The Prophecy of Death: (Knights Templar 25) (4 page)

Except he couldn’t. The Queen would delight in repaying the priory for such dereliction. And Mark himself would be blamed.
He was the man responsible, after all.

So no. He would have to see what the problem was.

Hal had taken hold of a small whip, and flicked it at a dog trying to leap the partition. It fell back, yelping. Another took
a cut across its nose, and fled to the rear of the pack, howling
– although whether with rage or pain, Mark couldn’t tell.

‘What’s the matter with them?’ Hal demanded, trying to speak over the noise.

‘They’re beasts! Just hounds. They don’t need a reason to make this row. They do it for fun,’ Mark shouted back. God, but
it was so tempting to throw his candle down and …

His eyes caught a glitter in the straw even as the enticing thought caught at his imagination. There was something there,
he thought, and peered more closely.

‘What is it?’ Hal called, his attention split between the hounds leaping at the screen and his master, who had crossed the
floor and stood staring down at the straw. ‘Master?’

He cast a glance at the hounds once more, but then something made him walk over towards his master. ‘Master?’

‘No! Keep back, Hal!’ Mark exclaimed urgently, and tried to stop the lad. But he was too late.

‘Oh, Christ! Oh, God! Gilbert, no! What’s happened to him? Gilbert …’

Mark tried to turn and shield Hal from the scene, but the boy turned and retched against a sack of grain, face white-green,
clearly visible even in the warm light from the torches. He had already seen the obscene gaping wound, the pale, yellow cartilage,
and the blood that lay all about Gilbert’s body, smearing the hay in foul clots and puddles.

Run! He had to run! The noise of the hounds behind him was swelling all the time, and he had to escape the row. He didn’t
think they were after him, but the noise –
Christ Jesus
! He had to get away from the town as fast as he could. The castle was a short distance in front now, and he could see its
battlements. There were only a few yards to the door, and then he was inside, panting with fear and exertion, feeling his
heart
pounding, the sweat cooling on his forehead. Or was it the blood? God’s body, but there had been so much
blood
!

Three men waited just inside. They said nothing. There was nothing to be said, only a nod of mutual recognition, all aware
of the great danger they ran. All knew that if their act tonight was discovered, they would certainly perish. Painfully. He
gave them the small phial, and that was his part done.

Soon he was bustled out, still no time to rest. A man took him swiftly, all the way from the castle’s outer gate, back into
the town, quietly now, the pair of them scurrying like mice through the deserted streets, and out to the little postern. There
was no guard here – it was the castle’s men who were supposed to look after this doorway, so close to the castle itself –
and then he was outside, in the open, the sky a purple velvet cloth overhead, sprinkled with clouds and shimmering sheets
of silken mist. It was a strange sensation, standing there in the open, suddenly still, with no animals, no sense of urgency,
no need to run …

Except there was. He would be running for the rest of his life now, unless the plan succeeded.

Of course, if that happened he might even win a great reward. Become a knight, even. Either that, or he’d be found dead one
day in a ditch for his perfidious behaviour. The King would have his balls for what he’d done.

But for now, he must escape. He moved swiftly along the roadway, keeping the castle on his left, until he reached the cross
on the Wincheap way, and there he turned south and west, heading towards the leper house of St Jacob. A short distance before
that, he found the track off to the left into the trees, and met with the men who had the horse.

He took the reins, and with a sense of relief to be safe again, the man in the King’s herald tabard sighed and clapped spurs
to the beast. There were many miles to cover before he could rest properly again.

Since getting here from France he felt as though he had been in the saddle all the time. He only prayed he might find some
peace soon.

Tuesday following Easter
⁶

Château du Bois, Paris

Baldwin sipped his wine and tried to look appreciative.

