The Traitor's Tale (41 page)

Old Ela snorted. Luce tossed her head to show she was ignoring Ela and said, chin in air, "And even if he is useless, he's still king and that's that. So I don't believe at all the duke of York is going to claim the crown. If he wants to show a few lords where the line is, that's another matter and he's welcome to it."

But if it had come to battle between York and any of the king's men in Wales, that was another matter, Joliffe thought. That would be taken for open treason by those intent on bringing York down.

He wanted to ask more but Tom wouldn't know more, and even what he had said was probably something like tenth-hand. Maybe there had been no battle. Probably the one certain thing was that York was back from Ireland.

He pushed himself up from the bench by heavy leaning on the table, said something about being ready to
lie down again, and left Luce and Tom still talking. Because old Ela was watching him rather than them, he gave her a smile and a nod to show he was as untroubled by the news as she was. She nodded back, but with a shrewdness in her gaze that made him doubt her message was the same as his.

Pleased to find himself neither so weak in the legs nor so tired as he might have been, he was nonetheless grateful to lie down when he reached his bed. He had yet to bother putting his boots on, so he did not have to trouble with taking them off, and if he decided not to
get
up again, he could sleep well enough in the new shirt and someone's old hosen and tunic he'd been given. What he feared was that he would not sleep at all but lie awake in worried thought. His day's exertions saved him that. He was part way through his prayer for blessing in the night when he fell into heavy sleep.

Mercy ended when he awoke at first light. All the thoughts he had escaped in sleep were waiting for him with no way short of strong drink to be rid of his thinking and no way for him to come by strong drink here.

York was out of Ireland and seemed to have won against whatever the king's men had set against him in Wales. How he had won past them was among the
worries. Then there were all the others. How many men did he have with him? Had he had time to gather them from his Welsh estates or had he brought them from Ireland? If from Ireland, he could have left matters dangerously unbalanced there, given how ready the Irish were to revolt against every treaty they made. However it was, he'd had enough men not only to fight—or face down—Sir Thomas Stanley, but was he going now to challenge King Henry? Or was that just rumor running the way rumor did? Come to it, how much of anything Tom had said last night was only rumor that had out-run anything like the truth?

Which left the questions: Where was York? What did he intend? And as importantly, what did King Henry intend?

Or would it be better to say: What was the duke of Somerset intending?

Somerset and whoever was allied with him, Joliffe amended.

He could bring himself to stay here quietly a small while longer, let the wound heal a little more, let his strength come back more. But in a day—two days—he would have to go. He would get Suffolk's letter back from Dame Frevisse and ride Wales-ward, learning what he could as he went.

If he was lucky, the most trouble with that plan would be getting a girth strap around Rowan after this while at pasture with nothing asked of her but eating.

Luce came with his breakfast of bread and ale and he asked her, "Any more word about the duke of York and all?" Trying to make it sound as if it little mattered.

"It would be an early traveler brought it if there was," she laughed and went away, easy in her life, content that other people's troubles were their own and nothing to do with her.

Dame Claire and Sister Johane had taken to seeing him turn and turn about. This morning Dame Claire came in, carrying her box of medicines, and Dame Frevisse followed her but stopped just inside the doorway, saying nothing, not even a morning greeting, only waiting quietly while he lifted up his tunic and shirt for Dame Claire to unfasten the bandage and take off the poultice. To her open satisfaction it came away clean.

"The wound is closed very well," she said. "There's no sign of infection left. I'll bandage you but nothing more today, and in a day or so you'll not need even that. Have you been stretching as I told you?"

"Yes, my lady." He did the gentle stretch and twist of his arms and body she had said would keep the wound from stiffening. "I've walked in the yard, too."

"You seem none the worse for it, but take care. If you reopen the wound, you may not be so fortunate with your healing as you've been this time."

"When will I be able to ride?"

"You mean leave here?" she said sharply. "You're healing, not healed. There's a difference. I would say you're some days yet from riding."

Quietly Dame Frevisse asked, "Is tomorrow too soon?"

Dame Claire swung around on her, looked back at Joliffe sitting suddenly very still, his gaze fixed on Dame Frevisse, and said very sharply, "If he's no good sense, yes, he could ride tomorrow. And likely be someone else's problem the day after that." She picked up her box of medicines, added, "Just so he isn't mine again," and left, brushing past Dame Frevisse who did not move aside.

Joliffe sat looking at Dame Frevisse looking back at him in silence for a moment, before he said, "She doesn't approve of me."

"Right now she doesn't approve of either of us," Dame Frevisse returned and finally came into the room and a step aside from the doorway.

Behind where she had been stood Nicholas Vaughn.

Chapter 24

Frevisse had not gone again to see Joliffe because she did not know what else there was to be said between them.

There had to be some other answer than the one to which they had come near but left unsaid.

Had left unsaid because the answer that seemed to be uncoiling in front of them had to be wrong. But if it wasn't wrong . . . If it was right . . .

