King's Gold

Frere Thomas lifted his head, brought back to the present. He was sure he had heard another horse from the east. Could that be them again? His nerves were tight as bowstrings as he strained his ears to listen, but there was nothing, no one to be seen. It must be his imagination, or maybe a rider ambling along at the extreme edge of his hearing, and passing now into a wood or gulley where the sound of his hooves could not be heard.

He blew the air from his lungs, rolled over and closed his eyes a moment. Yes, all that was yesterday. Last night he had dozed fitfully with his back against an old oak after walking miles over muddy fields. The peasants here would have good reason to curse the Dominican for the coming year, he thought with a weary grin. His feet would have disturbed their crops.

Today he had risen with the sun, wondering where on earth he was. Although raised not far from Kenilworth, this land was unfamiliar, and he peered about him warily before setting off again, making for the nearest church, which stood on a small hill a mile or two to the south. The priest there was entirely unwelcoming. A hidebound old fool, who believed that friars were only in his parish to steal his tithes, he made it clear that if he heard the friar preaching, he would come and chastise Thomas with a stick.

Personally, Thomas did not think this very likely, since the man looked so frail, but he did not want to raise attention to himself. He managed to persuade the priest to give him bread in exchange for his departure, and a brook was adequate for his thirst.

In the brook he caught sight of his reflection, and it exasperated him. He was used to a good life, to courteous discussions with the King and with the Pope, not to this indignity. Dear Heaven, what would the Pope say if he saw Thomas in this condition? Probably nothing, Frere Thomas admitted to himself, since the Pope would not have been told of a scruffy churl asking to meet him. Guards would have prevented him from entering the presence.

Now he rolled over and studied his injured thumb.

Recently he had been one of the most important men in the country. When there was a need for a cool head and diplomatic manner, King Edward II would send for Frere Thomas. Whether it concerned messages for the Pope, negotiations to assess the possibility of a marriage annulment – anything – it was to Frere Thomas that the King would turn. Sir Hugh le Despenser had been the King’s best friend, yet he had the guile and subtlety of a hog cleaver, in Christ’s name. He could hack, but when it was a silent assassin’s stab that was needed, Despenser failed.

Well, the fool had paid for his manifold crimes. Hauled to a gallows fifty feet from the ground until almost dead, then dropped to a table where he had his genitals cut off and thrown into a fire before he was ritually disembowelled, the entrails also thrown into the flames, and his beating heart hacked from his breast. If it was still beating. Frere Thomas had his doubts about that. He believed that a man tended to expire a short time after his belly was opened.

He had no liking for Sir Hugh le Despenser, but he could sympathise with the man for his fate. It was difficult to think of any creature who deserved such a barbaric death.

Putting the ball of his thumb to his mouth, Frere Thomas bit into the broken-off stub of blackthorn that had stabbed him. It was a tough little imp, but he managed to tug it loose and spit it away, studying the marble of blood that formed, growing to a nugget of almost a half-inch diameter before running quickly down his wrist.

Frere Thomas sighed. As the fresh drops of rain began to clatter among the holly leaves, he closed his eyes, then cast a long suffering look upwards.

‘Thank you, Lord,’ he said, but then rose and made his way to the road. Here in this part of Warwickshire the land was flat, and in places very wet, and there was no jauntiness in his spirit as he stared off into the south, and began to trudge.

He wouldn’t look back. That way lay defeat and misery. That way lay Kenilworth, where the man to whom he still owed his allegiance was held.

John wept as he pulled the hood over Paul’s face, then stood stiffly, the wound in his flank hurting as he moved.

His friend was already cold. He had died soon after they left the roads and entered among the trees, falling from his horse before John could catch him, and gagging as the blood from that awful wound seeped into his throat and lungs. He clung to life with the desperation of a badger in a trap, grasping John’s arms as though he could hold on to life the same way.

John closed his eyes again as tears moved down his cheeks. There was no shame in mourning the passing of an old friend, and there was no friend so close, so dear to his heart, as Paul.