The Traitor's Tale (12 page)

Knowing the question was stupid even as it came out of his mouth, Joliffe blurted, "Evidence of what?"

"Of treason," Sir William said grimly. "That York stirred up all these uprisings and rebellions against the king this spring and summer past."

Joliffe held back startled exclaim against that; instead said with a steadiness he did not feel, "Treason. Allege it against him while he's in Ireland, beyond readily defending himself."

"Yes," Sir William said bitterly. He paced away from the window and across the room, tapping his fingertips on the desktop as he passed. "The charges would be laid and his property seized before he could do anything about it. Then he would be told to come back and face trial."

"And if he refused to walk into that trap, if he stayed safe in Ireland declaring his innocence, he would be charged with open rebellion and condemned anyway," Joliffe said. He turned to watch Sir William at his pacing. "Very smoothly done."

"Nor will Fastolf's commission be the only one that's been told." Sir William reached the far wall and turned back. "They've likely all been given to understand the same. Let even one of them 'find out' evidence against him ..." He tapped at the desk again as he passed. "... and he'll be charged with being traitor to the king. And that . . ." At the window again, Sir William turned and said sharply at Joliffe, ". . .
that
will make all of us traitors, too, for serving him."

Which meant it would be best, for several reasons, not to let the business come to that, thought Joliffe; and aloud he said, "Who's ordered this?"

"Fastolf named no names."

"Because he couldn't or because he wouldn't?"

Sir William began to pace again. "I don't know." Again the tapping of fingers along the desk in passing.

"But it came from someone," Joliffe said. "Suffolk is dead. Who looks to be taking his place in running the king?"

"Who knows?" Sir William said bitterly.

You should, for one, Joliffe thought. Like every lord, York had spies in other lords' households as well as men like Joliffe not tied to one place who could be set to things best not done openly, and all their webs of information all came back to Sir William. If he did not know . . .

"The duke of Somerset?" Joliffe asked.

"Not from what I've heard." Back at the desk, Sir William stopped, rapped his knuckles on it impatiently. "He's had France to keep him occupied. He's surrendered Caen. By now Falaise is gone, too. That leaves us Cherbourg and nothing else in Normandy."

"Is he in Cherbourg then?"

"He's back in England. Landed at Dover with household, bag and baggage, a few days ago."

"If anyone's guilty of treason, he is. He's all but handed Normandy back to the French."

Sir William was frowning down at papers on the desk. "It will be interesting to see how King Henry receives him."

"With shackles and a prison cell would be best," Joliffe said darkly. "Followed soon after by a trial and a beheading."

"The last word I had is that he's riding openly toward London with no let or hindrance offered him." He looked up from the papers. "My lord of York has to be warned about this matter of treason. Of
it
and other things best not put into a letter or said by messenger. So I'm away to Ireland. You can report to Therry if there's need before I return."

Sir William was probably right that York should hear from him what was afoot, and Therry would keep a steady hand on things here, but, "What about Hampden's death?"

"Hampden. Too bad he was killed before you talked with him. But what's done is done. Best you try the Suffolk household priest. Sire John Squyers. I've found out where he is. Not with the Lady Alice as it happens. He's gone to his parish. At Alderton on the Suffolk coast. It's somewhere not much beyond Ipswich."

"When did he go there?"

"Two months ago." Sir William began to push papers around on his desk. "Or maybe it was a month and a half. A while anyway. He's not with Lady Alice. That's the point."

"You'd think now is when he'd be most needed in the household."

"Maybe he was more Suffolk's chaplain rather than hers. Maybe he and the Lady Alice don't get on."

"Or maybe he lately discovered a need to serve his flock instead of merely fleece them," Joliffe offered.

Sir William stopped moving the papers and looked up at Joliffe across the desk. "You find him out and ask him, that's all."

"There was another name on Gough's list."

"Edward Burgate. The duke's secretary. Yes. The nearest I've come to learning about him is that he may have been arrested at Dover."

"Arrested? For what? By whom?"

"Maybe by a royal officer. Maybe not. My man wasn't certain, but he's not been seen since, anyway. Not by anyone who's admitted to it."

"He's not at Dover, though."

"No, not at Dover, it seems. But nowhere else either. Best get as much from this priest as you can. With Hampden dead and unless we find Burgate, the trail we want back to Suffolk and Somerset is going cold and narrow."

Cold as dead men's bodies, Joliffe thought. Narrow as graves.

At least Ipswich was an easy enough ride from Hunsdon. Not much north from the manor was one of the roads the Romans had made, Stane Street, running straight eastward toward the coast. With good will and fine weather, Alder-ton should be hardly two days' ride away, but he and Rowan had made a hard push of the ride to Wales and back, and he had no mind to push her again, nor trade off for a less-certain horse from Sir William's stable for the sake of faster going.

"Better the devil I know, yes?" he said at the back of her head as they ambled away from Hunsdon. She flicked her ears at him in what he chose to imagine was displeasure, and he granted, "You're not a devil then. You're an angel of patience and virtue. Is that better?"

