The Bishop Must Die (30 page)

‘Unless you believe that the agent which deposits these things here is a devil,’ John said sharply, ‘then you have to agree that a man would be inordinately lucky to break in here and drop off a note without knowing when would be a good time to do so. Only a brother or a priest would have access to that information.’

‘John, I understand your desire to protect me, but I still cannot think that one of the canons or a priest could have done this to me. They would know how distressing I must find it. Such evil messages!’

William shook his head, and John followed him from the room.

‘He is sorely distressed,’ John said. ‘You saw how he looked? Like an old man.’

‘Whoever is doing this to him deserves to be pilloried,’ William agreed.

‘Do you think I was a fool?’

‘No. You have to be right. There are few enough men who would have the opportunity to enter his chamber at the best of times. To be able to walk in and be confident enough to drop a message on his table, that would be astonishing. Who do you think it might be?’

‘No name instantly springs to my mind,’ John said, scratching his head. ‘There was no one about when I left to see to the other room. Only young Paul of Taunton – I noticed him in the corridor.’

‘Would he be likely to send messages like those to the bishop?’

‘No. But he could have seen someone.’

William agreed, and the two men sought the servant concerned, eventually tracking him down in the charnel chapel, where he was preparing for the next service.

‘You were outside the bishop’s chamber today,’ John said. ‘I saw you there.’

‘Yes, steward. Why?’

The lad was not yet five-and-twenty, and had the astonishingly clear blue eyes and black hair of the Celt. He had been sweeping the floor clean as they entered, and now he leaned on his besom to look at them with a puzzled frown.

‘Did you see someone go up to the bishop’s chamber? Somebody entered while the bishop was not there, and left something. Do you know who it may have been?’

‘There was a lay brother who went up. You know the man, the older one with the grey stubble who always looks as though he’s about to collapse from hunger.’

‘Geoffrey?’ John asked, with eyes screwed up from the act of recollection.

‘That’s him. He used to be a squire, and now he lives here on a corrody.’

‘Who is he?’ William asked.

‘Geoffrey of St Albans. He was a squire, and served his master well, I believe,’ the clerk said, carrying on with his sweeping.

‘Who was his master?’

‘The Earl of Lancaster.’

William breathed out. Earl Thomas of Lancaster had attempted to curb the king’s powers, and as a result had thrown the country into a short but bloody civil war. Captured by the king’s men after the Battle of Boroughbridge, the earl had been stripped of his rank, drawn to his execution on an old goat, and beheaded as a traitor. It had been the start of the appalling bloodshed with which the king had sought to seal his authority on the realm.

‘If he was a servant of the king’s enemy,’ William said, ‘it is easy to imagine that he might also hate the king’s advisers and friends.’

‘Perhaps we should seek this man out,’ John said. ‘It’s possible we shall not need the knight from Furnshill after all.’

It was a relief to be out of that town. There was nowhere Paul would like to be less than that hideous castle. Once it had seemed a pleasant retreat, but no longer. The idea that he and the Duke of Aquitaine could be held prisoner there was frankly terrifying.

Their orders to leave had come almost as soon as they had left Mortimer. There had been some more arguing, no doubt, but now the agreement was confirmed. The young duke was to ride to Normandy with his guards, while his mother and Mortimer would go to Hainault to conclude negotiations. They had much still to arrange. The invasion of an entire realm like England was not a matter to be undertaken lightly.

The duke had bellowed at his guards to hurry as soon as the meeting was closed, and Paul was pleased for once to obey an order to be quick. He actually assisted some of the servants as they packed goods and clothing, even carrying some of the bales of clothes and helping another man with a heavy chest, taking them all out to the waiting carts.

Now they had been on the road for a half of the afternoon, from the look of the sun, and Paul was wondering where they might stay the night. ‘Where shall we go, my lord?’

‘Tonight? There will be an inn before long. If not, we can sleep under the stars with the weather so clement.’

‘Yes, but what of the morrow? Shall we be remaining in Paris for some days?’ Paul asked hopefully. There were so many more glamorous women there in the city. It was a place that offered endless opportunities to a man like him, and he would have welcomed a chance to rest there for a few days.

