by Paul Doherty
Gaveston glared back, wondering once again if he had truly broken the hold of that bitch, Eleanor Belmont. Prince Edward looked away. Would Gaveston heed the warning? he wondered. Edward loved Piers more than life itself but dared not prefer him any higher. The Prince glanced sideways at his favourite: Gaveston had his ways but Edward knew his dark side. He had seen the small, yellow wax figures his paramour kept; one with a crown representing the king, the other with a little scarlet skirt, the colour of a whore, Gaveston's description of the Lady Eleanor Belmont. The prince stared into the darkness of die trees. So many secrets, so much tension! When would his father die? And, above all, when would the bitch Eleanor?
From a window high in Woodstock Palace Sir Amaury de Craon, spy, assassin and special envoy of his most sacred majesty. Philip IV of France, watched the Prince's hunting party return up the winding gravelled path of the palace. De Craon thought fleetingly of the Lady Eleanor as he studied the two figures riding so close together, ahead of everyone else, the Lord Edward and Gaveston, chatting like David and Jonathan coming home from a day's hunt De Craon glared down. Lady Eleanor he had not liked but Gaveston he could gladly murder.
De Craon sucked in his breath, trying to calm his rage, and stared up at the sky. The day was now drawing to a close. A slight chilly wind snapped and fluttered the banners carried in front of the Prince. De Craon shivered and pulled his cloak tightly about him: with his sharp, pointed features, russet hair and goatee beard, the Frenchman looked like some inquisitive fox watching his prey approach. Great God, he fumed, how he hated Gaveston! The Gascon was no more than the son of a jumped up yeoman farmer and a witch from the English province of Gascony; indeed, a convicted witch who had been burnt alive, chained to a barrel in the middle of Bordeaux marketplace. What should he do about Gaveston? de Craon wondered for the umpteenth time. Before he had left Paris his master, Philip IV, had taken de Craon into his velvet-draped, secret chamber in the Louvre Palace and explained his mission. They'd sat at a table, bare except for the candle flickering in its stand.
'Always remember, de Craon,' the French King had remarked, 'the Duchy of Gascony is in the hands of Edward of England. By rights it should be in mine!' Philip had grasped the candlestick. 'It nearly was,' he continued, 'but His Holiness the Pope intervened. Now Edward has Gascony and I have a peace treaty.'
De Craon had watched Philip closely.
'However,' his master hissed, 'I intend to have Gascony, the peace treaty, and much more. According to the Holy Father's dictate, Edward I of England was to marry my sister and he is welcome to her, but his feckless Prince of Wales is to wed my beloved daughter, once she is old enough for this marriage to take place. Now, if that happens, one day my grandson will sit on the throne of England whilst another becomes Duke of Gascony. So, in time, that province and perhaps England itself will be absorbed under the French crown.' Philip had paused, licking his bloodless lips.
'However,' he continued, 'all that is in the future and there is a more immediate path I could follow. You are to go to England to confirm my daughter's betrothal, but you must insist that the Prince of Wales has no scandal attached to him. He is to remove from his person his favourite whore, Eleanor Belmont. Otherwise,' Philip gave one of his rare smiles, 'in the light of such scandal, I shall appeal to the Holy Father, the treaty will be null and void, and my troops will be all over Gascony within a week. Now the Prince may well agree to that – I hear he tires of the woman – in which case, a third path is open to me.'
Philip had risen, come round the table and whispered the most secret instructions in de Craon's ear. The French envoy remembered these now and smiled. Perhaps he should follow that path. He clenched his fists in excitement: if he did, he might settle scores, not only with Edward of England, the benighted Prince of Wales and his male bawd, Gaveston, but also with Master Hugh Corbett, de Craon's old rival and enemy.
Chapter 2
Hugh Corbett, senior clerk and master spy of Edward of England, was dreaming a dreadful dream. He was standing beneath the spreading branches of one of the elm trees which stood along the boundaries of Godstowe Priory in Oxfordshire. A late summer sun was shining but the air was silent, eerie, devoid of birdsong. Alongside him, from the branch of a nearby tree, hung a body, its neck broken, head to one side; it hung there like some ancient sacrifice or the Figure of Death from the Tarot. Corbett felt compelled to turn but found he could not. His gaze was fixed on the windows, like empty eye-sockets, of Godstowe Priory. He stirred. No sound broke the chill silence except the hollow screeching of cruel-eyed peacocks and, in faint cadence, the ghostly chanting of the nuns.
