Court of Conspiracy (3 page)

Pippa ceased her scrutiny of the range of cooking pots. “I know how to keep house well enough,” she said, looking round. “A good deal better than you,” she added, scraping away a layer of congealed fat from the table with a fingernail, her mouth twisting in disgust.

Mayhap she was genuine. Luke’s shoulders relaxed and he became aware of a crescendo in the clamor outside. Frowning, he hurried back into the shop. A tall black-eyed man stalked through the door, his doublet streaked with mud, a cut on one cheek oozing blood. Several attendants, all in silks and velvets, pressed in after him. After the briefest of pauses, Luke fell to his knees, his head bowed, his mind trying to remain calm.
Do you physick the King?
she had asked. It looked as if that might well be the case.

The young man spoke, his voice as friendly as if addressing a high courtier. “Master Ballard, we need a speedy cure for this headache. Get up, man, and make one of your potions.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Using the counter as an aid to his suddenly unsteady legs, Luke pushed himself to his feet. One of his colleagues in the Guild of Apothecaries had told him that Henry IX’s humor was choleric, so he must factor in the spleen. Luke took a deep breath and forced his mind to focus. Apprehension made him double-check the required elements and quantities. Moving with concentrated purpose from jar to jar, he weighed out centaury and comfrey, checked the measures again and stirred. He sensed a movement of impatience, but not on the part of his royal client.

“God’s death, man, you are too slow. You serve the King.”

Luke glanced at the speaker. “Better too slow, my lord, than fast and slapdash,” he said, putting the powders in a goblet, adding wine and proffering it to the King. He saw the speaker’s cheeks flush with anger.

“Sir Nigel Kerr is ever mindful of the King’s well-being, Master Apothecary,” said another courtier, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners to alert Luke that he spoke in jest. “As are we all,” he went on. “I am sure that were you to treat His Majesty, Sir Nigel, you would concentrate every bit as much as Master Ballard here.”

Kerr bowed his head. “My lord, you are, as usual, in the right.”

The King laughed and slapped the brown-eyed man on the back. “Thomas, Thomas, do we detect the possibility that Sir Nigel has wagered you will best me at dice?” Turning to Luke, he swirled the contents of the goblet and drained it in one draught. “You must forgive my lord of Norfolk,” he added. “He is anxious for our headache to be gone so that there is no chance he might be accused of winning by unfair means.”

Luke joined in the burst of laughter and bowed. “May I assist you further, Sire? I think the cut on your cheek needs attention.”

“You have leave. One of our idiot stable boys failed to notice a stem of thorns under Jasper’s saddle. Jasper did not like it. He just heaved us into the mud. We have injured our arm in addition to other hurts.” He turned to Norfolk. “Deal with the stables, Thomas.”

Norfolk bowed. “Already in hand, Sire.”

Luke cleaned the wounds, applying an ointment of arnica and mandrake, then bowed again as Henry swept out followed by his retinue. Sir Nigel Kerr hung back and threw a bag of coins on the counter. “A good job you do not charge by the hour, Master Apothecary, or you would be the richest man in Christendom.”

Luke, in the midst of tidying his counter, ceased all movement. With slow deliberation he lifted his gaze to meet that of the man opposite.

“I prithee pardon, Sir Nigel,” he said without expression. “It is the first time I have treated the King.”

“And on that showing, it will be the last.” Kerr strode from the shop, almost slipping in the patch of mud from water off the roof.

“Droning tosspot,” Luke muttered, following him to the door.

“That was the man in my dream,” Pippa said from the shadow of the kitchen doorway. “The tall black-eyed man. The one you gave the potion to.”

Luke swung round to face her. “The King? You are certain?”

“By my troth, I swear it.”

Luke stared at her. Was this why God had sent her, to give him timely warning of the King’s injury? But why? None knew better than God that treating cuts, bruises and strains did not require complicated concoctions. The appearance of this unknown wench and her trance foreshadowing the King’s fall brought his fears back tenfold.

He turned, watching the now-distant royal party. “A black-eyed man lying in mud,” he said almost to himself. “All because a careless stable lad did not notice that there were thorns under the King’s saddle.”

“What did the King mean when he asked that man to deal with the stables?”

