Dispensation of Death

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Baldwin’s anger made his voice high with outrage. ‘He took money to kill people — and you ask me whether I am different? I would not take money for murder. I would not commit murder. You say I would?’

‘No, not murder, but I’ll bet you’ve killed in the heat of the battle, eh? And you wouldn’t accept pay for going to war, perhaps, but you’d take a new robe each year from your Lord and all his food and expenses …’ He eyed Baldwin’s shabby tunic, and Simon cringed, fearing some smart comment about obviously not accepting the free clothing … but thankfully Henry said nothing about that, merely continuing, ‘Well, Jack looked on himself in the same light, I dare say. He didn’t think of himself as a mercenary or a murderer. Not that we ever discussed such things, of course.’

‘You had best show us where he slept,’ Baldwin said, still smarting over such a gross insult to his chivalry. It was a matter of honour to him that money meant nothing. It could not possess him because he had no interest in it.

Henry led the way through the cross passage to the yard beyond. From here Baldwin found he could look over the river to the grassy and bramble-smothered banks at the other side. The yard itself was muddy, with pools and puddles where the water had collected from the rain, which had, mercifully, stopped for a while. Perpendicular to the inn itself was a stable-block, with space for three horses. Not a profitable tavern, then, Simon found himself thinking.

Baldwin walked inside and remained there for a few moments. When he came out, he whistled and jerked his head towards the open door. ‘If he was able to buy that, he had recently come into a lot of money,’ he said.

Simon walked in, and admired the beast over the half-door. ‘Did you say he had never ridden here before?’ he called out.

‘Never,’ the innkeeper said. ‘Always walked.’

‘Clearly he could ride, when he needed, eh?’ Baldwin said. ‘That is a fellow that would put fear into the hearts of many.’

Simon nodded. It stood with its head above Simon’s, a large monster with gleaming coat and rolling eyes.

‘You will need someone to exercise the horse,’ Baldwin said.

‘I have a groom enters here often enough.’

‘I hope he’s brave,’ Simon said seriously. ‘That thing would eat my servant for its breakfast!’ He grinned at the thought of Rob’s expression, were he to ask him to mount this stallion.

‘Where is this hayloft, then?’ Baldwin asked.

Henry gestured, then said he was off to check on the wort. They knew where to find him if they wanted him.

Simon was about to leave when he noticed a mark in white — bleached hair. He reached out to pat the horse, and was rewarded with a nip on his shoulder. He pulled his hand away swiftly, rubbing at his shoulder, and peered in carefully. The mark on the horse’s shoulder was a brand — not one he recognised so far from his home, of course, but a brand nonetheless.

He walked out, and saw Baldwin disappearing into a chamber above the stables, his legs still resting on a sturdy ladder of larch poles with flat rungs nailed between them. ‘Anything up there, Baldwin?’

‘If you think you can search faster than me, you are welcome to try,’ Baldwin retorted in a muffled voice. ‘It is dark in here.’

His eyes acclimatised swiftly enough to the light that filtered in from beneath the thatched eaves. It was a chamber the length of the stable, and was still half-filled from the previous harvest, the area here nearest the door being clear, loose boards. The thick dust was cloying, and he began to feel it in his nostrils as he moved about. All he could smell was horses and hay, and he wondered how easily the man Jack would have slept in here. At least it wouldn’t have been too cold, with the heat rising from the horses, and the warm hay.

At the far side, a small pile of it had been collected into a mattress and a heavy fustian blanket laid over the top. Baldwin could imagine the fellow lying down here and resting, a blade ever ready in case of attack, ears straining, his eyes wary. What sort of a life would it be, he wondered, accepting money to go and kill men or women you have never known? Was Jack atte Hedge extraordinarily callous, simply devoid of any feeling whatever for others? From all that the innkeeper had said, he was a pleasant enough fellow, or had seemed so.

He thrust about under the blanket, but there was nothing there. The hay itself was piled into a great heap, and he was reluctant to sift through the whole lot. Instead he took his sword and began to prod in amongst it. Probing here and there, he felt the blade strike the wooden boards six or seven times before it met something more soft and giving. Parting the hay carefully, a little squeamishly, he reached in. Once he had thrust into his own hayloft and found something inside. When he sought it, he had almost been bitten by the enormous rat he had unwittingly stabbed.

There was no rat this time, only a large soft package. He pulled it out, undid the knots, and opened it.

