The Eve of Saint Hyacinth

Chapter Twelve

Of course! Lady Wardroper had hummed that same tune and sung those very words to me three weeks ago at Chilworth Manor. It was a Trouvère song, she had told me, called C’est la fin. Was it coincidence that I had also heard it again this evening? Perhaps. But perhaps not, in which case there was probably more than one perfectly reasonable explanation for such an occurrence. Matthew Wardroper could have taught the song to Ralph Boyse since his arrival in London. On the other hand, the greater chance was that Ralph, being half French, knew it already.

It seemed that the entertainment was drawing to a close, with the Duke and his mother debating whether or not to recall the tumblers or to request the minstrels to play one last melody in order to round off the proceedings. In the event, however, it was decided that enough was enough and Duke Richard, always concerned for the welfare of his servants – a fact largely responsible for the majority’s unswerving devotion to him – reminded us that tomorrow would be busy and that we should take what repose we could this evening. He then rose and escorted Duchess Cicely from the hall, leaving the rest of us to go about whatever remained of our duties, before seeking the sanctuary of our beds.

Once the senior officers of the household had dispersed, however, the younger ones were less inclined for sleep, indulging in some general horseplay and working off high spirits still unquenched by a hard day’s work. Humphrey Nanfan and one of the Duchess’s Squires began to wrestle, while the onlookers each backed his favourite and bet excitedly on the outcome of the contest. In duty bound, I felt obliged to wager on Humphrey and cheered him lustily as he and the other lad fought amongst the rushes, both, with a great deal of grunting and groaning, striving to get the upper hand.

‘More bottom than science, the pair of them,’ said a voice behind me and, turning, I saw Ralph Boyse standing at my elbow. He swooped suddenly as they rolled towards us and I saw that his pipe had toppled off the chair, where he had placed it for safe-keeping, and fallen among the rushes. ‘You young fools,’ he shouted angrily, ‘watch what you’re doing! You could have broken my bombardt!’

A bombardt! Lady Wardroper had referred to such an instrument, and in the very same breath as she had discussed the song which Ralph had so recently sung. A second coincidence? How could it be otherwise? Yet coincidences always make me uneasy, in spite of the fact that they do happen, and that, frequently.

Nevertheless, I could not resist turning to Ralph Boyse with a question. ‘Surely,’ I said, ‘I’m not mistaken in thinking that to be a Breton bombardt? It’s smaller than our English shawms.’

He nodded, but made no attempt to return my smile. ‘It has, for me, a sweeter sound,’ he answered. His interest momentarily quickened. ‘Do you have some knowledge of music?’

‘No, indeed! I’ve no ear for it at all. But I thought I recognized the instrument. In fact, I heard it mentioned recently in connection with that self-same song you entertained us with this evening.’

He shrugged, stared, then narrowed his gaze. ‘Aren’t you the new Yeoman of the Chamber? The one who used to be a chapman, but who has now been given a place in His Grace’s household in return for some service he once rendered the Duke?’

I gave a little bow. ‘I have that good fortune. I didn’t realize, however, that my fame had spread.’

Ralph Boyse merely grunted, subjected me to another penetrating look, then turned to speak to someone else. Meantime, the wrestling bout between Humphrey Nanfan and his opponent had come to an end without producing an outright winner and several other couples were engaged in similar trials of strength. But people were beginning to drift away, either to their beds, conscious of the extra work to be done on the morrow, or to take a stroll in the soft summer twilight. For my own part, I felt a quiet walk in the upper air might help to clear my head, so when I had mounted the stairs to the Yeomen of the Chamber’s dormitory I continued upwards until I reached a door set in the outer wall, giving access to a narrow walkway between two towers.

Below me I could see the river with all its traffic, still thick despite the lateness of the hour. Ships careened and skimmed across the shimmering water whose surface was stained now pink, now orange in the rays of a dying sun. A long ridge of emerald downs bounded the horizon, veined by trailing blue shadows. Clouds sailed serenely above me, their underbellies iridescent, pearled by the fading light. I leaned against the cold, grey stones of one of the towers and closed my eyes, thinking with pleasure of the night ahead and the peace of that little death which God sends at the end of every day, so that we can face afresh the trials and tribulations of the next.

I was so tired that I nearly went to sleep where I stood, only jerking into full consciousness again when my chin fell forward on to my breast. Forcing myself away from the wall, I walked over to the opposite side of the parapet and found myself looking down into a small inner courtyard where the castle bakery was housed. Smoke poured through the holes in the roof and lights blazed in every window. While most of us took our rest, the bakers were preparing tomorrow’s loaves; and tonight they would also be preparing the cakes and tarts, the pastry coffins and sugar subtleties for the next day’s banquet.