Luke shook his head. “It is best you do not know, girl. Physical proximity to the court breeds the skill of ignorance in the likes of us. If you desire to keep your life, then see nothing and say nothing.”

Chapter Three

“The dog still lives.” The woman at the table read the message again, but however many times she tried to find a difference in the words, it still said the same. Only the glow from the fire and a nimbus of light around the solitary candle lit the room. The flame guttered as the draught from the windows swung the tapestries away from the stone walls with a muffled clacking sound. At once, her head swung round to check the door, every muscle tensed in fear. She clenched her fists, her eyes closing in relief, but her imagination felt the bite of the axe across the back of her neck and heard the gloating excitement of spectators on Tower Green. One false move and she was lost.

“Calm. I must remain calm,” she said aloud, forcing her shoulders to relax, hoping that hearing the words aloud would reassure her. “You will hear the latch on the door before they come in,” she added, praying that it would be warning enough.

She anchored the parchment with one finger, reading each letter of the message and double-checking that she had deciphered it correctly. Perhaps she had been too confident of immediate good fortune. In frustration, she jumped to her feet heedless of the heavy oak chair that tipped over backward to the floor. The next second, she swung round to face the door, whispering a short prayer of gratitude that the rushes had deadened the sound. Her pacing sent shadows fleeing around the room, and it took a few moments before she could regain enough presence of mind to concentrate on controlling her breathing and get her thoughts in order. She checked an automatic impulse to summon one of the servants on the other side of the door and, with difficulty, levered the chair back to an upright position.

For a few moments, she put her face in her hands, but now was no time for weakness. She raised her head and heaved a sigh of resignation. What had Richard Taverner written?
A
dogge hath a day.
She must hope that Henry IX’s day had come and gone. Surely this latest failure would be their last. It must be. Time was not on their side.

The Lord grant her the strength to continue the fight. She had to go on. God was merely testing her, that was all. How could He fail to bless this enterprise when she undertook it only for His glory?

Fool. She had allowed her despair to override her fear of discovery and, more important, to plant a momentary doubt that God was with her. She promised that she would say extra penances and beg His forgiveness. She seized the original coded message and her decryption and pushed her chair back again. In her haste, the heavy sable wrap caught on one arm of the chair, nearly making her fall. The hand holding the parchments smashed onto the table, jarring her wrist. Pain shot up her arm intensifying her panic. With an effort, she steadied herself, walked to the fire and thrust the incriminating documents into the flames, watching until they were entirely consumed.

Just in time. She swung round at the sound of the door latch being lifted from the outside.

* * *

Gethin Pitt wished he had never seen a horse, let alone found work in King Henry’s stables. He played over and over in his mind the events preceding the accident. The day had started when dawn’s gentle light had begun to penetrate the shadows. Jasper had whinnied a soft greeting, nuzzling Gethin’s hand and chomping the apple the boy had brought. He remembered brushing Jasper’s coat until it gleamed like molten copper. He saw himself pick up the saddle. Had the thorns been stuck on the underside of it then? Surely Jasper would have danced and skittered if they had?

His nightmare had truly begun when two richly dressed men, accompanied by five of the King’s guard, had arrived. They had come straight to the stall and one of the guards had flung him against the wall. Through the blood coursing down his face, Gethin stared at a short thick stem covered in thorns, thrust under his nose by one of the richly dressed men.

“Attend, you poxy rascal. Why did we find this under His Majesty’s saddle?”

“Jasper’s saddle?” Gethin frowned at the length of the thorns, but danger did not register in his brain. Yet. “This was under Jasper’s saddle?”

“Do not play the innocent with us. You put it there expressly to imperil the King.”

“I swear, sir, I did not.” Gethin was beginning to sweat. He knew with a sudden deadly certainty that he was in the worst trouble of his entire life. “I did not,” he repeated.

One of the guards hit him around the head with the shaft of his halberd. “Do not speak to His Grace, the Duke of Norfolk, in that fashion.”

“You lie,” Norfolk said, viciously poking Gethin under the chin with his gloved finger. “Who else could have placed it there?”

“I do not know, sir, but I wouldn’t do nothing to harm Jasper.”

“Did you hear that, Sir Nigel? The wretch would not harm Jasper.”

