29 - The Oath

by Michael Jecks

  THE OATH

  Michael Jecks gave up a career in the computer industry to concentrate on writing and the study of medieval history. A regular speaker at library and literary events, he is a past Chairman of the Crime Writers’Association. He lives with his wife, children and dogs in northern Dartmoor.

  Also by Michael Jecks

  The Last Templar

  The Merchant’s Partner

  A Moorland Hanging

  The Crediton Killings

  The Abbot’s Gibbet

  The Leper’s Return

  Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

  Belladonna at Belstone

  The Traitor of St Giles

  The Boy Bishop’s Glovemaker

  The Tournament of Blood

  The Sticklepath Strangler

  The Devil’s Acolyte

  The Mad Monk of Gidleigh

  The Templar’s Penance

  The Outlaws of Ennor

  The Tolls of Death

  The Chapel of Bones

  The Butcher of St Peter’s

  A Friar’s Bloodfeud

  The Death Ship of Dartmouth

  The Malice of Unnatural Death

  Dispensation of Death

  The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

  The Prophecy of Death

  The King of Thieves

  The Bishop Must Die

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2010

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Michael Jecks, 2010

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Michael Jecks to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-84737-900-9

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-85720-034-1

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-84737-901-6

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by M Rules

  Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham ME5 8TD

  For

  Beryl and Peter

  The best parents possible!

  With much love

  GLOSSARY

  Aketon

  a thick tunic, originally padded or quilted, that was worn over the shirt but underneath a man-at-arms’ hauberk.

  Alaunt

  a hunting dog, like a greyhound but larger, with a broad head and shorter snout. Known for their ferocity, these dogs were used to hunt big game, even bears.

  Ambler

  horses for gentle riding were trained to ‘amble’, swinging both left legs together, then both right legs.

  Amerce

  a financial penalty that was a type of bond. For example, a man would be ‘amerced’ to attend court, and if he failed to appear, the sum was his fine.

  Attach

  to secure a man’s attendance at court by means of sureties.

  Berner

  the attendant in charge of hounds.

  Centaine

  a unit of men-at-arms in the King’s host: a hundred men.

  Chevauchée

  a technical military term, generally meaning to ride out and pillage an area.

  Deodand

  a tax, based on the value of a murder weapon, payable as a fine. This tax remained in force until the nineteenth century, when railway companies complained at the value of entire trains being levied for accidental homicides!

  Fosser

  the sexton, a gravedigger.

  Garbage

  animal offal used for food.

  Guyenne

  that part of France still ruled by the British King: Aquitaine, Anjou, etc.

  Hainaulter

  man from Hainault in Flanders.

  Hauberk

  the mail shirt that was worn over the aketon but beneath the pair of plates.

  Heriot

  a fine of the best beast, rendered to a serf’s lord when the serf died.

  Hobelar

  armed man who rode upon a ‘hobby’, a small riding horse.

  Kennel

  the central gulley or gutter in a medieval street.

  Leyrwite

  this was the fine imposed on women for adultery or sexual incontinence.

  Lurdan

  a term of opprobrium – a sluggard, a laggard, a dimwit.

  Mastiff

  a large dog, used as a guard and sometimes for baiting.

  Murdrum

  the fine imposed on a vill when none could prove ‘Englishry’ for a corpse. It had been a means of fining the English rebels after the Norman invasion, and was imposed when a body was thought to be Norman, as a way of punishing the community.

  Pair of Plates

  a form of body armour made by fixing overlapping plates of steel to the inside of a cloth or leather tunic. It was worn over the mail hauberk.

  Palfrey

  a small to medium-sized horse noted for its comfort.

  Posse Comitatus

  the force of the county, available to keep the peace or help hunt down felons.

  Rache

  a running dog, which we would probably call a greyhound today.

  Rounsey

  the common horse for general use: also used as a warhorse by men-at-arms, and as a packhorse.

  Schiltrom

  troops drawn up in battle order.

  Vill

  a territorial unit, comprising a number of houses and the land adjacent, which was the basic unit of administration under feudal law.

  Vingtaine

  a military unit of twenty men.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Sir Baldwin de Furnshill

  Keeper of the King’s Peace, Baldwin was once a Templar, but now seeks a quiet life in Devon.

  Simon Puttock

  Baldwin’s closest friend, Simon has worked with him on many murder investigations.

