The Green Man (3 page)

‘You!' I exclaimed, recoiling.

‘Me, indeed!' he returned, arranging his narrow features in a smile as false as a woman's promise to obey her husband. He added reproachfully, ‘You might sound pleased to see me.'

‘Well, I'm not!' My reply was uncompromising.

He sniffed the air suggestively. ‘You'll note I've brought my welcome with me.'

I pointed out that that in itself was unusual enough to make me suspicious.

He tried to look hurt, but gave up the attempt after a short struggle and grinned instead. Before he could say anything else, however, Adela appeared from the kitchen clutching a large ladle with which she had been basting the roast.

‘What does he want, Roger?' she demanded truculently. ‘Whatever it is, don't agree to it.'

Timothy clicked his tongue reprovingly, but offered no comment; a fact that made me uneasier than ever. This was his cue to wheedle, ‘It's for Duke Richard, Roger. He needs your services. You can't refuse him.' But he didn't. He merely stared hard at me and said nothing, although with such an air of authority in both look and silence that my heart began to beat uncomfortably fast.

‘Is he staying to supper?' my wife asked ungraciously, ignoring our unwanted guest by the simple expedient of turning her shoulder to him and addressing me.

I shrugged. ‘I suppose he'll have to. He provided it, after all.'

Timothy bowed ironically.

‘You'd better come and have it then. It's ready,' Adela snapped, and marched ahead of us into the kitchen.

The three children – my daughter, Elizabeth, my stepson, Nicholas, and Adela's and my son, Adam – were already seated around the table. The latter, who would be four the following month, was now considered old enough to sit on his little chair without the necessity of being tied to it; although the way in which he was wriggling around suggested that a few falls were in store for him before he mastered the art of behaving properly.

Adela had already removed the pork from the spit and put it on a plate which she placed in front of me. She handed me a knife as I took my seat at the head of the table, at the same time waving Timothy Plummer to a vacant stool between herself and Adam. She had boiled some vegetables to accompany the meat – cabbage and root vegetables and those little water parsnips known as skirretts – and she spooned a portion on to each plate as I handed them round, a proceeding accomplished in complete silence. Even our normally ebullient brood seemed cowed, as though aware that something unusual was going on. Finally, when everyone had been served, I said grace and picked up my knife, spearing a mouth-wateringly large chunk of pork on its tip; enough to preclude conversation for several minutes.

At last, however, I had emptied my mouth sufficiently to ask, ‘So, why are you here, Master Plummer? What do you want with me?'

If he noticed the formality of my approach, he ignored it. He put down his knife, sucked his greasy fingers and beamed.

‘Roger, my lad, this is your lucky day!' I knew at once that I was in serious trouble.

‘You're going to Scotland.'

Scotland? Scotland! As well be invited to go on a trip to find the elusive Isle of Brazil or the lands of Prester John.

‘No,' I said flatly.

‘No!' echoed Adela with even greater emphasis.

‘No!' yelled Adam at the top of his powerful lungs, giving us, for once, his unstinted support, even if he didn't understand why.

I paused in the act of chewing and took a deep breath.

‘Tell the Duke,' I said, ‘that much as I regret having to refuse any request of his, on this occasion I must decline. Scotland is too far afield. It's a journey that is bound to take months and I cannot abandon my wife and children to fend for themselves for so long. God in heaven, man! You must know what conditions have been like these past months. I haven't enough money to leave Adela safely provided for, for such a length of time.' I added bitterly, ‘It's not like His Grace to be so unreasonable – unless, of course, he isn't aware of what's been going on in the country at large?'

‘Of course Duke Richard's aware!' Timothy bit back, dropping all pretence at amiability. ‘Especially living in the north, where matters are a great deal worse than they are down here, in the south, I can assure you. But that's beside the point. Mistress Chapman and your family will be provided for – well provided for, I promise you – during your absence.'

‘No,' I said again, shaking my head slowly from side to side to make certain that he understood. ‘I am not going to Scotland for any consideration whatsoever, and that is my final word. What? That heathenish country, where the barbarians can't even speak English like civilized human beings! No, I thank you. And you may tell His Grace of Gloucester so with my blessing.'

