The Dance of Death

Eleven

‘You have been keeping things to yourself, my lad, haven’t you?’ John Bradshaw sounded amused rather than either reproachful or condemning.

He and I were sitting comfortably together on a bale of hay in an empty stall of the inn stables, a candle in its holder placed on a ledge just above the manger and suffusing the confined space with a warm, golden glow. From neighbouring stalls came the occasional shifting of hooves or a gusty breath blown through flaring nostrils as the horses of our party and those of Master and Mistress Armiger settled themselves for the night.

Bradshaw took a swig from a leather bottle that he had produced from some capacious pocket, then wiped the neck on his sleeve and handed it to me. I took a generous gulp of some wine I had never tasted before but which seemed to run like fire through my veins and made the world at large appear a much less harsh and hostile place.

‘What is it?’ I asked, but my companion shook his head and shrugged. He knew no more about fine wines than I did.

‘Got friendly with one of the cellarers,’ he said in explanation. ‘Asked him to fill the bottle with something warming for a cold autumn evening.’

‘Ever tasted that Scottish stuff?’ I enquired. ‘Usquebaugh they call it. The water of life. More like liquid fire, if you ask me. Disgusting taste! Distilled from grain, so they say. No civilized person would touch it.’ I drank another mouthful of wine before handing back the bottle, starting to wipe my mouth on the back of my sleeve and then remembering that I was wearing Master Taylor’s handsome yellow tunic, which eventually had to be returned to him. (Timothy would not be pleased if he had to pay extra costs for damages incurred.) ‘So!’ I leaned forward, clasping my hands loosely between my knees. ‘What do you think I ought to do?’

John Bradshaw stoppered the bottle and restored it to his pocket. ‘Nothing you can do, is there? Not as far as confessing the error of your ways, I mean.’ I opened my mouth to speak, but he waved me to silence. ‘You don’t have to go over all the reasons for your silence again, lad. I understand perfectly well. I know what Timothy can be like when he gets on his high horse. He’s a good friend of mine and an equally good man at his job, but conceited ain’t the word for him. Not to mince matters, he’s an arrogant little sod. I don’t know much about the duke, mind. Don’t often come face to face with him, not like you. But I wouldn’t care to get in his bad books. There’s a forbidding look about him on occasions that makes me think he could be the wrong man to cross. I reckon he could be unforgiving if he took against you. Like the Woodvilles, for instance. It’s a well-known fact that at one time or another the whole Woodville clan have done their best to win his friendship, knowing how much the king loves and esteems him, but even after all this while, he remains their enemy. Especially these past four, nearly five years since the Duke of Clarence’s death, which people who are close to him say he blames them for. Anyway,’ he continued, ‘we’re straying from the point. I’m just saying that I understand why you didn’t tell Timothy and His Grace everything. So! Let’s consider what we know.’ He slid off the bale of hay, opened the door of the stall, peered up and down in the blackness, then shut us both in again and resumed his seat. ‘No one about,’ he announced. ‘Lamprey’s gone for his drink in the ale room. I told him not to hurry. We have the stable to ourselves. Now-’

‘There’s one thing I want to ask you,’ I interrupted. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Something that’s only recently occurred to me. Last Wednesday evening, the evening I saw William Lackpenny in Edward Woodville’s train — ’ he nodded — ‘why wasn’t it the king who gave the banquet to honour Earl Rivers and his brother? Or why wasn’t he at least present at the banquet given by His Grace of Gloucester? The only answer that suggests itself to me is that King Edward was too ill to do either. Do you think I’m right?’

My companion prised a bit of his supper loose from between his front teeth before replying. ‘Your solution could well be the correct one,’ he admitted. ‘The rumours circulating around Westminster all say that His Highness is a sick man. Sicker than he or anyone close to him will let on. Gossip infers that the queen is very worried, that there have been certain secret meetings between her and her brothers, that messengers between Westminster and the Prince of Wales’s court at Ludlow have doubled in the past few weeks, that during his stay in London, between the end of the Scottish invasion and his return to Ludlow, Earl Rivers has been in daily contact with Her Grace.’ John Bradshaw turned his head and regarded me curiously through the gloom. ‘Why are you interested? Might this have any bearing on. .?’ He broke off abruptly. ‘No! Say nought! I don’t wish to be told anything. It’s better that way.’ He offered me another drink from his bottle, but I refused it. The stuff was potent and I needed to keep a clear head. He nodded understandingly, putting it away again. ‘Now, as I was about to say before this digression, let’s reckon up exactly what is known and what is surmise.

