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

by Michael Jecks

  Philip had taken a seat on the bench at the window, and he welcomed Janin, Ricard with the boy, and then Adam. The tavern had a young maid at the bar, and she smiled to see the boy. Soon Ricard had deposited him with her and joined the others.

  ‘Not managed to lose him yet?’ Adam asked.

  Ricard was quiet awhile. He had an appalling sense of responsibility for the boy. Somehow he felt guilty that the lad had lost his parents. It wasn’t his fault that some mangy arsehole son of a feral tom cat had killed the glover and his wife to get at Ricard … and yet somehow the blue eyes staring at him made him feel guilty. He held his tongue rather than try to explain.

  There was no sign of Peter.

  ‘He won’t come if he’s a brain,’ was Janin’s view. ‘He has two daughters to think of.’

  ‘Aye. Not like you, eh, old man?’ Adam teased Ricard.

  They all smiled at that. It was one of the jokes they were wont to hurl back and forth in their casual banter on normal days. Ricard was known to be the most prolific of them all, and had fathered seven children all told, five of them still living. But today was not a normal day, and the smiles soon dried.

  ‘Yes, well, some of us have the strength to achieve greatness. There’s nothing showy about me.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Adam said, speaking into his ale.

  Ricard scowled. ‘Just size ain’t all, is what I meant. You have to know what to do with it too, and I have plenty of skill, you see.’

  ‘Yeah. You showed that with the wench on Sunday night,’ Philip said quietly.

  ‘Shite, you always have to bring things down to your level.’

  ‘Yes. Well,’ Janin said quickly, but not fast enough.

  Philip looked up steadily. ‘My level may be low, but so was killing her and her old man.’

  There was a sudden silence. Then Ricard flushed angrily. ‘You mean you think I did that to them?’

  ‘Who else could have? I’ve been thinking about it, and that fine fellow wasn’t there in the tavern, was he? But the two had been dead a while. That smell … they were so cold. They hadn’t just died that moment.’

  Janin was staring at him with a frown on his face. ‘You mean to say you reckon Ric murdered them both? On Sunday night when we were that pissed we could hardly walk? Don’t talk wet!’

  ‘It couldn’t have been Ricard,’ Adam agreed dully. ‘Look at him! When he’s drunk, he sits down and giggles to himself. He never attacks people or hurts them.’

  ‘And I didn’t on Sunday night,’ Ricard said.

  ‘Not even if you were so drunk you can’t remember what you did?’ Philip said nastily.

  ‘Look, if I was that drunk, I’d not have thought to wash myself afterwards. Whoever did that to them must have ended up looking like a butcher,’ Ricard said sensibly. ‘There’s no blood on my clothes, Philip. It must have been him, whoever he was.’

  ‘So what’ll we do?’ Janin said.

  ‘I’ve been reckoning. I think that there’re places where people would pay to hear good music and singing. We could try somewhere a little further from here. I don’t know – York, or Lincoln …’

  ‘York!’ Adam burst out with horror. ‘You ever spoken to a man from there? They all talk funny! Can’t speak real English, and you try to make them understand what you’re saying, and they all go dumb, like you’re speaking Flemish or something. York!’

  ‘Well, we can’t just walk up to the Queen and say, “Look, your Maj, we’re a bit hard up for money just now, and by the way, you look like you could do with a decent bit of music to cheer you up, so how about it?” can we? Talk sense!’

  ‘I think you’re mad if you reckon that wandering that far away is going to do us any good. No, I vote we stay here in London. It’s a huge city – we could easily lose ourselves in it, and no one need find us again.’

  ‘You think I’m mad? Who do you think that bastard was serving in that room when he slaughtered the man and his wife? He said he was no servant of Despenser, but if he wasn’t, who is his master? And if Despenser gets to think we’re involved in the death of two of his friends, do you seriously think that there’s anywhere in this city which is safe for us? If you reckon there’s anywhere secure from him and his bloody servants, you’re more of a cretin than I thought. If you want to ignore what he wants and stay here, nice and close to his dagger, then you do that. Me, I’m going to see if I can keep my blood in my veins just a little longer.’

