The Dance of Death (8 page)

Once more, I was briefly conscious of the disproportion of his shoulders, but then the illusion of lopsidedness was gone. He rang a small silver hand-bell that was on the tray with the flask and goblets and, to my astonishment, stepped forward and embraced me.

‘You've been a good friend and servant to me, Roger, over the years and I wouldn't have you think that I'm ungrateful. Don't let this mission to France worry you. If things should go wrong – which I by no means expect – I shan't let them hail you off to the gallows.'

Which was very pretty talking, I thought to myself, provided the duke didn't first find himself dead by poisoning or a mysterious accident. Or if I didn't. Because if the queen's family did happen to get even the merest whisper of what I was about, I'd be far more likely to end up in some Parisian alley with a dagger in my back than find myself arraigned for treason. That would mean a trial with witnesses and evidence, and the Woodvilles wouldn't want that: it would bring everything into the open. Secrecy and no questions raised in people's minds were the better option. I recalled the Duke of Clarence's obscure death in the Tower – drowned, the rumour had it, in a butt of malmsey wine. He had had a trial of sorts – I had been present at it, amongst the spectators – but it had amounted to little more than a shouting match between him and his elder brother. And it had ended abruptly with nothing really resolved: no explanation of why the king, after years of enduring brother George's vagaries and betrayals, had suddenly decided to be rid of him. Had Clarence also been digging around in this particular bed of worms? Had it occurred to him that if their mother's story were indeed true, and Edward were really a bastard, then he was the rightful king? Loyalty to his brother wouldn't have stayed his hand, as it stayed Prince Richard's . . .

My uneasy thoughts were interrupted as I realized the duke was bidding me goodnight. The servant who had poured the wine for us was again in the room, waiting to show me out. I knelt and kissed my lord's hand, catching his eye as I rose to my feet. His expression was wry and he gave me a half-guilty smile.

‘God be with you, Roger,' he said. And, almost as if it were forced from him, ‘Good luck.'

There was no answer to that. I bowed, swung on my heel and left the room.

Five

Outside the chamber, I found the lackey who had earlier served the wine waiting for me. I raised my eyebrows in enquiry.

‘I'm to conduct you to your room, master.'

I shook my head. ‘There's no need. I know where it is.'

‘I'll accompany you,' he insisted stubbornly. ‘The duke's orders. I've to see you're comfortable and to bring you your all-night.'

I shrugged. ‘Oh, very well.'

He followed me silently along the narrow passages and up the twisting stairs until we finally reached a row of five single cells close to the men servants' dormitory. Once or twice I made an attempt at conversation, but my efforts were met either with silence or a grunt, so I gave up, saying nothing more until I came to a halt outside the first door of the five.

I turned to face him. ‘This is it.'

He nodded. ‘I'll remember.' He hesitated, then said with more warmth than he had displayed so far, ‘If you wish to come down to the common hall later on, you'll likely find some games of chance being played – fivestones, three men's morris, hazard, that sort of thing – among those of us not on duty. A few will even wager on the outcome of a game of chess. You'll come to the chapel for prayers, of course, when the bell rings.'

‘I'm in no mood for playing games,' I said abruptly, then added, to show I meant no ill will, ‘I've had bad news today. I'd rather be alone.'

‘In that case –' the man stepped back a pace – ‘I'll see you get your all-night and leave you to your own company.' And he made off down the stairs.

I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, a straw-filled mattress placed on a stone ledge and covered with three rough grey blankets. The pillow, however, was stuffed with feathers, and a linen sheet had been interposed between blankets and mattress. I supposed I was lucky – I was being afforded special treatment – but it was nothing like the comfort I enjoyed at home, where I ought to be, and my grievance returned in full force. My grief for Jeanne Lamprey and Reynold Makepeace also surfaced again and I found tears welling up and running down my cheeks before I could check them. Moreover, the stuffiness of the little room was beginning to make my senses swim. I almost decided to visit the common hall and distract myself with some cheerful company, but somehow could not bring myself to do so.

