14 - The Burgundian's Tale (28 page)

I followed her to the main path and walked to the little landing stage on the river bank, where we stopped beneath the willow tree’s trailing branches. On the opposite bank, shimmering in a faint heat haze, I could see the landscape of Southwark set out before me. Nearer at hand, pale spears of yellow iris glimmered among the reeds at the river’s edge, and marigolds peered at their ghostly reflections in the water. A reed warbler swooped towards its nest among the grasses.

‘A truly lovely spot,’ I said, glancing sideways at my companion and surprising a look of amusement on her face.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ she answered. ‘You appreciate beauty in nature, Master Chapman?’

‘I’m a countryman at heart,’ I explained. ‘Bristol may now be my home, but I was born in Wells.’ Judith inclined her head, but made no comment, so I continued, fearful of an uncomfortable hiatus in the conversation, ‘I was told that these three houses’ – I jerked my chin over my shoulder – ‘once stood in the grounds of the Savoy.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, yes! I’ve heard that story, too. Whorehouses – isn’t that the theory? But I very much doubt it. In my opinion, they’re built too far eastwards. You must have seen what remains of the old palace during your to-ing and fro-ing along the Strand. I admit it was reputed to be a vast enclave in its day, but even so, I don’t believe it stretched this far towards the Fleet.’ She shrugged. ‘Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps I just don’t like the idea of living in what was once a brothel.’

Her last word jogged my memory. I said, with what to her must have seemed like total irrelevance, ‘Your kitchen maid, Nell, said that her young brother once worked here, helping William Morgan in your garden, but that the boy disappeared some two years ago. William must miss him. There’s a lot of work just for one man.’

Judith St Clair looked faintly surprised, as well she might, by this sudden change of subject, then puckered her forehead in perplexity. ‘Nell’s brother …? Ah! Now you mention it, yes, I do have a vague recollection of him. More of a hindrance than a help, according to William, if I remember rightly. William and he nearly came to blows on more than one occasion. I’d forgotten him.’

A vague recollection? She had to be lying, of course. Martha Broderer had told me that young Roger had been brought up in Judith’s household and that his and Nell’s mother, until her untimely death, had been Judith’s tiring-woman. My companion obviously had no idea of the extent of my knowledge, but I wondered why she had bothered to lie at all. In fact, I wondered about this whole episode: why she had invited me into the garden; why she seemed to derive a certain satisfaction from showing me the view.

Footsteps sounded on the path behind us, and we turned to see William Morgan trudging towards us, looking as surly as ever; an expression that became even more sullen the moment he saw me.

‘Ah! William!’ Judith remarked coolly. ‘Master Chapman and I were just talking about Nell’s brother, who used to assist you in the garden.’

‘Stupid little varmint,’ he grumbled. ‘That boy would never do as he was told, would he? Always planting things where he shouldn’t and trying to dig up things that I’d just planted. Couldn’t tell a weed from a flower. I remember, down here, when he tried—’

‘Thank you, William.’ Judith, losing patience, interrupted the reminiscence politely, but firmly. ‘Did you want me for something?’

‘Paulina asked me to tell you that her next door has called to see you – Mistress Jolliffe. I was coming down the garden anyway, so I said I’d save her legs by giving you the message myself.’ He glowered vindictively at me. ‘Do you want me to show the pedlar out?’

‘There’s no need,’ Judith answered coolly, not best pleased, I could tell, by his familiar tone in front of an outsider. But the Welshman seemed to hold a privileged position in his mistress’s esteem, and she offered no reprimand. She turned instead to me. ‘I feel sure, Master Chapman, you can leave by the same way that you entered. There’s no need for you to go through the house. You’ll see that the wall is as easy to scale from this side as from the other. I’ll show you where you climbed over. Thank you for your company. I’ve enjoyed it.’ She laughed softly, as if at some private joke.

I should have liked to stay and have a few words with William Morgan concerning his murderous nocturnal activities, but with Mistress St Clair’s eyes fixed upon me I had no choice but to climb the wall again and make my way up the alleyway into the Strand. I realized that our conversation had omitted any mention of Martin Threadgold’s sudden death and, on reflection, found it a strange oversight, considering it should have been a topic uppermost in both our minds, but particularly in that of Judith St Clair.

