Michael Jecks - The Prophecy of Death

He had tried to write to the Pope for his support, but the Pope’s response had been most discouraging. If he had to guess, he would think that the King’s own letter had arrived before his, and the Pope was wondering now whether the King’s assertion was true. Nicholas had heard this already: the King had told people that Nicholas of Wisbech had invented the whole matter of the Oil of St Thomas, and the oil itself was not genuine.

Dear God, how could anybody think that, when the oil he had found had been brought to England by the Duke of Brabant especially for King Edward II’s coronation? It was hardly in Nicholas’s hands for him to be able to manipulate the phial and place false oil in it. But the King could be most persuasive, and he was, after all, a king. People would tend to believe him — or, at least, they would say they did.

But it did leave Nicholas feeling strangely abandoned and deserted. He might have been a sailor, wandering the seas, desperate for a return home, only to be shipwrecked. And here he was, on this unfriendly shore, wishing for a little help, only to find that there was nothing for him. Nobody would aid him.

He was morosely kicking at a pebble when he happened to glance up and see a face he recognised immediately.

A man had ridden in, and he reined to a halt before swiftly dismounting. He had a shock of thick brown hair, brown eyes, and a laughing face that instantly sent a shock of fire into Nicholas’s belly. The last time Nicholas had seen that face, it had been twisted with horror and grief.

‘I know you!’ he breathed, his eyes narrowing with recollection. Where had he seen the man — not here, not recently … and then he had a startling memory, of a face whitened with lime, eyes staring and dulled, a trickle of blood from the shattered skull.

And a boy, reaching to touch his face while the burnished steel of another knight gleamed in the sunlight. And he saw again Despenser’s face, twisted with disgust as he cuffed the boy about the head and then spat at the floor, spinning on his heel and storming off back into the church.

Mary Tavy

William Wattere found himself confined. His breath was loud in his ears, and there was a roughness on his cheek. Then he noticed the smell: there was a strange, cloying, musty odour about him. His cheek was sore, and so was his left shoulder. For some reason he was lying on the floor, his legs curled up, arms behind him. He tried to move the constriction about his face, but all he could do was swear when he felt the pain in his wrists. His arm was only vaguely healed, he recalled … but that didn’t explain the pain in the other wrist. What was that stuff on his cheek: rough, smelly … sacking? Yes. It was hessian or something. He tried to move his arms, and that was when he realised he was bound hand and foot.

That mother-swyving churl , Puttock! He’d knocked William down, hadn’t he? William could just remember the sight of that elbow coming back and the sensation of it hitting him, club-like, in the eye was all too fresh. Sweet Mother of Christ, the bastard had hit him hard enough to shatter his cheek! When he was free of this, Wattere would see to it that the bailiff recognised how foolish he was to attempt such an assault on a Despenser man. He would cut the man’s ballocks off, he’d skin his arse, he’d pull out his liver with his bare hands …

‘Awake, are you?’

William Wattere rolled, and by pushing up with his face, managed to lift himself to a kneeling position, gazing about him within the darkness of his sacking hood. ‘Get me out of this, Bailiff. If you don’t, I swear I’ll have your family destroyed! I’ll burn that hovel you call a house and salt the land so that no one will live there for a hundred years! When I tell my master what you’ve done, he’ll have your legs broken, then your arms, and leave you to crawl on your belly for all your days! He’ll have your wife taken for the amusement of his garrison, he’ll have-’

‘When you’ve finished shouting, Wattere, would you like to know what I’ve done while you’ve been dozing?’

‘I don’t care what you’ve done, you hog-shit! When I’m finished with you, you’ll regret the day you were born!’

‘Oh. Oh, well. Just so you know, Wattere, I’ve brought you into our shed, so I can hang you up here — where the pigs are hung for the blood to be collected. I’ll lift you by your hands until you lose all feeling, and then let you rest so all the pain comes back to your hands. You like that? I can do that fifteen or twenty times, but I’m told that if I do it too much, you’ll become unconscious again, and I don’t really want that. No, I’m happier knowing you’re feeling every fragment of pain I can give you, after your threats to my wife.’

‘If you don’t cut me free right now, I’ll see your whole family entirely destroyed. You know what I mean? I will kill your wife, your children, your parents, all of them! And I’ll do it in front of you, you miserable-’

‘Why did you threaten to take my house?’

‘Go and swyve a chicken!’

‘Not now, Wattere. Perhaps later. Who told you to threaten us?’

‘You know who did it. My master, Despenser.’

‘Do you mean Sir Hugh, the younger Despenser, not his father?’

‘You know who.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of what you and your friend did to my master at Iddesleigh, of course.’ 25

‘What do you mean, what we did? It was his men who tried to murder others, and … well, no matter. So that’s why you were sent? To force us from our home, to forcibly remove us even though you had no reason to? Because you have no case in law, do you?’

‘Why should I care? You are dead, now. Dead. My Lord takes what he wants. If you get in his way, he will kill you. And all your family. Feel proud, do you? You’ve signed the death warrants of your whole family, little bailiff.’

‘Cut him down, Edgar. I have heard enough.’

This was a different voice, and William stopped and cocked his head. ‘Who’s that?’

His hands were released at last, and he pulled at the sacking, hauling it over his head like a linen shirt, and then he felt a terrible sinking feeling as he took in the sight about him. This wasn’t a pig-slaughterhouse. It was the inn at Mary Tavy. Dear Christ, they’d taken him nowhere. They’d only pulled him inside. And that man …

‘My name, my friend, is Bishop Walter of Exeter. And you, my friend, are arrested for attacking a servant of the Church and threatening him, and his family.’

Beaulieu

Jack sat back easily. Resting came naturally to him, and since the hurried ride here, he had been keen to take his ease as much as he possibly could. Any seasoned traveller, like a veteran at arms, would understand his enthusiasm for any snatched moment of peace.

They had been here some time now, and if he was honest, Jack was growing a little bored. Beaulieu was a lively little palace for monks, no doubt, but there was little entertainment for men like him. He had noticed that even the two, Peter and John, from Canterbury, had been showing signs of restlessness recently. It made him wonder about them again.

Thing was, they’d been perfectly amiable during the ride here. Oh, they still had that odd way of looking at a man as though wondering whether to knock him down immediately, or to first let him open his mouth. Just once. There was nothing that inspired a man to trust them. But to their credit, they appeared to be cautiously watching everyone else, too, as though they were themselves nervous. Not surprising. They didn’t really know anyone.

Which was what was so odd about their coming here in the first place.

He was sipping a large mazer of wine as he considered them, and then he heard a shout. Idly standing, he wandered to the corner of the barn, a good few tens of yards from his bench, and then gaped.