by Paul Doherty
The King threw his sword into the rushes. The clerk turned and walked towards him; he was shrewd enough to know when he had reached the limits of royal patience.
‘Put your dagger away, de Warrenne! For God’s sake we are friends not three drunken travellers in a tavern! Corbett, sit down!’
The King stared at his master clerk. Corbett saw the tears brimming in Edward’s eyes and groaned inwardly. He could deal with the King in one of his royal rages but Edward growing maudlin was both pathetic and highly dangerous. Corbett had attended the recent interview between the King and his eldest daughter who had secretly married someone whom the King considered beneath her. At first Edward had tried rage then tears and, when that did not work, beat his daughter, tossed her jewellery into the fire and banished both the hapless princess and her husband to the draughtiest manor house in England. The King’s rages could be even more dangerous. Corbett had heard of certain Scottish towns who’d had the temerity to withstand his sieges, being taken by storm and no quarter given to woman or child.
The King clicked his fingers and de Warrenne, his dagger re-sheathed, served wine for them all. The old Earl then sat slurping noisily from his cup, now and again glaring at Corbett as if he wished to hack the clerk’s head clean off his shoulders.
‘Everyone leaves me,’ the King began mournfully. ‘My beloved Eleanor is dead. Burnell’s gone – do you remember the old rogue, Hugh? Hell’s teeth, I wish he was with me now.’
The King wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and Corbett sat back to admire Edward-the-player in one of his favourite roles – the old King mourning past glories. Of course, Corbett remembered Eleanor, Edward’s beautiful Spanish wife. Whilst she had been alive, the King’s rages had been held in check. And Chancellor Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells: he had been a shrewd old fox who had loved Corbett as his own son.
‘Everyone’s gone,’ the King moaned again. ‘My son hates me, my daughters marry whom they wish. I offer the Scots peace and prosperity but they throw it in my face whilst Philip of France dances round me as if I was some benighted maypole.’ The King reached out and clasped Corbett’s wrist. ‘But I have you, Hugh. My right arm, my sword, my shield and my defence.’
Corbett bit his lip sharply. He must not smile or stare at de Warrenne who now had his face deep in his wine cup.
‘I am begging you,’ the King wheedled. ‘Hugh, I need you. Just this once. Go to London, clear up this mess. You will see your wife, your baby child.’ The King’s grip tightened. ‘You called her Eleanor. I’ll not forget that. You’ll go, won’t you?’ The grip tightened even further.
‘Yes, your Grace, I’ll go. But when this is finished and the game is over, you will keep your word?’
Edward smiled bravely though Corbett caught the mockery in his eyes.
‘I am not a chess piece, your Grace,’ Corbett murmured and glanced sideways. Was the Earl sniggering at him?
‘De Warrenne!’ Corbett snapped.
The Earl looked up.
‘Next time you draw your dagger on me, my Lord, I’ll kill you!’ Corbett rose and walked towards the door.
‘Hugh, come back.’ The King was now standing, balancing the sword between his hands. ‘You’re no chess piece, Corbett, but I made you what you are. You know my secrets. I gave you wealth, a manor in Leighton. Now, I’ll give you more. Kneel!’
Surprised, Corbett went down on one knee whilst the King with all the speed he could muster, touched his clerk once on the head then on each shoulder, slapping him gently on the face.
‘I dub you Knight.’
The proclamation was short and simple. Corbett, embarrassed, knocked the dust from his tunic. Edward re-sheathed the sword.
‘In a month the chancery will send your letter of ennoblement. Well, Corbett, what do you say?’
‘Your Grace, I thank you.’
‘Bollocks!’ Edward snarled. ‘If de Warrenne threatens you again and you kill him I’ll have to execute you. But now you are a knight with a title and spurs, it will be a fight between equals.’ The King clasped Corbett’s hand. ‘You’d best go, my clerks will draw up the necessary letters, giving you my authority to act on these matters.’
Corbett left as quickly as he could, secretly pleased about the honour shown to him but quietly cursing the King for getting his own way.
Back in the robing room, de Warrenne wiped his eyes as he shook with laughter at the King’s duplicity. For a few seconds Edward basked in the Earl’s admiration then suddenly he leaned towards him.
