The Prophecy of Death: (Knights Templar 25)

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Because he was not serious in intent,’ Baldwin said thoughtfully.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He knew that I would react if he attacked my friend here. But there can be no basis for his assault on Simon. Simon leases his own property. So any legal matter would fail, but so would an all-out attack. This was a little show, a threat. To show what he could do, were he to choose to.’

  ‘But he failed,’ Bishop Walter said.

  ‘Did he? He cost Simon many hours of lost sleep, I would guess, and his wife plenty of distress, too.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Simon admitted. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘You have at least gained a pleasing sword,’ Baldwin said. The sword which Simon had taken from Wattere was leaning against the wall, and Baldwin went and took it up. ‘It has a good balance.’

  ‘It is the second sword I have taken from him,’ Simon said with a grin of shy satisfaction. ‘The first was when he came here. Not that I have a sheath for it, sadly. I didn’t take that from him. Still, I have the sheath for this one.’

  ‘He appears to be providing you with all the weaponry you could wish for,’ Baldwin said with a chuckle.

  ‘It will infuriate the Despenser, the fact that you have prevented him,’ Bishop Stapledon said. ‘He is used to having his way.’

  ‘Not this time,’ Baldwin said. ‘He will not take Simon’s lands. Nor mine. Not while we have friends such as you, Bishop.’

  ‘No,’ Bishop Walter said.

  He smiled at Baldwin, and Baldwin gave a brief grin in return, but not with ease.

  At any time in the last eight years or so since he had first met the Bishop, Baldwin would have said that he was a close friend. All over Devon and Cornwall, Bishop Walter II of Exeter was popular and held in high regard for his stalwart defence of the diocese. He visited all the churches and convents, and was a keen supporter of education. In Ashburton he had built a small school, and together with his brother he had founded Stapledon College at Oxford, as well as aiding many poor boys by giving them education if they appeared to merit the investment. All in all, his good works had benefited most of Devon.

  But there was another side to his nature which Baldwin had discovered only recently. Stapledon had been involved in national politics for some years, indeed, he had been Lord High Treasurer and reformed much of the administration of the treasury. In the last year, he had taken the side of Despenser and the King against the Queen. It was said, and believably, that it was Stapledon who had argued for the confiscation of her property in Devon and Cornwall, on the basis that this would remove a potential threat to the realm, for if her brother, the King of France, were to try to invade the country, he would undoubtedly try to land there, where his sister held so many assets and had loyal servants.

  For whatever the reason, Bishop Walter had seen to the sequestration of her estates, and then he supported Despenser in the eviction and exile of much of her household and in the removal even of her small children, having them taken into protective custody, as though the poor woman would have tried to poison their minds against their father, her husband. All this had left a very sour taste in Baldwin’s mouth. He was still convinced of the Bishop’s good will towards him and towards Simon, but he was not so certain that the Bishop was an ally in the greater political battles that raged in Westminster – and less sure that he could remain friendly with a man who could actively seek to have a woman’s children taken from her. That, to him as a father and husband, was cruelty beyond his comprehension.

  However, although Stapledon was an unenthusiastic supporter of Despenser, perhaps because Despenser gave him a means of acquiring much in the way of financial rewards, he was still not allied entirely. If there was a matter that affected the Church, Stapledon would immediately oppose Despenser, and to his credit, if there was an issue of state, he would more than likely be independent. But money was a strong lure to him. Some of the wealth he won went straight to the cathedral – a great deal, in fact – but much also went into the Bishop’s pockets, Baldwin guessed.

  It was his long-standing friendship with Simon that had counted in Baldwin’s mind when he sent Hugh on to the Bishop at Exeter and asked him for his aid. At that time, though, he had not expected the Bishop himself to come all the way to Lydford. That was a surprise and great relief, for with Stapledon having heard Wattere’s words, it made the defence of Simon against the Despenser much easier.

