All right, then, he thought. If that’s what you want. ‘I am ready,’ he said aloud. ‘Let’s find horses, Your Highness.’
It was as though the damn things had been laid on. In a few moments there was a great bay and a little grey, and the duke sprang up on to the bay as though he had been born to the saddle. Paul was a little less elegant, he knew, as he clambered on to the grey, but not too bad.
‘Your Highness, you do realise that …’
But as he spoke, the boy thrashed the flanks of his beast, and without a backward glance, he was off through the gates.
Bishop’s Clyst
The bishop had sent a servant for his papers, and while he waited, he stared down at his knees.
Baldwin was struck by how broken this great leader had become. He could remember the first time he had met this man — six, no eight years ago. Then Bishop Walter Stapledon had been taller, fairer of hair, altogether much more youthful in appearance, giving an immediate impression of authority, keen intellect, and honour.
Throughout the length and breadth of his diocese of Devon and Cornwall, Bishop Walter was renowned for his integrity. The barons respected him for his control of the government, especially the Treasury, for he had taken an inefficient and failing system and completely modernised it; the wealthy merchant classes appreciated his commonsense and the way that he allowed business to flourish to the benefit of all; and the poorest were solidly behind him for his enforcement of church alms, as well as for the opportunities he gave to their children for education. All were impressed with the good bishop.
But he had spent too much time in government, Baldwin thought. The bishop had been forced to compromise his principles in order to see that the realm was stable and kept secure. Bishop Walter had become too close to Despenser. The two had formed a loose, but nonetheless dangerous alliance for some years. It was in part due to that, that the queen had left the kingdom, forlorn at losing the affections of her husband as he looked ever more to Despenser for companionship. A naturally strong-willed woman, she was unwilling to accept a secondary role, for she was queen, and the daughter of a great king, Philip of France. But Despenser was jealous, and wouldn’t allow even the king’s wife to intrude. Her distress was sealed when her lands were sequestrated, her household broken up, all her French companions arrested and gaoled, her income confiscated, and her children taken from her, to be placed in the custody of Despenser’s wife.
The final indignity, that had been. And for many women, it would have spelled a terrible end. Most would have succumbed to despair, and no doubt would have died of grief. Not this queen. She had fought back with all the skills at her disposal. Dissembling, playing the contented wife, deceiving all, until she was believed and trusted by even the Despenser himself.
She and Bishop Walter hated each other. The bishop could not understand a woman of her nature, one with an indomitable spirit and the courage to defy even a bishop. She, for her part, detested him with a ferocity that was unequalled, in Baldwin’s experience. It was no surprise, for the bishop had argued with the king that she was untrustworthy when the French overran Guyenne last year. To have a French-born queen with loyal subjects who adored her in Devon and Cornwall, where she owned many manors, was to invite invasion, he argued, and his words prevailed. Thus it was that she lost her income, and in a vile twist that dishonoured both bishop and king, Bishop Walter was later to accept the income from her lands to help him organise the defence of the shires.
Their disputes had led to the queen becoming ever more fiercely opposed to the bishop, but Baldwin could see now that the bishop and she, while both growing mutually antagonistic, had exhibited vastly contrasting responses.
While the queen had seen her authority removed, brick by brick, she had demonstrated her greatness. She had used cunning and her beauty to win over all those who might be swayed, she had persuaded, cajoled and bribed, and she had come to be viewed as the poor victim, while all commented on her fortitude and her beauty, as though her looks were a proof of her innocence. And at the same time, the bishop had found himself reviled and denigrated, which had led to this: a man who appeared shrunken, wizened almost. He was only a little older than the last time Baldwin had seen him, but the contrast was notable.
Even now, waiting for the servant to return, the bishop sat with his fingers drumming on his knees. His eyes were on the fire, deep in thought.
The servant returned, and the bishop looked up with a tired smile. ‘I think I should accept that I am an old man, and retire from all work for government. This life of toil is too much for a man of my age. I have the cathedral rebuilding to worry about. Why on earth should I strain myself for the government when I have so much to do? I should resign all the king’s commissions.’
Baldwin smiled, but did not feel the need to say anything. The bishop was a politician to his fingernails, as Baldwin knew. He liked the bishop personally, but the man was so fully immersed in the realm’s government that breaking the chains of service would be enormously difficult.
‘Well, Sir Baldwin, here are the records. These are all the manors I have acquired in the last years.’
‘How far do these go back?’ Squire William asked.
‘Five or six years, I think. My register has others — but would we need to look further back in time?’
Baldwin shook his head. ‘If it were longer ago, surely the man would have done something before now.’
‘What now, then?’ the steward said.
Baldwin looked up from the heavy book. The bishop sat, sad and afraid, watching him, flanked by the squire and the steward. Squire William was full of determination to see his uncle protected, while the steward had a grimness about him, as though already aware that he might have to kill a man in the defence of his master.
‘Now, I have to begin reading this tome with the help of any man who can tell me about each of the cases so we can begin to form an opinion about who has been sending these notes. With your leave, Bishop, I will start right away. Who was this “William atte Bow”?’
Chapter Twenty-One
Third Wednesday before the Feast of St Paul and St John*
Montreuil
The little force was being readied as Paul de Cockington completed his lesson for the day. He was feeling smug. Never before had he been asked to tutor a boy, but he was nothing if not methodical, as he told himself, and there was little that a man with a brain could not achieve without a bit of practical effort. He would still much rather be getting to grips with the little maid who was the queen’s constant companion, for she looked as though she would be worth a wrestle or two. The mere thought of stripping her and feasting his eyes upon her undoubted assets was enough to make him quiver like a hound seeing the quarry.
But it was not going to happen. Not here. The sad fact was, she was so rarely away from the queen that the opportunity would be very unlikely to present itself. And while he was proud of the speed of his assaults, he would need a little time to persuade this one. Even he wouldn’t want to try to ravish a maid in the queen’s service while he was in the royal lady’s household.
There was another thing — the man Mortimer was always around the place. His eyes were everywhere, so it seemed. Paul couldn’t even glance at a serving maid without finding that Mortimer was staring at him immediately afterwards. The fellow was desperate to know everything that was happening, as though he thought that all the men in his household, all those sitting in his hall, were plotting to kill him. Quite mad.