‘Why should I want to do that?’
‘No honest man would, that is certain,’ the man said, standing back a little and eyeing him doubtfully. ‘But we’ve had some things stolen in the last weeks, and my master told me to stop anyone who looked suspicious.’
‘Me? Do you think I look suspicious, then?’ Jack chuckled. He rolled his eyes. The palace was in full view behind this interfering guard.
‘No, master. I suppose not. But you can’t blame me for checking, can you?’
‘Of course not. But …’ Jack paused, clutching at his chest, the breath hissing from clenched teeth.
‘Master? Christ’s ballocks … Master? Are you all right?’
‘Please, I need to sit under those trees. Their coolness will … ah! The pain!’
The guard threw an anxious look over his shoulder. Then, slipping his gauntleted hand under Jack’s armpit, he half-carried him to the thicket. There was a log, and he took Jack to it, helping him to sit down on it.
‘Thank you.’ Jack smiled up at him, and then slammed his right forearm upwards, the hand cupped back. As soon as the palm and ball of his thumb met the fellow’s chin, he straightened his arm and simultaneously launched his whole body up with all the power in his legs. There was a snap as the man’s teeth crashed together, and then a louder, harsher crack. The body was thrown back, and Jack caught him before he could hit the ground, gently turning him over and feeling the neck to make sure. There was a slight tension there, and he could feel some spasms in the thighs making the torso move, so he set the guard on the ground, put his knee in the small of his back, gripped the head, and pulled sharply backwards and to the side.
There was no one about. He took a rock and eyed the guard speculatively for a few moments, and then brought it down hard on the man’s left temple. The rock was tossed to the side of the roadway, and he picked up the guard and set his body down so that the head met the rock. Taking another large stone, he put that near the guard’s feet, as though he had tripped and pitched headlong onto the rock, and then he pushed the guard gently until he rolled slowly away from the road and into the drainage ditch at the side of the road.
There was no snow about here yet, but a thick layer of ice crunched and crackled as the body landed on it. There was enough blood on the roadway about the rock to show what he wanted.
And then Jack took up his staff again, and with a quick glance about him, he set off for the bridge once more.
He wanted no one left about either bank of the river who could remember him.
Furnshill Manor, Devon
Sir Baldwin de Furnshill was a tall man in his early fifties, and although he had the aches and pains which were the natural concomitants of his age, he was still proud enough of his past life as a fighter to practise each day with his sword and to ride and hunt as often as possible. He liked to remind his wife, when she remonstrated with him for his over-enthusiastic training, that there was little use to a knight, were he to be unpractised with his most valued weapons.
Not this morning, though. Today he had been asked to join the Bishop Walter Stapledon in his little house at Bishop’s Clyst, and the knight knew that he would be well advised to heed the summons.
For some little time past the Bishop had been trying to persuade him to accept an invitation to become a member of government. There were many who would be keen to accept such an advancement, if for no other reason than it gave them an opportunity to visit the realm’s first city and see with their own eyes the magnificent court which the King was building about himself. And naturally, most knights would be enthusiastic in case they might be noticed by Edward. There was much that a man might do with the King’s patronage.
Baldwin had no interest in any of these matters. Until the year of this King’s coronation3, he had been a contented warrior for the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon — a Knight Templar. But then came the appalling catastrophe. Late in that year, all the French Templars were captured in their preceptories and held. Over the next few years, many were tortured to force them to confess to sins they could not have committed, and several were burned at the stake for resiling.
Since the deaths of his Grand Master and his other comrades, Sir Baldwin had been keen to avoid politics and all other worldly affairs. Instead, he journeyed down here to Devon, where he took up the life of a rural knight, living on his small manor, and avoiding all great affairs of state so far as he possibly could.
Gradually, as he felt the pain and resentment at the injustice done to him and his companions begin to fade, he had befriended Simon Puttock. The result of that was that, with the aid of Bishop Walter II, he had been given the post of Keeper of the King’s Peace in Devon. Charged with the responsibility to seek out and capture felons, he had discovered a new interest: to prevent any injustices such as that perpetrated upon the Templars being replicated elsewhere.
And in the last few years he knew that the worst injustices being perpetrated upon a weary and fearful population were those which came from the King himself. There was little an ordinary person might achieve against the tyranny of King Edward II and his atrocious confederate, Hugh le Despenser.
It was that which in the end persuaded Baldwin that he should accept the Bishop’s proposal and take up a position with the parliament. He might be able to achieve little in the face of the bullying and dishonesty of so many others in the King’s councils, but if he could make even a small impact, that would be some good.
The journey to Bishop’s Clyst was not too taxing. He must ride along the line of the river from his home and pass around Exeter. The Bishop’s residence was some four or five leagues south and east of the city. Usually it was a fairly easy ride, which would take Baldwin a half-morning to complete, but today, with some ice on the roads, he was less sanguine about the journey.
‘You will be careful?’
‘My love, I am always careful,’ he smiled. His wife Jeanne was exhausted. For once she did not demand to join him on his journey. She had given birth to their son, also named Baldwin, a short while after midnight on Martinmas, and even a month later, she was still too weary to consider a ride to Exeter and back. The child was so demanding, her body had appeared to be sucked almost dry in the first fortnight. Baldwin had been shocked to see how her cheeks began to hollow, how her hair became bedraggled and greasy, and her eyes lost their sparkle.
Now, with God’s grace, she was a lot better. Her body had begun to fill out once more, and her eyes had regained their gleaming intelligence, although still with a certain red-rimmed exhaustion about them.
‘I shall be home before lunch tomorrow, I pray.’
‘Do so, husband. We miss you when you are abroad.’
‘Be glad, then, that there is no parliament yet. By the time it is called, I hope you will be able to join me. A journey to London or York would be a fine way to bring the colour back to your cheeks.’
She smiled at him, but shook her head. ‘I cannot even dream of such a journey, Baldwin. I am so weary, so weary. The child is strong, though. He thinks nothing of waking two or three times in the middle of the night to suck my pap.’
‘He will be strong,’ Baldwin assured her, peering down into the cradle where his son lay.
‘You should leave, not stand goggle-eyed at the sight of your son.’
‘Woman, I am gazing down at my firstborn son and marvelling at his perfection. Which is in truth a proof of the sire’s beauty.’
‘And nothing to do with the dam’s, I suppose?’
‘Madam, you merely own my heart,’ he swore, his hand on his breast.
‘Then stop letting your eyes slide to him, then,’ she laughed weakly. ‘Go!’