The King of Thieves

Chapter Five

Louvre, Paris

The Procureur stood in the chamber again where the man had been killed.

‘What was he doing in here? Why was he not taken to the Cardinal’s chamber?’

The servant shrugged. ‘If the man was unknown to the Cardinal, why should our master wish to see him?’

‘Philippe, you have a point. But why bring him up here?’ the Procureur repeated. There was no reason for it. This room was not even on the same floor as the Cardinal’s chamber.

‘What is this room usually used for?’ he asked suddenly.

‘It was used by a clerk, but he died last year, and it has remained empty ever since, I think. Why?’

‘It intrigues me.’

Jean cast an eye all over the place from his vantage point near the door, and then he moved inside, inspecting the plain walls, the simple roof. There was nothing out of the ordinary or hidden here, he quickly decided.

Perhaps there was something about the location of the chamber, then, that was significant. Jean went outside again and looked up and down the quiet corridor.

‘Philippe — how well do you know this area?’

‘I have hardly ever come up here. It’s not a part of the castle I have been asked to go to.’

‘I see,’ Jean said, and swore to himself. It was a problem, clearly, that this part of the castle was so quiet. It had made it harder to find a witness to the arrival of the man. It would also serve to make it difficult to …

‘I am the king of fools!’ he said suddenly.

Saturday before the Feast of Mary Magdalen^*

Lydford, Devon

In his own property, Simon Puttock, lately Bailiff to the Stannaries of Dartmoor, and more recently the representative of the Keeper of the Port of Dartmouth, until the Keeper’s death, breathed in deeply as he drained his first quart of ale that morning, sitting on his chair in front of the fire, feeling the warmth seeping into his body.

The previous evening had been unseasonally cool, and he was happy to be here — all the more so because when he went out for an early morning ride, a brief shower of rain had left him sodden and uncomfortable. He was painfully aware that he smelled like a drowned ewe, and was keen to have his clothes dried. Worse, earlier in the year a bully called William atte Wattere, working for Sir Hugh le Despenser, had assaulted him, cutting him about the left shoulder and hand. Both wounds still stung, although they seemed to be mending. However, as he looked about him in his hall, he had to reflect that he had known worse mornings.

His wife squatted near him, adding wood to the faggots on the fire. Her rounded figure was straining against the material of her simple tunic, her fair hair already straying from her wimple.

‘You know, Meg, life is good,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘All I need now is a good woman to sit on my lap, and …’

He lunged, but Margaret had already squeaked and darted out of arm’s reach. ‘You have work to get on with,’ she objected.

‘No. I am without work.’

‘Until you know who has won at the Abbey, you have little to do for the monks, you mean. There is plenty to be getting on with here, and as soon as they make up their minds …’

‘They already have,’ Simon growled. ‘That is the trouble. Robert Busse has decided that he has won the abbacy, and John de Courtenay has too. It makes it all a little difficult to see who will actually take the throne. Meanwhile, the abbey’s funds are all taken by the King while they battle it out. The pair of them must be mad.’

‘That’s not fair. You know full well that the one who is causing the trouble is John de Courtenay. Robert Busse won the abbacy in a fair election. It’s just that John de Courtenay won’t accept that he lost.’

‘Perhaps, but neither is doing the abbey any good. And meanwhile, here I am, wasting away as the time passes,’ he said mournfully. ‘So come and squirm on my lap, woman!’

‘No!’

He had just attempted an experimental swoop when they were both stilled by the sound of hoofbeats. ‘Oh, Christ’s cods,’ Simon muttered. ‘Does this mean there’s been a decision about the abbacy?’

‘It doesn’t look like an abbey’s messenger,’ Meg said, patting her straying fair hair back under her wimple.

Getting up and walking over to her, Simon admired his woman again. She was five years younger than him, and apart from the natural ravages of time at her face, it was hard to see that she was already some four and thirty years old. Even the three birthings, and the miscarriages between, had not dulled her spirit, nor the shine of her hair, and for the rest he found her body more comfortable now than he did before. He slipped his arms about her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder as he peered through the slats of the unglazed window. ‘The fellow is looking about like a lost man,’ he commented.

‘No, now he has seen us here.’

It was true enough. The man had asked a passerby for directions and now he had kicked his scraggy old mare into an amble and was riding towards them.

From the look of him, he was a lowly lawyer’s clerk. Simon had seen enough of that sort when he was a Bailiff, listening to cases in the gaol at Lydford. All kinds of pleaders would turn up there, trying to make a living from the miserable felons who mouldered in the dank prison underground. This shabby-looking man reminded Simon of those who would loiter down in the cells, hoping to find someone who would accept them. Few prisoners, however, were that desperate.

