Dispensation of Death

Chapter Nine

The early hours of Wednesday before Candlemas¹

Thorney Island

Earl Edmund sat contentedly in his chamber in the Palace of Westminster. Earlier, he had enjoyed a very pleasant evening meal. The face presented to the world by Sir Hugh le Despenser had shown his bitterness and rage, and anything that could have put that bastard in such a foul mood was balm to the Earl’s soul.

What the reason for the long face was, Edmund had no idea. Perhaps it was the rumour of yet another attempt on his life, for there had been several in recent months. It was said that the traitor Mortimer had paid a necromancer to try to kill him by magic. Truly, Sir Hugh had very few friends in the world.

Long may it continue, the Earl thought, yawning. There was no one whose death he would have been happier to hear about.

Walking to his bedchamber, a small room near the King’s own chamber, he saw a shadow thrown by a torch, and stopped. There were dangers in a place like this so late at night: too many dark corridors, places of concealment in alcoves and behind drapery … and he was one man who had determined to live as long as possible. His hand reached for his sword even as he saw the pale face peering down the hallway at him.

‘Piers! Dear God, what are you doing wandering about the place like this?’ he demanded.

‘Earl, my Lord, I have terrible news. Terrible!’

Lady Eleanor de Clare walked into the Great Hall with the letters gripped in her hand, and looked to the far end, where her husband, Sir Hugh le Despenser, stood talking with one of the clerks of the Exchequer.

They were a pasty lot, those clerks. She had never had much regard for them, what with their unhealthful complexions and their minds made up of numbers. Nothing seemed to excite them so much as finding a mistake in a colleague’s calculations, and none had the faintest idea about honourable pursuits, let alone the finer aspects of courtly love.

Her man was a very different type altogether. Tall, handsome, and with that dangerous look in his eye, he was every inch a knight. Powerful, strong, fair of hair and with a brilliant mind that measured all he saw in a moment. He would assess a man or woman in an instant and always be right. She had seen it.

And now he had seen her. He finished his words with the clerk, and crossed the hall to meet her in a quieter corner, away from the shouting. It was necessary here. Apart from the men calling to each other about the long marble table, the Chancery, there was also the King’s Bench and the Court of Common Pleas in this hall, and the din was appalling.

Two men were with him — Sir Hugh always tended to have one or two henchmen with him for protection now — but he waved them away. There was no need of a guard against his own wife.

‘My Lady, I hope I see you well?’

She gave the faintest of shrugs. ‘You are always considerate, my Lord. Yes, I slept well for the most part. She disturbed my slumbers a little, but not too much.’

‘She disturbs all,’ he said in a low voice, looking away.

‘She will keep up her keening about her children. Since you took them from her, I don’t think she’s slept a full night.’

‘You still have one of the pups in your care with her. Point out to her that he could be taken away as well, and see if that will shut her up.’

Eleanor nodded. He was right, after all. The silly woman should have been grateful. Princess Eleanor and Princess Joan had both gone to be looked after by the Monthermers, but her eight-year-old son John of Eltham was still here.

‘Any news for me?’ he muttered.

‘Two letters,’ she replied. ‘She is not happy that I look through her correspondence and tried to keep this one secret, but I saw it.’

‘What does it say?’ he demanded eagerly, reaching for it.

‘It is a series of complaints.’ Eleanor passed the letter to her husband and spoke quietly as he glanced over the sheet. ‘She protests about her lands being taken and losing her income, she complains that all her own servants have been taken from her, and says that you have taken her husband’s love from her.’

‘That’s all?’ he chuckled.

‘She does describe the King as — what was it? Ah, yes, “a gripple miser”.’

‘A man who has been parsimonious towards her, but abundantly generous to another, eh? I wonder whom she could mean!’

‘She has demanded that her seal be returned to her.’

‘You have it still?’

Eleanor took it from within her bodice, where it hung on a cord. ‘Always.’ It was understandable that the Queen should resent this latest humiliation. Eleanor was not sure how she herself would feel, were she to be kept under the supervision of another, with all her letters read, all her servants removed, her children too, her income drastically reduced, and even her private seal confiscated so that no private or personal correspondence could be sent. For a Queen, the daughter of one King and now effectively the estranged wife of another, it was a proof of how low she had sunk. She was being systematically stripped of all her assets.

‘With luck we shall not have to keep her much longer,’ Despenser said, smiling at her.

But there was something in his eyes which alerted her to his real feelings. ‘My love, is something worrying you?’

‘She has been a nuisance at all times, and never more so than now,’ he sighed.

‘What has she done?’

‘Nothing. It is nothing.’ His thoughts were far away now, she saw. This foolish Queen was troubling him.

‘Is there something I can do to help?’ Eleanor asked.

Despenser glanced back at her. ‘Dear Eleanor!’ he murmured. He would have liked to confide in her, but how could he explain?

