The Dance of Death

Five

Outside the chamber, I found the lackey who had earlier served the wine waiting for me. I raised my eyebrows in enquiry.

‘I’m to conduct you to your room, master.’

I shook my head. ‘There’s no need. I know where it is.’

‘I’ll accompany you,’ he insisted stubbornly. ‘The duke’s orders. I’ve to see you’re comfortable and to bring you your all-night.’

I shrugged. ‘Oh, very well.’

He followed me silently along the narrow passages and up the twisting stairs until we finally reached a row of five single cells close to the men servants’ dormitory. Once or twice I made an attempt at conversation, but my efforts were met either with silence or a grunt, so I gave up, saying nothing more until I came to a halt outside the first door of the five.

I turned to face him. ‘This is it.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll remember.’ He hesitated, then said with more warmth than he had displayed so far, ‘If you wish to come down to the common hall later on, you’ll likely find some games of chance being played — fivestones, three men’s morris, hazard, that sort of thing — among those of us not on duty. A few will even wager on the outcome of a game of chess. You’ll come to the chapel for prayers, of course, when the bell rings.’

‘I’m in no mood for playing games,’ I said abruptly, then added, to show I meant no ill will, ‘I’ve had bad news today. I’d rather be alone.’

‘In that case — ’ the man stepped back a pace — ‘I’ll see you get your all-night and leave you to your own company.’ And he made off down the stairs.

I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, a straw-filled mattress placed on a stone ledge and covered with three rough grey blankets. The pillow, however, was stuffed with feathers, and a linen sheet had been interposed between blankets and mattress. I supposed I was lucky — I was being afforded special treatment — but it was nothing like the comfort I enjoyed at home, where I ought to be, and my grievance returned in full force. My grief for Jeanne Lamprey and Reynold Makepeace also surfaced again and I found tears welling up and running down my cheeks before I could check them. Moreover, the stuffiness of the little room was beginning to make my senses swim. I almost decided to visit the common hall and distract myself with some cheerful company, but somehow could not bring myself to do so.

The opening of the door heralded the arrival of my all-night, a ewer of wine, a mazer, a large hunk of bread and a leather bottle that proved to contain water. The young boy who brought the tray drew my attention to it. ‘I put it on meself,’ he confided. ‘Gets ’ot up ’ere, it does. These rooms are like a bake’ouse oven, I’ll tell you. An’ wine don’t allus quench yer thirst.’

I thanked him with real gratitude. He gave me a sympathetic wink and withdrew. I moved the tray and its burden from the end of the bed, where the boy had placed it, to a shelf just inside the door. This, together with a wooden armchair, that looked as if it had seen better days and had been dragged in to give the room some semblance of added comfort (a forlorn hope!) comprised the rest of the furnishings. Luxury was not for menials, I reflected bitterly, recalling the richness of the ducal apartment and also what travelling with the Duke of Albany had meant over the past few months.

It was too early to sleep properly, so I stretched out on the bed and tried to doze, but the castle was still too alive, echoing to the sounds of distant laughter and raised voices. I sat up again and swung my legs to the floor, my feet tapping a tattoo against the cold stone. Now, suddenly, I felt fidgety, bored and bad-tempered all at the same time. I knew that if I just sat and thought, grief and longing for home would engulf me once more and that desperation might make me do something extremely foolish, such as rushing headlong to the duke and telling him to find someone else to do his bidding.

I stood up and reached for the bottle of water, removing the stopper and swallowing half the contents at one go. Then I sat down again and drank the rest slowly, savouring the clear, refreshing taste of the Paddington springs, whence it came, piped into the city’s conduits. I felt a little better and was once more toying with the idea of descending to the common hall when I remembered Timothy’s suggestion that I commit the duke’s instructions to memory before disposing of them. I took the paper from my pouch, then got up and lit the candle, which was on the shelf beside a tinder box, dragged the chair into its circle of light and settled down to read and reread the neat, meticulous writing of John Kendal, Prince Richard’s secretary, until I could recite every word without once referring to the text. When I had done this three times in a row, and then done it a fourth and fifth time, just to be certain, I held the paper to the candle-flame and watched it burn to ashes, which I scrunched beneath my heel as they floated to the ground.

