The White Rose (2 page)

Oh, yes, the vicar is right on one thing: I am well past ninety. Sir Roger Shallot, Lord of Burpham Manor near Guildford, Surrey, master of its meadows, pastures, granges and barns. I own chests and coffers stuffed with gold, silver and costly fabrics; plump fallow deer run in my lush woods; clear streams feed my stew ponds stocked full of silver carp and tench. My manor has opulent chambers, the walls lined with polished, open wainscoting, carved in the neat linen folds after the French fashion. Above them, my servants have hung velvet drapes from the looms of Bruges, Ghent and Lille. My floors are of burnished pine wood and covered with woollen rugs from Turkey or the weavers of Lancashire.

I am Roger Shallot, Justice of the Peace, Commissioner of Array, Knight of the Garter (there's a good story behind that) and member of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy. I hold medals from the Pope (though I have hidden these); gems from the spider queen, Catherine de Medici. (By the way, Catherine was a born poisoner but a most accomplished lover.) I hold pure brown leather purses full of clinking gold given to me by the present Queen's father, Bluff King Hal. Bluff King Hal! A fat, piggy-eyed, murdering tub of lard! Do you know, he wasn't very good in bed? Oh, he often boasted about his exploits between the sheets but Anne Boleyn once confided in me, with deep sighs and loving whispers, how with some men, even kings, there is an eternity between what they say and what they can do - but that's another story! Oh, you know, she was a witch? Anne Boleyn, I mean. She had an extra teat with which she fed her familiar, and six, not five fingers on her right hand. She tried to cover it with a long, laced cuff and started a new style in fashion. God rest her, she died bravely.

Oh, yes, I hold all these honours. Even Hal's daughter, red-haired, cat-eyed Elizabeth, travels from Hampton Court to seek my advice. A strange one, Elizabeth! Her hair has all gone now but she wears the best red wig London can sell. It's a pity about her teeth; her mother's were a beautiful white, very strong if I remember correctly. Now, I am speaking truthfully (you wouldn't think it, looking at Elizabeth's white, narrow face; she doesn't smile now, lest the paint crack), she was a bonny girl and a great ruler - though no more a virgin than I am. We both know that! When she visits me, we sit in my private chamber downstairs, laugh about the past and wonder about our bastard son. Oh, a marvellous bonny girl, Elizabeth . . . those strong, white legs! A great rider but, as I have said before, that's another story.

Now where was I? Murder, that's what I was talking about before my chaplain, the vicar who is writing my memoirs down, distracted me by picking his nose and asking stupid questions. I was talking about the undead, those stained with the blood of others. How they visit me every night, stand round my bed and mock my titles and the riches
I
have amassed because they know the truth.

'Old Shallot!' they taunt. 'A liar, a thief and a coward!'

The latter really hurts. What's wrong in running? I have had to many a time. I thank the good Lord that I was born with the quickest wits and fastest legs in Christendom. But that's in the past. In my chamber I have a portrait of me when I was thirty. It's painted by Holbein and I recommend it as a fair likeness. I often stare at it: the hooded eyes, one with a slight cast in it (I told Holbein what I thought of him for that!) and the black, glossy hair falling in ringlets to my shoul
ders. My face is sallow but my li
ps are free and full, and my eyes, though severe, are ringed with laughter lines and there is a dimple in both cheek and chin. God knows I look as holy as a monk but you've heard of the old adage: 'Don't judge a horse by its looks'? I recommend it to you as one of the great eternal truths. I am the biggest sinner who ever prayed in church and I confess to having a personal acquaintance with each of the seven deadly sins except one - murder!

I
have killed no woman or child and those who have died at my hands probably deserved an even more horrible fate. Indeed, these are the spectres who come to haunt me after the chimes of midnight.

