Wheel of Fate

SIXTEEN

Of course, all I had to do was hammer on the door and shout for the woman to come and let me out. But would she? There was always the chance that having assumed she had captured a thief, she would rush out to get assistance and I would find myself facing an angry, probably armed, mob whose members would attack me first and ask questions afterwards. There was also a possibility that, on her return, a furious Mistress Ireby would refuse to recognize me and hand me over to the law. And the consequences of that could be disastrous, for there was no disputing the fact that I was trespassing; and although I had no doubt that Oswald Godslove would come to my aid, I wasn’t sure that even so I would not be clapped up in prison.

I stared around me from my position halfway up the stairs and pondered what to do for the best. The ghostly light from the flickering candle-flame filled the cellar with shadows, making deep hollows of darkness that seemed to stretch into infinity beneath the vaulted arches. Once again it occurred to me that the cellar was far too large for the house, and in the same moment I remembered houses in Bristol which shared cellars with a neighbour, with no intervening wall below ground to mark the division between the two dwellings. I wondered if that could be the case here and what it could avail me if it were.

I recollected that while I was standing opposite Roderick Jeavon’s house, watching, I had had a vague impression that the one next to it on the right-hand side was empty. I tried to recall what had given me that feeling, but was able to conjure up no good reason except that the shutters were firmly closed, just as they had been on my previous visit with Oswald. But even if the place were empty, it would be the greatest stroke of good luck if the cellar door should have been left unlocked. Could I really expect the wheel of fortune to spin in my favour twice in one day? Well, there was only one way to find out.

I descended the steps for a second time and made my way across the dusty floor space, walking, ridiculously, almost on tiptoe as though afraid to make the slightest sound. I didn’t for a moment believe in my own reasoning, and it was with genuine astonishment that I found myself standing at the foot of a flight of steps identical to that on the other side of the cellar and leading upwards to a similar door at the top. I mounted swiftly, my heart pounding, and cautiously raised the latch, anticipating resistance, but, miraculously, the door gave under my hand.

It was unlocked. The wheel of fortune had favoured me again.

I must have stood there for several seconds trying to conquer my sense of disbelief before quietly pushing the door open and stepping, not this time into a kitchen, but into a narrow passageway that appeared to run the length of the house from front to back. The street door was only a yard or two from me and, even in the dimness of the shuttered gloom, I could see that it was not just unbolted but that the key hung on a nail beside it. I immediately froze where I stood. This was too much good fortune not to have some catch attached to it — and I was right. A man’s voice spoke from a room on the other side of the passage, almost opposite the cellar door.

‘You’ll get word to everyone on that list by tomorrow afternoon, Will. Arrange a meeting here for the morning after if possible, or whenever it will be convenient for them all to come. You must be sure to tell them to enter by the back way from the lane that runs close to the city wall. On no account must they try to enter from the front. You understand that?’

‘I do, my lord. And can I assure them that they are unlikely to be disturbed here?’

‘Most certainly. This place belongs to a kinsman of mine who is at present residing in the country and isn’t likely to return to London for some months. You have the list safe? Good. Now, off you go.’

I stepped back behind the cellar door, almost closing it, but not quite. There was something going on here that had the smell of treasonable activity about it, and I was curious to see who might be involved. But no one appeared immediately.

‘I see you haven’t mentioned Lord Howard,’ the second voice said; the voice belonging to the man addressed as ‘Will’.

There was a scornful laugh. ‘There are times, my lad, when you’re not very astute for a lawyer. For a start, John Howard was never a close friend of mine nor of King Edward’s.’ There was a sudden break in the voice as the speaker mentioned our late sovereign, but it was quickly mastered. The tone became harsh again. ‘And Howard wants nothing more in this life than to regain the duchy of Norfolk for himself and his family. He won’t risk anything. He’ll be toadying to Gloucester, flattering him for all he’s worth. And also — ’ and here the voice spoke with such quiet venom that it made me shiver, grown man as I was — ‘he’ll be licking the arse of that misbegotten son of a viper who’s wormed his way into Gloucester’s affections, Henry of Buckingham.’

‘Not Lord Howard, then,’ replied the voice of Will, a faint edge of sarcasm informing his words.

Evidently ‘my lord’ heard it, too, because he answered sharply, ‘Be careful of that tongue of yours, Master Catesby. I can easily find another lawyer. Members of your profession are ten a penny.’ I wondered fleetingly what Oswald would have said to this sentiment before concentrating once again on what was being discussed in the room opposite. The first man went on, ‘You’d better buy some wine. Rotheram and Morton are both particularly fond of malmsey.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘There must be something about it that appeals especially to the clergy.’