The opening of the door heralded the arrival of my all-night, a ewer of wine, a mazer, a large hunk of bread and a leather bottle that proved to contain water. The young boy who brought the tray drew my attention to it. ‘I put it on meself,' he confided. ‘Gets 'ot up 'ere, it does. These rooms are like a bake'ouse oven, I'll tell you. An' wine don't allus quench yer thirst.'

I thanked him with real gratitude. He gave me a sympathetic wink and withdrew. I moved the tray and its burden from the end of the bed, where the boy had placed it, to a shelf just inside the door. This, together with a wooden armchair, that looked as if it had seen better days and had been dragged in to give the room some semblance of added comfort (a forlorn hope!) comprised the rest of the furnishings. Luxury was not for menials, I reflected bitterly, recalling the richness of the ducal apartment and also what travelling with the Duke of Albany had meant over the past few months.

It was too early to sleep properly, so I stretched out on the bed and tried to doze, but the castle was still too alive, echoing to the sounds of distant laughter and raised voices. I sat up again and swung my legs to the floor, my feet tapping a tattoo against the cold stone. Now, suddenly, I felt fidgety, bored and bad-tempered all at the same time. I knew that if I just sat and thought, grief and longing for home would engulf me once more and that desperation might make me do something extremely foolish, such as rushing headlong to the duke and telling him to find someone else to do his bidding.

I stood up and reached for the bottle of water, removing the stopper and swallowing half the contents at one go. Then I sat down again and drank the rest slowly, savouring the clear, refreshing taste of the Paddington springs, whence it came, piped into the city's conduits. I felt a little better and was once more toying with the idea of descending to the common hall when I remembered Timothy's suggestion that I commit the duke's instructions to memory before disposing of them. I took the paper from my pouch, then got up and lit the candle, which was on the shelf beside a tinder box, dragged the chair into its circle of light and settled down to read and reread the neat, meticulous writing of John Kendal, Prince Richard's secretary, until I could recite every word without once referring to the text. When I had done this three times in a row, and then done it a fourth and fifth time, just to be certain, I held the paper to the candle-flame and watched it burn to ashes, which I scrunched beneath my heel as they floated to the ground.

I decided I deserved a reward and, raising my arm, lifted down the mazer without getting to my feet. But when, lazily, I attempted to do the same with the ewer, I only succeeded in hitting it off the tray. It fell with a crash of metal against stone, the lid flying open and the wine spilling across the floor in dark red rivulets, making little islands and peninsulas on the flags. Cursing myself for a fool, and a clumsy fool at that, I picked up the jug to see if any wine was left, but all my shaking produced only the merest dribble in the bottom of the cup. Disgustedly, I replaced everything on the shelf and retired to the bed, leaving the puddle of wine to dry overnight or seep away between the pavers.

I realized that the castle was quiet at last, only the shouts of the watchmen punctuating the silence. It had taken me longer than I thought to learn by heart the list of questions that I must eventually put to Robin Gaunt if ever I managed to find him. Perhaps this Humphrey Culpepper would be able to provide me with some valuable information, but I very much doubted it. It was all too long ago: forty years.

I stood up, stretched and undressed, pulling off my boots and then stripping slowly, feeling the cold night air from the slit of a window on my bare skin. I threw my clothes on to the chair in an untidy heap, opened the door briefly while I peed into the corridor, then, suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue, climbed into bed and fell immediately asleep.

In my dream, both Jeanne Lamprey and Reynold Makepeace were seated in my kitchen at home, assuring me that they were not, after all, dead and that I did not have to go to France. It was all just a silly joke perpetrated by my family. Adela and the children, who had not been present a moment ago, were now seated on the other side of the table, nodding and doubled up with laughter, pointing their fingers and shouting, ‘April fool!' I kept trying to tell them that it wasn't spring but autumn, but no one would listen to me. A strange man then appeared, saying that he was Robin Gaunt, all the time dodging behind the others so that I was unable to see his face. I yelled at him to stand still, but he only laughed and kept on moving.

