Dispensation of Death

Chapter Thirty-Two

Coroner John was soon in the little chamber where before, he had studied the body of the first assassin with Sir Baldwin. Today, standing there alone, he winced at the sight of the arrow through the second man’s eye. To facilitate moving the corpse, someone had snapped the arrow off about six inches from his ruined eyeball, and the red stick protruded like an obscene stem.

‘Who are you?’ he muttered. It was wrong for him to be here. All was wrong, though. There should have been an inquest on the man in the yard when he was found there, with witnesses enrolled on the Coroner’s records. If truth be told, the yard should have been closed, and all those in there at the time should have been held. But who was going to force the King to adhere to every aspect of his own laws? No one, was the short answer to that question.

He started undressing the body, seeing what he could learn. The clothing was simple enough. It was a thick woollen material, closely stitched. There was nothing to learn from that. When he pulled the man’s belt off, though, he was impressed by the quality of the dagger. It was expensive workmanship.

‘What are you doing with this?’ he asked. He continued taking things from the body, but it was only as he got to the man’s underclothes that he found the little leather purse dangling from his neck, inside his shirt. It contained more than a pound in coin.

‘Little enough here to justify dying, my friend,’ he said sadly as he pocketed a shilling. ‘Compensation for bribing Arch’s gaoler,’ he explained to the corpse.

Baldwin found his way barred twice en route to the Queen. Guards who had stood aside the last time he and Simon came through here were either deliberately obstructive of him because they had decided they didn’t trust anyone, or they were being difficult because someone had told them to stop Sir Baldwin from getting to the Queen. Not to protect her, but to stop Baldwin from talking to her.

As it was, it took a long time before Simon and he could persuade the last of the guards to permit them to see her — and when they had passed the man, they found their way barred once more at the entrance to the chapel.

‘She’s at prayer just now.’

‘Good. Then we can wait outside the chapel for her,’ Baldwin said reasonably.

‘You should seek refreshment, Sir Baldwin. The King will return within the hour to continue his debate.’

‘Since when has a lowly guard been privy to such information?’

‘Since the King’s chief guard hurried past only a few moments before you arrived,’ the man said, deadpan.

Baldwin grinned. ‘Good fellow. I know your face. Weren’t you somewhere else, last time we spoke?’

‘I am Richard Blaket, Sir Baldwin. Last time you saw me I was in the garden with Her Majesty.’

‘Of course. Well, good Master Richard, I still wish to visit the Queen. I have news for her.’

‘I have been told to keep all from her. It is for her safety.’

Baldwin’s temper was already frayed, and now he felt his face flush. ‘You suggest that I am a threat to Her Majesty?’

That earned him a direct look. ‘No, I don’t think so. I should recognise an assassin.’

‘Good. I do have information which may be of use to her, to help the Queen protect herself.’

‘I think she already knows how to do that,’ the man said lightly, as though he knew something they did not.

‘What do you make of that?’ Simon asked as they marched away.

‘He is a fool,’ Baldwin snapped. ‘Damn his soul! Who does he think he is, to prevent me, a knight, from seeing the Queen?’

‘A man who takes his duty seriously,’ Simon said. ‘Come, Baldwin, how would you feel if he had let anyone in to see her after the other evening? If a guard is to do his job well, he must assume that any man approaching is a potential enemy. Why should he consider you any less of a risk than another?’

‘I am a knight!’

Simon was very tempted to remind him that so was Sir Hugh, but forbore. ‘What now? Is there anything else we can achieve here?’ Simon wondered aloud as they strode along the corridors.

‘I would learn who was the killer of the assassin and the girl, and who told that man to seek them. There must be a reason why Mabilla was killed. Who could have done that?’

‘And don’t forget the innkeeper,’ Simon said.

Baldwin shook his head, then stopped suddenly. ‘Simon, we can do nothing in all probability. You understand? That man was certainly killed at the command of Sir Hugh — probably because he learned what we found there. Henry and his wife are dead because of our investigation.’

‘It is not our fault we sought where Jack had lived, and found his inn.’

‘But it is possible that the assassin was commanded to kill the Queen by Despenser, and that Mabilla died because of him too. Whichever way you look at it, Despenser is in the middle, like a spider at the centre of a web.’

