‘Leave your knife sheathed, Arnaud,’ Baldwin said sharply. ‘What you say is fair – but so is what my companion said. How can we confirm your words, bearing in mind we shall need to decide how to respond?’
‘Ask Robert de Chatillon. He can confirm it all. He was the man who relayed our orders to us and paid us. Or don’t you trust the knight who gave us our instructions either?’ he finished snidely, looking at Simon with contempt. ‘Look at me! I have only ever obeyed my betters when they commanded me to do their work. Yet you look down on me because I was obedient. Well, in this case, I followed my heart. I love that lady and would do nothing to harm her. That is why I did what I did. You think I polluted her? Blame those who are in power, who commanded all the guards to rape her. It wasn’t my doing. I saved her from that.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Baldwin was feeling distinctly waspish. It was partly Simon’s distant rudeness that had made him throw a whole livre tournois at the man as he stood and stalked from the room, ashamed of his friend, himself and his all too ready dislike for the man. After all, as Arnaud had pointed out so cogently, if he did not perform his function, some other man must do it. There was no point in dislike of the functionary. It was the reality, whether he liked it or not, of the way of all societies.
To an extent, he recognised that his anger with Simon in that little alehouse had been a reflection of his anger at his own feelings. In his case, he knew that it had come from the knowledge that the man sitting there in front of him, drinking his ale, had been exactly the sort of man who would have tortured his comrades and hanged a number, or burned them at the stake. The thought was repellent. To be seated at the same table was worse: the idea that he could consort with one of the men who had helped to destroy his friends and comrades was enough to bring a tear to his eye.
He waited outside for Simon, and couldn’t help but snap grumpily, ‘What makes you think that you have some right to question him? He gave us a lot of information that he need not. In some ways he condemned himself.’
‘Baldwin, look at the man. I wouldn’t trust a word he said.’
‘His comments about looking down on a man who takes life legally were close to the truth, weren’t they?’ Baldwin said. ‘I cannot think how many men I have ordered to be executed over the years, and yet I feel justified in despising him for carrying out the orders of men like me! How can I be so hypocritical?’
‘It is easy. You and I can command a man’s life to be ended, and we can send men to the gallows, but the man who turns them off the ladders to die does not need to enjoy the task. Did you see his face up at Montfaucon? He liked those corpses. He is a sick man, Baldwin. His mind is warped and twisted. I trust him not at all.’
‘Before you make judgements about him, bear in mind that those who do such jobs will often be hardened. They have to be to continue causing such suffering. They drink themselves to oblivion before each execution, and then, afterwards, hope to forget. What you see as pleasure may be no more than a front to protect himself. A carapace that he uses to conceal his own horror.’
Simon looked at his friend. ‘You think so? I do not, and I have a good record of seeing into men’s hearts.’
‘Well, while we are here still, let us return to Robert de Chatillon to ask him, as Arnaud suggested. If he verifies Arnaud’s story, perhaps that would also explain a little about Enguerrand’s death. If this guard felt that the orders coming from Enguerrand were detrimental to the lady in the prison, and he did adore her, as Arnaud hinted, perhaps this fellow was following Enguerrand and killed him too?’
Robert de Chatillon was not gracious when he saw who it was who had returned. ‘Am I to have no peace today?’
‘Perhaps you will shortly,’ Baldwin said. He perched on the edge of a small table. ‘We have been talking to one of your men.’
‘My men? Who, one of the servants?’
‘No,’ Simon said. ‘The executioner. Arnaud.’
Robert twisted his face into a grimace. ‘What on earth did you want to talk to him for? I find the stench of noisome body fluids tends to follow him around a little too closely for my liking.’
That was a sentiment with which Simon concurred only too heartily, Baldwin knew, so he broke in quickly. ‘Arnaud made several allegations: that Enguerrand de Foix was responsible for all the guards at the Château Gaillard, that there was a specific order relating to the woman held there, that Arnaud himself persuaded de Foix to allow him to be responsible for carrying out this, um, order, and that there was a kind of mutiny there. Is it all true?’
