The Bishop's Brood

by Simon Beaufort

  ‘Can you not?’ asked Roger, genuinely surprised. He shook his head at his friend. ‘For a knight, you have some very odd ideas! There is nothing wrong with a bit of innocent bloodsport.’

  Geoffrey did not want to argue. He turned his horse around, but his men – faithful Sergeant Helbye and six fellows from his manor of Rwirdin on the Welsh border – were among the gawking spectators, and they blocked his path.

  ‘Come away, Will,’ said Geoffrey, addressing Helbye impatiently. ‘I do not want to miss a sailing because of a street fight.’

  ‘Attack, boy, attack!’ boomed Roger. ‘You will not beat him by backing away!’

  The older brawler meant business. He feinted to his right and then lunged to his left, so that only the quicker reactions of his opponent prevented him from being skewered. There was a gasp from the crowd as the youngster tottered, then righted himself, holding his injured arm awkwardly.

  ‘Do not retreat!’ Roger’s voice was loud enough to be heard in France. ‘Stand your ground!’

  ‘The staff!’ the youngster yelled, when a glance at the crowd told him two knights were among the spectators, and one of them was trying to help him. ‘He wants to take the staff!’

  ‘Do not babble!’ shouted Roger. ‘Concentrate, and do not take your eyes off your opponent.’

  ‘The staff,’ pleaded the youngster, gazing at Roger with what seemed to Geoffrey to be desperation. ‘Make sure Brother Gamelo does not get the staff!’

  ‘Who is Brother Gamelo?’ asked Roger of Geoffrey. ‘And what staff does he mean?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Geoffrey, amused that Roger imagined he would know. ‘It is you he is speaking to, not me.’

  ‘Well, I do not know what he is blathering about,’ muttered Roger impatiently. He watched the lad parry a blow, and began to bawl instructions again. ‘Do not just stand there! Use your dagger!’

  ‘Do not let Gamelo take it!’ the young man all but screamed.

  He was about to add more, but his opponent dived, a knife flashed briefly and the youngster dropped to his knees clutching his shoulder. There was another gasp from the crowd as he pitched forward and began to roll down the sloping roof. Moments later, there was a soggy crunch as he landed on the street below.

  When Geoffrey looked from the crumpled body back to the roof, he saw the older man had taken advantage of the fact that all eyes had been on his stricken opponent, and had escaped. He was nowhere to be seen, and Geoffrey supposed he had slid down the other side of the roof and fled.

  The spectators surged forward, wanting to see the corpse of the man who had been knifed before their very eyes, while Geoffrey sighed tiredly and rested his hands on the pommel of his saddle, knowing he would not be going anywhere as long as the mob hemmed him in so tightly. His black and white dog, resenting the uninvited proximity of so many people, growled and nipped unprotected ankles, so Geoffrey soon had a small clearing around him. A few indignant people looked as if they might consider kicking the animal, but a glance at the tall, well-built knight who wore the Crusader’s cross on his surcoat and who looked as though he had earned it, made them reconsider.

  Roger shook his head in disgust, eyes still fastened on the spot where the youngster had fallen. ‘The boy should not have taken his eyes off his opponent. If he had listened to me, he would still be alive.’

  Unimpressed by the whole unedifying spectacle, Geoffrey changed the subject. ‘The wind has changed and I doubt any ships will be leaving today. We will have to spend the night here.’

  ‘I know an excellent tavern,’ said Roger cheerfully. ‘The beds have more fleas than a pack of Holy Land mongrels, but since this is to be our last night in England, we will spend it romping with comely wenches, and will not notice the state of the mattresses anyway.’

  ‘It had better be more pleasant than that place you recommended yesterday,’ said Geoffrey, not without rancour. ‘I do not want to spend half the night fending off prostitutes, and the other half repelling thieves.’

  Roger guffawed. ‘You should have done what I did: select one whore and let her fight off the others while you get a decent night’s rest.’ He leered and gave Geoffrey a dig in the ribs. ‘But tonight will be different. Yesterday’s offerings were paltry and I do not blame you for abstaining. But the lasses in Southampton are famous for their looks and charm.’

