The Dance of Death

Fifteen

‘Why do you say that?’ I asked sharply, while Eloise, forgetting to look soulful and beguiling, turned to stare at our supper companion.

Raoul d’Harcourt smiled a little and then pulled from his belt a serviceable-looking knife. ‘This was found on the deck of The Sea Nymph by one of the crew.’

‘And how did you come by it?’ My tone was accusatory.

The smile deepened. ‘He, of course, handed it to the ship’s master, who brought it to me at my inn late last night-’

‘Why did he bring it to you?’ I interrupted fiercely.

Eloise made a little sign to me to calm down.

Raoul d’Harcourt saw and his grey eyes twinkled appreciatively. ‘It’s all right, madame,’ he said. ‘Your husband is naturally curious. The master of The Sea Nymph is an old friend of mine. I have crossed the Channel many times aboard his vessel. You may have noticed that he obligingly delayed the ship’s departure from Dover in order that I might come aboard. So I was naturally the person he thought of when the discovery of the knife was made. The missing gentleman’s brother-in-law (as I understand him to be), the other gentleman of the blue feather and your husband were all strangers to him.’

I leaned back in my chair, pushing my bowl of broth to one side. Eloise frowned at me, indicating that I should drink it up, but I ignored her and concentrated my attention, instead, on the Frenchman.

‘Why did the ship’s master consider this knife of any significance?’ I demanded. ‘It’s an ordinary meat knife, the sort most of us carry. Was there something particular about it that excited his suspicion?’

Monsieur d’Harcourt shrugged slightly. ‘He was uneasy concerning it. That was all he could say.’

‘Why? Anyone could have dropped it. Did it have blood on it? Was that it?’

‘In that weather? With rain lashing the deck?’ The tone was mocking. ‘It would have been washed clean in a moment. No. It was rather that at one point during the voyage he thought some sort of altercation was going on between Master. . er. . the man who has disappeared-’

‘Cook,’ Eloise supplied. ‘Master Oliver Cook.’

‘Thank you, madame.’ Raoul d’Harcourt bestowed a smile on her that had the unfortunate result of making her simper again. ‘Master Cook — Maître Cuisinier — I shall remember. As I was saying, my friend the ship’s master thought he saw some argument going on between Master Cook and two other men, standing alongside him. At the time, he merely presumed that this pair were trying, very sensibly, to persuade their companion below deck and thought no more about it.’

‘Did he see who these men were?’ I asked eagerly, but received only a shake of the head.

‘No. Unfortunately the visibility at that moment was too poor. Moreover, he knew none of the passengers sufficiently well to be able to distinguish one from the other at a distance. Master Cook, of course, he could not help but recognize because of his great size.’

‘And this incident made him suspicious when the knife was discovered. . when?’

‘After you were all ashore and members of the crew were searching the ship for the missing man.’

‘And he thought that Oliver Cook might have been knifed and pushed overboard?’

The Frenchman pursed his lips. ‘I’m not sure that my friend had formed that conclusion. He simply felt a trifle uneasy in his mind and so came to me for my advice.’

‘And what was that?’

Here, we were interrupted by the entrance of the landlord and his assistant, bringing the main dish of two plump fowls, stewed in butter, with mushrooms and shallots. My spirits insensibly rose. This was better fare for an Englishman. I was pleased to be rid of a broth whose contents I found extremely dubious and more than a little foreign. (I noticed that Eloise had disposed of hers with relish.)

When the fowls had been carved and served, and the landlord and his assistant had withdrawn, amidst a flurry of what I took to be good wishes for the enjoyment of our meal, I returned to the subject in hand.

‘So what advice did you give your friend, monsieur?’

‘I told him to think no more about it. I offered to take the knife and restore it to its owner if that was possible. I said I was sure it had nothing to do with the missing man’s disappearance.’

‘And he was satisfied with that?’

Raoul d’Harcourt smiled again. He smiled rather a lot, too much in my opinion. ‘Let us say that he wanted to be satisfied,’ was the cautious answer. ‘I’ll say no more than that.’

‘But you are not. Satisfied, I mean. You think this knife has some significance. Why?’

