The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) Read online

  ‘I have already asked the grooms to prepare your horse, Sir Baldwin. I hope that wasn’t presumptuous.’

  It was. Baldwin gave him a long, steady look. ‘I suppose not. No, it was sensible, if we are to go and visit my lord Bishop. Do you know whether it is a matter of business or simply for conversation that he wishes to see me?’

  ‘It is not a matter of pleasure, I fear.’

  Baldwin nodded and grunted, marching to the inner ward.

  Exeter’s castle was important as the administrative centre of the city, still, but from up here, gazing about him, Baldwin could see that the defences were falling into decay. The towers had been roofless for forty years or more, and the dereliction was becoming noticeable. Three of the towers had begun to collapse a few years ago, and now were little better than shells. If the city was held under siege again, as it had been so often before, the place could not withstand a single strike from a modern trebuchet.

  It was a sobering thought. He swung up onto his horse, contemplating the walls and small piles of rubble from collapsed masonry. Two hundred years before, this had been strong enough to hold out for months when King Stephen besieged it. Now it wouldn’t last five minutes. Even the immense ditch and curtain wall were useless, the one filled, the other crumbling. And no one would do anything about it. It was that which made him most bitter. This was an important castle, deserving of a little money to bring it up to standard, but no one would pay. It was so short-sighted, especially in these difficult times.

  Putting it from his mind, he clapped spurs to his mount’s flanks and clattered over the old drawbridge.

  It was not far to the bishop’s manor. The two men left by the east gate, then took the Heavitree road south-east, passing by the gallows on the way. Baldwin averted his eyes from the bodies hanging there.

  By the time they had reached the new bridge to Clyst St Mary, Baldwin was looking forward to refreshment. It was only a few minutes’ ride to the bishop’s little manor, and soon they were rattling the boards of the drawbridge that spanned the small moat. Ahead was the hall itself, while left was the chapel. Baldwin had only been here a few times, but he knew it well enough. The stables were on the right, and he dropped from his horse, giving orders to the cleric to have the beast rubbed down carefully before he was fed, and strode off to the entrance to the hall.

  ‘Sir Baldwin, I am glad to see you.’

  The bishop was a tall man, slim in build, and with a face that Baldwin privately felt had seen too much deviousness. Bishop Walter had spent too many years involved in the politics at the heart of the realm, supporting those who had sought originally to curb the King’s worst excesses, first by imposing rules on him, a course of action that was doomed to failure as soon as the King felt himself powerful enough to break with those who tried to enforce the rules; and more recently as the King’s ally. He had been responsible for the realm’s finances as the Lord High Treasurer, and even now Baldwin knew he was a trusted confidant.

  That, Baldwin found difficult to comprehend. To be an ally of Edward’s was to be an ally of the Despensers, father and son, both called Hugh, and Baldwin could not forgive any man who sought to aid them. Little better than licensed thieves, they were felons who could extort, steal, arrest, torture and murder anyone without fear of restraint. Yet the younger was the King’s closest friend and – so it was rumoured – his lover.

  In all the years Baldwin had known him, he had held the bishop in the highest respect. He was an old-fashioned cleric, perhaps, but Baldwin had thought him honourable and compassionate. There was nothing in his dealings with the man that had led him to alter his opinions. Yet now the good bishop was supporting the King and the Despensers.

  ‘My lord Bishop, I am glad to see you looking so well,’ Baldwin said.

  Stapledon held out his hand for Baldwin to kiss his ring. ‘Don’t be sarcastic with me, old friend. I’m sixty-three years old now and – by God! – I feel every one of them. Wine!’

  Baldwin smiled casually, and was surprised when the bishop did not reciprocate. His face was pale and unsettled. He wouldn’t meet Baldwin’s eye directly, and that was most unlike him. It persuaded Baldwin not to speak openly about any political affair. As matters stood, any who spoke against the Despensers were likely to find their homes raided, their wives raped and tortured, children slain, and all that they prized ruined. He would not put his wife and children at risk even at the cost of alienating an old friend like Stapledon.

