‘This was delivered whilst you were closeted with Sir Philip.’
Sevigny thanked the man, broke the crisp red seal and unfolded the expensive parchment. The handwriting was as neat and cursive as that of a chancery clerk; a note from those two eerie bounty-hunters Cosmas and Damian informing him that they would be present in the Holy Lamb of God in Cheapside any time after the Angelus bell sounded. It was just about that time, so Sevigny, one hand on his sword hilt, strolled out of the shadow of the Guildhall and across the broad thoroughfare, surveying the various colourful tavern signs – the Holy Ghost, the Bishop’s Head, the Brazen Serpent, the Goshawk in the Sun – till he glimpsed the Holy Lamb further down.
He had to fight his way through the colourful, smelly throng, shouldering and jostling past traders, tinkers and the garishly garbed whores with their fire-red wigs all askew. He kept a sharp eye out for the nip and the foist. A counterfeit crank, a rogue dressed in filthy rags, his face daubed with blood from the fleshers’ stalls, fell grovelling at his booted feet. This sham was sucking on a piece of soap to give the impression of a frothing mouth. Sevigny kicked him aside and then kicked him again for good measure. Other members of the cranking crew saw this and kept their distance.
He paused to allow the Fraternity of the Hanged, all gowned in deep funereal purple, to process down Cheapside behind a cart with a banner bearing a red cross stretched across the corpses of those cut down from the gibbets at Tyburn. The solemn words of the death psalm echoed above the noise and chatter of the market and the clanging of the Angelus bell. As he watched them go, he wondered who would see to the burial of Candlemas and Cross-Biter. He must remember that. If his memory served him right, both corpses would be buried in quicklime as soon as possible and be swiftly corrupted.
He reached the Holy Lamb and entered its spacious taproom, which smelled sweetly of smoked ham, crushed onion and strong ale. The rushes on the floor, sprinkled with fresh herbs, were glossy green and supple. The two bounty-hunters were seated in the garden beyond, closeted together in a rose-covered arbour, tankards of ale on the table before them.
‘The ideal place for a meeting,’ Sevigny remarked, sitting down opposite them. Both nodded in unison and Sevigny quietly marvelled at this sinister pair; twins, they looked alike except that Cosmas had his left eye socket sewn up, Damian his right. They wore the same clay-coloured robes bound round the middle with a rough cord, stout sandals on their bare feet. Each had a silver ring dangling from his right ear lobe; their faces were small, round as a pebble, rather womanish. According to Sheriff Malpas, both men had served as spies in the Byzantine army. They had been captured by the Ottoman Turks, blinded in one eye, castrated and pegged out in the desert. A hermit had, by God’s favour, rescued them and nursed them back to health. Born of English stock, they had returned to London under their adopted names, Cosmas and Damian, after two Greek physicians martyred for their faith. Once in the city, this precious pair had acquired a reputation second to none for being the most skilled of searchers.
‘God knows how they do it,’ Malpas had growled. ‘They dress like mendicants yet they have amassed gold and silver from many rewards and bounties. Perhaps that is their secret: no one truly fears them, since they are overlooked, or rejected as grotesques, nothing more.’
‘What have you discovered?’ Sevigny took two thick pieces of silver from his purse and laid them on the table.
‘Giles Argentine.’ Cosmas leaned forward even as Damian did, his voice trilling like that of a young boy. ‘A physician with secrets, yes?’
Sevigny nodded. He had told them little about the scandals Argentine cherished.
‘A true busy bee,’ Cosmas whispered. ‘Stories about this, tales about that. Well, he has disappeared like mist on a summer morning. Now, he will not hide in the shires, where strangers are soon noted. We suspect he is not far from London. However, no hospice, abbey, monastery or convent shelters him. Again people chatter, especially the guest masters.’
‘So,’ Damian took up the story, ‘we did our own searches. We sat, thought and discussed, didn’t we, brother? We reached the conclusion that the best place to hide is where no one will go, a leper house, a lazar hospital, especially one where your kinsman is the master. That brings us to our own leper hospital at St Giles, only a walk away from the gallows, a large house, a sprawling hospital for men and women. Argentine could hide there, well protected by his powerful kinsman Master Joachim Brotherton.’ Damian smiled; he had the strong white teeth of a dog. ‘Now, Master Sevigny, my brother and I have served in Outremer; we have seen leprosy in all its horror. We will not, cannot go in there.’
‘But I can?’ Sevigny pushed the silver coins over. ‘These are still yours.’