The Frenchman emptied his mouth of food, wiped his lips on the back of his hand and grimaced. ‘If you wish me to be honest, I have no real reason. It is just that when I called on you all yesterday evening, to return the saddlebag I had taken from the quayside by mistake and learned that Master Cook was missing and assumed to be drowned, I was surprised — no, rather let us say astonished — by the lack of any great concern except on the part of his sister. Master Armiger, who should by rights have been as distressed as his wife, seemed, if anything, indifferent to the news that his brother-in-law had probably been washed overboard and drowned. And so, when, later, my friend the ship’s master sought me out at my inn and told me about the discovery of the knife and the argument he thought he had seen, I began to wonder if perhaps Master Cook’s death had not been an accident at all, but murder.’

There was silence for a moment or two except for the crackling of the fire on the hearth. Finally, I asked, ‘And this is your sole reason for believing there might have been foul play?’

‘You think it insufficient?’

‘I do.’ I tried to speak positively, at the same time surreptitiously kicking Eloise under the table.

‘You believe it to have been an accident, then?’

‘Without doubt.’ I spoke with a confidence I was far from feeling. Indeed, I had been growing hourly more convinced that the cook had been done away with like Humphrey Culpepper and Jeremiah Tucker before him. The Frenchman’s story had reinforced this belief, and I had a clear vision of someone sneaking up behind Oliver Cook, either slitting his throat like the other two or simply stabbing him in the back and heaving him overboard. Yet what the motive behind such a killing could possibly be I had no idea. For some unknown reason, I did not wish to share my doubts and uncertainties about Oliver Cook’s disappearance with this stranger. I distrusted him, although why I was unable to say, except that he was a foreigner. A good enough reason, you might think, for an Englishman, and you’d probably be right. We’re an insular, suspicious lot. The highest compliment we can pay anyone from abroad is to say that he is like one of us.

Apart from that, however, there was something about the Frenchman that I could not warm to.

I returned to the attack. ‘You seem very certain that Master Cook was murdered and not simply washed overboard in the storm. Why is that?’

Our companion shrugged. ‘I am sorry. I spoke a little too positively. I cannot, of course, be certain. But as I said just now, I have crossed La Manche many times, and the weather was not nearly so bad as I have known it on other occasions. What you term a storm was, to me, nothing but a bad mid-Channel squall, insufficient to wash a man over the side — especially a man of Master Cook’s impressive build. You must admit he was — is — a very large gentleman.’

‘That doesn’t mean to say it couldn’t happen,’ I argued stubbornly, and addressed myself to my supper with a determination that signalled the end of the discussion. To make doubly sure, however, I turned the conversation by asking through a mouthful of mushrooms and gravy, ‘And what brings you so often across the Channel and back, monsieur? Do you have so much business in England?’

Eloise scowled at my discourteous tone, but Raoul d’Harcourt merely smiled. ‘I am a goldsmith by trade, Master Chapman, and since our two countries are at present at peace, and have been for the past seven years since the meeting of our sovereigns at Picquigny, I travel to London several times a year to both buy and sell among the goldsmiths of Cheapside. I have a shop on the Quai des Orfèvres in the Île de la Cité.’ He turned to Eloise as he spoke, deducing correctly from her almost perfect French that she probably knew Paris as well as he did.

She smiled and nodded. ‘I am acquainted with it, monsieur, although,’ she added with a throaty chuckle, ‘not as a customer.’ At the same time, she sent me a significant look, which I entirely failed to interpret until about ten minutes later, when I recollected that the object of Olivier le Daim’s visit to the capital was to consult with the Parisian goldsmiths. (About what we had no idea, but knowing the ways of kings and princes, King Louis was most likely trying to raise a pledge of money from them.) I kicked myself mentally. I really was getting absentminded.

Until he jogged my memory, I had completely forgotten the Frenchman’s calling on us at our inn in Calais yesterday evening to return the Armigers’ saddlebag and now the reason for Eloise’s cousin being in Paris had all but slipped my mind. Why this sudden lack of concentration? What was wrong with me? One glance at Eloise’s flower-like countenance, her large eyes fixed with interest on the Frenchman’s face, her lips slightly parted as though breathless for his next few words, was enough to tell me that I was suffering from the pangs of frustrated passion. Not love: not for a moment did I delude myself that it was that. I had been in love twice in my life, once with Rowena Honeyman and a second time with Adela, and I knew gold from dross. But I was most certainly in lust with Eloise and it was distracting me from the job in hand. And that could prove very dangerous.

