The Dance of Death

Nine

I lowered my head and edged behind two or three of the other spectators. Although my movements were slight, Eloise turned to look at me.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

She missed very little and her suspicions seemed easily aroused, a fact that worried me. Not only was I under orders to keep the duke’s private mission hidden from her, but I realized that I was accumulating a number of secrets of my own: noticing Blue Feather in Stinking Lane the previous day; seeing a man — I was now certain it had been a man — being landed at the castle water-stairs in the early hours of this morning; my trip to Southwark and the murder of the boatman Jeremiah Tucker; the fellow who had been desperate to avoid my company in the common hall this evening; now the knowledge that Blue Feather was a member of Edward Woodville’s household; and, of course, the start of it all — seeing my smart young gent the day before yesterday in conversation with a woman who must be an inmate of the castle. I couldn’t help wondering if I was being wise in keeping all this to myself: the answer to which was a resounding ‘No!’ But it was too late to do anything about it now.

It did cross my mind, however, that I might confide in John Bradshaw. He, after all, was the man responsible for my safety and well-being in the coming days, and had proved himself not to be above taking matters into his own hands when and if he considered it necessary. Nor, if I had judged him aright, was he the sort to read me a homily or stigmatize me as a stupid, lying bastard with the brains of a louse who was liable to wreck the whole carefully laid scheme. I decided I could probably do worse than make a clean breast of things to this eminently level-headed and sensible man. If I got the chance, I would do so.

I became aware that Eloise was shaking my arm.

‘Roger! I asked you if anything is wrong.’

‘What? Oh, no. The light from the torches was hurting my eyes, that’s all.’

She didn’t believe me, naturally, but she made no further comment. In any case, by this time all the guests had disappeared inside the castle, including the stragglers, and those of us who had come out to watch were also slowly wending our way back indoors.

‘Well, there won’t be any games of chance in the common hall tonight, not with it being given over to the kitcheners. I suppose there’s nothing for it but to go to bed.’ Eloise didn’t sound as if she found the prospect very alluring.

‘We do have an early start tomorrow,’ I pointed out. ‘The castle courtyard at sunrise, with all our gear packed and ready to be loaded on to the horses.’

She grimaced. ‘You and I won’t find that a hardship, surely? We experienced enough dawn marches with the army during the summer.’

‘How that used to upset my lord Albany.’

‘Didn’t it just!’ We both snorted with laughter.

We had paused, without my realizing it, at the water-door of the castle, through which, by now, everyone else, both high and low, had vanished. Only Eloise and I were left, staring out over the Thames, the lights from the Woodvilles’ moored barges strung like a necklace along the side of the wharf, their drowned reflections spangling the river. The night was very quiet. Every now and again the shouts of oarsmen reached our ears, but distantly, from the Southwark shore, faint and far off, while from within the castle a thread of music wound its way down the stairs and along the corridors to lie, sweet and trembling, on the evening air. It all added to the intimacy that our moment of shared reminiscence had engendered.

Eloise was standing close to me, shivering a little inside her cloak. It seemed a perfectly natural gesture at the time to put my arm about her shoulders and draw her even closer for warmth. She put up her face, the soft lips quivering, the violet-blue eyes widening in expectation, and before I knew it, I had lowered my head and kissed her. And it wasn’t just a kiss. She wrapped her arms round my body, straining against me with every fibre of her being.

My first thought was, however could I have lived alongside her for months and not realized she was a woman?

My second was, what in the Virgin’s name was I doing? I was a happily married man with three children, those innocent little darlings who depended on me for their daily bread (not to mention their meat, honey, comfits, clothes and other highly expensive goodies).

Frantically, I struggled free of Eloise’s clinging embrace. I pushed her from me almost roughly and supported myself with one hand against the wall, breathing heavily. I saw those wonderful eyes momentarily darken with anger; then she recovered her poise.

She tossed her head and laughed. ‘Oh, Roger! My dear “husband”! I can see that I’m going to have to guard my virtue with you.’

‘You’re going to. .’ I spluttered indignantly. ‘I was under the impression there for a moment that. . that. .’

‘That what? That I was about to seduce you? Don’t flatter yourself.’ She spun on her heel and went inside, leaving me alone with the night and my misgivings.

