The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover: (Knights Templar 24)

by Michael Jecks

  Ricard had glanced at Peter, who was standing at the open window staring out. He had looked back at Ricard and nodded.

  The man’s plan was straightforward enough. He would lose the bodies if the musicians did what they were told, but if they failed the law would soon be after them. They would never know peace again. They would become outlaw.

  It was Adam who had asked the obvious question. ‘What makes you think you could persuade people that we did these murders in a day, let alone a month or more?’ he scoffed.

  The man smiled with a sly confidence. ‘The glovemaker in there was a loyal servant of Sir Hugh le Despenser. He will be sure of your guilt, and your fate will be just as certain.’

  ‘You think you can tell him that? He’d as likely run you through. Sir Hugh le Despenser trusts no one,’ Ricard scoffed.

  ‘He doesn’t trust me, no. I am no friend of his. Still, he can’t hurt me.’

  That had been definite enough for Ricard. Everyone in the realm knew of Sir Hugh, the avaricious friend of the King. He was ruthless and determined. Any man who harmed him or his friends must look to his back. There was little safety when Sir Hugh became your enemy. And this fellow, whoever he was, had enough poise and assurance for ten. He was not joking. Just looking at him, you knew he was telling the truth. He knew Despenser. And he had men. This was no footpad.

  Now, sitting here and reflecting on that appalling meeting, it was Ricard himself who asked the question that was troubling Janin. ‘If he killed the man and his wife, then he’s not a friend to Despenser, is he? He said as much. A loyal Despenser man wouldn’t kill another Despenser supporter, would he?’

  ‘You think so?’ Peter Waferer said, his head low. ‘Despenser would kill his mother if he thought it’d win him a new manor. His men are the same. They think nothing of killing like this. No, you may be sure that he’s a man of Despenser, and that we’re all in danger now. Us, and my family. God! My wife! My children! How could this have happened?’

  ‘How can this be so, though? If he was really known to Despenser,’ Ricard said, ‘wouldn’t he have been at court? Surely you’d have seen him, Peter?’

  ‘Hah! Do you know how many men come through the palace gates every day? It’s a small city of its own, and I’m only a waferer, when all is said and done. I may wear the King’s tabard, but I’m a kitchen knave, and when I’m working I don’t see the faces of all the King’s guests. A kitchen knave is hardly best placed to study them.’

  ‘Well, keep your eyes open in case you do see him up there, in God’s name!’ Janin said, still very rattled. ‘We need to know who he is.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can learn,’ Peter said.

  ‘What can we do?’ Janin demanded. He looked to the leader of their group, then down at the lad standing in front of Ricard. He had taken up a little ball, and was rolling it experimentally over the floor, frowning intently.

  Ricard sighed and shook his head. ‘First, I suppose, we have to see whether we can wheedle our way into the Queen’s good books. Any ideas?’

  Château Gaillard

  It was much later when Jean stopped dead on the steps from the curtain wall, appalled by the sound of anguish from the tower.

  The scream was unsettling, but here in the château it was all too common to hear the demented shrieks of the imprisoned or condemned. The sound travelled widely about the great tower, shivering on the breeze, the only part of the prisoners that could escape the five-metre thick walls.

  There was something about this cry, though, that gave him pause. He had been strolling about the upper curtain wall, keeping an eye out every so often, but scarcely worrying too much. The land about here was pacified after a hundred years of French rule. No, his duty was to keep his eyes and ears open to the risk of an escape from within the prison.

  Now, even as he looked down into the main court area about the great keep, he could see the small party making their way from the stairs that led to the cells. There was a pair of guards in front, leading a tattered and thoroughly dishevelled woman. That she was one of the prisoners was known to him. He had seen her plenty of times before. With her shaved head and sackcloth tunic, she was the one whom the guards discussed with lowered voices. Someone had told him that she was a very important prisoner, but no one had elaborated on that snippet. For his part, he hardly cared who she might be. As far as he was concerned, if someone was here, it was because they had committed an offence which merited the punishment.