‘And yet someone else killed the Despenser’s assassin, and may have killed Mabilla too.’

‘But why did the assassin’s killer not claim his reward?’

Simon was suddenly stilled. ‘Christ’s bones! Because the man who killed Jack knew full well that he’d be killed too if his deed was discovered.’

‘How so?’

‘Anyone finding a stranger would raise the alarm. The assassin was killed out of hand, with no alarm.’

‘Because he wanted peace to kill Mabilla?’

‘Perhaps. But a guard, or some other legitimate person who killed an assassin bent on killing the Queen, would expect a reward. He could say that Jack killed Mabilla first, and then he killed Jack in his turn.’

‘True. So?’

‘So the man knew that admitting to killing Jack would put him in danger. He knew the Despenser was behind Jack, that was why he cut off Jack’s prick and shoved it in his mouth. So he daren’t confess. Despenser would be furious about that, as well as losing his best killer. He’d be sure to execute anyone who admitted it.’

‘We shall need to discuss this further,’ Baldwin said.

There were footsteps, and he held up his hand when Simon opened his mouth to speak. The approaching man turned out to be Despenser; he looked quickly from one to the other, not with fear, but with that vigilance that told he was aware that he might be in danger. Still, he was no coward.

‘Ho, Sir Baldwin. Are you here to ambush me? So you incline your head, eh? No more than should be necessary to a knight — we are equals theoretically, after all.’

‘Sir Hugh, you have no henchmen with you after what happened yesterday?’

‘Inside the palace here I feel safe enough,’ he lied.

‘Even after that man Jack atte Hedge got in? I am surprised.’ Baldwin glanced behind him at the way he had come. ‘You have been seeing the Queen? I had thought she was in her chapel. But perhaps you were joining her in her chapel for prayers?’

‘You sound bitter.’

‘I was waiting to see her, but the guard refused me access.’

‘A good thing too. I do not want her being interrupted by any petitioners. She had a terrible shock when the maid was killed.’

‘Did you know her?’

‘Mabilla? Yes, of course. She was the sister of my man, Ellis. I have known her many years, especially since recently she has been a member of my wife’s household.’

He had begun to walk towards the Great Hall again, and the others kept in step with him.

Baldwin said, ‘But that is interesting. Did you find her friendly?’

‘You suggest I may have shoved my hand up her skirts? Sir Baldwin, were I to do that, my wife would be most displeased. It is not the sort of behaviour which is expected of a knight. Well, not here or in London.’

‘Meaning that you would expect such rough treatment from a horny-handed rural fellow like me?’ Baldwin smiled. Simon could see that this smile never even tried to approach his eyes.

‘Oh, Sir Baldwin, please. There is no need to be like that. I meant no insult, my friend.’

‘Oh, no. I am sure you would only offer an insult when it was necessary and you felt justified.’

‘Quite. I am glad we understand each other.’

‘I think we do, Sir Hugh.’

‘I am glad to have had my stallion returned, anyway.’

‘Ah yes. And I was glad too. We collected some of the man’s belongings before the fire.’

‘Clothing? Was he your size?’ Despenser wondered with an insolence that scalded, glancing at Baldwin’s shabby tunic.

‘I am not like you, Sir Hugh. I didn’t look for items to snatch from a dead man. He left some interesting reading, though.’

‘Reading?’

‘Do you indenture all your servants?’

Sir Hugh was still now, his eyes unmoving. ‘Often. Yes.’

‘I suppose you have to buy loyalty. However, to ensure that we are both perfectly acquainted, let me just say that I intend to move all obstacles in my search for the true culprit of the other night. I will find him.’

‘The culprit? How quaint. I thought that the dead man was the “culprit”.’

‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said coldly. ‘And perhaps the culprit still lives. As does the man who ordered the attempt on your life yesterday.’

‘Do you know anything about that?’

On hearing the eagerness in his voice, Baldwin gave a very slow smile. ‘Oh, no more than you yourself, I expect.’

As they left Sir Hugh and walked away, Baldwin was struck by the feeling that Sir Hugh’s reaction to his words was not quite right. Surely he should have been distressed to be left in the dark, or furious that the archer was unknown and his paymaster anonymous, but when he glanced back over his shoulder, all he saw in Sir Hugh’s face was a cold and unfeeling calculation.

