King's Gold

Baldwin hefted the sword in his hand. He had ordered this in December, when he first returned to Exeter after the trials of the last year. The smith had made the blade, while an armourer Baldwin knew, who worked with David quite often, had provided the cross and the grip, and had wound the fine leather about the hilts, fitting them together with the sword and then riveting the heavy round pommel in place.

‘This is proof that you are a master of your art.’ Inset into the blade on one side, Baldwin saw the letters picked out in fine gold script: BOAC (Beate Omnipotensque Angeli Christi: Blessed and Omnipotent are the Angels of Christ). On the reverse, in memory of his friends in the Order, he had a small circle, and within it was a Templar cross.

‘Not perfect. I missed a little dint down there – see? I had my apprentice polish it up, and he failed there.’

‘No, I do not see,’ Baldwin said, smiling. ‘You are a man who is determined upon perfection, my friend.’

‘I don’t know why you were in such a hurry for it, anyway,’ the smith complained. He took the sword back and began to wipe a cloth smeared in fat all over it, rubbing quickly, and peering along its length to make sure that it was all uniformly covered. ‘The land should be calming, now we have a new King.’

Baldwin took his sword. He would buy a scabbard from a shop farther along the street. It would be easy to find one that fitted.

‘The land should be calmer,’ he agreed. But as he left the smithy, he knew very well that the kingdom’s troubles were far from over.

The King had been deposed and the Crown had passed on, but although many sought to uphold the succession, even if it was unorthodox, there were others who preferred to make as much profit as they could from the situation. Sir Roger Mortimer, his lover the Queen, and the under-age King Edward III ruling in a three-way council, was no recipe for peace. Baldwin suspected that the realm would suffer more dramatic shocks before long.

He was determined to be prepared for them.

CHAPTER NINE

Two Sundays before the Feast of the Annunciation

Kenilworth

It was the middle of his second day in the town before Dolwyn managed to enter the castle. He had not expected it to be so easy.

The sun shone brightly, and without rain to wash away the ordure, the streets were becoming more noisome by the day.

He sat outside an inn and enjoyed a strong ale while he watched passers-by: men-at-arms, women with baskets offering flowers or trinkets, urchins calling for coins, pestering any who looked wealthy until sent on their way with a cuff about the ear. It was hours until the scavengers would come to clean the street of dung, scraping up dog mess for the tanners, that of the horse and cattle for the dungheaps, sweeping away piles of shit where the butchers voided the bowels of their carcasses.

It was the same in all vills and towns up and down the kingdom, he thought. Wherever men lived, there was filth to be cleaned. In a way, he was a scavenger too, tidying up the unpleasant little problems the Bardi family preferred to keep hidden. Once he had worked for Matteo alone, but now he was henchman to the bank itself.

He couldn’t complain. His post was well paid, and he needed the job. Since losing his wife and daughter, working was the only thing that kept him moderately sane.

In the yard behind the tavern, a cockfight was about to start, and the audience was gathering. At one side of the pit were men-at-arms from the castle, while a sprinkling of locals watched sullenly from the other side.

‘There is bad feeling,’ Dolwyn commented to a neighbour.

‘What do you expect? Those prickles take everything they can, even our women. Whatever we do, they elbow their way in.’

‘It must be difficult when they’re all over the town,’ Dolwyn said sympathetically.

There was a bellow of laughter from the yard, and Dolwyn turned to see one of the castle’s men grabbing at a cockerel in the pit, and wringing its neck. The body he flung carelessly to one side, while another pair of birds were brought and armed with the vicious spurs, teased and tormented by their handlers to the point where they could not be held. Then, in a flash of feathers the two sprang into the air, trying to rake each other with spurs and talons.

‘See that squire? He’s porter of the castle, he is. A right devil. All he cares about is money.’ Dolwyn’s neighbour indicated the man who had killed the cock.

Dolwyn studied the fellow. Thick-set, short in the neck, but with an impressive breadth of shoulder, he was dark-skinned, and wore a thin beard with plenty of ginger in it. His dark eyebrows almost met over his nose, and his equally dark eyes seemed very knowing. He looked across and met Dolwyn’s stare without interest, as a man might survey a slug, before returning to the contest.

‘What money?’ Dolwyn asked.

‘He’ll take anything he can,’ the man said.