After supper, when the covers had been drawn, I excused myself, saying that I needed to speak to John Bradshaw about the following day’s itinerary, which was the truth as far as it went. But there were other matters I needed to consult him about, as Eloise, by the slight flicker of her eyelids, obviously guessed.

‘Don’t be too long, then, sweetheart,’ she said, playing her wifely role to perfection. ‘And don’t stay drinking with him. Really,’ she added, turning towards Raoul d’Harcourt with a small, resigned shrug, ‘John is more like a friend than a servant to my husband. You must have wondered at the way he was speaking to Roger out in the courtyard, but too much familiarity always breeds contempt, as I have pointed out time and again, but to no avail.’ She rose from her chair and kissed my cheek, also playfully patting my rump. ‘Now, remember! Not too long!’

Truly, the girl had all her wits about her. She had effortlessly explained away that unfortunate scene in the courtyard when John was berating the pair of us whereas my only way of dealing with it had been to ignore the episode entirely and hope the Frenchman read nothing of significance into it.

‘I won’t linger,’ I promised, returning her kiss with a chaste salute on her lips. They tasted of the wine we had been drinking. ‘Do you travel with us tomorrow, monsieur?’ I asked politely, but without enthusiasm.

‘Since you ask, thank you, I should be grateful for the company,’ he answered, his eyes mocking me.

‘Splendid,’ I said in a flat voice. This time, he gave an involuntary grin, but disguised it as best he could by honouring both of us with a little bow. ‘And allow me to congratualate you on your excellent English.’

He repeated the bow. ‘Thank you, monsieur. I have a flair for languages. I can also speak Spanish and Portuguese with reasonable fluency. There is nothing very clever about it. It is just a knack.’

‘A very useful one.’ I summoned up a smile. ‘I shan’t be gone long. My wife will entertain you while I’m away.’

‘Enchanted,’ he said, turning to Eloise with his most engaging smile.

She returned it, dewy-eyed.

I left them to it.

For once, John Bradshaw and Philip were not bedding down in the stables, which were empty apart from the horses. I eventually ran them to earth in the kitchens, Philip already asleep, lulled by the unaccustomed warmth, curled into a corner on a pile of old sacks. Two young lads were taking the spit apart, ready for cleaning, jabbering to one another, and for one short moment I thought how clever they were to be speaking a foreign tongue at their age. Then reality took hold and I gave myself another mental shake. I must sharpen up, I thought disgustedly.

I looked around for John and found him seated on a stool by the slowly dying embers of the fire, knife in hand, whittling a piece of wood into a cruciform shape, one arm of which he had already embellished with delicately carved leaves and flowers. There being no other seat available, I dropped on my haunches beside him and admired his handiwork.

‘That’s beautiful,’ I said.

‘It’s a talent I’ve had from boyhood.’ He sounded faintly surprised. I was surprised myself. With his big hands it seemed unlikely that he could be capable of such fine work. ‘Did you want me?’ he added.

‘I’ve come to warn you that we shall have company again tomorrow, on the road.’

‘The Frenchman?’

‘Who else?’

John bit his lip. ‘I didn’t see him lurking there in the courtyard this evening. He must have wondered when he overheard me addressing you and Mistress Gr- Mistress Chapman as I did.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I’m growing careless. A sure sign that I’m beginning to get rattled.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured him. ‘Eloise has explained the incident to his satisfaction.’ And I told him what she had said.

‘An intelligent woman,’ he confirmed. ‘Is that all you wanted to tell me?’

‘No, there’s more.’ I glanced around to make certain that no one else had entered the kitchen without us noticing, but there were still only the two scullions and a slatternly girl washing the dirty dishes. ‘Monsieur d’Harcourt thinks that Oliver Cook was murdered.’

John Bradshaw stopped his whittling and turned his head in my direction. ‘Tell me,’ he murmured.

I related the story of the knife found on the deck by one of The Sea Nymph’s crew and how it came to be in the Frenchman’s possession. When I had finished, John said nothing for a moment or two, then asked, ‘Do you believe him?’

‘Why would he make up such a story?’