The musicians were not all bad. Some were really quite talented. That fellow Janin was rather good with his vielle, and Ricard
was a competent gittern player, although he did tend to make a little too much of a show with his playing for Baldwin’s taste.
He seemed to wave his instrument about overmuch when the women were watching him. Still, at least he was making a pleasing
sound. Not soothing, but definitely pleasing.

But it was soothing which his soul needed just now. He had been here in France for a month or so, which meant that it was
… what? Two months, no, three since he had left his wife and children back home at Furnshill. However long it was, it
felt a great deal longer. That was certain. His son was only a matter of three months old when the King’s summons had arrived
to call him on this journey, travelling to France with the Queen, protecting her from dangers on the road, so that she might
arrive safely at the French court.

Queen Isabella was a strong-willed woman. She had come
through many disappointments with her husband and his choice of friends. In recent years she had seen all her properties confiscated,
her income taken, her servants exiled and even her children taken into custody. All this while her husband ignored her and
took to carousing with his favourite adviser, Sir Hugh le Despenser.

Many women would have been broken by such cruelty, but not Queen Isabella. Baldwin reckoned that at the heart of her there
was a baulk of English oak, resilient, impervious, unbending. She grew more resolute with every setback, he thought. For all
the hardship and the sadness which it must have brought to her, still she acted like a Queen. There was no apparent rancour
in her spirit as she conducted her embassy with the French King. King Charles IV, her brother, was a man of great intellect
and enormous cunning, Baldwin felt – but he tended to feel that about any king. Men with such enormous power were best avoided,
in his opinion.

She was here today, sitting at her chair, listening to the music with enthusiasm as the players cavorted, her eyes sometimes
straying to the little boy who sat at the back with the covers for the instruments, discarded along with the musicians’ paraphernalia.

To Baldwin’s relief the lad was playing quietly with a ball and causing no trouble. He was the adopted son of Ricard of Bromley,
the musician with the gittern, and seemed content enough with his life just now. That itself was good to see.

Baldwin glanced across at his friend of so many years, Simon Puttock. A tall man, some ten years younger at nine-and-thirty
or so, Simon was a strong man, used to long hours in the saddle. He had been a bailiff on Dartmoor, responsible for upholding
the King’s peace on the moors. His grey eyes were set in a calm, sunburned face and had seen their share of
violence in over ten years of trying to seek out felons. His reliability had led to his promotion to the post of officer of
the Keeper of the Port of Dartmouth, but the reward had been bitter, as it meant leaving his wife and family behind.

And now he did not even have that post, for his Patron, Abbot Robert of Tavistock, had died, and arguments had arisen over
the abbey’s choice of successor. Simon had no idea what his job would be.

Baldwin’s face twisted wryly. Unlike him, he thought. His own position was fixed: he was the Keeper of the King’s Peace, a
Justice of Gaol Delivery, and most recently, a member of the king’s parliament, a council which even the king distrusted.
He only used it to raise revenue.

For Baldwin, such a post reeked. He had been a Knight Templar, a member of a holy and honourable order, which had been attacked
by an avaricious French king and his partner, the Pope. The Templars had been destroyed by those two, to their dishonour.
Baldwin had been fortunate enough not to be in the preceptories when all were arrested, and was never caught. Yet the experience
of seeing the persecution and deceit had left him with an abiding hatred of politicians and the clergy. He could trust neither
entirely. Only his friend Simon seemed absolutely trustworthy.

Simon was now standing at the other side of the room – naturally all those in the chamber here listening with the Queen, the
knights, the men-at-arms, the ladies-in-waiting, were all standing; none might sit in the Queen’s presence – and was stifling
a yawn. Baldwin felt his own jaw respond, and vainly attempted to conceal it, sensing his mouth puckering like an old hag’s
who had bitten into a sloe, before he managed to cover it with a forearm.

