A bruise was already rising on Montague’s cheek as they reemerged. The king turned to Holland.
‘The matter is concluded, Sir Thomas. I must now ask you to leave so that this ceremony may be concluded. I promise you only this: as you have done, so shall I undertake to abide by whatever decision is reached by the Papal Court.’
‘And the appointment of Joan’s proctor, sire?’
The king sighed, and turned to Joan. ‘You are ready to choose a proctor?’
She nodded fervently, crossed to where a group of clergymen stood and picked out one of them, an elderly but sprightly little man with bright blue eyes and snow-white hair shorn in a tonsure. ‘I choose my confessor: John Vise, sub-dean of the diocese of Salisbury and Bachelor of Arts and Canon Law.’
‘Upon my faith, my lady, I wish you would choose some other,’ stammered Vise. ‘I have little experience at this kind of thing, and I am sure I would let you down.’
‘You would never let me down, Dean Vise,’ said Joan. ‘Only tell them the truth, and I will be satisfied my best interests are represented.’
‘I fear I no longer know what is truth and what is lies,’ Vise said sadly. ‘But if your wish is also your command, I can hardly reject the honour…’
‘It is,’ Joan told him gravely.
‘Are you willing to shoulder the burden of this duty?’ demanded the king.
Vise nodded. ‘I am, your Majesty.’
‘And you, Sir Thomas? Are you satisfied this man will represent Lady Joan both properly and fairly?’
‘I am, sire.’
‘We don’t want there to be any further disputes about this later,’ the king muttered in an aside to Henry of Derby, who struggled to stifle a chuckle. The king turned finally to Montague. ‘And how about you, William Earl of Salisbury? Do you dispute the selection of this man to represent the interests of the woman you claim to be your wife?’
‘No, sire,’ Montague said miserably.
‘Good,’ the king concluded. ‘The sooner we get on with the ceremony, the sooner we can get back for supper.’
* * *
After the celebratory feast – at which Holland was notable by his absence – the new Earl of Salisbury sat alone at the head table, long after the king and the other revellers had retired for the night. A few other revellers still remained in the great hall, snoring loudly as they sat with their faces on the tables or amongst the rushes strewn on the floor. Only Montague was awake. He had looked forward to this day for his whole life and, thanks to Holland, it had proved to be a disaster. He had lost the king’s favour and been publicly humiliated. Before retiring, the king had even decreed that when he departed for Havering on the morrow, Joan would go with him to reside at his court as his ward once again until the Papal Court had reached its decision.
Montague refilled his goblet with wine but tonight, when he desperately needed to get drunk, oblivion eluded him. He gazed at the debris of the banquet, chicken, peacock and swan carcasses strewn across the tables or cast on to the floor for the dogs. His life seemed as empty as those picked-clean bones.
‘Still abroad? I had thought you would have been long abed by now.’
Montague looked up to see Countess Margaret.
‘Well, what’s done is done,’ she said. ‘The question is, what do you intend to do next?’
He shrugged. ‘What can I do? It is all in the hands of the Papal Court, and our respective attorneys.’
‘Tcha! You talk of defeat when battle is only just joined! Well, you may yield to fate if you so choose, but if you think I’m going to stand back and allow my daughter to become the wife of that brutish little upstart Holland, then I can assure you that you are very much mistaken.’
‘But what can we do?’ pleaded Montague, wringing his hands.
‘What we need is time to come up with proof that Holland’s claim to have married Joan is false.’
‘But our attorney has already been delaying the court for two years now. What else can he do?’
‘He can absent himself. The court cannot proceed without him…’
‘Yes it can,’ Montague said gloomily. ‘Sigglesthorne will accuse him of contumacy, and then the case will be forfeit in Holland’s favour…’
‘Not if Sigglesthorne and Vise are also absent.’
‘But they won’t be absent!’ protested Montague.
‘They will be… if we arrange for them to be. And I know of certain men well-versed in making people absent… permanently.’
