The Prophecy of Death

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was obvious that Jack was not going to survive. Even as Simon and Baldwin reached him, Thomas behind André and Pons to prevent their escape, he was rolling on his back, his hands grasping, bloody talons in the air over his belly and chest. Baldwin could not see how many wounds there were on his body, but from the blood that lay spilled over the ground, it was clear that he had been mortally wounded. He could not speak above a whisper, and as Baldwin knelt beside him, he managed to mutter, ‘Ayrminne. His money. Tell him who did this. He’ll av … enge me.’

‘Why would these men attack you?’ Baldwin asked, and repeated his question three times, but even when he bent and put his ear to the dying man’s mouth, there was not enough energy in him to do anything more than hiss.

It was no good. Baldwin bellowed for a priest, and was startled when one materialised from behind him. The fellow knelt immediately to give the King’s man his last questions and offer him salvation.

‘What now?’ Simon asked. He had his sword to André’s neck, while Thomas had his own at Pons’s.

‘Now,’ Baldwin said, looking from one to the other of his captives, ‘I think we tell the King that these two have slain one of his guest’s guards in broad daylight, such as it is, and in front of our eyes. I don’t think he will be enormously impressed. Do you?’

‘We are here with the Bishop of Orange. We demand to see him,’ Pons said. André was still looking a little bemused, shaking his head and blinking. His face had gone a pasty, yellow colour, and Baldwin was more than a little concerned that the blow to his head might have concussed him, but for now he was not being sick, and had not lost consciousness, so he reasoned that the man should be all right.

‘Shut up!’ Thomas grated, giving Pons a swift punch to the side of his head.

‘You may be assured that I will tell him all,’ Baldwin said, taking Thomas’s fist in his hand and preventing any more blows. ‘Meanwhile, unless you tell us what was happening in that tavern, I will be forced to go straight to the King to tell him you have killed a man in his own palace yard. He will not be sympathetic to you.’

‘We have nothing to say to you. Only to the Bishop,’ Pons said, giving Thomas a baleful look.

Baldwin was not loath to deliver the two to the King’s guards down at the steps to the undercroft near the chapel. He watched the two being led down, still demanding vociferously that they should be allowed to speak with their bishop, but to no avail.

‘What will happen to them?’ Thomas asked harshly. He thrust his sword away regretfully.

‘For now, little enough, I expect. Sadly, I think that even if the King tries to question them, the Pope’s man will have them escape risk of life and limb. They can sit in there for a while, though. Do you know them?’

‘No, but I know this other fellow. The one they killed. He was a friend of mine.’

‘He was with the Bishop too, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, but he befriended me in Beaulieu.’

‘Yes?’ Baldwin prompted.

Thomas looked at him from the corner of his eye. This keeper was known to him by face, but he had no idea of Baldwin’s allegiance, and in this land it was dangerous to mention Despenser. If you were insulting about him to a stranger, you might later learn that the ‘stranger’ was a close friend of Despenser who’d told him everything. The first you’d usually know was when someone arrived at your house in the middle of the night with a flaming torch.

‘Friend,’ Baldwin said, ‘all I am trying to do is discover why your friend was murdered. If you don’t want me to learn that, tell me nothing. However, if you were his friend, please tell me all so that I can make sure his killers actually pay for their crime. If you don’t help me, they will probably escape. If you help me, I swear I’ll take the matter up, even if I have to go to the Devil himself.’

Thomas nodded slowly, and made up his mind. ‘Very well. I am called Thomas of Bakewell. I was brother to Sir John, who was killed at the coronation when a wall fell on him.’

‘I recall,’ Baldwin said. ‘A terrible accident.’

‘It was. I was there. Not only John died, of course, but he was the noteworthy figure. The others were all unknowns. But it was dreadful. I can remember lying beside him, choked by the dust and muck, and all I could do was reach to him as he died, poor John, but my hand was kicked away.’

‘Who would do a thing like that?’ Simon asked.

‘Despenser. He was furious. I think it was the way that the coronation had been allowed to be so disturbed. That was the first time I met him.’

‘You wear the King’s tabard,’ Baldwin noted.

‘Yes. The Queen saw me, and she was wonderful and kind to me. So from that day, I have lived with her household. I became one of her messengers a few years ago, and she has protected me even when her household was disbanded. She saw to it that I was given a job with her husband. Of course, that means I’ve had to see more of Sir Hugh le Despenser.’