‘To divert suspicion from himself, perhaps. After all, what do we know of him? He appears out of the blue at Dover. No one seems at all sure where he was throughout the voyage; he picks up one of the Armigers’ saddlebags, apparently by mistake, at Calais, in spite of the fact that he has no saddlebag of his own, merely a baggage roll; and we only have his word for it that this knife was discovered by a member of the crew and brought to him at his inn.’

‘You think he might be a Woodville agent?’

‘Or a French agent. On the other hand, he could be exactly what he says he is, a goldsmith travelling home to Paris, and his story a true one. But it must have occurred to you that Oliver Cook might well have been murdered.’

‘Well, yes,’ I admitted. ‘Except that I can see no reason for it. We know he’s not the agent of anyone. He’s the head cook at Baynard’s Castle.’

John Bradshaw laughed softly. ‘And you think that means he couldn’t have been recruited or suborned by someone? Offer enough money and you can buy almost anything or anybody. Not everyone makes spying their only profession.’

‘Like you and Timothy.’

‘Exactly.’

I sighed and straightened up. ‘I suppose all we can do is to keep an eye on Master Harcourt. And if he’s to travel with us tomorrow, we can do that easily enough.’ I held out my hand for the half-finished cross and he laid it carefully in my left palm. I examined it closely in the remaining light from the fire. ‘It truly is beautiful,’ I said with the admiration of one who couldn’t carve a leg of mutton without making a botched job of it. I grinned as I got in a little dig at him in return for his dressing-down of Eloise and myself earlier in the evening. ‘Not bad for a Hampshire hog.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘What makes you think I’m a Hampshire hog?’

‘I thought I recognized the accent.’

He laughed. ‘Well, you’re out there, my Bristol bumpkin. I’m a Suffolk swine. My home town is Ipswich. Most of my kith and kin live there, or roundabout.’ He took back the cross from me. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m making this for one of my young cousins, Tom Wolsey. His father, a relation of my mother in the third or fourth degree, is a butcher, and a good one, too. As skilful a carver in his own way as I am in mine and a pleasure to watch. Young Tom’s handy with a knife, as well. A big, well-set-up young chap. Only ten years old, but already as strong as an ox. Looks a bit like me,’ he added proudly.

‘A good thing in a butcher,’ I said.

John Bradshaw gave a shout of laughter that made the scullions and the girl turn to stare at him. He lowered his voice again. ‘The good Lord love you! Thomas ain’t destined for the shop. He has brains as well as brawn and his father has ambitions for him. It’s Oxford for Master Tom and then probably the Church. Or a secretaryship to some great churchman. That’s why I’m making him this.’ He touched the half-finished cross with a beefy forefinger and then resumed his carving.

‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Sun-up. We need an early start.’

‘Don’t we always?’ I grumbled.

Thomas Wolsey. That was the first time I ever heard a name that now, in this, my seventy-sixth year, is as familiar to me as my own and a great deal more familiar than the majority of others. Young Master Tom from Ipswich has certainly risen further than most of his generation, and his talents would just as certainly have been wasted in a butcher’s shop.

Eloise and Master Harcourt were still seated where I had left them, one on either side of the inn parlour fire, talking away together in rapid French, which slid politely and effortlessly into English as I made my reappearance. It seemed, upon enquiry, that they had been exchanging horror stories about Paris. Or so they claimed.

‘Monsieur d’Harcourt,’ Eloise said, ‘has been telling me of a terrible winter, at the beginning of this century, when icebergs floated down the Seine and even the ink froze solid on the quill. And less than fifty years ago, wolves got into the city and killed and ate more than a dozen people in the market gardens and scavenged the dead bodies from the great gibbet at Montfaucon.’ She gave a crow of laughter at my look of disgust and added triumphantly, ‘And the Seine has overflowed its banks more then twenty-seven times. Once, it brought the entire city to a standstill for more than six weeks.’

‘Dear God!’ I murmured, crossing myself.

The Frenchman’s eyes twinkled. ‘Ah, madame,’ he said, ‘you have forgotten the outbreaks of mumps and scarlet fever and smallpox, and the thirty-six outbreaks of plague during the past thirty-two years.’