‘John,’ Edward whispered. ‘I love you as a brother but if you ever draw your dagger on Corbett again, by my crown, I’ll kill you, myself!’
Corbett returned to his own chamber and absent-mindedly began to collect his belongings, tossing them into saddle bags. Maeve would be furious, he thought. Her beautiful, placid face would become pinched with anger, her eyes would narrow and, when she found the words, she would damn the King, his court and her husband’s duties. Corbett smiled to himself. But, there again, Maeve would soon be placated. She would be proud of the knighthood and pause a while before returning to her ripe description of Corbett’s royal master. Then there was Eleanor: three months old and already showing signs of being as beautiful as her mother. A lusty, well-proportioned girl. Corbett had been teased that he wanted a son, but he didn’t really care as long as Maeve and the child were healthy. He sat on the edge of his bed and half listened to the sounds from the castle bailey below. The child must be healthy! He thought of his first wife Mary and their daughter, dead so many years now. Sometimes their faces would appear, quite distinct in his mind, at others they would seem lost in a cloying mist.
‘It can’t happen again,’ Corbett muttered to himself, tapping his boots on the floor. ‘It can’t happen again!’
He picked up the flute lying on the bed and gently played a few notes. He closed his eyes and, in the twinkling of an eye, he was back down the years. Mary was beside him, the little girl, so quickly gripped by the plague, tottering about in front of her. Other memories followed, the cunning, shrewd look of Robert Burnell; the beautiful, passionate face of Alice-atte-Bowe. Other faces appeared, many killed or trapped in their own terrible treasons or subtle murders. Corbett thought of the King’s growing irascibility and dangerous swings of mood and he wondered how long he would stay in the royal service.
‘I have enough gold,’ Corbett muttered to himself. ‘There’s the manor in Essex.’ He shook his head. ‘The King will not let me go but how long will the King last?’ Corbett stared at the floor, running the flute between his hands, enjoying the texture of polished wood. ‘It’s treason,’ he whispered, ‘to even consider the death of a king.’ But the King was well past his sixtieth year and when he died what would happen then? The golden-haired Prince of Wales was a different kettle of fish with his love of hunting, handsome young men and the joys of both bed and board.
When the old King dies, Corbett wondered, what would his successor do? Would the new king need him, or would he be replaced? What would Maeve say? The thought of his wife recalled the King’s words about de Craon.
‘I wonder what that red-haired, foxy-faced bastard wants?’ Corbett muttered. He got off the bed and crossed to the table littered with parchment. Two pieces caught his eye. First, a dirty thumbed piece of vellum; the writing on it was a mixture of numbers and strange signs which the cipher his spy had used in Paris. Next to it, neatly written out in green-blue ink was the translation of the cipher by one of the clerks of the Secret Seal. Corbett picked this up, read it quickly and cursed. He had meant to tell the King about this. The spy, ostensibly an English trader buying up wines in the Paris market, had seen the English fugitive and outlaw Richard Puddlicott in the company of Philip IV’s Master of Secrets, William Nogaret, at a tavern just outside the main gates of the Louvre Palace. Puddlicott was a wanted man in England: a thief, a murderer who had killed a royal messenger but, above all, he was a trickster. No one had a clear description of Puddlicott but
his fraudulent behaviour had wiped out the profits of many a merchant. He had been a clerk at Cambridge but now used his considerable wit and intelligence to separate people from their hard-earned wealth and kept reappearing either in England or France with his nefarious schemes. No law officer had managed to seize him or lay him by the heels. Corbett’s spy in Paris had sent a description of a blond-haired man with ruddy cheeks and a slight limp. Yet the King’s seneschal in Bordeaux had also described Puddlicott as black-haired, of sallow complexion, well proportioned in all his limbs.
Corbett re-read the letter. All the spy had learnt was that the Master of Secrets had been talking to Puddlicott, but about what, he could not tell except Nogaret had seemed most welcoming and attentive.
‘I should have told the King this!’ Corbett repeated to himself and, striding to the door, with the documents clutched in his fist, he bellowed for a clerk to take them immediately to the King.
Afterwards, Corbett stared round the untidy room. His agitation, caused by his recent meeting, had now subsided; it was best, he concluded, if he left immediately.
‘The sooner gone, the sooner done,’ he murmured. ‘Now, where is the honest Ranulf?’
