Michael Jecks - The Bishop Must Die

‘I suppose I might be,’ he grunted. ‘Your Highness.’

She had dimples in both cheeks when she smiled; it made her appear even more fetching. ‘You know me?’

‘I could not mistake you. Not with your son in the doorway, my queen.’

She turned and nodded to her son. He began to walk across the floor towards them. It struck Sir Ralph that the son was equal in beauty to his father, but there were differences. Both had the same courtly bearing, and both were broad shouldered, as a knight must be, but for all that, this fellow was so much younger, his brow was smooth. Where the king had scowling lines engraved deeply in his forehead from all the times his wishes had been thwarted by his subjects, this boy had a more enquiring manner. He appeared genuinely interested in other men, if Sir Ralph had to guess.

Not that it mattered. He was a duke at present, and from the way things were progressing, it was unlikely he would ever be a king. ‘My lord, I hope I see you well,’ Sir Ralph said respectfully.

‘Sir Ralph la Zouche, I believe. I am pleased to see you,’ the fellow responded. He snapped a finger, and two servants ran to the table. While one cleaned an already spotless goblet, the second poured a small measure into a cup, swilled it, sniffed it, and then took a deep swallow with a contemplative air. He nodded, and poured a larger measure into the freshly cleaned goblet, before bringing it to the duke, bowing low. As soon as Duke Edward had it, the man stepped away silently, walking backwards the whole way.

The Duke hardly seemed to notice. ‘Sir Ralph. You have come here from England. Why is that?’

‘There were matters. It was better that we should all evade Sir Hugh le Despenser’s men.’

‘You have caused him embarrassment?’ Queen Isabella asked breathlessly. She was as quick and eager as a polecat, Sir Ralph thought to himself.

He nodded. ‘I and my family killed one of the Despenser’s men. He was ever stealing from me and my family, and we could not tolerate it any longer.’

‘Who?’ the Duke asked.

‘You know Belers? His favourite in the Treasury?’

‘This is good news!’ the queen said with delight. ‘My husband must be feeling desolate. You have killed his favourite in the Treasury, while I have taken delivery of his silver.’

‘Silver?’ Sir Ralph repeated.

‘He sent five barrels of silver to bribe the peers of France,’ Duke Edward said. ‘But the ship was captured by our friends. They took the barrels to the Duke of Hainault, who naturally passed it to us.’

Sir Ralph said nothing, but thought a lot. The fact that the queen and her son possessed a vast sum in silver was worth knowing. They could reward their friends — which was no doubt why they had told him. ‘You asked us to come here to look after you,’ he said solemnly. ‘What do you wish from us?’

The duke answered. ‘I have my own household, of course, but my father is growing ever more irrational, I fear. I seek more men to guard me and protect me from capture. There are tales of ships which are being provisioned to bring Englishmen to France to catch me and take me back. I would prefer not to have this happen.’

There was just a slight hint of reticence as he spoke: the proof of a boy not yet a man, who would prefer not to alienate his father.

Sir Ralph nodded. ‘We have all these men — proven fighters — and they’ll be as loyal to you as I am.’

‘Do you think any of them could be persuaded to return to the king?’ Queen Isabella asked.

‘Any of us?’ Sir Ralph laughed. ‘I will be hanged if I return, as will my brother and the others. We are all enemies of Despenser. What, would you think we could return to England with the threat of our lives, in the hope that we might sell news to the king? No. We are all here because we have no life in England now.’

‘There is a man there with a tonsure.’

‘He is a priest from Exeter, I think. He’s run here too.’

The queen’s face hardened, and if it was possible, Sir Ralph would have said that the room grew chill.

‘If he came from Exeter, I do not blame him. It must be foul — disgusting — to live in the same city as that accursed Bishop, Walter Stapledon!’

Tiverton Castle

It was not easy for Baldwin to listen to William as the squire told all his news. The idea that a man might send messages to warn the bishop that he was soon to die seemed so irrational as to be insane. However, there was the appeal of a desperate man in Squire William’s eyes, and Baldwin would not desert the bishop when he needed Baldwin’s help. True, in the last year or more, Stapledon had been less than deft in his dealings with Despenser, and had a few times put Baldwin and his friend into difficult situations with that most powerful magnate, but that was no reason not to help him.

‘You are sure of all this?’ Baldwin asked. ‘What sort of messages were they?’

The squire related everything he could remember about the messages, describing the parchment, the little purse, everything. ‘But the real difficulty is, the bishop has no recollection of anyone whom he could have hurt, and a man who was stabbed and wounded would surely have etched himself on Bishop Walter’s memory?’

Baldwin nodded vaguely. ‘Perhaps. Not all men remember those whom they have hurt in such a manner, but I agree, I think that Walter would do so, certainly. Why did you say “a man who was stabbed”?’

‘The purse has a stain upon one side, which to me looked like blood. So I thought, if the bishop had once hurt a man, so that the man fell down later, and his blood marked his purse, perhaps then the fellow would harbour a grudge, and would try to-’

‘No, it will not do!’ Baldwin declared with certainty. ‘You propose that a fellow is stabbed, so violently that his blood is permitted to leak and stain the ground all about him? If that was the case, it would be remarkable if the man lived. Yet you say he does live and seeks revenge? Hardly likely. Then you say that he had this purse. It soaked up the blood. That is possible, but again, it would mean significant effusions of the vital fluid. Finally, you say that these notes were written. My friend, if notes were written, it is not at all likely that the man who was wounded would have written them. Unless your uncle unwittingly stabbed a clerk.’

‘A clerk?’

‘The only profession in which writing is an essential skill. But if he had stabbed a priest or cleric, he would recall it.’

William was suddenly pale as a thought struck him.

‘Speak your mind,’ Baldwin said. ‘Come — speak!’

‘He mentioned to me only the other day, when he sent me here, that he was once excommunicated. Did you hear of it?’

‘Yes. It was a long time ago though. I was abroad.’

‘The cathedral had a dispute with the friars, the Dominicans. They were attempting to bury a corpse, against the rules of the cathedral, and my uncle and another man went to the friary with the aim of bringing the corpse back to the cathedral. They took the funerary items, the candles, the cloth, all the items you would expect.’

‘And he was accused of beating a man, I recollect.’

‘Certainly the party was accused of spilling blood. Perhaps this could be one of the friars? They can write, they live nearby, and they had a man who had bled profusely, if the tale is true.’

‘And there were probably two other men badly beaten that same night who were nowhere near the friary. The pouch could have been taken and dropped into another pool of blood. There is nothing to say that the good bishop had anything to do with it. And if there was a fight and men were beaten, then it would have been the lay brothers, not your uncle, who did the beating. No, I don’t believe that is very likely.’