The King of Thieves:

by Michael Jecks

  Baldwin winced. ‘That is your answer, Simon.’

  ‘Christ’s ballocks. We’re stuck here, aren’t we?’

  Furnshill

  Margaret was surprised to be told that there was a man in the hall to see her. Jeanne had sent a maid to fetch her, and Margaret strode indoors with a frown of concern on her face. It was unlikely to be a messenger from her husband, so she had a feeling that the fellow would be from her home.

  ‘You are Madame Puttock?’ the fellow asked, eyeing her haughtily.

  He was a youngster, this cleric, but one of those who thought he knew the importance of his own position in the world.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My Cardinal, Raymond, sends his deepest regards and wishes me to tell you that your house is entirely to his satisfaction. He will be most happy to remain there for some weeks until accommodation can be provided at Tavistock Abbey.’

  ‘Oh!’ Margaret said. She was dumbfounded. ‘But what of the men who had taken it over?’

  ‘They learned to regret their impetuosity.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  He sighed, but as Jeanne appeared with a great jug of ale, he brightened appreciably. ‘The Cardinal is here to adjudicate between two candidates at Tavistock Abbey. The last abbot, may he rest in peace …’

  ‘I know. He was a kind, good man,’ Margaret said. She had always liked Abbot Robert Champeaux, and she and Simon had been sad to learn of his death.

  ‘There are two men who claim the abbacy. Robert Busse won the election, but John de Courtenay chooses to contest it. The Cardinal is here to listen to the evidence and decide who deserves the post. He answers only to the Pope. He fears no man.’

  ‘Nor does Wattere.’ Margaret remembered with a shudder the man leering at her.

  ‘Wattere was the man who took your house? He has learned to respect the Cardinal. He is in the gaol at Tavistock Abbey now.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The man chose to try to draw a sword. My master called on the stannary bailiffs of the local court and reminded them that the Abbey of Tavistock owns the stannaries. They were happy to arrest Wattere and his men for the Cardinal, and then transported them to Tavistock for him.’

  Margaret could only gape.

  Paris

  The King of Thieves ran his hand along the thigh of the whore at his side. She was a new one, this Amélie. The last had given up, exhausted by the hours he kept, but the King didn’t care. It was better for his natural urges that he spend them with new women at every opportunity.

  This latest was a Galician. Strong, fiery, not at all compliant, she would take a little breaking in, he thought. She’d been the go-between for the castle and him for some weeks now, but perhaps he should keep her here with him a while. She had the temper to match her body.

  ‘So you succeeded, Jacquot. I congratulate you.’

  Jacquot walked along the room until he stood before the King. ‘You should trust me more. He was a pathetic copy of me. He would never have made the mark.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ the King said. He put his head to one side, staring at the woman’s black hair. It gleamed as though oiled, and he set his hand into it. ‘It’s good that you’ve removed the little stammerer. Yet you have still not managed the first commission. The Procureur is still alive.’

  Jacquot smiled without humour. ‘It will be done.’

  ‘Good. Go to it, then.’ The King motioned idly with his hand and the man turned and left him.

  He was the only one who dared do that. The others all gave him some sign of respect, limited in a few cases, it was true, but they still gave him some proof that they accepted him as their natural leader. Not Jacquot, though. He was always the loner, the one who was watching, never involved.

  Soon a couple of watchmen were due to come and see him. There was always business. Never a moment for rest. The King let his hand sweep down the flank of the Galician girl, then smoothed his palm over her upper thigh to the soft, inner flesh. He always loved this part of a woman. So free of blemishes, so lovely and sleek. He had a few minutes, surely. His hand rose to her, and her head turned to him, lips slightly open, eyes dull and staring into the distance.

  Oh, the bitch had ruined the moment. He drew his hand away and clouted her hard on the rump, making her squeal. Women were so stupid. They didn’t understand what a man wanted. Not a real man like him. His anger flared, and he punched her in the mouth, jerking her head away from him.

