Dispensation of Death: (Knights Templar 23)

by Michael Jecks

  Earl Edmund frowned. ‘You are sure of that?’

  ‘Nothing is so uncertain as life in a royal court,’ Piers said with a chuckle. ‘But let me put it to you like this: if there is one thing the Despenser would not care for, it would be for the Queen to go to France with the King. The King trusts Despenser, not his wife. But she has borne him children, and were she to have his ear for a long journey, Despenser might find his star beginning to wane …’

  Jack was at the river as soon as the light faded. The sun began to set when he was sitting in the tavern on the road west, and he finished his drink at a leisurely pace. There was no point getting there in daylight, and letting all and sundry see him.

  The view was unchanged from the previous night. He squatted down happily enough, eyeing the guards on the walls, and carefully watching at the base of the walls to see whether there could have been a trap laid for him, but saw nothing to alarm him. Next, he walked to the bridge at the southern gate, and squatted again, staring fixedly at a point just above the bridge to catch any stray movements, listening with his mouth open for any strange noises – but there was nothing again.

  At last, when he was content that all was well, he committed himself. He crossed the little timber bridge.

  The wall to the Abbey reared up overhead, and he glanced up, feeling a curious sense of the height of the place, before carrying on along the base of the wall to the corner. Here he stopped and waited, all senses alert. There were steps along the upper walkway over his head, and he listened carefully as the man spat over the edge. A gobbet of phlegm landed on his shoulder, and Jack looked at it without distaste as it ran down his breast and upper arm.

  When the steps moved away, he crouched silently. The steel of the culvert was as rusted as he had thought, but it was still strong enough to make manipulation difficult. He must kneel and wrench at it to make it give enough to leave space for him to crawl inside. Working slowly so as not to attract attention, he was relieved when he heard singing begin, and with that he felt he could work a little faster. Being out here in the open was alarming.

  There was a snick as a post of steel snapped – and he froze at the sound. However, there were no running footsteps, no bellows for attention. Nothing. He pulled himself nearer and peered at the metal. The bar had a shiny section where the bright metal had broken from its fitting in the wall. He took mud and carefully smeared it over both gleaming edges, drawing in his breath as the sharp metal sliced into his finger. He ignored the stinging pain and continued. One bar was broken. Now he set to work on the next, waiting until that too was broken, and then smearing that with more mud, this time more careful not to cut himself.

  When all was done, he painstakingly withdrew the frame a short distance from the wall, and wriggled himself over it and into the drain itself.

  The drain, thank God, was not so noisome as it might have been. Recent rains had washed away much of the filth. Fortunately, the majority of the monks’ waste would have been captured in the cesspit, ready for spreading over their fields as manure. There were other places he had entered which had been a great deal worse. He wriggled his way along the short tunnel, and peered out into the main yard.

  There was a large building on his right, another directly in front of him, and the main Abbey buildings loomed monstrous and black against the sky in the gap between the two.

  A step. He slowly withdrew his head into the culvert before he could be seen, and listened intently. There: a man’s pacing up overhead. How had he not spotted the guard? Perhaps there was a trap set for him, and there were more men waiting here to catch him as soon as he tried to break in. But the steps moved on, and he began to breathe more easily.

  He took hold of his knife and made sure that it would move in its sheath, then he slipped out into the yard, sliding his back along the wall in the shadows. The walkway above him was not high, only about three feet over him, and reaching it should be easy enough. He saw that there were coils of rope and blocks of masonry stashed beneath it, as well as ladders. There had been a disaster of some sort, he reckoned, looking at the ravaged buildings. All to his advantage.

  The choice – to continue now, or to wait and reach this far again some other night. Better by far to get the matter over and done with, he decided. He glanced up at the walls again, and then made for the nearest coils of rope.

  On the rough palliasse set out for Piers near the King’s chamber, not far from Earl Edmund’s snoring body, the adviser totted up the money he had been paid so far.

  He didn’t understand the game Sir Hugh le Despenser was playing, but so far as he was concerned, the main thing was the money, and that was reaching him regularly. For now, Sir Hugh wanted the King to view the Queen as a potential representative for him in France. However, the King had listened to Despenser when he had poured verbal poison into the King’s ears about his wife. Queen Isabella was disloyal, treacherous. She could not be trusted.

  Earl Edmund had been telling all who would listen that she was loyal and would be a worthy ambassadress – and all would remember his words if anything were to go wrong while the Queen was over there in France. Meanwhile, the King was reflecting that his brother the Earl of Kent was a fool if he trusted the woman. Why? Because Sir Hugh was telling him quietly about all the Queen’s misdeeds even as Edmund spoke to her credit.

  No one else would have been so easily convinced that the Queen should be sent. But not many people were as gullible as poor old Edmund.

  Piers rolled over, well pleased with his progress so far. He had worked hard, and was beginning to see the rewards.

  There was the sound of cautious steps outside in the corridor, and he sat up a moment, alert, and then yawned and lay down again. It was only someone from the household – a squire seeking the privy, maybe; a page lost after too much ale. Nothing to worry about.

