The Eve of Saint Hyacinth

Chapter Thirteen

At last the feast was over. The various dishes – broth, jellied eels and crayfish, duckling, roast kid and sucking pig, a boar’s head, chickens, roast heron, cokyntryce, venison with frumenty, doucettes and junkets, pancakes and fritters, nuts and cheese, dates and raisins, and a magnificent swan, drawn, plucked and cooked, then reassembled in all its plumage, a collar of diamonds about its neck – had come and gone, and all washed down with a vast quantity of wines. (I cannot remember at this distance of time more than a tithe of what was consumed that evening, but of one thing I am certain: it was enough to feed a hundred common men such as myself for a year or more, and to feed them well.)

The guests lolled in their chairs or slumped on their benches, faces red and shiny in the guttering torchlight, hands clasped over distended bellies. Every now and then a beringed finger would indicate to some sweating server that its owner’s cup was empty. The babel of noise which had filled the hall during the earlier part of the banquet was muted now, as energy waned with repletion. Occasionally someone was sick into the rushes, or heaved his heart up all over the table, but no one seemed to mind. Most of the men were, in any case, too drunk to care.

The only two who appeared sober and in possession of all their faculties were the King and the Duke of Gloucester; the former, I suspected, because he had a strong head for wine and could sink great quantities without showing serious ill effects; the latter because he was naturally abstemious, eating and drinking very little whilst making the pretence of doing so. As I have said before, Duke Richard, for all his love of show and finery, had a deep-seated puritanical streak to his nature which did not endear him to his robuster fellows.

Suddenly, the steward and the marshal rapped for silence with their staves, and it was seen that King Edward had risen to speak, towering over his still-seated guests. When, finally, the noise had died away, except for the occasional cough or hiccup, he flung wide his arms in an all-embracing gesture.

‘My friends! My loyal friends and subjects!’ Someone raised a ragged cheer which was swiftly hushed. ‘In less than four days we cross the Channel to our stronghold of Calais, from whence we shall mount the greatest invasion of France that Europe has ever seen!’ There was another cheer, unchecked this time. The King continued, ‘We have more men, more cannon, more siege machines, more horses than any previous English ruler has ever before had at his command.’ At this point several people started to bang enthusiastically on the table with their fists. King Edward smiled indulgently and his deep, pleasant voice rose in a crescendo. ‘I say to you that we shall do such deeds as will diminish even those of Monmouth Harry and his beleaguered band!’

The drunken apathy of a few moments before had vanished. Women, as well as men, were on their feet, shouting and cheering and embracing one another in a fervour of English pride. As the King sat down again, the Duke of Clarence reached across the Queen, pinning her in her seat, to clasp his elder brother’s hand.

‘We’ll show ’em,’ he said, with a slight slurring of his words. ‘We’ll show the bloody French! What d’you say, Dickon? We three! ’T’ll be like ol’ times again!’

From where I was standing I had a clear view of King Edward’s face, and although he smiled and nodded, I thought his look was strained and that he returned his brother’s clasp somewhat perfunctorily. He also exchanged a brief glance, so fleeting as to be barely perceptible, with a man seated further down the board who, I later learned, was John Morton, his Master of the Rolls. Meantime, Duke Richard, with a restraint which only served to underline far more effectively than Clarence’s boisterous enthusiasm his eager readiness for the forthcoming fray, was also offering his heartfelt congratulations.

‘If we have the largest invasion force ever gathered, it’s entirely due to your unstinting efforts, Ned. You’ve been tireless in raising both men and money.’

‘Nonsense!’ The King flung himself back in his chair, while his queen continued to look daggers at the Duke of Clarence, angered by his recent affront to her dignity. ‘You’ve worked just as hard as I have. Your Yorkshiremen are an army in themselves. Enough of this!’ He addressed Duchess Cicely, smiling fondly. ‘Madame Mother! Is there to be no entertainment for us?’

‘Of course!’ The Duchess turned to her master of ceremonies. ‘Let the masque begin.’

Everyone relaxed a little. Yeomen of the Chamber, Squires of the Body, servers, stewards and cup-bearers leaned thankfully against walls, wiped the sweat from their eyes and drew a deep breath as the centre of the hall was suddenly filled with a gyrating mass of masked tumblers and dancers. I was too tired to follow the story they were telling, but realized that it had to do with the animal kingdom, for every player wore the head of a beast – fox, sheep, goat and chanticleer. A farmyard piece, I thought sleepily, closing my eyes, with Reynard as the villain, up to his old tricks as usual. Perhaps the retelling of one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s tales as a compliment to his great-grandson.

