The Dance of Death (7 page)

‘Do you really think,' I asked wrathfully, ‘that a soldier would have any idea of the colour of another soldier's eyes? Especially after forty years! Your idea of military life needs some revision, old friend.'

‘Well, he may be able to tell you something useful,' Timothy snapped, exasperated, and knowing, I suspected, that my anger was justified. He was nobody's fool and could appreciate as well as I could that I was being sent on a well-nigh impossible mission.

He got up. The evening had drawn in while we were talking and it was nearly too dark to see one another clearly, but he wouldn't send for candles: he didn't want anyone else in the room.

‘What do I do with this?' I queried, indicating the paper on the table and also rising to my feet.

‘Put it away, but for the Lord's sweet sake keep it safe. No one must be allowed to set eyes on it but yourself. If anyone were to read those questions that you must put to Gaunt and his wife, it wouldn't take them long to work out what it's all about. And I don't need to tell you, Roger, to watch yourself. If any Woodville agent gets a whisper of this, I wouldn't give much for your chances.'

‘Thank you.' I bowed ironically. ‘It's always good to be reassured. And what do you reckon the chances are of a Woodville agent getting to know about this mission of mine? How much do you trust the men you employ? Can you guarantee they are all completely loyal?'

Timothy tried to look affronted. ‘Of course!'

I knew what that meant: no, but I'm not admitting as much. Well, who could blame him? He, too, had his loyalties until they were proved to be misplaced.

‘I'd better take you to see the duke,' he said, ‘or it will be time for him to dress for the mayor's banquet. Put that paper away for now, and later, I suggest you try to learn its contents off by heart and then destroy it. Do you have a good memory?'

‘Good enough.' I wasn't going to relieve his mind by telling him that, from boyhood, my memory had always been excellent with almost total recall of people, incidents and places. (Even in old age, memory is my greatest gift or I wouldn't be able to write these memoirs. My children would probably inform you that I make half of it up as I go along. But what do they know?) And in this case I felt that Timothy was right. Better by far to make an effort to commit my instructions to memory than to be caught with them in my possession. For the time being, I folded the paper into its creases and put it in the pouch at my belt with the rueful reflection that it was rather like pocketing a live coal.

Duke Richard was alone when I was eventually ushered into his presence. There had been some delay, Timothy and I being forced to wait in an ante-room while His Grace, a loving parent, had said goodnight to his bastard children, my lord John and the lady Katherine. The boy accompanied his father everywhere, a handsome, bright, intelligent youth with a ready smile for everyone (very different, people whispered, from the delicate, legitimate son who stayed mostly in the North with his mother). Lady Katherine was slightly older, a beautiful girl of very nearly marriageable age, visiting the duke while he was in London. They had both wished Timothy and myself a charming ‘Goodnight and God be with you' as they passed where we sat. Then a page appeared and called my name.

I raised my eyebrows at Timothy, but he shook his head.

‘No,' he muttered. ‘I thought I told you. My lord wishes to see you alone.'

The duke was seated beside a leaping fire, wearing a long chamber robe of amber velvet, his slippered feet stretched towards the flames. Candles had been lit, sending ripples of orange and gold licking across the walls, a draught making one of them splutter until it was suddenly extinguished in a puff of clouded blue smoke. A small table, close to the duke's chair, supported a flask and two goblets of fine Venetian glass, glowing blood-red in the half-light.

As soon as I entered, the duke rose from his seat, hand extended. I knelt and would have kissed it, but he withdrew it, smiling.

‘No, no, Roger! Get up, man. I was going to shake your hand. I owe you a great deal, more than I can ever repay, from the time of our very first meeting. You have just endured a long and arduous trip to Scotland at my and the king's behest – and not without its dangers, I'm given to understand – and here I am asking you to . . . to . . .'

‘Commit treason, Your Highness?' I thought it best to get things straight from the beginning.