‘No,’ the duke said coldly, as though reading his mind. ‘We shall turn west before Paris and ride for my ancestor’s lands. I have never seen Normandy, and this will be a good opportunity to do so.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t look so crestfallen, priest. It will be a delightful interlude, and safer than a place like Paris with all the intrigues that a city can afford.’

‘I thought you would like to rest there a while,’ Paul said lamely.

‘In a place where the leading peers of the realm have been offered silver by the barrel to have me captured, and possibly murdered?’ the duke said. ‘Hmm. I think not.’

‘But your uncle wouldn’t allow it,’ Paul said unthinkingly.

‘Do you think he supported the attack on me three days ago? Do you suggest that he would be keen to see me murdered at Montreuil?’

‘No, of course not!’ Paul said hurriedly. It was not safe to speak of a king as an assassin in his own realm where any might be listening. ‘But surely in Paris …’

‘There would be plenty of opportunity for a murderer. Many men there would no doubt welcome the chance to augment their incomes. And many more would stick a dagger in my throat for the price of a barrel of wine.’

‘So we will ride west to Normandy at once?’

‘Yes. And there, I think, we will be safe. The hunting is said to be excellent, and the wine flows.’ He cast an appraising eye towards his tutor. ‘I’ve heard that the women there are the most magnificent in all France,’ he added mildly.

‘I would not care for such news,’ Paul said unconvincingly.

‘They tend to blondes, I’ve heard. All tall. And their …’ the duke made some elaborate hand gestures about his chest. ‘Enormous.’

Paul shook his head with a slight frown. ‘Really, my lord duke, you should pay no attention to such matters. They are not becoming for a man of serious business, like you.’

But later, when all were preparing to sleep, all he could see in his mind’s eye was a tall, blond woman with a voluptuous figure and a come-hither smile.

It was some little while later when the coroner finally grunted that he would have to leave. He was too well known in the city, and had no desire to leave her with a reputation befouled with rumours of harlotry.

Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam rose to see him to the door, aware of a great sadness that he was leaving her. ‘I do not want you to go,’ she said.

‘I would prefer to stay, but you know as well as I do that it wouldn’t be a good idea,’ Sir Peregrine said gruffly. ‘But if you will permit, I shall return tomorrow.’

‘I would like that a great deal,’ she said, and in her belly she could feel the warmth as he smiled at her, as though his smile could emulate the sun and heat her blood.

‘I shall rue the moments I am not with you,’ he said simply. ‘They are wasted.’

‘You great fool!’ she responded, and gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. ‘You should enjoy
all
your moments. I shall make much of every moment you are away. Each will be precious because, in passing, they bring you nearer to me again!’

He frowned slightly, as though working through her logic, and she felt a brief irritation that he didn’t understand her at once, but then she saw her error as he reached out and took her gently in his arms. And then she was unaware of the servant girl, or the room, or anything, as she felt his lips on hers. And she felt that surely she must die now. And if she did, she would be content for God to take her, because she had felt adoration once more.

He set her down, and looked into her eyes with an expression of deep intensity, saying, ‘Woman, I am sorry if that offended you.’

She could scarce speak, her heart was still fluttering so wildly. ‘It did not,’ she said breathlessly.

‘Good.’ He suddenly grinned. ‘I would hate to have to try to experiment again.’

‘Perhaps you should?’

When he had gone, she stood at the entrance to the little hall
with a hand resting on the doorframe. His visit had brought an enormous surge of energy; most of all, she felt young again. She had been sure that Sir Peregrine was a stolid, affable man who could never surprise her, and in an instant he had managed just that. It was thrilling.

But she had work to do. Before she could continue with her pleasing thoughts of the fellow, she had to get out to meet the man at the cathedral.

They found Geoffrey of St Albans at the corner of the cloister, where he was sitting watching doves pecking at the grass.

William nodded to John, and the two approached him from behind, stepping quietly so as not to disturb him.

‘They love their bread,’ Geoffrey said.