My eyelids started to droop and it took an enormous effort of will to force them open. But the heat of the hall, my restless night and lack of the fresh air that I was used to, were taking their toll; my limbs felt dull and heavy. Twice, Stephen Hudelin, who had resumed his place beside me at the sideboard, nudged me, but both times my senses reeled and I again lost consciousness. Then a sudden raucous burst of laughter from the assembled company jerked me awake to stare stupidly about me, not quite certain for the moment where I was or what was happening. Hudelin had vanished and as I peered about through the reddish, smoky haze of spluttering torch- and candlelight, I could see no one immediately recognizable from Duke Richard’s household.

Where was Stephen? Where was Humphrey Nanfan? Jocelin d’Hiver? Ralph Boyse? Geoffrey Whitelock? A sudden sense of urgency seized me that I must locate them. And then, suddenly, I saw Geoffrey, tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed and graceful, standing just behind the King and almost leaning against his chair. His head was thrown back and he was laughing immoderately at the antics of the mummers.

Even as he did so, the King turned to speak to him, laughing also; and the resemblance between them at that particular moment was so marked that I could not help but hit upon the truth. Geoffrey Whitelock was most certainly King Edward’s son; one of his many bastards, watched over and provided for during childhood years and eventually acknowledged and taken into the royal household. No doubt Lady Whitelock, wife of a Kentish knight, had, like so many of her peers, bestowed her favours upon the King, probably with a complaisant husband’s blessing, and Geoffrey had been the result of that liaison. Little doubt, either, that the lad knew the truth about his parentage, judging by the way he dared to lay a familiar hand on King Edward’s shoulder. In all probability, that distinctive height and those handsome, golden features were often to be seen in the royal palaces, amongst the King’s numerous retainers.

In this particular case, however, Geoffrey had been found a place in the Duke of Gloucester’s household, doubtless for the very reason surmised by Timothy Plummer. He was a spy for his royal father who, no matter how much he trusted Duke Richard, nevertheless liked to be apprised of everything that went on in his brother’s household. But that the King would use Geoffrey as an instrument of murder against his own uncle was surely impossible. It had seemed to me from the beginning that King Edward would never prove to be the fountain-head of this particular plot; and now that I had realized the truth of his relationship with Geoffrey, I decided that Timothy Plummer and Lionel Arrowsmith could cease to consider the young man as a potential assassin.

And I was shown to be right almost at once, and in the most dramatic fashion.

One of the many gallants who had been making their way to the Queen’s chair, in order to pay court to her during the course of the evening, was just rising from his knees, at the same time fervently pressing his lips to the back of the white hand graciously extended to him. Such conversation of the Queen’s as I had been able to overhear whilst performing my duties had been liberally sprinkled with French words and phrases; a habit of hers, so Timothy informed me later, in order to stress her maternal family’s connection with the royal House of Luxembourg. Now, as she smiled coyly at her departing admirer, she murmured, ‘A demain! A demain!’

Demain! The realization burst on me like a lightning stroke. Not ‘demon’, not ‘demesne’, but ‘demain’. That was the single word which I had heard with any clarity the previous afternoon; the word I had been struggling to identify. The whisperers had been speaking in French, an added reason why practically nothing of their conversation had made any sense to my English ears. Those two syllables, however, had been uttered with a stressful urgency which, later, I was imperfectly to recall. Demain! Tomorrow …

But tomorrow was now today! Whatever the subject of that sibilant and anxious colloquy, whether or not it boded trouble, whether it was or was not of sinister content, it had certainly been about something which was due to take place today. It might already have happened; some purely innocent action now safely in the past. Yet I could not bring myself to believe so. I felt in the very marrow of my bones that evil had been hatched and was still to break out of the egg. There was no logic for this reasoning, and God knew that my instincts were not always sound, but with His guidance I usually, in spite of my own foolishness, managed to arrive at the truth.

My eyes were drawn towards the mummers, sweating inside their heavy masks, whose comedy was reaching its climax. The shawms of the minstrels, aloft in their gallery, sounded their high-pitched notes as the rest of the cavorting animals surrounded the fox, brandishing the rope with which they intended to hang him. Everyone’s eyes were on the cornered Reynard, some of the onlookers noisily encouraging their favourite to get away, others whooping and screaming out hunting calls, as though they were in very truth witnessing the chase instead of merely watching a play. The King and Queen were as vociferous as any, the former commanding Reynard to make his escape, the latter banging the table and yelling for death. Behind them, Geoffrey Whitelock was clapping his hands with glee and even Duke Richard, his dark eyes glowing, was caught up in the general excitement.

