It is of no matter, my boy,” that man said calmly.“A secret is better defended if fewer know it.”
“This is outrageous...”Enguerrand sputtered but father and son ignored him.
“The girl provoked him to search for it,” Calum said.“And knew its dimensions.”He raised his gaze to that of Fergus.“Which means she knew your secret.”
“Aye.We believe she stole it on the day I showed Leila the holding.”
“But she said she saw her lady with it the day before,” Yvan declared.
“A lie.Leila had the sole key to the treasury that day.”
“Until you had the silversmith copy them and gave a set to me,” Calum said.
“And when we returned from that ride, Leila smelled the girl in the solar.”
His father chuckled.“Saracens and their sharp noses!”
