Dispensation of Death

Chapter Thirty-Six

Simon and Baldwin found William in the yard still. Peter of Oxford had come with them, and he pointed out the Despenser’s man at a table nursing a large horn of ale. He was staring at the gate with a frown of consternation on his battered face.

It was strange, the way that the Earl had hurried after the black-haired man like that. The Earl had looked really pissed off when he got here and Piers was gone, but then he caught sight of his man in the gateway, and strode after him. It looked as though the two knew each other.

‘Are you William Pilk?’

He glanced up to see the tall Bailiff, and then he recognised the knight behind him. ‘What d’you want?’ he asked, although he was sure enough. Seeing Peter behind Simon, he leaned forward truculently. ‘And what are you grinning about?’

Simon introduced himself, studying the figure in front of him. He looked as though he had just been in a fight, and had probably come off worst. Pilk was the sort of guard who would do well because of his native cunning, but Simon was sure that he was not terribly bright.

‘Well? What do you want?’ Pilk repeated to Baldwin, without showing a shred of respect.

‘First, just to ask you some questions.’

‘I don’t think I want to answer any.’ Pilk stood. ‘I have things to do.’

‘So do we,’ Baldwin said and thrust hard in the middle of Pilk’s chest, forcing him to sit down on the bench again with a gasp of pain as his sore arse hit the wood. ‘If you wish to leave, please do. However, when I report to the King later, I shall tell him you didn’t want to help investigate the murders. You were too busy. I am sure the King will understand.’

Pilk sneered despite the pain he was in. These prickles didn’t understand the first thing about the palace. ‘You do that,’ he said insolently. ‘I am on my Lord Despenser’s business.’

‘And we are on the King’s,’ Baldwin said. As Pilk stood up again, Baldwin grunted with irritation and pushed him down a second time. This time his hand connected with a large bruise over his abdomen, and in a reflex action, Pilk slapped at his hand. Suddenly there was a bright blue blade at his throat.

‘I asked you politely, and now I am telling you to sit down,’ Baldwin stated through gritted teeth.

‘What do you want?’ Pilk demanded, scowling as he sat again.

Baldwin sheathed his sword as Simon beckoned a serving maid. She looked a little reluctant to go to them, for she had seen the sword flash, but when Simon grinned broadly and held up a coin for her to see, her fear dissipated.

When she was gone to fetch their drinks, Baldwin hooked his thumbs in his belt.

‘I think you could be in serious trouble.’

‘I have nothing to fear.’

‘Your master cannot protect you from everything, Pilk.’

William looked up at them and curled his lip. ‘He can from anything you threaten.’

‘Not I, Pilk. The King.’

He shrugged. Edward was hardly a threat. ‘If you say so.’

‘Let me tell you what I think happened,’ Baldwin said. ‘You were with your master, and he decided he had to stop Jack from killing the Queen. But he didn’t know how to do so. What should he do? Ride the streets shouting Jack’s name? No. All he could do was try to intercept Jack in the palace, even though no one knew from which direction, or when, Jack would come. Is that a good guess so far?’

‘I have work to attend to. If all you’re going to do is ask daft questions …’

Baldwin was unimpressed. He continued: ‘So Sir Hugh le Despenser asked you to come here and do it all for him. You came here to the palace, and you stood and waited. You know the place well enough, don’t you? So seeing where the Queen would be was no trouble. Except, would Jack have known where the Queen would be?’

He was struck with a sudden doubt. Would Jack have known about the Queen’s night-time wanderings? Had she already begun to walk about the place at the time when Jack was briefed and commissioned? No matter — he must continue now he had begun.

‘So you entered the palace, you went to the corridor where the Queen would pass you, and you stood there waiting. When Jack arrived, you spoke to him. You knew him, after all, so you were able to calm his doubts. But then, when he turned his back on you, you stabbed him.’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ Will said, and spat on to the cobbles. His eye was closing now, and he felt like shit. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. I was back at Sir Hugh’s place — the Temple. I can get plenty of people to tell you that.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you can,’ Baldwin said. There must be dozens of Sir Hugh’s servants who would be keen to demonstrate their loyalty by giving Pilk an alibi. And Baldwin would believe none of them. ‘So who was it who stabbed the man in the back, I wonder?’

