Michael Jecks - Dispensation of Death

If only he was home again. Although it was no warmer than here, he liked Gloucester, where he had his main castle and manors. Here in London and the area all about it, he was unsettled. He’d never liked it, not from the first. Give him open lands and his hounds and he’d be happy, but here in London he felt cooped like a hen. Especially now he had at least two men with him at all times.

Piers had best be correct. The fellow was too damned uncertain. When they had met the other day, he had looked so petrified. Earl Edmund had hoped that Piers would have produced something rock-solid on which he could plan, but no. Just the same old hints and things of no value, like the news that Despenser hated him and could plot to have him killed. As if he didn’t know that already!

Edmund was no fool, but there were times when life was truly confusing. Just now, he knew that all he did must be circumspect and cautious, because otherwise, he could well lose his head. Literally. The messages he had been receiving from Piers left him with no doubts.

The realm needed strong government. The populace were sheep to be herded carefully, and shorn in due season. There were the three classes of man, as all knew: the bellatores , the clergy, and the commonfolk. The bellatores were the men who had a duty to protect all others; the clergy existed in order to maintain the souls of the rest of society; and beneath both were the commoners, who were there to labour and, by their efforts, feed all others. It was the way of all communities. It was how they functioned.

He had been loyal — no: devoted. All his life, he had fought to support his half-brother, the King. Edward II demanded ever more devotion from his men, even when his household was splintering and his own knights were leaving him to join Thomas of Lancaster, before Edward removed his head. When Edward had needed help in allowing the Despensers back into the country after they had been exiled, who did he turn to? Edmund. When he wanted Leeds Castle besieged and Bartholomew Badlesmere captured? Edmund. When he wanted loyal men to take Thomas of Lancaster’s chief residence? Edmund. When he wanted his own men to hear Andrew Harclay’s trial and judge him? Edmund. He, more than anyone else, had repaid the wealth and honours given to him. God’s eyes, he had earned his rewards.

All the time he’d felt the sneering, though. Christ Jesus, yes. All the while, while he worked his ballocks off to help the King, he had known that they’d all looked down on him. No matter that he had successfully completed many active battlefield campaigns, they still looked on him as a lesser man. Bloody Despenser, with his airs and graces — when all was said and done, he was nothing more than a knight. Edmund was born the son of a king , the son of Edward the Hammer of the Scots. He was a man of honour and breeding.

He heard the mutterings all the more now, of course. Yes, while courtiers reckoned that his star was descending, they all started to show their callous disregard for him. And he knew full well that many of them laughed at him behind his back. He didn’t need Piers to tell him that. Christ’s bones, it was obvious enough. It wasn’t only the Despensers, either. There were some whom he had always looked upon as friends who now were all too content to make his life a misery.

If that were all, he’d not be too worried, but it wasn’t. He knew as well as any that among those who laughed at him was his own brother, the King. And his other brother. Thomas of Brotherton, the older by one year, had never quite enjoyed Edmund’s successes. And truth be told, Edmund had always had that feeling that he was the least of all Edward I’s sons. He was but six when his father died, and it had left him wondering what sort of a man he had truly been. Perhaps little better than any other. Certainly his brother, Edward II, was scathing enough about him. But then, King Edward I had exiled his son’s great friend, Gaveston, and Edward never forgave his father that.

This grudge-bearing trait was one with which Edmund was all too familiar. Ever since he had signed that truce with the French last year, he had found himself marginalised, an embarrassment. And all the others seemed to think that they could manage not only Guyenne, but the whole Kingdom better without him.

‘My Lord Kent.’

The suave voice shook him from his reverie. Fitting a grin to his face, Edmund turned and took the proffered hand, kissing the Episcopal ring. ‘My Lord Bishop.’

Drokensford was a heavy-set man with a florid complexion. His face was square and lined, as befitted a man who never based himself in any home, but who moved constantly from one manor to another, usually visiting all sixteen of those within his See each year, as well as the other properties dotted about the country. His voice was gruff, and he still sounded like a farmer from that little Hampshire town where he had been born. ‘My friend, it is my honour to see you here. Would you like some wine?’ He looked across the room at the guards the Earl had brought with him.

‘If you please, my Lord Bishop.’ He jerked his head at the guards, and they walked out to wait in the screens passage.

‘I think that here we may speak as equals,’ Drokensford said quietly.

The hall was a large one, but Edmund looked about him carefully. There were hangings on two walls which could have concealed a man. A closed door could all too often hide a listener. He recalled Piers’s words, and knew that no one could be trusted.

‘My Lord Bishop — John — you will know already that I am not entirely in favour at court.’

‘I had noticed your sad absence. I was sorry, for I have always respected your judgement.’

Edmund took the goblet presented to him and sipped, eyeing the Bishop.

Drokensford smiled, then held his arms out as if to indicate that both were a long way from any wall. ‘You may speak freely, my Lord Kent.’

‘Then I say this: if it were only me, I should be content with my lot. I would give up the governance of the realm to the King and his advisers, and I would retire to my estates. I have no need of political power. I am a simple man, a warrior. The King had need of me, but has so no more. So I should leave. But there are matters which concern me.’

‘They are?’

‘To speak plainly: Sir Hugh Despenser. When I was in France, he had control of all policy in Guyenne; he did little to help us. The fleet was supposed to sail in August, but did not; he never responded to our demands for men and matériel. No, he sat on his haunches and did nothing, until at the last, we lost all. I was confined in La Réole until I could negotiate a truce, without any help or advice from him.’

‘And now we must negotiate if we are to keep even a part of our territories over there,’ the Bishop murmured.

‘Precisely. And who is advising the King on all this? Despenser. The very same man who has been in control of the affair at all stages. The man who cost us the war last year.’

If the Bishop noted that it was Edmund himself who was in charge of all the forces there at the time of the French invasion and overrunning of the English lands, he kept the observation to himself. ‘And you wish to make a point?’

‘You know what I’m saying. If Despenser was incapable of protecting the Crown’s interests last year, what hope is there that he can do so now? And if he was not incapable, his incompetence begins to look suspicious.’

‘You suggest that he was a traitor?’

‘Never to his own affairs! I only say what is obvious.’

‘I am merely a Bishop, my friend. What would you expect a man of God to do about such affairs?’

Edmund’s lip curled a very slight amount. ‘Yes — you are a man of God, just as I am brother to the King.’