The thoroughfare was as busy as ever and, above the never-ending clamour of the bells, vendors of hot pies, cold ale, sweetmeats, ribbons, laces, silks, or anything else you fancied could be heard screaming, ‘Buy! Buy! Buy! What do you lack? What’ll you buy?’ It made my head begin to ache just listening to them.

While I hesitated, unsure what to do next, I saw, coming out of the Jolliffes’ street door, Brandon and his father, the former stocky, thickset and brown-eyed, the latter large and shambling and with eyes the same Saxon blue as my own. I hailed them, but my voice got lost in the general hubbub. I was convinced that Brandon had glimpsed me out of the corner of one eye, but he gave no sign of having done so except to hurry Roland forward at a quickened pace. I let them go. I knew where to find them if ever I needed to speak to either of them in the future.

Once again, however, the sight of Brandon Jolliffe touched that elusive chord of memory within my brain. What was it I was trying to remember? Or perhaps remember was not quite the right word. Maybe I was trying to make a connection with some other fact lying dormant somewhere in the farthest recesses of my mind. I struggled to find the missing link, unaware that I was standing stock-still in the roadway until I found myself being jostled and pushed aside by various irate passers-by, who made uncomplimentary comments on the irritating habits of country bumpkins not used to the capital’s busy ways. As I had been priding myself on how well I blended into the London scene, I found this particularly galling, and I was willing to bandy words with anyone spoiling for a fight. But Londoners appeared to have no time even for a quarrel, so I gave up and went back to the Voyager, where I went to my room and stretched out on the bed, promising myself an hour of quiet reflection. But no sooner had I started to review all that had happened in the four days since my arrival in London than, lulled by the warmth of the sun coming in at the open shutters and the comfort of the goose-feather mattress, I inevitably fell deeply and dreamlessly asleep.

It was nearly dusk when I finally awoke. The May twilight glimmered fitfully before the approaching dark. Beyond the window the sky was rinsed to a thin, fragile blue above the last flushed clouds of the sunset. Shadows muffled the outline of roofs on the opposite side of the Voyager’s courtyard and, in the heavens, a single star shone, dimly as yet, the colour of unpolished steel.

My first thought was that I was famished: I had missed my supper. The second was that there was someone banging at my chamber door. The third was that the someone had to be Bertram. No one else would hammer and kick at the wood with such abandoned familiarity, and, a moment later, my suspicions were confirmed when his by now instantly recognizable voice called impatiently, ‘Roger! Master Chapman! Let me in!’

With a groan, I slid off the bed and drew back the bolt near the top of the door. Bertram tripped over his own feet as he literally tumbled inside.

‘What on earth’s the matter?’ I demanded crossly, my hunger making me irritable. ‘What’s so urgent that you must make all this racket? Don’t tell me!’ I added waspishly. ‘You’ve discovered who killed Fulk Quantrell?’

‘No.’ He smirked. ‘But I fancy it’s a question the Dowager Duchess wants to put to you. I’ve been sent to bring you to Baynard’s Castle.’

I ground my teeth in fury (not something that’s easy to do, let me tell you).

‘What does the bloody woman want now?’ I fairly shouted. ‘What does she expect? Miracles?’

Bertram giggled in exactly the same way as my children did when I lost my temper. Why was it, I wondered resentfully, that I was unable to terrify the younger generation with a display of righteous wrath?

‘I think,’ he offered, ‘that His Grace of Gloucester so sang your praises to the Duchess and My Lord of Lincoln that they expected you to arrive at an immediate conclusion once you’d heard the story.’

I sighed. Duke Richard’s touching faith in my powers of deduction could sometimes have disastrous consequences. I asked, ‘Is there any way in which I can avoid this meeting?’

Bertram shook his head. ‘I’ve been instructed to bring you back with me to Baynard’s Castle
immediately
.’

‘You could tell Her Grace you couldn’t find me.’

He shook his head. ‘She’s not the woman to take no for an answer, chapman. I’d only be sent out to scour the city for you until I did. And I don’t fancy spending half the night on the streets, pretending to search for someone who’s really asleep, in bed.’

‘We could find a cosy nook in the ale room,’ I tempted him, but he regretfully declined this offer.

‘I’ve two of Her Grace’s gentlemen-at-arms waiting for us downstairs.’

I cursed long and fluently, to Bertram’s unstinted admiration. It was obvious that some of the phrases and expressions were new to him, and I could see him storing them away in his memory for future use, in order to impress his friends.

