‘Where is it?’ he asked, and the messenger led the way to a quiet little inn at the far side of the village.
Walking into the single broad chamber, Baldwin was struck by the thought that only very few men could have come here from outside the village itself, and that must be why it had been selected by the assassin. For him it was ideal – secluded, and only a short walk from Thorney Island.
‘Who are you?’
The innkeeper was a portly man called Henry atte Swan, the tavern’s name. He stood at least five feet eight inches tall, and was clad in a tatty linen shirt, a thick jacket of fustian that looked as if it had been made for someone a lot thinner, and a heavy leather apron. He had been brewing when the messenger arrived, apparently.
‘I don’t want to be in here while my wort’s heating. I have to get out there and see to it.’
‘Then you should be attentive and help me quickly so that you can hurry back to it,’ Baldwin said easily.
‘I don’t see how I can help much.’
‘You can begin by telling us about the man who stayed here.’
‘I told him all about the fellow,’ the innkeeper said, jerking a thumb at the messenger at Baldwin’s side.
‘Good. Then you can tell me as well, now you have refreshed your memory,’ Baldwin said, a hint of steel entering his voice.
‘Ach, Mother of Christ, I don’t …’ Then the publican caught sight of Baldwin’s expression and shrugged. There was a barrel near the wall. He walked to it, poured a couple of jugs full and placed them in front of Baldwin and Simon, then fetched another for himself.
He had a ruddy face with watery eyes, and he looked like a dangerous witness to Simon. The Bailiff was all too used to men who would seek money by entering a court and telling fantastical tales of other men. Many believed that all judges wanted to convict men, that any case should be treated neatly: for every crime there should be an equal and corresponding number of felons discovered and gaoled.
If this had been his old courthouse at Lydford, Simon would have looked at this man and instantly doubted him. He looked too much like someone who depended upon the ale he brewed for his opinions. One who was incapable of thought without a large jug in his fist.
However, to be fair, although Henry atte Swan may have enjoyed the results of his brewing, there was nothing in his manner or his delivery to suggest that he was anything other than reliable. There was no hesitation, no ‘humming and hahing’ to indicate invention.
‘His name was Jack atte Hedge,’ he began. ‘I’ve known him for many years. Used to come here to stop fifteen year ago when he was a sailor. Back then, he was in trouble all the while. I had to knock him down once for upsetting a villager. If I hadn’t, he’d have been killed by the locals here. A wild boy, Jack was.’
‘What was a sailor doing here?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Sometimes he’d get into a fight or something, and the master would throw him from the vessel. He had several jobs up and down the river, working with the barges. After some years, he was said to have killed a man and ran away. I heard he went to become an outlaw – I think that was where he met Sir Hugh. That’s what I heard, anyway. He was not the sort of man to talk about such things.’
‘What else did you hear?’
The innkeeper gave Baldwin a long, considering look, then glanced up at the other faces around him. ‘Yeah, well, anyone else here will tell you: I heard he joined ships that preyed on others. Lived out of a port on the South Coast and turned pirate. When Sir Hugh le Despenser took to the seas as well, Jack got hired.’
‘As a perfectly ordinary seaman, I do not doubt,’ Baldwin said mildly. He looked up at the messenger. He did not know whether this man was in Despenser’s pay, but he was sure that, were news of this story to get back to Despenser, it would be dangerous for him, especially after that curious outburst with Ellis earlier. ‘You may wait outside.’
The man left eagerly – which almost persuaded Baldwin that he was wrong to suspect the fellow – but then he concentrated on the innkeeper again. ‘Was he just an ordinary seaman?’ he said in a lower voice.
‘I don’t know. You would have to ask the men down there who knew him. All I do know is, he got a reputation. He certainly knew Despenser. When Sir Hugh was up here in one of his palaces, Jack would come here sometimes. Always had a polite word for me and the missus.’
‘Where did he live?’
