The Green Man

Eleven

I turned my head.

A shaft of pale sunlight — too pale for early August, though I guessed that to be normal this far north — inched its way across the threshold elongating Albany’s shadow and making him appear both taller than he was and somehow menacing. Motes danced along its length, whirling and spinning. Somewhere I could hear a cat mewling and a faint smell of cooking wafted from the castle kitchens, borne on a freshening breeze.

‘Do you want me, my lord?’ I asked, surprised. I moved towards him across the dusty floor. ‘I thought you would be closeted with the duke and your uncles, working out terms of the peace. I presume there is going to be peace?’

‘All that can wait,’ Albany answered tersely, adding on a bitter note, ‘Whatever they decide, I doubt it will concern me. At least, not yet.’ He grinned, baring his teeth like a hunting dog scenting his prey. Not for the first time I speculated about this plan of his that would secure him the throne of Scotland in the face of what was obviously turning into a combined opposition of friends — well, former friends — and foes alike. There was nothing to be gleaned from his expression as he moved out of the sunlight and glanced around him, a little contemptuously I thought, at the meagre proportions of the chapel. ‘You still haven’t said what you’re doing here. Is our sainted Queen Margaret of such interest to you?’

I explained her descent from the kings of Wessex, including Alfred, and her relationship of half-great-niece to the Confessor himself, and then told him bluntly that I had sought her protection to see me safely home again to the west country. I added that I had also offered up prayers to those other two sons of the Somerset soil, Saint Dunstan and Saint Patrick.

To my astonishment the information seemed to disturb him.

‘Nonsense!’ he exclaimed sharply. ‘What I mean is,’ he amended hurriedly, ‘that the saints have too much else to do, are far too busy, to attend to the likes of us.’

I knew he really meant ‘the likes of you’, but was too tender of my feelings to say so. (I’ve never yet encountered a high-born person of either sex who did not think him- or herself worthy of the special attention of every saint known to man.) But I let it go with a smile and a shrug.

‘Besides,’ Albany went on with a nervous laugh, ‘I don’t want the saints’ intervention on your behalf, at least not yet awhile. I’ve work for you to do. That’s why Murdo and Donald and I have been searching for you.’

‘Work, my lord?’

He snorted. ‘Oh, don’t put on that innocent, I-don’t-know-what-you-mean face with me, Roger. You were present when Donald brought me the news that my servant and friend, Rab Sinclair, has been arrested and is awaiting trial for the murder of his wife. I’ve already said that I want you to prove him innocent.’

I sighed. ‘My lord, as I understand it, Master Sinclair was caught literally red-handed, still holding the knife, in the presence of his wife’s body. It would need a miracle, a total suspension of belief, for anyone to prove your friend innocent.’

Albany looked mulish. ‘He swears he’s innocent. That’s good enough for me.’

‘Have you seen him?’

‘Not yet. He’s immured in one of the prison cells. But I have permission to visit him. You will accompany me.’

‘So you don’t yet know what his story is?’

‘No.’

‘He doesn’t deny, I take it, that he did indeed kill his wife?’

‘No, of course not. How could he?’

‘So what is his defence?’

‘I’ve already told you!’ Albany sounded irritated. ‘I haven’t yet seen him. I’m waiting for you to accompany me. Now!’

The considerate prince and master had disappeared. In his place was an arrogant man used, even in exile, to having his orders and whims obeyed. It reinforced my belief that, however much one may delude oneself, it is impossible ever to know real friendship between commoner and king. (Or, in this particular case, not quite a king, but one who had not altogether given up hope.)

There was no point in postponing the evil day any longer, so I stood back with a courteous gesture — well, I thought it was courteous, but the duke looked highly suspicious of my sudden politeness — and begged him to lead the way.

The prison cells of Edinburgh castle were as noisome as any other prison cells anywhere, probably, in the world. The smell was, as always, the worst thing; an odour compounded of shit and urine and rotting food mixed with sweat and that peculiarly sour stench of bodily fear. We had no difficulty in passing the guards; a scrawled line from one of Albany’s half-uncles opened all doors. My own feeling, which I naturally kept to myself, was that each side of the Council table, Scots and English, were glad to be rid of him on any pretext: he had become an embarrassment to them both. The case of Rab Sinclair had proved a godsend; it was rather like tossing a dog a bone or giving a child a toy to play with while the adults made the important decisions. I didn’t suppose for a minute that Albany saw it that way, or that any such suspicion crossed his mind, so intent was he on helping his old servant, even to the extent of neglecting his own affairs. Reluctantly, I was forced to admire him for that.