I awoke from a broken, uneasy dream in that hour just before daybreak when it is still dark but there is a slight but subtle change in the light — enough to warn you that it will soon be dawn and that it is useless to go back to sleep.

It had been a disturbed night. To begin with, as if my own conduct was not a sufficient worry — my urge to bed Eloise was overwhelming — there was the added anxiety as to what her motive might have been. Adela would tell you that, like most men, I consider myself irresistible to women, but that’s a wife talking and isn’t necessarily true (or even meant to be believed). Second thoughts had warned me that Eloise would use her charms to try to satisfy her curiosity. She must have worked out by now that there was something she wasn’t being told, whatever Timothy said to the contrary. But added to this was the sudden fear that she could be a French spy. What did we really know about her, after all? Timothy may think he was being very clever and using her for his own ends, but perhaps the shoe was on the other foot. Moreover, he only had her word that her mother had been distantly related to this Olivier le Daim. I should have to be careful to guard my tongue in her presence.

I had just, finally, been drifting off to sleep, feeling as though I had all the weight of the world on my shoulders, when the Woodvilles and their retinue began taking their leave. The chief guests and their hosts sounded relatively restrained; I was able to make out my lord of Gloucester’s and the duchess’s sober tones, and a voice I vaguely recognized as Earl River’s held only the merest intimation of a slur. The rest of the party, however, had evidently done themselves proud, and once Duke Richard and his mother had withdrawn from the scene, the wine started to talk — and guffaw, sing, shout and generally make merry. Everyone seemed to be as drunk as a lord (except, perhaps, the lords themselves), and judging by the splash and the ensuing cries of alarm, one person at least had missed his footing and fallen into the river.

After that, I dozed fitfully until, as I say, I awoke in the stifling dark but with the knowledge that daybreak was not far off, even if the first rays of light had not yet crested the rooftops. I decided I might as well get up, knowing that it would take me longer than usual to dress myself in my unaccustomed finery. I had swung my legs to the floor before I realized that my bruises from yesterday’s encounter with the Goliath of the castle kitchens had developed and stiffened nicely overnight. Riding a horse was going to be even more of a trial than usual.

By the time I was decked out in tight brown hose and green tunic over one of the cambric shirts, struggling with laces, points and buttons, I was in no very pleasant frame of mind. I stuck the hat on my head, draped the cloak over one arm, tucked my travelling chest under the other and descended to the common hall, where we had been promised an early breakfast. No one else was about yet, so I left the chest on a bench and made my way out to the courtyard for a breath of fresh air in order to clear away the cobwebs of the night.

Somewhat to my surprise, John Bradshaw was before me, just dismounting from one of three horses already saddled and bridled, two of which were in the charge of a young groom and were presumably intended for Eloise and me. (Indeed, on closer inspection, I could see that one of the saddles was a lady’s.) The spy’s ruddy complexion was even ruddier in the light from the wall cressets, which had not yet been doused.

He nodded to me. ‘You’ve taken my instructions to be up early to heart, Roger. That’s good. I like a man who can get up in the mornings.’

I didn’t contradict him, merely indicating his horse and remarking, ‘You’re no slugabed yourself. Out and about at this time of day?’

He grinned. ‘As you see. I thought I’d best ride across to Southwark, to the White Hart, as soon as curfew was lifted, to make certain that our friend Lamprey would be ready and waiting when we got there.’

‘A wise precaution,’ I agreed. ‘Or that he was there at all, I suppose. A man in his frame of mind might easily have absconded.’

John Bradshaw shook his head. ‘I don’t think he’ll do that now. A week, a month ago maybe. But a man can’t grieve for ever, however great the loss.’ He threw his reins to the groom with instructions to see that all three animals were fed and watered and ready for the road as soon as we and, of course, the lady had breakfasted. ‘Is your box down here?’ he added to me. When I said that I had left it in the common hall, he told the poor lad to fetch it and make sure that the contents were transferred to the saddlebags. ‘Mistress Gray can do her own,’ he chuckled. ‘I daresay there are things she won’t want pawed about by a stable boy.’

The groom looked offended at this lowly description, but contented himself with sniffing loudly and asking, ‘And yours. . my lord?’

The sarcasm was lost on John Bradshaw, who gave no sign of noticing it. ‘Already done,’ he answered briefly, before turning aside and taking my arm. ‘Let’s see if Goliath and his men can produce anything more sustaining than cold porridge and small beer.’