  And then he saw her turn back to him. There was a trickle of blood at her mouth, and she wiped it, then smiled and licked it away. And in her eyes there was a pleasure he had never expected to see reflected. It was like looking into his own eyes. She pinched him, and he felt his heart begin to pound.

  Yes, he’d keep this one at his side.

  Bois de Vincennes

  The King of France stormed from his hall, pulling off his gloves as he went and hurling them at an unfortunate servant. ‘Well? What do you have to say?’ he snarled at Cardinal Thomas d’Anjou. The latter had that look on his face, the self-righteous one that was so infuriating, and the King enjoyed a brief vision of the Cardinal bending over the figure of some wench, that same bloody expression on his face, as though he wasn’t a man like all others.

  ‘It was a most unfortunate display – and yet may well play to your advantage.’

  ‘Oh, yes! Much to my advantage, this. My sister, Queen to Edward of England, refusing to obey his order for her to return. It is bad enough that she is here, consorting with any men who are disinclined to accept their own King, her husband, as though set on reminding me that I used to wear the cuckold’s horns. Now she wants it to escalate into a full-scale political dispute or war!’

  ‘It would be a war you would win, my Liege.’

  ‘But it would be hellishly expensive, and I have other affairs that demand my energy. She has antagonised that fool the Bishop.’

  The Cardinal smiled. ‘Did you see his face? Like a man who’s bitten into a juicy pear to discover it tasted of wormwood! Hah! That was worth the seeing.’

  ‘Yes. It’s true, that was worth a chest of treasure, just to see the bile in his face! Stapledon is one of those who has caused shame beyond measure to me and my sister. The man thinks he can insult me with impunity and then come here on a diplomatic mission! Well, he is safe from me, but if he was threatened here, I don’t think that the Queen’s supporters would lift a finger to aid him. Except for Sir Baldwin, perhaps.’

  He knew that Sir Baldwin and Stapledon were friendly. It was one of the Cardinal’s own spies who had brought that information to him.

  The Cardinal smiled and nodded.

  He was a strangely self-possessed man, the King thought. Charles had known him for many years, both as a diplomatic and a legal adviser, and had only rarely found him to fail. His spies were everywhere – they were probably only marginally less effective than the King’s own, although nothing like so speedy and accurate in their information as those of, say, the Bardi family. But then bankers always had the best of everything. They could afford it.

  No man in the world was indispensable – but the Cardinal came very close to being so. For the King he was the most competent adviser on every aspect of Church politics, he was shrewd when planning about England, astute on Scottish affairs, and utterly objective and ruthless in the pursuit of French interests.

  ‘What would you do now that the fool of a Bishop has forced Isabella’s hand?’ King Charles asked after a moment’s consideration.

  ‘My Liege, it is very hard to know what to recommend. Naturally the King of England is entirely within his rights to demand that his wife returns – but he is not in a position to ask that you force her to comply. She is still a free woman, and a Princess of France. However, it would be of no service for others to believe that you assist a woman against her husband. And were you thought to be plotting to remove a neighbouring monarch, that would not enhance your reputation.’

  The King nodded. He
beckoned a servant, took the goblet of wine and drank. ‘So?’

  Cardinal Thomas watched as the servant walked away before answering. It was a measure of his caution that he would not even speak in front of the King’s servants. Foolish, in the King’s view, since a servant would know that he would have his tongue cut out, and his nails removed before having his limbs broken on the wheel if he opened his mouth at the wrong moment and caused any embarrassment to the King. They were more careful than the King himself about not divulging anything.

  ‘My Liege, you do not want any hint of complicity in planning the downfall of your brother-in-law, so I advise you to make it clear to your sister that her presence is an embarrassment to you. She will understand.’

  ‘So I should exile my sister from her own country,’ King Charles said. This was dispassionate advice at its best. The Cardinal had a heart as cold as a toad’s.

  ‘Not exile, no. But remove her from your immediate orbit. Otherwise the King of England might end up with a case that justified his own actions. Your sister wouldn’t wish for that.’

