Michael Jecks - The Bishop Must Die

‘Of course,’ Baldwin said, although Jeanne could hear the attempt to conceal his reluctance. ‘You are here on business?’

‘No. I am glad to say I am here to meet the Lady Isabella.’

Jeanne smiled. ‘Have you asked her to wed yet?’

‘My dear Lady Jeanne,’ Sir Peregrine protested. ‘I have hardly-’

‘You make her laugh, you told me. She must reciprocate your feelings.’

‘I think she has a respect for me.’

‘That,’ Jeanne said tartly, ‘is not what I meant, as well you know.’

‘Ah, well … Hmm. I am not convinced about affairs of the heart, my lady. I think that she may hold a certain … affection for me, perhaps. But more than that, I could not say.’

‘Then you must ask her,’ Jeanne said. ‘Nay, do not laugh, you should ask her whether she would welcome your suit, because a widowed woman would be enormously grateful for the offer of the hand of a banneret like you. A notable knight, offering his hand and heart is not a thing a woman could refuse lightly.’

‘Then I shall take your advice,’ he said. ‘Would you care to join me for some wine? We could go to the tavern near Broadgate.’

‘I would dearly like to,’ Baldwin said, ‘but I have just been told that I must soon leave to become a Commissioner of Array at the coast.’

Sir Peregrine grimaced. ‘There are to be many such commands, I fear. I myself have been ordered to travel to London to join the force sent by Lord Hugh de Courtenay to help guard the king. Apparently there is need of a great force of loyal subjects such as me.’

‘You will provide all aid you may?’ Baldwin said. The good Sir Peregrine had often stated his belief that the king should remove Despenser and reign on his own. He had a firm conviction that Sir Hugh Despenser was a malign influence on the king and on the realm.

‘You need not fear on that,’ Sir Peregrine said with a bitter smile. ‘I am no regicide.’

‘I hope you are successful, then. With your wooing, also,’ Jeanne said as they parted. ‘You will bring your lady to meet us? I should like that very much.’

Sir Peregrine bowed to her. ‘I will be honoured to do so, Lady Jeanne. My lady, Sir Baldwin, Godspeed, and may He bring you safely home again when all this trouble is at last put behind us.’

Baldwin took his hand, and to Jeanne’s secret surprise, rested his other hand on the knight’s shoulder. ‘Be careful, my friend. We have not always agreed with each other, I know, but I fear that harsh times are ahead for us. A knight who is loyal to the king will achieve all he might in terms of honour and glory.’

‘I hope so, although I think there will be little enough honour or glory in the days to come,’ Sir Peregrine said.

‘You almost sounded as though you cared for him,’ Jeanne teased as they walked on.

‘I almost feel as though I do,’ Baldwin said. ‘It would be a shame to lose a fellow like him. He is devoted to his view of the world, and a man who has conviction is preferable to one with purely mercenary instincts.’

‘I quite agree,’ Jeanne said. She then took him to the stall, ignoring her husband’s muttered protests that his old tunic was perfectly serviceable still, and he had a spare white linen tunic that he had hardly worn, and that there was little point in spending such a vast sum on yards of green material just at a time when he was about to leave home for weeks. She finally stilled him with a gimlet eye that would have skewered a flying duck, and negotiated a gratifying discount from the stallholder. It was as she was turning from the stall, Edgar carrying the bolt of material, that she saw a young squire hurrying towards them and recognised the bishop’s nephew.

‘Sir Baldwin! I am so glad to see you,’ William Walle said, panting a little. ‘You must come at once. We have the man who was trying to kill the bishop!’

On the road to Bayeux

‘Are we to travel much further, Your Highness?’ Paul managed as the horses breasted a low hill.

The duke made no comment. He sat stolidly on his horse and gazed ahead with the mien of a commander, rather than that of a boy who as yet had no need of a barber to shave him.

‘Leave the duke alone, you cretin,’ Ralph la Zouche snarled. ‘If you were anything more than pointless weight, you’d have known that he wants to come here.’

Paul said no more. His arse was hurting from all this riding, and his inner thighs were chafed and bloody where they rubbed against the saddle-leather. It was a chastened rector who was trailing along with these others on the way to the town where the magnificent tapestry had been stored. ‘I am sorry, Sir Ralph,’ he said diplomatically.

The man was quite changed from the suave, elegant man whom Paul had met some weeks ago. Then he had seemed as noble as a lord, rather than an outlaw. But all pretence at gallantry and chivalry had flown since his brother’s death. It was as though he had lost a limb when his brother fell, and Paul thought that a man who lost a leg or an arm could not have mourned more. Nor would he have become quite so unhinged. It was not only he who noticed this: he saw it in the eyes of Folville too. Even the duke himself had observed it, the change was so dramatic. Yet the man himself appeared either not to realise how his appearance and behaviour had slithered into the midden, or not to care. It was almost as though he saw himself as dead already.

Paul licked his lips when he saw that Sir Ralph was eyeing him closely. It was an unnerving sight, to see those bloodshot orbs fixed upon him, and not for the first time Paul felt the huge error of his ways. If only he could take back his actions with that bitch and return to England safely. But he was not likely to be safe, not while the bishop had a brain in his head. As a rector, he would be a hunted man all his days. Not even a king’s pardon could save him.

A faint tickle of a thought snagged at his mind, and he gave a quick frown. No, that would be utterly ridiculous: so dangerous, indeed, he would almost certainly die for his attempt.

And yet … There was a glorious possibility in it, were he to play it aright. And he was, of all the rectors, chaplains, annuellars and clerks of his experience, easily the quickest witted.

Here about him there was the king’s own son, with ten or eleven men-at-arms of all abilities, and all of them declared traitors. It would only take one man with a brain to let the king know where his son was, and suddenly all kinds of rewards could be forthcoming. Perhaps even a pardon.

The duke spun his horse about. ‘We will rest here tonight.’

Exeter

Baldwin left Jeanne in the hands of Edgar, and went after William, listening to the squire as they crossed the road, headed down to the Close, and crossed over the cemetery.

‘It was very easy in the end,’ William explained eagerly. ‘We found the man in short order. He was a corrodian who had been sent here some little while ago by the king.’

‘A knight?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Squire, I think. His name is Geoffrey of St Albans. Do you know of him?’

‘No, it is not a name I recognise,’ Baldwin said after a moment. ‘What did he say?’

‘He says nothing. If he won’t plead, we’ll have to put him to the peine forte et dure , and force him to make a plea. If it fails and he dies, so much the better. It’ll save us the effort of a trial.’

Baldwin glanced at him. ‘Have you ever seen a man put to that test? No? Then do not make light of such a horrible torture. It means putting unbearable weights on a man’s chest while he lies chained to the ground.’

‘I know,’ William said. ‘But it’s only for the recalcitrant. They deserve it.’