I decided I deserved a reward and, raising my arm, lifted down the mazer without getting to my feet. But when, lazily, I attempted to do the same with the ewer, I only succeeded in hitting it off the tray. It fell with a crash of metal against stone, the lid flying open and the wine spilling across the floor in dark red rivulets, making little islands and peninsulas on the flags. Cursing myself for a fool, and a clumsy fool at that, I picked up the jug to see if any wine was left, but all my shaking produced only the merest dribble in the bottom of the cup. Disgustedly, I replaced everything on the shelf and retired to the bed, leaving the puddle of wine to dry overnight or seep away between the pavers.

I realized that the castle was quiet at last, only the shouts of the watchmen punctuating the silence. It had taken me longer than I thought to learn by heart the list of questions that I must eventually put to Robin Gaunt if ever I managed to find him. Perhaps this Humphrey Culpepper would be able to provide me with some valuable information, but I very much doubted it. It was all too long ago: forty years.

I stood up, stretched and undressed, pulling off my boots and then stripping slowly, feeling the cold night air from the slit of a window on my bare skin. I threw my clothes on to the chair in an untidy heap, opened the door briefly while I peed into the corridor, then, suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue, climbed into bed and fell immediately asleep.

In my dream, both Jeanne Lamprey and Reynold Makepeace were seated in my kitchen at home, assuring me that they were not, after all, dead and that I did not have to go to France. It was all just a silly joke perpetrated by my family. Adela and the children, who had not been present a moment ago, were now seated on the other side of the table, nodding and doubled up with laughter, pointing their fingers and shouting, ‘April fool!’ I kept trying to tell them that it wasn’t spring but autumn, but no one would listen to me. A strange man then appeared, saying that he was Robin Gaunt, all the time dodging behind the others so that I was unable to see his face. I yelled at him to stand still, but he only laughed and kept on moving.

Suddenly, I was wide awake, staring into the darkness and conscious of another presence in the room. I raised myself on one elbow, still trying to free my mind from the cobwebs of sleep.

‘Who. .? What. .?’ I muttered, my voice thick in my throat.

There was a violent imprecation, then a sudden rush of movement and the opening of the door, letting in a draught of stale air from the passageway. I struggled out of bed, the cold of the flagstones striking up through the soles of my feet and shocking me into wakefulness. But I was too late to catch a glimpse of the intruder. The flickering torches in the wall sconces illuminated the corridor, to right and left, silent and empty. The only noise came from the adjacent male dormitory, a faint cacophony of snores and groans that disturbed the men’s sleep. Cursing, I stepped back inside my narrow cell, pulling the door shut behind me.

I lit the candle and looked around. My clothes, which had been thrown across the chair, now lay in a heap on the floor, and on top of the pile was my pouch. This had been freed from my belt and was open, the flap bent back to give a groping hand better access, and my breeches, shirt and jerkin had been turned carefully inside out as if to ensure that they contained no concealed pockets. Someone, I reflected grimly, had been searching for the Duke of Gloucester’s instructions, and but for my boredom of the previous evening, they would have been found. Thankfully, I blessed Timothy Plummer’s foresight.

Something moved near my foot, and such was my state of nerves that I jumped nearly out of my skin. I spun round and lowered the candlestick nearer the floor just in time to see a mouse scrabbling wildly to find its feet, its little claws scraping the stones. It was acting as if it were drunk, its whiskers all wet, and I suddenly realized the reason. It must have been licking up some of the spilled wine and was now paying the penalty for its greed. But even as I watched, it staggered, fell over, twitched violently for a second or two, then lay still. My heart pounding uncomfortably, I crouched down and prodded it with my finger. There was no response. It was dead.

I reached out a finger and dipped it in a half-dried puddle of the ruby liquid, then cautiously raised it to my lips. There was a slightly strange taste to it, but that, of course, could be nothing more than the taint of damp and mildew from the flagstones. It wasn’t in itself proof that the wine had been drugged, but the evidence of the mouse seemed to point that way. If a strong soporific had been used, it might well have proved too much for a little rodent. I ruled out poison. That would have been stupid, indicating at once that there were others anxious to learn of the duke’s intentions, others who suspected that my and Mistress Gray’s journey to France was a cloak for another, more secret mission. But thanks to my clumsiness, I had failed to drink the wine and so been alerted to possible danger. Nor were the unknown ‘they’ any the wiser.

