The Lord Bishop's Clerk (2 page)

Each summer she headed west to the Welsh Marches, which was where Edric had gone for the best fleeces. She did as he had done, and the journey provided her with a welcome change of scene, almost a holiday. Both on the outward and return trips she broke her journey at Pershore, and the guestmaster regarded her visits as much a summer regularity as the arrival of the house martins in the eaves.

A habited figure emerged from the abbot’s lodging and acknowledged her presence with a nod and the hint of a sly smile. She lifted her head and pointedly refused to return the gesture. The guestmaster was somewhat surprised, for Mistress Weaver was not a woman of aloof manner. He was also taken aback that the monk, who had no cause to acknowledge the woman’s presence, had looked upon her. It was not, he thought, seemly that a Benedictine should do so, but the man was not a brother of Pershore, and there was no suitable place for him to raise the error. He would certainly not mention it at Chapter.

Margery Weaver’s cheeks flew two patches of angry red colour and her bosom heaved in outrage. Her lips moved, and it was not in prayer. The guestmaster averted his own gaze for a moment, and compressed his lips. Women were definitely a wicked distraction. He wondered why she had reacted in such a way, but wisely refrained from asking for explanation.

Brother Eudo, clerk and emissary of Henri de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, permitted himself a silent laugh as he turned away. Mistress Weaver’s refusal to acknowledge him did not distress him. In fact, her annoyance gave him a degree of pleasure completely at odds with his religious vocation. He was a man who gained untold delight in the discomfiture of others, almost as other men took it from the pleasures of the flesh. It was not an aspect of his character which endeared him to his fellows, and even the bishop had found it difficult to turn a blind episcopal eye to the fault, but Eudo was too useful, and the eye was therefore turned.

Way above the town, high on Bredon Hill, William de Beauchamp, sheriff of the shire, was making his dispositions as the day heated up. He had led his men into the southern part of his shrievalty, to the hill of Bredon, for the purpose of dealing with a lawless band that had been troubling the king’s highway between Evesham and Pershore, and even southwards towards Tewkesbury. In a violent time when minor infringements were sometimes overlooked, their depredations on the merchants and pilgrims upon this route had become so heavy as to make the sheriff take action, if only to silence the vociferous complaints of the abbots of Evesham and Pershore, and even Tewkesbury, although the latter lived under the Sheriff of Gloucester’s aegis. That de Beauchamp supported the Empress Maud, and not King Stephen, made no difference to the need to maintain the rule of law, the King’s Peace. The office of sheriff was lucrative, since he was permitted to ‘farm’ some of the money he gathered in taxes for the king, and it made a man a power to be reckoned with within the shire. The day-to-day administration of justice he generally left to his serjeant and to his under-sheriff, but this band had been big enough to cause him to lead retribution himself. Besides which, if they were upon the hill they were far too close to his own seat at Elmley, and he had no intention of being embarrassed by being told his own lands and tenants had suffered. In addition, his under-sheriff, Fulk de Crespignac, had taken to his bed, sick.

His serjeant, old Catchpoll, was a sniffer of criminals, a man who could track and out-think the most cunning of law breakers by the simple expedient of understanding the way that they thought but being better at it. De Beauchamp had sent him to scout ahead, and he had returned with the news that the camp they sought was empty but not abandoned.

‘They’ve gone a-hunting like a pack of wolves, my lord, and I’d vouch they’ll be back as soon as they’ve brought down their prey. The camp was used last night. Their midden is fresh and there was fires still warm with ash.’ Catchpoll mopped a sweat-beaded brow.

‘Might they not move to another camp tonight?’ said the lord Bradecote, a tall man, sweating in good mail and mounted on a fine steel-grey horse.

Catchpoll turned to him with a derisive sneer.

‘They’re coming back, my lord. They tethered a dog. Now they would not do that if they were on the move proper, but they might if the animal was like to ruin a good ambush.’

Hugh Bradecote nodded acceptance of this theory.

De Beauchamp sniffed. ‘Then we ambush the ambushers upon their return. Which way did they go, Catchpoll?’

‘Down onto the Tewkesbury road, about a dozen ponies, though from the hoof prints, even in this dust and dryness, I’d say as some beasts carried two, or else the living is far too good and we should take to thievery, for it would mean very heavy men in the band. Say up to twenty, all told.’

‘If they intend to return then we want to push them. Bradecote, take your men and follow Catchpoll to the camp. He can show you where to lie concealed.’

‘I think I can make my own judgement upon that, my lord.’ The subordinate officer had his pride, and being treated like a wet-behind-the-ears lordling by the grizzled Serjeant Catchpoll did not appeal.

‘As you wish, but if any escape this net, I’ll be amercing you for every man. I shall take my men down a little off their track and await them starting back up the hill. We will drive them like beaters with game, on to your swords. They may be greater in number, but mailed men with lances are rarely matched by scoundrels with clubs, knives and swords they have stolen. They’ll run for camp to make a stand where they know every bush. Be behind those bushes.’

The sheriff pulled his horse’s head round and set spur to flank. ‘Oh, and don’t kill the lot. I want men to hang. Makes a good spectacle and folk remember it more than just seeing a foul-smelling corpse dragged in for display, and in this weather they will go off faster than offal at noon.’