  There was a shriek, and Jean watched, dumbfounded, as the woman tried to drag herself free of her guards, but they gripped the manacles at her wrists and yanked her back towards the gates. In the poor light down there, Jean was unclear what happened, but it appeared that she was trying to go towards the chapel. Not that she could hope to succeed. The two guards were soon hurrying from the place, the woman dragging her feet between them, turning to stare behind her, wailing pitifully. It quite ruined any remaining vestiges of calmness which Jean had enjoyed.

  After the gate had been secured once more, the timbers dully thudding into their sockets in the frame, Jean moved away from the wall. It had been an unpleasant sight, that poor woman being dragged from this place of misery and incarceration. Even now he could hear someone else weeping in despair. No doubt another prisoner was mourning the loss of his freedom. As he descended the wall ladder, he was glad to leave the noise behind. And then, as he entered the outer court, he stopped.

  ‘Sweet Mother of God,’ he murmured.

  Before him, sprawled at the base of the wall near the chapel, Arnaud, the executioner and torturer, was sobbing uncontrollably.

  Queen’s chapel, Thorney Island

  Peter the Chaplain was happy that night as he polished the cross and then bent to sweep the floor.

  Brought here by John Drokensford, the bishop of Bath and Wells, Peter had been given the duty of chaplain to the Queen as a means of atoning for his crimes, but now he had the feeling that his services would shortly become unnecessary. Bishop John had intimated that soon his time here would be done, and perhaps a small church could be found for him not too far from Oxford, the place of his birth. That was enough of a reward for him. He would go there, grow vegetables, keep a dog, and honour and praise God every day.

  He finished his cleaning and made his way to his small chamber, where he took up a lump of cheese and slice of bread. He was chewing hungrily when a man arrived from the Queen.

  ‘You are wanted, Chaplain.’

  He swallowed and eyed the man with a passing coolness. ‘I’m eating. Nothing’s that urgent.’

  Nor was it. He had learned that if little else in the years since he’d killed his woman’s murderer.

  He had run away from his church with the wife of one of his parishioners, hoping that they would be able to hide themselves somewhere – perhaps even make their way to France and find a rural refuge there. And one morning Peter woke beside his naked woman to see her husband above them with a great sword. It swept down, and she died, but Peter wrestled the weapon from him and stabbed him again and again, the blood flying in a fine spray at first, then in filthy gobbets.

  Over the years he had grown to understand the depth of his own offence. Her death, her husband’s, both were on his hands. They were his responsibility. And fortunately Bishop John had persuaded him that he could find peace and salvation: first by protecting another innocent woman from her husband. That was why he was here at Thorney Island – he was trying to help Bishop John look after the Queen’s interests.

  ‘It is most urgent, she said,’ the messenger insisted. He looked near to tears.

  In the end, the chaplain took pity on him and set his bread aside for later. Walking swiftly, he went with the man to the Queen’s rooms.

  Later, he returned to his own chamber and stood a moment looking all about him with an air of sadness. He felt like a traveller who was about to launch himself on a desperately dangerous journey; one from which he might never return.

  He looked finally
at the lump of bread still sitting on the barrel. A corner had been taken by some rodent while he had been out. Rats were everywhere, even here in the King’s palace. He shrugged. After all he had just heard, he had lost his appetite anyway.

  Instead of sitting and eating, he went to the long chest in the far corner of the room. Here, under his vestments, he found his sword. It was the one which he had taken from the husband to kill him. The sword he had defiled with its owner’s blood.

  Now he drew it and hefted it in his hands thoughtfully. Soon he might be forced to use it again.

  Château Gaillard

  Later, when he stopped for a cup of hot wine at the brazier in the corner tower, Jean asked le Vieux about Arnaud and that scene after the woman’s departure. Le Vieux was the oldest warrior there, and easily the most experienced, which was how he had lost his left arm and his right eye. The empty socket appeared to gleam as he gazed up at Jean. ‘Him? Arnaud of the glowing tongs? Forget that bordello’s whelp.’