I picked up my clothes, laid them on the chair again and got back into bed, shivering with cold. If I caught an ague on top of everything else, I should have a few harsh words to say to Timothy Plummer. On reflection, I would have more than a few harsh words to say to him in the morning. I lay for a while, straining my ears, but I doubted anyone would risk a return visit, especially as whoever it was had probably satisfied himself that what he was looking for was no longer among my possessions.

But why did I naturally assume that my visitor had been a man? It might equally as well have been a woman. I had been too drugged with sleep to have any clear idea of the intruder’s sex, yet a certain sense of bulk persuaded me that the presence had been male. But who? Who, apart from Timothy and the duke, knew of my secret instructions, and, above all, who could possibly have been aware that I was carrying them in my pouch?

I had a sudden picture of myself the previous evening with the duke. I was saying something, something about ‘when I read what you had written’, and tapping my belt. . And the servant, who had entered unobserved by me, was there, pouring the wine, the same servant who had insisted on accompanying me to my room so that he might know where I was housed. .

A Woodville agent? He had to be! I could at least provide Timothy with a description, although I doubted that morning would still find the man in the castle. He would slip out at first light to report his failure to his superiors, and if he had any sense, he wouldn’t come back. On the other hand, he might underrate my intelligence. Plenty of people had done that before now. To their cost.

Eventually, I drifted into an uneasy sleep, a tangle of nightmarish dreams that again featured Reynold Makepeace and Jeanne Lamprey and a whole host of grinning skeletons who were dancing round and round me in a ring.

I awoke the following morning with a crick in my neck and feeling far from refreshed. By the time I had finished dressing, I was in a foul temper, angry with all the world and ready to take offence if someone so much as looked at me the wrong way. Sensing my mood, I was given a wide berth at breakfast by the duchess’s servants, so I seized the opportunity to look around at the neighbouring tables to see if I could spot the wine-server of the previous evening, but there was no one resembling him that I could make out — at least, not enough to say positively, ‘That is the man.’ My guess was probably correct: he had already left the castle.

A page came to tell me that Timothy wanted to see me as soon as I had finished eating. ‘The same room as yesterday, overlooking the water-stairs.’ The boy nodded towards my plate, indicating the half-eaten oatcake. ‘Don’t you want that?’

I shook my head and he leaned over and grabbed it, cramming it into his mouth all in one go.

‘Don’t they feed you in this place?’ I asked. ‘It’s as dry as last week’s bread.’

He grimaced. ‘Her Grace doesn’t believe in too much indulgence of the flesh.’

Not now, I thought, not now she’s an old woman, but in the past. . that might well have been a different story.

I found the spymaster waiting for me, impatiently pacing up and down the room. He rounded on me as I entered. ‘Where have you been?’

‘At breakfast,’ I snapped. ‘And pretty poor victuals they were, too. That’s beside the point. I overslept, but there was a reason for it.’

‘It had better be a good one.’

‘Oh, it is,’ I said, seating myself on one of the stools. ‘The best.’ And I told him what had happened.

Timothy cursed softly under his breath. ‘Would you recognize this server again?’

I pursed my lips. ‘I might, although there was nothing outstanding about him. Couldn’t you ask the duke? His Grace might know who he is.’

My companion snorted derisively. ‘I don’t suppose the duke even glanced at the man’s face, and even if he did, he wouldn’t know his name. He doesn’t recognize half his own servants, let alone his mother’s. But why do you think this fellow suspected you?’

I explained and received a tongue-lashing for my pains.

‘You must be more careful,’ Timothy ended, but then sat down beside me and patted my arm, probably being able to tell from my expression that I was in a right royal rage. ‘However, I suppose it wasn’t really your fault,’ he added placatingly. ‘And at least it’s put us on our guard. We know now that the Woodvilles have got wind of something, but thanks to the fact that you had already committed the paper’s contents to memory and then destroyed it, they still don’t know what it is we’re after.’

