Michael Jecks - The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover

There was little more satisfying than achieving a good death, one that made all the crowds howl. Some men took pride in their carpentry, others in the quality of their clothes-making, or their ability with a horse. Well, Arnaud was no different. He enjoyed just the same pride and satisfaction as they.

Sometimes he thought he was like a player with the mummers. They would don odd clothes, disguises to hide their real personalities, and in the same way he would often sport a hood to conceal his features. After all, the people weren’t there to see him, but to watch the spectacle of an execution.

Some of his victims were bold, and stood resolutely, as though daring any in the audience to laugh or make sport with him; others whimpered, wet themselves, soiled themselves, fell and rolled on the ground. They were the more rewarding ones, Arnaud felt. They showed people the true result of their misdeeds. If they broke the King’s laws, they would suffer the torments of Arnaud’s punishments. Terror was important. Without fear of the consequences, any man would dare to act the felon.

Back up the ladder, this time to throw a fresh rope over the beam. As he did so, the nearest body was caught and turned slowly in a gust of wind. The face, leering and bloated, skin blackened, came to peer at him as though it was studying him from its empty eye sockets.

Arnaud grinned. He patted the face’s cheek and giggled. ‘Don’t worry. Soon have another companion for you up here!’

Roger Mortimer was not at the Louvre, but at a small inn nearby. It had been made abundantly clear to him that the King preferred him to keep well out of the way and avoid any diplomatic incidents. The last thing he wanted was to endanger the discussions directly. That would mean two kings wanting his head, and that was not a good idea. No, far better that he should keep to the shadows and away from the negotiations.

Not that it was easy. He had always enjoyed cordial relations with the Queen. Isabella was a kind woman, understanding. . sympathetic. She understood what it was to lose a love. Of course, in Roger and Joan’s case it was an enforced separation by that madman the King. More or less the same for her, actually. The King had separated himself from her.

It was hard to conceive of a man who could have started out in life with so many advantages and squandered them so swiftly, he thought. The King had enjoyed the love and devotion of a loyal wife; he had the benefit of a country which had endured too many wars and wanted only peace, a strong barony which would support its king no matter what, and in the space of only a few years he had lost it all. He had destroyed the faith his barons had held in him and in the office of the crown, he had lost the trust of the people by passing too much money and treasure to his lovers, and he had even managed to alienate his wife, the mother of his four legitimate children.

Mortimer should know. He had been one of King Edward’s most devoted servants. Christ’s bones, he’d been to Ireland to fight the King’s wars, he’d supported Edward against all his foes, and yet he still got kicked in the teeth when the King decided to give all his trust to Despenser instead. What was the point of a man’s risking his life and livelihood for a king, if that same king showed no loyalty to him? A man had a right to expect his king’s largesse , but in Roger Mortimer’s case the King had worked to deprive him. Gradually, all authority was passing to Despenser and Walter Stapledon, and in the end Mortimer would be killed. There could be no other outcome.

The evening was drawing in. Soon it would be time for his meeting. He rose from the fireside, glancing about him. There were four men with him tonight, and as he passed out from the room to the roadway they followed him. Then, with one before him, one behind and one either side, he set off towards the Louvre.

It was a marvellous castle, this. The powerful Philip-Augustus had constructed it in the days when his great enemy, Richard Coeur de Lion, had threatened. This was the point where Richard was most likely to attack. Later, when the city walls were built, the castle was left outside them, so that Philip-Augustus should always retain the capacity for defence without concern for the people of the city. But Roger was not going straight to the King’s great castle. In preference, he was walking to the secondary seat, the Château du Bois, which lay within a short walk to the west. Here, in the gardens which surrounded the castle, the King was wont to wander. It had been a place of especial pleasure for all the kings since Philip-Augustus, a place of rest and relaxation, where the hunting was second to none.

He reached the city walls and passed out with his men. Now they bunched together about him a little more closely. Any man walking out in the wilds at this time of night was at threat of attack, and the fact that Roger Mortimer had more enemies than most was a cause for extreme caution. He kept his own hand near his sword hilt.

The houses had come to fill the gaps between the walls of the city and the Louvre, and now they had rippled out beyond, so that the Château du Bois was an island of calm in a sea of small houses. True, to the south was the great castle of the dukes of Brittany, but the houses lapped even about that. There were so many who were keen to live in this greatest city in Christendom, that any space must inevitably be filled.

‘I am here,’ he muttered at the gate to the Château du Bois. The gatekeeper at the postern gate nodded, eyed the four guards, then opened the gate. Mortimer hesitated, then slipped through, almost expecting to receive a blade between the ribs as he did so.

‘Your royal highness,’ he breathed, bowing low.

‘My lord,’ Queen Isabella responded.

Jean picked up the bowl of pottage and supped from it. God, that was good! A pleasing, thin soup of spring leaves with some lentils, and a sausage with bread alongside, and a man could sit back in comfort.

He had made his way here slowly, wary at every stage in case he was being hunted for le Vieux’s murder, but there was no sign that anyone was seeking him. Nobody appeared to have the faintest idea that he could still be in the area, and he had found it remarkably easy to make his way down to this part of town.

The undercroft had saved his life. Surely everyone who had sought him would think that he must have escaped from the city after le Vieux’s death. It was like the last time, when he had been marked as a heretic.

He ought to have learned to keep his mouth shut. Anyone who was prepared to stand up for the truth was automatically a suspect in the eyes of the Church. Not that it was entirely due to evil men — he had no doubt that the bishop believed in his little crusade. He thought he was saving people. Jean didn’t doubt that. But when a man saw people being executed, he had a duty to think about their reactions. And if their behaviour didn’t seem suitable, bearing in mind their crime, he should consider that.

That was why he had reflected long and hard after witnessing the death of Raymond de la Côte and Agnes Franco five years ago.

What was their crime? Only that they had sought to honour and worship Christ in a way that was in keeping with their beliefs. The people of the mountains had followed the way of the Poor of Lyons for hundreds of years, but now they were to be persecuted for the way they worshipped God because the Church disliked the fact that they preached against corruption among priests and the sale of indulgences. But Jean knew that the ‘friends’ were right. No man should presume to sell remission of sins here on earth. Only God could decide to do that, and He was all-powerful. He would scarcely consider Himself bound by some contract made here in this imperfect world.