30 - King's Gold by Michael Jecks

the mob, who hated those of his profession, and it made him want to return home to Florence by the swiftest means. He hated this cold, wet, miserable, uncouth land.
    Only one man could he entirely trust. ‘I am glad of your help,’ he said to Alured.
    ‘It was nothing. I hope someone would do the same for me,’ Alured said gruffly. ‘You were lucky I was near to hand.’
    ‘Very lucky,’ Dolwyn agreed. He brought a cup of watered wine to his master and passed it to him.
    ‘I just wish I’d been there earlier,’ Alured added. He told the banker and his henchman about the two youngsters murdered in the nearby alley. ‘Perhaps the same man stabbed you as killed them,’ he wondered, but it didn’t seem likely. They had been so efficiently slain, while Matteo was still alive.
    Matteo took a sip of his wine and peered at Dolwyn. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘did you see anything of a man near me on the day I was attacked?’
    ‘No, master. I was away from you, you remember?’
    ‘Yes. And I was running from that mob,’ Matteo said, feeling at his scalp. The hair had been clipped away. After prodding his skull and checking his urine, the physician declared he should live: his injuries were superficial. ‘You have a hard head, master,’ he had declared.
    The day was creeping on as Dolwyn looked down at him, and Matteo felt uneasy. The growing shadows gave him an oddly evil appearance.
    ‘There are messages for you,’ Alured said, stepping over to the bed. Then: ‘Are you well, master?’
    Matteo gestured irritably. ‘Just a little tired, no more.’
    It was a firm belief of Alured that work was a great healer. ‘These have all arrived in the last few days.’
    Matteo eyed the pile of sealed notes without enthusiasm. ‘So many?’
    ‘Your clerk brings more every day.’
    Matteo sighed and held out his hand. For the rest of the day, he lay back, absorbing snippets of information from the messages: one from the servant of Sir Roger Mortimer, one from the Abbot of Winchester, three from a merchant who traded between London and York, and then, after thirty or more notes of minor importance, he came across a little scrawled parchment. It was from a disreputable coroner in Bristol whom he had engaged some years before. He had never liked the man, but an intelligencer did not need to like his contacts. It was enough that they were reliable.
    A comment at the bottom took his attention. He sat up in his bed, frowning.
    ‘Something wrong, master?’ Alured enquired.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Matteo muttered.
    The note told him that the servants of the Queen were delighted to have had confirmation of the Bardi brothers’ support. It was still more gratifying, he read, that the Bardis had sworn not to have any dealings with the King – that in future, all their efforts would be concentrated on the Queen, her son the Duke of Aquitaine, and their supporters.
    Matteo stared at it. During the meeting with his brothers, they had agreed that they would make an offer of financial assistance to the Queen, but also send a similar letter to the King. This stated that the Bardis had sworn not to aid him. If news of this were to get out and the King heard, it would be impossible to recover, were Edward II to return to his throne.
    That fool Benedetto had over-reached himself! Matteo swore under his breath at the thought of his carefully nuanced work, all ruined by this one act. Unless he could somehow retrieve the situation . . .
    Then Matteo accepted that he had been here for a month now, lying in his bed, wracked by fever. Perhaps he was not so well-informed as Benedetto. The position could have changed.
    And then the memory of Benedetto’s shrewd face came to mind. Benedetto was schooled in Florentine politics and business, where it was desirable always to remove a competitor. Now that Manuele was dead, Matteo was Benedetto’s sole competitor for running the bank. And since his stabbing, Benedetto had been quick to take over the