‘You have hardly been specific enough for me to say whether it’s accurate or not. I can tell you this, though. The man Arnaud was there. My comte did hire the guards for the castle, most of them from the south or somewhere. As to the orders about the – ah – lady … I do not know that you need to worry yourself about them.’
‘Is it true, then, that it was ordered that she should be raped?’
‘It is true,’ Robert said, fiddling with a pot of sand on his desk, ‘that proof was required that she had been guilty of adultery. Obviously it would be unthinkable that a queen could reign with our king if her honour was questionable.’
‘So it is true, then,’ Baldwin said coldly.
‘If you wish to think it so,’ Robert said. He would not meet Baldwin’s eye, and instead seemed to find the sand pot astonishingly fascinating.
‘Is it also true that all the men were chosen by the Comte?’ Baldwin asked. There was something about this that made little sense to him.
‘I believe he may have had a part in selecting them. I couldn’t say how far he was involved in the choice of the men.’
‘Who was, then? You?’
‘Me? Do I look the kind of man who would sink to choosing the guards for a castle dungeon? I may not be so senior a nobleman as you, sieur, but I have not sunk so low as to hand select staff for that sort of position.’
‘Then who did?’
‘I do not know. I have heard that it was Arnaud himself. Well, a man used to living amongst the dregs of society, it’s not surprising.’
‘You are saying that your master, Comte Enguerrand de Foix, asked Arnaud to seek out the guards for the château, and then used these miserable creatures to staff the place and guard the Queen? And then he ordered them to rape her so that her infidelity could be in no doubt?’
‘I think that sums it up well enough.’
‘And the man who was killed when you were injured. Who was he?’
‘I only ever knew him as “le Vieux”. He was an old warrior who’d served in the King’s host a few times. It is said that it was he who, with Arnaud, picked the men individually.’
‘But why should he be willing to do so?’ Simon asked. ‘What would it benefit the Comte to get together a band of men, and then have them rape the Queen?’
‘Politics is a dangerous game,’ Baldwin said, watching Robert closely. ‘If the King asked him as a favour, you can all too easily imagine the eagerness with which the Comte would have set about his task. And Arnaud was surely a most enthusiastic ally. If the Comte had been asked to assist the King, he would have agreed in a hurry, just as any number of friends of King Edward and the Despenser will rush to their aid, in the hope of great rewards to come. There is nothing surprising in that, surely. And yet the act itself was so shocking that …’
‘That the idea that it should ever come to light is deeply concerning,’ Robert said, still avoiding their gaze.
‘So the King would prefer never to hear that news of this has been spread about.’ Simon gave a twisted grin. ‘I can understand that. It would be a little embarrassing for any man to have it known that he would willingly subject his own wife to multiple rapes, just to help him end the marriage.’
‘You think that the King entered on this scheme easily? My master was as reluctant as any noble knight would be to put this plan into effect, but when a king is as desperate as Charles must be to produce an heir, what will he not do? What must he
not do to be married and raising sons?’
‘Did your Comte meet the King himself?’
Baldwin’s question seemed to calm Robert a little. He shrugged and slumped back in his seat, wincing as his rib shifted. ‘No. It was his trusted adviser who suggested it. It was a good plot, after all. She was already guilty. We know that from the confessions.’
‘This was the confessions of those who were accused of adultery with the two princesses?’ Baldwin said. ‘The D’Alnay brothers? They were tortured, I recall.’
‘Perhaps so. But the princesses both confessed too, and they were not tortured. No, the men were guilty, as were the women. There is no doubt about that. So Lady Blanche was already shown to have committed the offence. All the King wanted was to have proof – after all, if the Pope was granted incontrovertible evidence that she was guilty of adultery, he could have no objection to annulling the marriage. As did happen. The King and Blanche were divorced three years ago, and now she has been sent to Maubisson. She’s taken the veil.’
‘And the child?’ Simon asked with deceptive gentleness.
‘What of it?’
