Dispensation of Death

Chapter Twelve

Thorney Island

On Friday morning, after very little sleep, Sir Hugh le Despenser was sitting in the Exchequer, when he saw from the window the new group arrive. Despite his fatigue, he was already leaving the room before they had dismounted, beckoning a guard. ‘You! Come with me.’

This was becoming one of the worst days he could remember. There were those other bad days he had suffered, like the one when he and his father were banished and condemned to exile, or the one when he had been told that he was to lose the Gower. But both times he had prevailed. Other, seemingly more powerful barons had been arrayed against him, but he had beaten them all in the end. This time he would succeed again, he told himself.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded as he approached the newcomers, his hand on his sword.

Apart from the three men-at-arms who were in the lead, the first man there was a tall fellow in a faded red tunic with an old stained and frayed cloak. He had a hood, but it was thrust back behind his head, and his greying hair and beard were neatly trimmed. He had a scar at the side of his face that spoke of a martial past, but any man reaching his age would have a number of scars. It was a part of life as a knight.

‘I am called Sir Baldwin de Furnshill. This is my Lord Bishop, Walter of Exeter.’

‘My Lord Bishop, I apologise, I didn’t see you there,’ Hugh said immediately. The Lord High Treasurer was not a man to insult — not just now.

Stapledon gave him a cool enough greeting, and held out his ring to be kissed, before commanding the others to see to their mounts while he spoke with Sir Hugh. He then set off side-by-side with Despenser to the Great Hall.

‘I am concerned that our policy is not being adequately communicated to others,’ the Bishop murmured.

Sir Hugh shot him a look. ‘That is hardly my province, my Lord Bishop. Our arrangement was, you would convince the Bishops and I would convince the Lords. I have upheld my side of the bargain.’

‘I have difficulties with some of them. Martival has rejected our ideas out of hand. We know that Orleton will do anything to thwart you, and now we have others against us too. I am dubious about Bath and Wells.’

‘You will have to find a means of convincing them, then. I have enough to do without ordering the obedience of the Church.’

Stapledon nodded. They had reached the Great Hall now and entered, staring up the length of the chamber at the throne with the rock beneath it, the Stone of Scone which the King’s father, Edward I, had captured from the Scots. There were two guards in the hall although the place was empty but for them. ‘There are more guards than usual.’

‘Yes. Someone entered the grounds last night and slew a lady-in-waiting.’

Stapledon frowned. ‘What! A man from outside, you mean?’

It was sometimes hard to realise that this fellow had one of the sharpest financial minds in all Christendom. Despenser nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘An assassin?’ Stapledon’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Was it you?’

‘Why would I murder a lady-in-waiting? It would serve me no benefit, would it?’

The logic of that was inescapable, and the Bishop knew it. ‘But why should a man kill a lady-in-waiting? Who was it? Are you sure that the assassin was aiming his knife at her, and didn’t simply strike down the wrong woman?’

‘Anyone would recognise the Queen, and if he killed the wrong lady, it would have been easy to shove the other women aside and kill the Queen herself.’

Stapledon eyed him doubtfully, but then nodded his head in agreement. ‘You’re right. There could be no reason to kill a maid. Which one was it?’

‘Mabilla Aubyn. You remember her? She was the daughter of Sir Richard.’

Stapledon nodded pensively, but he gazed at Sir Hugh with a frown. It was clear enough what he was thinking.

‘Look, my Lord Bishop, she was worth nothing. She has no lands or wealth. I had no reason to seek to harm her.’

‘Very well. I take your word for it,’ the Bishop said. ‘What actions have been taken to seek the assassin?’

‘We’ve searched the whole place, but it seems whoever it was managed to break in, and then escaped as well.’

‘How did he get in?’

‘We’re still trying to find out. The wall has not been breached so far as we can tell. It’s possible that they may have got in from the river, but unlikely, I’d have thought. There were no boats seen.’

‘Let me know if you come to any conclusions.’

‘I will. And in the meantime — those two men with you. One called himself Sir Baldwin de Furnshill. Is he from Devon?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘I believe I have heard his name before.’

The news of the attack on the Queen’s little party was swiftly spread all over the palace, and nowhere was the news bruited about so speedily as in the New Hall Yard, where all the guests mingled in the taverns and alehouses.

Piers de Wrotham, Earl Edmund’s spy, was sitting on an old barrel in a tavern when he himself heard the rumour of an attempt to kill the Queen. Finishing his horn of ale, he set it down with a coin, and made his way towards the Exchequer, slowly absorbing the full horror of his position.

He knew that Sir Hugh le Despenser was behind the murder. It never occurred to him that another could have been responsible. No — Sir Hugh detested the Queen, always had, and he must have been looking for a means of removing her for some little while.

It had seemed odd at the time, when Sir Hugh told Piers to persuade Earl Edmund to extol the virtues of the Queen as negotiator over the stolen territories. At the time, Piers was convinced that the man was playing a different game of his own, because it made no sense for the Queen to visit her brother, King Charles IV of France. Once there, she must be safe from Despenser. But at least she would be out of his hair — and perhaps that was all he was thinking of. If so, then he had gambled badly on this throw: a successful attack upon the Queen was one thing, but a botched effort like this, which only served to kill a maid — that was a disaster. The French King would go mad — immediately demand satisfaction. Only the head of Despenser would suffice.