  ‘What do you mean by “his own actions”?’

  ‘Her lands, her treasure, her income,’ Cardinal Thomas shrugged. ‘All have been sequestrated by the King. If she were to plot here, the King of England’s spies will soon hear of it. And then he could declare all her possessions forfeit. If she were to wander away, to a place such as Hainault, where the English King is less likely to have spies in place, she may be safer. And so may her son.’

  ‘Yes. That is fair,’ the King said. He motioned to the Cardinal to leave him, and stood a while in splendid isolation in the middle of the great room.

  His sister must go, that much was certain. Apart from anything else, her behaviour was growing tedious. The repetitive complaints about her husband, the whining, the sidelong mentions of her lack of funds – it was all getting on his nerves. And then there was the matter of Sir Roger Mortimer, and his sister’s relationship with the man. Mortimer had been arrested, left to moulder in the Tower of London, and then engineered an escape a matter of days before he was to be executed. But this man had been the King of England’s best warrior! He was the King’s own General in Ireland, the man who had managed single-handedly to halt the warfare out there, and therefore the one man whom the King of England most feared. As for the Despenser – he and Mortimer had a feud that went back to the time of their grandsires, since Mortimer’s grandfather had slain Despenser’s on the field of war.

  But it was one thing to have a sworn and bitter enemy of the English here in France to twist the tail of the English King, quite another to have a man who appeared to be inveigling his way into the Queen of England’s affections, if not yet her bed.

  The Bardi spies were usually the best, but those which the King had set to watching Mortimer were the finest, the most skilful at their craft. And having once been forced to wear the cuckold’s horns, King Charles was sensitive to any suggestion that his sister might be doing the same to her husband while here at the French court.

  It was not to be borne.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wednesday before the Feast of the Archangel Michael*

  Bois de Vincennes

  Stapledon walked up and down the chamber, while his clerks watched anxiously. There were three of them, all sitting at the large table, waiting for instructions, but for now there was nothing. The Bishop didn’t trust his voice still. The embarrassment of the previous day sat like bile on his soul. So now he paced, his hands clasped before him as though in prayer, but the language which rolled about in his mind was not that which he would usually use in the presence of God.

  It was not his fault. The King had decided to send him here to see to the diplomatic problems involving the Queen, and ask that she return home. He even had access to the King’s bankers so that he could raise money to cover her present expenses and those of her journey. But she was a dangerous, difficult woman – sly, cunning and hard to deal with. The vixen!

  ‘Ha! Me lord Bishop, I think she has you there!’ Sir Richard declared as he entered. He crossed the floor to the sideboard, where he inspected the dishes in the hope of finding something sustaining.

  ‘Sir Richard, I do not need your advice on the matter,’ Bishop Walter said coldly. ‘Where are Sir Baldwin and the Bailiff?’

  ‘With the Earl, and keeping an eye on the others with the King, I dare say. The Queen’s a pretty little thing, but I wouldn’t want my son left with her and her brother as my boy’s guardians, so I suggested that the two of them stayed with Earl Edward. I believe they were going to go falconing.’

  ‘And you didn’t want to join them?’

  ‘Me? Chase after a bird? No, although give me some good greyhounds and a fleet destrier, and I’ll chase deer all over the place. I’ve been asking, and there are quite a good number here. Perhaps I’ll have a chance of setting the hounds on ’em, eh? That would be a glorious ride. In the meantime, I’ll have to just occupy meself as best I can around here,’ he added mournfully.

  The Bishop nodded curtly and strode to the large table. On it were the letters which he had been asked to bring. A clerk looked up hopefully, and received a baleful glare in return, as the Bishop picked up the sealed parchment for the bankers.

  Leaving the chamber, with Sir Richard wandering behind him like some enquiring mastiff, the Bishop swept through the corridors until he came to the Queen’s chambers. He knocked, and the little blonde woman, Alicia, the lady-in-waiting who was so often at the Queen’s side, opened it.