There was an infinitesimal pause. Then, ‘You want me to purchase and bring this wine along the day after tomorrow?’ the lawyer enquired in a flat little voice that should have warned his companion that he was not best pleased. ‘No doubt you would like me to serve it, as well?’

‘Good idea,’ ‘my lord’ agreed. ‘It’ll save having another servant present.’

I grimaced to my self. That ‘another’ was not going to sweeten Master Catesby’s mood.

I was right. The lawyer’s voice, when he spoke, was cold enough to have frozen a monkey’s balls in summer. ‘How many of us?’

A brief silence ensued while the first man must have made a swift calculation. ‘If everyone accepts my invitation there should be eight of us. Jane — Mistress Shore — will be present. She’s agreed to be the messenger between us and Westminster Sanctuary.’

I caught my breath. This, then, that I was overhearing was a plot involving the Queen Dowager and her family. If I were to be seen now, I didn’t doubt that my life would be worth less than a groat. I drew back further behind the cellar door, but still keeping it open a crack, enough for me to peer through and see without being seen.

The door opposite was flung open and to my astonishment Lord Hastings, the Lord Chamberlain and lifelong opponent of the Woodvilles, came out. And yet, at the same time, I was not astonished. Only the previous day I had noted his expression of angry discontent and affronted dignity as he was forced to ride behind the king and my lord Gloucester, while the position he had expected to occupy was usurped by the Duke of Buckingham. But what did genuinely astound me was the speed with which he had turned his coat.

He spoke over his shoulder to the lawyer Catesby, still within the room. ‘Follow me out the back way and be sure you lock the door and take the key with you. Don’t forget to send me word of what’s happening and if the morning after next is convenient for all. If it is, you’ll be here in advance of the appointed hour with everything ready for our arrival.’ He added viciously, ‘If you’re not, I’ll have your guts for garters. I mean that, Will. We dare not risk people like the Bishop of Ely and the Archbishop of York being caught skulking around a back alley.’

‘I shall be here, my lord. You need not worry.’

‘Damn well see to it that you are,’ was the ungracious response.

And a moment later, Lord Hastings, one time boon companion of his sovereign in all the excesses of his hedonistic life and now fallen from grace, brushed past my hiding place on his way to the back door with never a glance in my direction. I stayed where I was, hardly daring to breathe, and after a short delay, the lawyer emerged into the gloom of the passage.

From the little I could see in that dim light, I judged him to be somewhere around forty, perhaps more, perhaps less. He stood, briefly, staring towards the back door of the house through which Hastings had vanished, with a total lack of expression on his small, tight face. Then he, too, let himself out of the house by the same way and I heard him lock the door behind him. Breathing a sigh of relief, I gave him a few minutes start before slipping out of the front door as unobtrusively as possible, pausing only to replace its key on the nail, and closing it, unlocked, behind me. Then I walked up the street and turned right into Paternoster Row.

I sat on the grass in St Paul’s churchyard, resting my back against a tombstone, contemplating the conversation I had just overheard, what it meant and what, if anything, I should do about it.

The answer to the second question was simple. Nothing: I refused to get involved. I had no doubt at all that Timothy Plummer would greet me and my information with open arms, but before I knew it I should be up to my neck in the spy’s schemes and everything else would be subordinated to them. My own affairs would have to wait and there would be an even longer delay in getting home to Bristol. Guilt consumed me but I hardened my heart. I had been embroiled enough, more than enough, in the fortunes of my lord of Gloucester.

For I felt sure that this plot — if that was what indeed it was — concerned him. Hastings, arrogant and full of self-importance, could not stomach being overlooked for a man such as Henry of Buckingham, member of the royal family though he might be. But what exactly was the Lord Chamberlain planning? Was it merely a coup to contain the Duke of Gloucester’s powers and oust Buckingham from his suddenly exalted position as the favourite? Or was it more sinister than that? Was the duke’s life in danger?

I caught my breath. If that were the case, then I had no choice but to go at once to Timothy and tell him all that I had overheard, whatever the consequences to myself. But after a few moments quiet reflection — in which, I have to admit, self-interest played no small part — I was persuaded that whatever was being hatched by Hastings and his erstwhile enemies, no physical harm was meant to my lord of Gloucester. They would not dare. As the victor of the Scottish war, the reclaimer of Berwick for English soil, he was too popular with the general mass of people, even here in the south, to run the risk of murdering him. And yet. .

