The Dance of Death (21 page)

The landlord, a sensible fellow who plainly had no intention of carrying out this order, said nothing, merely muttering something under his breath that could have been mistaken for acquiescence. He was removing the last of the empty supper dishes, and had just instructed one of his assistants to make up the fire from the pile of logs at one side of the hearth, when a sudden lull in the noise from across the passage enabled us to distinguish the drum of hoof-beats on the slippery quayside cobbles. Immediately afterwards, a man's voice was raised, cursing and shouting for the stable boy, before being lost again in the howl of the wind and a crescendo of singing from the room opposite.

In spite of this, however, Jane Armiger's head jerked round, her whole body rigidly at attention, one forefinger slightly raised. ‘That was Oliver's voice,' she said.

Her husband looked up from his book – a handsome folio bound in pale blue silk with silver tassels – and answered scathingly, ‘Nonsense!'

For once, she felt strong enough to argue with him. ‘It was, I tell you!' She had risen to her feet and was listening intently, but the uproar from the ale room made it impossible to hear anything else.

‘Sit down, you silly child!' Robert Armiger snapped irritably. ‘What on earth would your brother be doing here? He's snug somewhere inside Baynard's Castle, playing at dice, if I know him.'

He spoke, I thought, rather scathingly of his brother-in-law, decidedly at variance with his tone when he had first mentioned that worthy, the inference then having been that the young man held a position of some consequence in the Duchess of York's household.

‘It is Oliver, I tell you,' Jane Armiger persisted, braving her husband's displeasure.

‘Oh well! We shall soon find out,' William Lackpenny said peaceably, stepping nobly into the breach to protect his lady from another scolding.

Even as he spoke, the sound of the inn door being flung open, to be sent crashing back against the passage wall by the force of the wind, made further speculation useless for the moment. The landlord hurried from the room to greet the newcomer as someone possibly of importance and certainly from a distance. No local or sailor would be arriving on horseback.

Eloise turned her head. ‘You are expecting your brother to join you, Mistress Armiger?' she enquired.

It was Robert who replied. ‘No! She is not!'

It struck me that he was very put out by the notion and I wondered why.

Eloise ignored this outburst. ‘Jane?' she queried.

Jane fluttered a nervous glance in her husband's direction. ‘As–as a matter of f–fact,' she stammered, ‘Oliver d–did say he . . . he might try to . . . obtain leave of absence from Master Steward to . . . to come with us to Paris.' She drew a deep breath and plunged on, ‘He hasn't seen our aunt and cousins for several years now. He thought it would be a good opportunity for us to travel together. But when we left London, he still wasn't certain that he would be granted permission. He said if he were, he would ride hard and try to catch us up.'

It was obvious from Robert Armiger's face that this was the first he had heard of any such arrangement between the brother and sister. Throughout his wife's hesitant recital, his expression had been growing steadily more thunderous. There was alarm there, too, and unease. It occurred to me that he was ashamed of this Oliver, who was possibly of a more lowly status in the duchess's household than pleased the high and mighty Master Armiger.

This explanation had barely crossed my mind when the landlord came bustling back into the parlour, rubbing his hands in the manner of someone who has pleasant news to impart. He addressed Jane.

‘Mistress Armiger!' He was smiling broadly. ‘A happy surprise for you.' I saw Robert Armiger's expression stiffen with dismay. The landlord continued, flinging out his hands in what he was sure must be a shared delight, ‘Your brother is here. He has caught you up.' He stood aside, beckoning to someone behind him to come in.

The doorway seemed suddenly blocked, all light from the passageway shut out, filled with an enormous specimen of humanity. Then the man stepped forward into the parlour, his arms held out to Mistress Armiger, dwarfing her. Dwarfing all of us, if it came to that, with his girth and height.

I recognized him at once.

It was the Duchess of York's master cook.

It was Goliath.

My first thought was that he would recognize me, and I stepped back into the corner shadows of the room.

