All Mouth and Codpiece: Ancient Pistol Saga, #2

By Roger Butters

England, 1397. Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, is in a quandary. For a rumour have come to his ears that the Duke of Gloucester, whom in accordance with the King's orders he arranged to be put to death in Calais Castle, is alive and well and stirring up trouble on the Continent. He therefore needs the assistance of a first-class secret agent to make unobtrusive enquiry and take appropriate action.

Instead Mowbray is obliged to instruct Ancient Pistol, a boastful, cowardly, lecherous drunk. Ranged against him are a multitude of international conspirators whose cunning and villainy defy description. His friends, including the dissolute Ned Poins and temperamentally unstable Doll Tearsheet, are almost as useless as our hero himself. Indeed his most loyal and useful ally is a mongrel dog known as Master Sakkers!

But one essential quality Pistol possesses, sufficient to outweigh all his shortcomings. Namely, the most outrageous luck. Aided by this he endures not only his usual fate of being caught in numerous lecherous escapades, but survives a couple of attempts on his life, and even an appearance on the scaffold. Over-confident and lacking in insight as ever, once more Pistol blunders his way to victory, and succeeds where many a better man would have failed. 

Ancient Pistol Saga, vol 2

Approx 66,000 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Butters
• Release date: Jan 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393064893

Roger Butters

Roger Butters is a native of Stafford, where he still lives. At various times, he has tried his hand at aviation, owning racehorses, and Shotokan Karate. Altogether he has published over a dozen novels.

Book preview

I

THOSE readers familiar with my former treatise will need no reminding of the position wherein I found myself following my thwarting of the treasonous designs of the king's uncle, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester. For the benefit of the less well-read I should explain that, whilst temporarily enabled to clear my debts, in other respects I had small cause for satisfaction. It was of course bootless to expect proper recompense from our Sovereign Lord towards one who had saved his throne. Not only had he even less money than I had myself - though why a bankrupt king should be able to continue living in regal fashion whilst a respectable subject who owes far less is unable to persuade an innkeeper to trust him for the price of a night's lodging is frankly incomprehensible - but gratitude is a notoriously scarce commodity amongst princes. And non-existent in a treacherous pervert like King Richard the bleeding Second.

Yet if the king remained unappreciative of my worth, the same was not true of all his henchmen. Townsend, chief steward to Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, expressed his patron's gratitude for my services by gaining me a post in the household of his friend Thomas Mowbray, formerly Earl of Nottingham, but recently created Duke of Norfolk. As to the means whereby he had acquired the dukedom, I shall shortly reveal. Suffice it at this stage to say that it reflected little credit upon him, and less still upon the precious specimen occupying the throne.

For all that, on the rare occasions when I encountered my employer in person I found him an amiable enough fellow, despite his being a close friend of the frog-loving king. Or former close friend, for some said that relations betwixt them had cooled of late. But I run ahead of my tale, and must take matters more slowly, for I can hardly expect readers to share my profound understanding of contemporary politics and palace intrigue. No doubt many are the most ignorant of numbskulls. Be that as it may, by the summer of 1398 I had been for twelve months a loyal servant in the employ of the Duke.

The full scope of my duties had never been made entirely clear. In theory I was a member of the Duke's retinue, wore his livery, and was bound to him in knightly service. For this I received food, lodging in his mansion house at Brentford, and precious little else. Not that I am complaining, although I should have thought a modest stipend in addition would not have been asking too much. On the credit side, I had a fair amount of time to myself, which I naturally spent as befitted a gentleman of breeding, namely in sport, gaming and other manly pursuits, including that of the fair sex. In most of these pastimes however I found myself handicapped initially by shortage of funds, later on by debt.

If memory serves me, it was upon a sunny afternoon in August that I received the summons from my patron which was to alter the whole course of my life and his. At the time, for reasons which will become apparent, I was somewhat apprehensive regarding the forthcoming interview, but in the event my fears proved groundless.

A fawning lackey conducted me into the chamber the Duke used for his business affairs. Whilst not as resplendent as his private apartments, it was grand enough. Gaily-coloured banners and tapestries adorned the walls, and the tiled floor was decorated with an intricate mosaic depicting some martial scene or other. My lord of Norfolk sat behind a table covered with a silken cloth bearing the device of the Lion of Mowbray. As ever he was dressed to the latest fashion, in velvet-lined doublet of pearl grey; a well-built fellow in his early thirties, with dark, spade-shaped beard, and somewhat above the medium height. When he was standing up, that was. Sitting down of course he was more or less the same height as everyone else.

