The Prophecy of Death: (Knights Templar 25)

by Michael Jecks

  He had always been fond of this part of the country. The land was glorious, excellent for orchards and grain, and providing lush pasture for horses and cattle. And at the edges, perfectly maintained woods and copses. It was a fine example of a modern agricultural business.

  Of course, it had been his mother’s until recently. She had been given it by his father as a mark of his respect for her, and she had quickly altered it to suit herself and the needs of her household, which meant making it suitable for children. John, Edward’s younger brother, was born here, and the girls always loved it too. Which was the sad thing now, with all of them away. It made the palace quiet. Quieter than it should have been. If he could, Edward would have had them all back – but his father had decreed that the others should all be looked after elsewhere, and Edward missed them.

  Not too much, however. He was almost thirteen, an earl in his own right, and he didn’t need to rely on girls and his mother to keep him happy. He was a man.

  It would be good to see them all again. To hear their laughter in the solar, his mother’s happy voice with that very French laughter in it as she played with them. He missed her too.

  But he was a royal earl, and he had responsibilities that others wouldn’t understand. For one thing, he was born to the prophecy, and he must live with that. The prophecy said that he would be another Arthur, the Boar from Cornwall, and it was a very daunting prospect, to follow in the footsteps of the greatest King England had ever known.

  Canterbury

  Baldwin’s first indication of danger was the sudden movement at the gate.

  The traffic entering a city was always predictable. There were streams of men and women entering by the main gates all through the day, while another roughly similar number left. Those entering in the morning were pedlars, tranters and other traders who had goods to sell, or carters bringing produce in from the lush countryside all about. Those leaving were the men and women who had work in the suburban areas, or travellers who had rested a night in the safety of the city’s walls. Later in the day the streams reversed themselves. The tradespeople, carters and sumptermen all making their way home, in various degrees of drunkenness, while those who had been at work outside made their way back to security. And travellers like Baldwin hurried to get in before the gates closed.

  Yes. It was all predictable and regular, like the ebb and flow of the tide. But tonight there was something wrong. The stream of people walking to the gates had snarled up, and there was a tangle of men and women crying out. As Baldwin watched, he saw a flash, and knew in an instant that it was an unsheathed blade.

  ‘My Lord Bishop, there is danger ahead,’ he called quickly. ‘Simon, there’s a fight. I’ll wager those two pushed all from their path and the locals have set on them!’

  ‘Fight there may be, but I do not relish a rest in the open all night,’ the Bishop grunted. ‘We may, possibly, press on and meet with the people at the gate? Viens! Allons-y!’

  Baldwin looked at Simon, who muttered a heartfelt, ‘Shite!’ and then the two clapped spurs to their mounts and hurried off, trying to avoid the hounds who, seeing the horses beginning to race, joined in with gusto.

  The road here was a dog-leg. A stand of trees at the wayside blocked their view for a moment. They rode past a great abbey – St Augustine’s, Simon was later to learn – and after this, the road took a sharp turn to the right, following the abbey’s outer wall. Now they could see the mess at the gate, and hear the shouting. Two men were plainly fighting. Simon could see one of their mounts rearing, while the fellow beat down with his sword, although whether he was slashing at an attacker, or merely knocking a fool on the pate with his pommel, Simon couldn’t tell.

  Now they were taking an equally sharp left turn, and making a straight line for the city’s eastern gate, the Burgate. It was a run of only maybe a hundred yards, but now it was crammed with people shouting and screaming, and in the midst of it were the Bishop’s two men-at-arms, their arms flailing, and as Simon came closer, he could see that their blades were red with blood.

  ‘Christ!’ Simon swore. ‘Do you see them?’

  Baldwin had no need to answer. There were three people on the ground at the feet of the two horses, two with bloody heads, and both the Bishop’s men were retreating towards the edge of the road, where a fence prevented their escape, and were looking about them with angry nervousness, as well they may, for there was a ring of rough-looking men about them, four carrying pole-arms as though they knew how to use them, two more with ash staffs, and more rushing to their side with knives and clubs.