Chapter Eleven
How about another flagon of this splendid claret?’ suggested Sigglesthorne, as he drained the dregs of the last flagon into his cup.
‘I don’t think I should,’ Vise replied dubiously. They had already drunk three flagons of wine between them.
‘Go on,’ persisted Sigglesthorne. ‘The case seems to be going well. I think we can treat ourselves with a clear conscience.’
Vise smiled. ‘Well, if you insist…’
‘Good man.’ Sigglesthorne waved across to the innkeeper who stood at the counter, wiping spilled ale from its polished surface. ‘Another flagon of your finest claret, if you please, Master Brewster!’
David Brewster stepped into the back room to refill another flagon from the barrels stored there, and then crossed the main room of the White Lion inn, attached to Holland’s house in Calais. He had been given strict instructions to see that Sigglesthorne’s every whim was catered for whenever he stayed there, so he did not ask for payment. Not that Sigglesthorne’s whims extended much beyond generous helpings of good food, a comfortable bed at night, and heroic quantities of claret.
It was two months since Montague had been invested as Earl of Salisbury, and Sigglesthorne and Vise were returning from their second trip to Avignon in the intervening time. On their first trip they had fallen in with the retinue of Thomas Bradwardine, on his way to Avignon to be confirmed as the new Archbishop of Canterbury following his predecessor’s death from the pestilence. Ironically, Bradwardine himself had died of the pestilence within a week of returning to England.
The case itself had actually progressed little but, as Sigglesthorne explained to Vise, there was nothing unusual in that, considering it had already dragged on for nearly two years now: a long time even by the standards of the cardinals’ courts where attorneys often had to travel great distances just to consult their clients.
Since Sigglesthorne and Vise usually found themselves arguing along similar lines in the cardinal’s court, they had become friends, and had begun to travel together, staying at the same inns along the way and lodging together in the same house in Avignon.
Sigglesthorne drank heavily because he enjoyed the taste of claret rather than because he sought oblivion, so it did not worry him over much that as the years went by his resistance to drunkenness had increased. Thus even as the comfortable glow of mild intoxication began to settle over him, he still had his wits about him. Nevertheless, when two burly, rough-looking men entered the inn, Sigglesthorne paid them little attention. They were clearly men who had fought in the king’s service and would most likely do so again when the truce was ended. Such men were common enough in English-occupied Calais, and in the White Lion inn in particular.
The town had changed dramatically since Brewster had become the innkeeper at the White Lion nearly two years before. Then, with its native population expelled and with only soldiers to occupy it, Calais had been half-empty, and had had the aspect of a military camp rather than a town. Now the garrison had been joined by an increasing number of civilians, merchants and craftsmen, not to mention adventurers seeking to make a quick profit from booty in the occasional raids made into French-held territory in spite of the truce.
These men looked like two such adventurers. They crossed to the counter and ordered a pot of ale each. As Brewster turned away to the casks behind the counter, the men cast their eyes over the room. The place was empty except for the innkeeper and the two attorneys.
Brewster placed
their pots on the counter. ‘Two farthings, please, gentlemen.’
One of the men paid for both of them, and took a sip of his ale. Almost immediately he spat out his mouthful in disgust.
Brewster arched an eyebrow ‘Not to your taste?’
‘It’s off,’ asserted the first man, with a grimace.
‘Let me see,’ said the second, tasting his own ale. He too spat it out. ‘Ugh! You’re right.’
Frowning, Brewster reached across to take a sip from one of the pots. ‘There must be something amiss with your palates. It tastes fine to me.’
‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’ sneered the first man. ‘I’m not drinking that. It’s foul.’
Brewster brewed his own ale according to a recipe which had been handed down in his family across generations, and he was proud of it. Forcing himself to smile, he waved across to where the two attorneys sat. ‘Would you care to sit in judgement in a difference of opinion we have here, Master Sigglesthorne?’ he asked with a smile.
Sigglesthorne shook his head. ‘All ale tastes disgusting to me.’
