The Assassin's Wife (60 page)

I touched his hand in gratitude, the lump of anguish in my throat preventing speech.

Out on the moors I loitered in the vast, green spaces, savouring the smell of meadow-sweet, thinking back to my childhood. How long ago it seemed Brother Brian first brought me to London and listened to my troubles. His tales of Ireland and his gifted brother enthralled me. Never once had he doubted the truth of my Sight. Hadn’t he always told me I was chosen to save the Wydeville boys? Now this unfinished task called to me more strongly than ever. I couldn’t let him down. Somehow I must find a way back to the city.

Chapter Seventy-Five

Three nights I dreamed of climbing stairs to a great tower. Serpent-like, the steps coiled upwards. Torch-light cast huge shadowy figures across sweating walls. A tapering, dizzying spiral led finally to a turret chamber. Beyond its door grim terror lurked. Yet there could be no turning back. Each night the heavy door gaped a little wider and on the last blackness lured me to the very thresh-hold. I woke sweating and gasping as in my old dreams of drowning.

A heavy pounding at my chamber rent the last fragments of sleep. I blundered from my bed, groping for garments.

“News! News from London!” A strident male voice roused the castle. Urgent footsteps clattered along corridors and down steps.
 

Opening the shutters, I observed men with torches roaming among black pools of dark. Horses snorted. Aware at once that something astounding was about to take place, I grabbed a shawl and stepped out my door into pandemonium.

“Assemble in the great hall!”

A storm of sound swelled from below.

Somehow, standing upon the high table at the top of the great hall, John Kendall managed to make himself heard above the hubbub. “King Richard!” He cheered, raising his right arm in salute.

Stunned, the people hung together upon a breath until the import of this announcement exploded. Suddenly, the world turned upside down.
 

“King Richard!” echoed the crowd.

They took up the cry with increasing fervour, seizing each other in celebratory fashion, clasping hands, thumping shoulders, embracing and whirling in an ecstasy of rejoicing. The noise grew thunderous.
 

“King Richard!” shrieked those outside the castle gates. Servants and waiting-women, grooms and knights, washer-women and men-at-arms passed the message. The stones echoed with cries of triumph and disbelief.

In the nursery, kneeling by the young prince’s feet, I tried to explain the astonishing events that had raised him to high office, while all around servants bowed in homage.

“Will my father be king?” asked the baffled child.

“Yes, my lord.” The hectic spots of colour in his cheeks alarmed me. I remembered Fat Marion calling such marks “grave flowers”.

“Too many people.” A foreign voice sang by my elbow. The Gloucesters’ physician appeared as if from the air. He waved a slender, brown hand dismissively. “The prince must rest.”
 

“I told you Master Green said Ned would be a king one day!” Dickon crowed. “Dada will come home now—but what will happen to Prince Edward and Prince Richard?”

What indeed? I hushed his innocent prattle. “I’m sure they’ll be treated with great courtesy.” The words rang hollow and unconvincing. The euphoria of the duke’s rise to greatness melted away. A vague memory of Jane Collins’ tale of the murdered Desmond boys pecked at my brain.
 

“Genevieve, will you look after Dickon? I’m going to see if Master Metcalf’s home. Tell Mistress Idley I won’t be long.”

“Of course.” She smirked at Alice.

“What is it?” I snapped, irritated by their sly, covert looks.

“Oh Nan, don’t you know what people are saying?” Genevieve giggled. “You tell her, Alice—”

“For goodness sake—” I wanted to slap her silly, pretty face.

“It’s Master Metcalf,” said Alice shame-faced. “Everyone says he’s devoted to you and—” Her blush deepened. She pinched Genevieve, turning her gurgles of poorly suppressed laughter to squeals.

I snorted with exasperation, pushing my way out of the chamber, weaving through the knots of gossiping women jostling by the castle doors like pigeons searching for scattered grain. I ran all the way to plump Elizabeth’s door in Castle Street.

