The King of Thieves:

by Michael Jecks

  Furnshill, Devon

  ‘I am glad indeed that you were able to give me a bed for the night,’ the Bishop said.

  ‘My Lord Bishop, it is always a delight to have you visit us,’ Baldwin’s wife said. She bent to refill his jug, and Baldwin saw how the sun, streaming in from the large, unglazed window, lighted her hair with red sparks.

  Bishop Stapledon had arrived as darkness fell. He had, he explained, been travelling from a small vill in the diocese, but they had been delayed in leaving, and it was clear that they could not reach Exeter that night. It was easy to accommodate the Bishop. He took a bed in Baldwin’s solar, in the second bedchamber, while his servants slept in the hall with Baldwin’s own. Baldwin’s men had to be persuaded to share their benches, and some men were forced to huddle on the floor near the fire, but with blankets and cloaks spread liberally, most were comfortable enough. It was as good as the cots in the Bishop’s palace, Baldwin considered. He had tried them before, and knew how uncomfortable they could be.

  ‘When you have broken your fast, you will be setting off for Exeter?’ Jeanne asked.

  ‘I suppose so,’ the Bishop said. His voice was heavy, and now that Baldwin studied him, he was struck by how the last weeks had affected the man. It was only a short while since Baldwin had last seen him, but those weeks had been very unkind to him. Bishop Walter’s face was pale, as though he had been sleeping badly for an extended period, and his blue eyes were peering with an effort that was not merely his dreadful eyesight, but was also a proof of tiredness. He looked down to see Wolf resting his head on the Bishop’s lap.

  Jeanne saw too, and made a move to remove the hound, but the Bishop shook his head. He appeared to take comfort from Wolf’s weight on his thigh. He stroked the huge skull.

  ‘Bishop, I hope you will forgive my observing that you appear quite worn,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘My dear friend, you do not need perfect eyesight to tell that. And after all, I am sixty-four this year. It is not surprising that with all the responsibilities I have held, that I should be a little weary.’

  He sipped wine, while Baldwin watched him closely. ‘Is this because of your responsibilities to the Treasury?’

  ‘Aha! No, that is at least one responsibility of which I have divested myself. There is no more I can do with that, in God’s name!’

  The Bishop’s eyes gleamed with an uncharacteristic anger as he spoke, and Baldwin was surprised. ‘You are no longer the King’s Treasurer?’

  ‘He decided that he no longer required my assistance. Again!’

  Baldwin could not conceal the small smile. Only a few years before, the King had removed the Bishop from his role as Lord High Treasurer, but within a short space, he found he had to reinstate him. Bishop Walter’s skill at administration and record-keeping was beyond comparison. ‘Why so?’

  ‘The King trusts no one. He is parsimonious, it is true, but his niggardly penny-pinching will lead us into trouble before long. Last year he split the realm into two, for administrative purposes, north and south. But then, although he has created much more work, more administration, more effort, he refuses to allow the hire of more men to do it! Ach! I will have nothing more to do with the Exchequer. And then, he also wants to take more money from the Church, too. All ecclesiastical debts are to be called in. It was too much. So two weeks ago yesterday, I ceased to be Lord High Treasurer.’

  ‘It must have been a most trying period for you,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘Not so trying as continuing with a task I could not possibly achieve,’ the Bishop said sharply. ‘But that isn’t why I am as you see me. Have you heard of the violence growing in our land?’

  ‘We have heard some rumours,’ Baldwin said, glancing at his wife as he did so. He could see that she was unsettled by the conversation. She stood quietly, but her eyes told of her anxiety.

  ‘I heard last afternoon that another King’s official has been attacked. The keeper of rebel castles in the Welsh March has been most brutally beaten and blinded. And he is not the only one. There are attacks in Yorkshire, in the south near London, down towards the coast – there is nowhere safe where the law resides.’

  ‘Surely the land is not so unsettled that you need fear such things?’ Jeanne asked quietly.

  ‘My dear, I fear it is worse than you could appreciate,’ the Bishop said with absent-minded condescension.

  Jeanne could see that he had not intended to patronise her, but his words rankled nonetheless.

