29 - The Oath (54 page)

It was not like him to have fallen in such a manner, he mused. His horse was usually so reliable. And then he had a sudden memory of redness flashing across in front of him . . . It was almost as if a man had been there – but that was ridiculous.

‘Are you all right, Simon?’

‘Talk to me, Baldwin,’ Simon said thickly. ‘Every so often I get this urge to puke, and I’d appreciate some distraction. How did you get here?’

Baldwin whistled to Wolf, who was padding along behind the horses of Robert Vyke and Herv Tyrel with a hopeful air, watching as the two shared some dried meat.

‘There is not much to tell,’ Baldwin began. He told Simon of his fast journey across the South of England, intending to get to Furnshill before war could reach it, and how he met with Redcliffe. ‘It was clear enough that the man was in danger.’

‘I know that name,’ Simon said with a frown. It took him a long time to recall where he had heard it. ‘Oh, I’m a fool. He’s dead, of course!’

‘Yes, I had to leave his body at the banks of the Severn,’ Baldwin said.

‘He was intending to murder the King, so the Duke of Aquitaine thought,’ Simon said.

Baldwin nodded. ‘Yes – and I sought to protect him. If I had succeeded, he would have killed our King.’

‘Who discovered him?’ Simon asked, remembering Sir Roger Mortimer’s interest. ‘Was it you?’

‘No. The man who tried to kill him at Winchester managed to reach him in the end,’ Baldwin said, and explained about the bearded killer.

Simon closed his eyes as a wave of nausea washed through his belly, and he shuddered with the taste of bile in his throat. ‘I think, my friend,’ he said very quietly, ‘you managed to kill the Duke of Aquitaine’s man. He sent a fellow called Sam Fletcher to kill the man Redcliffe before he could get to the King.’

Baldwin screwed up his face into a grimace of anguish. ‘Ach! And I thought at the time I was only protecting a messenger for the King.’

‘Best to keep quiet about it, I think,’ Simon said weakly.

‘There is one thing,’ Baldwin said, and he pulled out the note of safe-conduct which he had found in Redcliffe’s purse. ‘I still have this.’

‘Keep it safe, my friend,’ Simon advised, reading the somewhat bedraggled sliver of parchment. The ink had begun to smudge in places, but it was still legible. ‘You never know when it may come in useful.’

Second Friday after the Feast of St Martin
⁴⁶

On the road to Hereford

After three days in the saddle, Simon’s back was giving him less pain. He winced at regular intervals as a sudden lurch of his mount jolted his leg, but at least his head and neck were healing.

The aim had been for them to ride to Monmouth first, and thence to Hereford, but progress was slow. With all the injured men, they were only managing a scant three leagues a day, and the Earl of Lancaster was to get back to Sir Roger Mortimer and the Queen.

Baldwin understood their urgency, but could hardly share it. He did not know how he would be received when they reached Mortimer.

The King was obviously deeply troubled, and whereas Baldwin had the companionship of Simon, Jack, and even Robert Vyke and his ever-present Wolf, the king had no one to comfort him. His oldest servant had died in the battle trying to protect him, and Despenser was a spent force.

It was strange to see the Despenser now. He rode loosely, as though he was drugged or filled with burned wine
⁴⁷
, and his eyes glittered. He looked about him menacingly, as though storing up a memory of each and every face in order to ensure that all were captured and tortured when he had an opportunity, and Baldwin wondered if his mind was unbalanced. He must surely have realised that there would be no escape for him.

In those periods when he was able to speak rationally, Despenser was coldly polite, but for the most part he would say nothing, not even to the King who had risked so much and had now lost all on his behalf.

He must be fearful, Baldwin thought, and this appeared to be confirmed by the fact that he refused all food. Nothing had passed his lips since Llantrisant, and he was showing signs of deterioration. His eyes, Baldwin saw, were growing yellow instead of white, and his face was sinking in upon itself.

