The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Thursday before Good Friday ²¹

Château du Bois

The next morning William de Bouden was early at his sheets of parchment, yawning regularly. There had been a storm in the night which had left the whole area damp. As far as he could tell, he was sleeping in a room which faced the wind. The shutters had rattled and banged all night, the rain sluicing in through the slats, the wind was blowing so hard, and the water had pooled on the floor inside. It left him unable to sleep, with the result that he was crotchety and petulant this morning. Still, he was nothing if not assiduous in his duties, so while he grumbled to himself, he continued counting the money.

Some people thought that so long as the Queen was in France there would be no need of a formal accounting, but they were dolts. The simple fact was, the King had allowed her a budget to come here as ambassador, and he, William de Bouden, the Queen’s Comptroller, had a duty to ensure that the money spent was all accounted for. Before he had left England, he had been given a thousand pounds by the King, but Edward had known that more might be needed, so William had a letter allowing him to draw on the house of the Bardi in Paris. Not that he wanted to pull out too much from there.

Still, the Bardi were competent — very competent — bankers. And the first rule of banking was, as William knew only too well, to keep a careful eye on those who borrowed. To do that, they maintained some of the most efficient spies in the world. That was how they kept themselves briefed on whether a man had enough money to justify a loan, or whether someone had become a bad credit risk.

They scared him.

William had been given the post here by the King because he knew the Queen. Until the King had dissolved her household, William had been her treasurer, but now that he had this new post Edward appeared to believe that he would be automatically loyal to him. Yet no, he was not. He had been the Queen’s man for years, and just because the King ordered him away and then gave him his job back changed nothing. He was still the Queen’s man. There was such a thing as loyalty, in God’s name.

But in royal politics there was little in the way of trust. That was why William was convinced that the Bardi had been paid to keep an eye on him and the Queen. There was a man who appeared to be watching him wherever he went. It had scared him half to death when he had been accosted by that knight in Poissy, and it was even worse when Queen Isabella confronted him with his confession to Sir Baldwin that he had been talking to Roger Mortimer. That had gone down like a bucket of cold sick. Still, as she agreed a little while later, at least it demonstrated that they had one ally among the knights who made up her guard. Or if not an ally, at least someone who was prepared to remain loyal to her interests over here.

It was ridiculous, frankly, that anyone could look on Roger as any sort of threat. The man was an old friend of the Queen’s. William had been in her service long enough to know perfectly well that she and Roger had met plenty of times when she was still happily married to her husband. Roger had visited her often. Nothing suspicious; it was always with his lady, Joan. Joan and Queen Isabella had got on well, and Mortimer was utterly devoted to his wife. She went with him on all his travels, even when he was marching with his warriors in England, Wales or Ireland. They were one of those terribly rare things, a man and wife who were genuinely in love.

Made it all the worse to see him like this. Now he was a pale reflection of his earlier self. William had seen him in those days when he was the King’s most trusted general, but now he was a renegade, a traitor. Untrusted and despised by the king he had served for so many years, he was eking out a living, kept in the background by the French king in case he might become useful at some point in the future, but really a prisoner. He could not leave the French king’s protection. To do so would make him nothing more than the target of every cut-purse, draw-latch and robbersman who was bright enough to see how much bounty his head could bring.

It was enough to make a man sigh in sad reflection, of course. He did so now. The mere thought of all that cash, just waiting for any fortunate fool to claim, was enough to make any man of moderate ambition sit back and think of all the fine clothing, the wine, the food, that such treasure could bring. It would be as much as, maybe, a hundred pounds. Good God, a hundred pounds …

With cash like that a man would be free indeed. But William did not have a hundred pounds. He didn’t have two pounds of his own. Only a matter of a few hundreds of the Queen’s money which was all that remained of her thousand. When that was exhausted, William would have to go to the Bardi. Not until then, though. Best to keep away, especially while the Queen was set on meeting Mortimer every so often.

He opened the great steel-barred chest with the huge key he held about his neck, and began checking the money. Satisfied that it all still tallied with his calculations, he closed the lid and relocked it, listening to the great bolts sliding into place.

It was his morning’s duty, and now, duty done, he could consider his other tasks. But even as he was seating himself once more at his table, there was a knocking at his door.

‘Yes?’

‘Master. There’s been a murder! An Englishman is dead!’

Sir Charles had been in the hall when the men began to scurry about.

