There were times when she could easily have taken up her son and dashed his brains against the wall, and more when she could have run a dagger into her own heart. The despair she felt made her want to cry at all hours.
Nobody could understand her – she knew that. They didn’t see the awful existence that was hers. She was useless –
useless
– and so stupid. Hoping to win over the heart of Peter had been a vain dream. He couldn’t love her, any more than anyone could. There was a mirror in her chamber, but she had removed it so that she
wouldn’t have to look at her own face any more. It was become repugnant.
‘Edith? Are you all right?’ her husband called quietly.
He had entered so silently, she had not heard him. She stood still, as though discovered in some heinous crime, holding their son in her arms and staring at him.
‘My love, you look so tragic!’ he said with a catch in his voice.
‘I am fine,’ she said mechanically. It was the correct answer, she knew.
Simon eyed the man who gnawed on the lamb-shank before him. He glanced occasionally at Baldwin, but his friend sat with his eyes lidded, as though he was giving the man only half his mind, while concentrating on other matters. Of course, Simon knew that it was a show. Baldwin was capable of fierce intensity when he studied a man like this.
And the man was worth the effort.
Simon and Baldwin had been to France themselves, and Simon knew all the problems of long-distance travelling – not only the exhaustion, but the misery of a ship in poor weather, the emptiness of the belly after hours of throwing up, the natural desire for the journey to end. And late last year, he and Baldwin had been forced to fly from France in peril, so they believed, of their lives, since their friend Bishop Walter had been threatened with death while there. Now, as Baldwin had mentioned once or twice, the actual threat of death from men while they were on an official embassy from England, was probably less than they had perceived at the time. Still, Simon could all too easily remember the petrifying terror of their flight.
This fellow, so he said, had experienced the same. It was quite possible.
‘Well? You will have to answer us now,’ he said, his sense of urgency overwhelming him as the man reached across and lifted the jug. He seemed about to raise the whole thing to his lips, but Simon’s scandalised expression made him reconsider, and he poured some into a little green-glazed pot.
‘I would like to, masters. But perhaps I should wait until the
king’s own sheriff has arrived. This is very important information.’
Baldwin stirred, but said nothing. His head fell to his breast, and he appeared to study the table’s surface near him. It was left to Simon to speak with a touch of asperity in his voice. ‘I am the Keeper of this Port, and as such I have authority. If you have any news for us, I suggest you tell us quickly. You wouldn’t want your information to become out of date, would you? Your value would reduce accordingly.’
‘You think I care about such things?’ Paul said loftily. ‘I know my place, and the importance of my information, Keeper, so there is no point you trying to get what you can out of me.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Simon demanded, and he felt the blood rush to his face as the fellow gave him a calculating look.
‘Keeper, I am no fool. I know how the world works. You intend to take the news I bring and get credit for it, don’t you? It won’t be the first time it’s happened, and it won’t be the last. Well, this time I intend to gain full reward for all the risks I have taken. I’ll not give it all up to the first officer who pays me one lamb shank and a cup of wine! Hah! Only a fool would do that.’
Simon sprang to his feet and would have grasped the man by the throat across the table for his insolence, but Baldwin held up a hand to stop him. ‘Let me speak with him a moment, Simon,’ he murmured.
Paul had shoved his stool back until it was at the wall behind him, and now he curled his lip disdainfully as he contemplated Simon. ‘That’s right, man. You sit down again. Your friend here doesn’t need a mastiff to bate me.’
‘No,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘I am sure I don’t. Now, you told us that you were the brother of Sir James de Cockington, I believe. I know of the brother of that man. I heard about him while I was in the company of the Bishop of Exeter. But you know the bishop, don’t you, rector? He is the man who seeks you here in England.’
‘You cannot send me back to him! I have business with the king!’
‘You will answer our questions now, fully, and in the most detailed manner possible. Afterwards, we shall consider what would be best to do with you.’
