Son of the Morning (17 page)

‘I’d like to see the room where Edward died.’

Berkeley put down his knife. ‘Go to Corfe, then.’

Montagu felt his mouth go dry as he heard the answer. Corfe. Where Lockey had come from. Where he had claimed to have seen the dragon and old Edward.

‘The king died here.’

‘No.’

‘That was the accusation.’

‘No. The accusation was that I conspired in the king’s death. I did not, and that was accepted by our new king and Parliament. The stain on the reputation of Berkeley castle, however, was not removed by my acquittal.’

‘So he didn’t die here?’

‘What did I say when I was tried in Parliament?’

‘It was a long time ago, Thomas. I can’t recall the exact words.’

‘I bloody well can. I said I never knew that the king was dead until I received the summons for his murder.’

‘But I have never heard anyone say he wasn’t killed here.’

‘Then you’ve not been listening to me. You think I’d have noticed something like that happening in my own home. I’m not the most attentive man, William, but even I would notice the corpse of the reigning monarch, and man I was charged to protect, in my best guest room. It’s the sort of thing that takes the eye.’

Berkeley’s cheeks were florid, shaking like a hound catching scent of an intruder.

‘You were ill and you weren’t here, I remember you said that. You had gone to your manor to recuperate. You said in your deposition that you nearly died.’

‘So I did.’

‘What did you have?’

‘A fever.’

‘And you travelled to your manor like that?’

‘I thought it best to spare the king the chance of infection by leaving the castle. I went away and I prayed hard and I was delivered.’

‘That is a blessing. Which saint interceded for you?

‘Irenaeus. I’d sent word ahead to provide a feast for his day and the offering worked.’

‘The king died on the Feast of St Alban of Mainz. That’s a week earlier. It took you a week to travel 40 miles to your manor?’

‘Have you come to my home to retry me?’ said Berkeley.

Montagu studied Berkeley. He knew him well enough. He was an artless, eager to serve sort who had worshipped the ground on which the old king walked. He would not have left while the king was under his roof. He would have considered it a dishonour to Edward.

He also knew that he must have regarded himself as very lucky to have escaped execution for what had happened. Then an idea struck Montagu – Berkeley had not been acquitted of all charges relating to the death of the old king.

‘Were you ever acquitted of appointing Gurney and Ockley? They were working for you when they murdered Edward.’

‘I was not acquitted. The charge remains. No one has acted upon it these ten years but for all I know the king could resurrect it tomorrow.’

‘I should attend to that, when I return to Westminster,’ said Montagu. He was ambiguous enough that Berkeley could take his words either way. Montagu was Edward’s closest friend. His implication to Berkeley was clear. With a word he could damn him. Berkeley chose the positive interpretation of Montagu’s words.

‘I’m flattered that you are so concerned for my welfare. Those men were my retainers, true. But Mortimer was old Edward’s retainer. A servant doesn’t always do what his master says.’

Montagu thought Berkeley had a point. However, he pressed his advantage. ‘You prosper here, Thomas, your lands are bountiful and you still even own much of Kent, no matter that it was given to you by the usurper Mortimer.’

Berkeley heard the unspoken question. ‘I have friends still, William. Or one friend who counts very much. If I prosper it is because the king wishes it.’

‘Does Edward know his father left here?’

Berkeley exhaled heavily.

‘Shall we speak frankly?’ said Montagu. ‘I think you are innocent. I think there was no attack on Edward here. Did your men even kill him at all?’

Berkeley thought for a long time before replying. ‘Like you said, it was a long time ago.’

‘Did he go to Corfe from here? Was the king held at Corfe?’

‘Not on my authority.’

‘Is that the same as a “no”?’

Berkeley stabbed at his chop with his knife. ‘I tried to get him out of my custody. I wouldn’t be party to murdering the man whom God had set on the throne.’

Though you did nothing to oppose it,
thought Montagu. Many would have done the same. Not Montagu. He saw his duty clearly and always did it without fail.

‘So you moved him?’

‘No. He moved.’

‘The difference being?’

‘My men did not take him. Others did.’

‘What others?’

Berkeley put his head up, looked down his nose at Montagu. ‘These questions would be better addressed elsewhere. I have answered before my peers, now I decline to be tried by you alone.’