  ‘If we just keep our heads down a while …’

  ‘Despenser can wield a sword low enough to catch your neck no matter how much you duck or crawl! Don’t be stupid! That fellow yesterday found us easily enough, didn’t he? How well do you think we could hide in the city? You prepared to throw away your instruments? I know I’m not losing my gittern for anyone! But if you keep hold of your things, you’ll be spotted as a musician immediately. How long’ll you survive then?’

  Janin asked, ‘What did he tell you to do?’

  ‘He told me to keep in touch with him. We’re to listen out for any snippets that could put the Queen in a bad light, and to tell him.’

  ‘How, though? Where was he going to be?’

  ‘He said there’d be someone who’d come to see us. He’d have a sign to show he was genuine – a picture of a peacock. He’d show us when he needed our help.’

  Philip blinked slowly. ‘He’d have a picture of a peacock? What, a tapestry? Something on parchment?’

  ‘He didn’t say,’ Ricard said coldly. ‘I didn’t suggest it to him, he suggested it to me, all right?’

  ‘Well, I still think we should stay put. What’s he going to do to us here? There are too many people around for him to threaten us in the city,’ Adam declared.

  ‘Keep thinking like that and soon you won’t be thinking at all,’ Philip grunted.

  ‘Philip’s right. Despenser’s enemies, and those he reckons aren’t helpful enough, tend to end up dead,’ Ricard said. ‘So that’s what we have to do. Spy on the Queen, or run for it. And we can’t spy on her because we aren’t really her players. A little ballocks, and suddenly we’re deep in the shit. So, if one of you has got a better plan, I’m listening. Otherwise we run for it.’

  ‘I’d think that just asking might be enough.’

  They all spun about on hearing Peter’s voice, Janin playing a short tune to celebrate his arrival.

  ‘What are you doing here, you silly bastard?’ Ricard demanded when Peter had sat down.

  ‘I can’t just leave you all in the lurch, can I? What would you lot get up to without me helping you?’

  ‘Bloody sight less dangerous shite,’ Adam muttered into his ale once more. ‘Sorry, sorry, but I can’t help thinking that.’

  They ignored him. It was Adam’s most irritating trait, this verbal apology that was never seriously meant.

  ‘I asked. I got.’

  Ricard was shaking his head in confusion. ‘What do you mean? You asked what?’

  ‘I took your advice. I asked whether we could get a billet with the Queen. She’s got no household now. Did you know that? She’s lost all her servants, all her ladies, everything. So when I offered our services, they said yes. Apparently they all remember us from our last evening there.’

  Ricard scowled, Janin looked away pensively, and Adam gazed into his ale. Peter was left looking from one to the other of them with a speculative suspicion. ‘All right, so who did it? Ric, did you put your hand up a fine lady’s skirt? Adam? Did you puke in the hallway? Janin, were you caught making poetry with a wench in there? Come on, what happened?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ Ricard asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t remember drumming away happily and leering at the little strawberry blonde in the front? The one with the ever-so-tight bodice and the arse you said would be like an archer’s target? The one with lips you said could suck a nail from the church door? The one with the …’

  ‘Christ in chains!’ Peter had the grace to colour.
‘Are you sure? Me? When was that? I don’t remember it at … But there was no trouble about it.’

  Ricard and Janin exchanged a look, then Ricard gave a frown of agreement and shook his head emphatically. ‘No, no. There was no trouble at all.’

  ‘So I was bad, then?’

  ‘I think she thought so,’ Janin said. ‘Still, she said you weren’t all that bad. Once we found some money in your purse to replace her shirt and clean her skirts.’

