Baldwin nodded. He shot her a glance, and she knew he was trying to keep her spirits up when he said, ‘I think that Despenser will try to get him away, and that the city will go to the queen as soon as she deigns to show her face.’
‘Will she have the king arrested?’ Margaret said. It came out without her thinking, just a random thought, but as soon as she spoke, the hideous idea took hold of her.
It was unthinkable that a man anointed by God Himself should be thrown aside by mere men. There were times when a man set himself against God, but that was his own fault, of course. That a man might break God’s commandments and take the king’s throne, that was appalling. When the man involved had made his own oath of allegiance to the king, and now was committing adultery with the queen, the matter rose from the merely shocking to … Well, she didn’t have words to express her feelings.
Baldwin was looking at her again. ‘The main thing is, Margaret, I think you will be safe here with Perkin. If there were to be a siege, there is food enough in this fortress, but I don’t think it will come to that. Despenser will want to get away, and he dare not fly without the king at his side, for the limited protection Edward can provide him. And once they are gone, the Tower will
become a secure and safe place for us all.’
Margaret nodded, and she sat at her husband’s side with a smile. But although she set bread and meats on her trencher, she found it impossible to eat. She had no appetite.
When the knock came on the door, Simon and Baldwin were sitting before the fire. The two of them watched as Hugh padded across the floor and pulled it wide.
‘It’s Sir Peregrine,’ he announced with a scowl as he stood back to let the knight walk in.
‘Simon, Sir Baldwin, I hope I see you well. Ah, Mistress Puttock, I trust you will not mind if I ask that I may make use of your men for a short while? Eh?’
In a few minutes, the men were all outside, Baldwin armed with a spare sword Sir Peregrine had brought for him, and then the coroner marched them across the green towards the drawbridge.
‘Where do you want to take us?’ Simon asked.
‘We are to walk to the cathedral. There is to be an announcement at St Paul’s Cross,’ the knight said, and although he was perfectly polite, he spent the time looking about them, eyeing the walls of the fortress, glancing at the keep, up at the towers, and over to the river.
‘Sir Peregrine? What is it that troubles you so?’ Baldwin said.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘You have the look of a man about to ascend the steps to the executioner’s block,’ Baldwin chided him mildly.
‘I think you should ask this fellow, rather than me,’ Sir Peregrine said.
At the first gate they found William Walle waiting. His face lit up as soon as he saw the three approaching, and he stepped forward. ‘I am so glad you’re coming too. I was really worried when it was only me.’
‘What is happening?’ Baldwin asked, and Simon could see that he was becoming alarmed. ‘What are all these for?’ He jerked a thumb at the men behind them. There were about twenty of them,
all men-at-arms with mail and some plate, and all carrying polearms. ‘They look like the garrison’s men, but they aren’t in the king’s tabards. What is going on, William?’
‘I thought that Sir Peregrine would have told you,’ Walle said. ‘No matter. There is to be a reading at St Paul’s Cross.’
He explained as they marched off. The king had issued a papal bull of excommunication to be read at the cathedral. It stated that invaders of England would become excommunicate and forfeit their souls.
‘That should settle the mood of the kingdom,’ Walle said, and rubbed his gloved hands gleefully. ‘You wait and see how the mob reacts to that!’
The mob had already begun to disperse as they trooped on to the bridge itself, then made their way up to La Tourstrate, and then along to Candelwryhttestrate, and from there to the cathedral.
This was fully deserving of its reputation for magnificence and beauty, Simon reckoned. A glorious, soaring building, set atop the Ludgate Hill, the first and most prominent hill in the city itself, it showed God’s glory in all its splendour. However, the place had sour memories for him, because last year he had been here with Baldwin when the Bishop of Exeter was almost attacked by a small mob. At the time Simon and Baldwin had thought that it could be another manifestation of Despenser’s ill-will, but it was as likely to be a mere mischance. The London populace were ever forward and troublesome.
Today at least they appeared less determined to disrupt. There was quite a crowd of men and women at the ancient folk moot.
