30 - King's Gold (24 page)

The baby was giving that sobbing cry that always sounded to her as though he was demanding
‘Mi-i-i-ilk’
over and over again. It had been a call she had adored with her own babes, because it meant she was needed. Those moments were all too fleeting.

Children grew so swiftly. It seemed only weeks since Edith was a gangly little girl of seven or eight, and yet here she was now, a woman of seventeen, with a husband and her own child. The time flew past, and before a woman knew it, her children were old enough to lead their own lives, and the task of the mother was done.

Margaret knew that at her age many other mothers would be dead already, many of them in childbirth. At almost thirty-six, she too could still be killed by another baby, but she considered the likelihood with equanimity. There was no point in becoming disturbed by death. All a woman could do was work for her family and place her faith in God.

Leaving the solar, she walked through to the parlour, and found a grim-faced Sir Richard poking the fire.

He looked up. ‘Morning, mistress. That wench is no good at lighting a fire. When I was a lad, it was the first thing you were taught: how to make a fire so your lord could have a hot drink. Now, the youngsters seem to think that all they need do is lay a few twigs and show them a spark, and the fire will take hold, just like that. Hah!’

‘How is your head?’

‘Me head?’ He looked up with such obvious bafflement that she had to laugh.

‘My husband is snoring still, and I doubt not that when he wakes he will be like a bear at the baiting. How much did you drink?’

Sir Richard blinked and set his head to one side as he calculated. ‘Oh, I don’t know . . . Perhaps a pair of quarts of wine, but then the maid told us that supplies were low and begged us to try her ale. It was good, too,’ he added reflectively. ‘I could do with some of that now. Oh, and there was some cider. A little harsh, that was. I needed another ale to take away the taste.’

‘You shared all that?’

‘Shared?’ he repeated, an expression of bemusement on his face. ‘No:
each
, me dear.’

She eyed him with renewed respect. For a man to drink so much and be able to wake the following morning was, she felt, rather admirable.

‘You needn’t worry about your husband, Madame Puttock,’ he said, and she was about to protest that she was not concerned, merely deciding to leave him to sleep off his hangover, when Sir Richard nodded seriously and continued, ‘I’ll look after him.’

‘I am most grateful,’ she said quietly, trying to control the urge to giggle. If there was one man whom Simon would not wish to have looking after his interests, it was this one, she felt sure.

Simon, she knew, would feel like death on waking.

Near Broadway

John sat up with a jerk, staring wildly about. In his dreams, he had been enjoying a drinking session in an ale-house in London with Paul, a little before the sudden rise of the London mob, and waking here under the branches of an elm left him feeling completely disorientated.

The memory of that dream stayed with him. All had been on tenterhooks at the time. The knowledge that Queen Isabella was raising a host of men from Hainault was enough to make all the men of Sir Hugh le Despenser’s household anxious. Many were the discussions about their future prospects.

In the ale-house, John had been sitting and drinking by the fire with Paul, and the men around them were singing and laughing, teasing the three wenches serving ale while trying to negotiate for their company. One woman was soon dallying in the farther corner of the inn with a guard, and Paul eyed her sadly.

‘What is it?’ John had asked. ‘There are other women.’

‘No, it’s not that,’ Paul had answered. ‘I just feel that our best times are past.’

‘You feel all you want,’ John had responded. ‘I’ve plenty of time left in me, mate!’

‘Aye, me too,’ Paul chuckled, and the two knocked their mazers together and drank. But later, John had seen Paul staring into the fire, and now, after reliving those moments in his dream, he wondered whether his old companion had been granted a vision of the future and his own painful death.

John stood, and draped his blanket over a low branch to dry off the dew while he tidied his camp and began to pack his goods. Thirsty, he wandered to the little stream and filled his skin, drinking enough to assuage his thirst, then topping it up. He opened his saddle-pack and took out a loaf, which he broke in two. Half went into the pack for his lunch, and he took a bite from the other, squatting by his fire of the night before while he took a stick and began to scrape at the ground.