There was the sound of trickling water somewhere in the cell and the walls were furred with lichen and moss whose seeds must have entered one way or another, though it was impossible to tell exactly where. There was no glimmer of daylight to be seen. The gaoler, a grim man with greasy black hair and a wall eye, had provided me with a lantern whose feeble glow nevertheless gave sufficient illumination to make out the figure of a man hunched up in one corner of a bed — if you could have called it that — his manacled feet fastened by a chain to a rusty ring fixed in the wall. As we approached, the wavering beam illuminated a handsome face not yet grown haggard by incarceration, but showing signs of worry and fatigue.

He glanced up and, with a cry of joy, struggled to his feet.

‘My lord! My dearest lord! You’re here! You’re actually here, in Edinburgh!’ He seized Albany’s hand and tried to kiss it, but the duke gently pushed him back on to the bed and sat down beside him. I was left standing, holding the lantern, like the lackey they thought I was. The man went on joyfully, ‘I didn’t expect you, not without some fighting. I knew, of course, that the Sassenachs were within sight of the city walls, but like everyone else, I suppose, I imagined that there would be resistance.’ He added eagerly, ‘Have the Council already affirmed you as king?’

‘No, not yet.’ Albany spoke tersely, but then, as his friend would have spoken again, silenced him by continuing, ‘No more of that for now. Your concerns are more pressing. We need to prove you innocent of this charge against you before you are brought to the humiliation of a trial. And here — ’ he nodded towards me — ‘is someone who is going to help us.’

I would have demurred, but was interrupted by the prisoner.

‘Who is he? How can he possibly help us?’

The tone was arrogant, dismissive even, making it plain that no low-born commoner could possibly be of use to a Sinclair except in a menial capacity. ‘And why are we talking English? Is he English?’ was a question uttered with the utmost suspicion. ‘I thought it was Murdo — he’s tall enough — but I see now that it isn’t.’

‘No, no! His name is Roger and yes, he’s English. He’s been my bodyguard, assigned to me by the Duke of Gloucester, ever since we left London.’

Master Sinclair was obviously puzzled, a frown creasing his high, wide forehead.

‘Your bodyguard? But surely Donald and Murdo and the others …’

Albany broke in tetchily, ‘Leave that for now. I’ll explain later. As I said, your affairs are more pressing than mine, and Roger, here, has a reputation as a solver of mysteries. A fine reputation,’ he insisted as the other man would once again have interrupted with a question. ‘He has solved problems for my Cousin Gloucester himself. Now, what higher recommendation could there be than that?’ He eased his buttocks where the edge of the two boards that comprised the bed’s base cut into him. ‘So, my dear friend, tell us the story. From what we have heard, there seems no doubt that you were found with Aline’s body. Rumour goes that you were discovered with the knife in your hand.’

His companion shuddered. ‘Rumour doesn’t lie.’

I decided it was time that I took a part in the conversation. I was tired of being ignored and treated as though I were in truth nothing more than a lantern-bearer.

‘Rumour also goes that you claim to be innocent, Master Sinclair. In the circumstances, how is that possible?’

He glanced at me in surprise as though a cockroach had crawled out of the wall and spoken, then looked a query at the duke.

Albany said impatiently, ‘You must trust Roger, Rab. He’s no ordinary serving man.’

‘I’m not even a serving man,’ I informed him shortly. ‘I’m a chapman by trade and my own master.’

‘A pedlar?’ Master Sinclair visibly reeled.

Albany gripped his friend’s wrist and gave it a shake.

‘You have to trust us both, Rab. Now, for the sake of sweet heaven and all its saints, tell us why you are innocent. Did someone else kill Aline, is that it? Did you stumble across her body and pick up the knife?’

Master Sinclair shook his head. ‘No. I killed her.’ He drew a deep breath, gave me another leery glance and from then on, addressed himself exclusively to the duke. ‘It was self-defence,’ he said. ‘I thought she was going to kill me.’

‘Aline?’ Albany was frankly incredulous. ‘Rab, she adored you. You adored one another. And she was one of the gentlest creatures alive.’