Eloise had still not put in an appearance and we had the common hall to ourselves, choosing a table as near to the kitchens as possible so that we benefited from the heat on this raw late October morning. John Bradshaw’s name seemed, after all, to carry some weight because we got porridge and oatmeal cakes, both piping-hot. Even the ale had been warmed.

My companion lowered his voice, leaning confidentially across the table towards me. ‘I’ve told Lamprey as much as he needs to know about this mission, but not a word more. Well, come to that, I don’t know everything myself. That’s your privilege.’ Was there a sour note in there somewhere? I didn’t think so. John Bradshaw was too professional a man to harbour petty jealousies, a fact he confirmed almost straight away. ‘And a good thing, too. In my experience, a secret shared with even one person is no longer a secret. Shared with more than one, you might as well shout it from the housetops. My job is to see that Mistress Gray is kept occupied enough to allow you time to do whatever it is you have to do.’

‘And Philip’s?’ I asked.

‘To see to the horses and generally do what he’s told,’ was the uncompromising answer.

I was just wondering if now was the moment to take John Bradshaw into my confidence and unburden myself of all the various secrets I was harbouring when we were joined by Eloise, ready for travelling in a green woollen gown trimmed with squirrel skin, and carrying a thick, hooded cloak of grey camlet, together with a squirrel-skin muff. Her hair, growing a little longer each day, was caught up in its usual silver net.

As soon as she saw me, she gave a peal of laughter. ‘You have your hat on backwards, Roger. The brooch should go at the front.’

John Bradshaw, joining in the merriment, made room for her beside him on the bench. His grey eyes signalled appreciation of her appearance as he shouted for a server to bring the lady’s breakfast. Meanwhile, I bad-temperedly snatched off my hat and put it on again the right way round.

‘Much better,’ Eloise approved. ‘I must say you look very well and nearly worthy of being my husband.’ I could tell that she wasn’t going to forgive me very easily for last night, and that mockery and jibes were to be the order of the day.

As she reached for the beaker of ale that John Bradshaw had poured for her, I noticed a fine gold ring on her wedding finger and, leaning forward, caught her left hand in mine. I grimaced. ‘An expensive piece,’ I remarked. ‘Do you get to keep it when this little charade is finished?’

‘As a matter of fact, it’s mine.’ She smiled. ‘I bought it yesterday in Cheapside.’ She lifted her hand closer to my face. ‘You see, it’s really a loving-ring with hearts engraved round the outside. I thought I’d use it instead of the cheap-looking thing Master Plummer gave me to wear. You are meant to be a prosperous haberdasher, after all. And I, presumably, am the love of your life.’

Again the little pinprick of mockery, but this time I barely noticed it. I was too busy wondering where she got her money from. She had two good woollen gowns to my knowledge, and quite likely a third, and now she had bought herself a gold ring. This sudden affluence was troubling. Could it mean that she was in fact not a French but a Woodville spy and in receipt of payment from them?

As if reading my thoughts, her smile deepened and grew more enigmatic. Then she withdrew her gaze from mine and ignored me for the rest of the time it took her to eat her breakfast, deliberately setting out to charm John Bradshaw. In this, she succeeded so well that she did not even have to ask him to carry her travelling chest out to the waiting horses; he had it under his arm before she had risen from the table. He then delicately withdrew, taking the interested young groom with him, while she transferred her belongings to her saddlebags, but he was instantly at hand to assist her to mount. While I hoisted myself stiffly on to the back of my own animal, he adjured us both to wrap our cloaks well around us as it was a chilly morning, with more than a nip of the coming winter in the air. He himself had a thick, serviceable frieze cloak to cover his servant’s garb and a plain peaked hat to keep off the worst of the weather.

And so, finally, we were ready, setting forward just as a pale sun was doing its best to gild the rooftops, riding the length of Thames Street, past the steelyard, where the Hanseatic merchants were, by the sound of things, already hard at work, into the Ropery and, eventually, crossing London Bridge into Southwark.

The first leg of our journey had begun.