And yet wasn’t that what he claimed had happened at Northampton? Or had the Woodvilles simply intended to take him prisoner until they had established themselves in the chief positions of dominance? I didn’t know. My head reeled. All I knew for certain was that I had no wish to become entangled. Had I not, when I first heard of King Edward’s death, congratulated myself that I was far from London and had no prospect of going there? But God had decreed otherwise; and now here I was, quite by chance (or was it God’s will?) pitched headlong into what seemed to be a treasonable attempt to unseat Duke Richard and prevent him influencing the young king.

I half-rose to my feet, then sank back again against the tombstone as the thought occurred to me that perhaps I had no need to do anything. I remembered the tone of the lawyer Catesby’s voice and the stony expression I had glimpsed on his face as he stood in the passageway, staring after Hastings. I was willing to wager that the Lord Chamberlain, by his contemptuous treatment of his underling, had made an enemy, one who might yet turn on his master. Of course he might not, but I felt the idea exonerated me from any immediate action. I would wait to see what news the next few days brought forth, and meantime I would concentrate on my own business.

Quarter of an hour later I was at Blossom’s Inn, making enquiries as to any carters travelling to Bristol within the next day or two and willing to take a woman, three children and a dog as passengers; the children, of course, being little short of angelic and the hound a model of obedience and good behaviour.

‘And if you believe that, you’ll believe the moon’s made o’ green cheese,’ said a voice behind me.

I swung round and there was a grinning Jack Nym. I stared at him in disbelief, unable to accept that the luck was still running my way, and once more made uneasy by the reflection that it couldn’t possibly last. The wheel was bound to spin soon in the opposite direction.

‘Jack!’ I exclaimed, clapping him on the back, ‘what are you doing here again so soon? Twice to London in less than a fortnight? No, no,’ I corrected myself. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘Never been home yet,’ he grumbled. ‘Got an offer from a glass-maker out Clerkenwell way to carry a load to Clifton, and I’ve been hanging about these past ten days waiting for the bugger to close the deal and make me a fair offer. But he won’t pay my price so now I’ve had enough. I’m showin’ him the two fingers.’ His eyes brightened. ‘Did I hear aright? You and Adela and the children are going home? What a piece of good fortune. I can take you tomorrow. You won’t pay as well as the glass, but you’re better company so I’m not complaining.’

‘Not me,’ I explained. ‘Just Adela and the children. Oh, and the dog.’ He snorted. ‘I shall be making my own way home sometime later.’

Jack groaned. ‘What you got yourself mixed up in now, Roger, eh? Dang me if I ever knew such a man for getting tangled up in other people’s doings. I wouldn’t be married to you for nothing. That wife o’ yourn deserves better, I can tell you!’

‘I know it,’ I admitted, ‘but I’ve given my word to assist some relations of hers who are in trouble. If I can that is. I can’t break my promise.’

He shook his dead despairingly. ‘Don’t bother explaining. It ain’t nothing to do with me, thank the Lord. Just be here with Adela and the children and that wretched cur first light tomorrow and I’ll see ’em safe home. You needn’t worry.’

I insisted on paying him for the family’s transportation there and then and promised to have everyone assembled, without fail, in Blossom’s Inn yard at an early hour the following morning. Then, with a much lighter heart, I returned to the Arbour.

The news that they were to start for Bristol the next day was received by my family with mixed emotions. There was a certain amount of sadness, although the overall feeling was one of relief. The air of depression that had hung like a pall over the house since Celia’s disappearance had inevitably affected everyone’s spirits, and judging from the whispered conversation I overheard between Nicholas and Elizabeth at dinner, they were already looking forward to seeing their own home once more. Even the week’s journey on a jolting cart which lay ahead failed to dismay them, and the fact that I was not to be a member of the party in no way blunted their excitement. It was left to Adela and, surprisingly, Adam, to express dismay at my absence.

‘You come, too,’ my son said, regarding me severely.

‘I’ll follow you as soon as I can,’ I assured him.

He looked as if he didn’t believe me, not without good reason. I was always disappearing from my family’s life and constantly breaking promises to return when I said I would. He had learned to distrust me. Adela felt the same way and urged me to go with them.

‘I should never have involved you in my cousins’ affairs,’ she said regretfully as we took a walk together that afternoon, leaving the children in Arbella’s care.

