The Prophecy of Death

Chapter Eighteen

Vigil of the Feast of the Apostles²⁰

Near Lydford

It took Simon an extra day to cover the distance to his own home, and it was the excitement at seeing his wife again that caused him to rise before the dawn on that Wednesday and set off on the last few miles of his journey after spending the night on the moors.

He had stopped at the little inn that nestled on the southern side of the road from Mortonhampstead, perhaps one third of the way over the moors. From here he could turn up, past the little dwarf trees at Wistman’s Wood, and head westwards, towards his home. It was a route he had taken often enough, and it would give him a clear view on how the moors were. After his travels to London and thence to France, it felt like an age since he had last been here, on the moors where he had been happiest. There was nowhere better for a man to live, he reckoned.

All appeared normal. There were occasional plumes of smoke from the tin works, where the miners tried to smelt their ore into black ingots of semi-pure metal, and the constant sound of water from leats, hammering, and the slow, rumbling of mill-wheels. On the early morning air, all these sounds carried so clearly, the workings might have been right at his side, rather than perhaps a mile distant. Not that he cared. The main thing was, that the moors were being farmed, so there was still work for him, provided he had a job.

Some months past, he had been given a new post as Keeper of the Port of Dartmouth, a great honour and promotion which his master, the Abbot of Tavistock, had given him as reward for his service over the past years. The sad truth was, however, that he didn’t want it, and neither did his wife. Meg would have been happy to remain as the wife of a bailiff on the moors. She had no desire for more money or the authority that came from a senior position. All she craved was that their lives might continue comfortably, that their children might grow strong and healthy, and that she and her husband might enjoy their time together. The idea that they should be uprooted and dropped some tens of miles to the south, devoid of friends, without even the companionship of the animals on their small farms, threw her into a despondency. And the alternative was to see her husband go to do his duty while she remained here at their home.

It had been a wrench, but that was the only resolution at first. But now all had changed, because the good abbot had died, and the two men who desired his abbacy were fighting over it tooth and nail. Simon had no idea who would eventually succeed to the post, whether it be John de Courtenay, whom Simon considered a fool, or the more urbane, calm, Roger Busse, whom Simon thought much brighter, and possibly more corrupt. There were rumours, which Simon had confirmed to his own satisfaction, that Busse made use of a necromancer in Exeter. That was itself enough to disqualify the man from the abbacy, so far as Simon was concerned.

Still, at least he should soon know which was to become the abbot, and when he knew that, Simon would be able to confirm what his own position would be — whether he would be entitled to return to his work here on the moor, or whether he would have no position within the abbey at all. If that was the case, he was not sure what he would do.

At last he found himself dropping down the hill at Brat Tor, a long, gentle incline that halted at the road which headed northwards from Tavistock, and here Simon had to turn a little north himself, to meet the long road that took him along the ridge towards Lydford itself.

So many of the roads here in Devon wound about the long scarps at the top of hills. The alternative paths were precipitous lanes that sometimes dropped vertiginously into valleys, and then climbed alarmingly — and exhaustingly — back to the next. Simon had spent much of his youth swearing at such hills, but now that he was older, he minded them not at all. Especially since his rides to London and beyond. Those journeys had shown him how tedious travelling could be. There were whole plains in which a man could ride for days seeing scarcely a tree, and the only alteration was in the quality of the soil. Few places had the rich, black soil of the peat-filled moors of his homeland, or the deep red of the lands about Crediton, the earth that shouted to him of vegetables and cattle pasture. Nowhere he had seen could bear comparison with his own lands, he felt. Simon was a Devonian through and through.

The road brought him straight into the old stannary town of Lydford, and just as the great square, black block of the prison came into view, he turned left into his yard, and sat there a moment looking about him contentedly. He knew that the pride and happiness he felt now could not be improved upon. It was as though he had been a soul travelling for a thousand years in purgatory, only to suddenly find his way to the gates of heaven itself. He sighed with a gentle moan of contentment, and then took a deep breath.

‘Hey! Hoi! Is there anyone at home?’ he roared.

‘Simon? Simon? Oh, Simon!’ his wife called, and suddenly he was standing on the ground and Meg was in his arms.

He knew only delight at the feel of her breasts at his chest, her hips at his, her arms about him, her lips on his, and then she pulled back a little, hands on his shoulders, and he saw the tears in her eyes and smiled. ‘I’m home, Meg.’

But her words made his soft smile dissipate like fog in the sun.

‘Oh, Simon, what can we do?’

Beaulieu

There was no solution, Nicholas of Wisbech told himself. He needed one man to make his case for him, just one man, and in a week of searching it seemed plain that there was no one here.

He knew most of them. He should do after so many years working first with the King, and latterly trailing after him and his household, trying to see how to work his way back into the King’s favour, but of all of them, none appeared to desire to help him. There was nothing they could do, they said. Nothing they wanted to do, more like.