At a paper-strewn table alongside sat his secretary, an aged legal knave called Snot, or Snivel, or something of the sort, holding a quill and peering through his spectacles at a paper bearing a scribbled list.

I bowed. ‘My lord.’

‘Come in,’ said Mowbray, ‘and sit down, er ...’  He turned to his petty-fogging henchman. ‘See, what was the name again?’

‘Snoddy, my lord.’

Mowbray passed a hand over his face and sighed. ‘No, the name of this fellow, you pathetic old fool.’

‘Ah.’ Snidge consulted his list myopically. ‘Methinks this one must be Pistol, my lord. Ancient Pistol.’

‘Pistol,’ Mowbray repeated. He pointed to the chair opposite. ‘Sit down.’

Slightly nettled to discover that my name had - though no doubt only temporarily - escaped my patron’s memory, my resentment was mingled with relief that his forgetfulness meant it was unlikely to be the matter I had feared.

The Duke snapped his fingers impatiently. ‘The list.’ After brief perusal of the names he shook his head. ‘By our lady,’ he groaned. ‘Is this the best thou couldst do?’

‘Trustworthy men are few and far between, my lord.’

‘So it would seem.’ Mowbray pointed to the paper with ill-concealed irritation. ‘Those two are dead, for a start. And he’s on the run, having been proclaimed a felon this sixmonth.’

‘I’ll cross them off, my lord,’ his henchman assured him hurriedly.

‘A list of those I have considered entrusting with this task, Ancient Pistol,’ the Duke explained. ‘For the present, thou’rt favoured for the appointment.’

‘I am honoured, my lord,’ I replied. ‘Though doubtless there are many other worthy gentlemen amongst your candidates.’

‘Scarcely,’ said Mowbray. ‘For apart from thyself, there now remain but six names, whereof one is virtually senile, another feeble-minded, and a third in gaol. Whilst the remainder’ - once more the Duke drew a deep breath and shook his head - ‘to my certain knowledge, are quite simply no firking use at all.’

‘Ah,’ said I.

‘It struck me that thou mightst perform the task admirably. For I have received excellent reports of thee in some quarters, good Pistol.’

Whilst naturally not surprised, I contented myself with a modest inclination of the head.

‘According to them, thou foiled the treacherous machinations of the Duke of Gloucester virtually single-handed, at imminent peril of thine own life.’ Again I shrugged modestly. ‘Best of all, whilst performing this service to King and country, it seems that thou subtly managed to cloak thine activities under the guise of a boastful and cowardly imbecility, so that no man suspected thy real intent.’

‘’Tis true, your grace,’ I confessed, ‘that there are those who fail to appreciate the valiant Pistol’s worth.’

‘Evidently,’ he agreed. ‘For it seems that there is a rival school of thought, which holdeth that thou’rt in sooth neither more nor less than what thou appearst: a foul-mouthed, drunken, half-witted lecher.’

‘A monstrous slander, my lord.’ I rose and brandished my sword. ‘Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and throws it in my face!’

He shrugged and made to speak again, but I continued.

‘Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i’th’throat as deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?’

‘Thou’st made thy point, I fancy, Pistol. Anyway I have in mind, faute de mieux, to entrust thee with a mission of the uttermost confidentiality, and no little danger. What sayst thou?’

I extended my arms in an expansive gesture. ‘Danger knows full well that Pistol is more dangerous than he. We are two lions littered in one day, and I the elder and more terrible. And Pistol shall go forth.’

At this moment there occurred an incident which somewhat distracted me from elaborating upon this impressive account of my merits. Indeed it would no exaggeration to say that, momentarily at least, I blenched.

From the door to Mowbray's private apartments there entered a lady: a statuesque, full-bosomed blonde, the rich scarlet of her silken corsage sparkling with precious stones. In itself this would not normally have disconcerted the gallant Pistol in the slightest, apart from a healthy masculine interest in her neckline. Accustomed as I am to rubbing shoulders with the mighty, it takes more than a buxom beauty to intimidate me, whatever her rank. The problem was rather more complex. For she was known to me.

I had met her in a local tavern some three weeks before, and seeing that she lacked masculine company, had endeavoured to make myself agreeable to her. Matters had proceeded most satisfactorily, and I had had every hope of achieving my ultimate goal, when I was appalled to learn that the object of my affection was none other than the aristocratic Franziska von der Heide, latest mistress of my patron, Thomas Mowbray. That she had not forgotten our little misunder-standing was perfectly evident from the black scowl with which she greeted me. I consoled myself with the reflection that she appeared not to have mentioned it to her paramour, which was hardly surprising, for her own role in the affair would likewise have been difficult to explain.