‘Maybe you should talk to Ellis,’ Pilk suggested, and sniggered to himself. ‘He may know something. He has investigated how the assassin got in. Perhaps he knows more than he’s let on.’

‘This is Mabilla’s brother?’ Simon confirmed.

‘You know him?’

‘If he’s the henchman who looks like a mastiff with his brain removed,’ Simon put in, ‘then, yes.’

‘Perhaps he found this man wandering about and killed him,’ Pilk said. ‘There are enough died around here just recently. If it wasn’t for me, Sir Hugh himself would be dead.’

Despite himself, Baldwin was intrigued. He had learned nothing of the attack on Despenser from his own choice, but his interest was piqued. ‘You were there?’

‘No. Here,’ he said with emphasis. ‘My master was coming out from the gate to the Green Yard, and I was up there, just a ways ahead of him when I saw the flash of the bolt up there.’

Baldwin looked away. ‘I can’t see where you mean from here — the man was behind the stables?’

‘No! He was beside the alehouse, beyond the midden there.’

‘And you saw him cocking his weapon?’ Simon asked, peering up by the alehouse.

‘He must have done that earlier. It was ready.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘So you saw him aiming his bow?’

‘I suppose so. I was in front, so he probably moved to aim around me.’

Simon frowned. Baldwin had plenty of experience with horses and lances, but the Bailiff’s knowledge of bows and shooting was more extensive.

Noticing his friend’s expression, Sir Baldwin set his head to one side enquiringly. ‘What is it, Simon?’

‘Just that if this fellow here was out in front, there’d be no need for the archer to aim around him. He would already be out of the point of aim. Look at the ground there. The gate from the Green Yard is out near the Abbey’s wall, and the main gate is a little in front. A man aiming from the alehouse would only have to lean out a short way to cover the whole area. Certainly this fellow wouldn’t impede his aim.’

‘Then why’d he do it, then?’ Pilk demanded truculently. ‘I definitely saw him lean out to aim around me.’

‘So Despenser was near the wall?’ Baldwin asked.

‘No. He was off to the left as I looked back at him. Away from the wall. It was Ellis who was nearest the wall.’

Simon shook his head. ‘That makes no sense. Perhaps there was a cart or something in front of you? Or at least in front of Sir Hugh?’

‘Aw, I don’t care. This is so much ballocks! You have no right to keep me here, do you? I think I ought to report you to my master for wasting my time.’ He stood this time, grimacing from the pain all over his body, and barged between Simon and Baldwin.

‘Baldwin, I don’t like that man,’ Simon said.

‘Nor do I. I rather think that this matter of the bowman attacking his master has upset him, although I have no idea why.’

Simon drew a triangle in the ground. ‘It makes little sense for the bowman to have had to lean out to attack Despenser, not if he was out in the open and this idiot was heading straight for the gate.’

‘He probably made a mistake. Still, do you think that Pilk could have killed Jack.’

‘Yes, he could have. But if so, where did he do it? Wherever Jack died, there must have been plenty of blood. We’ve still not found it yet.’

Baldwin sighed and spoke quietly. ‘Simon, we have looked fairly carefully about the palace, haven’t we? There are only two areas which we haven’t considered.’

‘You aren’t serious, are you?’ Simon breathed. ‘The two royal chambers?’

‘Yes. It must have been either in the King’s or the Queen’s chambers. There is nowhere else.’

‘And how can we check them?’ Simon asked.

‘I think we need someone who can get us into the palace again,’ Baldwin said, and turned to look over Simon’s shoulder.

Simon followed his gaze, and gradually a smile spread over his face.

‘Yes? What are you two smiling at?’ Peter asked, suddenly nervous.

Ellis was tired, and the back of his head, where Coroner John’s cudgel had whacked it, hurt like buggery. He was in torment. The loss of his sister was one thing, but the lack of any evidence to show who was responsible was worse. He was her brother, it was his duty to find the guilty man and make him pay, but instead he had almost seen his master killed by a bolt, and had had his own position weakened by that donkey’s arse Pilk.

Mabilla — how he missed her. Who on earth could have killed her? It could have been Jack, he supposed, but he didn’t think Jack would have stopped there. If he’d been told to kill the Queen, he’d have gone right on and done it. So it wasn’t Jack, unless he had suddenly decided he didn’t like the idea of killing anyone else. Not very likely.