“Come in, come in.” She looked as if she expected me. “Miles is here.”

My heart skipped a beat, but it was her brother-in-law, Miles Metcalf, who stood before the hearth.

“Forgive me for intruding.” Embarrassed, I turned to Elizabeth. “I didn’t know you had company.”

The table stood ready for a meal. The rich smell of roasting meat churned my stomach. I’d not broken my fast since supper the previous day. “The news from London’s addled my brain. I thought Rob might be here.”
 

“Sit down, sit down.” She waved podgy hands towards the settle. “Polly, fetch Mistress Forrest some wine.”

“No, no, I won’t disturb your meal—”

“Disturb nothing—Haven’t we all been disturbed today? You must stay and dine. Rob told us of some shocking sermon a Ralph Shaw preached at Paul’s Cross. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it, but it seems it caused our Duke to take the crown. I still can’t believe it but Miles knows more.” She ushered me to a seat, chattering like a magpie until the meal was served.

“Will you try some of this eel pasty? It’s our Martha’s receipt.”

A servant lad thrust food before me.

“Our cousin James of Nappa Hall said Shaw’s sermon caused uproar.” Miles Metcalf fastidiously cut his meat into small pieces with an ornate silver dagger. “It insulted the dowager Duchess of York by suggesting the late king was a bastard.” He paused to chew a morsel of veal and stab at a dish of roast turnips.

“I think everyone’s heard that tale.” I toyed with my pasty, thinking of Jack Green’s sly insinuations.

“But Stillington finally changed the succession.” Miles Metcalf set down his knife to look me in the eye.
 

“Stillington!” I dropped my own knife with such a clatter Elizabeth Metcalf slopped wine on the table and began to choke. “What’s he to do with it?”
 

“King Edward’s fancy for the ladies is no secret.” Metcalf, glanced anxiously at his sister-in-law mopping her eyes on her amber–coloured sleeve and making rasping sounds in her throat. He waited until she recovered her breath.

“Go on, go on,” she said in a croak, her face reddened.

“It seems Stillington witnessed a marriage contract between the late king and Eleanor Butler, old Talbot’s daughter.”

“But that’s impossible! Stillington was never there. I was a waiting-woman in Dame Eleanor’s household.” I spoke out heedless of the consequences, unable to believe the bishop dared to circulate this lie. “The king came to call on her about her estates. If any one could tell of a marriage between them it would be Brother Thomas, the chaplain, but he disappeared mysteriously on the day we set out for Norwich. I’m sure Bishop Stillington had him murdered.”

Transfixed, both Metcalfs stared at me.

“You were at Norwich with Eleanor Butler?” Miles Metcalf’s eyes glared gimlet-sharp.

I nodded, conscious of my racing heart-beat and dry mouth. I swallowed a hasty sip of wine. “Stillington had Dame Eleanor kept there. He would have kept me there too. He was desperate to conceal whatever relationship she may have had with the king.”

The Metcalfs leaned toward me, greedy as hounds scenting prey. I tried to gather my wits.

“If Stillington knew of a marriage between Dame Eleanor and the king, why didn’t he speak out before?” I asked, daringly.

Miles Metcalf leaned upon his elbow, his fingers stroking his fleshy lips as if reflecting upon my words. “Indeed,” he said almost to himself.

“But if Bishop Stillington had spoken out before, perhaps Duke Clarence would have been king?” Mistress Metcalf looked puzzled.

“Elizabeth!” Her brother-in-law awarded her an ugly, sardonic grin. “You’re right! Stillington’s always been a master of intrigue. Remember how he nurtured Clarence’s friendship until that foolish gentleman was put to silence? Aye, and endured a brief imprisonment himself for incurring the late king’s displeasure—” He leaned toward me once more, a spark in his eye. “It looks as if Stillington’s been biding his time to speak out. No doubt there are others who’ve similar secrets to reveal.”

“Stillington wanted me to say I’d witnessed the betrothal between Dame Eleanor and King Edward. He had me taken to Pontefract for questioning.”