  ‘Tell me, Simon. What is your status?’ the Bishop asked, leaning forward to peer intently at the bailiff.

  ‘Me? I’m not free, I’m a serf in the service of Sir Hugh de Courtenay.’

  ‘Not free?’

  ‘No. But I own this farm and my house on a lease. I have been successful. And I still own my old house outside Sandford.’

  ‘That is good,’ the Bishop said, but Baldwin saw his gaze slide over to him with a considering look in his eyes. He was not happy about something.

  ‘Have you told the Bishop about your daughter?’ Baldwin asked, by way of filling the sudden silence.

  It was successful. Suddenly Simon grew animated, and the Bishop and he discussed the wedding in detail, emptying their jugs of wine, so that when Meg walked in again, Baldwin was pleased to see that she soon wore a soft smile that eased the lines of worry and smoothed her forehead of fear.

  He only wished he could feel confident that Simon’s problems were truly over. The trouble was, he feared that they weren’t.

  Beaulieu

  Sir Hugh le Despenser was sitting at his table when the friar entered. ‘Friar. How can I help you?’

  Nicholas swallowed anxiously. ‘It is this matter of the oil that was stolen from Christ Church, Sir Hugh.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘I think I know who has taken it.’

  Despenser was silent for a moment. He leaned back in his chair and studied the friar doubtfully. ‘And who was it, then?’

  Nicholas grinned without humour. ‘You think I’m a fool? First, I want to be able to speak to the King. You arrange for that, and then I shall tell you who it is, and how I know it.’

  ‘What do you want to speak to the King about?’

  ‘We must find his oil! The holy oil given by St Thomas for him to be saved, because …’

  Sir Hugh was peering at him like a judge who heard a beggar deny taking alms. ‘You think the King will trust anything you have to say about his oil? You know what the King thinks about that oil? He thinks it is all a part of a conspiracy to upset him. Nobody believes that the oil is genuine. That is nothing. Now, who was it?’

  ‘You say he doesn’t believe in the oil, and then you ask to know who took it! You think I am stupid but I am not!’

  ‘Oh, I think you are,’ Despenser said. He had risen from his seat and now he walked around his table. In a moment he had grasped Nicholas’s throat, and now he pulled the friar towards him and snarled malevolently. ‘You are very stupid, Friar. You think that because of your ragged robes you can come into my chamber here, and still be protected. You are not protected, and nor will you be if you speak to the King. I don’t care about some oil that has a fictional story appended to it. I do care about the murder of a monk at Christ Church, though, and about a king’s herald slaughtered by the roadside and left to rot. I care about them very much, and if you don’t tell me all you know in the next moments, I shall have you carried down to where the King’s executioner plies his trade, and we’ll see how castration can loosen your tongue!’

  Wednesday before the Feast of Gordianus et Epimachus26

  Beaulieu

  It had sounded too bizarre to Sir Hugh le Despenser when the friar blurted out his story, but there was a crazy ring of truth to it. There are some tales which are too peculiar for any man to have thought of inventing them, and this had all the hallmarks of one.

  He had spoken with one of his Welshmen as soon as Nicholas of Wisbech had concluded, and then had him repeat his story. The Welshman understood what was needed of him, and went
about the abbey to confirm the story.

  In truth, there wasn’t much to validate. Sir Hugh remembered vaguely the knight who had died on the coronation day, not that it was that much of a problem at the time. No, much more important was the obscene behaviour of Gaveston, the arrogant prickle, prancing about like some earl from a bad dream, all purple and bejewelled, as though the day was his and not the King’s.

  It was appalling, his conduct so repugnant that there were many there that day at the feast who were convinced from that moment that Gaveston would have to be killed. Despenser was one of them. Not that he actually had any part in the murder. A shame. He would have liked to have participated.