‘And I imagine that would be painful for you.’

‘Yes. Especially since he seems to believe that I stole the oil from Canterbury,’ he explained.

‘Did you?’ Baldwin asked.

‘No! I was late back from my last journey, but that was simply because my horse went lame. I don’t know anything about the oil. What could I do with it? But Despenser took me aside, threatened me, ripped up all my belongings … if it wasn’t for Jack, I’d have had nothing. He was good enough to look after me. He lent me a blanket and food for the journey here. I don’t know what I’d have done without his help.’

‘Can you tell us where to find his pack?’

‘Of course. What about those two? Will they be safe in there? They won’t be released while we’re gone?’

‘They can wait there. They’ll need the order of the King to get released. They escaped one excess of violence back in Canterbury — they will not escape this one too.’

‘The pair seem inured to violence. Do you think they could have stolen the King’s oil?’ Thomas asked.

‘I fear not,’ Baldwin said. ‘They were with the Bishop’s entourage, so they arrived with us the day after the theft. Still, they are trying to hide something. Let us find Jack’s belongings and make sure they’re secure, and then we can search for their packs too, and see what they were carrying.’

It took them little time to get to the house where Jack had been staying. The Bishop and all his men had been put up in a merchant’s house just outside the palace walls, and when Baldwin and Simon hurried there, they found one of the other men from the Bishop’s retinue sitting outside, yawning widely. He had been on guard the night before, and blinked blearily at them as Baldwin explained why they were there.

‘Do you know them?’ Baldwin said, after describing the dead man and the two he had arrested.

‘Sounds like Jack and André and Pons,’ the guard agreed. ‘Those two bastards don’t surprise me at all. They’d slit your throat for the price of an ale, they would. Fools! And Jack’s dead? He was a good man, too. Hard, but competent.’

‘Can you show me all their baggage?’

Jack’s was very light, and it took little effort to go through it. There was nothing of any value, indeed little of any sort whatever.

Thomas sniffed and had to wipe at his eyes. ‘Everything he had, he shared with me,’ he said.

‘What of these other two?’ Baldwin muttered to himself.

Pons’s bag was a thin linen scrap which held a small knife for eating, a worn stone for honing it, and a skimpy shirt, also of linen. There was a St Christopher in lead, a pilgrim badge like those owned by Richard de Yatton, but nothing else which caught Baldwin’s eye. André’s roll was different, though. It had a small pouch, and when Baldwin looked inside, he found a ring. ‘Look at this!’ he said, holding it up.

‘A ring? What was he doing with that in his bag?’ Simon wondered.

‘There’s more,’ Baldwin said. Tipping up the bag, he found that there were two gemstones inside. One was a ruby, from the look of it. He sifted through the contents with a frown on his face, lifting up a soft woollen shift. ‘This looks a little too good for a mere guard, too.’

When they went back to the rolls, there was more. Carefully concealed inside André’s blanket Baldwin found two pewter plates, of the kind that would be very easy to sell or pawn for ready money. ‘Our friend appears to have been well-provisioned with money,’ he said.

Thomas was frowning as he looked down at the valuables, then up at the keeper’s grim face. ‘What does this all mean, though?’

‘I think it means that our friends were prepared to be on the road alone for a while. They had pewter with them, so if they were forced away from the Bishop’s entourage, they had something to sell. But then I think that temptation came in their way, and instead they robbed a church or two. That’s what these jewels look like, anyway — jewels from a cross or a box of relics.’

‘I haven’t heard of any thefts,’ Simon said.

‘Perhaps these were taken from a church in Sussex, or Kent, though, Simon. Why should we have heard of them? It is no shock to think that these two may have been so dishonest as to steal in order to keep themselves funded, is it?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Thomas said.

‘It is very simple. They knew that when they came to England, they were likely to be left to their own devices for a while. The Bishop told them that they would have to be prepared in case they were told to leave his party. And strangely enough, that is what happened to them.’

‘What does it mean, though?’ Thomas demanded.

‘It means that Simon and I need to talk to André again at least, before we go and speak with another man.’

André shivered a little. Up in the open air, the weather may have been grey, but it was at least mildly warm. Not so down here. The undercroft felt as though the very walls were made of ice. A damp squelching and sucking noise was his constant companion, and when he moved his feet, there was a slap of water underfoot. Already his boots had begun to leak, and now he was feeling the cold seeping into his arms as well. He held them wrapped closely about his torso as he walked back and forth.