‘I’m not trying you, Tom. Do you think I’m asking these questions for my amusement? Believe me, as a man you know to be honest, when I say that the fate of the realm rests on your answers. Please, Tom. I’m not trying to send you after The Mortimer to hang at Tyburn.’

‘He went with some foreign knights. He called them here.’

‘How foreign? Gascons from his lands? Frenchmen? How foreign? In what way?’

‘Frenchmen. An ill-mannered lot. One of them was no more than a chandler’s son by his manner and speech.’

‘Whose knights?’

‘Hospitallers.’

‘Why them?’

‘I don’t know. He insisted on them.’

‘Why did he go with foreigners?’

‘I genuinely don’t know. There was talk here, of course.

‘What talk?’

‘That the queen had set a devil on him when she rebelled. He was trying to subdue it. He summoned his angel in our chapel, you know. The knights offered their help. They thought he might do better at Corfe.’

Montagu, normally an urbane man, put his hand up to his face. This tallied completely with the tale the servant from Corfe had told him.

‘Can I see the chapel?’

‘For all the good it’ll do you.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s been rebuilt. It burned down. The king burned it down.’

‘Deliberately?’

‘I have no idea. But it caught fire when he was in it. That’s why the knights thought to move him. God was not favouring him here.’

‘Thomas.’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you believe the old king to be dead?’

Berkeley glanced about him, as if fearing he would be overheard. ‘I’ve no reason to believe otherwise. Absolutely none at all. Mortimer had issued commands for his death; he went to Corfe under the custody of the knights but with Maltravers – Mortimer’s man. He killed him, didn’t he?’

‘So it was said.’

Montagu suddenly recalled – young Edward had charged some of the Knights Hospitaller with looking after his mother. He’d thought it was because of their great self-discipline and lack of connection to anyone his mother might know. He’d encountered them on crusade in Lithuania as a young man. As humourless and severe a bunch as you could wish to meet. Montagu had thought Edward had chosen them because he wished to confine his mother and reduce her influence to a minimum. The lady was famously beautiful and famously difficult to refuse. Her son had sought men who were resistant to her charms. But was there more to it? Could it be coincidence that the same order had been with the king when he left the castle?

Montagu took up his cup of wine and drained it. ‘Why not mention this at your trial?’

‘Legal defences are subtle. Best to keep the jury focused on one thing – did I kill the king or order his death? I had good counsel that this was all they needed to consider.’

‘So who did kill old Edward?’

Berkeley looked hard at him. ‘You don’t think he’s dead, William?’

‘I do,’ said Montagu, ‘because if he’s not dead then …’

‘Young Edward, willingly or not, is a usurper. But if that was the case, the angels would not come to him. He would be a neutered king, the victim of any rightful monarch who could call angels to the field.’

‘Exactly,’ said Montagu, ‘and the angels do attend the king. So I share your faith. I’m just not completely convinced the right men were hanged for it.’

‘Why does that trouble you?’

‘The real guilty ones may have walked free. You know me, Tom, I don’t forget these things easily. But I do wonder what the Hospitallers were doing with our king.’

‘Why don’t you ask them? Castle Rising is not so far.’

‘The king forbids access to his mother. You know that.’

‘Not to the knights who guard her.’

‘That path is too rocky and strewn with briars,’ said Montagu. ‘They are friends of the king. And Edward has made his wishes clear.’

‘Probably for the best, she is famously persuasive,’ said Berkeley.

Montagu drew in breath. Isabella. As a younger man he had feared to look at her lest his lust for her show on his face. More than lust, devotion. Plenty of knights went mooning after unobtainable women but Montagu was not one of them. He was a lousy poet and wasn’t about to denigrate his feelings in doggerel verse or attempt to sing to her. She was his age but the king’s mother – beautiful and untouchable as a star.

Berkeley picked at some meat in his teeth. ‘There’s always Maltravers.’

‘He’s dead,’ said Montagu.

‘Is he?’

‘Edward told me himself.’

‘But I hear …’ Berkeley shrugged.

‘Yes?’

‘Gaunt’s nice at this time of year.’

