The Dance of Death

Twenty

Eloise and I descended to the parlour for dinner, both trying to appear composed and as innocent as if we had been discussing the weather, but I saw John Bradshaw glance at us and then glance again, a longer, more searching look that eventually produced a small, knowing, half-embarrassed smile. His eyes slid away from us as he turned to study the fire burning merrily on the hearth, and he stooped, holding out his hands to the blaze.

Marthe bustled in with the pot of stew, which she placed on the table, made certain we had everything we needed, then trotted out again. There was no sign of Philip, although I heard his voice upraised in the kitchen saying a few words in what even I could tell was execrable French, and which Marthe had evidently been teaching him. I was thankful to be spared his beady gaze. He was always more astute than people gave him credit for, and would have interpreted in a minute Eloise’s suppressed air of triumph and my own faintly guilty look.

John took his seat and helped himself to a generous serving of stew before addressing the lady. ‘So, mistress, you managed to see your cousin, or so you implied when you first came in. Since when, you seem to have been busy upstairs — as you ladies so often are.’ He concentrated on the spoonful of pottage he was conveying to his mouth, refusing resolutely to look at either of us. He went on, ‘Did you learn anything from Maître le Daim? Anything of what King Edward wants to know?’

‘Oh, it wasn’t difficult to gain access to him,’ was the airy response. ‘He recalled my mother and we talked a little of family matters. But after that, I asked him openly — simply as a woman who takes an intelligent interest in affairs of state — if the rumours that King Louis is to make peace with Burgundy and marry the dauphin to Maximilian’s daughter are true.’

‘And what was his reply?’

Eloise laughed. ‘He seemed astonished that I didn’t already know the answers, as I had so recently been in England. He thought it must be common knowledge there by now that a treaty is to be signed between France and Burgundy at Arras, at the end of next month. The marriage of the dauphin to Margaret of Burgundy will be arranged at the same time, and a part of her marriage portion will include the county of Artois.’

John Bradshaw drew a deep breath and laid down his spoon, staring before him, lost in thought. I could guess what those thoughts must be, but I waited for him to voice them. ‘So that’s the end of King Edward’s pension from Louis,’ he said at last. He added even more slowly and with conviction, ‘It will kill him. That and the humiliation of his eldest daughter.’

‘Oh, come!’ I expostulated. ‘It surely can’t be as bad as that. It is humiliating, I agree, and the loss of the money is bound to be a blow to him, but as for killing him, that, surely, is overstating the matter.’

John raised his sombre eyes to mine and looked at me directly. ‘I don’t think you appreciate just how ill the king really is,’ he said. ‘He’s lived life to the full and now his health is fragile. And he was relying on a marriage alliance between England and France to secure the money King Louis has paid him, ever since Picquigny, for the rest of his life. My guess is that we shall see King Edward the Fifth on the throne before a twelvemonth has passed.’

Was it my imagination or did his gaze intensify as he stared at me? Had he suspected, or even guessed, what my secret mission might be? I lowered my eyes quickly to my plate and concentrated on eating.

‘But he’s a child,’ I heard Eloise say. ‘A child ruler is never good for a country.’

‘The Prince of Wales is twelve,’ John Bradshaw reproved her. ‘On the brink of manhood. And he has powerful uncles.’

So he did, but which uncles, I wondered, was John referring to? The prince had only one on the spear side of his family, but at least three on the distaff. And Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, had been head of the prince’s household, at Ludlow, for many years now. His influence with young Edward must be predominant.

Eloise’s voice interrupted my wandering thoughts. ‘I told Olivier that I’m in Paris with my husband. He’d like to meet you, Roger, but as he must leave again not later than tonight, I promised I would take you to the Hôtel Saint-Pol after supper.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said abruptly. ‘I can’t come.’

I saw John look hard at me, and this time I met his gaze unflinchingly. He gave an almost imperceptible nod to show he understood.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Eloise tried her damndest to make me change my mind. She cajoled, she persuaded, she sulked, she even swore in a most unladylike fashion, and when I finally said that thank God I was not really her husband, she indulged in a minor bout of hysterics that only abated when she saw that I remained entirely unmoved by it. In fact, what had happened between us before dinner might never have been. Our former barbed relationship had been resumed, at least by me, and I think the realization that nothing had changed shocked her. I don’t know what she had expected, and at that moment, I didn’t care. I had other things to think about.

‘Why not?’ she demanded.

‘Why not what?’

‘Why won’t you come with me to meet Cousin Olivier?’

‘Because you have seen him and discovered what you came to Paris to find out. Why visit him again simply to perpetuate a lie? Besides, I have business of my own to attend to.’

