The Tintern Treasure (30 page)

‘I know nothing about the fate of the lords Edward and Richard Plantagenet,' I answered quietly. ‘But I do know something about the character of the king.' I did indeed. I might as well admit it. ‘And knowing that, I can assure you that these vicious rumours are untrue.'

Brother Hilarion pressed my arm. ‘You relieve my mind, Roger. I have always considered him a good man, and I should be loath to think him capable of such a heinous sin. But if you assure me that all is well . . .'

He let the sentence hang and I realized despairingly that with every word I spoke I only confirmed his opinion of my standing at the court. I would do better to hold my tongue. I was just about to turn the conversation into safer channels when my companion did it for me.

‘So, I repeat, what brings you here?'

‘Do I have to have a reason? I might just have walked as far as this on my travels and decided to renew our acquaintance.'

‘Friendship,' he amended and then chuckled. ‘No, no! That's not your way, Roger. There was always a purpose to everything you did. I'm not deceived.'

‘True,' I admitted. ‘You never were. I need to pick your brains.'

He smiled delightedly. ‘And so you shall. If I can be of any help to you, I will be. But first, come and pay your respects to Father Abbot. He'll wish to see you, but we won't stay too long. His time is much taken up at present with this latest dispute with Canterbury. You can guess what about.'

I threw back my head and gave a shout of laughter, much to the disapproval of other brothers exercising in the cloister, two of whom turned their heads to frown at me and mutter angrily under their breath.

‘You're not still arguing as to who has the real set of St Dunstan's bones? Is the matter still not resolved after all these years?'

Brother Hilarion looked offended and withdrew his hand from my arm. ‘No, and never will be, Roger, so long as Canterbury disputes our claim.'

‘But he was Archbishop of Canterbury and died there,' I argued.

My companion sniffed contemptuously. ‘And he was Abbot of Glastonbury here in his own home county long before that. He naturally requested that his body should be brought home for burial as any good Somerset man would. It's obvious.'

‘But not to Canterbury,' I murmured. Brother Hilarion, however, fortunately did not hear me.

‘There is no doubt whatsoever that ours are the true set of bones,' he stated flatly and in a tone that brooked no further argument.

I took the hint and allowed him to conduct me to the abbot without further ado.

John Selwood had been Abbot of Glastonbury since I was four years old, and would remain so for another decade. Before that he had been Receiver to two previous abbots, and in this autumn of 1483 was beginning to display some of that unreasoning impatience and irascibility that comes with old age. But he had always been very kind to me and had shown understanding and tolerance when, twelve years previously, I had cut short my novitiate to take to a life on the open road. He greeted me now with every courtesy in spite of his being in the middle of dictating a letter to his secretary, enquired after my health, my circumstances and my family, and invited me to find a bed for the night in his own lodging house. But he was plainly preoccupied and I did not linger, happy to let Brother Hilarion shepherd me out once again into the late afternoon chill of the November day.

It was with a sinking heart that I recollected the monks' main meal had passed some hours earlier (my chief and most abiding memory of my years at the abbey was of desperate, gnawing hunger), but Brother Hilarion took me to the abbot's own kitchen and there begged and cajoled the lay brother in charge to feed me. After making a fuss just for the sheer principle of the thing, this toplofty individual unbent to such a degree that he warmed up a large bowl of pottage over the fire, served me with half a chicken carcass, still with plenty of meat on its bones, and rounded off this princely repast with a dish of figs and honey and goat's milk cheese, all washed down with several cups of the abbey's delicious sweet cider.

Thus fortified, I returned with Brother Hilarion to his cell where he should have spent the time in prayer and preparation for the coming service of Compline, but instead invited me to tell him the reason for my visit. So I put my pack and cudgel in a corner and sat down beside him on the edge of the hard, narrow stone ledge that, with a single blanket and straw-filled pillow, served as his bed. (Another reminder of the discomfort and self-deprivation that had convinced me that a monk's life was not for me.) I then started at the beginning and went on until I had come to the end of the story so far.

‘An interesting tale,' he said slowly when I had finished. ‘But what is it exactly that you want from me?'