  ‘But he was so sad to see the woman leave.’

  ‘I would be too. There are few tarts in Les Andelys for a man like him. The torturer? Even the sluts would turn their noses up at the man who could later stamp them with the fleur-de-lys for doing what he wanted.’

  ‘He was rutting that bitch?’

  ‘Hah! You shouldn’t speak of the lady like that. Not where others might hear you.’

  ‘She was just a rich woman, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Not “just a rich woman”, no. She would have been our queen, lad, and don’t forget it.’

  ‘Mother Mary’s … And Arnaud loved her?’

  The old man shrugged emphatically. ‘When a man has sired a pup on a bitch, he will feel something for her, even if it’s not exactly love.’

  ‘He fathered a child on her?’ Jean said, aghast.

  ‘Aye. Poor thing died two weeks later, but it made him mad about the woman. Still is, I expect,’ he added thoughtfully.

  ‘Is that why she pulled towards the chapel?’

  Le Vieux shrugged expansively. ‘Perhaps. Maybe she wanted to pray for a good journey.’

  ‘The baby wasn’t buried there?’

  ‘Buried? No, it was left out for the wild animals, I think. It was illegitimate – no priest would give it the last rites or bury it in consecrated ground.’

  Chapter Four

  The Temple, London

  Sir John de Sapy entered the great gate that gave on to the broad court.

  This was his first time here in the London Temple. Once it had been the headquarters of the most powerful and wealthy religious order in the country, but since the destruction of the Temple it had lain empty, confiscated by the King. Now the Pope had demanded that all such property should be passed on to the Hospitallers, but this area had been retained by the King – until recently.

  Sir Hugh le Despenser had taken it instead.

  Sir John saw the men at the doorways, and tried to control the sensation of nervous prickling at his back at the thought of all those in here who would be happy to draw steel and push it into him, were they told that he was the enemy of their master. He willed his legs to carry on none the less. He was a knight, and no one would scare him off.

  There was a door in front of him, and a man opened it for him. He held Sir John’s gaze as the knight approached, but Sir John was starting to become irritated by the attitude of all the watchers about the yard. He stopped, lowered his head and stared truculently at the man. Gradually the other fellow began to look uncomfortable, and finally he looked away.

  Satisfied, Sir John continued. As he drew level with the man, he was ready with his hand on his dagger’s hilt. If the other so much as twitched a finger, he was ready to draw his blade and kill the bastard … but the man gave him no cause. He entered, and the door closed behind him.

  ‘Sir John. I am glad you could come.’

  It was a small hall, with a pleasing tiled floor. There was a chimney with a fire roaring in the hearth, and by its light Sir John saw a cold-eyed man sitting on a stool. It was Sir Hugh le Despenser.

  ‘Sir Hugh,’ he said, but his throat had closed up, and the only noise that came out sounded as if he was being slowly strangled.

  It was enough to bring a cynical grin to the Despenser’s face. He was a man committed to his own profit and pleasure, and he ruled through a mixture of utter brutality and largesse. Those who were his friends waxed in the bright glow of his approval. Those who were not his friends waned. He liked to see men afraid. It showed that they respected his position.

  ‘You have been of service to me, Sir John.’

  ‘I am glad.’

  ‘Until lately you were outlawed. That will cease immediately.’

  ‘You can persuade the King to pardon me?’

  Despenser stood and walked to a narrow table at a wall. He took up a scroll and tossed it over to him. Sir John opened it and looked at it helplessly.

  ‘It is your pardon,’ Despenser said flatly. ‘And to ensure that your return to the King’s household is fully appreciated, I have some legal documents you can witness for me.’

  I don’t know how to thank you,’ Sir John stammered.

  ‘We shall think of a way,’ Sir Hugh said. He eyed Sir John thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Perhaps you could join an embassy for me. Your help was appreciated by Père Pierre. Perhaps you could go and see him. He tells me that the church of Sainte Katerine in Paris has the most wonderful Mass to celebrate Easter. Perhaps you should go and enjoy it.’