The woman who had died — Mabilla — was the lady who had given the come-on to Earl Edmund, then rejected him when he got too keen. Yes, and all knew that he had been furious, threatening to rape her when she had done that to him. Perhaps many would see this as a foul act on his part, killing the woman who had spurned him? And all his advice in the last few months would be assessed against this new revelation about him.

His reputation would be destroyed. Aha, Piers thought, and a slow smile spread over his face. Perhaps that was what it was all about.

Simon and Baldwin were directed to a small stable set against the northern wall of the court, and there with the three men-at-arms, they unloaded their belongings so that the horses could be properly rested. Rob was left with the horses to groom them — much against his will — and Simon and Baldwin parted from the others there.

‘So that — that’s the Great Hall?’ Simon asked, awed.

‘Well, it’s not the smaller one,’ Baldwin said drily.

‘Is there one?’

‘Down the far side of this one. The King uses that more often, I imagine. This one is just too immense for comfort.’

‘Especially at this time of year,’ Simon agreed. Both had spent enough time in large halls in Exeter and beyond during the winter to know how long it could take for a fire to heat a chamber of any size.

‘Come — let us seek some warmed ale,’ Baldwin muttered. It was cold, and talking about it only served to remind them just how icy the air was.

They made their way to the inn beside the gatehouse and entered. There was a bar set over two barrels at the far end, and they repaired to this, ordering ales, and then taking their seats on low stools near a little fire that threw out a lot of smoke and not much warmth.

‘I wonder when the Bishop will be finished,’ Simon said.

‘Soon, I dare say. He doesn’t enjoy long journeys, and he’ll be keen to eat and find a bed.’

‘There are a lot of guards here. Do you think that the King always has this number of men about him?’

Baldwin was tempted to say that any tyrant must rely on a large contingent of guards to see to his defence, but forbore. ‘This is a large palace, and I suppose he has all the Crown’s jewels with him. It’s only natural that he should feel the need for protection.’

A grizzled old veteran of many winters in the King’s service had overheard their conversation, and now he leaned forward. To Baldwin’s mind his round, flushed features spoke of a better than nodding acquaintance with the ales served here.

‘Hadn’t you heard?’ he asked. ‘There was a murder here yesternight. A poor maid was struck down.’

‘A lover?’ Baldwin asked. It was the usual first question. He always found that in murders, especially the murders of younger folk, the killer almost invariably proved to be someone closely related. A man killed his wife, a lad his girl — sometimes it was the woman killing her spouse. More rarely it was a brother killing a sister because she had brought shame on the family.

‘Don’t know. The fellow ran off as soon as she was dead.’

‘There were witnesses?’ Simon asked.

‘Four or five of them. It was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and the Queen was there with the others when it happened.’

‘Did the man show any evil intent towards our Queen?’ Baldwin demanded quickly. Coming straight after the news that the King might seek to annul his marriage, it appeared to be the logical conclusion.

‘No, not that I heard. He just jumped out and stabbed Mabilla, and then fled the scene.’ The fellow clearly had nothing more to tell, other than vague allegations and suppositions.

‘What do you think of that then, Simon?’ Baldwin asked.

Simon belched, leaned back against the wall and spread his legs luxuriously. ‘Me? I think I’m as pleased as a hog in shit that for once, this is nothing to do with us. We can stand back and watch some other poor bastard get on with the work of finding out who was responsible. It’s none of our concern. And in the meantime, let’s have another ale, eh?’

There was one man who was concerned about the death of the maid though, and he was in the Queen’s chapel with Mabilla’s corpse.

‘Oh, Mabilla! How could you have come to this? Mabilla, my sister, I miss you! I shall avenge you, I swear it, on the Gospels!’

And with that Ellis Brooke, Sir Hugh’s most trusted henchman, stood, wiped his face, and made his way from the room.

Despenser left Bishop Stapledon and headed back to the Exchequer through the Green Yard. At least here it was peaceful. This little sanctuary was shielded from the madness and busyness of the main court north of the Great Hall. It might not be as restful as the Queen’s cloister, but it was damn near as quiet.

Sir Hugh stopped for a moment. Indecision assailed him, and he stood for quite some little while, simply staring at the Exchequer buildings while a great lassitude washed over him. Never before had he felt so enfeebled. All his life, he had been driven by his passions. He could still remember when he had been a young man, saying to a friend, ‘I desire nothing so much as money. One day I will have plenty of it. I will be rich.’

Well, that prophecy had come true. Yet for every new pound or mark which he accumulated, he grew ever more aware of the risks of his method of acquiring it and the likelihood that he would lose all.

Once he had. When those bastards the Lords Marcher decided to clip his wings, they did so by taking his castles and laying waste all his manors. It was a typical chevauchée, a fast ride over all his property, stealing or burning everything. The bastards first wrecked him and then saw him condemned to exile. Well, never again. No mother-swyving churl would ever be able to take away what he had built up, and he didn’t give a damn who knew it.

But something was going wrong here for him. Jack should never have attacked Mabilla, and if he did, why should it have stopped him from carrying on and killing the Queen? Although, thank God he hadn’t. Jack had been in tougher situations before, and being thwarted by a clutch of women would not normally have prevented him from finishing the job.

Someone else must have killed Mabilla. But who, in God’s name? Perhaps the story he had spun before the Queen, of Earl Edmund getting his revenge, had not been so wide of the mark, after all …

The thought gave him a new spirit of resolution, and he straightened his back just as a familiar face came the other way.

‘Sir Hugh.’

‘My Lord Kent. How very pleasant,’ Despenser said with a brief baring of his teeth that could have been a smile or a snarl. ‘I was just thinking of you.’