Michael Jecks - Dispensation of Death

‘We know that she was used to spy on Earl Edmund of Kent, for example. When he came back from Guyenne, he was desolate after the shameful truce he had agreed with Charles Valois. Mabilla’s apparent kindness to him persuaded him that she was interested in him, and he tried to force her to lie with him. However, she had no intention of sleeping with him and gaining a reputation for unchastity purely for your husband’s benefit, so she rejected him. It confused him greatly, I think. To this day, I believe he doesn’t understand why she refused him.’

‘So Earl Edmund killed her?’

Baldwin shook his head. ‘No. Why should he do that? If he had been that upset, he might have stabbed at her when he thought she was insulting him, but not weeks later. No, I do not think so.’

‘No,’ she said bitterly. ‘You think it must be my husband, don’t you?’

Baldwin was silent. At moments like this, when someone was considering betraying all that they had held dear for many years, it was best to let them speak at their own speed. But when she spoke, her frankness shocked him. He was unused to such glacial anger, even from women whose men had foully mistreated them.

‘I am sure it was him,’ she spat. ‘He always wanted other things, other women. And men. I was never good enough, you see. I was adequate at first, because I brought him valuable property in Wales, but now he’s built up his own estates he scarcely needs me.’

‘You cannot think he intended to kill you?’ Simon said.

‘What would you think, master?’ she demanded. ‘He sends an assassin to kill me, and he killed Mabilla by mistake.’

‘Lady,’ Baldwin said, ‘I think you are wrong. If he had wanted you to die, he would have ensured that his man killed you.’

‘But Alicia pushed herself before me. She protected me — and the Queen, of course.’

‘One woman? No, if the assassin wished to kill you, he would have pushed all the ladies-in-waiting from his path. Just as, if he had intended to kill the Queen, he could have done so. No, I think that he was there to kill one person and one person only: Mabilla.’

‘You do not know my husband.’

‘I think I know him well enough, Lady. What advantage would your death bring him? Money? Power? Land? No, nothing.’

‘What would he gain from Mabilla’s death?’

Baldwin had to shrug in defeat at that. ‘It is very difficult to think of anyone who could have had a motive to kill her. The man whom you saw that night — I do not suppose you recognised him?’

‘No. His mask was enough to strike terror into my heart, and when I saw the knife, I lost all will. I just stared at it. Pathetic, but I could do nothing else!’

‘The man did not have a candle, though,’ Simon said.

‘I … no, he cannot have. If he had, I should have seen the light as we walked along the corridor.’

‘Was there the scent of a snuffed candle?’ Simon pressed her.

‘No, nothing.’

‘So he must have known his way about the palace in the dark, surely?’

Baldwin and Peter were both frowning at him. It was Baldwin who nodded slowly, and murmured, ‘A very good point, Simon.’

‘He must have been someone who knew the passageways as well as knowing where the Queen would be,’ Simon said.

‘Did she walk along that corridor at the same time every night?’ Baldwin asked.

‘The same time?’ Eleanor gave a sharp little laugh without humour. ‘She would have us up at all hours of the evening. She has needed the consolation of her priest every night since … well, since her children were taken from her.’

‘We have heard about that,’ Baldwin said, and his tone was colder.

Simon was still thinking about the corridor where Mabilla had died. ‘That means it could have been anyone in the Palace guard.’

‘Or someone who bribed a guard to learn where she might be,’ Peter offered helpfully.

‘True,’ Baldwin agreed.

Eleanor put in, ‘It could have been one of my husband’s men, too. I told him all about the Queen’s nocturnal wanderings. Any of his men could have overheard. No doubt Mabilla could have done, too.’

‘What of the assassin himself — the man found murdered, this Jack atte Hedge?’ Baldwin said. ‘Did you know him?’

‘The name is known to me.’

‘There is no need to be wary,’ Simon said bluntly. ‘We found one of your husband’s horses at the inn where Jack was living. The innkeeper told us it was the horse which Jack rode in on.’

She let her head fall a little. ‘Yes, I think Jack atte Hedge was a man whom my husband knew. They would meet occasionally. Only occasionally, though. Not often.’

‘How often would your husband have had need of a murderer?’ Baldwin asked pointedly. ‘This man Jack — do you know whether he was used to kill many people?’

‘That is not the sort of topic my husband would discuss with me,’ Eleanor told him. She trembled. It was hard to lose the conviction that her husband had been attempting to kill her when the figure jumped out at Mabilla that night. Alicia’s words had brought all that home to her.

‘I believe that this Jack was hired to come here to kill the Queen,’ Baldwin said. ‘I think that someone knew he was coming, and was determined to stop him. To do that, he stabbed and murdered the man, hiding him. And then he decided to kill Mabilla too. But my difficulty comes from this: if your husband chose to hire an assassin such as this Jack atte Hedge, I do not think he would be foolish enough to tell many people. He would surely try to prevent anybody from learning about it. And so whoever killed Jack must either have been enormously lucky, and guessed that the man might enter the palace to attempt to murder the Queen … or it was someone very close indeed to your husband who sought to frustrate his plan.’

‘Someone close?’ she repeated.

‘Only a man very close to Sir Hugh would be able to learn his mind, I should say. I only know him slightly, but that much is clear enough.’

‘Yes,’ she said, but her voice was little more than a whisper.

‘There is one aspect that confuses me, though. The man clearly knew that the Queen would pass by that corridor. Would your husband know that?’

‘He knows that the Queen regularly passes by there, yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I have told him.’

Yes, since you are her gaoler and spy, Baldwin thought. Still … ‘But the man was not there as you walked to the chapel? Only when you returned? Or could he have been there, but so well concealed …’

‘No. He was not there as we walked to the chapel — we should have seen him.’

‘Strange,’ Baldwin said. ‘That would almost seem to imply that the killer was warned of the right time to be there. He was told beforehand, or heard people’s steps — or perhaps he knew that the Queen walked there most nights and was simply lucky that one evening. But that would mean that Jack atte Hedge and Mabilla’s deaths were simple coincidences that night, and I do not believe in such things.’

‘One of my husband’s men,’ she said again, and then she looked scared.

‘You can think of someone?’ Simon pressed her.

‘There are only two men who could have known and attempted to do something like that: William Pilk and Ellis. But it could not be Ellis. He was Mabilla’s brother. He loved her, and would never have laid a finger on her.’

Simon and Baldwin exchanged a look. Baldwin’s face was carefully devoid of all emotion, but Simon could not dissemble so effectively. On his was a savage delight.

‘William Pilk.’

As they learned his name, William Pilk had other concerns. He was wearing a bruise that was growing nicely under his right eye. His shin was sore, his kidneys felt as though he’d been kicked by a donkey, and his ballocks were swelling — they felt like they’d grown to twice their normal size. He couldn’t remember half of the wounds being inflicted, and he only prayed that Ellis felt as bad as him.