Timothy regarded me pityingly while he removed shreds of meat from between his teeth with the point of his knife. Then he heaved a dramatic sigh. (He really should have tried his hand as Judas Iscariot in one of the Easter Passion plays.)

‘I'm afraid you don't quite understand, Roger.' He smiled gently. ‘This isn't a request or an appeal to your friendship or better nature. This is a royal command, not just by the Duke, but by the King himself.'

I refused to believe it. ‘You won't coerce me into whatever it is you want me to do by telling lies. I will not go to Scotland.'

For answer, Timothy reached into the pouch at his waist and, with his free hand, withdrew a folded parchment with an important looking wax disc attached.

‘The king's personal seal,' he said. ‘This is my authority to take you back to London with me, when I return, and from there on to Northamptonshire, to the king's castle at Fotheringay. Do you want to read it? I believe you can read.'

He knew perfectly well that I could read, and write, too. Brother Hilarion had taught me to do both, and many other things besides, during my novitiate at Glastonbury Abbey. It was not that good old man's fault that I had rejected the cloistered life and decided on the freedom of the open road. But now that freedom was being eroded. I put up a fight, even though I knew in my heart it was useless.

‘Northamptonshire? Make up your mind. I thought I was going to Scotland.'

Timothy pushed aside his empty plate. Adela had also stopped eating, but that, I could tell, was due to a sudden lack of appetite. I made a pretence of continuing my supper, but I, too, had ceased to be hungry. Only the children continued to mop up the meat and vegetable juices on their plates with hunks of barley bread.

‘Fotheringay first, then on to Berwick and, finally, Scotland,' Timothy explained.

There was an even more pregnant pause before I said in a taut voice that didn't seem to be my own, ‘Someone told me that Berwick is under siege.'

‘So it is,' he answered crisply. ‘It's all right, Roger. Don't look like that. You're not going to be asked to do any fighting.'

I laid my knife down very slowly and deliberately in order to disguise the fact that my hand was shaking. Adela stood up and began pouring ale for us all: some of it was spilled on the table. Timothy smiled understandingly. It was as much as I could do to stop myself from leaping up and rearranging those smugly sympathetic features.

‘Perhaps,' I said carefully, ‘you might like to explain what this is all about, before we go any further.'

The Spymaster General lifted his horn beaker to his lips. I could tell that he was savouring not just the ale, but the moment, as well.

‘I'm very much afraid, Roger, that this is a predicament for which you have only yourself to blame; a situation which has arisen – as far as you are concerned – because of your inability to keep that nose of yours out of affairs that aren't your business.'

‘I knew it!' my wife exclaimed furiously. ‘I knew this would happen one day!'

‘Knew what would happen?' I shouted, as angry as she was. For Adela to turn on me in front of a stranger was an unaccustomed betrayal.

Timothy waited patiently for us both to calm down. In the interval, I sent the children to play upstairs, and the thud of their feet was soon to be heard overhead – rather like an army on the march, I thought with renewed dismay.

‘So?' I asked our unwelcome guest, once I had my voice under control. ‘Perhaps you would care to explain how I've brought this on myself – whatever “this” is.'

Timothy sipped his ale thoughtfully for a moment or two before replying, then picked his teeth again. At last, he asked slowly, ‘What do you know about the present situation north of the border?'

I could see by his expression that he wasn't expecting much of an answer. I intended to surprise him, thanks to my friend, the mummer, whose appearance in the Green Lattis this afternoon had been so peculiarly fortuitous.

‘Well, I know, for instance that Lord Howard sailed up the River Forth last summer and burned a Scottish town called Blackness. I don't imagine the locals were too happy about that, so I would assume that there has been some retaliation in the form of border raiding.'

Timothy's eyebrows shot up until they almost disappeared into his receding hairline.

