Michael Jecks - Dispensation of Death

Yet there was one other way to reach the palace … from the Abbey’s grounds. Sensing that he had guessed aright, Ellis went over to the wall separating the two plots, and as he reached the southernmost point of the palace wall, he saw it.

A rope hung almost negligently from a battlement. Pulling at it, he saw a ladder on the ground below. As he drew up the rope, the ladder was lifted aloft until it reached almost to the battlement. A man could have climbed up the ladder to reach the battlement. Once there, he could have allowed the ladder to topple back silently, using the rope, and then left the rope so that he could pull it back upright for his escape. That way, hopefully no guard would spot that someone had entered the precinct. Not that the guard here was any good anyway. It was old Arch.

Ellis knew the man. Always reeking of sour ale, and Ellis was sure that his guarding was lackadaisical at best. Rumour had it that Arch was asleep more often than awake when he was on duty.

‘So that’s how you got here, Jack,’ he said out loud. ‘Now — how were you caught?’

The way to the Temple was along a street between other properties, but soon they were past them and into a wide space. In front of them was the Temple Church itself, and Simon was immediately struck by the look of it. ‘Why is that part round?’

‘Templar churches were always based on the layout of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem,’ Baldwin said. ‘The Temple had this same form.’

They were led along the northern wall of the church itself and over towards a large building at the east of it.

‘This is where the Templar heretic Prior and his monks used to live,’ Despenser said as he dismounted. ‘An elegant building, I would say, for those heathens and devil-worshippers.’

He threw his reins towards a boy who scuttled forward to grab them, and then stood at the Bishop’s horse to steady it. Bishop Stapledon looked about him with a face that was carefully blank.

Simon knew that he was intensely irritated that the lands and buildings should have been used to further enrich the King’s lover. The Temple grounds had been supposed to be given to the Knights of St John, and many were outraged that the King had chosen not to do so. The Bishop clearly felt that if anyone should be rewarded with them, it should be a man from the Church. Simon could guess who he felt would be most deserving. He had begun to understand that Stapledon was not averse to personal enrichment.

‘Please, come inside.’

Simon found himself in a sumptuously appointed hall. Along two walls were huge tapestries displaying the Despenser arms mingled with scenes of hunting. Intricately detailed sections showed Sir Hugh chasing a hart, slaying a boar, standing among a pack of hunting dogs — and the last one depicted him sitting with friends and enjoying a meal.

‘You like it?’ he said. ‘I had the full halling from a tapicer in the city. He was very clever, I think, to get so much life into the picture. Don’t you agree?’

‘Very good.’

Despenser glanced at him, but he had other things on his mind than a guest’s apparent disinterest in his hallings. He called for his steward, and soon tables were set out and laid with a series of linen cloths. Despenser himself took the table at the dais, and courteously invited the others to join him, Bishop Walter at his side, Simon and Baldwin opposite. The rest of the men were ranged about tables in the main hall.

‘Yes. This was the Prior’s hall, I think. You can hardly imagine the place in those days. I saw it once, you know. There was gold and silver everywhere, and gilt on all the exposed spaces. A marvellous place. Yet when the Order was suppressed, it all just disappeared.’

‘Where to?’ Simon asked.

‘Christ knows. Perhaps the rumours are true, and they loaded it all onto some boats and flung it into the sea. What do you think, Sir Baldwin?’

‘Me? I have no idea. I had thought the King took most of their wealth, just as the French King took that which was discovered in the Paris Temple. If you say that much is missing, though, I will believe you.’

‘I do not know. Perhaps you are right,’ Despenser smiled, but there was no humour in his face. ‘So long as none of the illegitimate sons of whores escaped, that is the main thing.’

Baldwin felt his eye upon him, and had to set his jaw to stop from angrily responding. ‘You think that all were guilty?’

‘Perhaps not. But so long as some were, it matters little.’

‘It matters a lot!’ Baldwin exclaimed hotly. ‘It is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man is unjustly convicted.’

‘Well, if that is your view,’ Despenser shrugged, ‘at least you may reflect upon the certainty that God will know His own. The innocent will no doubt be there with Him even now.’

‘I am sure that not all were evil,’ Bishop Stapledon said, and there was a strength in his tone which Baldwin had not expected. ‘There were very many with whom I had dealings who were entirely honourable. Like most of the other knights Templar.’

‘The Pope convicted them of unimaginable crimes,’ Sir Hugh reminded him.

‘Oh yes, and then when the Order was destroyed, the same good Pope allowed all those Templars who wished it, the opportunity to go to another religious brotherhood. Some joined the Benedictines, some the other Orders. They were men of honour and integrity.’

‘Then why were they arrested?’

‘That was much the fault of the French King.’

‘Ah, of course,’ Sir Hugh sneered. ‘It’s often down to him.’

Food arrived, and the party set to with gusto.

Sir Hugh le Despenser was the first to finish his thick stew, and he took a hunk of bread to soak up the juices as the mess bowls were taken away with their valuable contents to be given as charity at his door. As he chewed, he watched the servants clearing away the dishes, and then said to the Bishop: ‘Did you notice during the candlelit procession that I spilled some wax on my hand? Never a good omen, that.’

Simon was not credulous, but he did have some superstitions. ‘Where I was born they used to say that if you spilled wax, someone you knew might die.’

‘Really?’ Despenser said shortly. Too late, he told himself. Jack was already dead. ‘How interesting. I hope it won’t be my wife. She is with the Queen again today.’

‘That was a dreadful event yesterday,’ the Bishop said quietly.

Despenser looked at him. ‘Dreadful’ hardly covered it. He could still remember that body on the floor behind the throne. Jack, the man on whom he had come to depend so much, because he was the most expert killer, had himself been killed. But by whom? And how? Anyone who could lull Jack and slay him was an enemy to be feared.

He managed, ‘I agree. One finds it difficult to express one’s horror at such a foul murder.’

‘The maid, yes,’ Stapledon agreed.

‘It is hard to understand how any man could wish to hurt the Queen,’ Baldwin said.

His words had an instant impact. ‘You think that?’ Despenser said. Beside him, Bishop Walter winced.

‘Surely any man who has taken an oath to obey the King has simultaneously taken an oath to protect his wife?’ Baldwin said.

Despenser was studying him closely. ‘Perhaps some do not think that she merits such blind devotion?’

‘I am surprised to hear you say that, Sir Hugh.’

‘Her brother makes it difficult for a patriot to support her. Just as the Bishop pointed out, the French cannot always be trusted. They covet our lands and kingdom.’

‘You say that is an excuse for not honouring our Queen?’

‘I say that we who have responsibility for the security of the realm have many difficult decisions to make,’ Despenser said. ‘It is like the matter of the Templars — perhaps some, as the good Bishop suggested, may have been innocent. But for the protection of Christianity as a whole, it was essential that they were all arrested, was it not?’