Paul licked lips which had suddenly parched. It was tempting to try to bluff his way with these two stern-faced bastards, but … he wasn’t sure that they would fall for his stories. And if he tried to feed them a diet of invention, he was quite sure that they would be the cause of his undoing. They looked the sort of men who knew their own value; they wouldn’t simply throw him to the bishop and forget him, they would make sure that any news he had was taken to the highest level possible. And he meanwhile would languish in a gaol very like the one he had just experienced. That was not to be borne.
‘Very well.’
‘How do you know about the duke?’ Simon asked.
‘I was in Paris earlier this year, and fell into his company. His last tutor was sent away, and I was taken to teach him. The queen interviewed me herself,’ he added with pride.
‘Did you stay in Paris, then?’
‘No, of course not. There was much to see in other places, so we went to Montreuil, and would still be there, I suspect, but for an unfortunate incident.’
‘What?’
‘One morning we were out riding, and I saw some men coming towards us,’ Paul said, embellishing shamelessly. ‘It was due to my warning that the assault was beaten off, but it was clear after that, that it wasn’t safe for the duke to remain so close to the coast, so near to England. He was advised,’ and here his tone left no doubt as to the perspicacious adviser’s identity, ‘and he accepted the advice: to leave Montreuil and ride to safer places, remaining in each town only a couple of nights, not more, so that those who might seek to catch or hurt him would never be able to keep up with him.’
‘What sort of guard does he have about him?’ Baldwin said.
‘A small number of knights and men-at-arms. There is Ralph la Zouche, Richard de Folville, some twenty or so all told now. It
is not enough to protect him from a determined attack, certainly.’
‘And what are they doing?’ Baldwin asked.
‘They guard him, of course.’
Baldwin looked at him unblinkingly. After some moments, Paul looked away, then, ‘What? What is it?’
‘You have insulted my companion here, the honourable Keeper of the Port. Now you seek to insult me as well. Do so, and you will learn the full meaning of pain. You are a slug who is dishonourable
and
dishonoured by your treatment of an innocent woman. Don’t think to speak so freely to me again! Now: do they guard him from attack, or guard him as gaolers?’
‘A little of both, perhaps. But I think that they tend to seek to serve him, not hold him against his will.’
‘So they could be persuaded to come back to England with him?’
‘It would cost much to bring them back! The Folvilles have been responsible for murder and robbery. You try to get them back here without a king’s pardon, and you’ll find your efforts wasted.’
‘So you think that they would have to be assaulted and killed?’
‘Oh, yes. But you can easily find him, which is the main thing.’
‘But you took days to get here, I assume. So he will have moved, having taken this most sensible advice from his tutor?’
‘Ah, but he is intending to be at the cathedral in Rouen for the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady.’
‘Why?’ Baldwin asked. His head was set to one side as he listened intently. ‘The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady has nothing to do with Rouen; she is patron of Lourdes, and that is many miles away.’
‘True. But the duke is a man most fixated with prophecies and history. Some of these ludicrous tales say that he will be a king to rival the Holy Roman Emperor himself and—’ He caught sight of the expression on Baldwin’s face, and reflected that this odd knight might well think that the duke was a paragon of virtue. So
many people in the realm did, and deprecated any insults. ‘Anyway, he has a lively fascination with all history and a desire to see the cathedral where King Richard Coeur de Lion’s heart is buried. He must have loved Rouen much.’
‘Why that specific date?’ Simon said. ‘Didn’t King Richard die earlier in the year?’
‘Your studies do not mislead you,’ Paul said sarcastically, ‘but if you had but a little more education, you would recall that, although King Richard died in April, yet was he born on a glorious day in September: on the Feast Day of Our Lady Herself. The prince wishes to visit the cathedral to see the tomb.’
Baldwin and Simon exchanged a look, then rose and made for the door. There the gaoler waited, leaning against the wall and picking his teeth with a long splinter of wood. ‘All done, masters?’ he said.
‘For now. Don’t mistreat him,’ Baldwin warned.
‘Aye.’
