The King's Spies

by Simon Beaufort

  Ignoring the pain in his left shoulder, he went on the offensive, assaulting Mabel and Haweis with a series of hacking blows. They retreated fast and in alarm, while the younger pair tried to slip in a sortie from behind. One succeeded in striking his helmet with her sword, but Geoffrey whipped out his dagger and hurled it at her. She dropped with a scream and her sister’s attack faltered. The older women were not so easily distracted, and ignored her sobs and their mother’s wails of horror.

  ‘Enough,’ shouted Geoffrey, as Mabel hefted her mace and Haweis grasped her sword in both hands. ‘I will kill you if you fight me any longer. Give up and go home.’

  Mabel hesitated, glancing at her injured sister and weighing up the situation. Sybilla screamed at her to attack, while Haweis was so angry she seemed beyond reason.

  ‘Never!’ she yelled furiously. ‘You have murdered Amise, and will pay with your life.’

  She dashed towards him with her sword raised high. Geoffrey waited until the last moment, then jigged to one side, so her hacking blow met thin air and she staggered off balance. He kicked out and knocked her from her feet, perfectly timed to stumble into Mabel, who was racing forward with her mace. Both women tumbled to the ground, so Geoffrey dropped his sword and swung around to grab Cecily. With one arm wrapped tightly around her neck, he snatched her dagger from its sheath and pressed it to her throat. She went stiff with fear.

  ‘Enough!’ he said a second time, aware of the aching throb in his arm from Mabel’s mace. The two older sisters exchanged a glance, and then climbed slowly to their feet.

  ‘Let her go,’ ordered Sybilla. There was a tremble in her voice, and Geoffrey supposed she had only ever seen her daughters in the position of slaughtering their opponents, not losing to them. She looked down at the girl who lay in her arms, blood dripping from a jagged wound on her face. ‘You have already killed one of my daughters. Do not deprive me of another.’

  ‘She will recover,’ said Geoffrey. Amise’s cut bled furiously, and the resulting facial scar might well deter future suitors, but she would live if the injury was properly tended. He addressed Mabel and Haweis. ‘Put up your weapons. Now.’

  Cecily gave a whimper of fear that did more to convince them than any words. They obeyed, although Haweis left the strap of her sword untied, so she would be able to draw it if Geoffrey lowered his defences. She glowered at him, her eyes dark with hatred and rage.

  ‘You will not get away with this,’ she whispered. ‘I will repay you for what you have done.’

  ‘You attacked me,’ Geoffrey pointed out. ‘So you must accept the consequences. But the monk you stabbed has escaped and is probably telling everyone he meets that there are female knights in his church. You should leave before people come to see whether it is true. Your family already has a reputation for sorcery, and the discovery of women dressed as men will only make matters worse.’

  Mabel and Haweis gazed at the door in alarm. It was open, and a trail of blood marked where the wounded priest had crawled away. Mabel was no fool, and neither was Sybilla, although Geoffrey thought Haweis lacked proper judgement. Mother and eldest daughter exchanged a glance and Sybilla nodded agreement. Geoffrey pushed Cecily away from him, a little harder than was necessary, and watched as they hauled the injured Amise to her feet, concealing her bleeding face with her cloak. With her mother on one side, and the beefy Mabel on the other, they aimed for the door.

  ‘I will not forget this,’ snarled Haweis, and Geoffrey was sure she was not referring to his generosity in letting them escape when he could have slain the lot of them.

  ‘Go,’ he said tiredly, in no mood for bandying words with a woman who was beyond reason. He had met zealots on the Crusade, and knew from experience there was no point in arguing with them.

  ‘I will see you dead,’ she hissed. ‘No one wounds a Bellême and lives to tell the tale.’

  ‘Hurry,’ said Geoffrey, wanting them gone so he could see whether Mabel had done serious harm to his shoulder. ‘You do not want to be here when the monk brings the city guards.’

  ‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘You are the one who spilled blood. We were just defending ourselves. There are five of us to pit our word against yours.’

  ‘The priest will know who stabbed him,’ Geoffrey pointed out. ‘And the citizens of London will consider female knights an aberration. Go, before they hang you.’