‘Amadeus,’ Cosmas murmured, ‘you are a powerful clerk. I am sure my lord sheriff would grant you powers of search…’
Nodding his head in agreement, Sevigny turned and asked a slattern to bring three black jacks of ale. Once these were served, the clerk sat sipping his, staring at these two grotesques with their falsely benign smiles.
‘And LeCorbeil?’ he demanded.
‘Strange, strange and stranger still,’ both chorused together, then paused as a travelling juggler with a weasel in the crook of his arm and a monkey wearing a bell cap perched on his shoulder came into the garden. He sat down on a turf seat, where he was joined by a teller of tales garbed in a patchwork of colours. The new arrivals were drunk and garrulous, showing each other tricks and sleights of hand. Cosmas indicated them with his head. ‘Trickery and shadow,’ he declared.
‘What do you mean?’
‘LeCorbeil is many things: a town in Normandy, the place of a hideous massacre; the name of a Frenchman who hates the English Crown, and Beaufort in particular; as well as a group of mercenaries skilled in the crossbow.’
‘How many?’
‘To quote the Gospels, their name is legion.’
‘And where do they shelter?’
‘Here, there and everywhere. At the moment, a deserted village deep in the Essex countryside. More than that we cannot say, except,’ Damian abruptly pushed across another square of parchment, ‘after we leave, read that. We take our task seriously. We also wish to impress. We like to know our customers, so we have kept you and yours under strict watch. We heard about the attack on you at St Mary’s.’ He gestured at the parchment. ‘You have been honourable, you have paid us and shown us courtesy.’ He pulled a face. ‘You might find that of great interest. Now…’ They made to rise.
‘No, wait!’ Sevigny put the piece of parchment into his wallet and asked the slattern to bring inkhorn, quill and a scrap of vellum. He scribbled for a while and handed the memorandum to the two searchers. ‘Watch them,’ he said, tapping the table. ‘Follow them for a day or two, discover what you can, then let me know.’
Damian read Sevigny’s message, glanced at his brother and raised his hand in agreement. Then both hunters rose, bowed and slipped out through a narrow wicket gate into the alleyway beyond.
When they had gone, Sevigny opened the parchment he had been given and read the precise chancery script. He felt a shiver of coldness followed by a spurt of fiery anger. He sat clenching his hands in rage as he fought the hideous red mist that had plagued his soul since childhood, disembodied voices echoing through his mind shrieking battle cries.
‘Sir! Sir!’
Sevigny opened his eyes. The white-faced slattern was gaping fearfully at him. He realised he had drawn his dagger and was holding it up, blade out, his other hand on his sword hilt.
‘Sir?’
‘I am sorry.’ Sevigny let the knife clatter on to the table and took out a coin. Leaning over, he pressed it into the girl’s bony hand. Then he drew a deep breath, rose, sheathed his dagger and left the tavern.
Sevigny was blind and deaf to the noisy crowds as he walked back to the Golden Harp, where he and Bardolph were staying. Once there, he calmed himself by going into the stables to stroke the glossy black coat of Leonardo, his great destrier. He leaned against the horse’s warm flank, letting the horse nuzzle at his hand, soothing his soul. He patted Leonardo, kissed him on the muzzle, rubbing between the horse’s ears and whispering endearments. At last he was ready. He crossed to the taproom. Bardolph was drinking in a candlelit corner; the tallow flame illuminated the archer’s unshaven face, his drooping eyes and the bitter twist to his mouth. Sevigny moved a stool close to the barrel table and drew his dagger. Bardolph started in surprise. Sevigny leaned closer, pressing the dagger tip against the man’s slightly swollen belly.
‘It is dark in here,’ he murmured. ‘No one can see. Even if they could, I am a royal clerk. I’ll draw your dagger and push it into your hand as you die. I’ll claim it was self-defence.’ He watched the fear flare in Bardolph’s eyes. ‘Just a push.’
‘What is this… why? Bardolph’s fear could not hide his realisation of a trap being sprung.
‘The Inglenook in Southwark.’ Sevigny pressed on the dagger. ‘You went there, I know you did. Two associates of mine followed you. You met three wolfsheads, former soldiers. You hired them to murder me. I killed one of them. Before he died, this assassin confessed that he’d been hired by a man with a strange accent. You hale from the Yorkshire dales. Your burr would sound like a foreign language to a Londoner. Don’t lie; more importantly, don’t waste my time.’
Bardolph blinked and wetted his lips. ‘You think I’m sullen,’ he replied. ‘And so I am. Why not? I am a bowman, one of the best. A master archer, not an assassin.’
‘Who ordered you to have me killed?’