Then suddenly I noticed that one of the players, wearing the cockerel’s mask, had separated himself from the mêlée about the errant Reynard and was edging slowly towards the dais where the King and his two brothers were sitting. If others remarked him, they no doubt thought it to be part of the action and indeed, for a moment I made the same mistake myself. But there was something about the manner in which Chanticleer fingered the dagger at his belt that caught my attention and, as he began to draw it, I saw the jewels in its hilt wink and sparkle in the light from the candles …

This was no make-believe weapon of wood and paint! This was the real thing, a gentleman’s poniard, and the blade glittered with menace as it was inched from its sheath. Demain! That tomorrow which was now today! Surely there could be no further doubt that what I had overheard had been our assassin receiving instructions that the time had come for him to strike?

But there was no more time to ask myself questions, nor to try to reason out the answers. With a shout of warning to the Duke I leapt on to the board, treading on plates and scattering goblets of the finest Venetian glass with a sublime disregard for the havoc I was causing. I was but vaguely aware of the outraged invective which followed my progress as I jumped to the floor again on the opposite side of the table. Even so, I was not quite quick enough. Before I could reach him, Chanticleer just had time to divine that his intent had been discovered. He rammed the dagger back into its scabbard, turned and ran, taking advantage of the general bewilderment and chaos to vanish through the door set in the wall of screens which separated the hall from the servery.

I struggled to overtake him, but was hampered on all sides by people crowding forward to find out what was happening.

‘Let me through!’ I yelled. ‘Let me through!’

Timothy Plummer suddenly materialized at my elbow, issuing orders with all the considerable authority at his command. ‘Stand back! Stand back there! In the name of the Duke!’

He followed me into the servery, where the fugitive’s path was plainly visible by the overturned trestles and plates of broken meats littering the floor. Coagulating pools of left-over gravy and half a dozen different sauces were seeping into the rushes. Several of the servers had been knocked to the ground during our quarry’s headlong flight and were dazedly nursing their various injuries.

‘Which way did he go?’ I cried, before I realized that there was only one way possible: through the archway in the southern wall.

Timothy Plummer had come to this conclusion faster than I had, and pushing past me, was already mounting the twisting staircase beyond. As I caught him up, he stumbled and fell, cursing volubly.

‘What is it?’ I demanded; and for answer he disentangled from his feet what I could just make out, in the wisping flame of an almost burnt-out wall-cresset, to be Chanticleer’s mask.

I thrust it under my arm, helped Timothy to his feet and proceeded upwards. But the delay had cost us dear and by the time we reached the top, which gave us access to a corridor stretching in both directions, there was no sign of anyone anywhere along its length. To make matters worse, scores of people were now pushing up the stairs behind us, jostling and shoving and asking questions.

‘I’ll go one way, you go the other,’ Timothy hissed in my ear, adding with a contemptuous dismissal of some of the highest and greatest in the land, ‘Ignore this rabble.’

I had to smile, albeit grimly, as I turned to my right, leaving Timothy to explore the left-hand side of the passageway. This nonplussed our following for a moment and by the time, still vociferously demanding answers, the leaders had decided which one of us to tail, I had managed to enter and glance around the first two rooms I came to. But both were completely bare of furniture or hangings, offering no means of concealment.

At this end of the corridor a small flight of steps led down to a landing and a curtained alcove. Roughly I tugged back the leather curtain, its metal rings rasping against the wooden pole, and saw the scattering of clothes dropped anyhow over the floor of the window embrasure. There was still enough light remaining in the summer sky for me to recognize them as the upper garments of Chanticleer’s costume. But far more important was the body of a young man, clothed only in his undergarments, lying face down, the hilt of a black-handled kitchen knife protruding from his back, its blade embedded in his heart.

‘God’s teeth!’ breathed an awestruck voice behind me. A dozen necks craned to peer across my shoulders. Then the same voice whispered, ‘Who is it?’

I made no answer because I had no way of knowing for certain. But I could guess. This, surely, must be the body of the mummer who should have played the part of Chanticleer in the evening’s entertainment. Unfortunately for him, our murderer had needed the costume and so had been forced to kill. He dared not risk anyone pointing the finger of suspicion at him once the deed was done. He had failed in that, but succeeded, I reflected bitterly, in preserving the secret of his identity at the cost of an innocent’s life.

The Duke of Gloucester was angry with all the irritation of a man who knows his anger to be unjustified.