It was almost dusk by now, the summer’s day drawing gently to its end. A movement in one corner of the courtyard suddenly attracted my attention and from out of the shadows there emerged Lionel Arrowsmith and Berys Hogan. She was supporting him around the waist, carefully avoiding his broken arm, while on the other side he bore most of his weight on the crutch and his uninjured leg. As they made their slow and painful progress towards a door set in the courtyard wall they stopped every now and again to exchange a lingering kiss and to embrace as well as they were able. I could not but admire the Body Squire’s single-minded determination, which made him surmount all personal difficulties in order to keep an assignation with Berys Hogan.

I continued to watch, drawing back a little behind the parapet, in case either of them glanced up and saw me. I need not have worried, however; the lovers seemed far too absorbed in one another to care what was going on around them. Finally, they reached the door in the wall, but before Berys lifted the latch, she and Lionel said a fond farewell, both her arms entwined about his neck. Freeing her lips, she laid a cheek against one of his, so that she was looking backwards, across his shoulder. Suddenly, she stiffened, rearing up her head as though she had seen someone lurking in the shadows. Avoiding another attempt by Lionel to kiss her, she opened the door and urged him through it as quickly as she could, then carefully latched it shut behind her. I dared not abandon my cover to obtain a better view and could only wait in the hope that the mysterious watcher, if there was one, might eventually show himself.

For a moment or two the courtyard appeared to be devoid of human life, except for the occasional baker’s boy, who came to one or other of the bakehouse windows to cool himself and inhale some of the evening air. I was just about to abandon my vigil and return to the dormitory, having decided that I had misinterpreted Berys’s actions, when a man prowled forward into my range of vision, crossed the courtyard and disappeared, like the other two, through the door in the wall.

I recognized the man immediately. It was Ralph Boyse.

Once again, as four nights earlier at the Saracen’s Head, I lay wakeful and restless on my pallet, while all around me my fellows snored and muttered in their sleep.

Vainly I tried to interpret what I had seen that evening. Ralph must have been a witness to the meeting between his betrothed and Lionel Arrowsmith, yet far from being consumed by jealous rage and rushing headlong to separate them, he had seemingly been content to do nothing. But why? And had he happened upon them by chance, or had he suspected that he was being betrayed and set himself to spy on Berys? Furthermore, if I were right and she really had observed him, what would she do now? Would she seek him out and try to excuse herself? Make up some story about being sorry for Lionel in his present injured state? (But no man would be foolish enough to believe such a blatant lie! No, no! She could, and probably would, do better than that. In my experience women are cleverer at deception than men.) Maybe Berys had seen nothing, only sensed that she and her lover were being watched, in which case she would most likely hope for the best, eventually convincing herself that she had imagined the whole. As for Ralph, it could well be more satisfying to dream up some deep-laid plan of revenge rather than to take instant action. I must try to warn Lionel, put him on his guard, and persuade Timothy to knock some sense into his head about Berys Hogan. Tomorrow, I reflected, tossing and turning, might well prove to be an interesting day, provided I could stay awake long enough to play my part.

I resolutely closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep, with such success that the next thing to wake me was the head Yeoman of the Chamber beating loudly with his staff of office against the wooden door and shouting, ‘Every man rise! Every man rise! Daybreak! Daybreak!’ And indeed he was right. Dawn was already filtering through the narrow, unshuttered slits of windows.

All around me, fellow Yeomen pulled themselves reluctantly to their feet, stretching their arms until the bones cracked, or rubbing the sleep from their still half-closed eyes. There was much cursing as we groped around in the semi-darkness for boots and shirts and tunics, coaxing into them limbs which felt as though they were made of lead. As always, there were arguments as to which garment belonged to which man, and accusations of taking one another’s property, but in the end it all got sorted out with surprising amity and we were ready to face a new day. But as we waited in line to use the castle privies, then descended to one of the inner courtyards to douse our heads beneath the pumps and hack the night’s growth of beard from our chins as best we could with icy water, I was recalling a dream which I must have had just before waking, and which still clung about me with the persistence of a cobweb.

I had been standing in the woodland clearing north of Chilworth Manor, experiencing yet again that all-pervasive sense of evil, when Timothy Plummer had suddenly appeared, walking towards me through the trees.

‘Is the word “demon” or “demesne”?’ he had asked me angrily. ‘It’s important for His Grace’s sake that I should know.’

‘Neither,’ I had answered confidently. ‘It’s …’ But there the dream had ended abruptly.

