The Traitor of St Giles

Chapter Fifteen

Sir Peregrine watched Sir Baldwin narrowly. He could kick himself for spending so long with Felicity, but at least he felt some kind of release. She had soothed him, cradling him in her arms for a while, stroking his back and murmuring gently as he wept. Afterwards the guilt of not having been with Emily when she died returned, but he had enjoyed a moment of peace with the whore.

As soon as he had got back to the castle Toker told him that Lord de Courtenay was in the hall. It was the last thing he needed, his lord talking to an ally of Bishop Stapledon and being swayed into believing that the banishment of the Despensers was illegal, which was why he had marched straight in, giving Baldwin a suspicious look, wondering what the knight had discussed with Lord Hugh; he only prayed that Baldwin hadn’t persuaded Lord Hugh to side with the King as Bishop Stapledon no doubt wanted.

‘How are you, my Lord?’ he asked. With relief he saw that one of the guards with Lord Hugh was Owen, one of his own men. He would be able to find out what had been said.

Sitting, he glanced at Baldwin again. He was convinced the knight was an emissary from the Bishop of Exeter, Walter Stapledon, and Stapledon wanted the King to be allowed to invite the Despensers back; however he saw no shiftiness in Baldwin’s eye.

‘We were talking about the dead knight,’ Lord Hugh said.

Sir Peregrine forced a smile to his face. ‘Really?’

‘It does seem odd to me, you know, Peregrine,’ Lord Hugh continued. He leaned back contemplatively and stared up at the window with a slight frown. ‘This man was a Templar knight, someone trained with all forms of weaponry. He was out with a massive dog, I understand, and yet one single cut-throat managed to steal his knife and kill both him and his dog. Doesn’t that strike you as curious? I would have thought it was more the work of another trained fighter.’

‘I doubt another knight would have attacked him,’ Sir Peregrine said, but Baldwin saw how his face looked quite grey.

‘Very curious,’ Lord Hugh murmured. ‘A warrior like him allowing his knife to be stolen.’

‘It must have been the felon,’ Sir Peregrine asserted.

‘Stabbed in the dark,’ Baldwin mused, frowning.

‘What of it?’ Sir Peregrine demanded. ‘It’s how an outlaw would strike, isn’t it?’

‘Perhaps. But if another man struck him down, perhaps the felon merely arranged the corpse neatly and took his purse. Since the knight wouldn’t need the money again, an honourable man could do that.’

‘Oh, really!’ Sir Peregrine sneered.

‘It could be one explanation. It is easier to believe that another trained man-at-arms of whatever rank killed him rather than a weakly abjurer.’

‘I hope you don’t mean to suggest…’

Baldwin smiled. ‘What could I mean, Sir Peregrine?’

The bannaret stood coldly, plainly angry. His eyes held Baldwin’s with a glittering intensity.

Simon wanted to interrupt them but daren’t. If he was not careful, he could insult one or the other and precipitate a duel.

It was Lord Hugh who relaxed the tension. ‘Come, Sir Peregrine, there’s no need for weapons to be drawn. Sir Baldwin meant you no insult.’

‘Certainly not, Sir Peregrine,’ Baldwin said guilelessly. ‘I was thinking aloud, no more.’

‘I apologise, then. I am becoming peppery. It must be this sad death. Sir Baldwin, Master Bailiff, would you walk with me in the yard while we await our evening meal?’

‘Naturally,’ Baldwin said, allowing the tension to leave him. The three took their leave of the lord and walked down the stairs to the yard. Baldwin had to flex his fingers to ease the clenching where he had bunched his fists, but more than Sir Peregrine’s sudden temper, Baldwin was fascinated by the reason behind his apparent loss of control.

William Small the sailor sat drinking ale. His guard had been removed when the Coroner decided he had no case to answer and now he sat alone, back against the ladder which led up to the walkway along the walls. Behind him was the doorway to the storeroom from which he had fetched his drink.

The sky was light, the clouds tinged with a vivid salmon pink as the sun followed its course down to the horizon, far out of sight from here, hidden as it was by the curtain wall of the castle. With its passing the yard was thrown into shade and the night chill was overtaking the place although the cobbles and stonework still gave off a little warmth.