  Margaret (Meg)

  Simon’s wife.

  Peterkin (Perkin)

  Simon and Margaret’s son.

  Hugh

  Simon’s long-suffering servant.

  Rob

  son of a prostitute in Dartmouth, Rob has become Simon’s servant too.

  Jack

  a young fellow accompanying Baldwin.

  Nobles

  King Edward II

  King of England.

  Edward, Duke of Aquitaine, (also Earl of Chester)

  the King’s eldest son, the future Edward III, who was never made a prince.

  Sir Hugh le Despenser

  Sir Hugh ‘The Younger’, the closest adviser to the King, his best friend, and alleged lover. Known for his outrageous greed and ambition.

  Earl Hugh of Winchester

  Sir Hugh’s father, known as ‘The Elder’, a loyal servant of King Edward I, but a man keen to enrich himself.

  Queen Isabella

  wife to the King, and figurehead of the rebellion against him.

  Sir Roger Mortimer

  lover to Queen Isabella and, with her, leader of the rebels.

  Sir Ralph of Evesham

  a knight in the service of the King.

  Sir Charles of Lancas
ter

  formerly a loyal servant of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, now he is in the service of the King.

  Bristol

  Arthur Capon

  a wealthy burgess in Bristol.

  Madame Capon

  wife to Arthur.

  Petronilla

  Arthur’s daughter.

  Cecily

  maidservant to the Capon family.

  Squire William de Bar

  husband of Petronilla.

  Father Paul

  priest who became Petronilla’s lover.

  Emma Wrey

  widow of a successful merchant in Bristol.

  Sir Stephen Siward

  Coroner in Bristol.

  Sir Laurence Ashby

  the Constable of Bristol Castle.

  Thomas Redcliffe

  a merchant of Bristol ruined by pirates.

  Roisea Redcliffe

  Thomas’s wife.

  Soldiers

  Robert Vyke

  a serf brought into the King’s host.

  Otho

  Sergeant from Vyke’s vill.

  Herv Tyrel

  a friend to Vyke.

  Walerand of Guildford

  also Walerand the Tranter, a carter pressed into the King’s service to help transport goods for the troops.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The idea for this book has had a lengthy gestation. It all began when I picked up an Everyman edition of The Old Yellow Book, which was the source for Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book. It is not an easy book to read, because it revolves around a series of legal documents, but for a novelist it is sheer gold dust!

  Browning’s piece is a poetic reworking of a story he discovered while staying in Florence in 1860. As he tells it, he was wandering round the Piazza of San Lorenzo, past a bookseller in a booth, when the soiled old yellow tome caught his eye. He bought it and took it home, where he devoured it, translating the full story over a number of days.

  The book gave the record of an astonishing murder case from 1698 – the assassination of an entire family. The vile behaviour of both groom and father-in-law, set beside the misery of the poor girl-bride and her pathetic lover, were as absorbing as any Shakespearean tragedy, and I could not put it out of my mind, trying to figure out how best to use it in one of my novels.

  However, it was only when looking at that other wonderfully dysfunctional family – that of King Edward II and his wife Queen Isabella – that the comparison between the two families struck a chord, and I had to go and look up Browning’s source again. Pretty soon it was clear to me that this was the book I wanted to write. There are changes, however, so anyone familiar with Browning’s work can relax – there is no way they will guess how my story ends!

  While I have tried, as usual, to be as true to history as I possibly can be, it’s always the small details that give me the biggest headaches. For example, we know that the King set off from London in October 1326 with a small force of men, on the run from Sir Roger Mortimer and the Queen. He may have only had a few men with him, but he had barrels of money, somewhere in the region of £20,000. That was more than the income of England’s king in a year, so he must have had guards. How many? Don’t know.

  Likewise, he set off towards Cardiff with even fewer men. He still had his money, but we know that his men were going AWOL and that no one was coming to replace them and fill the ranks. But when he quitted Caerphilly, he left behind a garrison, and still had a force of men about him with whom to travel to Margam and Neath Abbey. How many? Again, I don’t know.

