I stared at the spy, so angry with both myself and him that I was temporarily struck dumb. In a futile gesture, I sent my mazer spinning, watching his look of horror as the precious Rhenish spilled across the table top and smiling as he was forced to leap to his feet to avoid being drenched with the stuff.
‘You – you – you fool!’ he bellowed. ‘Wasting decent wine!’
I don’t know what might have happened next had the door not opened just at that moment, and a small, self-important page announced, ‘The Earl of Lincoln.’
I judged the King’s nephew to be about seventeen or eighteen years of age, a very handsome lad of great grace and charm. He must have sensed the tension in the atmosphere, but he ignored it, as he did the spilled wine, smiling gaily at Timothy and clapping me on the shoulder in the friendliest manner possible.
‘So! You must be the famous chapman of whom my Uncle Gloucester speaks with such admiration and fondness. Our worthy spymaster has told you, I suppose, that we need you in London to help solve a crime. I’ve ridden with him from the capital to add my entreaties to his request and also – I must be honest – because I was curious to meet you.’ He grinned broadly, joyously. ‘And now I have.’
‘Your – Your Highness is very kind,’ I stammered. ‘But I can hardly believe the King’s nephew would be eager to meet a common p-pedlar.’
He gave a great roar of laughter at that and once again smote me on the shoulder.
‘Good God, man, if we’re to talk of being common, there’s plenty of plebeian blood on the spear side of my family.’ (His father was the Duke of Suffolk, his mother the King’s sister, Elizabeth.) ‘Why, the founder of our family’s fortunes, William de la Pole, was a moneylender from Hull, in Yorkshire. My great-great-grandfather, Geoffrey Chaucer, was the son of a London wine merchant – and if you’ve ever read any of those tales of his about pilgrims riding to Canterbury, you’ll know that he had a truly bawdy sense of humour. His wife, my great-great-grandmother Chaucer, was the daughter of a Picardy herald, one Payne de Roet.’ He broke off, aware, perhaps, that he might have denied his royal blood a trifle too enthusiastically. ‘Of course,’ he added with a self-conscious laugh, ‘on my mother’s side, the Plantagenets can claim descent from both Alfred the Great and from Charlemagne.’
I gave a brief bow. ‘Which proves my point.’
‘No, no! Timothy, you’ve explained our dilemma to Master Chapman?’
The spy had regained his composure. ‘Not yet, Your Highness. Roger hasn’t long arrived. But he has expressed his willingness to accompany us back to London and to give us the benefit of his extraordinary talent.’
‘Splendid!’ The earl beamed at us both and I was afraid for a moment that he was going to thump my shoulder for a third time. (I could feel the bruise forming already.) Fortunately, he restrained himself. ‘You can explain everything to him during dinner. I’ve promised to dine with the Constable, and places have been reserved for the pair of you at one of the lower tables.’
‘Unnecessary, My Lord,’ Timothy answered suavely. ‘Roger has invited me to eat with him and his family, but we shall be ready to leave with you and your cavalcade at noon.’
I choked, but no one seemed to notice.
‘Good! Good! You’ll have more privacy.’ Lincoln swung on his heel while his page scrambled to open the door. ‘Master Chapman, many thanks. My Uncle Gloucester is looking forward, I know, to meeting you again.’
Adela was relieved to get me back safe and sound, but unhappy at seeing my companion, whom she rightly regarded as trouble.
She and I held conference in the kitchen, while the two elder children entertained Timothy in the parlour, where he proved himself surprisingly adept at playing fivestones, a game at which Elizabeth and Nicholas normally excelled.
‘I was going on my travels, anyway,’ I argued. ‘I might just as well go to London as elsewhere.’
‘But you won’t be earning any money,’ my practically minded wife pointed out. ‘And working for the Duke has often proved hazardous. If anything happened, how should I manage without you? I think you should refuse.’
‘I can’t,’ I said and explained why.
Adela was horrified. ‘Timothy wouldn’t do that to you! He’s your friend.’
I shook my head. ‘He’s a servant of the state first and my friend a very poor second. Don’t underestimate him, sweetheart. He’s a ruthless man. He couldn’t do his job properly if he weren’t. I’ve no choice but to go with him. And it’s my own foolish fault that I’m in that position. However, I shall take my pack with me. It’s often proved useful for getting my foot inside a stranger’s door, and I might make some money as well. Now, shall we eat? It must be nearly ten o’clock.’