‘Now? Don’t know. Somewhere back up the river, I think, because he always came here from the west and went home again that way.’
‘Did he have a mount or walk here?’
‘He used to walk, but this time he rode, and on a magnificent beast, too. Lovely animal.’
‘So he has come into some money?’
‘Well, I don’t think he’s a horse-thief, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Quite. So when did he come here?’
‘This last time? It was around the Feast of St Hilary. Hmm. That was the Sunday – I think he got here early on the Monday after, so the morrow.’
‘You sound very sure of that,’ Simon said.
‘Yes, I am. I have a good memory for days.’
There was no guile. Not even offence that Simon had suggested he was lying. Simon nodded, content for the moment.
‘So,’ Baldwin continued, ‘he was here then. What did he do?’
‘That same night he joined a little boat and went for a ride on the river. I know that – I saw him. Then most days he stayed in and kept quiet.’
‘He stayed here in the tavern with you?’
‘No. He wanted to sleep out in the hayloft above the stables. Said he always preferred peace and quiet. Plus he was worried that someone might steal his horse.’
‘Did that not strike you as strange?’
‘No. Why should it? More strange was that he used to come here at all. Unless it was for the value of my company. I never pretended to understand that.’
‘When was he last here?’
‘About the Feast of Michaelmas last year. Then he was here about the Feast of Honorius, too.’ He gave them three other dates in the previous year.
‘This time he has been here two weeks – no, more,’ Baldwin said. ‘Was he usually here so long?’
The innkeeper shook his head slowly. ‘No. But this was unlike other occasions in many ways. Normally, he was never here for more than a couple of evenings, and when he was, he’d stay here and be social. Not this time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Generally he was here almost all the while during the day and off out at night. He even stayed away for a few nights.’
‘You reported this?’
‘No. He was no felon out robbing, or I’d have heard. What should I have reported?’
‘That a man was known to wander at night. After curfew, that is illegal.’
‘I saw no harm in it.’
‘Then you are a fool.’
‘I don’t deny that, Sir Knight. I am only a lowly tavernkeeper, after all,’ Henry said sarcastically.
‘The night before last. Did you see him then?’
‘That was when he disappeared for good. From what your man said, it’ll be the very last time, eh?’
‘You heard what happened to him?’
‘Of course I have. Everyone hereabouts is talking about how a stranger climbed into the King’s hall and was killed there, and then your man comes here and asks me about Jack. What would you think?’
‘What would he have wanted to do there?’
‘Look – I don’t know what he was up to, but whoever did that, they picked the wrong man. Jack didn’t deserve that sort of treatment. He was a good fellow. He always paid for his rooms and things, always happy to buy an ale for another man. He was a pleasant character.’
‘Really? We have heard it said that he was an assassin, a man who took money to murder others.’
‘I’ve heard of worse. Ha! I’ve had worse in here!’
Baldwin was too astonishe
d to respond. He tried not to gape, but he could not help his expression showing his shock.
‘Oh, come now!’ the innkeeper said with a hint of anger. ‘You know men who have killed. So do I.’
‘Was he a nervous, fretful man?’
‘Jack? Good God, no! He was calm, considerate. The sort of man any would want as a companion for an evening.’
‘But he was a murderer.’
‘You probably have killed men yourself. Are you any different from him?’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Baldwin’s anger made his voice high with outrage. ‘He took money to kill people – and you ask me whether I am different? I would not take money for murder. I would not commit murder. You say I would?’
‘No, not murder, but I’ll bet you’ve killed in the heat of the battle, eh? And you wouldn’t accept pay for going to war, perhaps, but you’d take a new robe each year from your Lord and all his food and expenses …’ He eyed Baldwin’s shabby tunic, and Simon cringed, fearing some smart comment about obviously not accepting the free clothing … but thankfully Henry said nothing about that, merely continuing, ‘Well, Jack looked on himself in the same light, I dare say. He didn’t think of himself as a mercenary or a murderer. Not that we ever discussed such things, of course.’
