Prince Edward's Warrant

by Mel Starr

  Perhaps the noisome streets of London are the reason Prince Edward prefers the bucolic surroundings of Kennington Palace, as his brother John does the Savoy, his palace at Westminster.

  Arthur and I crossed London Bridge grateful to have escaped harm upon the road. I had not sought safety before the journey upon my knees, but we are told in Holy Writ that the Lord Christ knows our need before we ask. Perhaps even if we fail to ask. I must not fail to be thankful for our escape.

  Grooms were erecting tables and benches in Kennington’s hall when we arrived at the palace. Prince Edward had made it clear that he wished to be informed of my progress, or lack of it, in seeking Sir Giles’s murderer, so I went directly to his privy chamber. He was not alone.

  The valets who stood at the door announced my arrival, and I heard the prince tell them that I was to be admitted. Three of his knights attended him in the privy chamber, and their conversation ceased when I passed through the doorway. One of these I knew to be Sir Arthur de Lisle, Sir Giles’s rival for the hand of Lady Juliana Pultney.

  I bowed to the four seated men, and Prince Edward spoke. “You returned to that village today, did you not? What is it named?”

  “Hornsey, m’lord.”

  “Ah, just so. What have you learned?”

  “To ride a faster horse next time I must travel there.”

  Prince Edward returned my gaze with a puzzled expression. I did not wish to speak of the events of the day before these knights, especially Sir Arthur. I hesitated, and glanced to the prince’s companions. Prince Edward discerned my hesitation.

  “Master Hugh has matters to discuss with me,” he said. “We will speak more of this matter at supper.”

  I wondered what matter that might be, but gave the statement no more thought. The business of great men seldom intrudes upon the life of a bailiff. Or a surgeon. So I thought.

  “As you know,” I began, once the prince and I were alone, “your valet was slain in Hornsey. The lord of the manor…”

  “Sir Thomas Jocelyn?”

  “Aye, m’lord, Sir Thomas, claims that Arnaud was caught in the act of hamsoken and his charter gives him the right of infangenthef.”

  “What of the coroner and the king’s due?”

  “He took flight when apprehended. So Sir Thomas said. A squire chased after him, and Arnaud turned on him with a dagger. The squire defended himself and Arnaud fell dead. Sir Thomas said he did not admit to this yesterday as he feared your wrath.”

  “You believe this tale?”

  “Nay, m’lord. But I have believed wrong things and disbelieved true things often enough in the past that I consider my opinions suspect until I can prove them.”

  “What do you believe yet do not trust to be true?” the prince asked.

  “I hesitate to say for fear of appearing foolish in your sight if I am wrong.”

  “Ah, but consider how wise I will think you if your opinion proves true. So speak.”

  When the Prince of Wales asks a man for his opinion the request is really a command. This was clear in the tone of his voice.

  “’Tis my belief that Arnaud was paid but a portion of the promised remit before he placed the hemlock in Sir Giles’s wine. He was assured that he would receive the remainder when he traveled to Hornsey. He was told to wait there, and the coins would be delivered. Why Hornsey, I cannot say.

  “But rather than a purse full of pence and groats and perhaps a quarter-noble he found nothing. He waited for a day to receive his due. An ale wife of the village declares this. Then after dark three days past he was slain in the street, his corpse dragged away from the village so that, if Sir Thomas’s word is to be believed, you would think Arnaud slain by highwaymen, not some man of Hornsey.”

  “What if the knight is not to be believed?”

  “Then Arnaud thought he was to receive his reward from some man attached to the manor house of Hornsey. Why else try to enter the place in the night? If he did so.”

  “Sir Thomas?”

  “Mayhap,” I shrugged.

  “Sir Thomas said that Arnaud attempted to enter the manor house in the night,” I continued. “Did he, or was that a subterfuge on the knight’s part to justify slaying Arnaud? Did Arnaud decide to seize goods from Sir Thomas because he had been promised payment which did not appear? Whichever may be true, if either, it means that Sir Thomas knows more of this business than he will say.