  Geoffrey had heard this claim before. The big knight was an undiscerning judge of looks and charm, and generally put women into two categories: nuns and ancient dames, who were treated with a rough reverence, and the rest, who were considered fair game for his clumsy advances – whether they were world-weary ladies of the night or other men’s wives or daughters. It meant he was not always an ideal travelling companion, and Geoffrey had been forced to use wits, cash, and even his sword to extricate them from a number of delicate situations on their journey towards the coast.

  ‘There he is,’ said Roger, when a stretcher bearing the broken body of the young man was carried past. ‘He was a fool for fighting on a roof. Still, I suppose we live and learn.’

  ‘He did not,’ Geoffrey pointed out. He leaned forward to look more closely. ‘That is odd. I saw him stabbed in the shoulder before he fell.’

  ‘He was,’ agreed Roger. ‘And he was skewered because he allowed his attention to stray, instead of watching his opponent as I instructed.’

  ‘In that case, why is there a crossbow bolt sticking out of his back?’

  Roger and Geoffrey spent what remained of the short winter afternoon searching for a Normandy-bound ship, while the men trailed behind, bored and tired. Finally, as the daylight faded to shadows of dark grey, and Geoffrey accepted they would have no luck that evening, it began to snow. At first, there were only a few flurries, but then it started in earnest, with falling white disks the size of silver pennies. The first ones melted as soon as they touched the ground, but their successors stuck, and it was not long before the vile black slush of previous snow, churned mud, and sundry other rubbish was hidden beneath a veil of white.

  Despite the fact that dusk was approaching fast, Southampton’s streets still teemed with people – bands of sailors on their way to drunken belligerence, apprentices wearing the liveries of their employers, and scruffy watchmen hired to prevent breaches of the peace that became too violent or disruptive. But it was not sailors, apprentices, or guards Geoffrey saw when he looked around. It was a brief flash of someone dodging quickly down a lane. Since it was not the first time in the last hour or so he thought he had detected such a movement, he turned his horse and cantered back. However, when he reached the alley, there was nothing to see, and it wound innocently towards the wharfside warehouses. He watched for a while, staring into the shadows, but saw nothing untoward. When he finally left the lane, Roger was waiting for him with a quizzical expression on his face.

  Geoffrey explained. ‘I keep glimpsing someone who slips out of sight whenever I look around. We are being followed and I do not like it.’

  ‘You worry too much,’ declared Roger. ‘It is probably just some thief who fancies his chances with our saddlebags when we bed down for the night. Ignore it.’

  Geoffrey supposed he was right, although it did not make him relax his guard. He took some comfort in the fact that the fellow would find dogging their footsteps increasingly difficult with the snow swirling down like a thick mist.

  ‘We will find a ship tomorrow,’ said Roger confidently, as though failure was not an option. He blinked water from his eyes. ‘I have had enough of this English weather. It will not be like this in Normandy.’

  Geoffrey smiled. ‘It is likely to be a good deal worse. And unless a favourable wind blows, we will not be leaving here at all.’

  ‘Your men are not happy.’ Roger jerked a callused thumb behind him, to where the soldiers and Helbye formed a sullen group, huddled into their cloaks and with their hoods pulled low over their faces. Even the dog seemed resentful. It declined to take its usual place by Geoffrey’s horse, and k
ept company with the men, as though expressing its solidarity with them. The only soldier who did not form part of the morose pack was the idiot, Peterkin; he rode with eyes shining in innocent delight at the flakes that settled on him, his slack mouth hanging open in wonderment.

  ‘You had the pick of the men on your manor,’ said Roger, eyeing the soldiers with undisguised disdain. ‘Could you not find any who were more promising than this rabble?’

  Geoffrey shrugged. ‘I could not take men with dependants, no matter how much they wanted to come. These six have no families relying on them to provide their daily bread.’

  ‘That is because two have spent so much time in prison they have not had the chance to woo themselves wives; two like each other more than they do women; and two are stark raving mad. I have never seen such miserable specimens in all my days!’