It was ending a good day after all. He had feared that he might be attached to appear at the next court, having to pay more money in fines, but somehow he had escaped. It looked as though he was free. Everyone assumed that poor Sir Gilbert had been killed by the felon, and that suited William; it meant he need not be held for long here.

His belongings were all in the tack-room at the side of the stables, and as he sat near the hall, he noticed a man loitering nearby, in the doorway. For some reason William found himself studying him. It was a man-at-arms, a smartly turned-out fellow, who leaned as if casually against the door-jamb, but William was convinced that there was a watchful set to his shoulders. William had been a soldier, he could recognise the attitude of another who was on the scrounge.

William settled back with a smirk, certain that someone was inside the room rummaging through his things and those of the good, dead, Sir Gilbert. They were welcome, he thought. They’d find nothing in all his stuff. William had already been through the lot, looking for the money. It wasn’t there.

It must have been that day when the knight left him and went on alone, returning late reeking of wine. He had taken the bags with him, because William had searched through the camp after he’d gone and there was nothing there. But Sir Gilbert didn’t bring it back with him: it was all gone when the knight was found dead.

What the hell! Some you win, some you lose. William rested his head against the ladder. The beer felt good in his belly, he was fed and he was as contented as a man could be. Although he loved the sea in all her moods, he was happy to be living safely on land for a while.

There were footsteps nearby, but he ignored them, closing his eyes. He didn’t want to chat; he wanted a good sleep and an early start. Hardly had he begun to doze, however, when he heard a low, rumbling growl. The man outside the tack-room had also heard the noise and was standing fearfully, staring at Aylmer. Seeing such a large man worried by the dog made William grin to himself.

Then the humour was wiped from his face as he recognised the man: the scene from the street outside the tavern in London came back to him and he was suddenly struck with a quick fear. That man had been pinned to the wall by Aylmer before.

He was about to call out when a blade rested on his throat, a blade that felt as sharp as a razor, as cold as only polished steel could be, and a voice hissed in his ear. ‘If you call that sodding hound, you’ll die.’

‘Perhaps it was fortunate,’ Sir Peregrine continued when the three were once more outside, ‘that Sir Gilbert died, if he was a messenger.’

‘Fortunate?’ Baldwin enquired casually. The callousness of the bannaret’s attitude shocked him, but he wanted to discover all he could from the man. ‘Ho, Aylmer! Leave that man alone.’

He watched smiling as the great dog padded gently away from Perkin, trotting to Baldwin’s side. Baldwin tickled his ears while they spoke.

Sir Peregrine eyed the dog warily. ‘At least as an excommunicate he wasn’t anyone to be mourned. And the felon dying with him was more or less a proof of God’s justice. Others deserve more grief, don’t you think?’

‘If he was a messenger, couldn’t he have carried a message from the King?’

‘I would doubt it, Sir Baldwin. The King has his own men – why should he use a renegade Templar?’

Baldwin gave a brittle smile. ‘I suppose not.’

‘But of course Despenser would have wanted to bring Lord de Courtenay to his camp if possible.’

‘You think so?’

Sir Peregrine shot him a look. ‘There’s no need to try to sound disinterested, Sir Baldwin. You and Bailiff Puttock here are friends of Walter Stapledon. He’s mentioned you both in my presence and a friend of the good bishop’s will know his views, won’t he?’

‘He rarely conceals them,’ admitted Baldwin.

‘ “Trenchant”, I have heard them described. I think he became disgusted with court politics earlier this year, and I can’t blame him, but that doesn’t mean he’s right now.’

‘You mean he is wrong to declare the banishment of the Despensers to be illegal?’ Baldwin wanted to know.

Sir Peregrine made a gesture of irritation. ‘Of course he is! The bastards had to go. Look at them! Greedy, vain, never satisfied, the pair of them. Always looking out for more advantage.’

‘Yet if they were wrongly exiled…?’

‘The pair are a danger to the realm. If they stayed in power, putting whoever they wanted into every official position, stealing any lands they fancied, throwing honest men into prison on their whim – aye, and poisoning the King’s ear with stories about other men – the country would soon have gone to war.’

‘They had to go, then?’

‘It was inevitable.’

‘And what now?’ Baldwin asked quietly.

‘We must ensure that the Despensers never return. That would be a disaster.’

‘I see.’

