29 - The Oath (38 page)

If it were not for the strong arm of his servant, he would have toppled and fallen right there before the men, but he managed to make his way to the chair which had been set before the tribunal.

He could feel his legs tremble on his way there. It was the longest walk he had ever undertaken. His worst enemies were seated staring at him as he crossed the floor.

Sir Roger Mortimer, the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, brothers to King Edward himself, then two retainers of the Earl of Lancaster, who had himself been killed by the King, and Henry of Lancaster too. All detested the Earl and his son, and all would take delight in destroying him. He knew that.

His life was to end.

‘My lords, where is the Queen?’ he asked, and was surprised by how firm and steady his voice sounded.

‘Silence, Earl Winchester. You have no right to speak in this court,’ Mortimer said flatly. ‘If you speak, you will be gagged.’

‘May I not speak in my defence?’

‘No. We accord you the same rights you accorded to the Earl of Lancaster when he was captured. Your crimes are so manifest and obnoxious to all thinking men that you deserve no defence.’

‘Of what am I accused?’

‘Silence!’ Sir Roger snapped. He nodded to a clerk at a table nearby, who stood and nervously began reading from a list.

Earl Hugh listened with his face kept carefully blank. There was a slight pain in his breast over his heart, and his bowels felt as though they had turned to water, but over all that he was aware of a slow, building anger. That these men should think they could dare to bring him to trial! He was an Earl, the same rank as the highest in this chamber, and they thought they could serve punishment to him like some churl from the street? They would learn differently. Surely the Queen wouldn’t allow them to continue, once she heard. He had never hurt her. And the fact that he had agreed to give up the castle must count for something. He only prayed that his son would get to Ireland, that his own predicament would delay matters sufficiently for his son to make good his escape.

Not that they would dare to carry out any punishment. Not of a truly condign nature. He was a friend to the King, and Edward’s fury would know no bounds, were he to learn that someone had hurt one of his chief advisers.

So, his crimes were legion. He was to pay for supporting his son and his son’s government, for making laws that stopped men from defending themselves in court, for enriching himself at the expense of others, of stealing from the Church, and for participating in the execution of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, the Earl who had himself tried to accroach all power in the realm to himself, and control the King. A number of crimes. All perhaps repellent to the men here, while all were also designed to service the King. It was he who had demanded the removal of Thomas of Lancaster; he who had wished for strong government. Earl Hugh’s crime was to have supported his son. He was a father! Who would not do the same in those circumstances?

He opened his mouth to reject these ridiculous allegations, but Mortimer glanced at him, and in that look, Earl Hugh saw pure malevolent glee. This was not a show trial to scare a man before throwing him into confinement. This was a trial for his life, but a trial at which no argument might be submitted in his defence. His judges put on a fine show of deliberating over possible penalties, but the crimes themselves were accepted as proven. And there was only one punishment to suit the crimes, he realised: he was to die.

It was curious, to sit here and listen to the men talking about him in this abstract manner, as though he was not there. Only Mortimer and Lancaster would occasionally look at him, as though to remind themselves how repellent he truly was. The others tended to avert their eyes, as though they too felt a little of the guilt of sentencing a man without giving him even the semblance of fairness in his trial. It was a formality, this court, not a court of law in which the truth was weighed and assessed among other evidence.

He had treated men in similar ways in the past. Sometimes it was necessary to make a show of a man before his comrades so that they might see the all-powerful nature of the law. But today, here, Earl Hugh was less convinced of the merits of that argument than when he had himself sat on the seat of judgement.

The Queen – she would save him. They must give him time to speak with her, he decided. Even Mortimer wouldn’t want to execute him out of hand. The King would assuredly avenge the death of a man so senior in his household.

‘You are sentenced to be drawn from this place to the place of common execution in the city,’ Mortimer said. ‘There you will be hanged by the neck until nearly dead, and then beheaded.’

The Earl nodded stiffly.

‘The sentence of this court will be carried out at once,’ Mortimer finished.

Earl Hugh felt his throat close up. His muscles, when he tried to stand, had lost their vigour, and he must remain seated for a few moments before he could rise. It was as if he had been given a blow on the skull. For those few moments, he found it impossible to concentrate.

A glance at Mortimer did the trick. The sneer on the man’s face was sufficient for Earl Hugh to wave away the hand offered by his old servant, and to be able to rise to his feet. Haughtily he turned from the tribunal and set off to the door.

He would have to speak with a priest and consign his soul to God. There was to be no period of grace. He was to die today. Now.

He had only one hope: that his son would at least have made it to Ireland. That was where he and the King were heading for, and perhaps they were already there. If so, at least the his death might serve some useful function, because it would ensure that Mortimer and his army remained here in Bristol.

If there was one thing he wished, it was that he might have a little time to see his son. To talk to him, and to advise him how to strive to capture the men here in the room. To catch them and see them punished for their presumption.

But mostly he just wished he could see his son one more time.

Cardiff Castle

The outburst from Despenser had stilled everyone in the room. Sir Ralph said nothing, but there was a gobbet of spittle on his cheek. He reached up and wiped it away without comment, before bowing low to the King and slowly walking backwards from the room.

‘Where do you go?’ Despenser demanded.

‘To prepare the remaining members of the King’s household to ride wither His Majesty commands,’ Sir Ralph said with cool politeness, and was gone.

Edward gave a loud expostulation, lifting his hands and letting them drop again. ‘
Oh
! Why do I have to suffer in this way? If only I had one General in whose efforts I could trust. A man with the tactical genius of . . .’

