Dispensation of Death

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sunday, the Morrow of Candlemas¹

Bishop of Exeter’s house, Straunde

Baldwin was already gone from his bed when Simon awoke. It was still dark, and freezing cold. Walking to the window, he peered out, only to find that the inside of the greenish glass was smeared with ice. Shivering, he hurriedly dressed and strode out to the hall.

‘Ah, Simon, it is good to see you awake,’ Baldwin said as he walked into the room.

Baldwin was standing at the hearth in the middle of the floor, holding his hands to the flames. Although he was the most abstemious man Simon had ever known, regularly drinking fruit juices through the summer when he could, today he had a quart of good ale warming in a jug by the fire, and Simon eyed it jealously before striding to the barrel in the buttery to fetch one for himself.

‘You slept well?’ Baldwin asked as Simon warmed his knife in the flames and then stirred his ale with it.

‘I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The Bishop has magnificent beds. It is impossible not to sleep well on them.’

Baldwin pulled a grimace. ‘Old friend, you could sleep on a bed of rock.’

‘I have grown used to a degree of discomfort,’ Simon agreed happily as the warmth began to seep slowly back into his fingers. ‘It is what a man has to do when he lives on the moors. I had to stay out in all weathers while I was a Bailiff. It makes one appreciate a comfortable bed all the more.’

A servant heard their voices and peeped around the hall’s doorway. Baldwin asked for some food and he disappeared, only to return with a platter filled with bread and cold meats. Baldwin and Simon gratefully sat on a bench at the table and broke their fast. It was early for the rest of the household, but as they were not sure what they would be doing this day, the two men were keen to take advantage of meals when they might.

‘The Bishop is celebrating Mass in his chapel with his confessor,’ Baldwin told Simon, cutting himself a slice of cold chicken. ‘I said that we might go to the church here later. Is that all right with you?’

‘Yes.’ It did not matter to Simon where they celebrated the Mass so long as there was time for them to do so at some point.

In the event, it was late in the morning before they made it to St Clement Dane’s Church. They had to look to their horses first, and Baldwin noticed that their packhorse had a degree of lameness. He wouldn’t leave the animal until he had seen the Bishop’s hostlers and asked them to put a good poultice on it to draw out any bad humours.

Later, when they had returned and eaten a late meal, the two decided to walk about the Bishop’s gardens.

It was still cold as they left the house and walked along gravel pathways towards the river. The way had been landscaped. There was a pretty garden of raised beds with vegetables for the kitchen, followed by bushes of soft fruits for the summer, and then an orchard and nuttery. This last was a very recent planting, and the nut trees were a long way from bearing fruit. However, they gave what would in a few years become a shaded walk down to the private jetty where a boat remained tied up.

Baldwin turned and looked back up towards the house. ‘Look at that.’

‘It is a lovely place,’ Simon said. ‘I can see now why the Bishop stays up here so often.’

‘It is not from choice, Simon. He is forced to stay in London, and I would think much of the time it is against his will. Did you not notice how pale he was last night? That event at the Cathedral terrified him. The mob there could have torn him limb from limb, and he knows it.’

‘From what he was saying, it is all because of a misunderstanding,’ Simon said.

‘That would be little comfort if the misunderstanding led to his death, would it?’

Simon shrugged and grinned. ‘It will hardly come to that. Bishop Walter is a friend of the King.’

‘Simon, Earls and great Lords have been killed in recent years. Do you think that the London mob would hesitate to kill a Bishop if they thought he had been a tyrant to them? I tell you this: Walter should be careful, and he knows it. He is anxious.’

‘If you are right, then he’s already being careful, I expect.’

Baldwin looked at him, then nodded towards the river. ‘How many guards do you see there?’

‘None, but his men are all at the house, of course.’

‘What of a wall, then? What is there to deter a man from launching an attack up here from the Thames?’

Simon had to concede that. ‘But I am sure that Bishop Walter would be assured of his own safety.’

‘I hope so, Simon, because if the Queen herself is in danger, no one is safe. And if an assassin managed to get so close to her …’

He was silenced by a call from the house. Glancing that way, both saw a man on the path clad in the blue of a King’s messenger, Rob standing at his side and waving at them enthusiastically.

King’s Cloister, Thorney Island

‘My Liege,’ Baldwin said, dropping to his knee. Simon copied him, stifling a curse as he felt a stone that seemed to pierce his knee through his hosen.