He had found a rabbit in a snare late last night. Some poacher had set a loose twine loop in a rabbit track, and no doubt intended to return later to collect it. John had got there first. He had paunched and cleaned it, then wrapped it in some large leaves and set it in the earth before lighting his fire over it, a little to one side. Loosening it from the soil now, he unwrapped the leaves and pulled off a hindleg. It was a little tough and dry, but tasted good, and he enjoyed the rest of his meal. With another draught of water in his belly, and the remainder of his piece of bread, he felt fit for the day.

Saddling his horse, he rode north. This was the time of day he knew he would miss Paul the most. It was strange, perhaps, because neither was communicative at such an hour, but it was that very companionable silence that he missed now. They could be up and break camp, then ride all morning without speaking, and yet enjoy each other’s friendship as much as another man might enjoy a two-hour conversation.

His thoughts were still on Paul as he jogged along the lane towards Broadway.

After the arrival of the Queen, all had changed. Before, they had led a life of relative peace, enjoying Despenser’s largesse. They had food and drink, good clothes, the best arms and armour . . . But when the Queen’s forces landed, life had become a sudden explosion of urgent travel. First they had ridden to Bristol, and formed part of the last guard that went with the King to Wales. There they had been set free of their oaths. It was better that way. They had missed the last desperate days: the flight to Caerphilly, thence to Neath and capture. The humiliation of Despenser’s execution.

John had hoped that there would be peace. He knew that his master had ruled with a determined avarice that appalled many, and alienated the Queen from him. But now Sir Hugh was dead, it seemed the Queen herself was taking on his role. Before, there had been an uprising of men who had been impoverished by the King and Despenser; now there was a force of disinherited whose sole crime was that they had remained loyal to Despenser. It was the replacement of one injustice with another.

He wondered whether the land could be ruled more justly.

Behind him there was a metallic clatter. It sounded like a stone under a horseshoe, and he turned around to stare, all thoughts of dreams and his friend flown in an instant.

Three men were trotting towards him, and the man in the front was the one knight he did not want to meet: Sir Jevan de Bromfield.

John pulled his horse’s head round, raked his spurs down the brute’s flanks and thundered off through the trees as fast as his steed could carry him.

Furnshill

Baldwin woke to the feeling of cold steel under his left armpit.

It was one of the easiest ways to kill a man. A sword thrust in quickly would meet little resistance as it pierced the lungs, filling them with blood so the victim drowned; if fortunate, the blade might also strike the heart and stop it. A fast death, and a kind one.

Baldwin was wide awake in an instant. He was in a field near Paris, and the men standing about him were all men-at-arms for the French King. The sword blade was being pressed gently into his flesh, but for some reason it wouldn’t penetrate . . . He reached through the fog of sleep to find he was not in France but in his own bed, in Furnshill - and the hideous wet weapon was Wolf’s nose.

‘Get off, you stupid brute!’ he exclaimed, bringing his arm down to cover the soggy patch where the dog had nudged him. ‘Go and bother Edgar or Wat – they should feed you.’

He kissed Jeanne’s neck and rose from his bed. For all his disgust at being woken in such a manner, he was pleased to be up and about. The weather looked fine and dry as he pulled on a chemise and pair of hosen before taking up his new sword and walking down the stairs and out to the grassy area before his house.

While a Templar, he had learned the importance of weapon training and keeping fit. One of the keys to the Order’s fighting brilliance was the training that all the knights and sergeants underwent. Rather than being a loose accumulation of men gathered together for a fight in which few had any interest other than serving their liege lords, the Order provided a force of men who were used to fighting together in a compact unit, each seeing to the defence of the others, riding in tight formation, wheeling on the command, galloping in unison, and using specific martial skills that had proven themselves over time. The Templars were unbeatable under most conditions because of this emphasis on preparation.

Drawing the sword, Baldwin stood with his legs apart. And then began the mock–battle which he underwent every day. It was a series of simple routines, designed to test every muscle in his upper body, reminding him of all the possible attacks, and how to block, parry or avoid each. It was as much a part of him as his beard, this daily ritual, and soon he could feel the blood coursing faster through his veins.

