‘Do you wish to?’
‘In God’s name, no!’
‘Then please stay, Sir Peregrine.’
‘You wish it?’
‘More than anything. I am lonely, and I feel you are too. We could comfort each other.’
‘You believe it too?’ he breathed. His heart was pounding like a hammer in a forge.
‘Yes, I really do.’
Montreuil
So it was agreed, then. Richard de Folville nodded as the others broke up their meeting. It was clear enough that there was no longer safety for them all here in Montreuil, especially not for the duke. They would have to move away. And as the duke himself had pointed out, it would be far better for them all to head to the west, where there were more sympathisers who could aid them, rather than travel all the way to the south to the duke’s own lands.
It was the queen who had objected to his travelling to Guyenne. Although he was the Duke of Aquitaine, which incorporated the vast territories of the south, as she pointed out, ‘My son has never visited the area. He has no loyal followers there, but my husband has many. There are a lot of his friends in Guyenne who are there to fight for him. If you think that it is dangerous here, because a few men from his entourage could cross the Channel, how much more dangerous would it be for him in the lands which are even now in revolt?’
It was true. The French were massing along the borders of Guyenne again, in the face of the English refusal to honour past agreements, and to allow her son to travel there at such a time would have been sheer lunacy.
‘Then he will have to stay with us,’ had been Mortimer’s contribution. He was firm in his opinion that the only safe place for the duke was with Mortimer’s own men.
Richard de Folville wondered at that. It seemed much more likely that Mortimer just didn’t want the lad out of his sight. It was plain enough that he had an eye to his own protection, and that would mean keeping the king’s son nearby. That way, he would continue to keep the queen on his side, he would have a greater bargaining potential with the English and French kings, and he would also be able to conclude the negotiations which all had heard of now, to have the next English king married to a suitable heiress. Mortimer and Queen Isabella both had their minds fixed on a wedding with Philippa of Hainault. She was almost nine years old, so a little young for the duke, but that was no impediment. And more to the point, her father had ships and men. Mercenaries from Hainault would be a marvellous bonus to Mortimer if he was serious about invading England again, and Richard was sure that this was the plan.
All well and good. He hoped they would take him with them, and then he could win the usual reward of a fighter – a full pardon for his past behaviour. At which point he could return to Teigh, and resume his life.
If he wanted to. It was hard to imagine returning to that life of tedium: taking up the cure of souls, watching over the men and women of the area, holding Mass, praying until his knees were calloused, feeling the damp coldness seep into his legs and arse, and occasionally drinking a sup or two of wine – when he could afford it.
The alternative was to live life to the full. To take to the roads with his sword in his hand, and help himself to what he wanted from the world. That was more appealing.
But first he would have to have the pardon, and the assurance that these fellows would be able to win the upper hand. Bearing in mind the cretins running the country now, he had little doubt that these would find England ready to greet them with open arms, were they to try to return.
It was just as they were discussing the plans for the departure to Hainault, that a messenger had arrived from that very place. He passed a note to Mortimer, who opened it after studying the seal.
‘What does it say?’ the queen demanded.
‘Your friend the Despenser sent those men to catch your son,’ Mortimer said. He whistled through his teeth in wonder. ‘Despenser has negotiated with the peers of France to have you evicted from the realm here, or to have you and Edward killed.’
Duke Edward leaped to his feet. ‘I don’t believe you! My father would never—’
‘He would not have been told of this plot,’ Mortimer said. ‘Very well – that decides matters. You will both have to remain with me in my entourage. Come, we must arrange for all our belongings to be readied for departure early in the morning.’
Paul cleared his throat nervously. ‘My lord duke, I think that would be a mistake.’
Mortimer rounded on him. ‘Are you a strategist, Priest?’
‘Hear him, Sir Roger,’ the duke said. ‘We discussed this yesterday. Speak, Tutor.’
‘I only mean this: if there are to be more attacks with men trying to kill the queen and the duke, you would be better to have them separate. Let the queen travel to Hainault, but the duke go away from her.’
Mortimer clenched a fist. ‘We’ve discussed this enough already.’
‘We know that Normandy is loyal to his mother, and the Normans are still fond of the memory of William the Bastard. Why not ride for Normandy?’
‘Your Highness, that would be foolish. Better by far to keep our forces together. Once we are in Hainault we will be safe,’ Mortimer said bluntly.
‘If it is truly safer, I can join you later,’ the duke said. ‘But for my part, I am keen to see the land of my ancestors. Normandy is almost our motherland, is it not? And I would like to visit Rouen, too. King Richard Coeur de Lion’s heart is buried there, and I have a strong desire to see it.’
‘What if there should be another attack on you?’ Mortimer burst out. ‘It is ridiculous, I will not allow it!’
‘And when did you have the right to control me?’ the duke said coolly. ‘I was not aware that I no longer had the right to choose my own destiny.’
‘You are here under my protection.’
‘Sir Roger, I am here under the protection of the King of France, my uncle. And I will take my own path.’
‘You should be with us so that we can take ship together,’ Mortimer said, and now Richard could almost hear the man’s teeth grinding.
