To Simon it was a surprise. In his experience the sun rose slowly, and the light only gradually washed over the fields and woods. Here, the country was so flat, it seemed to spring up from nowhere. Night became day in an instant.
‘You were having a long talk with the Bishop,’ he said when he drew nearer to Baldwin.
‘You guessed, old friend? Well, I thought it might be as well to be warned about the political situation in London before we arrived.’
‘And what did you learn?’
Baldwin sighed. ‘There are moves afoot to remove our Queen. That is what we both heard the good Bishops arguing about last night. What I find sad is that it is our own friend who is proposing this action — in order to, as he says, “remove the canker in our King’s household”.’
‘He said that of our Queen?’ Simon was appalled. He had always borne great respect for the Bishop. Walter Stapledon had been a heroic figure when he was younger, a man who fought for what he believed to be right at all times, who became Bishop of his Diocese and used his wealth to endow schools and colleges for the benefit of others. He was a great man.
‘He said that, I fear, yes. And a great deal more. He said that he desires to see the King’s marriage annulled. I believe that is the reason for his journey to London — to seek a way to remove the Queen.’
Sunday, Feast of St Julian2
Thorney Island
In the chapel of Queen Isabella’s apartments, her Chaplain, Brother Peter of Oxford, was still sweating as he stood, his head bent, before the altar. The fear was with him much of the time now, but rarely so concentrated as today.
He disliked this charge intensely. Never would he have seen himself as a messenger before, and certainly not one who was working against the interests of the King. If anything, he would have tried to support Edward. But when his Bishop, John of Drokensford, asked him to do something, he was not going to refuse. His Bishop held the powers of patronage, and it was important that he keep him contented.
As soon as Peter had knelt with his master to hear his Confession, the Bishop had grasped his wrist and whispered urgently.
‘It is vital that you let her know this as soon as you can,’ he had said.
‘You want me to try to get it to her now?’
‘No. You have to wait until there is no suspicion. We have to pray that her enemies will not jump before her next visit to the chapel. Dear God, I only hope that we shall not be too late.’
That was the trouble about being the Queen’s own Chaplain, Brother Peter thought: it meant that no one trusted him even slightly. Never had there been a court that was so riven by internal politics, or so he reckoned. This place was full of intrigue, and no matter to whom he turned, he knew that, without fail, every word he spoke would be used or at least measured and weighed and recorded, just in case it might, at some point in the future, become useful. And of course there was never an opportunity to see his Queen alone, except at Confession. If he were to ask to see her, it would immediately raise suspicions.
Well, let them weigh and measure. He was no fool, and he was perfectly content to hold his tongue and only speak when he was sure of his words. If any man chose to try a more physical approach, he’d be ready for him, too.
The sun was fading already, he saw. This was an awful time of year. The trees over at the riverbank opposite were all denuded of leaves as though dead. To his eye, the whole countryside looked barren. Skeletal boughs thrust upwards, foul and rotten in their nakedness. Even those plants that retained a few leaves were brown at the edges as though they had been touched with a scorching chill. All was disgusting. It reminded him each year of God’s bounty when he looked at this — and he understood the pagan fear that spring might never return. All the peasants felt it, especially as their teeth started to pain them, and the gums to bleed, as the winter scurvy took its toll.
Not here at court, though. Peter sighed. Spring would come, no matter the outcome of all this plotting. Bishop John had been most insistent that he should come here: he wanted someone in the palace who could listen to the Queen and help her, someone who was above the temptation to take a bribe to see her poisoned. And someone who could maintain certain lines of communication with her.
Such as delivering little notes.
They had a system now. When there was something urgent, he would pass it to her praying hands during Communion, and she’d read it with a face like stone, the little slip of paper sitting in her cupped hands as he passed her the bread, taking it back from her as she sipped the wine and concealing it in his little towel. This time in particular, he was impressed with her resolution. Her face did not change. She could have been a housewife reading a missive from her husband directing her not to forget to feed the chickens, for all the impact that note had apparently had upon her. There was little to show how devastating it was.
Soon after that, she had left him with a gracious nod, swirling from the room with my Lady Eleanor in attendance, the other women about her. Brother Peter noted Mabilla watching the poor lady closely, as if she expected the Queen to run off at any moment. Others, like that little strumpet Alicia, were much more keen on eyeing up Peter himself. She always seemed to have a little curl of her lips for him, and waggled her arse all the way up the passage to the chapel’s door in flagrant temptation. Aye, she had somehow picked up that he was no better than he should be. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Bishop needed someone with certain … skills here, Peter knew he would never have been given this job. No, he’d have been left to rot in gaol, where he rightfully belonged.
As he polished the goblet, he eyed his reflection in the shining gilt. His dark eyes stared back at him, serious and contemplative, and filled with self-loathing. Well, at least he had passed on the message. She could do what she wanted with it now.
When she was gone, he had reread the message concealed in his towel. As usual, he was going to eat the little scrap of paper, to deprive unfriendly eyes of the sight of the close, neat writing, but he paused when he saw those words.
My Lady, beware! Sir H plans your murder.
It was dark now. Full dark, with the moon hidden behind a cloud that shimmered every so often with the light it concealed, like a floating ball of silk. This was the kind of night Jack atte Hedge liked. An assassin craved the dark.
He was clad in dark brown hosen and a gipon he had bought in Southwark. It was very tight-fitting, as the modern fashion demanded, and he had dulled its colours by immersing it in the mud of the river for some hours. The stain had made it as dark as the hosen, although not actually black. He disliked black. Many years before, he had noticed that a black dog on a dark night was easy to see — but a brown or grey dog, that was impossible, even from a moderately short distance. So when he took up his new occupation, he decided to make use of that discovery.
He was on the far side of the River Tyburn. It was a strange little river, this. The Abbey monks had only a short while ago had it extensively reworked, apparently, in order to make it more easily navigable, or maybe to make the tidal wheel work the better on their mill. There was no boat or bridge here, but he’d only come here to observe, nothing more.