Michael Jecks - No Law in the Land

And although in this case he had neither master nor money, he hesitated only a moment before darting off after the horses.

He would learn where they had come from.

Sandford

Simon walked up and down, while his wife watched with her blue eyes wide and anxious.

‘Well, I suppose we’ll continue together, then,’ Sir Richard said after a while. He was looking from one to the other of them with some concern, but mainly with a scowl of incomprehension.

‘Are you going to go?’ Margaret asked.

Simon threw a look at her. ‘Meg, I have to. I don’t want to any more than you do, but I have to obey a direct command like this!’ he said, and slapped the note in his hand.

They had been talking about the message all the afternoon, and Meg was no more keen to think that he was about to have to leave again than she had been before. Their son Perkin had already left to run and play in the yard after listening to the wrangling back and forth, and Sir Richard was only there because he thought it would be rude to leave the two to their discussion. Simon was glad that he had remained. The presence of the coroner forced Simon and Margaret to maintain a moderately calm demeanour.

‘Isn’t it enough that they have our house?’ Margaret asked quietly.

‘This isn’t from the man Despenser sent to steal it from us,’ Simon said wearily. They had been over this already. ‘It’s from the Cardinal de Fargis. He is living there, but not with the approval of Despenser. When we were thrown from our house, Bishop Walter had already offered it to the cardinal, and he will maintain it whether or not Despenser wants him there.’

‘Simon, I don’t want you to go.’

‘I don’t want to. But look at it sensibly, Meg. The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back. The worst that can happen is that I’m asked to help with some matter for a few days, and then I’ll be back. I will not accept another post abroad, no matter what they offer or threaten.’

‘You said that in the summer. And then they sent you to France.’

‘That was the king,’ Simon reminded her. ‘And after the way the king reacted to Baldwin, Sir Richard and me last time he saw us, there’s not the remotest chance he’ll want me around again. I think I’m unlikely to be sent anywhere other than Tavistock now.’

‘He’s right there, lady,’ Sir Richard said.

‘We will leave in the morning,’ Simon said, more firmly.

Castle at Bow

The meal was well under way when the men turned up.

Sir Robert of Traci was not a pretentious man. He didn’t have a wife, nor did he have a taste for some of the extravagance of modern courtly life in the royal household. It was fine for others to aspire to the little luxuries, as they were sometimes called. Men wanted pretty finery to show off their legs or arms. He had no need of that. His sword arm was strong enough to cut off the head of any man who offended him. Others wanted great piles of plate and pewter to show how rich they were. Sir Robert knew how rich he was. Richer than any other local magnate. In London he had seen tapestries, fabulous hangings created and set up to demonstrate the stylish elegance of their owner’s way of life, to prove that the man was cultured. Sir Robert had no need of such fripperies and nonsense. He was as cultured as he wanted, and his money was put to better use in providing weapons and men. It was his job to pacify the area, not emulate some fop of a lord with more money than brains.

He had not been born rich, God knew. His journey to wealth had been long, and was by dint of effort and careful manipulation of every opportunity. In his youth he had been the impecunious son of a minor squire, little more than a peasant himself, as he had told anyone who listened. Then, he had only had dreams of money.

The famine had taken away all his father’s money, rot his soul, and when his old man had died, leaving him as the inheritor of the estates, there had been next to nothing for him. His demesne was hopeless. What the famine hadn’t devastated, other disasters had destroyed. Some fires, some flooding, and suddenly whole tracts of land were unviable. The vills were poor and their crops pathetic, while fields were ruined, and the likelihood of making a living as he wanted was so remote as to be next to impossible. He could only look at his future with despair.

But then his fortune changed. His uncle had a friend who was to enter the parliament, and who offered the young Robert the opportunity to join him. Robert had agreed with alacrity. That was in the thirteenth year of the king’s reign, *when all was in flux. And young Robert had discovered the attractions of riches and power at the same time. He had been taken into the king’s household.

Then there had been the fall. He had joined those who had sought to curb the king’s power. Not because he was a fool, but because he had thought that Edward’s inherent feebleness was too much of a threat to the realm. He couldn’t fight the Scottish, he couldn’t fight the French — in Christ’s name, he could hardly control his own kingdom! So Sir Robert had joined the malcontents, men like his friend Badlesmere, who were prepared to ally themselves to Earl Thomas of Lancaster, the king’s cousin, the king’s enemy.

It had nearly ended his life. He had been lucky to escape the wholesale slaughter after that disaster, and still more lucky to have got away with his son. Basil had been only fourteen years old or so in the fifteenth year of the king’s reign, and it had been hard for him to come to terms with the loss of everything. As it had for Sir Robert himself.

But those dreadful days were over now. Sir Robert had the trappings of authority once more. If the power he had once wielded was sadly declined, he still had his castle returned to him, and his son had his inheritance. And if they were to obey the commands given to them, they would be able to keep them.

Aye. If they obeyed.

‘Who is this?’ he bellowed as the man was pushed into the room.

‘Says his name is Stephen of Shoreditch, Sir Robert,’ Osbert said. He pushed Stephen further into the room, past the side benches of sitting men-at-arms, who stopped their guzzling and slurping to take a look at him.

‘So, Stephen of Shoreditch, I wonder what you will have for me?’ Sir Robert said musingly. He was a broad-shouldered man, if not so tall as some, and when he stood, the cloth from his tunic hung down smoothly, emphasising the strength of his frame. It was that that had first caught the eye of the king.

‘Messages, Sir Robert. From your good friend Sir Hugh le Despenser,’ Stephen said boldly. He held the gaze of the man in front of him with resolution.

The knight was big, handsome even, with his flashing black eyes and thick dark hair. He was clean shaven, although in need of a razor again; his chin must require a trim twice a day. His eyes, though, they were scary, Stephen remembered. He had seen the man a few times in Westminster at parliaments, and then more often when the king was holding a feast. Sir Robert was one of his loyal guests always. Sir Hugh le Despenser had a worrying habit of staring unblinkingly and unmovingly; it was one of his ways of unsettling a man, Stephen thought. As though whenever he was beginning to lose his temper, it was reflected in his powers of concentration on the poor being right in front of him.

This Sir Robert had a similar way of holding a man’s attention. He would stare fixedly, without blinking, but instead of Despenser’s steady bearing, the rest of his body motionless as if the whole of his being was fixed within that gaze, Sir Robert had a more feral, fearsome quality. He would slowly pace about the room, like a great cat stalking a prey, his eyes all the while on his victim, while his head sank down, his whole demeanour that of a ferocious beast. And all too often, the subject of his attention would later be discovered dead.