The King of Thieves

Chapter Eight

Saturday after the Feast of St Augustine of Hippo^*

Langdon, Kent

The years after the invasion of the Normans had seen a flourishing development of religious houses in the country. First were the Benedictines, then Cistercians too, but as time passed on, the Premonstratensians became more and more popular with those who could afford the best protection for their souls. Investing a little money in a house for these white-clad monks was a good long-term prospect.

It was Matilda, the daughter of that great monastic builder, Ranulf de Glanville, who paid for the colony here at Langdon. Simon had heard that they were never overly expensive, which must have been an attraction to some of those who decided to support them. Perhaps they were cheap to feed, since all were vegetarian. And they never required much in the way of laundry, apparently. Their robes were noted for being rather ‘lively’. It was a reputation which he preferred not to put to the test, certainly. He would be using his own bedroll, he decided, while they were staying here.

In the event, he and Baldwin took space in the small inn nearby. This entailed sharing a small chamber with five other men, but at least all were from the King’s household, and should therefore have better hygiene than the monks.

It was a pleasant little place, and their first night had been comfortable enough, with little in the way of irritating habits from the others in the room. Being only a small inn, there was no great bed for travellers, but space for each to spread a palliasse and a rug over the top. It was not the best bed Simon had ever used, but nor was it the worst.

However, even on that first night, worn out from a long, rapid ride to comply with the King’s wishes, he found sleep evaded him. How could he rest content, when he had left his wife behind alone?

She had been brave, of course. Meg always was. Her bright blue eyes never looked so clear and shining as when he left her. Her body was slim and taut against him, and her mouth soft and yielding when they kissed. She held him for a moment or two afterwards, looking deep into his eyes, and he knew that she understood he had no choice. He must go — unless he wished to incur the King’s displeasure.

Meg had always been sensible. Even in those desperate times when they had been parted, she had not been a nag. She understood the imperatives of a man’s life and his duties. In those days, when he had been given the new, awful position of the Keeper’s representative at Dartmouth, she had never made him feel guilty about his decision to accept the post. She was sad that he had to leave her and the children, but she appreciated that it was not his fault.

But this time, this parting was harder for both of them. He had already been away for so long, and the country was undeniably more turbulent than before. To be absent from home just now, when Despenser was growing ever more bold in his actions against them both, was enough to drive him frantic. It was not knowing what was happening that made him chew at his lips. For all he knew, his wife and son could have been attacked, along with Jeanne and Baldwin’s children.

Then he chided himself. That was stupid. There was no likelihood of that. No. Jeanne had Edgar, Baldwin’s Sergeant from his days in the Knights Templar, to guard her and mobilise their peasants against any assault. Meg had Hugh, Simon’s long-standing servant — and the bane of his life. Edgar and Hugh together would be plenty adequate, even without Baldwin and Simon.

It did not make his day any the more comfortable, though, to have lain tossing and turning on a flattened palliasse while all about him, men gently snored.

They were unlikely to hear much about their duties that day, they both knew, but the lack of direction was enough to make Simon peevish. The food was no good, the ale worse, and the people here should be making more effort to assist the King’s own guards, he thought grumpily.

‘Simon, we shall be here for some little while, I expect. Try to ration your ill-temper, rather than venting it all today, eh?’ Baldwin said at one point with a half-smile.

‘If I could keep it in, I’d be a deal happier,’ Simon said.

They were able to find a clerk late in the morning, just before noon, who was apparently aware of the King’s movements.

‘To France? No, I’m afraid he’s not going,’ the man said.

‘Sweet Jesus!’ Simon burst out. ‘Who can tell us what is happening? We’ve come here at no notice to accompany him to France, and now we’re here, you say it’ll not be for days?’

‘No, I didn’t say he wouldn’t be going for days,’ the clerk said. He was a pedantic old soul with a thin fuzz of hair encircling his bald pate. Now he frowned at Simon with a meditative expression. ‘When I said he wouldn’t be going, I meant it. He’s unwell.’

‘How unwell?’ Baldwin snapped.

‘Unwell enough to send two ambassadors to explain how bad he is, and to swear to it on their oaths.’

‘Two, eh?’ Baldwin said without conviction.

‘So we’ll not be going, then?’ Simon said hopefully.

‘I don’t know. You need to ask the King, don’t you?’

‘Very well. So where is he?’ Simon asked.

‘He is with the Abbot in the Abbot’s chambers, I expect. But you aren’t allowed in there. It’s private.’

‘So who can we ask?’ Simon enquired with poisonous charm.

And so it was that by the time they were needing their lunch, they found themselves sitting with Bishop Walter Stapledon of Exeter.

Louvre, Paris

The Procureur left his house and made his way gradually along the lane, heading towards the little shop where he customarily stopped to break his fast.

Today he was late. He’d woken with a headache, the natural result of an evening out with his old companion Raoulet the Grey. They had known each other for many years, but those years had not taught them to be cautious of too much cheap wine. Therefore, this morning, his head was atrocious, but his bowels were even worse.

As he walked gingerly along, one thought continued to whirl about in his mind. The man killed in the Louvre was almost certainly lured to that particular room in order to be slain. That little chamber was so quiet, so remote from the main thoroughfares, that it was ideal for an assassination. But why had he been killed? And whose idea was it that he should be taken to that room? Was it the messenger, or had someone else decided to bring him to that chamber? If the messenger, did it mean that the messenger himself had killed the man?

It was making his headache worse.