Last night I recognised some of the men and women from my past. This morning their faces are still fresh in my mind as I sit at the centre of my maze and bellow for the vicar to bring his writing tray. One face, however, is always missing. Well, one in particular: Benjamin, my master, nephew of the great Cardinal Wolsey, one of my few friends. Benjamin with his long, kindly face, sharp quill nose and innocent sea grey eyes. Of course, he never comes. I suppose he is walking with the angels, still asking his innocent bloody questions. Oh, but I miss him! His eyes still mock me down the years: he was kind, generous, and could see the image of Christ in even the most blood-soaked soul.

I am of the old faith, you know. Secretly I miss the Mass, the priest offering the bread and wine, the smell of incense. I have a secret chapel built into the thick walls of my great hall and keep a blackened statue there which I rescued from Walsingham when the soldiers of Protector Somerset vandalised the chapel. I took the statue and every day, when I can, I light a candle in front of it for the soul of my dead master. However, let me concentrate on the dreams which come when the night is silent, except for the screech of the bat and the ghostly wafting of the feathered owl.

My chaplain is ready. There he sits on his quilted stool, his little warm bum protected by a cushion, quill in hand, ready to shudder with delicious horror at my shocking past. He tut-tuts as I drink my wine. One glass a day, that's what the little sod of a doctor ordered, but it's not yet noon and time for the Angelus bell and I have already downed six full cups of blood red claret. But what do doctors know? No physician can ever be successful. If he was, his patients would never die. I have known many a hearty fellow who thoroughly enjoyed life and the most robust health until he fell into the hands of physicians with their secret chants, newt
-
skin medicine, horoscope charts and urine jars. Last week the mealy-mouthed hypocrite who proclaims he looks after my health came scuttling in to examine my urine so I filled the jar full of cat's piss. The idiot stood there, holding the jar against the light, before solemnly declaring that I should eat more fish and drink less claret. Good Lord, I nearly died laughing! Mind you, doctors are not all bad. If you want a real bastard, hire a lawyer. One of these imps of Satan came up from the Middle Temple offering to write out an inventory of my goods so I could make a will. 'After all,' he commented, looking slyly at me, 'you have so many offspring.' I asked the bastard what he meant? He replied with a knowing leer how many of the young men and women in the surrounding villages bear more than a passing resemblance to my goodself. My little fart of a chaplain nods, but
I
am not ashamed. I have, in many ways, been a true father to my people. Anyway, back to the lawyer! I soon wiped the grin off his silly face when I asked him if he was a good runner. 'Swift as a hare,' he declared.

I hope he was. I gave him five minutes' start and loosed my dogs on him.

Ah, yes, my memoirs
...
If I don't start soon the chaplain will claim he feels faint from hunger. So you want to hear about Murder? So you shall. Bloody, horrible deaths. Murder by the garrotte, by the knife, by poison. Murder at the fullness of noon when the devil walks, or in the dark when that sombre angel spreads his eternal black wings. Murder in palaces, Murder in rat-infested hovels, in open country and in crowded market places. Murder in dungeons, assassination in church. Oh, Lord, I have seen the days! I have seen judicial Murder: those who have died at the hangman's hands, strung up, cut down half-alive, thrown on the butcher's block and their steaming bodies hacked open. The heart, entrails and the genitals slashed and plucked out and the rest,

God's creation, quartered and thrown like cold meat into refuse baskets. I have seen women boiled alive in great black vats, and others tied in chains and burnt above roaring fires at Smithfield.

The chaplain leans forward. 'Tell them about the maze,' he whispers.

'What do you mean?' I ask.

'Well,' he squeaks, 'tell them why you dictate your memoirs in the centre of a maze.'

I'd like to tell him to mind his own bloody business but it's a fair comment. You see, at Burpham I have laid out the manor gardens like those I saw at Fontainebleau when I served as fat Henry's spy at the court of the lecherous Francis I. Now mazes have become very popular, although they weren't meant to be: you see, years ago, people took a vow to go on a crusade but, because of lack of money or time, some never reached Outremer. So Holy Mother Church decreed that they could be released from their vows if they travelled a number of times round a subtly devised maze. Of course, what was planned as a penance soon became the fashion. Francis I loved mazes. He used to take his young maidens in there and only release them if they succumbed to his lustful embraces. When the bastard found out I was a spy, I was led into the centre of the maze, hunting dogs were put in and the entrances sealed. You can imagine old Shallot had to use both his wits and legs! (However, that's another story.)