  But his man had been able to come back and fill in the gaps. Yes, the herald called Thomas was the brother of John of Bakewell, the knight who had been crushed to death in Westminster Abbey when the wall behind him collapsed. Thomas of Bakewell had been looked upon sympathetically by the Queen, and she had taken him into her household, and from there he had migrated to the King’s.

  He had been a reliable member of the household, by all accounts, and had been sent to Christ Church to tell the Prior that the King had been travelling to Beaulieu, so that when the ambassadors arrived there, they would know where to go to speak with the King. As soon as they arrived, Thomas was supposed to have hurried back to tell the King that they were on their way.

  Oddly, he had arrived only a day before the others. While they should have been travelling more slowly than he, for some reason Thomas was much more late than the journey could explain. And meanwhile, Richard de Yatton had been killed and left at the side of the road.

  ‘I want you to find out where this man Thomas sleeps. Go through all his belongings, in case there’s a phial of oil there. If there is, bring it to me.’

  ‘What about him, Sir Hugh? Do you want us to do anything to him?’

  ‘Not yet. If you find the oil, you can kill him.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Feast Day of Gordianus et Epimachus27

  Eltham Palace

  Earl Edward was back early from hunting, and he marched heavily across the court from his stables while the grooms cleaned and brushed his horse.

  There had been a good morning’s ride, with the hounds taking the scent of a fine stag early on. They had nearly lost the beast, but it was Earl Edward himself who saw him crashing off through some bracken and young trees over on the hillside east, and he’d himself drawn the hounds back to it, leading them initially with a whoop of encouragement, until they all saw his direction and the lead bitch caught the scent.

  A marvellous ride, though, fast and furious, even through a tangle of briars, before the sudden death, with the deer brought down swiftly and despatched with a knife at the throat, while the hounds bayed and whined, kept back by the fewterer.

  It was the sort of life he was born for. A man like him was fitted for this sort of life. It was all he knew, in truth. His training for when his father was dead.

  Strange, to think of his life in those terms, but it was true. All his life was a lengthy training. He must learn to be quick-witted, to judge men and their character, to see opportunities, to listen out for deceit in any man’s words … all these were the key foundations of a king’s safety, because his would be an entirely solitary existence.

  He knew that. Who better? He had seen his own father at work. No sooner had Earl Edward been born, than his father had made him an earl, the highest position to which a man might aspire, unless he sought the Crown itself. As Earl of Chester, he had his own household to look after him, and he was already to be seen as a member of Parliament at the age of seven. Great things were expected of him, as he knew. As the nation knew.

  But the reward took a heavy toll. It was expensive being an earl, expensive not only in treasure. He had not known a happy family existence. The relationship between his parents was always fraught with tension. From the earliest moment, he could remember them, he shouting, she shrieking, and no calm, no peace. He was more dedicated to his friend, ‘That man Despenser’, as she always called him. And the King would assert that she was happier in the company of all her French maids and servants than in his, her husband’s.

  For the Earl, it was clear that both were telling the truth. She did not love the King any more. She tried to, she was an absolutely devoted wife and mother, and Earl Edward adored her, but he could not deny that she could, on occasion, be a little hard to deal with. While the King, generous, loving, affectionate as he was, was also occasionally childish, tyrannical, petulant, and prone to displays of vicious brutality. Of course, a lot of it was deserved. If a man proved himself a traitor, he should expect the full penalty of the law to strip him of his property and livelihood, and see him executed. There were enough men who demonstrated the King’s desire for justice in those cases. All the men who had raised a sword against his standard, they had all been killed. There was no use for mercy in such matters. The Earl understood that perfectly well. Mercy was a sign of weakness. The King was right to be ruthless.

  But there were times when the Earl wondered whether such extremes of violence were actually justified. Not often, no, because his father had a clearer understanding of life as a king … and yet, Earl Edward already knew from his learning with Richard of Bury that a king must be prepared to be utterly ruthless with enemies, but that was not the same as some of the men whom the King had seen executed. It was plain enough that the Earl of Lancaster, even if he was King Edward II’s cousin, had attempted to dethrone the King. He’d tried to stop the King from ruling in the manner which he had chosen for his own. And that was unforgivable. The Earl had even attempted to put constraints on the King. That was … well, it was wrong.