  “And Sir Thomas knew Arnaud to be in your service before I told him,” I continued.

  “He misspoke himself?” Prince Edward said, pulling upon his beard.

  “He did. And gave away his complicity in this, whatever it might be. He should not have known who Arnaud served before I told him. I did not bring the matter of his knowledge of Arnaud before him. He believes I did not perceive the error.”

  The bell signaling supper was sounded and I found myself escorted to the hall by the Duke of Cornwall. We were among the last to arrive, and I received many curious glances from all levels of society, from grooms to gentlemen. And their ladies. Some glances seemed more hostile than curious, but perhaps I saw what I expected rather than what was.

  Once again I found myself seated upon a bench beside William Blackwater. He glared at me, which was a common enough greeting from other men in recent days that I was accustomed to the expression. Few men I had met recently received me with joy and smiles. I was unsure if I wanted to begin a conversation with the physician, and when uncertain if I should speak or not I find it wisest to hold my tongue. So it was Blackwater who spoke first, as we consumed the first remove.

  “You will send the duke to his grave, you know,” he began.

  I looked to the prince and saw him enjoying a roasted capon. There seemed to be no boiled rooster anywhere in evidence. When I did not reply to his assertion the physician spoke again.

  “Prince Edward has told me that he will have no more of my advice. Your herbs, he says, have improved his health. But any physician knows that such as he is now eating will upset his humors. The illness to come will be more grievous than that of the past. His diet of boiled roosters was beginning to mend his body when you foolishly told him to consume those ridiculous herbs. So now he charges me with preparing the herbs and claims for your absurd prescription the relief my diet has brought to him. He will soon relapse as his humors fall from balance, and you will be sent away. I pray ’twill not be too late to save the duke.”

  I glanced again to the high table and saw Prince Edward grinning at some remark of Lady Joan. The Fair Maid of Kent also seemed delighted by the fat capon. Indeed, her rounded cheeks and voluminous gown gave evidence that she took delight in most meals. But the prince does not seem to hold her corpulence against her. Indeed, if artists are to be believed, men prefer women who resemble wine casks to those who appear like a coppiced beech pole. For my own part, I prefer my Kate, amply fitted with curves but few bulges.

  “I spoke to Lady Joan,” Blackwater continued, as if he had read my mind, “about your interference. I advised her to speak to the prince concerning your malfeasance.”

  From what I had heard of the Lady Joan I had little doubt that if she thought it necessary to advise her husband she would not hesitate to do so.

  “And what was her reply?” I asked.

  “She does not understand the terrible gravity of the prince’s condition.”

  “In other words, she paid you no heed.”

  “She will, soon enough, when his body fails him. I would not like to be in your place when that happens.”

  Nor would I, I thought to myself, and said a silent prayer that the remedies I had suggested would prove lasting. The bishops say that such unspoken prayers are of no value. Does the Lord Christ have ears? Must men pray aloud for their prayers to be heard? If so, the prayers of so many, especially upon a Sunday morning when ’tis time for the mass, must be a terrible cacophony in heaven. I should think the Lord Christ would prefer silent prayers, but priests do say prayers unspoken are also unheard. I
must ask Master Wycliffe of this when next I see him.

  A clattering of overturned benches and the sound of voices raised in anger interrupted my thoughts and William Blackwater’s condemnation. I looked to the uproar and saw two squires pummeling each other. One of these had a flow of blood gushing from his nose, and as I watched he drew a dagger.

  He clearly intended to use the weapon against the youth who had bloodied him, but was dissuaded from this when from the high table a voice bellowed for the combatants to halt. Both turned to see who had commanded them to cease. ’Twas Prince Edward who stood, fists upon the table before him. Anger reddened his face, and even in his frail state he was able to shout loudly enough that his tone overcame the anger of the brawling squires. They backed away from each other.

  “What means this display?” the prince roared. Then, to his marshal, Prince Edward commanded, “Remove them. I’ll deal with them later.”