At least one or two had been happy enough to tell him the story of what had happened to the oil. A monk slain, the oil taken. That was bad, truly bad — but others said that a king’s herald had been killed, too, a man had been found by the side of the road, and that might mean that he had been killed by the same murderer and thief. Perhaps. There was no proof, of course, but in the King’s household, proof was rarely necessary to provide a good tale.

So the oil was gone. It was galling, and dreadfully soul-destroying. To think that, after all his efforts, the monks of Christ Church had failed so miserably, allowing the King’s property to be stolen like that … well! They might as well have left it on the roadside for anyone to pick up.

And meanwhile, he was stuck here, wondering what he might do to win a little favour. Oh, perhaps he ought to give up on all this and make his way back into the Church. He could join the Bishop of Orange, perhaps. The men who professed to know said that he was going to be returning to the Pope soon with a letter from the King. Perhaps Nicholas should volunteer to go and help. That might be a good idea. At least it would get him away from this blasted land with all the misery and failure he had experienced.

So long as the Pope didn’t look on him as unfavourably as the King, of course.

His feet had taken him on a circuit about the abbey gardens, and now he had made his way back to where he had started. He felt like some beggar at the door, walking about like this, trying to think his way through the problem. It was deeply shaming. But he could see no way round it. There had to be a means of …

And then he saw him. A man in the uniform of a king’s herald. A strong-looking man, tall, quite striking, really, and oddly familiar. Where had Nicholas seen him before, though?

Lydford

‘They came early in the morning,’ Meg said. ‘Five men, all of them armed, and they said that they were to take over our lands here.’

‘No one can take away our lands,’ Simon said. ‘These are mine!’

‘They said that the farm was owned by Sir Hugh le Despenser, Simon. They told me I had a week to leave, and then they’d come and formally take the place.’

‘A week? When was this?’

‘Sunday. Oh, Simon, it’s been driving me mad to think of it!’

‘What was the name of the man who said this?’

‘He was a man-at-arms, a man called William atte Wattere, he said.’

‘And did he have any kind of warrant?’

‘Nothing, husband. Simon, what can this mean?’

‘It means that someone has made an error, Meg. Don’t you worry yourself.’

‘But our farm — all our lands, everything we’ve built in the last ten years, we’d lose everything if he succeeds!’

‘No one is taking my farm from me, Meg. In the worst case, I’ll speak with the new Abbot of Tavistock. My service there is enough to make sure I have the support of the new abbot. Uh — who is the abbot?’

‘You hadn’t heard?’

‘In France? No. Who is it?’

‘There isn’t one. The monks all elected Robert Busse to take the abbacy, but John de Courtenay contested it, and so the Pope has appointed the Cardinal de Fargis to adjudicate between them. It’s all in uproar in Tavistock, they say. All the monks are arguing and fighting, and the two men at the centre will not talk to each other. It’s horrible.’

‘Oh,’ Simon said, but his mild tone belied his racing thoughts because he did not truly own this place. He held it on a lease. Still, that meant Despenser could not simply take it from Simon. However, without an abbot to give him support, he was in a weaker position. There was no man whom he could petition in his defence. Although he had lived on these lands for almost ten years, that did not mean he was secure. If Despenser had it in his mind to take them, it would be enormously difficult for Simon to fight so strong a protagonist.

Baldwin was his friend, of course, and if there was a fight, Simon knew he could count on him. But this was not an ordinary problem. It was a matter of politics, too. He had no idea what the man Wattere thought of it, but if Despenser was involved, that meant that it was a situation where national politics could hold sway. Despenser would make sure of it. And if Despenser wanted, he could force Simon from the land by use of his men. He had so many people he could use to make life impossible for men like Simon, men without hosts of servants and men-at-arms, men without political influence …

Except he did have a friend with political influence. He was friends with Bishop Walter II, the Bishop of Exeter. Bishop Walter would know what to do. And with luck, he would be prepared to help Simon.

Beaulieu

Sir Hugh le Despenser was not known for dilatoriness. Rather, he was likely to make a swift decision and stick to it. It was always his belief that, generally, the first decision made was the best, and in any case, he had enough men at his command to be able to rectify any occasional little embarrassment.

He had no need to worry about Simon or the course upon which he had launched William Wattere. That was one decision that had been taken. The bailiff would soon be neutralised as an effective tool of any enemy, and his friend the Knight of Furnshill would either learn from his friend’s discomfiture, or would overreach himself to get back at Sir Hugh. More than likely, he would bow down and hope to avoid Despenser’s rage. That was what most men did. No matter how often they espoused their convictions and declared their loyalty to a man or a cause, at the first sign of personal risk they were silenced.

Yes. That was one problem which was hopefully to be cured very soon.