She got up from the table, looking extremely white. ‘I wish you were dead,’ she said very slowly and clearly, then left the room.

John Bradshaw raised his eyebrows at me, but forbore to comment. Not that he needed to. His accusatory glance said all that was necessary, and in truth, I was beginning to feel guilty myself. I should have realized that Eloise’s feelings had gone deeper than my own.

John’s voice recalled me to myself. ‘Do you go out this afternoon?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘This evening, after supper.’

‘Then take Philip with you. It’s dangerous abroad after dark.’

‘He won’t come,’ I averred. ‘For some reason or other, I seem to have offended him. I shall be all right. I’m a big fellow and I’ll carry my knife.’

The afternoon lagged past. John disappeared on business of his own — making arrangements for the return journey, he said — and there was no sign of Philip. I tried on three occasions to speak to Eloise, but she had locked our bedchamber door and refused to answer my knock. I ate supper alone, none of the other three putting in an appearance, much to Marthe’s obvious distress, as she had prepared a mutton pie, which smelled and tasted delicious, except that, by this time, I was in no mood to appreciate it as it deserved. My feeling of guilt had assumed enormous proportions, and it was only by telling myself that no doubt this was precisely Eloise’s intention, and that she had been as eager in promoting our lovemaking as I had been, that I was at last able to stop blaming myself alone for what had happened. A revue of my conduct persuaded me that I had never given her reason to believe I harboured any deeper feelings for her than that of a man thrown into close proximity with a pretty woman, nor that she felt differently about me. I consoled myself with the thought that a very few days more, a week at most, would see the parting of our ways.

In the meantime, I must make my way back across the city to speak to Robin Gaunt in one last effort to unearth another sliver of evidence that might give some credence to the Duchess of York’s claim that her eldest son was a bastard. If I had had any doubt to begin with of what was really in Prince Richard’s mind, of what he was hoping to prove, then John Bradshaw’s words at dinner had dispelled them. If King Edward were really as ill as he had indicated — and I remembered his absence from the victory banquet at Baynard’s Castle — then the thought of a child king, brought up in the shadow of his Woodville relations and necessarily influenced by them, could only spell trouble and possible danger for the Duke of Gloucester. If, therefore, he could prove the truth of his mother’s erstwhile accusation, it would make him the rightful king, his brother Clarence’s children being barred from the throne by their father’s act of attainder. Oh, yes, I could see it all quite plainly, and I didn’t know that I blamed him for what he was trying to do. I just wished he hadn’t chosen me to assist him.

All these thoughts and more chased one another through my head as I crossed from the Île de la Cité to the Rue Saint-Denis and then made my way through a maze of back streets in the direction of the Porte Saint-Honoré. Twice I lost my bearings in the dark, once ending up close to the Porte Montmartre and having to make my stumbling way southwards, keeping close to the walls of the overhanging houses, the soles of my boots slithering on the slimy cobbles. It had turned even colder since the morning and I wrapped my cloak well around me. Beneath it, my right hand kept a fast grip on the haft of my knife.

But nobody challenged me. Several times I glanced over my shoulder, but no one seemed to be following me. I did think once that I saw a man wearing a hat with a feather in it, but he had disappeared by the next turn in the road. I reached the Gaunts’ house without incident.

The shutters were fast closed, permitting no welcoming chink of candlelight to show. A sensible precaution, I supposed, in an area such as this, where even the rats scurried past as though afraid of their own shadows. I stepped forward and rapped on the door — only to find that it gave under my hand. It was already open. Cautiously, I pushed it wider and took a few steps inside.

‘Master Gaunt!’ I called.

There was no reply.

I tried again. ‘Mistress Gaunt! It’s me, Roger Chapman.’

The silence was deafening. Suddenly, my heart was beating faster and my palms were sweating. Every instinct screamed at me that something was wrong and to get out and away while the going was good. Then, unexpectedly, there was the scrape of a flint. Tinder flared and a candle was lit, the spurt of flame blinding me for an instant. Behind me, someone moved and slammed the door shut, imprisoning me. The candle was moved, but my eyes were still dazzled. I moved a step or two forward, stumbling over something lying on the floor. More than one thing. . As my vision cleared and adjusted to the gloom, I saw with mounting horror that they seemed to be bodies, and as two more candles were lit from the first, I yelled out in fear.

They were indeed bodies: those of Mistress Gaunt and, almost certainly, her husband. Both had had their throats cut.

‘So here you are, Roger,’ said a familiar voice, and John Bradshaw emerged into the pool of light in the centre of the room.

