Free The Death Ship of Dartmouth: (Knights Templar 21) by Michael Jecks Page A

were spread before him. He looked up as Baldwin entered.
    Baldwin had often felt that directness was the easiest approach when he was in doubt, so he marched to the top table and bowed. ‘Sir, last evening you started to tell me that you wanted me to go to Dartmouth for you, but you did not wish to discuss the matter in any great detail.’
    ‘I grew distracted by the matter of the silken purses,’ Stapledon admitted. His eyes met Baldwin’s briefly, then scanned the room behind the knight. ‘I am too old, I fear. All these years in the service of the King have addled what brains I once possessed. Ha! You can argue if you wish, Sir Knight, but I know the truth. I wasted your time.’
    That was a relief. Baldwin had begun to wonder whether this favour which the bishop wanted to ask would involve him in politicking. He had no desire to have any part in the disputes between the King and his Queen, nor between Edward and any of his subjects who had grown disillusioned with his reign – and God alone knew, there were enough of
them
. Ever since the last bloody war, in which he captured his own cousin, Thomas of Lancaster, and had him put to death, people had become more and more fearful. Edward’s men had rampaged up and down the kingdom, hunting out all those whom he accused of being traitors allied with Thomas, taking them, lords, barons and knights, and slaying them in their own cities, hanging their rotting carcases from gibbets at the city gates. It was unheard of for an English monarch to dare to behave so brutally to his own people.
    More recently, matters had sunk to a new low. The Despenser family, father and son, had taken to stealing all they coveted. As matters stood, Baldwin was sure that the younger Despenser was the wealthiest man in the land after the King himself. Those who stood in his path died.
    ‘Let us go for a walk,’ the bishop said, standing abruptly. ‘We can eat a little later, if you do not object?’
    Casting an eye over the men eating at their trestle tables, many with their gaze upon him and the bishop, Baldwinnodded. The bishop signalled to a cleric at the corner of the room, and a fur-trimmed cloak was brought for him, together with a soft felt hat. While the weather was so clement, Baldwin refused the offer of another cloak and hat.
    ‘This matter is very important,’ the bishop said as they crossed the court, ‘and I did not wish to speak more of it in front of all my household.’
    ‘Does it involve the King or the Queen?’ Baldwin asked outright.
    ‘Gracious God! What on earth made you ask that?’ the bishop said, stopping dead in his tracks.
    ‘Bishop, I am not a fool. If you are about to tell me that the Queen has taken a lover and given him a silken purse, I must refuse to help you,’ Baldwin said lightly.
    The bishop attempted a laugh. ‘The idea!’
    ‘I am serious, though. I would be disinclined to help if it means I grow involved in politics,’ Baldwin said as they marched over the drawbridge and stood staring at the distant smoke and haze of Exeter. ‘I have a wife and daughter to consider.’
    ‘I can understand that,’ Stapledon said heavily. ‘My concern is that if you don’t, the land could again be engaged in war.’
    ‘What on earth makes you say that?’
    ‘You have to understand the problems,’ Stapledon sighed. ‘Very well … It is all because of Lord Hugh Despenser. Hugh and the King are very close, you understand. It makes the Queen feel left out. There are messages between Edward and the French court every few days, and they are growing less diplomatic each time.’ He began to walk again, his headdown. ‘Despenser has no love of the French. You remember when he was exiled?’
    ‘Yes. It was when the Lords Marcher took Despenser’s castles and marched on London. They forced the King to exile him and his father.’
    ‘Yes. Young Despenser took a ship and began to attack any who sailed in the Channel; he captured the cargoes and killed the