Michael Jecks - Dispensation of Death

There was a snick as a post of steel snapped — and he froze at the sound. However, there were no running footsteps, no bellows for attention. Nothing. He pulled himself nearer and peered at the metal. The bar had a shiny section where the bright metal had broken from its fitting in the wall. He took mud and carefully smeared it over both gleaming edges, drawing in his breath as the sharp metal sliced into his finger. He ignored the stinging pain and continued. One bar was broken. Now he set to work on the next, waiting until that too was broken, and then smearing that with more mud, this time more careful not to cut himself.

When all was done, he painstakingly withdrew the frame a short distance from the wall, and wriggled himself over it and into the drain itself.

The drain, thank God, was not so noisome as it might have been. Recent rains had washed away much of the filth. Fortunately, the majority of the monks’ waste would have been captured in the cesspit, ready for spreading over their fields as manure. There were other places he had entered which had been a great deal worse. He wriggled his way along the short tunnel, and peered out into the main yard.

There was a large building on his right, another directly in front of him, and the main Abbey buildings loomed monstrous and black against the sky in the gap between the two.

A step. He slowly withdrew his head into the culvert before he could be seen, and listened intently. There: a man’s pacing up overhead. How had he not spotted the guard? Perhaps there was a trap set for him, and there were more men waiting here to catch him as soon as he tried to break in. But the steps moved on, and he began to breathe more easily.

He took hold of his knife and made sure that it would move in its sheath, then he slipped out into the yard, sliding his back along the wall in the shadows. The walkway above him was not high, only about three feet over him, and reaching it should be easy enough. He saw that there were coils of rope and blocks of masonry stashed beneath it, as well as ladders. There had been a disaster of some sort, he reckoned, looking at the ravaged buildings. All to his advantage.

The choice — to continue now, or to wait and reach this far again some other night. Better by far to get the matter over and done with, he decided. He glanced up at the walls again, and then made for the nearest coils of rope.

On the rough palliasse set out for Piers near the King’s chamber, not far from Earl Edmund’s snoring body, the adviser totted up the money he had been paid so far.

He didn’t understand the game Sir Hugh le Despenser was playing, but so far as he was concerned, the main thing was the money, and that was reaching him regularly. For now, Sir Hugh wanted the King to view the Queen as a potential representative for him in France. However, the King had listened to Despenser when he had poured verbal poison into the King’s ears about his wife. Queen Isabella was disloyal, treacherous. She could not be trusted.

Earl Edmund had been telling all who would listen that she was loyal and would be a worthy ambassadress — and all would remember his words if anything were to go wrong while the Queen was over there in France. Meanwhile, the King was reflecting that his brother the Earl of Kent was a fool if he trusted the woman. Why? Because Sir Hugh was telling him quietly about all the Queen’s misdeeds even as Edmund spoke to her credit.

No one else would have been so easily convinced that the Queen should be sent. But not many people were as gullible as poor old Edmund.

Piers rolled over, well pleased with his progress so far. He had worked hard, and was beginning to see the rewards.

There was the sound of cautious steps outside in the corridor, and he sat up a moment, alert, and then yawned and lay down again. It was only someone from the household — a squire seeking the privy, maybe; a page lost after too much ale. Nothing to worry about.

Thursday before Candlemas 1

Thorney Island

Eleanor de Clare stood with her ladies-in-waiting while the Queen entered her chapel and knelt before the altar.

These late-night visits to her chapel were deeply annoying to them all. There was no point to them, yet she insisted on coming in here and prostrating herself before the Cross. Eleanor had nothing against the correct displays of religious fervour; it was to be expected in a Christian. Yet these very loud and tearful visits were wearing, especially when her brat woke before dawn each day, demanding to know in that querulous little voice of his when he was going to see his sisters again. Acting like a baby when he was a big boy of eight. He ought to know his royal birth and behave accordingly. Even his sisters, aged two and four, would be behaving better than him, she thought.

The priest yawned as the Queen continued to speak in Latin.

‘Oh, damn her!’ Eleanor hissed, but only quietly so that no one else could hear. The woman was so full of her own misery and self-pity, and yet she was all right. She was a Queen. She’d always have her life, be waited on hand and foot.

Earlier, Eleanor had left her in the care of three of her maids, and had gone to the chamber where her husband had been placed. Of course, it was frowned upon for any woman to enter the separate area that was intended for the King’s household. As was normal, this household was entirely masculine. The sole feminine elements had always been the Queen and her maids, when she merged her own household with the King’s. Usually they would have a separate existence, though, as was natural. And most of her household too would be male, because all the key functions required men. The chaplains, guards, chamberlains and comptrollers. Wives were not allowed to materialise without the permission of the King. Usually that would mean that a wife would have to take a room nearby, and then her man could visit her when he required the payment of the marriage debt.

Tonight, Eleanor wanted to see her man, and since he was one of the most powerful men in the country, she felt secure enough to walk along the corridors and enter the little chamber beside the Lesser Hall, where she knew he ought to be sleeping.

Yet when she entered, he was not there. She went to his bed, and laid her hand upon it, but there was no one inside. Nor was it warm. Perhaps, she thought, he was still discussing matters with the King. There was another possibility, but she had always refused to consider that, and would continue to do so now. It was not the sort of thing she liked to think of, and things which were unpleasant in that way were always better ignored.

The Lesser Hall itself was in darkness, and when she peeped around the old door inside, she saw ranks of servants asleep on their benches. It was possible that her husband was in the Great Hall, and she walked to it, but before she reached it she could see that it too was in darkness. They weren’t there.

It was only as she made her way back to the Queen’s cloister that she glanced to her left and saw the lights blazing in the Painted Chamber, the King’s private rooms. On the wind she heard a low, sniggering chuckle, then a belly-laugh, and she closed her eyes.

Now, standing in the chapel and watching the Queen, she could close her eyes again, this time to pray silently for God’s forgiveness. She should never have wished her husband to die for what he was doing. He was in there with the King on business, no doubt. It was wrong for her to assume that they were indulging in those unnatural acts again.

The Queen was done. She stood, swaying slightly, giving Eleanor a feeling of grim satisfaction to know that at least the woman was suffering a little of the torment which she inflicted on her entourage. She must be exhausted, for she had to put her hand out for support, and the Chaplain took it, warily eyeing her as though fearing that his touch could hurt her. Then the Queen snatched her hand away swiftly, as though suddenly realising she had touched a man little better than a peasant, turned and left the chapel.