‘Your scholarship and learning. When the carter, Joseph Sibley, mentioned that he was coming here, I suddenly thought of you. I was hoping that you might be able to unravel the mystery of the men who sought shelter at Tintern Abbey all those long years ago. The year mentioned was 1326. Do you have any notion of what was happening then? Who those men might possibly have been?'

Brother Hilarion chewed his upper lip while he marshalled his thoughts.

‘The year of Our Lord one thousand, three hundred and twenty-six,' he murmured over to himself. ‘Yes.' He fell silent while I contained my impatience as best I could. After perhaps another half minute he said slowly, ‘This fragment of diary that was discovered under the floor in the former abbot's lodging mentioned four men, you say?'

I searched my memory, desperately trying to recall the exact wording.

I said, at last, ‘I remember it said that “they came last night” and two others with them, one of whom was called Reading and the other . . . Baldock, Yes, that was it. Baldock! For some reason my assumption was that the second pair – the ones named – were not so important. It was just the impression I got.'

My companion nodded to himself. Then he asked, ‘And you say that this knight is called Despenser?'

‘Sir Lionel Despenser, yes.'

‘And the groom you mentioned, the one you think may have been murdered, was named Gurney?'

‘Yes, yes!'

‘And he boasted that his family was linked to this Sir Lionel's in some way or another?'

‘So I've been told. But not in recent years, you understand. Sometime in the past.' I curbed my desire to take my former mentor by the shoulders and shake the information out of him. Not that it would have done any good. Brother Hilarion had always proceeded at his own pace, making sure that he had the facts right in his own head before imparting any knowledge to others.

Now he nodded yet again, finally demanding in his best dominie's voice, ‘What do you know about the second Edward?'

Immediately, in my mind's eye, I was back in Gloucester Abbey standing by the ornate marble sarcophagus built, as so much of the surrounding edifice had been, on the proceeds of the offerings of pilgrims who had come to pay their respects at Edward's tomb.

‘I know he practiced the vice of the Greeks. That he preferred men to women, in spite of being the father of four children.'

A faint flush mantled Brother Hilarion's cheeks, but he admitted bravely, ‘Yes, that was his great sin. Some blame may be laid at his father's door, I think. The first Edward – Longshaks, the Hammer of the Scots, whatever one chooses to call him – was a great warrior. (As, of course, was his grandson, the third Edward.) To have a son like the second Edward must have been a bitter pill for him to swallow. There is written evidence to show that the latter, as a young man, was treated with great harshness and contempt by his father. And God knows, he paid for his sins. His murder in Berkeley Castle was hideous.' My companion shuddered. ‘I find it impossible to imagine how his gaolers could have devised such a death.'

I said nothing, but found it entirely plausible. A red-hot poker thrust up their victim's anus to burn out his bowels would have appealed strongly to their sense of humour: surely an appropriate death for one whose chief lovers had been men.

‘One of those gaolers,' Brother Hilarion went on quietly, ‘was a Sir Thomas Gurney.'

‘Gurney?'

‘Yes. The others were Sir John Maltravers and Thomas of Berkeley himself.'

‘Gurney?' I repeated again.

‘This groom you mentioned, this Walter Gurney, may well be a descendant.'

‘And his connection with Sir Lionel Despenser?'

Brother Hilarion eased his shoulders and wriggled his thin flanks against the hard stone. ‘Edward,' he said, ‘had two lovers to whom he was devoted. One was the Gascon, Piers Gaveston. He was the first and most beloved. “Brother Perrot,” Edward called him, and would have given him the moon if he could have got it for him. As it was, Piers had to be content with most of the great cofferfuls of jewels the Princess Isabella brought with her from France when she became Queen of England after her marriage to the king at Boulogne.'

‘What happened to the Gascon?'

‘Eventually, he was murdered by the barons who resented his influence over Edward. They hoped that with Gaveston's death, the king would amend his ways.'

‘But he didn't?'

‘Of course not. The barons were fools to think that he would. He found another lover on whom to lavish his affection. Hugh le Despenser.'