The Queen displayed no such weakness. She remained
upright in her chair, listening with every indication of enthusiasm, as though all the tribulations of the last months were
dispelled by the music, hard though Baldwin might find it to believe. And yet, he knew, for much of the time, she was bitter.
She concealed her anger at, and detestation of, Despenser, the principal architect and cause of her misery, but for Simon
and Baldwin, who had grown to know and understand her moods and behaviour in the last few weeks of travelling with her, the
fact was that her mood was generally easy enough for them to read. It was clear that she was here to do the very best deal
she could for her adopted country and her oldest son, so that he might inherit a good kingdom, but for all that, if there
were any means by which she could embarrass or offend her husband, she would surely not hesitate to grasp it with both hands.

‘That,’ Simon said as they walked away from the Queen’s chamber to their own, ‘was boring in the extreme. I don’t know about
you, but I’m not sure how much more of this I can bear.’

‘It’s all right for some,’ Baldwin admitted. ‘Fine wine, good food—’

‘Too damned rich.’ His friend grunted. ‘Give me some plain rabbit roasted over an open fire rather than all this coloured
muck.’

‘… and yet I want to be at home to see my son. I worry about Jeanne,’ Baldwin finished. His wife had been so tired when
he left her to set off for London, and all he could recall was that paleness about her features and the pinched look she had
worn, as though his beautiful lady was overtired and cold.

‘I’d like to see my Meg again, too,’ Simon said sharply, adding, ‘and my daughter should have been married by now. All this
wandering about France and back has delayed her
nuptials. I doubt whether she, or her mother, will be too happy about that.’

It was true. Simon’s daughter, Edith, had been betrothed for an age – certainly more than a year – but she was almost seventeen
now. He would have to allow her to marry as soon as he could, and that may well mean as soon as he returned home to Lydford.
He had kept her waiting too long.

‘Simon, I am sorry. I have been growing irritable without my own wife and children. I forget others may have the same regrets.’

‘How much longer do we have to stay here?’

Baldwin shook his head. He had no answer to that. They had been sent here on the orders of the King, and their duty was to
remain to ensure the Queen’s safety.

It was a most peculiar situation, though, and one fraught with dangers for a rural knight and bailiff.

Prior’s Hall, Christ Church Priory

The Prior rubbed at the bridge of his nose and ran through the events again, from the moment the idiots had woken him.

It was not only him. Mark and Hal had woken the whole priory. All had been deeply asleep, waiting for the bell to toll for
Matins, and instead they were jerked awake by the screams of those two. Old Brother Anselm had thought that the end of the
world was coming and nearly expired on the spot, poor devil. In truth, it was a miracle the deaf old stoat had heard anything.

All had rushed to the barn as soon as the fools had announced their discovery, and the priory had been all of a twitter ever
since. It would have been bad enough if the man was just one of the brethren. Yes, that would have been dreadful. But worse
still was the fact of who he was: a friend
of Sir Hugh le Despenser. No one disliked poor brother Gilbert. The man was a pleasant fellow, bright, studious, and keen
to please.

What was he doing there in the hounds’ barn? The man should have been asleep, like all the other brethren. Yet there he was,
in the hay, with his throat cut. Something must have awoken him and made him rise and walk outside. A disturbance? No, surely
not – if there had been something of that nature, someone else would have heard it. Another monk would have woken.

Prior Henry swallowed uncomfortably as this thought rattled about in his head. Because perhaps another monk
had
woken. Perhaps it was a brother monk who had slain the poor fellow?

But that would mean that someone had hated him enough to all but hack his head from his body. Surely that was no monk from
Christ Church.

No. It couldn’t be.

Château du Bois, Paris

It was while Baldwin and Simon were settling down in their chamber that the messenger arrived to ask them to return to the
Queen’s rooms.

‘What now?’ Simon muttered as they trotted across the courtyard. ‘She wants a brief demonstration of sword-play to help her
sleep?’

‘You grow impatient with our Queen?’ Baldwin said with a flash of his teeth.

‘Not impatient with her – just with our position here,’ Simon protested.

‘Yet you think she seeks our company for a diversion?’