  ‘I am tired, Baldwin. Trying to keep the peace between the King and his wife Isabella is like trying to mould water. You can make it take shape, but as soon as you remove your hand, all falls away! The latest plan on Despenser’s side is to make all the barons and lords swear an oath to him, saying they’ll live or die with him …’ Stapledon grew silent as the door opened and his old bottler entered with a tray on which were set out jugs and goblets. The bishop waved his hand and the man left after putting the tray on the table.

  ‘What would you do?’ Baldwin asked.

  Stapledon eyed him, then picked up a parchment and peered at it short-sightedly. With a grimace, he reached into his robe and took out his spectacles, which he opened and held to his eyes. ‘I would have peace in the kingdom – first and foremost between that unhappy pair, the King and his Queen. The old King should have realised when he made them marry that sealing a pact with France was sure to lead to sadness. How could any man expect his son to find happiness with a Frenchwoman? We know what happened to her sisters-in-law. That was enough to kill her father.’

  ‘You speak of the affair of the silk purses? Yes, as I recall, she was the instrument of their downfall,’ Baldwin noted.

  ‘True enough,’ Stapledon agreed heavily. ‘I have seen her accounts, and she took ten torch-bearers with her to the French king to tell him that night. I think she was shocked by the result, though. All her sisters-in-law imprisoned, one dying so soon afterwards. And the men – to be killed like that …’

  ‘I have heard some of the story,’ Baldwin said, ‘but it was during a period when I was exercised with other matters. Perhaps you know more?’

  Stapledon took a gloomy sip of his wine. ‘It was in 1313. I was with her and the King. Isabella had travelled to France with her husband to try to heal the rift that had opened between the two kings. You remember all that? Edward was passing over gifts to Piers Gaveston, his … friend.’

  Baldwin smiled at his diplomatic pause. Rumours of the King’s affection for the man had been heard by the meanest peasants. To hint at such an affair could cost a man more than money, though, and there was never any way to tell whether a servant could be listening. Baldwin could not help glancing at the door as he motioned to the bishop to continue.

  ‘At the time, the French king was concerned because Queen Isabella had not received any lands as dower, her finances were dependent upon King Edward, and she actually had to stay with him the whole time, without the money to create her own household. It was ridiculous. Anyway, her father showed his displeasure in no uncertain terms, and began to intrigue behind our king’s back. He hinted that Gaveston was an enemy of France and himself, and to say that any man who supported Gaveston was likewise an enemy.’

  Baldwin gave a low whistle. ‘I had not heard that.’

  ‘It is why Gaveston’s death was such a relief to so many of us,’ Stapledon admitted. He poured wine for himself, holding up the jug for Baldwin, but the latter declined. ‘When Gaveston was slain, it healed much of the rift between Edward and the French. Then, of course, Edward, the king’s son was born. So in May 1313 we went to Paris.

  ‘King Philippe was delighted. He was to meet his grandson for the first time, and his court celebrated our visit with feasting and dancing. While there, the Queen’s brothers were knighted, and she gave them gifts, as well as presents for their wives: three silken purses, one each to Blanche, Marguerite and Jeanne, the three wives of her royal brothers.’

  He lapsed, shaking his head grimly, but Baldwin di
d not interrupt his thoughts. Patiently he waited for the bishop to continue.

  ‘Such innocuous little trinkets they seemed. Even such as they can cause disaster, though. A year later Queen Isabella returned to France to continue negotiations with her father on behalf of her husband, and noticed that the purses were now being worn at the belts of three other knights.

  ‘She was suspicious at once, and went to tell her father that same evening. I mentioned the torch-bearers? I wasn’t with her on that trip, but I heard all about it. Dear God!