In his nightmare Corbett walked across a lush green lawn, the shadows behind forcing him on. No sign of life was apparent as he crossed the gravel path up to the great door of the nunnery; unlatched, half-open, he pushed this aside and entered the cold, dark house. A guttering row of candles, their flickering flames filling the silent hall with dancing shadows, formed a path leading to the bottom of steep stone stairs. There, as if sleeping, lay the body of a young woman, her face half-averted, one pale ivory cheek peeping out from under the hood pulled over her head. Corbett walked softly across, knelt and turned the body over, the young woman's arms flapped like the wings of a fallen bird. He pushed back the hood, expecting to see the face of Eleanor Belmont, former mistress of the Lord Edward, but silently screamed in horror, the dead, ice-cold features belonged to his wife, Maeve. Above him, in the far darkness of the house, a low mocking laugh greeted his discovery but, as he jumped up, Corbett awoke, soaked in sweat, in his own bed chamber in the Manor of Leighton.
Chest heaving, Corbett sat up beneath the blue and gold canopy stretched across the carved uprights of his huge four-poster bed. The window casement rattled under the persistent batterings of a sobbing wind and Corbett wondered it he had been merely dreaming or else visited by some dark phantasm of the night He looked quickly to his right side but Maeve, his wife, was lost in gentle sleep, her silver-blonde hair spread out like a halo across the huge bolster. He leaned over and gendy kissed her on the brow. Outside, the lonely call of a hunting owl and the death shrieks of some animal in the shadowy darkness of the trees re-kindled his sombre mood.
Corbett got up, dressed in his robe and, with tinder and taper, lit a candle. He walked to the heavy, thick arras which hung on the far wall of his bed chamber and pulled this aside, the light of his flickering candle making the embroidered figures spring to ghostly life. Corbett grasped the cunningly contrived lever, pressed it and the wooden panelling gently swung back on its oiled hinges, giving him access to his secret chamber. This perfectly square, white-washed room was the centre of his work, the one place Corbett could be alone to drink, to plot, and take every measure against the King's enemies, both at home and abroad.
He stretched and felt his shoulder twinge with pain where, months previously, the mad priest, de Luce, had plunged his dagger. Corbett had survived, nursed by Maeve, now his wife of six months and already two months gone with child. He smiled; a source for happiness there but not here, in this darkened chamber. Edward I of England had given him Leighton Manor on the borders of Essex in recognition for services rendered but also in return for his continued efforts in building up a network of spies in England, Scotland, France and the Low Countries. Corbett had been happy to accept the charge but the information he gathered carried further problems: he felt he had sown dragons' teeth and was about to reap the whirlwind.
The clerk lit the cresset torches fixed in their iron brackets on the wall and walked over to his intricately carved oak desk; the secrets he had locked away in its hidden drawers and compartments were the source of his present cares and anxiety. From a stone beneath the desk, Corbett removed some keys, lit the two candelabra which stood on either side of the desk, sat down and unlocked the secret compartment.
He plucked out the King's letter, the one he had received the previous evening as he and Maeve ate their dinner in the great darkened hall below. It had been sent
in secret cipher which Corbett had already decoded. He picked up a quill from the writing tray, smoothed a piece of parchment and began to draft his own reply. A memorandum to clear his own thoughts rather than to inform the King.
Item – King Edward is old, locked in combat against Scottish rebels whilst trying to defend his possessions in France. The English Exchequer and Treasury are bankrupt The King's only way forward is the peace treaty laid down by the Papacy, which stipulates the betrothal of the Prince of Wales to the infant daughter of the French King, Philip IV.
Item – the Prince of Wales is feckless, pleasure-loving, a possible sodomite. He is dominated by the Warlock, Gaveston, and hates his father. The breach between father and son is permanent. The King would like to banish Gaveston but this may well lead to civil war which would only assist the Scots and certainly draw in the French.