‘First, two men have been killed by having their throats cut. That is fact. Their deaths might be linked to whatever it is you’re up to in Paris for Duke Richard. Maybe, maybe not. Probable but not certain. You saw William Lackpenny in Stinking Lane at the time of the first murder, but other than that — which could well be pure chance — there seems to be nothing to connect him with anyone else except, you think, Mistress Armiger.’

‘I’m sure she was the woman I saw with him on the water-steps at Baynard’s Castle,’ I insisted. ‘And we know she and her husband have been staying there.’

‘True,’ John agreed. ‘But she’s young and pretty, Lackpenny is young and handsome, and Master Armiger is elderly and dull. On the face of it, nothing puzzling about that. Somehow or another, the two young people have met and been attracted to one another, leading to secret meetings. On the other hand, we also know that Lackpenny is a member of Edward Woodville’s household, which might be significant. And we haven’t yet discovered why Master Blue Feather is going to France. I’ll leave that to you, Roger. I can’t ask him. I’m only the servant.’

‘I’ll set Eloise on to do it,’ I said. ‘She likes to exert her charms. In which case, I must tell her all that I’ve told you.’

John Bradshaw shifted his position on the hay. ‘I think it would be as well,’ he agreed. ‘But not all of it. Just about Lackpenny and the Armigers. As for the rest, I can only reiterate: trust nobody, be suspicious of everyone, including Mistress Gray, and watch your back at all times. Even the Armigers may not be as innocent as they seem. But regarding this man you thought you saw being landed at the castle in the early hours of Wednesday morning, are you sure about this? You might have imagined it.’

‘No.’ I was definite. ‘I did see someone. And I’ve told you what followed. There was the murder of the boatman Jeremiah Tucker and then, the same evening, the fellow in the common hall who went to great lengths not to be seen by me. Too much of a coincidence, you must agree.’

My companion pursed his lips but didn’t contradict me. Instead, he sighed and stared in front of him for a moment or two before finally saying, ‘There’s a great deal going on here, Roger, that either makes perfect sense or none at all, depending how you view things.’ He gave vent to a fat chuckle that started somewhere deep in his throat and emerged as a sort of chortle. He slapped me on the thigh. ‘Which,’ he went on, ‘is about as unhelpful a remark as you could ever wish to hear. I’m sorry, lad! You did right to tell me. Two of us on our guard is better than one. I might even instruct Lamprey to report if he notices anything he thinks vaguely suspicious. I shan’t say why, of course.’

‘How is he? He won’t let me near him, not even to express my regrets.’

John Bradshaw snorted. ‘He says barely anything. I’m beginning to think he’s enjoying his grief, wallowing in it. Oh, all right!’ This as I made a gesture of protest. ‘Maybe I’m wrong. If I remember aright, he was always a bit of a surly beggar when we were young, soldiering together in France. He certainly seems to have thought the world of this young woman he married. Her death must have been a great blow to him.’ He slid from the bale of hay as he spoke and I followed suit.

‘I’d better get back,’ I said. ‘Eloise will be suspicious of my protracted absence. There will be questions.’

Again came that throaty chuckle and another slap, this time on the shoulder. ‘My, my! You and she are really entering into the spirit of the thing. You’re beginning to sound like an old married couple. You’ll have to be careful, Roger.’

I realized with a shock of dismay that John Bradshaw was right: I should have to be careful. I waited while he checked on the horses: then we walked together the length of the stables. It was as we were passing the last stall, which also appeared to be empty, that I stopped suddenly, causing John to bump into me and tread hard on my heels.

‘What’s the matter?’ he hissed.

‘I thought I heard someone moving in there. Don’t worry! I’m just jumpy. If it’s anything at all, it’s most likely to be rats.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ he whispered. ‘Just take your leave as loudly as you can and bang the outer door.’