‘You lost, friend?’ Simon called as he went out from his door.

‘I was hoping to find a man called Puttock — Simon the Bailiff.’

‘You’ve found him.’

‘I have a message from Master William atte Wattere,’ the man said, holding up a small parchment, sealed with red wax.

Simon clenched his teeth and would have left the man sitting on his horse there, but Margaret was at his side, and he could tell by the way her grip stiffened on his arm that she was terrified. He had to show he was not alarmed, and he stepped forward to take the proffered message.

‘You want to reply?’ the messenger asked.

‘No,’ Simon said. He did not open the message, but stood silently, waiting. The man shrugged and pulled his horse’s head round, departing at a gentle trot.

‘Simon!’ Margaret hissed. ‘What does that man want with us now?’

He bent and kissed her, but there was no passion now; this was a means of steeling himself, he reflected, as he drew Margaret back into their hall.

‘Well?’ she demanded as he peered at the tiny characters. Simon had been taught to read by the canons at Crediton when he was a lad, but this script was very hard to decipher. It was not the simple Latin of the Church, nor the flowing French of the courts, but a mingling of the two. Knowing Wattere, Simon suspected he had tried to make his note sound more legalistic by the use of florid expressions. It didn’t work — but the basic message was clear enough.

‘Meg, it’s not good news,’ he said slowly, as his world fell about his ears.

Wednesday following the Feast of Mary Magdalen^*

Furnshill, Devon

Baldwin had been relieved to be able to wave the Bishop away. The latter’s manner, his paleness and anxiety, had all been so entirely unlike him that Baldwin was worried that the nation was truly beginning to suffer from the collapse of the King’s Peace, as he had feared.

When he saw his old friend Simon riding up the grass track to his house, he was relieved to see a friendly face, but his joy was to be short-lived.

‘What is it, old friend? Your wife? Margaret is well? And …’

‘I think, Baldwin, you may find that you have me living near you again,’ Simon said with a taut smile, reaching into his breast and pulling out a sweat-dampened letter. ‘Read it for yourself.’

Baldwin led the way into the hall, reading as he went, and once there, he bawled for Wat to serve them with wine, before dropping into his chair with a grunt. ‘And is this correct?’

‘I have been to Exeter to find out. I was there all day yesterday, but yes, it seems so. I had bought my house on a lease, and it is renewable every seven years. I had no idea I had missed the last payment. It was due while we were in France, and I forgot about it. If you remember, it was only a short while after we moved to Lydford that our son died, and there were many things that slipped my mind …’

‘This says that Despenser has bought the house. How did he do so?’

‘It was owned by old Harold Uppacott. He died a few months ago, and his son was offered a better sum for it than he would have expected. I don’t blame him. But Christ’s ballocks, I do blame Despenser. It’s just the same as before.’

‘I am astonished that Wattere dares to do this, though,’ Baldwin grated. His anger was increasing, the more he thought about it.

It was only two or three months ago that Wattere had become known to them. Early in May, when Simon and Baldwin returned to their homes after guarding the Queen during her journey to Paris, Simon had learned that William Wattere, a servant to Sir Hugh le Despenser, had threatened to steal his house from him. It was no empty threat from a brigand, either. Despenser had become accustomed to taking what he wished, and with his position as the King’s favourite, there was no means of controlling his intolerable greed. Simon had almost given up his home, but he and Baldwin had managed to have Wattere arrested. Afterwards, they had come to an accommodation with Despenser — or so they had thought.

‘What does Despenser wish to do?’ Simon said.

Baldwin waved the letter thoughtfully. ‘He does not say that you are to be evicted, Simon. Rather, it merely tells you that the house has been sold beneath you. Of course, now you could be thrown out whenever he desired to do so.’

‘And you can imagine how that makes Meg feel,’ Simon said.

Baldwin nodded. ‘What do you want to do about it?’

It was the question Simon had been asking himself all the way here from Exeter. Now he looked away from his old friend and stared out through the great unglazed but barred window. ‘I can only think I should remain there for now, and wait and see what happens. There is no point in the disruption of clearing out.’

‘You can always return to your farm near Sandford,’ Baldwin said.

‘Aye,’ Simon agreed. ‘And if Despenser decides he wants that too, he’ll not even go to the bother of buying it. He’ll just kill me and throw Meg and Peter out.’