Wheel of Fate (13 page)

I forced myself to consider the subject. ‘If I had to wager good money on it,' I said at last, ‘it would be on the duke.'

My companion pursed his lips. ‘I'm not so sure. The queen's precious family are a devious crowd. They've already secured the Tower and the royal treasure. They're probably plotting how to get rid of Gloucester at this very moment. Ah well!' He got to his feet. ‘This won't buy the baby a new pair of breeches. I must be off back to the shop, or my beldame will give me a right scolding.'

I plucked at his sleeve. ‘What makes you think that the Woodvilles are planning to murder the duke?'

He shushed me frantically. ‘Keep your voice down for the love of God. And who mentioned the word “murder”?' But he added darkly, ‘It just wouldn't surprise me, that's all. The whole clan are scurrying about like flies on a dunghill and arming themselves to the teeth. “Woe unto the kingdom whose king is a child,”,' he quoted, grimacing. ‘Ecclesiastes.'

The next moment, he was gone, leaving me to my uneasy reflections. Was Duke Richard really in danger from the queen's family? But then my thoughts reverted to what I had learned about Reynold and Julian Makepeace. They had never lived in the house at Keynsham. They had never left London. Mind you, I had only the stranger's word for it, and I would have to confirm the fact when I eventually spoke to the apothecary. But it seemed to be corroborated by the maid's remark that the two had relied on one another for companionship when they were young.

For some reason that I couldn't quite fathom, this piece of information disturbed me, so much so that I went as far as ordering myself another pot of the Voyager's disgusting ale and sat huddled over it, trying to work out why. In the end, however, I gave up, knowing from long experience that cudgelling my brains was never of any use. The answer would come to me in its own good time. I pushed aside my still almost full beaker and stood up.

‘Come on! Let's get out of here,' I said to Hercules.

We emerged into Bucklersbury just in time to be spattered with filth from the central drain as another party of armed and mounted men clattered past, on this occasion wearing the livery of Lord Hastings. (My instant recognition was from having seen it so often during my enforced journey to Scotland the previous year.) So many contingents of armed men roaming the streets were enough to make the most sanguine person uneasy and wonder what in the name of all the saints was going on. I had been in London for less than twenty-four hours, and already the febrile atmosphere of the capital was beginning to make me jumpy and yearn more than ever for home. Once again, I was overwhelmed by the temptation to return to the Arbour, gather up my family and seek out Jack at the Boar's Head in Eastcheap. We could be on our way west tomorrow morning.

At that moment, the only thing preventing me from pursuing this plan of action was the knowledge that such a move would prove most unpopular with my family. Adela would be outraged that I had reneged on my offer of help to the Godsloves, while there would be howls of anguish from Elizabeth and Nicholas at having been robbed of all the exciting games they had planned in that intriguing garden. The only person who might be on my side was Adam, but he was, unfortunately, still too small for his opinion to be regarded. (That, of course, would change, but not just yet.)

Balked of my talk with Julian Makepeace, and not yet in possession of any names that Oswald might come up with as belonging to potential ill-wishers of his family, I cast around in my mind for someone else who had connections with the Godsloves, and remembered the parish priest, Father Berowne. Or Sir Berowne, so many of these underpaid and poorly regarded members of society preferring to be called by a title which added a little spurious dignity to a job that was, more often than not, only one notch above indigence.

I tugged on Hercules's lead, and we set off back the way we had come.

Bishop's Gate Street was just as busy, still blocked by wagons unloading furniture and hangings for Crosby's Place. The workmen were sweating and cursing, the sun having made an appearance in the way that an English April sun tends to do, with sudden and unseasonal warmth. You know very well that it won't last; even as you discard cap and tunic and shoulder cape, you're aware that in half an hour's time you'll be putting them all on again.

As Hercules and I edged our way past the various obstructions, I heard one of the workmen call out to another, ‘There's a rumour now 'e won't be stayin' 'ere after all. Leastways, not until the duchess joins 'im from up north.'