At Adela’s suggestion, Timothy and I ate alone in the parlour, free from interruption by our three young limbs of Satan and from the querulous demands of the stick-thumping patient upstairs. Using the top of an old leather-bound chest we had recently acquired as a table, we made short work of my wife’s meat pasties and gravy, cinnamon tarts and stewed pippins, all washed down with good, strong ale. Rubbing his belly with satisfaction, Timothy was moved to remark that such a meal was enough to make a man think of settling down and getting married himself. But a few seconds later, the sound of Adam throwing one of his tantrums in the kitchen made the spy hurriedly change his mind.
‘So?’ I asked. ‘What’s this all about?’
Timothy drank the last of his ale. ‘A simple enough case, really. Simple, that is, to a man of your deductive powers.’ He noticed my expression and laughed. ‘All right! All right! I won’t insult you with too much flattery.’ Without being invited, he removed himself from his stool to the room’s one armchair and leaned back with a sigh of repletion.
‘Go on,’ I said, valiantly suppressing my annoyance. ‘For a start, what’s Duke Richard doing in London? I understood he rarely leaves Yorkshire nowadays, his dislike of the Queen and her family being so intense.’
Timothy settled himself more comfortably, belched loudly and nodded. ‘That’s true, but in a few days’ time, the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy is to pay a visit to the the land of her birth and the whole family – or as many members of it as can be assembled – have been summoned to London to do her honour. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester’s presence has been particularly requested by the King.’ Timothy grimaced. ‘Easy to guess why, of course. George of Clarence was always Duchess Margaret’s favourite sibling. Her first meeting with the Woodvilles and brother Edward since George’s death is likely to be awkward, to say the least. Duke Richard, who not only had no hand in that death, but protested vehemently against his brother’s attainder and execution, will be the buffer, the pourer of oil on troubled waters, the mediator between the English and Burgundian courts. Young Lincoln and his parents, the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, will be three others. Also Duchess Cicely has already left Berkhamsted and taken up residence in Baynard’s Castle, where the Dowager Duchess Margaret and some of her retinue will be housed. The two women will no doubt have a lot to say to one another in private concerning the Queen and her numerous kinfolk, but the King can depend on his mother to ensure that all her children behave themselves with dignity and propriety in public.’
I interrupted. ‘Is this a state visit on behalf of the Dowager Duchess’s stepdaughter? Or just a family reunion?’
Timothy pulled another face. ‘A little of both, perhaps. The Dowager Duchess hasn’t set foot on English soil since her marriage to Charles of Burgundy almost twelve years ago, so in one way, yes, I suppose it is a sentimental journey for her. And there are members of her family – although not, of course, the King and Duke Richard – whom she hasn’t seen for the same length of time. But it’s also a formal visit on behalf of the Duchess Mary and her husband, Maximilian of Austria, to renew old ties with England – ties that have been somewhat eroded in the last three years since Duke Charles was killed. As you may or may not know – and this benighted city never seems to have any idea of what’s happening anywhere else in the world except Ireland – King Louis has wrested back great swathes of Picardy, Artois and the Franche-Comté for the French Crown.’
I flung up a hand. ‘Spare me the politics, Timothy! I do know King Edward has done nothing to support Burgundy because he receives a fat annual pension from King Louis … Oh, don’t pretend to look surprised. I was in France with Duke Richard, if you remember, when the Treaty of Picquigny was signed. So, how does Duchess Margaret’s visit affect me? King Edward surely can’t be in need of
my
diplomatic skills.’
Timothy shuddered. ‘Heaven forfend! You’d be like a bull let loose among the stalls on market day. No, no! But he does want his sister kept sweet and happy during her visit. Or as sweet and happy as possible considering that the young son of Duchess Margaret’s favourite waiting-woman has recently been murdered. There’s nothing His Highness can do about that, but he and the Duke of Gloucester would at least like to satisfy their sister’s desire for vengeance by bringing the killer to justice.’
I was a little confused. ‘Wait a moment! Where exactly did this murder take place? In Burgundy?’
‘Of course not! Would I be asking for your help to solve it if it had? No. The young man was done to death in London.’
I was even more confused. ‘What was he doing in London? I thought you said—’
It was Timothy’s turn to hold up his hand. ‘Let me explain. I think perhaps I’d better start at the beginning.’