A lull fell upon the abbey after Sext. Monks and guests alike ate dinner, and if the religious were meant to return to their allotted tasks, there were yet a few heads nodding over their copying in the heat. The obedientaries of the abbey could not afford to be seen as lax, and went very obviously about their business, but mopped their brows covertly with their sleeves if they had cause to be out in the glare. Two or three of the most elderly brothers could be heard snoring softly, like baritone bees, in favoured quiet and shady corners, but their advanced age gave them immunity from censure. Many of the wealthier guests kept to the cool of their chambers, for they did not have to share the common dormitory, but a well-favoured and well-dressed lady promenaded decorously within the shade of the cloister, thereby raising the temperature of several lay brothers, already hot as they scythed the grass of the cloister garth. When their job was complete they were hurried away as lambs from a wolf by the prior, who cast the lady a look of displeasure. She smiled blithely back at him, but in her eyes lurked a twinkle of understanding, and when he had turned away her lips twitched in unholy amusement. Men, she thought, were all alike, regardless of their calling. The only difference with the tonsured was that they tried to blame women for attracting them. It was not, she thought mischievously, her fault if she could draw a man’s gaze without even trying; her looks were natural, a gift from God, and it was only right to use them.

Isabelle d’Achelie was in her late twenties, with the maturity and poise to be expected of a woman with the better part of fifteen years of marriage behind her, but with the figure and complexion of a girl ten years her junior. It was a fascinating combination, and she knew just how to utilise it.

As a girl she had dreamed of marriage to a bold, brave and dashing lord, but reality had brought her the depressingly mundane Hamo d’Achelie. He was a man of wealth and power within the shire, a very good match for a maid whose family ranked among the lower echelons of landowners. Her father had been delighted, especially as he had three other daughters. None were as promising as his eldest, but one outstanding marriage would raise him in the estimation of his neighbours. Isabelle was a dutiful girl who knew that she had no real say in whom she wed, and besides, she was fond of her father. He would not have countenanced the match if d’Achelie had a bad reputation as man or seigneur. Hamo d’Achelie was in fact a decent overlord and pious man. He was, however, nigh on forty-five years old, had buried two wives over the years, and exhibited no attributes that could inspire a girl not yet fifteen. Isabelle had done as she was expected, but wept at her mother’s knee.

Her mother had given her sound advice. A husband of Hamo’s years and apparent disposition, which was not tyrannical, would be likely to be an indulgent husband. She would be able to dress well, eat well and live in comfort. The duties of a wife might not be as pleasant, but, if she was fortunate, her lord’s demands upon her should not be excessive.

So it had proved. Hamo had never sired children, within or outside of marriage, and had, somewhat unusually, accepted that this was not the fault of the women with whom he lay. It was a burden laid upon him from God, and he had learned to live with it. His third marriage sprang, therefore, not from desperation for an heir but from his infatuation with a beautiful face. He adored his bride, and denied her nothing. Isabelle found that marriage was comfortable but unexciting. Her husband treated her as he would some precious object, and took delight in showing her off to his friends and neighbours. He decked her in fine clothes and watched his guests gaze at his wife in undisguised admiration. His pleasure lay in knowing how much they envied him.

Isabelle had learned the rules of the game early on, and played it with skill for many years. She was a loyal wife, and would never be seen alone with another man, but when entertaining she had learned how to flirt with men while remaining tantalisingly out of reach. She had become highly adept, and it both amused her and gave her a feeling of superiority over the opposite sex that she had never expected. What she lacked was passion; but then Waleran de Grismont had entered her life. Just thinking about him made her blood race as nothing else ever had.

De Grismont’s lands lay chiefly around Defford, but he had inherited a manor adjacent to the caput of Hamo d’Achelie’s honour some four years previously. His first visit had been one of courtesy, but he had found the lady d’Achelie fascinating, and had found excuses to visit his outlying manor more and more frequently. He had become good friends with Hamo, and never overstepped the line with Isabelle in word or deed, but she had seen the way he looked at her when her husband was not attending. She was used to admiration, but not blatant desire, and it oozed from every pore of the man. Three years since, Hamo had been struck down by a seizure, which left him without the use of one side of his body. He had been pathetically touched by her devotion and attention to the wreck he knew himself to be, and openly discussed his wife’s future with his friend. She was deserving, he said, of a husband who could love and treasure her as he had become unable to do.

What neither Hamo nor his beautiful wife realised was that Waleran de Grismont liked things on his own terms, and was conscious of feeling his hand forced. He had resolved to distance himself from the d’Achelies for a while, and sought sanctuary in the ranks of King Stephen’s army. He was not, in truth, very particular whose claim was most just, but since Stephen was the crowned king, it seemed a greater risk to ally oneself to the cause of an imperious and unforgiving woman, which the Empress Maud was known to be. The king’s army was heading north to ward off the threat of the disaffected Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and it was not long after that de Grismont found himself fighting for his life in the battle of Lincoln. He was no coward, and fought hard, but, like his king, was captured, and held pending ransom.

In Worcestershire, as months passed, Isabelle d’Achelie had shed tears of grief and frustration, and even contemplated asking her ailing husband if there were any way of assisting in the raising of the required sum. Thankfully, such a desperate measure proved unnecessary, as she received news of de Grismont’s release. He sent a message, full of soft words and aspirations, but did not return to see her. She had been hurt, then worried. Had he cooled towards her, found another? When next she had news, he was among those besieging the empress at Oxford. Only when Hamo d’Achelie was shrouded for burial did he come to her again.