The King of Thieves

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Louvre

Baldwin was relieved to be told that Richard of Bury had the Duke fettered that morning. Instead of the usual chase about the King’s parks hunting deer, or the apparently endless round of engagements and feasts in his honour, the Duke of Aquitaine was to be left with his tutor to learn more about the position of France in Christendom, and the politics of his new estates.

‘It is time he learned what his new responsibilities are,’ Bury had said, overruling the arguments of Sir Richard, Sir Henry de Beaumont and the Duke himself. Fixing Duke Edward with a steely eye, he continued, ‘Because Princes who do not study their realms with due diligence and care may find that they lose them!’

Baldwin would have smiled, but for the expression on the Duke’s face, which consisted of a mix of resentment and shock, from the idea that his hold on Guyenne and the other parts of his territory could be as precarious as his father’s had been.

‘Come. You had better teach me all you may, then,’ Duke Edward said at last. And as he walked from the room in Richard of Bury’s wake, Baldwin heard him add, ‘And mind you teach well, Master Bury, for if I lose my lands because of a failing on your part, I will have my payment from you directly!’

It made Baldwin grin to hear it. The Duke was far too young for such an awesome responsibility, but he did have the intelligence to keep himself from arrogance, and the humour to win friends.

‘What you grinnin’ about?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘Just reflecting on our Duke.’

Simon snorted and gazed quizzically at the door through which the Duke had left. ‘Was Bury serious when he said the Duke could lose the lot?’

‘His father did,’ Sir Richard pointed out.

‘But I think the young Duke is stronger in temperament,’ Baldwin said. ‘I can recall listening to tales of the King with his father, Edward the First. The two Edwards were often at loggerheads, I heard. And at one time, the old King grasped his son by the head and tried to pull his hair out, he was so frustrated. King Edward the First was a long-lived King. It must have been a sore trial to his son, our present King, to have waited so long in his father’s shadow.

‘Ha! So you think he may do the same to his own son in his turn?’ Sir Richard enquired.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Baldwin said thoughtfully. ‘I think our King was a more turbulent youth. He was forward and headstrong, while this Duke of ours is much more aware of his responsibilities than his father ever was. The latter sought only the trappings of power so that he might enjoy his leisure in whatever manner he wished. Our Duke seems much more thoughtful, and considerate of other people’s feelings and desires.’

Sir Richard grunted, but then his mood lightened. ‘Well, now, since we’re free for the morning, what do you two say to a walk to the kitchen to see if they’ve got a honeyed lark or two for us? I could happily eat a snack.’

Simon reflected warily that the way to the kitchen also took them past two very good wine shops and a tavern, but the idea of a slab of meat and a hunk of bread was most appealing. And a quart of ale to wash it down would be pleasant, too.

Baldwin was behind the other two when they reached the kitchen. He had enjoyed a dream of his wife the night before — just a fleeting gallery of little memories, a snap of her smile, the impression of her body, her hair in a breeze — and it had left him feeling vaguely melancholic and unsettled. Thus it was that when Sir Richard and Simon blundered their way into the kitchen, Baldwin himself waited outside.

There was a curious weeping noise coming from somewhere, he noted, and he wondered where.

Like all kitchens, this was built close to the main hall where any feasts would be held, but was a completely separate building in case of fire. All castles, all halls, had separate kitchens for this reason.

This was a large rectangular block, which was clearly quite old. Built of stone, it had a tiled roof against the risk of sparks erupting from the chimney and setting fire to a thatch. The weeping seemed to be coming from behind it, so Baldwin, frowning slightly, peered around the corner.

And there slumped on his backside, head bowed, was a boy who could not have been more than eight years old. He was dressed in old linen, with a blue stripe of some cheap dyestuff which had already begun to fade.

‘Are you well, boy?’ Baldwin asked.

With a squeak the lad sprang to his feet and backed away, farther into the gap between the kitchen and the castle wall.

‘Don’t worry, I am not here to harm you,’ Baldwin said soothingly.

‘I should bloody hope not!’ came a voice from behind him. It was the cook. The big man stood looking suspiciously at Baldwin, his hand close to his knife.

‘Master cook, there is nothing for you to fear,’ Baldwin told him. ‘I heard this knave weeping, and sought to help him.’

‘He’s fine.’

‘Is he?’ In some circumstances, Baldwin might have thought that the cook had been bullying the boy, but now, seeing how the knave ran to the man and hid behind him, gripping his shirt tightly, and how the cook himself ruffled his hair fondly, he grinned. ‘That lad looks as though he’ll be a sore trial before he’s a grown man.’

‘He already is,’ the cook admitted. He looked down and jerked his head. ‘Go on, Raff! Get back inside. I’ve been hunting for you.’ He sighed with exasperation when the lad had disappeared. ‘I am sorry, sir, I thought you might be …’

‘Yes?’ Baldwin enquired. And then he flushed a little as he realised. ‘You thought I could have been seeking to hurt that boy?’

