The Midsummer Crown

FOUR

This time, I thought he might have a seizure.

‘What do you mean?’ he demanded furiously. ‘I’ve told you! Young Fitzalan has disappeared — vanished into thin air — and Gregory Machin’s been found dead — stabbed — in a locked room. What more do you need to know?’

It was my turn to sigh and look superior. ‘I need to know when both were last seen and by whom. Were they sighted together or separately? How long was it before either of them was missed? Had the tutor made any enemies among the other members of Francis Lovell’s household? Had he any enemies at Baynard’s Castle?’

Timothy jerked forward on the window seat. ‘Look!’ he exclaimed angrily. ‘My brief is to take you back safely to London, not try to reply to a lot of foolish questions to which I’ve not been told the answers. You can make all these enquiries when you reach the castle. And good luck to you! The place is fairly seething with people, as you surmised, what with Duchess Cicely in residence with all her retinue, my lord of Gloucester with his — until he joins the duchess — and the Lovell entourage, as well. Because, of course, none of the latter can move on until this business is resolved. Moreover,’ he added gloomily, ‘the city itself is bursting at the seams what with the coronation nearly upon us and a session of Parliament in the offing. And don’t say you know, because things have got very much worse in the past four weeks since you so cravenly crept away.’

‘I did not creep away,’ I retorted, nettled. ‘I told you in my letter all that I knew. If we’d met face to face, I couldn’t have added anything to it. Besides,’ I continued in a burst of honesty, ‘I had no desire to get mixed up yet again in the duke’s affairs. I’d a bellyful of that last year. I’ve a life and family of my own, in case His Grace doesn’t realize it.’

‘Oh, he realizes it, all right. For one thing, you’re always moaning on about it.’ Timothy grinned nastily. ‘It’s just that you’ve made yourself so indispensable to him, that he doesn’t trust anyone else to deal with these sort of delicate situations.’

‘Crap!’ I snorted, but I was flattered all the same, as my companion had known I would be.

‘I suppose I can answer one of your questions,’ he admitted after a moment’s charged silence. ‘Did this Gregory Machin have any enemies in Baynard’s Castle? The simple reply is, he couldn’t possibly have done so. He wasn’t there long enough. He and young Gideon and Mistress Copley were only in residence one night before the tragedy happened.’

‘Which was when?’

‘Sometime late Friday night or Saturday morning as far as I know. As soon as the duke was apprised of it, and as soon as he learned from me that you were no longer in London, I was sent pelting off to this godforsaken city to bring you back again. I rode all the rest of Saturday, all day yesterday and most of today practically without stopping, except to change horses and snatch a few hours’ slumber.’ His tone was aggrieved. ‘I’m exhausted, I can tell you. I’m looking forward to a good night’s rest.’

He smiled ingratiatingly, but I hardened my heart. I wasn’t prepared to have Elizabeth sleep with Adela and me tonight — if, that was, Adela was in a forgiving mood — so that Timothy could have her bed.

‘And I’m sure you won’t be disappointed,’ I said. ‘Bristol has many excellent inns and alehouses.’ His face fell, but I went inexorably on: ‘However, don’t lie on too long in the morning. We must leave by first light if, as I want to do, we ride first to Minster Lovell.’

‘M-Minster Lovell?’ spluttered Timothy. ‘Why in the Virgin’s name do you want to ride to Minster Lovell? It’s fifty miles or so north-east of here, well out of our way. It will add miles to our journey, and the duke has stipulated that we’re in London by Friday at the latest. He wants this business cleared up before the coronation.’

‘All the more reason for us to start as early as possible tomorrow,’ I pointed out smugly.

‘But why do you need to go there at all?’

‘You said Gideon Fitzalan had been living in the Lovell household until the Duchess of Gloucester fetched him away to London last. . Wednesday, was it?’

‘Yes. They spent a night on the road, arriving in London on Thursday. But you still haven’t said why you want to go there. Nothing happened at Minster Lovell.’

‘We don’t know that,’ I argued. ‘Something could have occurred there that might prove to be a useful clue.’

I was unable satisfactorily to explain this very strong urge, even to myself. It had come upon me without prior warning, and I suspected that it could have burgeoned partly from a desire to irritate Timothy and to make things as difficult and complicated for him as possible.