Simon shot a look back into the room before the door was closed and bolted. ‘What do you think, Baldwin?’
‘If it were possible for a more unpleasant little man to have wheedled his way into the companionship of the king’s son, I could not imagine it. What more undeserving fellow could there be?’
‘But could he be telling the truth?’
‘What value could there be for him to invent such a tale? No, I think he’s telling the truth well enough. And that means that we must send to the king with this news.’
‘Last I heard, the king was at Dover.’
‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. He looked at Simon.
‘I know,’ Simon said. ‘The last time we saw the king, he told us to take ourselves out of his sight, didn’t he? How do you think he’d respond to our returning?’
Baldwin could only agree that their reception last year had been distinctly frosty. ‘We had just brought news that his wife was deliberately staying in France, that she was having an adulterous affair with the king’s most notable traitor, that his son
was staying there with her, and that all those sent to guard his son and his wife had turned traitor too and were now in the pay of his wife and her lover. It was not the best news he could have hoped to receive!’
‘True. But I do not wish to go and ask for an audience with him. That would mean speaking to Despenser – and I am not ready to have any dealings with that snake.’
‘You may not need to,’ Baldwin said, musing. ‘The good Bishop Walter is already there. Seek him out, and explain the situation to him. I think he will himself be grateful for the news, and for the opportunity to present it to the king. Perhaps your reception will be better than you might have thought.’
Monday before the Feast of St Laurence
*
Their journey had been slow, and with the whining, petulant Paul in his train, Simon found it longer than it truly was.
‘How do you expect me to present a decent case when you don’t let me rest!’ the fellow complained.
‘I expect you to do the best you can,’ Simon said shortly.
It had been like this much of the way from Portchester. Naturally the man was shocked when he heard it was likely that the bishop would be with the king, and his mood had slumped into melancholy. That was three days ago. Since then they had travelled along the coastal roads to Dover, only to learn that the king and his household had recently moved from there to Canterbury, where they were eating the poor prior, Henry Eastrey, out of house and home. It was a particularly hard blow for the prior, since he had already suffered several visits that year, and was still forced to house the whole of the queen’s pack of hunting hounds, which she had given to him as a stern responsibility, hoping that he would look after them carefully, but
not offering any financial assistance. Not that she could have, since the king had already confiscated all her income.
Now, at last they were entering the ancient walled city, and if anything, it appeared that Paul’s resentment and nervousness were increasing. ‘Can’t we stop for a cup of wine? A quart of ale or cider? What’s your hurry?’ he nagged as they rode under St George’s gateway.
Simon ignored him. He had been persuaded, much against his will, to come here to the city, but he would be damned if he was going to hang about here. He had too much to get back to, what with his wife and son waiting at Portchester, and the knowledge that the realm was clinging to peace by its fingernails.
It was some relief to know that Baldwin and the other commissioners had been successful, and that there was now a large force encamped all about Portchester, so if any French warriors sought to begin an invasion, they would find themselves seriously tested upon landing. That at least should guarantee Margaret and Perkin’s safety. That – and Baldwin’s sworn oath that he would not leave them alone, but would personally ride to their protection if there were an attack. Together with the sight of his own servant Hugh, grim faced and resolute as always, standing at his door with his staff in his hands, Simon was persuaded that his family would be as safe as they could be. He himself could do no better than that.
Still, he recoiled at the thought that here in Canterbury he might meet with Despenser, the man who had in the last year hounded Simon unmercifully, merely in an attempt to get at Baldwin. If he met Despenser, he must try to forget that the man had persecuted him, that he had stolen Simon’s house, that he had made Margaret cry more often than any man, that he had tormented even Simon’s daughter, and caused the split between Simon and Edith’s in-laws to the extent that Edith could not even show them her baby son. Their own grandchild. Yes, Simon must swallow all this, must behave with perfect civility and keep his hand from his sword. Because to try to stab Despenser would inevitably lead to his own death, and to the deprivation of
livelihood, home and hearth to his family. He knew that. And it helped his temper not a whit.