I stared at him, relief surging through me. ‘John! Thank God,’ I breathed. ‘But. . but how did you get here? How did you know about the Gaunts? Where to come?’ I seized him by the arm. ‘Above all, do you know who committed this. . this outrage?’

For answer, he simply smiled and held out the bloody knife he was still clutching in one hand. ‘If you don’t struggle, it’s very quick,’ he said gently. ‘My cousin Wolsey taught me how to butcher animals.’

‘Butcher?’ My brain refused to believe what he was saying. My thoughts were thick and stupid, refusing to accept the evidence of my ears and eyes.

John went on, ‘I’m sorry, Roger, to have to do this. I like you. I really do. But I can’t let you return home to my lord of Gloucester with that story of the christenings. I’m not a fool. I know it’s not proof positive, but it’s an indication that the duchess’s story might be true. Enough, at any rate, to persuade the duke that he has some claim to the throne and to depose his nephew. I can’t allow that. My loyalty is to the queen. Her mother, the old Duchess of Bedford, came from Luxembourg, and so did some of my forebears. I owe her and her sons my allegiance.’

Clervaux! Of course! I should have listened more closely to Eloise.

But my brain still wasn’t functioning properly. ‘Those-those other people,’ I stammered, ‘Culpepper, the-the boatman. . you killed them, too?’ He smiled and nodded. ‘But. . why?’

John shrugged. ‘Culpepper simply on the off chance that he might know something that could put you on the track of whatever it was you were after. I didn’t really know myself back then what it was all about, but Anthony Woodville himself informed me that there was something afoot. His spy in the Duke of Gloucester’s household had alerted him.’

The man who had tried to steal my instructions and been thwarted because I had already learned them by heart. So much was beginning to fall into place.

‘But why the boatman?’

John shrugged. ‘That was simply a precaution,’ he said. ‘He had rowed my accomplice across from Southwark the previous night, and as it turned out, I was right to be cautious. For some reason or another, your suspicions had been aroused and you went after him.’

‘Your accomplice?’

‘He’s standing behind you.’

I had forgotten the man who had closed the door. I whirled round and stared disbelievingly. ‘Philip?’

‘I didn’t have any choice, Roger,’ he muttered. ‘It was do as Jack said or be hanged for murder. I’d killed a man the previous evening, in a tavern brawl. Jack recognized me as an old comrade from our soldiering days and got me away.’

‘The murder at the Rattlebones,’ I said, my head spinning. ‘I heard about it.’

‘That’s right. He hid me and arranged for me to be rowed over to Baynard’s Castle that same night.’

‘But there was a price for his help.’ It wasn’t a question.

Philip nodded. ‘I was to come to France and spy on you for him. Jack knew that we’d been friends — they know everything, these bloody spies — and of course you wouldn’t suspect me.’

‘But-but once you were across the Channel, you were free. He couldn’t get you hanged in France for a crime committed in England. Why, in God’s name, didn’t you just run away?’

‘What, in a foreign country, where I can’t make meself understood? That’s no life for a man.’ A little of his normal spirit had returned.

‘Then why, in the name of friendship, didn’t you warn me what was going on? What do you think Jeanne would have said about such a betrayal?’

Suddenly, he was shouting. ‘Don’t you mention Jeanne! Don’t ever mention her name again! It wasn’t my son she was carrying. She confessed to me just before he was born.’ His eyes flicked towards John Bradshaw and he made an effort to take himself in hand. ‘As for warning you,’ he went on more calmly, but still in a voice that shook a little, ‘Jack said that if he so much as suspected you knew the truth about him — about us — he’d slit your throat regardless, and not wait for you to show your hand about what it was you was up to.’

At any other time, in any other situation, the information about Jeanne would have rocked me back on my heels — I might even have challenged it — but something else had occurred to me. I turned to look once again at John. ‘You must have killed Oliver Cook, as well,’ I said slowly. ‘But why?’

He said abruptly, ‘We’re wasting time. But if you really want to know, and as you’re never going to tell anyone, yes, I killed him. He’d seen Philip, the day he took refuge in the kitchen to avoid being recognized by you. Sooner or later, Oliver would have had a good look at Philip and doubtless told the rest of you about the incident. And then it wouldn’t have been long, Roger, before you started to put two and two together.’ John laughed, a sound that made my blood run cold. ‘Oliver was easy meat. I didn’t even need to use the knife on him. He was totally unsuspecting. A shove, a heave and he was overboard. Mid-Channel, in that sea, he didn’t stand a chance. Unfortunately, I dropped that particular knife and couldn’t find it again. Now-’

‘How did you know what Mistress Gaunt told me? About the christenings?’ As I spoke, my eyes were drawn inexorably to that still form on the floor and I could see the dark band of blood round the neck. The woman’s head was almost severed from the body. I felt my stomach heave and the vomit rose in my throat. I started to shake, but not from fear, from anger.