Ellis had already been to many of the inns and taverns where they knew Jack had stayed before, but there was no sign of the man. Even now, Ellis was riding over the Surrey side of the river in search of another tavern where they thought Jack might have billeted himself.

The trouble was, Sir Hugh thought moodily, Jack had always insisted that he should be left alone to do his work. When he took a commission, he would fade away, sometimes for days or weeks, and it was impossible to know when or where he would strike. His attacks were inevitably successful, but this time Sir Hugh wanted to stop him — and couldn’t!

‘I’ll have to make sure Ellis mounts double the guards — keeps men at the Queen’s side at all times. There’s nothing else to do, if we don’t find the bastard,’ he told himself, but even as he thought it, he heard the door open and automatically bowed low, as did all others in the hall.

Eleanor took her cue from him, removing her hand from his forearm and curtseying. Not that there was any need for her or anyone else to bother, as she knew. The King had eyes for only one person in that great chamber.

Eleanor stood a little back as Edward walked straight to her husband, and it was only when she noticed his hand at her husband’s arm, how he kept it there affectionately and drew Despenser to his side, that she felt that niggle of jealousy once more.

And the squirm of revulsion.

Earl Edmund was at the rear of the room with Piers de Wrotham and Edmund’s brother, Thomas of Norfolk. The latter was slightly taller than Edmund, a fact that had never failed to annoy him.

When they were growing up, Edmund had found his older brother’s abundant self-confidence and jokes at his expense annoying, but more recently he had grown immune to them. Ever since their joint attack and siege of Leeds Castle, there had been a mutual regard between them. Until, of course, Edmund had been sent to Guyenne to protect the Principality from the invasion of Charles Valois.

Shit, the bastard had walked all over Edmund and his men. Whenever he demanded help from England, from Sir Hugh le Bloody Despenser, the man was too busy stealing lands and property from the legitimate owners to give a stuff. So Edmund could do nothing, just hung about twiddling his thumbs while the King lost his sole remaining territory in France. It was enough to make a man weep.

Not that it reflected badly on the King’s favourite, of course. No shit had ever stuck to his blanket. No, instead of that it was Edmund who must bear the brunt of the King’s reproaches. As soon as he had returned to England, he had realised how the land lay. The King was sulky and uncommunicative — unless Sir Hugh was there, of course. And that jumped-up little prick was all too keen to make fun of the King’s brother.

‘Look at him now,’ Thomas whispered. ‘He is all over the man like a cheap tabard!’

Edmund could not help but agree. The King was sickeningly demonstrative. It had been the same with the previous favourite, Piers Gaveston, until the barons could no longer stomach their obvious sodomy and executed Gaveston. Perhaps, with luck, the same would happen to Despenser — except that Sir Hugh had too tight a grip on the Realm’s powers, and on the King. He would not allow Edward to put himself into any form of danger. And as for journeying to France … well, Despenser would be more likely to suggest that he should fall on his own sword as let the King go there. That was what Charles demanded, though. And Despenser knew that he must do something — find some alternative to the King travelling to Paris. Because as soon as Edward was over the water, Despenser’s life would become forfeit.

‘He’ll never let the King go to France,’ Edmund scoffed.

‘But he may permit the Queen to go,’ Piers said.

Thomas glanced at them. ‘Eh? What was that?’

‘I have suggested that your brother might benefit from showing himself a better guardian of the realm than the good Sir Despenser.’

‘And how do you expect him to do that? The daft sod can’t even persuade a wench who’s thrown herself at him, to join him in his bed!’

‘That is not funny, Thomas.’

‘It’s true, though, Edmund. Mabilla was teasing your tarse for days, and as soon as you gave chase, the bitch screamed like a virgin. Virgin, my arse!’ Thomas snorted loudly at the joke, turning and walking away.

It was true enough, but that didn’t make Edmund any happier to hear the tale repeated, especially not in front of his servant, but before he could respond, Piers was already speaking.

‘My Lord, I think that there is one way in which you might defeat Sir Hugh.’

‘How, in God’s name? There is nothing better suited to my tastes than to see him on the ground and squirming!’

‘I think that, were you to espouse the Queen’s cause more strenuously, you might injure him. Perhaps you could suggest that, before she were to leave these shores to become Ambassadress to France, she should be reestablished in her former position?’

Earl Edmund curled his lip scornfully. ‘And how is that going to affect the Despenser swine?’

‘If the Queen has her lands and rights returned to her, so that if she were to go to France to negotiate with the French King, he could see that our King was treating her honourably, and that her letters to him detailing her suffering were not entirely correct, it may heal the rift between the English and French Crowns. And then a more equitable truce could be arranged. Perhaps the King might even travel to France, and all the glory of the achievement would redound to your honour, my Lord.’

Earl Edmund frowned. ‘You are sure of that?’