‘Despenser?' I demanded excitedly. ‘You think Sir Lionel might be a descendant of this Hugh?'

‘It's possible.' Brother Hilarion was cautious. ‘He might not be a direct descendant, of course, although I seem to recall that the younger Hugh was married and had children.'

‘The younger Hugh?'

‘He had a father of the same name who became Edward's chief adviser. Both men were greatly resented by the barons, as I suppose I don't need to tell you.'

‘What happened to them?'

‘Not so fast, my child. Queen Isabella, as you may well imagine, deeply resented her treatment at the hands of her husband. She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, having inherited the good looks of her father, Philippe le Bel of France, and in the beginning, she was known as Isabella the Fair.'

‘And later?' Something stirred in my memory. ‘Was she the queen known as the She-Wolf of France?'

Brother Hilarion gave a long drawn out sigh, obviously sorrowing for the weaknesses of mankind. ‘Yes,' he agreed sadly. ‘Her beauty was not the only thing she inherited from her father. Philippe IV had a cruel, ruthless streak in him, as his vicious suppression of the Templars demonstrates. Isabella inherited that streak. But again, we are getting ahead of ourselves in the story.

‘Edward was due to go to France to do homage to his brother-in-law, King Charles, for the fiefs of Gascony and Ponthieu. But he was afraid to go; afraid of leaving the two Despensers without his protection. And so he did a very foolish thing. He sent Isabella as his deputy along with their elder son, the thirteen-year-old Edward of Windsor.'

‘Ah!' I exclaimed, memory stirring once more. ‘If I remember rightly, she met a man and fell passionately in love.'

The little monk pursed his lips and stared down his nose. ‘She was a married woman,' he said repressively, ‘and a mother four times over. She should have had more control. But you're right. The great Marcher lord, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, had been at the French court ever since Edward had sent him into exile for some misdemeanour – fancied or otherwise – and he was as eager for revenge on Edward as Isabella herself. Their love affair became so open, so unbridled, so scandalous, that they were ordered to leave France. So they went to Hainault, betrothed young Edward to the count's daughter, Phillipa, and set out to invade England with an army of Hainaulters and mercenaries.

‘The English, sick and tired of the king and his minions, welcomed them with open arms. Edward's supporters were murdered, including Bishop Stapledon of Exeter, his head hacked off with a butcher's knife on the Cheapside cobbles. Edward and the Despensers fled westward to Bristol, along with Edward's Chancellor, Baldock and a clerk of the court, Simon Reading.'

‘Baldock and Reading,' I said excitedly. ‘The names in the diary.'

Brother Hilarion nodded. ‘The citizens of Bristol declared for the queen and Mortimer, managed to seize the elder Despenser and hanged him from the castle walls. Afterwards, they cut his body into collops and fed him to the wild dogs which scavenge for food on the heights above the city.'

I choked. Perhaps one of Hercules's ancestors had been fed on these remnants of human flesh.

‘Go on,' I muttered thickly to my companion, who was regarding me with concern, although by now I could work out for myself the end of the story.

‘Are you sure you wish me to?' Brother Hilarion asked. ‘It's a most unpleasant tale and you look a little queasy.'

‘No, no! I'm quite all right. Please continue,' I urged him.

‘Well, there's not much more to tell. Edward, the younger Despenser, Reading and Baldock escaped by the city's Water Gate and reached the coast of Wales on the other side of the Severn. From there they went first to Tintern Abbey where, according to tradition, they stayed two nights, and then on to Neath Abbey where they lingered too long and were finally captured by Isabella's and Mortimer's troops. The favourite was hanged, drawn and quartered at Hereford, while the king was imprisoned firstly at Kenilworth and then at Berkeley Castle where, in spite of the most appalling ill-treatment, he refused to die, so was finally murdered in the barbarous way we mentioned just now.' He regarded me anxiously. ‘My child, you look quite pale.'

If I did indeed look pale, it was with excitement.

‘And all this happened in the year 1326?' I asked.

‘To the best of my recollection. But I will check for you in the annals of the abbey library after Compline or certainly before you leave us tomorrow.'