Michael Jecks - The Bishop Must Die

‘This man was not with the builders, John, he was in the cathedral, working as a servant in the buildings,’ Baldwin reminded him.

‘Yes, but there are so many. Do not forget, we have at least three and seventy clergy, and all have their own servants. The canons have entire households, and then there are the other men who work in the bakery, the kitchens, the cemetery and chapel. All told, we must have another hundred and fifty men who work in the cathedral and all about. This man Paul may have been hired by one of my servants, or he may have come from a canon’s household.’

‘You mean to tell me you don’t know who said he could work here?’ Baldwin demanded with surprise.

‘If he was here, working, he would have been accepted. Who would question whether he was permitted to be here, if he was performing useful work?’ John asked reasonably. ‘He was just another man to help with the cleaning.’

‘You do realise that if you allow just anyone to enter and remain here, working all day, then any man could walk in from the Broadgate and pretend to be a servant? What then of your lord’s security?’

‘Sir Baldwin, you are a man of experience and sense. Please, advise us,’ the bishop murmured. ‘What should we do to ensure that these threats may not be carried out?’

Baldwin frowned down at his boots. It was infuriating to be here, worrying about all this when there was so much else to take up his time. ‘My lord bishop, you know full well that I would do all in my power to protect you myself. You have been a good friend to me and to Simon in the last years. I would propose that you bring in more men to guard your person here, but that will hardly do. There are too many men about Exeter for you ever to be fully safe. I think that the best and most safe route may be for you to go away, to some other part of the diocese. You could go on visitation, perhaps.’

‘At this time of national peril, that hardly seems a suitable course of action,’ the bishop smiled. He looked exhausted, and rubbed at the gap between his eyebrows with a thumb. ‘I should be better served by joining with the king.’

‘Where is he?’ Baldwin demanded. The worst place, he knew, for the bishop to go would be London, where so many citizens already loathed him and would seek his murder since the Eyre which was forever associated with him.

‘He is still about Dover, I think. There were some papal legates who came to see him last month,’ the bishop said.

Baldwin gave a nod of relief. The bishop could go there and remain within the circle of the King’s household, away from strangers, and it would be more difficult for any man to travel after him to pursue a vendetta.

‘That is good,’ he said after considering. ‘Do you then go to the king and see whether there is aught you may do for him. He will be grateful for a friendly face at this troubling time. Meanwhile, have men search for this Paul of Taunton, if that is his real name, and have him apprehended. Are you sure you know nothing of him? You did not know a man from there who could have been his father?’

‘No. No one.’

‘In that case, perhaps it is an assumed name. Have you had any luck seeking the ones I found in your books?’

‘Only one: the man Biset.’

‘William told me. He is in France.’

‘Yes. The fellow Hamo in London is dead, I’ve heard. So it is possible that Roger Crok was the man here.’

‘You did not know him?’

‘I may have seen his face, but when you have stood in front of a congregation like me, you soon tend to lose all memory for faces. There are some I can recall, but not many. Only close acquaintances.’

‘It probably does not matter,’ Baldwin considered. ‘The fellow who was here was unlikely to be him. Those such as Biset and Crok come from positions of wealth, and they would be unlikely to demean themselves by taking up a servant’s post. If they were to attempt to kill you, surely they would do so in the open, attacking you with a sword.’

‘Perhaps,’ the bishop said, ‘but have you not heard of some of the surprising deaths in the Church recently? Poison has become a popular means of removing obstacles.’ He sighed and drained his wine. ‘So you would advise me to leave here and join the king. I suppose you are right, but it does give me a sense of shame to run thus.’

‘It would give you more pain to feel a dagger in your breast,’ Baldwin said.

‘I had heard you were to go to Portchester yourself?’

‘Yes. The king has asked me to go there as Commissioner of Array for him.’

‘Good. Then perhaps we could travel together? That would at least comfort me a little.’

Exeter

Edith hardly noted the journey home. Her thoughts were on her father, and his best friend.

‘That woman Jeanne! She had a man with her, and I have seen him somewhere,’ Peter was grumbling as he went.

‘Yes, my love,’ Edith said automatically.

Much of her life seemed to pass by automatically now. It was all a haze, ever since that terrible day last year when her father-in-law had told her that either she must renounce her own father and agree not to communicate with him or see him ever again, or she must accept that she was no longer welcome in her husband’s home, and must leave him to go back to her parents. To have told her that, when she was only married a matter of months, when she was feeling the new life growing in her womb, was the height of cruelty. She could scarcely believe her ears, let alone understand the utter irreversibility of her decision, once taken.

Before, she might have gone home to her parents, and then there could have been a reconciliation with her husband at some time in the future, when he had remembered his deep affection for her. Her absence might have brought him back to her. It must have done! But she had left it too long, and now it was quite impossible for her to change her mind, for although she would like to return to her real home, as she now thought of it, to do so would involve leaving behind her most precious possession: her baby son Henry.

‘You’re quiet. Do you feel unwell again?’ Peter asked.

She was able to respond with a calm enough smile, but she did indeed feel unwell. There was a queasiness in her belly that wouldn’t go away. She had thought to cure it with a letting of her blood, but it only left her with a pain in her forearm and a strange lassitude.

In the past she had never known such a tiredness. It was like a woman she once saw who was ill with some affliction that made her take to her bed and by degrees, she died. Just faded away and died. And that was how Edith felt now. On some days, the feeling of complete despair, coupled with the exhaustion that came from rising in the night to see to her child, was wearing her away. It felt as though there was no life left which was her own — all was given to her husband and her child. And the loss of her parents meant that she could not even call on her mother to come and help. Her mother-in-law was a good woman, but it was not the same, relying on someone whom she did not know so well.

There was a sudden choking sensation in her throat, and she felt her eyes burning. Like a physician watching a patient, she noted her symptoms, and knew that she was on the verge of bursting into tears yet again, but with an exercise of extreme effort, she managed to keep them at bay. It would be so humiliating, to lose control here in the street. Better to blink the tears away, take a deep breath and continue on the journey home.

At least there her child was waiting for her.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ her husband persisted.

She didn’t reply.

First Saturday after the Feast of Mary Magdalen *