‘She appears to enjoy little diversions,’ Simon grumbled.

It was true – and yet she was also possessed of an intellect which was quite the match of any man’s, as Baldwin told himself.
The mere fact that she was here, in Paris, at her husband’s expense, was proof of her wiliness. She was no fool. When she
wanted something, she tended to win it.

‘Sir Baldwin, Bailiff Puttock, I am glad to see you return,’ Isabella greeted them as they walked in. She was still in her
seat, while, instead of the ladies-in-waiting, William de Bouden, her comptroller and personal adviser, now stood at her shoulder.

Bowing, his face to the ground, Baldwin could not see her face. ‘My Lady, naturally we came as soon as you commanded us.’

‘There is no need for formality just now. Please, stand, both of you,’ she said, graciously motioning with her hands for them
to rise. ‘I called you here to hear what my good friend William has to say. William, tell them too.’

The comptroller was a slightly chubby man, but square set for a clerk. He had eyes that were grey, steely and determined.
He had the appearance of a fighter who had somewhat gone to seed in recent years. Now he looked at Baldwin and Simon with
some doubt in his face. He had not come to know either of them during their journey here, and since arriving in Paris there
had been too many calls on all their time.

‘As you know, we are all here to negotiate a lasting peace. We have the objective of having all the King’s territories returned.
We cannot lose lands such as Guyenne.’

‘It’s a matter of pride,’ Simon said, trying to sound as though he understood perfectly.

William turned his eyes on Simon, and when he spoke, his voice oozed contempt. ‘You could say that. On the other hand, when
you appreciate the fact that Guyenne brings more to the
King’s purse than England, Scotland and Wales combined, you may understand that it is more than mere pride which makes it
an attractive territory.’

‘What!’ Simon blurted, and gaped.

De Bouden pursed his lips, then, seeing he had their full attention, continued in more detail, explaining the history of the
disputed territories.

Last year there had been a flare of battle over a
bastide
at St Sardos. The Abbot of Sarlat tried to build it with the permission of the French King, but English locals had deprecated
the construction, and thrown down the works. The French tried to stop them, and the mob rose in anger, killing a French official.
It gave the French the pretext they had wanted, and all the English territories had been confiscated by them.

Now the French King, Charles IV, insisted that the English King, Edward II, should come to France to renew his pledges of
allegiance over the French territories under his command. But King Edward had no wish to put himself under the authority of
this latest French King. King Charles IV was a dangerous opponent, wily and astute, and, the way his mind worked, it was surely
hazardous to the English interest, and perhaps to the English King’s personal safety, for King Edward to cross the channel.
Which was why the Queen was here. She was French by birth, so she understood them, she could speak the language fluently,
and her brother would hopefully not wish to embarrass her. He may even give the lands back as a matter of chivalry.

That had been the hope.

The reality was that King Charles IV was a shrewd negotiator who knew the strength of his position and intended making full
use of it. The idea that he would willingly give up the lands he had taken was farcical.

‘What is he asking?’ Baldwin said.

The Queen herself responded. ‘He demands that we surrender Guyenne, Ponthieu and Montreuil, until the King my husband comes
here to pay homage to his liege lord. The Agenais will remain in my brother’s hands until the ownership and rights are decided
by a French court.’

‘You think our King will accept that?’ Baldwin said, shocked.

The Queen looked at him. ‘Hardly,’ she said.

‘So we will have to make an accommodation,’ William de Bouden said.

‘Of what nature?’ Baldwin asked.

‘It is easy,’ William began. ‘Our King cannot come here himself. He could be in danger. There are many men here in the French
court who are no friends to our King, and—’

The Queen cut him off impatiently. ‘The King will not come, and there is only one other who could. If the King were to elevate
my son by giving him all the King’s possessions in France, then my son Edward could come here and take the oath. My husband
need not come here himself. I want you to go to the King and explain this.’