I don’t know why I felt surprised to see Philip waiting for us in the courtyard of the White Hart Inn. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I suppose, I hadn’t quite believed in his existence in this ridiculous, dreamlike situation that I found myself a part of. But there he was, as large — or, in his case, as small — as life, standing unhappily beside a brown cob and with a hangdog expression on his narrow features. His old sparkle and zest for life were completely missing, his shoulders slumped, his thin lips unsmiling. His hair was sparser and greyer than when I had last seen him, but that, at least, was not surprising: by my calculations he had to be nearing fifty, or maybe even past it. I don’t think he knew himself exactly how old he was. His pock-marked, weather-beaten face, too, was greyer, the healthy tan that contentment and Jeanne’s good food had given it dulled with hopelessness and grief.

‘Philip!’ I dismounted and walked towards him, hand outstretched, but I had to speak to him again and shake him by the arm before I could rouse him.

He blinked rapidly several times, as though trying to get his bearings and his thoughts in order, before he suddenly forced a smile and responded, ‘Roger!’

His voice, thank heaven, hadn’t altered. It still had that rasping quality that made it sound like an old file being dragged across iron.

I tightened my grip on his arm. ‘Philip, I’m so sorry. . so very sorry-’ I stumbled, but he cut me short, shaking off my hand and moving slightly away from me.

‘Yes,’ he said abruptly, and again, ‘yes.’ Then, as though conscious of discourtesy, he added, with a catch in his throat, ‘I understand. I know what you want to say. But don’t, that’s all. It’s over. Done with. Finished.’

The most eloquent prose could not have affected me more profoundly and I found myself struggling to suppress my tears. I had to take several deep breaths before I had my emotions under control and could lead the way back to where John Bradshaw and Eloise were waiting, amidst all the bustle, the comings and goings of a busy inn and a new day.

‘Ready?’ John Bradshaw spoke briskly. ‘I only want to spend one night on the road, so we’ve some hard riding to do before dusk. The days are getting shorter, so we’d best be on our way. Roger, ride ahead with Mistress Gray, or Mistress Chapman, as we’d better get used to calling her. Lamprey, behind, with me! From now on, we’re master and mistress, man and groom. Try to remember it, all three of you.’

Eloise gave him her most winning smile. Philip and I said nothing.

It was not the cheeriest of journeys. Once the noise of London was left behind, we were enveloped in the peculiar soundlessness of a winter’s day. Birds wheeled silently overhead, while a sullen wind had begun stripping the trees. The people we passed were disinclined to talk — they were too cold or too busy — and John Bradshaw pressed us forward, discouraging any friendly overtures that might have been made by either side. We did stop once for a draught of cider at a cider press, but the man who served us could do nothing but moan dismally about the poor apple harvest, a result of the terrible weather that had gripped the country for the past eighteen months, causing misery and famine throughout the length and breadth of the land.

It was little better at the wayside inn where we ate a dinner of bread and cheese and drank yet more cider — Kent, like my native Somerset, being apple country, where the orchards foamed and frothed in springtime, but were now struggling to produce a decent crop of fruit. The landscape also yielded a view of oast houses, but hops, we learned had also been disastrously affected by the recent weather. In the woods and forest, we passed a number of swineherds watching while the animals they tended foraged for beech nuts and acorns among the roots of the trees, but they, too, were taciturn and meagre of speech. All but one did nothing more than grunt a reply to our greetings, and that one merely recommended us to watch out for armed robber bands and to have our cudgels at the ready.

‘Food’s scarce. They’m desperate men, masters. And lady,’ he added, catching sight of Eloise.

We thanked him and rode on, the blown branches of the trees rattling like angry skeletons. Every now and then a watery sun broke through a growing pall of cloud, but by early afternoon, when we stopped to let the horses drink at a little stream, a dark, rough, brown streak of troubled water, we were all chilled to the marrow. Eloise asked me to look in her left-hand saddlebag for a pair of gloves she had brought with her, but John Bradshaw forestalled me.

‘I’m the servant, mistress,’ he reminded her. ‘You must remember to ask me to perform these services.’

He seemed to take longer than I thought strictly necessary to find the gloves — a fine leather, lined with that thin, cochineal-dyed wool known as scarlet — and I wondered if he had snatched the opportunity to look swiftly through some of her belongings. Perhaps, like me, he was growing uneasy about the costliness of quite a few of her possessions.