  There was nothing Geoffrey could say, because Roger was right. The Littel brothers were inveterate thieves, and he had pressed them into service because otherwise they were due to hang. They were hard, ruthless men who Geoffrey suspected would desert as soon as they had stolen enough money to make good their escape. Freyn and Tilloy were a good deal more than friends, something Geoffrey considered irrelevant as long as they did not allow their relationship to interfere with their duties. But it was Joab and his brother Peterkin who gave him the most cause for concern. Both had the minds of children, especially Peterkin, and the more Geoffrey came to know them, the more he regretted taking them from their homes.

  ‘That business with the roof-top fight today was odd,’ said Roger, when Geoffrey did not reply to his disparaging remarks. ‘How did a crossbow bolt find its way into that lad’s back when you and I saw him stabbed in the front?’

  ‘We saw him drop to his knees after he was knifed and raise his hand to the injury. Then he pitched forward and tumbled from the roof. However, since he was being attacked from the front, I would have expected him to have fallen backward, not forward. I suspect the shoulder wound was a mere scratch, and that the fatal injury was caused by the crossbow bolt in his back.’

  ‘Meaning what, exactly?’ asked Roger.

  ‘Meaning someone else came along and shot him in the back, probably a friend of the knifeman.’

  ‘It was a curious thing, that crossbow bolt,’ said Roger, after reflecting on the injustice of such cowardly tactics. ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘It had been painted red,’ said Geoffrey immediately. He had thought it odd that a missile should be so coloured at the time. ‘Although I cannot imagine why.’

  ‘I can,’ said Roger smugly, pleased to know something his literate, intelligent friend did not. ‘It had been dipped in beetroot juice.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Geoffrey, not certain whether to believe him. Roger often produced ‘facts’ that it later transpired had been distilled from something he had not fully understood.

  ‘Because to stain an arrow increases its chances of success,’ said Roger. ‘A red one ensures you will get a stag or a boar. A white bolt – rubbed with ashes – will let you kill a hare. And one stained blue will bring down a bird from the sky. Everyone knows this where I come from.’

  ‘But the man on the roof was not a stag or a boar. And are you sure you do not know what he meant when he shouted about this staff? He was yelling to you.’

  Roger frowned. ‘Perhaps he wanted me to throw him one, so he could knock the knife from his opponent’s hand.’

  Geoffrey did not agree. ‘He was telling you to prevent “Brother Gamelo” from taking it, not demanding that you provide him with one.’

  ‘I suppose he could mean Aaron’s Rod,’ said Roger, after a moment of serious consideration. ‘That is the only staff of any importance I can think of.’

  ‘Aaron? You mean Moses’ brother in the Bible?’ asked Geoffrey, regarding Roger warily and wondering how he had come up with such an odd notion. ‘Why would you think he meant that?’

  ‘Because my father always said he would get it for Durham cathedral,’ replied Roger casually. ‘A big and important place like that needs some good relics. We have plenty of saints, of course, like Cuthbert, Aidan, Oswald, and Balthere, but my father wants something really important.’

  ‘Aaron’s Rod?’ asked Geoffrey in astonishment. ‘But it does not exist.’

  ‘It does,’ said Roger. ‘Or my father would not have promised it to Durham, would he?’

  ‘That does not necessarily follow,’ Geoffrey pointed out. The Bishop of Durham – who was also Roger’s father – was as wily and dishonest as his son was guileless, and Geoffrey knew better than to believe anything he said. ‘How could Flambard ever hope to authenticate such a find?’

  ‘He will not have to, because people will just see its holiness – like they do with St Cuthbert, where the goodness shines from his coffin.’

  ‘Does it indeed?’ asked Geoffrey wryly, sure it did not.

  ‘Aaron’s Rod is important,’ Roger went on. ‘God used it to write the Ten Commandments.’

  ‘He did not,’ countered Geoffrey immediately. ‘He told Moses to wave it about, and it brought some of the plagues that resulted in the Israelites being released from slavery in Egypt.’

  ‘Maybe,’ hedged Roger, unwilling to admit he might be wrong. ‘But it is a powerful thing nevertheless, and it will soon be in Durham.’

  Geoffrey seriously doubted it, but Roger was not an easy man to dissuade once he had made up his mind about something. Moreover, he did not want to spend the rest of the day in a debate neither of them would win. He changed the subject.

