The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover: (Knights Templar 24)

by Michael Jecks

  He took a little passage near the main hall, and walked down the corridor to the chamber where the servants tended to meet. It was a large room like a calefactory, in which there were several barrels of cheaper wine and ales. After peering about him, he caught sight of Paul negotiating with a friendly woman in a corner.

  Seeing his master, Paul hastily concluded the haggling, and marched to see his knight. ‘Sir Charles?’

  ‘When you’ve finished here, I’d like to walk about the town a little,’ Sir Charles said.

  ‘I am ready, sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  He led the way through the gates, under the strong portcullis, and out into the town’s streets.

  The weather had improved steadily in the last few days, and now all around there was the proof of springtime. Flowers were bursting open everywhere. Lent was still in force – Easter was to be late this year, and was still over a week away – but the scents and colours of the renewed year were enough to lift everybody’s spirits.

  ‘Do you know why I asked you to join me?’ Sir Charles asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘An elegantly simple response. Very well, then. I am alarmed to have noticed a man in the town who appears to be all too familiar. Roger Mortimer. I’ve seen him.’

  ‘What’s he going to be doing around this place?’

  ‘That is a good question – but I have a much better one: how much would the King, or my dear friend Sir Hugh le Despenser, pay for his head on a plate?’

  ‘A large amount, I’d think. They’d pay well to see Mortimer destroyed. He must be the King’s most feared enemy.’

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘You sure you’ve seen him?’

  They were entering a little alleyway. Sir Charles looked at him, and did not answer. Paul pulled a face. It had been a foolish question. They both knew Mortimer. Any man who had fought with, for, or against the King in the last twenty years would know the King’s general. Shrewd, quickthinking, an excellent strategist, Roger Mortimer had cowed the Irish and the Welsh, and had probably been the best warrior to begin planning an invasion of Scotland. All in all, if there was a fight anywhere within the King’s lands, it was likely that Mortimer had been there, and had succeeded in winning victory for the King.

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Find him, kill him, conceal the body, and send you with the head back to London. Or Beaulieu in Hampshire – I believe the King is there presently. That way you and I can reap the reward without anybody else’s being aware. I shall remain here, naturally, so you’ll have to hurry back with the money. Clear?’

  Paul nodded. ‘He’ll be in a not-too-lowly place, I assume.’

  ‘He may well be inside the castle – but I doubt it. I think if he’s here, he isn’t here with the King’s approval. No, I tend to the view that he’s here because he wants something. Perhaps to attack the Queen? Whatever the reason, we must catch him when there’s no one else about to share the winnings. Is that clear? Good. You know what he looks like as well as I do. I think we need to wander about the town and see if we can spot him.’

  They had reached the cart. The crowds had thinned, and they could pass by it without trouble.

  ‘This is where I lost him, Paul. He was going down this street somewhere. All we have to do now is find him.’

  Abbey de Maubisson

  Blanche de Burgundy was delighted to have arrived, but the experience was still overwhelming.

  The smell of fresh flowers greeted her every morning from the other side of the wall. She could hear birds singing in the trees, the gentle sussuration of the wind in the corridors, the occasional bark of a dog – and voices. Voices raised in song, the words irrelevant to her in God’s own language, but the sounds of the tunes uplifting and wonderful to ears which had only heard the rasping voices of gaolers for a decade.

  There had been times in that cell when she had seriously considered the final, irredeemable sin. She was guilty of so much already – adultery, fornication, pride, envy, gluttony … there was little she had not done, and for which there could be no forgiveness in a cell beneath Château Gaillard. At the last, she had thought of taking her own life. She could throw herself before God, if He allowed her, to beg forgiveness. The priests said that suicides would all be damned, but she already suffered so much that the thought of eternal damnation was not so terrifying. At least it would be a release from the misery she had been forced to endure every day already.