By the time we reached Rochester on the River Medway, the great castle, set on its high chalk cliff, dominating the town, it was almost dark, and the four of us were cold, saddle-sore, ravenous and so bone-weary that we could barely speak. I don’t recollect the name of the inn we stayed at — I was too tired even to notice it — but it was in the shadow of the cathedral and offered Eloise and myself some excellent fare. There was a particularly fine pigeon pie, as I remember, which at any other time would have had me calling for more, but I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to eat it. (Eloise informed me the following day that I had also swallowed two portions of fruit syllabub, but I had no memory of them.) When the pair of us were finally shown to our bedchamber by an obsequious landlord, where our saddlebags had already been bestowed, we were both too exhausted even to notice the embarrassment of our first night together in the same room, let alone the hideous awkwardness of sharing a bed. I must have stripped, because in the morning I was wearing only my shirt, and so must she in order to don her night-rail, but neither of us could recall anything about it. It was only when we opened our eyes in the morning, and stared into one another’s faces, that we realized our fictional life as man and wife had actually begun.

‘Well,’ Eloise said, dragging herself into a sitting position and hugging her raised knees, ‘that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ She stretched and almost immediately groaned. ‘Dear heaven, I feel as though I’ve been kicked all over by a mule.’ She frowned. ‘Why? It wasn’t like this when we were travelling to Scotland.’

I, too, sat up. ‘It was a much longer journey but not at such a determined pace. Bradshaw is set on getting us to Dover by tonight. He’s afraid the weather’s going to turn nasty and the autumn gales make sailing impossible for days, maybe even weeks. I understand that most people doing the ride from London to Dover also stop a night at Canterbury, but he’ll make us do the rest of the journey today, if he possibly can.’ I eased my body against the pillows. ‘I know what you mean.’

She giggled suddenly. ‘You do appreciate that we’re now the master and mistress, and can therefore order the going as we please?’ she asked. ‘If we say that we’re not prepared to set forward until after dinner, and say it loudly in the presence of the landlord and other guests, there is nothing our “servant” can do about it. Shall we try it? It would be interesting to watch his face.’

I smiled but shook my head. ‘I somehow don’t think that John Bradshaw’s a man to trifle with,’ I advised, ‘and I wouldn’t attempt it if I were you.’ I got out of bed, carefully pulling my rumpled shirt down around my knees for propriety’s sake. ‘I’m going downstairs to the pump in the yard, but I’ll ask in the kitchen for some hot water to be sent up. Don’t use it all. I need to shave.’

I slid between the bed curtains, closing them again behind me, and pulled on the brown hose that I had worn yesterday, then, wrapping myself in my cloak, went down to the yard, passing on my message to a pot boy whom I encountered at the bottom of the stairs. By the time I returned to the bedchamber, shivering and blue-knuckled, Eloise was in her under-shift, washing her face and neck before proceeding to her hands and arms. She indicated the gently steaming pitcher to one side of the bowl. ‘There’s your shaving water.’

I thanked her and went over to my saddlebags to retrieve my razor. I knew it was at the bottom of one of them. In fact, it was in the first one I opened, underneath my blue hose and yellow tunic, but as I walked slowly back across the room to pour hot water into a second bowl, thoughtfully provided by the landlord, I had a distinct recollection of packing my yellow tunic on top of the hose. I told myself not to be silly, but I was certain that I could remember seeing yellow as I had fastened the saddlebag straps. Feeling that I was making something out of nothing, I kept quiet, leaving Eloise to prattle away and giving only random answers, but as soon as I had finished shaving, I went on my knees beside the other bag, unstrapped it and examined its contents.

My spare shirt lay on top of my second-best boots — much patched and mended — just as I had packed them, but my knife, which I had carefully placed within the folds of the shirt, was lying loose at the bottom of the bag, still sheathed but most definitely not where I had put it. Had it just worked free of its own accord? That was possible, considering the jolting the saddlebags had received yesterday. Or had someone gone through my belongings while I slept? Heaven knew, my sleep had been deep enough for me to miss the Last Trump had it sounded and I felt certain that anyone could have entered the bedchamber during the night without me hearing. Or Eloise could have got out of bed and examined the bags and I should have been none the wiser.

I went down to breakfast still wondering if I were not being unnecessarily suspicious, when I was brought up short by the sight of someone already seated at a table in the ale room, eating his porridge.

It was, once again, the smart young gent of the blue feather.