  Chapter Ten

  Thursday before Candlemas1

  Thorney Island

  Eleanor de Clare stood with her ladies-in-waiting while the Queen entered her chapel and knelt before the altar.

  These late-night visits to her chapel were deeply annoying to them all. There was no point to them, yet she insisted on coming in here and prostrating herself before the Cross. Eleanor had nothing against the correct displays of religious fervour; it was to be expected in a Christian. Yet these very loud and tearful visits were wearing, especially when her brat woke before dawn each day, demanding to know in that querulous little voice of his when he was going to see his sisters again. Acting like a baby when he was a big boy of eight. He ought to know his royal birth and behave accordingly. Even his sisters, aged two and four, would be behaving better than him, she thought.

  The priest yawned as the Queen continued to speak in Latin.

  ‘Oh, damn her!’ Eleanor hissed, but only quietly so that no one else could hear. The woman was so full of her own misery and self-pity, and yet she was all right. She was a Queen. She’d always have her life, be waited on hand and foot.

  Earlier, Eleanor had left her in the care of three of her maids, and had gone to the chamber where her husband had been placed. Of course, it was frowned upon for any woman to enter the separate area that was intended for the King’s household. As was normal, this household was entirely masculine. The sole feminine elements had always been the Queen and her maids, when she merged her own household with the King’s. Usually they would have a separate existence, though, as was natural. And most of her household too would be male, because all the key functions required men. The chaplains, guards, chamberlains and comptrollers. Wives were not allowed to materialise without the permission of the King. Usually that would mean that a wife would have to take a room nearby, and then her man could visit her when he required the payment of the marriage debt.

  Tonight, Eleanor wanted to see her man, and since he was one of the most powerful men in the country, she felt secure enough to walk along the corridors and enter the little chamber beside the Lesser Hall, where she knew he ought to be sleepin
g.

  Yet when she entered, he was not there. She went to his bed, and laid her hand upon it, but there was no one inside. Nor was it warm. Perhaps, she thought, he was still discussing matters with the King. There was another possibility, but she had always refused to consider that, and would continue to do so now. It was not the sort of thing she liked to think of, and things which were unpleasant in that way were always better ignored.

  The Lesser Hall itself was in darkness, and when she peeped around the old door inside, she saw ranks of servants asleep on their benches. It was possible that her husband was in the Great Hall, and she walked to it, but before she reached it she could see that it too was in darkness. They weren’t there.

  It was only as she made her way back to the Queen’s cloister that she glanced to her left and saw the lights blazing in the Painted Chamber, the King’s private rooms. On the wind she heard a low, sniggering chuckle, then a belly-laugh, and she closed her eyes.

  Now, standing in the chapel and watching the Queen, she could close her eyes again, this time to pray silently for God’s forgiveness. She should never have wished her husband to die for what he was doing. He was in there with the King on business, no doubt. It was wrong for her to assume that they were indulging in those unnatural acts again.

  The Queen was done. She stood, swaying slightly, giving Eleanor a feeling of grim satisfaction to know that at least the woman was suffering a little of the torment which she inflicted on her entourage. She must be exhausted, for she had to put her hand out for support, and the Chaplain took it, warily eyeing her as though fearing that his touch could hurt her. Then the Queen snatched her hand away swiftly, as though suddenly realising she had touched a man little better than a peasant, turned and left the chapel.

  Walking in her wake, Eleanor felt no need to speak, Queen Isabella knew what she was doing – knew that Eleanor was following her. She was in constant attendance, just like any chaperone – except in Eleanor’s case, the Queen could not send her away. The woman was with her every moment of every day, more gaoler than maid-in-waiting, and both knew it. As was proved by Eleanor reading all the Queen’s correspondence, and keeping the Queen’s seal. Even now, at this time of late evening, there were two maids before the Queen, another and Eleanor here behind her, and Alicia drawing up the rear. There was no let-up in the women’s watchful supervision.

  It was all at her husband’s command, of course. Sir Hugh said that he and the King were unable to trust the Queen any more. Isabella had shown herself to be unreliable, and the idea that she might pollute the minds of their children was too appalling to consider. So she must be contained, her children protected, while there was this present crisis with her brother in France.

  Eleanor knew all this, but it was still hard. She would have preferred to be at her own home, with her own children, and away from this miserable place. With her husband.

  There had been rumours, of course. Well, she had heard snide comments about the King from her own husband, back in the days when his infatuation had been with Piers Gaveston, that son of an upstart Gascon man-at-arms. They’d all talked about his friend – his sodomite friend. Hugh himself had been scathing and then, when the barons captured Gaveston and murdered him, his mood was exultant. Hugh had been a loyal friend to Lancaster at that time, and he had been given a role with the King to help control him. Much as Eleanor was monitoring his wife now.

  She didn’t know when it had all begun to change, when the King had started to exercise an unwholesome influence over her husband. At first it was nothing too overt. It was just that occasionally she would realise that their estates were grown again, with the acquisition of manors and lands which had been owned by the King’s enemies. Traitors were being discovered with ever more regularity, and each time their property was forfeit. Someone had to be given it, and all too often it was passed on to her husband.