‘You mean all this bloody rush and bother t' get this fuckin' place ready on time's fer nothing?' demanded the second man. ‘Where's 'e goin' then?'

‘Baynard's Castle, so I was told. 'Is mother, the old duchess, is arrivin' shortly. So fat Magnus says, anyway. An' 'e keeps 'is ear pretty well t' the ground.'

I passed out of earshot. So it seemed, if fat Magnus could really be relied upon, that the Dowager Duchess of York, the little king's redoubtable grandmother, would be arriving in the capital some day soon. And Richard of Gloucester, as he had done so often in the past, would be taking up residence at his mother's house until Duchess Anne joined him from Yorkshire.

The same bunch of men were still working around the Bishop's Gate, but we pointedly ignored one another; I because I wanted no more trouble with them, they because an officer from the Steelyard – at least I presumed that was who it was – stood alongside the wall, watching them. The gatekeeper nodded to me as I passed under the arch.

By now, it was mid-afternoon, that dead time of day before all those people who have brought their goods to market begin to make their way home again, clogging up a city's every exit with their empty (if it has been a successful day) carts and baskets. It was good to be out in the open countryside once more, the smell of the grass fresh in my nostrils and the sound of birdsong in my ears. Although I was a mere hundred yards or so from the walls, everything here seemed somehow different, removed by miles from that unreasonable sensation of foreboding which hung over London like a pall.

Alongside St Botolph's Church was a two-storey cottage which, from its generally rundown appearance, I easily identified as the priest's house. It was a typical daub-and-wattle building with a thatched roof somewhat in need of repair. Bits of straw floated about in the faint spring breeze like stray wisps of hair escaping from under a woman's coif, and I could hear a pig grunting away somewhere close at hand. There was also a whiff of goat in the air; while a small, badly cultivated patch of earth showed the sallow green of vegetables struggling for survival in poor soil.

I knocked on the door and waited, knuckles poised to rap again, but this proved not to be necessary. A small, extraordinarily thin woman – the sort my mother would have described as a ‘rasher of wind' – answered my summons with surprising promptness and a look of annoyance creasing her narrow face.

‘Yes?' she said, her tone sharp and unwelcoming.

‘I should like to speak to Sir Berowne,' I requested, polite but firm.

The woman half-glanced over her shoulder, so I guessed that the priest was at home. ‘What do you want?' she demanded.

I raised my eyebrows and stared down my nose (a not unimposing feature in my case). ‘That is between me and the father.'

She hesitated, obviously aware that she was outstripping her authority, but reluctant, nonetheless, to give ground. Fortunately for my growing irritation, a man's voice sounded behind her.

‘Who is it, Ellen?'

She turned her head quickly, a smile softening her stern expression. ‘A stranger, Father. Leastways, I don't recall seeing him hereabouts before.'

‘Now you know that all are welcome at my door, my child. Strangers in particular. Stand aside and let the poor man in.'

‘He's a nasty, flea-bitten little cur with him,' Ellen objected, eyeing up Hercules with dislike. ‘And you've enough of the creatures in this house without adding to their number.'

‘Everything is God's creation, my dear, including fleas,' insisted the same pleasant voice, and the housekeeper – for I presumed she was that – was gently put aside as the priest himself finally appeared in the doorway.

He was not much taller than the woman and stood a good head and shoulders lower than myself, a fact he acknowledged with a comical grimace as he looked up into my face. He was certainly not a young man, and in spite of his slight build and the vaguely youthful air which clung about him, I decided he was nearer forty than thirty years of age. He had a pair of very blue eyes which held a lurking twinkle in their depths, and a wide, thin-lipped, mobile mouth, tending more to laughter than sadness. I liked him on sight, and when he stooped and patted Hercules, our friendship was assured.

‘Come in, my dear sir,' he invited, holding open the door and ignoring his housekeeper's protests concerning ‘that animal'. ‘Ellen, my dear,' he added gently, smiling at her, ‘run along now. You've done more than enough for one day and your own family need you. They'll be missing you. And I can smell the delicious stew you've left for my supper bubbling on the fire. I'm more than grateful, believe me. I always am. Let me help you on with your cloak, then you can be off.' He suited the action to his words and, with one arm about her shoulders, led her inexorably towards the door. ‘God be with you, my child, and bless you.'