  ‘The king was enraged. He felt, rightly, that this brought shame and dishonour on his house and his line. His sons, the princes, had been cuckolded in the most flagrant way. Their wives had engaged in lewd feasting and dancing, emulating the debauched whores of Gomorrah in their pride and lust for pleasure. The king immediately had them all followed, and learned that they met their lovers, the d’Aunai brothers, in the Tour de Nesle, a palace nearby …’

  ‘I know it,’ Baldwin said shortly. He hated to think of the events that had led to the slaughter of two young men.

  The bishop noticed his manner and continued more gently, ‘Two of the women confessed immediately. The third denied adultery, but she was to be punished anyway, for not telling the king or her husband what the other two were up to.’

  ‘What became of the women?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘The sisters-in-law were all condemned. Blanche and Marguerite were sent to the Château-Gaillard in penitential dress, wearing rough hair clothing that would sear their flesh. Marguerite did not survive the first winter in that harsh environment. She froze to death in one of the upper chambers. Jeanne was held in the milder castle at Dourdan for a while, and eventually the Parlement released her after declaring that she was innocent of adultery. Blanche remained at Château-Gaillard: I presume she is still there. Her marriage has been declared null by the Pope, so she is merely a woman of no honour – a poor slut with no man to protect her.’

  ‘I was in France in that year,’ Baldwin said quietly. ‘I recall the men being executed.’

  ‘The two knights could hope for no pity. They had polluted the loins of the women who would become Queens; they had desecrated the lineage of the court. It showed how the fleur de lis had been undermined by frivolity and lewdness. They were hanged, I think?’

  Baldwin shook his head, his face grim at the memory. ‘No. The king wanted an example to be made. One of the guilty men escaped as soon as he heard of the accusations and fled to England; his brother was less swift to run and was captured. But running away to the very place where his accuser was herself the Queen was foolish in the extreme. He was taken and returned to France.

  ‘They were brought to the execution grounds of Montfaucon, and there Gautier and his brother Philippe d’Aunai were bound to wheels. Over time their limbs were broken with iron bars; then their testicles and tarses were hacked off and thrown to the dogs. Only when they had suffered in anguish for a long while were their heads struck off and their bodies clamped in gibbets to be hung on display for the mockery of the populace, as proof that no man could contaminate the royal family with impunity.’

  ‘I heard that the shame hastened King Philippe’s end,’ the bishop said sadly. ‘He was dead before the end of the year.’

  Baldwin’s jaw clenched. ‘I think it was more likely that God had chosen to call him to His throne. When the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, was murdered on King Philippe’s orders, it’s said de Molay demanded that the king should stand before God to defend himself for destroying God’s crusading army.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  The memory of the injustice made Baldwin continue, even though his usual caution should have advised him to be more circumspect. ‘I believe with my entire heart and soul that Philippe was evil. Any man who could commit such a crime against a holy and religious Order deserves no less. He killed the Templars, and suffered for it.’

  ‘I do wonder, though … the punishment for his misdeed was truly dreadful,’ Stapledon mused. ‘To think that a man’s line could be so devastated. Perhaps it was God’s vengeance, as you say. Certainly none of his sons have been blessed so far, have they? After King Philippe IV died, his son Louis X survived him by only two years. Philippe V became King in 1316 but died in 1322, and the last brother, Charles, has been on the throne now for two years. I do not know how healthy he is, but there is no heir as yet, I believe?’

  Baldwin shook his head. He was still remembering that appalling year in which the d’Aunai brothers and so many others had died. He had no sympathy for Philippe.

  In 1314 Sir Baldwin had been forced to come to terms with the destruction of his ancient and honourable Order, the Knights Templar. His comrades had been arrested on Friday, 13 October 1307, while he and some of his friends had been out of their preceptory, and as a result he had escaped the torturers, the indignity and shame. Yet he had been scarred, he told himself, eyeing his hand. It did not quiver or shake, but only because of an enormous effort of will.

  ‘So, Sir Baldwin, I must ask you for a favour, if you would be so kind.’

  There was something in his tone that brought Baldwin to attention instantly. ‘What is that, my lord Bishop? If I can serve you, you know I would be glad to,’ he said, but he was warned by the bishop’s reticence that this was no ordinary request.

