Candace ROBB - The King’s Bishop

Glancing up, Daniel saw that the comely face of his accuser was red with indignation, his elegant clothes dishevelled by the men’s rough handling. Daniel wished it were he being escorted from the hall, not Ned Townley. Daniel admired Townley. He was all the page might wish to be. He was a spy for the King’s powerful third son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. He was a proven warrior, renowned for his skill with daggers. Yet he was no oafish brute – not like Sir William’s retainers; Townley was a courtier in dress, manner, speech. And with his gentle brown eyes and perfectly proportioned face and form, Daniel thought him the most handsome man he had ever seen. He would never have knowingly angered the man.

But moments ago Townley had informed Daniel of his inadvertent transgression. The warning had been delivered with an energy that had startled Daniel. Townley had grabbed him by the neck of his tunic, lifting him off his feet. “I will pin you to the tapestries if you persist in your attentions to my betrothed.”

“Your betrothed?” Daniel had squeaked.

“Mary. Mistress Perrers’s maid.”

“No! I pray you!” Daniel had cried, hoping to be lowered to the floor so he might explain that his feelings for Mary were fraternal, nothing more. But his exclamation had drawn the attention of Sir William’s bullies, who now led Townley from the hall.

“He’ll bother you no more, Daniel. Rest easy,” Scoggins said, filling the lad’s tankard with ale.

Daniel lifted his tankard towards Scoggins and nodded, then both drank. It was the gesture Scoggins wanted, and so Daniel made it. But he was hardly grateful. If Scoggins had minded his own business, Townley would have pounded the table a few times while he threatened to tack Daniel to the rafters with his daggers, then he would have stomped off into the night, satisfied that he’d put the fear of the Lord in Daniel. And come morning, it would have been plain to Townley that Daniel had understood and meant to stay away from Mary, and all would have been forgiven and forgotten. But Scoggins obviously felt honour-bound to protect his lord’s page.

In faith, Ned Townley had every right to be angry. Daniel had been foolish; he could see how his attentions to Mary had been misinterpreted. He had not known that Townley was the Ned Mary spoke of incessantly. Not once had she mentioned that her love was Lancaster’s spy. Not once had she spoken of his remarkable skill with daggers. He had just been Ned, “beautiful Ned”, “gentle Ned”, “tender Ned”, “tall, strong, dashing Ned”. A mythical being. Not the Duke of Lancaster’s spy.

Daniel drank down his ale, pushed his tankard aside, listened half-heartedly to the conversations round him, all about how his lord, Sir William of Wyndesore, had met with the King that day. It was said Sir William had boldly blamed the troubles in Ireland on the Duke of Clarence’s poor judgement. Some said the King was angered; Sir William was to be banished to the Scottish border. Others said the King knew his son Lionel, Duke of Clarence could not be trusted; Sir William was to be promoted to a Marcher Lord and sent to protect the Scottish border.

Daniel pricked up his ears. Punishment or reward, what everyone agreed upon was the likelihood of marching north to the border country. His mood lifted. That meant they would soon be far away from Windsor Castle and his humiliation. He absentmindedly reached for his tankard, remembered he’d drained it, found it full again. Had he imagined he’d downed the contents? No matter, he took a long drink. His head was beginning to hurt, so he took another long drink. And another. Then someone filled it up, laughing at Daniel’s slurred protests.

“Come on, lad, drink up. Scoggins saved your hide. Drink to him.”

Daniel remembered the snow that had begun to fall before the evening meal. It was a long, treacherous walk from the hall to Sir William’s quarters. Already he dreaded trying to stand. How would he navigate through the snow?

“Lift it, lad, drink it down!” A face floated in front of Daniel’s eyes, but he was so far gone he could not tell who it was. He blinked to focus. How many times had they filled his cup? He shook his head to clear it, felt the bile rise in his stomach. Oh Lord, he was going to embarrass himself yet again this night. He was cursed, that was certain.

Though it was March, the harsh winter persisted. Brother Michaelo found last night’s snowfall lovely to behold at this early hour, while the pristine white lay undisturbed on the mounds and ledges within the walls of Windsor Castle, but underfoot the snow made the rutted mud treacherous. He stepped cautiously, his entire body bent forward, focusing on his boots and the hem of his habit. He intended to reach Archbishop Thoresby’s chambers dry and presentable.

Not that it mattered; Michaelo would not be mingling with courtiers today. He would be hunched over a writing-desk preparing letters from the Archbishop to the abbots of Fountains and Rievaulx, letters recommending William of Wykeham to the see of Winchester. A depressing task, for if the King succeeded in having the appointment confirmed, Wykeham would be poised to replace Archbishop Thoresby as Lord Chancellor. A dreary thought. Not that it was not an honour to be secretary to the Archbishop of York; but an archbishop was not so London-bound as the chancellor. Michaelo sighed at the prospect of more time in York. He preferred Thoresby in his dual role. If winter seemed endless here, it was far worse up north. His only hope of salvation from such a bleak future was that despite letters enthusiastically recommending Wykeham for the bishopric the Pope would stand firm in his determination to make Wykeham the first casualty in his war against pluralism. Pope Urban believed that the practice of conferring on clergy multiple benefices resulted in neglected parishes and pampered clergy who paid more heed to their debts to their benefactors than to their responsibilities to their flocks. His Holiness referred to William of Wykeham as the richest pluralist in England. Which was apparently quite true.

A shout from below the Round Tower startled Michaelo from his thoughts; he straightened suddenly, tottered, regained his balance. Three men at arms ran towards the commotion. The man who had called the alarm stood over the ditch that bordered the motte on which the tower squatted. The snow that blanketed the steep slope was scarred as if something had slid down from the top. Curiosity propelled Michaelo closer.

When he was but ten feet from what was now a small crowd, Michaelo saw three men lifting a body from the ditch. The lifeless form dripped ice, water and filth. The heavy rains had filled the ditch, making it a shallow moat, and the freeze had crusted it with ice. Poor soul must have slipped into the freezing water and drowned in a cold stupor before he got his wits about him to crawl out. But how had he come to be on the slope?

One of the men lifted what looked like a cloak from the mud, sniffed it, handed it to his companion. “Smell this, would you?”

His companion sniffed, recoiled. “Phew! Better in the tankard than soaked into the wool. What did the lad do, dive into the barrel?”

“Drank a bellyful and thought he’d try sledding, I’d wager.”

Ah. Now Michaelo understood the scar in the snow. Sledding down the motte, unable to stop – a scenario many a mother had rehearsed with her wayward children in the past months, warning them of the danger. “Who is he?” Michaelo called out.

“Daniel. The page of Sir William of Wyndesore.”

“Are you certain?” Michaelo knew Daniel. A sweet-faced, gentle lad.

“Looks like Daniel to me,” the man said.

Michaelo pressed closer still, cutting across the mud without a thought now for his boots. The lad lay on the ground, eyes opened wide, his hair caked with mud, his arms outspread. As Michaelo squatted beside the body to lift the stiff hair from the face, he noticed something that did not belong on a drowned man: red welts on the wrists, just visible beneath the sleeves of the lad’s tunic. Michaelo wanted to push up a sleeve for a better look, but he resisted. He brushed back the hair, gently closed the lad’s eyelids.