Michael Jecks - Dispensation of Death

‘I have nothing to fear.’

‘Your master cannot protect you from everything, Pilk.’

William looked up at them and curled his lip. ‘He can from anything you threaten.’

‘Not I, Pilk. The King.’

He shrugged. Edward was hardly a threat. ‘If you say so.’

‘Let me tell you what I think happened,’ Baldwin said. ‘You were with your master, and he decided he had to stop Jack from killing the Queen. But he didn’t know how to do so. What should he do? Ride the streets shouting Jack’s name? No. All he could do was try to intercept Jack in the palace, even though no one knew from which direction, or when, Jack would come. Is that a good guess so far?’

‘I have work to attend to. If all you’re going to do is ask daft questions …’

Baldwin was unimpressed. He continued: ‘So Sir Hugh le Despenser asked you to come here and do it all for him. You came here to the palace, and you stood and waited. You know the place well enough, don’t you? So seeing where the Queen would be was no trouble. Except, would Jack have known where the Queen would be?’

He was struck with a sudden doubt. Would Jack have known about the Queen’s night-time wanderings? Had she already begun to walk about the place at the time when Jack was briefed and commissioned? No matter — he must continue now he had begun.

‘So you entered the palace, you went to the corridor where the Queen would pass you, and you stood there waiting. When Jack arrived, you spoke to him. You knew him, after all, so you were able to calm his doubts. But then, when he turned his back on you, you stabbed him.’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ Will said, and spat on to the cobbles. His eye was closing now, and he felt like shit. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. I was back at Sir Hugh’s place — the Temple. I can get plenty of people to tell you that.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you can,’ Baldwin said. There must be dozens of Sir Hugh’s servants who would be keen to demonstrate their loyalty by giving Pilk an alibi. And Baldwin would believe none of them. ‘So who was it who stabbed the man in the back, I wonder?’

‘Maybe you should talk to Ellis,’ Pilk suggested, and sniggered to himself. ‘He may know something. He has investigated how the assassin got in. Perhaps he knows more than he’s let on.’

‘This is Mabilla’s brother?’ Simon confirmed.

‘You know him?’

‘If he’s the henchman who looks like a mastiff with his brain removed,’ Simon put in, ‘then, yes.’

‘Perhaps he found this man wandering about and killed him,’ Pilk said. ‘There are enough died around here just recently. If it wasn’t for me, Sir Hugh himself would be dead.’

Despite himself, Baldwin was intrigued. He had learned nothing of the attack on Despenser from his own choice, but his interest was piqued. ‘You were there?’

‘No. Here,’ he said with emphasis. ‘My master was coming out from the gate to the Green Yard, and I was up there, just a ways ahead of him when I saw the flash of the bolt up there.’

Baldwin looked away. ‘I can’t see where you mean from here — the man was behind the stables?’

‘No! He was beside the alehouse, beyond the midden there.’

‘And you saw him cocking his weapon?’ Simon asked, peering up by the alehouse.

‘He must have done that earlier. It was ready.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘So you saw him aiming his bow?’

‘I suppose so. I was in front, so he probably moved to aim around me.’

Simon frowned. Baldwin had plenty of experience with horses and lances, but the Bailiff’s knowledge of bows and shooting was more extensive.

Noticing his friend’s expression, Sir Baldwin set his head to one side enquiringly. ‘What is it, Simon?’

‘Just that if this fellow here was out in front, there’d be no need for the archer to aim around him. He would already be out of the point of aim. Look at the ground there. The gate from the Green Yard is out near the Abbey’s wall, and the main gate is a little in front. A man aiming from the alehouse would only have to lean out a short way to cover the whole area. Certainly this fellow wouldn’t impede his aim.’

‘Then why’d he do it, then?’ Pilk demanded truculently. ‘I definitely saw him lean out to aim around me.’

‘So Despenser was near the wall?’ Baldwin asked.

‘No. He was off to the left as I looked back at him. Away from the wall. It was Ellis who was nearest the wall.’

Simon shook his head. ‘That makes no sense. Perhaps there was a cart or something in front of you? Or at least in front of Sir Hugh?’

‘Aw, I don’t care. This is so much ballocks! You have no right to keep me here, do you? I think I ought to report you to my master for wasting my time.’ He stood this time, grimacing from the pain all over his body, and barged between Simon and Baldwin.

‘Baldwin, I don’t like that man,’ Simon said.

‘Nor do I. I rather think that this matter of the bowman attacking his master has upset him, although I have no idea why.’

Simon drew a triangle in the ground. ‘It makes little sense for the bowman to have had to lean out to attack Despenser, not if he was out in the open and this idiot was heading straight for the gate.’

‘He probably made a mistake. Still, do you think that Pilk could have killed Jack.’

‘Yes, he could have. But if so, where did he do it? Wherever Jack died, there must have been plenty of blood. We’ve still not found it yet.’

Baldwin sighed and spoke quietly. ‘Simon, we have looked fairly carefully about the palace, haven’t we? There are only two areas which we haven’t considered.’

‘You aren’t serious, are you?’ Simon breathed. ‘The two royal chambers?’

‘Yes. It must have been either in the King’s or the Queen’s chambers. There is nowhere else.’

‘And how can we check them?’ Simon asked.

‘I think we need someone who can get us into the palace again,’ Baldwin said, and turned to look over Simon’s shoulder.

Simon followed his gaze, and gradually a smile spread over his face.

‘Yes? What are you two smiling at?’ Peter asked, suddenly nervous.

Ellis was tired, and the back of his head, where Coroner John’s cudgel had whacked it, hurt like buggery. He was in torment. The loss of his sister was one thing, but the lack of any evidence to show who was responsible was worse. He was her brother, it was his duty to find the guilty man and make him pay, but instead he had almost seen his master killed by a bolt, and had had his own position weakened by that donkey’s arse Pilk.

Mabilla — how he missed her. Who on earth could have killed her? It could have been Jack, he supposed, but he didn’t think Jack would have stopped there. If he’d been told to kill the Queen, he’d have gone right on and done it. So it wasn’t Jack, unless he had suddenly decided he didn’t like the idea of killing anyone else. Not very likely.

He couldn’t stay at the palace. It was growing late, and his head was hurting too much to think clearly. His body ached where that fucker Pilk had hit him. He’d return the favour when he had an opportunity. Later. For now, his bed was appealing. Sir Hugh had told him he would be staying here tonight, and there were enough bloody guards set around the place to protect his master. He needed to get his head down for a little. There was a palliasse in the gatehouse where he could rest.

With that decision made, he walked over the court towards the gatehouse, but while doing so, he saw Earl Edmund walking back in.

There was something about the masterful manner of his gait that stopped Ellis in his tracks. Usually the fellow was so pathetic, he could be entirely discounted, but today he was like a man renewed. His head was set high and proud, his back was straight, and he covered the ground like a warrior in a hurry. It was enough to set a warning bell tolling in Ellis’s bruised and battered head. He wasn’t aware of anything that could have made the Earl develop a spine all of a sudden.