He continued to stare at me for a few seconds longer, his lower lip protruding belligerently, and I thought he was going to refuse. But he finally shrugged and gave way. ‘Oh, very well.’ Then he added, ‘If you think you can stand the extra journey! You know you aren’t a good horseman. In fact, if you’re honest, you’ll admit that you’re no more at ease on horseback than if you were astride a cow. So don’t start whining and wanting frequent rests. I’ve told you. We have to be in London by Friday, and today’s Monday, so we have some hard riding ahead of us.’ He rose reluctantly to his feet. ‘I suppose now I’d better go and find lodgings at one of your excellent inns — ’ he managed to make it sound like a sneer — ‘and leave you to your fond farewells. I’ll see you at sun-up, then, at the livery stables in Bell Lane. Don’t be late.’

I lay beside Adela, listening to her gentle breathing and looking up at the moon-splashed ceiling. We had made love and now she was curled into my side, one arm thrown across my chest, one of my arms holding her close. I loved her very much and wished to take a vow never to deceive her again. But, by this time, I knew myself too well and refused to make God a promise that I was aware I might be unable to keep.

And the thought of God reawakened the uneasiness I had been feeling all evening, ever since I had known the overriding urge to visit Minster Lovell.

‘I know it’s You, Lord,’ I told Him severely. ‘Don’t think You’re deceiving me for a single moment. You’re interfering in my life again, snatching me away from home and family because there’s some villain — or perhaps in this case more than one villain — that You want brought to book. I’m not a fool. I recognize the signs by now.’

There was no response. There never was, but sometimes I could swear that I could hear God laughing; a faint, far off chuckling like the gentle tapping of rain against the windows on a summer’s night. I sighed and turned to face Adela, resting my chin on top of her head. I could smell the faint scent of the rose petals she had added to the water when she washed her hair. I wasn’t looking forward to going back to London, quite apart from this mystery that had been tossed into my lap. There had been something in the general atmosphere of the city during the recent weeks that I had spent there, but what exactly that something was would be difficult to say. Grief, of course, for the death of a king whom the Londoners had particularly loved; a free and easy, open-hearted, generous ruler; a man who loved life and all its pleasures just as they did; someone who ate, drank and made merry just as they did; who lusted after women just as they did; a monarch of flesh and blood (especially flesh). Now, there was uncertainty, as there always must be with a minor on the throne, a young boy totally unknown to them, who had lived since childhood at Ludlow, on the distant Welsh marches. And who would he favour? His father’s one remaining brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who was equally a stranger to the capital and the south of England generally, preferring to live secluded on his northern estates? Or his mother’s kinfolk, renowned for their grasping ways and insatiable greed for self-advancement? If I had been forced to wager money on it, I would have backed the Woodvilles without a second’s hesitation.

And there were so many stories to the Queen Dowager’s discredit and to that of her family. I had probably heard more of these rumours and tales than my fellow commoners because of the strange circumstances which had drawn me, mostly against my will, into the inner circle of the royal family and nobility. I was prepared to accept that some of the indictments might be untrue or exaggerated, but there were a couple of highly disgraceful episodes which were given universal credence.

Shortly after the late king’s marriage, Thomas FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond, by all accounts a handsome, brave, cultivated and convivial man, had come from Ireland for the new queen’s coronation. Immensely popular at the English court, he had struck up a lasting friendship with the young Duke of Gloucester, but he had proved to be a man too honest for his own good. When, during a hunting trip, King Edward had asked his opinion of the new queen, Desmond had replied that while he admired Elizabeth’s beauty and virtue, he considered the king would have done better to make a foreign alliance. Edward accepted the answer in the spirit in which it was made, but the queen and her family were not so easily satisfied. Two years later, when the hated John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, (nicknamed the Butcher of England) was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Ireland, he helped the Woodvilles to their revenge. Not only was Desmond beheaded on a trumped-up charge of treason, but two of his small sons were also cruelly murdered.

The second episode had been the arrest of Sir Thomas Cook, also on a charge of treason, because the Woodville matriarch, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, widow of Henry V’s brother, John, Duke of Bedford, had coveted Sir Thomas’s tapestries depicting the Siege of Jerusalem. The knight had been thrown into prison and his London house ransacked. When he had been brought before Chief Justice Markham, a man famed for his honesty, the jury had been directed to bring in a verdict of misprision of treason only. The queen’s late father, the first Earl Rivers, had succeeded in having Markham driven from office and thrown Cook into the King’s Bench prison where he had exacted the enormous fine of eight thousand pounds. Not content with this, his daughter had resurrected from the statute books the archaic and lapsed right of ‘queen’s gold’, by which she had been able to claim one hundred marks for every thousand pounds of the fine. Sir Thomas was ruined.

