Dispensation of Death

by Michael Jecks

Genres: General Fiction; Medieval; Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

1325: England is a hotbed of paranoia under the reign of the increasingly unpredictable Edward II and his lover, Sir Hugh le Despenser. When the Queen’s lady-in-waiting is slaughtered and a man’s body, hideously mutilated, is discovered behind the throne, the King demands to be avenged.

Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, an experienced investigator of murders, is appointed to track down the killer, aided by his friend, Simon Puttock. In an age of corruption, when the king’s friends can use torture, blackmail and murder to promote their ends, a rural knight and bailiff must fight to stay alive.

Release date: February 27, 2014

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 516

Sample

It is quite common for an author like me to begin his or her series in a specific location. After all, it makes life a lot easier generally, because the author only needs to research one area – be it a town or city – but there are also sound logistical reasons for doing so, because many types of book need the stability of the single location. They wouldn’t work accurately over a broader sweep.

Modern police procedurals are a perfect example: if you have a detective working for Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, it’s OK to have him working in Exeter and, at a pinch, migrate him to Plymouth. However, there are many practical and political problems about moving the same poor devil to the depths of Greater Manchester (where his life expectancy could also be significantly reduced).

For medieval stories there is a greater tendency to stick to a specific and well-bounded location – people didn’t tend to travel far. The average freeman, for instance, would rarely travel farther than twenty miles from home. Many did indeed go on lengthy pilgrimages, but for a medieval murder writer like me, I have to bear in mind the strict boundaries of authority, from those between the Church and secular world, from one Lord’s manor to another’s, from county to county, among many others. It is more realistic to stay in one area.

The trouble is, my characters are living in ‘real time’, for want of a better description. Each murder they investigate has been set in a specific month and year, and the two fellows and their wives are growing older year by year. And now historical events are beginning to overtake them. It is because I want to be able to explain the politics of the time that I have been forced to make poor Sir Baldwin a Member of Parliament, a post which is uniquely unsuited to him, bearing in mind that he is honest, decent, and a man of integrity.

It was necessary, though. Sir Baldwin has to be involved in the great debates of the time, and the first of these was the discussion about the French territories, King Edward II’s requirement to pay homage to the French King, Charles IV, and the matter of who should be sent to negotiate with the French on Edward’s behalf.

There were many eminent diplomats at this time, but for any of them to untangle the dreadful situation was asking rather too much. For those who are interested, there are many books on this period which go into the affairs in more detail, but for the majority who want a taster, here goes!

There were several spark-points. The first was that the French King was angling to take over the remaining English possessions in France.

This can be a little confusing, but suffice it to say that the English had retained some French assets. These areas operated under the English King’s laws, and he was the supreme judge, so if there was a dispute, litigants could plead in his courts. However, they were French territories which were held by the English King under the rules of feudal law. That meant he must go to his master, the French King, and pay homage for them.

In 1325 King Edward II did not want to.

There were some pretty good reasons why he didn’t. One was the journey. Travelling over the English Channel was not like climbing into a ferry and listening to massive diesels thundering deep below you and pushing you across. Men and women died on the crossings. When there was bad weather, or when the wind turned, a ship could be left bobbing about like a cork for days. And sometimes ships were thrown against rocks.

Now the King accepted his feudal duties, but even so, he had already paid homage several times during his reign – to the French King’s father, Philip the Fair, and to his brothers (I think) Louis X and Philip V. It was not his fault that the French kings kept dying with monotonous regularity – and he did complain about having to go yet again. However, it’s clear that much of his refusal was prevarication because he didn’t really want to swear fealty. To do so could have imposed restrictions upon his powers, and would have forced him to accept his subservience to the French. That would have been insufferable.

His reluctance was not helped by the fact that King Charles had recently overrun and confiscated the English possessions. The reason for this, the War of Saint-Sardos, is fairly convoluted, but can be simply explained.

I mentioned that the English courts held sway in the English territories. Charles IV needed a pretext to invade. One line of attack was to undermine the English legal system. So petitioners dissatisfied with losing their cases before the English courts were persuaded to take their cases to the French courts for a more sympathetic hearing. And the French King took to telling his English vassal, King Edward II, to overturn decisions already declared in King Edward’s courts. This was intolerable for the English, but didn’t directly cause the war.