Eloise had recognized him as well, from her brief glimpse of him as he had manhandled me into the common hall last Wednesday evening, but I was confident Goliath would not remember her: he had not, to the best of my recollection, even seen her. At the moment of my humiliation, she had been sitting some way away from the kitchen door. He had disappeared by the time she came to my rescue.

Second thoughts persuaded me that he was unlikely to recognize me, either. Looking back on our unfortunate encounter, I realized that he had scarcely accorded me much real attention. He had been too anxious to be rid of me. He had simply picked me up and propelled me through the door, rather like swatting an irritating fly. It was unlikely that he would associate the poorly dressed menial with my present seeming affluence. I was worrying unnecessarily. I stepped forward again, full into the light. He turned towards me as Jane Armiger began to introduce us all. Now was the moment of truth.

‘And this is Master Chapman,' she was saying, ‘whose party Robert and I have joined. He is a haberdasher, travelling to Paris on business. And this is Mistress Chapman, his wife. Please allow me to present to you both my brother, Master Oliver Cook.'

My hand was crushed in the giant's until I could hear the bones crack, but there was no hint of recognition.

‘I'm obliged to you, sir, for providing my sister with congenial company.' He shot a snide sidelong glance at his brother-in-law as he spoke, then turned to William Lackpenny. ‘And you, sir! You are . . .?'

Jane Armiger introduced our travelling companion in a slightly breathless way that betrayed a sudden nervousness. Her brother glanced at her sharply, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. He looked again, more openly this time, at Robert Armiger, but the latter was too wrapped up in his own complacency to imagine, even for a second, that his wife might prefer anyone else to him. In any case, I guessed he was bracing himself for the moment when Master Cook's true position in the Duchess of York's household would be revealed.

Meantime, Goliath was subjecting Will to close scrutiny. ‘Haven't I seen you before somewhere, Master Lackpenny?' he asked brusquely.

‘You may have,' was the laconic reply. ‘At any rate, I've seen you. I'm a member of Sir Edward Woodville's household and I was at the banquet at Baynard's Castle the other night. I saw you when the Duke of Gloucester ordered you to be brought before him and his mother at the end of the meal in order to thank you personally for the magnificent feast you had provided. A gracious gesture, I thought, but certainly not undeserved. Every course was superb.'

His condescending manner was lost on Oliver Cook, who merely grinned and said with utter confidence, ‘I'm the best you'll find anywhere. Although,' he added disconsolately, ‘my remarkable talents are largely wasted in the duchess's employ. She's too penny-pinching since she embraced the religious life. One of these days, I shall be forced to accept one of the many offers I'm always receiving from other members of the nobility to cook for them.' He released Will's hand and nodded. ‘That must have been where I saw you, then. Although I wouldn't have said I noticed anyone in particular. I mean on the lower tables, of course.'

My smart young gent coloured a little at having been so easily placed among the menials, but he said nothing. There was, after all, nothing he could say.

‘Well, Robert,' Master Cook continued, throwing one huge arm about his brother-in-law's shoulders, just as the landlord re-entered the parlour with a tray laden with food and a stoup of wine. ‘I can tell you're pleased to see me.' He shook with suppressed laughter. ‘Your expression is a picture, believe me.' He turned to Eloise. ‘Robert doesn't like admitting he married a cook's sister. A cook's daughter, if it comes to that. Our father was even better at his trade than I am, wasn't he, Jane? And that is to say he was the very best of his generation. But Robert regards it as a lowly occupation and is secretly ashamed of not being able to resist a pretty face.'

I expected Master Armiger to bluster and deny the charge, but he didn't. He just picked up his book again, hunched his shoulder towards the rest of us and went on reading. Goliath chuckled, pulled up a stool to the table and attacked the cold pigeon pie.

I took the opportunity to slip out of the parlour and cross the passage to the ale room, hoping to find John Bradshaw among its many occupants. It took me a few minutes to locate him, but I discovered him at last tucked into a discreet corner by the hearth, drinking steadily, but soberly, alongside Philip Lamprey, who seemed as morose as ever. As he glanced up and saw me struggling through the crowd towards his corner, Philip gave me what could only be construed as a look of desperation. He nudged his companion and muttered something before standing up and emptying his still half-full beaker of ale into the floor rushes.