‘Never mind what they think,’ growled the first man. ‘They’re probably friends of yours. I says it’s not fit to drink, and if you think I’m paying for that, you’ve got another think coming. Either serve us with something drinkable, or give us our money back and we’ll spend it somewhere where they serve real ale.’
Sighing, Brewster lifted the trap door behind the counter, and made his way down to the cellar to fetch another cask of ale.
As soon as Brewster’s back was turned, the two men crossed to Sigglesthorne and Vise’s table. ‘Master Robert Sigglesthorne of Beverley?’ asked the first.
Sigglesthorne frowned. ‘Aye. What can I do for you?’
The first man ignored him, turning to Vise. ‘Master John Vise?’
Vise nodded muzzily.
The first man gave a curt nod to his companion, and suddenly the two of them produced daggers.
‘By the blood of Christ!’ Sigglesthorne raised his arms to protect himself and, as the first man tried to plunge his dagger into his heart, caught him by the wrist. Despite his age and portly girth, the serjeant-at-law was a powerful man, and the assassin had underestimated his victim’s strength. The two of them wrestled, Sigglesthorne trying to keep the dagger’s razor-sharp tip at bay.
At the same moment, Vise turned to face the second man, who was also trying to stab his opponent. It was drunken luck that saved Vise, for as he twisted on his stool his buttocks slid from the seat, and he landed on his backside with a thump. With Vise no longer there to receive the dagger-thrust, the second man stumbled forward, burying his blade in the wooden table.
With a strength born of outrage and desperation, Sigglesthorne managed to struggle back to his feet with an apoplectic roar, wrestling the first man around until he had his back to the table, and then forcing his dagger-arm back against the table’s edge. His attacker groped on the table behind him with his left hand until it found the flagon of wine, and then brought it up sharply, dashing it against Sigglesthorne’s skull. The flagon remained intact, while Sigglesthorne’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he began to slide towards the floor. His right arm free once more, the first man raised his dagger to plunge it into Sigglesthorne’s exposed throat.
Emerging from the cellar, Brewster took one look at the scene that greeted his eyes, snatched another flagon from the counter and hurled it across the room with all his might. It bounced off the first man’s head and he fell, joining Sigglesthorne on the rush-covered floor. Brewster vaulted over the counter. Seeing him approach, the second man abandoned his attempt to kill Vise and turned, hurling himself at the nearest window. The wooden shutters splintered under his weight, and he rolled on the cobbles outside before picking himself up and running away down the street.
Brewster crossed to the stone hearth in three long strides and took down the smoke-stained longbow that hung there, at the same time snatching a single arrow from the mantelpiece. He swiftly restrung the bow with a well-practised motion. Then he crossed to the door and stepped outside into the cold night air, nocking the arrow to the bow as he did so. The second man was already more than a hundred yards away, disappearing into the gloom as he fled. Brewster raised the bow, pushing out the bowstave and taking aim, all in one smooth movement. The only illumination was provided by the moon and stars, and the street was dark compared to the brightness inside the tavern, but Brewster had shot in the dark before. He let fly. The arrow’s pale fletchings vanished into the night. The fleeing man threw out his arms and stumbled, falling.
Brewster strode briskly down the street to where the man lay, pulling his dagger from his belt as he did so. The man sprawled in the gutter running down the middle of the street, his arms outstretched on either side of him so that he lay in the shape of a crucifix. The arrow had taken him in the small of the back, penetrating his spine and killing him outright. Brewster left the body there for the night-watch to find and puzzle over, and hurried back to the inn.
The attempt on Vise’s life had rapidly sobered him up, and he had helped Sigglesthorne back on to his seat. Brewster crouched over the first man’s inert body. He was still alive, so Brewster removed the string from his bow and used it to tie the man’s wrists tightly behind his back. Then he fetched a cloth and soaked it in cold, clean water, giving it to Vise to use as a compress on Sigglesthorne’s temple.
Sigglesthorne moaned. ‘It’s been a long time since drinking wine has given me a headache such as this.’