He was quiet before he could say the name, but Baldwin was sure that he was about to say,
Sir Roger Mortimer
. The man had been his best Captain. All knew it. Mortimer had been the King’s very finest Commander, not only tactically and strategically, but politically too. And now he had turned against him.

Shortly afterwards, the King and Despenser left the chamber for a smaller, more private one, and as soon as the door had slammed behind them, the men in the hall were able to stand upright again, rising from their knees. Baldwin saw that one of the messengers needed assistance to rise, and he walked over to him. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked. ‘Are you fatigued after your journey?’

‘No – well, yes, but it’s not that,’ Robert Vyke said, wincing as he put the weight on his leg again. His shin was on fire, and he wondered whether he should pay to have it looked at.

‘What happened to you?’

‘A foolish accident. I fell into a pothole, and inside was a dagger. It sliced my leg open.’

Baldwin pulled a face. ‘It is one thing to be stabbed by an opponent in a fight, but to get slashed in a muddy pool, that is the height of bad luck. The fool who left it there deserves to be punished severely.’

‘I think he was,’ Robert said, and told Baldwin of the head and dismembered body.

‘Really? That is an intriguing story,’ Baldwin said. ‘I suppose there are small factions fighting all over the country. Lots of grievances being settled, feuds brought to a conclusion.’

‘There are plenty who say that they have a score to settle,’ Robert agreed, sighing heavily.

‘And I dare say that most will never be resolved,’ Baldwin replied. ‘It is sad to think of so many dying without a grave, without a mourner or prayer said over their bodies.’

‘I think I do know who he was,’ Robert said. ‘I was told that his name was Squire William. At least, that was the name that Sir Laurence mentioned when he saw the dagger.’

‘Squire William who, I wonder? We shall perhaps never know. Where was the man’s body?’

‘It was left near a vill some little way from Bristol. There was a priest nearby, who found me and tended to my wounds until I could walk again. Then I made my way to Bristol, where they asked me to come here. I suppose I wouldn’t have managed to help much in the fight there in the castle.’

‘I suppose not,’ Baldwin said. He watched the injured man limp over to a bench. ‘It is healing?’

‘Think so. You know how these wounds can be. Sometimes they heal quickly, others you have a barber take your leg off, and sometimes a man will die from the lockjaw or gangrene. I think this will be all right, but it is still very sore. I’ve walked long and hard in the last few days.’

‘You must take your rest,’ Baldwin said. He turned, only to see Bernard nearby. ‘A question, from interest,’ he said to him. ‘Are you aware of a Squire named William who lived near to Bristol?’

‘Only the one,’ Bernard said with a chuckle. ‘He wouldn’t be popular there, though. Married the daughter of a merchant in the city, and then treated her like a cur. Poor chit was only fourteen or so when they got wed. She ran away when she was eighteen.’

‘And?’

‘She ran off with a parson, and nine months later she had proof of his catechism! He must have been a right holy fellow, for he was always on his knees. The fool must have had his brain in his tarse. Anyway, when the crime was uncovered, the girl went home to her parents, and as soon as her husband heard of her baby, he went to her home with a group of ruffians and killed them all. His wife, her parents, and her son.’

‘I see,’ Baldwin said slowly. The sheer ferocity of such an act sickened him. He himself could imagine killing any number of men who had hurt his wife or children, but to go to a house from jealousy or from the position of cuckold, with a group of others, and slay all within, especially the babe, was the act of a madman.

‘They even killed some of the servants,’ Bernard went on. ‘The porter at his door was stabbed, and a maid.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘It is terrible how the lust for blood can blind some men.’

‘Well, they didn’t kill all the servants, I suppose, so that’s a mercy. The maid looking after the baby didn’t die. They left her where she was.’

‘But they took the child from her,’ Baldwin said. ‘That is truly foul. It must have sent the woman lunatic to see the babe killed.’

‘She was made of hardier stuff than that, I reckon.’ Bernard rubbed his chin. ‘She’s still in the city, I heard.’

Baldwin nodded, but he had no idea how his future was about to be so closely entwined with the woman he was discussing. Nor with her death.

Bristol

Simon had been allowed to finish his food, and then to see his servants released and fed, before he was led away to discuss the murder.

It was strange to be taken out to the main city. After such a short time, it had begun to feel as though the castle was a gaol from which he would never be released. Now, he was able to walk the streets with Hugh again like a free man. Margaret and Peterkin, he had been told, would be safer staying in the castle. With so many foreign mercenaries about the city, Simon could only agree with that. He left Rob with them.

He and Hugh were taken along the main street near St Peter’s, and then his guard stopped and suggested that they wait.

‘Why?’

‘Sir Roger Mortimer wanted you to be here,’ the guard said imperturbably. He set his polearm on the ground and leaned on it like man with a staff, yawning.

‘What’s your name?’ Simon asked.

‘Herv Tyrel.’

‘Have you come with the Mortimer from Hainault?’

‘Me? No.’ The man was surprised, Simon saw.

Herv Tyrel was a thickset fellow with the brawny arms of a farmer. His brown eyes were gentle, set in a broad, amiable face, and he looked as though he would be more at home in a field with oxen than here in a city.

‘Where are you from, Herv?’

‘A little vill in Oxfordshire, a place called Henret,’ he sighed, gazing about him without relish. ‘Wish I was back there now. I’ve already lost one mate, and now God knows when we’ll get back.’

‘I think we all wish we were at home,’ Simon said. ‘I would that I was at home in Devon. This city has been too exciting already for my tastes.’

That made the man grin. ‘I know that feeling. I left home in the pay of the King, and halfway here, our Captain decided to become a servant of the Queen. I mean, the Queen’s son will be the next King, so I suppose joining their men is a good idea, but I don’t really understand . . .’