The Tintern Treasure

SEVENTEEN

As the crow flies, my home city of Wells lies seventeen or so miles to the south of Keynsham and Glastonbury some five miles beyond that. There was no hope, therefore, of my reaching the abbey for several days, but if I kept to the main tracks, there was a slight possibility that Joseph Sibley and his cart-load of candles might overtake me before my journey’s end. It was not much of a chance — most cart-horses went only a little faster than walking pace — but it was a chance nevertheless, and would save my aching legs when they needed it the most. And I kept to the main tracks for another reason: it was easier to see if I was being followed.

I slept for what remained of the first night in an empty barn standing adjacent to the road, wrapped in my cloak on the damp, beaten-earth floor, my cudgel by my hand. I didn’t sleep well, but this was not entirely due to general discomfort. I couldn’t help wondering if my response to the attack on me had not been somewhat too precipitous, too cowardly and too unfair to the Shoesmiths. But the sense of danger had been strong, begging to be heeded.

The next day being Sunday, the tracks were sparse of traffic, especially when I started off in the chill mist of a November dawn. A broad stream ran alongside the path for a mile or two, the rising sun reflected like a drowned golden orb in the stillness of its water, the mirrored images of trees quivering stealthily across its glassy surface. I forced myself to stop and wash my hands and face, but it was like bathing in snow-broth, and when I drank some of the water from my cupped hands my very innards seemed to freeze.

It being the Sabbath, I was unable to peddle my wares, but in the various cottages where, throughout the day, I found food and shelter, the goodwives were more than willing to accept payment in kind rather than money. The one who gave me breakfast — hot oatcakes and honey and several cups of mulled ale — chose a pretty leather girdle with pewter tags. (They weren’t fools, these women. They knew a good bargain when they saw one.) I took my dinner at a farmhouse where I was given a share of a dish of pig’s trotters stewed in butter followed by a baked apple dumpling and home-brewed cider. As a reward for this splendid repast, the goodwife chose the set of carved bone buttons that I had purchased at Gloucester, some needles and thread that she was in crying need of and two lengths of white silk ribbon, while her goodman claimed my company over another cup of cider in order to hear news of the wider world.

‘What’s with all these here rumours,’ he demanded, ‘that this new king of ours — and whether or no he ought t’ be king is a matter o’ debate, I gather — has killed off his little nevvies? If that be the case, he should never — ’

I cut him short with more haste than good manners and propounded my theory on the subject with such vehemence that my poor host was left floundering and almost apologizing to me for having raised the matter in the first place. After which, it was hardly surprising that he steered the topic of conversation into less controversial channels and described to me the pleasures and difficulties of farming what he called ‘hruther’ or ‘rudder’ beasts; the old Anglo-Saxon term, which I as a country boy was well acquainted with, for horned cattle.

Supper was a much more modest affair — bread and cheese and onions — taken at a small, wayside ale-house where I was also able to pay for a bed for the night and avail myself of the use of a pump in the backyard; a great relief to me as I had not washed properly for the past two days. I was also relieved to notice that the door of my room, a tiny attic under the eaves, sported a bolt, and I was able to strip and tumble into bed with a quiet mind.

But not quiet enough, it seemed. My dreams were troubled and appeared to centre on the farmhouse where I had eaten my dinner, although without any clarity to them. They were also mixed up with a jumble of nonsense where I kept on telling Adam to speak up and repeat what he had just said, while Adela lectured me about throwing the contents of my pack all over the kitchen floor. Something was bothering me, that was obvious enough, but when I awoke in the morning and tried to assemble the dreams into some sort of order, I was unable to do so.

‘Lord,’ I prayed, hastily going down on my knees beside the bed, ‘I know I’m being stupid and dense, but please, please show me the way more clearly. I realize you are trying to tell me something, but you know that sometimes I don’t have the sense of a louse. Less, probably. So if you could just see your way to putting things more plainly. .’

I stood upright again and listened. The silence was deafening.

Monday was much like Sunday except that there were more people on the roads and I was able to sell my goods wherever possible without straying too far from the main Glastonbury track. In fact, I was more interested in making progress than in making money, and I knew that it would take another steady day and a half’s walking before I was within sight of my destination. The November weather was worsening again, the ground soggy, patches of mist hanging in the air like damp rags and the trees rapidly shedding their autumnal glory of yellow and purple, crimson and yellow, the remaining leaves turning a dull, burnt-out brown.