  ‘How could it be worse? Are there many similar cases?’ Baldwin frowned. ‘I have heard nothing of any such attacks here in Devon.’

  ‘Let me put it like this: the King is now moving his prisoners from one castle to another.’ Bishop Walter had fixed Baldwin with a steely, unwavering stare as he spoke.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Jeanne asked.

  Baldwin knew precisely what he meant. ‘If the King was confident that the castle garrisons could hold the prisoners securely, he would leave them in one place. If he’s moving them about the country, it means he is worried that large forces could be brought to lay siege to any one of the castles, if people grow certain of who is being held there. If he’s moving them around, it means he is trying to confuse any potential rebels, not giving them the certainty of which prisoner will be in which castle at any time.’

  ‘It makes excellent sense, Lady Jeanne. However, it is also a proof of his weakness in the face of the men ranged against him.’

  ‘But he is the King,’ Jeanne objected. ‘Surely few would dare to set their faces against him – especially since he destroyed the Lords Marcher and their forces.’

  Baldwin nodded, his eyes fixed upon the Bishop. The King had not enjoyed a successful career as a warrior. The Scots had beaten him severely, not once, but many times. During the last war the Scottish had almost captured the Queen. It was only a miracle that saw her escape – and then it was so close that two of her ladies-in-waiting had died. Only once had he displayed a martial skill suitable for the son of Edward I: at Boroughbridge. There he had defeated the combined strength of the Lords Marcher.

  ‘He succeeded there, yes,’ Baldwin admitted. ‘But he sowed the problem that is beginning to fruit even now. Isn’t that so, Bishop?’

  ‘The King captured many, Lady Jeanne,’ Bishop Walter said, and nodded. ‘But the simple truth is, his actions afterwards left all those who received his blast of anger with a simmering rage. He took many knights, lords and even the Earl of Lancaster, his own cousin, and executed them. Others he impoverished by taking their castles, their lands, their treasure. I tried at the time to propose that he should show some compassion, especially for the poor women who suffered so much. The widows of his enemies were treated with appalling cruelty. He took all their property, even the dowers which they themselves brought to their marriages. All was removed and used to bolster the King’s coffers. Is it any surprise that many resent his behaviour, when he could be so harsh to them? And these same men, whom he deprived of livelihood and wealth, are wanderers now. They have no homes, no fixed dwellings. So if they decide to turn wolfshead and become outlaw, no one knows where they live. The whole nation is beginning to tear itself apart. When a land loses the benefit of the rule of the law, it grows ungovernable.’

  ‘You surely don’t truly believe that!’ Jeanne said quietly.

  ‘What will you do?’ Baldwin asked as the Bishop frowned at the mazer of wine in his hand.

  ‘I will do all I can to ensure that the realm is well governed, to protect the King, and to serve my diocese,’ Bishop Walter said.

  ‘When will the Queen return?’ Baldwin asked. He had been sent with his friend, Simon Puttock, to France to guard the Queen on her journey to see the French King.

  ‘She should be returning any time soon, I imagine,’ the Bishop said. ‘If not now, then when the King travels to Paris; he will no doubt bring her back. It is plain enough that she can achieve little there on her own. She has done her best, I suppose.’

 
‘The King will travel there?’ Jeanne asked.

  ‘He must go and perform his homage to his liege lord, the same as any other man,’ the Bishop said with a faint hint of acid in his tone. ‘Some men think that they need not comply with the wishes of their masters, but it is better that they realise sooner rather than later what their duties require. And the King holds his territories in Guyenne and the Agenais from the French King. If he wishes to retain his lands over there, he must pay homage. It is clear.’

  ‘Because the French King has the larger host,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘Yes. He has more knights and men-at-arms,’ the Bishop agreed, but without an answering smile.

  ‘Will you go with him?’ Jeanne asked.

  ‘Me? My dear Lady, I am too old to wander about the land of France. It is enough for me to make a lengthy journey across my diocese – and more than enough to have to attend the King’s councils. I seek no more long journeys, by land or by sea!’

  Chapter Five

  Louvre, Paris

  The Procureur stood in the chamber again where the man had been killed.