I must have spoken more sharply than I realized because his hand fell back to his side and he flinched. He sat down again in his chair and indicated that I should take the one opposite him, on the other side of the hearth. After a moment or two while he stared into the fire with its glowing caverns and ash-fringed logs, there was a silence so profound that I could hear the popping of resin in the wood. Suddenly panic-stricken, I wondered what was to be my fate, and whether my outspokenness had really landed me in serious trouble at last.

Nothing happened, however, except that the duke finally raised his eyes, regarding me steadily, a half-smile curling the corners of his thin lips. ‘Some might see it as such, I suppose, but rest assured that my loyalty to my brother has never wavered, nor will it do so, as long as he lives. I love him too much.' The smile deepened. ‘When I was a child, I thought him the most splendid being I had ever seen, over six feet tall and as fair as a Nordic god. I would have gone to the ends of the earth for him. I still would. But . . .' Another silence, then he asked abruptly, ‘Master Plummer has explained the matter to you?'

‘More or less, my lord. He didn't really have to. My–my instructions made everything plain to me. By one of those odd coincidences, I had been reminded of your lady mother's . . . er . . .'

‘Outburst? At the time of Edward's marriage?'

‘Yes, as Your Grace says. Outburst. Strangely enough, I heard reference made to it only an hour or so ago, so that when I read what you had written –' I tapped the pouch at my belt – ‘I . . . well, I understood.'

A servant, who must have entered the room unobserved by me, slid out of the shadows and poured wine from the flask into the two goblets, presenting one to the duke on bended knee and handing me the other with much less ceremony. Indeed, to my annoyance, a little of the wine slopped on to my sleeve. I glared and received a smirk in return. Duke Richard, who had gone back to staring at the fire, waved a hand in dismissal. The man made himself scarce.

‘So, Roger!' As the latch clicked, my royal host returned his gaze to me. ‘You think me capable of treason?'

I swallowed some wine to give myself courage and leaned forward. ‘My lord,' I said desperately, ‘if you believe the Duchess of York to have been telling the truth all those years past, why do you not ask her to confirm or deny it now?'

He nodded. ‘It would seem the obvious course, I agree. But a great deal has happened in my mother's life over the past eighteen years: eight grandchildren – I am referring here only to the offspring of the king and queen, you understand – and her strong affection for the eldest of them, my niece, Elizabeth. Also, I suspect that the duchess's deepening religious experience would inhibit her from repeating the accusation. Furthermore –' he smiled wryly – ‘it's no easy matter to ask your mother if she was unfaithful to your father.'

‘I don't see that,' I argued, the wine making me bold. ‘She has only to say, “No, I was so angry at the time that I made it up. Of course it isn't true.”'

Duke Richard set down his half-empty goblet. ‘But how would I know if she is telling the truth now?' he asked quietly. ‘As I've said, nearly two decades have gone by. Circumstances have altered. And remember, she didn't implement her threat eighteen years ago when her rage was white-hot.'

The fire leaped and crackled. I leaned even closer, resting my elbows on my knees. ‘But what if, my lord, when you ask her, your lady mother admits that what she avowed back then was in fact true? You would have your answer.' And I should be spared a fool's errand to France, I thought.

The duke gave a short laugh as though he knew what I was thinking. ‘To set your mind at rest, Roger, I have come as close as a dutiful son dare to begging her for confirmation of her words.'

‘And Her Grace has denied them?'

He sighed. ‘If only she had. No, my mother remains evasive, easily turning aside a question that is not quite a question and which she is confident I shall never ask openly or force her to answer unequivocally.' He smiled conspiratorially, inviting me to share his exasperation. ‘You know how women enjoy mystifying us men, not wishing to say yea or nay but not wanting to let us off the hook that easily, either. They like to keep us in suspense. It makes them more interesting.' He added hastily, ‘I mean no disrespect to my mother. I owe her a son's love and obedience, which she will always have until the day she dies. It's just that she's . . . a woman!'