‘Enough!’ I exclaimed, flinging up a hand. ‘I didn’t think there could be an unhealthier spot on earth than London, but it seems I was wrong. We shall be starting at sun-up, as usual, my dear,’ I added, addressing Eloise, then bowed stiffly to Raoul d’Harcourt. ‘If you still wish to join us, monsieur, you are welcome, as I told you earlier.’ He inclined his head graciously and murmured something in French, which I ignored. ‘And now I’m for my bed.’

I stalked to the door, but unfortunately tripped over one of my own feet as I made what should have been a dignified exit. I heard Eloise’s gurgle of mirth and shut the door with unnecessary force behind me.

When she followed me up to our bedchamber some time later — how much later I wasn’t sure — I pretended to be sleeping.

Once again, I had a restless night, but I was growing used to it. My slumbers were broken by dreams without any rhyme or reason; farragos of nonsense that had no shape and melted away like dew in the sun almost as soon as I regained full consciousness. Awake, staring up at the bed-tester, moving aside the curtains a little to stare into the shadowy depths of one strange bedchamber after another, I was always acutely aware of Eloise beside me, of the soft murmurs she made while she slept, of the curve of her body and the scent of her hair. That particular night, she had once again curled into my side, one hand resting lightly on my right thigh, and it took every ounce of my moral strength not to rouse her and make love to her there and then. I was thoroughly roused myself, and was sweating with desire, lust, whatever you like to call it, cursing Duke Richard and Timothy Plummer for sending me on this mission to Paris with a woman who was not my wife. I don’t know how long I lay struggling with my emotions, listening to the sounds of the night from beyond the closed shutters — the hooting of an owl, the neigh of a horse, the barking of a dog — until my better self gained the upper hand and I fell at last into a sleep of exhaustion.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, that Eloise was up, washed, dressed and had descended to the inn parlour for breakfast before I was even out of bed. As it was, I cut myself shaving, scrambled into the first clothes that came to hand (blue hose, green jerkin, a dirty shirt and my old patched boots), failed to comb my hair or brush my teeth and, judging by Eloise’s glare of disapproval, arrived at table looking the wreck I felt. But it was with relief that I saw Raoul d’Harcourt was not yet present. Perhaps he, too, had suffered a disturbed night.

As I sipped my beaker of small beer and swallowed a basinful of gruel — at least, I think that’s what it was meant to be — I remarked smugly on his absence. ‘He heard me say sun-up,’ I said.

The innkeeper entering the parlour at that moment, Eloise turned and addressed him in rapid French. There was a good deal of Gallic shrugging of shoulders and spreading of hands — the usual waste of time — before mine host trundled off to look into the matter. He returned, after a wait of some minutes, to say that the gentleman had gone. He was not in his bedchamber or anywhere else in the inn. Even I could understand that much.

There was yet another rapid exchange between Eloise and the landlord — it sounded like an explosion of hailstones on a tiled roof — before she told me, looking nonplussed, ‘It seems that although Monsieur d’Harcourt is nowhere to be found, his baggage is still in his room.’

‘Gone for a walk?’ I suggested. The French were so excitable!

Eloise regarded me scornfully. ‘Hardly! With his boots and his cloak still in his room? It’s raining like the Great Flood out there, or are you still so drugged with sleep you haven’t noticed?’

As a matter of fact, I hadn’t, but now she mentioned it, I was suddenly aware of the sound of heavy rain spattering on the roof and the street cobbles.

‘Maybe he likes walking in the rain,’ I argued. ‘Maybe he has a spare pair of boots and another cloak. He looks rich enough to have two of everything. What about his horse?’ I added with a flash of inspiration. ‘Is it still in the stables?’

Investigation proved that it was.

‘There you are, then! He’s gone for a stroll. Some people enjoy walking in the wet. But I think it’s the end of his riding with us. John won’t wait on his fits and starts. He wants us on the road now, if not sooner. He’s determined we’ll be in Paris by Thursday.’

And so it proved. John Bradshaw was indifferent as to what had become of the Frenchman. Perhaps relieved, really, that it would be just the four of us without any need for play-acting.

‘It’s his own fault if he’s not ready to go with us,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ll tell Philip to bring round the horses.’ He noticed Eloise’s troubled expression and frowned. ‘Don’t worry about him, mistress,’ he said curtly. ‘I doubt he’s come to any harm. And now we’re nearly at our journey’s end, we’ve worries enough of our own.’