The second line was much more problematic. In Saint-Sardos there was a priory which was a dependent house of the Abbey of Sarlat. The enterprising Abbot of Sarlat was content that his dependency was an indivisible part of his Abbey, and as such it was responsible only to the French Crown. It couldn’t be detached and held liable under any other laws. That was problematic, but then the Abbot decided to build a bastide, a fortified town, on his lands in Saint-Sardos, and the foundations were laid for the war.

It was clearly a deliberate provocation. To put up a castle in the midst of the King of England’s duchy without permission was tweaking his nose unmercifully – but worse than that, the locals considered themselves to be English too, and didn’t like the high-handed efforts of the Abbot. So the English reacted as they have done through centuries. A mob stormed the works, destroyed them, and when a French official remonstrated, he was hanged.

This was the ‘riot’ that caused the invasion of the Agenais. The town of Montpezat held out for some little while, as did La Réole, but soon it grew obvious that they couldn’t survive, and King Edward II’s brother, Edmund, who was in charge of the army for the King, was forced to surrender. Shortly afterwards the castle at Montpezat was razed to the ground in punishment for holding out.

And as all this was going on, the English King and his wife were going through what may charitably be described as ‘a difficult time’, owing to the fact that she was the French King’s sister – oh, and the English King was having a homosexual affair with his chief adviser, Sir Hugh le Despenser, one of the most repellent and thieving politicians we have ever seen in our country.

Sir Hugh did not so much bend the rules as ignore them: he took what he wanted, by threatening the owners with murder if they refused; he stole from widows shortly after their men had died in the King’s service; he used torture to extort lands from the recalcitrant. In an age when many nobles and knights were little better than felons (look at the Folvilles, the Coterells, and the deplorable Sir Gilbert Middleton) Sir Hugh le Despenser stands out as a particularly nasty piece of work.

There is one more aspect of research which has given me some headaches – the layout and use of Westminster’s halls.

The Great Hall was already old by the time of this story. Built by the Conqueror’s son, William Rufus, it is the largest surviving stone hall in Europe. Now it is the only relic of the ancient palaces of Westminster. The other buildings were destroyed by fire in the nineteenth century, which is why the current palace was built. However, the others must have been extraordinary.

South of the Great Hall was the Lesser Hall, which was where early on the monarch performed his legal and administrative duties, as well as eating. Possibly built by Edward the Confessor, it would have been a single-storey hall until the time of Henry II, when a second was added. At the eastern wall was another hall, pointing towards the river. This was the Painted Hall, noted at the time for the magnificent quality of the pictures set about the walls, and also for its wooden ceiling with decorative peterae, flat panels with shields or rosettes carved into them. The chamber had to be redecorated after a fire in 1263, and in Baldwin and Simon’s time, this was the state bedchamber.

However the whole of this palace complex was rambling. There are no maps to show exactly what the layout was in 1325, where corridors and passages may have led, nor even how the roof of the Great Hall was supported. There may have been one or two rows of columns holding it up – we have no way of telling. So, as usual, I have had to read through many descriptions, try to make sense of archaeological works, and when all else failed, guess!

For those who want to learn more of the history of Westminster and its buildings, I can recommend ‘The Archaeology of Medieval London’ by Christopher Thomas, Sutton 2002; ‘Medieval London Houses’ by John Schofield, Yale 1995 & 2003; ‘Westminster Kings and the Medieval Palace of Westminster’ by John Cherry and Neil Stratford, ‘Occasional Paper 115’ from the British Museum’s Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, 1995.

As usual with all my works, where there are any errors, they are my own. However, I have made some conscious decisions to make this work of fiction a little more comprehensible, such as moving much of the action to the Great Hall rather than confuse the reader with references to other chambers and simplifying the Queen’s block.

I have invented the situations in this book. I have invented a murder – and put genuine historical figures in the frame. There’s a certain sense of guilt at suggesting that these people could have been responsible for such a crime; however, I am confident that the main political leaders of the time were so uniquely venal, ruthless, and violent, that even were they to be watching me over my shoulder, I doubt that they would feel unduly hard done by.