‘You all right up there, Baldwin?’

‘I’m fine. Wait a moment,’ he shouted towards the ladder.

Inside was a linen shirt and a pair of rough sailor’s hosen — both slit from the sword’s blade — a belt of good thick leather, a small lead badge from Canterbury to show he had been there on pilgrimage, and a purse of coins. Inside the purse there was also an indenture, a half of a contract written up with a lord, defining the responsibilities of both parties for the contract. As was usual, the contract had been ripped in half roughly so that when the two parts were joined it would be easy to see that they both comprised the one contract by the way that the tears matched. Baldwin stared at this for a short while, then thrust all together again into the pack and retied it. He searched about the hay again, but if there was anything else there, he couldn’t find it. Walking to the ladder, he tossed the package down to Simon before making his way down once more.

‘That horse has a brandmark on it,’ Simon said, jerking his head towards the stalls.

‘Innkeeper, do you know whose brand it is?’ Baldwin shouted into the yard.

‘You ask that messenger brought you here. See if he recognises it,’ the man shouted back, busy with his fire and apparatus.

Baldwin glanced at Simon, frankly surprised, then called the messenger in. The fellow was only in with the black horse for a very short while before rejoining them.

‘We are foreigners up here. Do you recognise it?’ Baldwin asked.

‘You are serious, Sir Baldwin? It is the mark of my Lord Despenser.’

Bishop of Exeter’s House, Straunde

The two men rode back in a contemplative manner, neither wanting to say anything of the fears which both now harboured. Not until they were in the Bishop’s house, in the small room where they slept, did they broach the subject again.

‘I feel I need a pint of strong wine,’ Simon said, staring at the indenture. Across the top in large letters was the name of Sir Hugh le Despenser, beside some date which was indecipherable, apart from the year. It was dated in the eighth year of the King’s reign, so had been drawn up somewhere between July 1314 and June 1315. ‘It’s clear enough, isn’t it? The man was Despenser’s own, had been in his pay for ten years or so, and he was trying to kill the Queen.’

‘Yes — and Sir Hugh gave him that horse down in the stable, either to bring him here to discuss the murder, or as a gift in advance payment.

‘Simon, when news of this gets out, as it will, we will inevitably be viewed by the Despenser as being implacably opposed to him.’

‘What should we do?’

‘We should report this to the King at the first opportunity. However, I do not expect you to do so with me, Simon. Indeed, I would prefer you didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘Old friend, I have to report this. I was the one charged with finding out what I could about the murders and the assassin himself — me. It was also me who had the argument with Despenser, not you. He wouldn’t worry about you, only me. I am a knight, whereas you …’

Simon gave a half-grin. ‘Yes. Whereas me?’

‘You are an irrelevance, to his mind. I am sorry, but I know the arrogance of knights, Simon. In his mind you have no value, and therefore you are no threat. Whereas I am a knight. I am no powerful, wealthy man like so many of his enemies, but I have some position in Devon. I am a knight of the shire, I am a member of the next parliament, and I have been asked to come here to help advise the King. All that makes me a potential threat to him, and he will not allow me to grow to become a worse one.’

‘How much risk are we thinking of?’

‘Me to him? Little. He is the King’s favourite.’

‘What of him to you? You think he may kill you?’

Baldwin’s face hardened, but only with recognition of his own danger. ‘If he was to feel that I could be a danger to him, yes. He would kill me with as little compunction as a pit owner wringing the neck of a fighting cock.’

‘What of Jeanne?’

‘Perhaps you could take a message for her from me. If it comes to it, I would like you to tell her that …’

‘She knows all that already,’ Simon said, uncomfortable with this sudden turn of events. ‘Baldwin, there must be a way around this.’

‘If there is, I wish I could see it. From tomorrow morning, I must try to tell the King the truth about his favourite adviser and friend: that Sir Hugh has been plotting to have the Queen killed.’

‘But … should you do that?’ Simon wondered, eyes narrowed.

‘What other course do I have?’

‘To find the man who killed the assassin and Mabilla, of course.’

‘I must find them too, Simon, but I cannot allow the man who seeks the Queen’s death to continue to walk abroad safely, can I?’

New Palace Yard, Thorney Island

William Pilk was in the yard as the dribs and drabs of men returned from their searches. Him, he was still angry at the way those two churls had dared to question him. They’d made him feel a fool; moreover, they’d got more from him than he should have given, as he was uncomfortably aware. He kicked a stone disconsolately, wondering how long it would be before they accosted his master and told him what he, William Pilk, had told them about Jack.

