‘Um, Baldwin, perhaps you should-’
‘I wish to pass on a message to the Earl of Chester,’ Baldwin said.
‘You can speak to me. You are Sir Baldwin, you say?’
Simon felt his heart plummet. Behind him came the clear voice, as yet unbroken, of a boy of tender years. Boys of that age could be capricious, dangerous, and when as powerful as this Earl of Chester, the first in line to the throne, they were still more lethal. Simon glowered at his friend, but Baldwin appeared oblivious.
‘I am honoured to meet you, my Lord,’ he said, bowing low as he would to the King. ‘I have a message for you from Her Royal Highness, your mother.’
‘You have seen my mother?’ The Earl’s excitement was unfeigned and so eager was he, that Simon forgot his fear of upsetting the boy. He sounded so much like other lads he had heard in his home town when they had news of long-departed fathers.
The Earl of Chester was an extraordinarily good-looking boy, he saw. Fair-haired, with his hair held long, much like his father, he had the ease in the saddle of a man who spent much of his time hunting. He was quite powerfully built, too, with the shoulders and neck of a lad much older. It must be due to all his practising with sword and lance, Simon told himself. It had paid off well. Already, although the lad was very young, Simon could see that he would be a dangerous opponent.
Now, though, his blue eyes were fixed on Baldwin with a strange intensity. He was much like an older man in that, too. Simon would get to realise that this fellow would concentrate on a man like a philosopher on an abstruse concept, reading and rereading the person until he felt he understood him. Perhaps living in a household with two strong, powerful, but sadly out of love and opposed parents would do that to a boy. He would feel a great urge to understand people.
‘Speak, sir!’
Baldwin nodded. ‘Your mother asked us to say that she hopes you are strong and healthy, that you remember your lessons, and that you pray for her with as much affection and love as she uses when praying for you. She said to say that she misses you sorely, and that she is desperate to see you again. She said to send you her love.’
The Earl smiled and the tension seemed to leave him in an instant. ‘I knew that she would not have forgotten me. When you return to her, please tell her from me that-’
‘My Lord, I fear we are not returning to Paris,’ Baldwin said hurriedly. ‘We have spent too much time away from our lands already. We have wives, and cannot leave them any longer.’
‘Lands? Do you not have stewards? And wives? My retainers all have to leave them behind. It is a part of service. No, when you return to her, I shall have a message for you to take. For now, though, you may leave me.’
And thus dismissed by the haughty Earl, Baldwin and Simon bowed and retreated before he could issue any more commands.
‘That was a happy experience,’ Simon said sarcastically.
‘Simon, what would you have had me do? Pretend that there was no message? What, then, when she returns and asks why he did not reply? We should have been in serious trouble, wouldn’t we?’
‘In God’s name, though … you don’t think he will send us back, do you?’
‘There is every possibility of it, I fear.’
‘Dear God! How can we escape it?’
Baldwin looked at him with slow deliberation as they paused at the door to the tavern at the gate once more. There was an enormity of shock in his eyes, like a man who bent to stroke a small lap-dog, only to be bitten by the mastiff behind. ‘All I did was pass on her message.’
‘You had best start thinking about how we can avoid this, Baldwin. We cannot run from our wives again,’ Simon said seriously, as he thought of the man released from the Bishop’s gaol. ‘Let’s have a quick drink to stiffen the sinews, and then find the Bishop and ask his advice.’
‘Advice?’ Baldwin said doubtfully.
‘He knows politics and he knows Despenser. Who else can we turn to?’
Wattere had seen the two approaching, and had hurriedly slipped away, leaving the Bishop’s horse with a groom and moving swiftly along the courtyard to the gate which took him past the great hall, and down to the side door. Outside it, he found a guard who recognised him and was able to point him in the direction of the small chamber where Sir Hugh le Despenser was working.
Despenser was standing at his table, barking questions at his clerks. He did not turn as Wattere opened the door, plainly assuming that whoever could have entered his chamber was little threat to him. However, one of the clerks did make a gesture towards him, and suddenly his master turned to face him. An eyebrow rose in sardonic amusement at the sight of him.
‘So you didn’t enjoy your stay at the Bishop’s pleasure?’
‘He kept me in his gaol! Like a common thief!’
‘When you are nothing of the sort, are you? There is little common about you, my friend. You are a very special form of thief.’
Wattere said nothing, but watched Despenser coolly.
‘Did you manage to evict that bailiff? No. Did you upset the knight? No again. You do not strike me as a particularly successful functionary.’
‘I did do well at first, but I didn’t expect the knight to arrive with the bailiff, and both with other men too. I had expected the man to back down quickly. Men usually do when they know that they are against you, my Lord.’
‘Yes. They do. But it’s dangerous to make assumptions about men like them. They can be fairly ruthless. What have you done to your hand?’
‘It was the bailiff. He caught me. A lucky strike.’
‘Heavens, he has been fortunate, hasn’t he? What a lucky fellow,’ Despenser said. Then he took a swift pace forward and leaned in close. ‘And you are not, are you? Once you were lucky, but now, clearly, you are not. I think I have no need for fools who can’t obey a simple order and then get themselves caught. Jesus, you even gave them your ballocks, didn’t you? You let them bring in my Lord Bishop Walter to hear your confession!’
‘That means nothing now, though.’
‘Doesn’t it? Oh, so you think that you can fight them here, and outwit them? When the good bishop is here too, and can vouch for them and denounce you? Do you think that would be a good idea?’
‘I think-’
‘I don’t care what you think!’ Despenser spat. ‘Get out of my sight. I may find a use for you, but for now, you had best avoid me, fool. I’ll call you when the privy needs to be emptied.’
William Wattere nodded and left the room quietly. He felt entirely crushed. In the past he had always been highly regarded as efficient and now he was close to losing his post in his master’s household.
And his forearm was still stinging.
Despenser was often accused by the King of being a marvellous actor, of being able to feign almost any emotion at will, but he was not acting today. He was consumed with anger at the way the fool Wattere had let himself be captured, especially since his gaoler was the Bishop upon whom he most depended just now. The state required that he and Stapledon work together effectively.
‘Get out!’ he snapped at the two clerks, and aimed a kick at the slower of the two as they hurriedly scurried from the room.
He walked to the table again and leaned on both hands, his elbows locked, staring down at the boards.
‘Too many problems, too many problems,’ he told himself quietly, still simmering gently after his meeting with Wattere.
It was not only that bailiff Puttock and the knight. He had too much to consider, what with the issue of the Queen and what she might be doing abroad, the rebel Mortimer and what he was up to, the Scots, and now this matter about the oil. He still had no idea what had happened to it, but he needed it for the King and the bolstering of the King’s reign.