He turned suddenly and threw William a grin. ‘Did you think to surprise me, squire? You need to move more silently to do that. Remember, I was a warrior.’ He was a curious old man. With his small bright eyes, and the way he ducked his head, he reminded William of a sad-looking bird himself.

Everyone in the cathedral knew Geoffrey well. He was an amiable fellow generally, and it was thought that he had been installed here as corrodian because he had lost his mind in a battle. The king honoured him, it was said, for his loyal service. But what if his true loyalty was still to Lancaster, the man killed by the king?

‘I have heard that you were in the bishop’s palace a few days ago. Do you remember that?’ William said.

‘You mustn’t ask me about that,’ Geoffrey said, and shook his head disapprovingly. ‘No, not about that.’

‘Why?’ John asked sternly.

There was something wrong though, William could see. The man was not scared of being discovered; rather he was surprised that he should be asked. He had the look of a man who was asked whether he would consider eating a fox. It just wasn’t the sort of thing a man in his chivalric position could consider.

‘You were in the bishop’s parlour, weren’t you?’ John said. ‘You placed a piece of parchment in there. Who put you up to it? Was it allies of your old master, eh?’

There was a cunning look in Geoffrey’s eyes now. ‘You want to trick me, don’t you, but you won’t. You shouldn’t be asking such things,’ he said, and shook his head again. ‘It’s not right.’

‘What isn’t right?’ William asked softly. It was tempting to grab the old git by the throat, but that wouldn’t help, he knew.

‘There are things a man cannot say. Not when he has been sworn to secrecy.’

‘Sworn to secrecy?’ John threw up his hands. ‘Don’t give me that ballocks, old man!’

‘Master steward, please,’ William said, trying to placate him, but John had already tried to grab the corrodian’s clothes.

In an instant the corrodian had thrown his habit wide open and whipped out a long-bladed knife. It swept past John’s face in a terrifying blur, and the appalled steward gave a startled yelp and fell on his back in his urgency to escape. ‘Sweet Mary, Mother of …’

The knife was at his throat, and the corrodian peered down at him with a frown that was more petrifying than anything else. There was nothing resembling pity or amiableness now. Only a terrible concentration. ‘You shouldn’t try to attack a warrior, steward. That’s not good. No, not good at all.’

He took his knife away and darted back, the weapon held low and dangerous, snarling, ‘It’s none of your business.’

‘What isn’t?’ William managed.

‘The guest to see the bishop. That is nothing to do with the likes of you.’

‘When did you first come here, Master Geoffrey?’ William asked.

His eyes were suddenly hooded, and he kept his blade in his hand as he looked from William to John, who was scrambling to his feet. ‘Never you mind. You leave things alone when they’re nothing to do with you, masters. Just leave things be.’

Two Tuesdays before the Feast of St John and St Paul
^*

The weather was fine and bright, but Baldwin de Furnshill felt little cheer as he walked along the castle’s street down towards the High Street that day.

‘Well, my love? How was it?’ Jeanne asked as he strode towards her. She had been waiting outside with Edgar to guard her, strolling among the women who eyed the meats and fish on sale in the market. There was a gorgeous green material which had caught her fancy. Her husband’s tunic was growing exceedingly threadbare, and this new fabric would make a suitable replacement.

‘Not good,’ he responded shortly. ‘I am to leave here soon.’

Jeanne felt the news like a blow. ‘I had hoped you would remain a little longer, my love.’

‘I am sorry, Jeanne. This is not my choice,’ Baldwin said. He could barely look her in the eye. ‘The king has commanded it. That arrogant little puppy, Sir James de Cockington, has given me the warrant. I am to ride to Portchester and there to meet with a man called John Felton. He will be in charge, apparently, and I am to help him.’

‘Help him to do what?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘Gather together a force to help protect the south coast. I had hoped to be released from all these trials and worries, but apparently I am still needed.’

She nodded. It would not be the first time that she had seen her husband go away. ‘When must you go?’

‘In the next week or so. It appears that the effort of protecting our shores is likely to collapse without my own specialist expertise.’