I had heard these two stories more than once and from more than one person, and four times out of five their truth had been attested to from the personal knowledge of the speaker. Moreover, they had chimed with what I, myself, had seen and heard of the Woodvilles, and I had never felt the least inclination to disbelieve them. They had simply strengthened my loyalty to the Duke of Gloucester. But during the past few weeks, I had been uneasily conscious of a growing fear that Prince Richard’s desire for revenge — for Desmond, for Sir Thomas Cook and others like him, above all for Clarence — might be escalating out of proportion, especially when it was coupled with the secret belief that his mother’s long-ago admission of Edward’s bastardy was really true.

The future seemed suddenly insecure, like looking through a glass darkly. I found myself praying that my lord would do nothing rash or foolish, but without any real conviction that my prayer would be answered. I continued to stare at the ceiling, at the shifting patterns made by the moonlight, until, without my knowing it, I fell deeply and dreamlessly asleep.

My first sight of Minster Lovell was about midday, two days later.

Timothy had not exaggerated the speed of our journey, nor its hardships, with changes of horses that left time for nothing more than a stoup of ale drunk standing up, meals of little more than bread and cheese bolted down at wayside hostelries and, on the Tuesday night, a few hours’ sleep snatched at an inn whose only lasting impression on me was the countless number of fleabites which reddened my skin and made me itch for long hours afterwards.

The house lies in a hollow, standing on the banks of the River Windrush, the high ground to the north rising towards Wychwood Forest and to the south towards the main Gloucester to Oxford track. It is built — family and servants’ quarters and domestic buildings — four-square around an inner courtyard, and, when I first saw it, was only some thirty-five years old. Consequently, it is a house whose function is simply for living in and makes no pretence at defensibility except for some ornamental machicolations on the south-west tower.

We approached it from the east late on Wednesday, across a small stone bridge spanning the river, and looked down on walls glowing saffron and honey in the afternoon light, scythed through with long amethyst shadows that inched slowly forward across the courtyard. The indignant yelping of dogs greeted us as we rode under the gateway arch, nodded through by a porter who immediately recognized Timothy’s blue and murrey livery and the White Boar crest as belonging to the mighty Duke of Gloucester. He even gave me a curt nod as I was looking more respectable than usual, Timothy having insisted that I wore one of the two decent outfits loaned to me for my journey to Paris the preceding year and, to the spymaster’s eternal disgust, subsequently presented to me by the duke as a reward for my services. As a result, I was, much against my will, decked out in brown hose and yellow tunic, a velvet hat sporting a fake jewel on its upturned brim, and with a good camlet cloak strapped to my saddlebag.

‘I’m not jaunting about the countryside with you looking like a scarecrow,’ Timothy had informed me on Monday night. ‘So put on one of those expensive tunics my lord’s exchequer could ill-afford to give you, a decent shirt and your best boots and, for once, try to look like a gentleman.’

‘Expensive my arse!’ had been my ungentlemanly response, but I had complied, nevertheless. I could see no point in making the journey even more uncomfortable than it already promised to be by quarrelling with my companion.

Dogs, three or four greyhounds and a couple of mastiffs, were by now circling us, their barking and growling causing the horses to sidle and shift uneasily, but whereas Timothy was well in command of his mount, I was unsure of my ability to control mine. Fortunately, before this was put to the test, a man strolled out of a nearby doorway and called them to heel.

‘They won’t hurt you, master,’ he said grinning up at me and plainly sensing my fear. ‘Gentle as milk, they are.’ He had all the countryman’s contempt for the townsman, particularly for the popinjay that I appeared to be. Then his eyes swiveled to Timothy and took in the Gloucester livery. At once, his manner changed. He tugged his greying forelock. ‘William Blancheflower, sir, kennel man to Sir Francis. What’s your pleasure?’

‘Where’s the steward?’ Timothy demanded, dismounting. ‘You’ve heard the news from London, I suppose?’

The man’s face was suddenly haggard. ‘About poor Tutor Machin and the young master? Yes, sir, we heard yesterday. Young Piers Daubenay was sent by Dame Copley with the dreadful tidings. You don’t know if Master Gideon’s been found yet, do you, sir?’

Before Timothy could reply, I eased myself stiffly from the saddle and asked. ‘Who’s Piers Daubenay?’