‘No, Sir Baldwin, I don’t think you do.’ Sir Peregrine halted. They were at the well and Sir Peregrine sat on the low wall that surrounded it, gazing up at Baldwin with the air of a teacher instructing a wayward pupil. ‘If Hugh Despenser, the young one, comes back to England, there will be war. It may be Lancaster who precipitates it, it may be the Marcher Lords, it may even be the King himself – I don’t know – but if the Despensers come back, there will inevitably be civil war.

‘If the Despensers win that war, the whole realm will become subject to Hugh and then no man will be safe. Can you imagine the country under his boot? He steals what he wants. Power is the only authority he understands. That is why we have to support the Marcher Lords and Earl Thomas of Lancaster.’

‘If the King himself supports the Despensers, my choice is made,’ Baldwin said steadily.

‘Sir Baldwin, I beg you to consider whether it is better that the King should be supported by a council of wise advisers, with decisions agreed by all for the fair government of the land, or that the King should be led by the nose by an avaricious devil like Despenser!’

Baldwin smiled. ‘Is it better that a man should forget his oaths of loyalty to his King or abide by them?’

‘In this case we should be upholding the King’s power and authority, protecting him from advisers who would destroy the peace of his realm. By defending him against the evil advice of the Despensers, we should–’

‘Yes, I understand the drift of your argument. I shall have to consider your words.’

‘And you, Bailiff – what would you do?’

‘Me?’ Simon asked with surprise. ‘I have no idea. After all, I am no knight.’

‘Ah, but you could be! There are fines for those who can afford to take up their knighthood and who do not. Perhaps you ought to be a knight.’

‘If I were a knight, I would obey the man to whom I owed allegiance,’ Simon said. ‘To do otherwise would be to earn the title “Traitor”.’

Sir Peregrine smiled thinly. ‘Is that what the Despensers have led us to already? A man who wishes to save the realm is now to be termed a traitor to his King?’

Baldwin met his gaze. ‘Someone who has given his oath to his King would certainly be a traitor if he went over to another man.’

Sir Peregrine appeared irritated by his coolness. ‘I hope you aren’t implying that I have broken my vow?’

‘Certainly not.’

Sir Peregrine’s face did not reflect satisfaction with Baldwin’s response. ‘Do you think I killed Sir Gilbert then? That was what you implied in the hall.’

‘I implied nothing, Sir Peregrine,’ Baldwin said soothingly. ‘I was speculating on what could have happened, nothing more.’

‘You can stop speculating about me at once!’ Sir Peregrine said, colouring. He realised straightaway that he had over-reacted but couldn’t stop himself. He had lost the sense of ease and calmness which lying with Felicity had given him and the knowledge that Emily was dead was a rasp across his sore nerves. He tapped his foot, avoiding Baldwin’s eye. ‘What’s that blasted dog doing?’

Aylmer had crossed to the door to the tack-room and now stood growling. Baldwin shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s hungry.’

‘Well, if it keeps up this row, it’ll get his fill – of steel,’ Sir Peregrine said impatiently, fingering his sword hilt. Then he turned on his heel and stormed off to the stairs that led to the gatehouse.

Baldwin slowly walked over to the hound. The animal seemed nervous, not angry. He put out his hand to pat Aylmer’s head. ‘What is troubling you, old friend?’ He opened the door and Aylmer walked in stiffly, full of menace, crossing the room to a door at the far end, which he sniffed at carefully. Then he went to Sir Gilbert’s pile of clothes.

‘Is that it? You wanted to be close to your master’s things?’ Baldwin laughed.

Aylmer sat and watched the two men.

Simon glanced at Baldwin. ‘I fear you’ve succeeded in antagonising Sir Peregrine.’

‘I think we have learned quite a deal. Especially from Lord Hugh.’

‘What did we learn from him?’

Baldwin smiled at his disbelieving tone. ‘Simon, a man like Lord Hugh is trained to conceal much, but he did confirm that he had been expecting a messenger. And he did not reject my reasoning that pointed to Sir Gilbert being a messenger from Despenser.’

‘You think that takes us further?’

‘I am convinced that there has been a crime, that a murderer is free, and that Sir Gilbert died for a reason which has something to do with politics. Yes, I think that takes us further.’

He laughed, walking from the room. Simon shook his head, but followed him, closing the door behind him.