  ‘Come, Simon!’ he called, and galloped to them.

  It was almost too late. He saw a whirling flash of silver, and one of the Bishop’s men was lucky not to have his throat slashed wide by the razor-sharp weapon. It was only by clashing his sword against the staff’s length that Pons managed to save himself, deflecting the bill’s blade up and over his head as he ducked. His companion was less fortunate, and as Baldwin reached them, the lance held by one of his opponents tore a deep gash along from behind André’s temple to the back of his head, behind his ear. He gave a loud bellow of pain, and would have ridden the lanceman down, but bill and lance were too well paired. Even as he crouched to spur his mount, the bill came down to point at his breast. Were he to move, he would skewer himself on the point.

  ‘Stop this! Stop in the name of the King!’ Baldwin roared as he approached.

  It was enough to distract one pole-arm. A man turned and faced Baldwin with his lance pointing dangerously towards him. ‘Halt!’

  Before the others could turn, the mass of hounds and dogs was on them, barking and bouncing all about. The men with pole-arms could do little but beat at them with the butts of their staves, trying to push them away or club them. One or two blows connected – one in particular aiming a kick at Baldwin’s favourite dog which made him spur his horse onward.

  ‘Stop!’ Baldwin bellowed over the row of howling and shouting. ‘These two men are on the King’s business and carry letters of safe-conduct. If you harm them, the King will have your heads! Stand aside.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  He was a short, pugnacious-looking man of about five-and-twenty. Dark, suspicious eyes met Baldwin’s, and the set of his thin mouth was determined.

  ‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, Keeper of the King’s Peace and member of the King’s Parliament,’ he said. ‘I am here to help protect a papal legate on an embassy to the King. An insult to the Pope’s own official is an insult to the King who gave letters of safe-conduct.’

  ‘That’s all pretty well, Sir Knight, but as you can see, your friends here have knocked three people down.’

  ‘This is not true!’ It was the injured guard. He held a hand to the flap of scalp which had been sliced wide. ‘We were trotting down here, when some arse threw something at us for riding past their line. I was struck by dung, and so was Pons here.’

  ‘We were both hit.’ Pons nodded, and turned his shoulder to demonstrate. On his flank there was a large mess of horse dung clinging to his tunic. ‘These fils de merde insulted us, and we retaliated. C’est tout.’

  ‘I saw these two wheel and ride down three people,’ the gate man said firmly. ‘That makes them felons unless the court decides that they were acting in self-defence.’

  ‘This was no premeditated attack,’ Baldwin said. ‘They were attacked and defended themselves. Did you see the initial attack?’

  ‘No.’ The man met Baldwin’s eye for a moment, then slid away.

  Baldwin had seen that look in a man’s face before. It was not outright dishonesty, but a wariness caused by knowing a little too much, a little more than a man should have to.

  ‘Very well,’ he said after a moment. ‘I suggest this. Your name?’

  ‘I am Adam Cook to my friends.’

  ‘Very well, friend Cook. We are going to the Priory. I will wait for you there in the Prior’s guest rooms. We shall discuss this matter there. For now, it is more
urgent that you and your friends see to the locking of the gates than that we argue the matter here in the open.’

  Cook nodded slowly, ignoring the angry cries of the men and women queuing behind him. ‘Very well. Come along, get inside, all those who want to. We lock the gates as soon as it is dusk.’

  Baldwin nodded, and trotted forward as the Bishop reached them, gazing down and studying the three bodies on the ground as he went. His dog sniffed at them with apparent confusion, as though not understanding what they were doing lying in the road, until a stone was thrown at him. He yelped, glancing about him as though hurt, before following his master, who absently made the sign of the cross as he rode past the bodies.

  It was another festering English city, the Bishop thought as he rode under the gates.