‘Something happen?’ he murmured to Baldwin at his side.

‘It rather looks like it,’ Baldwin responded, looking up.

‘They are all quite busy. Anyone might think that they were fearful of an assault on the city.’

Simon sipped his weak wine and beckoned a servant. The man was one of the French servants set to watch over the English guests and ensure that they were comfortable, and the fellow came to Simon with a wary expression in his eyes, as though expecting to be assaulted. Simon smiled at him. ‘What is the alarm?’

‘There is a man dead.’

‘What, here in the castle?’ Simon asked. There were too many deaths, he thought to himself. This whole embassy could end in disaster.

Sir Charles shrugged. ‘What of it? Many die each day. In castles as often as in a city or the countryside. What did he die of? Fall in a well? Fall from a wall? I suppose he was drunk?’

‘Non, mon sieur.’ The servant explained that the poor fellow had been stabbed.

Baldwin cast an eye about the room. There was a suppressed excitement about the men present. It was not like the anxiety which was the normal companion of a corpse, in his experience. No, it was more like the thrill of watching someone else who would shortly be distraught as the news of a loved one’s demise was delivered. ‘Who is it?’

There was no answer to that question. The servant gave them to understand that someone would be there to tell them more as soon as he had learned all he might.

Sir Charles was smiling as the man left them, but Baldwin rose. ‘I wish to see the Queen and assure myself that she is safe. God forbid that this dead man might be one of her entourage, or even one of the knights with us here.’

‘You think it might be Sir John or Sir Peter?’ Sir Charles asked. He felt that Baldwin’s concern was a little overdone. ‘Sir Baldwin, there is nothing to fear. It’s probably one of the grooms. Nothing more than that. We can soon hire a fresh one, if need be. Please, sit, and do not trouble the Queen with a matter which may well be completely unimportant.’

He watched as Baldwin stood, undecided. Then Baldwin saw Sir John de Sapy walk into the room with Sir Peter de Lymesey and Lord Cromwell. The sight of the three of them made up his mind. ‘Is there no one with the Queen?’ he demanded rhetorically, and was gone. Simon rose and hurried after him.

‘Where are they going?’ Cromwell asked.

‘Sir Baldwin has very chivalrously gone to the aid of the Queen in case she is downhearted to hear that someone has died,’ Sir Charles said with some amusement. ‘Do you know who it is who has been killed?’

‘Has no one told you?’ Sir John said, his face registering his surprise.

Lord Cromwell was the man who stepped forward and rested a hand on Sir Charles’s forearm. ‘I am sorry, Sir Charles. It was your man-at-arms — it was Paul.’

The Queen left them both in no uncertainty about her feelings. She was perfectly well, and if they had not run to her chambers and woken her with their infernal knocking, she would still be blissfully unaware that anyone had been harmed, let alone someone from her delegation.

‘So who was it?’ Simon wondered.

Baldwin was unable to answer, but as they left the Queen’s chamber and could look across the yard towards the entranceway they saw a throng of people. ‘Perhaps the answer is out there.’

‘You think so? It looks a little dangerous.’

‘It is just the street people of Paris looking at a corpse, I think,’ Baldwin said, but he joined Simon in splashing through the muddy puddles towards the gate.

Simon gasped when he caught sight of the dead man’s face. ‘Christ’s ballocks, Baldwin, that’s Paul!’

‘Dear Christ! If you see Sir Charles, keep him away, Simon.’

In the roadway near the castle’s gate the throng of people stood watching while a man in sergent’s uniform studied Paul’s corpse. He was asking questions that seemed to go unanswered. ‘I said, did anyone see him dumped here?’

There was no response from the people gathered there. Simon could understand enough of the local accent to follow the questioning and the lack of answers from the folk watching, and could sympathise with the poor official trying his best to find the killer.

When he had clearly given up hope of getting any information from the people standing about, and returned to his study of the body, Baldwin stepped forward. ‘I do not know if I can help, but I have had some experience of murder and seeking felons in my own lands.’

‘I would be very grateful for any aid,’ the sergent said. ‘But I fear that this is one of those killings which will go down unsolved.’

‘Do you know anything at all?’

‘As you can see for yourself, he was beaten, and then stabbed. The wound was a cruel one, up from his belly, and straight into his heart and lungs, I imagine. A quick enough death for the poor devil. Not that he would have looked on it as that, I suppose. Nobody saw him die, nobody heard him die, nobody saw a killer — in short, nobody knows anything at all. Hardly surprising, since anyone who saw the man who did this could expect something similar to happen to him.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘This was a professional killing.’

