This was not the first time he had come across Sir Baldwin de Furnshill. Sir Baldwin, the meddler who had stood in his path in Devon, in that outlandish vill called Iddesleigh, and who then had gone to France with the Queen. Somehow, whenever Sir Baldwin was about, Sir Hugh le Despenser’s plans went awry. Not only him, either. Sir Hugh was reminded of the little embarrassment at Dartmouth, when he had lost one of his better allies. At the time the name of the Keeper of the Port had meant nothing to him, but now the name ‘Puttock’ took on a certain significance.
Well, no more! Furnshill had deliberately kept both these pieces of information from him. First that his own friend’s son had died, and then that the King’s oil was stolen.
Sir Hugh le Despenser had many more important fishes to fry, but these two were treating him with contempt. The knight was withholding information from him. From him! The King’s most favoured adviser, in Christ’s name! Shit, the bastard deserved to be grabbed and hauled off to the Tower!
But he had some powerful friends, from Bishop Stapledon downwards. Even the King appeared immoderately fond of him. That was one of the strange things about King Edward. He would sometimes pick a man and decide that he was an honourable, decent fellow. It didn’t matter what the man had done before, the King could forgive almost anything, unless it was disloyalty or treachery to him. Now he appeared to have chosen Sir Baldwin. That was why the knight was sent to France in the first place. King Edward actually trusted him about his wife.
Well, swyve him. Swyve them both! They’d learn that it was not a good idea to twitch the tail of Sir Hugh le Despenser.
Sir Baldwin and Bailiff Puttock. Stannary Bailiff, he was. Or had been until the Abbot of Tavistock died … he could be intimidated. He could be taught an object lesson in civility. Sir Hugh had not formed a very strong opinion of Simon Puttock. He was a churl, a serf in the pay of the Abbot of Tavistock, and nothing more. Being made Keeper of the Port of Dartmouth may have inflated his self-importance, and he had a few brains, no doubt, but little capacity to defend himself intelligently against an astute man. Or a powerful one.
Sir Hugh had just such a man. A man who would teach the pathetic little Bailiff to be more careful with his betters, and who would thus show Sir Baldwin that when he picked an enemy, he should be more wary. Sir Hugh was not a man to make bitter.
With his jaw set, he walked through to the door at the rear of his chamber. From there he passed through his solar block and out into the sunlight, where he cast about for a little while, before seeing his man at the far side.
He beckoned, waiting with composure.
‘Sir Hugh?’
‘William, I wish you to travel to Devon as fast as you can. There is a man there, a fellow called Simon Puttock. He is a bailiff, I believe, with a house in Lydford near the stannary gaol, as I understand it. Go there, and take his house.’
‘It’s yours.’
‘He may be there. If he becomes angry, provoke him. He’s not well trained in fighting. You know what to do.’
‘Sir.’
‘It is possible, if you ride hard, that you may reach his home before him, though. That would be amusing. You could enjoy yourself with the man’s wife. You would like that?’
William Wattere smiled. He had an easygoing manner, and an ever-ready grin for the women, which concealed a lust for brutality that was unequalled in Despenser’s experience.
Watching him swagger away bellowing for a horse and shouting at four or five others, Sir Hugh gave a thin smile himself. But then he shook himself. There was much else to do.
There was another of his men near the horse trough. He crossed to the fellow, then held up the necklace of pilgrim badges. ‘You recognise this?’
‘No.’
‘They were found on the neck of a dead man in some woods. Apparently he was clad in a tabard of a King’s herald. And now we have been set the task of learning who could have been responsible for the King’s loss. And I want to know, too. Do you have any idea who was the most devout herald among the King’s men?’
‘There was that Richard de Yatton. He was very keen. I remember someone saying he travelled half as far as all the others in a day because he stopped at every chapel to pray. He would be the most religious.’
‘Good. Now, I have something I need you to do for me.’
Monday before Feast of the Apostles18
Furnshill
Jeanne de Furnshill, a tall, slender lady in her middle thirties, with a pale complexion and straying reddish hair, stood upright, hands resting in the small of her back as her daughter ran across the grassed pasture before her house.
‘My Lady, you want some wine?’
‘No, thank you, Edgar. I am fine just now.’
She had much to thank Edgar for. When her husband had left her to travel with Bishop Stapledon, it had appeared that there was no alternative. She had at the time only recently given birth to her son, and Edgar, her husband’s sergeant from those far off days when he had been a Knight Templar, had been a sturdy support for her. He was reliable, constant, and although often all but invisible, she had only to raise her voice and he would materialise at her side like some faithful hound, or so she always thought.
His wife, too, had been a great companion to her. Petronilla had more experience in childbirth than Jeanne, and just as her own Baldwin was born, Petronilla was weaning her own little boy. It was all too easy for her to become nursemaid to Jeanne’s child, to the comfort of both women. Jeanne found breastfeeding her boy a trial, and Petronilla was very glad to be able to help. She adored Jeanne’s boy almost as much as she did her own.
There came a pattering of feet, and Jeanne had to brace herself to absorb the impact as her daughter pelted into her, arms clinging to her thighs beneath her skirts. ‘Richalda!’
‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’
Jeanne looked down at her for a moment, and then across at Edgar, who gazed back blankly, and then grinned broadly. A large dog had appeared about the corner of the house: a black dog, with brown eyebrows and cheeks, with a white muzzle and paws, a white tip to his tail, and a white cross on his breast. ‘I think she is probably right, my Lady.’
‘What? I-’ and then Jeanne heard the steady trotting gait, and glanced up at the trail that wound past their door, and saw him. And without realising that Edgar had taken her daughter, she was already running up the track to her husband, skirts billowing, her coif flying from her head.
Fourth Tuesday after Easter19
Baldwin woke with a panic, dreaming he was in a field, in a tent, Simon at his side, and the screaming was from a man murdered outside in the fine snow … cold … it was so cold, especially at his armpit …
And then he opened his eyes with a jolt, drawing away from the dog’s wet nose, and found himself in familiar surroundings. He knew that ceiling, those rafters, the feel of this bed … Home!
Pushing his newest dog away, he muttered, ‘You’ll be sleeping outside if you keep shoving your nose there, dog. Go on, piss off!’
Still, waking him every morning was the least of bad behaviour he would have expected. ‘Wolf’ was in almost every way a perfect companion. Handsome, obedient (when he understood what Baldwin was saying) and ever-present. Baldwin was sure he would become an excellent guard.
Yawning voluptuously, he scratched his beard. It was strange to be here again, he thought contentedly. There was a loud whining from the door, and he rose on both elbows to look. The beast needed to go out. At least the thing was house-trained. He stood, let Wolf outside, and then slapped barefooted across the planks to his bed, flopping down. He grunted, stretched, and threw his arms over his head, causing his wife to mumble and complain in her sleep. She rolled over to enfold herself into his body again, her cheek against his breast, hands clasped as though in prayer under her chin, one soft thigh placed gently over his own. He ignored the cries from his daughter, in the room beneath, and let his arm fall over his wife, cradling her closer.