The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

Chapter Fifteen

Janin was pouring some water into a dish preparatory to washing his face, which still felt sticky and rough from the previous day’s journey, when he heard the soft footsteps behind him. Turning, he saw the Irishman. He gave a short, piercing whistle, and Ricard and Philip both stirred and grunted themselves awake.

‘So you decided to come back, then,’ Ricard said grimly. ‘Where were you last night? Another French bint?’

‘I am lucky to be popular,’ Jack said easily.

‘There was a murder last night. You hear about that? Strange how things happen when you aren’t around,’ Philip said.

‘Coincidences. I find them refreshing. Your boy. He is not here — you haven’t lost him, have you?’

‘Never mind him. He’s safe enough,’ Ricard spat. ‘What do you mean, refreshing? You realise …’

‘You realise that the man responsible is an English knight called Furnshill? He was there, his dagger was found in the man’s breast, and it was only his position as a guardian to Queen Isabella that saved him from arrest.’

Ricard glanced at his companions. ‘That true?’

Janin shrugged. ‘How would I know?’

‘Well, just stay back with us, so we don’t have to be suspicious about you at least,’ Ricard said flatly. ‘We don’t need all this shite. It’s bad enough we were forced into coming away.’

‘Forced into coming here? You were persuaded to bring me, but someone made you come as well? Who did that, then?’ Jack asked. There was a smile on his face, but no reflection of it in his voice. That was as cold as the ground all about.

Janin shivered. ‘It was before we met you.’

‘And it’s none of your business,’ Philip added.

‘No problem. I was only interested. After all, we musicians need to keep together, don’t we?’

As he smiled and moved away, his feet as quiet as a cat’s, Ricard exchanged a look with Janin. ‘I really, really don’t like him.’

Robert de Chatillon knew he had to prepare the tent to be taken down. His eyes were drawn all too often to the shrouded body on the table, considering all the messages which must be composed and sent hither and thither. He managed to persuade the two churls to leave the place at last, and could begin to start work.

No sooner were Arnaud and the old man gone than he heard someone else scratching at the canvas.

‘This is the tent of Enguerrand de Foix?’

‘What do you want, Sir Baldwin?’

‘You know my name?’

Robert gave a dry smile. ‘I think that there will be few people in the camp who don’t recall your name by now, sir knight. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to strike camp and prepare my dead master’s body for the journey. There is much work for a man whose master has been murdered.’

His shot hit the mark, he saw. The bearded knight coloured slightly. Not with anger, but a kind of shame.

‘When your master died last night, I had been fired on by a charge of that powder you use for gonnes and cannons.’

‘You have my sympathy. Was that an excuse to kill him?’

‘I killed no one. I was attacked. Someone tried to kill me, then took my dagger and stabbed your master while I was blinded.’

‘So you say someone was out there to kill him and waited until you happened by? I don’t think-’

‘Or, more likely, they set the charge and only fired at me because I came by at an inopportune moment.’

Robert stopped at that. ‘Why would they do that?’

‘Tell me about this charge, and maybe I can find out why — and who!’

‘They aren’t the same, you know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The powders. You couldn’t use cannon powder in a device made for your hand. It would burst out of the barrel without exploding. I have seen it. For a smaller gonne, you need smaller grains of powder.’

Baldwin was holding the board on which the charge had been laid. ‘Which was this?’

Robert decided there could be no harm in telling him. ‘It was the finer type.’

‘You can tell that without even looking at the board?’ Simon snapped.

Robert had kept his eyes on Baldwin. Now he looked at Simon without emotion. ‘Master, it is easy to see. I can see each flake marked on this knight’s face.’ Still, he took the board and studied that too for a short while.

‘Can you see anything on the board that could help find the man responsible?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Well, it’s possible, I suppose. Certainly the grain was fine, just like our own stores. When the charge went off, did you see it go up, or just out in one large puff of smoke and flame?’

Baldwin gave a half-grin. ‘All I remember was the flash. It was like a gush of hellfire rushing towards me.’

‘I think you are lucky, then. The man who set this did not know what he was doing, if he intended to kill. He should have set the charge in a pot, or a small barrel. Then the explosion would have been constricted, and that would have given it more force.’

‘Why?’ Simon asked.

‘It makes the gonne work better if the charge is held back.’ Richard went to the rear of his tent and returned with a barrel. ‘Watch.’