‘There is no possibility that it could have been a common cut-purse?’ Simon asked.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Baldwin answered. ‘He’s been too badly beaten up. And since when did a cut-purse kill a man like this?’

‘Oh, God,’ Simon said, and turned away from the corpse. He had taken a glimpse, and that was enough.

Paul lay on his back, arms outspread, legs sprawling. The whole of his stomach area was a reddened mess, with blue-grey coils of intestine pulled out and smeared with blood. A thin, oil-like slick of blood pooled over all the puddles in the roadway. Some had coagulated, but much was so diluted with the rainwater that it could not, and merely gave its own pink coloration to the water.

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said as Simon retched. ‘The poor fellow suffered first.’ He was about to bend to study the body more closely when the cry made him stop.

‘Paul!’ Sir Charles shouted, and would have run to his servant had Simon not grasped him first and pulled him back. It was a relief to be able to move away from Paul’s body and have something — someone — else to think of.

‘Wait, Sir Charles. Let Baldwin see if he can learn anything from him first.’

Sir Charles was incapable of coherent thought, let alone speech, and he struggled at first to free himself.

In the fog of his horror, he did not appreciate that it was Simon and one of the guards from the gates to the château who were holding him back. He roared with anguish, and at one point even tried to reach for his long dagger to cut the pair of them off him, sensing them as enemies trying to stand between him and his man, but Sir John de Sapy was already there, and pulled his hand away. ‘Wake up, Sir Charles. Wake up!’ he bellowed, and slapped at Sir Charles’s face, once, twice. ‘Sir Charles! You are being stared at. You have made yourself an object of scorn. Control yourself!’

Sir Charles came to himself. He stared, appalled, at Sir John, but then his eyes slid back towards the body. Sir Baldwin was at Paul’s side, respectfully kneeling, and he glanced back at Sir Charles with an expression of such infinite understanding and sadness that Sir Charles knew at once there was no hope. He sagged in the arms of his restrainers, head hanging, feeling as though his own life was ending. A dreadful lassitude came over him, and he felt an urge to spew over the pavement.

How could he waken from this nightmare? Paul — Paul his loyal servant from the days when they were both living in the service of Earl Thomas of Lancaster; Paul who had gone with him into exile rather than be captured and slain by the King’s men; Paul who had been with him when he was forced to leave Paris and take pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela; Paul who had with him been forced to the island of Ennor — in all the long months of wandering, the only man who had remained his devoted servant and friend was Paul.

He had learned to cope with the loss of so much. All his wealth and lands had gone when Earl Thomas had been taken and executed, and gradually during his exile he had grown accustomed to the steady, slow diminishment of his pride as time and again his attempts to find a new lord had failed. Eventually he had sunk so low as to demean himself by offering himself as a mercenary — the lowest form of life. Yet all through those dreadful days, at least he had enjoyed the company of his servant, guard, cook, procurer — Paul. And now he was gone, it felt as though there was a terrible hole in his breast. The man whom he had valued above all others was dead, and now Sir Charles was entirely alone. There was nothing and no one to fill that gap.

‘I swear that I shall find the man responsible and cut his heart out,’ he said thickly. The words gave a little consolation — just a little — and he was able to stand upright again, pulling his arms from the two at his sides, and forcing his chin up. He remained standing in the same place, unsure whether to trust his legs to take him the short distance to his man’s body, but unable to draw his eyes away as Baldwin shook his head, stood, and made his way back to join them.

‘Sir Charles, I am truly sorry.’

‘He is dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did they make him suffer?’

‘I am afraid so. He was beaten before being killed.’

‘Thank you for your candour, Sir Baldwin. I appreciate that. Excuse me, I must go and arrange for my man’s burial.’

‘Of course.’

Baldwin and Simon watched as Sir Charles walked stiffly towards the body.

‘He is devastated,’ Simon said, his voice hushed.

‘He will manage,’ Baldwin said harshly. ‘We do.’

Simon shot him a look. His companion was gazing after Sir Charles, but his eyes scarcely appeared to see him. There was an inward-looking emptiness in his face, as if he was thinking of that time, less than ten years before, when he too had been forced to witness the death of men who had been very dear to him.

