Michael Jecks - Dispensation of Death

He snapped to attention, his chin up, proving his respect by his smart salute, and he was sure that he saw her smile as she passed, acknowledging him with a delicate nod of her head.

Not that he cared a short while later when he felt Alicia’s soft, warm hand on his own, touching him as delicately as a bee landing on a rose, he considered, his heart so full he thought it must burst.

Friday before the Feast of St Julian 1

Outside Salisbury

Baldwin looked about him with a faint smile on his face, and Simon noticed and gazed around in his turn. To his eye, the area around Salisbury had something altogether too flat and dismal about it.

‘What are you grinning about?’ he asked.

Baldwin shrugged. ‘I knew this area when I was younger. I came here when the fair was on, about the Feast of the Assumption. That used to be a great fair, Simon. Ten whole days it lasted.’

Simon did not enquire further. He knew that this must have been during Baldwin’s life as a Knight Templar, and that was a subject that was unfit for discussion — at least while others could overhear them. ‘It is very boring, though.’

‘At last you voice your feelings!’ Baldwin laughed. ‘Your face has grown blacker and blacker with every mile we have travelled since the Blackdown Hills, and that was three days ago.’

Simon could not argue with that. Leaving his own lands had made him feel odd, like a snail which had left its shell behind. He felt exposed and threatened. All the sounds and noises seemed similar, but strangely different at the same time. The landscape was the most obvious manifestation of just how alien things were, this far from home.

‘You find the countryside here curious?’ The Bishop had ambled up on his old mare, and was peering about himself with the gently enquiring expression of those with failing sight. ‘I rather like it. Does it not give you more of a sense of God’s magnificence? With the openness all about me, I always feel more of an affinity for His works. Just look at the sky!’

Simon had to murmur agreement with that. The absence of real hills made the sky appear more vast than usual — although he was sure that it loomed just as large from Higher Willhayes or Cawsand Beacon. Those two hills were so high, to climb to their summits was like ascending to heaven, almost.

‘What are they saying?’ piped up a voice.

‘Rob, whatever they — we — are saying is none of your concern. Just try to keep quiet!’ the Bailiff hissed to his wayward servant. He had no proof, but he was sure that on the second night out from Exeter, Rob had snared some of the Bishop’s guards into a game of hazard. Rob looked only to be some twelve years old, but he had learned his gambling and language from the sailors of Dartmouth. It was thought that he was the bastard son of one. For all that he had a wide-eyed innocent appearance, his speech was as filthy as any whore’s from the Bishop of Winchester’s stews, and his ability to palm or move a dice was unequalled by any felon Simon had encountered.

‘I was only asking. Is that London, then?’

In the distance they could already see the smudge of a great city. Its fires were belching smoke into the clear wintry sky, and Simon grunted.

It was Baldwin who responded. ‘No, lad. That is still many miles away. This city is Salisbury. Soon you shall see the great spire of the Cathedral.’

‘Yes. We shall stay overnight with the good canons of Salisbury,’ Bishop Walter said. ‘I am sure that we shall be made welcome there.’

Baldwin cast a glance in his direction. The Bishop did not sound convinced of their reception, and Baldwin wondered at that, but not for long. A Bishop should be able to expect his brother-Bishops to be courteous and friendly, but he knew as well as any in the Church that such men could be fiercely competitive. They often resented other Bishops, were jealous of their lands and profits.

They had travelled only another mile or two when suddenly through the trees the mighty spire became visible, its structure supported by the poles of larch that comprised the builders’ scaffolding. ‘Look, Simon. Is it not immense?’

Bishop Walter sniffed. ‘If I were not a man of God, I could be jealous of this. My cathedral rebuilding was begun what — fifty years or more ago? And we have only come halfway. Yet this was all constructed in less than that. I cannot hope to see the finish of my cathedral. It began around my birth, and I shall be long dead before it is complete. Yet this marvel has been created in only some forty years or so.’

‘The spire is not finished, my Lord Bishop,’ Baldwin said.

‘No, but even now a man can see what it will be like,’ the Bishop said with sadness. ‘And I shall never see so much as the roof on my cathedral, I sometimes think. The plans I have for the west front are wonderful — but what chance will I have to see them executed? I shall have to console myself with the reflection that at least others may enjoy what I have worked to achieve.’

He rode on, and his guards, three men-at-arms from his personal retinue, kicked their mounts into a canter to keep up with him.

‘What was all that about?’ Rob demanded as they hurried after the Bishop.

‘He is a man who is suddenly grown aware of his mortality,’ Baldwin said wonderingly. ‘I have never seen it before in him.’

‘He’s an old man,’ Simon said unsympathetically. ‘And right now I expect his piles are playing merry hell with him.’

‘You are a rough, untutored fellow,’ Baldwin said with a chuckle. ‘But you may well be right.’

Hall of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Straunde, London

It was almost dark when Bishop John of Drokensford heard the horses at his yard, and he sat a moment, his reed still in his hand.

There were many who felt that same anxiety, he knew. The noise of horses could mean many things, but in these sad times, the common fear was that it might be the King’s men, or perhaps Despenser’s, come to grab someone and take him away. And since the visit of Earl Edmund the other day, he felt more than usually uneasy about the risk of such a visit.

No one was safe. Even those who did not plot to curb the King’s powers were at risk, because Edward trusted no one. No one but Despenser, and he was a terror: he was scared of no man. And why should he be? He was rich beyond the dreams of most, with a host of men at his beck and call, with the ear of the King, and the ability to do whatsoever he desired. And this complete power had entirely corrupted him and others.

There were boots on his steps now, and Bishop John leaned back in his chair with a fleeting increase in his heart’s pounding. It made him feel light-headed, as though he had partaken of a vast quantity of wine or ale, and then his mind told him to be calm. There were only a few pairs of boots. If Despenser had learned of the message he had sent to the Queen, he would have come with more men than this.

‘My Lord Bishop.’

‘My Lord Despenser,’ he said suavely. ‘How can I serve you?’

Sir Hugh le Despenser looked about him with that reptilian coldness Drokensford recognised so well, and pulled off his gloves as three men behind him entered the room, gazing about them suspiciously. ‘I would welcome an opportunity to discuss some matters with you.’

‘Please take a seat,’ the Bishop said drily as Despenser sat. He set his reed aside, glancing down at his notes. His guest was not welcome. ‘I suppose you want to protect yourself against me?’ he said, indicating the men at the back of the hall.

Despenser gave a half-grunt, half-smile. Turning, he told the men to wait outside. When they were gone, he said directly, ‘We are not friends.’