‘Philip followed you and was listening outside the window,’ John answered with a sneer. ‘You didn’t bother lowering your voices and the shutters are in poor condition — lots of cracks and chinks — as you’d have seen, if you’d bothered to inspect them.’ He smiled again and took a firmer grasp on his knife. ‘And now, Roger, much as I regret it, it’s your turn to meet with a fatal stabbing, and it will be my sad duty to carry the news home to Timothy Plummer and the duke. I daresay I’ll get a bollocking for not looking after you better, but then, if you will go wandering around the backstreets of a city like Paris on your own, and you an Englishman at that, you take the consequences. No need for them ever to know that you discovered the Gaunts’ whereabouts at all, or that they’re dead, too. So-’

‘How did you manage to kill them both without one of them putting up a fight?’

John sighed. ‘Does it matter? Oh well! If you must know — and, as I’ve already said, who am I to thwart the wishes of a dying man? — Philip brought me here this afternoon. The woman was still alone. We said we were friends of yours and she let us in. She suspected nothing, not right up to the moment when I slit her throat. Then we just waited for Gaunt to come home.’ He shrugged. ‘I took him unawares. It was simple.’ His expression had altered subtly. He was drooling slightly in anticipation of the kill. The scent of further bloodletting was in his nostrils, and there was a slightly manic look in his eyes. I realized with a sickening jolt that he probably was mad, but a madman who could conceal his insanity under a perfectly normal exterior. The Woodvilles must find him invaluable. He said, ‘Guard the door, Lamprey!’ and moved, swift and nimble as a cat, to get behind me.

The revelations of the past few minutes had held me paralyzed with shock. My brain, such of it as was still working, told me to get back against the wall, to use my own knife, to put up some sort of a fight to save my life, but my mind was reeling from the discovery of Philip’s treachery and his disclosure — if it were true — about Jeanne.

John Bradshaw hissed again, ‘Guard the door! Mind he doesn’t make a run for it!’

Out of the corner of one eye, I saw Philip move, but then he was shouting, ‘No! I won’t help you kill Roger! I can’t! He’s my friend. I didn’t mind spying on him, searching his baggage, but this is different.’ And the next moment he had lifted the latch, wrenching the door wide. ‘Run, Roger!’ he yelled. ‘Run!’

Something in the urgency of his tone seemed at last to penetrate my benumbed senses, jerking me into life. I fairly threw myself sideways and out into the street, but my legs were shaking, weak from fear, and before I could take more than a few staggering steps, John Bradshaw was on me, trying to grab me from behind with his left arm so that he could pull me back against him and cut my throat. Fortunately, I had my own knife out by this time and managed, with a slashing blow, to wound him in the fleshy part of his right arm. I heard him curse, but a moment later, he had kneed me in the groin, causing me to double up in pain and drop my knife. I fell to the ground and rolled over, avoiding his wicked-looking blade, but only for a second or two. He was furious now, like a wounded bull, and was stabbing indiscriminately at me, intent on finishing me off and not caring any longer how he did it.

I was vaguely aware of doors opening and people coming out into the street, but no one made a move to help me. To the onlookers, it was just such another murderous brawl as they no doubt witnessed at least once a week, and at present, they knew nothing of the dead bodies in the house behind me. I managed to haul myself to my feet, but without my knife, the only recourse left to me was my fists. I lashed out blindly and heard John Bradshaw laugh as he dodged my erratically flailing arms. Some men were shouting encouragement to him, women too, obviously enjoying the spectacle. I stepped back, slipped on the greasy cobbles and went down again, flat on my back.

This time, he was on me, his weight pinning me to the ground, arm raised, the blade of his knife aimed straight at my throat. I struggled, but I couldn’t shift him. I closed my eyes, waiting for the blow to fall. .

Nothing happened. Instead, I heard him give a strange little grunt before he toppled sideways, blood gushing from his mouth, limbs jerking like one of those jointed dolls that toymakers sell. Then, after a moment, he lay still, eyes staring sightlessly up at the dark night sky.

A hand reached down to help me to my feet.

‘That was a very near thing,’ Raoul d’Harcourt’s voice said apologetically. ‘I’m sorry I was late. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I got lost. I don’t know this part of Paris as well as I thought I did.’

‘Who, in God’s name, are you?’ I asked.