‘I will be. You ride on, and I will follow after. I will let you know where I am so you can send messengers when you need me to join you.’
‘Where will you stay?’ Mortimer demanded. ‘Without money, you’ll find lodgings hard.’
‘My mother will give me an allowance, I am sure.’
‘The inns of Normandy are not expensive,’ Folville put in, ‘and there is a good one within a few hundred feet of the abbey. I am sure that with the usual hospitality of the Order we would be able to find good lodgings.’
And that had been that. The queen for once had been quiet – Richard thought because she was so shocked at the attack on young Edward, as well as alarmed that her son would be away from her again.
There was no argument against his words. The idea that all would remain together was wildly dangerous. They made too tempting a target: the traitor, the queen, and the son. Together they would fetch a truly royal ransom, were they to be captured.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Exeter
William Walle hurried over the grounds to the Bishop’s Palace as soon as the summons arrived.
They had returned to the city only the day before. There was little point in remaining at the bishop’s house when the bulk of his work was still up here, and so they had packed their belongings in the wagons and made the short journey back to town in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, the bishop had returned to his labours, while messengers were sent to seek advice on all the men whom Baldwin had suspected. Before long, with luck, the responses would arrive and the knight could be asked to come and take another look at the matter, to see whether there was anything else that might help tell who was threatening his lordship.
But now William had been called to the palace again, just as he was preparing to visit the tavern near the Broadgate. The man who fetched him said simply, ‘The bishop asks that you come at once.’
He found Bishop Walter sitt
ing in his little chair by the table in his hall, John the steward at his side, looking lugubrious. ‘Another one,’ he said.
‘What?’ William strode across the floor and took up the shred of parchment. ‘You will die unmourned and alone,’ he read aloud. Glancing at his uncle, he said, ‘Where was it?’
‘Here, on my table,’ the bishop said listlessly, pointing. ‘It just lay there, like that. Face up.’
‘I didn’t see it myself,’ John said. ‘I was in here most of the afternoon, but I had to leave to supervise the arrangement of the chamber below for the ecclesiastical court next week. There’s the case of de Cockington, which has to be decided. I was only gone for a short while.’
‘Which means that the man who put this here is clearly someone who knows when you are here, and when you are not,’ William said, remembering Baldwin’s words. ‘It has to be someone from within the cathedral, Bishop.’
‘Come now! Who on earth would attempt such a thing!’ he exclaimed. ‘It is folly to think that there is a master of disguise and deviousness here in the cathedral. I will not believe it.’
‘Unless you believe that the agent which deposits these things here is a devil,’ John said sharply, ‘then you have to agree that a man would be inordinately lucky to break in here and drop off a note without knowing when would be a good time to do so. Only a brother or a priest would have access to that information.’
‘John, I understand your desire to protect me, but I still cannot think that one of the canons or a priest could have done this to me. They would know how distressing I must find it. Such evil messages!’
William shook his head, and John followed him from the room.
‘He is sorely distressed,’ John said. ‘You saw how he looked? Like an old man.’
‘Whoever is doing this to him deserves to be pilloried,’ William agreed.
‘Do you think I was a fool?’
‘No. You have to be right. There are few enough men who would have the opportunity to enter his chamber at the best of times. To be able to walk in and be confident enough to drop a message on his table, that would be astonishing. Who do you think it might be?’
‘No name instantly springs to my mind,’ John said, scratching his head. ‘There was no one about when I left to see to the other room. Only young Paul of Taunton – I noticed him in the corridor.’
‘Would he be likely to send messages like those to the bishop?’
‘No. But he could have seen someone.’
William agreed, and the two men sought the servant concerned, eventually tracking him down in the charnel chapel, where he was preparing for the next service.
‘You were outside the bishop’s chamber today,’ John said. ‘I saw you there.’
‘Yes, steward. Why?’
The lad was not yet five-and-twenty, and had the astonishingly clear blue eyes and black hair of the Celt. He had been sweeping the floor clean as they entered, and now he leaned on his besom to look at them with a puzzled frown.
‘Did you see someone go up to the bishop’s chamber? Somebody entered while the bishop was not there, and left something. Do you know who it may have been?’
‘There was a lay brother who went up. You know the man, the older one with the grey stubble who always looks as though he’s about to collapse from hunger.’
‘Geoffrey?’ John asked, with eyes screwed up from the act of recollection.
‘That’s him. He used to be a squire, and now he lives here on a corrody.’
‘Who is he?’ William asked.
‘Geoffrey of St Albans. He was a squire, and served his master well, I believe,’ the clerk said, carrying on with his sweeping.
‘Who was his master?’
‘The Earl of Lancaster.’
William breathed out. Earl Thomas of Lancaster had attempted to curb the king’s powers, and as a result had thrown the country into a short but bloody civil war. Captured by the king’s men after the Battle of Boroughbridge, the earl had been stripped of his rank, drawn to his execution on an old goat, and beheaded as a traitor. It had been the start of the appalling bloodshed with which the king had sought to seal his authority on the realm.
‘If he was a servant of the king’s enemy,’ William said, ‘it is easy to imagine that he might also hate the king’s advisers and friends.’