Lord John Cromwell swore as he stumbled over a loose cobble. ‘In Christ’s name!’

This was the last thing the mission needed. The embassy was doomed, damn it, and he was the man who was going to be called to account by the King and Sir Hugh le Despenser when they returned. No one else. It could hardly be laid at the Queen’s door this time. No matter how much the King hated his wife, the idea that she was responsible for such a breach of security as allowing one of the embassy’s men-at-arms to wander the streets and be captured by someone was absurd. That was all Lord John’s area of interest. His fault.

Diplomacy was fraught with dangers, naturally. When two great kings negotiated matters of such vast importance, there were always factions who sought to assist or thwart. In this case, there was such a preponderance of vested interests on the French side, with barons determined to get their hands on the English king’s lands, properties and wine production down in the province of Guyenne, that it was hardly surprising that someone sought to destroy the English mission.

And how better to destroy it than by embarrassing the English? Kill off an Englishman, and you instantly create tensions between the two negotiating teams.

He reached the oaken door to the Queen’s hall, and stopped a moment to draw breath. There were two guards here, both from his own entourage, and he nodded at them before reaching forward and opening the door.

‘Your royal highness.’

A sword swung in front of him, and he would have grabbed for his own were it not for the surprise of Blaket’s blade-point at his chin. ‘Get that away,’ he snarled.

‘Where have you been?’ the Queen demanded as Blaket withdrew his sword without apology.

She was standing close to her fireplace, a book in her hands. A short distance from her was the blonde, Alicia, while Alice de Toeni and Joan of Bar were a little further away, close, as though they had been discussing matters themselves.

‘Your highness, I’ve been talking to the men at the gate, making sure of the facts.’

‘What are they?’

‘The dead man was one of ours. He was a man-at-arms who rode with Sir Charles of Lancaster. The knight doesn’t know when he might have died, but apparently this man Paul was out last night. Probably out seeking the …’ He quickly decided not to speculate on what kind of woman the fellow was hunting for. ‘Anyway, he was captured, I suppose, and robbed and killed.’

‘How?’

‘How killed? Someone put a knife to his belly and paunched him like a rabbit.’

‘I see. And you have examined the body?’

‘No. I left Sir Baldwin de Furnshill to do that. He is experienced in such matters. But I suspect that there is little likelihood of finding the man responsible. There are so many alleys and lanes between here and Paris. The body was placed outside the gates at some time during the night, so it could have been anyone. Not necessarily someone from within the castle.’

‘A killer from the city?’

‘It is said that the city is less vigilant about the walls and gates than it might be. It has not been attacked in the last hundred years.’

‘But you are sure that here in the castle we are secure?’

‘It is my own men who guard this place, my lady,’ he said with a trace of coolness. ‘I trust them.’

‘So you are sure it was someone from without the castle. Who would want to attack a man like him? Was he rich?’

‘No, not at all. I think it was an opportunistic assault. The fellows saw him, bethought themselves that this was a stranger to the town, a foreigner, and therefore an easy mark. Perhaps he had a few pennies on him, but nothing more than that, I should think.’

‘Then it was not possible that this could have been a deliberate attempt to damage the talks between the king of France and me?’ she asked sweetly.

‘I am sure it could not have been, your highness.’

‘You are? I am glad. I should hate it to be only me who has considered such eventualities,’ she snapped. ‘And pray, what is your conviction based upon?’

‘Why would a man from the French delegation wish to kill a person of no consequence? Surely, were they to try to damage our embassy, they would have killed a knight, or myself. Not some unknown man-at-arms.’

‘Tell me, my lord: we are here because my brother invaded Guyenne, are we not?’

‘Yes. Because of the affair over Saint-Sardos.’

‘Quite. And when that little war over Saint-Sardos began, was that not over the death of a French official?’

‘Yes. The French marched into Guyenne and began to build a bastide, and when the locals stopped them, it grew ugly, and a Frenchman was hanged.’

‘What was his name?’

Cromwell looked at her blankly. ‘Eh?’

‘What was this man’s name? After all, we are here to negotiate a peace as a result of that war, but you say that a man of no consequence has died. That is a relief.’ Her tone rose and her eyes flashed with anger as she finished, ‘And yet, my Lord Cromwell, this whole war began because a man of no consequence — a nonentity — was slain! And you tell me not to worry, that this man is unimportant? Do you think that solitary dead Frenchman was unimportant too?’