Aylmer sat a while longer, frowning suspiciously at the door. When he was sure that all was quiet, he stood, circled round his dead master’s belongings two or three times, then lay down with his head on his paws as if to sleep, but at every noise from the yard his eyes snapped open.

Later, Jeanne and Baldwin were leaving the hall with Simon after their meal when Jeanne saw Edgar at the far side of the court. She thought little of it at the time; she was too full of good humour to consider why her husband’s man should wave at her. In any case, it was late, she was weary and her bed was calling to her. Baldwin and she had to share their room with another couple but the thought of resting on her mattress was enormously appealing. She thrust her arm through her husband’s and smiled up at him.

‘Tired, my love?’ he asked.

She yawned in answer. ‘The journey was not so tiring as I had expected, but it is exhausting to have to meet so many people whom I have never seen before.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Especially when some of them are dead.’

‘It would be nice to be able to accept what the Coroner said,’ Simon said.

‘Very nice,’ Baldwin said scathingly. ‘But how can one trust that fool’s judgement? A man who thinks a Templar could have his knife stolen and be stabbed with it!’

‘Couldn’t he, though?’ Jeanne wondered. Her attention was wandering. Edgar had caught her eye again and now he gestured urgently, his lips pursed with concern. ‘Husband, excuse me a moment. I must see what Edgar wants.’

She left them speculating on the reasons for Sir Gilbert’s death and crossed the yard.

‘My Lady, I am very sorry to have interrupted you, but I thought it better that you should help than that I should call for another.’

‘Why, what is it, Edgar?’

‘Petronilla.’

She followed him out to a little storeroom. Inside she could hear drunken sobbing. Glancing at Edgar, she saw him nod slowly.

‘Something happened to her today,’ he said.

Jeanne muttered a curse and entered. Edgar followed more slowly. He felt unqualified to assist with the girl. He had seen how the Coroner had molested her, and was sure that the last thing the girl needed was another man offering her sympathy.

The two women soon appeared, Petronilla weeping and leaning on her mistress’s arm. Jeanne had to ask. ‘Edgar – are you responsible for this?’

Edgar blinked in shock, but it was Petronilla who threw out a hand in extravagant denial. ‘Of course it wasn’t Edgar, my Lady. He saved me from him. Edgar’s my hero.’

Jeanne sighed at the slurred voice. ‘Well, your hero can help me take you to your room. I can’t get you there alone in this state.’

She was right. Edgar took one arm while Jeanne kept hold of the other, but even then it was hard to half-carry Petronilla back to the women’s rooms where she was supposed to be sleeping. In the end Jeanne stopped, breathless. ‘Edgar, if we get her to the room she’ll wake everyone else. Help me put her in the hayloft. She can sleep there the night. Then you go and tell Baldwin that I’ll stay with her most of the night, and see the child’s nurse. Stephen must stay with her tonight, not Petronilla.’

Soon they were hauling her up the small staircase to the low loft.

‘It’s love that matters,’ Petronilla declared as Edgar shoved her rump upwards.

Jeanne pulled her arms, snarling, ‘There’ll be little love around here if you aren’t silent, my girl.’

‘My little son loves me,’ Petronilla continued, throwing her hand out emphatically and nearly sending the three of them back down the ladder.

Snatching at her wrist Jeanne spoke through gritted teeth. ‘That’s fine because right now your mistress certainly doesn’t!’

‘He loves his mama. Not that Coroner, though, the filthy bastard!’

Edgar pushed but the girl was resisting. Glancing up he saw that Lady Jeanne was near the end of her tether; he made a quick decision. Stepping back, he allowed Petronilla to topple a little. As she gave a short squeak of alarm, he set his shoulder to her waist and caught her about the knees, climbing quickly up the ladder and depositing her giggling in a thick pile of hay. She rolled over and tried to stand. ‘Again! That was fun.’

Jeanne groaned as the girl made as if to throw herself down the ladder. Edgar grabbed her at the last moment and lowered her back onto the hay.

‘Lady, you should go to bed.’

‘She can’t be left a moment, can she?’

Edgar shook his head.

‘This was all the fault of that Coroner?’

Edgar explained how he had found them and Jeanne scowled angrily. ‘Molest my maid, would he?’

‘I think it would be best to leave the matter,’ Edgar said. ‘If you accused him, he could make life difficult. Better to let things lie. I shall see that Petronilla is safe from him.’