Of course, if any of them come to haunt me for my presumption, I will be happy to apologise profusely.

Michael Jecks

North Dartmoor

October 2006

Monday, Morrow of St Hilary in the eighteenth year of the reign of King Edward II 1

It was a grey, dank morning when the assassin floated quietly downriver to the house on the Straunde. He sat huddled in the back of the boat with his greasy, grey woollen hat pulled down low over his brow against the fine drizzle thrown against his face. With his chin resting on his breast, he was confident his face was hidden, but he still eyed the river traffic warily. Many craft passed up and down: barges and boats with gaily painted sheers flaunted wealth he could only imagine. Many stopped and pulled in to bump at private jetties, while above the noise of the oars and the wind, the shouts and curses of sailors came clear across the flat water.

It was alarming to a man devoted to remaining inconspicuous. There were officials here, fighting men with good vision, and if one of them caught sight of him now, that man might recognise him in the future. Best always to be still, silent, a shadow in the corner of a wall – never a person who could be spotted and brought to memory by a guard at the wrong moment.

It had taken two days of hard travelling to get here. Two days, and the man at the hall up there towards London must have been keen to have paid him in advance, just to get him here. Very keen indeed if the cost of the rounsey be added to the account. It was a magnificent black stallion, a fast, powerful beast, with a richly ornamented saddle and bridle, and he’d climbed onto it with trepidation, for a man like him didn’t learn how to ride at an early age like a lord. He was born to a lower class. If he hadn’t managed to be born illegitimate, he’d have been a serf. Fortunately a bastard had to be assumed to be free – the law refused to condemn a man to serfdom unless there was absolute proof that the father was a serf, no matter what the status of the mother.

Yes, with the amount of money already advanced, this must be a serious commission. That was good. But there was a double-edged quality to money – too little and a man like him had to reject it with disgust. He had some pride still. Not much, but some. Still, if there was too much money, that would mean that the task was inordinately dangerous. There was no profit in an early grave.

They were passing by the King’s Great Hall now, and he allowed his eyes to study the Palace with the interest of a traveller, unaware that this was the place where he would die.

Westminster was a strange area. It was there at the bank of the river, almost an island, with the River Tyburn just to the south of it, the new mill turning gently with the tide. Then there were the main buildings. This was where the King’s councils met, where he held his parliaments and met his people when he held court, but it wasn’t purely designed for law-giving and law-making. This had become the King’s home, too.

The boat swung into the river a little further to avoid the first of the landing stages, and looking down its length like an archer aiming down his arrow, he could see the chapel at the edge of the buildings. Then came a small block with pleasant lancet windows – the Queen’s rooms, so he had heard. Behind the chapel’s windows was a flickering light, and he thought how warm it must be in there, out of this chill wind.

Next was another two-storey building, the King’s, and a little beyond was the new chapel. This one filled the gap between the Great Hall and the King’s rooms, and was built on two levels as well. On the ground floor of the King’s apartments were all the King’s household, while the uppermost chamber was for Edward’s family and closer friends.

Everyone knew who his ‘closer friends’ were now.

The man in the boat pulled his old russet-coloured cloak tighter about his shoulders, grunting to himself as he tried to knot his belly muscles to keep in a little warmth.

Yes. The money implied that the man he was going to be asked to kill was someone important. This would be no easy assassination: no quick dagger between the ribs in a tavern when all others were so drunk they wouldn’t notice the corpse till morning; nor a thong whipped about an unsuspecting throat and the body allowed to slip into the river to float off downstream in the dark. This was more likely to be an attack that would risk his own neck.

And yet he could not afford to throw away such an opportunity. Oh, he could put bread on the table and wine in the cup when he wanted, but life without the little luxuries was empty. Women, choice meats, new clothes, perhaps a hawk again . . . there were so many little things he could desire.

