Michael Jecks - The Bishop Must Die

‘Come now! Who on earth would attempt such a thing!’ he exclaimed. ‘It is folly to think that there is a master of disguise and deviousness here in the cathedral. I will not believe it.’

‘Unless you believe that the agent which deposits these things here is a devil,’ John said sharply, ‘then you have to agree that a man would be inordinately lucky to break in here and drop off a note without knowing when would be a good time to do so. Only a brother or a priest would have access to that information.’

‘John, I understand your desire to protect me, but I still cannot think that one of the canons or a priest could have done this to me. They would know how distressing I must find it. Such evil messages!’

William shook his head, and John followed him from the room.

‘He is sorely distressed,’ John said. ‘You saw how he looked? Like an old man.’

‘Whoever is doing this to him deserves to be pilloried,’ William agreed.

‘Do you think I was a fool?’

‘No. You have to be right. There are few enough men who would have the opportunity to enter his chamber at the best of times. To be able to walk in and be confident enough to drop a message on his table, that would be astonishing. Who do you think it might be?’

‘No name instantly springs to my mind,’ John said, scratching his head. ‘There was no one about when I left to see to the other room. Only young Paul of Taunton — I noticed him in the corridor.’

‘Would he be likely to send messages like those to the bishop?’

‘No. But he could have seen someone.’

William agreed, and the two men sought the servant concerned, eventually tracking him down in the charnel chapel, where he was preparing for the next service.

‘You were outside the bishop’s chamber today,’ John said. ‘I saw you there.’

‘Yes, steward. Why?’

The lad was not yet five-and-twenty, and had the astonishingly clear blue eyes and black hair of the Celt. He had been sweeping the floor clean as they entered, and now he leaned on his besom to look at them with a puzzled frown.

‘Did you see someone go up to the bishop’s chamber? Somebody entered while the bishop was not there, and left something. Do you know who it may have been?’

‘There was a lay brother who went up. You know the man, the older one with the grey stubble who always looks as though he’s about to collapse from hunger.’

‘Geoffrey?’ John asked, with eyes screwed up from the act of recollection.

‘That’s him. He used to be a squire, and now he lives here on a corrody.’

‘Who is he?’ William asked.

‘Geoffrey of St Albans. He was a squire, and served his master well, I believe,’ the clerk said, carrying on with his sweeping.

‘Who was his master?’

‘The Earl of Lancaster.’

William breathed out. Earl Thomas of Lancaster had attempted to curb the king’s powers, and as a result had thrown the country into a short but bloody civil war. Captured by the king’s men after the Battle of Boroughbridge, the earl had been stripped of his rank, drawn to his execution on an old goat, and beheaded as a traitor. It had been the start of the appalling bloodshed with which the king had sought to seal his authority on the realm.

‘If he was a servant of the king’s enemy,’ William said, ‘it is easy to imagine that he might also hate the king’s advisers and friends.’

‘Perhaps we should seek this man out,’ John said. ‘It’s possible we shall not need the knight from Furnshill after all.’

Road to Paris

It was a relief to be out of that town. There was nowhere Paul would like to be less than that hideous castle. Once it had seemed a pleasant retreat, but no longer. The idea that he and the Duke of Aquitaine could be held prisoner there was frankly terrifying.

Their orders to leave had come almost as soon as they had left Mortimer. There had been some more arguing, no doubt, but now the agreement was confirmed. The young duke was to ride to Normandy with his guards, while his mother and Mortimer would go to Hainault to conclude negotiations. They had much still to arrange. The invasion of an entire realm like England was not a matter to be undertaken lightly.

The duke had bellowed at his guards to hurry as soon as the meeting was closed, and Paul was pleased for once to obey an order to be quick. He actually assisted some of the servants as they packed goods and clothing, even carrying some of the bales of clothes and helping another man with a heavy chest, taking them all out to the waiting carts.

Now they had been on the road for a half of the afternoon, from the look of the sun, and Paul was wondering where they might stay the night. ‘Where shall we go, my lord?’

‘Tonight? There will be an inn before long. If not, we can sleep under the stars with the weather so clement.’

‘Yes, but what of the morrow? Shall we be remaining in Paris for some days?’ Paul asked hopefully. There were so many more glamorous women there in the city. It was a place that offered endless opportunities to a man like him, and he would have welcomed a chance to rest there for a few days.

‘No,’ the duke said coldly, as though reading his mind. ‘We shall turn west before Paris and ride for my ancestor’s lands. I have never seen Normandy, and this will be a good opportunity to do so.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t look so crestfallen, priest. It will be a delightful interlude, and safer than a place like Paris with all the intrigues that a city can afford.’

‘I thought you would like to rest there a while,’ Paul said lamely.

‘In a place where the leading peers of the realm have been offered silver by the barrel to have me captured, and possibly murdered?’ the duke said. ‘Hmm. I think not.’

‘But your uncle wouldn’t allow it,’ Paul said unthinkingly.

‘Do you think he supported the attack on me three days ago? Do you suggest that he would be keen to see me murdered at Montreuil?’

‘No, of course not!’ Paul said hurriedly. It was not safe to speak of a king as an assassin in his own realm where any might be listening. ‘But surely in Paris …’

‘There would be plenty of opportunity for a murderer. Many men there would no doubt welcome the chance to augment their incomes. And many more would stick a dagger in my throat for the price of a barrel of wine.’

‘So we will ride west to Normandy at once?’

‘Yes. And there, I think, we will be safe. The hunting is said to be excellent, and the wine flows.’ He cast an appraising eye towards his tutor. ‘I’ve heard that the women there are the most magnificent in all France,’ he added mildly.

‘I would not care for such news,’ Paul said unconvincingly.

‘They tend to blondes, I’ve heard. All tall. And their …’ the duke made some elaborate hand gestures about his chest. ‘Enormous.’

Paul shook his head with a slight frown. ‘Really, my lord duke, you should pay no attention to such matters. They are not becoming for a man of serious business, like you.’

But later, when all were preparing to sleep, all he could see in his mind’s eye was a tall, blond woman with a voluptuous figure and a come-hither smile.

Exeter

It was some little while later when the coroner finally grunted that he would have to leave. He was too well known in the city, and had no desire to leave her with a reputation befouled with rumours of harlotry.

Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam rose to see him to the door, aware of a great sadness that he was leaving her. ‘I do not want you to go,’ she said.

‘I would prefer to stay, but you know as well as I do that it wouldn’t be a good idea,’ Sir Peregrine said gruffly. ‘But if you will permit, I shall return tomorrow.’