Dacre's War (24 page)

Crozier gave an odd smile. ‘My love, we are always in danger. One more outlaw makes little difference.’

She nodded slowly, as if not fully understanding, or wishing to understand, the meaning of what he had said. ‘Then,’ she added, ‘there’s the problem of Barton.’

Crozier’s smile faded. ‘What about him?’

‘Like the other men, he knows only that Antoine is one of Albany’s army. None of the guards knows he is a heretic; they think he is merely a soldier on the run. But if Barton were to find out . . . I fear he would make trouble.’

‘Has he done anything while I’ve been away?’ Crozier’s voice was sharp.

‘No. He is the same as always. Creeping, quiet, and watchful. He gives me nothing to complain about, and yet I dislike everything about him. I cannot bear him near.’

‘I will have him put to work on the fields, as far from here as possible. Let’s hope he quickly tires of the country life.’

She smiled, and saw her husband’s face soften. She put out her hand, and he lifted it to his lips before drawing her towards him and holding her close.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

April 1524

Linlithgow Palace sat in a blaze of light, its gardens set afire by braziers, the courtyard and ramparts glowing orange under the torches on its walls. In the great hall, pipes, flutes and drums set a spirited pace for the dancers beneath them. At one end of the hall Margaret Tudor, the dowager queen, was enthroned on a dais, courtiers bending their legs before her or standing idly at her side, whispering gossip in her pearl-ringed ear while she sipped wine and tapped time on her knee. Occasionally one of her nobles would invite her to take the floor, and she would step with him into the sea of dancers, her wide skirts parting the crowd as if she were a warship carving waves beneath her prow.

Far from the great hall the palace lay dim and quiet, nothing disturbing the night but the clatter of a horse being led to the stables, or the shout of a servant rolling a barrel of beer across the back yard. All but the nightwatchmen and grooms were away from their posts. Even the serving girls and maids had been allowed the evening off, to watch the exalted throng from the gallery, where they would not themselves be seen.

Between one candle and the next, the passageways on this floor were dark. Only an owl would have observed the shape that darted into the queen’s chambers. Thin and black as a noontime shadow, he wore a mask, cloak, and boots of the softest leather. Closing the door behind him, he opened the shutters and light from the gardens warmed the room.

He made for the high canopied bed, and knelt. Beneath it lay a carved wooden box which he drew towards him across the polished boards. It was locked, but he carried a ring of slender keys, one of which soon loosened its tongue. Rummaging among the contents, he pulled out two string-bound packages tied together by ribbon. These he took to the window, squinting to read the inscriptions, before ripping off the ribbon, unknotting the string and opening one of the letters. He needed no more than a scan to know he had what he was searching for. With a murmur of satisfaction he tucked the bundle into the pouch on his belt, returned the box to its place, and left. He slipped out of the palace like a slither of smoke, leaving nothing behind but a chamber bathed in light.

When Margaret returned, some time after dawn, she did not notice the opened shutters or the broken lock on her box. Tottering on her platform heels, which had grown more precarious with each glass of wine, she called for her lady-in-waiting, who hurried into the room to unfasten her gown and bodice and wipe off her powder and rouge. The dowager queen was asleep before the coverlet had been pulled over her, the stain of red wine on her lips the only adornment that could not be scrubbed or peeled off. Beneath her lay the box, its secrets flown.

In his ship’s cabin, a few nights later, the regent looked at the letters, spilled across his table. The parchment of several was creased, the ink smudged, as if to alert the reader to what lay within. Tears had been shed over this torrent of words, some of sorrow, more of fury. The dowager queen’s hand was neat, her turn of phrase elegant, but beneath this veneer Margaret’s passions roiled. Written over the space of several years, the most recent little more than twelve months earlier, this was a record of a liaison that would have brought the Scottish court into disrepute, and Henry VIII with it.

It had been placed in Albany’s hand at the dockside. Sailing that evening from the Gare Loch for France, Albany paid the burglar and boarded the ship, which was alive with crew preparing to cast off. He would be back in the country before autumn. If the letters proved as informative as he hoped, they could be put to use then. For now, his thoughts were already in Auvergne, from where his wife’s physician had summoned him some weeks past. If he were honest – and he not always was – there was relief in abandoning Scotland. A more vexing, bitter, quarrelsome parliament he had never encountered. The lords of the realm were thirled to ancient ways and primitive fears, while the common man cared nothing for what his leaders did, or how the country fared, so long as he was left alone to squander his time in the tavern.