‘You had best show us where he slept,’ Baldwin said, still smarting over such a gross insult to his chivalry. It was a matter of honour to him that money meant nothing. It could not possess him because he had no interest in it.
Henry led the way through the cross passage to the yard beyond. From here Baldwin found he could look over the river to the grassy and bramble-smothered banks at the other side. The yard itself was muddy, with pools and puddles where the water had collected from the rain, which had, mercifully, stopped for a while. Perpendicular to the inn itself was a stable-block, with space for three horses. Not a profitable tavern, then, Simon found himself thinking.
Baldwin walked inside and remained there for a few moments. When he came out, he whistled and jerked his head towards the open door. ‘If he was able to buy that, he had recently come into a lot of money,’ he said.
Simon walked in, and admired the beast over the half-door. ‘Did you say he had never ridden here before?’ he called out.
‘Never,’ the innkeeper said. ‘Always walked.’
‘Clearly he could ride, when he needed, eh?’ Baldwin said. ‘That is a fellow that would put fear into the hearts of many.’
Simon nodded. It stood with its head above Simon’s, a large monster with gleaming coat and rolling eyes.
‘You will need someone to exercise the horse,’ Baldwin said.
‘I have a groom enters here often enough.’
‘I hope he’s brave,’ Simon said seriously. ‘That thing would eat my servant for its breakfast!’ He grinned at the thought of Rob’s expression, were he to ask him to mount this stallion.
‘Where is this hayloft, then?’ Baldwin asked.
Henry gestured, then said he was off to check on the wort. They knew where to find him if they wanted him.
Simon was about to leave when he noticed a mark in white – bleached hair. He reached out to pat the horse, and was rewarded with a nip on his shoulder. He pulled his hand away swiftly, rubbing at his shoulder, and peered in carefully. The mark on the horse’s shoulder was a brand – not one he recognised so far from his home, of course, but a brand nonetheless.
He walked out, and saw Baldwin disappearing into a chamber above the stables, his legs still resting on a sturdy ladder of larch poles with flat rungs nailed between them. ‘Anything up there, Baldwin?’
‘If you think you can search faster than me, you are welcome to try,’ Baldwin retorted in a muffled voice. ‘It is dark in here.’
His eyes acclimatised swiftly enough to the light that filtered in from beneath the thatched eaves. It was a chamber the length of the stable, and was still half-filled from the previous harvest, the area here nearest the door being clear, loose boards. The thick dust was cloying, and he began to feel it in his nostrils as he moved about. All he could smell was horses and hay, and he wondered how easily the man Jack would have slept in here. At least it wouldn’t have been too cold, with the heat rising from the horses, and the warm hay.
At the far side, a small pile of it had been collected into a mattress and a heavy fustian blanket laid over the top. Baldwin could imagine the fellow lying down here and resting, a blade ever ready in case of attack, ears straining, his eyes wary. What sort of a life would it be, he wondered, accepting money to go and kill men or women you have never known? Was Jack atte Hedge extraordinarily callous, simply devoid of any feeling whatever for others? From all that the innkeeper had said, he was a pleasant enough fellow, or had seemed so.
He thrust about under the blanket, but there was nothing there. The hay itself was piled into a great heap, and he was reluctant to sift through the whole lot. Instead he took his sword and began to prod in amongst it. Probing here and there, he felt the blade strike the wooden boards six or seven times before it met something more soft and giving. Parting the hay carefully, a little squeamishly, he reached in. Once he had thrust into his own hayloft and found something inside. When he sought it, he had almost been bitten by the enormous rat he had unwittingly stabbed.
There was no rat this time, only a large soft package. He pulled it out, undid the knots, and opened it.
‘You all right up there, Baldwin?’
‘I’m fine. Wait a moment,’ he shouted towards the ladder.