Corbett’s manservant, the honest Ranulf, was in the great hall squatting in a corner with guardsmen of the royal retinue, slowly inveigling them into a game of dice. The red-haired, pale-faced manservant looked around solemnly, his green, cat-like eyes serious and unblinking.
‘I have little skill in dice,’ he murmured.
The soldiers smiled for they thought they had trapped a coney in the hay. Ranulf jingled his purse.
‘I have some silver,’ he said, ‘as has my companion here.’ He turned to Corbett’s groom and ostler, the blond-haired, fat-faced Maltote who sat next to him like some innocent plough boy. Maltote smiled owlishly at the soldiers and Ranulf grinned as he drew them into his trap. The dice was thrown, Ranulf lost and then, amidst shouts of ‘Beginner’s luck!’, he began to win. He was fully immersed in the game when he saw the soldiers look up fearfully just as he felt his master’s iron grip on his shoulder.
‘Ranulf, my dear man,’ Corbett whispered sweetly. ‘A word in thine ear.’
Ranulf glowered up at him. ‘Master, I am in a game.’
‘Ranulf,’ Corbett said. ‘So am I. A word, away from your friends.’
Ranulf clambered to his feet and Corbett led him away, still gripping his shoulder tightly.
‘Master, what is wrong?’ Ranulf winced as Corbett’s fingers dug into his shoulder.
‘First, Ranulf, I told you not to use those dice against the King’s soldiers. They are hard-working men and you are not here to fleece them of every penny they earn. Secondly,’ Corbett released his grip, ‘you are to return to London immediately.’
Ranulf dropped the look of mock innocence and grinned mischievously.
‘Thirdly,’ Corbett continued, ‘we need to pack our belongings.’
‘Master,’ Ranulf whispered hoarsely. ‘I am winning.’
‘I know you are, Ranulf, and you’ll give every penny back! Maltote?’
Ranulf wandered dolefully back, raising his eyes heavenwards as Maltote passed him. Corbett looked at the young groom anxiously.
‘You are not carrying any weapons?’ he asked warily.
The lad smiled.
‘Good!’ Corbett grinned back, marvelling at the innocence in the lad’s cornflower-blue eyes. Never had Corbett met a soldier such as Maltote who knew so much about horses, was so skilled in their treatment and management but was so hopeless with weapons. If Maltote carried a knife he’d either cut himself or anyone about him. If he carried a bow he would trip himself up or poke the eye out of some innocent bystander, and he was as dangerous as any enemy if he carried spear or sword.
‘Maltote! Maltote!’ Corbett murmured. ‘Once you were an innocent horse soldier, a good cavalryman and now you have met Ranulf.’ Corbett flinched at the look of admiration in his retainer’s eyes. ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Corbett muttered. ‘What Ranulf does not know about dice, women and drink is not worth knowing. But we are for London. We must leave immediately. Take two horses from the royal stable, ride as fast as you can and inform the Lady Maeve that Ranulf and I are following.’ Corbett licked his lips. ‘Tell her,’ he concluded, ‘we are not going to Wales but will stay a little longer in London.’
The young messenger nodded vigorously and scampered off, pausing only to watch a sorrowful Ranulf hand back the illicit gains of his crooked dice. Corbett watched him go, closed his eyes and hoped God and Maltote would forgive his cowardice. After all, the young messenger would be the first to receive the brunt of the Lady Maeve’s anger.
Chapter 2
The figure in the shadows was waiting. Nothing could be seen in the poor light streaming through the narrow window except the glint of the brass bodkin which the figure was pressing into a small, waxen image. The image had been carefully made: only the purest beeswax had been used, culled from candles which stood on the altars of churches or in the silver and gold candle-brackets of the very wealthy. As an object of hate, the waxen image had been fashioned most lovingly. Only six inches high; its creator had used the skill of a carver to fashion the rounded face, the long legs and arms and the jutting firm tits. A piece of dyed orange wool had been pinned to the head, and red crepe had been tied round the middle so it looked as if the image was wearing a voluminous skirt. Sightless eyes, two small buttons, stared back at its maker who looked at it, chuckled and stuck the bodkin once more into the soft white body. The figure plucked out the bodkin then carefully slashed the waxen image’s neck.