  If only the Pope had managed to persuade another to come here and take on this mission, but it was not possible. There was no one else with such a good command of the barbaric language these peasants spoke. Other ambassadors had suffered from that. The English would tend to go into huddles and discuss matters in their own tongue, which often left the Pope’s men at a disadvantage. With such important affairs to negotiate, it was important that the best emissary was sent.

  And there was the Queen, too. There was no one else who could be sent to speak for her. She was, as the Pope had said, ‘an angel of Peace’. She knew how to deal with her brother, and appeared to have some influence with her appalling husband. It must have been a terrible existence for her, in this miserable, grey, country, acting as bed-mate to a king who showed her scant regard. Poor woman.

  It was a great pity that she was not the ruler of this land. The people were ferocious, unruly, disobedient, and entirely without dignity. They would brawl at the slightest insult, the lot of them, churls, peasants, farmers, whores, lords and earls. There was no sense in any of them. Obstinate and foolish. And cold.

  The knight in his guard-party was one of the worst, too. Cold, unsmiling, taciturn … he clearly had no liking for the Bishop, as though the Bishop had done something to deserve his enmity. But the Bishop had never met the man before, so far as he could remember. No, this Sir Baldwin was just another typical example of an English ‘gentleman’.

  The worst of them, naturally, was the one from whom all the ridiculous behaviour stemmed. A king who sought the companionship of peasants, who tested himself against hedgers and ditchers, who preferred the company of play-actors, dear Heaven, and who preferred to avoid the barons of his own land. He was intolerable!

  It was fortunate indeed that no man thought him to be competent in his role as King. His failures in battle, his failure as a husband, his failure as a human, made him the laughing stock of all other lands. If he were to lose any more respect, he may even lose his crown among such a turbulent people.

  That was a possibility to be desired. And it was why he was really here, of course.

  ‘Sir Baldwin.’

  Baldwin turned to see Cook, the city porter, at the door.

  They had been here in the priory long enough to divest themselves of their dirtier clothing, time to see that their horses were well treated, to grab a flagon of wine and drain it, and to choose the best area for sleeping on the rough floor.

  ‘Master Porter.’

  ‘No, no porter. Just an honest cook who’d prefer to be in his kitchen than defending the city against miscreants.’

  ‘The men you stood against were indeed rash, but not miscreants. If a man were to throw ordure at me, I, too, would deprecate his behaviour.’

  ‘Enough to murder three? Who are those men? They didn’t sound English.’

  ‘There was no murder here, Porter. Only a chance affray. But to answer you, the pair of them are Frenchmen, I think.’

  ‘Will they be here long?’

  ‘If you will permit us, we shall ride from here tomorrow early. We have to ride to the King.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do what I can, but I promise nothing. Those who died will hardly be missed, they were just peasants,’ Cook said with a dry smile that held no humour. He was not amused, but trying to explain to a knight how the land lay. If Baldwin was truly in the party of an emissary of the King, it was best he was not delayed or provoked. ‘But there are some hotheads who’d prefer to see some semblance of justice, even if they were all unimportant.’

  ‘No man’s life is unimportant,’ Baldwin said. ‘If I could, I would deliver the fools to you, but I have need of them to continue to defend my Lord Bishop. Without them, we are too few.’

  ‘The city could present you with some replacements?’

  ‘What would happen to these two?’

  ‘They’d be held for the coroner. That will have to happen whatever may pass. You know the law. This was a slaughter on the road. We have a duty to hold an inquest and see what the jury says.’

  ‘Very well. I shall inform the Bishop and see what he desires,’ Baldwin said.

  Cook nodded, then gave a short grin before leaving. It was enough to make Baldwin feel a little unsettled as he walked over the floor to the door on the opposite side. He had clearly failed to overawe Cook.

  Beyond the door was a little chamber which had been set aside for the Bishop’s men. The Bishop of Orange was himself in the prior’s hall. Baldwin had only been seated a short while when an anxious-looking monk arrived with the message, asking Baldwin and Simon to go with him to the abbot’s lodgings.

  ‘What does he want with us?’ Simon grumbled, regretfully eyeing his jug of wine as he stood.

