Authors: J.E. Moncrieff
“David you seriously cannot ever tell me this smells good!” said Jake as he tiptoed through the overflowed cesspool he’d wandered into walking through the south end of Islington towards the home of De Lyons.
“It stinks of shit,” Charlotte agreed.” Just stick to the middle and away from the windows.”
“Great, gonna get slop poured on my head am I?”
“Yes,” said David seriously.
Although the sky was still a light blue, the shine had gone as the late summer evening faded and the high, narrow pass between the buildings became dim. Staying just north of the city, they hadn’t walked far before they came to the street De Lyons described in Islington. Approaching a hill that Samuel had gone into detail about with Charlotte; she, Jake and John stopped still and looked across the road.
“A white-timber town house with two wide, black doors. Rather unique for this day and age!” she recited in the exaggerated upper class tone of Samuel himself.
“That’ll be it there then,” Jake said, looking at a crooked and rundown two-storey terraced house with a dangerous looking first floor overhang and large double doors in its centre.
“Quite the city townhouse,” she said, smiling.
Glancing together, they approached the door and knocked once, standing back as a shutter slid open revealing a small hole and a shadow behind it. Not a sound was made as the three of them stood there nervously waiting until an audible sigh of recognition sounded from inside and the shutter was closed again. The sound of hidden bolts and beams being removed echoed through the door before it was finally opened and the short statured Samuel De Lyons stood smiling in the doorway.
“Mademoiselle Du Lac? What a surprise!” he said; clearly forgetting his state of undress.
“Mr De Lyons,” she replied in a tone of embarrassment to portray her proposed class. “You appear rather dishevelled, Sir,” she added, shielding her eyes from his un-tucked shirt and uncovered hose.
Gasping and looking down at himself, he nervously stepped back and stood half hidden by the door in the dim light.
“I’m sorry, Miss Du Lac. Forgive me,” he said, nervously. “So how are you?”
She feigned embarrassment again as she stood aside letting Jake step into view.
“Monsieur, you should not address me without first addressing my husband to be. And we are all rather chilly out here.”
“Oh dear, my apologies. Sir John, Sir Jake, welcome to my home. Please, all of you do come in.”
Jake and John both bowed their heads gratefully and stepped in smiling.
“Thank you, De Lyons. We are grateful,” John said, kindly.
“Please, call me Samuel.”
“Very well, Samuel. You may address us as John and Jake.
“Now,” Jake jumped in. “Would you mind dressing more appropriately in front of Miss Du Lac?”
With a face of clear horror and shame, Samuel nodded and stepped away, turning to offer a look of apology to Charlotte who winked back reassuringly and made him smile.
“Please,” he said, turning to a tight staircase. “Go through the door behind you and make yourselves at home.”
Opening the door first, John walked into a small, warm room, gently lit with a number of candles around several soft-looking seats and a large, solid oak desk to one side. Charlotte shut the door behind them and punched Jake in the arm grinning.
“You’re so mean!” she whispered, excitedly. “Did you see his face?”
Giggling and holding his arm in response, he pinched her side playfully with his free hand and opened his mouth in mocking of Samuel’s expression.
“Don’t,” she said, smiling.
“One must be in role, fiancée,” he replied and laughed. “Now make sure you behave yourself.”
John shook his head and looked away from yet another unspoken, private moment and looked around the room for a clue. The desk was littered with wrapped scrolls and scribbled notes in messy piles held down by paperweights. John tried his best to keep things where they were as he shifted through the piles, but as far as he could see the diary wasn’t there.
“Don’t say anything to him out of the ordinary unless we see the diary, ok?” he said, watching the others nod their agreement as the door opened behind them. Samuel entered looking quite different with his shirt and hips now covered by a bright red tunic and his long, blonde hair now tied tightly back in a knot behind him.
“I do apologise,” he said with a forced smile and a clear nervous expression. “Now, for what reason have you come here tonight?”
Jake spoke bluntly.
“My bride to be has misplaced her Grandmother’s locket. She believes she left it with you by mistake and we have come to retrieve it.”
“And that took all of you?”
“You don’t expect Miss Du Lac to cross this City alone do you? In any case, we are here to meet you formally in the process.”
“Oh right,” Samuel replied, smiling genuinely. “Well, yes of course I have her wonderful locket. You all left in such a hurry, I didn’t see you go so I kept hold of it and hoped to see you again.”
“Excellent,” Jake replied. “Then we will have it back immediately if you please?”
Samuel looked between them nervously then dropped his eyes.
“I am sorry,
Sir Jake. I have placed it somewhere safe.”
“Very well, Samuel. So if you would be so kind as to retrieve it for us?”
“I cannot. At least, I cannot while you are present.”
Charlotte stood then and walked to the door.