‘My, my!' he remarked, demonstrating exaggerated surprise. ‘Don't tell me that there is someone in this benighted city who actually knows what's going on beyond its walls.' I shrugged, but said nothing, waiting for him to continue. The bastard was enjoying himself hugely. ‘As a matter of fact,' he went on, ‘the Scots have been giving us trouble for the past two years. More trouble than usual, that is,' he amended. ‘Which is why His Grace of Gloucester was made Lord Lieutenant of the North, and why he personally oversaw the rebuilding and repair of Carlisle's walls the winter before the one just gone. And why he and Percy of Northumberland have been raising the border levies.'

‘And why, I suppose, he and King Edward met at Nottingham last autumn to discuss plans for a full-scale invasion,' I put in, and once again had the pleasure of seeing Timothy both astonished and disconcerted.

‘Roger, you astound me,' he admitted with a rueful grin. ‘You have had your ear to the ground.'

‘This is a port and, moreover, the second city in the kingdom,' I pointed out. ‘It's always full of sailors and itinerants generally, all bringing news of the outside world.'

‘Which is mostly ignored by your fellow citizens,' was the immediate riposte, not without some justification. The denizens of my adopted town were an inward-looking, self-sufficient race, not much interested in other people's problems.

‘Look!' I exclaimed irritably, conscious of the mounting tension inside me. ‘This is all very well, but it doesn't explain what you are doing here and why I am being commanded – if that's the truth – to go to Scotland.'

‘Or why it's Roger's own fault,' Adela added.

‘True.' Timothy scratched his chin and one or two other, more gruesome parts of his anatomy (where, presumably, the fleas were settling down to their own evening meal) before helping himself, unbidden, to another beaker of ale and leaning forward, his elbows planted squarely on the table. He turned to me. ‘What do you know of King James, third of that name, of Scotland?'

‘Nothing whatsoever,' I answered promptly, then hesitated. ‘Ah!' A faint light began to illuminate the dimmer recesses of my mind.

‘Ah, indeed!' smirked Timothy. ‘So? What have you remembered?'

‘I know King James has – or, rather, had – two brothers,' I answered slowly. ‘He quarrelled with them both and had them arrested. I think I was told … by someone … that the younger …'

‘John, Earl of Mar,' Timothy supplied, as I paused uncertainly. His small, bright eyes, reminiscent of a ferret's, stared at me across the rim of his beaker.

‘Yes. Well … whatever his name was … he died in prison in suspicious circumstances. The elder, the Duke of Albany …'

‘Aha! You have no difficulty in recollecting his name,' my unwanted guest leered at me from the other side of the table.

I continued doggedly, as if he had not spoken. ‘The elder, the Duke of Albany managed to escape and fled to France.'

‘Oh, France is where he eventually fetched up,' Timothy agreed, ‘at the court of his dear cousin, King Louis; who, with his propensity for stirring up trouble whenever and wherever he can, was no doubt delighted to see him. Yes; three years ago, Albany fled from Scotland to France. At least, that was the official story. You and I know somewhat better, don't we, Roger?'

I nodded dumbly.

‘We know,' the spymaster continued, ‘that a few ardent supporters of the Lancastrian cause brought him to Bristol with a view, when the moment should prove propitious, of taking him to Brittany to replace that uninspiring figurehead, Henry Tudor. Both, after all, are descendants of John of Gaunt's bastard Beaufort line – the Tudor through his mother, Albany through his paternal grandmother – so one was as good as another. And at the time, as I recall, there were rumours concerning Henry Tudor's health, which was supposed to be failing. Unfortunately for the conspirators, things started to go wrong when a certain pedlar stumbled into their affairs …'

‘Unwittingly,' I cut in angrily.

‘Oh, I believe you,' Timothy laughed. ‘Just as I believe that, once having got the scent of a mystery, you were unable to keep that long nose of yours out of what was going on.'

‘I foiled the plot,' I muttered sulkily.

‘Oh, undoubtedly. You also helped the central player, Albany, to get away to Ireland with the help of those disreputable slavers you call your friends.'

‘I don't call them my friends,' I retorted. ‘And they call no man friend!'

Timothy shrugged. ‘Probably not. I'll take your word for that. But it doesn't alter the fact that you helped an enemy of this country to escape. Albany would have been a valuable hostage in our negotiations with Scotland.'