  ‘He wishes to discuss the murder, I think,’ the monk said.

  It didn’t make Simon feel any better about leaving his wine.

  Chapter Seven

  Coroner Robert was waiting in the Prior’s hall. The Bishop sat at table, noisily dismembering a chicken and paying the prior and coroner no attention while the prior introduced them. As Simon said to himself, though, the man hardly spoke any English. It was no surprise that he was silent.

  The Coroner of Canterbury had met enough knights and King’s officers in his time. It was his firm belief that there were only a few different types. They all fell into one of three categories, and he was perfectly capable of recognising them all. There were those who were set upon personal aggrandisement, seeking money at the expense of all others; those whose sole ambition was to have power; and those, a form of reptile like the repellent Despenser, who wanted both at the same time. Coroner Robert had no time for any of them. Yes, in his experience all men fell into one of the three, and he wondered idly into which category these two fell.

  ‘You are a keeper?’ he asked of Baldwin. Hearing the response, he nodded to himself. If he had to bet, this was one of those who sought power. Clearly the other one, the former bailiff, was after money. You could see that by looking at the two of them. The better dressed, albeit with the stains and mess of the roads on his clothing, was the former bailiff, while the knight was quite shabby-looking. He clearly didn’t have any care for fashion. Presumably, the former bailiff was looking to improve his treasure so he could maintain himself in the style he enjoyed, while the knight was merely power-hungry.

  Satisfied with his conclusions, the coroner felt a vague disappointment. It was a common experience for him nowadays. Everyone could be slotted into one of the three sheaths he had seen. The King was not powerful enough to control the rampant ambitions of his nobles, and in the free-for-all that was modern politics, everyone was out to grab what they could. Even when the coroner had, generously, given someone the benefit of the doubt, hoping that the fellow would not fit into the sheath of greed or power, he had, unfailingly, been disillusioned later. Now he preferred to see the worst from the first moment. It saved trouble later.

  ‘You are investigating the three?’ Baldwin said. ‘I am glad to see you take your job so seriously as to come here this late to investigate, Sir Robert.’

  ‘We are not so populous that we can afford to lose three men without noticing,’ Sir Robert said sharply.

  ‘I
would not have thought so,’ Baldwin said with a smile. ‘I respect you for your diligence, though.’

  ‘Thank you. Now, these two who killed them. They are here in the priory?’

  ‘They will go nowhere.’

  The Bishop of Orange’s words were the first the coroner had heard him speak, and he was startled for a moment. Then he bowed stiffly and thanked him. ‘I am glad to hear it.’

  ‘But I will have them with me in the morning when I leave.’

  ‘My Lord Bishop, that is difficult. I have a duty to investigate the deaths of the three outside the city gate, and—’

  ‘They are my guards. They must leave with me. I am on an urgent embassy to your King, and the guards fall under the protection of your King. They were set upon and attacked by a small mob. They defended themselves. That is all you need to know.’

  ‘With respect, my Lord Bishop, the law of my country says that I have to investigate and record the facts. And if I discover that the men were guilty of murder, I have a duty to have them held until the next court is held to hear their case.’

  ‘That is not possible. My men answer to me, and I will not have them left behind.’

  The coroner’s hackles were rising. ‘My Lord, they must be kept here until my inquest. After that you may – may – be permitted to take them with you.’

  Baldwin interjected. ‘Coroner, I think that the only issue here is the urgency of our mission to the King. If there is any means of speeding the inquest, so that it could be held in the morning, would that satisfy your need for justice and the Bishop’s need for haste? After all, it is to be hoped that the two will not be found guilty of deliberate murder. There was clearly no premeditation here, nor was it some secretive assault under cover of darkness. It was two nervous men who were assaulted, just because they were riding to the gate on the orders of the Bishop. The locals deprecated their temerity at hurrying past, and they tried to defend themselves against apparent attack.’

  ‘So you say. I do not know until the jury meets.’