It was a roughly shaped area of grassy land bounded to the south by the north-eastern wall of the cathedral, and to the north by the charnel chapel, and hemmed in by the massive belfry to the east. Simon and Baldwin went with the squire and Sir Peregrine to stand near the cathedral’s wall, where they should have a good view of events.
They did not have long to wait. First, a number of men arrived, and from the fumes of alcohol, Simon could tell that they had
been to the alehouses and taverns that sat along the roads. More, rougher-looking men appeared, some of them carters and hucksters, others the meanest of scavengers and tanners. They brought the smell of their business with them, and Simon was considering moving when he was grateful to see a party of apprentices turn up, younger, fitter and cleaner men all round.
Next to arrive were the bishops, five all told. They walked to the Cross, resplendent in their robes and mitres, their right hands aloft as they muttered prayers and made the sign of the cross towards the waiting audience. The Bishops of London and of Winchester, the Abbots of Waltham and Westminster, and behind them came Archbishop Reynolds, with a number of censer-swinging priests on either side; a thickset fellow with brawny arms and a threatening demeanour carried the cross on a tall pole. The way he stared at the public all around left Simon in no doubt that the fellow was keen to protect his cross, and Simon was sure he had been picked for his truculent attitude. Any man trying to steal it from him would receive a buffet about the head that would make him swiftly regret his inclination.
It was also plain that the archbishop anticipated some form of trouble. He irritably waved on the guards who followed his party, and the men reluctantly interposed themselves between the public and the religious, their polearms held upright, but all ready to bring them down and use them. That much Simon could see in their anxious faces and their alertness.
The archbishop began talking, but Simon scarcely heard a word. He was watching the men listening all around. Soon, a young priest darted forward holding a book, and stood as a living lectern as the archbishop peered at the writing. It was a fairly interminable reading, all in Latin, and there was a priest who bawled a translation. But to Simon’s surprise, when the archbishop finished and his servant folded the book once more, disappearing as quickly as he had appeared, a bystander suddenly shouted out, ‘When was that written, Archbishop?’
‘What?’ the archbishop said, and his uncertainty was instantly communicated.
‘What’s the date on the bull?’
‘It is in force. The pope issued the bull to prevent wars in our land. Why, do you want to see war here?’
‘That’s not about this, is it? It’s a bull about the Scottish, not the righteous queen of our country,’ a man said loudly, and Simon, peering about, was surprised to see that it was an apprentice who spoke so rudely. He hadn’t expected a youth studying his profession to be so insulting to an archbishop. Youngsters had so little respect nowadays …
‘When was it dated?’
The cry was taken up, and now the scavengers were pressing forwards. There was a shout, and the guards before the priests lowered their staffs, but too late. The crowd was so close already that the staffs would only fall on heads and shoulders, and none of the men was willing to do that and begin the bloodshed. In preference, they all crossed their weapons and tried to keep the crowd back.
First it was an apple. A brown, rotten apple curled through the air, and landed a short distance behind the guards, some of the flesh spattering Reynolds’s robes. He stared at the muck with distaste, then glared at the crowds. But before he could say anything, the apprentices started to throw old fruit and some bread, anything they had about them. Others were collecting small stones and aiming them at the guards. They rattled on their helmets, and one cried out, his hand going to his eye.
The bishops and abbots abruptly turned around and hurried across the grass to the door to the cathedral.
Simon watched as the guards also beat a quick retreat. Stones continued to fall, some larger ones crashing into the cross itself, or slamming into the walls of the cathedral, but none, by a miracle, hit any of the glass windows.
There was a slithering sound that he recognised, and when Simon turned, he saw that Baldwin had drawn his sword. Like a statue carved from moorstone, Baldwin stared at the apprentices, his sword-point resting on his boot’s toe, his hand resting on the hilt.
Before Simon could ask why he had taken his sword out, he saw a couple of the apprentices glance around. One had a stone in his hand, which he hefted, a sneer curling his lip. Then he saw Baldwin, and Baldwin shook his head, slowly and deliberately, but with menace. The two looked away.
