The Bishop Must Die: (Knights Templar 28) by Michael Jecks

Author:Michael Jecks [Jecks, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: blt, General, _MARKED, Fiction
ISBN: 9781472219893
Google: FRsYAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2014-02-27T16:43:20+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

Exeter

William Walle hurried over the grounds to the Bishop’s Palace as soon as the summons arrived.

They had returned to the city only the day before. There was little point in remaining at the bishop’s house when the bulk of his work was still up here, and so they had packed their belongings in the wagons and made the short journey back to town in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, the bishop had returned to his labours, while messengers were sent to seek advice on all the men whom Baldwin had suspected. Before long, with luck, the responses would arrive and the knight could be asked to come and take another look at the matter, to see whether there was anything else that might help tell who was threatening his lordship.

But now William had been called to the palace again, just as he was preparing to visit the tavern near the Broadgate. The man who fetched him said simply, ‘The bishop asks that you come at once.’

He found Bishop Walter sitting in his little chair by the table in his hall, John the steward at his side, looking lugubrious. ‘Another one,’ he said.

‘What?’ William strode across the floor and took up the shred of parchment. ‘You will die unmourned and alone,’ he read aloud. Glancing at his uncle, he said, ‘Where was it?’

‘Here, on my table,’ the bishop said listlessly, pointing. ‘It just lay there, like that. Face up.’

‘I didn’t see it myself,’ John said. ‘I was in here most of the afternoon, but I had to leave to supervise the arrangement of the chamber below for the ecclesiastical court next week. There’s the case of de Cockington, which has to be decided. I was only gone for a short while.’

‘Which means that the man who put this here is clearly someone who knows when you are here, and when you are not,’ William said, remembering Baldwin’s words. ‘It has to be someone from within the cathedral, Bishop.’

‘Come now! Who on earth would attempt such a thing!’ he exclaimed. ‘It is folly to think that there is a master of disguise and deviousness here in the cathedral. I will not believe it.’

‘Unless you believe that the agent which deposits these things here is a devil,’ John said sharply, ‘then you have to agree that a man would be inordinately lucky to break in here and drop off a note without knowing when would be a good time to do so. Only a brother or a priest would have access to that information.’

‘John, I understand your desire to protect me, but I still cannot think that one of the canons or a priest could have done this to me. They would know how distressing I must find it. Such evil messages!’

William shook his head, and John followed him from the room.

‘He is sorely distressed,’ John said. ‘You saw how he looked? Like an old man.’

‘Whoever is doing this to him deserves to be pilloried,’ William agreed.

‘Do you think I was a fool?’

‘No.

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