‘Pay attention, man,’ said Mowbray irritably. ‘No need to play the lecherous simpleton with me. Hast ne’er seen a wench with a juicy pair of pumpkins before?’

At this frank description the haughty baggage cast him a glance of malevolence fully the equal of that she had thrown me. Yet the Duke had spoken true: for all her aristocratic airs, ’twas well known that Franziska was but an innkeeper’s daughter from Antwerp, and the ‘von der’ an invention of her own.

‘Forgive me, my lord,’ said I, recovering myself. ‘But when one hath long been accustomed to wearing the mask of imbecility, it becometh almost second nature.’

‘So I observe,’ he said drily. ‘But to business.’

‘I hope,’ his doxy interrupted, ‘that thou’rt not of a mind to entrust this mouldy knave with an affair of the least importance. Though he hath been with thee but a twelvemonth, ’tis already notorious that he is the most useless, drunken, prune-eating varlet thou hast e’er been misguided enough to employ.’

‘Ha-ha! good lady,’ quoth I, praying that she did not proceed to more detail, ‘if I do not love a wen - a woman with a sense of humour.’

To my relief she contented herself with a disgusted noise. ‘Leave us, Fanny,’ said Mowbray shortly. ‘Methinks thou’rt a baleful influence upon this knave, as on so many.’

It did my heart good to hear the hoity-toity trollop addressed in so offhand a fashion. ‘And Pistol,’ the Duke murmured softly as she flounced out, ‘thou canst wipe that smirk off thy face too, for if thou hast any ambitions in that direction, thou mayst care to reflect upon the fate of the last varlet who harboured debauched designs upon my lady.’ He smiled in faraway fashion, as though recalling some precious memory. ‘Verily, ’twas ... not pleasant. So far as he was concerned, that is. Although I must say that it gave me considerable satisfaction.’

‘You wrong me, my lord,’ I said. ‘I was but smiling at the pleasing reflection that I am now in a position to make myself useful to your grace. Ancient Pistol was ne’er one to bear enforced idleness for long.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Well, in brief, I’m sure thou knowst - ’tis common knowledge - that I am under gage to fight Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, in the lists at Coventry next month.’

I nodded. ‘’Tis a matter of some regret to me,’ Mowbray continued. ‘Regret only: for ’tis not that I fear the Duke or any man. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come.’

This half-baked piece of home-spun philosophy seemed to me so obvious as not to be worth voicing, but I thought it well to agree. ‘Very true, my lord.’

‘Regret nevertheless, in that the Duke was formerly my ally, indeed hath been so for as long as I have been of an age to take an interest in public affairs. Even now methinks a reconciliation might be possible. Of course I dare not broach the suggestion: ’twould savour somewhat of cowardice.’

I nodded understandingly. ‘Good name in man and woman, my good lord, is the immediate jewel of their souls.’

‘My sentiments precisely.’

‘Who steals my purse steals trash. ’Tis something, nothing: ’twas mine, ’tis his, and hath been slave to thousands. But he who filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.’

‘Quite. Albeit somewhat elaborately expressed, if I may say so. Anyway, to the reason for the misunderstanding ’twixt myself and the Duke. Maybe thou knowst something of the facts already, but in any case methinks it were invidious to enter into detail.’

‘Let me not name it to you, ye chaste stars,’ I provided. ‘It is the cause.’

‘Er, yes.  Suffice it to say that to an extent I can sympathize with him.’ Mowbray pursed and stroked his lips as if in doubt whether to confide in me further. ‘The main fault,’ he continued after a pause, ‘appears to me to lie elsewhere.’

For the benefit of those readers who are politically illiterate - and who doubtless constitute the vast majority - methinks I had best explain something of the background to the dispute. A decade earlier the young King had already fallen firmly under the control of certain poxy favourites, mostly long-haired, mincing, frog-speaking nancy-boys like himself. Certain members of the nobility understandably took exception to this, and delivered what they termed the Appeal of Treason, claiming that pernicious advisers were leading the King astray. The horse-manure about ‘advisers’ was of course a device to avoid attacking the King directly, since any rash enough to do that would have found himself attainted traitor. At any rate, with the help of Parliament the appeal succeeded, so that many of the King’s closest friends found their way to the block, for which I for one shed no tears.