It was a little less than an hour later that Queen Isabella saw Sir Hugh.

She nodded to the priest at the end of her Mass, and made her way back through the little door under the careful eye of Madam Eleanor. The woman was insufferable. She would not leave the Queen alone for even a moment. It wasn’t enough that she had seen to the removal of Isabella’s royal seal and her beloved children, now she must steal all Isabella’s spare moments too.

Despenser was waiting in the corridor with a face like thunder. He beckoned his wife and spoke to her with the deliberate precision of extreme rage, then span on his heel and strode away, his tunic snapping crisply with the speed of his march.

‘Lady Eleanor? Your husband looks most angry.’

‘No. He is fine. It is your husband who has lost his wife,’ Eleanor said tartly.

This wife of Despenser, Isabella thought, could once have been her friend and companion, but when her husband Sir Hugh first made his most improper suggestions, and Isabella told her of them, Eleanor was not surprised. She seemed to have expected something of the kind.

It was nothing new, true enough. Isabella knew that her brothers had enjoyed the favours of women while they were princes. It was natural. They were men, and a prince or King had rights. A man like Despenser, who was setting himself up as a prince in all but name, clearly felt he deserved the same dispensation. Somehow he had persuaded dear, weak Eleanor that he should be permitted similar latitude. And he would, of course, have asked his close friend the King before making his suggestion.

At the time she had thought it was one of his jokes in bad taste. Asking her to join him in the King’s bed … then suggesting that the King could be there too …

Beds were for couples, she’d responded icily, and he had laughed, as though her view was deliciously quaint. And soon thereafter her husband had begun to view her with a degree of suspicion, as though she had betrayed him in some way. It had been a coolness in those days, little more. But then Sir Hugh had tried to force her to swear to support him no matter what, pinning her against a wall with his hand about her throat, as though he could scare her — her! The daughter and sister of a King, not son of a brain-addled knight of poor birth like him. But afterwards, when she refused and spat out her rejection of him and his evil ways, Despenser had grown cold, and she had wondered whether he would actually dare to throttle her right there in the hallway, as though she was just some servant girl, a wench from the stews or a cheap alehouse.

The grim suspicion had never left her husband’s face after that, as though Despenser had told him that she had refused to declare her devotion to him, her husband.

Despenser would be happy to see her destroyed. He had told her as much, but by then their enmity was so deep-rooted there was no surprise in the revelation. And she knew about her other enemies. Dear heaven, there were so many! Most of them hating her purely because she was French. Not for any rational purpose, but just because of the accident of her birth. They were determined to see her removed if they could. Perhaps Despenser had stirred up hatred against her, spread lies to malign her reputation at court? Some would have needed little supposed evidence of her misdeeds, of course. There were many who would look on her as an enemy because they coveted her lands, her manors, her riches. Walter Stapledon. She knew she was hateful to him, and she knew why: he wanted the tinmining. It was worth a vast sum each year, and with Isabella’s control of the better mines, Stapledon’s jealousy knew no bounds. She’d seen it in his eyes.

He had attacked her with every means at his disposal. First, there was the removal of her servants, her chaplains, her physicians. Then her estates were sequestrated, her children taken from her, and now, the final indignity, even her seal was snatched and given to her gaoler, Eleanor, Despenser’s wife.

Alone, without money, her family taken from her, all the trappings of her wealth removed, she had been able to spend much time considering her situation. It was not pleasant. She had been a royal princess in the House of Capet, and she was used to being treated in a manner suitable to her rank. Not now, though. She was reduced to penury, to the status of a humble petitioner by that gripple miser, her husband. And most recently, she knew, Despenser and Stapledon had attempted to have her marriage annulled by the Pope. Oh yes, she knew of all these little schemes of theirs. Just as she had known that Mabilla was intended to be Despenser’s especial spy. Mabilla was the one who searched through her clothing and writing tools to see how on earth she had managed to get so many messages to her brother.

But they would not succeed in blocking her channels of communication any more than they would succeed in having her marriage declared void and her children declared bastards.

Poor Sir Hugh, he had looked so anxious this morning, she thought with a smile. Usually all he exuded was a vicious cruelty when he visited her. Not today. Today, for once, the fear was all on his part, no one else’s.

It was delicious.