It was an hour later, and we were finally back in the Rue de la Barillerie after a journey across Paris during which my saviour had refused to answer all questions, hustling and urging me on, to get to the Île de la Cité, as though our lives depended on it, taking devious twists and turns through innumerable side streets and noisome alleys until my head spun. Now, as he forced wine down my throat, he ordered a frightened and bewildered Eloise to pack our saddlebags.

‘We’re leaving Paris tonight. I’ll have to bribe one of the gatekeepers to let us through. As to who I really am,’ he went on, turning to me, ‘you’ve no need to know that. You can go on calling me by the name I borrowed from one of the goldsmiths’ shops on the Quai des Orfèvres. Suffice it say that I work for Timothy Plummer, who’s had his suspicions about John Bradshaw for some time. He sent me after you to watch your back and remove him if needs be.’

‘Y-you mean. . Timothy knew I m-might be in danger?’ I stuttered.

Raoul d’Harcourt — I had to go on thinking of him as that, it seemed — smiled wryly. ‘I’m afraid so, but he had no proof against Bradshaw. This seemed too good an opportunity to miss.’

Once more, as at the beginning of this ill-conceived venture, I was struck dumb by my sense of outrage. I could only hope and pray that when I at last came face to face again with my lord of Gloucester’s spymaster general, I would be able to find the words to describe my opinion of his conduct. But somehow, I doubted it. They simply didn’t exist.

I voiced another worry. ‘Why are we leaving Paris in such a rush? Why the hurry?’

‘Because,’ Raoul said impatiently, ‘as soon as the other inhabitants of that street find the Gaunts’ bodies — as they doubtless have done by this time — it will no longer be a case of a street brawl, but murder, and the chances are that you will get the blame. His neighbours must know that Gaunt — or de Ghent as you say he’s called — is an Englishman by birth, however long he’s lived here. And you’re an Englishman. That will be good enough for them. They’ll decide you have some old grudge against him.’

‘Why? And how would they know I’m English?’

‘Oh, in the name of all the saints, just think, man! The innkeeper, where you made your enquiries, and all his customers know you’re English. We have to get out of the city as soon as possible, before you find yourself under lock and key. Do you know what’s happened to the other man? The one who was with John Bradshaw?’

Philip! I had forgotten him. ‘No. He must have run away. Well, we can’t be bothered with him. He must look after himself.’

Eloise came back into the parlour, carrying my saddlebags. She looked rather pale, but perfectly composed. ‘I’m not coming with you,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided to remain in Paris. For the time being, I’ll go and stay with the Armigers, if they’ll have me. I’ll tell them you’ve deserted me for another woman. They’ll doubtless be very sympathetic, especially Master Lackpenny. I see no point in returning to England. There’s nothing for me there.’ Her gaze was a challenge, but I didn’t respond. ‘No,’ she went on, ‘it’s as I said: there’s no reason for my return. You can pass on the information I received from my cousin, Roger. In any case, everyone’s going to be privy to it soon. So I’ll say goodbye.’ She dropped my saddlebags on the floor and walked to the parlour door, where she turned, smiling slightly. ‘Incidentally, I’m not the only one of our merry band staying behind. Philip’s in the kitchen. It would appear he means to marry Marthe, if she’ll have him, and live with her, here, in Paris.’

There’s not a lot more to say. I didn’t believe Eloise about Philip to begin with, but it turned out to be true enough. Marthe would shelter him throughout any hue and cry that might arise, and, afterwards, the man who hated foreign parts would settle down and become a good Frenchman. (Well, he’d try, although I couldn’t really see it happening myself.) True to his word, the mysterious Raoul d’Harcourt got me out of Paris and away that same night and on the road that eventually led to Calais. And there, on English soil, I felt safe for the first time in days.

Crossing the Channel was delayed on account of the winter weather, but a little over a week later, I found myself back in Baynard’s Castle and face to face with Timothy Plummer. I’m happy to say that, on this occasion, words did not fail me and I was able to give him a masterly reading of his character that satisfied even my own outraged feelings and made Raoul, who had been present at the meeting, grin behind his hand. (Later, he treated me to the best pot of ale to be had at the Bull in Fish Street.)

I did not see the duke. He had, by now, left for his estates in the North, but at a second, more private meeting, I passed on to Timothy the little I had discovered concerning the birth of King Edward. Like me, while he considered the story of the two christenings significant, he admitted that as proof positive it left much to be desired.

‘His Grace will be disappointed,’ he admitted, ‘but if that’s all there is. .’ He trailed off, shrugging fatalistically.

‘And I’m free to go now?’ I asked.

He nodded.

So I shook the dust of London off my feet the very next morning, vowing never to return.

It’s unwise to tempt Fate.