Elizabeth spluttered something, but I fixed my gaze on the congealed mess on my trencher.

“And did you?” asked Miles Metcalf.

I took a breath before lifting my head to stare him full in the face.

“It doesn’t matter what I said then or what I say today,” I answered boldly. “My Lord of Gloucester’s the king now.”

Chapter Seventy-Six

If I’d been a man, I’d have ridden off to London to find Miles that night. The Metcalfs battered me with questions until I thought my head would burst. Though I warded them off with pretended ignorance, they weren’t easily placated.

Back at the castle, filled with unease black and sinister as a storm-cloud, I wondered what Miles would say. In a fury of impotence I tried the scrying-bowl but the images blurred. Two children pressed their white faces against high windows as if to catch a glimpse of the world; a lean-faced, muttering physician wielded a pestle and mortar; and a giant of a man with shaggy black hair gnawed on a bone, wiping grease from his beard with a hand like a beast’s paw. None of this made any sense except to remind me of the Wydeville boys and the danger they faced.

Had Elizabeth Wydeville taken steps to ensure their safety? Surely she couldn’t have forgotten my warning?

With shaking hands, I laid out the cards. The Fool capered blindly, the Tower fell, the World hung topsy-turvy and the Knave of Swords turned upon his head as if taunting me. These inauspicious auguries further aggravated my forebodings. Taking up Brother Brian’s journal, I began to read:

“When I dream, I dream of Ireland, of the rich smell of the black, crumbling soil, of the pungent smell of wood-smoke, of haunted glens and gloomy crags, of ancient mountains shrouded in clinging mists, of moss under my feet, dew-spangled leaves at day-break and soft feathers of rain upon my face. And I wake with such an ache in my throat and such emptiness in my heart that no amount of prayer can assuage.”

My own throat ached with unshed tears. I remembered the priest telling me about his beloved homeland. How young and ignorant I’d been then, and how both of us had been shaped by exile and fear. The enigmatic entries concerning someone named Michael filled me with melancholy. The priest’s affection for Alan Palmer drove him to solitude in Yorkshire, just as it seemed his earlier love for this Michael sent him from Ireland to be our priest. Mistress Evans’s prophecy promised love and laughter for me, but I wished I’d shown more kindness to the priest. His care had lightened my burdens. Only torture forced him to betray me, and hadn’t I revealed a similar cowardice when threatened by the sinister Raymond with the heated pincers? What would Brother Brian tell me to do now?

About dawn, my head throbbing with frustration, I drifted into a heavy sleep and dreamed Miles had come home. He smiled as I rushed to greet him, enfolding me in his arms. “I’ve so much to tell you,” I said, but he pressed his hand over my mouth and nose until the roaring in my ears burst into a velvet bloom of darkness.

* * * * *

In Castle Street that afternoon I found Elizabeth Metcalf standing by her door.
 

“How many more men are needed for this coronation?” She pointed to the long lines of horsemen trotting down the road, the bright sunlight glinting off polished armour, sword and spur, vivid painted shield, jauntily caparisoned horse and fluttering pennant. All wore Gloucester’s device of the white boar. Behind them came the rowdy foot-soldiers, the trundling supply-wagons, and the familiar draggle of bold-faced wenches that accompanies every army.
 

“I suppose it’ll be a very grand affair.”

She snorted so hard her heavy jowls shook. “Aye, but in whose honour? Our Rob says London’s heaving with folk. Men will do owt for honour—even sail off the edge of the world if need be! Our noble duke, or should I say, the king, seems to think he can win folk’s favour with costly banquets. But he’s quick to silence any who speak against him. Even friends aren’t safe.”
 

I knew she meant William Hastings who’d been executed without even the formality of a trial. This news roused outrage at Middleham, where he’d been a favourite, and made me think of Joan laughing at his audacious flirting with Flemish Gerta in Silver Street. For all his faults, Hastings’ loyalty to York remained steadfast.