A twinge made him shift his position. At eight and forty years, he was growing old. He had endured too many campaigns, too many cold nights sleeping rough on the damp ground, too many mornings waking with a sore head and a purse emptied by a whore’s pimp. Perhaps one more kill could earn him enough to survive a little longer. Others he’d known were living rich lives with great houses and servants. He’d heard tell of a comrade who’d been made Sergeant of a castle for the King. Others were granted corrodies in convents, where they would live out their lives in relative comfort with a gallon of ale a day. Perhaps he could too.

They were past the Great Hall itself now, and soon they passed the last jetty and the dock, and all he could see on the bank was the low-lying lands which swept back and up to the roadway. Merchants and lawyers kept small houses out in the waste beyond the island, but there were few here, at the riverbank. The land was too soggy and prone to flood this close to the Thames. There was just a scattering of rough dwellings for some of the servants of the court and lay brothers of the Abbey. Through them all cut the King’s Street, which headed northwards along the line of the Thames until it joined up with the Straunde and thence Fleet Street.

When he had been here last, maybe fifteen years ago, houses were thinner on the ground, but now he could see that the area was much more built up. It was natural enough. Since the Exchequer had moved here from Winchester, a lot more people needed access to the place. Now it looked as though all the spaces between here and London were gradually filling.

But after a scant eighth of a mile, the rough houses gave way to substantial properties. These were owned by the rich, the men who would rule the land, those with power residing in their armed men, and those who would command a man’s heart and soul. He could remember these houses. That was the Archbishop of York’s, and beyond it he could see the Savoy, the palace of the Duke of Lancaster, with its new wall and castellations – and then came the mansions: first the Bishop of Norwich’s, then the Bishop of Durham’s, the Bishop of Carlisle’s, the Bishop of Bath and Wells’s – and the Bishop of Exeter’s. And then, last of all for him today, was this enormous place.

It was a strong site. Standing just west of the River Fleet, it lay behind a ditch and wall. From here on the river it was impossible to see much inside the precinct, but it didn’t matter. He looked up at the walls as the water gate opened; and thought to himself that they were daunting. Entering here was like being pulled in through Traitor’s Gate at the Tower; the idea made him shiver.

As the gate closed, he saw a flaming torch coming down steps slick with water; two men were approaching. The boat stopped at the jetty and he sat for a moment, eyeing them with that expanding sensation in his belly he recognised so well: pure, simple fear. So often in his life he had known that feeling. It was in part a mark of his existence. There were always men about who wanted to kill him for what he had done, or for what he planned.

Not today, though. He stood, letting the old cloak fall away and looked about him.

‘Jack atte Hedge? My Lord Despenser waits for you,’ a man said.

Jack atte Hedge glanced at him. It was the second of them who had spoken, the one who didn’t carry the torch. Probably thought carrying something like that was too menial for him. Jack ignored him. He looked out over the river, then upstream back towards Thorney Island where the King had his new palace.

‘I said . . .’ the man began again.

‘Take me to him,’ Jack said quietly, and followed them in through the gate.

The little short gate with the incised cross of the Knights Templar cut into the lintel.

Jack atte Hedge gazed about him as they passed up the path from the river. There were orchards, gardens, a little pasture all between the river and the cloister, but everything was sadly dilapidated. They entered the cloister by a small door, and he was led up some stairs into a large, almost bare chamber.

‘Sit here and wait,’ the second man told him.

Jack stared at the man, who scowled back as he took up position at the side of the door as though guarding his prisoner.

‘What’s your name?’ Jack asked.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Nothing whatever.’

The man scowled, but as Jack turned away, he muttered, ‘William Pilk.’

He was as thick-skinned as he was thick-headed, Jack decided. One of those employed more for his ability to break another’s arms than for his skill at thinking. He had been told to bring Jack, so he assumed that Jack was in some kind of trouble and deserved to be beaten. He stood, and the man at the door stiffened as though preparing to defend it and stop Jack escaping. There were glazed windows at the northern side of the room, and he went to look out. In the courtyard he saw three men, all talking quietly together. He recognised two of them: Sir Hugh le Despenser and his henchman, Ellis Brooke. As he stood watching, they broke up. Ellis and his master walked towards the building from which Jack peered out, but the third man crossed to the other side of the courtyard. ‘Who is that?’ Jack asked.