  Sir Harold Shippen, Kennington’s marshal, is not a large, brawny man. His strength lies in the authority behind his title. He hastened from his place at the high table, took each squire by the ear, and marched them from the hall. The lads made no protest to this indignity. Perhaps they understood that they deserved the opprobrium.

  The marshal and squires disappeared through the screens passage, and those at supper who had stood from benches and chairs resumed their places and continued the meal. Conversations gradually resumed, although the topics discussed were surely different from those before the noisy altercation.

  “Whose squires were those?” I asked Blackwater. The physician had attended Prince Edward for many years and I assumed he would know those who dined at the prince’s table.

  “The lad whose nose drips blood is Fulk de Driby, squire to Sir Humphrey Downey. The other is Roger de Clare, squire to Sir John Pedley.”

  “Do Sir Humphrey and Sir John dislike each other so much that their squires would come to blows in support of their masters?”

  “Not that I’ve heard,” Blackwater shrugged, “nor seen. Sir John and Sir Humphrey always seem amicable enough as regards each other. Must be the squires have had a falling out. Some lass at the bottom of it, I’d wager.”

  “Aye,” I agreed. “A pert lass will oft cause bloodied noses and blackened eyes.” And burned houses, I thought, as my mind turned to the ash heap which was the first Galen House after Sir Simon Trillowe gave vent to his wrath against me.

  The exchange of fisticuffs in Kennington Palace hall had presented a new topic of conversation for those who, from high table to low, supped in the hall this day. Even William Blackwater lost interest in his previous condemnation of my medicine and spent most of the third remove exchanging thoughts with the man who sat upon his other hand, a minor knight of Prince Edward’s fee.

  “There is much talk,” I heard this knight say to the physician, “of who gains most from the death of Sir Giles Cheyne.” I heard little else of their conversation, for the hall was soon filled with folk expressing opinions of the squires’ conflict, and the din drowned out his remarks.

  Would the pugilistic squires have thoughts about Sir Giles’s death and the gain such a felony might bring to other knights, as well as to their own masters? A conversation with each might resolve such a question, especially if the youths were reminded that Prince Edward has placed me in charge of discovering the felon or felons who sought Sir Giles’s death.

  The void was a compote of apples and pears, and as soon as Prince Edward stood from his chair at the high table and departed the hall, I left my bench and sought the marshal. I was not alone. The prince was there before me. He was not pleased.

  The squires sat upon opposite ends of a bench at the entrance to the buttery. One of the lads had arms folded across his chest and a petulant scowl upon his face. The other occasionally wiped a finger across his upper lip, where drying blood had caked. The marshal stood before the lads, arms folded. He was silent, although I suspect he had not been until Prince Edward arrived.

  “You disgrace my hall and Sir John and Sir Humphrey,” the prince said as I came upon the scene. He heard my footsteps and turned to see who had interrupted his scolding of the squires. He saw ’twas me, then turned back to the youths to unburden his soul.

  “Have you differences, you will henceforth settle them in some place other than within my hall. You are squires to worthy knights. Have you learned nothing from them? Should such a display occur again within Kennington Palace, you will no longer be welcome.”

  This threat surely caught the squires’ attention. Neither Sir John nor Sir Humphrey would retain a squire who was unwelcome in Prince Edward’s presence. Nor would such a squire find a place with some other knight, not even a minor knight unlikely to be called before the prince.

  Prince Edward turned again to me, a question in his eyes. He surely wondered what interest I had in two misbehaving squires. There must be twenty or more squires attached to knights serving at Kennington Palace. The two who came to blows served knights who had had an intense dislike of Sir Giles. Was this coincidence or something sinister? Bailiffs, marshals, constables, coroners, and such like men do not believe in coincidences.

  Prince Edward turned to his marshal. “Set these two to mucking out the stables tomorrow morning. Early.” He then turned from marshal and miscreants and stalked from us.

  The squires looked from the marshal to me, curiosity written upon their faces. I imagined they wondered why the man charged with discovering who had slain Sir Giles Cheyne stood there facing them. I enlightened them.

