Free The King of Thieves: by Michael Jecks

the miserable felons
     who mouldered in the dank prison underground. This shabby-looking man reminded Simon of those who would loiter down in the
     cells, hoping to find someone who would accept them. Few prisoners, however, were that desperate.
    ‘You lost, friend?’ Simon called as he went out from his door.
    ‘I was hoping to find a man called Puttock – Simon the Bailiff.’
    ‘You’ve found him.’
    ‘I have a message from Master William atte Wattere,’ the man said, holding up a small parchment, sealed with red wax.
    Simon clenched his teeth and would have left the man sitting on his horse there, but Margaret was at his side, and he could
     tell by the way her grip stiffened on his arm that she was terrified. He had to show he was not alarmed, and he stepped forward
     to take the proffered message.
    ‘You want to reply?’ the messenger asked.
    ‘No,’ Simon said. He did not open the message, but stood silently, waiting. The man shrugged and pulled his horse’s head round,
     departing at a gentle trot.
    ‘Simon!’ Margaret hissed. ‘What does that man want with us now?’
    He bent and kissed her, but there was no passion now; this was a means of steeling himself, he reflected, as he drew Margaret
     back into their hall.
    ‘Well?’ she demanded as he peered at the tiny characters. Simon had been taught to read by the canons at Crediton when he
     was a lad, but this script was very hard to decipher. It was not the simple Latin of the Church, nor the flowing French of
     the courts, but a mingling of the two. Knowing Wattere, Simon suspected he had tried to make his note sound more legalistic
     by the use of florid expressions. It didn’t work – but the basic message was clear enough.
    ‘Meg, it’s not good news,’ he said slowly, as his world fell about his ears.
    Wednesday following the Feast of Mary Magdalen
*
    Furnshill, Devon
    Baldwin had been relieved to be able to wave the Bishop away. The latter’s manner, his paleness and anxiety, had all been
     so entirely unlike him that Baldwin was worried that the nation was truly beginning to suffer from the collapse of the King’s
     Peace, as he had feared.
    When he saw his old friend Simon riding up the grass track to his house, he was relieved to see a friendly face, but his joy
     was to be short-lived.
    ‘What is it, old friend? Your wife? Margaret is well? And …’
    ‘I think, Baldwin, you may find that you have me living near you again,’ Simon said with a taut smile, reaching into hisbreast and pulling out a sweat-dampened letter. ‘Read it for yourself.’
    Baldwin led the way into the hall, reading as he went, and once there, he bawled for Wat to serve them with wine, before dropping
     into his chair with a grunt. ‘And is this correct?’
    ‘I have been to Exeter to find out. I was there all day yesterday, but yes, it seems so. I had bought my house on a lease,
     and it is renewable every seven years. I had no idea I had missed the last payment. It was due while we were in France, and
     I forgot about it. If you remember, it was only a short while after we moved to Lydford that our son died, and there were
     many things that slipped my mind …’
    ‘This says that Despenser has bought the house. How did he do so?’
    ‘It was owned by old Harold Uppacott. He died a few months ago, and his son was offered a better sum for it than he would
     have expected. I don’t blame him. But Christ’s ballocks, I do blame Despenser. It’s just the same as before.’
    ‘I am astonished that Wattere dares to do this, though,’ Baldwin grated. His anger was increasing, the more he thought about
     it.
    It was only two or three months ago that Wattere had become known to them. Early in May, when Simon and Baldwin returned to
     their homes after guarding the Queen during her journey to Paris, Simon had learned that William Wattere, a servant to Sir
     Hugh le Despenser, had threatened to steal his house from him. It was no empty threat from a