  Peter wasn’t sure. The five of them would routinely take the piss out of each other, and it was quite possible that they were lying in their teeth … but he did have a vague recollection of a gorgeous little Venus with the face of an angel – and the body of a fiend bent on tempting the innocent. He could remember playing his tabor with ever-increasing vigour, then leaving it as it was impossible to play the kind of tune he wanted with such a staid, boring instrument. No, he was a master musician, so he picked up his recorder and started to play that instead. He could recall leaning against the wall, playing like the devil himself as she smiled and laughed. Her pleasure was all he needed to drive him on. It was that night he’d argued with his wife, he recalled. Be more than an argument if she ever heard about this, he reckoned.

  ‘You are sure of this, Peter?’ Ricard said. ‘They’d let us back?’

  Peter could not help but look down shamefacedly. ‘No, I’m sure there’s no problem. Not really.’

  ‘Even if she herself thought we would be allowed back in, there’s all the others. The King and she aren’t friendly just now,’ Janin pointed out.

  ‘The lady I spoke to was Lady Alicia, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, a blonde. She said she remembered me only too well. Actually she was a bit off at first. Then she laughed … You say the wench was strawberry blonde?’

  ‘With the sort of body no angel would ever need,’ Janin agreed solemnly.

  ‘Oh. Oh! Christ’s ballocks, I never … I didn’t remember. Well, she didn’t seem upset, anyway. She can’t have been offended.’

  Ricard nodded and shrugged. ‘Well, she wasn’t hurt or anything. You didn’t rape her, you just tried to grapple. Your incapacity saved her from any danger.’

  ‘Incap— what?’ Philip stuttered.

  ‘Well, we’re in, like I said,’ Peter repeated. ‘She took me to see William de Bouden, the Queen’s old clerk. He’s in charge of the money for her now, and he’s agreed. So you lot’re now the Queen’s Men again. Official.’

  Chapter Five

  Hythe, Kent

  Père Pierre Clergue scowled as the wind whipped about his sparse hair, and thumped his hand upon his hat to hold it in place. He was an amiable-looking man usually, but today he was feeling disgruntled and saw no reason to hide it.

  There was so much to be done, and at his time of life he really should be able to take things more easily. Perhaps secure a post in a quiet convent somewhere after his efforts for Holy Mother Church. It was nothing less than he deserved. But every so often the cardinal would use him as a messenger, and provided it was business which benefited the Church or the Pope himself, Pierre was content.

  He had spent too many years in service now. From the early days when he went to Pamiers to help the Inquisition to the present – he had grown old in his harness. And now he must return to the cardinal to report on the latest matter. It was hard.

  A wave broke over the sheer, and he ducked a moment too late. Well, this was his last time travelling over the sea. He would have to make that clear. He was too old for this kind of journey.

  Château Gaillard

  Jean had heard le Vieux tell others that this was once the castle of the mad English king, Richard, the one known as Coeur de Lion. He was the last of the Norman kings to show any spirit, he was. He’d go anywhere for a fight. Sacrée Dame! Jean had been in one battle in his life, and he had no desire ever to become embroiled in another. He had seen his brother killed at his side, spewing a thick, bloody froth as Jean stared at the crossbow bolt lodged across his breast, pinning his arm to his body; a little later his father was decapitated by a fleeing man-at-arms on horseback. On his return he learned that his wife was dead too – raped and murdered. There was nothing in war to tempt a man. Not a man like him, anyway. Those who hankered after it were mad. They saw only the possible loot. Booty was a soldier’s dream. But only if you got your hands on it.

  Still, that old king knew something about building a castle. This one had suffered over the years. It had taken only one year to build, from the defences set across the River Seine to the little bastions in their lakeside defences to the great fortress itself, but it had only survived as long as the authority of its builder. As soon as King Richard died, his brother King John showed himself to be less than competent at defending even this jewel. From what Jean had heard, it was the loss of this castle that guaranteed the end of English rule of Normandy.

  The sun was failing now. On a whim, he climbed to the walkway of the great tower, and stared out over the river towards the west. The sky was lit with a yellow-orange series of horizontal streaks which grew darker as he watched, deepening to a crimson which licked the surface of the Seine below him with flames. And then a cloud drifted over the sun and the colours paled, and the twilight reminded him it was time he returned indoors to the fireplace.