Sir Hugh had made the decision to starve himself, Baldwin reckoned. Perhaps that was not a bad idea. Sir Roger Mortimer would want him to be executed in public, in the most humiliating manner – probably by having him dragged all the way to London so that the mob could jeer at the sight of their hated oppressor. But if he drank nothing and ate nothing, Despenser would never reach London.

Perhaps, Baldwin wondered, that was a reason for the Earl’s haste? He wanted Despenser to be delivered alive so that he could be punished for the sport of Mortimer and Sir Hugh’s many enemies. It would not please Sir Roger Mortimer to be cheated of his revenge.

So on they trotted and ambled, a small force guarding the two men who until the last month had been the most powerful beings in the whole country, and who were now little more than wraiths, their energy and souls sucked clean from their bodies.

Baldwin pondered on this thought. And wondered what would happen to him.

Second Sunday after the Feast of St Martin
⁴⁸

Outside Hereford

Robert Vyke dropped a crust of bread for Wolf as the great mastiff lumbered along beside him, and when he looked up, he saw Otho and Herv riding nearby.

‘Not far now,’ Otho muttered. He was not comfortable on horseback, and his body lurched from side to side in the saddle.

Robert Vyke smiled, but his heart was not in it. There was no telling what would happen to him when they arrived. When captured, if you were rich and important, you would be ransomed and your life saved; but if you were a simple peasant from another lord’s host, you ran the risk of being slain out of hand. He had a nasty suspicion that his own fate could follow that path.

‘You look like you’ve swallowed a wasp,’ Otho said after contemplating him for a moment or two. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I just don’t want to get to Hereford that soon.’

‘Your leg all right?’

‘Yes. It’s no trouble now,’ he said, flexing it to show.

‘You’ll live.’

Robert Vyke shot him a look. ‘What?’

Otho shrugged. ‘Your leg, I meant. Why?’

‘What’s the chance of me living, though? They will want to make a show of those who supported the King, won’t they? And I was with him when our master went over to the Queen. I’m a traitor to my own master.’

‘You didn’t do that on purpose,’ Herv objected.

‘Doesn’t matter, does it? Not to a knight or a lord. They just look at me and see a peasant who can’t be trusted.’

Otho sucked at his front teeth. ‘I think you’re missing something here, Rob. If this was the other way round, and the King was waiting for you to be brought to him, maybe you’d be right. But I reckon the one who’s worried most now is that one there.’ He pointed at Despenser. ‘You really think so?’ asked Vyke, cheering up.

‘Yeah. He’s shit scared.’ Otho studied the man for a while, and then spat. ‘Nah, you’ll be fine Rob. They’ll hardly even notice you.’

Second Monday after the Feast of St Martin
⁴⁹

Hereford

They reached the city in the middle of the morning. Trotting down towards the gate, Baldwin saw a party of men riding out to meet them. If he could, he would have turned his horse and galloped away.

‘What is all that lot?’ Simon asked, gazing ahead with his eyes narrowed.

‘Looks like Sir Thomas Wake at the head,’ Baldwin said. ‘I know him – he’s a good man. The others, I don’t know.’

They were soon to find out. As their party reached the gates, there was a flurry of activity. Three men came and took hold of Despenser’s horse. He was forced to dismount, and while four men rode to the King and took him into the city at a brisk trot, Despenser had the tunic ripped from his back and chest, and was forced to stand still while a fresh tunic was placed over his head.

‘What’s that?’ Simon asked, peering. His eyes had not recovered their full vigour yet, and trying to focus from here was giving him a fresh headache.

‘They have made a tunic with his arms reversed,’ Baldwin said, his voice hushed. ‘His arms are destroyed.’

‘Oh?’ Simon said.

‘Yes. “Oh”. It means his place in the nobility will cease to exist,’ Baldwin said.

Simon nodded, and then, ‘What now?’