I was in no mood to be buttered up and asked abruptly, ‘Where do I find this Humphrey Culpepper, then? Stinking Lane, did you say?’

Timothy nodded. ‘It’s off the Shambles. The first turning after Pentecost Lane as you come from West Cheap.’

‘Which house?’

‘The third one on the left.’

I was surprised and showed it. ‘Not like your men to be so precise,’ I sneered, getting a little of my own back. ‘They must have been having one of their better days.’

Timothy scowled. ‘None of this is a joke, Roger. It’s damnably dangerous.’

‘Oho!’ I exclaimed. ‘The truth at last! Of course it’s dangerous. I told you yesterday we were dabbling in treason. It’s all very well saying that the duke will protect us. He may not be able to. He could be in the Tower — or worse.’

Timothy’s irritation was written large on his face. He was under great strain, and suddenly it showed. ‘That’s enough of that sort of talk.’ The corner of his right eye had developed a twitch. ‘Now listen to me carefully. Make sure that no one is watching you when you enter Culpepper’s house and be certain it’s him when he answers the door. He’s a widower. Lives alone. An old man, over sixty, as you’d expect. Grey hair, thickset. None too keen on using the communal pump.’

‘You mean he stinks more than normal?’

‘We-ell. . yes. But it’s another way of identifying him. Here, take this token.’ The spymaster pushed a bone disc, with the emblem of the White Boar carved on one side, towards me. ‘If he jibs at letting you in, show him this. But not unless you have to. Then ask him for a description of Robin Gaunt. That’s all you want. Nothing more. Don’t enter into conversation with him.’

‘And if he can’t remember this Robin Gaunt, or perhaps won’t say unless I tell him why I wish to know?’

Timothy sighed, the lines of weariness about his eyes seeming to increase. ‘Then I’ll have to have him brought in for questioning. Frighten him a bit. But I don’t want to do that unless it’s necessary. His neighbours are bound to get wind of it, and the last thing I want is to draw any attention to him.’

‘But isn’t he going to discuss my visit with the neighbours anyway?’

‘The man who’s been keeping an eye on him these past few days reports that Culpepper doesn’t like company and speaks to very few people. Other people tend to avoid him.’

‘The smell must be worse than we thought,’ I commented with a grin, then wished I hadn’t. Timothy looked for a moment as though he might burst into tears.

‘I’ve warned you, Roger, that this is a serious matter. Don’t make a jest of it.’ He rose to his feet. ‘I shall expect you back here after dinner, when Mistress Gray will join us. Now, off you go, and for God’s sake, take care. Make sure you’re not being followed. If anything — anything at all — arouses your suspicions, come back and try again tomorrow.’

Half an hour later, I crossed West Cheap, strolled through the goldsmiths’ quarter and bore right into the Shambles.

I had been able to smell it from some way off, the stench assaulting my nose from the second I entered Old Change. Up close, it was even more pungent, the cobbles slippery with blood and the central drain piled high with discarded animal bones and offal. Mind you, there was less waste here than in many other parts of London. There wasn’t much of any beast that couldn’t be used; eyes were a great delicacy, as also were brains, very tasty, like the innards, stewed with an onion, and some meat could even be scraped off the ears. A whole sheep or cow’s head could make several meals and feed a family quite cheaply, as I well knew. Adela was nothing if not a thrifty housewife. I had often enjoyed a pig’s cheek, although I have to admit to a certain queasiness about eating eyes.

Stinking Lane more than lived up to its name, the houses on either side being extremely close together and the smell from the Shambles getting trapped between them. There were other aromas, too; poor drainage meant that urine and faeces were mixed with rotting vegetables and the other detritus of daily life. (Urine and faeces? I’m becoming too nice in my old age. ‘Pee’ and ‘shit’ were words that would have served me well enough once.) Twice the soles of my boots slipped on the slime of the cobbles as I counted three cottages up on the left-hand side. I took a step back and surveyed the frontage.

There was only one window, located on the ground floor, and that was shuttered. The door, too, was inhospitably closed. I hammered against the wood and waited. Nothing happened.

I hammered again, louder this time, but again no one answered. A third endeavour produced the same result.