We followed the track northward, away from the city — where the filthy, clamorous streets ran higgledy-piggledy in all directions and the houses blotted out the light with their overhanging eaves — and into the open countryside; mile after mile of sun-kissed fields, with trees and hedgerows bursting into leaf in the warm spring weather and not a dwelling nor a person in sight as far as the eye could see.

‘Sweetheart, I can’t abandon them now,’ I said, and repeated the old arguments. ‘They’ve been good to us, to you and the boys especially, and they are in desperate trouble. I can’t bring myself to be that uncaring.’

She sighed and rested her head against my shoulder as my arm encircled her waist. ‘No. Oh, Roger, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. Why did I ever allow myself to listen to that evil woman?’

My conscience smote me and I paused to stop her mouth with a kiss.

‘It’s all right,’ I murmured. ‘It’s all right. But you do see that I must stay? For a little while, at least, until I’m convinced that there is nothing more I can do?’

I didn’t add that I might now have another reason for wishing to remain in London that had nothing to do with the Godsloves. Indeed, I wasn’t even prepared to admit it to myself. How could I? Hadn’t I told myself that the Duke of Gloucester’s affairs were nothing to do with me?

‘Yes, I know,’ Adela said miserably, returning my kiss with fervour. ‘And you say that there’s no trace of Celia in Dr Jeavons’s house, not even in the cellar which his sister denied was there? Why do you think she did that?’

I shrugged. ‘I think Ginèvre Napier was right; for no better reason than that Mistress Ireby wanted to be rid of us. Nothing more sinister than that.’ I glanced around, noting that the shadows were lengthening across the grass. ‘We have to go back, sweetheart. It will soon be suppertime and Oswald will be home. I must break the bad news.’

Adela nodded. ‘And my poor legs are aching. We’ve walked a couple of miles at least, I should think. But at least I’ve had you all to myself. We haven’t passed another soul. No one seems to live this way.’ She glanced up at me. ‘Now, why are you frowning?’

‘I don’t know,’ I answered slowly. And it was true that I didn’t. But something was suddenly making me uneasy, prodding at my memory, and yet I couldn’t think what. It was the same feeling I got whenever I saw Julian Makepeace.

I said quietly to myself, ‘You’ll have to do better than this, Lord, if you want me to solve this mystery for you. You know very well that I’m just a mere mortal. I can’t be expected to do everything on my own.’

‘What are you saying?’ Adela asked curiously. ‘You were mumbling something.’

‘I was just humming to myself.’

‘Oh well, that explains it.’ My wife laughed. ‘You never could master a tune.’

Oswald was quietly furious that I had kept Ginèvre Napier’s intelligence to myself, and was at first inclined to accuse me of not having inspected the cellar properly.

‘You should have told me and I would have come with you,’ he said with suppressed violence. ‘I wouldn’t have had any hole-and-corner nonsense! I would have forced Mistress Ireby to open up the cellar. I would have threatened her with the law and then I would have made a thorough search.’

‘I did make a thorough search,’ I answered wearily. ‘You have to believe me, Oswald, there is nothing down there except a few barrels of wine or ale and some odd pieces of broken furniture. For heaven’s sake, man, just accept the fact that Roderick Jeavons is not holding Celia a prisoner anywhere in that house. We must look elsewhere.’

‘You have to believe him, my dear,’ Clemency broke in. ‘If Roderick is the culprit, then he is not hiding her there.’

‘And maybe he is not hiding her at all,’ I said. ‘Maybe he has nothing to do with Celia’s disappearance. By the way,’ I went on before Oswald could say anything more, ‘I have made arrangements for Adela and the children to go home tomorrow. Our old friend, Jack Nym, has been disappointed of a load of glass and is more than willing to convey them to Bristol instead.’

Clemency once again expressed suitable regrets while Sybilla and her brother made a half-hearted attempt to echo her sentiments, but without much success. Arbella didn’t even bother, merely reiterating her earlier words that I ought to accompany them as there appeared to be nothing I could do if I stayed.

‘You should go home,’ she said.

‘Hold your tongue!’ Oswald told her roughly. ‘This is nothing to do with you. Roger has promised to help us and he’s a man of his word.’ He took a great gulp of air like a drowning man. ‘I have commitments that I can’t ignore and he’s my eyes and ears while I’m otherwise engaged. Celia must be found.’ He didn’t add ‘alive or dead’, but it was implicit in his tone. He was frightened.

To distract his unhappy thoughts I said, ‘The word on the street is that the Archbishop of York has become disaffected from my lord of Gloucester. Do you know any reason why that should be?’

