The eyes of the woman opposite locked with John’s and a frisson of desire passed unbidden through him.
‘Sir John, you are well-acquainted with the great persons of state, it seems,’ she said. ‘It seems strange that everyone still refers to her as “the queen” when the real queen is never mentioned!’
De Wolfe was reluctant to pursue this topic, but felt he must make some reply. ‘Berengaria has never set foot in England, my lady, as I’m sure you know. She was not even at King Richard’s coronation, across the yard there in the abbey.’
‘I hear Eleanor is a formidable woman,’ persisted Hawise. ‘Have you met her yourself?’
He shook his head regretfully. ‘I fear not, my lady. When I was with the king, both in Palestine and on his disastrous journey homewards, his mother was far away.’
‘Didn’t she go with her husband on the Second Crusade?’ Hawise’s eyes were wide with excitement.
‘She did indeed, madam — and legend has it that she led her own company of high-born ladies dressed as Amazons!’
Hawise gasped, a hand fluttering at her neck.
‘She is certainly a most extraordinary woman,’ observed Renaud. ‘I was in her presence once in Mortain when she visited Count John there. Though advancing in years, she is still a handsome and regal lady. I would not care to cross her!’
Nor would anyone else, de Wolfe thought. The old queen, once wife to King Louis VII of France before she married Henry II, was a powerful figure behind the Plantagenet family. Imprisoned by her husband for sixteen years for siding with their sons against him, she had later helped to save England from her youngest son’s treachery when his brother was imprisoned in Germany. The conversation continued across the table for some time, mainly about the personalities in the court and the odd position of Westminster in the dual kingdom of Normandy and England.
Primarily a soldier, John had never taken that much interest in politics, though of course he knew the general situation. It was Ranulf of Abingdon who was the best informed, having been a resident here for three years.
‘This is a strange place, de Wolfe,’ he began, pushing back on the edge of the table with his hands. ‘A royal court without a king! Since his coronation in eighty-nine, I doubt he’s spent more than a few months in England — and for most of that, he was marching around the country, rather than settled in Westminster.’
Renaud de Seigneur nodded in agreement, watched intently by his wife. John had the feeling that they were avid for details of what went on in this enclave on the bank of the Thames.
‘The Lionheart’s true court is Rouen,’ Renaud declaimed. ‘Though he was born in Oxford, he is first and foremost Duke of Aquitaine and Normandy. England is but a colony to him, a source of money and men to fight his wars.’
Blindly loyal to Richard though he was, de Wolfe could hardly deny this statement, though he was resentful to hear it fall from the lips of a Frenchman. Renaud was not even a Norman, coming as he did from the county of Blois, which had a somewhat ambiguous position between the territories of Richard and Philip of France.
‘Yet there seems to be a large complement of ministers, officers, clerks and servants here, considering the sovereign never sets foot in the place?’ observed Hawise, giving John another melting glance from her lovely eyes.
Uneasy that her husband might take offence at this obvious flirting under his very nose, John turned to Ranulf. ‘The place always seems busy, even if we have no resident royalty.’
Flattered to be looked upon as the fount of knowledge, Ranulf launched into an explanation.
‘England is now governed largely from here, even in the absence of the king,’ he explained. ‘The Curia Regis, though it mainly sits in Rouen, is also based here, in so far as decisions about England are concerned, so the major barons, bishops and other great men are constantly back and forth. This is why we maintain the guest accommodation — though the ministers of state usually have houses of their own in the neighbourhood.’
‘In my father’s day, I recall that Winchester seemed to be the most important place,’ observed Lady Hawise.
Ranulf, who seemed to have the same appreciation of a fair lady as the coroner, nodded as he gave her his most winning smile.
‘Winchester was the Saxon capital, but now almost everything has been moved up to Westminster.’ He looked rather dramatically over his shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘In fact, I am involved in organising the final part of the move now. The Exchequer is already here, but the remainder of the Treasury will be coming up next week, under heavy guard.’
The French baron and his wife looked suitably impressed and Renaud tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially.
‘They’ll hang you for giving away such state secrets to foreigners,’ he joked. ‘Maybe I’ll hire some Welsh mercenaries and ambush you on the way!’
The under-marshal grinned and winked at Hawise, but she seemed more interested in John, who was scowling at Ranulf’s indiscretion. ‘Stranger things have happened,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘I’d not let such talk go further.’
To get away from the subject, he turned the conversation to the stabbing that had happened that day, of which the couple opposite were unaware.
‘It doesn’t seem to be a robbery, though we’ve got no body yet,’ he concluded. ‘So I wouldn’t be too concerned about being at risk from murderous cutpurses in the palace precinct. But be careful always, Sir Renaud. Don’t let your wife go out unchaperoned.’
Hawise d’Ayncourt gave him a brilliant smile at this. ‘I’m sure with a Crusader on the premises, we can all sleep safely in our beds, Sir John!’
Renaud stood up rather abruptly and helped his wife to her feet, as he bade the two men goodnight. As he walked her away with her arm through his, he murmured, ‘You needn’t make it too obvious, lady.’
She pouted a little as they walked up the hall. ‘You never know when two court officers might be useful,’ she whispered.
The news came in mid-morning, just after Gwyn had returned from collecting their daily rations. Part of their expense allowance was in bread, candles and ale, as Thomas had his own allotment over in the abbey, in return for working in the scriptorium when not on coroner’s business. Gwyn had lumbered in, clutching four barley loaves and a bundle of candles, which he dumped on the table in front of his master.
‘I’ll go back for the ale in a moment,’ he grunted, taking a breather before he went for their daily two-gallon jar. The allowances were dispensed from a room near the entrance to the Lesser Hall. Thomas had run out of rolls to scribe and was quietly reading his precious copy of the Vulgate of St Jerome, while de Wolfe was sitting with a quart pot of yesterday’s ale, morosely contemplating the floor and wondering what was happening back in Exeter.
Gwyn slumped on a stool and began cutting a thick slice from one of the loaves with his dagger, to go with a lump of cheese that had been wrapped in a cloth on a nearby shelf. He was about to offer the same to his companions, when there was a rap on the door and the warped boards creaked open to admit the head of a young page.
‘Pardon me, sires, but I was sent by the doorward to give you a message,’ he said hesitantly. He looked about ten years old and seemed overawed by the presence of the king’s coroner.
‘The Keeper of the Palace requests that you attend upon him directly, sir. It is something relating to a dead body.’
He made to withdraw, but de Wolfe roared at him and his curly head bobbed back again.
‘You had better lead us to wherever he is, boy!’ he snapped, his scowl frightening the lad even more. ‘By Job’s pustules, I don’t want to spend the next hour wandering these damned passages!’
John had met the Keeper of the Palace, Nathaniel de Levelondes, several times, once in the company of Hubert Walter, the Chief Justiciar, when they first arrived, but he had no idea where he was installed in the rambling buildings. Leaving Gwyn and Thomas to enjoy their bread and cheese, he followed the nervous page along the same floor towards the royal chambers, a three-storey block built around a private cloister adjacent to the Lesser Hall. Between this and the back of the Great Hall, were the guest chambers, which de Wolfe calculated must be over the Steward’s domain that they had visited the previous day. The lad, who de Wolfe guessed must be the son of a baron being placed here for eventual advancement in court, led him to a narrow stair to an upper floor, where he held aside a heavy leather curtain which did service as a door.