‘My good knight,’ the King said in his French-accented English. ‘I asked you to investigate matters for me, I think? But I have heard nothing in return from you. I expected to have news earlier than this.’

‘Your Royal Highness, we are continuing to seek to learn all we can.’

‘You have no news for me?’

Baldwin was reluctant to apportion blame yet, especially since the main suspect in his mind was Despenser. He stared down at the gravelled pathway, then sighed. ‘This is all I have learned, my King,’ he said, and explained how he now felt that it was likely the Queen herself was not the intended target. ‘Perhaps this was more mundane than we first thought. A man fell in love, he desired Mabilla, but she would not, or could not reciprocate his feelings. So he decided that she must die.’

‘The dead man, you mean?’

‘I think that he was a hired killer. An assassin. Everything about him seems to show that he was not supposed to be in there. He was not a part of your household, not known by the servants or others. He was a stranger. What would a stranger be doing in your palace at night, Sire, if he was not up to nefarious business?’

The King was silent a moment or two. ‘But this is incomprehensible! Why would a man have set himself against an innocent lady like Mabilla … I know that my wife has enemies, and it would be understandable if someone had attempted to harm her, but Mabilla? She was nothing.’ He was bewildered by the thought.

‘Why do you think someone could have tried to harm the Queen?’

But King Edward’s mind was rushing ahead. The Despenser had been reluctant to explain anything about the attack on the Queen. No, that was not true. The King himself had told him not to explain anything because he was anxious lest he learn something he did not want to know. If he was to discover that Hugh had indeed tried to kill his wife, that would have been an appalling situation. For then Edward would have had a responsibility to protect the Lady Isabella. To do otherwise would have been the grossest treason to her. Unthinkable.

And yet …

Hugh was perfectly capable of such cold reasoning. King Edward had seen that in him before. He was a most competent rationalist. When he wanted something and there was an obstacle, he simply sought the most effective means of bypassing it. Sometimes it meant capturing people and torturing them; occasionally he merely had them executed.

The King did not doubt Hugh’s personal devotion to him. Their feeling for each other went deep, like the love of those whose souls were united. It was inconceivable that Hugh would do anything directly to harm Edward. But if he had sought to hurt the Queen, King Edward needed to know.

King Edward was no ruthless tyrant. He wanted a happy kingdom, for all within it to be content. But he was the King, and that meant he had responsibilities. One was to ensure that if a man thought he could remove the Queen, he should be warned away. He should have been more masterful the other day when he first tried to tax Hugh with the crime and then changed his mind.

‘What else do you propose to do?’ he asked the knight rather absently.

Baldwin sighed deeply. ‘My Liege, there is little more a man like me can do. I have no authority here. Surely it would be best for Your Majesty’s own Coroner, John of Evesham, to investigate this matter?’

‘A Coroner? What use would that be? I need someone who is used to hunting killers, not a glorified clerk whose only interest is to record details of wounds and weapons so that a bill can be set against someone at a later date. No, you are better placed to seek the truth here, Sir Baldwin.’

‘You have other Keepers of your Peace in London, though,’ Baldwin continued to prevaricate. ‘Surely they must have better information than I? Would you not be better advised to ask one of them to look into this and-’

‘Mon Sieur Baldwin, I am commanding you to continue to investigate this matter and find who is responsible for committing this terrible murder of my lady-in-waiting to the Queen!’

‘But there is another possibility, My King. Have you considered that the lady could have been murdered by the dead man found behind your throne? Perhaps he killed her and then was killed in his turn. The man who punished the assassin was responsible for bringing justice on his head.’ There was a new idea there, one which made Baldwin frown again. The body was discovered right behind the throne. Suddenly he wanted to be away from this King and talking to Simon.

‘My friend, if someone was to kill an enemy of my Queen, he would also be killing an enemy of mine. There is no difference between us. An enemy of one is an enemy of both. Were he to do that, do you think he would not have come to me for a reward?’

Baldwin nodded slowly. ‘That is possible, but …’

‘No, it is more than possible! Sieur Baldwin, you do not understand life in a royal court, I fear. I do. I know the men here, and their motives. They would not hesitate to inform me of anything whatever which redounded to their credit. Oh yes! If one of them had killed this foul assassin, they would have been knocking on the door to my private chamber no matter what the time.’ He permitted himself a cynical smile.