“Very well De Lyons,” she said formally, taking a chance. “My husband and brother in law will see you at some point in the future when you can get to my precious locket that you have no right to hold. I, most probably, will not see you again.”
“Wait, Miss Du Lac, please?” he said hurriedly. “At least have a drink first? I really am sorry, the situation is quite unavoidable.”
“Very well, Samuel,” said John. “A drink would be nice. Charlotte?”
“Yes, John, very well,” she replied coolly. “Thank you, Samuel.”
The three of them shared a glance as Samuel poured out four goblets of wine in front of them. John took a deep breath as Samuel handed out the wine and sat down in the centre of the room with his back to his desk.
“How will we deal with the Duke then?” he blurted out making both Jake and Samuel choke on their wine.
“Pardon me?” Samuel asked.
“The Duke of Gloucester, of course. We all know he’s going to be on that throne soon, and we all know we can’t let him.”
“Sir John, you must never speak such words aloud.”
“Why not? You agree.”
“I most certainly do not.”
“It’s safer to speak the words than to write them, Sam,” John said calmly as Samuel looked back in confusion and worry. His reply stumbled senselessly as his eyes flicked momentarily to the small, unlit fireplace in the wall behind Jake. John saw his opportunity. “I say the way is through the King,” he continued, watching Samuel’s eyes open wide. “If we can get to Edward and Richard, we can take out the Duke. That’s what you had planned, right?”
“How dare you call me a traitor?” Samuel exploded as his eyes flicked involuntarily between John and the fireplace again. “You will leave my house at once!”
“No,” John said, turning round. “I’d rather look under your fireplace.” He saw Jake’s lightning fast movement as he felt a separate shuffle behind him. He kept his nerve, not turning around, and looked into the fireplace as a clang of metal on the stone floor and the thud of a body on a soft chair told him the struggle had ended. The deathly silence that followed told him that Jake was in control.
“Ah, here we are. Why didn’t you say so, Sam?” He asked as he dragged out the iron fireplace and lifted a tile revealing scrolls of letters and plan maps of the Tower.
“What the hell do you want from me?” yelled the voice of De Lyons, now far more gritty-sounding than his feigned effeminate tone of two minutes earlier. “You want to arrest me? Who are you? Who sent you?”
John chuckled as he finally came to a familiar, small, brown, leather diary. He checked the first few pages out of view, unable to believe he was looking at the same book he had just read five hundred years later. He nodded to himself satisfied and turned back.
“No Sam, we’re not going to arrest you,” he said, quietly. “But we do need your help.”
Samuel looked sceptical but relieved as he eyed the blade held at his throat by the grim-looking knight he knew only as Sir Jake. He’d seen enough violence and training in the rise to his position to know a skilful and deadly warrior when he saw one. He kept quiet and looked to John rather than attempt to move his captor himself. Sensing the silence, Charlotte moved forward and laid a hand on Jake’ shoulder. She whispered in his ear and Samuel’s legs shook as the knife was finally pulled away.
“Sir John,” he said. “What do you want?”
“We need access to your plan. We need to be part of it. I want you to facilitate our entry into it.”
“How you know of this is a mystery to me. I won’t ask you, but I will ask why.”
“We have our own interests, Samuel. The House of York cannot sit the throne any longer. This is the only chance any of us have and we must work together. Once Richard wears the crown it will take a war to stop him. We take Edward and his brother Richard, we land the treason on him and he’s gone. That’s your plan, yes?”
Samuel swallowed nervously, unable to believe what he’d just heard.
“You don’t just walk into this. None of you can. You don’t know who I work with.”
“You leave Courtridge to us,” John said. “But we need an introduction. We want what you want. Please, Samuel. Help us.”
De Lyons thought for a moment watching each of them. As his eyes fell on Charlotte he sighed visibly.
“Ok, John,” he said, turning back. “But if you wrong me, I’ll kill you. Both of you.”
Jake smiled.
“You won’t have to,” John said.
Sixteen
16
th
June 1483
“No, Edmund. I’m telling you it’s a trap,” shouted William Spence as he followed Courtridge through the dark streets around their meeting place in the City.
“What choice do we have, William? We need two more men anyway and we’ve come across no one suitable. They’re tough and they’re disposable.”
“But men we don’t know? Haven’t even heard of? And they’re being introduced by that fool, De Lyons. Come on, man, it’s ridiculous.”
“Samuel isn’t introducing them, I’ve told you that. He met them when we did, they figured him out and they wanted in. That’s the way of it, and you’ll accept it.”
“You believe that? That they figured us out? Us? It’s a set up. I know De Lyons works for someone else, Edmund. I just know it. He’s brought them here and he’s used this cover up. He’s dangerous, Edmund.”
“Samuel is dangerous? Oh please,” Courtridge laughed. “He’s a coward; I have known him for five years. I use him and that is all.”