I did as he bade me, adding a yawn for good measure as I called, ‘Goodnight!’ He grunted in reply, then placing a finger to his lips, pounced forward, pushing the stall door wide and entering, his candle held aloft, the flame illuminating the narrow interior and flickering in some unidentified draught. I peered over his shoulder, but his bulk filled the doorway and all I could see were the shadows dipping and curtseying across the walls.

‘There’s no one here,’ he said at last. ‘It must have been a rat, like you said.’ He snuffed the candle-flame between thumb and forefinger, grimacing at me as he did so. ‘Calm yourself, lad.’ We emerged into the cold night air. ‘If you start jumping at every sound, you’ll put yourself in danger. You won’t hear the ones you ought to be listening for.’

With which parting shot, he went off to the kitchens, where he and Philip were sleeping, and I made my way back to the inn parlour to find a noisy game of three men’s morris in progress.

‘You were a long time in the stables, talking to John Bradshaw.’ Eloise accused me as we undressed for bed.

It was an embarrassing situation. Last night, we had been too tired to be conscious of anything but the need to tumble between the sheets and fall into an exhausted slumber. Tonight, however, we were uncomfortably aware of each other’s every move. Eloise had drawn the bed-curtains and vanished behind them, occasionally asking me to pass her things, like her night-rail, that she had forgotten to take with her. I was careful to thrust my arm between the drapes no further than just above the wrist, and retired to the furthest, darkest corner of the room to shed my own clothes, except of course for my shirt. I was quite glad, therefore, to divert my thoughts of spending a night by her side with a little conversation.

‘There were things we had to discuss,’ I said.

‘Such as?’

‘I’ll tell you in a moment or two, when I’ve cleaned my teeth.’

I found the piece of willow bark I always carry with me and rubbed it around the inside of my mouth, by which time Eloise had drawn back one of the curtains and was revealed sitting propped against the pillows, her fair hair curling attractively over her neat, shapely little head. She wrinkled her nose when she saw me. ‘Don’t you ever change your shirt to go to bed? Don’t you have a night-shift?’

‘I usually sleep naked,’ I answered shortly and not altogether truthfully, but it had the desired effect of quietening her. ‘Besides,’ I went on, ‘you’ve grown very nice all of a sudden, haven’t you? What about all those sweaty soldiers you slept amongst while you were masquerading as a boy? I’ll wager they didn’t bother with night-shifts.’

‘Oh, get into bed,’ she retorted irritably, ‘and stop evading my question. What were you and Master Bradshaw talking about all that time?’

I did as she said, ostentatiously keeping to my side of the mattress as far as possible without actually falling out again, and sitting bolt upright. Since leaving John at the kitchen door, I had had time to consider the advisability of following his instruction not to tell Eloise everything, only what I had seen concerning William Lackpenny and Jane Armiger. Indeed, I couldn’t think how I had been foolish enough to suggest otherwise. I still knew nothing more about her and where her true sympathies lay than I had done five days ago. I realized with a shock that, in spite of the past, I was beginning to like and trust her, and that both emotions could be fatal to my safety and to the mission I was employed on for Duke Richard. I was going to have to watch myself and guard against the strange fascination she was starting to have for me. I reminded myself that sorcery was one of the charges against her dead master, the Scottish Earl of Mar.

‘Well?’ she demanded when I continued to be mute.

‘If you must know,’ I told her at last, ‘we were talking about Master Lackpenny and Mistress Armiger, both of whom I’ve seen before.’ I proceeded to tell her about their meeting on the water-steps of Baynard’s Castle and how I had noticed the former landing on Wednesday evening from Edward Woodville’s barge.

She was immediately intrigued, as I had known she would be, by the implied romance, but she was quicker-witted than that. ‘And you said nothing to Master Plummer?’ she queried with raised eyebrows and a little accusatory smile hovering on her lips.

‘It didn’t seem important at the time,’ I excused myself, saying nothing of having seen my smart young gent in Stinking Lane.

‘Not even when you found him to be a Woodville adherent?’ She regarded me quizzically for a second or two, then burst out laughing. ‘Confess it, Roger! You were afraid of a tongue-lashing because you’d omitted to mention him earlier.’ She adopted Timothy’s scathing, pompous tone when he was riding his high horse. ‘“Nothing is ever too small or too insignificant to be kept to oneself in this business. Your safety and the safety of others may well depend on sharing every single scrap of information. Do I make myself clear?”’