‘Nothing is so uncertain as life in a royal court,’ Piers said with a chuckle. ‘But let me put it to you like this: if there is one thing the Despenser would not care for, it would be for the Queen to go to France with the King. The King trusts Despenser, not his wife. But she has borne him children, and were she to have his ear for a long journey, Despenser might find his star beginning to wane …’

Jack was at the river as soon as the light faded. The sun began to set when he was sitting in the tavern on the road west, and he finished his drink at a leisurely pace. There was no point getting there in daylight, and letting all and sundry see him.

The view was unchanged from the previous night. He squatted down happily enough, eyeing the guards on the walls, and carefully watching at the base of the walls to see whether there could have been a trap laid for him, but saw nothing to alarm him. Next, he walked to the bridge at the southern gate, and squatted again, staring fixedly at a point just above the bridge to catch any stray movements, listening with his mouth open for any strange noises — but there was nothing again.

At last, when he was content that all was well, he committed himself. He crossed the little timber bridge.

The wall to the Abbey reared up overhead, and he glanced up, feeling a curious sense of the height of the place, before carrying on along the base of the wall to the corner. Here he stopped and waited, all senses alert. There were steps along the upper walkway over his head, and he listened carefully as the man spat over the edge. A gobbet of phlegm landed on his shoulder, and Jack looked at it without distaste as it ran down his breast and upper arm.

When the steps moved away, he crouched silently. The steel of the culvert was as rusted as he had thought, but it was still strong enough to make manipulation difficult. He must kneel and wrench at it to make it give enough to leave space for him to crawl inside. Working slowly so as not to attract attention, he was relieved when he heard singing begin, and with that he felt he could work a little faster. Being out here in the open was alarming.

There was a snick as a post of steel snapped — and he froze at the sound. However, there were no running footsteps, no bellows for attention. Nothing. He pulled himself nearer and peered at the metal. The bar had a shiny section where the bright metal had broken from its fitting in the wall. He took mud and carefully smeared it over both gleaming edges, drawing in his breath as the sharp metal sliced into his finger. He ignored the stinging pain and continued. One bar was broken. Now he set to work on the next, waiting until that too was broken, and then smearing that with more mud, this time more careful not to cut himself.

When all was done, he painstakingly withdrew the frame a short distance from the wall, and wriggled himself over it and into the drain itself.

The drain, thank God, was not so noisome as it might have been. Recent rains had washed away much of the filth. Fortunately, the majority of the monks’ waste would have been captured in the cesspit, ready for spreading over their fields as manure. There were other places he had entered which had been a great deal worse. He wriggled his way along the short tunnel, and peered out into the main yard.

There was a large building on his right, another directly in front of him, and the main Abbey buildings loomed monstrous and black against the sky in the gap between the two.

A step. He slowly withdrew his head into the culvert before he could be seen, and listened intently. There: a man’s pacing up overhead. How had he not spotted the guard? Perhaps there was a trap set for him, and there were more men waiting here to catch him as soon as he tried to break in. But the steps moved on, and he began to breathe more easily.

He took hold of his knife and made sure that it would move in its sheath, then he slipped out into the yard, sliding his back along the wall in the shadows. The walkway above him was not high, only about three feet over him, and reaching it should be easy enough. He saw that there were coils of rope and blocks of masonry stashed beneath it, as well as ladders. There had been a disaster of some sort, he reckoned, looking at the ravaged buildings. All to his advantage.

The choice — to continue now, or to wait and reach this far again some other night. Better by far to get the matter over and done with, he decided. He glanced up at the walls again, and then made for the nearest coils of rope.

On the rough palliasse set out for Piers near the King’s chamber, not far from Earl Edmund’s snoring body, the adviser totted up the money he had been paid so far.

He didn’t understand the game Sir Hugh le Despenser was playing, but so far as he was concerned, the main thing was the money, and that was reaching him regularly. For now, Sir Hugh wanted the King to view the Queen as a potential representative for him in France. However, the King had listened to Despenser when he had poured verbal poison into the King’s ears about his wife. Queen Isabella was disloyal, treacherous. She could not be trusted.

Earl Edmund had been telling all who would listen that she was loyal and would be a worthy ambassadress — and all would remember his words if anything were to go wrong while the Queen was over there in France. Meanwhile, the King was reflecting that his brother the Earl of Kent was a fool if he trusted the woman. Why? Because Sir Hugh was telling him quietly about all the Queen’s misdeeds even as Edmund spoke to her credit.

No one else would have been so easily convinced that the Queen should be sent. But not many people were as gullible as poor old Edmund.

Piers rolled over, well pleased with his progress so far. He had worked hard, and was beginning to see the rewards.

There was the sound of cautious steps outside in the corridor, and he sat up a moment, alert, and then yawned and lay down again. It was only someone from the household — a squire seeking the privy, maybe; a page lost after too much ale. Nothing to worry about.