Item – Philip IV of France had demanded the removal of Eleanor Belmont, and the Lord Edward had been only too pleased to agree with this. Eleanor had been placed under virtual house arrest in Godstowe Priory, a place the Prince could control from his nearby palace of Woodstock.
Item – were the rumours true that the Lady Eleanor had been ill of a malady of the breast and did the Prince send medicines to her? If so, were they really medicines, or poisons?
Item – on Sunday last Lady Eleanor Belmont had not joined the nuns at Compline or the evening meal afterwards in the refectory. Indeed, she had told her companions amongst them to leave her alone. The convent building where Lady Eleanor had her chambers had been empty during the evening service except for two aged nuns, Dame Elizabeth and Dame Matilda. After Compline all the nuns had gone to the refectory as was customary. Once the meal was over (again as was customary), the Lady Prioress with the two Sub-prioresses, Dame Frances and Dame Catherine, had walked around the main building, gone through the open door and found Lady Eleanor Belmont cloaked and hooded at the bottom of the stairs. They claimed her neck had been broken from a fall, yet the hood over her head had not been disturbed.
Item – did the Lady Eleanor Belmont fall? If so, why was her clothing not disturbed? And why had the old nuns not heard the crash of her fall and her cries? If she had fallen, where was she going to or returning from? Was it suicide? Reports said that the Lady Eleanor had been melancholic, the victim of malignant humours.
Corbett stroked his cheek with the quill of the pen, half listening to the wind moaning like some wandering spirit amongst the trees: their branches rustled, one of them tapping insistently against the window. He dipped the quill into the blue-green ink. Had the Lady Eleanor been murdered? And if so, by whom? The Lord Edward? He had been at the nearby palace of Woodstock. By the Lord Gaveston, who had also been present there? Or by both in complicity? Or was it murder by someone in the priory? Either because of jealousy or on the orders of someone else. The French perhaps? There was a delegation from Philip now in England led by Corbett's old adversary, Amaury de Craon.
Corbett bit the knuckles of his hand. De Craon, his counterpart on the French council, was a skilful, devious man who bore no love for Edward of England, or, indeed, Edward's chief clerk. The French would love a scandal involving the English crown. Belmont had been the Prince of Wales' paramour but she had been removed from the court and so they had no grievance there. Of course, Gaveston could have taken her place but the French had no proof that his relationship with the young Prince was anything but an honourable friendship. However, if de Craon started insinuating that the Prince or Gaveston were involved in murder, Philip might well decide the betrothal was off, the peace treaty be null and void, and the English would find themselves in a costly and bloody war. The clerk grasped his quill and began to write.
Item – they had information from a spy in Essex that the Prince of Wales had been secretly married to the Lady Eleanor Belmont. Was this another reason for the Prince to murder the poor girl?
Corbett suddenly went cold. The Prince, or his father? Corbett had no illusions about either the King or his son; both were equally ruthless and self-seeking.
Item – another piece of information from Eudo Tailler, an English spy busy in the shadows of the Louvre Palace. Eudo had sent it weeks ago but had since disappeared. His message was cryptic enough: a member of the de Montfort family was loose in England.
Corbett's anxiety increased. Forty years ago, eight years before Corbett had been born, Edward I had crushed a savage revolt led by Earl Simon de Montfort. The King, who had so nearly lost his crown, defeated the Earl's army outside Evesham. De Montfort had been killed and Edward had told his soldiers to hack his body and feed it to the royal dogs. The remnants of de Montfort's family had fled abroad and, whenever possible, sent assassins into England against the King and the royal family. The feud had lasted decades. A few years previously the King had used Corbett himself to uncover one of these secret covens. Corbett rubbed his face as he remembered the dark passion of Alice, the coven leader. Who was this new assassin, he pondered, and where was he now?
'Hugh! Hugh!'
Corbett looked up. Maeve stood in the doorway, one of his cloaks wrapped about her. Despite his anxieties, he was struck by her beauty: the silver hair, the skin which glowed like burnished gold in the candle light, and those blue- violet eyes now heavy with sleep.
'What are you staring at, man?' she asked.
'You know what I am looking at,' he murmured.