The other man snorted his disdain. “The horse, knave, is fine. The King is not.”

Gethin fell to his knees, his face drained of color. At this moment his mother, alerted by another stable boy, ran in and tried to reach her son.

“Sir, sir, I pray you release my boy. He would not harm a hair of the King’s head, sir.”

A guard swung her by the arm and thrust her sprawling into the soiled straw of the stall opposite, directly under the hoofs of the horse occupying it. The animal kicked out, catching her rump and sending her flying into the wooden partition. The guard laughed. Gethin tried to reach her, but at a signal from the man called Sir Nigel, the other guards seized him, pinioning him by his arms and dragging him outside. A small crowd had gathered in the road outside, silent and watchful. Gethin knew none would dare to speak up, but Norfolk appeared to be taking no chances. He spoke to the guards in an undertone.

“Take him by river, lest his liberty be attempted.”

Gethin could hear his mother’s wailing and lamentation as he was bundled the short distance to the river and thrust into a boat. He could see her running along the bank trying to keep up, but the oarsmen were strong and fast. He tried to call out to her, but one of the guards kicked him in the mouth. Gethin tasted blood and spat out a broken tooth. There had to be a sensible explanation for this mistake, and the sooner he could talk to someone who would listen, the better. This was not the first time he had fallen foul of authority, but it promised to be the most frightening. He had only the certain knowledge of his innocence to maintain him, but he knew only too well that when it came to the word of a rich man against that of a peasant, the outlook for the peasant was grave.

Gethin stayed quiet, watching the river bank. Some of the neighbors had caught up with his mother and turned her away, walking her back toward the palace. She was still crying and it was only when they rounded a bend of the river that he could no longer hear her.

His arrival at the Tower caused some concern until it was understood that this prisoner was guilty of attempted regicide. Gethin was dragged down to a dark, dank dungeon and thrown through the door into slimy, filthy straw. Only as he examined his surroundings, feeling cold despair leaching from the stone walls, did the first inkling of his true situation commence. He began to utter prayers for his salvation.

* * *

“You mean I’m going to be able to do magic?”

Pippa stared at Luke, her eyes wide and shining with excitement. Seeing that she was exhausted, he had suggested she spend the morning on the pallet by the fire whilst he attended to his customers. Several hours’ sleep had rendered her excitable and talkative.

Luke could feel her exhilaration streaming across the kitchen toward him. Perhaps he had been too precipitate. He knew nothing about this girl except what she had told him, and heaven knew how unwise it was to accept anything at face value in these hazardous days. Danger lurked everywhere, waiting to snare the unwary.

“Just because you have talent does not mean that you can walk into magic,” he said. “The process is long and the study hard.”

“I won’t have to read, will I? I can’t read. The unwanted relation wasn’t allowed to learn.”

The girl’s face dropped into a sulky frown. Luke’s misgivings grew. He would do well to retreat on the subject of elemancy. In fact, it would have been much better had he not allowed his excitement to loosen his tongue and tell her about it in the first place. The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he became, despite Joss’s apparent trust. If she turned out to be a spy, his only counterclaim would be that she had terrified him by going into a trance and he felt that by humoring her, he was safeguarding his own life.

“I think our first priority must be to clean you up,” he said at last. “You are riper than a year-old cheese.”

“Do you think I am used to being so filthy or that I enjoy it, you stupid oaf?”

“I am glad to hear it, but I think calling me an oaf when I have fed you leans towards ingratitude. If you wish to remain in this house, keep a civil tongue in your mouth. Is it the effect of a full stomach that makes you so bold?”

Pippa curtseyed. “I beg pardon. I wasn’t allowed to bathe much after I was banished to the kitchens, but I have never been in such a state as this. I’ve tried everything. Rose water, lavender, sage, bay. Nothing works for long, does it?”

“No,” Luke said. “In fact, I believe that when the princesses from Cleves came to visit his late majesty, the fact that they seldom took baths offended him.”

Pippa surveyed her filthy apparel. “I cannot wear this again. It is beyond recovery, I fear. My aunt had it made for me when she thought I was blessed with holy visions. Of course, cousin Cecily had to have one specially made too.”