However, today there was a problem which affected his movements and a strange dullness in his right ear, put his balance off: it reminded him of when he had been swimming, and occasionally water would enter his ear and remain there until he tipped his head to the side, when he would find his hearing restored. But today, although he pressed his little finger into the hole and tried to scrape out whatever might be causing the blockage, nothing could move it.

He shook his head and determined to continue with his training. When he’d finished, he went back to the house, feeling disquieted.

‘You look as though something is unsettling you, sir,’ his servant of almost thirty years observed. Edgar was a tall man, suave and elegant, and when the mood took him, as lethal as a viper.

‘It’s my ear. I can barely hear,’ Baldwin said pensively. ‘I feel as if I have gone deaf overnight.’

‘Perhaps you have, sir.’

‘Why should I suddenly lose my hearing?’ Baldwin scoffed. ‘There is no reason for it.’

‘How often did you fight in the lists? In how many battles did you get belaboured about the head with a sword or mace? The ringing of an axe on a helmet could deaden your hearing.’

‘But no one has hit me in recent years,’ Baldwin pointed out. ‘No, it must just be something stuck in there.’

Edgar agreed to investigate for him, and spent some while with a candle held dangerously close to Baldwin’s ear, peering into it, but when the knight heard the crackle of hair singeing, he quickly decided to halt that form of enquiry.

‘When do you leave, Sir Baldwin?’ Edgar asked.

‘As soon as I may,’ Baldwin replied. ‘The old King will not wish to have matters delayed any longer than necessary, in case they choose to move him without us there.’

‘Would they dare? If he has expressed a desire to have you with him . . .’

‘They do not treat him with any respect,’ Baldwin said shortly. ‘And there is an urgency now because of the attack on the castle. Mortimer will be terrified that the next attack might succeed.’

‘It is a terrible place, Kenilworth Castle,’ Edgar mused. ‘I’m astonished that a raid managed to storm it.’

‘I doubt they reached far inside the place,’ Baldwin said. ‘From what I have heard, the party broke into the main gate, but did not succeed in getting further. No, that is not what concerns me. It is the idea of taking the King from Kenilworth to Berkeley. On that long road, it would be a great deal easier for a group of men to break through a circle of guards and get to him.’

‘And then what?’

‘That is what I wonder. Were they there to rescue him, as so many reckon? Or were they there to kill him. Mortimer might well like to remove this constitutional embarrassment. When else has there been a King and that King’s father, both alive? The usual route to kingship is for the son to inherit his realm, but this poor father was forced to surrender his crown.’

‘What of it?’

‘Simply this, Edgar,’ Baldwin said with feeling. ‘I do not know the law, but I daresay that it will prove to be a very fine point, as to whether a King who was forced to relinquish his crown can do so. If God installed him and saw him anointed with oil in the manner that He has decreed, which man has the right or authority to gainsay God?’

‘And so?’

‘Sir Roger Mortimer is not a man who likes to have loose threads lying about ready to be picked at,’ Baldwin said. ‘The old King is one such thread, and an impediment to the new King.’

‘So you will go?’

‘I must. I still hold my vow to the King to be in force. I made that oath before God, and I will not be forsworn.’

Edgar nodded. ‘In that case, I will come too.’

‘No, old friend,’ Baldwin smiled. ‘I must have you here to protect Jeanne and the family while I am gone. And in any case, you have your own family to consider.’

‘Sir Baldwin, for one thing my family is safe enough. I remained here against my better judgement when you rode off last year, and a poor show it was. If I had been with you, you would not have been struck down and almost killed.’

‘I doubt whether—’

‘I shall not make the same error again.’

‘What of my wife, Edgar? I need you here to see to her safety.’

‘I think that is unnecessary.’

'
I
will decide what is needful in my own house,’ Baldwin stated.

His wife’s voice cut across his words as she walked towards him. ‘No, Baldwin. This time it is my choice. And I will not be gainsaid.’

Exeter

Margaret Puttock’s prediction was all too accurate, sadly.