‘I am, sir,’ announced a voice behind me, and I swung round to see a smooth-skinned youth of, I reckoned, some sixteen or seventeen summers standing at my elbow. Bright blue eyes and a mop of reddish-brown curls were the most outstanding features of an otherwise unexceptional, but very pleasant face. Normally, I imagined, it was the mirror of a happy and sunny disposition, but at present its owner appeared careworn and a little frightened.

‘You’re a friend of Master Fitzalan?’

‘Not a friend exactly, sir, but I’m of his household. I’m a sort of valet, sir. I look after his clothes and help him dress and cut his hair and file his nails. But he was — I mean is — ’ the voice trembled slightly — ‘a friendly young gentleman, sir, and. . and we got — get — on together, sir.’

This was suddenly too much for Timothy, who snapped irritably, ‘For God’s sake, lad, stop calling him “sir”! This is Master Chapman and he’s no more up in the world than you are.’

But if this was meant to put me in my place, it had exactly the opposite effect. Young Master Daubenay’s eyes grew round as saucers.

‘You’re not the famous chapman, are you? The one who solves mysteries?’ He took my answer for granted and clasped my hand. ‘Oh, sir! Someone said my lord of Gloucester had sent for you. Oh, you will find him, sir, won’t you? Master Gideon, I mean.’

I dared not glance at Timothy. I could see that even William Blancheflower had shifted his respectful gaze from my companion to myself.

‘I’ll do my best,’ I assured Piers Daubenay and returned the pressure of his hand before gently freeing myself. It was a soft hand which had probably never known hard, manual labour. I added, ‘I’d like to talk to you as soon as I can. I need to know everything you’re able to tell me about the happenings at Baynard’s Castle last Saturday.’

At that moment, much, I think, to Timothy’s relief, the steward came hurrying towards us, his wand of office tapping the ground as he approached. Again, one glance at the White Boar emblem was sufficient to secure us his immediate and obsequious attention as he ushered us into the house and handed us over to an equally deferential housekeeper.

‘Mistress Blancheflower, these gentlemen are in need of supper and beds for the night. I shall leave them in your capable hands. Masters!’ He gave us a little bow. ‘I shall look forward to your company at the high table in the servants’ hall in an hour’s time.’ He left us, and I almost expected him to shuffle out backwards as if we were royalty.

Timothy, his self-importance restored, smiled pleasantly at the housekeeper and said, ‘Blancheflower? Are you related to Sir Francis’s kennel man?’

She chuckled. ‘Oh, you’ve met William, have you, sir? Yes, as you’ve quite likely guessed, he’s my husband, We’ve been married these dozen years or more. And now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you and the other gentleman to your rooms.’

She bustled ahead of us, a slender, upright woman of about her husband’s age, which I judged to be somewhere around forty. In contrast to her body, which tended to be angular, her face was softly rounded, its best feature a pair of large brown eyes fringed with sandy lashes beneath delicately arched eyebrows of roughly similar colour. Normally, I suspected she was a jolly soul, but the news brought from London by young Daubenay had cast a gloom over the entire household. She made no further attempt to engage us in conversation until she had seen us safely installed in two adjacent guest-rooms on the ground floor and assured herself that all was in order. Only then did she allow herself the luxury of an anxious question.

‘I suppose you’ve heard no more about poor young Master Gideon, sirs?’

Timothy shook his head. ‘Master Chapman and I are on our way to London now and hope to reach there sometime Friday morning. We must spend another night on the road after leaving here tomorrow, but it may be that there will be some good news by the time we get there.’ He was plainly loath to draw attention to me, but, seeing no help for it, went on: ‘Master Chapman has been called in by my lord Protector to try to find the boy and throw some light on the mysterious circumstances of Tutor Machin’s death. The reason we’re here is because Master Chapman feels it necessary to discover something about his and young Master Fitzalan’s life in the days before they left for the capital last week, in company with the Duchess of Gloucester.’

The housekeeper turned to me, looking bewildered. ‘There’s nothing to tell, sir. There were no unusual happenings, nothing out of the ordinary until the sudden summons for Master Gideon to go to London to wait upon the new young king. That was a surprise, I admit. None of us had foreseen such a request, as indeed why should we? If we’d thought about it at all, we’d assumed that His Highness would have his own attendants, brought with him from Ludlow; boys who’d grown up with him and been his playmates and fellow scholars for most of his life.’

I glanced at Timothy and raised my eyebrows, but he at once gave a discreet shake of his head. There was no need, his look implied, to say more than necessity demanded.

