Michael Jecks - The Prophecy of Death

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.