When he returned, he would find a way to enforce his rule. Some time at home to reflect on how that could be done would be more helpful than staying here, where his sleeve was perpetually tugged by whining advisers and cavilling courtiers, as if they were children and he a dog whose tail they loved to pull.

Shaking his head as if the tormented dog were ridding itself of fleas, he poured a goblet of Alicante wine, and pulled towards him a clutch of letters, written in a darker pen than those by the dowager queen.

Baron Dacre’s writing was a hasty scrawl, the ink matching the man, but a few lines sufficed to show that the Warden General was canny.
Our business must be conducted soon, for the benefit of both our countries . . . I regret the anger I have provoked, and when next we meet will make ample amends . . . My memories of our long and most amicable acquaintance brighten my day, as must all thoughts of the most glorious Tudor line . . .

Only in the last letter, a few lines written in evident haste, did the baron drop his guard.
For your majesty’s safety, I press you most urgently to burn all correspondence you have received from me, if you have not already done so. To that purpose, I herewith return your letters, in good faith, that you might know I hold nothing in my possession that could ever bring you harm.

There was a scratch on the regent’s door, and the ship’s captain appeared, his black cap askew from the wind. ‘Wind freshening northwest, your grace.’ He eyed the cluttered desk. ‘Wise to lock up anything that might be spilled. It will be a turbulent night, but it will bring us into Boulogne all the swifter.’

Albany put a finger to his cap, and nodded. The captain bade him goodnight, and with a last lingering look the regent tied up the letters and put them in his trunk. There would be time to read them closely once he was home. Indeed, his wife would be the best judge of what they contained. If ever a woman could read between the lines it was she. A complicated smile settled on Albany’s face as Anne appeared before him, pink-cheeked as the girl he married, not wan as the woman who had lately taken to her bed.

He was anxious, but hopeful. When he returned to her, so would her health. Again he cocked his finger to his cap before emptying the goblet in a silent salute and climbing, fully clothed, into his berth.

‘I hear we have been graced with another of the baron’s complaints,’ said the cardinal, hurrying to keep pace with the king, as he strode across the palace lawns towards the archers’ gallery.

‘As his insolence grows,’ snarled Henry, ‘so our patience thins.’

Wolsey’s skirts caught his slippers as he bustled in the king’s wake. Fearful of tripping he lifted his robes, like a maid on her wedding day, revealing ankles clad in fine white hose. ‘But your majesty,’ he said breathlessly, ‘to be scrupulously fair in this matter, he did concede to stay in post only until Easter. And as he rightly points out, Easter is now past.’

With a cry of exasperation, the king came to a halt. He looked the cardinal in the eye, his own inflamed as if with grit. Wolsey observed the bloodshot whites and reddened lids, and wondered if it was not the king’s erratic health, rather than the waywardness of his courtiers, that wore his temper to shreds.

‘Let us be very clear,’ Henry said, each word of what followed pinned in place by a stab of his cane, until the grass was pitted with holes. There could be no bowls or croquet until they had been filled. ‘Baron Dacre is precisely where we want and need him, and his own wishes mean as little to us as the maundering of . . . of . . .’ – his cane turned up an earthworm, and he flicked it across the lawn – ‘of a wriggling creature as lowly as that.’ The comparison displeased him, sounding weak even to his own ears. He drew a deep breath, suddenly weary. ‘Speak to Surrey. He has heard reports of further trouble from Dacre’s people, who squirm under his command. It may be nothing more than tattle, but there is just the possibility that it is more serious than that. until the matter is settled, he must remain in post. We fear that if we release him, he might slip his leash. And we want satisfaction in this matter.’

He drew close to Wolsey, who smelled the sourness of breath marinated overnight in claret. ‘If the Baron Dacre has been feathering his nest at my expense; if he thinks the north is his bailiwick, rather than ours, we will put him right. Indeed we will. So put your head with Surrey’s, and find out what is afoot. We wish to hear nothing more of the Warden General until you have clarified this matter.’ The red eye wept, and with a shake of his head that sent tears flying the king stomped off to watch his bodyguard exercise their arrows.