  “There has been violence in Kennington’s hall these past days,” I said. “You know that the prince has assigned me the task of discovering who did murder in his hall. Lads who are quick to rage against one another may be of such a truculent nature that they would poison a man’s wine, I think. I will discuss this matter with you. Separately.”

  I thought the squire whose nose had suffered might have spoken rashly and drawn the ire, and first blow, of the other. I told him to come with me, required of Roger that he remain where he was ’til I had need of him, then led Fulk through the kitchen to Lady Joan’s privy garden. If Fulk had indeed said something to enrage Roger, he had behaved unwisely. Roger stood a hand taller than Fulk and likely outweighed him by two stone.

  The lad did not accompany me willingly. He likely assumed I intended to ask him of matters he would have preferred to avoid. This is ever the case when searching out a felon. Questions which folk are willing to answer often provide no insight to whoso may be guilty, and questions they evade are those leading to a malefactor.

  “What did you say or do,” I began, “which caused Roger to bloody your nose?”

  Fulk did not immediately reply, but gently touched his tender nose as if my words were a reminder of his condition.

  “Prince Edward has appointed me his constable,” I reminded the youth, and glanced down to my badge. “If you will not answer I must inform the prince of your recalcitrance. He will not be pleased. His temper against those who anger him is well known.”

  It is indeed. I saw Fulk blanch as I reminded him of Prince Edward’s nature. The prince’s disposition is much like that of other powerful men – and women – who become accustomed from childhood to obedience and react vigorously to insubordination.

  “We spoke of Sir Giles’s death,” the squire said finally.

  “Why should such a conversation lead to blows?” I said.

  “Roger and I have differing opinions of the matter.”

  “Enlighten me. I will hear your opinion.”

  “All men know,” Fulk began, “that Sir John held fierce resentment against Sir Giles for claiming that Sir John fled the battle at Crécy.”

  “Do you believe Sir Giles’s charge to be true?”

  The squire shrugged. “’Tis a thing all men know.”

  “But do all men believe it? Would Prince Edward have Sir John at his table if this tale was true?”

  Fulk shrugged again. “Likely not,” he said. “But ma
yhap the prince does not know the truth of the matter, busy with the battle as he was.”

  “You said this to Roger at table?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what, exactly, did you say which earned you a bloodied nose?”

  “Roger said that of all of us who disliked Sir Giles, Sir Humphrey had the greatest reason to wish him dead.”

  “Why so? What reason for this did Roger give?”

  “He said that many here at Kennington attended the joust where Sir Giles put Sir Humphrey upon his rump. Sir Humphrey likely heard others speak of it when he passed by and saw smiles behind upraised hands. The humiliation would gnaw at him until he could bear the shame no longer.”

  “Why did his claim bring you two to blows?”

  “I replied to Roger that Sir John had as great a reason to slay Sir Giles as did Sir Humphrey. No man wishes to be reminded of his cowardice.”

  “You claimed Sir John a coward?” I said.

  “Roger made it clear that he thought Sir Humphrey guilty of murder, and incompetent at the joust as well. I would not allow such a slur to go unchallenged.”

  “So you reminded Roger of the charge against Sir John’s courage at Crécy?”

  “Aye.”

  “He took the remark badly?”

  “Aye, he did. But I would not allow Sir Humphrey to be slandered without reply.”

  “And you paid for his defense with a bloodied nose,” I said.

  “I did. But had not Prince Edward caused us to cease I’d have repaid Roger with my dagger.” The lad spoke with such vehemence that I did not doubt it was so. Or that he would yet like to sheathe his weapon in Roger’s belly.

  “You heard Prince Edward. He will brook no more disturbance of this kind in his hall – nor anywhere else in Kennington Palace, I’d guess.”

  “Then Roger de Clare had best keep his opinions to himself.”

  “He would likely say the same of you. ’Tis known to most folks that neither Sir Humphrey nor Sir John are grieved that Sir Giles is no longer able to vex them.”