Michael Jecks - The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

To Baldwin’s relief Simon’s worst fears were not realised.

From the day that Baldwin had spoken to de Bouden, Simon had maintained a cold silence. To him, it was clear enough that they should make Lord John aware of de Bouden’s meeting, but when Baldwin had spoken to the Queen it was clear that no useful purpose could be served by doing so.

‘You say that my clerk spoke to Roger Mortimer?’ she had asked.

Baldwin had nodded. ‘He would not say what they discussed.’

‘I am distressed to hear this,’ she said.

‘Would you like me to tell Lord Cromwell?’

‘No!’ she snapped, eyes blazing. ‘I would ask that you obey me, sir knight.’

‘My queen, I always try to do all to serve your interests,’ he protested.

She gave a short smile. ‘Rather than my husband’s, eh?’

‘I hope I can serve both equally.’

‘That I doubt. However, my annoyance is not with you, Sir Baldwin. It lies with de Bouden himself. He should have told me that you saw him.’

‘I …’ Baldwin had closed his mouth. She had not said that de Bouden should have told her that he had met Mortimer, but that he had told Baldwin about meeting Mortimer.

‘Yes. You comprehend, I think?’

‘When did you first begin to negotiate with Mortimer, your highness?’

‘That is none of your concern … and yet, why not? Roger Mortimer has been known to me for many years, Sir Baldwin. And when I was last staying in the Tower, I visited him there. The poor man has seen all he has built up over the last years removed from him. Believe me, I know how loss of privilege and lands and respect can hurt a man or a woman.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘You are not the man who took away my possessions and gave me a pittance to live on. Yet I thank you for your words. You are a kind man, Sir Baldwin. Yes, but worse than what was happening to Mortimer, I also knew of his poor wife, Joan. My husband had her arrested too, and imprisoned. She is allowed only one mark a day for food and expenses. One mark a day! Their children have been taken from her and imprisoned, all but Geoffrey who is here in France.’

‘I understand.’

‘No. You cannot, Sir Baldwin. You cannot know what it is like to be taken from your home, to have all your pretty little possessions stolen away, to be forced to become a beggar, and you cannot understand — no man can comprehend — the horror of having your children taken from you. All else is bearable, my sir, but to have your children stolen from you, to be refused permission to see them, to hold them … that is cruelty beyond torture.’

He could recall so clearly the brightness in her eyes as she spoke. She knew about the pain of loss. Baldwin was tongue-tied standing before her as the tears formed and trickled down her cheeks. In his heart he wondered how his own wife Jeanne would cope with the destruction of their family, with seeing their little manor broken up, their belongings taken away to be sold or destroyed, and her children torn from her embrace, to be carted away, perhaps never to be seen again. All because of offences caused by their father — offences of which they were entirely innocent.

‘I shall not tell Lord John, my lady,’ he had said stiffly.

‘Lord Mortimer is a good man, Sir Baldwin. He has a loving wife who misses him dreadfully, and he her. You know that in all their married life, he never left her? When he was sent by my husband the King to fight in wars all over the King’s lands, he always took Joan with him. She and he are devoted.’

Her eyes were distant, a woman considering the fortune of another. A cause for jealousy, perhaps, but all Baldwin could see was a whimsical respect. Or a sadness for the love she had not felt for so many years.

‘Sir Baldwin, I know what it is to have a lover taken from me. I know how Joan must feel to know that her marriage has been ravaged. Her husband was stolen from her by the fiend Despenser, may he rot in hell! Despenser has done the same to me. He is the third person in my marriage. I know how poor Joan feels because I have suffered the same fate.’

‘I think I now understand you better, my lady,’ he said. And for the first time, in his heart, Sir Baldwin de Furnshill cursed the king who could have ordered such injustices.

Jean had seen nothing of them. The little store of coin which he had in his purse was all but used up, and now he was husbanding the remainder by working in a little cookshop not far from the palace gate. The money was poor, but he could eat as many pies as he wanted while the cook was in the front of the shop, and there was enough to pay for his room and buy a cup or two of wine each day.

He couldn’t stay here for ever, though. The whole town was full of talk of the protracted negotiations which were continuing here between the King and the English queen, she who was his sister. Not that it meant there was too much love between them. She had new loyalties now, to her husband, her son, and her adopted country. So the haggling went on, and meanwhile the men who had travelled here with her were all closeted up in that palace. And all he wanted to do was get to see le Vieux and explain what had happened so that they could both overwhelm and kill that madman, Arnaud.

It was ironic that he should have come to this conclusion now. In the past, all the while they had been guards at the Château Gaillard, he had loathed Arnaud for what he had done to Agnes and Raymond.

Jean had known many men who had killed. He had done so himself. When a man joined his lord’s host, he must expect to be sent to fight; unless he went with the intention of dying, he must expect to kill. But that was in hot blood, when the energy fizzed in a lad’s arms and legs, when he shouted, his heart warmed by the thought of standing with friends and comrades in defiance of another’s will. It was easy to kill when a man ran at you trying to cut your throat.

Others were put in the hideous position of having to kill in cold blood. He was fortunate, he’d never been forced to that, but he knew other men who had. Men who’d been told to execute prisoners, thrusting a sword down into their bodies while they knelt with hands and feet bound, like cattle waiting to be slaughtered. Yet that was removing dangerous enemies. Even that was more acceptable than the actions of a man like Arnaud.

An executioner could show pity, sympathy, compassion or even regret. Any display of that nature was good for the heart of the victim. And no one would wish to be killed by a man who had no feeling at all. That would serve only to denigrate the entire life of the condemned. Yet there was one worse possibility — a man like Arnaud.

Jean had seen him. Yes. He’d seen him when Agnes screamed and wailed in the flames. It was inhuman to kill a woman in that way. Worse than bestial. The law must be upheld, of course it must, but to kill like that, in a way specifically designed to terrify, was no form of justice.

Some executioners went out of their way to prevent too much suffering. Jean had seen them: men who cast a rope about the throat of the victim, so that as the flames crept higher they could strangle the man or woman before the pain became unbearable. Others came to their duties with fear; weakly souls, these, who would cause the prisoners untold anguish because they detested what they must do. Often they would be drunk, intentionally overindulging in wine or ale so as to be incapable of feeling when they set the pyre alight.

Arnaud was that worse type, though. He gloried in killing. He enjoyed it. He would go to the executions with a smile on his lips. He would listen with delight to the pleading of the condemned; he would laugh and caper in appalling mimicry of their death throes; he would revel in their horror.