Pilk walked to his side suspiciously, as though expecting him to try to knock him down if he lost concentration. He risked a quick look. ‘Him? Don’t know.’

Jack kept his eyes on the figure. Just for a moment the man turned before he walked through a doorway, and Jack saw a sallow face, a pointed chin, and black hair. Then the man was gone, slipping through and pulling the heavy door closed behind him.

Jack was always interested in strangers in this place. If Sir Hugh le Despenser was talking to someone, it could only be because there was profit in it for him. He wasn’t the sort of man to waste time with those who were of no use to him. Jack turned away from the window, wondering who the third man had been, barely aware of Pilk walking back to the doorway, where he stood glowering as before.

Before Jack could worry himself overmuch, he heard footsteps coming up the stairs; the door opened and Sir Hugh le Despenser walked in with Ellis.

‘I am glad to see you again, Jack,’ Despenser said.

‘And I you,’ he replied. But when he looked at Despenser, he was shocked by the change in the man.

Last time he saw him, Hugh le Despenser was a fit, tall young man in his early thirties, but the fellow before him now, although not yet forty years old, had the weight of the realm’s troubles upon his shoulders. There was a tiredness in the set of his shoulders which Jack himself had not experienced in all his nearly fifty years. He could have felt some sympathy for the young politician – if he hadn’t known how devious and untrustworthy the bastard was.

‘You asked me to come,’ he said.

‘Yes, I did.’ And Despenser moved into the room as though to embrace Jack.

That was too familiar, and Jack wanted none of it. He withdrew and glanced over Despenser’s shoulder. Ellis leaned there against the door-frame, mouth twisted into a smile. Since a knife attack, a scar left the left side of his face permanently drawn down in an expression of disapproval. ‘Jack. How goes it?’ Ellis said smoothly.

Jack grunted. Near the door still was the guard, his eyes widened to see that Despenser trusted this tatty old man. ‘That fellow Pilk can leave us,’ he snapped.

Despenser shot the man a look as though surprised he was still there. ‘You, Pilk – out!’ He waited until the door was closed, then began, ‘So, Jack, the reason I—’

But Jack had already soundlessly crossed the room and yanked the door open: William Pilk was standing less than two feet from it, looking guilty. Jack stood on the balls of his feet, staring at him. He heard a step, and felt a man at his side. He knew it was Ellis. Pilk glared at them both, then turned on his heel and left, stomping down the stairs. Jack glanced at Despenser, who nodded to Ellis. Ellis grunted assent and walked out, standing at the doorway to prevent any others from eavesdropping as Jack silently closed the door again.

He eyed his master. ‘So – who do you want me to kill this time, my Lord?’

‘Oh, it’s just a small job, Jack. I want you to kill the Queen.’

Thursday after the Feast of St Hilary1

Simon Puttock listened as the sound broke on the wind in the early morning. It was the sort of sound that a man who was used to the countryside would recognise from a great distance: a horse riding at a steady canter. Neither pounding along the roads with the urgency of a knight at the gallop, nor the steady plodding of a farmer with a packhorse, this was a man who had ridden some distance already, who had a need of haste, but who would have farther to ride, so was measuring his pace.

Simon was in his small hall when he heard it. A tall man, in his late thirties, with the broad shoulders of a farmer, and calm grey eyes set in a face that was sunburned even now in the winter, he was no coward, but he knew what the horse presaged.

Grabbing his staff, he ran out through the screens to the rear of his house. The stables were over on his right, and he made for them, his ear all the time cocked to the hooves pounding along the road. He had some time to escape, but not enough.

His wife, Meg, was gathering bundles of twigs and sticks to fire the copper ready to brew ale. There was a space behind the stalls which they always used as an overflow for their log pile, and as Simon came into the stables, he found her bent over, collecting some of the smaller twigs.

The temptation was too great. He grinned, and clapped a hand to her buttock, making her squeal, not entirely happily.

‘It’s not my fault,’ he protested, ‘such temptation . . .’

She eyed him coolly, a tall, blonde woman with her hair awry after her morning’s exertions. ‘It may be a period of rest for you, husband, but I still have a house to maintain and run.’

‘Oh, Christ’s pains!’