I was right in my calculations and it was nearing noon on Tuesday — judging by the height of a watery sun appearing and disappearing between lowering grey clouds — when I found myself walking down the long slope of the Mendips into Wells, nestling at their foot. The town hadn’t changed much since my boyhood, the cathedral, that mighty church dedicated to St Andrew, still dominating the huddle of insignificant dwellings crowding around it as if for warmth and protection. I didn’t linger. I knew no one there nowadays and even if I had, by chance, encountered some long lost acquaintance of my youth, I shouldn’t have known what to say to him. So I pressed on along the raised causeway across the flat Somerset levels with the Tor, crowned by its church, rising out of the plain and beckoning me on like a beacon.

Legend says that this is Avalon, and indeed the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere is to be seen in the abbey choir, attracting hundreds of pilgrims every year who come to worship where the Christ child is reputed to have founded the earliest church in Britain; a boy accompanying his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who had come to buy tin and lead from the Romans. But there were very few pilgrims at this time of the year and I had met practically no one on my walk. Nor were there many inhabitants abroad on this dank late afternoon as I approached the abbey gates and rang for the porter.

Brother Hilarion, my old Novice Master, was taking exercise in the cloisters, getting a little fresh air between Vespers and the evening service of Compline. As I watched him coming towards me, my first thought was that he had aged considerably since I had last seen him seven years ago, when the disappearance of two brothers from the town had kept me here against my will and strained my deductive powers to the uttermost. My second thought was that he was probably thinking the same about me. A second marriage and the responsibility of three children had without doubt added years to my boyish good looks. I certainly felt as though they had. I felt old and careworn. It would have been no surprise if Brother Hilarion had failed to recognize me.

‘My child! My child!’ He beamed upon me, stretching up to kiss my cheek. ‘You look exactly the same. You haven’t changed one iota.’ He patted my shoulder and regarded my pack and cudgel. ‘Now what brings you here at this unseasonable time of year when you should be tucked up safe within four walls? Don’t tell me that peddling is such a hard task-master that you have to be out in all weathers. No, no! You look too prosperous, too well fed. Besides,’ he took my arm, leaning heavily on it, and began to walk back with me along the cloister, ‘we hear things, you know, even in here.’

‘What sort of things?’ I asked resignedly.

‘Oh, this and that.’ He smiled up at me proudly. ‘I always deplored your decision to follow the calling of a pedlar. You were one of my brighter scholars. You learned to read and write faster than anyone else I’d ever taught and could add up numbers in your head. I knew you to be capable of greater things than just hawking a pedlar’s pack around the countryside.’

‘But that’s what I do.’

My old preceptor chuckled. ‘Yes, yes! Have it your own way. I understand. Your lips are sealed. Your loyalty is to the duke. I mean, the king.’ A frown appeared, creasing his brow. ‘That was a strange business. And His Grace the Bishop of Bath and Wells mixed up in it, too. One doesn’t know what to think. And now these rumours about the two young boys.’ Once again, he glanced up at me, this time curiously. ‘I suppose. . But, no! I mustn’t ask. You’re sworn to secrecy, no doubt. So tell me, what brings you here?’

I sighed. I felt extremely uneasy. My reputation of having the king’s confidence, of being some kind of secret agent for him, was growing and expanding well beyond the walls of Bristol. I could deny it as I had done in the past, but common sense told me that the more I refuted the suggestion, the more people believed the opposite. Denial on my part only strengthened their conviction that I was lying.

‘I know nothing about the fate of the lords Edward and Richard Plantagenet,’ I answered quietly. ‘But I do know something about the character of the king.’ I did indeed. I might as well admit it. ‘And knowing that, I can assure you that these vicious rumours are untrue.’

Brother Hilarion pressed my arm. ‘You relieve my mind, Roger. I have always considered him a good man, and I should be loath to think him capable of such a heinous sin. But if you assure me that all is well. .’

He let the sentence hang and I realized despairingly that with every word I spoke I only confirmed his opinion of my standing at the court. I would do better to hold my tongue. I was just about to turn the conversation into safer channels when my companion did it for me.