This lane was broad at first, and then it narrowed. Overhead, all light was excluded by the buildings which leaned towards each other like toppling cliff-faces. Jean often wondered why it was that they didn’t collapse more often. They must be almost half-eaten away by beetles where they weren’t rotted by the damp. Yet the ancient timbers seemed to survive, and the instance of fatal cave-ins was minimal. Only a few people died each year, so far as he could tell, and not many of them actually died in the building. All too often it was the fools who heard the rumble and creak of a house about to submit to the inevitable, and who rushed to watch it fall. It was easy to stare at the wrong house, expecting it to teeter, while the one behind them collapsed, with fatal consequences.

Eventually, as he walked along this lane, the Procureur knew he would see a spark of white up ahead, which would gradually reveal itself as the massive block of the Louvre. A fortress fit for an emperor, it was enough to make any man gaze with pride and admiration.

Admiration today, however, was overwhelmed by the sense of turbulence in his belly. As he glanced upwards, he was struck only with the immensity of timber, plaster, lathes, wattles and planks that loomed menacingly over him. The distant sight of blue sky was no help; it made him feel dizzy and sickly at the same time.

No, best to keep his eyes on the ground.

Men shouted, women bawled their wares, selling from baskets bound about their necks, and urchins pelted along the cobbles amid the filth in their bare feet. There was one little room up here, Jean knew, which had fallen in on itself one evening. There was no one else about, and no witnesses. In the evening there had been a hovel there; next morning there was a mess of wood. Took them three days to find the last of the bodies. It was the mother and the baby of the family, and when they got to them, they found that the mother had been killed in the first moments, a balk of timber crushing her skull. The baby, though, some said, had lived for a while. They found its head at the mother’s breast, as though still seeking milk from the corpse.

It was a proof to Jean de Poissy that no matter how cultured and civilised the city, there was always an edge of cruelty about the place. He loved and despised it in equal measure most days, for while there was much to stimulate the mind and inspire a man to greatness, there was also much to cause revulsion. A city in which a babe could die in such miserable loneliness was not one in which to bring up children.

But since he had no wife and no children, it was not a concern for him at the moment. He would marry sometime. Not this year, though. He enjoyed his life too much to be tied by a woman. Better to be free.

Just then, he spotted a group of men huddled in a corner, and he automatically became wary. They appeared well-off, from the look of their clothes, but that was no sign of honour. It was all too easy to disguise an evil soul in silks like those of a gentleman.

They were paying him no mind, however. Their attention was fixed on another man. Thinking briefly that they might be felons looking to waylay another wanderer down this lane, Jean glanced around at the man they watched.

To his surprise, he saw that the latter was staring at him — and only then did he recognise the man who had been loitering outside his home the other day. In that same second, he saw the glint at the man’s side, and put his hand to his own sword, half-drawing it. It was enough to set the fellow to flight. One of the richly-dressed young men attempted to catch him, setting a foot to trip him, but the stranger was up and away before any more could be done.

Langdon, Kent

Taking up a crust of bread and dipping it into his mess, Simon winced as a stab of pain lanced through his shoulder. The wound would take a long time to heal completely. Despenser’s man had cut him well.^*

‘Simon? Are you all right?’ the Bishop asked.

‘It’s that scratch I got from the bastard Wattere,’ he said. ‘Despenser’s man.’

‘I am sorry,’ the Bishop said, a little shamefaced. He had held William atte Wattere for a while, and then released him, even though he could have kept him a little longer.

‘You know that Despenser has bought Simon’s house?’ Baldwin asked pointedly.

‘He is a very greedy man,’ Bishop Walter said. ‘But surely that means he will not harm the house now, Simon?’

‘I think it means he will evict us at the first opportunity,’ Simon grunted.

Baldwin added, ‘It is why Simon did not wish to come with us. He feels sure that his wife is not safe.’

‘Could I help? I could have a man check on her for you.’

‘I would be glad of it,’ Simon said shortly. ‘So, tell us what has happened.’

‘It takes little enough time,’ the Bishop said. ‘The King had decided to make his way to Paris, and there to pay his homage to the French King, as is his duty. But there were some of us who were nervous that to do so would endanger his life. There are stories that if the King sets foot on French soil, he will be attacked. Some fear that he will be captured and treated as a prisoner of war, ransomed like a knight taken on the battlefield. It would be an appalling situation.’

‘So a group of advisers told him he should be anxious? And he immediately gave up his honourable commitment to go to King Charles?’ Baldwin said.

‘It would be better to keep your voice low if you are to make such comments, Sir Baldwin,’ the Bishop said harshly. ‘Those of us who argued in all good faith to protect the King may not meet with your approval, but do me the honour of believing I argued from conviction, not evil intention.’

‘He sent to apologise to the French?’ Baldwin said after a moment or two.

‘Yes. Two men have gone — Bishop Stratford and John de Bruton, one of the canons from Exeter. I think you may know him?’

Baldwin recalled a thin, pale man with a sallow complexion who looked as though he might benefit from a visit to a warmer city than Exeter. ‘What now, then?’ he asked. ‘Why are we here?’

‘That’s what I want to know, too. Surely this wasn’t so sudden that we couldn’t have been told before we left our wives and our lands?’ Simon blurted out.

‘If you were not to go, you would have been warned. However, you will still be needed.’

‘We were sent for to guard the King on his way to Paris,’ Simon pointed out. ‘If he’s not going, there’s not much for us to do.’

‘The King is not going, but someone must go to pay homage. And the King’s representative has asked for you to be his guards — as have I.’

Baldwin frowned. ‘You mean the Earl?’

‘Yes. The Earl of Chester must go, if the King won’t. And after this latest prevarication, the King would certainly be in danger. In fact, his ambassadors should already be with the French King now, and with any good fortune they will have made their offer.’