Simon had heard of this powder, but never seen it. As a fine trickle poured from the small wooden barrel, he eyed it without enthusiasm. It was just a dirty, black, uninteresting powder. ‘It looks like fine, dry soil.’

Robert glanced at him as he set the barrel aside and tapped a bung into it. ‘You think so?’ He took a spoon and carefully scooped a small amount onto Baldwin’s board. Then he walked to the rack in the corner of the tent, at which were set some polearms and de Foix’s swords. From here he took up the long stick Simon had seen before. This he brought to the table, and scooped another spoonful of powder into it, using a funnel of leather.

The gonne was about eighteen inches in length. At the back it must have had a socket, because the long hazel stock protruded from the rear end. The gonne itself had been made like a barrel, Simon saw, with strips of steel staves gripped tightly by some heavy steel bound about them. He presumed the whole had been fired in a smith’s forge, because he could see that the metal appeared to have welded together. Underneath the barrel itself a forged hook protruded.

‘What’s that for?’

‘If you’re firing near a tree or a wall, you can hook that over so that the gun doesn’t knock you down. Now, see this?’ He had a shred of linen. He wrapped this around a little pebble he had in a leather purse, and pushed it into the barrel on top of the powder. Taking a pinch of powder, he wandered outside, strolling to the limit of the camp. There was a fire, with two guards warming their hands by it. Robert stood at the side of it, then set the stock under his right arm and sprinkled a little powder into a dimple on top of the barrel near the stock itself. Then he asked Simon to pick up a glowing stick from the fire.

Simon took up a long branch with a well glowing tip, and stood in front of Robert.

‘It might be better if you stood behind me,’ Robert said, gently pushing Simon aside with the barrel. He took the branch, blew on it to make the coals glow, cast a look around at the others, and set the tip of the branch to the dimple.

Intrigued, Simon was peering at the gonne. There was a sudden flash, a whoomph as a cloud of smoke burst upward, and then a loud boom that made Simon step back hurriedly. Clearly in the dim light he saw a tongue of yellow flame lick out, at least six feet, and a thick blanket of fog sprang out, hiding everything from view.

‘Mother of Christ!’ he heard one of the guards shriek as he sprang back. For his own part, Simon was reaching for stronger words.

‘That, you see, is how it reacts when you put a flame to the powder when it is confined. It explodes and the bullet shoots off into the distance,’ Robert said.

‘Where will the bullet have gone?’ Baldwin wondered.

‘Over there,’ Robert said tersely, and set off back to his tent.

Inside, he took the pile of powder and swept some into a line. He thinned it, tapping it with his fingers until it formed a narrow length less than a quarter inch thick. ‘Watch.’

He took a flint and his dagger and struck some sparks. On the fifth blow, a spark caught the line, and it spluttered and fizzed, sparks flying off in every direction, while Simon yelped and jumped back, trying to evade the thick roiling smoke. ‘It smells like the devil himself!’

‘Yes, it stinks,’ Baldwin said, but thoughtfully. ‘I see what you mean. It is clearly safer when it is not enclosed. May I?’ He motioned towards the remaining powder.

Robert nodded. ‘Of course. Yes, I think it is less lethal when it is free. There is some force of nature — it is like a beast. If you have caged a bear or a lion, and it escapes, it will be a great deal more dangerous to men than if you had not. Even wild animals in the open will tend to avoid a man, knowing their place in God’s plan. As their wild nature is concentrated when confined, so is the powder’s vital essence.’

Baldwin had made another straight line of powder. He took Robert’s flint and struck a spark. At the first attempt, flame rushed along it quickly. ‘This is a marvel!’

‘Just be careful you do not leave an actual pile of it,’ Robert warned.

‘When you said I was fortunate, I can understand your meaning now,’ Baldwin said, forming another line, this time a series of curves one way and another. He struck a spark, and watched eagerly, smiling, as the flame coursed from side to side like a snake. ‘This is a wonderful thing! I have never been able to toy with it before, but it gives an extraordinary sense of pleasure to be able to guide it along the route you wish.’

‘Yes. Well, so long as you are careful,’ Robert said. ‘If you will excuse me, I have work to do.’

‘Of course,’ Baldwin said, forming a fresh pattern, a broad coil of powder. ‘Look at this, Simon.’