Montagu could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

‘Why don’t you tell the king where Maltravers is?’

‘Perhaps he knows.’

Montagu turned away a servant who offered him a plate of sugared pastries.

‘He killed Edward’s father.’ Edward had been known to bash men’s brains out at tournaments for the merest slight.

‘That’s what they said.’

Montagu struggled to take all this in. All right, say Maltravers was alive.

Could he have something over Edward? If he knew the old king was alive then young Edward would not want to bring him before a court, risking the information coming out. Perhaps better that Maltravers disappeared somewhere. But why not just have him killed? A word to the Count of Hainault and his throat would be cut. Did Maltravers have some secret protector? Had someone some power over the king to stay his hand?

Montagu looked hard at Berkeley. Two men, Maltravers and Berkeley, suspected yet unpunished. There was some secret, but Montagu was realistic enough to know that, whatever it was, he was never going to get it out of Berkeley. Not directly, anyway.

Montagu needed to get a letter to his wife at the court. She was friends with Queen Philippa and could sound out the lady subtly to discover what she knew. It wasn’t impossible that Edward had been in some way compromised by Maltravers. Oh God. If Maltravers knew Edward was a usurper. If he had letters placed with persons unknown to be released upon his death. At the very least, with England’s angels missing, it would raise very awkward questions.

Montagu knew he was playing a dangerous game. He would need to tread carefully. He affected insouciance. ‘I suppose it might not sit well with the king if I see Maltravers.’

‘Does the king need to know, William? Great men sometimes don’t know what’s good for them, and we who serve behind them must do so cloaked and concealed. So I served Edward the elder against the tyrant Mortimer.’

Served him! Served him up, more like.

‘And so you now serve Edward the younger. He may never know of your help, or may even misconstrue your actions, but still you serve.’

Montagu looked out on the hall. The minstrels were coming out to a great cheer from the lower men at the poorer tables. He wasn’t in the mood for music. ‘I should get to bed. I’ve had a long ride.’

‘Of course,’ said Berkeley. He stood and clapped his hands and the hall rose to bid Montagu goodnight.

5

Dow managed to carry the lady all the way back to the priest’s house. Orsino was at the gate and, seeing Dow, came running towards him.

‘Christ, you’re covered in blood. What’s been happening?’

Dow opened his mouth revealing the bloody mess within.

‘Where have you been? How did you get out? What happened to you? Who’s this? What have you done to her?’ Orsino’s eyes were fixed on the woman. He crossed himself repeatedly. For a man who kept his head under any attack, Orsino looked very near to panic. He touched the woman’s shoulder, a gesture of deep tenderness. Then he put his fingertips to her mouth. ‘She’s breathing! But she’s frozen, boy. Get her in and build up a fire!’

Dow carried the woman past Orsino into the garden.

Edwin was there, a short whip in his hand. He went to touch the woman and then drew back.

‘What have you done to her, you unbeliever?’

‘There’ll be time enough for that, priest,’ said Orsino. ‘She needs care. Move her to your chamber.’

‘That’s not seemly,’ said the priest.

‘Fair enough,’ said Orsino, ‘I’ll drag your mattress down, shall I? And you can sleep on the bare boards?’

‘That would be preferable. She must be a slut or she’d not have her hair uncovered so.’

‘Stop that talk!’ Orsino rounded on the priest and took him by the throat. Dow had never even seen him angry before – warlike, yes, aggressive, certainly, but always in control. Here he was a madman, his face drained of colour, his lips pulled back in a snarl.

Edwin was not an easy man to intimidate. ‘A goodwoman would not loose her hair. A goodwoman would not be in a position where she would invite attack. I don’t want her in this house for long.’

‘She won’t be in your shithole for long!’ said Orsino. He tossed the priest onto his arse and strode inside the house.

The priest glared at the lady, then got up to go inside. Something about her had disturbed Edwin. What? Her beauty? Priests were supposed to stay away from women. The Devil’s Men said that Lucifer had sent his mind from the Fortress of Dis in Free Hell to speak to the first pope, to charm him and make sure that his evil following had no offspring. The priests did not stay away from women, though – even in the tiny communities of Cornwall where many a cuckolded husband had come to the Devil’s Men to gain his revenge.