  ‘This snow is getting worse. We should find this tavern of yours before everyone else has the same idea and we are obliged to sleep in the stables.’

  Roger beamed in the gloom. ‘It is called the Saracen’s Head – a fine name for a couple of Crusaders like us. My father told me about it, and I always stay there when I sail to Normandy. You will not regret bedding down there, lad! It is not a place you will forget in a hurry.’

  Geoffrey suspected that was likely to be true, although he was not entirely convinced that the experience would be a pleasant one.

  It did not take a genius to see that Roger’s tavern was located in Southampton’s seedier quarter – where mercenary soldiers gathered in brawling gangs, where sailors came to spend their pay on the red-wigged whores who touted aggressively for business, and where shady merchants met to exchange goods they had decided were exempt from the King’s taxes. The houses were grimy and unkempt, although each had windows that were heavily shuttered against thieves. Here and there, drunks lay in the snow, singing and slopping half-filled wineskins in noisy salutes to passers-by. There were beggars, too, rolled up in their rags against the cold, and calling pitifully for alms.

  Shadows flitted back and forth in the darkness, and Geoffrey dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it should he sense an attack, although he suspected they would be safe enough, even in a rough area like the one Roger was blithely leading them through. Fully armed Norman knights were formidable fighters, and it would take more than the grubby criminals who lurked in the alleys and doorways to best one of them and live to tell the tale. Cut-throats and robbers watched them ride by, then prudently went about their own business.

  Geoffrey glanced behind him again, aware that whoever had been following them was still there, betrayed by small, furtive movements that flickered at the corner of his eye. But, he supposed, if the watcher meant them harm, something would have happened by now, and he imagined Roger was right in assuming it was some desperate thief.

  As Geoffrey and Roger approached the tavern, their men straggling behind them, a low rumble of voices could be heard from within, broken occasionally by louder calls as the landlord hurried to keep his customers supplied with ale and wine. Roger dismounted, unbuckled his saddlebags, and handed the reins of his destrier to a groom. Leaving the trusty Sergeant Helbye to ensure horses and men were properly settled, he strode towards the door, grinning in anticipation of a meal and hot spic
ed wine to drive away the chill of a bitter winter evening. Geoffrey followed, his dog slinking at his heels.

  The best seats near the fire had already been claimed, and the two knights were escorted to a table at the far end of the tavern. Although not the cosiest spot, it had the advantage of privacy, and was comfortingly distant from the other tables, around which huddled some of the most disreputable-looking characters Geoffrey had ever seen. He could only suppose the sheriff was bribed to stay away, because the fact that crimes were being plotted and reviewed was so obvious that it could not have been more brazen had there been a sign saying ‘Felons Welcome’ emblazoned over the door.

  A harried pot boy slammed down two cups of steaming ale, then left the knights to brush the snow from their clothes. Clumps of soggy ice dropped to the matted rushes on the floor as Roger gave his cloak a vigorous shake.

  ‘Bloody weather!’ he muttered, hauling his conical helmet from his head and giving the hair underneath a long, hard rub with his thick fingers. ‘I hate the cold.’

  ‘When we are in the Holy Land, you always say you would rather face an English winter than the heat,’ said Geoffrey, trying to massage some life into his frozen face. ‘And you have told me that snow can isolate Durham for weeks at a time. You should be used to this kind of thing.’

  Roger grunted noncommittally. He flopped on to a wooden bench, seized his ale and drained it in a single draught. He leaned back against the wall, and wiped his lips on the back of his hand, closing his eyes in satisfaction. ‘That is better. There is nothing like a pot of boiling ale to drive the chill from a man’s bones.’

  Geoffrey sat next to him, enjoying the furnace-like warmth of the room. He snatched up his ale just as Roger was reaching for it, and was allowing its soporific effects to relax him, when he realized his men were still outside.

  ‘Let them be,’ said Roger drowsily, grabbing Geoffrey’s arm as he stood to leave. ‘I expect that idiot Peterkin has lost his saddlebags or some such nonsense. Helbye can sort it out.’