Baldwin thrust out an arm and gripped Simon’s forearm even as Simon began to move forward. He adored his children, and the thought that any man could consider the life of a child so unimportant as to merit little if any consideration was enough to drive him into an almost blind rage.
‘Robert,’ Baldwin said, ‘do you mean to tell me that all the guards were killed apart from these three – Arnaud, the old man who is now dead, and the other fellow, the one who killed him?’
‘Yes. So I understand.’
‘That is intriguing,’ Baldwin said, ‘and a little alarming for you, of course.’
‘Why me?’
‘Well, this man called Jean, who killed your old guard at Poissy, is here today. He tried to kill Arnaud. It was our intervention which saved Arnaud’s life. But I do not understand all this. Arnaud told us that the guards were all killed by some fellow called Berengar. Yet now this other guard has turned up and is trying to kill the other men involved.’
‘What of it?’
‘Perhaps nothing, but I should be worried, if I were you. After all, the guards are all dead bar two, who seem keen to end the lives of each other; the man who commanded this plot was Enguerrand, and he is dead. Perhaps all those who have had any involvement in the plan are to be removed.’
‘Oh, that would only be—’
Robert was suddenly silent.
‘Only be whom? Perhaps only the guards, eh?’ Baldwin smiled wolfishly. ‘Aha! Yes! Arnaud picked the guards himself, didn’t he? An executioner and a gaoler sent to select gaolers for a disgraced princess. Who better than the dregs of society? After all, it would be likely that one of them would try to rape her anyway, without any intervention. So much less embarrassing. And then, because they are all criminals from the gaols of France, they can be dispersed, returned to their gaols … oh, but that is not what you meant, is it?’ Baldwin’s tone hardened as he took in the full meaning of Robert’s words. ‘You meant that they could be removed permanently, didn’t you? They were never going to be released, were they, these poor devils who aided you so much. They were to be gaolers for a little while, until they conveniently raped Blanche for you, and then they could be removed and killed and forgotten. The King would not like it to become known that he had conspired to have his wife treated in such a manner, after all. So he arranged it in a way that ensured that all evidence could later be destroyed. Isn’t that it?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Be very afraid, then. Because if Jean has learned or guessed this, your life will become worthless. He will seek you out and kill you too.’
Simon had been silent, but now he smiled kindly, and Robert thought for a moment that he was going to offer some comfort. But no.
‘It is worse than that, Robert. If Jean could guess that you would seek to kill all those in the castle, do you not think Arnaud would also guess?’
‘He was to do it,’ Robert said scathingly. ‘You think he’d be worried? He is an executioner.’
‘Yes. And yet I wonder how long it would have been before he realised that of all those who were actively involved, one man would still remain. Himself. And there is only one man alive who knows the full chain of command. You. For his own defence, if he is sensible, he must kill you. And I did think him very sensible.’
Jean had no idea who the two men had been, but he had cursed them roundly, their parents, their children to the third generation, and still his anger knew no bounds. Whatever may have happened, if only he had been able to kill Arnaud, he would have felt fulfilled.
He damned the day he was selected by the bastard. Down in Bishop Fournier’s gaol, where he had been installed after his spirited – overspirited – defence of the poor devils burned on their pyres, declaring them to have stronger religious faith than Jacques Fournier himself. His words had been overheard by a zealous servant of Fournier, of course. There were spies everywhere in those days. So Jean had been hauled off to gaol, and there he would have remained for months, if not years, had not Arnaud made his surprising offer.
‘My master remembers you. Weren’t you with the host that travelled to the field of the Golden Spurs? To Courtrai?’
He agreed, nodding. ‘My father and brother died there in the service of the King and Comte Robert de Foix.’
‘That same comte’s son remembers you. He wishes to reward you. Be ready, and when I return, you will fly this coop.’
Jean had nodded, but did not believe him. He had seen the woman being left to die hideously on the pyre instead of being granted the kindness of a rope about her neck first. He did not trust Arnaud.