Master Sinclair made a wry mouth. ‘That’s what everyone thought. It’s what I thought myself. Oh, you’re right about one thing. I adored her. From the first moment I saw her I thought her the most perfect woman I’d ever met. But there!’ he heaved a deep sigh. ‘Better men than I have been deceived by a beautiful face.’

‘But … But why, by all that’s holy, should she want you dead?’

The other man grimaced. ‘Surely that’s not difficult to fathom, my lord. It might have been greed for my fortune, but it wasn’t that …’

‘I should hope not,’ Albany interrupted. ‘You were the most generous husband alive. I have never seen another woman so bedecked with tokens of her husband’s affection than Aline was. You gave her everything her heart desired.’

Again came that rueful twist of the lips. ‘Not everything, my lord. You forget, I am twelve years older than she is — was — and therefore perhaps not always as virile as she would have wished.’

‘Pooh! What nonsense! Why, I’ve known you satisfy eight or nine whores in the Golden Horn in a single evening. Come, come, man! In our younger days, you were known as the biggest ram in Edinburgh. You can’t have changed that much. I’ve only been away three years.’

‘Long enough, my lord. Three years can take their toll on even the most virile of us. But no, I must admit I wasn’t conscious of neglecting Aline. Not in that way. Not in any way, if it comes to that. If anything, I would have said I was even more attentive since giving up my wilder habits and settling down as a sober married man.’

Albany picked his nose reflectively, then wiped his finger on his purple velvet sleeve.

‘Are you saying,’ he asked, but on a note of disbelief, ‘that there was another man? That Aline had taken a lover?’ Master Sinclair nodded his head. ‘Then who was he, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Now that I’m afraid I do not know.’

I decided it was time to make my voice heard again, so I asked the obvious question before Albany had time to do so.

‘Then how do you know that what you’re claiming is the truth?’

‘Besides,’ the duke chimed in, suddenly shifting and scratching as something nasty in the bed’s scanty straw mattress bit him, ‘if it’s the truth, and Aline was indeed cuckolding you with someone else, no jury in the country would convict you. For Christ’s sweet sake, Rab, if this is what you really think, you must have some idea of who it was.’

The man beside him gave a sob. ‘That’s the trouble, I don’t. She never mentioned him by name.’

‘Mentioned him?’ Albany was incredulous. ‘Do you mean to say that Aline — Aline of all women — was brazen enough to boast to you that she was bedding with a lover? No, no, my dear friend! I find that very hard to believe.’

Rab Sinclair moved impatiently, jangling the chain that shackled him to the wall.

‘No, of course she didn’t! What woman in her right senses would?’ He saw Albany’s eyebrows lift in hauteur and immediately apologized. ‘Forgive me, my dear lord, for speaking so sharply. A very few days in this place makes a man forget his manners.’ The duke nodded understandingly and signed to him to continue, which he did after a moment to draw breath. ‘No, no! Aline gave me no indication by either look or word or deed that she loved me any the less. Looking back, I can acknowledge that it was the most perfect performance. I suspected nothing — nothing, that is, until, quite by chance, I discovered the book.’

‘What book?’ Albany and I asked almost in chorus.

‘Some leaves of parchment with a couple of holes skewered through each page and the lot bound together with ribbon. Scarlet ribbon,’ Master Sinclair added, as though the colour had some relevance (which I suppose it might have done in his eyes).

‘So? What of this … this book, as you call it?’ Albany was growing a trifle impatient as more and more uninvited guests decided to sample the royal blood. I could feel them hopping over my own skin as I tried to shift the little beasts with a vigorous scratch. Master Sinclair seemed indifferent to the creatures’ bite.

He went on, ‘The leaves were covered in Aline’s writing, which I recognized at once. She had a very small and delicate hand, as though a spider had walked across the page.’

‘And?’ I asked with an impatience that outstripped Albany’s, as Rab Sinclair seemed inclined to dwell with a lingering fondness on his wife’s fine script. My belly was reminding me it must be well past ten o’clock and that it was empty. It was a thought that also seemed to have occurred to the duke as he patted his stomach, belched up some wind and remarked that it was a long time since breakfast at the abbey.

Master Sinclair apologized once more; to Albany, of course, not to me. So I urged again, ‘What had Mistress Sinclair written? Are we permitted to know?’