  ‘What was he doing in here? Why was he not taken to the Cardinal’s chamber?’

  The servant shrugged. ‘If the man was unknown to the Cardinal, why should our master wish to see him?’

  ‘Philippe, you have a point. But why bring him up here?’ the Procureur repeated. There was no reason for it. This room was not even on the same floor as the Cardinal’s chamber.

  ‘What is this room usually used for?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘It was used by a clerk, but he died last year, and it has remained empty ever since, I think. Why?’

  ‘It intrigues me.’

  Jean cast an eye all over the place from his vantage point near the door, and then he moved inside, inspecting the plain walls, the simple roof. There was nothing out of the ordinary or hidden here, he quickly decided.

  Perhaps there was something about the location of the chamber, then, that was significant. Jean went outside again and looked up and down the quiet corridor.

  ‘Philippe – how well do you know this area?’

  ‘I have hardly ever come up here. It’s not a part of the castle I have been asked to go to.’

  ‘I see,’ Jean said, and swore to himself. It was a problem, clearly, that this part of the castle was so quiet. It had made it harder to find a witness to the arrival of the man. It would also serve to make it difficult to …

  ‘I am the king of fools!’ he said suddenly.

  Saturday before the Feast of Mary Magdalen*

  Lydford, Devon

  In his own property, Simon Puttock, lately Bailiff to the Stannaries of Dartmoor, and more recently the representative of the Keeper of the Port of Dartmouth, until the Keeper’s death, breathed in deeply as he drained his first quart of ale that morning, sitting on his chair in front of the fire, feeling the warmth seeping into his body.

  The previous evening had been unseasonally cool, and he was happy to be here – all the more so because when he went out for an early morning ride, a brief shower of rain had left him sodden and uncomfortable. He was painfully aware that he smelled like a drowned ewe, and was keen to have his clothes dried. Worse, earlier in the year a bully called William atte Wattere, working for Sir Hugh le Despenser, had assaulted him, cutting him about the left shoulder and hand. Both wounds still stung, although they seemed to be mending. However, as he looked about him in his hall, he had to reflect that he had known worse mornings.

  His wife squatted near him, adding wood to the faggots on the fire. Her rounded figure was straining against the material of her simple tunic, her fair hair already straying from her wimple.

  ‘You know, Meg, life is good,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘All I need now is a good woman to sit on my lap, and …’

  He lunged, but Margaret had already squeaked and darted out of arm’s reach. ‘You have work to get on with,’ she objected.

  ‘No. I am without work.’

  ‘Until you know who has won at the Abbey, you have little to do for the monks, you mean. There is plenty to be getting on with here, and as soon as they make up their minds …’

  ‘They already have,’ Simon growled. ‘That is the trouble. Robert Busse has decided that he has won the abbacy, and John de Courtenay has too. It makes it all a little difficult to see who will actually take the throne. Meanwhile, the abbey’s funds are all taken by the King while they battle it out. The pair of them must be mad.’

  ‘That’s not fair. You know full well that the one who is causing the trouble is John de Courtenay. Robert Busse won the abbacy in a fair election. It’s just that John de Courtenay won’t accept that he lost.’

  ‘Perhaps, but neither is doing the abbey any good. And meanwhile, here I am, wasting away as the time passes,’ he said mournfully. ‘So come and squirm on my lap, woman!’

  ‘No!’

  He had just attempted an experimental swoop when they were both stilled by the sound of hoofbeats. ‘Oh, Christ’s cods,’ Simon muttered. ‘Does this mean there’s been a decision about the abbacy?’

  ‘It doesn’t look like an abbey’s messenger,’ Meg said, patting her straying fair hair back under her wimple.

  Getting up and walking over to her, Simon admired his woman again. She was five years younger than him, and apart from the natural ravages of time at her face, it was hard to see that she was already some four and thirty years old. Even the three birthings, and the miscarriages between, had not dulled her spirit, nor the shine of her hair, and for the rest he found her body more comfortable now than he did before. He slipped his arms about her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder as he peered through the slats of the unglazed window. ‘The fellow is looking about like a lost man,’ he commented.