‘Perhaps we should seek this man out,’ John said. ‘It’s possible we shall not need the knight from Furnshill after all.’
Road to Paris
It was a relief to be out of that town. There was nowhere Paul would like to be less than that hideous castle. Once it had seemed a pleasant retreat, but no longer. The idea that he and the Duke of Aquitaine could be held prisoner there was frankly terrifying.
Their orders to leave had come almost as soon as they had left Mortimer. There had been some more arguing, no doubt, but now the agreement was confirmed. The young duke was to ride to Normandy with his guards, while his mother and Mortimer would go to Hainault to conclude negotiations. They had much still to arrange. The invasion of an entire realm like England was not a matter to be undertaken lightly.
The duke had bellowed at his guards to hurry as soon as the meeting was closed, and Paul was pleased for once to obey an order to be quick. He actually assisted some of the servants as they packed goods and clothing, even carrying some of the bales of clothes and helping another man with a heavy chest, taking them all out to the waiting carts.
Now they had been on the road for a half of the afternoon, from the look of the sun, and Paul was wondering where they might stay the night. ‘Where shall we go, my lord?’
‘Tonight? There will be an inn before long. If not, we can sleep under the stars with the weather so clement.’
‘Yes, but what of the morrow? Shall we be remaining in Paris for some days?’ Paul asked hopefully. There were so many more glamorous women there in the city. It was a place that offered endless opportunities to a man like him, and he would have welcomed a chance to rest there for a few days.
‘No,’ the duke said coldly, as though reading his mind. ‘We shall turn west before Paris and ride for my ancestor’s lands. I have never seen Normandy, and this will be a good opportunity to do so.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t look so crestfallen, priest. It will be a delightful interlude, and safer than a place like Paris with all the intrigues that a city can afford.’
‘I thought you would like to rest there a while,’ Paul said lamely.
‘In a place where the leading peers of the realm have been offered silver by the barrel to have me captured, and possibly murdered?’ the duke said. ‘Hmm. I think not.’
‘But your uncle wouldn’t allow it,’ Paul said unthinkingly.
‘Do you think he supported the attack on me three days ago? Do you suggest that he would be keen to see me murdered at Montreuil?’
‘No, of course not!’ Paul said hurriedly. It was not safe to speak of a king as an assassin in his own realm where any might be listening. ‘But surely in Paris …’
‘There would be plenty of opportunity for a murderer. Many men there would no doubt welcome the chance to augment their incomes. And many more would stick a dagger in my throat for the price of a barrel of wine.’
‘So we will ride west to Normandy at once?’
‘Yes. And there, I think, we will be safe. The hunting is said to be excellent, and the wine flows.’ He cast an appraising eye towards his tutor. ‘I’ve heard that the women there are the most magnificent in all France,’ he added mildly.
‘I would not care for such news,’ Paul said unconvincingly.
‘They tend to blondes, I’ve heard. All tall. And their …’ the duke made some elaborate hand gestures about his chest. ‘Enormous.’
Paul shook his head with a slight frown. ‘Really, my lord duke, you should pay no attention to such matters. They are not becoming for a man of serious business, like you.’
But later, when all were preparing to sleep, all he could
see in his mind’s eye was a tall, blond woman with a voluptuous figure and a come-hither smile.
Exeter
It was some little while later when the coroner finally grunted that he would have to leave. He was too well known in the city, and had no desire to leave her with a reputation befouled with rumours of harlotry.
Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam rose to see him to the door, aware of a great sadness that he was leaving her. ‘I do not want you to go,’ she said.
‘I would prefer to stay, but you know as well as I do that it wouldn’t be a good idea,’ Sir Peregrine said gruffly. ‘But if you will permit, I shall return tomorrow.’
‘I would like that a great deal,’ she said, and in her belly she could feel the warmth as he smiled at her, as though his smile could emulate the sun and heat her blood.
‘I shall rue the moments I am not with you,’ he said simply. ‘They are wasted.’
‘You great fool!’ she responded, and gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. ‘You should enjoy all your moments. I shall make much of every moment you are away. Each will be precious because, in passing, they bring you nearer to me again!’
He frowned slightly, as though working through her logic, and she felt a brief irritation that he didn’t understand her at once, but then she saw her error as he reached out and took her gently in his arms. And then she was unaware of the servant girl, or the room, or anything, as she felt his lips on hers. And she felt that surely she must die now. And if she did, she would be content for God to take her, because she had felt adoration once more.
He set her down, and looked into her eyes with an expression of deep intensity, saying, ‘Woman, I am sorry if that offended you.’
She could scarce speak, her heart was still fluttering so wildly. ‘It did not,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Good.’ He suddenly grinned. ‘I would hate to have to try to experiment again.’
‘Perhaps you should?’
When he had gone, she stood at the entrance to the little hall with a hand resting on the doorframe. His visit had brought an enormous surge of energy; most of all, she felt young again. She had been sure that Sir Peregrine was a stolid, affable man who could never surprise her, and in an instant he had managed just that. It was thrilling.
The Bishop Must Die: (Knights Templar 28) Page 23