Michael JECKS - The Oath

‘So am I, my love, but I don’t know when we may be able to leave. It’s a hundred miles from here, I think, and with the kingdom in an uproar, it wouldn’t be safe.’

‘But we cannot blithely sit here in comfort and hope Edith’s all right, Simon!’

‘Meg, she is married. Her safety is the responsibility of her husband.’

‘But she is your daughter!’

‘She’s my daughter, yes. But that doesn’t mean I have the right to take her from her husband, does it? And what could I do – what could we do – if we reached Exeter and learned that she was in danger because of the King’s forces besieging the city? Or Isabella’s men? We could do nothing, except get caught in the same trap, which would endanger Peterkin’s life as well as our own. I love Edith as much as you, wife, but there is nothing we can do just now to help her or anyone else.’ He closed his eyes.

‘It’s not good enough. I have to see her. I will see her!’ She stamped her foot, which made Simon open his eyes in surprise. Margaret had never been prone to displays of anger.

‘Meg, you can’t leave the city, not just now – be reasonable! It’s too dangerous. Now, please, just leave me a little while in peace? My old bones need rest.’

‘Yes, and I would hate to deprive you of your rest, while my own peace of mind is flown forever,’ she snapped.

‘Meg, please–’ he cried, but the door was already slammed behind her. Simon grunted, then rose to his feet and went after her. ‘Meg! Please take Hugh with you if you are going outside. We don’t know this city well.’

His wife looked back at him and nodded, just once, before continuing on her way.

Simon returned to the bedchamber, where his son was sitting on the bed, staring at him with wide eyes and an expression of innocence. ‘I’m very tired, Father.’

‘Yes, so am I,’ Simon said heavily, and sat on the edge of the bed again. He lay back, an arm going about his son, and closed his eyes, but sleep would not come for a good while.

He was stirred by the shouts.

North of Bristol

‘I’m taking these friars to meet the Queen to try to negotiate protection for the King’s friends, my lord.’

The Earl of Winchester was sitting on a chair chewing some choice tidbits when Sir Ralph was taken in to see him. He pulled the leg from a honeyed lark and bit into it, before wiping his fingers on a cloth presented by his laver.

Earl Hugh was a bright man, who had earned respect from knights and barons on all sides over many years of loyal service to this King and to his father. He was about sixty-six, a strongly-built man with almost uniformly white hair. His eyes were keen and penetrating, and he displayed little of the anxiety his son was feeling. Where the younger Hugh was nail-biting and fretful, the elder Hugh was still calculating the odds, a gambler with the strength of character his son seemed to lack.

His was a career characterised by loyalty, commonsense and ambition. Sir Ralph personally reckoned that ambition was the main ingredient of his make-up which had been passed on to his son, but where Earl Hugh was keen to improve his standing, there were limits to his avarice – perhaps because he had been born into troubled times. The son of a rebel, his father had died fighting his King at Evesham, and from the age of four, Hugh was tainted with an associated guilt for which he spent the rest of his life trying to atone.

By dint of hard effort and martial skill, he worked his way into the King’s affections. King Edward I was a warrior who knew little about peace, so to find a man like Hugh, who was not only a thoroughly competent fighter, able to prove his loyalty to the King at every battle, but was also a highly skilled administrator and negotiator, was very useful. Sir Hugh le Despenser gradually climbed the ladder of appointments with a stealth that would have impressed a fox.

By the time of Edward I’s death, Sir Hugh had become an honoured member of the King’s household, and practically a father-figure to the young Prince Edward. As King, Edward II grew to trust the older Despenser’s judgement, and as Sir Hugh the Younger rose in the King’s affection, his father also was rewarded. Sir Hugh the Younger became the supreme manager of access to the King, and Sir Hugh the Elder became an Earl.

Now the Earl glanced at the friars behind Sir Ralph. ‘If you vouch for them, Sir Ralph, I am content.’

‘I do. Have you seen sign of the Queen?’

Earl Hugh shook his head. ‘But her forces are closing in quickly. The bulk of them lie north of Bristol, working their way here. I understand that Berkeley Castle has turned to her. She may be anywhere near. Certainly some of her men have crossed the river and are pillaging and riding out south of the city too. Soon it will be encircled.’

‘Can Bristol hold?’

‘Yes, if the leaders of the city are resolute and loyal,’ Earl Hugh said, and Ralph saw the conviction in his face. ‘It will require a firm hand, however. I shall strengthen the resolve of them all. First of all, the gates must be closed as soon as I have reached the city. There can be no more pretending that the country is at peace. The Queen has been able to ride about as though on a perambulation of the realm. Ridiculous! She is a rebel, leading a force of mercenaries and traitors, and she is no more a friend to the people of this country than a wolf is a friend to a sheep. She can feign amity when she wishes, but she will soon bare her teeth, and I think it best to force her so to do. If she can show her true spirit, her cruelty and spitefulness, the people may rise up again to defend their King.’

‘I see.’ So that was the plan, Sir Ralph thought: to try to force the Queen to raze Bristol, and thus show the entire realm that they should protect King Edward and themselves from her.

‘You may assist us,’ the Earl added. ‘If you tell the Queen that our resolve is to hold it against her for as long as our supplies last, she may be persuaded to turn her full attention upon us. She cannot dare to leave Bristol behind her when she enters Wales. The risk of her supplies being attacked will be an immediate threat to her ambitions. Mortimer will see that. He is many things, but not a fool. You tell them we intend to fight, and we’ll see what she does.’

‘I shall rest the horses, then, and ride on,’ Sir Ralph declared.

‘Godspeed,’ said Earl Hugh, and after a short interval, Sir Ralph and his little party were riding north and east.

It was less than an hour later that they met the advance guard.

Robert Vyke found himself one of the very last to enter Bristol before the gates were locked, and he rode under the gateway with great relief.

The last few miles had been a hideous race. They were still some miles from the city when they had come across riders who were clearly up to no good. The men shouted at them loudly, with curious, foreign accents, but fortunately their old nags weren’t up to the chase, or they were too drunk to bother, and the Coroner’s party rode on unmolested. That was worrying enough, but soon things grew rapidly worse, because as they came past a small wood, they realised that the fellows they had seen were only part of a much larger force.

The Coroner was idling along on his rounsey, snapping questions at the clerk on his old donkey, and paying little heed to the road ahead, when Robert spotted the first of the great wagons. ‘Sir!’

‘Oh, in Christ’s name!’ the Coroner grumbled, muttering some other choice curses which Robert missed, and snapped his reins. The beast whinnied, and then leaped away to the north, so as to navigate a route past all the men and their provisions, but it was too late. The rearmost carters were already bawling and pointing, and men were pelting towards them. Coroner Stephen bowed low in his seat, galloping at full tilt, with Robert clinging on for dear life on his own chestnut mare, but falling behind, while the clerk was squeaking ineffectually and bumping along, lashing his donkey to little effect. He was soon overwhelmed, and Robert looked back to see him encircled by rough men. Then there was a narrow gateway, into a field divided into long, narrow strips for the peasants, and he was thundering along the line, praying that he might make it to the other side without falling and being taken by these murderous-looking fellows, when he was suddenly out the other side, and staring at a wide river.