I had intended strenuously to deny being afraid of Timothy, but her impersonation was so vivid and so accurate that I could only join in her mirth and smile ruefully. ‘Perhaps,’ I admitted.

She reached over and patted my hand where it lay on the coverlet. ‘I shouldn’t let it worry you,’ she advised. ‘I feel certain that you’ve merely stumbled on a secret love affair that has nothing to do with anyone or anything else but themselves. The fact Will is a member of Sir Edward Woodville’s household is probably just a coincidence.’

Like the fact that he was on his way to France? Like the fact that he had been lying in wait for us — for that was how it was beginning to seem to me now — at Rochester? Like the fact that he had arranged to meet the Armigers, also making their way across the Channel, at Canterbury? I said none of this to Eloise, but as I have remarked before, she was nobody’s fool.

‘If the Armigers are going to France,’ she pointed out, reading my thoughts, ‘to visit her kinfolk, then don’t you think her lover — if that’s really what he is — would find some excuse to go, too? Will and the lady would have arranged this rendezvous here, in Canterbury. I doubt if Master Armiger had anything to say in the matter. A wily woman — and I can tell you that Jane Armiger is neither so silly nor so ingenuous as she looks: I know the sort — could easily persuade a doting husband of almost anything. She may seem afraid of him, and doubtless, in some respects, she has reason to be, but she can twist him round her little finger when she wants. You saw tonight how she coaxed him to play at three men’s morris when all he wanted was to sit by the fire and read.’ Eloise gave my hand another pat. ‘No, no! I don’t think there’s any mystery about those three, not now you’ve told me about that meeting on the water-stairs. When he saw us at Rochester, Will must have considered how much more innocent his and Jane Armiger’s meeting here would appear if he were attached to another party.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ I agreed.

But my relief was limited. Her reasoning, as far as it went, was good, except that I knew she was only in partial possession of the facts. Once again, I was tempted to take her fully into my confidence: she looked so pretty, sitting there a few inches away from me, those violet-blue eyes regarding me so limpidly, her mouth so soft and tender. Although I even had my own mouth open to speak, common sense reasserted itself at the crucial moment. I forced myself to think of the last time I had seen her before our recent meetings in London. There had been nothing vulnerable or yielding about her then, and however much she protested the opposite, I still couldn’t bring myself to believe in her innocence.

She abruptly withdrew her hand from mine. She had sensed my change of mood and was not a woman to waste time trying to recover lost ground. She probably told herself that there would be other opportunities. She could wait.

‘I’m tired,’ she said, lying down with her back to me and nestling into the pillows. ‘Goodnight. God be with you. Sleep well.’

I grunted something ungracious in reply, feeling conscience-stricken and yet annoyed with myself because I had no cause to be. I blew out the solitary candle I had left burning on the table on my side of the bed, pulled the curtain to shut out the draughts and the glow from the dying embers of the fire, and settled down myself, my back also turned towards her.

It must have been an hour or so later when I felt her hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake. My first thought was that this was an approach I could well do without, but there was something about the urgency of her voice as she whispered, ‘Wake up!’ that made me revise my opinion.

‘What is it?’ I mumbled, heaving myself into a sitting position.

‘There’s someone in the room,’ she hissed.

I listened but could hear nothing. ‘Nonsense!’ I said loudly.

‘Quiet, you fool,’ she breathed in my ear, but then cursed. ‘There! You’ve frightened them away. Didn’t you hear the door being opened and closed? Whoever it was has gone.’

I got out of bed, pulling back the curtains and lighting the candle. Long shadows leaped up the walls, but nothing else stirred. ‘You must have been mistaken,’ I said.

She also had got out of bed and now came to stand beside me. ‘No. I distinctly heard someone moving.’

I went to the door and, opening it, peered into the blackness of the passageway outside. I held the candle aloft, but within its flickering radiance nothing moved. The only sound was the rhythmic snoring from behind one of the other closed doors. Master Armiger, or perhaps William Lackpenny, was sleeping off a too-large supper, partaken of too greedily and speedily for good digestion.

I withdrew into our bedchamber, closing, and this time not only latching but also bolting the door.