  Ash Wednesday5

  Furnshill, Devon

  Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, Keeper of the King’s Peace in Devon, was startled awake at the shrill scream, and was already on his feet, his hand reaching for his sword, before he realised what had woken him.

  In the corner of the room, swathed in warm blankets and a cloak, sat his wife, who gazed at him with exasperation. ‘Baldwin!’

  ‘Ah – I am sorry, my love,’ he declared, dropping the sword’s blade back into its scabbard. Pulling a thick blanket from the bed, he threw it over his shoulders and padded across the floor to her side, kneeling with an elbow at her thigh.

  ‘Good day, Baldwin,’ he said softly to the small body in his wife’s arms.

  Baldwin, his son, stared back at him short-sightedly, his wizened little face comically ancient for his three and a half months.

  ‘He still finds it hard?’

  ‘We both do,’ Jeanne responded, exhausted.

  Baldwin put his hand on her shoulder. He was anxious for her. This was their second child. Richalda had been somewhat troublesome occasionally, but both had assumed that this one would be easy. They knew how to bring up a baby; they had done so once. The second time would be perfectly straightforward.

  But little Baldwin was not to be so accommodating as Richalda. Where she had cooed gently when she woke, Baldwin screamed; when Richalda was hungry, she had sucked the pap with urgent enthusiasm, needing no assistance – little Baldwin spent one month drinking from one breast and weeping when the other was presented, and the following month drinking from the other and ignoring the first. And he was awake at regular intervals through the night, while sleeping happily through the day. Although his father would never have confessed it to his wife, he would rather be left in charge of a wild bear without stick or steel to protect himself than be left alone for half a morning with this little boy. Love him he certainly did, but he also loathed and detested the child on occasion. The thought of being solely responsible for him filled him with dread.

  ‘Did he in the end?’ Baldwin asked, stifling a yawn.

  ‘Yes. As soon as you jumped from your bed like a man with a rat on his backside, the poor little chit burped.’

  Baldwin eyed his son sombrely. Every meal he took led to screaming, or so it seemed most of the time. It was simple enough to cure him – a series of gentle pats on the little devil’s back always did the trick – but the immediate effect was shocking in the extreme. For one with such a small frame, the mo
nster could generate a huge amount of noise.

  Now, though, having woken both parents and, from the sounds behind the house, the hunting pack too, little Baldwin appeared to think that he had achieved all that could be expected of a fellow, and was breathing gently, eyes closed. Jeanne rose and carried the precious bundle to the little cot beside the bed, carefully installing him before climbing into their bed again. She patted the blanket beside her, and he returned to it, putting an arm about her.

  Yes. Little Baldwin was taking his toll on her. Jeanne’s hair was thinner, and her face was pale and drawn, like one suffering from a long starvation. He had seen people with that look – the women and children at Acre as the siege set in. And then, when the plagues took hold, they too gave women the same bright eyes and anxious, strained appearance. Baldwin was fearful that this son, this cause for celebration, could become a disaster for him. For losing his Jeanne would be a disaster, a catastrophe from which it would be very difficult for him to recover. He dreaded the very thought.

  ‘Careful, husband. You will crush me!’ Jeanne whispered.

  He kissed her gently on her forehead, but did not let her go. Instead he sat still, arm around her shoulder, until he heard her breath grow more regular, and then remained there, watching the sun light the cracks in the timbers of his shutters.

  The messenger in the King’s tunic arrived not long after they had breakfasted.

  Michael’s Cross tavern, Westchep, London

  After the service that marked the beginning of Lent, they gathered again to discuss their predicament. Only a fool would have been keen to meet again, Philip thought to himself, but as he sat waiting the others gradually drifted in.

  This was a good little alehouse. It was little more than a low undercroft running alongside the road, with a wide window giving out on to the people hurrying past. Once, so Philip had heard, it had been a large building, but then about fifty years ago the church next door, St Mary-le-Bow, had lost her steeple, and it had crashed through this neighbouring property. Well, the place had to be rebuilt after that, so it was one of the newer, brighter buildings in the road.