Not that their charge was any better. The Queen was a devious and vengeful woman. Alicia was convinced that Isabella would be cruelty personified if she should ever come to power. Which was part of the reason why she was happy to take messages from the Queen occasionally. Perhaps in years to come, her kindness would be remembered.
Alicia allowed a sneer to mar her pretty features. No. She’d be stuck here with the Queen for many long years until they were both old and raddled hags. There would be no peace for them here. Not ever.
At the door to the chapel was a guard. She recognised him at once, of course. Richard Blaket was a good man. He’d been respectful to her as well as to the Queen when she’d been here before. Perhaps if he had been of even moderately good birth, she would have considered him as a mate.
He had the looks. Fairly tall, but not too tall. Bright, dark eyes, almost black, set in a long and humorous face that always seemed to light up when he saw Alicia. It was the sort of look that a girl desperate for a little male attention could hardly miss.
It was the same today. As soon as he saw her, his face softened and his stance altered imperceptibly. ‘Maid Alicia.’
‘Lady Alicia to you,’ she responded tartly.
‘Oho, yes. My Lady.’
And although she should have been angry at his taunting tone, it lightened her mood a little as she brushed past him and marched into the chapel.
Lydford, Devon
Here, at the edge of Lydford, the town was set atop a little ridge that ran roughly east-west from Dartmoor. Behind the stable was a track, invisible from the house, which led down to a hillside paddock under a line of trees. Simon took this track now, hurrying down until he reached the paddock, where he paused and watched his horses.
For all his amusement in the presence of his wife, he knew that this election had put his job at risk.
For many years he had been a contented Bailiff on the moors, working to maintain the peace between tinminers and landowners, upholding the law among two irascible and sometimes irrational groupings. Yet for all the headaches and strife, that had been easier than his last position. In order to reward him for his devotion and loyalty, the good Abbot Robert had given him a post in Dartmouth, as the Abbot’s own representative as Keeper of the Port.
It should have been a marvellous opportunity. Anyone in Simon’s position would have managed to enrich themselves quickly, because all mariners were prepared to pay a small subsidy to him to ensure that their cargoes were dealt with expeditiously. And yet Simon could not grow keen on the job. He had been forced to leave his wife and children behind, which was a sore trial, and he found himself growing depressed with the daily grind of checking figures in long lists. He had no interest in lists.
And all the while he knew that his patron, the kindly Abbot Robert, was growing weaker. He was wasting away, and Simon was reluctant to add to his troubles by complaining about the job. No, he hoped that soon the Abbot would recover, and then Simon could ask for his old job back. Except Abbot Robert had not improved. One morning Simon had been called to his office to be told that the Abbot was dead, and that his own job was to be passed over to another.
Since then, apart from a short journey to Exeter, he had managed to remain here in Lydford, and he had adapted to the slower, calmer pace of life again. He had learned to accept that his daughter was gone for ever. Where once he had been proud of his little Edith, now it was a source of pride and pain that his occasionally gauche and gawky daughter was grown into a seventeen-year-old woman with all the fire and beauty of his wife. She was a child no longer.
His son had filled the gap. A more boisterous and careless boy could hardly be imagined. When Simon had left to take up the posting in Dartmouth, the child had been some twelve or eighteen months. Now the little monster was almost three, but he had a perpetual smile fixed to his face, and no matter what he got up to, people always looked on him with affection. Even when he got into the neighbour’s shed and opened the tap on her cider barrel, leaving it wide as he went out and emptying an entire nine gallons over their floor, the mistress was cold only towards Simon. For Perkin she reserved a special smile and a piece of sweetened bread.
The last months had been very happy. The Puttocks had enjoyed a pleasant Christmas and Simon had been hoping to be left alone with his wife and family, preparing their land for the scattering of crops. It was unreasonable for the Abbey to demand his aid again. Especially since it would be one monk bickering with another.
‘Mistress asks you to come up to the house.’
Simon started. He had been so deep in his gloomy ruminations that he hadn’t heard his servant Hugh arrive. ‘She said so?’
‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’
Hugh had recently been bereaved, and since then his nature, never better than truculent, had grown more aggressive. Simon understood him well, though, and merely nodded, sighing as he followed Hugh up the path back towards the house.
So which was it? The Abbot who’d been elected, calling on Simon to offer some form of support? Or the one whom Simon despised and felt sure would ruin the Abbey, John de Courtenay, whose plans would inevitably involve Simon befriending the new Abbot again and then betraying him.
Simon wanted nothing to do with either.
Lesser Hall, Thorney Island
Sir Hugh le Despenser bit at his inner lip as the King stood and stamped his foot. The man’s tantrums were as extreme and irrational as any child’s. The difference was, that he was the anointed King of the Realm, and anyone who dared to make fun of him could have his head removed. Even Sir Hugh was cautious when Edward was having one of his fits of petulant rage.
‘The bastards demand, you say?’ Edward roared. ‘The bastards demand that I submit? I suppose they won’t be happy until I’ve passed them the keys to this island and the keys to my treasury as well!’
Today his anger was not abnormal; indeed, since the shameful truce imposed on him by the French, it had grown ever more evident. Despenser remained seated. ‘Sire, since the King of France wishes only to reacquire all the lands of Guyenne at as little cost to his pocket as possible, it is scarcely to be wondered at.’
‘Do not think to lecture me!’ Edward bawled. Tall, fair, with the flowing hair of an angel and a manly beard, he was the epitome of a noble English knight. No one was better-looking than King Edward II, and he spent a lot of money ensuring that this remained the case, but his temper was that of a tyrant.
Sir Hugh le Despenser shrugged. ‘What do you say, Stratford?’
‘As you know, these proposals were thrashed out with the aid of the Pope’s envoys, my Lord. If I have failed you, I apologise, but it was the best I felt I could achieve.’
‘Summarise them again for me,’ the King snapped, sulkily turning his back to them.
‘Guyenne is entirely in the French King’s hands, my Lord. He says that the province could be returned to you if you do homage to him, and also grant him the Agenais and Ponthieu.’
‘So he would snatch all my territories, would he? I suppose he wants Thorney Island too, or is he prepared to leave that for me?’
Stratford rolled his eyes. He had read out the proposals and summarised them three times already. Still, one didn’t argue with the King. Taking a deep breath, he began again. ‘He has made three proposals. In effect all are connected, and you will have to agree to each being satisfactorily completed before the next takes place. First, he demands that you make over the Agenais and Ponthieu; second, he would return Guyenne — to be held from him, and for that you would have to do him homage; third, do so and he will consider giving you other lands, and will remove his direct control of Guyenne.’