There were plenty of them, after all. Although Baldwin, Simon and he had no servants with them — only Baldwin’s beast, a great black, brown and white brute called Wolf — the bishop was a different matter. He had clerks, including his nephew, a squire called William Walle, three other men-at-arms to serve him, and his steward John de Padington. With these and the packhorses they led to carry the bishop’s belongings, they formed quite a cavalcade.
Their way took them from the city’s gates and west, down along Candelwryhttestrate, but they had to turn southwards where a wagon had shed its load, and Bishop Walter took them along narrower roads that Sir Richard didn’t recognise.
‘You know these lanes like I know my own manor,’ he said as they rode along Athelyngstrate towards the cathedral church of St Paul’s.
‘I would be a sorry bishop if I didn’t know this city well,’ Bishop Walter replied. ‘I have spent so much of my life here in London. The king saw fit to make me his lord high treasurer some years ago, and since then I have spent much of every year here — apart from those periods when he has discarded me,’ he added with a thin little smile.
‘Why would he do that?’ Sir Richard asked.
‘Because my advice was unwelcome. The last time he removed me from office it was because he split the treasury into two — one to deal with the north, one for the south. That would be a fair way to deal with the problems of the treasury, separating it into two halves in the same way as the Church is split between Canterbury and York, but only if there was a corresponding increase in staff to cope with the workload. Such administrative corrections are necessary once in a while, after all. No man could dispute that. However, the king is ever seeking greater efforts by all without considering the impact on individuals. And that is what happened here. He divided the one institution into two parts, and expected these two new courts to be able to cope with the same number of staff as the one court employed before. It could not work!’
‘That is why you resigned the post?’
‘Yes. I will not be a part of an effort like that.’ The bishop’s tone was sharp, but Sir Richard was sure that it was merely a reflection of his concern at the impending interview with the king.
That there might be another reason for the bishop’s shortness did not occur to him until they were near the cathedral itself. There Sir Richard saw Bishop Walter’s eyes turn this way and that, and he didn’t seem happy until they had left the cathedral behind them. It seemed to Sir Richard that there was something about that area that was distasteful to the bishop.
They rode on down the hill to the Ludgate at the bottom, and then continued on the Fletestrete. Sir Richard saw Baldwin stare down at the Temple buildings, which Sir Hugh le Despenser had taken for his own only recently, and glanced over them himself. There was not much to interest him, though, and soon he found himself studying the Straunde as they rode on towards Thorney Island and Westminster.
The buildings here were all grand. Too grand for Sir Richard’s taste, if he was honest. He required only a simple dwelling. Space for himself, a few mastiffs and raches, perhaps a mews for a pair of hawks, and that was about it. Here, though, there was an apparent need for ostentation on all sides. And when they reached the Temple Bar and passed beyond, the houses were even more extravagant.
‘We shall rest here a while before continuing,’ the bishop said as he turned left just before St Clement Danes.
‘Where’s this, then?’ Sir Richard asked, eyeing the hall with some suspicion. It was even more splendid than the other places they had passed, or so he felt.
Bishop Walter was already passing under the gatehouse. It was the steward, John de Padington, who turned in his saddle and eyed the knight with an amused look. ‘It’s the bishop’s house, Sir Richard. He built it himself so that the bishops of Exeter would always have a comfortable billet in London.’
Chapter Three
The Painted Chamber, Westminster
‘It would be better that you rested, your royal highness,’ Sir Hugh le Despenser said.
‘I am not in a mood to rest,’ King Edward II replied.
Sir Hugh ducked his head, then signalled to a waiting servant. The man nodded and fetched him a goblet of wine, bowing low as he passed it.
It was good to see men who understood their position in the world. This bottler, for example. He knew that his place was to wait for the merest signal, and then to rush to serve his betters. And Sir Hugh le Despenser was definitely his better. As the second most wealthy and powerful man in the realm, after only the king himself, Sir Hugh was the better of all. The king alone he viewed as an equal.
But even knowing his own importance, Sir Hugh could not help but stare at the bottler as he poured, wondering for how much longer he would merit such respect. It felt as though the entire realm was a tower teetering on the brink of complete failure, undermined by enemies that could not be seen, swatted away or exterminated. They were deep underground, hidden from view. And if the realm failed, Sir Hugh would die. He and all his friends must be taken and slain. The strain of his position was like a band of steel tightening around his skull. ‘My lord, would you not take a seat? I can arrange for some diverting-’
‘Be still, Sir Hugh! Do you not see when a man needs peace and silence to consider? I have much to think of, in Christ’s name!’
‘I do understand, your highness,’ said Sir Hugh. It was harder and harder to restrain his own tongue in the face of the king’s bile. ‘But surely a rest would do no harm.’
The king continued as though he had not heard him speak. ‘It is humiliating that my wife is not yet home. She should have returned as soon as Stapledon arrived there. What could be holding her up? There is no news, and we do not know how the French are responding. Christ Jesus! She must know how it embarrasses me. And my son is still there. I want him home again. I do not want my heir to be held there any longer than is entirely necessary. He is young, vulnerable. He is not yet thirteen years old, and already he has been forced to go and pay homage to the French like a mere knight, when he is a duke!’
‘It was better that he did so than that another should go,’ Despenser said. ‘It was better than that you should go.’
‘I couldn’t!’ the king snapped. He was at the farther end of the chamber now, the easternmost end, near his bed. There were three large oval windows above him, and he appeared to be staring up at them, but when Sir Hugh followed his gaze, he saw that the king was peering up at a picture of a prophet on the ceiling.
It was the most beautiful room in the kingdom. In fact Sir Hugh had heard that the French king himself was jealous of the chamber, and had ordered that a similar one be built for his own use. There were paintings over the walls and the ceilings, all with an exuberant use of colour and gilt. Even the meanest feature had decoration upon it. As Sir Hugh glanced at the window nearest him, he saw that the soffit itself had a picture of an angel staring down. Below her was a virtue, Debonerete, or meekness, triumphing over the vice Ira, wrath. As was normal, the virtue was depicted as a woman, holding a shield on which the arms of England were differenced by two bars, while the arms of St Edmund and other saints were carefully painted around her in a border. She was a stunning figure, especially since she stood some three yards tall, and gleamed with fire from the gilt and gold leaf.
Nearby there was another figure in the same vein. Here the virtue was Largesse, and she was triumphing over Covoitise, covetousness. That at least was one vice which the king never suffered from. Not in the presence of Sir Hugh.