  But it was not only that their wealth was growing. Hugh was frequently being called to advise the King, and had become a well-known political power in his own right; and as his wealth grew, so did his influence with all others in the realm. These days, Sir Hugh le Despenser was all-powerful …

  There was a sudden stamp of boots, a rattle as a candle was dropped. A door opened, and Eleanor heard a maid draw in her breath. Then there was a flash of silver and a loud scream, a scream that shivered its way down Eleanor’s spine, and made her want to turn and fly.

  She saw a sudden gout of blood, and heard another scream, which soon turned to a low sob and wail. A maid shoved past her, maddened with terror, a second had already fainted away, and Eleanor saw the other on the floor, writhing in agony, her belly opened with a long slash, while the butcher who had done it stood before them, his long knife slick with blood. The last lady-in-waiting pushed past, but this was Alicia, and she was thrusting forward, putting herself between the man and the Queen.

  Lady Eleanor felt sick; she wanted to vomit, but she was a de Clare. Instead, she shrieked at the top of her voice: ‘Guards! Guards, help! The Queen is attacked!’

  Friday, Vigil of Candlemas2

  London

  Simon had been looking forward to arriving in London. He had heard so much about this magnificent city, the greatest in the country, and was excited to think he would soon see it.

  They had made excellent time, so Baldwin said. Whereas a King’s messenger would average a good thirty to thirty-five miles a day, they had managed somewhere in the region of five-and-twenty, even without travelling on Sundays in deference to the Bishop. The weather had been moderate and clement for the time of year.

  However, Simon’s mood was lowered, even as they approached the city, thanks to the Bishop. Instead of feeling thrilled to see where the King dispensed justice and where the parliaments met most often, the Bishop’s foul mood was affecting him and everyone else in their little party.

  It had been bad from the moment that they left Salisbury. Bishop Walter had retreated into his shell, snapping at those about him and scowling at the countryside as though expecting an answer to some deep philosophical question, but finding none.

  Even at the various halts, it was clear that the Bishop preferred not to discuss whatever it was that was bothering him. He was a powerful man, and his guards and clerks all preferred to avoid him rather than endure his barbed retorts, which meant that Simon and Baldwin were left with him more and more as the others fled. Neither felt that they should leave their mentor entirely alone, so they paced along beside him, mostly enduring his silence, casting occasional glances at each other as they wondered how on earth to bring him out of himself.

  It was only as they reached Cayho3 earlier today – some six miles from London itself, he said – that the Bishop appeared to shake off some of his depression. He began to point out places he felt would interest Simon, but nothing could prepare the Bailiff for the magnificence of the sights which were to present themselves.

  ‘And that is Thorney Island,’ the Bishop said at last as they came through a small thicket and wood and paused on the great road.

  Ahead of them, Simon could see a great monastic wall about a large abbey church. Outside the wall was a broad river that had been converted into a canal, and as he watched, a small ship was navigating it. Behind it lay the great sweep of the Thames, with some few buildings on the opposite bank, but it was the other buildings behind the Abbey that caught his attention most.

  ‘Is that really a hall?’

  ‘It is the Great Hall,’ Stapledon smiled. ‘That is where the King meets with all his advisers and listens to their debates. Everything that affects the realm is decided in there.’

  Simon heard Baldwin clear his throat in an expression of cynicism but ignored his friend. He would enquire later why Baldwin rejected the Bishop’s words. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Those are the royal palaces. On the right is the Queen’s chapel and her cloister, then the King’s chambers and his own cloister is between there and the Great Hall itself.’

  Simon nodde
d, but could not keep his head from shaking in surprise. He had not expected a small city, but in effect that was what he was looking at. The Abbey and palace complex was a small enclosed community, and outside it were roads heading north, west and southwards, and on each of them was a thin straggle of houses and hovels, with their own little patch of garden. The northern road was the most impressive, though. Near the Abbey there were smaller properties, two- or three-roomed dwellings that would be sufficient for merchants passing by. Beyond them were much larger houses – places that would suit a Bishop or very senior courtier. As they marched up towards the north, where the river suddenly bent to the right, the sight there caught his attention, and he whistled.

  ‘That is London?’

  ‘That is London,’ the Bishop agreed. ‘The greatest city in the country.’

  Simon nodded, and his eyes were fixed upon it as they rode on to the seat of government in England.

  Thorney Island

  In the Great Hall, Hugh le Despenser grabbed the servant by the collar and pulled him towards him.

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t find him! I want my man Ellis here now!’ He flung the petrified man from him and kicked his arse for good measure as he scuttled away. Turning, he saw a guard. ‘Well – do you have any brilliant ideas about any of this?’

  ‘None, my Lord. I was not on duty last night.’

  ‘Have all the guards who were on duty been assembled?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want them all questioned for this … this …’ Before he could find the right words, he saw the woman at the doorway and motioned impatiently to the guard to leave him. ‘Your Highness, you have my deepest condolences for the loss of your maid.’

  Sweet Mother of God, he thought. This is all I need.

  When Queen Isabella walked in, her face might have been forged from steel, for all the emotion she displayed. Behind her was Eleanor, Despenser’s wife, and he threw her a look, but she merely raised her brows and shrugged in expression of her bewilderment.