It was in vain that I racked my brains for the missing word. Deep inside me I must know exactly what it was that I had overheard, but it had eluded me sleeping as it now eluded me waking, no matter how hard I tried to conjure it up.

The great hall of Baynard’s Castle was awash with light, every torch and cresset lit, the candelabra of latten tin, suspended from the central rafter, ablaze with burning candles of scented wax. During the course of a long day the floor had been thoroughly swept and garnished with fresh rushes and armfuls of flowers, which had been scattered across the flagstones. The kitchens had been a hive of activity from early morning, and the smell of cooking meats, turning slowly on their spits, had been making everyone’s mouth water uncontrollably. Tapestries had been brought to line the walls, their glowing colours adding an unaccustomed warmth to the normally sombre stone, and the tables, spread with fresh linen, groaned beneath the weight of gold and silver dishes.

The Duke and his mother, the former magnificently attired in crimson velvet and cloth of gold, the latter resplendent in black silk damask, the senior officers of their respective households grouped about them, waited on the steps of the inner courtyard to receive their guests, who were then conducted by the steward to their places within the hall. From my position next to Stephen Hudelin, wedged against one of the sideboards which was loaded with different wines and cold side-dishes, I was able to observe their various entrances, and smiled secretly to myself at the jostling for precedence and the arguments with the steward over seating arrangements which went on. Every man present wished to stress his own importance, and every wife was insistent that he should do so.

Most of these early arrivals were, to me, just faces to which I could put no names. One set of features, however – swarthy skin, a high, arched nose, eyes like glossy chestnuts and a bush of curling black beard split by a wide and toothy grin – attracted me enough to ask Stephen Hudelin to whom they belonged. And that was the first time I ever heard of Edward Brampton. Born Duarte Brandao, a Portuguese Jew, he had come to England to make his fortune, converted to Christianity, lived for a while in the House of the Convertites in the Strand and had chosen the baptismal name of Edward in honour of the King, who had stood godfather to him at his christening. He was still, at this time, plain Master Brampton, for his knighthood would not be conferred on him until many years later by Duke Richard, after the Duke himself had become king. But, although I did not know it then, our paths were destined to cross in the future because of our mutual devotion to the House of York and in particular because of our undying love for one man.

That man, a-shimmer in crimson and gold, was now, to the braying of trumpets, leading in his most important guests. Duchess Cicely was escorted by her daughter, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s husband, the Duke of Suffolk, a surly, brutish man who, oddly enough, was great-grandson, through his mother’s line, of the gentle, humorous poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Next came a clutch of Woodvilles, led by Anthony, Earl Rivers, eldest of the Queen’s twelve brothers and sisters. I had heard him spoken of as a very learned man, who was so deeply religious that he constantly wore a penitent’s hair shirt beneath his gorgeous robes; a man neither so grasping nor so greedy as his numerous siblings. Indeed, there was a kindness about the mouth and in the eyes which was absent in the rest of his family. He displayed, also, an air of patient resignation, which made me suspect that he would accept without demur whatever life brought him, be it for good or ill; not, by my reckoning, a man who would seek to interfere with the workings of that fickle damsel, Fate, by trying to usurp her function. Perhaps I leapt too rapidly to conclusions, but in my experience a lot may be gleaned from first impressions, and nothing I ever heard or knew of Anthony Woodville in later years caused me to revise that original opinion of him. I made up my mind there and then that no danger threatened the Duke from that quarter, although what his brothers and sisters were capable of I was far less certain.

Chief among the magnificent throng who entered the hall just before King Edward and his consort was George of Clarence. He was unaccompanied by his wife, having left the sickly Duchess Isabel at home in Somerset. I had never seen the Duke before and studied the big, florid, handsome face with interest. Deep lines of discontent grooved the corners of his eyes and there was a sulky pout to his mouth which spoke of bitterness and disillusion. A fine tracery of small red veins marred the once youthful smoothness of his cheeks and his laughter was over-loud and over-hearty, his general demeanour being that of a man who felt that life had not dealt fairly by him. His dislike of the Woodvilles was poorly concealed and as the evening wore on, and he sank deeper in his cups, it grew yet more glaringly obvious; but it was a dislike just as patently returned.

The trumpets sounded yet again, stridently and more insistently, as King Edward and Queen Elizabeth were conducted, amid much pomp and ceremony, to their seats beneath canopies of cloth of gold in the centre of the dais. The King’s likeness to his brother George was immediately apparent. Both stood over six feet and were of splendid physique, with the reddish-gold hair and startling blue eyes of the typical Plantagenet. Once known as the handsomest man in Europe, Edward was, however, now starting to run to fat. Sybaritic by nature, he had for years denied himself no luxury that his body craved and, encouraged by his wife and her relations, had created a court which was a byword for hedonism. His waist had begun to thicken, his jaw was heavily fleshed and his roving eye – for he had never been the most faithful of husbands – a little bleary. Nevertheless he was still a good-looking man, a fact to which the simpering smiles and encouraging glances of all the women present testified.