At the barracks, Wolsey was ushered into Surrey’s chambers. As befitted a soldier, the rooms were spartan, but the stools by the fire were soundly and amply made, and the cardinal eased himself onto one with a small groan, glad to rest his aching legs.

The earl stood before him, recognising the signs of discomfort, an expression not entirely untouched by pity warming his eyes since they reminded him of his ailing father. Rubbing his hands and their thickening joints, he pulled his stool up and sat knee to knee with the cardinal, the soldier’s plain leather britches sombre beside the rich scarlet gown.

Surrey was holding a sheaf of papers. ‘Our friend in the north is causing ructions. I expect you have had similar complaints to these.’ He waved the papers, and without asking for their contents, Wolsey nodded.

‘Almost weekly, though more from the eastern and middle marches than from the west.’

Surrey examined his knees. ‘That might suggest our man is merely a scapegoat for his enemies’ dislike. His heartland, in Cumberland, remains loyal.’

‘He surely cannot be the marauder they claim if the west is easy beneath his rule,’ said Wolsey, sounding aggrieved at the very suggestion.

‘Or does he merely keep his thieving ways for the citizens furthest from home?’

Both men said nothing, contemplating Dacre, and what he was capable of. It was a long silence – the baron, as they well knew, refused to acknowledge any authority over him – and in that rare moment of accord, the suspicion and enmity between them was temporarily set aside.

Wolsey shook his head. ‘The man is hardly an innocent, we all know that. Expediency is what matters most in these times, and in those parts. It’s my belief he is a master of compromise.’

Surrey held a paper to the firelight at arm’s length. ‘Let me read you this latest. From the people of Bewcastle and Tynedale, who say that instead of punishing thieves and raiders, and making restitution to their victims’ – here he squinted, to decipher the furious hand – ‘ “in default of correction the baron using them in his company familiarly emboldened them in the same misdemeanour, to the great hurt of the said good country”.’

He picked up another letter. ‘Here’s a claim that Dacre’s lack of action against criminals in the shires has resulted in ‘the great increase and emboldening of all the said offenders’.’

Wolsey clicked his tongue in irritation. ‘The same old story. A robber baron in their midst, hand in glove with criminals. But who are these people who are telling tales?’

Surrey’s voice was filled with contempt. ‘Needless to say, they remain nameless.’ He tossed the papers to the floor. ‘To my mind, only a signed complaint carries weight.’

The cardinal’s face lightened. ‘Very wise. None but a coward levels an accusation he dare not put his name to.’

‘Or someone very frightened,’ mused Surrey, sounding uncertain, despite himself. ‘It could be said that their terror of being identified might equally suggest they are rightly fearful of Dacre’s reprisals.’

‘It is a confoundedly annoying situation,’ said the cardinal, his colour rising. ‘Would that Dacre were a more cautious man, and less high-handed. I have no doubt he does an excellent job, and no amount of evidence against him will ever persuade me otherwise.’ He lowered his voice, though they were alone, and the door closed. ‘The king talks of the north being his domain as much as Dacre’s. Yet he has barely set foot north of York. He does not know of what he talks. Were Dacre to leave the wardenship, in times as fraught as these, who knows what would follow.’

Surrey’s beaked face was stern. ‘Again, we are in agreement. The real world is untidy in a manner no king can begin to imagine. Dacre is no fool. He may be unscrupulous – I have little doubt he is as much a master of deceit as of expediency – but he holds the reins of the north at high personal cost. His demand to be freed of this post sits ill with these complaints. A corrupt man would most surely retain his post until he had squeezed every last coin out of it for himself.’

‘And yet,’ said the cardinal, ‘in light of his plea to be discharged, and these most clamorous complaints, we are obliged to institute some sort of investigation. If only,’ he added, heavily, ‘to appease his royal highness.’

‘Indeed,’ Surrey replied. He brushed a speck of mud from his britches. ‘And I will see to it. It will not need, however, to be a lengthy process. I will visit Dacre myself, and see how the land sits. That should suffice to settle matters, for the moment at least.’