There was no help for it, then. When royalty requests one’s presence, there’s no option but to obey. I didn’t even dare to stop to eat.

The two Burgundian gentlemen awaiting us in the ale room were looking around them with a superior air, palpably disgusted at the antics of the swinish English. (All foreigners know, of course, that we are the spawn of the Devil, with tails concealed in our breeches.) They barely glanced our way as Bertram reappeared with me trailing reluctantly in his wake, but nodded curtly to Reynold Makepeace, ignored the goggling (and, if they’d only known, sniggering) drinkers at the scattered tables, and preceded us out of the inn, magnificent in their black-and-gold livery.

Our progress through the streets to Baynard’s Castle was punctuated by the catcalls and rude remarks of passers-by, my fellow countrymen being, as always, deeply resentful of foreigners, whom they have always regarded with the greatest suspicion and derision – fair game for any insult they can lay their tongues to. Fortunately, our Burgundian friends seemed ignorant of most of the expressions hurled at their heads, for which I was truly thankful. They looked a couple of tall, stout lads who wouldn’t hesitate to crack a few skulls together in defence of their own and their duchy’s honour.

We finally reached the castle to find it in the grip of its usual hustle and bustle, but magnified several times over. There were torches and flambeaux everywhere; men-at-arms polishing their daggers and halberds until they positively shone; the kitchen quarters in a ferment, with scullions and pot boys and cooks frantically dashing in and out of doors, rushing from bakery to butchery to buttery and back again; groups of jongleurs and acrobats and minstrels all practising their various arts in different corners of the courtyard, and setting up such a cacophony that even the palace rats ran squeaking in agony back to their holes.

My tentative enquiries elicited the fact that the King and Queen were riding over from Westminster to dine at Baynard’s Castle that night, and were expected in about an hour, so Bertram and I were hurried in through a side door to a small and very chilly ante-room and told to wait. Our fine Burgundian friends then disappeared while we kicked our heels and tried to keep warm – exactly the sort of treatment I had grown to expect from my ‘betters’.

‘“When Adam delved and Eve span, / Who was then the gentleman?”’ I muttered darkly to Bertram; but he obviously had never heard that seditious rhyme and looked at me as though I had taken leave of my senses.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than a lapse of ten minutes or so, a gentleman-usher made his appearance to inform us that Her Grace the Dowager Duchess was not yet ready to receive us, but that My Lord of Lincoln would be grateful for a word – ‘grateful for a word’ being, of course, just another euphemism for, ‘John de la Pole has spoken. Come at once!’

Needless to say, we didn’t keep him waiting, but meekly followed the gentleman-usher into the royal presence. This proved to be in Lincoln’s bedchamber, where he was wallowing in the scented water of a sponge-lined bath. As we were announced, he heaved himself into a sitting position and gave me his friendly smile, at the same time waving a well-manicured hand in the direction of an exotic-looking personage to whom he had been talking as we entered.

‘Are you acquainted with Captain Brampton, chapman?’ he asked in the free and easy way that assumed I would be on speaking terms with anyone and everyone at court.

As it happened, I
did
know who this tough, swarthy, swashbuckling gentleman was, having come across him five years earlier during my attempts to foil a plot on the Duke of Gloucester’s life, and having learned his history then. Edward Brampton was a Jew, a rarity in England since the expulsion of his race by the first Edward almost three centuries earlier. Duarte Brandeo (his original Portuguese name) had, however, embraced Christianity and lived in the House of the Convertites in the Strand. At his baptism, the King himself had stood as godfather, and Brampton had taken his sovereign’s Christian name along with his new surname. (I mention him here, not because he played any significant role in this particular story, but because, in a few years’ time, he and I would find ourselves unexpected allies against the usurper Henry Tudor. But that is to anticipate …)

I murmured that I had indeed once had the honour of the Captain’s acquaintance, but as he obviously had no recollection of me, I said no more, waiting silently to know why the Earl had summoned me. Captain Brampton kissed Lincoln’s hand and took himself off in a flurry of good wishes and gusts of jovial laughter that made everyone in the room grin in sympathy – even the Earl’s Master of the Bath, an ascetic, stern-looking gentleman who kept a beady eye on the three young pages whose job it was to keep the tub topped up from the large pan of water heating over the bedchamber fire.