Mortimer clenched a fist. ‘We’ve discussed this enough already.’
‘We know that Normandy is loyal to his mother, and the Normans are still fond of the memory of William the Bastard. Why not ride for Normandy?’
‘Your Highness, that would be foolish. Better by far to keep our forces together. Once we are in Hainault we will be safe,’ Mortimer said bluntly.
‘If it is truly safer, I can join you later,’ the duke said. ‘But for my part, I am keen to see the land of my ancestors. Normandy is almost our motherland, is it not? And I would like to visit Rouen, too. King Richard Coeur de Lion’s heart is buried there, and I have a strong desire to see it.’
‘What if there should be another attack on you?’ Mortimer burst out. ‘It is ridiculous, I will not allow it!’
‘And when did you have the right to control me?’ the duke said coolly. ‘I was not aware that I no longer had the right to choose my own destiny.’
‘You are here under my protection.’
‘Sir Roger, I am here under the protection of the King of France, my uncle. And I will take my own path.’
‘You should be with us so that we can take ship together,’ Mortimer said, and now Richard could almost hear the man’s teeth grinding.
‘I will be. You ride on, and I will follow after. I will let you know where I am so you can send messengers when you need me to join you.’
‘Where will you stay?’ Mortimer demanded. ‘Without money, you’ll find lodgings hard.’
‘My mother will give me an allowance, I am sure.’
‘The inns of Normandy are not expensive,’ Folville put in, ‘and there is a good one within a few hundred feet of the abbey. I am sure that with the usual hospitality of the Order we would be able to find good lodgings.’
And that had been that. The queen for once had been quiet — Richard thought because she was so shocked at the attack on young Edward, as well as alarmed that her son would be away from her again.
There was no argument against his words. The idea that all would remain together was wildly dangerous. They made too tempting a target: the traitor, the queen, and the son. Together they would fetch a truly royal ransom, were they to be captured.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Exeter
William Walle hurried over the grounds to the Bishop’s Palace as soon as the summons arrived.
They had returned to the city only the day before. There was little point in remaining at the bishop’s house when the bulk of his work was still up here, and so they had packed their belongings in the wagons and made the short journey back to town in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, the bishop had returned to his labours, while messengers were sent to seek advice on all the men whom Baldwin had suspected. Before long, with luck, the responses would arrive and the knight could be asked to come and take another look at the matter, to see whether there was anything else that might help tell who was threatening his lordship.
But now William had been called to the palace again, just as he was preparing to visit the tavern near the Broadgate. The man who fetched him said simply, ‘The bishop asks that you come at once.’
He found Bishop Walter sitting in his little chair by the table in his hall, John the steward at his side, looking lugubrious. ‘Another one,’ he said.
‘What?’ William strode across the floor and took up the shred of parchment. ‘You will die unmourned and alone,’ he read aloud. Glancing at his uncle, he said, ‘Where was it?’
‘Here, on my table,’ the bishop said listlessly, pointing. ‘It just lay there, like that. Face up.’
‘I didn’t see it myself,’ John said. ‘I was in here most of the afternoon, but I had to leave to supervise the arrangement of the chamber below for the ecclesiastical court next week. There’s the case of de Cockington, which has to be decided. I was only gone for a short while.’
‘Which means that the man who put this here is clearly someone who knows when you are here, and when you are not,’ William said, remembering Baldwin’s words. ‘It has to be someone from within the cathedral, Bishop.’
‘Come now! Who on earth would attempt such a thing!’ he exclaimed. ‘It is folly to think that there is a master of disguise and deviousness here in the cathedral. I will not believe it.’
‘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.’
Road to Paris
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.