  She wasn’t sure what it was that stopped her. Perhaps a mortal fear of so irrevocable an act, or maybe it was the thought that by dying she would indeed make her husband’s life – her ex-husband’s life – a little easier.

  If he had wanted, he could have pardoned her. He didn’t need to keep her down there in the dungeon. It was three years ago that the marriage was annulled, they told her. So he could have removed her at any time, and stopped the appalling degradation she was forced to endure.

  But that was a part of her punishment, surely. The rapes and indignities. And then the birth of her child.

  Lord Roger Mortimer heard the two men approaching long before they actually appeared along his alleyway, and he had plenty of time to turn back and march up the alley.

  There was a distinctive sound to men-at-arms. It was the clattering of their metalwork, the rattle of spurs, or simply the ribald laughter and foul language. They were like troopers in any host from that point of view. Usually he was more than happy in the company of men from any lord’s retinue, but not here and now. The King had clearly ordered him to leave the environs of Paris while the English queen was here, and he had deliberately ignored King Charles’s command.

  It was stupid, perhaps, but he had responsibilities. At least Queen Isabella had shown him pity before. When he had been stuck in the Tower of London two years ago, without any hope of regaining his freedom, she had visited him, and generously offered to try to help him.

  Ach, she was a lady, and a kindly gentlewoman at that. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did none the less. Poor Queen Isabella had enough problems of her own. Everyone in the blasted country knew that. The King had turned from her to lie with a man, from all accounts, and there she was, her authority eroded, without the company of her own husband.

  Still, even with her own tribulations, she had made the effort to help him. She’d heard of poor Joan’s predicament: all her clothes and possessions confiscated, and a meagre pittance given for food and drink. The Queen had written to the treasurer to persuade him to be generous; and knowing her own position in the hierarchy of the palace was already diminished, she also enlisted the aid of Eleanor de Clare, Despenser’s wife. Roger only hoped and prayed that his darling Joan would have been accorded slightly better treatment as a result.

  Perhaps it was a forlorn hope. When the King’s father, Edward I, had captured the sister and mistress of one of his bitterest enemies, Robert Bruce, Edward in his wisdom had seen fit to have them both caged and put on show. Mary Bruce, the sister, was held in her cage at Roxburgh Castle, while Isabel, Countess of Buchan, was held in a similar cage at Berwick. The sole token of privacy these poor women were accorded was the use of a hidden privy. Apart from that, both must suffer the indignity of constant display for more than three years.

  He had mentioned that to the Queen, and she had confessed to being appalled by her father-in-law’s treatment of the two. It was one thing to take vengeance on a knight or some other man who had been disloyal, but this extension of revenge on to the womenfolk and children, both of whom were clearly innocent, was distasteful in the extreme. Still worse was to come, though.

  After Boroughbridge and the King’s successful quashing of the attempted insurrection of Lancaster, he had launched an attack on Scotland again to quell the rebels there. But the Scots soon outflanked him, and the King and Despenser were forced to beat a very hasty retreat – leaving in their wake Isabella, trapped at Tynemouth. In her speedy escape by boat, two of her ladies-in-waiting wer
e killed.

  That, Roger reckoned, was the turning point for Isabella. Up until then she had tolerated Despenser’s ruthless tyranny. She despised his tactics, his terrorisation of any noblewoman who stood in the path of his single-minded avarice, but she was prepared to be coolly polite for the sake of her marriage. But not after Tynemouth. That her husband could desert her to the mercies of the Scots after the treatment his own father had meted out to the Bruce women showed he no longer had any feelings for her.

  It was after that, really, that she had begun to work for Roger Mortimer’s release from prison. After all, as she said to him, once Mortimer was in the ascendant Despenser must be deposed and destroyed, and that could only be good for her marriage, for the kingdom, and for all who lived in it.

  He only hoped that Joan was all right. Apparently she had been transferred to a fresh prison, but he had heard that her treatment had improved. Perhaps Despenser was a little troubled by the thought that Mortimer could return to take his revenge for the treatment of his family.