  There was no snow yet this year, but the sky was surely threatening it. It was that time of year when a sensible man was cautious about walking on the stone-paved walls, or on the timber steps that led a man from one wall to another. A castle like Château Gaillard was designed for ease of defence, not for the safety of any single individual, and a man who enjoyed life was sensible if he took some precautions. A patch of ice on the stone of a wall could all too easily send a man flying into the ditch. Only last month Jean had seen a man slip on the frosted step of a staircase. He’d fallen heavily on his elbow, which shattered, sending shards of bone through his sleeve. By some miracle, he’d lived, although the barber had taken off the remains of the limb. So now the castle was one man down, and others were forced to take on extra duties.

  Jean made his way down from the great keep, nodding to the men coming up. The steps here were indoors, and he was sure-footed enough here in the dry, his armour grating and clattering as he went down the steep spirals. No, it was outside he had to be careful, as he left the mass of the donjon behind him and went to the quarters set beside it, where all the soldiers lived.

  There was a thick pottage simmering over the fire, and he went to the warmth with relief, holding his hands to it until he could feel the flesh of his palms almost scorching.

  Others soon joined him, men from the north, east and west walls. To the south there was the out-work, almost a separate fortress in its own right, with its own guards who had their own fires and food.

  The last man in was the one they all preferred to ignore. Not a guard like them, he didn’t share in the same camaraderie. They all felt it, too: the revulsion. The sight of him was enough to make Jean’s stomach start to clench with disgust. Not that Arnaud was repellent to look at, nor that Jean was overly bothered by his taking advantage of the woman prisoner. That was normal – a benefit of the job, more or less. No, it was the understanding of what Arnaud did, what he could do to others, no matter what their station. Nobody was safe from him.

  Only le Vieux himself appeared to be unbothered. As Arnaud entered, the old man automatically moved a little, creating a space at his side, and the two men sat together like the old campaigners they truly were, eating their food and watching their companions like warders in a gaol eyeing the prisoners. Which was, in a way, no more than the truth. They had all been rescued from different prisons.

  Arnaud. Arnaud. The torturer. The mere thought was enough to make Jean feel sickly in his belly. He had saved Jean’s life, perhaps, but Jean could not like him. There was no trust between them. How could Jean trust the man who had done such things?

  Yes, it was Jean who was most affected by Arnaud out of all those in the chamb
er. After all, he knew what the torturers from the Inquisition could do to people. He’d seen it.

  Thorney Island

  The Queen of England was no stranger to fear now, yet the terror was closer, more poignant, the stronger her hopes of freedom grew.

  Alicia was already in the hall when she returned from the second meeting with her husband. ‘Your highness?’

  ‘Yes. He has confirmed it,’ Isabella said. She was still quite shocked, and as she held up the papers for Alicia to see, she saw that her hand was shaking.

  ‘It is one thing to be told, it is another to have the papers,’ Alicia said.

  She read them quickly, but Isabella made no further comment about them. All that mattered was that the papers were genuine. Safe conducts for her and her party to travel to France to visit her brother and negotiate the truce for Guyenne. All there, all clear, all precise and correct. If he were to withdraw from the plan now, it would send her demented, she was sure. It was her last hope, her last opportunity of freedom. Once she had succeeded in shaking the dust of England from her feet, she would be secure once more. But she had to get away. She must not allow anyone to see how much she craved this journey, because if her husband or his lover, the dreadful Despenser, were to learn how deeply she desired it, they would realise that she had deceived them.

  ‘My lady, you are safe!’ Alicia whispered, so quietly her lips barely moved.

  ‘And you? You are happy to have those musicians back?’

  Alicia nodded. ‘They will suit our purpose.’

  ‘I will have him castrated if he tries to hurt you.’

  ‘I would do it myself if I thought he was a danger – to me or to you!’ Alicia breathed. ‘I’ve already told Richard about the man. He’ll look after me.’