She did not say whether it was or not, but she likely approved of their easy pace and later that morning made no objection to the hour they spent only standing in a copse of young trees on a hill above Stane Street for Joliffe to see who passed by. That way, if he saw anyone of them along his way again, he would have to worry they had been following him, realized they'd lost him, and been waiting to see if he came behind them.

Since no one but Sir William should know what he was about, that he would be followed from Hunsdon was unlikely, but Joliffe strongly believed, "Better safe than sorrowful."

But of course, if someone knew not only his business but where he was going, they'd have no need to follow him; could go happily ahead and wait for him to come, but about that Joliffe could do nothing, could only watch his back.

Making no haste, he rode into Colchester early in the second day. Ipswich lay some eighteen miles farther on and northward again. If he put effort into it, he could be past there today, but he spent an hour at an alehouse two hours’ ride beyond Colchester, waiting to see if anyone familiar from his first day's travel happened by. None did and he rode on, somewhat easier in his mind but not much. Besides the possibility that he might be followed by someone as wary at this game as he was, he was bothered beyond the ordinary by both Gough's and Hampden's deaths.

Gough's surely had to do with the letter. Did whoever had wanted him dead know what had become of it, or were they still looking for it? And Hampden. There was the chance his death was maybe only by mischance and nothing more, but that "maybe" kept Joliffe wary. The only thing he knew Hampden and Gough had in common was that Hampden's name was in a letter that Gough had wanted the duke of York to have. That might mean nothing. It might mean much. What was certain was that Joliffe now had that letter in common with them, and since he was not minded to be dead before he had to be, he was taking care while care could be taken. One of his earliest-learned lessons in this life of twisted corners he now led was that suspicious was a better way to be than blindly trusting.

He spent the night in Ipswich at a comfortable inn where the ale was good and the wine better, and in the morning found someone able to tell him his way to Alderton lay through Woodbridge some eight miles farther along; and in Woodbridge a man leading a horse and cart across the marketplace readily pointed him toward the coastward road for Alderton. "Not much of a place to
have business," the man said. He gave a squint-eyed stare at the sky with its milky overcast and added, "It's a good ten miles and I shouldn't be surprised if there's fog coming. But there's only the one road, so if you keep straight on and don't go wandering, you should do well enough. Shouldn't linger about it, though."

"I've no mind to." Joliffe assured him, thanked him, and rode on. He had half-promised himself a midday meal in Woodbridge but decided to forego it. Beyond the town, he even pressed Rowan into a canter now and again. The cool smell of the sea had been with him ever since Ipswich and was stronger here, carried on a small wind over the flat fields. He knew there was a wide-estuaried river to his right and the sea somewhere ahead, and as the man in Wood-bridge had said, if he kept straight on, he should not lose his way, but he would rather not ride in fog if he could help it. If he was fortune-favored, maybe he could find out what he wanted from this Squyers and be away ahead of the weather's change. But before he was as many miles along as he would have liked to be, the fog came sliding in over the low coastwise sandhills and across the flat fields. In moments the world disappeared and Joliffe resigned himself to a longer ride at a slower pace.

He tried the comfort of telling himself he had been in thicker fogs than this and that he might ride out of it, but he did not. A street of houses formed out of the gray murk, and he asked a woman just going in at a door if this was Alderton, only to be told it was not.

"It's next along," the woman said. "Keep to the road and you'll come to it."

He did keep on, and after a tedious, blind ride that was probably not so long as it seemed, house-shapes along a village street again formed out of the fog. Since this must be Alderton, he now only needed to find this Sire John Squyers. He had long since decided against the roundabout-to-get-there he had meant to use with Hampden. Knowing for certain now how far this place was from the comforts of being a duke's household chaplain, and already doubtful that Sire John Squyers had suddenly come down with an attack of pious desire to serve his parish, a straight appeal to the man's self-interest would likely serve best. Threat—much is known and more will be found out—leavened with some of the gold coins Sir William had given him to the purpose would very likely be all that was needed.

If it was not, he'd find another way.

So . . . the church first. That would be easily found, even in fog; and if Squyers wasn't there, his house was surely close by and someone could be found to point the way. Or if by ill luck Squyers was not here anymore, someone could say where he had gone. Joliffe just hoped if he wasn't here it was not because he had gone back to the duchess of Suffolk's household, because that would make talking to him the more difficult.

Besides those thoughts as he rode along Alderton's street—and whether it was Alderton's only street or one of several he could not tell—he was looking for an inn, not wanting to ride back to Woodbridge through this murk. He did not see one, but then he was not seeing much of anything besides house-fronts, closed doors, and no people, until the church thickened out of the fog into a solid shape beyond a low wall, and there on a backless wooden bench beside the wall, where they would have been enjoying the sun if there had been any, were two old men, one of them humped and shriveled inside his clothing, the other straight-backed with his knob-knuckled hands resting on top of a stout cane set firmly upright in front of him. Plainly not minded to be put off it by a mere fog, they had the look of having been on that bench for a fair while; and Joliffe drew rein in front of them and nodded friendliwise, sitting deliberately easy in his saddle to show he was here on no urgent matter.

Before he could ask anything, though, the bow-backed man said, "You're here about the priest?"

Just able to keep surprise from his voice, Joliffe answered, "I am, yes."