‘What the devil was all that about?’ Brewster asked the two attorneys.
‘I don’t know,’ Sigglesthorne said heavily. ‘I’ve never seen either of these two men before in my life.’
‘They knew us, though,’ observed Vise. ‘Or at least, they knew our names.’
‘What happened to the other one?’ asked Sigglesthorne. ‘Did you raise the hue and cry against him?’
Brewster smiled faintly. ‘No. I did not want to disturb the sleep of the good citizens of this town.’
Sigglesthorne was about to berate Brewster for allowing the other man to get away when the first man groaned, slowly beginning to regain consciousness. Brewster crouched over him, grabbing him by the front of his tunic and hoisting him on to his feet. Then he slammed him back against the wall forcefully. The man winced as the back of his head connected with the stonework.
‘Why were you and your friend trying to kill these two?’ demanded Brewster.
The man shook his head, and then met Brewster’s gaze defiantly. ‘The devil carry you to hell,’ he sneered.
Brewster shrugged, made as if to turn away and then lifted his knee sharply into the man’s groin. He doubled up with a strangled gasp, and Brewster kneed him in the face. The man was thrown against the wall and slid down on to the floor. Brewster seized him again and hurled him back again, even harder this time. The man’s nose was broken and his upper lip and chin covered in the blood which ran steadily from his nostrils.
‘Why were you and your friend trying to kill these two?’
‘Kiss the devil’s arse,’ the man responded thickly.
Brewster dragged him across to the counter, slinging him over it like a sack of grain. ‘So, you don’t like my ale, eh?’ he asked, lifting a barrel from its rest and sitting on its end before broaching it with a small axe. ‘Maybe you’d like to try it again; we’ll see if you’ll change your mind.’ He grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair, and forced his head down into the ale. The man suffered it in stillness at first; but then his breath began to run out, and he struggled to break free from Brewster’s hold. But Brewster was unrelenting, keeping his opponent’s head submerged until bubbles began to rise around it as he gasped for fresh air and swallowed only ale.
‘You’ll kill him!’ protested Vise.
Brewster shook his head. ‘That’s not what I have in mind.’
‘But you can’t do this. You can’t just torture a man like this.’
‘Torture?
’ asked Sigglesthorne. ‘I don’t see any torture taking place. Do you, Master Brewster?’
Grinning, Brewster shook his head again.
Sigglesthorne indicated the struggling man. ‘Believe me, Master Vise, as far as the law is concerned it will be his word against all of ours, and who’s going to believe a common assassin against those of a respected innkeeper, a sub-dean, and one of England’s foremost serjeants-at-law?’
The assassin’s struggles were beginning to subside. Brewster lifted his head from the barrel and he gasped air into his lungs in great, whooping gulps, coughing and spluttering. Then Brewster released his grip so that the man fell forward on to his face, and lay retching, his cheek pressed against the floorboards.
‘Why were you and your friend trying to kill these two?’ he asked.
This time, the man told him.
* * *
Kemp was off duty, and Preston found him fletching arrows in the barrack room they all shared at Holland’s manor house. ‘Sir Thomas wants to see you in the great hall at once,’ the serjeant told the young archer.
Kemp knew better than to question Holland’s orders and stopped what he was doing, briefly making sure he was reasonably presentable before leaving the wooden barrack house and crossing the courtyard to the main building. It was rare for Holland to ask to see one of his men other than Preston, and it usually meant he had received some complaint about misbehaviour in the village, for which the summoned man could expect to be upbraided. Trying to recall if he had done anything that might have aroused Holland’s ire, Kemp climbed the wooden steps to the upper floor and rapped on the door to the hall.
‘Enter!’
Kemp opened the door and marched in, standing to attention just inside the threshold. Holland sat at the high table with Brother Ambrose, Master Sigglesthorne and Master Vise. Kemp recognised the two attorneys; he had seen Vise on the day of Montague’s investiture at Westminster, and this was Sigglesthorne’s third visit to the manor house since that day.
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