Sacrifice (12 page)

   “All the men of my family are dead,” Maud said quietly, “yet here I am.”

   Sir John folded and unfolded the letter, as if not knowing what to with it. At last he turned and thrust it into the flames.

   “None of my affair,” she heard him mutter, “I will hear no treason in this house.”

   Maud was suddenly conscious of the serving-men in the corner watching her. “If that is your answer, my lord,” she said, “then I will take it back to Lady Margaret in London.”

   She moved towards the door, but the sentry barred her way. He laid a meaty hand on the sword at his hip.

   “No,” Sir John said behind her, “this is the closest you get to London. Tell me your name.”

   Maud said nothing. She weighed up the sentry. Perhaps if she made a sudden spring…but he anticipated the move, the corners of his thick-lipped mouth hitched into a cynical grin.

   “Don’t even think of it, girl,” he said, sliding out his sword to expose a couple of inches of polished steel.

   “Walter, Jenkyn,” said Sir John, “take the blade away from her.”

   Maud spun around to face the serving-men. They approached her cautiously, eyes fixed on her dagger. They were big, ponderous types, with coarse faces, heavy arms and soft bellies. Maud was quick with a blade, but not so quick as to take on four men at once.

   “For shame, Sir John,” she said, backing away until her legs bumped against a table, “you would set your rogues on me? Lady Margaret assured me you were an honourable man, as well as a loyal one. Perhaps she was wrong on both counts.”

   He paled. “If you were a man, I would make good those insults on your body,” he replied with stiff dignity, “hand over your knife, and no harm shall come to you.”

   Maud could see she had little choice in the matter. She slowly drew her dagger and handed it, hilt-first, to the sentry.

   “What now?” she asked, folding her arms.

   Sir John seemed uncertain. He chewed his thumbnail for a few seconds, gazing at the floor while the parchment steadily burned to a crisp in the hearth behind him.

   “By rights, I should hand you over to the duke,” he said slowly, “he would either hang you outright as a traitor, or take you to London to stand trial before the king.”

   “Except you have just burned the evidence of my treason,” she pointed out.

   Sir John scowled at her. He was a mere country knight, she realised, and the situation was beyond him.

   “Take her to the cellar,” he said at last, “and lock her in, until I decide what is best to be done.”

   Walter and Jenkyn took Maud down to the cellar under the kitchen, a musty, vaulted chamber with hooped wine barrels stacked against one wall.

   Jenkyn, the slightly larger and hairier of the two brutes, ran a lustful eye over her – Maud knew the look from long experience – but obeyed his master’s command. No harm would come to her unless he allowed it.

   They locked the door and left her in darkness. There were no windows, and the door was predictably solid and immovable, made of cross-grained oak with thick iron nails hammered into the planking.

   For the present, Maud had no option but to wait. Thinking she may as well enjoy Sir John’s hospitality, she knocked out the bung from one of the barrels and treated herself to some of his wine.

   It was heady stuff, thick and red and strong. When she had drank her fill, she sat down on the bare stone floor and tried to get some sleep.

   For a long while, cold and fear kept her awake, but eventually she drifted into a troubled slumber. Bad dreams assailed her. Maud saw the white hawk of her house tumble through blue skies over a stricken battlefield. There was an arrow in the bird’s wing, and a constant stream of red drops trickled from the wound, staining a fallen banner.

   Then she saw through the hawk’s eyes. The bloodstained banner displayed a white rose, the hated symbol of York. Her blood had splashed across it, and quickly spread until the red rose of Lancaster had replaced the white.

  
“God for Saint George and King Henry!”
she heard a man’s voice shouting in the distance,
“God for Lancaster! The White Hawk!”

   The voice was vaguely familiar, and his shouts were accompanied by the sound of fists hammering against solid wood, to no avail.

   “James!” she cried. The dream evaporated, and she was back in the lonely darkness of the cellar.

   There was no sound of fists against the door. All was silent. Maud winced at the ache in her shoulders, and stood up to stretch.

   The hairs rose on the back of her neck. Maud’s instincts were finely-honed from over a decade of life in Southwark, and warned her something was amiss.

   She stood absolutely still, poised on the balls of her feet, ears straining to listen. Her heart started to pound. Perhaps Sir John had gone back on his word and sent men to quietly dispose of her. Much more convenient.

   Footsteps. A key slid into the heavy iron lock, and slowly started to turn. Maud retreated into the shadows and looked around desperately for something, anything, she could use as a weapon.

There was nothing. Aside from the barrels, the cellar was bare.

   The door swung open, and a man stepped through, silhouetted by the light of a torch he held aloft in his left hand. In his right he held a sword.

   Overwhelmed by the terror of death, Maud almost buckled to her knees with relief. The torch in the intruder’s left hand illuminated the craggy features of Jack Cloudsley.

   He put a finger to his lips as she emerged from the shadows and ran towards him. Understanding, she slowed and remained silent as he slid his dagger from its sheath and handed it to her.

   She followed him up the short stair into the kitchen, a much larger space than the cellar, smelling pleasantly of spices and freshly baked bread.

   The door to the inner ward stood ajar. Jack crouched beside the doorway, peering through the gap, and beckoned her over to join him.

   “Here,” he whispered, untying the purse hanging from his belt, “before I forget. If aught happens to me, get to Great Yarmouth and find a ship. This money will pay your passage to France. My horse is tethered to an oak a little way inside the woods, south of the castle.”

   “France?” she replied fearfully. Maud had never been out of England before.

   “Yes. At least for a time. England is not ready to rise against Richard. The rebellion is bound to fail. Try and get to Brittany, and the court of Henry Tudor. He is our last hope now.”