  One son at least was free. Thanks to God, when Roger had escaped from the Tower Geoffrey, his third son, had been in France to take over the lands he had inherited from Joan’s mother and swear his allegiance to the French king. Both Geoffrey and his money would be needed if Roger’s plans were to come to fruition.

  But he would have to be cautious. He had no wish to suffer the fate of men like Robert le Ewer. When it was learned that Ewer had helped plot to assassinate Despenser, he was taken and condemned to die in the slowest, most horrible manner. He was chained to the ground and iron weights were set upon his breast, slowly crushing him until he died several days later.

  Roger Mortimer would not see his family suffer any more. He had already paid his debt of honour; he would see his family released.

  The sound of the men’s footsteps was quite loud, but Roger was confident he could escape them. He increased his pace, took a quick right turn into a short passageway, bore right again into a wider thoroughfare, and then went left and down towards the town’s gate. He would double back in a short while.

  He didn’t want to be caught by the French or the English.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Arnaud had an annoying habit of humming when he was thinking. It wasn’t something le Vieux had noticed overmuch when they had been together in the Château Gaillard, but now that the others were gone, perhaps it was natural that Arnaud himself should be more irritating. The more time a man spent with a single companion, the more likely it was he’d become intolerant.

  The best way to escape was to leave him behind. Le Vieux went through to see Robert de Chatillon.

  Since the burial of Enguerrand de Foix at the church on the day they arrived here, a service that was honoured by the presence of Jeanne d’Evreux, Robert had been busy with the many little affairs that must be tied up. Two clerks had travelled with the Comte, and they had been going through all his papers in detail. It was slow, frustrating work for a man like Robert, but he must only endure it a little longer, and then he would be able to return to Foix. The Comte’s heart was in a sealed box, and this he would take back with him so that the Comte’s widow would have something to bury. A woman needed something like that. This way, she’d have a small spot near home at her own church where she could go and pray for him.

  Le Vieux entered the room just as Robert was finishing another box of papers. He was peering down at the scroll in his hand, a frown of incomprehension on his face. Looking up and seeing le Vieux in the doorway, he raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you have any instructions for us?’

  Robert shrugged. ‘I have passed on your report. All the men there at the château are dead and the woman has been taken to the abbey of Maubisson as arranged. I think that all is completed satisfactorily.’

  Dismissed, le Vieux wandered from the room. He stood outside, wondering what he should do. The castle held little attraction for him. It was a place of rest, but he was bored with rest. Give him a decent march, some wine and women at the end of it, or a fight, and he’d be happy, but this lazing about for day after day was driving him up to the moon. He needed some action.

  He couldn’t face returning to Arnaud and that appalling humming. Instead he walked under the gate and out into the street, and went to a cookshop for a pie before aimlessly passing down the lane, glancing at the food displayed on the shutters as he went.

  An urchin slipped past him, a hand whipped out, and the lad ran off with a small loaf of bread, haring along the lane like a small greyhound. It made the shopkeeper roar, and he bolted into the lane, shaking his fist over his head, but others, le Vieux included, laughed. The boy was quick and clever. So long as he wasn’t caught, he would have a great future ahead of him. A lad like that could get far.

  That was when he heard the ‘Psst’ and urgent whisper of his name.

  He turned, and, to his horror, there was Jean.

  ‘You didn’t expect to see me again, did you?’

  ‘You! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I followed you. I had to. The men at the château – I had to make sure you knew what had happened.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I saw them. I was up on the wall, and I saw them. Berengar and Arnaud. Arnaud was after him like a demon, waving a knife, and murdered him just outside the castle. And then I went back to our room, and the others were all dead.’