Anyway, I like my maze: it protects me from the importunate pleadings of my brood of children, legion of relatives and all the other hangers-on. Oh, yes, there's another reason - during my days at the court of Europe I became the sworn enemy of certain secret societies. I may have grown old but I still guard against the soft footfall of the assassin so I feel safe in my maze. No one can get near me and no one can eavesdrop. And if the weather changes and I cannot smell the perfume of the roses or listen to the liquid song of the thrush, I shelter in my secret chamber. After all, my memoirs are meant for posterity, not for the listening ear of some secret spy.

But don't worry, I'll confess all to you. I am going to give you your fill of Murder, but I must get it right. Go back down the years to tell my tale. Trust me, I really will try to tell the truth . . .

Chapter 1

I was born, so I tell my family - the offspring of my five wives - at a time of terror when the great Sweating Sickness swept into London, moving from the hovels of Southwark to the glories of Westminster Hall. All were culled: the great and the good, the noble and the bad, the high and the low. That was in the summer of 1502 when the Great Killer's father, Henry VII, reigned: lean-faced, pinch-mouthed Henry Tudor, the victor of Bosworth, had seven years left to live. I could tell you a few stories about him - oh, yes. He killed Richard the Usurper at Bosworth and had his torn, hacked body thrown into a horse trough at Leicester before marching on to London and marrying the Usurper's niece, Elizabeth of York. I once asked the present Queen, God bless her duckies, who killed the princes in the Tower? Was it their uncle, the Usurper Richard, or her grandfather Henry Tudor when he found them alive in the Tower? She shook her head and raised one bony finger to her lips.

'There are rooms in the Tower, Roger,' Queen Elizabeth whispered, 'which now have no doors or windows. They are bricked up, removed from all plans and maps. Men say that in one of these rooms lie the corpses of the two young princes.'

(I wondered if she believed she was telling the truth for I once met one of the princes, alive! But that's another story.)

Well, back to the beginning. I was born near St Botolph's Wharf which stands close to the river at the end of a rat-infested maze of alleyways. The first sound

I heard, and one which always takes me back, was the constant cawing of the ever-hungry gulls as they plundered the evil-smelling lay stalls near the black glassy Thames. My first memory was the fear of the Sweating Sickness. Beggars huddled in doorways; lepers, their heads covered by white sacks, heard of his approach and forgot their miseries. The traders in greasy aprons and dirty leggings shuddered and prayed that the sickness would pass them by. Their masters and self-styled betters thought they were safe as they sat at table, guzzling delicacy after delicacy - venison and turbot cooked in cream, washed down by black Neapolitan wine in jewel-encrusted goblets -but no one was safe.

The Sweating Sickness took my father; at least, that's what my mother said. Someone else claimed his weaving trade collapsed and he ran away to be a soldier in the Low Countries. Perhaps the sight of me frightened him! I was the ugliest of children and, remembering my fair-haired mother, must have owed my looks to Father. You see, I was born a month late, my head covered in bumps, one of my eyes slightly askew from the rough handling of the midwife's instruments. Oh, Lord, I was so ugly! People came up to my cot ready to smile and chuckle, they took one look and walked away mumbling condolences to my poor parents. As I grew older and learnt to stagger about, free of my swaddling clothes, the loud-mouthed traders along the wharves used to call out to my mother:

'Here, Mistress, here! A cup of wine for yourself and some fruit for your monkey!'

Well, when Father went, Mother moved on, back to her own family in the rich but boring town of Ipswich. She assumed widow's weeds though I often wondered if my father did flee, swift as a greyhound from the slips as Master Shakespeare would put it. (Oh, yes, I have patronised Will and given him what assistance I could in the writing and the staging of his plays.) Anyway, when I was seven, Mother became friendly with a local vintner and married him in the parish church - a lovely day.