  There were others, though, whose crimes were not so clear and deserving of punishment. In the past, men who happened to be knights attached to a lord’s household wouldn’t have been executed out of hand, their heads sent to London, or hung in chains for the crows and rooks to feast on. Yet these were. There were no towns in the country, so the Earl had heard, which didn’t have a corpse gibbeted on public display. He could believe it, too. In his own travels up and down the country, he had seen the gibbets at the town walls.

  The Queen had finally managed to persuade him to show a little mercy. The bodies had been cut down, but Sir Hugh le Despenser said it was an act of weakness. Those corpses were perfect, he reckoned, because they demonstrated the King’s authority. Earl Edward wasn’t sure. He thought they proved only jealous cruelty. A man so jealous of his own power that he would exterminate any other who attempted to encroach was no leader. Alexander wouldn’t have done that. He would have had no need to – he would have been leading by example, keeping his men busy, leading them from one glorious victory to another.

  Not his father, sadly. The shame had been felt by all England when the Scots destroyed his army at Bannockburn. It may have been while he was only a brat, a baby mewling and puking in the arms of Margaret, his wet nurse, but the reverberation of that catastrophe rang through every year since. Not even the mauling the King gave the Lancastrians three years ago had wiped out the memory of that disaster, nor of the other shameful losses as the Scots riders ravaged the whole of the North.

  That was why he hated his father’s ‘friend’ so much. Despenser, he knew, was in truth a friend to no man. A fellow might rely on Despenser while he was of use to him, but more than that, no. Despenser was too much a creature of his own. He looked after himself and no one else.

  The proof had come when Earl Edward was almost ten – nearly three years ago. After Boroughbridge, the King had been wonderfully exuberant. It was a great, a magnificent victory, and he was justified in feeling a fresh confidence. Full of his martial prowess, he launched another offensive towards Scotland.

  This was to be one of the most ignominious defeats ever inflicted upon English arms. In God’s name, the memory still rankled with Earl Edward. It was enough to make any man smart, to think of it. The army marched on into Scotl
and, and found nothing. Only one scabby cow was left behind. The Scots were too adept at gathering all their folk and goods, and retreating before the King’s host. And that meant that there was no food. Demoralised, starving, racked with scurvy and dysentery, the King’s forces were forced to retreat. Many died. Even the King’s own bastard, Adam, whom the King had taken on his first campaign, succumbed.

  Worse was awaiting them. As the King passed into Yorkshire, intent on raising more forces, the Bruce circled around them, almost cutting off the King himself. King Edward panicked and was forced to flee – but not before asking others to rescue his wife, up in Tynemouth. He was at Rievaulx, with Despenser, but Despenser refused to go and rescue the Queen. Oh, the King and he escaped, at the expense of losing all the baggage, a load of treasure and many of the state’s official documents, but they left the Queen to the mercy of the Bruce – this a man who had seen his own mother and sister tormented by Edward II’s father. Oh, the Bruce would have been happy to capture the English Queen. He would have made great sport with her, if he’d taken her. As it was, she had been forced to flee by ship, and in the dreadful journey, two of her ladies-in-waiting died.

  Yes, she blamed Despenser for that, and so did Earl Edward. Despenser was a coward, who persuaded his father to run to safety while leaving his mother to the mercies of their enemies.

  He wouldn’t forgive Despenser for that. Never.

  Morrow of Feast of Gordianus et Epimachus28

  Lydford

  It had come as a great surprise to him that the wedding had been so far prepared that there was little to do other than confirm the orders for ale, wine and food.

  ‘Edith, my child, what has happened to you?’ Simon breathed when he saw her for the first time in her wedding dress.