Suddenly, I was wide awake, staring into the darkness and conscious of another presence in the room. I raised myself on one elbow, still trying to free my mind from the cobwebs of sleep.

‘Who . . .? What . . .?' I muttered, my voice thick in my throat.

There was a violent imprecation, then a sudden rush of movement and the opening of the door, letting in a draught of stale air from the passageway. I struggled out of bed, the cold of the flagstones striking up through the soles of my feet and shocking me into wakefulness. But I was too late to catch a glimpse of the intruder. The flickering torches in the wall sconces illuminated the corridor, to right and left, silent and empty. The only noise came from the adjacent male dormitory, a faint cacophony of snores and groans that disturbed the men's sleep. Cursing, I stepped back inside my narrow cell, pulling the door shut behind me.

I lit the candle and looked around. My clothes, which had been thrown across the chair, now lay in a heap on the floor, and on top of the pile was my pouch. This had been freed from my belt and was open, the flap bent back to give a groping hand better access, and my breeches, shirt and jerkin had been turned carefully inside out as if to ensure that they contained no concealed pockets. Someone, I reflected grimly, had been searching for the Duke of Gloucester's instructions, and but for my boredom of the previous evening, they would have been found. Thankfully, I blessed Timothy Plummer's foresight.

Something moved near my foot, and such was my state of nerves that I jumped nearly out of my skin. I spun round and lowered the candlestick nearer the floor just in time to see a mouse scrabbling wildly to find its feet, its little claws scraping the stones. It was acting as if it were drunk, its whiskers all wet, and I suddenly realized the reason. It must have been licking up some of the spilled wine and was now paying the penalty for its greed. But even as I watched, it staggered, fell over, twitched violently for a second or two, then lay still. My heart pounding uncomfortably, I crouched down and prodded it with my finger. There was no response. It was dead.

I reached out a finger and dipped it in a half-dried puddle of the ruby liquid, then cautiously raised it to my lips. There was a slightly strange taste to it, but that, of course, could be nothing more than the taint of damp and mildew from the flagstones. It wasn't in itself proof that the wine had been drugged, but the evidence of the mouse seemed to point that way. If a strong soporific had been used, it might well have proved too much for a little rodent. I ruled out poison. That would have been stupid, indicating at once that there were others anxious to learn of the duke's intentions, others who suspected that my and Mistress Gray's journey to France was a cloak for another, more secret mission. But thanks to my clumsiness, I had failed to drink the wine and so been alerted to possible danger. Nor were the unknown ‘they' any the wiser.

I picked up my clothes, laid them on the chair again and got back into bed, shivering with cold. If I caught an ague on top of everything else, I should have a few harsh words to say to Timothy Plummer. On reflection, I would have more than a few harsh words to say to him in the morning. I lay for a while, straining my ears, but I doubted anyone would risk a return visit, especially as whoever it was had probably satisfied himself that what he was looking for was no longer among my possessions.

But why did I naturally assume that my visitor had been a man? It might equally as well have been a woman. I had been too drugged with sleep to have any clear idea of the intruder's sex, yet a certain sense of bulk persuaded me that the presence had been male. But who? Who, apart from Timothy and the duke, knew of my secret instructions, and, above all, who could possibly have been aware that I was carrying them in my pouch?

I had a sudden picture of myself the previous evening with the duke. I was saying something, something about ‘when I read what you had written', and tapping my belt . . . And the servant, who had entered unobserved by me, was there, pouring the wine, the same servant who had insisted on accompanying me to my room so that he might know where I was housed . . .

A Woodville agent? He had to be! I could at least provide Timothy with a description, although I doubted that morning would still find the man in the castle. He would slip out at first light to report his failure to his superiors, and if he had any sense, he wouldn't come back. On the other hand, he might underrate my intelligence. Plenty of people had done that before now. To their cost.

Eventually, I drifted into an uneasy sleep, a tangle of nightmarish dreams that again featured Reynold Makepeace and Jeanne Lamprey and a whole host of grinning skeletons who were dancing round and round me in a ring.