‘I'll see you tomorrow morning, Father,' she said, accepting her dismissal with as good a grace as possible. ‘And watch that dog. I know his sort. He'll steal your supper given half a chance.'

Hercules growled, recognizing an ill-wisher when he met one, and bared his teeth. The housekeeper departed while the going was good.

The priest closed the door behind her and gave me a lopsided smile. ‘A saintly woman,' he said. ‘The salt of the earth, but sometimes a little trying.' He came towards me, holding out his hand. ‘And now, my son, what can I do for you?'

EIGHT

T
he ground-floor room of the cottage was much as I had expected it to be: a beaten earth floor covered by a sprinkling of rushes, a table, several stools, a bench on which stood various cooking utensils, a corner cupboard and a couple of shelves supporting a candle in its holder, a tinder box, a pen and inkwell and some sheets of that thin cheap paper made from rags. (These latter items surprised me a little: not all parish priests are able to write and a few cannot even read, learning long passages of Holy Scripture by rote.) In one corner, a ladder rose to the second storey and a single window at the front of the house, at present unshuttered, let in a shaft of pale spring sunlight. An open fire in the centre of the room was straddled by a meat-stand from which hung a pot of the saintly Ellen's stew.

The priest invited me to sit down by pulling one of the stools from beneath the table and waving a somewhat grimy hand towards it. As though suddenly conscious of the condition of his nails, he said apologetically, ‘I've been digging in the vegetable plot this morning. My housekeeper likes a few onions with the rabbit. And now, sir, in what way can I help you?'

I explained as briefly as I could the fears of the Godsloves, my involvement in their story (omitting, of course, the real reason for my coming to London) and my hope that he might be able to shed some light on the subject. But I could tell it was a lost cause by the expression of bewilderment on his face; and when he requested me to repeat the tale again, I guessed he could tell me nothing I did not already know.

When I had finished my account for the second time, he passed a hand across his brow, leaving a streak of mud behind, then ruffled the thick fringe of brown curly hair around his tonsure.

‘A most extraordinary story,' he said finally, frowning. ‘I agree that the deaths of Martin and Charity Godslove were terrible tragedies, and now it seems that Mistress Sybilla has also been hurt. Dear me! Yes, I can see why they might begin to think that the family is cursed. That God has turned His face from them. But that someone is deliberately setting out to do them harm! No, no! I can't and won't believe it. They are a most respected family, well liked in the neighbourhood, giving their mite to charity. Who would wish to eliminate them all? And for what reason? Even if one of them had an enemy, why would that person wish to kill the siblings as well? It doesn't make sense. And who is this Reynold Makepeace you mention? A landlord, you say, of an inn in Bucklersbury, killed two years ago in a tavern brawl? But what has he to do with the Godsloves? Forgive me! I expect I'm being very slow.'

‘Not at all,' I assured him. ‘It's a most complicated family. Landlord Makepeace and his brother were – are, in the case of Julian – stepbrothers to the elder sisters and Lawyer Godslove, half-brothers to the younger pair, Celia and her now dead brother, Martin. Widow Makepeace was Morgan Godslove's second wife.'

The priest gave his head a shake as though to clear it. ‘Dear me! Dear me!' he exclaimed again. It seemed to be a favourite phrase. ‘I had no idea. I'd heard of the affair at the Voyager. Word gets around, but it was all such a long time ago—'

‘Two years,' I put in, and he nodded.

‘A long while ago, as I said. These things happen, unfortunately. Young men get drunk and do stupid things. Wicked things. The times are growing more lawless – and likely to get worse now that King Edward's restraining hand has gone. The saints alone know what's to become of us all! The Woodvilles . . . ! But that's neither here nor there. So, the Godsloves reckon that this Landlord Makepeace was the first to die?' His face creased with the effort of remembrance. ‘Two years . . . That must have been the same year that Mistress Clemency was taken ill.'