The guests and representatives of the law had finally departed and the grieving band of mummers had borne away the body of their fellow to mourn his death and give him burial. The murderer had not been found, even though the Sheriff’s officers had questioned as many of the Duke’s and Duchess Cicely’s retainers as they could. But in the end, with the moon paling into insignificance and the world edging once again towards dawn, the sheer impossibility of their task defeated them. There were too many people in too many places, too much movement and general activity on such an occasion, to yield a great deal of reliable information.

Apart from the guests, some persons were definitely accounted for. I myself was able to swear that Geoffrey Whitelock had been standing behind King Edward’s chair and therefore could be exonerated of masquerading as Chanticleer. Some hundred or so others had also been noted and were above suspicion, but the whereabouts of the majority relied solely upon their own word. There was, moreover, a feeling amongst the Sheriff’s men that the death of a single mummer must not be allowed to interfere with great and momentous events of state and that the invasion of France was too imminent to justify a protracted investigation.

Long before their arrival at Baynard’s Castle, Timothy Plummer and I had received instructions from the Duke, conveyed urgently and secretly to us by his secretary, John Kendall. Nothing must be revealed of any known plan to assassinate him; my pursuit of Chanticleer had been simply because I saw a man drawing a dagger from its sheath and, with so many of the high and the mighty gathered beneath one roof, had feared for their safety and acted accordingly.

We had both been careful to obey these commands to the letter, but it had not prevented the vials of Duke Richard’s wrath being emptied upon our heads. I had never seen him angry before and at first was inclined to be cowed. But after a minute or two my own anger rose at the unreasonableness of his upbraiding.

‘My lord,’ I said, when he finally paused for breath, ‘these reproaches are unjust!’ I heard Timothy give a stifled gasp, but took no notice. Raising my head, I looked the Duke straight in the eyes. I felt my jawline harden. ‘You accuse me of acting in a bull-like manner; of attracting everyone’s attention. What then would Your Grace have had me do? Anything less than what I did and you would most likely have been dead before I could have reached you.’

‘And the murderer caught! He could never have hoped to escape in those circumstances.’

I gave an exasperated sigh, which again brought a sharp intake of breath from Timothy. Once more, I ignored it. ‘We can’t know that, my lord. He must have thought it worth the risk, hoping to get away in the general confusion. But, in any case, he would have achieved his purpose – and that of his masters, whoever they may be.’ I had already been so bold, that I decided I could lose nothing by being even bolder. ‘Are you so tired of life, Your Grace, that you would wish to lay down your life in order to trap a murderer? I think not.’

There was silence for several seconds. Timothy and I were closeted with the Duke in his private chamber and outside the narrow window the first flush of another warm and sunny July day was gilding the rosy darkness. Had I gone too far? Was I to be ordered a beating? My services dispensed with? And I realized with surprise that I no longer wished to be quit of this tiresome problem until it was resolved, and that, satisfactorily. Two men were now dead, both of a knife wound through the heart, and one of them an innocent bystander.

The Duke’s face was suddenly transformed by his sad, sweet smile. His body, still in its evening’s finery, slumped against the cushions of his chair. ‘Thank you, chapman. You do well to take me to task. I am in the wrong, I freely admit it. But for your prompt action tonight I might well have been killed.’ He made an apologetic movement of his hands and the candlelight coruscated across the many jewelled rings he wore. ‘I’m tired and apprehensive, as any man facing the unknown must be. And war is always the unknown. Furthermore, it entails a man leaving his wife and children and everything that he holds most dear.’ He pulled himself together with a visible effort and straightened his shoulders. ‘But the people have put their trust in us. They have parted with more of their gold and more of their young men than ever before. It is up to us now, the princes of this realm, that we do not fail them. That we give them the glorious victories that they look for, no matter at what cost to ourselves.’ He sighed, then continued, ‘Timothy, let me know immediately if your inquiries bear any fruit. But mark you, it is not to be shared with the Sheriff’s men, who will undoubtedly be snuffling around amongst us until we embark on Tuesday.’ He nodded dismissal.

I lingered for a moment longer. ‘Your Grace, are you absolutely sure that you know of no reason why your enemies should wish to kill you?’

The Duke shrugged, the skin beneath his eyes looking bruised and heavy with anxiety and lack of sleep. ‘All men of power have enemies,’ he answered quietly, adding wryly, ‘Which is why we set our spies about one another. Each of us needs to know what the others are doing and even thinking. And I could conjure up half a dozen reasons, I suppose, why my death might benefit certain persons. But in answer to your question, no! I know of no one good reason why, at this particular season, anyone should be anxious to encompass my death. And now –’ he dragged himself to his feet, fatigue making him appear pale and strained ‘– we must get ourselves to bed for what remains of the night.’