Michael Jecks - The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

There was a fresh change of tempo, and now it was the gittern player who initiated it. He looked at the rebecman, then to the drummer and the recorder. All nodded.

And then she saw something else. It was so swift, so fleeting, that at first she thought she had been wrong. The bodhran man looked up quickly. Just for a moment, but Alicia saw it, and she also saw his slight nod. It was a momentary thing, but enough, she thought, to be over-familiar. Except Isabella did not seem to mind. Instead, she too nodded. A spasm of the neck that made her head move a fraction, only for an instant.

Alicia felt the breath in her lungs turn to ice. Isabella had a plan to which even Alicia was not privy. It was the first time Alicia had realised that there could be secrets which the Queen would keep even from her.

In the street outside the Queen’s apartments, Adam and the other musicians stood and counted their coins again. Ricard knew he ought to go back to their room and make sure that little Charlie was safe, but somehow it seemed hard to move his legs just now.

‘My God,’ Adam breathed. He stared at the coins glittering and shining in Ricard’s hands.

‘I know,’ Janin said. He could not believe what he held. He stared at the coins with a kind of longing. They were so beautiful, he hardly dared to put his rosin-stained hands near them. Large, solid coins. Fifty of them.

For his part, Ricard was all but speechless. It was only after he had stood there with the pile of coins in his hands for a while that he shook his head and muttered, ‘Keep this up, we’ll be able to retire in comfort.’

‘She must have been in a good mood tonight,’ Jack said.

‘She’s a queen. What’s there for her to be anxious about?’ Adam said, his eyes still fixed upon the mound in Ricard’s hand. ‘Can I feel one, Ric?’

‘She usually gives us a few coins, doesn’t she? One or two shillings for an evening’s banging and scraping. And tonight she gives us ten apiece, and you’re not interested in why?’

‘Just leave her alone, is what I say. She’s a lady, and she doesn’t deserve some arse like you sniffing around her,’ Philip said.

‘Me? Ho hum. So you still think I’m a spy now, do you?’

‘I don’t know what you are, but I know damn sure I don’t trust you,’ Philip snarled.

‘Ah, now, there’s a pity. When I could be such charming company, too,’ Jack said lightly.

‘Just leave the woman alone. She has enough to cope with.’

Adam gave a small sniff of contempt. ‘Like what? She’s a queen, Philip. She’s never been left out in the open with her instruments getting warped in the rain, has she? Never had to worry about where her next meal’s coming from, neither. Don’t see what you reckon-’

‘Have you wool in your head? You heard what Peter used to say. She’s been suffering a lot recently, what with her children taken away and her friends all gone. Despenser hates her, that’s what they say. So yes, she has plenty to worry about, I’d reckon.’

‘Let her worry. What do we care, as long as she keeps paying us?’ Jack said.

‘You shouldn’t keep talking about her as if she was just some slattern from the stews!’

‘Was I disrespectful, old man? Ah, now there. I hadn’t realised that talking amongst friends could be so dangerous. If I’ve upset you, that’s a shame.’

All was delivered in a calm, disinterested tone, as though Jack was absolutely unconcerned what Philip might think, and it was enough to make Philip forget where they were. Here, in the street, in the dark, it was hazardous to brawl where the Watch could catch a man, but he was past caring.

He growled low in his throat, and launched himself forward, his hands reaching out like a campball player’s 14to grab Jack. But as he sprang at him, Jack slipped aside and punched once, sharply. His fist connected with a solid-sounding thud just under Philip’s ear, and he fell to the ground like a pole-axed ox.

‘I think you’d best take care of him now, fellows. Don’t think he’d like me to be around when he wakens, eh?’

The last they saw of Jack that night, he was strolling away as though he had not a care in the world. It was only Adam who saw the figure slip from the shadow of a doorway further up the street and join Jack, walking in step with him as far as a bend in the road. They both stopped there and turned back to look at the musicians before walking on.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

‘What?’ Ricard had been carefully replacing the coins one by one in the neat purse, and looked up now as Janin tried to lift Philip to a sitting position.

‘Up there. I could have sworn it was William de Bouden, but … they’ve gone now.’

‘What of it?’ Janin demanded, puffing a little as he rolled Philip on to his back. ‘Give me a hand, Ricard.’

‘De Bouden was watching us, as if he knew Jack was going to be here,’ Adam said. ‘When he wandered up, Bouden stepped out, all friendly, and joined him. Why?’

‘Because the bastard’s in league with Despenser, that’s why!’ Ricard snapped. ‘So what’s new? He’s probably spilling all he’s seen in the Queen’s chamber tonight. Then Bouden can relay it all back to London.’

‘You really think that he’s dishonourable enough to do that?’

Ricard stopped, turned, and stared at him.

Adam coloured. He felt foolish enough. But if he’d seen round the bend in the street, to where de Bouden and Jack had halted as they met the third man, he would have felt still more confused.

As would Ricard.

Wednesday after the Feast of St Edward the Martyr 15

Jean had tried to find a small room, but the sudden influx of people in the town had soon put paid to that. All the sleeping chambers were taken, and even the haylofts and stables were occupied by grooms and servants, because every knight travelling with the Queen — those in her entourage and those French men who had met her on her way to celebrate her journey — had a squire, two horses for riding, and a sumpter horse or two; and then there were the assorted hangers-on: musicians, cooks, procurers, carters. There was not a foot of floor available anywhere, he was told at one point.

In the end, he had been forced to accept an offer of some boards up in the eaves of a peasant’s hovel. The peasant was content to sleep on the ground on his palliasse, and Jean was forced to make the best of it on the man’s bed without a mattress. It was only a little harder than the ground outside, and reeked of the man and his wife, smoke, and urine from some creature which lived in the thatching, but at least it was consistently warm — until the middle of the night, long before dawn, when a combination of the cold, the man’s wife’s snoring, and a wooden dowel sticking in his kidneys, all conspired to wake him.

He glanced about him quickly, alert as always to the risk of a sudden attack from a stranger, but when he looked down, the peasant and his wife were both still asleep. Others he had known had been stabbed at night and robbed by poor folk such as these, but he felt safe enough. He did not look to them like someone worth robbing; he had little enough to steal. Rolling over, he slept until dawn.

The Queen’s company might have made his search for a bed problematic, but at least he had the pleasure of witnessing the cavalcade depart the following morning. He was sitting outside the peasant’s hovel on a rock when the men began to gather, and he left it to trail after them and watch what was happening. It was many years since he had seen a grand party like this lot.

That was down in Pamiers. When the bishop arrived. He had not realised then how the man would destroy his life. How could he? It was difficult to conceive of a single person’s bringing so much ruin on so small a community of believers.