  Chapter Five

  It was late that night when Simon returned to his little chambers and sat before his fire with a bowl of hot soup and hunk of bread. He didn’t bother to go to his table, but sipped straight from his bowl as he contemplated all he had learned that day.

  Originally he had taken a larger house in Dartmouth, but that was when he had hoped that his wife Meg might join him here. Since hearing of the death of Abbot Robert, it seemed clear enough to him that he would not be staying here for long. The good abbot had been his enthusiastic patron, and with him gone, it was likely that the new abbot would seek to install his own friend or loyal servant. Simon had quickly decided to take a smaller place.

  It was comfortable enough, though. Situated in the upper of the two streets, a short distance from the Porpoise, a rowdy tavern, he had a fair-sized front room, a smaller kitchen and parlour behind, and a pleasant solar chamber above the front room for his bed. Outside there was a simple privy in his garden. For a man living alone, it was fine.

  There was a squeak and rattle from a loose sign further up the road, and although the noise normally didn’t affect him, today it grated on his ear as though there was an invisible connection between his head and the rusty metal. When he heard a cat screech, he shot from his seat, spilling soup over his lap, making him curse loudly. He was not the only man in Clifton or Hardness who felt the same anxiety that night, he knew.

  It was always hard when his friend Baldwin heard of some little precaution he took: Baldwin had a hard-nosed manner about all sensible safeguards, calling them ‘superstitious nonsense’ or somesuch, but Simon didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, it was proof of Baldwin’s foolishness. Simon wasn’t superstitious, anyway. He simply didn’t believe in taking risks.

  There was something about that great ship lying in the haven, blackened and charred … as though it had been sent to hell, and only returned when the devil had taken her crew. Poor fellows. Stephen had said there were eleven of them, too. All with wives and children, no doubt. All who would now struggle to make a living.

  There were some men who fully deserved such a fate, no doubt, but Simon could not help but wonder at the wholesale nature of this destruction. It was a proof of the danger that all men lived with at all times, and a warning to make sure that they shrived themselves when they could, so that their souls might leave them with full confidence. No man knew the moment of his death, and these poor sailors were a prime example of that fact. If only they had been to church before they sailed, and had given Confession full honestly. Perhaps one or two did. Maybe they were already up in heaven. Simon heard a fox call, and closed his eyes
, only to open them wide at a scratching behind his wall. No, it was a rat or something. Nothing else.

  Christ’s ballocks, but he must calm himself. The whole town was the same. Everyone was jumpy and fretful. No surprise, really, when a man considered how sailors depended so much on their instincts. To learn that some eleven men had been lost, one of them found dead in the hold, but the others gone as though they had never existed, that was terrifying. There would be many families tonight who would have no sleep.

  One of them was Widecombe Will’s. Simon had seen Will later in the afternoon, when people began to realise whose ship it was. Will was with one of his daughters: Annie. She saw the ship and shrieked with horror. Her man Ed had been one of the crew. Simon recalled him – a game lad, brawny and powerful. Now Annie was on her knees, throwing dust from the road in all directions as she squealed and groaned.

  ‘You don’t know it’s the Saint John,’ Will was saying.

  ‘You think I don’t recognise my Ed’s ship? He was only going to be out for a couple of days, and now look at it! Everyone knows it’s his ship! My Ed! My Ed! He’s gone!’

  The ship was one of Paul Pyckard’s. There was little doubt of that, as soon as they’d been able to take Pyckard’s clerk and servant, Moses, to the ship and had checked the cargo against the manifest which recorded all the goods loaded. She was clearly the Saint John, and if they needed further proof, the sight of Danny’s corpse was enough.

  Although Simon felt squeamish at the sight of all dead bodies, it was those who had died from fire and water that most repelled him. Today, seeing that poor, whitened face, the flesh cold and soft as a fish’s, Simon could have turned and thrown up. It was bad enough to be on a ship, without the added churning in his belly caused by the dead sailor.