I nodded vigorously. ‘I think perhaps you had.’
So Timothy talked. I listened.
Throughout Margaret of York’s troubled childhood, when, with her two younger brothers, George and Richard, she had been passed from one noble household to another, sometimes as a guest, sometimes as a prisoner, while her father, the Duke of York, fought King Henry VI for possession of the throne, her closest companions had been twins, seamstresses, Judith and Veronica Fennyman. Some five years older than Margaret herself, the girls had been reared in the York household from birth, both their parents having been loyal servants of Duchess Cicely. But when, in 1461, the widowed Duchess’s eldest son had deposed King Henry, avenged his father’s defeat and execution and been proclaimed King Edward IV, the twins had at last considered themselves free to leave Margaret’s employ and marry.
Judith had done very well for herself, marrying a certain Edmund Broderer, ten years her senior – a man with sufficient income from a thriving embroidery business in Needlers Lane to enable him to live at the Fleet Street end of the Strand. At twenty years of age, therefore, Judith had found herself mistress of a comfortable three-storey house which, if not quite as opulent as the neighbouring dwellings (most of which belonged to members of the nobility), still had a garden running down to its own private water-stairs on the bank of the Thames.
The other twin, Veronica, had been satisfied with finding a husband among her fellow servants, and had married one of Duchess Cicely’s grooms, James Quantrell, by whom, the following year, she had had a son, Fulk. Two weeks after the birth, James had been thrown by a wild young stallion he had been trying to tame and trampled underfoot. He had been dead within hours.
The grieving widow and her baby son, invited by Judith and Edmund, had gone to live in the Broderer household, where they had remained for the next six years. No young cousins had arrived to keep Fulk company, and Edmund Broderer’s closest male relative remained his cousin’s son, Lionel, who lived with his mother in Needlers Lane.
Lionel had been apprenticed early to his cousin, and shown such an aptitude for the embroidery trade that by the time he was eighteen he had been running the business for Edmund almost single-handed, while the older man led a life of leisure. Then, on a wild and stormy March evening in the year 1468, Edmund had disappeared while returning home from one of London’s many taverns, his corpse being washed up near Saint Botolph’s wharf three weeks later, stripped of clothes and valuables by the water scavengers who made a gruesome living out of the Thames’s many casualties. He had only been identified by his wife’s intimate knowledge of his body.
In the summer of the same year, Margaret of York, together with a trousseau that had cost the King, her brother, the awesome sum of two and a half thousand pounds, had left England to become the third wife of Charles of Charolais, Duke of Burgundy. Lonely and more than a little frightened – like many a pawn in the royal marriage game before her – she had begged Veronica Quantrell to accompany her as her seamstress-in-chief and, more importantly, as a familiar face and childhood friend. Veronica, in spite of her sister’s recent bereavement, had agreed, and for the next twelve years she and Fulk had made their home in the Burguadian court, wherever it happened to be. Veronica had comforted her mistress as Margaret’s hopes of presenting her lord with a male heir – with an heir of either sex – slowly faded, and were finally snuffed out altogether with Charles’s death. She had become indispensable to the Duchess, and her handsome young son hardly less so. At eighteen, he was Margaret’s favourite male attendant.
‘Then,’ said Timothy, helping himself to more ale, ‘just after last Christmas, Veronica died, and young Fulk decided that he must bring the news to his aunt himself. It would seem that the sisters had always kept in touch and remained on good terms.’
In the intervening twelve years, Judith had married twice more; first to a Justin Threadgold, who had been carried off four years later by the plague, and secondly to a man thirteen years older than herself, her present husband, Godfrey St Clair. Still childless herself, Judith had two stepchildren, Alcina Threadgold and her present husband’s son, Jocelyn St Clair.
Both these young people were treated as Judith’s own, lavished with affection and everything that money could buy. (She was now a very wealthy woman, thanks to Lionel Broderer’s management of the embroidery business.)
‘But it’s the old, familiar story,’ Timothy went on, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Faced with her own flesh and blood, warmed by the young man’s apparent devotion and affection, Judith had barely known him a month before she made him her heir, presented him with extravagant gifts of money and jewels, and allowed herself to become besotted by him …’ There was a pause before Timothy added grimly, ‘Two weeks ago, he was found battered to death in Fleet Street, not two or three hundred yards from his aunt’s home in the Strand.’