  She knew he was right, despite her determination to quarrel, and followed her mother and sisters out of the church, scowling furiously. Big Mabel paused when she reached the churchyard gate, and Geoffrey thought she was about to yell some insult or threat, but she took her dagger and touched it to her forehead, as a mark that she had yielded with honour and acknowledged his victory. Haweis shoved her hard, furious at the gesture, but Mabel was far too large to be jostled, and merely sheathed her weapon to concentrate on carrying Amise to safety.

  Geoffrey was not far behind, no more happy to be discovered in a place where blood lay in pools on the floor than were the Bellême women. Folk did not take kindly to knights practising their killing skills in holy places, especially when it was Norman warriors befouling Saxon sanctuaries. When he reached the gate, a shadow dived at him. Haweis had hidden behind a yew tree and taken the opportunity to attack, thrusting her dagger towards Geoffrey’s stomach. He had been anticipating such a move, and her weapon hissed through empty air as he jumped away. Her face was dark with fury.

  ‘I will kill you sooner or later, Geoffrey Mappestone, and you will wish it was today, so you do not live the rest of your short, miserable life in fear.’ The fierce expression in her eyes left Geoffrey in no doubt that she meant every word.

  ‘Go home, woman,’ he snapped. ‘And do not forget you are not the only one with a sharp sword. I will not be so forgiving a second time.’

  She glowered at him before following her sisters, aiming for some hideaway in the north of the city. Geoffrey glanced around to see whether Emma was lurking nearby, waiting to attack him when he thought the danger was over, but the place was deserted. He wondered what had happened to the injured monk, and walked around the side of the church to look for him. It would be a pity to let a man bleed to death, just for the want of a little medical attention. He found him huddled against a buttress in a feeble attempt to hide.

  ‘Have they gone?’ the monk asked in a hoarse whisper, his face white with shock.

  Geoffrey nodded and knelt next to him, noting the wound was not serious, although it had terrified the poor man out of his wits. He rummaged in his pouch for one of the strips of clean linen he kept for such eventualities, and bandaged the bleeding arm. The Benedictine smiled gratefully.

  ‘I am sorry I did nothing to help. I had no weapon, and would not know how to use it if I did …’

  Geoffrey helped him to his feet. ‘The wound may fester, so you should summon a surgeon or a wise woman to tend it.’

  ‘And what about you?’ asked the monk softly. ‘Did they harm you?’

  ‘No,’ replied Geoffrey, not entirely truthfully; his shoulder ached viciously. However, he was determined Mabel should never know, no matter how serious the injury. He had his pride, after all.

  The monk regarded him intently. ‘You do not need to pretend with me. Come to my house. I have a tonic that will help both of us. Taken with wine it eases the most griping of pains.’

  It sounded good to Geoffrey, and together they limped through the graveyard to the man’s small home. It was a simple affair, comprising a single ground-floor room. A fire smouldered in the hearth, and over it bubbled a pot of stew. The monk barred the door, then fetched his potion, pouring a small amount into two cups and adding a generous measure of wine. He swirled it around and drained his goblet in a single swallow. Geoffrey followed suit, wincing as the stuff burned its way down to his stomach. It made his eyes water and he coughed.

  ‘You will notice the difference in a few moments,’ said the monk, smiling at his reaction. ‘My name is Brother Edred, priest of All Hallows
Barking by the Tower. It is a famous church, and has stood on this site for four hundred years. But I am sure its sacred walls have never before been sullied by the likes of what happened today.’

  ‘You are probably right,’ said Geoffrey, aware of a warm, tingling sensation spreading through his stomach. He started to feel slightly light-headed. It was not unpleasant, although he suspected it would impair his ability to fight the likes of Mabel and Haweis if they came after him again that day.

  ‘Sybilla has been here before,’ Edred went on, sitting near the hearth and holding unsteady hands towards the flames. ‘But I did not know her soldiers were women, nor that they would bare their weapons in my church. I hope they do not return – not them or Abbess Emma of Alménches.’

  Geoffrey flexed his arm tentatively, relieved to discover the numbness was wearing off. Mabel had not broken bones after all. ‘Where is Alménches?’ he asked.