  ‘No, now he has seen us here.’

  It was true enough. The man had asked a passerby for directions and now he had kicked his scraggy old mare into an amble and was riding towards them.

  From the look of him, he was a lowly lawyer’s clerk. Simon had seen enough of that sort when he was a Bailiff, listening to cases in the gaol at Lydford. All kinds of pleaders would turn up there, trying to make a living from the miserable felons who mouldered in the dank prison underground. This shabby-looking man reminded Simon of those who would loiter down in the cells, hoping to find someone who would accept them. Few prisoners, however, were that desperate.

  ‘You lost, friend?’ Simon called as he went out from his door.

  ‘I was hoping to find a man called Puttock – Simon the Bailiff.’

  ‘You’ve found him.’

  ‘I have a message from Master William atte Wattere,’ the man said, holding up a small parchment, sealed with red wax.

  Simon clenched his teeth and would have left the man sitting on his horse there, but Margaret was at his side, and he could tell by the way her grip stiffened on his arm that she was terrified. He had to show he was not alarmed, and he stepped forward to take the proffered message.

  ‘You want to reply?’ the messenger asked.

  ‘No,’ Simon said. He did not open the message, but stood silently, waiting. The man shrugged and pulled his horse’s head round, departing at a gentle trot.

  ‘Simon!’ Margaret hissed. ‘What does that man want with us now?’

  He bent and kissed her, but there was no passion now; this was a means of steeling himself, he reflected, as he drew Margaret back into their hall.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded as he peered at the tiny characters. Simon had been taught to read by the canons at Crediton when he was a lad, but this script was very hard to decipher. It was not the simple Latin of the Church, nor the flowing French of the courts, but a mingling of the two. Knowing Wattere, Simon suspected he had tried to make his note sound more legalistic by the use of florid expressions. It didn’t work – but the basic message was clear enough.

  ‘Meg, it’s not good news,’ he said slowly, as his world fell about his ears.

  Wednesday foll
owing the Feast of Mary Magdalen*

  Furnshill, Devon

  Baldwin had been relieved to be able to wave the Bishop away. The latter’s manner, his paleness and anxiety, had all been so entirely unlike him that Baldwin was worried that the nation was truly beginning to suffer from the collapse of the King’s Peace, as he had feared.

  When he saw his old friend Simon riding up the grass track to his house, he was relieved to see a friendly face, but his joy was to be short-lived.

  ‘What is it, old friend? Your wife? Margaret is well? And …’

  ‘I think, Baldwin, you may find that you have me living near you again,’ Simon said with a taut smile, reaching into his breast and pulling out a sweat-dampened letter. ‘Read it for yourself.’

  Baldwin led the way into the hall, reading as he went, and once there, he bawled for Wat to serve them with wine, before dropping into his chair with a grunt. ‘And is this correct?’

  ‘I have been to Exeter to find out. I was there all day yesterday, but yes, it seems so. I had bought my house on a lease, and it is renewable every seven years. I had no idea I had missed the last payment. It was due while we were in France, and I forgot about it. If you remember, it was only a short while after we moved to Lydford that our son died, and there were many things that slipped my mind …’

  ‘This says that Despenser has bought the house. How did he do so?’

  ‘It was owned by old Harold Uppacott. He died a few months ago, and his son was offered a better sum for it than he would have expected. I don’t blame him. But Christ’s ballocks, I do blame Despenser. It’s just the same as before.’

  ‘I am astonished that Wattere dares to do this, though,’ Baldwin grated. His anger was increasing, the more he thought about it.

  It was only two or three months ago that Wattere had become known to them. Early in May, when Simon and Baldwin returned to their homes after guarding the Queen during her journey to Paris, Simon had learned that William Wattere, a servant to Sir Hugh le Despenser, had threatened to steal his house from him. It was no empty threat from a brigand, either. Despenser had become accustomed to taking what he wished, and with his position as the King’s favourite, there was no means of controlling his intolerable greed. Simon had almost given up his home, but he and Baldwin had managed to have Wattere arrested. Afterwards, they had come to an accommodation with Despenser – or so they had thought.