‘You know full well,’ the archer whispered. ‘The duchess hates you. She fiercely resents your influence in her husband’s affairs. Perhaps you know more about his business than you should. I was given a choice: either you died in London or I would not return to her service or that of the duke.’
‘Do you know what secrets the duchess suspects I hold?’ Sevigny tried to keep his voice steady as he realised that the fabric of his life was tearing, crumbling here in this tawdry tavern corner.
‘No, master, but like others, I have heard certain whispers about her. I used to think they were tittle-tattle; perhaps they’re not.’ Bardolph picked up his tankard even as his hand stole to the long Welsh stabbing dirk sheathed in his belt.
‘Don’t!’ Sevigny warned. ‘I’d be much swifter. Drink with two hands.’
‘You can kill me,’ Bardolph grasped the tankard with both hands, ‘God knows I deserve it, yet I tell you this. The duchess wants to be rid of you. If I do not succeed, you will be sent on some embassy to the far reaches of the earth and you will not be coming back.’ He lifted the tankard in toast. ‘I don’t want to die unshriven.’
‘You are not going to die.’ Sevigny let the dagger droop. ‘You cannot go back to the duchess, but I do not want your blood on my hands.’ He gestured with his head. ‘Go, Bardolph. Take passage abroad. They need good English bowmen, be it in Hainault, Flanders or the cities along the Rhine. However,’ he sheathed the dagger, ‘if we meet again, I shall certainly kill you.’
Bardolph stared in disbelief and swallowed hard. Sevigny gazed back. He was tired of killing, and for some strange reason he could not forget Katherine Roseblood’s beautiful face, so vibrant with merriment, life and the good things of an innocent soul. She would not like these filthy doings in the deepest shadows.
‘Go, go!’ He gestured with his fingers. Bardolph got slowly to his feet and extended a hand, but let it fall when Sevigny did not respond. He pushed past the clerk, then abruptly clasped him on the shoulder and leaned down.
‘I asked the duchess what would happen if I failed. She replied that there would be other men and fresh occasions. My gift to you, remember that, clerk.’ And he was gone.
Sevigny sat for a while. He felt trapped in the deepest darkness. Demons prowled and the only sound was their gasping breath and the rasp of steel being drawn. York was a good lord. Sevigny had sealed indentures with him, done fealty, though he had never sworn the oath of allegiance. Strangely enough, York had never asked for that. Had he always known that one day he might have to abandon Sevigny to the murderous whims of his beautiful duchess? The Rose of Raby had wrapped herself around the duke, body and soul. Sevigny had heard the whispers of how skilled and versatile she was in bed, creating a kingdom where she was lord and York her humble servant. He ignored the pressing feeling of despair, though he accepted in his heart that he and York were finished.
‘I will see this through,’ he murmured to himself, ‘and I will be gone. But what then?’
As a member of York’s household, Sevigny received robes, supplies and monies every quarter, but that did not concern him. He had inherited money from his parents’ estates and had secreted it away with bankers in London, York and Lincoln. Would he engage with another lord’s household? He was registered as a royal clerk in the King’s chancery.
Sevigny shook his head and rose to his feet. The future would have to wait. Cosmas and Damian were now busy on their errand. And Argentine? The searchers were correct: he would have to invoke the authority of the sheriff. Ravenspur was a different matter. Nevertheless, he would finish that task as well, keep faith with York even if the duke did not keep faith with him. Whatever happened, he would return to report on his mission. Afterwards he would put as much distance between himself and the malevolent duchess as possible.
The next morning, after a night’s sleep plagued by ghosts from the past, Sevigny rose, shaved and washed. He put on fresh robes and visited the taverns near New Temple where the lawyers gathered, Hell’s Inn and Heaven’s Hope. The two hostelries stood only a few paces apart and were the favourite gathering places for lawyers and judges before the courts sat at Westminster. They provided a rich source of gossip, lawyers being party to the devices and plans of the great warlords.
He soon learnt that Malpas was correct. Beaufort and the Queen intended to call a great assembly at Leicester without York or his allies being present. Secretly the Crown was issuing writs for troops to be raised in every shire north of London so that when they left the city, Beaufort and Queen Margaret would be escorted to Leicester by an army. York of course suspected this and had sent urgent messages to his northern allies begging them to raise their forces and hurry them south. The narrow-eyed lawyers in their costly robes, bulging chancery bags on the floor between their feet, were eager to cap each other’s rumours. Sevigny learnt the truth: the parliament at Leicester was only a cat’s paw to mass troops and strike at York.