From all this, I gathered that the duke had not asked the duchess for a direct answer to a direct question, that he might have tried to prise the truth out of her by indirect ones and that Duchess Cicely was saying nothing one way or another. But what did strike me most forcibly, although it was more by the tone of his voice than by what he had actually said, was that Duke Richard desperately wanted his mother's eighteen-year-old accusation to be true. Why?

The reason, I supposed, was obvious: if his beloved brother really was no son of the late Duke of York, but the bastard of an archer, then he, Richard of Gloucester, was rightful heir to the throne of England and not the half-Woodville brat at present called the Prince of Wales. (Indeed, he was already the rightful king.) He had to know the truth: rumours and suspicion were no good to him. But how was he to discover it after forty years if the one person who knew the answer refused to reveal it?

I wondered how long Timothy Plummer had been in the duke's confidence. Long enough, obviously, for his agents to have tracked down a man who had served under the Duke of York's command in France all those years previously and who, moreover, had a wife who had been one of the duchess's tiring-women in Rouen, where King Edward had been conceived and born.

But ‘tracked down' was hardly the term to use. This useless bunch of so-called spies had merely heard of a man who had once lived in Paris and were unable to say if he were living there still. Nor could they describe him, apart from the fact that he was English and his dame French. At least I had a name, Robin Gaunt, although, heaven knew, he might well have changed it to something more Gallic in the intervening forty years.

I must have been looking grim, for the duke suddenly leaned over and seized one of my hands between both of his.

‘Roger, forgive me for asking you to do this. I'm perfectly well aware that you haven't yet been home to your wife and children. Believe me when I say that neither they nor you will suffer financial hardship in your absence. But you realize how delicate a matter this is and there is no one else that I can trust with it.'

‘Timothy Plummer?' I suggested drily.

He shook his head. ‘He can't be spared: I need him on other work. And you are completely unknown in France. You can travel as Mistress Gray's husband and it will be the perfect disguise.'

‘And yet she's to be kept in the dark regarding my mission. Without her to speak French and translate for me, I'm likely to prove a broken reed, and so I warn Your Highness. And how I'm to escape from her for maybe hours at a time, and without arousing her suspicions, I'm not sure.' I added daringly, ‘Perhaps, my lord, you have a suggestion?'

The duke smiled and gave me the same answer as Timothy Plummer: ‘You'll manage.'

I sighed, keeping my temper. ‘I can only hope,' I retorted acidly, ‘that the confidence you and your spymaster profess to have in me is not misplaced. I give Your Highness due warning that, in this instance, I may fail you.'

He released my hand and rose to his feet. I followed suit. ‘I refuse even to contemplate your failure. You will find this Robin Gaunt for me and find out what he knows.'

‘And if I do but he knows nothing, my lord? What then?'

He shrugged, the gesture showing up the slight unevenness of his shoulders, caused by the overuse of his sword arm from a very early age. ‘Let's not anticipate defeat,' he said. ‘Godspeed, Roger. I shall hope to see you the week after next when you return.' He must have noticed my dismayed expression, because he laughed. ‘Don't worry. If you haven't returned by the time I leave for the North, make your report to Master Plummer and he will send an express messenger to Middleham.' He rubbed a weary hand across his forehead. ‘And now I must dismiss you. I have to dress for this banquet.' He grimaced ruefully. ‘Truth to tell, I feel a fraud. You and I both know how little credit can be attributed to me for what is being hailed as a great victory over the Scots. We got Berwick back and a part of the Princess Cicely's dowry, but we failed completely to put Albany on the Scottish throne. There was no great battle. The old enemy was not defeated.'

‘None of that was your fault, my lord,' I protested. ‘The Scots lords were ready with their own plan long before we crossed the border.'

‘You think so? You think it was planned?'

‘Possibly. They're a crafty nation. Your Grace has no cause to demean what you achieved. As you say, Berwick is English again and with luck will remain so.' I began to sidle towards the door. ‘Her Grace of Gloucester and Prince Edward are both in good health?'

A shadow crossed the thin, careworn face. ‘As well as they ever are, I thank you. I know I should bring them south for the winter months, but . . .' He trailed off and shrugged again.