While he watched them, Simon caught sight of William Walle’s face. He registered only horror. ‘How could they do that?’ he kept repeating, over and over again, as though it was a prayer that could eradicate the memory of that hideous scene.
The Bishop of Exeter stormed back to the chamber in the Tower feeling a rage so all-enveloping, he was astonished he did not at once burst into flames.
‘That damned fool!’ he snarled, and kicked his door shut.
John de Padington eyed his master and gauged his mood; he had known him to get frustrated like this before. Bishop Walter was a clever man who was forced to work in conditions that not only taxed his mind, but then forced him to choose politics to explain his thoughts. Working to a worthwhile goal, only to see the achievable ambitions obstructed by others with more shallow desires for the kingdom, was hard to swallow.
‘Bishop, I have some lobster for your lunch, and here is a very fine wine which you will enjoy.’
‘Oh, I
will
, will I?’
‘Undoubtedly. And if you sit now, and do not upset your humours any more than strictly necessary, it will aid your digestion too.’
The bishop eyed him, and then gave a small chuckle. ‘Very well, John. You are right enough. Let me sit. Ah! That is better. Now, wine, you said? Good.’ He took a long pull from the goblet and grunted his approval.
There was a knock at the door. ‘If it’s someone from that incompetent bastard Despenser, send him away before I wring his neck!’
John opened the door to find William Walle, Simon and Baldwin outside. He stood back to let them all inside.
‘Dear God in Heaven, you lot look as though you’ve seen the
queen’s host sailing up the Thames,’ he said, only half in jest.
Simon nodded towards the squire, and William took a deep breath, before explaining what they had, in fact, seen at St Paul’s Cross.
The bishop turned his face away. ‘I told them it wouldn’t work. I explained to the king and Despenser, but they wouldn’t listen. They said I was an old fool who didn’t understand how to sway the common man’s mind. If there was a threat from the pope, that would bring the city folk around, they said – what – after so many years of Despenser’s despoiling of the country? Almost all the peasants hate him; all the nobles do. If only Despenser could be sent away, many of the people would, I believe, rally to the king. But the king won’t send him to exile or death, and therein lies the tragedy of our times.’
‘What will the king do?’ Baldwin asked.
‘God knows. Two days ago he was in tears, beating his breast with despair because of the money.’
‘What money?’ Simon asked, confused.
‘He sent money to Richard Perrers, Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, to pay for a contingent of men to repel the queen. Perrers sent the money back, and has joined the queen. All are joining her. Despenser’s bile and greed has sown the bitterest harvest any king could reap.’
Baldwin sighed. ‘What of you, Bishop?’
‘Me? I shall remain here while the king wishes for my advice,’ Bishop Walter said with determination. He stood and stretched. ‘Damn the soul of Mortimer! If it were not for him, even the excesses of Despenser could have been restrained, and in time he could have been removed from authority, but now, the only possible outcome is the destruction of the realm in years of war. And the king will suffer for it. Poor man! Poor man! He doesn’t deserve this.’
He didn’t. The bishop had been privileged to work with the king often in the last years, and he had always found him to be honourable, if temperamental. He also had a good brain, was thrifty, and understood organisation and administration. It was
this one weakness of his – his affection for the fool Despenser – that had thrown his rule into turmoil.
Bishop Walter suddenly noticed that the others were standing and watching him. ‘Well?’
‘What do you want of us?’ Simon said simply.
The bishop smiled. ‘Simon, if you wish to leave me and go back to Devon, I will quite understand. This fight will be unpleasant. You are released from service to me, if that is your wish. You too, Sir Baldwin. You ought to return home at the very least. There is nothing for you to do here. The fellow who left me those vicious notes has gone. Perhaps he was knocked on the head by someone here in London, or maybe he has not managed to reach the city. In any case, there is more to worry about than him now.’
Simon nodded slowly. ‘Perhaps. And perhaps he is very close even now, Bishop. I think I will have to remain here a little longer, just in case.’
In his mind’s eye he saw again that face under the leather cap and cape of the stevedore. The fierce face of hatred.