‘There’s no one there,’ I said. ‘You’re imagining things. If someone had entered, I should have heard them. I’m a light sleeper.’

‘You sleep like the dead,’ Eloise retorted angrily. ‘Even when you’re tossing and turning and mumbling to yourself in your sleep, it’s impossible to rouse you. You’re like a log.’

The criticism stung me. I had always prided myself that I slept with one ear open, ready for any trouble that might be brewing — a man on the alert for any danger menacing himself or his family. I was on the verge of an indignant protest when I noticed that she was shivering, whether from cold or fear I had no means of knowing. But I did the instinctive thing and put an arm about her, drawing her close. She responded by returning the embrace.

‘It’s all right,’ I comforted her. ‘You saw me bolt the door. Nobody can get in.’

I was suddenly very aware of the warmth and shape of her body beneath the thin night-rail. I was also horrifyingly conscious of my own reaction, a reaction that must come to her attention at any moment. I hastily released her.

‘Get back to bed,’ I ordered harshly. ‘The sheets will be like ice and we’ll never get to sleep again.’

She made no move to obey, but did step away from me so that she was no longer sheltering within my arm.

‘I can smell something,’ she complained, sniffing delicately.

‘What?’ If I sounded irritable, it was because I was not only furious with myself for the way in which I had responded to her closeness, but also because I was beginning to suspect her motives. Was this whole episode simply an attempt to seduce me? Had she really heard anything, or was it all a fabrication?

‘What can you smell?’ I repeated, walking round to the opposite side of the bed. The fire was now quite out, the remains of the logs bearded with flaking ash.

‘Dung, horses, the stables,’ she answered. Her tone was as cold as the dead fire on the hearth.

I was about to tell her not to be stupid when I noticed the smell myself. There was definitely a whiff of something equine. Then I recollected and, by the light of the candle-flame examined my boots, which I had discarded, along with my other clothes, in a heap at the end of the bed. The soles were still caked with mud and straw and manure from my visit to John Bradshaw. Silently, and a little defiantly, I held them out for Eloise’s inspection.

Her strictures on my grosser habits, such as not wiping my feet before coming indoors, were delivered with all the venom of a woman whose schemes had again been thwarted. At least, that was how it appeared to me.

But as she got back into the cold bed, she reiterated, ‘Someone was in this room, Roger, whatever you may think. And I know exactly what you think! But try not to be misled by your own conceited wishes.’

Without giving me time to catch my breath in order to phrase a suitable reply to this wicked calumny, she pulled the pillows down around her ears and the bedclothes up to meet them, leaving me standing at the foot of the bed feeling, and probably looking, remarkably foolish.

The remainder of our journey to Dover, the following day, was accomplished in almost complete silence between Eloise and myself, but the fact passed almost unnoticed in the general chatter of our enlarged party. Eloise and Mistress Armiger suddenly became great friends, their light-hearted chatter relieving them of the necessity of paying too much attention to their menfolk. Any animosity the former might have originally experienced towards the latter was submerged in the greater need to ignore my existence. As for myself, Will Lackpenny devoted himself to me and Master Armiger in equal measure, entertaining us and passing the weary miles with the sort of aimless conversation that needed little more than a polite smile or an infrequent nod of the head to give the impression that I was listening. The older man didn’t even offer this much, seemingly sunk in his own all-absorbing reflections, but the fact that he made no interruption was enough encouragement for Will to continue with his artless prattle. John Bradshaw and Philip brought up the rear of our little cavalcade, exchanging nothing but the briefest and most necessary words concerning the journey.

To begin with, it was a day of sunshine and showers, the late-October sun occasionally emerging to stain fields and woodland pathways gold, but later on, towards midday, the sky grew overcast and the wind increased, blowing the clouds into an ever-changing panorama of shapes, the light that filtered between them becoming murky and unwholesome. A day for agues and the shivers. Each time I glanced back at John Bradshaw, his expression had grown a little more worried. The weather appeared to be worsening the nearer we got to the coast.

We faced the prospect of being stranded at Dover for several days, perhaps much longer. My hopes rose. Maybe the crossing, everything, would have to be abandoned and we — Eloise, myself, John and Philip, that is — could return home.