The lie was successful if only for a moment or two. Oswald even managed a superior smile. ‘Thomas Rotheram’s an ageing, timorous old fool,’ he answered scornfully, ‘who should never have been given the post of Lord Chancellor. Do you know what he did, when he heard about the arrests at Northampton? He rushed to Westminster Sanctuary and gave the Great Seal into the Queen Dowager’s keeping. Dear God!’ His good lawyer’s soul was outraged. ‘The Lord Chancellor should never relinquish the Seal into anybody’s hands but the king’s. Of course, he realized his mistake almost at once and got it back again, but the damage was done. Everybody knows about it. The Inns of Court were buzzing with the news. You can be sure that Gloucester won’t forgive him for it. Rotheram will be removed from the chancellorship as soon as maybe. Of course he’s a Woodville adherent to his fingertips. I’ve always fancied that the stupid old dotard is more than a little in love with the queen.’

So that explained why the Archbishop of York was involved in this plot of Hastings — if plot it was. But the conviction was growing in me that something was afoot. I took a deep breath and put it resolutely out of my mind.

Adela and I put the children to bed soon after supper in spite of their protests that it was far too early and that they would never go to sleep. (In fact they were all three asleep in a surprisingly short space of time.) Nicholas and Elizabeth were still excited and eager to be home. Adam again surprised me by putting both arms around my neck and kissing me.

‘You promised to come home soon,’ he reminded me.

‘And so I will,’ I assured him.

‘What’s happened to him?’ I asked my wife as we went downstairs. ‘He never used to be this fond of me.’

Adela gave me one of those pitying looks that women reserve for men when anything to do with children is mentioned.

‘I told you, he’s growing up. He’s always been a sensitive child.’

I took her word for it, but it wasn’t the boy that I remembered. Then again, perhaps I had never been at home long enough to get to know him.

We decided to go for one last stroll in the wild, overgrown garden and went out through the kitchen, where Arbella was overseeing the washing of the supper dishes.

‘You’ll need a cloak,’ she said to Adela. ‘There’s a breeze sprung up since this afternoon. Take that old blue one of Celia’s that’s hanging on a peg in the passageway.’

She was right. A chill wind was rustling the trees and grasses and making the little clouds scud across the evening sky, chased by darker ones marching up over the horizon. We went as far as the side gate and looked over it into the copse, but all was silent except for the singing of the birds. It was here that Adam had last heard Celia’s voice, talking to someone. But who? After that she had just vanished.

Adela shivered in spite of the cloak which she had wrapped around her, or perhaps because she was suddenly conscious of the fact that it belonged to Celia.

‘Let’s go in,’ she said.

That night, I was barely asleep — or so it seemed — before I started to dream. I was at once back in the house next door to Roderick Jeavons’s, trying to get out of the cellar, but the door was locked fast. I kept hammering on the wood until I could see that my hands were bleeding. No one came although I could hear a voice speaking on the other side of it. I could feel the desperation rising inside of me because I knew that what this voice was saying was important. I knew it had a message for me if only I could make out the words. .

Then, as happens in dreams, I was standing on the other side of the door in the long passage that ran from front to back of the house, and standing beside me were Hastings and the lawyer Catesby. They were both looking straight at me, but didn’t seem to notice I was there.

Hastings was saying, ‘I said eight of us, Will, eight! Eight children! Eight of them! You can imagine the noise! And what’s more, I don’t like that blue cloak you’re wearing. The colour doesn’t suit you and it belongs to somebody else. You’d better get wine for eight. The archbishop’s going to bring the Great Seal.’

‘You can’t do that,’ I said, stepping forward, and Catesby caught me by the shoulders, shaking me hard. .

‘Wake up, Roger! Wake up! You’re having a bad dream!’ It was Adela’s voice and her face that was bending over me, a pale oval in the darkness. I was bathed in sweat.

It took me a moment or two to get my bearings, then I gave an uncertain laugh and stroked her cheek.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart. I was riding the night mare, that’s all.’

‘It felt like it,’ she said. ‘You were tossing and turning and moaning to yourself so much I thought you’d fall out of bed. Are you all right now?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s Arbella’s cooking. It lies heavily on my stomach sometimes. Go back to sleep. You have a long day’s journey ahead of you tomorrow.’

Satisfied, she snuggled into my side and was soon gently snoring. I, on the other hand, lay wide awake, staring into the darkness trying to interpret my dream.