In her small chamber above a draper’s shop in Cock Lane, Agnes Redheard was terrified. She dare not go out. She had not bought food for days and, because of the lack of custom, her small pile of pennies had dwindled. She was hungry, thirsty and so lonely she would have given her body for free just for the solace of someone to talk to or to listen to her chatter. The young girl dressed feverishly because she believed her salvation was at hand. She pulled her bright-red smock down about her voluptuous body, tightened the leather thongs of her wooden pattens and combed her straggling red hair with a steel comb which had seen better days. She looked round the garret.
‘Oh, Lord!’ she whispered. ‘I wish to be free of here.’
The chamber had become a prison ever since that night when, finding herself deserted by a customer, she had slipped along the blackened alleyways hoping her friend, Isabeau, would allow her to sleep on the floor. Agnes Redheard cursed the baker who, instead of taking her home, had roughly used her in the shadowy corner of a street, had paid her only half of what he had promised, then had driven her away with curses, threatening to call the watch.
Agnes had gone along Old Jewry and stopped just as a cowled figure had slipped out of the house where Isabeau lived. She had thought it strange but, in the darkened doorway of the shop, she had glimpsed the face and smiled, then hurriedly climbed the stairs fully intending to tease Isabeau. She was only half-way up when the blood trickling down from her friend’s slashed throat had made her slip on the stair. She had screamed and screamed until the entire street was roused. Nevertheless, Agnes had kept her mouth shut. She had seen the face but couldn’t believe that someone so holy could perpetrate such an obscene act. So Agnes had bought a quill and a scrap of parchment and sent an urgent message to Westminster. Now her benefactor had replied, telling her to come to the small chapel near Greyfriars. Agnes picked up her tattered cloak and skipped down the stairs. Outside, the dirty-faced urchin she paid a penny to, to watch the door, grinned and waved.
‘No strangers here, Mistress!’ he called out.
Agnes smiled and the boy wondered what was wrong for the whore’s face wasn’t painted. He could not understand why she kept hidden in her chamber, paying him money to warn her of any strangers approaching the house. The boy watched her go then hawked and spat. Whatever was wrong, he hoped Agnes Redheard would not discover he had failed to deliver her mess
age at Westminster. Instead, he had dropped the paper into a sewer and spent the penny she gave him on a basket of plums covered in sugar.
Meanwhile, Agnes slipped through the streets, brushing past white-eyed beggars who whined for alms, and a cripple on wooden slats who cried out that he had seen the devil in Smithfield – but no one listened. The booths were open, under the projecting stories of the great houses, and leather-clad apprentices screamed that they had hot mutton, spiced beef and soft bread for sale. Agnes caught the savoury smells from the cookshops and her stomach clenched with hunger. On one occasion she felt so giddy she had to stop and lean against a doorway, watching an old woman at the corner of the alleyway hitch her skirts and squat to pee. The old woman caught Agnes’s eyes and she cackled with laughter in a display of reddened gums and yellow, rotted teeth. Agnes looked away hurriedly, clenched her fists and ran on.
She followed the line of the city ditch, full of offal and refuse, the dead bodies of cats and dogs now ripening under a strong, summer sun. She turned right, down Aldersgate Street into St Martin’s Lane then through alleyways which would take her to Greyfriars. She stopped at a crossroads where the Bailiff of the Ward had piled high on a stool the goods stolen by a burglar now on his way to the scaffold at Tyburn. Different people claimed the same objects and a violent row ensued, blocking all paths. Agnes stopped; she hadn’t the strength to push through. A costermonger came alongside her with a little handcart full of bread, chunks of cheese and cooked eels. Agnes’s hand reached out; she needed to eat, she had to chew something. Suddenly a small urchin threw the dead, bloated body of a toad into the cart. The costermonger picked it up and threw it back, screaming abuse, and Agnes seized her chance. She picked up a small, hard loaf of rye bread, a chunk of cheese and, seeing a gap in the crowd, slipped through, down a narrow, fetid alleyway. Turning left, she saw the small church before her. Agnes, her mouth full of bread and cheese, could have cried with pleasure. She was here, she was safe. She went up the crumbling steps and slipped through a darkened doorway. The message pushed under her garret door had been quite simple: she was to go to the church just before the Angelus bell and wait until her benefactor arrived.