‘Naturally you’re permitted to know! It’s the whole point of the story.’ I had at last managed to capture his attention and he had actually turned his head and spoken directly to me.

‘Well?’

By this time my legs were aching and, my eyes having become adjusted to the gloom, I noticed a small, three-legged stool in another corner of the cell, so I dragged it forward and sat myself down. It was low for my height and my knees were uncomfortably close to my chin, but at least it removed the weight from my feet. Albany regarded me thoughtfully, but made no remark, silencing his friend, who was goggling at me as though I had taken leave of my senses, with a quick motion of his hand.

‘Roger is privileged,’ he murmured in explanation. ‘Pray proceed, Rab. What secrets did this folio of Aline’s contain? Are we to understand that it mentioned this lover of hers?’

‘Oh, it mentioned him all right, on every page.’ The tone was acid. ‘Their meetings, their kisses, their … their couplings. Yes, you may well look amazed, my lord. You would have said, as I would, that Aline was the most modest woman alive. Do you know that I have never been permitted to see her naked, not once in all the years we were married? Even in bed she insisted on never removing her night rail. And the bedchamber always had to be as dark as pitch.’

‘Unbelievable,’ commented Albany, and looked as though he meant it. ‘Did you never exert your rights as a husband and compel her to obey your wishes?’

Rab Sinclair hung his head, somewhat shamefaced.

‘I couldn’t,’ he said. ‘I loved her too much to risk upsetting her. Don’t misunderstand me, my lord. She never repulsed me, never said no. She did her duty, always. She never pleaded headaches or any of the other womanly excuses — except, of course, when she had the flux — and I had always assumed that she got as much pleasure from the act of love as I did. Women aren’t passionate creatures, like men. It would be unseemly if they were. Not the sort of women one marries, that is. Whores, naturally, are different.’ He paused for a moment, plainly looking back at a misspent youth with considerable pleasure, before continuing, ‘So, you can imagine, my lord, the horror and sense of betrayal with which I read, actually read in her very own words, detailed descriptions of her lovemaking with another man.’

‘So how did Mistress Sinclair refer to this other man?’ I asked, interested now in spite of myself and my hunger. ‘She must have called him something.’

Albany nodded in agreement.

‘She simply called him by an initial. J.’ Rab Sinclair spread his hands in a despairing gesture. ‘J. How many James and Johns are there, do you suppose, in this city alone?’

‘How did you come across this “book”? This diary?’ I asked, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees. ‘Surely Mistress Sinclair was not so careless as to leave it where you could find it?’

‘No, of course not.’ He spared me a fleeting glance before turning back to the duke. ‘Aline had gone for a day or two to visit her old aunt, who lives in Roslin. I don’t know if you recollect the woman, my lord? Margaret Sinclair, the sister of Aline’s grandfather and the only living kin that she and her brother had left since the death of their parents. Anyway, be that as it may, my wife had gone to visit her because word had reached us that the old lady had been ill.’

‘You didn’t accompany Mistress Sinclair?’ I broke in to enquire, and got a dirty look for my pains. (I was beginning to get the impression that Rab didn’t like me. In his eyes, I was a low-born interloper poking my long nose into his affairs; but as it was his master, the duke, who had introduced me into their counsels, he was forced to conceal his antagonism as best he could.)

‘No, there was no need of my presence. Her brother, John, escorted her.’ He suddenly seemed a little bewildered. ‘Where was I? What was it you wanted to know?’

‘How you came to discover this confession of Aline’s,’ Albany prompted gently. ‘You say she’d gone to see her great-aunt for a day or two, so obviously she wasn’t in the house when you stumbled across it.’

Rab Sinclair pushed a hand through his thick, dark hair.

‘It wasn’t I who found it,’ he said. ‘It was Maria Beton, my housekeeper. She was cleaning out our bedchamber the day after Aline left. She said it was a good chance to do so, because, when she was at home, Aline spent so much time up there, in that little window embrasure overlooking the street, that she could never find the time to clean it properly. It’s not,’ he interrupted himself indignantly, ‘that I hadn’t made provision for a solar for Aline when we wed. There’s a little room on the ground floor at the back, overlooking a scrap of garden, which I said could be hers. But she preferred the front of the house, where there’s more to see.’