‘So, I repeat, what brings you here?’

‘Do I have to have a reason? I might just have walked as far as this on my travels and decided to renew our acquaintance.’

‘Friendship,’ he amended and then chuckled. ‘No, no! That’s not your way, Roger. There was always a purpose to everything you did. I’m not deceived.’

‘True,’ I admitted. ‘You never were. I need to pick your brains.’

He smiled delightedly. ‘And so you shall. If I can be of any help to you, I will be. But first, come and pay your respects to Father Abbot. He’ll wish to see you, but we won’t stay too long. His time is much taken up at present with this latest dispute with Canterbury. You can guess what about.’

I threw back my head and gave a shout of laughter, much to the disapproval of other brothers exercising in the cloister, two of whom turned their heads to frown at me and mutter angrily under their breath.

‘You’re not still arguing as to who has the real set of St Dunstan’s bones? Is the matter still not resolved after all these years?’

Brother Hilarion looked offended and withdrew his hand from my arm. ‘No, and never will be, Roger, so long as Canterbury disputes our claim.’

‘But he was Archbishop of Canterbury and died there,’ I argued.

My companion sniffed contemptuously. ‘And he was Abbot of Glastonbury here in his own home county long before that. He naturally requested that his body should be brought home for burial as any good Somerset man would. It’s obvious.’

‘But not to Canterbury,’ I murmured. Brother Hilarion, however, fortunately did not hear me.

‘There is no doubt whatsoever that ours are the true set of bones,’ he stated flatly and in a tone that brooked no further argument.

I took the hint and allowed him to conduct me to the abbot without further ado.

John Selwood had been Abbot of Glastonbury since I was four years old, and would remain so for another decade. Before that he had been Receiver to two previous abbots, and in this autumn of 1483 was beginning to display some of that unreasoning impatience and irascibility that comes with old age. But he had always been very kind to me and had shown understanding and tolerance when, twelve years previously, I had cut short my novitiate to take to a life on the open road. He greeted me now with every courtesy in spite of his being in the middle of dictating a letter to his secretary, enquired after my health, my circumstances and my family, and invited me to find a bed for the night in his own lodging house. But he was plainly preoccupied and I did not linger, happy to let Brother Hilarion shepherd me out once again into the late afternoon chill of the November day.

It was with a sinking heart that I recollected the monks’ main meal had passed some hours earlier (my chief and most abiding memory of my years at the abbey was of desperate, gnawing hunger), but Brother Hilarion took me to the abbot’s own kitchen and there begged and cajoled the lay brother in charge to feed me. After making a fuss just for the sheer principle of the thing, this toplofty individual unbent to such a degree that he warmed up a large bowl of pottage over the fire, served me with half a chicken carcass, still with plenty of meat on its bones, and rounded off this princely repast with a dish of figs and honey and goat’s milk cheese, all washed down with several cups of the abbey’s delicious sweet cider.

Thus fortified, I returned with Brother Hilarion to his cell where he should have spent the time in prayer and preparation for the coming service of Compline, but instead invited me to tell him the reason for my visit. So I put my pack and cudgel in a corner and sat down beside him on the edge of the hard, narrow stone ledge that, with a single blanket and straw-filled pillow, served as his bed. (Another reminder of the discomfort and self-deprivation that had convinced me that a monk’s life was not for me.) I then started at the beginning and went on until I had come to the end of the story so far.

‘An interesting tale,’ he said slowly when I had finished. ‘But what is it exactly that you want from me?’

‘Your scholarship and learning. When the carter, Joseph Sibley, mentioned that he was coming here, I suddenly thought of you. I was hoping that you might be able to unravel the mystery of the men who sought shelter at Tintern Abbey all those long years ago. The year mentioned was 1326. Do you have any notion of what was happening then? Who those men might possibly have been?’

Brother Hilarion chewed his upper lip while he marshalled his thoughts.

‘The year of Our Lord one thousand, three hundred and twenty-six,’ he murmured over to himself. ‘Yes.’ He fell silent while I contained my impatience as best I could. After perhaps another half minute he said slowly, ‘This fragment of diary that was discovered under the floor in the former abbot’s lodging mentioned four men, you say?’

I searched my memory, desperately trying to recall the exact wording.