But there were other issues which beset him. Times when he stood and stared out through the windows here and wondered, desperately, what his enemy was doing at that moment. There was only one man who deserved that title: Sir Roger Mortimer of Wigmore.

‘Sir Roger,’ he muttered with a swift curse. The hogswyving son of a mongrel was the biggest thorn in his side. Of course it was possible, quite possible, that Sir Roger Mortimer was enjoying his time in France so much that he had had no time to even consider Despenser. And sows might fly. No, Sir Roger was still the most dangerous threat to England, to the King, and to Despenser himself, naturally.

He had been an enemy of Despenser even before they had been born. It was three-and-forty years since Roger Mortimer had slain Hugh Despenser. The two, grandsires of Sir Hugh and Sir Roger, were opponents at the Battle of Evesham, and ever since he had heard of his grandsire’s death at Mortimer’s hand, Sir Hugh le Despenser had wanted revenge for that bloodletting. His family was humiliated by it.

But there had been no possibility during the long years of Mortimer’s ascendancy. It was only when Sir Hugh became the King’s closest friend and adviser that he had been able to begin to scheme the end of Mortimer. And he had managed much, even precipitating a war with Roger and the other Marcher Lords — although that was not intentional, and at the time Sir Hugh had been petrified, thinking he would lose everything. After the brief war, Roger Mortimer was locked away in the Tower of London, where he festered for eighteen months.

And then he managed a dramatic break out and escaped! The bastard was incredibly lucky all his damned life. The warrant for his execution had finally been signed by the King, and Sir Hugh was going to ensure that it was swiftly carried out, but then the crazed shite got clean away. And somehow to France.

It was this which occupied his mind so much of the time. Mortimer had been the King’s most competent, experienced general. All through the King’s reign, it was Mortimer who had been sent off to Scotland, Ireland, anywhere. And he was astonishingly lucky even then. Now, though, since he was ensconced in France, he was still more dangerous than ever before.

The first intimation of danger had been when the plot to have Sir Hugh and some others murdered by means of that damned magician had been uncovered. Well, Despenser had seen to it that as soon as the man was captured, his life and prospects were reduced to precisely nothing. But that wasn’t all. There were stories of men being sent here to England by Mortimer and his friends, spies, ill-contents, rumour-mongers, all trying their best to destabilise the realm.

Well, Sir Hugh le Despenser wouldn’t stand by and let them have their way. The most important thing to him was to protect the realm from all these scum. And that was what he’d do, right up until the day he found Roger Mortimer in front of him and he could kill the bastard, nice and slowly, and as painfully as possible.

Of course, Sir Roger had an incentive to unsettle the King, and he knew the King well enough, too. He would know just how much the theft of the oil would affect the King. The King would be bound to think it unbearable that a man would dare to take something quite so valuable from him; still more so now, while his reign was being looked upon with contempt by so many in the land. Perhaps it was all an affair of Sir Roger Mortimer’s making. He had sent a man to find the oil and take it to France for him. It wouldn’t matter whether it would serve any useful purpose, the mere fact that he had deprived the King of it would be enough.

Yes, he nodded, it was sure to be him. Sir Roger had taken the oil. So the question now was how to retrieve it for the King?

Lydford

At his house, Simon looked through all his business and especially the state of the farm itself. His other affairs were in good repair, fortunately. All his finances were strong, and that was fortunate because he had the expense of the impending nuptials for his daughter to cover.

‘How is she?’ Simon asked his wife.

Meg looked at him seriously. ‘How would you have felt when we decided to marry, if you had heard that my father had left the country and no one knew when he would return so that the marriage could go ahead?’

‘I’d have grabbed you and given you my oath and hoped you’d have done the same.’

‘Just because the Church accepts that you don’t have to wed in a church, doesn’t mean that it’s right,’ Meg said pointedly. ‘Your daughter is a good child, who wouldn’t marry until her father was here to join in.’

‘I suppose her boy doesn’t have enough money to be able to support her without the dowry, then?’ Simon demanded grumpily.

‘Nonsense!’

‘And you haven’t answered me yet. Wouldn’t you have made your oath to me if I swore mine to you?’

‘If you think, you great lummox, that you can evade the issue by asking silly questions like that,’ Meg said, tossing her blond hair severely, ‘you don’t know me very well. Now, what will we do about this wedding?’

‘Arrange it urgently and save her any more damned torture, I suppose,’ he said heavily. He had no desire to see her married. She was his little girl still. Allowing her to marry would be like admitting to himself that he was an old man now.

‘Very well. Where is she?’

‘In the field, I think.’

‘Get her here. I will need to discuss this with her. If I’m to give away my daughter, I’ll need to see the man who’s getting her, too.’

‘Simon, you’ve already met him.’

‘I know. And I’ll meet him again, and make sure he’s going to be a good husband to her.’

Little Edith marrying. Leaving him and Meg. It hurt him just to think it.

It hurt more than the idea of losing his farm.