The room reeked of sour ale and wine and shit from the privy too, the stench only partly tempered by the little fire in the hearth at the middle of the room. Its smoke removed the worst of the smell, but the acrid fumes attacked the nostrils and throat.
He checked the place. It seemed safe enough. He stepped down from the doorway onto the six-inch block of wood that served as a step, and then strolled over to a bench. A grizzled man, probably only in his thirties, although he looked more like fifty with his pallid complexion and bloodshot eyes, was sweeping up some rushes. The stained and filthy towel tied about his waist showed he was the master of the place, just as the sagging flesh of his face spoke of his fondness for the ales sold there.
‘Ale,’ William said.
The man turned and surveyed him, nodded, and ambled unhurriedly to the back of the room where a pair of barrels were racked against the wall. He drew off a large jugful and brought it to William, together with a green-painted drinking horn made of pottery.
William watched him as the innkeeper moved about the place. His slowness was a studied insult to a man like him who was used to the swift service of esquires and heralds in the King’s host.
It was a long time since he had been free of the trappings of the King’s service. Starting out from Exeter with King Edward I in 1285, he had thought that he might, if he was fortunate, manage to eke out some sort of existence within the royal household.
Of course, that was the present King Edward II’s father, Edward I, and life was different in those days. The old man was alarming back then — in his mid-forties, tall, imposing and severe; you were well-advised to keep to the right side of his temper. When the mood took him, he was a vicious bastard. He even ripped the hair out of his son’s head in handfuls, so it was said, when they had one of their rows — probably over that vacuous bolster-head Piers Gaveston. Most of their later quarrels were over him.
The old King was a real man. Strong, quick to take offence, slow to forgive or forget, and he could scare any of the barons in the land. He was utterly ruthless, and the devil with any man who stood in his way. Still, for William he had been a good master.
He had noticed William when the latter had explained about the South Gate to the city and how it had been left open. That was during the trial of the Chaunter’s murderers, and the implication was obvious to the meanest intelligence: the city was complicit in the assassination. Only with the connivance of the city’s oligarchs could the killers have had the gate opened in order to guarantee their escape after curfew.
Standing up like that in his own city to denounce his neighbours, that had taken courage, and the King had seen it. He admired it, too. A man who’d stand against all his past friends to help the King, that was a man of loyalty … or greed. Either way, it was enough to make him useful to the King.
Soon after the ending of the trial, when the King left Exeter, he took Will with him. He joined the King’s host, and climbed the ladder of opportunity whenever he could. Under King Edward I he became an infantry constable, a post with which he was well-satisfied, and when King Edward II took the throne in 1307, within two years Will found himself a Royal Yeoman. He never was too sure what had led to that, because he hadn’t got on very well with the new monarch, but he supposed it was something to do with Edward’s needing allies. Everyone seemed to dislike him. He had begun his reign in a promising way, taking over the realm to general acclaim and delight, because he was a tall handsome lad, and people were sick of the austerity of his father’s rule. All military clothes and no style — if it wasn’t practical, Edward I wasn’t interested. The young Edward, however, wanted fun!
Actors, jugglers, singers, troubadours … all came to see and entertain him, and when he was particularly enamoured, he’d join in and perform with them. At first, this pleased some of his subjects but then a sourness started to settle. His frivolity angered the churchmen, who muttered about his excesses, and his barons looked on him disrespectfully, comparing him unfavourably with his father.
Then came the ignominious disaster of the invasion of Scotland, and Robert Bruce’s repulsion of the English at Bannockburn.
Ach, William could remember that well enough. He’d been one of the hungry foot-soldiers there, standing with his pikemen at his sides, waiting, and seeing the knights all go down in the pock-marked swamp. They did not stand a chance. The Scots bastards stood back and fired at them with their bows, then formed into groups of pikemen, the points outthrust like a hedgehog’s back, and none of the knights could penetrate their defence. Not that many of them got that far: most fell in the mud and drowned or were slaughtered where they lay, incapable of rising in their armour, their mounts thrashing at their sides with their legs broken in the pits dug by the Scots. It wasn’t a good battle. Will and his men had been lucky to escape without a serious mauling.
After that, his star waxed full marvellously. King Edward had granted him the custody of Odiham Castle with the men-at-arms who resided there, twenty-one squires and their pages, even though William wasn’t of knightly rank. And there he’d remained, occasionally answering the King’s calls to go to war, once falling out with the King when he tested his skills by using a writ of the Privy Seal to thieve a manor from the widow of a knight. He’d won, though, in the end. The King had need of trained fighters, especially men who could be trusted with a company behind them.
War had been good to Will. He’d made his fortune several times, and if he lost it afterwards, well, that was what money was for. He wasn’t going to complain.
Still, when he realised that his sore joints and scars were making him unfit to fight, the idea of coming back here to his old home was attractive. Even if there might be one or two who still bore him a grudge because of the way he had fingered Alured de Porta, the city’s Mayor, and the Southern Gatekeeper, pointing out that only their incompetence or their active support could have led to the gate being left wide open for the killers to escape. So Alured was taken out and hanged on the feast of Saint Stephen, the day after Christmas. A shame — he was a pleasant enough fellow. But when the murderers had all escaped, apart from the vicars and novices in the Cathedral of course, the King had to pick someone who could be punished symbolically on behalf of the whole city. The Mayor was the best and most fitting victim. Nothing personal.
Will filled and drained his horn three times while he waited, considering again his long life and the many battles in which he had participated, the men he had killed. Some had died in the angry heat of warfare, while others had expired more quietly in little green lanes when they had least expected it — and when their deaths could benefit him most directly. All those bodies were in his memory, available instantly to be called to his mind, and he smiled as he recalled some of them: the weaker ones who pleaded with him; those who tried to flee; those who brazened it out, lying to him in order to secure their freedom. Some of those were the most memorable. All had helped him. While he removed their lives, he also took their purses.
Only when the third horn was empty did he hear the door open and, glancing up, see the figure he expected. ‘At last.’
‘I can’t drink that stuff. I need some wine.’
‘You look as though you need more than wine,’ he said fondly.
Mabilla stared at him, and her expression froze his blood. It was a look of pure, intense hatred.
‘Why do you look at me that way?’ he almost stuttered. ‘It’s me, your William …’
‘How did you think I should look?’ she hissed malevolently. ‘I’m a widow now, because of you! It was you, wasn’t it? You murdered my Henry!’
Chapter Nine