Pons was huddled on a timber at the far side of the chamber, scowling down at the black water that lay all about. It was repellent, noisome, and foul to the touch, that water. André could believe it came straight from the privies. At least he hadn’t heard or seen any rats.

The door opening was blinding at first, even though the day was so dull, and André had to shield his eyes.

‘You! Get out here!’ a harsh voice bellowed.

André stood undecided a moment or two, and it was apparently enough to infuriate his gaoler. The man sprang inside, gripped him by the shoulder, swiftly lashed him over the back three times with a short whip, and had him out through the door and the door slammed and relocked, before he knew what was happening. As he stumbled over a loose stone, falling headlong, he was aware only of the shrieking pain in his back from the whip.

‘Get up, Frenchie!’ the gaoler snapped, and André saw the whip rise again. He whimpered and threw an arm over his face, but even as he did, he saw a hand stop the gaoler.

‘Leave him, man. He’s mine now.’

André felt himself being lifted gently, and then he was led up the stairs once more and into the daylight. It was that knight again, the one who’d arrested him.

‘We have had an interesting last hour or so,’ he said.

André shook his head. ‘I have not.’

‘We found these,’ Baldwin said, and beckoned. Simon stepped forward with a leather bag, which Baldwin took and opened. ‘Recognise these?’

André did. ‘They are mine. Where did you get them from? You have been riffling through my belongings? I shall have plenty to tell the Bishop when I-’

‘This is very interesting. However,’ Baldwin said, reaching into the bag and bringing out the small jewel-purse, ‘I think he will not be happy to learn that these have been looted from a church. Do you?’

André was silent. There was no way that this knight could have heard about the church, surely. They had been so careful. ‘Why do you say that?’

Baldwin carefully stowed the stones back in the bag, and then gripped André about the throat. ‘Listen to me well, felon! I want clear and honest answers from you, right now! I have enough here in this bag to have you hanged by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Understand me? You came here knowing you were going to be sent away from the Bishop of Orange’s party, didn’t you? You knew because he supplied you with pewter plates to sell so you could subsist after you left his party. And then, later, you returned to him at Beaulieu so that you could remain under his protection. But you made the mistake of trying to silence poor Jack.’

‘Poor Jack? You say so? He was a fool who wanted to blackmail us, nothing more. Yes, the Bishop gave me the pewter to look after, but not because he said I was to be forced from the party. He just said that if we were to become separated, this would give us some money to protect us.’

‘And then you robbed a church as well.’

‘We needed some aid. We couldn’t go to a pawnbroker immediately, and we had nothing!’

‘So you robbed a church, and still had nothing.’

André was silent. Better to allow the knight to think that they had robbed a church than the truth.

‘What was Jack blackmailing you over?’ Simon asked.

‘He said we had the oil and he wanted it. But we don’t have it!’

‘Why kill him for that?’

‘Why do you think? If he was to go about the place saying that we had the stuff, what would happen to us? We would be arrested and tortured, wouldn’t we? We are French, and your King has no love for our people since our King has taken back his lands.’

‘Fair enough,’ Baldwin said. ‘Although if you had the oil and had sold it, that would make a more sensible reason for you to try to keep his mouth shut.’

‘No, we-’

‘It was like that, wasn’t it, Baldwin?’ Simon said. ‘They had Jack, but as soon as they saw us, they killed him. Right there in the open, even though they knew they’d be seen.’

‘Yes. It was almost as though killing him was bound to be less dangerous than allowing him to talk.’

‘Letting him talk and accuse us of possessing the oil was a great deal more dangerous to us than silencing him forever.’

‘Because the Bishop of Orange could protect you.’ Simon nodded, but with the disgust plain on his face.

‘Oui.’

The simple answer was infuriating to Thomas. He had listened to almost all their conversation without flinching, but now, to hear his friend had died from mere expediency, made his blood boil over. He moved forward, and it was only Simon’s speed that prevented him from spitting the Frenchman right there.

‘Later, friend. You will have your chance later,’ Baldwin said firmly, grasping his right hand before he could draw his sword.

Gradually the anger left him, and while André cowered, Thomas grew calmer. ‘To think that a slug like this could harm a gentle, kindly man like Jack is almost more than I can bear. I swear, man, I pray to see you swinging by your neck.’