I said, at last, ‘I remember it said that “they came last night” and two others with them, one of whom was called Reading and the other. . Baldock, Yes, that was it. Baldock! For some reason my assumption was that the second pair — the ones named — were not so important. It was just the impression I got.’

My companion nodded to himself. Then he asked, ‘And you say that this knight is called Despenser?’

‘Sir Lionel Despenser, yes.’

‘And the groom you mentioned, the one you think may have been murdered, was named Gurney?’

‘Yes, yes!’

‘And he boasted that his family was linked to this Sir Lionel’s in some way or another?’

‘So I’ve been told. But not in recent years, you understand. Sometime in the past.’ I curbed my desire to take my former mentor by the shoulders and shake the information out of him. Not that it would have done any good. Brother Hilarion had always proceeded at his own pace, making sure that he had the facts right in his own head before imparting any knowledge to others.

Now he nodded yet again, finally demanding in his best dominie’s voice, ‘What do you know about the second Edward?’

Immediately, in my mind’s eye, I was back in Gloucester Abbey standing by the ornate marble sarcophagus built, as so much of the surrounding edifice had been, on the proceeds of the offerings of pilgrims who had come to pay their respects at Edward’s tomb.

‘I know he practiced the vice of the Greeks. That he preferred men to women, in spite of being the father of four children.’

A faint flush mantled Brother Hilarion’s cheeks, but he admitted bravely, ‘Yes, that was his great sin. Some blame may be laid at his father’s door, I think. The first Edward — Longshaks, the Hammer of the Scots, whatever one chooses to call him — was a great warrior. (As, of course, was his grandson, the third Edward.) To have a son like the second Edward must have been a bitter pill for him to swallow. There is written evidence to show that the latter, as a young man, was treated with great harshness and contempt by his father. And God knows, he paid for his sins. His murder in Berkeley Castle was hideous.’ My companion shuddered. ‘I find it impossible to imagine how his gaolers could have devised such a death.’

I said nothing, but found it entirely plausible. A red-hot poker thrust up their victim’s anus to burn out his bowels would have appealed strongly to their sense of humour: surely an appropriate death for one whose chief lovers had been men.

‘One of those gaolers,’ Brother Hilarion went on quietly, ‘was a Sir Thomas Gurney.’

‘Gurney?’

‘Yes. The others were Sir John Maltravers and Thomas of Berkeley himself.’

‘Gurney?’ I repeated again.

‘This groom you mentioned, this Walter Gurney, may well be a descendant.’

‘And his connection with Sir Lionel Despenser?’

Brother Hilarion eased his shoulders and wriggled his thin flanks against the hard stone. ‘Edward,’ he said, ‘had two lovers to whom he was devoted. One was the Gascon, Piers Gaveston. He was the first and most beloved. “Brother Perrot,” Edward called him, and would have given him the moon if he could have got it for him. As it was, Piers had to be content with most of the great cofferfuls of jewels the Princess Isabella brought with her from France when she became Queen of England after her marriage to the king at Boulogne.’

‘What happened to the Gascon?’

‘Eventually, he was murdered by the barons who resented his influence over Edward. They hoped that with Gaveston’s death, the king would amend his ways.’

‘But he didn’t?’

‘Of course not. The barons were fools to think that he would. He found another lover on whom to lavish his affection. Hugh le Despenser.’

‘Despenser?’ I demanded excitedly. ‘You think Sir Lionel might be a descendant of this Hugh?’

‘It’s possible.’ Brother Hilarion was cautious. ‘He might not be a direct descendant, of course, although I seem to recall that the younger Hugh was married and had children.’

‘The younger Hugh?’

‘He had a father of the same name who became Edward’s chief adviser. Both men were greatly resented by the barons, as I suppose I don’t need to tell you.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘Not so fast, my child. Queen Isabella, as you may well imagine, deeply resented her treatment at the hands of her husband. She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, having inherited the good looks of her father, Philippe le Bel of France, and in the beginning, she was known as Isabella the Fair.’

‘And later?’ Something stirred in my memory. ‘Was she the queen known as the She-Wolf of France?’