  The tale of Despenser’s decline and death is pretty well documented. I am especially grateful to Jules Frusher for the pointer on Edward being, perhaps, at Hereford during Despenser’s execution. No one else has spotted this, but the King’s journey was to Kenilworth Castle, with Lancaster guarding him. Yet Lancaster was present at Hugh Despenser’s hearing and execution. If so, where was the King? It’s perfectly logical to think that Lancaster came with the King and Despenser to Hereford, and at the time, it would have been thought perfectly acceptable to force the King to watch his favourite being executed.

  I refer in this book to Edward’s son as the Duke of Aquitaine, which may confuse some readers. Why don’t I call him Prince Edward and be done with it? Well, young Edward had been made Earl of Chester by the King only a short while after his birth, and he was known as such throughout his childhood. Later, at the age of almost thirteen, he was sent to France to pay homage to the French King, in his father’s place, for the English territories in France. For that, he received the gift of Aquitaine, and became a duke. However, he was never actually made Prince of the Realm. To become a prince was not automatic, it was an honour that the King alone could grant. So I use the most senior title that Edward was given.

  For that last detail, I am grateful to Ian Mortimer. His The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, and The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, and also his excellent The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England have been regularly referred to. I often have to flick through Harold F. Hutchinson’s Edward II, as well as Mary Saaler’s book, and that of Roy Martin Haines – all with the same title! Among my more esoteric sources, Terry Brown’s English Martial Arts ranks highly, as does The Medieval Coroner by R.F. Hunnisett, and John Leland’s Itinerary, which is wonderful for those who want to see a landscape through the eyes of someone who was alive 500 years ago. I am also hugely indebted to Jules Frusher for her website ‘Lady Despenser’s Scribery’ at http://despenser.blogspot.com. Jules has given me enormous help.

  Which is why I have to quickly add that no matter how good all these, and other individuals are, the errors are sadly still all my own.

  But errors and omissions aside, I hope that this tale, which is still thrilling to me, nearly 700 years after the events I describe, will take you back in time to a period when life was undoubtedly nastier, colder, wetter, more painful and more dangerous. And in so many ways, still extremely attractive.

  Michael Jecks

  North Dartmoor

  November 2009

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bristol

  Her nightmare always began in the same way.

  It started with the urgent cry.

  ‘Cecily? Cecily, help me!’

  Cecily hurried to her mistress’s door as soon as she heard the summons. A maid of almost thirty, short and mousy-haired under her wimple, she had an oval-shaped face and smiling green eyes. She walked in to find Petronilla Capon sitting on her bed’s edge, waving a hand in the direction of the cot, from which all the screaming emanated.

  ‘Good Cecily, can you do anything with him?’

  Her mistress was almost eighteen years old. Quite tall, she had the sort of figure that men eyed with unconcealed lust, their wives with simple jealousy. Her face was unmarked with fear or sadness, which was a miracle after the last four years, but now there was an expression of mild panic on it which did not so much mar her beauty as add to it.

  ‘Let me, mistress,’ Cecily said comfortably, crossing the floor.

  Cecily had been her maid for years now and was as much a part of Petronilla’s life as the cross which hung from the silver chain about her neck. Everyone who knew Petronilla knew how devoted Cecily was to her and, since the birth of Little Harry, the maid had grown still more attentive.

  Little Harry looked up at Cecily with his blue-black eyes still fogged with despair. ‘Hush, little one,’ Cecily said, beginning to wipe away the worst of the vomit with his slavering clout1.

  ‘I did what you said,’ Petronilla stated with weary conviction. ‘He had finished feeding, and I just had him over my shoulder . . .’

  ‘You should have stopped feeding him a little earlier, mistress. Then, perhaps, you could have burped him before he was sick.’

  Petronilla gave her a wretched smile. ‘I don’t understand the boy. He cries all night, sleeps all day, and when he whimpers and I try to feed him, he does this to me. Ungrateful little monster, a
ren’t you? Oh no, what now? Why is he crying now, Cecily?’

  In answer, her maid picked him up and sniffed at his backside before pulling a face. ‘Why do you think?’

  Her mistress often behaved as though she was a child herself still, thought Cecily. When she had married and moved to her husband’s house near Hanham, despite the fact that it was only some three miles outside Bristol, the girl had reacted as if it were the edge of the world. Cecily had looked after Petronilla from her eighth year, and when the girl had married Squire William de Bar nearly four years ago, Cecily had gone to Hanham with her. When Petronilla’s husband had evicted Cecily, forcing her from his young bride’s side, the maid had been distraught.