He knew how his master would respond, and he quailed at the thought.

Sighing heavily, Pilk watched dully as another man rode back into the yard, just as Ellis appeared at the gateway from New Palace Yard out to the Green Yard. Ellis stood peering about deliberately as always, ensuring that the way was clear, before standing aside for Sir Hugh to stride out. There was nothing abnormal about any of this. Sir Hugh always sent Ellis on ahead, and William scarcely gave it all a second glance. Just now, what he was more interested in was how his master would respond to the idea that he had …

The flash of metal came from the right of the little alehouse, the one which was patronised by the palace guards. That was odd, Pilk thought, despite himself. There shouldn’t be anyone there. The area was used as a general midden, nothing else. All kinds of garbage and trash went out there, along with slops from the old barrels, the solid stuff sinking down and gradually filling the pit dug there for that purpose, the liquids all leaving by the little channel that led through the wall to the spur of the River Tyburn.

The midden was the sort of place any normal person would avoid if they had any sense. So who could have gone there?

In that moment he made the connection, and time stopped for him, before he bellowed, ‘’Ware! Archer!’ and threw himself across the yard towards the midden.

All appeared to happen so slowly. He couldn’t understand afterwards, how those few seconds had seemed to last his lifetime. Every moment was firmly imprinted upon his brain as though seared there with a brand.

‘Ellis! Archer!’ he shouted again. And now he saw him — a thin, ferrety fellow with a green gipon and brown hood. He had a small crossbow — and as William hurtled forwards, he saw the bow shudder and the foul bolt fly off. Horrified, William was about to throw himself to the ground, when he realised the thing had already buzzed past his ear like an angry wasp. He imagined it slamming into his body, the point like a bodkin sheathing itself in his breast, the steel tip penetrating bone and shivering it into pieces with the massive shock of the metal and the hardwood shaft. He had seen men hit by bolts, and the wounds were always hideous. Terrifying.

He was at the midden now, and the man was hurrying away to the right, behind the stables. William kept on slogging forward. His heart was thudding painfully, his head light, his ears hissing and his thighs complaining. It felt as though his whole body must explode with the effort.

Then he saw the man again. He was climbing hand-over-hand, up a rope towards the wall’s walkway.

‘Stop that bastard! He tried to murder my Lord!’ he gasped.

A guard turned, saw William, then spotted the murderer. He gaped, but only for a moment. Then he was rushing at full speed towards the rope. The killer saw him, made two ineffective lunges upwards to reach the safety of the walkway before the guard, and recognised defeat. Instead, he let himself fall from the rope, hitting the ground hard and rolling. In an instant he was up again, but he was winded. His weapon was beside him on the ground, but he knew there was no time to reload. Instead, he drew his sword, a wicked, dark-bladed weapon.

William had no time to think. He was closing with the fellow, and as he drew his own sword, an ancient, rusty-bladed one with more nicks in it than a saw, he heard a loud crack and his quarry suddenly fell to his knees. There was a noise like a hatchet striking a log, and he saw the man’s eye erupt with blood as an arrow-point came through it. He toppled over.

Staring all around, William saw the four archers on the walkway, one with another arrow nocked and ready. Two were gibbering and capering at the destruction their arrows had inflicted.

William Pilk walked forward slowly, and studied the man. The last arrow had penetrated his skull from behind, the arrow protruding a bloody twelve inches or more from the ruined mess of his eye. Another, the first, had taken him in the thighbone just above the knee and shattered his leg. It was no wonder he had crashed to the ground like that. The other two had both hit him full in the chest, one of them sinking so far into him that not even the fletchings were visible. All the clothyard had gone through him at that range, and was sticking out behind him. The man shivered, and then his right foot twitched with a curious rhythm. It was still doing that when William realised that Ellis had joined him.

‘Know who he is?’ Ellis asked.

‘My God, no! I’ve never seen him before. Did you see him go down? It was like someone had taken his legs away. Look! He is still moving.’

‘Calm down, Will. He’s not the last dead man you’ll see,’ Ellis growled, his eyes up on the walkways. ‘Someone’s going to pay for letting him in with a crossbow. How’d he get in?’

‘I just saw the flash over there, and I thought, Why’s someone there in the midden? That was all. And then I knew, see, I knew — so I ran, and-’

‘Yes. You did well, Pilk,’ Ellis said with finality.