  ‘Wait, wait!’ le Vieux said, his hands up. He was not panicked yet. There was space between him and Jean, and he had his sword on his hip, but Jean was dangerous. He knew that full well. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I had to run. I – er – I thought you were dead like all the others, and I fled to get help. But I couldn’t. I was going to come here, to tell the King what had happened, but then I thought I’d be suspected myself, so I just ran. But then I saw you in the Queen of England’s party with Arnaud, and I knew I had to do something to warn you, so you knew it was Arnaud who’d committed the murders. What did he say? Did he say it was me?’

  ‘Well, that was what I thought.’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I was knocked out early on. I didn’t see what happened,’ le Vieux admitted.

  ‘That was why. He knocked you down, then started to kill the others. It must have been easy enough if they weren’t expecting him. He’s a lunatic – he must be. You’ve seen how he was with the prisoners. Torture and murder is his delight. You have to help me – together we can stop him.’

  ‘Stop him?’

  ‘Kill him. He’s mad! I know him. I saw him years ago, back in my home town, down in Pamiers. He burned some folks there, and he enjoyed it. He was dancing about them, taunting them as they died. He has to be stopped before he can kill any more. You are still with him, and you can’t tell when he’s likely to push a knife into your heart! You aren’t safe until he’s dead, and neither am I, because while we’re alive, the truth about what he did in Château Gaillard may come out. He can’t take that risk.’

  Le Vieux nodded slowly. There was a slowly dawning horror on his face. ‘I thought you had done them in. It never occurred to me … The idea that Arnaud could have knocked me down and killed all the others … I hadn’t even considered it.’

  ‘I didn’t think you could have,’ Jean said. ‘What was worse was that when I got to the town to get help, they already knew the garrison was dead.’

  ‘Come with me. I think I know what to do,’ Le Vieux said, and set off at a trot towards the palace.

  Baldwin had been for a long ride that day, and when he returned he dropped from the saddle with the bounce of a man who had enjoyed a day’s exercise after too many days of lassitude. He cast the reins at a waiting groom, and only when he’d seen the man start to rub down the beast did Baldwin leave and go to find himself something to drink. It was deeply ingrained in him that he should always see to his mount before attending to his own pleasures. A horse was more than an animal – to a knight it was hi
s principal weapon as well.

  The French did not believe in weak wines. Those served here in the King’s palace were magnificent, and it was good for Baldwin, so he felt, to be reacquainted with them. It was many years since he had last lived in Paris, and the opportunity of drinking the wide variety available was proving to be immensely pleasurable.

  He watched as a man-at-arms crossed the court with a younger fellow behind him. They went quickly, men in a hurry, as so many did in this great royal palace. Everybody appeared to be in a hurry here.

  Lord Cromwell was standing in the doorway, and he walked over to Baldwin. ‘This is a peculiar place, eh, Sir Baldwin? Everyone is so busy – except for me. I feel useless here.’

  ‘I had to go for a ride to remind myself what a horse feels like.’ Baldwin smiled.

  ‘The Queen is here to negotiate with the French, hoping to rescue some fragments of our once great Angevin empire from her blasted brother, the French king, but you and I, we kick our heels, while the French run around as though there’re not enough hours in the day. There’s nothing for us to do, not until we get the signal. Either we send messengers back with new proposals for the King, or we gradually slide into irrelevance. If there’s no movement, nothing’s going to win back Guyenne for us,’ Cromwell said sadly. ‘I always loved that territory. I have been there several times. Have you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Baldwin could remember a green landscape, hilly like Devon, but with long, tree-lined valleys, and hillsides covered in vines. He remembered warm sun and cool evenings. A blessed land. ‘It would be a great loss to the kingdom.’

  ‘Amen to that. Dear God, how much longer must we wait here? I have lands to manage, business to see to for myself.’

  ‘I have a son just born,’ Baldwin agreed sadly. ‘I wanted to spend the springtime with him and my wife – instead I am out here.’

  The lord nodded glumly. Then he looked at Baldwin with a slight frown. ‘Did you ever make sense of the death of that count on the journey here?’