‘What is it?’

In answer, Simon jerked his head. She was still for a moment, listening, but then her face cleared. ‘The messenger?’

‘It must be.’

‘Would they have decided already?’

‘Meg, John de Courtenay was furious when he saw that Robert was to be made Abbot of Tavistock. He told me that he would contest the election as soon as he had been defeated.’

‘Yes, you told me,’ she said.

‘So – he will already have itemised all those aspects of the election which he feels may look as though something underhand has happened, and probably he has instructed a proctor. All he wants now is any other information on Robert. And I don’t have anything to give him!’

If only he did! Simon was not convinced of the integrity of the new Abbot, any more than he was of many other men. His only certainty was that John de Courtenay was even more unfitted for the post of Abbot than Robert Busse. John was from wealthy stock, and his main interests struck Simon as being modern fashion and hunting, as well as his wine-cellar. Of course, as the son of Baron Courtenay, he could muster some influential friends, and Simon was unpleasantly aware that the other man could make his own life difficult, if he chose.

‘But if he has his own proctor involved—’ Meg began, but Simon cut her off.

‘No! He has the support of two or three Brothers already, I suppose – John Fromund and Richard Mountori, certainly – but that’s not the point. Even when he’s put in his complaint, he’ll try to mobilise as many people as possible within and without the monastery to aid him. And he looks on me as having influence.’

‘Because your father used to be his father’s servant,’ Meg nodded.

‘Yes. And because he set me to spy on Busse, and will seek me to work for him again. That is why I must hide from any Abbey messengers.’

‘But it could be that it’s Robert Busse who is sending for you.’

Simon groaned. ‘In God’s name, I pray it’s not! For he’s the man whom I spied on, and I still don’t know what he has attempted in order to win the abbacy for himself. I trust neither of them, and whoever I offer support to, the other may win, and then destroy me. Our livelihoods depend upon the Abbot, whoever he may be, and to have to pick one now is a task I should much rather avoid. So if it’s a messenger from the Abbey, keep him here, Meg, please. Just give me a few moments. Tell him I’m at the castle, love, and I’ll bolt from the rear here.’

Meg shook her head in exasperation at the weakness of her husband. ‘I’ll try to, Simon, but some messengers can be most insistent.’

He looked at her, and she raised her eyebrows. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

He grinned to himself as she walked back to the little lean-to building which contained the copper and brewing barrels, and then turned and fled.

The guard at the door snapped to attention as soon as he recognised the coat-of-arms. Only a fool would not show respect to this man.

Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, half-brother to the King, barely noticed him. The discipline of a prickle-witted guard was nothing to him.

Inside the large chamber he saw the man he was expecting. ‘Well?’

‘My Lord.’

The man rose and now bowed low for him. Edmund set his teeth, but he could not in all conscience insult him for displaying the correct deference. ‘Yes, yes. Please, sit. Now, what can you tell me?’

Piers de Wrotham had been loyal to him even before he had joined the Earl at the attack on Leeds Castle. Short, with a slim build and thick black hair that was greasy and stayed plastered to his brow when he swept off his cap, he was narrow-featured, and had the look of a clerk rather than an astute spy and information-gatherer. However, the Earl knew that he could collect news more efficiently than ten of the King’s men. ‘My Lord, there are many dangerous stories. However, I fear that nothing is good for you.’

Kent growled. He had expected such news, but it didn’t make it any the more palatable. ‘Since those bastards pulled the rug from beneath my feet, they’ve done all in their power to destroy me – I’ll not accept it, damn their souls!’

Piers watched him with unblinking eyes. He had a gift of silence and stillness that was oddly owl-like. When his master had kicked a chair and slumped into it, he began again. ‘You were foully betrayed in Guyenne, and many believe that to be the case now. Yet still Despenser pours out more lies to justify his own position.’

‘He never supported us. Didn’t give a ha’penny for all the King’s lands over the water. All he wants is money. He’ll take it, too, you mark my words. He’ll bloody take it. There’s no picking so rich that he won’t get his hands on it, the bastard!’

‘My Lord, you are still young. He is a middle-aged man, while you are in your prime at f