A messenger was running to them, and he hailed Ellis.

‘Not now, man!’ Ellis snarled at him.

‘But, master, I-’

‘Are you deaf or just thick?’ Ellis said, and suddenly pirouetted. He took the messenger’s gipon in one hand and hauled the man, squeaking, towards him; Ellis then booted him in the backside and he fell to the ground. ‘Now shut up!’ And he was already making his way back to his master.

‘Shit! He’s the stupid one, the bastard!’

The man’s evident distress forced Pilk from his self-absorption. He reached down to help him up.

‘That man obviously wants to see his master dead,’ the messenger said viciously, dusting his uniform down.

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Because I know something that would be to his benefit.’

‘What?’

‘Why should I tell you?’

William had not had a good day so far. He was still feeling a little shaky after his sprint and then witnessing the death of the assassin. ‘How about because if you don’t, I’ll break your legs. Or I’ll tell Ellis you held something back from us. He wouldn’t break your legs, though. He’d …’

‘Christ’s bones, all right. You’ve made your point, mate! Tell your master this, then: the knight who’s looking into the death of Lady Mabilla and that other man, he’s found out where the assassin came from. He’s found the man’s name and his horse, and the horse has the Despenser’s brand on it. Understand? The knight knows the assassin was one of your master’s men.’

William nodded. He looked back at the body. The foot had stopped its little dance now, and there was only a tiny movement of a finger, which was unnervingly like a beckoning gesture. It made William feel sick, but then even that stopped. There was another shudder that ran through the man’s frame, and then it seemed to almost sink in upon itself. It was odd, like a pig’s bladder when someone had taken all the air out of it and it slowly collapsed. The man seemed to just — well, end.

Sir Hugh was calling. Still in a slight daze, William Pilk realised he was being summoned, and he tried to go to his master, but his feet wouldn’t obey. He looked down at them, and it was only with a physical command to his legs that he was able to stumble forward.

‘Pilk, you did well. You saved my life.’

‘I only did what I …’ He didn’t know how to continue.

‘You did it well. I am proud of you. There will be a reward for you when you return to the Temple this evening.’

Even Pilk could see that Sir Hugh was shocked. Usually so urbane and suave, just now he was frigid, like a man holding his breath to stop the shakes taking him over. His attention was not even vaguely directed towards the walls or the possibility of another threat, though. His eyes were fixed on Ellis, Pilk and his other men.

‘Does anyone know who he was?’

‘No, my Lord,’ said Ellis. ‘I don’t recognise him. Some discontent, I’d guess. Some bastard prickle from the household of Lancaster, or maybe another paid man from Mortimer. Christ knows how many there are would like to see you hurt.’

‘Find out where he bloody came from,’ Despenser spat. ‘I don’t pay you for “guesses”, Ellis! I pay you for results. Just now Pilk saved my life and you did nothing. I am unimpressed with that.’

‘Master, I — ’

‘Go and see if anyone else here knows the man. Get that lazy prick the Coroner out here and see what he can achieve. What is he paid for? Where is he? Sweet Jesus!’

His rage was understandable. Pilk knew that his master, the Despenser, was suffering from the shock. Had it not been for Pilk’s warning, the bolt would have passed through his throat and he would be dead. It was only Pilk’s shout and his quick appreciation of the danger he was in that had saved Sir Hugh’s life. That and Ellis. Ellis had thrown himself in front of his master even as the bolt flew towards them.

That nasty missile had found its mark in the gate-post to the Green Yard, and Sir Hugh went to it now, touching the hardwood shaft and goose-quill fletchings. ‘Have that taken out and saved for me,’ he ordered the guard standing and gawping at it. ‘I will keep it as a reminder.’

It was only now that Pilk suddenly recalled what the messenger had said. ‘My Lord Despenser! May I speak?’

As he repeated what the messenger had told him, relief flooded his entire body. There was now no need for Sir Hugh to learn that Pilk had told Sir Baldwin about Jack. The innkeeper had done so. Yes — Pilk was safe!

But others were not, not if the expression in Sir Hugh le Despenser’s eyes was anything to go by. William Pilk was inordinately glad to have been the sole bearer of good news today.

‘That fucking tavernkeeper?’ Sir Hugh cursed. ‘Right! I’ll have to show my appreciation for all his help, damn his bowels!’