‘Understandable,’ I murmured, and was treated to another glance of distaste.

Albany frowned at me. ‘Go on, Rab,’ he urged. ‘And as quickly as you can, man! It’s past dinnertime and my Cousin Gloucester will be wondering where I am.’

I endorsed this sentiment with a firm nod and the determination not to distract Master Sinclair with any more questions unless it was absolutely necessary. I did feel, however, that a little prompting wouldn’t come amiss, our informant, judging by his vague expression, being not quite sure at which point he had arrived in his story.

‘Your housekeeper found the book while cleaning out your and Mistress Sinclair’s bedchamber. Whereabouts exactly did she discover it? It must have been well hidden not to have come to either your, or her, attention earlier.’

There I was again, not two minutes after making my resolution breaking it almost at once. I just could not curb my natural curiosity.

‘Maria — Mistress Beton, that is — had long wanted to turn out a corner cupboard that Aline had brought with her as a bride and which she normally kept locked. Oh, I had seen inside it many times, and as far as I knew it contained nothing more than a few childhood keepsakes, the gown she wore on our wedding day (and which, for some reason, she had not wished to store in her general coffer with the rest of her clothes) and a cedarwood box holding a few bits of jewellery belonging to her mother. That was all.’

‘Why did Mistress Beton wish to turn it out?’ I’m not sure who asked the question, myself or Albany, but it was probably in both our minds.

Rab Sinclair looked surprised.

‘Dust. Spiders lurking along the shelves. Maria Beton,’ he added heatedly, ‘is a very house-proud woman. It bothered her to think that the cupboard had never been properly cleaned. And when she discovered that my wife had left the key to it behind, she thought it a splendid opportunity to do so at last.’

‘And the parchment leaves — the diary, I suppose, if one may call it that — was inside?’

‘Yes. Concealed in the folds of the wedding gown.’ Rab Sinclair shivered. ‘When Maria shook out the folds of the skirt, in case the moths had got into it, the parchment leaves fell out. We could both see at once that the pages were covered in Aline’s writing, so naturally Maria handed it to me.’

‘So you read it?’

‘Wouldn’t you have done?’

Albany chuckled. ‘He has you there, Roger.’

I was forced to admit he had. If I had discovered a diary in Adela’s handwriting, I would have been unable to resist the temptation to read what she had to say. Besides, wives have no business to conceal things from their husbands: the luxury of secrets is a man’s prerogative, not a woman’s.

‘So you found out that Aline had a lover.’

The duke began rubbing his cramped thighs preparatory to standing up. He told me to shout for the gaoler, but before I could do so, Master Sinclair exclaimed urgently, ‘But not only that!’

Albany’s waning attention was rearrested. He had half-risen from the bed, but at these words, sat down again.

‘What else then?’

‘My lord!’ His friend leaned forward, grabbing unceremoniously at a velvet sleeve. ‘My lord, a whole page — more — was devoted to the different ways she and her lover had thought up to kill me. Poison; an arranged accident; stabbing, making it look as if an intruder had broken in at night; drowning; and other ways I can’t remember for the moment. It was obvious that they were planning to murder me, my lord!’

This put a different complexion on the matter. I asked the one question that mattered. ‘Where is the book now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ Albany seized his friends by both hands and shook them. ‘You still have the book? You kept it, of course? You confronted Aline with it when she returned home?’

‘Not at once. I was too shocked. I didn’t really believe what I’d seen. I … I put it back in the cupboard, under the folds of the wedding gown where Maria had found it. I was so shaken, I was ill for several days. Mistress Beton will confirm what I say.’

‘Did you tell her what you had discovered?’

‘No. How could I? It was too horrible.’

Albany asked angrily, ‘Didn’t you have the sense to show her the diary?’ But Rab Sinclair just shook his head.

‘I was too ashamed. And I still wasn’t sure that it wasn’t some kind of horrible joke.’

‘But when Mistress Sinclair came back from Roslin, surely you tackled her about it eventually? What did she say?’

‘She denied everything. She became quite hysterical. She said I was making it up. She challenged me to produce the … the diary.’

‘So? Did you?’ Again, I don’t know whether it was the duke or myself who spoke, but I feel sure that the same question was on both our lips.

Rab Sinclair shook his head.

‘No. When I went upstairs to fetch it and confront her with it, it had gone.’