Sir Peregrine had a healthy respect for battle-trained surgeons, because he had seen their skills demonstrated on the field of war, but for others, such as this piss-tinkering prick, he had none. He ignored the man. ‘Godspeed, Sir Baldwin. My Lady Jeanne, my sincerest compliments. You grow ever more beautiful!’
Sir Baldwin’s wife smiled in a rather embarrassed manner at being so praised, but she was also pleased. She knew Sir Peregrine was not prone to idle flattery.
He could not help but admire her. Lady Jeanne de Furnshill was a tall woman in her early thirties, entirely unspoiled by motherhood. Sir Peregrine had seen many women lose their attractiveness and charm when they had become mothers, but not Jeanne. She still had bright blue eyes that brought to mind cornflowers in a meadow on a summer’s day, and red-gold hair that reminded him of warmth at the fireside. Neither had faded with the years. She was slender, but not weakly; her face was a little too round, perhaps, her nose maybe a bit short and slightly tip-tilted, and her upper lip was very wide and rather too full, giving her the appearance of stubbornness. Yet all gathered together, her features made her an intensely beautiful woman, and one of whom Sir Peregrine would be eternally covetous.
‘When you’ve finished staring at my wife, would you like some wine?’ Sir Baldwin asked sharply.
Sir Peregrine laughed and sat at his side. Sir Baldwin was a tall man, running slightly to a paunch now, especially after some weeks recuperating, but he was striking in his manner and his looks. Used to power, he displayed a firmness and confidence in all he did, and his dark brown eyes had an intensity about them that many found intimidating. His face was framed by the flat, straight, military haircut over his furrowed brow, and below by the line of hair that clung to the angle of his jaw. Once, when Sir Peregrine had first known him, that hair had been black, but now it was liberally sprinkled with white, as was the hair on his head. A scar reached from one temple almost to his jaw, the legacy of a battle of long ago.
Now Sir Peregrine received the full force of those eyes.
‘Have you come to enquire after my health,’ growled Baldwin, ‘or to dally with my wife while I sit here as an invalid?’
‘Neither, friend.’ Sir Peregrine chuckled. He leaned forward as Lady Jeanne poured wine from a heavy jug into a pottery drinking horn. It was cheap, fashioned in the likeness of a bull’s horn with a man’s face embossed on the front, all glazed green, and he studied it a moment. ‘No, this is a little business which may be more to your taste than mine.’
‘You are the Coroner,’ Baldwin remarked.
‘This is not a matter of a body … not yet, at least. It is a matter of the King’s Peace. I have been told that there are some friars causing trouble again.’
Baldwin winced. ‘Rather you than me if it comes to a fight over rights and liberties between a friary and the city. Which friary is it?’
‘Worse than that.’ Sir Peregrine smiled. ‘It’s a straight fight between the friars and the canons. The friars are preaching in the streets against the canons. Apparently one of their older confraters is on his deathbed and wants to be buried in the friary, but the canons are determined to enforce their claim to the funeral.’
Baldwin did not smile. ‘I see.’
It was odd. Sir Peregrine had always respected Sir Baldwin, who was clearly a fighter of prowess and some courage, and yet Sir Baldwin could not bring himself to like Sir Peregrine. It was all because of his personal loathing for politics, as Sir Peregrine knew full well.
They had a different view of the world, so he thought. While he sought to improve the lot of the people by his own active involvement, Sir Baldwin tried to avoid any participation in the disputes and political struggles that so often absorbed the entire kingdom. In the last few years, since the accession to the throne of the weakly King Edward II, the realm had suffered from the greed of the King’s friends and advisers, first the grasping Piers Gaveston, and now the still more appalling Despenser family. The King appeared incapable of reining in their ambition, and it would soon be necessary, Sir Peregrine felt sure, to remove them by force. That was his firm conviction, and the attitude of rural knights like Sir Baldwin, who wanted to enjoy their quiet existence without running risks, seemed to him to be both selfish and short-sighted. Avoiding conflict only guaranteed that the strong would become bolder.
‘Has the Dean raised the matter yet?’ Sir Baldwin asked.
‘No. I have heard all this only from the city. The receiver wants no more disputes. The city can remember too clearly all the nonsense twenty years ago.’
Jeanne looked interested. ‘What happened then?’
‘I don’t know, nor do I care.’ Baldwin held up a hand. ‘It’s a matter for the Church, not for a king’s officer. If they wish to bicker amongst themselves, that is for them to decide. I know this: I have no jurisdiction over any of the men involved.’
‘Quite so,’ said Sir Peregrine.
He could have grown angry with this fellow. It was pathetic. There were many men rather like Baldwin, he supposed, men who were not driven to treat the protection of everyone in the realm very seriously, but for his part he had seen the dangers. The Despensers had caused too much disturbance and bloodshed already. They had to be stopped.
Perhaps Sir Baldwin’s attitude was an indication of the lethargy which affected the rest of the country. Or was it something else?
Out at the southern gate of the city, there were spikes from which hung some blackened, wizened shapes. Not many, but enough. If a man took a close look at them, he could see the rough, sharp edges of the yellowed bones where they protruded through the leathery old flesh. That was what had happened to the last of the rebels after the recent civil wars. The King and his henchmen had captured all those whom the Despensers saw as a threat to their power, and had them slaughtered, from Earl Thomas of Lancaster down to the lowliest knight, simply because they had dared to stand up and declare that the King must control his advisers. Many a man might have been scared by the prospect of ending his life in front of a jeering crowd, only to have his remains dangle from a spike for the populace to contemplate as they went about their daily lives.
Perhaps that was it, Sir Peregrine reflected, gazing at Baldwin again. Sir Baldwin de Furnshill was scared by the possibility of defeat. He was scared by the prospect of his own death.
In the Black Hog, there was no question of defeat when the friars entered late that same afternoon.
John was the older man, and as he gazed in upon the drinkers he smiled faintly. ‘These are the very fellows, Robert. Do you listen to me, and I will show you how to work them up to such a fair froth of emotion they do not even notice giving me their money!’
He strolled among the men drinking there, his bowl held unostentatiously in his hand, as though it was of no great significance. It was there so that folks could put money in it if they so wished, but he was not here to make demands — not yet. He would seek his payment later, when they had all heard his talk.
‘Friends! Friends one and all!’ he cried as he reached the middle of the chamber. This being a small tavern, there was little enough space, and Robert could see that already he had managed to take a firm grip on their attention. He stood with a hand raised as though in declamation, his eyes covering the whole room, a sad smile on his narrow face, which wore an expression of mingled acceptance and affection. ‘Friends, do you know me? I am a shod friar, an ordinary man, much like you. Except I have taken vows, extraordinary vows. You know why? Because I was once like you. Yes? I grew up in a city much like this one, with the same people in charge, the same fellows who — ah — weren’t! I was apprenticed to a cutler. Can’t you just see me as a rich cutler?’