  ‘In Normandy, I suppose,’ replied Edred, in the tone of voice that suggested that if Alménches was in Normandy, then it might as well be in Hell. He was a Saxon, after all. ‘They say she rarely visits her abbey, and spends most of her time plotting to further the interests of her family. They also say she prefers to speak to the Devil than to God.’

  ‘That is said of most Bellêmes,’ said Geoffrey, who had learned long ago to take gossip with a hefty dose of salt. ‘Emma may be unpopular because her brother is the Earl of Shrewsbury.’

  ‘No,’ said Edred firmly. ‘Rumours like this nearly always have some basis in truth. I have caught her myself, stealing holy water and poking around that part of the churchyard where we bury felons. Graves have been disturbed.’ He pursed his lips and looked meaningfully at Geoffrey.

  ‘You think she did it?’ Geoffrey was sceptical, sure the Abbess of Alménches had better things to do than to scrabble about in graveyards after rotting corpses.

  ‘She did it,’ replied Edred with absolute conviction. ‘I caught her with muddy hands after one such desecration, although I pretended not to notice. It is never wise to tackle such folk directly, lest they call on their familiars to put an end to you with claws and fangs. But you know why she wants the bones of men who have been buried in unhallowed ground, do you not?’

  ‘No,’ said Geoffrey truthfully.

  ‘She intends to kill the King with witchcraft,’ said Edred in a whisper. ‘I have tried to warn him – he employs me when his regular clerks need an additional scribe – but he will not listen.’

  Geoffrey was not surprised. Even a powerful Norman abbess could not dispense with a strong king like Henry – whether she was in possession of dead men’s body parts or not.

  ‘I am sure there is nothing to worry about,’ he said, pleasantly relaxed. He wondered whether Edred would lend him his bed for a while, because he felt like sleeping.

  ‘Then you are wrong,’ said Edred firmly. ‘She means to murder the King. Will you tell him?’

  ‘He would not believe me.’

  ‘He might. You seem like an honest fellow – the kind of man a king would want in his service.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Geoffrey drowsily. ‘That is the problem.’

  The following day, Geoffrey wrote to his sister, informing her that the King anticipated an uprising along the Welsh borders, and warning that royal help might not arrive as quickly as she might expect. He did not trust Henry, and thought he might abandon Goodrich regardless of the arrangement he had made. But Joan was strong and resourceful, and Geoffrey hoped she would be able to prepare for the impending onslaught if given sufficient warning.

  When he had finished, he sat in the window and gazed out at the seething mass of faces that hurried along Eastceape. Roger had dragged Helbye and Ulfrith to view the public lavatory again, declaring that they needed to recall every detail, because he intended to build a similar one when he returned to his home in Durham. Durand had declined the invitation, preferring to shop for trinkets in the market before they left for Winchester that afternoon, so Geoffrey had been left alone to write his letter and to ponder the events that had occurred since his arrival in England.

  First, he considered Hugh. Geoffrey thought that if the young man had carried messages between various members of the Bellême family – and possibly notes from Matilda to the King – he could not have been as stupid as folk suggested. Had he been killed because he had learned the secret of Greek Fire, and certain members of the clan wanted to ensure he did not tell anyone else? Or had he been murdered by the King’s agents, because Henry wanted to show the Bellêmes what happened to those who attempted to parley with him when he was determined to crush them? There was also the strange fact that the parchment containing the message had been rammed into Hugh’s mouth, but Geoffrey was certain he had heard him yell before he was thrown to his death.

  Then Geoffrey thought about Oswin, stabbed in his bed after his household had been rendered helpless with a soporific. Because Matilda had employed a similar method to gain access to Geoffrey, he could not help but suspect her of the crime. However, she had told him that she had been waiting impatiently for Roger to succumb, which indicated she had not been elsewhere stabbing landlords. He wondered if poisoned ale was something favoured by the Bellême family in general, rather than Matilda in particular, and if one of her siblings had killed Oswin. Emma was alleged to be a witch, and probably had access to such potions, while the fiery Sybilla and her daughters seemed willing to kill for any reason. Geoffrey was certain Bellême himself would not have been so subtle. He would have marched into the Crusader’s Head with his sword and slaughtered the entire household, not just the slumbering taverner.