But the executioner had been as good as his word. When he came back, he carried a tunic and a new cloak, hood and cowl, together with a good leather belt and a dagger. ‘Best I can do,’ he had explained apologetically, pointing to the roughly sewn star at the breast. The yellow star of a heretic.
Jean cared nothing. He grabbed the clothes and pulled them on, overjoyed to feel the weight of a dagger at his hip once more. Then, quietly, the two men walked out of the gaol, up the stairs, along a passageway, and finally out into the sunshine.
Arnaud walked like a man with the power to have a man sent to the gaol, and none of the guards troubled him. In the courtyard there were two horses waiting, and Arnaud went to the first, a gentle-faced mare. He set his foot in the stirrup, and then hoisted himself upwards.
It had been the most embarrassing moment of Jean’s life, having to confess that he had never sat upon a horse.
Arnaud had soon introduced him to le Vieux, and Jean had thought the old man the perfect example of a lower-ranking man-at-arms in the King’s host. He even went so far as to run through his memories of men in the host he had accompanied to Courtrai, thinking that le Vieux must be a comrade-in-arms from that earlier war, but without success. No, le Vieux was just one of those men who was so archetypical of the kind of warrior the King sought to keep that he appeared familiar.
‘Another one, eh?’ he’d said as he caught sight of Jean and Arnaud. ‘What were you in gaol for?’
‘I said that two folks the bishop burned were better Christians than him.’
‘Do you still think that?’
Jean cast a sidelong glance at Arnaud. Merde! It was possible that the wrong thing said now could have him returned straight to gaol. But Arnaud must know what he had been thrown in gaol for. There was little point trying to hide it. ‘Have you seen Bishop Fournier?’
Le Vieux stared at him for at least five beats of his heart, and then, to Jean’s relief, he began to chuckle, loud and long. ‘You’ll do for me, boy.’
It had been the beginning of a companionable friendship, so Jean had thought. Le Vieux seemed to look on him as a slightly wayward apprentice. It didn’t matter that Jean was already almost thirty years old; in the opinion of the ancient warrior, he was a mere stripling. When there was any duty to
be performed, le Vieux would help him with advice or would actually knuckle down and assist him. More than he would with any of the others, anyway. Men like Berengar he ignored. They didn’t deserve more than occasional comments or harsh bellows. And sometimes the threat of the lash.
He hadn’t been like that with Jean. Le Vieux seemed to think, after that first encounter, that there was more to Jean than he would have guessed. It must have been his defiant first comment. That and the fact that Jean had stood up to the bishop. There were not too many people who would repeat derogatory comments about a man like Jacques Fournier in front of him, and fewer still who would then challenge a man to deny them even after spending time in his gaol. That was what made le Vieux and him get on: the way that Jean was prepared to stick to what he believed.
Le Vieux admired that. Possibly because he believed in nothing himself. Except the Comte de Foix, of course.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Philip and Adam had tried to find Ricard, but the man was nowhere to be seen. It was Adam’s belief that Janin had already found him somewhere, and the pair of them had decided to have no part in any attack on the blasted bodhran player.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Philip said. ‘We can do it ourselves. Why do we need any help? There’s two of us.’
‘Yes,’ Adam agreed, unconvinced.
‘Wait until he turns up in our room, and we can jump him. Just slide a knife in him, and he’ll be quiet enough for good.’
‘Yes,’ Adam said, more quietly.
But he reflected that Philip was a large man. When it came to subduing Jack, Philip should be able to do that with a hand behind his back. And just now, Philip looked as happy to break Adam’s neck as Jack’s, were Adam to raise any more objections. Soon the pair of them were waiting in the musicians’ room. They knew that Jack often slept in there after a light lunch, which seemed only fair since he appeared to spend so much of his evenings and nights out wandering about the place.
‘Where does he go?’ Adam wondered, shifting his leg as it started to go to sleep. Philip wouldn’t let him stand or move about in case it warned Jack as he approached the chamber.
The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover: (Knights Templar 24) Page 33