Luke thought for a moment. “I’ll go and ask Mistress Paige. She’ll know what to do. Stay in this room whilst I am gone. Do not go into the shop.”

“Why? And who is Mistress Paige?”

“The shop is full of traps for the unwary and the ignorant. Liquids that burn, powders that can render you senseless. You would not be the first to suffer disfigurement or worse. Mistress Paige is a friend. You need have no fear of her. I believe she can help us. I shall return anon.”

Luke clicked his fingers and Joss followed at his heels. The short walk to the palace past the victualing houses provided him with an opportunity to ponder the disquieting news from one of the morning’s customers that Gethin Pitt had been taken to the Tower. The poor lad’s widowed mother would be distraught. A devoted son, Gethin had looked after her since his father’s death. He had put his hand to anything that brought in enough money to feed and keep the two of them. Luke had encountered the lad a few times and sensed in him a clear honesty and good heart. He felt certain Gethin was innocent and wondered what, if anything, he could do to prove it.

He hurried past the fleshing house with its relentless stench, nodded to the guards at the west gate of Hampton Court and ran up the stairs into the Great Hall. Gwenette Paige was in the Great Watching Chamber repairing one of the wall hangings, her nimble fingers flying to finish her task before the King entered for his daily walk through the public rooms to the Chapel Royal.

Luke waited until he caught her eye, not having the courage to ask the yeoman on duty if he could pass into the room. Gwenette saw him as she was finishing. She wove a needle into her bodice, picked up the rest of her sewing materials and came to him, a smile of welcome on her face.

As Luke explained, he saw her face pale and her breathing quicken. She put a hand to her breast. Without thinking he gave her his arm to lean on. “Mistress, are you ailing?”

She smiled, but did not take his arm. “No, not at all. I have been here since sunrise trying to finish off my repair. I have not yet broken my fast.”

“Then why not come back to my house? I have food and ale. You could meet this girl. Truth be told, I am more than a little embarrassed at the situation. I would value your advice and assistance.”

Gwenette laughed. “I accept your kind offer of food, Master Ballard. One of these days, you will help a starveling once too often. Come, let me see this refugee from Catholic oppression.”

She spoke loudly and laughed again, but Luke, only too aware that the palace had ears everywhere, cast nervous glances all round. “Prithee watch your tongue, Gwenette. You know not who is listening.”

* * *

They came for him less than an hour later. A tall man, in neat sober black; a shorter man with red hair; and two guards. The tall man seemed to be in charge and spoke, but Gethin, who had eaten nothing since the day before, could not concentrate through the fog of stomach-gnawing hunger.

“I am Sir Anthony Kingston, the Constable of the Tower,” the tall man said. “I am responsible for this place, and for the King’s enemies housed within it.”

Gethin’s swollen tongue and bloodied mouth made speech difficult. “I am no enemy of the King, sir,” he said.

“I’m afraid, Master Pitt, that the facts speak against you.”

The boy thought that nobody save his mother had ever spoken to him in such a gentle tone. He promised himself he would never complain about anything ever again if this gentleman would believe him, and he could get back to the stables and Jasper.

“My mother spoke true, sir, when she told the gentlemen that I would not harm His Majesty.”

“The problem we have, you see,” Sir Anthony continued in the same soft tone, “is that only you could have put the thorns under the horse’s saddle.”

Gethin began to cry, his tears cutting pale streaks down his grimy bloodstained face. How could he make this man understand that he was innocent? “Sir, I will swear on the Bible that when I saddled Jasper, there wasn’t nothing under it.”

The red-haired man signaled for the guards to take hold of Gethin’s arms. They formed a procession, manhandling the boy out of the cell and down some stone steps. He tried to turn to implore the tall man for mercy but the guards yanked him round. “Please, sir, do not hurt me. I’ve not done nothing,” he screamed, before being dragged down the last few steps and hauled into a large chamber.

Sir Anthony followed the procession. They stopped just inside the door and, through his mounting panic, Gethin observed ropes and iron bars. Along one wall, there were several devices he had never seen before. He began to tremble as if he had an ague. At the other end of the chamber, a large lit brazier glowed red, warming the atmosphere, but Gethin felt icy spikes of terror spear into him. His mind went blank.