He rose and snuffed out the candles and led her back into the bed chamber.
'Hugh, what are you doing?' Maeve struggled free and faced him gravely. 'For God's sake, it's the middle of the night! I awake and find my bed cold and you gone.' She smiled, letting her cloak drop to the floor, and put her arms round his waist. 'The King's letter, isn't it? The business at Godstowe?'
He took a deep breath.
'Yes, and tomorrow I must go there. As soon as Ranulf returns.'
She made him sit down on the edge of the bed beside her.
'The woman was murdered, wasn't she?' Corbett nodded. 'Yes, I fear so.' 'And the King will be held responsible?' Corbett rubbed his face in his hands. 'Yes, I mink he will. If a scandal breaks, God knows what will happen.' He took her hand in his.
'For forty years, Maeve, there has been no civil war in England. Yet the Lady Eleanor's death could cause one.'
She shivered and rolled under the thick coverlets.
'Hugh,' she murmured, 'you will not solve it now, in the middle of the night!'
He smiled bleakly.
'Perhaps there will never be a solution, not even in the full light of day.'
Ranulf-atte-Newgate, body servant to Hugh Corbett, turned his horse on to the sun-baked track which led round to Leighton Manor just as the bell of the village church tolled the Angelus. He turned and watched the labourers bent low in the fields gathering the stooks of corn and placing them in great two-wheeled carts. He heard the sound of their laughter, a woman singing a lullaby to a child held at her breast; now and again, carried on the breeze, the shouts of children playing on the banks of a brook as their busy parents gathered in the harvest
Ranulf had been up to London on his master's business in the Chancery as well as calling on certain goldsmiths in the Poultry. He had also visited his son, the glorious offspring of one of his affairs. Ranulf was pleased that the boy was looking more like him as every day passed: the same, spiked reddish hair, generous mouth, freckled face, snub nose and cheeky green eyes, sharp as a cat's. The child had been born months earlier in the depths of winter and Corbett had persuaded Ranulf to give him to some foster-parents in Threadneedle Street. Ranulf had agreed but then changed his mind, taken him back, and promptly lost his son in a tavern. A saucy, heavy-bosomed wench had caught his eye, Ranulf had put the baby down, went to take his pleasure then walked home, forgetting about the little bundle he had entrusted to the tavern-keeper's wife. On Corbett's advice he had subsequently returned the child to his heart-broken foster-parents.
'A good decision,' Ranulf murmured to himself.
&n
bsp; He loved the boy but never could remember where he had left him last A squirrel chattered, a bird flew out of a gorse bush. Ranulf's hand went towards his dagger. He felt uneasy in the countryside, missed the city and wished that Corbett would return to their house in Bread Street, but his master's new wife, Maeve, had changed all that. Ranulf groaned to himself. He lusted after most women. In fact, Ranulf found any women of whatever degree or age attractive, if not for seducing, then as a useful target for his good-natured bantering or teasing.
Maeve-app-Llewellyn was different Ranulf feared her. Those chilling blue eyes which seemed to be able to read his every thought; her shrewd management of his master's affairs, be it buying a field or placating that old grey granite-faced King. When Maeve was there Hugh seemed to relax, even smile. Ranulf stirred, easing his aching backside as he urged his horse through the manor gates. She had changed Corbett Oh, his master was still secretive and withdrawn, but more even-tempered, cooler and more calculating. On previous occasions Corbett had worked in the Chancery, accepting individual assignments for the old King. Now all that had changed. Corbett acted as if he loved the intrigue, building up a system of spies which stretched like some huge net from Rome to Avignon, Paris, Lille, Edinburgh and Dublin.
Ranulf reigned in his horse and listened to the sound of the woodland as Maeve had urged him to. He shook his head. He would give a gold piece to hear the sound of the hucksters and coster-mongers of London, the lusty shouts of the apprentices and the raucous bawling of stall-holders. He looked around him. There was too much space here, the air was too fresh and the prospect of hard work imminent. There were no soldiers for Ranulf to draw into a game with his loaded dice or crooked chequer-board. No pretty girls to make eyes at and, above all, no Mistress Sempler, the voluptuous young wife of an ageing woolsmith.