‘Well, we have had a lad from the kitchen taken and murdered,’ the cook said bleakly. ‘I wish I could learn who did that. Whoever it was has no soul and no humanity. That bastard took a little boy with the sweetest nature in this city, and slaughtered him like a pig.’

Baldwin unbent a little. ‘I saw the body. I was here when the Procureur was taking the child from your chest. I had forgotten, may God forgive me. There has been so much happening, with the Procureur being killed as well. So, tell me, the murderer was never found?’

‘No. Little Jehanin died without justice. Now he’s in his grave, and no one will bother to learn who did that to him. Who cares about a fellow like him when he’s not the son of a baron?’ His voice thickened, and he looked away.

‘Friend cook, I am truly sorry. Perhaps it was merely an accident, as I first said?’

‘His throat was stopped by a cord, you remember? How could that be an accident?’ the cook sneered.

‘I have known such accidents. In my own lands I investigate deaths and try to make sense of them,’ Baldwin said. ‘Was the cord a type that you use in the kitchen?’

‘No. I have several cords which I use to bind carcasses — small for poultry, larger ones for venison and the bigger animals. There are ropes too. But this was none of them.’

‘You are sure?’

The cook looked at him. ‘The cords in the kitchen are all good quality, fine linens and the like. That which killed the boy was a rough one, made out of hemp or flax, I think. It was unlike anything I have in my kitchen, I can swear. And what sort of accident would lead to a boy being throttled like that?’

‘At home, I found a miller’s boy who’d been playing with a rope, and it became snagged on the hoist without his realising. When his father used the hoist, it lifted the boy as well, and there was nothing the father could do. A terrible accident. Then I saw a boy who was playing at swinging on a tree’s bough with some string. Not high, he had to bend down to the rope, but he slipped, and his neck fell on to the rope, and he swung about, the rope tightening, and as he panicked, the rope choked his life away.’

‘Jehanin was not playing on a tree, though. And there is no hoist in my kitchen.’

‘I merely demonstrate that accidents can happen. Was he unpopular?’

‘No, he was a lovely lad. All liked him.’

‘I know you did, for I saw your distress at his death. But could one or two others among the staff have been jealous of your affection?’

‘No. He was not a favourite, if that’s what you mean. I merely liked him. But I like all my charges. I would be a poor master to them if I hated them all,’ the cook said with asperity.

‘You speak truly,’ Baldwin agreed. Then, ‘So could this have been someone who had a reason to detest you, and sought an easy means of upsetting you through the boy? I have known weakly men try to do just that.’ Into his mind there sprang a picture of Sir Hugh le Despenser. It made Baldwin wonder whether he had taken Simon’s house in order to get back at Baldwin.

‘I am only a cook! Who would hate me? All I do is make people’s lives more pleasant by cooking for them. I could not have offended anybody like that.’

‘Is it possible that you might have had something valuable in your kitchen? Perhaps someone tried to steal something and was seen by the boy, so he killed the witness?’

‘The only items of value in my kitchen are my meat and spices, and I’d swear that nothing’s been stolen.’

‘And you are convinced that Jean could find no reason for the lad’s death? The Procureur was a most competent-looking man.’

‘He gave no reason. I think it was that very day that he died, though. Perhaps he would have learned more, had he not been murdered.’

Louvre

Cardinal Thomas d’Anjou left his little chapel and returned to his own room. A clerk followed after him, and, knowing his habits, brought a small tray on which were a bowl and a goblet. D’Anjou washed his hands, dried them on the towel which the thoughtful clerk had provided, and then took the goblet.

It was one of his favourite pieces, this. A delightful cup of pewter on a solid stand, and with gilt to highlight the scene engraved around it. Faultlessly executed, it depicted the story of St Francis, from his early years rejecting his inheritance from his cloth-merchant father, to his preaching to the birds and his taming of the wolf of Gubbio, and the appearance of the stigmata.

Sitting now, he sipped from the goblet and considered that life. That a man could be so devoted to God that he might throw aside all his father’s great wealth, was astonishing in such a backward age. It was two hundred years ago that St Francis had been born, while his parents were abroad in France, which was why he was named for the land. And he had heard a voice while he was in a shrine telling him to rebuild a church, so he had gone and sold some of his father’s cloth to pay for the rebuilding. And that, naturally enough, led to his father’s rage, and soon afterwards the two separated. Francis went so far as to throw off even the clothes which his father’s money had bought for him, and he had to rely on the charity of the Bishop just to clothe himself.

He was clearly a deeply religious man. In the Cardinal’s view, he was almost certainly insufferable, too. He had met some ascetic, religious types in his time, and often they were the most difficult and truculent of all. There was no negotiating with them. Which was why the Pope generally preferred the slightly more worldly when it came to diplomacy. They were easier to deal with.