‘They are writing on him,’ Baldwin said. It was impossible to hear what was being said, but someone had tied his wrists, and now men with reeds and inks were scrawling all over Despenser’s back, sometimes straying onto his neck and bare shoulders, while the man stood whey-faced and uncommunicative. Around him was a growing crowd who taunted him and laughed. Then a crown of green nettles was brought and rammed on his head. That brought on a reaction: he writhed with pain as the stings burned his brow and temples.

He was not alone. Baldock also had his tunic cut from him, and naked, he was clothed in his own arms reversed, with his own crown of nettles shoved hard over his brow. Despenser’s herald, Simon of Reading, was given a banner, but he refused to accept it, his face showing his revulsion.

‘It’s got Despenser’s arms reversed, too,’ Baldwin answered before Simon could ask.

It did not work. Simon of Reading was forced to take up the banner, and then Despenser was given a miserable hack to ride into the town. It was mangy, thin and spavined, and looked as though it could scarcely bear his weight, but then Simon of Reading was beaten and prodded with swords until he led the way into the city, Baldock and Despenser following.

Simon and Baldwin could hear the crowds inside the city. There was jeering, cat-calling, and rotten fruit was thrown, and eggs, at the unfortunate trio. For the most part, when Baldwin caught glimpses of him, Despenser was sitting stiff-backed on his nag – oblivious, apparently, to the missiles and taunts.

There was a justifiable hatred of this man, but Baldwin felt alarmed at the way that the people of the town were responding to him, this despot who only weeks ago would have had them trembling with terror by merely looking at them. Now, in the hour of his downfall, they were happy to throw all caution to the winds and shame him for their pleasure. It was foul to witness, and Baldwin wondered if Mortimer realised that this crowd, which was learning to insult its betters with impunity, could all too easily turn on him as well, given the opportunity. To see women screeching abuse, their children joining in, and men with their faces twisted with loathing, was not an edifying sight.

They were taken to the market square. This was where judgement was to be declared.

The names of the judges were read. The Earl of Lancaster was there, and the Earl of Kent, and Thomas Wake, as well as the other man from the gate, Jean de Hainault, and, of course, Sir Roger Mortimer. Set slightly aside, sat Queen Isabella and her son, the Duke of Aquitaine.

Despenser was commanded to be silent. There was to be no defence to the clear and manifest crimes of which he was accused. No man was asked to speak for him, and instead a series of charges were read out to the suddenly quiet market square.

Baldwin found himself distracted by the gaily-coloured flags which fluttered about in the breeze. He thought how festive the square looked, as if it was a holiday, so wonderfully at odds with the terrible scene now playing out in front of him. The silence, apart from the wind and the voice relentlessly reading the charges, gave a feeling of unreality. Looking up, in a window in a tower overlooking the square, he saw a face wearing a rictus of perfect horror.

‘The King!’ he whispered.

King Edward II stared down at the square and felt his breast and belly melt in fear.

They wouldn’t, they
couldn’t
kill his Hugh, his lovely Hugh. The man was not guilty of these crimes they were inexorably listing. They were saying that Hugh had left Isabella, his Queen, alone at Tynemouth when the Scottish were attacking. That was
unfair
! Sir Hugh had tried to reach her, but he couldn’t because of the numbers of Scots in the area. And she had escaped anyway, climbing aboard a ship at the last minute. He craned to listen. What was that? That he had granted the Earldom of Winchester to his father? That wasn’t his doing, it was the King’s action! What now? That he had stopped the King from travelling to France to pay homage for Aquitaine, to the detriment of the kingdom? Ridiculous No! No! This was a travesty!

Down there in the square he could see poor Hugh, standing so still and calm, like a saint before his martyrdom. Like Christ Himself with his shameful crown while the hideous wretches all about him revelled in his pain.

Then the words he had been dreading came up to him. There was not even a pause to give the pretence that Sir Hugh was being judged. Instead, they went straight to the judgement from reading the list of charges. He was to be hanged, drawn, castrated, quartered, and his rank and nobility would die with him.