‘He’s my hero. Edgar must love me too!’ Petronilla gurgled happily from the straw.

On the morning of St Giles’s feast, it was a sad little group which attended the church for Sir Gilbert’s burial service. Father Abraham stood before them and began speaking in a quiet, low monotone.

‘Dirige Dominus meus in conspectu tuo viam…’

Baldwin found it was difficult to concentrate. He had decided to attend with Jeanne to represent the Order which he and Sir Gilbert had both served, and yet now he was here he hardly knew why.

He had known Sir Gilbert from the time when the other knight had been at the Temple in Paris. Baldwin had been there as well, and the two men had been on nodding acquaintance. Nothing more than that, but it meant that there was a certain confusion of emotions as he stood watching the priest before the large hearse, the metal frame sitting over the dead bodies with the dark, threadbare cloth of the parish pall hanging over and concealing the corpses beneath.

Standing there at the final ceremony of a man who had once been a comrade in arms, a companion warrior-monk in his Order, Baldwin felt a rush of grief that threatened to overwhelm him for a moment. It was as if the death of this man was symbolic of the end of the Order which they both had served; as if Baldwin himself was the sole survivor of their warrior caste. It made him feel exceptionally lonely.

The service ended before he was ready, his mind still whirling with despair. He wished he could have told Jeanne about his membership of the Templars and about his present desolate mood but it was difficult: although he trusted to her solid commonsense he had never discussed the Templars with her. Many people believed the Church’s malicious propaganda against the Order and Baldwin could not tell how she would respond to hearing that he himself had been one. In any case, one look at her this morning told him that after sitting up much of the night with an inebriated maidservant, his wife was in no mood to listen.

Jeanne and he walked out with the bearers and stood staring down at the hole in the ground. The plot was not far from the church but was not in the yard itself.

Baldwin and his wife waited as the coffinless body wrapped in its cheap winding-sheet was rested in the bottom of the grave. Hick, who today was the gravedigger, wandered over and gazed down speculatively, leaning on his shovel. The priest was still in the churchyard seeing to the similarly shrouded figure of a woman. Baldwin gathered from listening to others witnessing her interment that she had died in childbirth. A woman and many children stood by her hole, staring down into it as the priest tossed soil onto her face. A young girl holding the hand of an older sister burst into shattering sobs.

Meanwhile Father Abraham strode towards Baldwin and Jeanne, the family trailing after him as he walked to a patch of clear ground outside the yard but near the wall. There Baldwin saw a woman standing with a tiny corpse, and he guessed it was this child’s birth which had caused the woman’s death. The priest spoke for a short while, begging God’s forgiveness for the baby’s sins, pleading for the life which had scarcely existed, that God would take his soul up to Heaven.

Baldwin sourly thought to himself that the child could hardly be guilty of many sins.

‘Sad business, that,’ said Hick. He eyed the family weeping at the small graveside. ‘Shame children can’t be buried in the yard with their mothers.’

‘In most parishes the priests allow them to be,’ Jeanne said, and hearing the tightness in her tone, Baldwin smiled and put his hand through her arm.

‘That a fact?’ Hick said, and spat on the ground. ‘Not here. Our Father Abraham, he sticks to the rules, he does.’

Baldwin was hardly listening. He was staring down again at the figure of Sir Gilbert.

Seeing the direction of his attention, the rat-catcher motioned towards the body. ‘You knew him?’

‘Not really,’ Baldwin said. ‘But I helped to find his body and investigate his death. He was a stranger to the town, and I knew he wouldn’t be allowed a grave in the yard.’

‘No, course not. Can’t have strangers buried in a Christian yard. Poor old sod! And he seemed so cheerful.’

‘Yes, poor devil,’ Baldwin agreed absently and then started. ‘What do you mean, “he seemed cheerful”?’

But Hick had no time to answer; Father Abraham was with them. Baldwin swallowed his urgency and concentrated while the priest ran through what sounded like a very terse version of the funeral rite. Finishing, Father Abraham stood looking down a moment, before suddenly hissing: ‘Lie there in great opprobrium, excommunicate! Your heresy at least is finished.’

And before the astonished Baldwin could angrily demand what he meant, the priest had swept around and was marching back to his church.