Beside her lord, glittering with jewels, sat Edward’s queen, her famous silver-gilt hair shaved right back from the high white forehead and completely concealed by an embroidered cap, over which towered the twin peaks of her wired gauze headdress. The mouth, with its full underlip, was carefully painted and the skin stiff with a maquillage of white lead and rose water. Her chin was soft and rounded, like a child’s, but the blue eyes, which stared with almost unseeing arrogance across the crowded hall, told me that here was a woman high-stomached and pitiless. Stories concerning her and her family’s rapacity, and also about their lust for revenge, abounded. One such tale, oft repeated at that time, was of the terrible retribution visited upon the head of Thomas Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond and sometime Deputy Lieutenant of Ireland. Ten years earlier, around the time of the Queen’s coronation, the earl had visited England and been asked by the King what he thought of his choice of a bride.

‘Sire,’ Desmond is reported to have answered, ‘the lady’s beauty and virtue are well known and deservedly praised. Nevertheless I think Your Highness would have done better to marry a princess who would have secured you the benefits of a foreign alliance.’

Such disastrous honesty did the earl no harm with the King, who sent him back to Ireland loaded down with gifts. But two years later, when John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester and nicknamed the Butcher of England, became Deputy Lieutenant of Ireland in Desmond’s stead, he had had the earl arrested on some trumped-up charge, condemned and beheaded before any of his English friends, chief among whom was the Duke of Gloucester, had time to intervene. That was bad enough, but far, far worse was the brutal murder of two of Desmond’s young children, a crime with which Tiptoft was taunted by the London mob when it was his own turn to mount the scaffold. At the heart of this story, however, lay the persistent rumour that the King knew nothing of the deaths of Thomas Fitzgerald and his offspring until it was too late; that the Queen stole her husband’s signet to seal the death warrants herself.

Now, whether that particular aspect of the story was true or not I have no means of knowing and am still ignorant to this day, but it was certainly one that was often repeated in taverns and ale-houses whenever the Queen’s name was mentioned (together with the rider that the Duke of Gloucester had been beside himself with grief and had sworn that however long he had to wait, he would be revenged for the death of his friend and his friend’s two children). Be that as it may, watching Elizabeth Woodville that evening, looking at the contemptuous curve of that little rouged mouth, noting her dismissive attitude towards servants and courtiers alike and the condescension she displayed towards her mother-in-law, her superior in every way, I felt I could believe her capable of any infamy, even that of plotting her brother-in-law’s murder if such an act would advance the cause of her family by the slightest degree.

And it was at that precise moment that I saw her half turn her head and beckon to someone who had been hovering near her chair. Stephen Hudelin glided forward and sank to one knee, as though ready to serve the Queen. But his hands were empty. I left my station by the sideboard and edged a little closer, and through the haze of torch and candle smoke I could just make out the movement of their lips. The conversation was brief and, as far as I could tell, unremarked by anyone besides myself, it being only a moment or so before Hudelin rose and moved back into the shadows. All the same, I was convinced that he was indeed in the pay of the Woodville family and might well be the source of the threat posed to Duke Richard which had been nosed out by members of the Brotherhood.

The company was still settling itself, waiting for the banquet to begin, raising goblets of exquisite Venetian glass in pledges of friendship and goodwill. Thoughts of the coming conflict in France made for a more sombre mood than might otherwise have prevailed, but the atmosphere was lively enough and there were cheers when the minstrels in the gallery struck up with the Agincourt song.

‘And so we shall soon have cause to sing again, cousin!’ called out a young man who, I later learned, was the Duke of Buckingham, as he drank the King’s health in the best malmsey wine.

All the men were on their feet then, roaring their agreement so that the music was quite drowned out. King Edward, a slight, somewhat enigmatic smile playing around the corners of his mouth, waited for the uproar to subside before raising his own goblet in return.

‘My lords, I thank you,’ was all he said, making no effort to get up or make a speech.

I could see that this apparent apathy puzzled and disappointed a good many of his loyal subjects who, after a moment’s embarrassed silence, sank back into their seats muttering to one another. I also saw Duke Richard give his brother a quick, questioning glance, which the King seemed determined not to meet, hurriedly turning his eyes away.

‘Let eating commence!’ he ordered and immediately, at a sign from Duchess Cicely, the trumpets brayed again as the first course was carried into the hall.