Soon afterwards however the appellant lords fell out amongst themselves, there being two main factions, that of the King’s uncle and inveterate enemy, the Duke of Gloucester, and the other, more moderate in its counsels, led by Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray, then but young fellows of twenty or so. The King took advantage of this dissention, so that by 1397 - the year previous to the events I now describe - he had recovered all his previous power, and was enabled to revenge himself upon the elder Lords Appellant, who in any case had been intriguing against him again. This time however Bolingbroke and Mowbray had supported the King against their former allies.

So it was that matters stood at the end of 1397. And would doubtless have continued to stand, had this country not been governed by a vindictive nincompoop, who confided to his friend Mowbray that he had not forgiven Bolingbroke for his part in the events of a decade earlier, and intended to destroy him and the House of Lancaster at the first opportunity.

Of course this put Mowbray in a difficult position. For one thing Bolingbroke had long been his political ally. Even more to the point, had the king succeeded in destroying him it would have meant that Mowbray alone of the Lords Appellant had thus far avoided royal vengeance, and knowing of the King’s long memory for injury, but short one for aid, would in all probability soon have found himself next on the list. So after some hesitation, Mowbray took it upon himself to warn Bolingbroke of what their royal master intended.

In typical manly fashion Bolingbroke went straight to the King and asked the double-dealing, weak-kneed fairy if what Mowbray had alleged was true. The King of course was vehement in his denial, and sent for Mowbray, who was able to avoid royal wrath only by denying in turn that he had ever said anything of the sort. Bolingbroke accordingly found himself obliged to call Mowbray a liar, as in this instance he was. And to protect himself further, he decided to dredge up all the scandal he could about his former ally; not that he could find much, for as aristocrats go, Mowbray had led a comparatively blameless life; a few drunken brawls, a bastard here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Eventually he had to resort to the standard complaint of embezzlement, invariable practice amongst holders of royal office. This seldom carries much weight, for it seems to me and a good many that if a man be appointed to a post and chooses to make use of it for his own enrichment, good luck to him. There was also some moth-eaten tale about Mowbray once having made an attempt upon the life of Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, which no-one had ever believed anyway. Far more important was the affair of the Duke of Gloucester. Indeed this constituted the only valid complaint Bolingbroke could find.

I mentioned in my previous work that Gloucester had been arrested for high treason and conveyed to Calais Castle. Before he could be brought to trial however he was dead, allegedly of gaol fever: the excuse invariably trotted out whenever an inconvenient prisoner has been disposed of. And Gloucester’s trial would certainly have been inconvenient to the King. Unlike the other accused, he was of such eminence that even the greatest lords might have hesitated to convict him. And had the main conspirator been thus acquitted, the King’s position would have been seriously undermined. So orders were given to Thomas Mowbray, Constable of Calais, to ensure that Gloucester was removed.

In fairness to Mowbray, although Gloucester was his enemy, he was unhappy about the job, and demurred. Whereupon the king threatened him with royal displeasure, as good as hinting that if Mowbray did not do as he wished, he would soon find himself in similar case to Gloucester. So Mowbray acquiesced, arranged Gloucester’s despatch, and for his pains was rewarded with the Dukedom of Norfolk. This at least was the version of matters I had gleaned from stable gossip, and I dare say ’twas not far from the truth.

‘Certain information has come to my ears,’ Mowbray was continuing. ‘Information of the most disturbing nature, wherewith ... ah ... I need not trouble you at present. Suffice it to say that it requires my attendance, or that of a representative, at Calais.’

I pricked up my ears. ‘Calais, my lord?’

‘Indeed. Thou’lt be aware - or alternatively thou’rt the only knave in England who is not - that my lord of Bolingbroke alleges that I am guilty of the murder of the Duke of Gloucester.’

‘The King,’ said I. ‘The King’s to blame.’

‘Very true. For Gloucester’s death,’ he continued, reading my thoughts, ‘I slew him not, but to mine own disgrace, neglected my sworn duty in that case. Anyway, Pistol, I should like you to go to Calais to enquire into this new information.’

‘How is that to be achieved, my lord?’

‘I have a representative there already, indeed ’tis from him that I have gleaned such intelligence as I have. He was to have provided me with further detail, but in despite of several reminders I have not heard from him these last six weeks. I should therefore like you to make contact with him and find out the true position.’

‘His name, my lord?’

‘The name’s Shackle - James Shackle. He is lodged at the Red Dragon Inn, or was when last I heard from him.’