‘Here, you c'n have my place, Roger,' he muttered. When I protested, he said something about having to attend to the horses and had vanished into the rowdy throng before I could stop him.

I sighed, sitting down beside John on the narrow bench. ‘He's no different, then?' I groaned.

‘Give him time,' John grunted. ‘What are you doing here? Masters don't join their servants in the ale room. And by the way, while I think of it –' he lowered his voice, although no one could have overheard us in that din – ‘don't forget to settle with the landlord about the lodging and maintenance of the horses while we're in France. Pay him half whatever he asks and promise the rest on our return.' I nodded, trying to look as though I had already worked it all out, when in fact I had given no thought whatsoever to the animals or what was to become of them during our absence. John went on, ‘So? Why have you come to find me? What's happened now?'

I explained about the arrival of Oliver Cook and his relationship to Mistress Armiger and reminded him of the story of my own fraught encounter with the giant of the Baynard's Castle kitchens.

‘Has he recognized you?' John demanded, but not too anxiously.

‘Not yet.'

‘Nor will he.' John spoke confidently and, slewing round, eyed me up and down. ‘You look nothing like your normal self. Those clothes give you a different appearance altogether. You give the impression of a confident, prosperous merchant. A master tradesman.'

‘And I don't normally?' I was indignant, and also perturbed. His words had shattered my self-deluded image.

He grinned and shook his head. ‘Now go back to the parlour,' he advised. ‘And don't come frequenting the ale room too often. It will occasion remark.'

‘How long are we going to be stranded here?' I asked savagely.

‘I don't know. I'm no King Cnut, trying to command the wind and waves.'

‘He didn't,' I retorted. ‘He was just trying to teach his sycophantic courtiers a lesson – that he wasn't God.' On which erudite note – a sop to my battered self-esteem – I stomped off to rejoin my fellow travellers in the parlour.

The next day, the weather had improved enough to make sailing a possibility, but the master of
The Sea Nymph
had scruples about putting to sea on a Sunday and hoped, apologetically, that we would share them.

We had no choice, which he well knew, so we all went to church and confessed our sins, then hung around the inn, praying that the weather would improve even more by the following morning.

It was a long and trying day, with a bunch of ill-assorted people, at least two of whom thoroughly disliked one another, cooped up in a small inn parlour, having too much time on their hands and too little to keep themselves occupied. Walking was limited because of the weather, which, as I have said, was less stormy, but still did not permit of much outdoor exercise. Mistress Armiger and William Lackpenny did, on one occasion, manage to disappear at the same time, but if the lady's husband seemed unaware of the fact, her brother did not, and went in search of her almost immediately. Within a very short space of time, Jane returned to the parlour in company with Goliath, an angry spot of colour in either cheek, to be followed sometime later by Will, sporting what was undoubtedly a black eye. His tale of having walked into an open door was, to say the least, unconvincing, but as Robert Armiger apparently failed to notice the injury, or accepted the explanation for it without question, there was only Eloise and myself to be amused by the black looks Will directed in Oliver Cook's direction for the rest of the day.

The excellent meals did, it was true, provide some respite from our collective boredom, but towards evening, just after supper, a bitter quarrel broke out between Robert Armiger and his brother-in-law. I was not present for the beginning of it, having gone to relieve myself in the outside privy, but recriminations were in full flow by the time I returned to the parlour. It didn't take me many moments to realize that Jane Armiger was the cause of the contention, with Oliver accusing Robert of not taking sufficient care of her, and Master Armiger bitterly regretting that he had allowed himself to be trapped in an unsuitable marriage. Words and phrases such as ‘low connections', ‘greasy scullions' and ‘thick-headed yokels' escaped his lips in an insulting stream until Oliver, goaded beyond endurance, hit him, a good right-handed punch that sent Robert crashing to the floor.