I felt suddenly angry and kicked the door violently, but my irritation was really directed more at Timothy and myself. Why had it not entered our heads that Culpepper might be out? Why had we expected him to be sitting there, awaiting our pleasure? He wasn’t even aware of our existence.

Refusing to accept defeat, I knocked a fourth time. The door of the next hovel was wrenched open and a young woman appeared, waving a broom with fell intent.

‘Stop makin’ that fuckin’ noise, can’t you?’ she hissed. ‘I’ve just got my baby off to sleep, an’ now you come along, wakin’ the dead with yer rattling and bangin’.’

‘I’m looking for Master Culpepper,’ I said. ‘Do you know if he’s in?’

‘No, I don’t,’ the woman answered viciously, but keeping her voice low. ‘I’m not ’is bloody keeper.’ She relented slightly. ‘’E were there first thing this morning, ’bout an hour ago. I do know that ’cos I saw ’im, throwin’ ’is rubbish into the drain. Gone out, I reckon. But ’e won’t be long. ’E never is.’

I thanked her and apologized for the disturbance, hoping I hadn’t wakened the child. She grunted, but gave me a nod of acceptance before whisking herself inside again and closing her door.

I decided that it would be worthwhile to wait around and return in half an hour or so, but as there was nothing in Stinking Lane or the Shambles to interest me, I decided that I might as well walk as far as St Paul’s. If memory served me aright, there was usually some sort of entertainment going on in and around the church or churchyard. I swung on my heel and, as I did so, saw a young man on the other side of the lane, walking in the opposite direction, going towards Aldersgate. I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about him, had it not been for the jaunty blue feather in his hat.

I knew him at once. The arrogant gait, as he picked his careful way across the slimy cobbles, and the self-satisfied smirk half seen on his face both told me that this was the same man I had noticed yesterday on the water-stairs at Baynard’s Castle. With a guilty start, I remembered Timothy Plummer’s admonition to keep my visit to Master Culpepper’s house as secret as possible. Instead of which, I had made enough noise to alert one of his neighbours and had then indulged in a loud-voiced conversation with her that, in this very narrow street, could probably be heard for quarter of a mile around. I cursed myself royally for the fool that I undoubtedly was. My anger and resentment were making me careless, and that could endanger my own life as well as those of others.

How long, I wondered, had Blue Feather been there? Was he, as he seemed to be, just passing by, or had he been standing opposite, unnoticed by me, for some little time, listening to my exchange with Humphrey Culpepper’s neighbour? I shrugged fatalistically. There was no point in pursuit: he would tell me nothing to any purpose even if I accosted him, and I would only draw attention to myself and put him on his guard. If, that is, he had anything to be on guard about. The chances were, it was mere coincidence that I had remarked him two days running — although I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe this. At least I had one advantage over the stranger; he didn’t know that I had spotted him the previous day and would therefore have no reason to think that I might be suspicious of him.

On this consoling thought, I made my way across the Shambles, down Ivy Lane into Paternoster Row and from there into St Paul’s Churchyard. After a moment or two’s hesitation, I decided to pay a visit to the library housed in the east quadrant of the north cloister, which I recollected from a previous visit as being a particularly fine one. The north cloister provided further entertainment in the shape of the lawyers who congregated there day after day, either touting for business or discussing with their clients ways and means of circumventing wills that did not favour them, or how to upset the land title of some relative whom they considered to have usurped their place, or how to get an annulment for a marriage that was beginning to pall. But today, although the north cloister was as packed as ever by these gentlemen, resplendent in their striped hoods and gowns, they failed to arrest my attention. What did was the series of paintings around the walls: a depiction of The Dance of Death, the grinning skeletons writhing and cavorting as they carried off their unwilling victims one by one. Perhaps it was because of the deaths of Jeanne Lamprey and Reynold Makepeace that they caught my eye and made me stop to stare, cold fingers of foreboding stroking my spine.

However we tried to cheat it, death was always lying in wait for us from the moment we were born. Young or old, male or female, king or commoner, it was there, its crooked, bony finger beckoning us on, all unknowing to our fate, leering at us with empty eye sockets, out of the dark.