  ‘Tell your mistress that I would speak with her,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘I think she may be a little indisposed, my Lord Bishop,’ Alicia said.

  ‘I have funds for her if she makes herself available.’

  As he had expected, the letter in his hand was the key to opening her chamber, and in a short while he and Sir Richard were in the Queen’s gracious apartment. She stood, dressed as a widow, all in black, as the two entered. Behind her were Alicia, Lady Alice de Toeni and Joan of Bar, King Edward’s niece. And all stared at him without expression.

  Dear God, he thought, the bitch has poisoned all of them against me!

  It had been almost a year ago now that he had argued with the King that her household should be broken up, and new maids brought in to serve her. As Stapledon had said, the woman might be Queen of England, but she was still French by nature. Her heart was French. All those who were French should be removed from her household, and replaced with loyal English servants. That was why he’d been forced to demand a full safe-conduct from Queen Isabella when the King first suggested that he come here to treat with her. Until then there had been threats that he would be captured and tortured if he ever set foot in France, for his offences to the Queen.

  ‘I hope I see you well, my Queen.’

  ‘I am well. Alicia said you have money for me? That is good. I need funds to maintain myself in the manner to which a Queen should be accustomed.’

  ‘Yes, my Lady. I am to help you here as I may, so that you can return home to your husband all the more speedily.’

  ‘I shall consider the matter as soon as I have my debts paid,’ she said firmly.

  ‘My Lady, your husband, the King, has asked that you return home forthwith. Here is his letter.’

  ‘I do not wish to read it, Bishop, but I will have my money, if you please?’

  He looked down at her hand and then back up into her eyes. Cold, they were, as ice. ‘No.’

  ‘You refuse me, your Queen?’

  ‘I was told quite definitely to give you money only when you agreed to return to England. I am not at liberty to give you money to support you here while you refuse. Especially after the manner of your refusal yesterday. That was a sad embarrassment to me, to your husband’s loyal servant!’

  ‘Then it would appear that there is little more to be discussed.’

  ‘Quite so,’ the Bishop said. He was shivering, he was so cross. That this damned woman could dare to d
eny him – and her King – what they reasonably asked, was outrageous. Quite outrageous!

  ‘What are your plans, my Lady, if you will not go back to the bosom of your family and your husband?’ he asked with frigid calm.

  ‘I have much still to do, my Lord Bishop. There are matters to negotiate with the King here. Fortunately he is prepared to help support me as a Princess should be. I am safe here in France, you see. Safe from attack – and from the depredations of those who would rob me of all my properties and income.’

  Bishop Walter curled his lip at that, but said nothing. He knew that his reasonable and sensible actions in seeing all her lands in Devon and Cornwall sequestrated had rankled, but that was not his concern. ‘And how long do you intend to hold this charade?’ he said, indicating her widow’s clothing.

  ‘Until the King is free of the base traitor Despenser and I can once again take my throne in Westminster Hall.’

  ‘Come home now.’

  ‘You heard me yesterday. I will not.’

  ‘Then all support is cut off. The King will advance you nothing.’

  He stared at her hard, and then span on his heel and strode out, Sir Richard, grinning broadly and winking at Alicia, following more slowly.

  ‘Sir Richard?’ the Queen said as he reached the door.

  ‘Yes, my Queen?’

  ‘Do be careful around the Bishop. There are many here in France who do not like him.’

  ‘I’m always careful, my Queen,’ he said with a smile. He left the room just as Sir Henry de Beaumont appeared in the corridor outside. ‘Ha! Sir Henry. You coming to see the Queen too?’

  Sir Henry had paled, before smiling in return and nodding effusively. ‘Yes. I was here to speak with her and ensure that she was safely guarded. Can’t have just anyone breaking in on her.’

  ‘No, there are too many Frenchies here for my liking!’ Sir Richard chuckled, and set off in the Bishop’s wake.

  But Sir Richard, for all his amiability and an exterior composed apparently of elephant hide, was a law officer, and as astute as any. The hesitation of Sir Henry had not been missed.