Brother Hilarion gave a long drawn out sigh, obviously sorrowing for the weaknesses of mankind. ‘Yes,’ he agreed sadly. ‘Her beauty was not the only thing she inherited from her father. Philippe IV had a cruel, ruthless streak in him, as his vicious suppression of the Templars demonstrates. Isabella inherited that streak. But again, we are getting ahead of ourselves in the story.

‘Edward was due to go to France to do homage to his brother-in-law, King Charles, for the fiefs of Gascony and Ponthieu. But he was afraid to go; afraid of leaving the two Despensers without his protection. And so he did a very foolish thing. He sent Isabella as his deputy along with their elder son, the thirteen-year-old Edward of Windsor.’

‘Ah!’ I exclaimed, memory stirring once more. ‘If I remember rightly, she met a man and fell passionately in love.’

The little monk pursed his lips and stared down his nose. ‘She was a married woman,’ he said repressively, ‘and a mother four times over. She should have had more control. But you’re right. The great Marcher lord, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, had been at the French court ever since Edward had sent him into exile for some misdemeanour — fancied or otherwise — and he was as eager for revenge on Edward as Isabella herself. Their love affair became so open, so unbridled, so scandalous, that they were ordered to leave France. So they went to Hainault, betrothed young Edward to the count’s daughter, Phillipa, and set out to invade England with an army of Hainaulters and mercenaries.

‘The English, sick and tired of the king and his minions, welcomed them with open arms. Edward’s supporters were murdered, including Bishop Stapledon of Exeter, his head hacked off with a butcher’s knife on the Cheapside cobbles. Edward and the Despensers fled westward to Bristol, along with Edward’s Chancellor, Baldock and a clerk of the court, Simon Reading.’

‘Baldock and Reading,’ I said excitedly. ‘The names in the diary.’

Brother Hilarion nodded. ‘The citizens of Bristol declared for the queen and Mortimer, managed to seize the elder Despenser and hanged him from the castle walls. Afterwards, they cut his body into collops and fed him to the wild dogs which scavenge for food on the heights above the city.’

I choked. Perhaps one of Hercules’s ancestors had been fed on these remnants of human flesh.

‘Go on,’ I muttered thickly to my companion, who was regarding me with concern, although by now I could work out for myself the end of the story.

‘Are you sure you wish me to?’ Brother Hilarion asked. ‘It’s a most unpleasant tale and you look a little queasy.’

‘No, no! I’m quite all right. Please continue,’ I urged him.

‘Well, there’s not much more to tell. Edward, the younger Despenser, Reading and Baldock escaped by the city’s Water Gate and reached the coast of Wales on the other side of the Severn. From there they went first to Tintern Abbey where, according to tradition, they stayed two nights, and then on to Neath Abbey where they lingered too long and were finally captured by Isabella’s and Mortimer’s troops. The favourite was hanged, drawn and quartered at Hereford, while the king was imprisoned firstly at Kenilworth and then at Berkeley Castle where, in spite of the most appalling ill-treatment, he refused to die, so was finally murdered in the barbarous way we mentioned just now.’ He regarded me anxiously. ‘My child, you look quite pale.’

If I did indeed look pale, it was with excitement.

‘And all this happened in the year 1326?’ I asked.

‘To the best of my recollection. But I will check for you in the annals of the abbey library after Compline or certainly before you leave us tomorrow.’

I didn’t discourage him in this self-imposed task — it was always good to have confirmation — but I had no doubt that his memory was good. Everything fitted together: the diarist’s and his fellow monks’ horror at the sin of sodomy which tainted their unexpected and unwanted guests and the abbot’s reluctance to offend the man who, when all was said and done, was still his sovereign. And how could he tell at that point who would finally prove victorious?

That left the mystery of the treasure, if it existed outside our imaginations. But it was more than possible that the king had left something of value in the abbot’s care; something which he did not wish to fall into his queen’s and her lover’s hands, but which he could go back for later if his cause took a turn for the better. Either money or something he could convert into money if the need arose.

What had alerted Master Foliot to its possible existence I was not quite sure, but I suspected that it must have something to do with the arrival of Walter Gurney in the life of Sir Lionel Despenser and the latter’s friendship with the goldsmith. The link was undeniably there, two men whose ancestors’ lives had both touched that of the second Edward.

But none of this answered the question of where, presuming that Peter Noakes had actually found something in the hiding place, the treasure was now concealed? What had he done with it? Who had it now?