   She took the purse, which bulged with coin. “No more questions,” he added quickly, “Lady Margaret sent me after you. I told her it was a mistake to send you alone into Norfolk, but she wanted you to strike your blow. The daft old hen thought she was doing you a service. It took me a full day to persuade her otherwise. I have shadowed you all the way from London. When you failed to come out of the castle by sundown, I knew I had to act.”

   The torch was burning low. Jack peered again into the darkness outside. “See that stretch of wall beside the stables?” he said, “that’s how I came in. Swam the moat, scaled the wall and knocked off one of the guards. Not bad for an old wreck like me, eh?”

   Maud thrilled to the image of this lethal killer, gliding through the black waters of the moat before swarming up the wall to put his blade into some hapless sentry.

   “I tickled the guard a bit until he told me where they were holding you. Then I cut his throat. His mates will find him soon enough. Quickly, now.”

   They crept outside and hurried across the yard, towards a set of stone steps leading to the battlements. Maud glanced to her right, and saw two figures bent over a huddled shape on the walkway.

   A pair of pale faces looked up as they reached the steps, and a hoarse male voice cried out.

   “You, there – halt! Stay where you are!”  

“Stupid buggers,” muttered Jack. He pounded up the steps and charged straight at the guards, hurling the guttering remnant of his torch at them.

   “Get away, girl!” he shouted, “into the moat with you, and swim for it!”

   The old soldier’s stern voice of command overcame Maud’s desire to stay with him. She climbed over the battlements and leaped, war-shouts and the crunch of steel ringing in her ears as she plunged, limbs flailing, into the dark waters.

Chapter 12

Salisbury, 2
nd
November 1483, All Soul’s Day

Richard was in the cathedral, staring at the silver crucifix on the altar with death in his heart, when they brought him the news of Buckingham’s execution.

   “Did he make a good end?” he asked without taking his eyes off the crucifix.

   “Well enough,” replied Sir James Tyrrell, “he confessed his sins, uttered ‘God bless the King!’ and laid his head on the block.”

   “The headsman was sober, thank God,” added Christopher Wellesbourne, “two swift chops, and the duke’s head dropped into the basket. Neat work.”

   Richard dropped his eyes and contemplated the backs of his hands. Thin, delicate white hands. Clean hands.

   I am a deal stronger than I appear, which is just as well.

  
He pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed. Buckingham was dead. The man he had counted on as his chief ally. No, more than that. A friend.

   Why did he do it? Why did his friend forsake him? Richard would never know the true answer, though he had his suspicions. The rebellion had unnerved Buckingham, especially since it was instigated by so many of King Edward’s old retainers. Instead of holding his nerve, and bringing his soldiers from Wales to help Richard crush the rebels, he placed himself at their head and secretly offered Richmond the crown. 

   Thankfully, Buckingham’s retainers wanted no share in his treason. One of them betrayed his lord and handed him over to Tyrell and Wellesbourne, who brought him to the King at Salisbury. The prisoner begged for an audience with his old master, but Richard refused.

   “I will hear nothing that man has to say,” he said, “he had great cause to be true, and yet he is the most untrue creature alive.” 

   Any pity Richard might have felt for his erstwhile friend was smothered by anger. It had burned inside him for weeks, ever since his agents informed him that Buckingham was engaged in treasonable correspondence with Henry of Richmond.
 

   Loyaulté me lie.

  
Loyalty binds me. Richard’s motto. He had always striven to live up to it, and expected the same from his friends. Those who were loyal could expect every favour in return. Those who broke with him could expect no mercy. They deserved none.

  
What do kinslayers deserve?

  
Richard shuddered. There were certain things he cared not to think upon, especially here, in the nave of Salisbury Cathedral. God was everywhere, but his hearing was particularly acute inside a religious house.

   He glanced at Tyrrell. A broad-beamed, reliable man, a knight of Suffolk and one of the very few who shared Richard’s knowledge of the fate of the princes in the Tower. Acting on his master’s instructions, Tyrrell had arranged the deaths.

   He kept his own hands clean, of course. The actual killers were a couple of no-marks, old Lancastrians Richard had kept alive in case they might serve some useful purpose. They were also dead now, and could tell no tales.

Tyrrell calmly held his gaze. The truth was a secret between them, and must remain so.

  
“All is done, sire. Prince Edward and Richard of York now sleep forever under the stair.”

  
These were Tyrell’s words to his royal master, on the night Richard’s nephews met their end.

  
The stair. Ten feet under it, to be exact, their bodies stuffed into a miserable little hole under the staircase leading to the chapel in the White Tower. Even now they lay there, slowly rotting.

   Richard’s guilt fuelled his rage. For a moment he was tempted to ignore propriety and order Buckingham’s headless corpse to be thrown into a dung-pit, but resisted the urge. He could not be seen to be unjust. From now on, Richard would be a model of good kingship.

   “Wellesbourne, have the late duke’s remains taken to Greyfriars,” he said wearily, “and buried there with all due ceremony. He was our enemy in life. We shall not continue to persecute him in death.”

   “Yes, sire,” replied Wellesbourne, and hurried away to do his master’s bidding. Richard watched him go, and then turned to Tyrrell.

   “His family are a different matter,” he said, “we want his wife and sons found and delivered to our custody.”

   Tyrrell nodded. “It is already in hand, sire. I have sent men to Weobley to order Lord Ferrers to hand them over. He will comply.”

   “He had better. Ferrers has a history of playing both sides to his own advantage.”

   Weobley was in Herefordshire, the seat of Lord Ferrers, a nobleman of dubious character. Richard had a long memory, and knew that Ferrers had once given shelter to the young Henry Tudor before the pretender fled to Brittany.