He couldn’t stay at the palace. It was growing late, and his head was hurting too much to think clearly. His body ached where that fucker Pilk had hit him. He’d return the favour when he had an opportunity. Later. For now, his bed was appealing. Sir Hugh had told him he would be staying here tonight, and there were enough bloody guards set around the place to protect his master. He needed to get his head down for a little. There was a palliasse in the gatehouse where he could rest.

With that decision made, he walked over the court towards the gatehouse, but while doing so, he saw Earl Edmund walking back in.

There was something about the masterful manner of his gait that stopped Ellis in his tracks. Usually the fellow was so pathetic, he could be entirely discounted, but today he was like a man renewed. His head was set high and proud, his back was straight, and he covered the ground like a warrior in a hurry. It was enough to set a warning bell tolling in Ellis’s bruised and battered head. He wasn’t aware of anything that could have made the Earl develop a spine all of a sudden.

As Edmund walked through a couple of waiting men, he pushed them from his path like a dog scattering cattle. The warning bell clamoured again.

And then the Earl looked over and saw him. ‘So, you’re still here, loyal to your master to the end, eh?’ he sneered. ‘Miss Mabilla, do you?’

Ellis set his jaw. How dare this man insult his sister! She was hardly cold yet, and this pathetic churl thought he could …

‘You don’t realise, do you?’ Edmund went on, and gave a bark of laughter. ‘You don’t see what’s in front of you, man. Your sister was exchanged, Ellis. A fair deal. She dies, and the Queen won’t tell her husband that your master dared to try to have her killed. That was the deal, because your sister was a spy in the Queen’s camp. You heard about her leading me on and then dropping me? That was all part of the same game. The Despenser set her on me, and when I responded she grew afraid. But don’t worry. You continue to serve your master as only you know how, my friend. You do that. Don’t worry about avenging your sister. What does she matter?’

Ellis was turned to stone, unable to move. Meanwhile, having said his piece, the Earl had walked on through the gate into the Green Yard and was gone.

‘No.’ It wasn’t possible. The man was tormenting him because he hated Despenser and all his men. It was a lie — an evil lie. There could be nothing in it.

‘Ellis?’ It was a young messenger in the King’s livery. ‘Your master wants you to go to the Bishop of Exeter’s house and fetch something for him. He said to give this to the Bishop’s steward.’

The lad thrust a note into his hand and disappeared.

Ellis stood staring down at the slip, still without moving for a moment or two, and then he turned and made his way to the gatehouse. All he knew was obedience to his master. Without that, there was nothing. Time enough later to learn whether the Earl had been telling the truth.

Earl Edmund did not care about the impact of his words. All he knew was an overwhelming rage that he had been so duped by that worm Piers, and his master the Despenser.

‘Shit!’ he muttered. All the advice given to him by Piers was the result of devious plotting by Despenser, was created solely for his benefit. The Earl’s closest man, the adviser he depended upon most of all was in fact an agent of his enemy, so the line he had taken recently to promote the Queen’s journey to France — that must also have been what Despenser wanted. It wasn’t going to hurt him at all, if Piers had promoted it.

Hell’s teeth! He needed someone to help him. Standing here in the middle of the yard, he stared about him, and all he saw was hostility. Not a friendly face among the multitude.

At least there was no risk of an imminent attempt on him here. After the crossbowman’s near-assassination of Sir Hugh le Despenser, his men had been all over the palace, and even now the Earl could see four of them on the walkway at the north wall and six more at the wall nearer the Thames. The guards were taking no risks, and anyone who so much as showed a bow in the yard would be pierced by a dozen arrows before he could nock his first one.

Earl Edmund did study a few of the men from beneath his brows, but it seemed that Despenser had not ordered his death yet. There was no apparent interest in him, and he didn’t feel endangered as he saw armed men gazing down into the crowds. No, it was just good to see that there were men who were keen to stop any more nonsense. Three deaths in only — what? — four days? First Mabilla and the murderer, and then the second assassin with the crossbow last evening. It was becoming almost embarrassing, that the King’s palace should have so many men expiring.

And now there was a fourth dead man, of course. Mustn’t forget him, Edmund told himself.

No, that dog’s turd. Piers was the most deserving of the lot of them.