Inside was a linen shirt and a pair of rough sailor’s hosen – both slit from the sword’s blade – a belt of good thick leather, a small lead badge from Canterbury to show he had been there on pilgrimage, and a purse of coins. Inside the purse there was also an indenture, a half of a contract written up with a lord, defining the responsibilities of both parties for the contract. As was usual, the contract had been ripped in half roughly so that when the two parts were joined it would be easy to see that they both comprised the one contract by the way that the tears matched. Baldwin stared at this for a short while, then thrust all together again into the pack and retied it. He searched about the hay again, but if there was anything else there, he couldn’t find it. Walking to the ladder, he tossed the package down to Simon before making his way down once more.
‘That horse has a brandmark on it,’ Simon said, jerking his head towards the stalls.
‘Innkeeper, do you know whose brand it is?’ Baldwin shouted into the yard.
‘You ask that messenger brought you here. See if he recognises it,’ the man shouted back, busy with his fire and apparatus.
Baldwin glanced at Simon, frankly surprised, then called the messenger in. The fellow was only in with the black horse for a very short while before rejoining them.
‘We are foreigners up here. Do you recognise it?’ Baldwin asked.
‘You are serious, Sir Baldwin? It is the mark of my Lord Despenser.’
Bishop of Exeter’s House, Straunde
The two men rode back in a contemplative manner, neither wanting to say anything of the fears which both now harboured. Not until they were in the Bishop’s house, in the small room where they slept, did they broach the subject again.
‘I feel I need a pint of strong wine,’ Simon said, staring at the indenture. Across the top in large letters was the name of Sir Hugh le Despenser, beside some date which was indecipherable, apart from the year. It was dated in the eighth year of the King’s reign, so had been drawn up somewhere between July 1314 and June 1315. ‘It’s clear enough, isn’t it? The man was Despenser’s own, had been in his pay for ten years or so, and he was trying to kill the Queen.’
‘Yes – and Sir Hugh gave him that horse down in the stable, either to bring him here to discuss the murder, or as a gift in advance payment.
‘Simon, when news of this gets out, as it will, we will inevitably be viewed by the Despenser as being implacably opposed to him.’
‘What should we d
o?’
‘We should report this to the King at the first opportunity. However, I do not expect you to do so with me, Simon. Indeed, I would prefer you didn’t.’
‘What?’
‘Old friend, I have to report this. I was the one charged with finding out what I could about the murders and the assassin himself – me. It was also me who had the argument with Despenser, not you. He wouldn’t worry about you, only me. I am a knight, whereas you …’
Simon gave a half-grin. ‘Yes. Whereas me?’
‘You are an irrelevance, to his mind. I am sorry, but I know the arrogance of knights, Simon. In his mind you have no value, and therefore you are no threat. Whereas I am a knight. I am no powerful, wealthy man like so many of his enemies, but I have some position in Devon. I am a knight of the shire, I am a member of the next parliament, and I have been asked to come here to help advise the King. All that makes me a potential threat to him, and he will not allow me to grow to become a worse one.’
‘How much risk are we thinking of?’
‘Me to him? Little. He is the King’s favourite.’
‘What of him to you? You think he may kill you?’
Baldwin’s face hardened, but only with recognition of his own danger. ‘If he was to feel that I could be a danger to him, yes. He would kill me with as little compunction as a pit owner wringing the neck of a fighting cock.’
‘What of Jeanne?’
‘Perhaps you could take a message for her from me. If it comes to it, I would like you to tell her that …’
‘She knows all that already,’ Simon said, uncomfortable with this sudden turn of events. ‘Baldwin, there must be a way around this.’
‘If there is, I wish I could see it. From tomorrow morning, I must try to tell the King the truth about his favourite adviser and friend: that Sir Hugh has been plotting to have the Queen killed.’
‘But … should you do that?’ Simon wondered, eyes narrowed.
‘What other course do I have?’
Dispensation of Death: (Knights Templar 23) Page 25