He struck a spark. There was a fizz as the first length of powder caught, and then a loud report as the entire coil detonated, a thick fume rising and making Baldwin cough and stand back, waving his hands to clear the air.

Robert gave a great sigh without turning to look at him.

‘Yes. If you don’t leave a decent gap between the threads, sparks fly from one to another. It is not a toy for fools!’

The Queen’s tent

Rousing herself, for Queen Isabella, was never a great problem. Not for her the slow, languorous climb from sleep to a gentle wakening; she had always been aware of all that must be done in the day. The march to chapel for her Mass, the riding for her exercise, the listening to petitions and business about her varied interests must necessarily take up many hours each day, and as soon as she became aware of the sun cresting the horizon and heard her servants begin to stir, she would be wide awake herself.

All through her married life she had been the centre of a large establishment. In the very earliest days, of course, her husband had refused her the private household she had craved. That she had insisted upon her own servants, her own knights and cooks, grooms and burners, was no more than natural for her, a princess of France. During her childhood those small symbols of wealth and importance had been granted to her as a matter of course, and when she was old enough to marry she had expected similar proofs of respect, just as she had provided for each of her children.

The eldest, naturally, had been receiving such marks of esteem all his life. Dear Edward, the Prince of Wales, the heir to his father’s throne, had never been left in any doubt as to his own position in the scheme of things. He would become the next king on the death of his father, and the lavish lifestyle which he would come to enjoy was already being emulated in his household. He might be only some thirteen years old, but her son was fully aware of his rank.

Even in the recent hard times she had found herself waking early. Despite the loss of so much, with her household disbanded, her servants all arrested or exiled, she had naturally woken swiftly, though less because of the amount of work that was necessary to manage her interests than from the urgent need to plot her revenge on the evil, avaricious and dishonourable son of a peasant, Sir Hugh le Despenser, her husband’s oh, so close friend.

She could mimic that hideous, sly tone in her own mind. There was so much which she had grown to detest in that cretin. Not only the way in which he had wheedled his way into the King’s affections, leaving no space for Isabella herself, but also how he had gradually excluded her from all which lent her life lustre. He had taken her lands, her mining interests, and after he had managed to insinuate to the King that she might one day become a threat to him, with war looming against France, he had even managed to see to it that her own little darlings, her three youngest children, had been removed from her protection. That was so cruel, so unthinkably vicious, that her hatred for him had threatened to burn so harshly that any could see it, but she had taken as her model that creature of guile and intelligence, the fox, and concealed her rage.

In all the last hard weeks and months, she had tried her utmost to remain collected. At all times, even when she had been convinced that the murderous churl was planning to have her removed — murdered — she had remained cordial towards him, until at last she had succeeded in persuading him that she held no grudge. Oh, he was not totally convinced, naturally. The monster that he was could never conceive of any person being motivated by anything other than greed or personal interest. To behave otherwise, he thought, was entirely contrary. But he did have one blindness: he thought that women were constant and loving as a matter of course; it was in their natures. He found it impossible to believe that a mere woman could fool him.

That was the root of his foolishness. For, believing that the weak and silly queen had almost forgiven him, since she had paid him some flattering attention in recent weeks, Despenser was prepared to allow her to go to France to negotiate. He was as certain as any arrogant man that she would never dare to connive on her own part. She would not scheme to bring down Despenser’s deplorable rule of the country her husband was supposed to reign over. She was a mere woman, who wanted to run home to see her lands one last time, Despenser thought.

It had been hard, but even on that last day, she had dissembled as professionally as any whore. She had spoken with Despenser, displayed her sadness on leaving her children behind, begging ‘good Sir Hugh’ to look after them for her so she could see them as soon as she returned, and even sealing her farewells with a kiss, while her husband looked on approvingly. He only ever looked on approvingly when the horse’s arse was in the room — or on the hillside, as he was then. In God’s name, that kiss had been the hardest thing she had ever had to do.

But all simulation was now over, so far as she was concerned. She had a diplomatic mission to Paris, to see her brother, and to discuss with him the return to England of the lands and provinces which he had confiscated last year. That task was given to her by her husband, and she would faithfully honour the trust put in her.

Until she had achieved her ends, at any rate.

‘My lady? Wine?’

Yes. She arose swiftly. There was so much to do. Especially when plotting the death and utter destruction of the man who had stolen her husband from her.