The Cardinal sipped again, and was about to settle back to consider some messages recently arrived from the Pope, when there was a respectful knock at his door.

‘Yes?’

‘Cardinal, the Bishop Walter would like to speak with you.’

Thomas d’Anjou pursed his lips. Then he nodded silently and finished his wine. There would be time later to read the letters.

‘Bishop,’ he said as Walter Stapledon arrived.

‘Cardinal.’

The Bishop was feeling ever more anxious. The impression that men were looking at him askance was increasing, and had grown now to include almost all those in the English delegation, bar Baldwin, Sir Richard and Simon Puttock.

‘Cardinal Thomas, I am very sorry to trouble you again.’

‘What is it, Bishop? I am a little busy this evening.’

‘I am deeply concerned. The Queen has not responded positively to my discussion with her.’

‘Ah. But your difficulty with the accusation of being involved in the murder of that man — the Procureur — that has gone?’

‘Yes, I think I am no longer considered guilty of that, I thank God. Yet still, I do have the duty to act as guardian to the Duke while he is here, and then to take the Queen home. Yet she will not allow any discussion of such a-’

‘Then you must hold yourself in preparation against the day that she agrees at last.’

‘You have seen how she habitually wears a widow’s weeds? How easy do you think it would be to persuade her to come back to England when she refuses even to make the effort to show that she is willing to tolerate the Despenser?’

‘From all I have heard, your Despenser does not make it easy for her to return. And not he alone,’ the Cardinal said pointedly.

‘Sir Hugh acts in the best interests of the realm as he sees it.’

The Cardinal eyed him steadily. ‘Let us dispense with polite forms, Bishop. The Despenser sees only his own interests and his own benefits. He does nothing for the good of the realm. That is clear enough even here in France. I would myself not command a dog to return to his power. And you want the Queen Isabella to submit to him? I find your demands upon her astonishing.’

‘I only submit the desires of her husband, my King,’ Stapledon said tersely.

‘Only him? Not the wishes of his great friend Despenser? And how convincing do you think that will sound to her?’

‘Cardinal, this is a matter of a husband and wife. A man and woman bound by holy-’

‘Matrimony, yes. I know. And it is also true, is it not, that your Sir Hugh le Despenser has already attempted to have the Pope annul the marriage? Sir Hugh, not the Queen’s husband. Sir Hugh sent his emissary to the Pope, did he not?’

Stapledon gaped in shock. ‘But … he could not! There could be no justification for such an act.’

‘Absolutely right. There is no justification. And yet it happened. Curious, no? So, you see, Bishop, I will not aid you to have the Queen sent back to the land where her position and person are held in such low esteem. I would deem that an act of deplorable cruelty.’

‘I … I shall have to consider matters further.’

‘Do so. I would suggest that you make your peace with her, Bishop, for she is a calm, sensible lady. All she requires, I believe, is the money the King promised her for her upkeep while she was here in France looking after her son. Their son. And you hold the purse. You can release the money.’

‘The King ordered me to hold on to it until she agreed to return to England,’ Bishop Walter said wretchedly.

‘Then I fear you are gripped on the horns of a dilemma. I do not envy your position.’

‘There is no choice. I am a servant of my King,’ the Bishop said firmly. ‘I will obey my King’s commands. I would prefer to make peace with the Queen, but if I may not, I may not.’

‘Then go in peace, Bishop. I will pray for you.’

The Bishop nodded, but then his attention was drawn to the goblet. ‘What a marvellous piece of workmanship. May I look at it?’

‘Yes. It is one of a kind, I think. You like such trinkets?’

‘I have seen its like only once before,’ the Bishop said absently.

‘Where was that?’

‘I used to be the chaplain to Pope Clement V. He had a pair like this. I remember them clearly.’

‘Made by the same man, I have no doubt,’ the Cardinal said shortly. He took his goblet back, weighing it in his hand with pleasure. ‘I have had this for these twenty years past. Those which you saw are probably the ones which I myself gave to him. Clement was always a shrewd and kindly man to those who respected him.’

‘Yes,’ the Bishop said. But he could recall the terror of the destruction of the Templars, wrought largely at the instigation of Clement. That was still a matter of shame, he thought.

The Bishop had a short walk to his chamber, and he marched quickly with a couple of boys holding lanterns. Ever since the murder of Walter de Lechelade in Exeter Cathedral Close some forty-five years before by the Dean’s men, the Bishops of Exeter had been made aware of the dangers of walking about at night in the dark without aid.