  Next Geoffrey considered Petronus, shot then strangled. Was the ambush in the woods to prevent him from delivering his messages to Bishop Maurice? Maurice later claimed to have received all he expected, so perhaps Petronus had carried missives for someone else, too. Petronus hailed from Shrewsbury Abbey, and Bellême was the Earl of Shrewsbury. Geoffrey thought it reasonable to assume that Petronus had business with someone other than Maurice, someone in the service of Bellême. But who? The gawky Philip, who half-listened to conversations and then reported them, garbled, to his aunts? Or perhaps the sardonic Beaumais, who openly confessed to being a vassal of Bellême, but who still haunted Henry’s Court?

  And what of the meeting between Emma and Sybilla in All Hallows Barking? Were the sisters simply trying to devise ways of keeping their estates while their brothers suffered the full consequences of Henry’s wrath? Matilda had claimed as much, but Emma and Sybilla did not trust her judgement, and thought she would allow herself to be beguiled by Geoffrey, who would then betray them all. He supposed he should not be surprised: in a country where the name Bellême was spoken with such fear and hatred, the family would be used to looking for treachery around every corner.

  And what about Edred’s claim that Emma had been raiding his churchyard for body parts to use against the King? Could that be true? Geoffrey supposed that if she was as powerful a witch as everyone seemed to believe, then it was possible she might try. He considered sending a letter to Henry, to warn him, but was afraid that it might be construed as a threat rather than friendly advice. He decided to leave the matter well alone. It was not his concern, and there was no reason why Henry should believe him when he had already chosen to ignore Edred.

  He sighed and stretched, stiff from his encounter with Sybilla’s daughters the previous day. The sun poured through the window, and there was an unmistakable feel of spring in the air. The day was mild, and he could detect the scent of early flowers above the foetid stink of the street below. It was far too pleasant a morning to stay in, so he decided to go for a walk, to see for himself the splendid new Cathedral of St Paul. His dog wagged its tail eagerly when he stood, more than willing to go for a stroll when the sun was shining and there were new smells to investigate.

  He set out along Eastceape, where he met Durand coming the other way, a length of red ribbon fluttering in his hand. Geoffrey sincerely hoped he did no
t intend to use it to keep his hair out of his eyes. The squire fell into step with him, chatting about the lovely baubles that had been for sale in the market, while Geoffrey wished he would discuss something more manly than jewelled hair combs and nice brooches for cloaks.

  They neared a fish market, where Durand began to complain about the smell, and Geoffrey saw two men carrying a long box. It was not a large box, nor did it look heavy, but the sight of it jarred a memory at the back of his mind. The men who had accompanied Emma on her visit to All Hallows Barking had carried a long, thin box. But that was not all. He had seen a similar chest spirited away from the Crusader’s Head on the night of Hugh’s murder. Were these boxes one and the same, or was there a carpenter somewhere who produced many such items?

  Geoffrey studied the men. One was a hawk-faced fellow who was clearly a knight. The other was heavily cloaked, as though he wanted to disguise himself. He was tall, but thin, and seemed to find carrying the box more of an effort than his stronger companion. Geoffrey did not recognize either, and they paid him no particular attention, so he decided the incident was probably irrelevant and dismissed it from his mind.

  He and Durand crossed the polluted Walbrook stream, then walked along Westceape with the dog at their heels. It was not long before they saw the great cathedral towering over the surrounding rooftops, even though it was far from completed. When they drew closer, the sound of masons and carpenters at work drowned out the rattle of carts and the yells of traders. Hammers pounded and rang on wood and stone, saws scraped, and pulleys and winches creaked. Apprentices ran everywhere, fetching and carrying materials for their masters, mixing mortar, counting nails, measuring ropes and cutting wood for the mass of scaffolding that swathed the emerging building. Geoffrey stood for a few moments and regarded it in awe.

  The nave was all but finished, and was a pile of Romanesque arches that soared into the sky. There was to be a mighty tower over the central crossing, and that part of the church was being strengthened accordingly to take the weight. He walked slowly, admiring the carvings around the heads of the doors and over the windows. He recognized one or two faces on some of the statues: Bishop Maurice had been used for the Angel Gabriel, while a likeness of King Henry had been plastered on St Michael. After a few moments, Durand became bored, and wandered away to sit on a pile of stones and watch the masons.