She had repeatedly pulled back from that thought, then forced herself to think onward, to face that after all the answer maybe was simple: If she and Joliffe were right, there was
nothing
they could do beyond Joliffe going to Alice and the duke of York with what he had, with what he knew. Then the matter, whether they were right or wrong, would be all York's trouble and no more of theirs.

She had been taking her turn at kitchen duties, chopping vegetables, when Dame Perpetua came to tell her a man had asked to see her and was waiting in the cloister's guest parlor. That was the small room just inside the cloister's outer door kept for nuns to receive family and sometimes friends. A plain room, it was barely furnished with a table, a bench, a few stools. The man was sitting on one of the stools, his elbow resting on the table, his head leaning wearily forward into his hand. He was muddy and unshaven, and only when he rose to his feet as she entered did she know him and exclaim, "Vaughn!"

"My lady." His bow was slight, possibly because he might have fallen over had he made a deeper one. He was more than merely muddy and unshaven and weary. As she neared him, she saw he had the hollow cheeks and the gray smears under the eyes of someone who had eaten poorly and slept too little for far too long.

That did not stop her demanding, "Where have you been all this while? Where've you come from? I pray you, sit down."

He sank onto the stool again, against courtesy, because she was still standing, but asked even while he did, "Is Noreys here? Did he get the letter?"

"He got it, yes. He was wounded getting it. The priest. . ."

"He's dead. I know. I've been there. Do you know where Noreys is?"

There was desperate need rather than anger in Vaughn's asking, and Frevisse answered, "He's here. We've been tending him. He was hurt. I told you."

"Does he still have the letter?"

"It's here and safe. What of you? Where have you been his while?"

But Vaughn was laboring to his feet again. "Where is he? I have to see him."

It would be simplest if he collapsed in the guesthall instead of here, so Frevisse said, "I'll take you to him."

As it happened, they were only a little behind Dame Claire going there, and Frevisse told Vaughn they would wait until the infirmarian had done with Joliffe.

"How badly is he hurt? Why is he here?" Vaughn asked.

"He's well-mended now," Frevisse said. "He's here because he didn't know where else was safe and where there was someone he could trust the letter to."

"You," said Vaughn.

"Yes."

"So you have it."

"No."

Dame Claire had looked around at them following her but asked nothing. Frevisse pointed Vaughn where to wait while she went into Joliffe's room behind Dame Claire to see for herself how he did, glad to find he was far better, both of his wound and in strength, and he exclaimed in both surprise and relief at sight of Vaughn, "Where in twenty devils' names have you been!" He stood up from the bed and held out his hand. As Vaughn came forward to take it, Frevisse shifted back to the doorway, both to signal to Ela that food and drink were wanted and to keep watch against anyone coming near. Joliffe, seeing Vaughn more clearly, made him sit down on the end of the bed, demanding while he did, "Why was it someone else at Sible Hedingham instead of you?"

Vaughn took off his hat, ran a hand into his matted hair. "That was Gyllam." Strength seemed draining out of him now he had seen Joliffe; he sounded as tired as he looked. "If I'd reached Hedingham as I should have, he wouldn't be dead at all."

"Where were you?"

"On my way to Denmark," Vaughn said on a bitten laugh. "I couldn't shake that misbred cur that was following me. He was like one of those damned stray dogs that won't give up but won't come near enough to be brained with a stone. He even picked up two more of his kind along the way somehow, so then there were three of them against Symond and me, and I didn't dare chance openly facing them. Trying to lose them while
not
going to Hedingham or Wingfield, I ended up at Bishop's Lynn of all places and took passage on a ship just ready to pull away from the dock.
That
lost them, and it was bound for Ipswich and that couldn't have been better. From there it's easy ride to Sible Hedingham. Except the wind turned against us and into a storm. We were driven northward, almost to Denmark, before we could come around and beat back. I didn't land at Ipswich until a hell-damned week ago."

Joliffe sat down where he had been on the bed. "But then how did Gyllam come to be at Hedingham?"

"The man I sent back to Lady Alice from Kenilworth reached her, told her Burgate was there. She swept off to Kenilworth herself to have him freed or know the reason why not. She succeeded. He's at Wingfield now, in no good shape but alive and maybe he'll better. He told her what he'd told Dame Frevisse. With no knowing where I was—or you—she sent Gyllam for the letter. That's how he came to be there and killed."

Frevisse asked, "How do you know all this?"

"Because at Hedingham when I came there the crowner and sheriff were tearing the place to pieces with questions. I named Gyllam for them and saw to him being buried and learned that someone who could have been Noreys had been there, too. All I could hope was that Noreys had the letter and was gone to Wingfield. So I went there."

Frevisse looked at Joliffe. "We seem to have suspicioned rightly."

Joliffe nodded. "Someone set Burgate to be followed, and then Gyllam was followed from him."

"That's how I've read it, too," Vaughn said. "It was all a trap and Gyllam died in it."

"And when you didn't find me at Wingfield?" Joliffe asked.

"I sent word to Lady Alice that ..."

"Sent her word?" Frevisse asked quickly. "She wasn't at Wingfield?"

"She was still at Kenilworth. The queen didn't want to part with her."