He paid little attention to the way, for he was still smarting at the Cardinal’s attitude. It was remarkable to him that a fellow striver in the service of God should be so unhelpful. If he himself had been asked to assist a man like the Cardinal, he would have done all he could to support him. To be thus ejected, almost as though he was some form of beggar at the door, was humiliating in the extreme. He was a Bishop, in God’s name, not some humble penitent who deserved a flea in his ear.

The door to the passage that led to his rooms was just here. He thanked the boys, gave them a few coins for their trouble, and entered.

He felt exhausted. Travelling here to France had unnerved him in the first place, because he knew how unpopular he had become. But to arrive here and have that harridan the Queen rail at him before everyone in the French court, that had brought home to him how fragile his position was. If possible, it had been made even more so by the effect of the French official’s death. To have people accuse him, to actually believe that he was capable of such a vile attack — that was repellent! And meanwhile he still had little idea how on earth he could make his way homewards, for he dare not return to the King without Queen Isabella, or at the very least, some kind of promise from her that she would soon follow him.

The passage was lit by occasional candles, set widely apart. He walked along, careful to avoid stepping too close to them. It would not be the first time a man had accidentally brushed against a candle and either scorched a great hole in an expensive robe, or even had a smudge of molten tallow stain his sleeves.

Her behaviour was intolerable, he told himself. How the woman could think that she …

He was at a narrower part of the corridor when a hand reached about his throat, yanking him off his feet and drawing his body over a large chest. The man had been hiding in the shadows beyond the chest, and by pushing the Bishop over it, Stapledon could not defend himself in any way whatever. His legs were taken away by the chest’s lid, and his head fell back to crash against the wall behind, giving him a sickening sensation.

‘Bishop Walter, I am so glad to see you,’ a voice hissed.

The Bishop looked up, but it might have been a demon who gripped him for all he could see. All he was aware of was a blackness, as of the cowl of a hood with nothing inside. It was a terrifying sight. He grabbed for his crucifix, preparing to jab it upwards, when suddenly he felt a prick at his throat. A knife!

Strangely enough, this made him less fearful. He was petrified at the thought of a devil, or any minion of hell, but a man was a different matter. Now, he could see the glitter of reflected candlelight in his attacker’s eyes. They looked familiar — but from where?

‘Release me, churl,’ Bishop Walter said.

‘Silence! Call me churl? You’ll be buried here in a pauper’s grave if you are not careful, Bishop. The Queen just wants her money, but there are plenty of others here in Paris who would like nothing better than to skin you alive and feed your body to the crows. You have dispossessed so many, robbed so many — you have enemies everywhere.’

‘It is a lie!’

The dagger pressed upwards a little. ‘You dare to contradict me? Before God, you craven, quaking thing! You will die here unless you unbend. Perhaps it is too late already. You should fly from France. Remain here, and you will soon be dead.’

Bishop Walter felt the hand gripping his throat thrust forward, and it was only by flinging his arms wide and latching his fingers on to the lid of the chest that he stopped himself from falling. Sitting up shakily, he kissed his crucifix as he gazed first one way, then the other. The corridor appeared empty.

It was some moments before he could stand. His legs were unharmed, but he was uncertain whether they might support his weight or not. When he put his hand on the chest lid, his arms began shaking and he sat there, looking down, nausea washing over him, until a servant hurried past, checking the candles.

‘Are you all right, Bishop?’ he asked.

‘I am perfectly well, I thank you,’ Bishop Walter said.

The boy tutted to himself. ‘Someone’s snuffed all these candles. They will keep doing that. I’ll soon have them ready again.’

With a spill, he brought a flame from another set of candles further along the corridor, and relit those in the candelabra nearest the chest. ‘Are you sure you are all right, Bishop?’

‘Yes. I am fine,’ Bishop Walter said, and now his voice was fully under control. ‘You came from that direction?’ he asked, pointing back towards the Cardinal’s rooms.

‘Yes, my Lord.’

‘Tell me — did you pass a man as you came this way? A tall man, strong, with a hood over his head?’

The boy considered. ‘There’s no one about at this time of day,’ he said after a moment. ‘Was there someone you wanted to see?’

‘No. That is well, I thank you,’ Bishop Walter said. If the man had not gone that way, he must be along this corridor — but if he was, there was only the Bishop’s own chamber at the end. The man must have gone the other way, surely.

His voice … it had sounded more English than French, he realised suddenly. Conversing had been easy. And the voice had been oddly familiar.

He stood, gripping his crucifix again, and made his way to his rooms.

And then his legs began to shiver and wobble as though they could no longer support him. He had never before felt so fearful. Someone had been here, in this corridor, an Englishman, someone who had cause to detest him, and someone who had been able to fly away like a wisp of smoke, and just as silently. He might have been a ghost, were it not for the sore bruising the Bishop felt at his neck.

Bishop Walter stood at his door, and then shot a glance behind him, almost scared of what be might there. He half-expected to see that looming shape again.