Mistress Blancheflower meantime rattled on, ‘He didn’t want to go at first. Master Gideon, I mean. And Gregory — Tutor Machin — was even more put out than he was. Carried on something dreadful about the lad falling behind with his lessons and growing up a dunderhead with his noddle stuffed full of nothing but pleasure and fine food and new clothes. That was when I saw the boy’s attitude begin to change. He suddenly decided that going to London might not be such a bad thing after all as long as Mother Copley and Piers were allowed to accompany him to attend to his well-being. He wasn’t best pleased, though, when he discovered that Gregory was also going with him.’

‘And Dame Copley?’ I enquired. ‘How did she feel about London?’

The housekeeper cocked her head on one side, absent-mindedly jingling the keys at her belt.

‘To my surprise, she quite liked the idea. I’d expected her to complain that Gideon was too delicate — she was always dosing him with some concoction or another, poor child — and shouldn’t be exposed to the foul London air. But she didn’t. In the end, she was as eager to be off as he was. Although, she wouldn’t have been, of course, if she could have foreseen what was going to happen almost as soon as he got there.’

Neither Timothy nor I volunteering any opinion on the matter, she finally took herself off with a parting instruction to present ourselves in the servants’ hall for supper in about an hour.

‘Anyone will tell you where it is. Meantime, I’ll send one of the girls with hot water for you. You’ll no doubt be in need of a wash after your journey.’

She was as good as her word, a young kitchen-maid arriving shortly afterwards, staggering under the weight of a heavy pail full of gently steaming water. A little later, having washed and changed my yellow tunic for the green one with silver-gilt buttons, I knocked on Timothy’s door and suggested that we spend the intervening time until supper by a turn in the fresh air.

‘I need to stretch my legs. They feel cramped from all that riding.’

Minster Lovell proved to be even bigger than I had at first imagined.. While the bakery, buttery, laundry, pantry and kitchens were all housed in the east wing, the stables, kennels and a handsome pigeon loft were located outside the main gateway. And it was while Timothy and I were idly watching the birds fly in and out of the loft, happy for five minutes or so to let our overcharged minds go blank, that young Piers Daubenay found us.

‘I saw you go out of the gate,’ he said, ‘and I knew you wanted to speak to me, Master Chapman.’

I bowed to the inevitable. ‘Let’s sit over here,’ I suggested, moving towards a stone bench set against a wall of the outer compound. And once we were settled, I commanded, ‘Now, tell me everything you know.’

Piers grimaced. ‘It’s not very much,’ he admitted and then fell silent.

‘You spent one night at Crosby’s Place,’ I encouraged him, ‘before visiting Baynard’s Castle?’

‘Yes. Master Gideon, Tutor Machin, Dame Copley and myself joined Her Grace of Gloucester’s entourage earlier in the week, when she stopped here on her journey south, and we reached London and Crosby’s Place late last Thursday. But the day was too advanced for us to do more than tumble into bed wherever we could find one.’

‘You didn’t share Master Fitzalan’s?’

‘No. Mind you, he offered. He’s a kindly lad. But I don’t like sharing beds with people.’ Piers gave a mischievous grin. ‘They either snore or their feet smell.’

Timothy snorted. ‘A bit particular, aren’t you, my lad? There aren’t many who’d pass up the chance of sleeping in a soft bed instead of making shift in some corner or other.’

The boy grimaced. ‘Perhaps not. But I prefer my own company whatever the discomfort. I’ve told you. I’m like that.’

I broke in impatiently on this exchange.

‘So next day, you and the tutor and nurse accompanied your young master to Baynard’s Castle so that the boy could meet his uncle — er. .’

‘Godfrey,’ Timothy supplied.

Piers nodded agreement. ‘And also two of his brothers, Blaise and Bevis, who are in attendance on their uncle.’

‘There seem to be a lot of these Fitzalans,’ I commented drily.

‘Oh, there are. A lot of them,’ my younger companion commented happily.

‘And did Master Gideon meet his kinsmen?’

‘I think so. I wasn’t present, of course. Well, he wouldn’t need me to say hello to his uncle and brothers, now would he?’

‘And then what happened?’

‘Sir Francis informed Gideon that he was to join the king in the royal apartments in the Tower the following day, but that we would be spending that night, Friday night, at the castle. But — ’ he shrugged — ‘we never did get to the Tower. The next morning, Tutor Machin was found dead in his room — his locked room — and Master Gideon had disappeared.’ He was silent for a moment, biting a thumbnail, then added, ‘It must be magic. I reckon it was Mother Copley. I’ve always said she was a witch.’