Baldwin could see the logic of this, but he dared not raise the possibility which had just occurred to him.

‘So, Sieur,’ King Edward continued, ‘the lady was undoubtedly murdered by this other man. He learned that he had a competitor, and killed him too. That is my conviction. Someone had desired to kill the Lady Mabilla, and succeeded, but then met with this second man and had to kill him too.’

Baldwin smiled and nodded. ‘Of course, Sire.’ He was in a hurry to leave this chamber and escape out into the fresh air where he could think again.

‘So please continue,’ the King concluded, ‘and as soon as you learn something that might explain this whole sorry affair, let me understand your thinking.’

The royal audience was at an end.

Out in the Old Palace Yard, Baldwin grabbed Simon’s arm and drew him away to a shed that had been built against the western wall.

‘Baldwin, are you all right?’

‘The body, Simon! The body of the man,’ Sir Baldwin said urgently. ‘Where was it found?’

‘Right behind the throne, of course.’

‘And what sort of symbolism could have been meant by that?’

The Bailiff winced. ‘Ah. The power?’

‘Yes.’ Baldwin closed his eyes and leaned back against the stones of the wall. ‘I do not understand how I could have failed to see that! The body was set out behind the throne, his prickle cut off and shoved into his mouth. It was obviously a warning to his paymaster, to a man who is a sodomite, but who is also the power behind the throne. Despenser.’

‘So what do you want to do now?’ Simon said quietly.

‘What do I want? I want to escape this madhouse, fly back homewards and never return,’ Baldwin said bitterly. ‘What am I doing here? I am a good Keeper back in Crediton. I can read the laws and help keep them in Exeter. I can show my skills as a questioner and usually I can bear down upon people to find the truth. And that is all I ever seek, Simon. Just the truth. It is the only thing that matters in the end.’

‘So what is the truth here?’

‘Here? The truth is, I think, that the dead man was hired to come here to kill someone. Someone else learned of his plans, met him here and murdered him instead. When he was dead, his body was defiled in that abominable manner, and then the man responsible sought poor Mabilla, killing her.’

‘You still think that the Queen was not the target?’

‘If that was what our assassin intended, he would have been able to finish his task. There were only two women opposing him: Alicia and the Queen herself. How could they have protected themselves against one ruthless man with a dagger?’

‘Perhaps he wasn’t that strong?’

Baldwin looked at him. ‘The fellow had got to the palace where he was not permitted. That demonstrates at the least a level of determination that many would like to be able to copy. No, I believe he would have entered here and …’

He was suddenly still. Simon looked at him warily. ‘You have had another thought, haven’t you?’

‘Well, it’s just that if he didn’t come from hereabouts, he must have used a horse, which will be tethered somewhere close. However, a man on horseback at night is a rare sight, and always suspicious. More likely this fellow was bright enough to walk here. But he couldn’t come here on foot from too far away, could he? No, he would want an inn or tavern as his base. Perhaps he rented a room?’

Simon latched on to what he was saying. ‘Think, Baldwin! If a man came here and succeeded in killing, say, the Queen, the first thing to happen would be that the King’s men would smother the neighbourhood. If he had taken a room in a house nearby, the owner would know if he rose in the middle of the night and trotted off. No household is so quiet that a man could go abroad without someone being aware, and as soon as the men-at-arms arrived, mine host would become thoroughly talkative. If this fellow was staying nearby, he was either sleeping rough … no, it is too cold — unless he made his own camp, but about here that would be too obvious. So, not a camp … I would guess he stayed in a small inn or tavern. A place large enough for him to be anonymous, not a small house where his coming and going would be too obvious.’

‘Yes — you are absolutely right. He would have to be staying in a place where his movements would be easily concealed — possibly somewhere that was already so busy, that he could justifiably demand space in a barn or hayloft,’ Baldwin said thoughtfully.

‘Because then he could slip away in the darkness and no one would see him,’ Simon agreed.

Baldwin set off across the yard.

‘Hey — where are you going?’ Simon called out.

‘We need some men to search all the little inns and taverns hereabouts. If I understand my orders, I have been instructed to find out all I may about this man. I shall do so, then. I will command the King’s Sergeant to send riders to seek this place.’